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

'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.