'It be Rhys' fault!' 'It be Willem's fault!' they cried simultaneously, alike moved by the reference to their mother, whom they loved with deep affection.
'You are alike to blame. Each one has some reason on his side; but, let me tell you, lads, it is always the one most in the wrong who is the last to give in. Now, shake hands and be friends. I came here thinking to be doing you all a service, for it would pay better for Willem to be building walls than doing common field-work. But I don't be wanting to breed dissension between you, so I will be getting Morgan the stonemason to build my wall.'
The brothers looked at each other; Rhys wavered. The reference to 'better pay' had struck a vibrating chord in his breast.
'_I_ will build your wall, look you, pay or no pay, Robert Jones. But you will not be wanting me to-day, whatever?'
'No, not until next week; but fair work must have fair pay. Yet, what say you, Rhys?'
Here was a loophole for Rhys to slip through. 'Oh, indeed, if you don't be wanting to call him off his work to-day or to-morrow, it may be managed.'
So it was amicably settled, and when the turf-cutter went his way, William was on his knees helping Rhys to gather up what he could of the barley spilled from his seed-wallet during their unbrotherly struggle.
It so happened that the following Sunday the vicar took for his text, 2 Peter i. 5, 6, and 7, dwelling especially on the last--'_And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity_'--in such manner that both Rhys and William took it to heart, imagining he had heard of their antagonism, and was addressing his sermon especially to them. No doubt there were others in the congregation to whom the sermon might apply with equal force, but they two held their heads down, as if to hide the crimson flush that mounted to the roots of their brown hair, and fidgeted uneasily upon their high-backed seat.
Anyway that was the end of their open strife. And when, at the close of another week, William carried home to his mother, in good hard coin, more than double the hire of a field-labourer, reserving a very small portion for himself, there was nothing said by way of objection to his craze for building, or his efforts to attain a more complete knowledge of arithmetical calculation.