He trembled from head to foot to ravish every comely woman on whom his ogling eyes dwelt. His greed made him faithless to those whom he professed to serve: in his eagerness to lift himself he planned, plotted, and trafficked with the foes of his officers. Hearing that an account of his misdeeds was spoken abroad, he called the high London Welshmen into a room, and he said to them:
"These cruel slanderers have all but broken my spirit. They are the wicked inventions of fiends incarnate. It is not my fall that is required—if that were so I would gladly make the sacrifise—the zupreme sacrifise, if wanted—but it is the fall of the Party that these men are after. He who repeats one foul thing is doing his level best to destroy the fabric of this magnificent organisation that has been reared by your brains. It has no walls of stone and mortar, yet it is a sity builded by men. We must have no more bickerings. We have work to do. The seeds are springing forth, and a goodly harvest is promised: let us sharpen our blades and clear our barn floors. Cymru fydd—Wales for the Welsh—is here. At home and at Westminster our kith and kin are occupying prominent positions. Disestablishment is at hand. We have closed public-houses and erected chapels, each chapel being a factor in the education of the masses in ideas of righteous government. You, my friends, have secured much of the land, around which you have made walls, and in which you have set water fountains, and have planted rare plants and flowers. And you have put up your warning signs on it—'Trespassers will be prosecuted.'
"There is coming the Registration of Workers Act, by which every worker will be held to his locality, to his own enormous advantage. And it will end strikes, and trades unionism will deservedly crumble. In future these men will be able to settle down, and with God's blessing bring children into the world, and their condition will be a delight unto themselves and a profit to the community.
"But we must do more. I must do more. And you must help me. We must stand together. Slander never creates; it shackles and kills. We must be solid. Midway off the Cardigan coast—in beautiful Morfa—there is a rock—Birds' Rock. As a boy I used to climb to the top of it, and watch the waters swirling and tumbling about it, and around it and against it. But I was unafraid. For I knew that the rock was old when man was young, and that it had braved all the washings of the sea."
The men congratulated Ben; and Ben came home and he stood at a mirror, and shaping his body put out his arms.
"How's this for my maiden speech in the house?" he asked his wife. Presently he paused. "You're a fine one to be an M.P.'s lady," he said. "You stout, underworked fool."
Ben urged on his imaginings: he advised his monarch, and to him for favors merchants brought their gold, and mothers their daughters. Winter and spring moved, and then his mind brought his enemies to his door.
"As the root of a tree spreads in the bosom of the earth," he said, "so my fame shall spread over the world"; and he built a fence about his house.
But his mind would not be stilled. Every midnight his enemies were at the fence, and he could not sleep for the dreadful outcry; every midnight he arose from his bed and walked aside the fence, testing the strength of it with a hand and a shoulder and shooing away his enemies as one does a brood of chickens from a cornfield.
His fortieth summer ran out—a season of short days and nights speeding on the heels of night. Then peace fell upon him; and at dusk of a day he came into his room, and he saw one sitting in a chair. He went up to the chair and knelt on a knee, and said: "Your Majesty...."