“Now,” said the old man, “I’ll say good-day to ye, Mr. Walters, I must be gettin’ on.”
He clambered up the ladder, leaving Rhys alone.
[CHAPTER IX
TWO MEETINGS]
GEORGE and the Pig-driver left the cottage together a few minutes afterwards. Both men had business in Crishowell, and as Rhys Walters was now well enough to be left alone for a few hours, Williams had no scruple in turning the key on his charge and starting with his patron for the valley.
The hoar-frost hung on everything. Around them, the heavy air enwrapped the landscape, making an opaque background to the branches and twigs which stood as though cut out in white coral against grey-painted canvas. Bumpett felt the cold a good deal and pressed forward almost at a trot, looking all the more grotesque for the company of the big, quiet man beside him. Some way out of the village they parted, being unwilling to be seen much together.
When he went to see George, Bumpett generally got out of his cart as soon as he had crossed the mountain pass, sending it round by a good road which circled out towards Llangarth, and telling his boy to bring it by that route to Crishowell; he thus avoided trying its springs in the steep lanes, and was unobserved himself as he went down by Williams’ house to the village. At the carpenter’s shop, where it went to await him, he would pass an agreeable half-hour chatting with the local spirits who congregated there of an afternoon.
He was the most completely popular man in the neighbourhood. For this he was much indebted to the habits of his pig-driving days, when he and his unruly flock had travelled the country on foot to the different fairs. Then many a labourer’s wife had lightened his journeys by the pleasant offer of a bite and a sup, and held herself amply rewarded by the odd bits of gossip and complimentary turns of speech by which the wayfarer knew how to make himself welcome. Now that he had become a man of money and standing, this graciousness of demeanour had not left him; nay, it was rather set off by the flavour of opulence, and gave meaner folk the comfortable assurance of being hob and nob with the great ones of this world. Nevertheless, the name of “The Pig-driver” stuck to him; as the Pig-driver they had known him first, and the Pig-driver he would remain, were he to be made Mayor of Abergavenny.
Rounding a corner, the old man came upon an elderly, hard-featured woman who stood to rest and lean a basket which she carried against the bank.
“Oh! Mr. Bumpett,” she exclaimed as he approached, “oh! Mr. Bumpett.”