Testimonies: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

and he had to pay all the time the man was in hospital, as well as damages. It was always like that for him, as well as the ordinary misfortunes, like black-leg and fluke in the sheep, foxes, blight on the potatoes, rain for the hay and the corn; he had all of them worse than his neighbors.
    “He had taken a big farm with almost no money at all after he had paid for the sheep (the sheep were high the year he came, and they have to be paid for, the ewes on the mountain, as soon as you come in) and he needed two or three good years to put him on his feet. He did not have them, though he worked so hard. The sheep went down; it was terrible for all the farmers, even those with money behind them. But he worked and worked and kept going somehow. He was a good man. He was very much respected in the valley.
    “His wife was a big help to him. She was very pretty when she was young; she came from the same part of the country as he did, but I had not known her before she came to our valley.
    “They said she was not very great as a housekeeper: however that may be, she was a great help to him. I have seen her early and late, working before the light and after it.
    “They did not have a good year until Emyr was born. He was their only child that lived. You would have thought no one had ever had a child before, they were so pleased with him. Things began to go a little better for them after that; not well, but a little better, so they could wind the year round.
    “Armin Vaughan worked even harder, with a son to work for. He was a good boy, Emyr; I was fond of him from the start. He came to me at school, of course, and from the beginning he was a good pupil—he was good at Sunday school too, like his father. He was a great improver: I mean he took his lessons with intelligence—I could tell him the principle of things when other boys could only learn examples by rote. There were some boys I liked more although they were not so good, rougher boys like Moses Gwyn and poor John Davies Tŷ-bach, but I was proud of Emyr when the inspector came. Emyr liked me too, and I can give a proof of it: it is a very hard thing to break a boy of the vices that may come on him, and I do not know how it can be done at all unless there is affection on both sides and good spirit in the boy. By break I do not mean just driving the trouble out of sight. Often with my boys I did no more than that, I know, but with Emyr I was more successful. Twice I had to talk to him; once it was about cruelty to a captured bird (it surprised me in him, so tender usually) and once it was about some habits—it is difficult to explain, but they might have grown very unpleasant and dangerous if they had not been corrected before they grew strong and established. I mention this because it shows the confidence between us: he turned from the beginning of this bad way and I never saw any backsliding.
    “He was serious as a young fellow; no larking about down to Llan or going with the factory girls at Dinas—indeed I thought that perhaps he was not the marrying kind. The same thought came to his father and mother, and it grieved them; for of course they wanted grandchildren.
    “He did marry, however, and at the beginning I was almost sorry when I heard he was keeping company because he had had the idea of following the Institute’s agricultural courses, and now it would be all out of his head.
    “His young lady was not from our valley; she lived over in Cwm Priddlyd, behind Llanfihangel. It would be a good thing for Emyr, everybody said, because her father owned the farm of Cwm Priddlyd, and even if her brother Meurig married, Bronwen would still have an interest in it. Armin Vaughan was all for it, and so was old Mrs. Vaughan. They both wanted the very best for Emyr (it was a pity for him they loved him quite so much, I thought) and Armin Vaughan’s father had worked at Cwm Priddlyd, so they knew everything about the land there—a small farm; but very good, and with fine