That son, Thomas Williams, was fully five years older than William Edwards, but the two had been drawn together from the fact that both indulged in original ideas, and smarted under a want of appreciation at home.
Thus it happened that when Rhys gave his mother a hint that Thomas Williams was making up to Jonet, his own brother was engaged in rearing a workshop for the young carpenter in close proximity to the premises of Robert Jones in the Aber Valley. At home he had been told he was too young to set up for himself, but he had served his seven years' apprenticeship to his father, had saved a little money, and was not so young as the self-taught mason, who was making his first experiment in house-building for him.
On his father's hearth he was scoffed at for trusting so much as the raising of a workshop to the untried hands of a mere boy. So of his plans or his ulterior intentions he said little there, desirous to escape inevitable sneers and discouragement.
It was at Brookside Farm by the fireside after dark, the two young fellows had laid their heads together, and matured their plans, long before they were put into operation, and it was there the original idea of a workshop and living-room behind developed into something more.
It was there, night after night, whilst Rhys was down the hill at the weaver's, that Thomas Williams had unsuspected opportunities for seeing Jonet's fitness for wifehood. True, he had noticed her bright black eyes and hair, her clear complexion and pleasing smile, her neat attire and dapper figure, times out of mind on Sundays, and had thought how lithe and supple were her movements, how modest her demeanour. But it was on her mother's hearth, whether knitting, or spinning from her distaff, chatting all the while with one or other, and making much of her brothers, or when helping Ales to prepare supper, that he saw how ready she was to make herself useful and agreeable as well.
So it was that, out of the first design for a mere workshop, gradually a plan for the construction of a whole house shaped itself.
William Edwards was short and sturdy; his round face had become square, his forehead broad, his jaw inclined to be massive; his keen grey eyes were deep set and thoughtful, his nose was large with broad nostrils, his dark brown hair crisp as a crown—at seventeen a premature man of thought and action, with strong, capable hands.
He was a thorough contrast to his friend, who was tall and slight, had a fair clear skin, with a tinge of healthy colour in his cheeks, and a crop of wavy auburn hair; in short, a handsome young fellow.
Handsome enough to attract Jonet, and more than Jonet; but not to lead Mrs. Edwards to countenance too much intimacy until assured that neither her son nor his friend had miscalculated his skill or its results.
Certainly William Edwards had not.