FOOTNOTE:
[12] God-penny—a deposit.
CHAPTER XVII. PROPER TOOLS.
Ales had resumed her work on the farm, but not with the spirit and vivacity of old. She had been wont to sing over her work, and had a store of old Welsh ballads in her memory. But the song-bird mourned in silence for the mate torn away so ruthlessly, and, as weeks and months and years rolled on in the same drear monotony of hopelessness, her heart grew colder and heavier, and her prayers became as the very wailings of despair.
It cut her to the soul to hear Rhys grumbling, as he did, at the money filched from them to pay, not only the rent Evan should have paid, but the heavy costs of a seizure in addition; and she more than once resolved to quit the farm when the year expired.
Second thoughts, however, suggested that nothing would suit the young man better, and his very grumbling might have that end in view; for, once rid of her, he could seek the necessary consent to bring in a wife with a good grace.
He had not improved in temper, certainly. It had irritated him to hear William lauded for the very proclivities he had held of so small account, nay, turned into ridicule.
It was no satisfaction to have a brother so much younger competent to enlarge and raise the walls of the sheepfold, as he did, before a second winter set in. What though a mason's charges were saved, was not the saving at the greater cost of his own supremacy?