My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh PeopleEvans, Caradoc
General
My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh People
Evans, Caradoc
Wales -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"A squanderer you were," Simon rebuked the body. "Tidy sums you spent
in pubs. Booze got you the sack after twenty years in the same shop.
Disgraced was I to have such a brother as you, Shacob. Where was your
religion, man? But he has to be buried, little sisters, or babbling
there'll be. Cheap funeral will suit in Fulham cematary. Reasonable your
share is more than mine, because the Big Man has trusted me with sons."
"No sense is in you," Annie shouted. "Not one coin did he repay me. The
coins he owed me are my share."
"As an infidel you are," said Simon. "Ach y fy, cheating the grave of
custom."
"Leaving am I." Jane fach rose. "Late is the day."
"Woe is me," Simon wailed. "Like the old Welsh of Cardigan is your
cunning. Come you this night here to listen to funeral estimates. Don't
you make me bawl this in your department, Annie, and in your office
laundry, Jane."
From the street door he journeyed by himself to Balham, and habiting his
face with grief, he related to Mr. Ward how Jacob died.
"He passed in my arms," he said; "very gently--willingly he gave back
the ghost. A laugh in his face that might be saying: 'I see Thy wonders,
O Lord.'"
"This is very sad," said Mr. Ward. "If there is anything we can do--"
"You speak as a Christian who goes to chapel, sir. It's hard to discuss
business now just. But Jacob has told he left a box in your keep."
"I don't think so. Still, I'll make sure." Mr. Ward went away, and
returning, said: "The only thing he left here is this old coat which he
wore at squadding in the morning. Of course there is his salary--"
"Yes, yes, I know. I'd give millions of salaries for my brother back."
"You are his only relative?"
"Indeed, sir. No father and mother had he. An orphan. Quite pathetic. I
will never grin again. Good afternoon, sir. I hope you'll have a
successful summer sale."
"Hadn't you better take his money?" said Mr. Ward. "We pay quarterly
here."
"Certainly it will save coming again. But business is business, even in
the presence of the dead."
"It's eighteen pounds. That's twelve weeks at one-ten."
"Well, if you insist, insist you do. Prefer I would to have my brother
Jacob back."
Simon put the coat over his arm and counted the money, and after he had
drunk a little beer and eaten of bread and cheese, he made deals with a
gravedigger and an undertaker, and the cost for burying Jacob was eight
pounds.
That night he was with his sisters, saying to them: "Twelve soferens
will put him in the earth. Four soferens per each."
"None can I afford," Jane fach vowed. "Not paid my pew rent in Capel
Charing Cross have I."
"Easier for me to fly than bring the cash," said Annie. "Larger is your
screw than me."
Simon smote the ground with his umbrella and stayed further words. "Give
the soferens, bullocks of Hell fire."
Annie and Jane fach were distressed. The first said: "The flesh of the
swine shall smell before I do." The second said: "Hard you are on a
bent-back wench."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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