Rhys looked aghast. What became of his heroic resolution to work for his brothers and sister if they left the farm?
'Turned out of the farm?' he echoed incredulously. Had not his father and grandfather been born upon it? It would be like tearing up an oak tree by the roots.
''Deed, and she said it,' replied David, as if injured by the doubt.
Down went the empty pail on the stones, and into the house strode Rhys, alternately red and white with excitement.
He could scarcely get the words out, they seemed to choke him. 'Davy says,' he began with a gasp, 'that we are to leave the farm'—he could not bring himself to say 'be turned out.'
'Nay, Rhys, not now I have all the money for the rent, thank God! If that had been lost in the river, I cannot tell what might have happened. There would be no chance of selling cows or pigs, or the oats, or anything before the rent-day, and Mr. Pryse would not wait an hour. "Out you go!" would be his word. "There's a man will give ten guineas more rent for it, and keep the land in better condition." Yes, look you, he has been saying that these three years, and now it's he will be for saying a woman will not be able to keep the hundred acres and pay my lord his forty pounds. It's poor land, so much rock and bog and wood, and he knows it, so much barren hill-side, scarcely fit to pasture the few sheep and goats. Yes, 'deed it will take hard work to make the farm pay now the husbandman is gone. Ah, yes, yes! We have had a terrible loss, Rhys, fach.'[4]
As she spoke the last words the poor widow's tears gushed forth again, and would not be restrained. The flowers she was strewing over the sheet-covered form of her dead fell to the floor, and she dropped on her knees beside the bed, where it was her mournful duty to watch, and hid her face with her hands as if to conceal the passion of grief she could no longer control.
Rhys was sobbing too, though he strove against it in his effort to be manly. His arm went round her heaving shoulders with an unstudied air of natural protection, and in a broken voice he begged her to be calm. Not that he was by any means calm himself, but he was feeling early the need for self-restraint.
'Don't, mother, don't,' he murmured; 'you will be making yourself ill, and then who will mind the farm or the children? I will be a good steady boy, and will work as hard almost as a man. You shall not miss father more than I can help, look you. And sure we have a terrible loss; but, mother dear, it might be worse if we did lose the farm and all, as Davy did say. You are a good farmer, so Owen Griffith do say, and you will be teaching me.'
'Yes, indeed, please God, and you shall be a good farmer too, Rhys,' sobbed she, drying her eyes on her long check apron, and giving him a look of profound trust and loving motherhood, whilst he drew himself up with a renewed sense of importance.