The Making of William Edwards; or, The Story of the Bridge of Beauty

'You don't be turned off this yet. And it's my firm belief you will be keeping the farm in spite of old Pryse. God's finger is stronger than man's arm. You wait and be patient. I've not been dreaming of Evan night after night for nothing. He seems to say, "I'm coming, I'm coming;" and I feel as if God was bringing him back, look you. I do!'

'Ah, poor, foolish Ales! your longings do create your dreams. Evan be as far to seek as our lease.'

'May be so, and may be not. I do be feeling as if he was as near and as warm almost as the loaf just baked, look you. And I feel, I feel' —

'You do look half out of your mind, Ales,' said Mrs. Edwards, in grave rebuke, rising from her hopeless quest and locking the coffer again. 'This be no time to talk of foolish dreams.'

'Mother,' called Jonet from the bedroom they were searching, 'there be a strange man with a bundle on a stick coming over the stile, and he's dripping wet.'

Ales screamed, darted out by the open door, and before Mrs. Edwards could follow she was clasped in the arms of a rough-looking fellow, and crying out, 'I knew, I knew! Thank God!' In another moment she was sobbing and laughing hysterically on his breast in the reaction of her strange excitement.

'Name o' goodness, that never do be you, Evan?' burst from Mrs. Edwards in unmitigated amazement.

'Ay, ay, it's me for certain,' was answered cheerily, as the sturdy, unshaved man brushed past her, carrying his limp sweetheart into the kitchen and grandfather's stiff-backed chair, heedless of the wet trail he left upon the floor.

Picture the excitement. Strong-minded Ales in hysterics! Jonet and Cate rushing about wildly, and shouting out that long-lost Evan had come back! William and Rhys hurrying in, astonished and delighted, followed by Davy, for once in a hurry; and Evan, loth to release Ales, puzzled to find hands for them all to shake at once, and equally puzzled how to compose Ales, who is sobbing and laughing by turns.

Housewifely instinct, or a peculiar fume in her nostrils, acts as a restorative. 'The bread's burning,' she gasps and Cate presses forward to the rescue of the scorching loaves, forgotten in the confusion and excitement.

Then follows a string of questions, huddled one upon another, but before any one can be answered, Mrs. Edwards says dolefully, 'Ah, Evan, we be thankful to see you back, but you have come on a sad day for all that.'

'Have I? Then, 'deed, it had nearly been a sadder for in coming across the ford, I either mistook my depth, or the water is rising, for it came up to my waistband, and nearly carried me off my feet. But I'm not to be drowned, that's clear, till I've settled with that old rogue Pryse,' he says, with an emphasis and a look that are in themselves anathemas.

'Ah, I told you so,' cries Ales. 'Woe to the man that makes a hundred sad!' but in the midst of an affirmative chorus comes an interruption in the shape of the old brown house-dog, wagging his tail and dropping a big bundle wrapped in sailcloth at the feet of Evan, then jumping up to ask for recognition and thanks.

It is then seen that Evan is standing in a pool of water, whereupon Mrs. Edwards orders him off to change his wet clothes for the dry ones in his bundle, whilst she and the other women bestir themselves to set the dinner on the table, Ales making all sorts of blunders in the process.

It is by no means a common dinner on a Welsh farm table at that period, although it only comprises pork, potatoes, and greens, boiled in the same pot with the dough dumplings. Mrs. Edwards marks it out reverently as they take their seats.

'Let us be thanking Almighty God that the good food provided for our last dinner under this roof should have become, by His blessing, a thanksgiving feast; for the one supposed dead do be alive again, the one lost do be found.'

The general 'Amen' was peculiarly solemn, and it occurred to Evan that for a thanksgiving there was more of sorrow than gladness.

Then the first greeting of Mrs. Edwards recurred to him, coupled with the remark about a 'last dinner'; and though the savour was appetising, and his fast had been long, he could not have touched a morsel until his doubts were resolved. He put his question, and was speedily answered by more than one voice —

'Oh, Evan, we cannot find our lease, and Mr. Pryse be going to drive us off the farm to-morrow.'

It was his turn to look solemn. ''Deed, and that do be bad. You do have a lease, sure to goodness?'

'Oh yes. Willem found grandfather's will, and the lease do be left to Rhys; but no lease can we be finding anywhere.'

'Where have you been looking?'

All sorts of likely and unlikely places were named.

'My first master kept his lease in the Bible. Did you look there?'

'Indeed, yes, Evan,' came from Mrs. Edwards, with a disheartened sigh; 'I turned over every leaf.'

'Oh, I do mean under the old cloth cover. He kept his there.'

A moment of breathless astonishment – a general rise from the table!

Mrs. Edwards was down on her knees unlocking the coffer.

In another minute the Bible was out; the stout cloth cover ripped off. There lay the parchment, flat and clean, as when laid there years upon years before by hands now in the clasp of death.

'Thank God!' cried Mrs. Edwards, still upon her knees. 'My children, the finger of God is in this. Our search did be vain till He did send His own messenger to point it out. As Ales did say, God's finger is stronger than man's arm; strong to save. Let us once more thank Him.'

The relief had been overpowering. The thanksgiving was strong and deep. The reaction was too great almost for speech. The dinner, nearly cold, was eaten in silence; but it was the silence of hopefulness, not despair.

It was followed by a clattering and chattering of loosened tongues, guesses at Mr. Pryse's consternation on the morrow, and questionings of Evan's disappearance and adventures, which we may leave that morrow to answer.

* * * * *

Mean though he was through every fibre of his being, Mr. Pryse was lavish in regard to his own creature comforts. Yet even many of these he contrived to obtain gratuitously from tenants who loved him little and feared him much, or from obsequious sea-captains whose cargo was not altogether coal or iron, captains who had goods to bring ashore without compliments to Custom House officers. And those were anything but days of free trade.

He sat at ease between a cosy fire, which cost him nothing, and a round breakfast-table on which were the remains of chicken, ham, and eggs, all of which were equally cheap. A fragrant aroma of Mocha coffee yet lingered around the foreign china cup and saucer and coffee-pot, none of which had paid duty to England's monarch, any more than the Barcelona silk handkerchief cast lightly over the knee he was indolently nursing on the other, whilst he leaned back in his tall chair picking his teeth, and a smile of uttermost self-content and enjoyment creased the parchment-like skin into folds under his wicked old eyes.

'Yes,' said he, half aloud to himself; 'out they go to-morrow, stock and lot! And let them get another farm where they can. Lease, indeed' – and he chuckled. 'If they could find any lease to show, there would have been no sending of cows and sheep and grain to market. Ah, yes, I shall soon pay off my old score to that fellow who drowned himself like a fool. Yes, and get a higher rent, now that building son of his has enlarged the homestead.'

The chuckle had not died out of his skinny throat when the door opened, and he caught his breath, for a special messenger from his lordship, booted and spurred, like one who rides in haste, entered unannounced, and with the simple remark that he 'had rather a rough passage across the Severn from Bristol that morning, and found the air raw and cold,' presented a sealed packet, marked 'Immediate and important.'

Had he said he crossed in a Revenue cutter, Mr. Pryse might not so readily have taken the hint thrown out.

As it was, he apologised for the coldness of the breakfast, and from a private cabinet produced a bottle of genuine Hollands – which had never gone through a Custom House – and, setting them before his unexpected visitor, invited him to help himself.

'I trust his lordship is well?' he said blandly, but quite as a matter of course.

'No; he was dangerously ill when I left,' came from the courier, with startling bluntness.

What? His easy-going master ill! perhaps dying! Mr. Pryse turned ashen grey. 'You don't say so!' he ejaculated with a gasp, his fingers trembling, as he at last unfolded the despatch and began to read, hardly conscious that the man, smacking his lips over the fiery Hollands, had been watching him all along with keen, observant eyes.

With all Mr. Pryse's self-command the paper rattled in his fingers as he read. It was not a lengthy epistle, and only the signature was his lordship's; the letter was from his son and heir. Its sole purport was to prevent injustice, as the act of a dying man.

In stern and peremptory words it forbade Simon Pryse to harass or disturb the Widow Edwards in her holding, since he must know it was leased for three lives, and would not fall in until the demise of William Edwards' eldest son, then living. Moreover, he was commanded to refund, from his own purse, all excess rent he had extorted from the widow, yet not included in his accounts. And he was required to furnish a true and just statement of all the moneys in his hands and all his dealings and transactions in his lordship's name, not omitting the share he was said to have taken in the abduction of one Evan Evans, seven years prior to that date.

'It shall be done,' said Mr. Pryse hoarsely, as the messenger rose to depart, fully satisfied with the result of his observations.

'Yes, it shall be done!' cried the infuriated agent, when the man was gone, springing to his feet with a tremendous oath. 'But not as his lordship or his lordship's heir proposes. Shall I forego the revenge I have nursed for years, when a few hours will bring the hated tribe within my grip? No; I will set my feet upon their necks if I die for it!' and another fierce anathema parted those thin lips of his.

All on a sudden he stopped short, and bit his long nails viciously. 'Has some one turned traitor?' he murmured between set teeth. 'Those poor farming idiots could not get a letter to his lordship's hand. No matter. The bolt has fallen sooner than I expected, but trust me to be taken unprepared. It has fallen in the nick of time. In another hour the Cambria would have sailed.'

Upstairs, three steps at a time like a boy, he ran, exulting in his own crafty schemes for outwitting justice; drew his blue and white check curtain quite across his bedroom window – a preconcerted signal to the Cambria's skipper – changed his kerseymere smalls for his leather riding breeches, and was downstairs in his private office as usual, yet not as usual. He was on his knees before his strong box and his golden god.

In his guilty knowledge and his craftiness, he had years before prepared for flight on emergency. He had lodged a portion of his filchings in Wood's Gloucester Bank, under a fictitious name. Yet as there was no other provincial bank at that time in all England and Wales, and no bank notes under £20 value, exchange was not easy. Rents, etc., were paid in specie. Specie also was transmitted to his lordship under strict guard. Whenever an opportunity occurred, the agent converted coin into notes, and packed them in the waistband of his leather breeches. Still, coin had accumulated in his strong box, always packed close, and secured with triple locks, ready for removal on short notice, though its weight belied its bulk.

The signal brought the skipper. There was already a tacit understanding between the worthy pair, and their conference was brief. Arrangements were made for the Cambria to drop down the river with the evening tide, and lay to outside in the bay. Fain would the skipper have Mr. Pryse go aboard with his strong box, and make all sail at once.

No, no; he was not willing to forego his revenge or the prospect of adding a succession of rents to his ill-gotten gains; so a four-oared boat was to meet him at Taff's Well landing-place up the river on the morrow, and await his coming – ay, even until midnight.

His impish friends, Avarice and Malice, were more potent advisers than the wary skipper; so, with a shrug of the shoulders, he withdrew, and obeyed.

'That's a heavy load you've got, messmates,' called a sailor to the two others conveying to the schooner the strong box, covered with tarpaulin, as if to protect it from the rain. But they merely answered, 'Ay, ay,' and declined assistance.

The afternoon was then far spent, but two horses stood at the door, and in a few minutes Mr. Pryse, booted and spurred, and cased in a long riding-coat, was in the saddle, the flaps of his three-cornered hat let down, as was commonly the case in wet weather, so as to convert it into a broad-brimmed slouch, a pair of saddle-bags slung before him, likewise holsters, fitted with pistols, carefully loaded.

He trotted away from the door he was never to see again, with a lie on his lips to his housekeeper, and, followed by his less elaborately-accoutred attendant, took the new Merthyr Tydvil Road, which not only ran parallel with the river in a direct line wherever practicable, but avoided the long detour by Caerphilly, where no rents would be paid until the Martinmas Fair.

He had rents, and more than rents, to collect as he stopped at wayside houses, or so-called inns, off and on the direct road, and was not to be denied, though a day before due. So he managed to pocket some heavy cash before, at a late hour, he stopped for the night under the shadow of cliff-seated Castel Coch, to dry his drenched overcoat, eat a hearty supper, and retire to rest, leaving orders that he was to be in the saddle by daybreak in the morning.

He was in a desperate hurry to transact his pleasant bit of business with Mrs. Edwards, but could not forbear grasping at all the coin he could by the way, never thinking that the overreaching hand is apt to grasp at shadows.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE FINGER OF GOD

The heavy rain had ceased in the night. The sky was clear, the eaves and trees had forgotten to drip, the mist was lifting from the mountain-top and from the surcharged river, when, after a succession of profitable calls, between nine and ten o'clock in the morning, master and man rode up the rugged ascent to Brookside Farm, and, dismounting, the former walked into the house with insolent assumption, and, finding only Mrs. Edwards there, demanded rudely —

'Is the half-year's rent ready?' Of course, that was his first care.

'There do be no rent owing, sir.'

'What do you mean, woman?'

'I mean that you have been paid, and overpaid, and I do not be going to pay you one brass farthing.'

He grew livid, set his teeth, and looked as if he would have struck her to the ground.

'We'll see about that. You had due notice to quit. You have stayed on the farm in defiance of the law, and now, by' – (and he swore a great oath) – 'you shall turn out without stick or stock. Morgan,' over his shoulder to the man, 'call up the other men. We will soon see who is master here. I seize in his lordship's name.'

'And I forbid in his lordship's name,' said Mr. Morris, whose shadow in the doorway had been mistaken for the man Morgan's.

Mr. Pryse recoiled. Mr. Morris was no stranger to him; and no friend of his, he well knew. What brought him there, or the vicar, close at his heels?

'By what right do you presume to interfere?' he asked boldly.

'By this, sir,' unfolding a letter. 'I presume you know his lordship's hand and seal. You were not the only one for whom the courier had a despatch yesterday.'

Mr. Pryse seemed to shrink within his clothes. A greenish hue overspread the yellow of his skin. A clammy dew burst out upon his forehead. Had he spurned the skipper's sage advice only to come here for this? It was maddening to think of.

He attempted to brazen it out, as a last resource.

'I am acting in his lordship's interest, sir. He has been shamelessly misinformed. These people have not paid more than a fair rental. And they never had a lease.'

'What do you be calling that, sir?' And Rhys pressing to the front, held up the lease – at a safe distance, for Mr. Pryse appeared ready to spring upon it like a wild cat.

'And now, sir,' said Mr. Morris sternly, 'you will have to disgorge. Those are his lordship's orders. You see we hold a quittance for half a year's rent. Evan, bring forward the receipt.'

Had a ghost risen from the grave to confront him, Mr. Pryse could not have looked more aghast or terror-stricken, when Evan stepped from behind into the light, with the faded receipt in his hand.

Baffled, defeated, confronted, as it were, by the dead.

Mr. Pryse shrieked aloud, fell on his knees, covering his eyes with his quivering hands.

'You here? —you? I fancied you had gone down with the Osprey.'

'You hear him, gentlemen? You hear him? He do be owning his share in kidnapping me! No, you smuggling old rogue, when the Osprey went all to pieces on the rocks at the Land's End with its drunken crew and cargo – I, yes indeed I, gentlemen, who had been dragged on board bound like a thief – I did be the only one saved. I had been sent up aloft to punish me because I would not join the wicked crew, and when the mast did go overboard, I held on for my very life. I did be picked up the next day by an outward-bound East Indiaman, when there was little life left in me. But I wasn't to be drowned till I'd settled scores with this old villain here, that did send me adrift with rogues like himself, and to rob the widow blackened my honest name.

'No, Mr. Pryse, though I've been sailing the seas all these sorrowful years in one craft or other, cuffed, kicked, half-starved, used worse than a dog, and never able to make my way back to my sweetheart or home, if it had not been for another shipwreck I'd never have been here now. A Liverpool trader took me and two shipmates off a raft in the middle of the ocean, when we was half-mad with hunger and thirst, and the good captain, God bless him, sent me on shore at Fishguard, to make my way home to my sweetheart as quick as I could. And I didn't have to beg my way, for I had got money hid under my belt. And I do be thanking God sirs, for bringing me here in time to confound this wicked old shivering coward. I do be feeling as if I could shake every bone out of his ugly skin, but Ales bids me leave him to God and his master.'

''Deed, he deserves kicking from the top of the hill to the bottom,' thrust in fiery William.

Not a word had the detected steward spoken, but his features and his lean fingers worked vindictively, as if longing to grasp the speakers' throats.

All at once he shrieked out —

'That receipt's a forgery, a vile forgery. Look at it, gentlemen. That paper has never been in salt water. Ugh! How could a common sailor keep a bit of paper unworn and dry for six years, and through two shipwrecks? It is absurd.'

Gaining courage from his own sneering suggestion, Mr. Pryse rose to his feet, little expecting the answer which came from William.

''Deed, no, sirs. Neither our receipt, nor Owen Griffith's here, nor Evan's own money ever went nearer the sea than old Breint's saddle. He had made a private pocket under the lining, and there they did be waiting for him, yes, sure.'

'It's well they did, for those thieves on the Osprey did be stripping me of all I had,' put in Evan.

And now, Mr. Morris declaring the receipts genuine, insisted on Mr. Pryse there and then refunding the extra rent extorted year by year from Mrs. Edwards, giving a quittance up to date on account of the receipt.

But Mr. Pryse had recovered courage – and craft. He began to bluster. Refused to acknowledge the authority of either Mr. Morris or the vicar. He was answerable to his lordship. To him only would he render an account. He would bid them good-morning.

'Well, sir,' said Mr. Morris, 'I cannot enforce his lordship's commands without legal warrant. But had I known all I have heard since I came hither, I should have come provided with a warrant for your arrest, Mr. Pryse. And I warn you the reckoning will come sooner than you expect.'

Much sooner!

He walked out of the farmhouse with head erect and defiant, as if he had won a victory. He bade Morgan pay his myrmidons and follow; then rode down hill baffled, but not wholly defeated. He had not disgorged a penny, had added other rents as he came along to the hoard he was carrying away. Warrant, indeed! He would soon be beyond reach of warrants!

'Nay,' he shouted back with a snarl, 'threatened men live long;' but before he reached the level, some sense of ungratified revenge must have stung him, for he put spurs to his horse, and dashed on, splashing through the swollen brook, and turning the corner to the ford – not the high-road – as if pursued by a troop of demons.

Blinded by his own evil passions, exulting in his escape, yet alarmed by the sound of hoofs behind him, he spurred his horse to the uncertain ford in the same hot haste, seeing nothing but his own need to cross.

His follower heard a shriek, but reached the river's brink only in time to see a swirling mass of something far down the rain-filled river.

Mr. Pryse had gone to meet the Cambria's boat in other fashion than he contemplated.

His spurs entangled in the stirrups, his pockets and saddle-bags weighted with ill-gotten coin, horse and man had gone together.

A Welshman in a coracle13 called out to the ferryman at Taff's Well Ferry, and he to the Cambria's men rowing up-stream, and amongst them they got a panting, struggling, half-dead horse ashore, to find what had been Mr. Pryse underneath, clutching at the turned saddle and bags with the grip that never relaxes – the grip of death.

Cover him over. Let the Preventive-service men, chasing the other boat, fight with pistol and cutlass for the possession of the dead, his gold, and his incriminating papers, whilst the smart Preventive cutter in the bay boards the short-handed Cambria, and tows her confiscated prize into port, the dead man's strong box included. Little recks the drowned man what becomes of his hoard. He has gone to his final reckoning with a Lord he had forgotten, a Lord no man can cheat or deceive.

Intelligence of his retributive death comes to the rejoicing family at the farm with a sobering shock, but nobody affects to lament. And all over his lordship's wide domain, oppressed men breathe freer for this one man's death.

'Man deliberates, but God delivers,' is said with bated breath by more than sententious Ales, whilst Mrs. Edwards insists that his death is a judgment for his strictures on her lost husband.

And whilst the unhonoured remains of the fraudulent agent are committed to the earth, in Cardiff, with no mourner but his housekeeper, the vicar of Eglwysilan reads out the banns once more for Evan and Ales, and for Rhys Edwards and Cate Griffiths also.

Great is the bustle of preparation. There is money in possession and hope in the future.

There is no need to ask for contributions at the 'bidding,' though the invited guests are many.

The new room William built is being fitted up with somewhat more regard to health and decency than has been common hitherto. Cate is bringing to her bridegroom more than had been looked for – dowlas sheets and blankets, spun and woven under their own cottage roof, and a good flock bed and pillows from the same source. Then she had not been idle, and if under-linen was not worn in those days in that humid climate, she had a fair supply of flannel, and of linsey-woolsey for gowns and aprons, all of her own spinning. Ay, and she had stockings knitted ready to assume with her new dignity.

The cottage at Castella has long been occupied by other tenants. Mr. Morris offers Evan a small farm between Caerphilly and Cardiff, on very easy terms. The goods he had bought and paid for have been sold, but fresh are furnished readily; and Robert Jones generously conveys the long-hoarded household goods of Ales to her new home, without fee or guerdon, and, with them, a winter store of peat and culm as a wedding gift.