His personal belongings did not occupy much space. A few tools, chap-books and papers, and his entire wardrobe were comfortably packed in his father's old goatskin saddle-bags; and Robert Jones, with whom he had had several conferences of late on the qualities of stone from different quarries, found him a good steady horse which could be left at the Angel Inn until Robert claimed it on his next errand to Cardiff.
Robert Jones did him another service, the importance of which neither estimated at the time. He recommended him to apply for lodgings to a blind baker, named Walter Rosser, whose wife and niece were certain to make him comfortable.
The baker's shop was easily found, but there was some little hesitation about admitting a stranger as an inmate.
'What caused you to come hither in search of lodgings?' put the blind man, with his head on one side as if listening for the answer. 'And what may be your business in the town?'
'Robert Jones the peat-cutter did advise me to come here. He said you was honest and respectable and book-learned, and that you would be dealing fairly with me. And that your wife did be keeping your house as sweet and clean as my own mother kept the farm. My business do be to build for Mr. John Morris, look you!'
'There's a clear ring in your voice, young man,' said the baker then. 'And what may be your name?'
'I am Willem Edwards, of Brookside Farm, Eglwysilan,' answered he, with proud decision—just a little nettled with the blind man's catechism.
'Oh,' said the other, 'I think I have heard of you before. You did build Owen Wynn's flour-mill. Yes, yes, we shall be glad to have you, sir. You perceive my infirmity compels me to be particular whom we receive under our roof, since I have a young niece here, who has neither father nor mother to watch over her, and we are bound to be careful for her sake.'
'Yes, yes, sure, quite right,' assented the young man, after a glance beyond the baker and his wife at a blushing damsel in the shade.
Shops at that period were constructed much as are Turkish shops to this day. Very few had glazed windows. At night they were closed in by flap shutters, divided horizontally; the lower half of which was lowered in the daytime to serve as a table or counter for the display of goods, the upper half being so hooked up by an iron rod as to serve for a screen from sun or rain. The shop doors were similarly divided, the upper half hooking up to the low ceiling inside. I have known many such doors in country towns in England, some of which are, no doubt, extant to this day.