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

Mrs. Edwards did not readily reconcile herself to the loss of her faithful serving-maid Ales. Still less readily to the substitution of Cate, for, now that she was the wife of Rhys, she took another footing on the floor than when she was Cate Griffith, and she allowed no one to forget that the farm was left to Rhys by his grandfather's will, and, therefore, he was master, the implication being that she was mistress.

Hitherto Mrs. Edwards had been head and front of everything. As she had told Mr. Pryse, 'she was the farmer.' It was for her to dictate, for others to obey.

Now, as she had foreseen, the marriage of Rhys had subverted all that. Not that Rhys himself had changed his manner towards his mother, but he had long held himself competent to manage the farm without guidance; and when there was no capable Ales at hand to anticipate her wishes, and even the orders she gave to her own daughter Jonet were apt to be disputed and reversed by the young wife, she felt much like a queen deposed. She did not, however, surrender her sceptre willingly, but pursued her own course as of old. As little was Jonet disposed to take orders from her sister-in-law.

The consequent result was confusion, mismanagement, and altercation, Cate's voice having suddenly grown shrill and loud.

Of course Rhys took the part of his wife – though dubiously – whilst William and Davy enlisted on the side of the mother or Jonet; so that, although the oppressor was no more, and the sun of prosperity was rising over Brookside Farm, peace spread her weary wings for flight.

Outside, Jonet had an ally in Thomas Williams, and he did his best to console her with the prospect of escape to wifehood, and a home of her own – a home for which her own distaff and her mother's spinning-wheel were busily making preparation.

Hot-tempered William was, however, the first to shake the dust of the old home from his well-shod feet.

It was after a sharp altercation over the vexed question of home rule, which had left Jonet and his mother both in tears, that he startled them by saying —

'Well, well, really, I did never be expecting to turn my back on the old place with pleasure. But I am going to Cardiff next week, to be doing some building for Mr. Morris; and, look you, it is rejoicing I shall be to leave all this noise and contention behind.'

'Going away!' was the breathless, general exclamation, with varying addenda.

''Deed, and sure you're welcome! You do be the most obstinate and worst-tempered of the whole lot,' from Cate.

'Well, Willem, I'll be sorry to be seeing the back of you; but sure and it may perhaps be the best for all,' added Rhys.

'What, going before I do be marrying?' questioned Jonet; 'but I don't wonder, anybody would be glad to get away.'

'Going to Cardiff? Oh, my dear boy, my Willem, what ever shall I be doing without you? Will you be long away?' cried his mother.

'Sure, and I cannot tell, mother dear. I may never come back to live here. And I am loth to leave you behind to be plagued with the "continual dropping" of a contentious woman, but I hope to have a farm of my own some day for you to manage, look you.'

Peace-loving Davy now put in his word, in lowered tones, to William and his mother.

''Deed, and I was be thinking for some time that the farm was not big enough to hold Cate and me. But if you be going away, Willem, I shall be staying to take care of mother here, till I can be making a home for her – yes, yes!' and he wrung William's hand as a token of brotherly love and trust.

In a very few days William was on his way to Cardiff, having taken a grateful farewell of the vicar on the Sunday; for, although Cardiff was little more than nineteen miles away, even by the Caerphilly route, they were more than equal to ninety in these steam and railroad times.

His mother parted from him with many rueful misgivings, and much good advice to resist the temptations sure to beset him in a wicked seaport town, much as an anxious country mother might in these days warn her untried son against the countless snares of London. And as she stitched her warmest flannel up into shirts for him, and looked up newly-knitted hose, her tears fell upon them silently as her prayers.

His personal belongings did not occupy much space. A few tools, chap-books and papers, and his entire wardrobe were comfortably packed in his father's old goatskin saddle-bags; and Robert Jones, with whom he had had several conferences of late on the qualities of stone from different quarries, found him a good steady horse which could be left at the Angel Inn until Robert claimed it on his next errand to Cardiff.

Robert Jones did him another service, the importance of which neither estimated at the time. He recommended him to apply for lodgings to a blind baker, named Walter Rosser, whose wife and niece were certain to make him comfortable.

The baker's shop was easily found, but there was some little hesitation about admitting a stranger as an inmate.

'What caused you to come hither in search of lodgings?' put the blind man, with his head on one side as if listening for the answer. 'And what may be your business in the town?'

'Robert Jones the peat-cutter did advise me to come here. He said you was honest and respectable and book-learned, and that you would be dealing fairly with me. And that your wife did be keeping your house as sweet and clean as my own mother kept the farm. My business do be to build for Mr. John Morris, look you!'

'There's a clear ring in your voice, young man,' said the baker then. 'And what may be your name?'

'I am Willem Edwards, of Brookside Farm, Eglwysilan,' answered he, with proud decision – just a little nettled with the blind man's catechism.

'Oh,' said the other, 'I think I have heard of you before. You did build Owen Wynn's flour-mill. Yes, yes, we shall be glad to have you, sir. You perceive my infirmity compels me to be particular whom we receive under our roof, since I have a young niece here, who has neither father nor mother to watch over her, and we are bound to be careful for her sake.'

'Yes, yes, sure, quite right,' assented the young man, after a glance beyond the baker and his wife at a blushing damsel in the shade.

Shops at that period were constructed much as are Turkish shops to this day. Very few had glazed windows. At night they were closed in by flap shutters, divided horizontally; the lower half of which was lowered in the daytime to serve as a table or counter for the display of goods, the upper half being so hooked up by an iron rod as to serve for a screen from sun or rain. The shop doors were similarly divided, the upper half hooking up to the low ceiling inside. I have known many such doors in country towns in England, some of which are, no doubt, extant to this day.

It will be readily understood that shops of this description, however small, were dark in the background, and to eyes less keen than William's, Elaine Parry's blush would have passed unnoticed. It required after-observation to perceive how neat and trim she always was, how bashful and retiring, and how quiet and subdued were all her movements; what a steadfast light there was in her clear, hazel eyes, and what pretty dimples in her cheeks when she smiled.

He only noticed then that she remained quiescent when her uncle cried —

'Come in, sir – come in! I'll mind your horse whilst my good dame shows you the room we could let you have.'

Up one or two short flights of stairs with landings turning this way or that, then down a step into a short, dark passage or recess containing two doors, and he was ushered into a small bedroom, which to him was the perfection of order and comfort – nay, luxury. True, there was only a narrow truckle bedstead, with a flock bed upon it, dowlas[14 - Dowlas, a coarse kind of linen.] sheets, and a dark blue woollen coverlet, but he had never been accustomed to anything better; and there was a diamond-paned casement, with a table in front, on which was a coarse earthenware basin and ewer, and, hung against the wall, a looking-glass about the size of a sheet of note-paper, all luxurious intimations that his personal ablutions might be conducted in private. Then there was a fireplace in the room – just a couple of short iron bars fitted into the brickwork – and beside it, in a recess, a piece of furniture which puzzled William extremely. Yet it was nothing more than an oaken bureau, the drawers of which Mrs. Rosser pulled open to show that they were for his use if he became their inmate. The mystery of the turn-down flap for writing, the sliding rests to support its weight, and the enclosed pigeon-holes for papers was a revelation for the future.

He was almost afraid to ask 'How much?' and was wonderfully gratified to find the terms below his calculations, and also that he was expected to take his meals with the family.

All that settled, the door across the dark passage was opened, and a room with a larger casement was revealed. Here all was equally clean, from the well-scrubbed floor to the centre table and tall chairs ranged with stiff precision against the walls, whilst a broad seat beneath the window held piles of books, and the empty fireplace was adorned with large conch shells.

'You can come and sit here if you want to be quiet, and will not make a litter,' said Mrs. Rosser. 'We seldom use the room, except when my husband is teaching.'

'Teaching?' echoed William curiously.

'Oh yes; don't you know he teaches people to read English?'

'Does what?' he almost gasped.

Mrs. Rosser repeated her words.

'Then Robert Jones has been doing me the best turn he ever did yet, for, look you, I've been wanting to learn English reading for many a year.'

How it was possible for a blind man to give such instruction was beyond his comprehension. He accepted the statement as one more of the marvels he had come across in the baker's comfortable home; and he brought in his saddle-bags, and gave his horse in charge to the baker's man, as if he were not sure he was wide awake.

He very soon discovered it was just the difference between living in a town of some antiquity within reach of a prosperous maritime city like Bristol, and dwelling apart among the mountain wilds, shut out from general intercourse, and dependent on itinerant packmen for everything but home produce.

Even in his meals there was some difference. If he still breakfasted on porridge, he was unaccustomed to see meat or eggs on the table daily, or to find the oven substituted for the big pot in cookery, and he missed the potatoes in which they indulged on the farm.

When the shyness between himself and Elaine Parry, Mrs. Rosser's pretty niece, had somewhat worn away, he told her this.

'Oh,' said she, 'they are too dear for us. They are two shillings a pound in Cardiff market.'

'No, indeed! Then I will tell Robert Jones. The farmers do be planting; they will be cheaper before long, look you.'

And before very long a sack of good potatoes was set down by Robert Jones at the baker's door, a present from Brookside Farm.

In the interim William Edwards had not been idle. The site selected for the smelting works was just outside Cardiff, and within easy reach of the river.

There materials had been collected, and with the sole assistance of John Llwyd, he built, in the first instance, a blast-furnace on a small scale, tapering like a cone, the ore and fuel for which had to be supplied from the top, there being an orifice below from which the molten metal would escape in a stream.