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On a day in a dry summer Sheremiah’s wife Catrin drove her cows to drink at the pistil which is in the field of a certain man. Hearing of that which she had done, the man commanded his son: “Awful is the frog to open my gate. Put you the dog and bitch on her. Teach her will I.”

It was so; and Sheremiah complained: “Why for is my spring barren? In every field should water be.”

“Say, little husband, what is in your think?” asked Catrin.

“Stupid is your head,” Sheremiah answered, “not to know what I throw out. Going am I to search for a wet farm fach.”

Sheremiah journeyed several ways, and always he journeyed in secret; and he could not find what he wanted. Tailor Club Foot came to sit on his table to sew together garments for him and his two sons. The tailor said: “Farm very pretty is Rhydwen. Farm splendid is the farm fach.”

“And speak like that you do, Club Foot,” said Sheremiah.

“Iss-iss,” the tailor mumbled.

“Not wanting an old farm do I,” Sheremiah cried. “But speak to goodness where the place is. Near you are, calf bach, about affairs.”

The tailor answered that Rhydwen is in the hollow of the hill which arises from Capel Sion to the moor.

In the morning Sheremiah rode forth on his colt, and he said to Shan Rhydwen: “Boy of a pigger am I, whatever.”

“Dirt-dirt, man,” Shan cried; “no fat pigs have I, look you.”

“Mournful that is. Mouthings have I heard about grand pigs Tyhen. No odds, wench. Farewell for this minute, female Tyhen.”

“Pigger from where you are?” Shan asked.

“From Pencader the horse has carried me. Carry a preacher he did the last Monday.”

“Weary you are, stranger. Give hay to your horse, and rest you and take you a little cup of tea.”

“Happy am I to do that. Thirsty is the backhead of my neck.”

Sheremiah praised the Big Man for tea, bread, butter, and cheese, and while he ate and drank he put artful questions to Shan. In the evening he said to Catrin: “Quite tidy is Rhydwen. Is she not one hundred acres? And if there is not water in every field, is there not in four?”

He hastened to the owner of Rhydwen and made this utterance: “Farmer very ordinary is your sister Shan. Shamed was I to examine your land.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” answered the owner. “Speak hard must I to the trollop.”

“Not handy are women,” said Sheremiah. “Sell him to me the poor-place. Three-fourths of the cost I give in yellow money and one-fourth by-and-by in three years.”

Having taken over Rhydwen, Sheremiah in due season sold much of his corn and hay, some of his cattle, and many such movable things as were in his house or employed in tillage; and he and Catrin came to abide in Rhydwen; and they arrived with horses in carts, cows, a bull and oxen, and their sons, Aben and Dan. As they passed Capel Sion, people who were gathered at the roadside to judge them remarked how that Aben was blind in his left eye and that Dan’s shoulders were as high as his ears.

At the finish of a round of time Sheremiah hired out his sons and all that they earned he took away from them; and he and Catrin toiled to recover Rhydwen from its slovenry. After he had paid all that he owed for the place, and after Catrin had died of dropsy, he called his sons home.

Thereon he thrived. He was over all on the floor of Sion, even those in the Big Seat. Men in debt and many widow-women sought him to free them, and in freeing them he made compacts to his advantage. Thus he came to have more cattle than Rhydwen could hold, and he bought Penlan, the farm of eighty acres which goes up from Rhydwen to the edge of the moor, and beyond.