'Going away!' was the breathless, general exclamation, with varying addenda.
''Deed, and sure you're welcome! You do be the most obstinate and worst-tempered of the whole lot,' from Cate.
'Well, Willem, I'll be sorry to be seeing the back of you; but sure and it may perhaps be the best for all,' added Rhys.
'What, going before I do be marrying?' questioned Jonet; 'but I don't wonder, anybody would be glad to get away.'
'Going to Cardiff? Oh, my dear boy, my Willem, what ever shall I be doing without you? Will you be long away?' cried his mother.
'Sure, and I cannot tell, mother dear. I may never come back to live here. And I am loth to leave you behind to be plagued with the "continual dropping" of a contentious woman, but I hope to have a farm of my own some day for you to manage, look you.'
Peace-loving Davy now put in his word, in lowered tones, to William and his mother.
''Deed, and I was be thinking for some time that the farm was not big enough to hold Cate and me. But if you be going away, Willem, I shall be staying to take care of mother here, till I can be making a home for her—yes, yes!' and he wrung William's hand as a token of brotherly love and trust.
In a very few days William was on his way to Cardiff, having taken a grateful farewell of the vicar on the Sunday; for, although Cardiff was little more than nineteen miles away, even by the Caerphilly route, they were more than equal to ninety in these steam and railroad times.
His mother parted from him with many rueful misgivings, and much good advice to resist the temptations sure to beset him in a wicked seaport town, much as an anxious country mother might in these days warn her untried son against the countless snares of London. And as she stitched her warmest flannel up into shirts for him, and looked up newly-knitted hose, her tears fell upon them silently as her prayers.