My Neighbors | Page 8

"My father, journey with Gwen. Walk will I with Lissi Workhouse."
That afternoon Abel brought a cow in calf into his close; and that night Ben crossed the mown hayfields to the Vicarage, and he threw a little gravel at Lissi's window.
* * * * *
The hay was gathered and stacked and thatched, and the corn was cut down, and to the women who were gleaning his father's oats, Ben said how that Lissi was in the family way.
"Silence your tone, indeed," cried one, laughing. "No sign have I seen."
"If I died," observed a large woman, "boy bach pretty innocent you are, Benshamin. Four months have I yet. And not showing much do I."
"No," said another, "the bulk might be only the coil of your apron, ho-ho."
"Whisper to us," asked the large woman, "who the foxer is. Keep the news will we."
"Who but the scamp of the Parson?" replied Ben. "What a sow of a hen."
By such means Ben shifted his offense. On being charged by the Parson he rushed through the roads crying that the enemy of the Big Man had put unbecoming words on a harlot's tongue. Capel Dissenters believed him. "He could not act wrongly with a sheep," some said.
So Ben tasted the sapidness and relish of power, and his desires increased.
"Mortgage Deinol, my father bach," he said to Abel. "Going am I to London. Heavy shall I be there. None of the dirty English are like me."
"Already have I borrowed for your college. No more do I want to have. How if I sell a horse?"
"Sell you the horse too, my father bach."
"Done much have I for you," Abel said. "Fairish I must be with your sisters."
"Why for you cavil like that, father? The money of mam came to Deinol. Am I not her son?"
Though his daughters, murmured--"We wake at the caw of the crows," they said, "and weary in the young of the day"--Abel obeyed his son, who thereupon departed and came to Thornton East to the house of Catherine Jenkins, a widow woman, with whom he took the appearance of a burning lover.
Though he preached with a view at many English chapels in London, none called him. He caused Abel to sell cattle and mortgage Deinol for what it was worth and to give him all the money he received therefrom; he swore such hot love for Catherine that the woman pawned her furniture for his sake.
Intrigued that such scant fruit had come up from his sowings, Ben thought of further ways of stablishing himself. He inquired into the welfare of shop-assistants from women and girls who worshiped in Welsh chapels, and though he spoiled several in his quest, the abominations which oppressed these workers were made known to him. Shop-assistants carried abroad his fame and called him "Fiery Taffy." Ben showed them how to rid themselves of their burden; "a burden," he said, "packed full and overflowing by men of my race--the London Welsh drapers."
The Welsh drapers were alarmed, and in a rage with Ben. They took the opinion of their big men and performed slyly. Enos-Harries--this is the Enos-Harries who has a drapery shop in Kingsend--sent to Ben this letter: "Take Dinner with Slf and Wife same, is Late Dinner I am pleased to inform. You we don't live in Establishment only as per printed Note Heading. And Oblige."
Enos-Harries showed Ben his house, and told him the cost of the treasures that were therein.
Also Harries said: "I have learned of you as a promising Welshman, and I want to do a good turn for you with a speech by you on St. David's Day at Queen's Hall. Now, then."
"I am not important enough for that."
"She'll be a first-class miting in tip-top speeches. All the drapers and dairies shall be there in crowds. Three sirs shall come."
"I am choked with engagements," said Ben. "I am preaching very busy now just."
"Well-well. Asked I did for you are a clean Cymro bach. As I repeat, only leading lines in speakers shall be there. Come now into the drawing-room and I'll give you an intro to the Missus Enos-Harries. In evening dress she is--chik Paris Model. The invoice price was ten-ten."
"Wait a bit," Ben remarked. "I would be glad if I could speak."
"Perhaps the next time we give you the invite. The Cymrodorion shall be in the miting."
"As you plead, try I will."
"Stretching a point am I," Harries said. "This is a favor for you to address this glorious miting where the Welsh drapers will attend and the Missus Enos-Harries will sing 'Land of my Fathers.'"
Ben withdrew from his fellows for three days, and on the third day--which was that of the Saint--he put on him a frock coat, and combed down his mustache over the blood-red swelling on his lip; and he cleaned his teeth. Here