"It will go to Hell, with his soul!" Dafydd replied fiercely. "He sell us Delyn—he sell us Delyn water—he sell us our own moun-tains!—It iss not for this we make you Chairman of the Council, Howell Gruffydd!"
Howell trembled, but put up a soothing hand.
"Aw-w-w, you wait and see, Dafydd Dafis! A prof-fit is a prof-fit, but this is wick-ed, and preposterous, and out of all reason! You wait and see! We have a meeting this morning, and p'rapss we show Mister Edward Garden he is not so clever as he think he is! He think he put his Saxon pistol to our heads like this? Indeed he make a great mistake! You wait and see, Dafydd. There iss a saying, 'He laughs best who laughs last'—you wait and see!" He patted Dafydd's shoulder and arm reassuringly, and perhaps felt heartened by his own words. "You wait and see!" he said once more, almost cheerily now. "We not pay it—never fear! I see you later——"
And he hurried away, leaving Dafydd standing on the pavement.
But the Council Meeting that morning settled nothing, and neither did the next Meeting nor the next after that. They wrote to Mr. Tudor Williams, but it almost looked as if Mr. Tudor Williams was taking a leaf out of their own book: if they had pressing private affairs when questions of ales and wines and spirits appeared on the agenda, so Mr. Tudor Williams pleaded a multiplicity of urgent engagements now that it was a question of water. The meeting adjourned, reassembled, adjourned again, and met again. Days passed, weeks passed. Legal opinions were taken, but no action. They fetched Mr. Tudor Williams down almost by force, and he proffered his good offices, but deprecated the serving of notices of compulsory arbitration. He advised an amicable settlement if one could possibly be arrived at. Llanyglo's anger died away, and blank despair began to take its place.
Then one day Edward Garden's lawyers hinted that in the event of an arrangement being come to within a given time they were in a position to enter into certain pledges on behalf of the Railway Companies. They hinted also that they were equally in a position to do the other thing. Surely, they said, Llanyglo saw that this was a matter of its life or its death; and surely, they added, it was plain that it would not really be they who were paying! Nothing of the sort! Lancashire would pay. Yorkshire would pay. The Midlands would help to pay, and perhaps also the West and South. Whoever footed his bill at hotel or boarding-establishment would be contributing—they must see that he did contribute—his portion. What though visitors grumbled and talked about extortion? They forgot all about it the next day. What though residents groaned under the burden of the rates? They must submit to conditions, like everybody else. Llanyglo must pay, and pass it on.
In short, all the people who intended to have a better time than their fathers had had were to be shaven and shorn exactly as their fathers had been.
Llanyglo saw it, sighed, and acquiesced. There was nothing else to do.
And if Parry, of the "Lancashire Rose," or Pugh, of the "Trafford," reaped too rich a harvest by making people drunk, they must be assessed higher and higher still, and still higher, that was all.