# My People: Stories of the Peasantry of West Wales/A Heifer Without Blemish

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A HEIFER WITHOUT BLEMISH
II
A HEIFER WITHOUT BLEMISH
Deio and Katto Parcdu had been entertaining Job of the Stallion. Having made an end to eating, and Job and his stallion having taken to the road, Deio lifted his voice:
“Tomos, come you in here now.”
Tomos passed over the earthen floor of the kitchen, and discarded his clogs on the threshold of the lower end, which is the parlour.
“Job of the old Stallion does say that Enoch Dinas has taken a farm near the shore of Morfa,” said Deio.
“Indeed, now, there's a daft boy bach!” exclaimed Tomos. “What say you does ​Enoch want to do that for! Sure me, Dinas is as much as he can manage.”
“Is not that what Job did say?” spoke Katto.
“Dinas is a fairish farm,” said Deio. “Out of his old head is Enoch to leave it.”
“Sad is Enoch’s lot,” said Katto. “A high female is his wife. And an unprofitable madam is the female.”
“Iss, iss,” said Deio. “She is a burden on the place. Where is the sense now in Enoch keeping a wife and a servant?”
“Enoch is head-stiff,” said Katto. “Did not every one tell him before he married that he would have to keep a servant? For why, dear me, did the iob marry such a useless woman? What is the matter with the female? She brought with her nothing to Dinas.”
“Look you at the wife of Tydu,” said Deio gravely. “Isn’t she a sampler?”
“She’s as useful as a male about the place,” added Katto. “And she works ​like a black bach. And Evan her husband is always in his place in the meeting for prayer.”
“Religion comes before all with Evan,” said Deio.
“Large money indeed he puts in the Post Office,” Katto went on. “Mistress Morgan of the Post does say that he's got thirty yellow sovereigns there now. What pity Tomos cannot find a woman like her.”
Tomos came near to the round table, and bending his crooked body, spat into the fire.
“Think you now of Sara Jane the daughter of old Simon——” he began.
“Boy bach foolish!” cried Katto. “What nonsense you talk out of the back of your head! Sober serious, mouth not that you have thrown gravel at Sara Jane’s window! She's not worth her broth.”
“Katto is right,” Deio put in. “There was me and Katto talking about renting ​Dinas for you if you could find a thrifty, tidy female.”
“How voice you then about Gwen the widow of Noah?” asked Tomos, “There’s a one she is for tending to the house!”
“You would have to pay her,” said Deio. “It is not some one to look after the house you want. You need a woman to look after the land, and the cattle, and your milk, man. And after you. A woman who will be profitable. Sara Jane, indeed ! No, boy bach, don't you deal lightly with Old Simon's wench. Not respectable is that to Capel Sion.”
“Your father speaks sense, Tomos nice,” said Katto. “It’s time you wedded. Do you look round you for one like the wife of Tydu. Is she not tidy and saving? Was she not carting dung into the field when she was full? You will be five over forty in the eleventh month.”
Deio took out from his mouth the ​tobacco that was therein and placed it on the table, and he also emptied his mouth of its tainted spittle. “Be you restful now, folk bach,” he said, “for am I not going to speak about religion?” Then he raised his face and sang after the manner of the Welsh preacher: “Me and your mam are full of years, and the hearse from Capel Sion will soon take us home to the Big Man’s Palace a home, Tomos, where we will wear White Shirts, and where there is no old rent to pay. Tomos, Tomos, weepful you will be when I am up above. Little Great One, keep an eye on Tomos. Be with your son in Capel Sion. Amen.”
When he had made an end, he put the tobacco back into his mouth, and he said: “One hundred and half a hundred sovereigns is the mortgage on Parcdu now.”
“Do you listen, Tomos bach," Katto counselled her son.
“Go you off yourself to-morrow to the ​April Fair to search for a woman,” said Deio.
Tomos said: “Iss, iss, indeed, then.”
“And take you a cask of butter with you,” said Katto. “Leave you the butter in the back of the old trap till your eyes have fallen upon a maid; and when she has found favour with you, ask her to sell for you the butter. If she has got a sharp tongue in her mouth and makes a good bargain, say to her that you will marry her, but if she is not free of tongue, say you nothing more to her, but go in search of another.”
Deio spoke: “Tell her your father sits in the Big Seat in Sion, in the parish of Troedfawr, in Shire Cardigan. As earnest of your intention say that you are commanded to buy a heifer to start life with in Dinas. Now, little son, don't you say anything about the old mortgage.”
Tomos promised to observe his father’s instructions. ​“Get you there early in the morning, then,” his father said to him. “Put the black mare in the car. And, Tomos, don't you give a ride to anybody, for fear those old robbers of excisemen will catch you.”
“Make yourself comely,” said Katto. “And when you get there, put out your belly largely. See too that you get a heifer without blemish.”
Tomos shaved his chin and his long upper lip and combed his side whiskers, and he put axle-grease on his boots, and clothed himself in his Sabbath garments of homespun cloth; and harnessing the black mare to the car, in the back of which he placed a cask full of butter, he set out for the Fair of the month of April. Tomos got out of the car at Penrhiw, as the ascent therefrom into Castellybryn is rocky and steep, and guided the mare by the bridle. At the foot of the hill—this morning a street of many people and much cattle—he ​turned into the yard of the Drivers’ Arms.
“Fair morning, Tomos the son of Deio,” said the ostler of the Drivers' Arms to him.
“Say you have an empty stall, little son?” Tomos asked. “Surely.”
“Fair morning, Tomos. How was you, man? And how was your old father?”
Tomos turned round and looked into the face of Job of the Stallion.
“Quite well, thanks be to you, Job bach.”
“What’s your errand, boy bach? Old Deio your father did not say anything the day before to-day.”
Job, his small feet planted close together underneath his bandy legs, gazed reproachfully at Tomos.
“Well—well,” said Tomos, “am I not selling a cask of butter, man?”
​“There's excuse for you now, dear me; old Katto must be mad to send you with a cask of butter to the fair. Now, now, Tomos, do you mouth to me then your errand quick at once.”
“For what you don’t know that Dinas is going, man?” replied Tomos.
“But, Tomos, why act so foolish? Was not me that told old Deio about it?”
“Of course. Father wants me to take it.”
“Little Tomos, do you speak plainly. I am not curious, but what in the name of goodness are you doing here? Be you immediate, for have I not a lot of business to do?”
“Job of the Stallion, why you are so hasty for, man? Look you, indeed, I am come for a wife.”
Job pouted his lips reprovingly, and he squeezed the large, cracked mole which was between his eyebrows with forefinger and thumb.
​“I blame you, Tomos, for being so secret about your affairs.”
He thought.
“Dango!” he exclaimed. “There’s Nell Blaenffos. Do you know Nell, Tomos?”
“Nell Blaenffos?”
“You are as stupid as a frog, man. Blaenffos. Near Henllan. Nell the daughter of Sam.”
“Is she a tidy wench?”
“For why you make me savage, Tomos? Nell is Sam’s only child. She is here with her old father paying off the last of the mortgage.”
Job shouted across the yard into the inn : “Is Nell Blaenffos there?”
“Dammo!” came the reply. “She was here this one minute. Nell Blaenffos! Nell Blaenffos!”
Many voices repeated the call. They cried: “Nell Blaenffos! Nell Blaenffos! Job of the Stallion wants you.”
​The cry was taken up by folk standing on the doorstep, and it reached a group of men and women gossiping in the middle of the roadway. “Nell fach,” said one of the group, “is not old Job of the Stallion needing you?”
“For shame!” observed a ponderous-waisted woman. “What for you are thinking? For shame, Nell Blaenffos!”
The people laughed.
“Go you, little daughter,” said the large woman, “and see what that old Job needs you for.”
Nell—stout and red of face, and puffing—appeared before Job, and Job informed her that Tomos begotten of Deio Parcdu (this Deio being the strongest farmer in the parish of Troedfawr, and the saintliest man in the Big Seat in Capel Sion) was desirous of taking her into his bed.
Tomos nodded his head, and said: ”Iss—iss. How was you, Nell fach?”
Nell proved him with questions.
​Job took Tomos to a corner in the yard, and held a whispered conversation with him; returning he told Nell that Dinas, a farm of sixty acres, was to be let, that Deio was prepared to perform his share in stocking the farm, that as earnest of this Tomos was authorised that day to buy a heifer for Dinas.
“You see, Nell fach, that you will have to be quick, or else the best cattle will be sold,” said Job.
”Dear, dear, now," said Tomos, “I had forgotten the old cask of butter I have to sell.”
“There, indeed!” said Job. “Go off you two together and sell the cask and talk this thing over. Remember when you settle down in Dinas that my Stallion bach is to serve your first mare. Thus you will pay me for this.”
Tomos lifted the cask out of the car and placed it on Nell's shoulder, and he followed Nell to the place where butter ​merchants assemble. One dealer came and offered tenpence three-farthings a pound; for him Nell refused to remove even the cloth from the mouth of the cask. Another came and offered tenpence half-penny; in reply to him Nell said: “Go your way, you fool. You would rob me pure.” Now the dealer was a young man, who did not know the ways of Castellybryn, and he was aware that the first dealer was a big buyer and a cunning bargainer; so he purchased the butter for elevenpence farthing a pound, being a farthing a pound above the market price of that day.
Tomos took the money and tied his handkerchief over it, and he bought a penny cake, and while he was eating it he said to Nell:
“How speak you about Dinas?”
“Is the land well watered?” asked Nell.
“Iss, indeed.”
​“Is there water in the close?”
“Well, well, not in the close, Nell fach, but at the bottom of the field under the house.”
“Mouth you now about the out-houses.”
“Enoch had a new roof put over the stable when he went there four years ago.”
“How much money has your father Deio got?”
”Now you've asked me a puzzle, Nell fach. I don’t know, for sure!”
“Is Parcdu his?”
“Indeed it is.”
“Is it mortgaged?”
“Not for a red penny, Nell Blaenffos.”
“How many brothers and sisters have you got?”
“Not one, Nell fach.”
“Come you back with me to the Drivers’ and mouth to old father.” Sam Blaenffos had already seen Job of the Stallion and had conversed with him, ​and he had been told nothing except that which was good about Deio Parcdu and his son Tomos.
”When is the wedding to be, little son?” Sam asked Tomos.
“What say you now?”
“There’s plenty of time to discuss that," said Sam. "Tell you old Deio to meet me here next market day, and we will arrange matters.”
“I will indeed, man,” replied Tomos.
“Good-bye now, and good-bye to your father as well,” said Sam.
Tomos turned his back on the Drivers’ Arms, and on Nell Blaenffos, and on the father of Nell Blaenffos, and with a hand in the pocket of his coat and a hand in the pocket of his trousers he moved slowly in and out among the cattle. The fingers of the clock over the door of the surgery of Dr. Morgan pointed to fifteen minutes past ten, wherefore Tomos bent his shoulders and rebuked himself:
​“The morning is far spent. And there's a small bit of work I've done!”
When he came that way again the fingers of the clock pointed to twenty-five minutes past five in the afternoon, and there was a pleasing smile in his face, for was he not leading on a halter a heifer without blemish?