CHAPTER IX. 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.'
'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—
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.