My People: Stories of the Peasantry of West Wales/A Bundle of Life
A BUNDLE OF LIFE
XII
A BUNDLE OF LIFE
Word reached Jos Gernos—Gernos is on the brink of the ascent into the sea of Morfa—that the inheritance of Leisa the only child of Nansi and Silas Penlon was to be nearly one hundred acres of land and all the gold that had been gathered by Silas. After deliberating on this for a day, Jos said to his mother that he was going forth to compromise Leisa; he strapped whipcord leggings over his legs, and saddled his pony, and rode out to Penlon; but Leisa did not respond to the small stones he threw at her window. Jos went back to Gernos, and in the morning he wrote a letter to Leisa, and he sent it by the hand of Samson Post, and he waited for an answer until after the Sabbath, but none came. Jos refused to give over his design on Leisa’s inheritance, because he had much need of money: on the fourth night Leisa took out the paper that filled a broken pane in the window and cried to him:
“Say from where you are?”
“Boy bach from Gernos am I,” said Jos.
“Indeed, boy bach, all right; is not the old ladder in the cowhouse?”
Three weeks expired and on a day Jos rode away from Penlon before sunrise, and returned when Nansi was putting the milk into the separator.
“Little Jos,” she said, “for why he is so early?”
“Woman, woman,” replied Jos, “now-now, do I not bring with me a ring for wedding? Look you, indeed.”
Nansi’s face was bound with bands of flannel, which day and night wear had made hard, and which stood on her cheeks in the manner of a horse’s bonnet. Her upper lip was broken into a gap that let out a little blood while she spoke, and this blood she licked away with her tongue.
“What did he give for the old ring?” she asked. “A crown, shall I say?”
Jos showed his narrow teeth. “A yellow sovereign all but a crown,” he answered. “If I die, go she and speak to Peter Shop Watches in Castellybryn.”
“Little Jos Gernos,” said Nansi, “there’s wasteful he is. Why he now go to Betti the widow of Shim, and say to her: ‘Betti fach, lend you me your old ring for to wed Leisa the daughter of Silas Penlon. In want you are, Betti, and I will reward you with buttermilk.’”
Jos shifted a foot, and placed it near the milk that had escaped and had formed into a small pool in a hollow in the earthen floor.
“Jos, Jos, what a frog he is!” Nansi admonished him. “Don’t he move his foot now till I have scooped the precious milk up into a clean pan.”
Having done this, Nansi called: “Silas now, Jos Gernos is here with his old ring.”
Silas, straightway from his bed and clad in flannel drawers and soleless stockings, entered the zinc-roofed dairy.
“Did he go to the fair?” he asked Jos.
“Iss, iss, little man.”
“How was the prices now?”
“Sober, little man. Sober bad.”
“Did he sell his colt? Dewi says he had one to sell.”
“What Dewi says is the truth.”
“What did the old colt bring?”
“Little man, I didn’t sell.”
Jos placed a wooden bowl into the milk and drank therefrom.
“Well, Silas Penlon,” he observed, “here is the costly ring. Has he matter to say why Leisa should not share my bed?”
“Not that I know of, Jos Gernos. But do he marry from Gernos, for Nansi here has not time to see to these things.”
After they had spoken about this which was going to happen, and Jos had gone his way, Nansi said these words in praise of Jos.
“Old Jos is very tidy.”
Silas clothed himself and went to the house of Bertha Daviss, and Bertha cut three carrots into small pieces and fried them for him, and also brewed tea for him. Silas seldom ate at home; had not Nansi and Leisa and his manservant Dewi enough to do with the care of ten cows and ten pigs and three horses without wasting time in the preparation of food? Thus he journeyed from cottage to cottage, at each cottage eating fried carrots and drinking tea. That was the period when his riches made him a power in the land, and when housewives pandered to him because of his riches.
“Old Jos Gernos is talking about taking Leisa to his bed,” said Silas.
“What you call, man bach? But large has been the courting in Penlon,” said Bertha.
Silas took out of the frying-pan as much of the carrots as would fill his mouth.
“Glad I’ll be to see her going," he said. “She’s lately taken to attending the foolish singing class in Capel Sion. And she changes her garments to go there.”
“And you say that, little Silas! Have you killed your hay yet?”
“Dewi and Nansi are killing to-day.” Silas ate and drank, and departed.
Noontide he was sitting on the gate of the field in which Nansi and Dewi were mowing his hay. There came to him a stalwart man named Abram Bowen, who then was the chief singing man in Capel Sion.
“Dear now, very good crop of hay you’ve got, man," said Abram Bowen. “Silas bach, is this not a credit to you?”
Nansi and Dewi were approaching the gate, making great curves with their scythes. Nansi paused and looked at the men.
“Nansi, you silly cow,” cried Silas, “what for you wait? Dewi will cut off your little legs if you don't go faster. Do you hurry now, for the night cometh.”
“Happy I am to hear you saying from the Book of Words,” said Abram Bowen.
“Dear, dear, am I not always holding you up as a religious example in the School of Sabbath? … There's old talk that Leisa is going to Gernos?”
“So they say, Abram. So they say.”
“Pity now she's leaving the singing-class. She mustn't go before the party bach tries at Eisteddfod Morfa.”
“Well-well, mouth you to the wench herself about that.” ••••• That night Leisa heard the sound of gravel falling on the pane of her window. Through the hole in the pane she called out:
“You blockhead of a tadpole, is not the old ladder by the pigsty?”
Abram Bowen fetched the ladder and climbed into Leisa’s room.
“Bad jasto!” Leisa exclaimed, when she knew who her visitor was. “For why you was not Jos Gernos! Abram Bowen, you frightened me, man, you did.”
A tallow candle burnt on the chair, and Leisa was on one side of the bed and Abram was on the other side.
“Put on petticoats now,” said Abram. “Not religious that I eye any of your naked flesh bach. But don't do that, Leisa; I'll blow on the old candle. How speak you then about Eisteddfod Morfa?” ••••• At the end of the tenth day, when Nansi was pitching the last load of hay on to the stack, Jos Gernos came to the close of Penlon and he took his pony into a field and said to him: “Go you now, beast bach, and eat a little grass.” Having done that he came into the barnyard and censured Nansi severely:
“Evil Nansi, for what she has not heard about her daughter Leisa?”
“Sober, sober, what's this Jos bach Gernos would say to me now?”
“Leisa won’t wed me! And did not the old ring cost me a whole yellow sovereign? As I live! Go you and ask Peter Shop Watches.”
Nansi, not ceasing in her labour, cried:
“Silas, do you come and converse with Jos bach Gernos.”
Silas was counting up the irregular lines, each line representing a load of hay, which he had scratched on the door of the stable.
“Well, Jos Gernos?” asked Silas.
“Leisa says she won't come to Gernos.”
“Man, man!”
“Iss, the female is wedding Abram Bowen. Try he to make her sense better, little Silas.”
Thrice Silas spat on the ground, for his mind was grief-stricken.
“Nansi,” he said, “Leisa is going against her father.”
“So Jos Gernos does say.”
“You have been a bad mother to the wench,” Silas shouted. “What for you have not looked after her, you old ram?”
Nansi came out of the cart, now that it was empty, and raked together the small hay that lay scattered on the ground, and while she was doing this she said:
“Silas bach, speak you not harshly to me now. Am I not always out in the fields tending the animals and seeing to the crops? Your little place needs a lot of watching.”
Silas took his stick, and went out into the high roads groaning.
He came upon Abram Bowen sitting on a log of wood outside his mother’s house; marking up the hymn-tunes for the Sabbath’s services, and humming them over.
“Abram,” said Silas, “what’s this do I hear about you?”
“Speak on, little Silas.”
“Sure now, you don’t speech that Leisa is to wed you?”
“Dear me, iss.”
“Don’t you be hard of heart, Abram bach,” said Silas. “Say you that people are voicing lying stories.”
“Shameful you talk, Silas Penlon,” Abram said. “Angry is the Big Man against you.”
“Has she not laid with Jos Gernos? Has not the boy bought a ring for wedding?”
Abram Bowen sang:
“O Silas Penlon, why you are not religious? Is it for you to throw stones? Old male you are, Silas, indeed to goodness, and the time is shortly coming for you to be screwed down in your coffin.”
“Abram Bowen,” Silas urged, “do you listen to reason now, there's a nice, godly little boy bach.”
“Silas Penlon,” answered Abram, “I say unto you, sinner, that you will go down on your knees and thank the Big Man that I came to Penlon. Dear me, there’s dirty the place is, man. I will plough your land and sow seeds, and the land will be yellow with corn.”
“In the name of the Big Man,” cried Silas, “you shall not come to Penlon,” and he was going to hit Abram with his stick.
Abram stayed Silas’s arm, saying: “Where is that stick with you?” When he had taken the stick away from him, he said: “Wicked you are, man. Pray to the Big Man for a little grace.”
Silas moaned, for he knew that Abram Bowen was a man of nothing, and his tears mixed with the tobacco spittle that dribbled from each corner of his mouth and formed curves around his chin, and stained the tannish fringe of hair thereon.
Leisa wedded Abram Bowen, and in a set time she gave birth to a child, whom Abram named Jos, saying: “This is Leisa’s bundle of sin.”
Abram made fruitful the starving soil of Penlon; and he caused a brick flooring to be put in the dairy, and trained Leisa to wash her hands before separating milk and before making butter.
And as Abram grew in strength and regard, so the spirit of Silas forsook him. His name was derided at wheresoever it was said, and people sneered at him in his presence. None fried carrots nor brewed tea for him any more. He submitted unto the new King.
Once he said to Bertha Daviss:
“Dammo, boy of Satan is Abram.”
Whereupon Bertha went to Penlon and said to Abram:
“Terrible indeed to goodness is Silas’s tongue about you, little Abram.”
Abram ordered Nansi to give Bertha a pat of butter, and then hurried to the tramping road. He met Silas outside Shop Rhys, and in the eye of the village he thrashed the blasphemy out of him.
After that there was no more spirit left in Silas.
In their day Silas and Nansi had saved eighty sovereigns, and when Abram had spent all that money in improving the land and the outhouses of Penlon, he called up Silas and Nansi before him:
“Silas and Nansi,” he said to them, “have I not been long-suffering with your filthy old ways?”
“Iss, indeed, little Abram,” replied Nansi, “like the white little Jesus you are to us.”
“You stink like an old sow, Nansi,” said Abram.
Nansi whimpered: “Don’t you be hard on me.”
“Dear me now,” Silas said, “do I not bear your old smell?”
“Ach y fi!” exclaimed Abram. “Move away. You stuff my nose.”
Nansi moved back.
“Dear, dear,” said Abram, “have I not prayed all the night then? The Big Man say you and Nansi must leave Penlon.”
Nansi breathed: “Abram, little Abram bach, you won't send us off away?”
“You are a drag on the place,” replied Abram. “Do not all speak about your mudlike ways, then? Every one got eleven pennies a pound for butter at Castellybryn on Friday; I got only ten pennies and three farthings. People said: ‘Who will eat old Nansi’s butter?’”
“Give him me a little bed alone in the barn loft, boy bach of God,” said Silas.
“Why speak you so foolish?” said Abram. “Where am I to put the straw and the fowls? Little, blockhead bach, is your understanding! But I will not deal harshly with you. You two can live in Old Nanni’s cottage. Very happy you’ll be there. There's no rent to pay, and you, Silas, can mind my sheep on the moor.”
“Man, man,” cried Silas, “why should I leave Penlon? Did not my father give it to me?”
“Silas, indeed to goodness,” said Abram, “for sure you are possessed. Religious Big Man, give you now me strength—the strength you gave the little Apostles—to cast out the Evil Spirit from old Silas.”
He took in his hand his new carriage whip, and held it as he used to the thresher, and he brought the thong down upon Silas’s back, and belly, and arms, and face.
Nansi made weepful sounds. She was very old, and she wept until she could weep no more.
When Silas’s make-believe laughter was turned into yells of pain, Abram his son-in-law said:
“Get you up, now, Silas the sinner, and ask you the Big Man to forgive you your trespasses.”
Silas and Nansi made ready to depart to the mud-walled, straw-thatched cottage in which the rats had bitten sores into old Nanni’s face; before they set out, Abram brought to them Jos, Leisa’s first-born child.
“Take you this brat of sin with you now, little people,” he said, “for he is not of my bowels.”