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.

Evan did not hear any more voices, and misdeeming that he had got the better of his enemies, he turned, and, lo, the bed was in a yellow flame.  He strengthened his legs and stretched out his thin upper lip, and pulled at the reins, saying:  “Wo, now.”  But the animal thrust up its head and on a sudden galloped downwards.  At the railing which divides two roads it was hindered, and Evan was thrown upon the ground.  Men came forward to lift him, and he was dead.

V

FOR BETTER

At the time it was said of him “There’s a boy that gets on he is,” Enoch Harries was given Gwen the daughter of the builder Dan Thomas.  On the first Sunday after her marriage the people of Kingsend Welsh Tabernacle crowded about Gwen, asking her:  “How like you the bed, Messes Harries fach?” “Enoch has opened a shop butcher then?” “Any signs of a baban bach yet?” “Managed to get up quickly you did the day?” Gwen answered in the manner the questions were asked, seriously or jestingly.  She considered these sayings, and the cause of her uneasiness was not a puzzle to her; and she got to despise the man whom she had married, and whose skin was like parched leather, and to repel his impotent embraces.

Withal she gave Enoch pleasure.  She clothed herself with costly garments, adorned her person with rings and ornaments, and she modeled her hair in the way of a bob-wig.  Enoch gave in to her in all things; he took her among Welsh master builders, drapers, grocers, dairymen, into their homes and such places as they assembled in; and his pride in his wife was nearly as great as his pride in the twenty plate-glass windows of his shop.

In her vanity Gwen exalted her estate.