e 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.

"I hate living over the shop," she said. "It's so common. Let's take a
house away from here."

"Good that I am on the premizes," En