My Neighbors (Stories of the Welsh People)

Excerpt: ...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 p 121 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. Thereon he thrived. He was over all on the floor of Sion, even those in the Big Seat. Men in debt and many widow-women sought him to free them, and in freeing them he made compacts to his advantage. Thus he came to have more cattle than Rhydwen could hold, and he bought Penlan, the farm of eighty acres which goes up from Rhydwen to the edge of the moor, and beyond. In quiet seasons he and Aben and Dan dug ditches on the land of Rhydwen; "so that," he said, "my creatures shall not perish of thirst." Of a sudden a sickness struck him, and in the hush which is sometimes before death, he summoned to him his sons. "Off away am I to the Palace," he said. "Large will be the shout of joy among the angels," Aben told him. p 122 "And much weeping there will be in Sion," said Dan. "Speak you a little verse for a funeral preach." "Cease you your babblings, now, indeed," Sheremiah demanded. "Born first you were, Aben, and you get Rhydwen. And you, Dan, Penlan." "Father bach," Aben cried, "not right that you leave more to me than Dan." "Crow you do like a cuckoo," Dan admonished his brother. "Wise you are, father. Big already is your giving to me." Aben looked at the window and he beheld a corpse candle moving outward through the way of the gate. "Religious you lived, father Sheremiah, and religious you put on a White Shirt." Then Aben spoke of the sight he had seen. The old man opened his lips, counseling: "Hish, hish, boys. Break you trenches in Penlan, Dan. Poor bad are farms without water. More than...