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But the farmer had compassion on Abel and dealt with him kindly, and
when Abel married he let him live in Tybach--the mud-walled,
straw-thatched, two-roomed house which is midway on the hill that goes
down from Synod Inn into Morfa--and he let him farm six acres of land.
The young man and his bride so labored that the people thereabout were
confounded; they stirred earlier and lay down later than any honest
folk; and they took more eggs and tubs of butter to market than even
Deinol, and their pigs fattened wondrously quick.
Twelve years did they live thus wise. For the woman these were years of
toil and child-bearing; after she had borne seven daughters, her sap
husked and dried up.
Now the spell of Abel's mourning was one of ill-fortune for Deinol, the
master of which was grown careless: hay rotted before it was gathered
and corn before it was reaped; potatoes were smitten by a blight, a
disease fell upon two cart-horses, and a heifer was drowned in the sea.
Then the farmer felt embittered, and by day and night he drank himself
drunk in the inns of Morfa.
Because he wanted Deinol, Abel brightened himself up: he wore whipcord
leggings over his short legs, and a preacher's coat over his long trunk,
a white and red patterned celluloid collar about his neck, and a bowler
hat on the back of his head; and his side-whiskers were trimmed in the
shape of a spade.
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