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The anger which Aben nourished against Dan waxed hot. Rain came, and it did not abate, and the man plotted mischief to his brother’s damage. In heavy darkness he cut the halters which held Dan’s cows and horses to their stalls and drove the animals into the road. He also poisoned pond Penlan, and a sheep died before it could be killed and eaten.

Dan wept very sore. “Take you the old water,” he said. “Fat is my sorrow.”

“Not religious you are,” Aben censured him. “All the water is mine.”

“Useful he is to me,” Dan replied. “Like would I that he turns my wheel as he goes to you.”

“Clap your mouth,” answered Aben.

“Not as much as will go through the leg of a smoking pipe shall you have.”

In Sion Aben told the Big Man of all the benefits which he had conferred upon Dan.

Men and women encouraged his fury; some said this: “An old paddy is Dan to rob your water. Ach y fi”; and some said this: “A dirty ass is the mule.” His fierce wrath was not allayed albeit Dan turned the course of the water away from his pond, and on his knees and at his labor asked God that peace might come.

“Bury the water,” Aben ordered, “and fill in the ditch, Satan.”

“That will I do speedily,” Dan answered in his timidity. “Do you give me an hour fach, for is not the sowing at hand?” Aben would not hearken unto his brother. He deliberated with a lawyer, and Dan was made to dig a ditch straightway from the spring to the close of Rhydwen, and he put pipes in the bottom of the ditch, and these pipes he covered with gravel and earth.

So as Dan did not sow, he had nothing to reap; and people mocked him in this fashion: “Come we will and gather in your harvest, Dan bach.” He held his tongue, because he had nothing to say. His affliction pressed upon him so heavily that he would not be consoled and he hanged himself on a tree; and his body was taken down at the time of the morning stars.

A man ran to Rhydwen and related to Aben the manner of Dan’s death. Aben went into a field and sat as one astonished until the light of day paled. Then he arose, shook himself, and set to number the ears of wheat which were in his field.