A BLIND INSTRUCTOR.
Mrs. Edwards did not readily reconcile herself to the loss of her
faithful serving-maid Ales. Still less readily to the substitution of
Cate, for, now that she was the wife of Rhys, she took another footing
on the floor than when she was Cate Griffith, and she allowed no one to
forget that the farm was left to Rhys by his grandfather's will, and,
therefore, he was master, the implication being that she was mistress.
Hitherto Mrs. Edwards had been head and front of everything. As she had
told Mr. Pryse, '_she_ was the farmer.' It was for her to dictate, for
others to obey.
Now, as she had foreseen, the marriage of Rhys had subverted all that.
Not that Rhys himself had changed his manner towards his mother, but he
had long held himself competent to manage the farm without guidance; and
when there was no capable Ales at hand to anticipate her wishes, and
even the orders she gave to her own daughter Jonet were apt to be
disputed and reversed by the young wife, she felt much like a queen
deposed. She did not, however, surrender her sceptre willingly, but
pursued her own course as of old. As little was Jonet disposed to take
orders from her sister-in-law.
The consequent result was confusion, mismanagement, and altercation,
Cate's voice having suddenly grown shrill and loud.
Of course Rhys took the part of his wife--though dubiously--whilst
William and Davy enlisted on the side of the mother or Jonet; so that,
although the oppressor was no more, and the sun of prosperity was rising
over Brookside Farm, peace spread her weary wings for flight.
Outside, Jonet had an ally in Thomas Williams, and he did his best to
console her with the prospect of escape to wifehood, and a home of her
own--a home for which her own distaff and her mother's spinning-wheel
were busily making preparation.
Hot-tempered William was, however, the first to shake the dust of the
old home from his well-shod feet.
It was after a sharp altercation over the vexed question of home rule,
which had left Jonet and his mother both in tears, that he startled them
by saying--
'Well, well, really, I did never be expecting to turn my back on the old
place with pleasure. But I am going to Cardiff next week, to be doing
some building for Mr. Morris; and, look you, it is rejoicing I shall be
to leave all this noise and contention behind.'
'Going away!' was the breathless, general exclamation, with varying
addenda.
''Deed, and sure you're welcome! You do be the most obstinate and
worst-tempered of the whole lot,' from Cate.
'Well, Willem, I'll be sorry to be seeing the back of you; but sure and
it may perhaps be the best for all,' added Rhys.
'What, going before I do be marrying?' questioned Jonet; 'but I don't
wonder, anybody would be glad to get away.'
'Going to Cardiff? Oh, my dear boy, my Willem, what ever shall I be
doing without you? Will you be long away?' cried his mother.
'Sure, and I cannot tell, mother dear. I may never come back to live
here. And I am loth to leave you behind to be plagued with the
"continual dropping" of a contentious woman, but I hope to have a farm
of my own some day for you to manage, look you.'
Peace-loving Davy now put in his word, in lowered tones, to William and
his mother.
''Deed, and I was be thinking for some time that the farm was not big
enough to hold Cate and me. But if you be going away, Willem, I shall be
staying to take care of mother here, till I can be making a home for
her--yes, yes!' and he wrung William's hand as a token of brotherly love
and trust.
In a very few days William was on his way to Cardiff, having taken a
grateful farewell of the vicar on the Sunday; for, although Cardiff was
little more than nineteen miles away, even by the Caerphilly route, they
were more than equal to ninety in these steam and railroad times.
His mother parted from him with many rueful misgivings, and much good
advice to resist the temptations sure to beset him in a wicked seaport
town, much as an anxious country mother might in these days warn her
untried son against the countless snares of London. And as she stitched
her warmest flannel up into shirts for him, and looked up newly-knitted
hose, her tears fell upon them silently as her prayers.
His personal belongings did not occupy much space. A few tools,
chap-books and papers, and his entire wardrobe were comfortably packed
in his father's old goatskin saddle-bags; and Robert Jones, with whom he
had had several conferences of late on the qualities of stone from
different quarries, found him a good steady horse which could be left at
the Angel Inn until Robert claimed it on his next errand to Cardiff.
Robert Jones did him another service, the importance of which neither
estimated at the time. He recommended him to apply for lodgings to a
blind baker, named Walter Rosser, whose wife and niece were certain to
make him comfortable.
The baker's shop was easily found, but there was some little hesitation
about admitting a stranger as an inmate.
'What caused you to come hither in search of lodgings?' put the blind
man, with his head on one side as if listening for the answer. 'And what
may be your business in the town?'
'Robert Jones the peat-cutter did advise me to come here. He said you
was honest and respectable and book-learned, and that you would be
dealing fairly with me. And that your wife did be keeping your house as
sweet and clean as my own mother kept the farm. My business do be to
build for Mr. John Morris, look you!'
'There's a clear ring in your voice, young man,' said the baker then.
'And what may be your name?'
'I am Willem Edwards, of Brookside Farm, Eglwysilan,' answered he, with
proud decision--just a little nettled with the blind man's catechism.
'Oh,' said the other, 'I think I have heard of you before. You did build
Owen Wynn's flour-mill. Yes, yes, we shall be glad to have you, sir. You
perceive my infirmity compels me to be particular whom we receive under
our roof, since I have a young niece here, who has neither father nor
mother to watch over her, and we are bound to be careful for her sake.'
'Yes, yes, sure, quite right,' assented the young man, after a glance
beyond the baker and his wife at a blushing damsel in the shade.
Shops at that period were constructed much as are Turkish shops to this
day. Very few had glazed windows. At night they were closed in by flap
shutters, divided horizontally; the lower half of which was lowered in
the daytime to serve as a table or counter for the display of goods, the
upper half being so hooked up by an iron rod as to serve for a screen
from sun or rain. The shop doors were similarly divided, the upper half
hooking up to the low ceiling inside. I have known many such doors in
country towns in England, some of which are, no doubt, extant to this
day.
It will be readily understood that shops of this description, however
small, were dark in the background, and to eyes less keen than
William's, Elaine Parry's blush would have passed unnoticed. It required
after-observation to perceive how neat and trim she always was, how
bashful and retiring, and how quiet and subdued were all her movements;
what a steadfast light there was in her clear, hazel eyes, and what
pretty dimples in her cheeks when she smiled.
He only noticed then that she remained quiescent when her uncle cried--
'Come in, sir--come in! I'll mind your horse whilst my good dame shows
you the room we could let you have.'
Up one or two short flights of stairs with landings turning this way or
that, then down a step into a short, dark passage or recess containing
two doors, and he was ushered into a small bedroom, which to him was the
perfection of order and comfort--nay, luxury. True, there was only a
narrow truckle bedstead, with a flock bed upon it, dowlas[14] sheets,
and a dark blue woollen coverlet, but he had never been accustomed to
anything better; and there was a diamond-paned casement, with a table in
front, on which was a coarse earthenware basin and ewer, and, hung
against the wall, a looking-glass about the size of a sheet of
note-paper, all luxurious intimations that his personal ablutions might
be conducted in private. Then there was a fireplace in the room--just a
couple of short iron bars fitted into the brickwork--and beside it, in a
recess, a piece of furniture which puzzled William extremely. Yet it
was nothing more than an oaken bureau, the drawers of which Mrs. Rosser
pulled open to show that they were for his use if he became their
inmate. The mystery of the turn-down flap for writing, the sliding rests
to support its weight, and the enclosed pigeon-holes for papers was a
revelation for the future.
He was almost afraid to ask 'How much?' and was wonderfully gratified to
find the terms below his calculations, and also that he was expected to
take his meals with the family.
All that settled, the door across the dark passage was opened, and a
room with a larger casement was revealed. Here all was equally clean,
from the well-scrubbed floor to the centre table and tall chairs ranged
with stiff precision against the walls, whilst a broad seat beneath the
window held piles of books, and the empty fireplace was adorned with
large conch shells.
'You can come and sit here if you want to be quiet, and will not make a
litter,' said Mrs. Rosser. 'We seldom use the room, except when my
husband is teaching.'
'Teaching?' echoed William curiously.
'Oh yes; don't you know he teaches people to read English?'
'Does what?' he almost gasped.
Mrs. Rosser repeated her words.
'Then Robert Jones has been doing me the best turn he ever did yet, for,
look you, I've been wanting to learn English reading for many a year.'
How it was possible for a blind man to give such instruction was beyond
his comprehension. He accepted the statement as one more of the marvels
he had come across in the baker's comfortable home; and he brought in
his saddle-bags, and gave his horse in charge to the baker's man, as if
he were not sure he was wide awake.
He very soon discovered it was just the difference between living in a
town of some antiquity within reach of a prosperous maritime city like
Bristol, and dwelling apart among the mountain wilds, shut out from
general intercourse, and dependent on itinerant packmen for everything
but home produce.
Even in his meals there was some difference. If he still breakfasted on
porridge, he was unaccustomed to see meat or eggs on the table daily, or
to find the oven substituted for the big pot in cookery, and he missed
the potatoes in which they indulged on the farm.
When the shyness between himself and Elaine Parry, Mrs. Rosser's pretty
niece, had somewhat worn away, he told her this.
'Oh,' said she, 'they are too dear for us. They are two shillings a
pound in Cardiff market.'
'No, indeed! Then I will tell Robert Jones. The farmers do be planting;
they will be cheaper before long, look you.'
And before very long a sack of good potatoes was set down by Robert
Jones at the baker's door, a present from Brookside Farm.
In the interim William Edwards had not been idle. The site selected for
the smelting works was just outside Cardiff, and within easy reach of
the river.
There materials had been collected, and with the sole assistance of John
Llwyd, he built, in the first instance, a blast-furnace on a small
scale, tapering like a cone, the ore and fuel for which had to be
supplied from the top, there being an orifice below from which the
molten metal would escape in a stream.
An ordinary smith's bellows worked by Llwyd supplied the blast, a good
fire of peat and charcoal being well alight before the coal and
broken-up ore were thrown in. It answered fairly for a trial, but once
alight could not be allowed to cool night or day. But the furnace being
built and in working order, there was no difficulty in finding men to
tend and keep it going.
Of course this was an experiment on too small a scale for commercial
success. At all events William Edwards had mastered the great problem
how to utilise anthracite or stone-coal for the smelting of iron. It was
there burning without smoke or flame, and pouring out a thin stream of
molten metal into the sandy moulds which shaped it into bars, or
pig-iron.
Mr. Morris clapped his hand on William's shoulder, and congratulated him
on his achievement.
'Now, Edwards,' said he, 'you must lose no time in putting up another
furnace or two on a larger scale. Let us show the world what genius and
perseverance can accomplish.'
'Yes, yes, sir; but I should like to improve on _that_,' pointing to
what he had already done. 'And before building a larger furnace, I shall
have to consider how the greater blast is to be sustained. It would be
too heavy a task for manual labour if we are to keep large quantities
of this hard coal at fusing heat for corresponding heaps of ore,' was
the proud young fellow's reply.
'No doubt, no doubt,' acquiesced Mr. Morris. 'But you will be certain to
manage it in some way or other. And you know you are free to employ any
workmen or materials you think best. Oh yes; when you set your foot on a
difficulty you are sure to tread it down.'
'Indeed and in truth, sir, I'm not willing to be beaten, and I don't
mean to give in till I've conquered the obstacles here, look you,' said
he, with set and resolute face.
How he overcame the mechanical difficulty I have no data to determine
after this lapse of time; but I incline to think he brought his friend
Thomas Williams to construct a wheel, moved either by horse or water
power, to supply the leverage required to keep the monster forge-bellows
in motion. Twenty years later Smeaton invented the blowing machine for
the Carron Foundry, in Scotland; but William Edwards was a mason and
architect, not a mechanical engineer; and when he had completed his
large furnace, capable of smelting with the hard stone-coal, he had
achieved a victory likely to revolutionise the mining and iron-founding
industries of South Wales--nay, almost to create them. He had saved its
forest trees from utter annihilation. He had paved the way for Smeaton's
feet to tread.
Another furnace rose. The ironworks of John Morris extended and found
occupation and bread for hundreds of workpeople besides those employed
by himself. Fresh mines of coal and iron were opened around Castel Coch
and elsewhere. Whole teams of pack-horses, tended by women and boys,
were ever on the roads, bringing rough ore and coal to the smelters, the
tinkling bell of each leader, or bell-horse, ringing a prophetic note of
progression. It was some time before the invention of a low,
broad-wheeled waggon, drawn by four or six horses, set these old teams
aside; not, indeed, until something had been done to make the roads more
practicable. And long before that, fresh shipping sought the old Cardiff
quays to transport the pig-iron to final manufacturers alike in England
and across the seas. Morris' smelting works seemed to have wakened the
stagnant town from the lethargy of ages.
All this was not the growth of a year or two. Eight full years was
William Edwards working for Mr. Morris, and, whether consciously or not,
for the advancement and prosperity of his country. Not alone was he
occupied in erecting furnaces. Fresh workmen and their families required
fresh homes, and who but William Edwards had the building? And for the
period they were models. His name and fame as a builder travelled
farther than his own feet.
Yet it is not to be supposed that he stood still to let the stream of
progress pass him by, now that he had opened the floodgates wide.
Relays of men fed and tended the glowing furnaces night and day. The
proud young architect and his contingent did their masonry in daylight
hours.
That did not mean inert repose or dissipation for him. He made holiday
when his trial furnace was complete, to visit his mother and brothers
and take part in his sister Jonet's wedding; but his brain was actively
at work the whole time, and it was even on that busy occasion he set the
bridegroom's mechanical brains at work also for mutual benefit.
And whenever there was an interval between one great piece of work and
another, he hired a horse and went home for a day or two, never without
some useful or rare gifts for one and all, and never without calling on
his old friends Robert Jones and Evan Evans by the way.
Those were his only respites from work. His manual labour--for he worked
alongside his men, and allowed no scamping or shirking--was over at
dusk. But no sooner had he laid aside his tools, and washed away the
tokens of his occupation, than he had a book in his hand--generally an
English book, which he was doing his best to decipher unaided at his
meals, as a preparation for private lessons, which the blind man gave to
him by the household hearth, or in his bakehouse, or along with the
adult class assembling twice a week in his upstairs parlour for English
reading.
In the bakehouse Rosser kept an alphabet, the separate letters of which
were shaped and baked out of ordinary dough. And when the eager student
had mastered the English pronunciation of these, which the blind man
could distinguish by the touch, he traced syllables and words in his
plastic medium, until ere long a well-known and well-thumbed book was
put into the learner's hands to be spelt out, or read aloud, as he
progressed.
The blind baker was proud of his pupil.
'You are the most promising scholar I ever took in hand,' said he; 'but
your diligence is unremitting, and failure is impossible.'
Yes, so diligent was he that in consequence of his absorption in his new
study, Elaine Parry's shyness in his presence gradually wore away, and
when she heard him stumbling over a word, she would pronounce it for him
involuntarily, without so much as looking up from her sewing or
knitting.
Nay, the bashfulness became rather on his side at the betrayal of his
own ignorance to a young girl, capable, through superior education, of
correcting his slips and errors. But very soon he accepted her verbal
hints as a matter of course.
Later, when in a difficulty, he did not scruple to rise from his seat
and cross the hearth to point out a phrase or passage he was unable to
translate. And she, perchance, would lay down her work, glance at his
book, and look calmly up in his face as she gave the true reading in a
clear, firm voice.
[Illustration: ELAINE PARRY.]
After a time, for easier reference, he brought his own seat near to
hers, so that he might have her assistance without rising. And, although
his dark-brown head and her light one were thus frequently drawn close
together, his one idea had such thorough possession of him, that his
single-minded desire for knowledge disarmed the seeming familiarity of
all obtrusiveness.
Certainly, neither he nor Elaine had the slightest conception that
anything was being taught or learned other than the King's English.
She was too retiring and well behaved to thrust herself into the
prominent notice of a stranger, so that after that first general
impression that the baker's niece was a pretty and tidy young woman, he
scarcely bestowed a second thought upon her.
Mrs. Rosser's astounding intimation that her husband taught Welshmen to
read English had swallowed up all minor considerations, just as the
River Taff swallowed up all sorts of tributary streams in its course to
the sea.
Then, apart from his lingual studies, his furnace-building was ever on
his mind. It was a very great and novel undertaking, and the whole force
of his intelligence was brought to bear upon it.
So that, although she moved before him in her daily occupations, and
ministered to his necessities at meal-times, it was just as if a sister
had been before his eyes continually. Certainly, she always wore shoes
and stockings, and, on Sundays, the very set of her cloak and tall hat,
and the border of white linen cap, had a grace and fitness most
becoming. And she carried her English prayer-book to church so
unobtrusively, and found her places so readily, he was bound to notice
that; but _there_ some envy blunted the edge of admiration.
Her influence was that of summer dew on vegetation. It refreshes
insensibly and imperceptibly. Had she bustled about noisily, had there
been any discord between her and her aunt, it would have arrested his
attention with the jarring effect of a thunderstorm.
As it was, she became part and parcel of his daily life, and it was not
until he had been about three years in Cardiff that a slight illness
which kept her in her own room for a week or ten days roused him to the
consciousness how much he was indebted to her for the comfort and
brightness of his surroundings.
However intelligent a companion Walter Rosser might be--and he could
talk both of the world and of books, having known both before blindness
set in--he lacked just the touch of kindly appreciation so gratifying to
the self-esteem of the rising young builder after years of
home-snubbing; the word or two of discriminating opinion his niece gave
so thoughtfully whenever doubts and difficulties beset him in the
execution of his plans; for all was not fair sailing, clever as he might
be, and there were times when he was glad of a sympathetic ear.
He was restless and uneasy the whole time she lay ill upstairs, and was
ready to ransack the town for tea, oranges, or any other over-sea luxury
she might fancy. And he was never the same to her, or she to him, after
she was back by the household fire, paler, but oh! how infinitely
dearer!
The touch of his horny hand, and the softened tones of his voice, said
more than his commonplace words of greeting: ''Deed, Elaine, it's right
glad we are to have you downstairs again. We have been missing you so
terribly.'
And there was more than the tremulousness of physical weakness in her
low reply: 'Yes, and I am glad to be here. It is miserable to be shut up
away from you all, giving aunt and you so much trouble; but we may bear
with illness when friends are so kind.'
FOOTNOTE:
[14] Dowlas, a coarse kind of linen.