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THE MAKING OF WILLIAM EDWARDS
[Illustration:
Yours Faithfully
Isabella Banks]
PUBLISHER'S NOTE TO POPULAR EDITION
This book appeared originally as 'The Bridge of Beauty.' But on its
re-issue in popular form it has been thought well to indicate in the new
title the purport of the story.
[Illustration: THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING FARMER.
_Frontispiece._] [_See page 16._]
THE MAKING OF WILLIAM EDWARDS
OR
_THE STORY OF THE BRIDGE OF BEAUTY_
BY
MRS. G. LINNAEUS BANKS
AUTHOR OF 'GOD'S PROVIDENCE HOUSE' 'THE MANCHESTER MAN'
'IN HIS OWN HAND' ETC. ETC.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY W. DEWAR_
SECOND EDITION
LONDON:
ANDREW MELROSE
16 PILGRIM STREET, E.C.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. A THUNDERSTORM 13
II. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 25
III. A BOY'S WILL 36
IV. PAYING THE RENT 46
V. THE NEW INMATE 57
VI. LOST 70
VII. THE YOUNG PLAGUE 83
VIII. THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS 95
IX. THE BAFFLED AGENT 105
X. FRIENDS AND BROTHERS 118
XI. A MEMORABLE ENCOUNTER 129
XII. CAERPHILLY CASTLE 141
XIII. MAN PROPOSES 152
XIV. WHERE IS EVAN? 162
XV. A STOP-GAP 179
XVI. DISCOVERIES 193
XVII. PROPER TOOLS 207
XVIII. IN THE GRIP OF A STRONG HAND 219
XIX. WITH GRANDFATHER'S GOLD 232
XX. IN THE NICK OF TIME 249
XXI. THE FINGER OF GOD 264
XXII. A BLIND INSTRUCTOR 280
XXIII. BRIDGE-BUILDING 298
XXIV. PONT-Y-PRIDD 313
POSTSCRIPT 333
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING FARMER _Frontispiece._
THE RIDERLESS HORSE FOUND ITS WAY HOME 17
MOUNTED ON THE LOW WALL, ON HIS WAY TO EVAN'S SHOULDERS 67
LYING IN THE MIDST OF THE HOARY CIRCLE OF GREY STONES 79
'SO THAT IS HOW YOU PROPOSE TO CARRY ON YOUR FARM?'
HE SAID, WITH A SNEER 107
HE TURNED AND SHOOK HIS WHIP-HAND AT THE CHILD 111
THERE WAS SOMETHING RATHER MYSTERIOUS ABOUT HER CARGO 165
'YOUR RENT WILL BE ADVANCED TEN POUNDS PER ANNUM
AFTER THIS DATE,' HE SAID 175
HE FOUND MR. MORRIS SEATED AT THE TABLE AS WELL AS
THE VICAR 243
LONG-LOST EVAN HAD COME BACK 253
BLINDED BY PASSION, HE SPURRED HIS HORSE TO THE
UNCERTAIN FORD 269
ELAINE PARRY 293
ONLY HIS WIFE CAN ENTER INTO HIS FEELINGS, AND
ALLEVIATE HIS BITTER HUMILIATION 325
THE BRIDGE OF BEAUTY, 1755 331
[Illustration: CAERPHILLY CASTLE.]
THE MAKING OF WILLIAM EDWARDS.
CHAPTER I.
A THUNDERSTORM.
It was a sad day for Mrs. Edwards, of Eglwysilan,[1] when her well-loved
husband, on his return from Llantrissant market one sultry Friday in the
autumn of 1721, in attempting to cross the River Taff, failed to observe
its rising waters, missed the ford, and was carried down the stream, a
drowning man.
Only that morning he had driven a goat and a score of sheep across in
safety, the sheep following their agile and sure-footed leader, as he
sprang from one to another of the out-cropping masses of rock, which,
scattered in mid-stream, served alike as stepping-stones and as
indications when the river was fordable, as it generally was in a dry
summer.
But the Taff, born in a marsh, and running through a deep vale, is given
to rise as swiftly as the traditional Welshman's temper. Many are its
seen and unseen feeders among the mountain steeps; and, although there
had been but a light passing shower in sheltered hill-side Llantrissant
that day, farther north a heavy thunderstorm had burst in a deluge over
bogs and hills; and down from countless rills and rivulets the waters
had come flashing in leaps and bounds, to swell the tribute brooks and
rivers alike bore to the Taff as vassals to a sovereign.
William Edwards was as steady a man as any farmer in Glamorganshire, but
whenever a group of them got together, at fair or market, there great
pitchers of _cwrw da_[2] were certain to be also, either to cement
friendship or to clinch a bargain, and the beverage was uncommonly
heady.
Now bargaining was a long and thirsty process, and, although he was
thrifty and the ale was dear, when Edwards had completed the sale of
goat and sheep to his satisfaction, he had imbibed a fair share of the
common beverage; not, however, so much as to prevent other huckstering
and bargaining on account of his wife. The stockings knitted on the farm
had to be sold, or bartered for needles, pins, tapes, or shoe-latchets;
he had to purchase a sieve, a supply of soap and candles, a pair of
Sunday shoes for his little girl, and a couple of tin cans.
By the time these were thrust into his saddle-bags, the sieve and
tinware secured to the pommel of his saddle so as to balance each other
above the bags, and a final draught of _cwrw_ swallowed as a refresher
for his journey, the afternoon had slipped nearly away, and with it one
or two impatient neighbours on whom he had depended for company on the
rough, circuitous road over the mountain ridge to the fords.
Rough road indeed it was, little better than a beaten track worn by men
and beasts constrained to pass that way; a road unsought except in dry
weather, a rugged descent from Llantrissant to the ford of the Rhonda,
and then up and down again, with stones and tree-roots lying in wait to
trip unwary feet; for at that period the picturesque Vale of Taff was
thickly wooded and scantily populated, and the roads were little better
than deep gullies or natural stairways.
His sturdy Welsh pony, however, was a thorough mountaineer, and, left to
himself, jogged along without stumbling or straying, whatever the hour
or the road. He took to the water and crossed the ford of the swollen
Rhonda safely enough, although twilight was falling; but the evening
shadows had deepened with every mile they trod, and grew heavier as they
descended towards the larger river, with darkening woods on either hand,
for there they rode through a veil of blinding mist.
The mist had been gathering and the water rising rapidly, when Owen
Griffith, one of his neighbours, who had prudently quitted the market
three-quarters of an hour earlier than Edwards, finding the river
evidently on the rise, had deemed it only wise to trust his pony's
sagacity to find a trustworthy ford rather than depend on his own
eyesight.
It was quite a matter for after conjecture, but it was always supposed
that the sagacious animal Edwards bestrode had grown restive and refused
to take the unsafe crossing, and that he,--a man doggedly obstinate and
wise in his own conceit,--unable to discern a reason for his faithful
beast's rebellion, had forcibly compelled the reluctant animal to
attempt the ford in spite of its resistance, as shown by hoof-marks
beaten in upon the bank.
Be that as it may, the riderless horse found its way home to the
woodside farm on Eglwysilan Mountain, wet, foaming, and panting; the
saddle and saddle-bags, drenched with discoloured water, telling all too
surely that the uneasily watching wife was a widow, her four children
fatherless. In such moments the mind always grasps at the worst
suggestion.
The distracted woman rushed shrieking to her nearest neighbour. Her
awakened boys called after her, but she heard them not.
The alarm spread. In an incredibly short space of time, considering how
far apart lay the farms, and how few were the cottage homes, a score or
two of half-dressed men and barefooted women were running or riding to
the rescue, if such were possible. And wherever was practicable path or
foothold, lanthorns were flashing along the steep and densely wooded
banks upon the swiftly running river; but though it was seen where the
poor horse had contrived to scramble up the bank, there was no sign of
him they sought so anxiously.
[Illustration: THE RIDERLESS HORSE FOUND ITS WAY HOME.--_See page 16._]
The more fortunate beast had had a narrow escape.
Not forty yards ahead the chafing Rhonda came leaping and foaming to the
deathly embrace of the Taff, and in the swirl of the confluent waters
all hope was lost.
Yet still the despairing widow urged the wearied explorers on; and moved
by her piteous entreaties, Owen Griffith, their near neighbour, declared
he would not give up the search until the farmer was found, dead or
alive, if he had to go as far as Cardiff to find him. The man was ill at
ease, feeling as if a little more urgency on his part might have drawn
Edwards away from the market in time for safety.
His determination arrested the steps of several others who were on the
point of turning back, and they joined him readily, but only on the
condition that Mrs. Edwards should return home with the rest of the
women, and leave the search to them. 'You will be best at home, look
you! Women have no business here!' said they, unnerved by her white face
and stifled sobbing.
'Yes, yes, Jane,' urged the women. 'Think you of your children, do; and
come back. It's crying in the dark, and all alone they will be, yes
indeed!'
And moved by the picture of her desolate children in their affright and
grief, the sorrowing and agitated mother was drawn homewards, by the
strong cords of maternal affection, to clasp them in her arms, and
stifle her own anguish in attempts to impart the comfort she could not
yet take to her own stricken heart.
She was a religious woman, with a simple, unquestioning faith in the
wisdom and love of her Heavenly Father; and who shall say the effort
held for her no healing balm?
If she wept, she also prayed; and although two of her children, William,
not yet a three years boy, and Jonet, a girl of four, were too young to
enter into the depths of her grief, or comprehend her prayers, David and
Rhys,[3] respectively nine and twelve, were old enough to understand,
and to feel how disastrous a calamity had fallen upon them unawares.
Before midnight the three youngest had cried themselves to sleep. Only
Rhys remained, with his arms around his mother's neck, to share her
terrible night-watch, and wait for what day might bring; his overflowing
young heart swelling with unexpressed resolves to be her shield and
protector when he should grow a man.
In the grey of the morning Owen Griffith and his helpers came upon what
they sought a few miles below Treforest, on the eastern bank of the
river, flung ashore like a weed by the inflowing current of the Rhonda,
and left there by the rapid subsidence of the temporary spate. Soberly
and reverently they laid it on an extemporised litter of boughs and
reeds, covering the face with Owen's coat, and slowly re-trod the miles
to lay the disfigured dead down on the bed from which a hearty man had
risen the preceding morn.
There is no antidote to inconsolable grief like active employment, work
which exercises hand and brain and cannot be set aside. Such is the
daily work on a farm; and though kindly neighbours had taken care of
the poor horse and its burden, had dressed the younger children, and
volunteered assistance in other small household matters, neither the
cows nor the goats would submit to be milked by strange hands.
Mrs. Edwards had, fortunately, no time to indulge in grief. She was a
woman of determined energy and practical piety; and after the first
overwhelming outburst of natural emotion, turned to her ordinary duties
as if awakened to the consciousness that all the care and responsibility
of farm and family rested on her individual shoulders.
Dashing the tears from her eyes, she snatched up a milking-stool and
pail, and was off up the hill-side, Rhys darting after her with a
smaller stool and pail to milk the she-goats, not for the first time,
but for the first time voluntarily. His initiatory lessons had been
taken that summer, with his father standing over him to keep the
refractory in order, whether biped or quadruped.
He had not taken kindly to the task at the time, having all a boy's
fondness for play, and would rather have gone bird-nesting than
goat-milking. But _now_ that his father was gone--so suddenly taken from
them--he, too, seemed to feel as if new duties devolved on him, and
that, boy though he was, he must aim at the work of a man, and spare his
widowed mother all he could.
The idea was scarcely spontaneous. He had overheard a knot of gossips
lamenting that Farmer Edwards had not left a son old enough to take his
place on the farm, and help his mother to rear the younger ones as in
duty bound. And he had straightway resolved to prove the gossips in the
wrong.
'If I am not old enough to take my father's place, I am old enough to do
my duty, and I shall get older and stronger every year. They shall see
what I can do to help mother; and as for my brothers and sister, am I
not the eldest, and ten whole years older than William? Sure I can take
care of them--at least I can try.'
If this was not absolutely the boy's colloquy, it comes near enough to
its spirit. There was something of the father's masterfulness in Rhys,
and, directed to noble purposes, it might serve the widow in good stead.
And noble purpose may be shown in small things as in great; indeed, is
stronger in the lesser, where it makes no show, than in great deeds,
which make a parade and attract applause. The only danger with Rhys was
that, self-inflated, he might develop an obtrusively dominant will that
should override his better qualities. At present his sole desire was to
relieve his overburdened mother, and protect his sister and brothers--a
worthy and noble aim for a boy of his age.
But a boy reared on a small farm in those primitive days was not the
helpless creature progress and modern manners have manufactured between
them. Very primitive indeed was Welsh farming in the last century,
primitive as the farms themselves. But no child of seven or eight was
too young for work of some kind or other, whether reared in the
labourer's windowless hut or on the farmer's own wide hearth. If only
stone-picking, weeding, or rook-scaring, there was always something to
be done, something to keep active and restless boys and girls out of
mischief before they were old enough to drive the cows to pasture, or
assist shepherd and husbandman.
Of school-going there was little enough; even dame-schools were as
scarce in wild Wales as in rural England; but there was generally a
substitute by the fireside, and the man who could not read was far less
common in the little Principality than in the larger kingdom.
Still more scarce was the woman or man who could not knit. When a child
was six years old, it was time to put knitting-pins into the little
fingers to learn the simple stitch. And wander where you would, over the
mountains or along the rough roads, you were sure to meet man or maid,
on horseback or on foot, stocking-knitting with mechanical precision.
In the long winter evenings, when the only illumination was from the
culm fire, the solitary candle, or homemade rushlight, knitting and
spinning filled up usefully the darkened hours. And perchance then the
big Welsh Bible Dr. Parry had provided for his countrymen a century
before would be brought out and laid on the table close to the solitary
candle, to be read aloud or spelled out by the growing boy or girl,
under paternal instruction. On the Sabbath this was surely so.
Under such training it was clear that Rhys at twelve years of age would
be more capable and practically helpful to his mother than a modern
farmer's son, who sees the farm only in the holidays, or out of school
hours, who handles tennis or cricket bat instead of spade and
pitchfork, and never did a day's hard work in his young life.
When Rhys bravely resolved to work like a man, he knew what lay before
him to do and to learn. Farming on a thin, unproductive stratum of soil
in a mountain land is no child's play.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Pronounced Egloois-ilian.
[2] _Cwrw da_, good ale. The _w_ has the sound of _oo_; thus _cooroo_.
[3] Rhys, pronounced Rees.