In accordance with his father's word, Dan dug ditches in Penlan; and against the barnyard—which is at the forehead of his house—water sprang up, and he caused it to run over his water-wheel into his pond.
Now there fell upon this part of Cardiganshire a season of exceeding drought. The face of the earth was as the face of a cancerous man. There was no water in any of the ditches of Rhydwen and none in those of Penlan. But the spring which Dan had found continued to yield, and from it Aben's wife took away water in pitchers and buckets; and to the pond Aben brought his animals.
One day Aben spoke to Dan in this wise: "Serious sure, an old bother is this."
"Iss-iss," replied Dan. "Good is the Big Man to allow us water bach."
"How speech you if I said: 'Unfasten your pond and let him flow into my ditches'?"
"The land will suck him before he goes far," Dan answered.
Aben departed; and he considered: "Did not Penlan belong to Sheremiah? Travel under would the water and hap spout up in my close. Nice that would be. Nasty is the behavior of Dan and there's sly is the job."
To Dan he said: "Open your pond, man, and let the water come into the ditches which father Sheremiah broke."
Dan would not do as Aben desired, wherefore Aben informed against him in Sion, crying: "Little Big Man, know you not what a Turk is the fox? One eye bach I have, but you have two, and can see all his wickedness. Make you him pay the cost." He raised his voice so high that the congregation could not discern the meaning thereof, and it shouted as one person: "Wo, now, boy Sheremiah! What is the matter, say you?"
The anger which Aben nourished against Dan waxed hot. Rain came, and it did not abate, and the man plotted mischief to his brother's damage. In heavy darkness he cut the halters which held Dan's cows and horses to their stalls and drove the animals into the road. He also poisoned pond Penlan, and a sheep died before it could be killed and eaten.