PAYING THE RENT.
''Deed to goodness! that boy's rightly named, for he's Will by name and
will by nature!' said Ales when the child was brought home, showing no
remorse for the trick he had played her, and little but indifference to
the chiding of his mother or Rhys.
'Me fought they was take you all away. Me said me would go. Me _did_
go!' was all the excuse they could extract from him.
He had made his return home triumphantly on the donkey of his stranger
friend, a peat-cutter named Robert Jones, and was not at all disposed
for humiliation. On the contrary, he was rather proud of his victory,
and excited by his introduction to new scenes.
The man, who was hospitably received and entertained, along with a
numerous party of 'cousins,' for whose refection boiled beef and _cwrw
da_ had been again set out, was quite ready to recount where and how he
had picked up the child, and expressed his surprise at the resolute
endurance that had carried him so far on a stony, unknown road, no less
than the strong affection which had overpowered the little fellow's
natural fears and sense of fatigue or pain.
He repeated with much humour some of the boy's queer questions and
sayings, promising to give him another donkey-ride some day. And
finally, when taking his departure, Robert Jones patted the boy's brown
head, and called him 'a little hero!' as the child ran past with Jonet.
This was not very wise, for the tone of admiration was ill calculated to
repress the child's early developed strength of will, or to soothe the
ruffled feelings of Rhys on finding his own superlative good conduct
apparently unappreciated, and William's wilful disobedience thus
applauded.
His chagrin did not escape the notice of the man, who, going round the
country as he did, selling peat and culm,[7] had frequent opportunities
for the study of human nature.
'Yes, look you,' cried he from the doorway, as he saw a scornful curl on
the lip of Rhys, 'your little brother will be greater than any of you
some day--head of the house perhaps.'
'He never will. I'm eldest, and then there's Davy. _He's_ a baby!' was
Rhys' indignant protest.
'A great good man, or a great bad one, Robert Jones?' called out Ales
after the turf-cutter, an old acquaintance of hers. She had not forgiven
William the fright he had caused by his escapade.
'Indeed, sure, and that depends on what you make of him among you,' the
peat-cutter called back over his shoulder, ere he bestrode his donkey
and went off.
'The man is right, Jane Edwards,' said Owen Griffith then to the widow;
'there do be great capacities for good or evil in Willem; he will need a
firm hand to control him.'
'Ah, sure,' she sighed deeply, her grey eyes filling with tears, 'and
now the firm hand is gone.'
'Ah, 'deed for sure! more's the pity!' was echoed round the board.
Rhys alone made no remark; but he set his lips close over his teeth, and
tightened his grip on his knife-handle, looking as if he thought _his_
hand firm enough to control his baby-brother, and as if _he_ meant to
curb the wilful little one, whatever others might do. Ales saw it, if
the mother did not.
Meanwhile William, unaware of his eldest brother's paternal intentions,
was seated under an apple-tree with Jonet, struggling for words to give
expression to all the wonders he had seen and heard that day, the 'big
house with the big chimney' more than all; whilst Davy, leaning
listlessly against the tree trunk, as if fatigued with his long walk,
crammed his mouth with bread and cheese, and smiled complacently at the
youngster's first impressions of things familiarity had deprived of
attraction for him, though over some he looked serious enough.
Five miles away on the south-east from the mountain spur on which the
Edwards' family had held a farm for more than a century, lay, in a
broad plain among barren hills, the grand old ruins of Caerphilly
Castle, the ancient stronghold of the Despencers, and the very small
straggling market town it overshadowed, a town which had either gone to
ruin or ceased to grow, since the great castle had been despoiled and
tenantless.
It had ceased to be a borough in King Henry VIII.'s time, but still it
clung to its fair and market, and thither came farmers and their wives
with their produce; miners or their wives, and the servants from the few
great houses thereabouts, as buyers. And there, too, came, at stated
periods, with his string of pack-horses, the travelling collector of the
hand-made goods of the district, such as knitted hosiery, linen checks,
woollen shawls, flannels, blankets, all spun and woven in farms and
cottages scattered among the mountains. He was the medium between the
English merchant and the poor producer, who in the days when there were
neither canals nor railroads, nor any facilities for swift conveyance of
goods or people, could otherwise have found no market for his wares. As
it was, the weaver might probably have obtained better prices at
Cardiff, but the miles of extra distance had to be calculated in the
reckoning.
Early on the Thursday morning Mrs. Edwards, with a grey duffle[8] cloak
over her short black linsey[9] gown, and a black, low-crowned man's hat
above her white linen cap, her healthy face pale and worn with the
agitation of the week, stood by her egg and butter basket, debating
whether she should go to the market alone, or yield to the entreaty of
Rhys and take him along with her.
It was likewise the rent-day. Mr. Pryse, the noble landowner's steward,
condescendingly rode all the way from Cardiff to Caerphilly to meet his
lord's tenantry at the little inn, 'The Cross Keys,' and woe betide the
poor unfortunate who failed to put in an appearance, or to bring the
full quota of coin.
She was in no predicament of that kind, although she felt she might have
been; but, hitherto, Edwards had always paid the rent himself, even if
she had borne him company, and she rather shrank from her first
encounter with the disagreeable agent.
'You had better let me go, mother. Mr. Pryse will find that you are not
quite alone, and may be more civil when he sees how big and strong I am,
whatever,' urged Rhys.
(Mr. Pryse was a little, wizened, cantankerous fellow, with a skin like
shrivelled parchment.)
Ales put in her word. ''Deed, mistress, you had best take the boy. A
little stick is better than no stick in a fight.'
Ales had settled the question with this last remark.
'Well, perhaps it's best to be having a witness when you deal with queer
folk,' assented her mistress; and Rhys had permission to scuffle off and
slip on his black short-tailed jacket and breeches, so as to look his
best and bravest. He was a sturdy, well-grown lad for his years, with a
firm chin and fearless grey eyes, and whether it was fancy or reality
his mother thought him taller in his new clothes.
He certainly was developing rapidly; for no sooner was the shaggy pony
jogging along with its double load, Mrs. Edwards in front with her
basket resting on a bag of wool she had combed and spun, than he begun
to expatiate on the necessity there was now for him to learn how to go
to market, and buy and sell, if he was to be a real help to her. He
'could not be learning too much or too soon,' he said, and was not
contradicted, though a week earlier she would have laughed at him.
The road wound in and out among the hills, where the abundant waxen
blossoms of the cross-leaved heath were fast losing their delicate blush
and fading with the season, and the rosettes of the sundew had forgotten
their dead florets a month or more. The very bracken was turning brown
and husky, and the roadway was strewed with yellow and russet leaves
that were whirled hither and thither by the wind or were trodden into
the earth by unrelenting hoofs.
For it was also the first October fair, and there was no lack of company
by the way. Owen Griffith, farmer and weaver, had joined them early with
a great pack of flannel across his mare; and from almost every fold of
the hills came one or more on foot or horseback to swell the general
stream, every one, male or female, knitting along the road. The grimy
collier and the swart digger of tin and iron hailed each other by the
way, and the widow had many a respectful salutation as they jogged
along, and answered many an inquiry about the boy behind her.
Her first business when they reached Caerphilly was to get over her
ordeal with Mr. Pryse, Griffith kindly taking charge of her horse and
commodities.
The narrow entrance to the inn was crowded with tenants on their way to
the important deputy's room or from it, but all were ready with natural
politeness to make way for William Edwards' widow. Mr. Pryse might have
taken a lesson from men of lesser degree.
From the table by the window where he sat, with an inkhorn and papers
before him, small piles of coin at his right hand, he looked up.
Rhys had taken off his hat; the steward, to assert his superiority, kept
his upon his head.
'So I hear you're a widow, Mrs. Edwards,' was his abrupt salutation.
'The farmer could not see his way home, I'm told, and so got drowned.
Blind drunk, I suppose?' A supercilious lift of his narrow shoulders
emphasised his brutal comment.
Rhys flamed up. 'No, sir; my father _never_ got drunk. He could not see
for the mist, and the flood carried him away. If he had been drunk, sir,
he could not have crossed the Rhonda ford.'
If Mrs. Edwards had been shocked by the steward's unfeeling rudeness,
now she feared her farm was in peril, and began to wish she had left
Rhys outside.
With half-shut eyes, Mr. Pryse scanned the impetuous boy from head to
foot curiously. Ignoring the warm defence of a dead father, he drew his
sinister brows together, and asked curtly--
'That your son?'
''Deed, yes, sir.'
'How old is he?'
'Twelve last March, sir.'
An unpleasant smile thinned the thin lips that asked again--
'Your eldest?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Humph! And do you expect to manage the farm with only _his_ help?'
'Not altogether, sir. I've'--
'What?' he interrupted. 'Come to give it up?'
'_No_,' said the widow firmly. 'I have come to pay the rent. I can hire
a man. But _I_ shall be the farmer, please God.'
She counted out the money on the table as she spoke, the fire in her
eyes burning up the tears.
'And what sort of a farmer will _you_ make?' he replied with a sneer.
'You'd better give up the holding at once.'
'You'd better wait and see, sir. When I cannot pay the rent I may give
in, not before. I am wanting the receipt, look you.'
'Humph! Oh, ah, the receipt, sure!'
Had he counted on her being so ignorant, or simple, or careless as to
pay rent and take no receipt, his quill pen went squeaking over the
paper so reluctantly? At all events he watched her narrowly through his
slits of eyes as she took it up and read it carefully over, before she
folded it up and stowed it away in her needle-book for safe carriage in
her capacious pocket.
He was not quite so confident of her incapacity for management when she
left with a brief 'Good-morning,' and was followed by her son, who put
on his hat and said never a word. He was wise, for if he had said
anything there would have been unpleasantness.
So there would have been had he heard the growl that followed them.
'Humph! the young cub's as hot and unmannerly as his pig-headed lout of
a father! but he'll get his nails cut when the widow marries again,
indeed will he.'
'Mother, does Mr. Pryse ever cheat any one? I don't think he wanted you
to have that receipt you had to be asking for,' whispered Rhys when they
got outside. 'I felt as if I'd like to knock him down, 'deed I did.'
'Hush, Rhys,' and the widow looked round, afraid of listeners; 'you must
not say that. He's a very hard man, and nobody does be liking him much,
but I never heard of his really cheating any one. You must be very
careful not to offend him. Your poor father did it once, and he has owed
us a grudge ever since.'
'Then he is a bad man, and I shall hate him for the wicked words he said
of father.'
Owen Griffith was waiting, and brief was the widow's opportunity to
impress on Rhys the sin and danger of fostering hatred. As brief was the
influence on him. Mr. Pryse, apart from the insult to his father's
memory, had touched the sensitive nerve of his own sprouting
self-sufficiency, and shown, so the boy thought, a tendency to overreach
his mother; and, without any analysis of his own motives, Rhys had
conceived on the spot an unconquerable aversion to the unprepossessing
steward.
When Owen Griffith's turn came, Mr. Pryse was, for him, unusually bland
and gracious, much interested in his small holding and the welfare of
his family, and _incidentally_ interested in his near neighbours, the
family so suddenly deprived of its head. But though he passed the
weaving farmer through a very fine sieve, he got nothing for his pains
that could be laid up against either the drowned man or the capable
widow.
So capable, that she had disposed of her wool, her butter and eggs, sold
a quantity of oats from a sample, hired a trustworthy young man named
Evan Evans for the farm, made her own purchases, called to see the
rheumatic mother of Ales, who lived in a small cot built within the very
ruins of the castle, exchanged messages and Christian sympathy with the
old dame, and was refreshed and ready for her return home with Rhys long
before Owen or his friends thought of stirring.
And home they got whilst there was light to pick their way, though
clouds had been gathering in the south-west, and the first drops of a
heavy downpour caught them as they neared the farm. They were welcomed
by the joyous shouts of the little ones, and the assurance of Ales that
they had all of them been 'as good as gold,' and well deserved the
gingerbread brought home for them. Even William, of whom there had been
some doubts, accepted the 'going to market' as a common occurrence, and
had given her very little trouble, though he had exacted a promise that
she would take him some day to see 'the great big house, with the big
chimney, that they called the church.'
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Culm, the dust of hard coal, used for fuel when mixed with clay and
peat.
[8] Duffle, made both in scarlet and grey, was a very thick,
close-grained woollen cloth, its upper surface covered with pin-head
curly knots. It was almost waterproof.
[9] Linsey-woolsey, a mixture of linen and woollen, is still in use.