My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh PeopleEvans, Caradoc
General
My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh People
Evans, Caradoc
Wales -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Now the daily custom at the shop was twelve gallons of milk, and the tea
packets and flour bags which were on shelves were empty. Evan's anger
was awful. He upbraided Mary, and he prayed to be shown how to worst
Dai. His prayer was respected: at the end of the second week he gave Dai
two pounds more than he had given him the week before.
"Brisk is trade," said Dai.
"I took into stock flour, tea, and four tins of job biscuits," replied
Evan. "Am I not your servant?"
"Well done, good and faithful servant."
It was so that Evan bought more than he would sell, and each week he
held a little money by fraud; and matches also and bundles of firewood
and soap did he buy in Dai's name.
In the middle of the eighth week Dai came down to the shop.
"How goes it?" he asked in English.
"Fine, man. Fine." Changing his language, Evan said: "Keep her will I,
and give you the money as I pledged. Take you the sum and sign you the
paper bach."
Having acted accordingly, Dai cast his gaze on the shelves and on the
floor, and he walked about judging aloud the value of what he saw: "Tea,
three-pound-ten; biscuits, four-six; flour, four-five; firewood, five
shillings; matches, one-ten; soap, one pound. Bring you these to
Petersham. Put you them with the bed and the dishes I kindly lent you."
"For sure me, fulfil my pledge will I," Evan said.
He assembled Dai's belongings and placed them in a cart which he had
borrowed; and on the back of the cart he hung a Chinese lantern which
had in it a lighted candle. When he arrived at Dai's house, he cried:
"Here is your ownings. Unload you them."
Dai examined the inside of the cart. "Mistake there is, Evan. Where's
the stock?"
"Did I not pay you for your stock and shop? Forgetful you are."
Dai's wrath was such that neither could he blaspheme God nor invoke His
help. Removing the slabber which was gathered in his beard and at his
mouth, he shouted: "Put police on you will I."
"Away must I now," said Evan. "Come, take your bed."
"Not touch anything will I. Rachel, witness his roguery. Steal he does
from the religious."
Evan drove off, and presently he became uneasy of the evil that might
befall him were Dai and Rachel to lay their hands on him; he led his
horse into the unfamiliar and hard and steep road which goes up to the
Star and Garter, and which therefrom falls into Richmond town. At what
time he was at the top he heard the sound of Dai and Rachel running to
him, each screaming upon him to stop. Rachel seized the bridle of the
horse, and Dai tried to climb over the back of the cart. Evan bent
forward and beat the woman with his whip, and she leaped aside. But Dai
did not release his clutch, and because the lantern swayed before his
face he flung it into the cart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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