THE BAFFLED AGENT.
Mr. Pryse mounted his horse and trotted away from the farm, biting his
long nails as he went in sheer vexation. His survey had not been as
satisfactory to himself as he had anticipated. The land was in good
cultivation, and every one was at work upon it. In one brown field lime
lay in round, white heaps; compost, from the farmyard, showed in dark
patches, ready for distribution on the grass land. In one field Evan was
sowing oats; in another plot, where the spade had turned over the ground
in well-defined furrows, Rhys was dibbling holes for planting, and Davy
followed, dropping in something he carried in a small basket, which
would have baffled the sharp optics of the observer, had he not come
across Ales, besides a heap of seed potatoes, cutting them up into
pieces where the eyes were beginning to shoot, and seen Davy bring his
empty basket for a fresh supply.
'Mrs. Edwards do be in the house, sir,' said the young woman, as a hint
that his inquisitorial observation was unpleasant; and, after a sneer at
what he called 'experimental farming,' the hint had been taken.
He had already been on to the moorlands to inspect sheep and goats, and
put the shepherd through the fine sieve, and had come back over
newly-sown crops, or springing shoots of green ones, heedless where the
hoofs of his horse might fall. Had he been lord of the land in full
possession, he could scarcely have been more indifferent; had he been
tenant, he might have been more careful. As he neared the homestead, and
saw barn and outbuildings in good repair, where he had expected
dilapidation, he pressed his thin lips close together, but when he came
upon the newly-erected sties, the thin lips spread, and made an abortive
attempt to curl.
'So that is how you propose to carry on your farm, is it? Aping the
gentry!' he said, with a sneer, addressing Mrs. Edwards as he
dismounted, the sound of hoof-beats having brought her to the dairy
door. 'Do you imagine it will pay _you_ to house your hogs? You will be
for putting your goats into limbo next.'
[Illustration: 'SO THAT IS HOW YOU PROPOSE TO CARRY ON YOUR FARM?' HE
SAID, WITH A SNEER.--_See page 106._]
''Deed, and I wish I could,' was her response. 'They do so much damage
to the trees and thatch.'
'Ugh! And pray where did _you_ see hogs so accommodated? Not in the Vale
of Glamorgan, I know. We don't house pigs as snugly as our labourers.'
'Sure, sir, it was in England, when I was in service there. And at
Castella and Llantwit. But, perhaps, sir, you will be coming in and have
a glass of cider and a bite of bread and cheese?'
He looked snappish enough to take a bite at her--or her farm--as he
answered: 'England, indeed! Surely Welsh ways are best for Welsh
people. You will not find English ones prosper here.'
Nevertheless, he followed her into the house, noticing as he went that
the dairy had been enclosed and partitioned off close to the jamb of the
outer door, and was shut in by its own door on the left, so as to
preserve it from the dust of traffic across, and from the open storage
on the right.
'Is that another of your English ways?' he asked, as he passed on.
'Yes, sir.'
'Humph! And your wheel, and your glass windows, and your potatoes? You
will not find many imitators, Mrs. Edwards.'
''Deed, sir, and I don't be looking for imitators, whatever; unless,
perhaps, my children and my servants may be for teaching theirs, as I do
be teaching them.'
She had spread a clean, homespun linen cloth on the table under the
cheese and the jug of cider, even though she disliked the agent and
suspected his errand. Private feeling must not interfere with
hospitality.
He, for his part, accepted her attentions as a right, making as free
with the cheese and bread and cider as if they had been ordered at an
inn, with the relishing consciousness they would not have to be paid
for.
'Perhaps,' said he, after a good draught of the cider, 'you learned to
make _that_ in England too?' the old ugly smile on his thin lips.
'Partly, sir. In Herefordshire.'
Narrowed as were the slits between his eyelids, nothing escaped his
roving eyes.
'What's that?' he ejaculated, pointing with his riding whip, as he rose
to depart, to a rudely-constructed tower William was raising on the oak
chest with his stone chips. The boy had backed into a corner in front of
his sister Jonet, as if he recognised a foe in the stranger. Shyness he
had none.
His mother explained. 'Willem's building a Tower of Babil.'
'Humph! If he can do that, he might be set to something useful. There,'
said Mr. Pryse, 'that will find him employment,' and, with a stroke of
his whip, he swept down the boy's tower, a malicious chuckle shaking his
skinny throat as he strode out of the kitchen to mount his horse.
As he rode away he heard a boy's passionate scream behind him, and felt
the sharp pelting of a couple of small stones between his shoulders. He
turned round in his saddle, and shook his whip-hand at the child, who,
with face aflame, cried after him--
[Illustration: HE TURNED AND SHOOK HIS WHIP-HAND AT THE CHILD.--_See
page 110._]
'You bad man! bad man, you!'
But he only chuckled, as if the incident amused him.
His satisfaction was but temporary, and before he had well reached the
level he began biting his nails with vexation, for he saw only signs of
improved husbandry, nothing on which he could pounce as betokening ruin.
After a few days came a more welcome visitor to the farm, in the guise
of a travelling packman, with his string of mules, on his rounds to
collect the stockings, flannels, blankets, and linseys, knitted and
woven in the farms and cottages scattered among the mountains or grouped
in villages. For these he was willing to pay in coin, but he preferred
to exchange for the English goods with which his beasts were laden, not
so much of ribbon and laces, gaily-coloured gown-pieces, or cheap
trinkets, as of useful hardware, knives, forks, spoons, crockery, pots
and pans, needles, pins, tapes, and buttons; such goods as were in
general demand for household use. Very rarely did he display any more
gorgeous drapery than a silken neckerchief, or a bright ribbon for a
bow. The Welsh still clung to their national costume, and, with few
exceptions, were clothed entirely in woollen of native growth and
manufacture. Still he carried hats with him, and the flannels or duffle
collected in one part he could dispose of elsewhere.
The jingling bells on his leading mule proclaimed his arrival. There was
a general rush to surround him and inspect his wares, the children
crowding in with the rest, and the clack of tongues was indescribable.
His periodical visits were the great events of the year. The first duty
was that of hospitality. Oaten bread and cheese and milk were set before
him, and the winter's pile of knitted stockings and mittens brought out
whilst he refreshed. These, as the man knew of old, had to be examined,
priced, and paid for before Mrs. Edwards would allow one of his packs or
panniers to be unloaded. Then ensued the bargaining for bright-coloured
mugs and bowls; there was no need of teacups and saucers, for no one
drank tea. It was almost an unknown luxury there. Jonet and William
were favoured with a mug apiece, adorned with waves of bright blue on a
yellow ground. Rhys had a new hat. Davy plucked at his mother's skirts
and reminded her that he was to be finally breeched when the packman
came round, and he was not disappointed.
Something was wanted and bought for house and everybody.
Ales, who had smartened herself up of late, invested in a
bright-coloured cotton kerchief or shawl to be worn crossed over her
short jacket, and a stout comb to keep her tangled locks in order; the
need for which she learned by surveying her own good looks in a
red-framed looking-glass Evan had given to her--a glass not larger than
his own right hand, but it was better as a mirror than the broken water
under the spring, and might be taken as an earnest of his especial
goodwill.
The ensuing rent was paid duly; and, in spite of prophecies and
forecasts, it was as duly paid in succeeding years.
But Mr. Pryse grew no more civil; indeed, he seemed ever on the watch
for some pretext to turn the widow and her children off the farm she had
done so much to improve. He had never forgiven Edwards for saying of
him, 'he was too grasping to be altogether honest,' and, when the farmer
was drowned, rejoiced as only an evil-minded curmudgeon could do.
It was no satisfaction to him, as years went by, to see one whitewashed
cottage after another stand out like a pearl among emerald fields and
foliage, and know whose house had been the model. Nor could he hear of
Owen Griffith and others venturing on a potato crop without a sneer. And
he positively snarled when he heard the prices the widow's piglings and
bacon brought in the market. Not that he ascribed the prosperity of Mrs.
Edwards to her own good management. No; he set that down to Evan Evans
and his previous initiation on the Castella estate. He owed the
farm-servant a grudge accordingly. He rejoiced when he heard that Rhys
regarded Evans as an interloper, and never missed an opportunity, by
subtle sneer or insinuation, to fan the supposed antagonism into an
active flame.
As years rolled on, and he saw the down of incipient manhood darken on
the lip of Rhys, ever his mother's escort on rent-days, his innuendoes
became broader and stronger. There was an air of self-sustained
mastership about the sturdy young fellow that suggested ripe soil for
his weeds.
'Humph!' said he, when Rhys was about eighteen; 'I should have thought a
stout chap like you might have saved your mother the cost of a _head
man_.'
At a later date: 'Well, young man, I never expected your father's son to
submit to a servant's rule so long.'
Had there been any _submission_ in the case, Rhys would have taken fire
at once. No hints would have been needed to provoke rebellion that would
have led to the ousting of Evan. But the latter had never presumed to
_give orders_, and, of late, had deferred to Rhys as his 'young
master.'
Whatever suggestions he made in farming matters were made to Mrs.
Edwards. Command rested with _her_.
Then Rhys had conceived a mortal antipathy to the agent that first
rent-paying day, and he suspected a sinister motive in every word that
fell from the ill-natured, thin lips.
And it had been made a condition, by the shrewd widow, that Rhys should
bridle his tongue, and allow nothing said by Mr. Pryse to provoke hasty
reply, or she must take Evan in his stead as witness. Yet it was hard
sometimes for either to listen quietly to the agent's coarse and
insulting speeches, of which his noble employer had no suspicion.
Some of his sharpest bullets were fired from a double-barrelled gun.
'Well, Mrs. Edwards, I hear you and Evan Evans are about to make a match
of it at last. How soon is this fine young man of yours to have a
step-father?'
A frown darkened the brow of Rhys, and an indignant retort was on his
tongue, but, before a second word was uttered, the frown changed to a
significant smile at a look from his mother.
It was an open secret at the farm that Ales and Evan were courting, and
only waited until they had saved enough money to set up housekeeping and
farming for themselves, as husband and wife.
Had Mr. Pryse but known it, there _was_ an element of disquiet and
rebellion at Brookside Farm, of which he might have taken advantage.
But he never gave a second thought to the boy whose walls he had
levelled so wantonly. He had not seen that same boy, his passion over,
pick up every scattered bit of stone, and patiently raise his walls once
more.
He had no suspicion how the strong will and pertinacity of that three
years child would come later into collision with the mastership of his
eldest brother, or the important part these stone chips would play in
William's life, or how they might affect the welfare of the whole
county, or make an enduring name when his own was forgotten.