Mr. Rhys

“ There never was a house that seemed to be so love's work; Mr. Rhys's own hand had most manifestly been everywhere; and the furniture that Mrs. Caxton had sent he had placed. But Mrs. Caxton had not sent all. Eleanor's eye rested on a dressing-table that certainly never came from England. ”

“ Eleanor looked up and gave Mr. Rhys a good view of her honest eyes; they looked very intent now and somewhat sorrowful.
"Mr. Rhys, except in Plassy, I do not know such a person as you ask me about."
"Is it possible!" he said.
"Mr. Rhys, I was thinking the servants of Christ have good need of that 'helmet of salvation' I used to wish for."
"Well, they have it!" he said brightly. "'If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be.' That is the end of all. But there is another point of service that occurs to me. We have seen that we must not lease ourselves ”

“ Neither did Eleanor neglect the flowers. Mr. Rhys made his home there, and went out to his preaching and visiting and teaching as vigorously as ever; and was often a tired man when he came home. Nevertheless he gained ground, to Mrs. Caxton's great satisfaction. He grew stronger; and was less often a silent, prostrated, done-over member of their little circle. At first he was very often that. But when he felt well he was exceedingly social and conversational; and the Plassy farmhouse had never been so pleasant, nor the evenings and mornings and meal times so full of interest. ”

“ They talk too much, these rioters,” replied Rhys with a short laugh, riding up closer to Fenton. “Never you mind, sir, how I know it, but know it I do. It’s to take place before long, and it’s to be the Wye gate, down by the river at Llangarth.”
“By Gad! is it? Well, we’ll come out as strong as we can and be a match for the whole crew. You are a yeomanry man, aren’t you?”
“No, I am not. Though I have often thought——”
“Ah, but you’ll come out, surely Mr. Walters!” interrupted Harry, cutting the sentence short, “a man like you, with the Lord knows how many horses and men!” ”

“ O we are all dependent. Mr. Rhys is domesticated now with Brother Lefferts and his family. I suppose he feels it less, because he has not had a home of his own in a good while; that makes a difference."
"He knows he has a home of his own too," said Mrs. Caxton ”

“ My next informant is Mr. D. J. Jones, a native of the [356] Rhonđa Valley, in the same county of Glamorgan. He was an undergraduate of Jesus College, Oxford, when I consulted him in 1892. His information was to the effect that he knows of three interesting wells in the county. The first is situated within two miles of his home, and is known as Ffynnon Pen Rhys, or the Well of Pen Rhys. The custom there is that the person who wishes his health to be benefited should wash in the water of the well, and throw a pin into it afterwards. ”

“ Here Mr. Rhys with a very bright look established Eleanor, and proceeded to make amends for keeping her so long from Mrs. Balliol's table. Much to her astonishment there was a piece of broiled chicken and a dish of eggs nicely cooked, and Mr. Rhys was pouring out for her some tea in delicate little cups of china.
"You see aunt Caxton, do you not?" he said.
"O aunt Caxton! in these cups. I thought so. But I had no idea you had such cooks in Fiji?"
"They will learn—in time," said he shortly. "You perceive this is an unorganized establishment. I have not indulged in tablecloths yet ”

“ Pryse was God Almighty! Sure the battle's not lost before it do be fought. 'Deed, you couldn't fret worse if Rhys had been carried off like my Evan. Look to God, mistress; His breath can shrivel up Mr. Pryse like a leaf in an east wind.'
But the shock was too new for immediate consolation. Philosophy is no plaister for a raw wound.
Meanwhile William had tossed the 'notice' across the table to Rhys, with the remark, on which he set his strong, white teeth, 'The skinny old kite has whetted his beak, and do be thinking to tear us with his talons ”

“ The two men’s arms whirled simultaneously in the air, and two violent blows descended upon Vaughan; as Rhys struck out, a lump of mud and stone whizzed sharply in his face, and his stick came down upon the toll-keeper’s shoulder. Evans’ blow struck him full on his grey head, and, with a groan, the old man fell, as he had stood, at the foot of his shattered gate-post.
Hosea saw what he had done and was seized with terror, but his native cunning did not desert him; the advantage [Pg 50] of Rhys’ near presence was plain. “Oh, Mr. Walters, you have killed him,” he cried loudly. ”

“ Twm was desirous to change his country suit for something better, and commenced negotiations with Mr. Rhys, for the purchase of one of the latest clerical cut from him. The worthy curate, however, cut him short, and generously presented him with one a little the worse for wear, that as the mass of mankind were apt to judge by external appearances, an appropriate p. 175garb would aid even a man of merit in making a favourable impression.
The house of the vicar of Llandovery was among the best in the town ”

“ There is no cave to be seen in the rock, and probably there never was one, as the formation is the Old Red Sandstone; and the island was perhaps equally imaginary.’
That is the substance of Mr. James’ letter, in which he, moreover, refers to J. D. Rhys’ account of the lake in his Welsh introduction to his Grammar, published in London in 1592, under the title Cambrobrytannicæ Cymraecæve Linguæ Institutiones et Rudimenta. ”

“ Sikes.
‘But the fair family did not,’ Mr. William Jones goes on to say, ‘always give mortals the means of good living: sometimes they made no little fun of them. Once on a time the Drws y Coed man was going home from Beđgelert Fair, rather merry than sad, along the old road over the Gader, when he saw, on coming near [100] the top of the Gader, a fine, handsome house near the road, in which there was a rare merrymaking. He knew perfectly well that there was no such a building anywhere on his way, and it made him think that he had lost his way and gone astray ”

“ The next Arthurian story is not strictly in point, for it makes no allusion to treasure; but as it is otherwise so similar to Iolo’s tale I cannot well avoid introducing it here. It is included in the composite story of Bwca ’r Trwyn, ‘the Bogie of the Nose,’ written out for me in Gwentian Welsh by Mr. Craigfryn Hughes. The cave portion relates how a Monmouthshire farmer, whose house was grievously troubled by the bogie, set out one morning to call on a wizard who lived near Caerleon, and how he on his way came up with a very strange and odd man who wore a three-cornered hat. ”

“ When she reached home she opened the purse, and, to her great joy, it was full of money: she lived happily on those earnings to the end of her life.’
With this ending of the story one should contrast Dewi Glan Ffrydlas’ tale to which I have already alluded; and I may here refer to Mr. Sikes’ British Goblins, pp. 86–8, for a tale differing from both Dewi’s and Jones’, in that the fairies are there made to appear as devils to the nurse, who had accidentally used a certain ointment which she was not to place near her own eyes. ”

“ What can you have to think about, whatever?'
''Deed, nobody knows my thinks,' replied the boy, without turning round.
'You will very soon know my thinks,' retorted Rhys, 'if you do not pick up your basket, and get to your weeding. You are one of the "late and lazy who will never be rich." Come, stir you.' And, as if to enforce obedience, Rhys raised his disengaged hand and struck the other a sharp blow across the shoulders.
At once William turned round, his cheeks and eyes aflame. Rhys thought he was about to strike him back again. ”

“ She took up a corner of her cloak, and pressed it to her eyes; there was something infinitely pathetic in the gesture. It was an acceptance of so much—more even than lay in that one interview.
“Dear, don’t you be afraid,” said Rhys, “there’s not the smallest chance of any of us being caught. We have it spread all over the country, that there’s to be a fine to-do that night at the gate by the river, and every constable will be down there and out of our way.” ”

“ One fine evening in the month of June a brave, adventurous youth, the heir of Ystrad, went to the banks of the Gwyrfai, not far from where it leaves Cweỻyn Lake, and hid himself in the bushes near the spot where the folks of the Red Coats—the fairies—were wont to dance. The moon shone forth brightly without a cloud to intercept her light; all was quiet save where the Gwyrfai gently murmured on her bed, and it was not long before the young man had the satisfaction of seeing the fair family dancing in full swing. ”

“ According to Mr. Pughe of Aberdovey, the same feat was performed at Ỻyn Barfog, not, however, by Hu and his oxen, but by Arthur and his horse. To be more exact the task may be here considered as done by Arthur superseding Hu: see p. 142 above. That, however, is of no consequence here, and I return to the afanc: the Fan Fach legend told to Mr. Reynolds [430] makes the lake ruler huge and hairy, hideous and rough-spoken, but he expresses himself in human speech, in fact in two lines of doggerel: see p. 19 above. On the other hand, the Ỻyn Cwm Ỻwch story, which puts the same doggerel, p. ”

“ He owed the farm-servant a grudge accordingly. He rejoiced when he heard that Rhys regarded Evans as an interloper, and never missed an opportunity, by subtle sneer or insinuation, to fan the supposed antagonism into an active flame.
As years rolled on, and he saw the down of incipient manhood darken on the lip of Rhys, ever his mother's escort on rent-days, his innuendoes became broader and stronger. There was an air of self-sustained mastership about the sturdy young fellow that suggested ripe soil for his weeds. ”

“ As the new-comer was caught sight of by the huddled-up pack, a loud laugh burst from all and made the empty lane ring.
“Be quiet,” cried Rhys angrily, under his breath. “You fools! can’t you keep from waking the whole place with your noise? Good God! what sort of a tom-fool have we here?”
Before the astonished young man stood a travesty of himself, dress, dark cloak, sun-bonnet, and all, the only additions being a mask and a white woollen comforter, one end of which hung down over a substantial back. ”

“ He died an old man about three years ago. I give his stories as transmitted to me by Mr. Davies, but the reader will find them a little hazy now and then, as when the fairies are made into ordinary conjurer’s devils:—
Rhywbeth rhyfeđ yw yr hen Gasteỻ yna (gan olygu Craig Ynys Geinon) : yr wyf yn cofio yr amser pan y byđai yn đychryn gan bobl fyned yn agos ato—yn enwedig y nos: yr oeđ yn dra pheryglus rhag i đyn gael ei gymeryd at Bendith eu Mamau. Fe đywedir fod wmređ o’r rheiny yna, er na wn i pa le y maent yn cadw. ”

“ Since he had been able to think at all, Rhys had dimly felt this, for it is a frame of mind of whose existence in a woman no masculine human being is ever quite unconscious. When he had grown old enough to understand it, it had given him a violent push in the opposite direction, and set his adolescent brain in a flame.
It was so dark when he reached the Pedlar’s Stone that he had to grope about among the bushes to find it, and he traced his way from it with difficulty to the rock on which he and Isoline had sat. ”

“ Ellen Edwards, and it refers to a point in her lifetime, which Abel Evans fixes at ninety years ago. Mr. Roberts has not succeeded in recovering the name of the cottager of whom it speaks; but he lived on the side of the Berwyn, above Cwm Pennant, where till lately a cottage used to stand, near which the fairies had one of their resorts:—
Yr oeđ perchen y bwthyn wedi amaethu rhyw ran fychan o’r mynyđ ger ỻaw y ty er mwyn plannu pytatws ynđo. Feỻy y gwnaeth. Mewn coeden yn agos i’r fan canfyđođ nyth bran. Fe feđyliođ mae doeth fuasai iđo đryỻio y nyth cyn amlhau o’r brain. ”

“ It was so very serious a thing for brothers in one house to bicker and quarrel; small differences were so liable to grow into great ones, even to enmity and hatred.
Rhys listened uneasily, fidgeted, puckered his brows, and at last jerked out, 'Look you, Robert Jones, that boy Willem is the plague of my life. He will not take orders from me. And who else should give orders if I am to manage the farm? ”

“ To the Western mind, so curiously incapable of understanding anything which does not assail it through its body, and which has such a strange pride in its own limitations, such things are folly. But the double life is there, the pulsations of knowledge which can be dimly heard through that receptiveness of mind born of long silence, and though Rhys knew it as little as do most of his nation, he had a dim consciousness of change. That the quietness of night soothed him was all he understood or ever would understand ”

“ The good-natured Rhys could scarce forbear smiling, when Twm informed him of the circumstance that had first led his thoughts to visit Llandovery also, and that he was determined to go there to seek his fortune, and felt a sort of presentiment that he should be successful: “Well,” said he, “your fortunes are altogether romantic, and fortitude such as yours is a virtue that becomes us all. ”

“ When he spoke, Rhys used much less gesticulation than was common to his countrymen (for he was three-parts a Welshman) , but his thin lips moved a great deal and the quick turns of his close-cropped head—he kept his hair short when it was the fashion among men to wear it rather long—showed that he did not by any means possess the true phlegmatic temperament. Above all, he looked entirely at one with the natural and animal creation around him. Had he been a poorer man, he might easily have been taken for a poacher, had he been a richer one, for a country gentleman of active and sporting tastes ”