CHAPTER XXXI.

REVELLING IN LAW.

ISRAEL'S prospects were now dark indeed. He saw as plainly as his enemy could have explained to him the whole force of the position. He must sell his share for whatever it would fetch, if indeed anyone with capital and character would buy under such circumstances; or he must move on, without aid, year after year, if that were possible, knowing that if he failed it was utter ruin; and that if he succeeded, even to the extent of being able to continue alone the costly work of reparation, there was another waiting to take the lion's share of the fruits.

But could he hope under any circumstances to make the mine so profitable as to accumulate capital for so large an undertaking?

That was the problem he revolved day by day, now in his thoughts, now in elaborate calculations on paper, till at last he came to the conclusion it was impossible. And for this reason: he could not employ in the present dangerous state of the mine enough hands to make any noticeable difference in the amount of coal produced. Rees Thomas had already accomplished for him all that was possible in that way.

So far from his seeing any prospect of proceeding with his own bold and able scheme for the regeneration of the works, he saw, on the contrary, that to keep up even the present weekly product of coal would require unceasing expenditure on dead work,' so bad was the state in which it had been left by Jehoshaphat.

He had, then, simply to make up his mind to fight on for that which in the end would most likely never be obtained; and to do so before the eyes, and in the very teeth, as it were, of a rich and influential partner, bent on his ruin, and prepared to take instant advantage of the slightest opening.

With unabated courage and fortitude he accepted the position, and sternly set himself to confront the difficulties, whatever they might be. His behaviour, could it have been watched by a dispassionate and appreciative observer, would have suggested much matter for speculation as to what such a man might have been capable of under happier circumstances.

The patient, sleepless care with which he followed the ever-lurking enemy-the gas-tracking it, as a Red Indian tracks his foe, from lair to lair, and compelling flight if he could do no more; the sagacity which determined how to do just that exact amount of dead work' to prevent further 'Falls' and injuries, and the exact time when most needed, that would prevent calamity, and yet not exceed by a hair's breadth the absolute necessity of the case-all this was simply wonderful in a man bowed down with ceaseless pecuniary difficulty; and who began to feel, almost for the first time, something of an aching about the heart, whenever the subject of his domestic relations rose to disturb the ordinary current of thought.

But he worked on so gallantly, bore all so ungrudgingly, seemed so stable and unfaltering in his every word and act, that even his very numerous enemies began to feel a certain respect for him, though Mr. Griffith Williams was not one of the number. On the contrary, as his own personal friends cooled in their hostility to Israel, his hatred proportionately warmed to red-nay, to white-heat-fed as it was, like a fire, with fresh fuel of the most exciting kind, by seeing that as his enemy rose in public opinion, he sank.

To this cause, perhaps, may be attributed much of the litigation that very soon began again with increased fury.

First he strove for an injunction to stop Israel's proceeding with the execution of a contract he had entered into to supply the gas works with coal, his plea being that the tender had been sent in without his, Griffith Williams's, authority. Had he succeeded, there would of course have been an end of Israel's management; but when the judge had read a paper exhibited on behalf of Israel, signed by

the late Mrs. Jehoshaphat, the case was stopped, and the plaintiff left with the costs.

Then he made a legal demand, with all legal formalities, for power to examine the accounts; and it was decided that Israel had shown no unwillingness to exhibit them at a proper time; and again he had to bear all the

expenses.

He tried to send a mining agent down to examine the mine, but nɔt having asked permission, the agent was refused; and so nothing came of that move for the time being.

And when Mr. Griffith Williams went straightforwardly to work, and avowed through his lawyers his object, namely, to show that Israel was mining beyond the legitimate boundary, and actually trespassing on his, the Squire's, private estate which adjoined, Israel politely undertook not only to admit the agent, but Mr. Williams too, if he pleased to come, and offered himself to conduct them to the spot, and give every additional aid they might require to test scientifically the question. And so he came triumphant out of that, which did a little alarm him, for he was by no means sure a slight mistake of a few feet had not been made by one of his deputy officers, in securing a passage-way round an intervening and useless piece of rock.

It would be at once ludicrous and wearisome to narrate all the petty acts into which the Squire's maniacal hatred urged him to engage, in the hope of breaking down through them the resistance to his will, that could be conquered by no other means.

Israel had taken on rent a large piece of mountain land, that at one point, descending, touched the Squire's kitchen garden; and which happened at the time to be the only ground obtainable where two or three horses might be turned out on occasion. One day the garden gate was open, two of Israel's horses got in, amused themselves by eating as much as they could, and by trampling down pretty well everything else. Israel's men said the gate had been left open by the Squire's servants; the

Squire brought witnesses to swear positively it had been carefully fastened at nightfall, and suggested bad feeling on the part of Israel's people as at the bottom of the affair. Israel was cast, and had to pay heavily for the damage and costs; at a time, too, when every sovereign taken from him for such purposes was like wringing out drops of his blood by a thumb-screw.

This was followed up in time by the 'right of way case, as it was popularly called. Israel and certain of his colliers were accustomed to pass through a field belonging to the Squire, by a path that from time immemorial had been used as a public way. Now it so happened that the Squire had done, or thought he had done, acts calculated to show it was a public path only by sufferance; but as he had not acted on his notices, nobody stirred, or paid any attention to the matter, beyond an occasional laugh now and then, as Israel and his men were seen trudging along the path as usual.

Suddenly the Squire, having satisfied himself the path was rarely used by anybody but the colliery people, shut it up by a gate.

Next day the gate was lying on the ground, and Israel and his colliers striding over it.

Then a much more formidable affair was erected, with sharp spikes along the top; and as if that spectacle was not sufficiently threatening, a large board with an inscription in Welsh and English appeared above the barrier, announcing that trespassers would be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.'

About midnight of the same day that witnessed what was supposed to be the completion of the arrangement, Griffith Williams happened to look out of his bedroom window, while wondering how Israel would act on the morrow, and saw a great bonfire blazing away in a certain direction.

He dressed himself instantly, got his horse forth, and rode to the spot, where he found his anticipations verified: the heavy gate was enveloped with the flame from a great

mass of brushwood, and he was just in time to see it fall in blazing ruin to the ground.

Another lawsuit, and another defeat for Mr. Williams, and very heavy costs, on account of the great number of witnesses called on both sides. The right of way was established, and from that moment Israel became popular, and was regarded as a sort of tribune of the people.

How much longer this state of things would have gone on, if unchecked by some new influence, no man would have ventured to predict; but, happily, the check came now. In severe words the judge commented on the litigating spirit shown by the facts that indirectly came out on this trial regarding the past relations of Israel and his rich partner; and though he did not directly fix on one or the other of the litigants the odium of the persecution suggested, popular opinion did, and so effectually, that the Squire was at last constrained to stop.

These proceedings of course extended through some years. During all this time the mine was growing ever worse, till it became a byword among the colliers of other mines, when they heard of a new man going to Cwm Aber to replace some one who had gone away,

Ah, well! if a man's hard up for a job at other places, he can always get a berth at the "Valley o' the Shadow!" meaning Israel's mine, and likening it to John Bunyan's Valley of the Shadow of Death- the 'Pilgrim's Progress' being one of the few works of fiction a Welshman will read.

CHAPTER XXXII.

PINNED TO THE PILLOW.

Ir a good man bearing himself nobly under calamity is a sight for the gods, what is it when a man not good on the whole does the same, with the additional burden that his moral deficiencies impose?