Читать книгу: «The Making of William Edwards; or, The Story of the Bridge of Beauty», страница 2

CHAPTER III.
A BOY'S WILL

As my story concerns not the dead man, but the family he left behind, I might pass over his burial in silence, had it not been marked by peculiar customs, few traces of which remain. Mountainous and inaccessible regions retain their characteristic traits of life and language long after intercourse has fused together the differing speech and habits of dwellers on the plains, whether city or suburban.

It was the last watch-night, and neither Ales nor her mistress had been in bed for a couple of nights, the girl electing to share the widow's watch beside the closed coffin of her good master, as Rhys would still have done had his careful mother not forbidden.

But long before the grey mists of morning had risen above the tree-tops, or lifted off the mountain-side, Rhys was up and astir with them. There was no leisure for indulgence in grief. There was so much to be done and cleared away before the mournful business of the day began. There were flowers to gather to strew upon the coffin-lid, and carry to the grave. And, if the sheep and cattle out on the hill-side could find pasture for themselves, the cows and ewes must be milked, the pigs and poultry fed, or released to feed themselves.

So Rhys and Ales were off betimes, laden with empty pails; bare-legged Ales brushing the dew from the gorse and heather as she trudged along with a pitcher balanced on her head, a stool tucked under one arm, a pail on the other, her knitting, for a wonder, left behind; Rhys, by her side, swinging a large milking-pail to balance a second stool.

When they returned with laden pails to be emptied into the tall churn, the fire was aglow, the porridge ready, the younger children up and dressed in sombre suits, Davy in his first breeches, and all three stiff and uncomfortable in shoes and stockings, neighbourly Mrs. Griffith and her young daughter Cate having come upon the scene to set the afflicted and harassed widow free for the rest of the day.

Owen Griffith was also there, and by the time breakfast was over and a clearance effected, Mrs. Edwards and Rhys had changed their garments and assumed the sable hooded-cloaks prescribed for mourners. Then the table was covered with a clean homespun linen cloth, and re-set with cold beef, cake, and cheese, for all comers, along with mugs to hold the customary draught of hot ale and abelion, the latter a spiced decoction of elderberries and herbs, chiefly rosemary, huge pitchers of which were kept piping hot on the hearth.

Meanwhile, Owen Griffith and a companion had improvised a table of planks, and a long bench in front of the house, piling up turf and stones as supports, a proceeding William watched with wondering interest. He may have puzzled where the mugs and platters came from, and who would sit at the long boards and consume all the beef, the piles of cake, and the great cheeses set out in halves, and what the two empty bowls were for in the middle of each table.

At all events, Jonet wondered, and communicated her perplexity to David, who in turn referred to Rhys, to be answered curtly, 'Wait and see! I'm more puzzled to know what do bring Owen Griffith here, ordering about and as busy as if he was master.'

The mother could have told that a distant cousinship between Griffith and the deceased sufficed for authority to make all needful arrangements in the absence of nearer kin, and that she was extremely grateful to him for his kindness all through the trying time.

Very soon the other children had their questions answered, for guests, bidden or unsought, came trooping in from valley and mountain near and far, not by twos and threes only, but by dozens; relatives, friends, and mere acquaintances, for Edwards was a man held in high esteem. All were in their Sunday best, yet very few had so much as a bit of crape, a black kerchief, or a black pair of stockings. Their presence was supposed a sufficient token of respect.

In succession as they came began, not merely a clatter of subdued voices discussing the sad accident – which might have overtaken any of them – but a general distribution and consumption of cheese, cake, and ale flavoured with the abelion, which custom may have rendered palatable, the simple provisions rapidly disappearing and being replaced as fresh arrivals brought fresh appetites, sharpened by journeying through the keen morning air, and eaten in primitive fashion, each man bringing his own pocket-knife, and converting his bread into a plate to be cut up and eaten with the meat upon it.

And as the widow could not be reasonably expected to provide for so numerous and impromptu a party —cwrw being rather an expensive item – each partaker cast a sixpence or other coin into the bowl provided, a proceeding at which the younger children expanded their astonished eyes – all was so strange to them.

Then the crowd, both within and without the house, made way for the bearers with their heavy burden, and for the black-cloaked widow and her two eldest orphans to follow.

On account of their tender years, the roughness and distance of the road to be traversed, it had been decided to leave Jonet and William behind, in care of Ales.

But silent William had had his wondering eyes and ears open the whole of the morning; and no sooner did it dawn on his infantile comprehension that his father was being carried away in the big box, and that his mother and brothers were going away with it, than he insisted on going likewise; clung to his mother's skirts, and held fast, neither amenable to persuasion nor command to release her and remain at home with obedient Jonet.

No! He saw his mother and brothers in tears, and the bearers slowly moving away with the coffin in which his father was shut up, and in his baby-ignorance he concluded some great wrong was being done. He had been told by Ales that he would never see his father any more, and must have concluded the others were being taken away also; for when he was carried into the house by main force, he fought and struggled in Owen Griffith's strong arms, and cried with dogged persistence, 'Me will go! me shall go!'

Even when shut up close in the bedroom, he kicked at the door and screamed, 'Let me out, let me out; I will go!' until, after a while, the noise ended in a sob and a scuffle, and busy Ales concluded he had wearied himself out and fallen asleep.

When Ales, some quarter of an hour later, opened the door in compliance with Jonet's piteous entreaties, the room was deserted, and William nowhere to be found.

Kicking at the hard door had hurt his toes, in spite of his new shoes, so he turned round to try his heels. On so doing he discovered that the small window-hole was wide open. In another minute he was across the room, scrambling up on to a box lying beneath the narrow aperture in the thick wall, a look of sudden triumph on his determined round face.

He thrust out his head and beheld a long procession winding in and out of the rocky and uneven road, a multitude of high-crowned hats, some atop of women's linen caps, these rising above a medley of red and grey cloaks, striped petticoats and dark jackets crossed with small shawls, mingling with men's grey coats and blue ones; but it did not occur to the child, as it might strike us, that there was any incongruity in these vari-coloured garments on so solemn an occasion. All to him was new. He had never seen such a concourse of people before; his sole idea was that his mother and his brothers were being borne away after his father, and that he was bound to overtake and bring them back.

The window was not much more than a yard from the ground outside, but it seemed far to so young a child. However, he managed to clamber up in some way, and to drop outside on his feet, and, after a sly glance round to see that the coast was clear, he trotted off as fast as his sturdy little legs would carry him, and out at a narrow gap in the stone wall, which did duty for a gateway; and as the descending procession moved but slowly, and there were occasional stoppages for change of bearers, he contrived to keep the rear of it in sight.

Ere long his wood-soled shoes and stockings chafed and cramped his feet, and he sat down on a wayside stone to remove them. When he looked up, the last hat had disappeared, but, nothing daunted, he set off again at a run, carrying his shoes and stockings in his hands, and ere long caught sight of the nodding hats at a turn of the tortuous road.

He had run nearly a mile, and was getting breathless and footsore, but he went panting forward, with no thought of giving in; but soon he began to call out for some one to stop, and tears ran coursing down his chubby cheeks. Still he trotted on for another half mile or so; but the pace became slower, the tears ran faster, and when the tail of the procession again disappeared he sobbed aloud, beset with fears.

At this juncture a man leaning over a wall, who had followed the long train with his eyes, caught sight of the woe-begone child, in its black frock, limping painfully along, and asked what he was doing there, and what he was crying for.

The answer was not very coherent or articulate, but the man was sharp as he was good-natured. In a very short time he was out in the road, with William Edwards mounted on a sleek ass, following in the wake of the mourners, who after a short distance on the level began to ascend the lofty hill on the brow of which, like an eagle on its eyrie, stood Eglwysilan's⁶ ancient church, with the modest vicarage beside it, isolated from the widely scattered parishioners, and almost inaccessible in foul or wintry weather.

Local tradition assigned to this time-worn edifice a date coeval with the apostles. But suppose we allow the apostles to have slept for nearly three hundred years, and assign to our British St. Helena (or Elian), the church-founding mother of Constantine, the credit of selecting the breezy site for a structure to which she stands sponsor, we still accredit the long-bodied, square-towered, and small-windowed church with a most venerable antiquity, and solid masonry which might make modern architects blush for shame.

No sooner were adventurous William's fears of being left behind set at rest by overtaking the slow pedestrians of the long train, than his spirits revived. He began to look about him, and to question the kind cottager, 'What's this?' or, 'What's that?'

Of course he spoke in Welsh, as did all the people. I but render their language into English for my readers.

From his elevated seat he could overlook low walls, and glancing down through the autumnal woods on his left, where the red ash-berries shone temptingly bright against the russet – leaved oak and yellowing beech, caught glimpses here and there of the shining river that had proved so treacherously cruel to his poor father. But neither red berries nor glancing river had such powerful attractions for him as the stupendous pile whence boomed the tolling bell – the 'church' of which he had heard so oft, but never seen.

He had gone with his sister and brothers to the wooded glen which bounded their own farm on the north, there to help, or hinder, the gathering of ash-berries and acorns; but of human habitations he had seen nothing hitherto so large as his own home.

He seemed absolutely fascinated by the grey lichen-covered church, and its low massive square tower, which he took for a huge chimney, and the nearer they drew to it the greater became his absorption.

Being told, in answer to a query, 'People do go there to say prayers,' he asked again, 'Why for? We say prayers at home.' But though the man scratched his tangled red locks, no adequate reply was forthcoming.

At that moment there was a halt at the arched lych-gate. All the men took off their hats, for the white-robed vicar had come to lead the way into the church.

The boy, who had no hat to remove, could only look on and listen in blank astonishment, understanding nothing of the solemn ceremony, but awed by the mysterious proceedings, and the unfamiliar aspect of the, to him, vast interior.

It was not until he beheld the coffin lowered into the 'big hole' that he screamed out, and was not to be pacified, though Owen Griffith stole gently away from the grave-side and took him in his arms for the second time that day.

The ceremony was soon over, and nothing heard but the sobbing of the mourners and the dropping of small coin into the shovel the sexton held forth for their reception; for thus were the fees of the vicar and himself paid by general contribution, and not merely by the bereaved relatives. It was an old custom, seldom better observed than on this occasion; for of the motley multitude drawn thither to show their esteem for the dead and their sympathy with his family, two-thirds were wofully poor, had travelled far, and lost a day's earnings to be there; but few so poor as to pass the sexton's spade without a tributary coin, however small. Set it, therefore, to their credit, and also that all were decently clad, and flaunted no rags, if they had no crape to mourn in. Custom is its own law, and respect is not shown by the colour of a coat.

But what of the little fellow who had found his way thither, and created so much consternation by his unseemly interruption?

CHAPTER IV.
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 duffle⁸ cloak over her short black linsey⁹ 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.'