'No, Davy,' explained his mother, without stopping her busy wheel, 'it is the wind that blows the trees about,'—an answer which sufficed for him. He was not curious to learn what caused the winds, or whence they came, as William had been. He accepted facts as they were, untroubled by vain speculations.
Undoubtedly William—the father's namesake, her youngest born—was the mother's darling, in spite of his odd ways. And however cross she might have been overnight, in the morning, when the others had dispersed, she took him to task for straying away without leave; not angrily, but sadly, showing him the trouble he was likely to cause, and the anxiety she had had, remembering the time when he was lost before.
It was a very effectual supplement to Owen Griffith's lecture; the sensitive boy's feelings were touched. He threw his arms around her neck, begged forgiveness, and promised the best of behaviour for the future.
Alas, for a child's promises! William went to work beside Jonet like a little man, helped in seed-time and harvest, and won commendations from Ales and Evan. But he had his dreamy hours; he continued to pile up stones in odd corners, and was alternately ridiculed and rebuked by Rhys, whose interference he resented.
This went on for about two years, trying the patience of both, and then came a more serious outbreak.
CHAPTER XI. A MEMORABLE ENCOUNTER.
William's rebellion had begun to show itself in sullen disregard of his brother's orders. He was always active and willing when his mother or Evan called him—Davy might convey a message, but never had an independent order to give—he was Jonet's obedient bondslave, but when Rhys demanded his services or attention he generally turned a deaf ear. For this, Rhys—who considered his ten years' seniority quite a warranty for control as his mother's deputy and his dead father's representative—took him to task imperiously, not with any desire to be knowingly overbearing, but from a stern sense of his own duty to a lazy lad.
At length, one bright day in early spring, when William was little more than nine years of age, he stood lingering after the midday meal close beside the stone gate-posts of a field where Davy and Jonet were already busy weeding a freshly springing crop of corn. His arms rested upon the coping of the wall with his chin upon them, whilst he, looking down into the fertile vale below—where glimpses of the shining river were discernible like twinkling stars, through the tender green shoots which veiled the swaying boughs on its densely-wooded banks—seemed lost in a dreamy mist of speculative thought. The boy's reverie was rudely broken.