My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh PeopleEvans, Caradoc
General
My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh People
Evans, Caradoc
Wales -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Sheremiah journeyed several ways, and always he journeyed in secret;
and he could not find what he wanted. Tailor Club Foot came to sit on
his table to sew together garments for him and his two sons. The tailor
said: "Farm very pretty is Rhydwen. Farm splendid is the farm fach."
"And speak like that you do, Club Foot," said Sheremiah.
"Iss-iss," the tailor mumbled.
"Not wanting an old farm do I," Sheremiah cried. "But speak to goodness
where the place is. Near you are, calf bach, about affairs."
The tailor answered that Rhydwen is in the hollow of the hill which
arises from Capel Sion to the moor.
In the morning Sheremiah rode forth on his colt, and he said to Shan
Rhydwen: "Boy of a pigger am I, whatever."
"Dirt-dirt, man," Shan cried; "no fat pigs have I, look you."
"Mournful that is. Mouthings have I heard about grand pigs Tyhen. No
odds, wench. Farewell for this minute, female Tyhen."
"Pigger from where you are?" Shan asked.
"From Pencader the horse has carried me. Carry a preacher he did the
last Monday."
"Weary you are, stranger. Give hay to your horse, and rest you and take
you a little cup of tea."
"Happy am I to do that. Thirsty is the backhead of my neck."
Sheremiah praised the Big Man for tea, bread, butter, and cheese, and
while he ate and drank he put artful questions to Shan. In the evening
he said to Catrin: "Quite tidy is Rhydwen. Is she not one hundred acres?
And if there is not water in every field, is there not in four?"
He hastened to the owner of Rhydwen and made this utterance: "Farmer
very ordinary is your sister Shan. Shamed was I to examine your land."
"I shouldn't be surprised," answered the owner. "Speak hard must I to
the trollop."
"Not handy are women," said Sheremiah. "Sell him to me the poor-place.
Three-fourths of the cost I give in yellow money and one-fourth
by-and-by in three years."
Having taken over Rhydwen, Sheremiah in due season sold much of his corn
and hay, some of his cattle, and many such movable things as were in his
house or employed in tillage; and he and Catrin came to abide in
Rhydwen; and they arrived with horses in carts, cows, a bull and oxen,
and their sons, Aben and Dan. As they passed Capel Sion, people who were
gathered at the roadside to judge them remarked how that Aben was blind
in his left eye and that Dan's shoulders were as high as his ears.
At the finish of a round of time Sheremiah hired out his sons and all
that they earned he took away from them; and he and Catrin toiled to
recover Rhydwen from its slovenry. After he had paid all that he owed
for the place, and after Catrin had died of dropsy, he called his sons
home.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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