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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/39482-8.txt b/39482-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e6922a --- /dev/null +++ b/39482-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10616 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mushroom Town, by Oliver Onions + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mushroom Town + +Author: Oliver Onions + +Release Date: April 19, 2012 [EBook #39482] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MUSHROOM TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + + + MUSHROOM TOWN + + BY OLIVER ONIONS + +Author of "Gray Youth," "In Accordance with the Evidence," "Debit +Account," etc., etc. + + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + NEW YORK + + _Publishers in America for Hodder & Stoughton_ + + Copyright, 1914, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + +DEDICATION + + +_In the following pages I have permitted myself to take a number of +liberties--geographical, historical, etymological, and even +geological--with a country for which I have conceived a strong +affection; I trust I have taken none with its beauty nor with its +hospitality. It will be useless to search for Llanyglo on any map. It is +neither in North Carnarvonshire, in Merioneth, nor in Lleyn. Of certain +features of existing places I have made a composite, which is the_ +"MUSHROOM TOWN" _of this book._ + +_The kindnesses I have received in Wales during the past six years have +been innumerable; indeed, much of my work has consisted of writing down +(and not always improving) things told me by one of my hosts. For this +and other reasons I should like to render him such acknowledgment as a +Dedication may express._ "MUSHROOM TOWN" _is therefore inscribed, in +gratitude and affection, to_ + +ARTHUR ASHLEY RUCK + +_Hampstead_, 1914 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + + THE INVITATION 9 + + +PART I + + + I THE YEAR DOT 17 + + II ITS NONAGE 31 + + III THE MINDER 46 + + IV "_DIM_ SAESNEG" 52 + + V THE HAFOD UNOS 75 + + VI THE FOOT IN THE DOOR 86 + + VII THE MEMBER 98 + + VIII THELEMA 109 + + +PART II + + I RAILHEAD 117 + + II THE CLERK OF THE WORKS 126 + + III THE CURTAIN RAISER 142 + + IV YNYS 168 + + +PART III + + I THE HOLIDAY CAMP 179 + + II THE GIANT'S STRIDE 205 + + III THE BLANK CHEQUE 218 + + IV PAWB 233 + + +PART IV + + I THE BLIND EYE 244 + + II JUNE 263 + + III DELYN 275 + + IV AN ORDINARY YOUNG MAN 297 + + V THE DWELLING OF A NIGHT 310 + + VI THE GLYN 323 + + +PART V + + I THE WHEEL 335 + + II ADIEU 347 + + + + +THE INVITATION + + +"We'll take the little cable-tram, if you like, but it's not far to +walk--twenty minutes or so--the Trwyn's seven hundred feet high. You'll +see the whole of the town from the top. The sun will have made the grass +a little slippery, but there are paths everywhere; the sheep began them, +and then the visitors wore them bare. And we shall get the breeze.... + + * * * * * + +"There you are: Llanyglo. You see it from up here almost as the gulls +and razorbills see it. The bay's a fine curve, isn't it?--rather like a +strongly blown kite-string; and the Promenade's nearly two miles long. +But as you see, the town doesn't go very far back. From the Imperial +there to the railway station and the gasometers at the back isn't much +more than half a mile; the town seems to press down to the front just as +the horses draw the bathing-vans down to the tide. Shall we sit down? +Here's a boulder. It's chipped all over with initials, of course; so are +the benches, and even the turf; but you'd wonder that there was a bit of +wood or stone or turf left at all if you saw the crowds that come here +when the Wakes are on. It's odd that you should never see anybody +actually cutting them. Some of them must have taken an hour or two with +a hammer and chisel, but I've been up here countless times and never +seen anybody at it yet. + +"Yes, that's Llanyglo; but look at the mountains first. This isn't the +best time of the day for seeing them; the morning or the evening's the +best time; the sun isn't far enough round yet. But sometimes, when the +light's just right, they start out into folds and wrinkles almost as +quickly as you could snap your fingers--it's quite dramatic. Foels and +Moels and Pens and Mynedds, look--half the North Cambrian Range. You +couldn't have a better centre for motor-cycle and char-à-banc tours than +Llanyglo.... Then on the other side's the sea. That's only a tinny sort +of glitter just now, but you should see the moon rise over it. People +come out from the concerts on the pier-head just to have a look.... + +"The Pier looks tiny from up here? Yes, but it's three furlongs long for +all that, and those two tart-tin-looking things at the end hold nearly a +thousand people apiece. But, as you say, it is rather like one of those +children's toy railways they sell on the stalls in Gardd Street for +sixpence-halfpenny. And that always strikes me as rather a curious thing +about Llanyglo. It's a big place now--nine thousand winter population; +but somehow it has a smaller look than it had when it was just a score +of cottages, all put together not much bigger than the Kursaal Gardens +there. I don't know why the cottages should have seemed more in scale +with the mountains than all this, but they did. I suppose it was because +they didn't set up for anything, like the Kursaal and the Majestic and +the Imperial.... But it doesn't do to tell the Llanyglo folk that. They +look at it in quite another way. To them the sea and the mountains are +so many adjuncts, something they can turn into money by dipping people +at sixpence a time and motoring them round at four-and-sixpence the +tour.... And sometimes you can't help thinking that it wouldn't take +very much (a wind a bit stronger than usual or an extra heave of the +sea, say) and all these hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of stone +and iron and paint and gilding would just disappear--be sponged out like +the castles and hoof-marks on the sands when the tide comes in--or like +a made-up face when you wipe the carmine and pencilling from it.... +Eh?--No, I'm not saying they've spoiled the place--nor yet that they +haven't. You mustn't come here if you want a couple of miles of beach to +yourself. It all depends how you look at it. If Llanyglo's cheapjack in +one way, perhaps it isn't in another. It's merely that I remember it as +it used to be.... + +"Would it surprise you to learn that the whole place is only about +thirty years old? That's all. It grew like a mushroom; there are people +who were born here who don't know their way about their own town.... +Mostly Welsh? Oh dear no, not by any means. I should say about +half-and-half. I suppose you're thinking of the Welsh names of the +streets? They don't mean very much. There's Gardd Street, for instance; +'gardd' is only the Welsh for 'garden,' and Edward Garden, John Willie +Garden's father, built the greater part of it (for that matter, he built +the greater part of Llanyglo). And if anybody called Wood (say) had put +up a house here, he'd probably have called it 'Ty Coed.' And some of it, +of course, is genuine Welsh. The Porth Neigr Road does go to Porth +Neigr, and Sarn, over there, has always been Sarn. But people think +they're getting better value for their money if they come away for a +fortnight and see foreign names everywhere; they've a travelled sort of +feeling; so they give the streets these names, and print all the +placards in two columns, with 'Rhybudd' on one side and 'Notice' on the +other. + +"And that's given rise to one rather amusing little mistake. As you +know, this headland that we're on is called the Trwyn, and 'trwyn' +simply means a nose or a promontory. But over past the Lighthouse +there, there are the remains of an old Dinas, a British camp, and +half these Lancashire trippers think the headland's called after +that--'t'ruin'--'th' ruin'--you know how they talk.... + +"I'm interested in the place for several reasons (not money ones, I'm +sorry to say). For one thing, I like to watch the Welsh and Lancashire +folk together; that's been very amusing. And then, it's not often you +get the chance of seeing a whole development quite so concisely +epitomised as we've had it here. Llanyglo started from practically +nothing, and it's grown to this before John Willie Garden has a single +grey hair on his head (though, to be sure, that cowslip colour doesn't +show grey very much). Then there's that curious essence--I don't know +what you call it--the thing a town would still keep even though you +cleared every brick away and built it all over again, and sent every +inhabitant packing and re-peopled it. There's a field for speculation +there, too, though perhaps not a very profitable one. But most of all +I've been interested in seeing what various sets of people have given +Llanyglo, and what it's given to them in return--how the stones and the +people have taken colour from one another, if you understand me, and +what colour--in fact (if it doesn't sound a little pompous) in Llanyglo +as an expression of the life of our time. It's sometimes hard to believe +that something almost human hasn't got into its stone and paint and +mortar. The whole place, as it's spread out down there now--two-mile +line of front, houses, hotels, railway, gasometers and all--has had +almost a personal birth, and adolescence, and growing-pains, and sown +its wild oats, and has its things that it tells and its things that it +doesn't tell, in an extraordinary way--or else, as I say, it seems +extraordinary, because you get it all into a single focus. There may +even be a bit of me in Llanyglo. If you came half a dozen times there'd +be a bit of you too. + +"I should like you to meet John Willie Garden. He's the man to go to if +you want to know anything about these streets and hotels and the seaside +and the stations on the front. Why not come to the Kursaal, on the +Terrace, at about nine to-night?--Good. He's a capital chap; a Something +or other on the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, adopted Conservative +Free Trade candidate for his division (but a Protectionist in other +countries) and probably worth a quarter of a million, a good deal of it +out of Llanyglo. Not bad for a little turned forty, eh? He'll probably +ask you to dinner. You can't see his house from here; it stands back +from Gardd Street. It was the first house to go up in Llanyglo--no, I'm +forgetting. There was one before it--just one before it, not counting +the original cottages, of course.... + +"What do you say to a turn? We've time to have a look at the Dinas +before we go down.... + +"It's British, and the _Sixpenny Guide_ will tell you all that's known +about it--possibly more. Its foundations are said to have been sprinkled +with the blood of Merlin. What's left of it's certainly sprinkled with +these everlasting initials. The Trwyn Light's just behind, two reds and +a white, and they're experimenting with the Rocket Apparatus, but I +don't think that will come to much.--There's little Porth Neigr, +look--and that point thirty miles away's Abercelyn.... + +"Now the mountains are beginning to show; there they are--Delyn on the +left, then Moel Eryr, then Mynedd Mawr. That's Penyffestyn, with the +great cavity in his side, and his shadow's right across Bwlch.... Yes, +very fine, and a perfect evening for it. The posters at Euston don't +overstate it, do they? Of course, you've seen that very familiar one, of +a Welsh Giantess, shawl, apron, steeple hat and all the lot, holding a +view of Llanyglo in her arms? Pink hotels, indigo mountains and +chrome-yellow sands.... + +"There's the _Queen of the Waters_ coming in. If we wait a few minutes +longer we shall see the town light up. Yes, electricity; the +power-station was finished only last year; it's over there beyond the +filter-beds; Llanyglo handles its own sewage.... Ah! There goes the +Promenade lights; three jumps, and the two miles are lighted up from end +to end; the kite-string's a necklace now; pretty, isn't it?... And there +goes the Pier.... There'll be a glare behind us like a shout of light in +a moment--the Trwyn Light.... + +"The mountains are dark now, but how the day lingers on the sea! +To-night it's like ribbon-grass.... Hear the post-horns? Those are the +chars-à-bancs coming in. The last tripper's running for the station +now.... Now the light's dying on the sea; it's a new moon and a spring +tide. Two or three riding-lights only--I say, it's solemn out there.... +But they'll be dining at the Majestic presently. That long golden haze +is Gardd Street, and that spangle at the end of it's the New Bazaar. +There goes the Big Wheel in the Kursaal Gardens, with its advertisement +on it. We might look in at the Dancing Hall to-night; that's rather a +sight. They have firework displays in the grounds, too, and last year +there was one out in the bay; they put bombs and flares and serpents on +rafts, and laid them from boats, like mines. That was in honour of the +Investiture of the Prince of Wales.... + +"We'd better take the tram down, I think; we might stumble and break our +necks.... + +"The other turnstile.--That kiosk place? That's the visitors' bureau. +They'll tell you quite a number of useful things there--cab fares, +porters' charges, time and tide tables, excursions and so on; but John +Willie Garden can tell you more interesting things than those. Don't +forget you're to meet him to-night.... + +"You're sure you can't dine with me? Very well. The Kursaal, then, on +the Terrace, at a quarter to nine...." + + + + +PART ONE + + + + +I + +THE YEAR DOT + + +On a Friday afternoon in the June of the year 1880, a roomy old +shandrydan, midway between a trap and a wagonette, moved slowly along +the Porth Neigr and Llanyglo road. It had been built as a pair-horse +vehicle for Squire Wynne, of Plas Neigr, but the door at the back of it +now bore the words, "Royal Hotel, Porth Neigr," and its present or some +intermediate owner had converted it to the use of a single horse. The +shaky-kneed old brown animal at present between the shafts might have +had a spirit-level inside him, so unerringly did he become aware when +the road departed by as much as a fraction from the true horizontal. +Taking the good with the bad, he was doing a fair five miles an hour. At +each of its revolutions the off hind-wheel gave a dry squeak like a pair +of boots that has not been paid for. + +The day was warm, and hay was cutting. Combings of hay striped the +hedges where the carts had passed, and as the Royal Hotel conveyance was +so wide that it had to draw in in order to allow anything else to pass +it, wisps had lodged also in the cords of the great pile of boxes and +brown tin trunks that occupied the forward part of it. Honeysuckle +tangled the hedge-tops; the wild roses were out below; and in the +ditches the paler scabious was of the colour of the sky, the deeper +that of the mountains towards which the old horse lazily clop-clopped. + +The pile of trunks in front hid the driver and the two print-skirted and +black-jacketed young women who sat beside him from those inside the +vehicle. These two young women were two of Mrs. Garden's domestics, and +they travelled far more comfortably than did their mistress. Packed up +by her bustle behind, on her right by her seven-years-old daughter who +slept with her head on her shoulders, on her left by the angle of the +trap, and in front by the hamper, the three or four straw basses, the +cardboard boxes, the hold-all of sticks and umbrellas, with a +travelling-rug thrown in (all of which articles she strove to balance on +her short, steep lap), she could only perspire. Her husband, who sat +opposite, could see no more of her than the top of her hen's-tail, +lavender bonnet. Even this he shut out when he took up, now his +newspaper (every line of which he had read twice), and now his +daughter's _Little Folks_ (for the inspection of which periodical, +though the print was much bigger than that of the newspaper, he put on +his gold-rimmed glasses). The smell of his excellent cigar mingled with +the scents of the roses and hay, and trailed like an invisible wake a +hundred yards behind. + +John Willie Garden, who was eleven, had travelled half the distance from +Porth Neigr on the step of the trap. During the rest of the time, now +falling behind and now running on ahead, now up a campion-grown bank and +again lying down flat to drink at a brook, he had covered as much +distance as a dog that is taken out for a walk. He wore a navy blue +jersey, which, when peeled off over his head, had the double effect of +wiping his short nose and causing his shock of gilded hair to stand up +like flames, all in one movement. He carried a catapult in one hand. +Both pockets of his moleskin knickers bulged with ammunition for this +engine. In the heat of a catapult action, against hens or windows, he +used his mouth as a magazine, discharging and loading again with great +dexterity.--But, a mile or so back, his father, looking up over his +paper, had called the Cease Firing. John Willie now plipped the catapult +furtively, and without pebble. It was the chief drawback of the holiday +from his point of view that it had to be taken in the company of his +father. Among his brighter hopes was that Mr. Garden, having seen them +installed, would return to Manchester on the Monday. + +Mr. Garden was head of the firm of Garden, Scharf and Garden, spinners, +and, to judge from his attire, he might have stepped straight from the +exchange. His square-crowned billycock hat, buttoned-up pepper-and-salt +grey suit, and crossover bird's-eye tie with the pebble pin in it, were +at odds with the slumbrous lanes and the scabious-blue mountains. He +carried a wooden-sticked, horn-handled umbrella, wrapped in a protecting +sheath, and from his heavy gold watch-chain depended a cluster of little +silver emblems that he would not have exchanged for as many Balas +rubies. All Manchester knew that he could have given up the dogcart in +which he drove daily to business, and set up a carriage and a pair of +horses in its stead, any day it had pleased him; and his opinions and +judgments, when he saw fit to utter them, were quoted. But he rarely +uttered them. When asked for his advice, say upon a letter, he would +adjust his glasses, read the letter slowly through, turn back and read +it all over again more slowly still, and then, when the person in +difficulties was awaiting the weighty pronouncement, would look through +the letter rapidly a third time, and at last, glancing over the top of +his glasses, would mildly observe, "This seems to be a letter." +Sometimes he would come to the very verge of committing himself by +adding, "From So-and-So." The grey eyes that looked over those gold rims +were remarkable. They seemed to serve less as appreciative organs of +immediate vision than as passers-on of an infinite number of visual +data, which would be accepted or rejected or laid for the present aside +by some piece of mechanism hidden behind. He was forty-four, clean +shaven, save for a pair of small mutton-chop whiskers already turning +grey, darkish and rather delicate-looking, and only half the size of his +stout, blonde wife. As long as Free Trade remained untouched, he had no +politics, and he was an adherent of the lower forms of the Established +Church. He was taking this journey on his daughter Minetta's account, +who was not doing so well as she ought to be. He had bought a couple of +the Llanyglo cottages, and judged that by this time they must be ready +for occupation. + +The mountains drew nearer, and other pale colours began to show through +the scabious blue. The pile of luggage continued to brush the hedges, +and the off wheel to creak. Minetta snored lightly as she slept, and the +black legs that issued from her pink check frock, trimmed with crimson +braid, swung slackly with every jolt of the cart. Mrs. Garden's face +glistened; Mr. Garden allowed _Little Folks_ to fall from his hand, and +dozed; John Willie sought birds' nests and rabbits; and the old horse +continued to change from lumpish trot to slow walk and from slow walk to +lumpish trot, as if he had had a spirit-level inside him. + +After this fashion the Gardens jogged along the lanes where to-day the +summer dust never settles for touring-cars, motor-cycles and the +Llanyglo motor chars-à-bancs. + +"John Willie!" + +It was five o'clock, and they had arrived. Leaving the cluster of three +or four farms that formed the land-ward part of Llanyglo, they had +turned through a gateless gap in a thymy earth-wall, and all save Mrs. +Garden and Minetta had descended. The cart-track had become less and +less distinct, and had finally lost itself altogether in deep, sandy +drifts in which their approach made no noise. There was a fresher feel +in the air. + +And then, through a V in the sandhills, the sea had appeared, and the +lazy crash of a breaker had been heard. + +The irregular row of thatched cottages was set perhaps a hundred yards +back from high-water mark, and the intervening space was a waste of +sand, coarse tussocks, and the glaucous blue sea-holly. Half-overblown +rubbish strewed the beach--rusty tin pans and kettles, old kedge +anchors, corks, a mass of potato-parings in which three or four hens +scratched, and the skeletons of a couple of disused boats. The +half-dozen serviceable boats were gathered a couple of hundred yards +away about a short wooden jetty. A mile away in the other direction rose +the Trwyn, bronze with sunny heather and purple with airy shadow, with +the lighthouse and the Dinas on the top. A small herd of black cattle +had wandered slowly out to it, and was wandering slowly back again at +the edge of the tide. + +"John Willie!" + +The cottages were thatched and claywashed, and while some of them had a +couple of strides of garden in front, others rose from little taluses +of blown sand. Sand was everywhere. It lodged in the crevices, took the +paint off the doors, and had blunted the angles of posts and palings +until they were as smooth and rounded as the two or three ships' +figure-heads that stood within them. Grey old oars leaned up in corners; +umber nets, with cork floats like dangling fruit upon them, hung from +hooks in the walls; and the squat chimneys had flat stones on the tops +of them. The windows were provided with swing-back wooden shutters. +Between the farming part and the fishing part of Llanyglo the family had +passed three chapels. + +"John Willie!" + +Mrs. Garden had descended, and stood over her neat boot-tops in sand, +wondering which of her cramped members it would be best to try to +straighten first. Standing by her only half awake, Minetta rubbed her +eyes. At a respectful distance, but a convenient nearness, half a dozen +barefooted children described as it were rainbow-curves in the air with +their hands from the foreheads downwards, and a little further away the +maritime population of Llanyglo watched the Royal Hotel driver struggle +with the luggage. They did not stand off from hostility, but from an +excess of delicacy. Then, as a heavy trunk slipped and stuck, a young +man with braces over his gansey gave a quick smile, started forward, and +bore a hand. + +"John--Willie!" + +It was Mr. Garden who called. He had put his key into the door of the +cottage where the house-leek grew like a turkey's neck on the claywashed +gate-post, and he wanted John Willie to help carry in the smaller +parcels. Now John Willie was neither deaf, nor did he feign deafness, +but he had a fine sense of the defensive uses of stupidity. Question +him directly (say about those apples or that broken window-pane), and he +knew nothing whatever. Question him further, and he knew less than +nothing. You might conceivably have questioned him to the extreme point +when his unadmitting blue eyes would have said, as plain as speech, +"What is an apple?" His primrose head could be seen at this moment fifty +yards away down the beach. He was watching a fisherman scrape hooks with +an old clasp-knife. He had just spoken to the man. "_Dim Saesneg_," the +man had replied. John Willie was now watching him, not as a man who +scraped hooks, but as the possessor of a new and admirable defence +against questions. + +"John Wil----" + +But this time the summons was broken in two on Mr. Garden's lips. He had +opened the cottage door, and was looking mildly within. + +The orders he had given for the preparation of the double cottage for +his wife and children had included the lining of the interior with +match-boarding, and he had understood that this had been finished a week +and more ago. It was a month since he had had the advice-note from the +timber merchant at Porth Neigr that the material had been delivered. And +so it had. There it was. There, too, were the walls. But the +matchboarding was not on the walls. It lay, tongued and grooved, with +the scantling for fixing it, just where the timber merchant's men had +deposited it--on the floor. It filled half the place. On the top of it, +still in the sacking in which they had been sewn, were the articles of +furniture that had been brought from Mr. Garden's Manchester attics and +lumber-rooms. The rest of the furniture he had taken over from the +previous tenants, whom some vicissitude of fortune had taken far away +to South Wales. + +Mr. Garden removed his glasses, wiped them, replaced them, and then, +looking over the top of them, spoke: + +"Where's Dafydd Dafis?" he said. + +But a cry from his wife, who had come up behind him, interrupted him. +She fell back again, not mildly, but in consternation. + +"Nay, nay, Edward!--I never----" she gasped. + +"Where's Dafydd Dafis?" Mr. Garden asked again. + +"Of all the sights! If it isn't enough to--I thought you told me----" + +Mr. Garden blew his nose and slowly put his handkerchief away again. + +"Does anybody know where Dafydd Dafis is?" + +"--and us fit to drop for a cup of tea!" Mrs. Garden continued. "Up +since five this morning, and come all that way, and not so much as a +fire lighted nor a kettle on to boil----" + +Mr. Garden was looking about him again, as if he would have said, "These +appear to be boards," when suddenly his wife broke energetically in. + +"Well, it's no good standing looking at it; we must all turn to, that's +all.--Jane! Ellen!--Off with them jackets, and one of you make a fire +while the other unpacks the groceries. The tea and things are in that +box under the shawls--and to think we might have come in wet, and not +even a winter-hedge to dry our things on!--There's no wood, you say? +Wood enough, marry! I can see nothing else!--And the tea isn't there? +Then run out and buy a quarter of a pound to be going on with; I won't +have everything unpacked now, not in the middle of this joiner's +shop!--Tell her where the grocer's is, Edward----" + +And she threw off her lavender dolman and bonnet, and bustled about, +like the capable creature she was, as ready to turn to as if she had +never had a day's help in her life. + +A little girl stood at the door, still describing rainbows from her +forehead; but scarce had Ellen asked her where the grocer's was when +there came up at a half run Howell Gruffydd himself, the keeper of the +single shop of the place. He was in his shirt-sleeves, wore an old +bowler hat, and wiped his hands on the coarse, white apron about his +middle. Over his glasses Edward Garden watched his approach, but he did +not speak. It was not anger that kept him silent. Already he had +accepted _fait accompli_--or in this case _inaccompli_. Howell Gruffydd +broke into sunny smiles of welcome. + +"How d'you do, Mr. Garden? So you have arrived? How d'you do, madam? How +d'you do, miss? You had a pless-sant journey?" + +He beamed on each of them, and then beamed on them again. + +"Do you know where Dafydd Dafis is?" Mr. Garden asked once more. + +"Indeed I do not, Mr. Garden. Perhaps he maake fenss for Squire Wynne. +Perhaps he fiss." + +Then Howell Gruffydd's eyes fell on the boards as if he had not noticed +them before. He gave a heartfelt "Aw-w-w!" + +"It is not finiss! Dear me, dear me! Hwhat a pitt-ty!" Then he became +cheerfully explanatory. "That will be old Mrs. Pritchard--Dafydd Dafis +he that fond of her as if she wass his own fless and blood. She iss +nine-ty, and for two weeks they have prayers for her in the chap-pil, +and Doctor Williams, he come from Porth Neigr, and that is five +s'illing, but the pains in her body was soa bad she not know hwhat to +dooa!--And it was good fiss-ing these three weeks and more--and the man +who bring the boards, he say they well season, but it do them no harm to +wait a little while longer----" + +Mr. Garden's eyes were still looking over his glasses. + +"Then is he going to let them season for ever?" he said. + +Howell Gruffydd smiled soothingly.--"Naw-w-w! Not for ev-er, Mr. +Garden!" + +"It's a good job he hasn't got to get his living in Manchester," Mr. +Garden observed. + +At that Howell Gruffydd clasped his hands, as if he congratulated +himself that an interesting rumour was confirmed. + +"Indeed, now," he said, "they do say that the pip-ple there is not the +same as the pip-ple here!" + +At this point Mrs. Garden's voice was raised. She was on her knees by +the boxes, and could not find the sugar for tea. At the word "tea," +Howell Gruffydd broke out with eager hospitality. + +"Indeed it is cup of tea I came about," he said. "I say to Mrs. +Gruffydd, 'They come all this way,' I say, 'and they will be want-ting +cup of tea whatever.' It is all ready ... Eesaac Oliver!"--he called +from the doorway--"run to your mother, and say we be there in one +minnit! And do not answer me in Welss when there are pip-ple who do not +understand it--where are your manners, indeed!" He turned to the +new-comers again. "You s'all have cup of tea whatever, Mrs. Garden--it +cost you noth-thing--and the young gentleman, he is down at the boats, +but Eesaac Oliver s'all fetch him--come on----" + +Howell Gruffydd, the grocer, speaks rather better English to-day than +he spoke then, but there is no more quickness and keenness in his +black-lashed light-blue eyes, and no more persuasiveness in his purring +voice. To the half-unpacked boxes of provisions on the floor he did not +drop an eye. He led the way past half a dozen cottages to the little +shop with showcards and paper packages in the diminutive window. He +showed them in and round the counter, lifting the old curtain that shut +off the parlour from the public part of the shop. Blodwen, his wife, in +a clean apron that showed the knife-edged creases of its ironing, was +curtsying as if she did not know how to stop. The parlour communicated +with the inner side of the counter, and behind the counter, on the left, +was the window. Bottles and canisters stood on the shelves, and below +them were innumerable small drawers. The fire-place had a high +mantelpiece with countless china objects upon it, and a large dresser +with blue and white plates stood against the inner wall. Next to the +dresser was a tall clock, with a ship sailing round the world on the +dial. A gigantic black turnip of a kettle sent out a cloud of steam; +cranpogs were keeping hot in a dish within the fender; and near them an +enormous marmalade-coloured cat slept. The room smelt of pepper and soap +and pickles and cheese, and Howell Gruffydd's guests filled it. He +helped his wife to wait upon them, and in the intervals attended to the +shop. A little girl came in for a pennyworth of bicarbonate of soda, and +Howell, returning from serving her, again showed his white, but false, +teeth. + +"It maake the tea last longer," he said, with a jerk of his head; "but +there is no bi----" he smiled again apologetically, though he was +perfectly well able to pronounce the word, "--there is none of that in +this tea, Mrs. Garden. It is not tea like the fine pip-ple in +Manchester drink, but we are simple pip-ple here. Blodwen, the cranpogs; +make a good tea, Mr. Garden; indeed, you eat noth-thing; tut, tut, they +taake up no room!--You say what is that, young gentleman? That is a +Welss Bible. Aha, you cannot read that! Nor you cannot say, +'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychyndrobwlantysiligogogoch!'--You try? I say +it slowly----" + +Though Howell had repeated the jaw-breaker twenty times, John Willie +Garden would still have maintained the silence of defence. + +"Ha, ha, ha! It is easy!... Well, I ask you riddle instead.--There +was a young gentleman, and he have eight"--he held up his +fingers--"eight--sisters. And every one of them has a brother. Now you +tell me how many brothers and sisters there are!" He winked, but +respectfully, at Mr. Garden. + +"Nine," said John Willie Garden contemptuously, with his mouth full of +cranpogs and jam. + +Howell showed no discomfiture. He laughed. + +"Ha, ha, ha! He say nine! I ask him again.--There was a young +gentleman ... but, dear me, there is the s'op again! We must earn our +living, all of us. Business before pleas-sure--it is a good rule----" + +And he squeezed through to the counter again, while his wife boiled more +eggs and spiked the cranpogs on a fork, five at a time. + +After tea Mrs. Garden was seen to be pulling up her skirt and to be +feeling for her pocket in the folds of her petticoat; but with an +imperceptible gesture her husband restrained her. He thanked Gruffydds, +and they returned to their own cottage, Eesaac Oliver accompanying them +to help to pile up the matchboards and to take the furniture from its +sacking. The cottage was much like the other cottages of the place. Its +ceiling consisted of tacked-up sheets, inside which spiders and dust and +sand whispered and the wind rippled. The black mantelpiece had brass +candlesticks and china ornaments, and on one side of the tall clock was +a grocer's almanac-portrait of Mr. Gladstone, while on the other was one +of Dr. Rees, the President of the Congregational Union of England and +Wales. A sampler, rather difficult to see in the bad light, hung +immediately within the door, and the window opened six inches, in which +position it had to be propped with a short stick. There were geraniums +on its sill, and a red sausage filled with sand kept out the draught +when it was closed. The outer door of the second cottage was to be +permanently fastened up when the match-boarding should be finished. The +cottages adjoining belonged to fishermen, the one with a wife and +children, the other a widower who kept his departed wife in mind by +means of a number of framed and glazed cenotaphs, consisting of a black +ground with white angels mourning over a tombstone, and, above, the +words, "_Er Serchog Cof_----" + +This was Llanyglo when Minetta Garden was first brought there for the +benefit of her health. The authors of the Itineraries had not thought it +worth mentioning; Wyndham has nothing to say about it, Skrine did not +visit it, Pennant passes it by. But you may find an excellent steel +engraving of it, by Copley Fielding, full of accomplishment, elegance +and taste, and published by the London Art Union. If Minetta did well +there, it was Edward Garden's intention, so far as Edward Garden's +intentions were ever known, to let or sell his cottage and to build a +more convenient house of his own. There was stone to be had in abundance +within three or four miles. Mutton was plentiful and delicious, beef +not quite so plentiful nor quite so good. The larger grocery supplies +could be sent direct from Manchester, the odds and ends purchased from +Howell Gruffydd. Water was to fetch only a hundred yards, and lamp oil, +etc., came twice a week in the cart from Porth Neigr. And soon--Edward +Garden did not know yet, and if he did not know you may be sure nobody +else did--Porth Neigr might be brought nearer to the rest of the world +than ten miles' journey by road. For, besides being a spinner and a good +many other things, Edward Garden was a Director of the Ratchet and +Rawtonstall Railway, and, as is the compliment between railway and +railway, those little silver trinkets that dangled from his gold +watch-chain--little greyhounds and locomotives, winged orbs and other +emblems of speed--were the tokens of his freedom at all times over other +lines, and of his personal intimacy with men who open up land, not a +field at a time with a plough, but by running a sinew of steel through +it, with a nerve alongside that, touched at any point, quickens and +thrills throughout its length. + +Nevertheless, it is quite true that he came to Llanyglo first of all for +the benefit of his daughter's health. + + + + +II + +ITS NONAGE + + +At bottom, neither the good fishing nor the illness of ancient Mrs. +Pritchard had been the real cause of Dafydd Dafis's procrastination in +the matter of the match-boarding--any more than those greased cartridges +were the real cause of the Mutiny. He was merely vindicating the claims +of a temperament that kept him, and would always keep him, poor, yet a +power. He was a day-labourer, whom anybody could hire to build a wall, +mend a thatch or caulk a boat; but--and this was the secret of his +influence--he had a harp in his cottage. In a glorious baritone voice he +sang _Mentra Gwen_, _Y Deryn Pur_, and lorn songs of love and wild +songs of battle. More than that, he sang _penillion_; and as +_penillion_--which is an extempore form of song into which you may +plunge at any point you please, provided you finish pat and triumphant +with the double bar--as _penillion_ concerns itself mainly with two +themes, namely, the loved mountains and lakes of Cambria, and quick and +topical inventions of personal gossip, Dafydd Dafis held his hearers +both by their deeper sentiments and their lighter foibles. He was a +spare and roughly clad man of thirty, unmarried, with a kindling eye, a +handsome nose, and a ragged dark moustache; and when his head was bowed +by the side of his harp, all the life of him seemed to run out into the +lean and roughened fingers on the strings. + +He came to see Edward Garden about that match-boarding on the Saturday +morning, bringing a youth of eighteen with him. Edward Garden, who had +had experience of the Welsh in Liverpool, which is the capital of Wales, +received him with resignation. Fair and softly goes far in a day, and he +knew that the luxury of chiding the bard of Llanyglo would prove a dear +one did Mrs. Garden find her egg supply suddenly fail and the Llanyglo +cows mysteriously cease to yield milk. + +His forbearance was rewarded. Before he departed for Manchester on the +Monday morning he had the satisfaction of seeing Dafydd Dafis and the +youth actually begin the job. No doubt it would be finished by the time +divinely appointed for its finishing. + +But whether Dafydd Dafis sang much as he worked, or worked a little as +he sang, remained an open question. + +Now in whatever other respects Llanyglo may have changed, its air then +was the same air that the Guide Book so justly praises to-day. Minetta +felt the benefit of it at once. During her illness she had had her dark +hair close-cropped; for fear of taking cold, she still wore a red +"pirate" cap, that is, a cone of knitted wool with a bob at the peak +that fell on one side of her head: and for the same reason she wore +black stockings pulled well up over the bamboo-like joints of her bony +knees. She was a slight, dark pixy of a child, on whom so much care had +been expended that she had begun to care for herself and to talk wisely +about draughts and wet feet; and sometimes she consoled herself for the +loss of her hair by repeating her mother's assurance, that it would grow +the more strongly afterwards. + +But within a fortnight of the Gardens' settling at Llanyglo there was no +further thought of taking her back home until the cold weather should +come. Her doll's-house and paint-box were sent for. Her health +continued to improve. By and by she was to be found squatted down by the +sand-blown palings, surrounded by the Llanyglo children, keeping a shop, +of which the commodities were shells, pebbles, starfish and the like. +Her dolls and their house were neglected. But the other little girls, +who had seen these wonders once, sometimes lingered wistfully about Mrs. +Garden's door, looking within, and whispering, "There it is, +Gwladys--see, by the cloch----" + +Long before the match-boarding of a single room was completed, John +Willie Garden, whom at first his mother had not been able to drive out +of doors, had lost interest in Dafydd Dafis, his sawing, his hammering, +and his songs. He disappeared by the half-day together. It was a holiday +time at the school by the Baptist Chapel, and, with Eesaac Oliver +Gruffydd and other youngsters as his companions, he scrambled among the +rocks at the base of the Trwyn, or climbed the headland itself, or +digged for bait, or went out in the boats, or fished for crabs with +split mussels off the jetty end (he stuffed his catch up underneath his +blue jersey, where the animals crawled about on his friendly and naked +skin). The rainbow curves of the children ceased when he or Minetta +appeared, but they continued as a salute to Mrs. Garden. The weather +continued superb: it rained scarcely at all. The mountains were never +for two hours the same; the sea in the evenings was mother-of-pearl; and +the rising moon seemed to stand up on it, like the lateen of a felucca +of gold. + +Mrs. Garden sent to Manchester for her tricycle. + +Then the school by the Baptist Chapel re-opened, and for some days John +Willie, hanging idly about and listening to the droning within, was +undecided whether to give the insulting cry of liberty or to lament +that he was left to his own devices. He himself would not have to go +back to school till the middle of September. Then he still further +enlarged his circle of acquaintance. He attached himself to a farmer's +lad, who shot rabbits of an evening among the sandhills, and, after +being allowed to fire the gun, gave his catapult away to a "kid." July +passed. The match-boarding progressed by fits and starts. It was now +Minetta who impeded its progress. Dafydd Dafis loved her as if she had +been his own child, and told her stories of dragons and knights and +enchantments and fairies, and sang _Mentra Gwen_ to her, all by the hour +together, careless whether Edward Garden paid him for those same hours +or not. + +With the passing of August, Llanyglo had made far more difference to the +Gardens than the Gardens had to Llanyglo. Indeed, Llanyglo looked like +absorbing them altogether, as animals not ultimately capable of +domestication are sucked back into the feral state. In the matter of +dress, for example, they had deteriorated alarmingly. Half his days John +Willie spent in and out of the water without a stitch on him, and he no +longer had a pair of sand-shoes to his name.--And Minetta? First she +lost the bob from the peak of her red "pirate" cap, and then the cap +itself was cast aside. From careful nightly brushings of her "new" +pleated navy-blue frock with the white braid, she allowed the pleats to +get full of sand, and, where the prints of her ribbed soles had been, +now her bare feet patterned the beach. Her bamboo legs were brown as +seaweed and barked up the shins; and when (with a totally abandoned +display of knickers) she emptied her shoes of sand, she would sit down +in a pool as soon as not.--And Mrs. Garden? Not for worlds would she +have had anybody from Manchester see her as she returned on her tricycle +from bathing among the Trwyn rocks, sessile on the saddle, a mackintosh +over her voluminous bathing-dress, a towel cast across her shoulders, +and her plump ivory legs rising and falling on the pedals like the twin +cranks of a vertical human engine. Yes, the Gardens were slipping back +into savagery. They were becoming part of Llanyglo. Manchester seemed, +not so much a hundred miles, as a hundred years away. + +And when, on a Monday morning, it became necessary that Mrs. Garden +should put on her garments of civilisation again and traverse those +hundred miles, or years, in order to see how her other home was getting +on, the whole population gathered about the Royal Hotel shandrydan that +came to take her to Porth Neigr, and tears stood in eyes, and sobs +choked throats, and shawls and hands and handkerchiefs were waved as the +vehicle started off over the muffling sandhills, and as many promises +were made that Minetta and John Willie should be well looked after as if +she had been departing never to return, instead of coming back again on +the Friday. Howell Gruffydd picked a tear from his eye with his little +finger, and spoke of the mutability of human affairs. + +"The one is ta-a-ke, the other left," he said. "It is all change. Dear +dear, it make me think of my cousin Evan Evans, of Carnarvon, and his +three boys, as fine boys as ever you see, and so-a hap-py, all living +under one roof, till Mary Evans die and wass buried, and the changes +come, and where are those boys now? They are scatter. One is in Bangor, +and one is in Menai Bridge, and one is in Pwllheli. Dear me! Dear me! +Mrs. Garden was a very kind one. There was no kinder 'ooman. Al-ways +the sa-a-me. She seem like one of ourselves. Well, well----" + +And he picked away another tear, as grief-stricken as if he had been +reciting an epitaph "_Er Serchog Cof Am Amelia Garden_." + +Then, when on the Friday she duly returned, there was as much rejoicing +as if she had been a sister, come back again from a long wandering. + +Mrs. Garden had brought back with her in the Royal Hotel conveyance +wellnigh as much luggage as had laden the vehicle on their first coming; +for it had been decided that Minetta's stay was to be still further +prolonged. So warm clothing had been brought, and more blankets, and a +screen for the door, and a small family medicine-chest, and Minetta's +Compendium Box of Games. And that was bad news for John Willie Garden, +for it brought the shadow of his own departure near; and yet it was good +news too, for it seemed to promise a more sure establishment in the +place, with perhaps another visit for himself during the Christmas +holidays. He could not think how the summer days had slipped away, and +grew doleful as he remembered how few of them now remained. + +Then, when September was a week or so old, he climbed the Trwyn in order +to take his good-bye look at Llanyglo. + +A straggling row of cottages, a few paths over the sandhills, three +Chapels, a school, and a few scattered farms: the rest, mountains, sea, +and air. The tide was creaming over the short thumb of a jetty, and the +herd of small black cows was patrolling the beach. Morgan's cottage, +Roberts's cottage, their own cottage, not more than a dozen other +cottages; and then Howell Gruffydd's shop: already the place was full of +memories for John Willie Garden. That wide pool in the sands that +reflected the sky had not been there a fortnight before--for the sea had +now lost its summer look, and it changed the configuration of the shore +at night. A puff of low-blown smoke showed where Dafydd Dafis was giving +a boat a coat of tar. There was the small crack of a gun--John Willie's +friend was shooting rabbits. On the top of Mrs. Roberts's chimney a new +flat stone had been placed, and a new staple for the shutter had been +driven into the wall. John Willie had still no stockings on, but he was +sensible now of the wind on his legs. They were as brown as rope. His +hands too were brown and grimy, and smelt pleasant. That morning he had +been helping the men to get in the winter peat.... + +So he watched, and at tea-time he descended; but already he was making +up the exultant tales he would tell the boys of his form, of the +spanking place where his father had taken a cottage and might presently +be building a house. He would boast over them in the Welsh words he had +learned, and triumph no end that they did not understand him. Only to a +few of his special friends would he confide the meanings of his +expressions in English. + +Three days later he was doing even so, at Pannal School, near Harrogate, +in Yorkshire. + +Mr. Garden came to Llanyglo once more, bringing a doctor with him this +time in order that Minetta's health might be authoritatively reported +upon, and again he departed. The cottages, which in summer had been +places to live outside of, began to have a comfortable look as the +afternoons drew in. Minetta wore her boots and stockings again now, and +her maroon serge frock with the white collar, and Mrs. Garden put her +tricycle away in the little lean-to behind the house, smothering the +bright parts with vaseline and covering it up with sacking. The +last--the very last--piece of match-board had been nailed in its place, +and all had been pale oak-varnished, so that the sheen of the fire could +be seen in the walls. The glowing peats were reflected too, in still red +spots, in the black glass rolling-pin, the brass candlesticks, the +windows of the dolls' house, the plates and lustre jugs, and the china +sitting hen where they kept the eggs. The wind began to hoot in the +throat of the chimney. Mrs. Garden's ears became accustomed to the +louder falling of the breakers; soon the cessation of this noise would +have been the arresting thing. October wore on. There was very little +fishing now. Each of the three Chapels had a week-night service, and +nearly everybody went to all three. Twice the schoolroom was thrown open +for concerts; but most of the singing took place in the kitchen. +Sometimes, on the edge of the dark, a fantastic irregular shape would be +seen, rising and dipping and lurching as it approached over the +sandhills; it was Dafydd Dafis, carrying on his back the wooden case +that contained his harp. Save for these infrequent diversions, the +winter was a dead time at Llanyglo. The hamlet rolled itself up and +hibernated. Mrs. Garden sometimes sighed for a Hallé concert, or a +dance, or "a few friends in the evening," but she bore up for the sake +of the dry and sunny and exhilarating days and the good they did +Minetta. Minetta got out her dolls, their house, and the Compendium Box +of Games; and she and Gwladys Roberts and Morwenna Morgan and Mary +Price, with the oil lamp on the table and the firelight glowing low on +the ceiling, had spring-cleanings of the mimic dwelling (to which the +Welsh children did not take with any great heartiness), and epidemics +among the dolls (which were more interesting), and once a funeral (to +which they gave themselves rapturously). They played Snap and Fishponds, +and then Minetta set about the making of a picture screen, with coloured +figures which she cut from the _Queen_ and _Lady's Pictorial_ and plain +ones which she coloured with her paint-box. + +At Christmas Mr. Garden and John Willie came down, the former for a few +days, John Willie for a fortnight. One of his days Mr. Garden spent in a +visit to Squire Wynne, who lived at the Plas, three miles away. The sea +was some days as black as iron, on others as white as ash with the +tumult of the wind. There was snow on the mountains, but little at +Llanyglo. Even John Willie did not want to bathe. In the daytime he +tried to rig up a sail on his mother's tricycle, so that he might coast +along the two miles of beach before the wind; at night he often walked +down to the edge of the dimly creaming water, and stood looking out into +the blackness, or else at the Trwyn Light, two reds and a white. + +Squire Wynne, the former owner of the Royal Hotel shandrydan, was the +ground landlord of Llanyglo, and the reason of Edward Garden's Christmas +call on him was--still quite simply and on Minetta's account--that he +had decided to build and wanted certain land to build on. But this was +not quite the simple matter it might have appeared to be. With this, +that, and the other, the Squire floundered in a morass of mortgages, +and, for the scraping together of his interest money, could scarce have +re-papered the dilapidated walls of the Plas dining-room. He had other +property also, thirty miles down the coast, which he had never the heart +to go and see. It was there that the family fortunes had been sunk. A +score of broken shaft-chimneys and heaps of fallen masonry on a +promontory were all he had to show for the good Wynne money--these, and +a deed-box full of scrip and warrants which you could have had for the +price of the stamps on them. For that remote volcanic waste had been a +happy hunting-ground for the prospectus-monger with hopeful views on +paying quantities, and the Squire had granted more concessions than he +could count. It was to be presumed that somebody had made money out of +the concessions, if not out of the mines themselves. The last enterprise +had been manganese. + +"Let me pour you out a glass of port first; it's the only thing I have +that hasn't some sort of a charge on it," said the Squire. He was a +heavy man of near sixty, the owner of a family pew in Porth Neigr +Church, a stickler for rainbowing, and, in a feckless sort of way, +something of an antiquary. His adherence to the three-bottle habit +helped to make the fortunes of several quacks in our own day, who +advertise infallible cures for the neuritis he and his kind have +bequeathed to their descendants. The only sign the Squire himself showed +of this was a slightly ochreous eye.--Then, when he had poured out the +port, "It's you who have the money nowadays," he said, meaning by "you" +Gladstonian Liberals. "Look at this ceiling of mine. There isn't a +ceiling in Wales with a finer coffering, but look at the state it's +in!--And that chandelier! It holds forty candles, but _I_ can't afford +'em! This is what _I_ use." He pointed to his father's old reservoir +colza lamp on the table.--"And I'll show you the staircase presently.... +Sell? It won't make sixpence difference to me one way or the other. +Which piece is it you want?" + +Mr. Garden told him. + +"Well, you'd better see my man about it. Sheard, Porth Neigr, next to +the corn-chandler's shop. Or I'll see him if you like. But if we do come +to terms I should like to give you a piece of advice." + +"What is that?" Edward Garden asked. + +"I suppose you're not Welsh by any chance?" + +"No." + +"Well, I'm half Welsh, and things jog on well enough as long as I'm +alive. There are all sorts of questions that simply don't arise. But +they're a queer people here, and when you get to the bottom of it, +practically the question of landowning resolves itself into keeping on +the right side of Dafydd Dafis, if you see what I mean." It was not +necessary to tell Edward Garden that, but he begged the Squire to go on. + +"For instance," the Squire continued, "I've a couple of mortgages +foreclosing any time now--Sheard will tell you--I don't even know who +the mortgagees are. But if they're Welsh, so much the better for them. I +mean if they introduce changes, or go at things like a bull at a gate, +they'll wish I'd gone on paying them interest. A smile does more than a +smack here. If they inclose, for example----" + +"Ah, this new Act----" + +"Or any other Act There was a case at that No Man's Land of mine over +there----" The Squire jerked his head in the direction of the shafts +where the family fortunes had been sunk. "An Englishman came, and began +to fence, and there was a Dafydd Dafis sort of fellow there, and this +man Rodgers thought that because he wore strings round the knees of his +corduroys he wasn't anybody of consequence ... and there you are. The +only thing Edward the First could do with the bards was to destroy +them, and they're the same breed yet.--So that's my advice. For the +rest, you'd better see Sheard. Have another glass of port." + +And, after he had been shown the magnificent ruin of a staircase, and +had noted without showing the grass on the Squire's paths and the moss +in the Squire's grass, Edward Garden thanked the Squire for his advice +and took his leave. He was able to come to terms with Sheard, and in the +following spring a new house began to go up in Llanyglo. + +The site Edward Garden had selected for his house lay a little way +behind the row of cottages, over the thatches of which it looked out to +the sea. Rock cropped up there, amid a waste of bents and potentilla and +sea-thrift and thyme, and a rill slipped over moss and, a little further +on, disappeared into the sand, to emerge again down by the shore. From a +stone quarry on the Porth Neigr road stone was still being got for the +extension of Porth Neigr itself; and it would actually be nearer to +bring it to Llanyglo. Sheard saw to that also, and Edward Garden, taking +the Squire's advice, put Dafydd Dafis, match-boarder, in charge of the +work. It would take time, but it would save time. And, so long as it was +understood that it was Dafydd Dafis who might say to this man "Come," +and he came, and to the other "Go," and he went, Edward Garden did not +anticipate difficulties did he wish, later, to "stiffen" his supply of +labour by importing a plumber, or a mason, or a carpenter or two from +Manchester. + +So, in the spring, the rock was cleared and chisels began to clink; and +John Willie Garden, away at school in Pannal, could scarce contain +himself until the summer holidays should come. He sent, by letter, the +most peremptory specifications. His room was to be thus and thus, and +not otherwise. The letters also contained complaints to his mother that +his health was seriously impaired by arduous study; so was the health of +his friend Percy Briggs: indeed, all the fellows were remarking how +greatly in need of a change of air he and Percy seemed. Mrs. Garden's +chief preoccupation was that the new house should have water upstairs +and a cupboard at every turn. + +And as that was the first building of their own that the folk of +Llanyglo had ever seen, its progress became their daily talk. The +farmers came from inland to look at it, and, as the weather grew milder, +the fishermen no longer smoked of an evening under the shelter of their +boats down by the jetty, but instead made a kind of club-house of the +triangular pile of floor-boards that the Porth Neigr timber merchant +presently delivered. They climbed inside this slatted prism, hung the +interstices with sacking as a protection from the wind, and smoked and +talked, while the stars peeped down on them. They talked of progress and +innovation, and of how little they had ever thought they would live to +see such a change as this on the face of their sandhills. + +"But it will not be as big as the Plas, whatever," one of them would +remark, not so much as belittling Edward Garden's new house as in order +to correct a certain tendency to wild and disproportionate talk. Indeed, +they were proud of Llanyglo's growth. Only the building of another +chapel could have made them prouder. + +"Aw-w-w, William Morgan, h-what a way to talk!" another would reply. +"You talk like a great simpleton! You say next it is not so big as the +railway station at Porth Neigr! Indeed, the Plas is big-ger, but it is +di-lap-i-date, a pit-ty to see, and the staircase--aw-w-w dear! They do +say Squire Wynne he go in lit-tle bedroom, not to fall through the +floor!" + +"And the stables is lock up, all but one stall, and you shan't find a +handful of corn there, no, not more than will feed one horse!" + +"There was sixteen horses there----" + +"And the Squire, he hunt----" + +"It all go to that Abercelyn in the mines--thousands of pounds!----" + +"There is land here to build stables if Mr. Garden wiss----" + +"Indeed, Hugh Roberts, if he build any more we be bigger than Porth +Neigr, whatever!----" + +And this hyperbole always raised a laugh. Porth Neigr, besides being the +head of the railway, had a market place, two banks, a stone quay, a +court house, and an English Church. + +The house rose higher and higher, and by the time John Willie Garden +came again, in July, it had reached the first floor. Long rows of roof +slates were stacked under a temporary shed, and, as if he had not had +lessons enough in the school by the Baptist Chapel, Eesaac Oliver +Gruffydd did multiplication sums and Welsh-English exercises upon them. +John Willie's eyes danced when they saw the scaffolding and ladders. He +was six rungs up a ladder before you could have turned round. He was up +that ladder and down a second and up a third almost as quickly, nor did +he take breath until, short of swarming up the scaffold-poles, he had +stood on the topmost point of the structure. Then, with the air of +something accomplished, he condescended to the level ground again. + +Half of Dafydd Dafis's men lodged at one or other of the farms and +cottages, to the tenants of which they were bound by ties of +consanguinity; the others put up at the little alehouse half a mile out +on the Porth Neigr road, which served also as a shop for the outlying +farms. Dafydd paid their wages, and they had built a hearth near the +mortar heap for the cooking of their dinners. John Willie dined daily +with them. Never was such importance as that with which he came nigh to +bursting. The rocks and the rabbits, the boats and the Trwyn, no longer +called him; here was not only a house going up, but his house. In his +father's absence he could give orders. He became knowing in limes and +mortars, expert in the use of the plumb and level. He strutted about +with a square, setting it carelessly against angles, and derided Eesaac +Oliver and his slates and long-division sums. The eaves-level was +reached; they began to get the roof-timbers up; the sandhills resounded +with hammering and sawing; and the upper part of the house began to +resemble a toast-rack against the sky. Only one stone remained to be set +in position. This was the gable-stone with "E. G., 1882" upon it. John +Willie warned Eesaac Oliver that the slates on which he ciphered would +soon be required. + +As matters turned out, he was wrong in this. Already three men, a +plumber, his mate, and a carpenter, had been down from Manchester, and +fresh supplies of timber--sections of staircase and so on--had come in +carts over the sound-deadening sandhills. But how all at once the work +came to a sudden stop--how that toast-rack stood against the sky for +another year without a slate upon it--and how Edward Garden, away in +Manchester, had once more to accept the line of least resistance, while +his son loitered disconsolately about the unfinished building until +something even more exciting claimed his interest--to tell these things +another chapter had better be begun. + + + + +III + +THE MINDER + + +The land on which, as Squire Wynne had told Edward Garden, other +mortgages were being foreclosed, began a furlong or so behind the +unfinished house, reaching to and including one of the farms--Fotty, +John Pritchard's. It formed a three-hundred-yards-wide strip of bents +and rough grazing, which spread out inland with Fotty in the middle of +its base. The mortgagee was Squire Wynne's Liverpool wine-merchant, and +he had accepted the mortgage partly because he did not wish to be at +cross-purposes with such of Squire Wynne's friends as were good +customers of his, and partly because he was not very likely to get +anything else in settlement of a longish account. This account had been +reckoned off the sum advanced, which, besides, was based on a low +valuation; and, not wanting the land himself, he was ready enough to +sell to any optimist who did. + +The land remained in the possession of the wine-merchant for exactly +eleven weeks. At the end of that time he had found his optimist in the +person of Terry Armfield. + +And who was Terry Armfield, that his affairs should thus become mixed up +with those of Llanyglo? + +Well, the name of one of his grandfathers, which need not be mentioned, +is to be found, in certain circumstances of notoriety, in Gomer +Williams's _History of the Liverpool Privateers_; and that of his +father is associated with the bright story of the tea-clippers. Thus a +certain adventurousness in Terry may perhaps be accounted for. But +whence the rest of him derived was a mystery. Belated young Tractarians +who burn incense in their monastic bedrooms were no more common in +Liverpool then than they are to-day. In appearance, Terry was an +ill-adjusted compromise between an ascetic and a young man about town. +He was tall and of a buoyant movement, excellently dressed, had burning +and ecstatic brown eyes, and was possessed of an extraordinary power of +impressing people as long as, and even a little longer than, he was +actually in their presence. This was all very well as long as he spoke +only of pictures that this self-made merchant ought to buy, or of books +without which some shipper's newly formed library would be incomplete. +He really knew a little about these things, as also he did about +architecture and engravings, vestments and Ritualism and furniture. The +trouble began when he went beyond them. Wealthy business men, looking up +as Terry lounged into their offices, would put up their hands +defensively, cry, "It's no good, Terry--I won't listen," but would +presently find themselves listening none the less. It was not that Terry +was plausible. Plausible was not the word. He persuaded you only because +he was, for the time being, overwhelmingly persuaded himself. His +capacity for enthusiasm was astonishing. Circumstances having driven him +from his true vocation (the Church) into business, he traded as it were +under Letters of Marque that had had an apostolic blessing. +House-property, leases, patents, picture-exhibitions, concessions, bills +for discount, Irish-harvester agencies, philanthropy on a paying basis, +and a hundred even vaguer values--some idealistic strain in Terry so +moved the dullard-on-the-make that he had a new light on business as a +benison, and on money-making as something nobler than he had supposed. +What such an one commonly lacked, Terry was full and running over with; +and the end of the matter frequently was that it was judged to be worth +a certain amount of risk to be on the side of Terry and the angels. + +Of course, Terry ought to have been locked up as a public danger. +Anybody but Terry would have been locked up. But you cannot lock +innocence and rapturous good faith up. Terry, if you had locked him up, +would merely have sent for his crucifix, plunged into fresh scheming, +and would have come out again as running over with piracies and the +humanities as ever. + +So Terry Armfield, who hitherto had never heard of Llanyglo and of whom +Llanyglo had never heard, took over Fotty and the strip of land that ran +down to Edward Garden's unfinished house, with, as it happened, +extremely notable results. + +For nobody who knew Terry ever supposed that he made purchases of real +estate solely upon his own account. He represented others; and it is +perhaps significant that the nickname by which he was known among the +members of the Syndicate which made use of him was borrowed from the +slang of the "swell mob." He was called "The Minder." + +Now the Minder, as you ought not to know, is the gentleman who makes +himself charming to you while the others consult about how much you may +be worth, and how you may most conveniently be made worth less. Often, +like Terry, he himself is not in the real councils of his allies. They +want his looks, his candours, his repute, his address, and in Terry's +case they especially wanted his powers remarkable of persuasion. Until +it should be decided what people were to be persuaded of, Terry minded. + +Little did John Pritchard, tenant-farmer of Fotty, dream of the +solicitude with which his farm was regarded by a number of people who +had never seen it and did not want ever to see it. Little did he think +that that middling oat-bearing land was being minded and brooded upon. +Little did he imagine what interest, what benevolence, what affectionate +regard ... or, to put it in plain English, he had no notion whatever +that, instead of having Squire Wynne for a landlord, he was now the +tenant of a set of prospectus-vendors of whom two or three were the same +men who had held those hopeful views on the paying-quantities of +manganese that could be obtained from that other property of Squire +Wynne's, the Abercelyn mines, thirty miles further down the coast. + +The Corporation did not insist on manganese or on anything else. On the +contrary, it was accommodating in the extreme. You paid your money and +took your choice what commodity you found on its properties; you could +have had tin, iron, copper, lead, anything you happened to fancy. It +merely wished to be able to show, in case of need, its indefeasible +title to real land, at Llanyglo or anywhere else, but the further from +civilisation the better. It would be safer, and really not much dearer, +to buy Pritchard's farm, than it would be to have to confess in open +Court that the tin or iron or lead shares of which it was trying to +create the value, unfortunately happened to have Pritchard's farm +sitting on the top of them. + +"No, we'd better get hold of a bit of real land from somewhere," the +Syndicate had said. "Better have it in a new name too. All Abercelyn +names exempt for three years. Who is there?... What about Armfield?" + +All had agreed that Terry would make an excellent Minder. + +When, in course of time, the Syndicate first heard from Terry (who heard +it goodness knows where) that "glo" was the Welsh word for "coal," it +was on the point of plumping for coal without further question. + +"What more do you want?" it asked itself. "'Glo'--'coal'; there you are. +Place-name. Awful lot in a genuine place-name. Find it on an old map, to +show that we didn't invent it, and the whole thing settles itself. +There's bound to _be_ coal. Sure to be. They didn't call it that for +nothing. All ground's got _some_thing in it. _I_ say coal. On the face +of it. It seems to me Providential. (Shut up, Abercelyn; we're talking +about Llanyglo now.) ... Who says coal, then?" ... + +But Llanyglo was not destined to be a colliery village. Latticed +shaft-heads were not to rise under the Trwyn, nor men to descend in +cages to the galleries deep under the sandhills. Edward Garden's house +was not to become a mine-manager's residence, nor a coal-quay to be +constructed where the wooden jetty stuck out like a stumpy thumb into +the sea.--Nevertheless, it almost looked at one time as if it might have +been so. + +The Syndicate's registered offices were within a hundred yards of Lime +Street Station, and Terry, looking forth from an upper window, could see +the august portico of St. George's Hall and the cabs and steam-trams +running to and fro past it. He sat day by day at a high sloping desk, +perched on a tall stool. A small pile of letters lay by his side, +weighted with a surveyor's reel-tape, and on a shelf above the press +with the dumb-bell arm, thrust among directories and files, were _Stones +of Venice_ and _The Christian Year_. There was a green cardboard shade +on the double-elbowed gas-bracket, and on the wall near it hung an +ebony-edged T-square and a number of French curves. There was a second +stool for callers, and in a small outer office a youth of sixteen read +_The Boys of London and New York_ and chewed root-liquorice. The place +was shabby, as befitted a hole-in-corner enterprise, but Terry saw not +that shabbiness. He had splendour enough in his own visions. He did not +look very busy, but he was. A dozen inspired and half-baked schemes +fermented in his head, and besides these, he was minding Llanyglo--the +thyme and wild pansies and butterflies of its sandhills, the glaucous +blue sea-holly of its shore, its heathery Trwyn, its coal or what-not +underfoot, and its crystal air overhead--especially its crystal air +overhead.... + + + + +IV + +"DIM SAESNEG" + + +On the forenoon of that day on which work on Edward Garden's house +suddenly ceased, Dafydd Dafis, sitting astride of a coping, was singing +as he drove heavy cut nails into a beam. His song was martial, and it +almost made his joinering warlike. The burden of it was that Cambria's +foes (here a bang with the hammer) should fall beneath the sword +(another bang) as the pine falls when the levin (bang) flashes from the +cloud that hides the head of Arenig (bang, and a nail well home). John +Willie Garden, who had heard somewhere that coins of the current mintage +were placed in cavities in foundation stones, was chipping a hollow in +the bedding of the "E.G." stone for the reception of a well-brightened +sixpence and a document in his own handwriting, that should tell future +ages how one John Willie Garden had lived and had done thus and thus. +The sun was hot; the new timbers were as bright as John Willie's own +primrose-coloured hair against the intense blue; and the workmen below +seemed to stand on their shadows as lead soldiers stand on their little +bases of metal. John Willie finished his cavity, and then clambered up +to the ridge-tree. There, putting his hands behind his head, he lay on +his back, his dangling legs balancing him below. He blinked up at the +sky, and from time to time called across to Dafydd Dafis, "Peth a elwir +(whatever the English word might be) yn Cymraeg, Dafydd?" Then Dafydd +would give him the Welsh, and he would practise it softly. + +It was just on the stroke of midday when Dafydd abruptly broke off his +singing in the middle of a word. John Willie, blinking up at the blue, +waited for him to resume; as he did not do so, John Willie turned his +head. Dafydd was looking away over the sandhills in the direction of +John Pritchard's farm. + +John Willie sat up. + +"Who is it?" he asked. + +Dafydd continued to look under his hand.--"Indeed, it look like Mr. +Sheard," he muttered, "but he have strangers with him. It is Mr. +Sheard's carr-adge, whatever.... Hugh Roberts!" He called to the men +down below, who were making ready for their midday meal. He said +something in Welsh to them, and they too looked. + +Mr. Sheard's governess-cart was drawn up by the earth-wall half a mile +away, and from it three figures had descended. They climbed over the +wall and began to cross the sandhills. One of them walked slowly and +somewhat after the manner of a clock-work toy, as if he was pacing a +distance; and another, after looking this way and that about him, moved +off to the right, apparently also pacing. He stopped and held up his +hand, and then returned, laying out along the ground as he went, +something that made a little glitter in the sun. They came together +again, and seemed to confer. Then over the earth-wall John Pritchard +climbed, and William Sheard went to meet him. After that they all +pointed, in various directions. + +Dafydd Dafis, from the top of the pale yellow toast-rack, called +something else in Welsh, too quick for John Willie to hear. Then he +gazed again. Something else was coming along the Porth Neigr road. +Dafydd, who had the eyes of a river-poacher, knew both the cart and the +two men who rode on the load. It drew nearer. Sheard and the two men +seemed to be explaining something to John Pritchard. After a time John +Pritchard walked away. + +Dafydd Dafis descended from the roof, followed by John Willie Garden. He +had put his hammer into his pocket; his little heap of cut nails +remained on the coping. The men had gathered into a cluster, but none +went over the sandhills to see what was happening. + +Then a frequently repeated word struck John Willie's ear. He turned to +Dafydd Dafis. + +"Peth a elwir 'adwydd' yn Saesneg, Dafydd?" he asked. + +Dafydd Dafis looked as if he had never sung in his life. + +"Post--hedgestake," he replied. + +Slowly they got out their dinner. + +As they did so Howell Gruffydd came up from the beach. Formerly, he had +rebuked Eesaac Oliver for speaking Welsh in the presence of those who +did not understand it; now, John Willie Garden's presence was entirely +disregarded. He did not understand six words of the low, rapid +conversation. + +Then in the middle of it a light sound came over the sandhills, and the +talk suddenly ceased. They waited. The sound came again. + +Hedgestakes were being flung from the cart down by the side of the road. + +The workmen continued to sit after dinner, but not a ladder was mounted +again that day. + +John Pritchard was big and sickly and consumptive, and his farm kitchen +was also the Llanyglo Post Office. There John Willie went at six +o'clock that evening to post a letter for his mother. Nominally, John's +mother, ancient Mrs. Pritchard, whom Dafydd Dafis so greatly loved, was +the postmistress, but actually Miss Nancy Pritchard, the schoolmistress, +did most of the work. She was sealing the letter-bag from a saucer of +melted wax when John Willie entered. The postman's cart waited at the +door, and beyond it, past the gate, could be seen the hedgestakes that +had been shot down on the opposite side of the road. The postman was +explaining something to John Pritchard, and Dafydd Dafis and his +labourers listened in silence. In her chair by the fire sat ancient Mrs. +Pritchard, seeming old as the Dinas itself, her face a skull with a +membrane stretched over it, a black gophered snood surrounding it, her +hands anatomies, and her mouth from time to time making a sort of weak +baa-ing. + +Of the hushed and rapid conversation at the door, John Willie caught +this time a phrase or two he understood. "Wait and see, whatever," he +heard them say; "let them drive them in ... adwydd ... perhaps it be on +Thursday ... Saesneg...." He approached the group. + +"Peth a elwir----" he began. + +But the men who formerly had made much of him now took no notice of him +at all. + +The next day two strangers from Porth Neigr appeared at Llanyglo, and +began to stake out and to enclose a belt of land that extended, roughly, +from the Porth Neigr road on both sides of John Pritchard's farm nearly +as far as Edward Garden's house. John Willie watched these two men at +work with their pawls, measuring and driving, but the curious thing was +that nobody else did so. Save for the Porth Neigr men, the blue and +sulphur butterflies and the rabbits, the sandhills were extraordinarily +deserted. John Willie wandered here and there in search of somebody to +talk to, and by and by found himself in Howell Gruffydd's shop. The +grocer showed his false teeth in a smile, and then continued to weigh +sugar. + +"Well, John Willie Garden, can you say 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyll----' yet?" +he asked, his eyes gleaming as brightly as the bright scoop in his hand. + +"Where's everybody?" John Willie demanded. + +"You look for Eesaac Oliver?" Howell asked. "He go errand for me, to the +lighthouse. You meet him coming back if you go." + +"Where are all the men?" John Willie demanded again, and Howell made a +quick and mocking gesture. + +"Indeed, one hide behind that cur-tain--quick, look see!... Ha, ha, ha!" +he laughed when John Willie involuntarily turned in the direction in +which he had pointed. "I cat-ss you that time, John Willie Garden! You +think there's a man behind that lit-tle cur-tain, hardly so big as my +apron! Your sister, she s'arper than that, whatever!... You go find +Eesaac Oliver. He fetch eggs from the lighthouse. Perhaps you meet all +the men there too----" + +And that was as much as John Willie could get out of him. + +It was plain that something extraordinary was toward. It was a habit of +John Willie Garden's to look in at Pritchard's farm of an evening, and +there to pass the news with John Pritchard and to watch his ancient +mother, bent doublefold over her Bible, running a rush-light along line +after line so close to the page that the book was scored across with +bars of smoky brown. He went as usual that evening. But he had hardly +opened the door when it was closed again upon him. "We go to bed," said +John Pritchard, and packed John Willie off without his customary "Nos +da." + +But John Willie knew that they were not going to bed. The door had not +been closed so quickly but that he had seen a dozen men crowding the +kitchen, and Dafydd Dafis's eyes, hollower than ever in the light of the +candle that stood at his elbow, with a sentimental and knife-like gleam +in them as they turned. + +The next morning, every stake that those two Porth Neigr men had driven +in had been uprooted again, and a board with "Rhybudd" on it lay down +the beach, already lapped by the rising tide. + + * * * * * + +It was once told to the writer of _The Visitors' Sixpenny Guide to +Llanyglo and Neighbourhood_--a young man with so little regard for his +bread and butter that he made a labour of love of a job that brought him +in exactly ten pounds--it was once told to this over-conscientious +author, by a man who had known Squire Wynne very well, that the Squire, +finding himself one day in Liverpool, and taking a walk to the docks +with an acquaintance in the Royal Engineers, pointed down the Mersey +past New Brighton, and said, "Do you know, I've sometimes had the idea +that if this country was ever invaded the enemy would come up +there?"--"But surely," exclaimed his friend, "it's a difficult piece of +navigation?"--"Yes," the Squire replied, "but half the pilots are +Welshmen." + +No doubt the Squire said it without accepting too much responsibility +for it. No doubt, too, he would not have allowed anybody else to suggest +that Wales might slyly open a back-door into England. But that there was +something, much or little, in it, the famous Llanyglo Inclosures +Dispute, that now began, lasted off and on for three years, and then +came to an end in as fantastic a manner as you could conceive, seemed to +show. + +For that dispute would not have been so obstinate and envenomed had it +been simply a question of grazing, turbary, and right-of-way. True, +there might still have been the fence-destruction and gate-burning that +presently filled John Willie Garden's heart with a fearful joy; but--and +this is what made the difference--Owen Glyndwr and his triumph over +Mortimer would not have been dragged in, nor Taliesin and his prophecy, +nor Howell Dda, nor Gruffydd ap Rhys, nor Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, nor a +hundred other grey and valiant and unforgotten ghosts of princes and +saints and bards whose names string (as it were) all Wales, from +Braich-y-Pwll to St. David's Head, making of it one Western Harp in +which the wind of sentiment is never still. + +For these fences on the Llanyglo sandhills were not fences--they were +Saxon fences. They were not notice-boards and gates--they were the +insulting tokens of invasion and rapine and defeat. The Welshman says of +himself that he is able to keep only that which he has lost, and, in +Dafydd Dafis's view of it, at all events, not a piratical Liverpool +Syndicate, but a marauding Saesneg king had come again. + +On the evening of the day on which those fences were laid flat again, +John Willie went once more to Pritchard's farm, and this time was not +refused admittance. Perhaps nobody either saw or heard him enter. As if +it had been put there for a signal, a single candle in a flat tin stick +stood among the geraniums in the little square window-recess, and, save +for a dull glow from the shell of peats on the hearth, that was the only +light in the room. Again seven or eight men were gathered there, some +sitting on the hard old horsehair sofa, two on the table, and others +crouched or standing in corners; and the candle-light rested here on a +bit of lustre-ware, there on a chair knob, and elsewhere on a cheekbone +or the knuckles of a hand. It barely reached Dafydd Dafis, who sat in +the farthest corner, with his cap on his head and his head resting +against a Post Office proclamation that hung on the wall. No sound could +be heard save the loud tock-tocking of the tall clock with the in-turned +scrolls on the top and the gilt pippin between them. + +John Willie thought it would be more grown-up to accept their silence +and to share their motionlessness. He set his elbows on the dresser and +sank his neck between his shoulders. The shadow of great John Pritchard, +who sat on the sofa's end, covered John Willie and half the wall behind +him as well, and John Willie's eyes only discovered Dafydd Dafis in the +farther corner when Dafydd moved. As he moved, a bit of gilt fluting +dipped forward out of the gloom of the chimney-corner. Dafydd had his +harp. + +The next moment a single thrumming note had broken out. It was followed +by a soft chord of three or four more.... + + "_Mae hen wlad fy Nhadau yn anwyl i mi, + Gwlad beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri_----" + +It is the commonest air you will hear in Wales--_Land of my Fathers_. +Quarrymen sing it as they work by their trucks, slate-splitters whistle +it as they tap in their wedges, farmers' lads tss-tss it between their +teeth as they clump along the road, sitting sideways on their horses. +You would think it had died an age ago of familiarity and repetition. +Had it been _God Save the King_, played at an English theatre, there +would have been a single line of it, half lost in the reaching for +shawls and cloaks and fans, and here and there a man would have stood +with an interval of an inch between his hat and his head, and already +the attendants would have been getting out the sheeting for the +stalls--so long is it since we knew adversity. But here, it needed but a +stake driven into a foreshore that would hardly have pastured a donkey, +and that was enough--so much adversity have they seen.... Then, as John +Willie craned his neck, a man moved from in front of the candle among +the geraniums, and Dafydd Dafis's hands could be seen. They seemed not +so much hands as multiple things, assemblies of members each one of +which was possessed of an independent life and will. There was not a +finger that did not lurk, stiffen, clutch, and then start back from the +throbbing string as if each note had been a poignant deed done, an old +and secret vow redeemed. For the images that were evoked were cruel +images. Those fingers of Dafydd's might have been choosing, not among +strings of wire and gut, but among the living nerves of an enemy whose +moans of suffering were transmuted into music. Know, that this--not the +languid wrist nor the caressing hand, not the swans-neck forearm nor the +coquetry of the foot on the pedal--not these, but the hook, the claw, +the distortion, and the wreaking and the more than human and yet somehow +less than human love--this is the harping of Wales.... + + "_Gwlad! Gwlad!_----" + +Dafydd's head against the Post Office notice did not move, but his +twisted hand might have wrenched the sinews from their shoulder-blade of +a frame---- + + "_Pleidiol wyf i'm Gwlad!_----" + +He did not sing the words, but the words that sang themselves in the ear +of every man there meant that he was so enwrapped in his country that an +alien stake in her soil was a stake in his heart also.... + +Within a week of that harping of _Hen Wlad_, Terry Armfield had more to +mind than he had ever reckoned for. + +There was no doubt that the flame was fanned largely by the Chapels. +These were, respectively, of the three denominations most common in +Wales, namely, Baptist, Calvinistic Methodist, and Independent; and +Terry Armfield, coming down presently to see for himself what all the +trouble was about, gave one affrighted look at their architecture, +gasped, "Shade of Pugin!" and fled. The Baptist Chapel was a plain +slate-roofed Noah's Ark of stone that, with the day-school adjoining it, +stood alone in the middle of the sandhills. At one end of its roof-ridge +was a small structure in which a bell swung, and the building had this +further peculiarity, that, good stone being cheaper at Llanyglo than +common bricks, the latter material had been used wherever an +embellishment had been desired. The Independent Chapel was also of +stone, with zinc ventilators like those of a weaving-shed; these looked +over the fishermen's cottages out to sea not far from Edward Garden's +house. And the third Chapel, that of the Methodists, of which body +Howell Gruffydd was the principal pillar, lay behind the farms. It was +of corrugated iron and wood, painted inside with a skirting of chocolate +brown and upper walls of a peculiarly sickly light blue. On the walls +were stencilled ribbons with V-shaped ends, and these bore texts in +Welsh. Architecturally all these were hideous, but, to those whose +grandfathers had worshipped in the fields and in clefts of the barren +mountains and on the wide seashore, they had the beauty of a thing that +has been ardently desired, and long suffered for, and passionately +loved. + +For from these three Chapels came not only the impulse of the spiritual +life of Llanyglo, but its local politics of dissent also. Education, the +Poor Law, matters of Local Government, Temperance, Tenure, the +Eisteddfod, and the nursing of Nationalism--if these things were not +actually Llanyglo's religion, they were hardly divisible from it. And +this welding of Faith with secular works was helped by two other +circumstances. The first circumstance was that no language was heard in +the chapels but Welsh; and the second was that, as a result of the +local-preacher system, three times out of four the Welsh issued from the +same mouths--from Howell Gruffydd's mouth at the Methodist Chapel, from +big John Pritchard at the Baptists', and from Owen Morgan's among the +Independents. None of these went quite so far as openly to incite to the +destruction of fences. + +They merely prayed to be delivered from the situation in which they +found themselves. + +Whereupon, like Drake's men, heartened by prayer, they rose from their +knees again to take another pull on the rope. + +So three times in six weeks those fences were set up and laid flat +again; and then it was that Terry Armfield came down, saw the Chapels +(as above mentioned), gasped "Shade of Pugin!" and straightway sought +Squire Wynne. + +But before ever he set eyes on the Squire he had already almost +forgotten the errand that had brought him. As the servant showed him to +the dining-room he saw that noble ruin of a staircase, and his eyes +became illumined. Then, in the dining-room, those same eyes rested on +the coffered ceiling and the portraits and the wide mullioned lattice. +By the time the Squire entered he was adoring the stately stone +fireplace. He swung round, hearing the Squire's step. + +"Magnificent, magnificent!" he cried. "Show me over the house--I beg you +to show me over the house!----" + +The Squire, who had had this kind of visitor before (though none with +quite that perilous smoulder in his eye that Terry had) naturally +concluded that a fellow-antiquary, finding himself in the neighbourhood, +had permitted himself to beg for a sight of the faded glories of the +Plas. + +"I'll show you over part of the house with pleasure," said the Squire; +and he did so. + +"Magnificent!" Terry cried again, when they were once more back in the +dining-room. "And oh, that rood-screen--early sixteenth--and those +sedilia--in your Church over there! I spent an hour there as I came +along." + +"Oh, you came Porth Neigr way, did you?" said the Squire. + +As if he had previously written the Squire a letter setting forth his +business in detail, which therefore he need not repeat, Terry leaped +light-heartedly ahead. + +"Yes, sir--and then, after that, to come upon those incredible Chapels! +(That's a misnomer, by the way, unless they contain relics.) ... Of +course, after that I'm not surprised at anything these people do--fences +or anything else----" + +The Squire was reaching port from the sideboard.--"Eh?" he said, not +quite understanding. + +"_Those_ places an expression of religious emotion!" Terry cried, +throwing up his hands. "Of course, what's happened was a perfectly +natural result! Commit such an outrage on the æsthetic sense as that +and--and _no_ fence is safe! If I'd seen those Chapels first I'd as soon +have bought a volcano as that land! They ought to have been mentioned by +the vendors--flagrant _suppressio veri_--deliberate concealment of a +material fact--an action ought to lie--by Jove, I've a good mind to take +advice about it!----" + +"I beg your pardon?" said the puzzled Squire. + +A very few questions served to enlighten him. His mouth twitched as he +filled his harebrained visitor's glass. + +"Well," he said, "I don't quite follow your processes, but your result +seems all right. If you mean there's some connection between the Chapels +and your fences being pulled down, I dare say you're not very far wrong. +The places of worship do settle a good many things indirectly here. But +our own Establishment's been called a branch of the Civil Service, so I +don't see how we can complain if some of their activities are a little +secular too." + +"'A little secular!'" echoed Terry. "Pulling down fences 'a little +secular!' ... Now I'm anxious not to go to extreme lengths----" + +"Eh?" said the Squire rather quickly. He gave Terry a longish look.... +"Do you know Wales?" he asked politely. + +"I do not. But I've not heard that it's outside the Law. I was going to +say, that I don't want to issue summonses if it can be avoided----" + +Thereupon the Squire, who was inclined to like this half-mystical zany +of a guest, gave him the same advice he had given to Edward Garden. + +"Oh, avoid it if you possibly can!" he said good-humouredly. "There's +nothing these people won't do for you if you go the right way about it, +but it must be the right way. A new neighbour of yours seems to be +getting along with them quite successfully, a man called Garden. Quite +an opportunist, I should say--takes things just as he finds +them--settles every question strictly on its merits and has a good deal +of audacity up his sleeve for use at the right moment, I don't doubt. +Can't you take a leaf out of his book?" + +"Do they pull down his fences?" Terry demanded over his shoulder; he had +been looking at that marvellous fireplace again. + +"I don't think so. As a matter of fact they're building his house for +him.--By the way--Sheard's told me very little about it--have you bought +your land to build on?" + +Terry, remembering his Syndicate, had a momentary check.--"I don't know +yet," he confessed. + +"Because if you have," the Squire continued, "and find them +employment--spend money in the place--and use a certain amount of +tact--you might hit it off with them. But do try to overlook their +Chapels. A soul's sometimes saved under a tin roof, you know." + +Terry looked as if he would far rather have his soul damned under a +Gothic nave.--"That's simply buying 'em off," he said. He would have +preferred to burn them, each at one of the stakes they had uprooted. + +"Well.... I'm afraid it's all the advice I can give you.--And now I +shall have to ask you to excuse me. I'll show you a rather fine carved +kingpost before you go if you like----" + +And Terry presently departed for Porth Neigr again, where he took the +taste of the Chapels out of his mouth in a further ecstatic +contemplation of the early sixteenth-century rood-screen. + +The fences were set up again. + +John Willie Garden could never be sufficiently grateful to his stars +that what happened next came before he departed for school again. He had +gone to bed that night, but was lying awake, thinking of the suspended +building. He knew that the resumption of that building was not +irremediably involved in the fencing dispute; Edward Garden had +established a serviceable goodwill in Llanyglo; and that very night, +standing by Pritchard's manure-heap, Dafydd Dafis had all but told John +Willie that when Llanyglo had settled with the intruder it would have +time to spare for the child of its adoption again. He had told him this, +and had then ruffled up John Willie's fair hair with his hand and had +added that it was ten o'clock and time he was in bed. + +His little window, as well as that of the next room, where his mother +slept, overlooked the sandhills, and John Willie, lying awake, did not +at first notice the change in its colour. Neither did his ears hear at +first a low muffled cracking that had been going on for some time. But +suddenly he sat up. The muslin curtains and the claywashed embrasure of +the window had a rusty glow, which reached the counterpane of the bed in +which John Willie lay. + +The moment he saw this John Willie was out of bed. Then, within thirty +seconds, he had plunged into his jersey, tucked his nightgown hastily +into his knickers, and, making as little noise as possible, had tiptoed +down the stairs and out of the cottage. + +The bright glow over the sandhills guided him, and he ran as fast as he +could through the muffling sand. The continuous cracks were like +pistols, and a deep roaring could be heard, which became louder. Then, +mounting a hillock, John Willie saw the beautiful blaze. It was as high +as a cottage, and the twisting, upstreaming column of sparks above it +rose fifty feet into the night. It illumined the sandhills far and wide. +The Baptist Chapel and schoolhouse looked as if they were cut out of red +cardboard against the night. Even the zinc ventilators of the +Independent Chapel, down by the sea, showed faintly. Then all became +grey again as a dozen fresh stakes were piled on. By the time John +Willie Garden got there these too had caught, with volleys of cracks. +Every man in Llanyglo was there, and, farther off, groups of women also. +The heat was intense, so that the men and lads who ran in to throw back +half-consumed ends did so with their faces averted. + +"Why didn't you tell me?" said John Willie to Dafydd Dafis +reproachfully. + +Dafydd was watching this beautiful Red Dragon of a flame that was +burning Saxon stakes. His eyes blinked rapidly. Then he leant over John +Willie, and his forefinger tapped two or three times on the boy's heart. + +"You wass tell me you go to bed," he whispered. "You wass tell me that, +at ten o'clock, at John Pritchard's. There iss two men over there----" +suddenly he straightened himself again and pointed, "--you can tell them +the same whatever." + +A hundred and fifty yards away two men watched. They were the men from +Porth Neigr who had set up the fences. They put up at a wayside cottage +two miles away, and probably they were not surprised at what was +happening. They did not approach any nearer. + +Then there was a call of "John Willie!" and Mrs. Garden's terrified face +could be seen in the outer ring of light. John Willie was haled off, in +a rage that was nearer to tears than he would have admitted. + +Four days later summonses were served on Dafydd Dafis and two other men. + +The serving of those summonses had an instant and very remarkable +effect. This effect was, that three of the inhabitants of Llanyglo +straightway lost all recollection of the English language. And not only +did they, the summoned ones, lose it, but every witness called from +Llanyglo fell into an ignorance as blank. This happened at Sessions, +before Squire Wynne himself, who, in the days before this visitation of +forgetfulness, had talked English to all of them. The gloomy +magistrates' Court opposite Porth Neigr railway station was crowded. +Terry Armfield, at whose instance the summonses had been issued, thought +he had never seen such a set of pigjobbers as stood against the +perspiring walls or sat with their chins on their outspread forearms, +their caps in their hands or in the pockets of their corduroys. The two +men who had put up the fences sat in the well of the Court. They were +brothers, and their name was Kerr. The skylight shone on the baldish +head of the elder of them, and both had given their evidence in a strong +Lancashire accent. They had been watching on the sandhills, they said, +expecting something of the sort, and knew that it had taken place at +exactly ten o'clock, because they had both looked at their watches.... + +So "Dim Saesneg," said man after man; and the Squire could only make +dots with his pen on the blotting-paper before him, keep his eyes from +Terry Armfield, and call for an interpreter. + +Now interpretation takes time, during which time the person with most +to gain can be thinking of the tale he will tell next. So the +prosecuting solicitor stood up before Dafydd Dafis, and this kind of +thing began: + +"Were you on this land at ten o'clock that night?" + +("_Oeddych chi ar y tir yma am ddeg o'r gloch y noson hono, Dafydd +Dafis?_" This from the interpreter.) + +A rapid denial from Dafydd, not a hair of his shaggy moustache moving. + +"Ask him where he was." + +"_Lle r'oeddych chi, Dafydd Dafis?_" + +The harpist, his fingers twisting his cap, answered that he had been at +Pritchard's farm, and this also was translated. + +"Have you any witnesses?" + +("_Oes genych chi dystion, Dafydd Dafis?_") + +"Eh?" + +"_Oes genych chi dystion?_" + +"_R'oeddwn efo John Willie Garden._" + +("He says he can call the son of the man who is building a house there, +sir.") ... + +And so it went on, hour after hour, with the English evidence likewise +translated for the benefit of the defendants. At the end of the first +day the case was adjourned, but it came on again on the morrow, and +again on the day after that. It began to dam all other business. As a +block in traffic causes an accumulation behind, so other cases began to +collect--drunks, dog-licences, drivings without lights, and innumerable +other petty disputes. There was no question that the fences had been +burned; the only question was whether they had got hold of the right +men. The Bench could not understand the obstinacy with which the two +Lancashire witnesses persisted that the outrage had occurred at exactly +ten o'clock. + +"But mightn't it have been half-past ten, or eleven, or even half-past +eleven?" they were asked again and again. + +"Ah, it might," they admitted open-mindedly. "But it wasn't," they added +unshakably. + +Dafydd Dafis wanted to know what they said. + +"Oh, translate it," the Squire sighed, and for the fortieth time it was +translated. + +"_R'oeddwn efo John Willie Garden_," said Dafydd once more.... + +And that was great glory for John Willie, for he was called, asked +whether he knew the nature of an oath, was sworn, and raised a general +laugh by varying the formula with which the Court was not so drearily +familiar, and saying, in Welsh, "_Dim Cymraeg._" He stood to it that at +ten o'clock Dafydd Dafis had been talking to him by Pritchard's +manure-heap. + +"Oh, for God's sake settle it or do something!" the Squire said +impatiently to Terry Armfield, as he crossed the road to the Station +Hotel for lunch. "You can't say I didn't warn you." + +"I doubt whether my own witnesses would let me now," Terry replied. +"They're as cranky in their way as your own Fenians. Besides, as I told +you, I'm acting for others." + +"Well, if I bind 'em over they'll only do it again," sighed the Squire. + +Terry himself began to weary. After all, he had other things to mind +than a piece of beggarly waste land dotted with Chapels that were a +blasphemy of the name of beauty. + +As the Squire ate his chop in the coffee-room, the two witnesses from +Lancashire sat each on a tall stool in the sawdusted tap round the +corner. Thick imperial pint glasses of mild ale stood on the counter +before them. The elder and baldish one was a man of three or four and +forty, a hard, handy little man, with a curious dip and slope about his +right shoulder. This slight lopsidedness he had acquired during the +years in which he had wandered North Wales buying and felling alders for +clog-soles. Any time this last twenty years you might have come across +him in his little canvas hut in the middle of a wood, with a pile of +split alder-billets on one side of him which, plying his hinged knife on +its solid base with marvellous dexterity, he shaped roughly into the +clog-soles which he cast on a pile on his other side, while his brother +felled. He would buy all the alders in a wood, at so much a foot over +all; the rough-dressed soles went off to Manchester; and no doubt a good +many of them found their way into Edward Garden's spinning-sheds. In the +course of his travels he had picked up from the gentry and their +stewards volumes of gossip of families and their vicissitudes, of wills, +boundaries, timber-news, and customs and tenures rapidly becoming +obsolete; and his coat, a brown check with wide pockets, had probably +been made a dozen years before in Conduit Street. He wore a tie, but no +collar. As the Court had assumed on its own responsibility that he spoke +no Welsh, he had not considered it his business to correct the mistake, +but had allowed them to translate for him also--perhaps for reasons not +fundamentally different from those of Dafydd Dafis himself. He had half +a week's stubble on his chin and thin upper lip; he spat with great +accuracy; and he turned to humour things not generally accounted +humorous, such as scaffold accidents, fights, and deaths from dropsy. + +His brother, save that he wore a collar and no tie, was a younger +edition of him. + +They drank from the thick glasses in silence, and then the elder of them +drew out a short clay pipe with a dottle in the bottom of the bowl, +struck a match on the side of it, and lighted up. The dottle made a +noise like frying. His brother also drew out his pipe, a clay shaped +like a cowboy's head. He gave an indescribably short jerk of his head in +the direction of the other's waistcoat pocket, then, when the stub of +cake was thrown over to him, cut it with a knife with a curved blade. He +stuffed these brains of black tobacco into the cowboy's head, and made +another minute gesture. This was a request for a match. Then, bringing +out sixpence from his pocket, he knocked once with the heavy glass on +the counter. + +"Two more cups o' tea," he said to the young woman who approached. + +They smoked again in silence. + +It was the elder brother who spoke first. + +"I'm capped about them watches, an' right!" he mused. + +The other took a pull at his beer, and replaced the cowboy pipe in his +mouth. + +"I cannot think th' bairn wor telling 'em lies," the elder one mused +again. + +"Gi'e me another match," said his brother. + +The alder-buyer's wrinkled eyes were peering sideways at an auction +announcement pinned to the wall. He shifted his feet in the legs of the +tall stool. By and by he spoke again. + +"Let's see. Let's study it out.... We com' home at tea-time that day, +didn't we?" + +"Ay." + +"Then we went out into th' yard and washed we'rsens at th' bucket." + +"Ay." + +A pause, and then, the speaker's eyes on his hearer's face like two +prickers: + +"Did yet tak' your waistcoat off?" + +"I cannot tell ye." + +"I did mine. I threw it down on a chair i' t' kitchen." + +This time the younger brother shifted his feet. + +"Happen I did mine an' all." + +"Wor your watch i' your pocket?" + +"Ay, it wad be." + +"So wor mine." + +They drank thoughtfully and simultaneously, and again the silence fell. + +Then, more slowly still, the elder Kerr resumed. + +"D'ye remember a chap coming in, a thin chap, 'at spoke Welsh to t' +Missis?" + +"Ay." + +"He com' to fetch a pair o' boots to mend." + +"Ay." + +"Think ye----" again the look as of prickers, "--think ye there wor +owt?" + +"How, owt?" + +"'At he wanted to know what time it wor, or owt?" + +"There wor t' clock." + +"Ay...." + +There were minutes of silence this time. Evidently the younger brother +occupied them by taking, in thought, a considerable journey. He spoke as +if in objection to some far-fetched surmise. + +"But they'd ha' to be set forrard again," he grunted. + +"Ay, I'm bothered wi' that," the elder admitted, "--wi'out t' Missis +herself----" + +"Aw!... Think ye?..." + +They knocked for two more cups of tea. + +"And we've been swearing to ten o'clock." + +"So ye think there wor summat?" + +"I cannot think t' lad wor telling 'em lies," said the alder-buyer. + +This time they both peered reflectively at the auction announcement on +the wall, smoking and spitting as they peered. + + + + +V + +THE HAFOD UNOS + + +"Then," said Terry's Syndicate, or such of its members as lounged in +Terry's office, looking down on the Lime Street and St. George's Hall +pavements as if they had been so many fishermen selecting a likely spot +for the casting of a fly, "what about going back to the old idea--coal?" + +"Hm!----" (a very dubious "Hm!").--"Far better have another shot at +manganese--especially after what's happened----" + +What had happened had started remotely enough from Llanyglo. It had +started, to be exact, in the Balkans. Much manganese comes from the +Balkans; a war there had suddenly made the supply a mere trickle, so +that prices had whooped up; and--wonder of wonders--those old workings +of Squire Wynne's, farther along the coast, actually looked like paying. +Terry's Company, unhappily, had just transferred its rights, and was +rather sore about it. + +"Wouldn't that be a little too--timely?" a timid member suggested. + +"Not if you--er--put it properly. It's only thirty miles away----" The +speaker paused from delicacy. "From the real manganese" was understood. + +"Might send a geologist down--one we could trust----" + +A very young member of the Syndicate hazarded a remark.--"But wouldn't +burnt mine-works come dearer than burnt fences?" + +They smiled indulgently at him. He was merely suffering from a slight +confusion of ideas. Nobody had said anything about mine-works. Then they +turned to Terry. + +"What do you say, Armfield?" ... + +It was now winter, and the dispute was still dragging on. There had been +no further fence-burning, but the Member for the constituency had been +memorialised, a joint meeting had been held in the Llanyglo schoolroom, +and he had promised to come down and see for himself how matters stood. +Until he should do so the disputants glared, so to speak, at one +another. A certain element of contempt, that looked at first like +tolerance, had even entered into the quarrel. Thus, a section of fence +on a portion of the sandhills that it would have been a positive +inconvenience to visit was allowed to stand. Llanyglo preferred to +reserve its strength. But elsewhere the stakes lay half buried in the +sand, and John Willie Garden now and then wondered what sort of a raft +they would make. + +"The whole thing looks like being a damned bad spec," the Syndicate +grumbled. + +That opinion seemed to be gaming strength. + +There seemed to be more than a chance that Llanyglo, its heathery Trwyn +and its purple mountains, its unproductive sandhills and its non +dividend-paying sea, would be written off by Terry's Syndicate as a +total loss. + +Then, all in a night, something astonishing happened at Llanyglo. + +The words "all in a night" are to be understood in their very plainest +sense. Granted that it was a winter's night, and therefore a long one, +with the darkness setting in soon after four and the sun not coming up +behind the mountains again until nearly eight; none the less the fact +remained that Llanyglo went to bed as usual, and woke up to rub its +eyes, unable to believe what it so plainly saw. What had happened was +this: + +With Edward Garden's house-roof still a toast-rack against the wintry +sky, and his slates just as they had been left after Eesaac Oliver's +last long-division sum, and only half the staircase yet fitted, and the +little socket John Willie had scooped out under the date-stone still +awaiting its sixpence--with all this arrested as life and growth and +motion were arrested in the Enchanted Palace, the first new house had +gone up in Llanyglo. Where had been nothing the night before, there it +now was, staring at them when the sun rose, a house, with smoke coming +out of its chimney. + + * * * * * + +That same friend of Squire Wynne's who repeated to the author of the +_Sixpenny Guide_ the Squire's remark about invasion _viâ_ the Mersey, +told him also what a Welsh "Hafod Unos" is. + +"You know what the words mean," he said. "Strictly speaking, it's the +summer-house--pavilion--shelter--of a night. The essentials are that it +must be built on common land, and in a single night. Then they can't +eject you. At least that's the idea. Don't ask me how it stands in Law. +It may be a kind of squatter's right, or anything else, or it may have +no standing at all. Probably it hasn't. But that's neither here nor +there. They have their notions about it, and those at any rate are +immemorial. Look here: you're pottering about this country just now; +just count how many houses you find with the name 'Hafod Unos.' You'll +find quite a lot. There's a very big one Bangor way, that probably took +some years to build, but probably one of these places was its +foundation.... And a house 'within the meaning of the Act,' so to speak, +means that smoke must have gone up the chimney. Cook your breakfast +there, and--well, after that you're a sort of tolerated freeholder. It +might be worth putting into your Guide Book. You'd better add a +footnote, though, that the 'f' in 'hafod' is a 'v,' and 'unos' is +pronounced 'innos.' ... Not at all; you're welcome to any help I can +give you----" + + * * * * * + +Llanyglo, snugly in bed, had heard the sounds across the sandhills +during the night, but they had been set down to the newest development +of the fencing dispute. This development was that, a week or so before, +several cartloads of undressed stone had been shot down by the side of +the sandy gully that ran from Pritchard's gap down to the shore. And +Llanyglo had smiled. Aha! They were going to build a walled enclosure, +were they? Something that wouldn't burn, whatever? Well, well, if it +amused them to build walls on winter nights when everybody else was warm +in bed, they might. They would only lose their labour in the end. Mr. +Tudor Williams, of Ponteglwys, was going to ask a question in the House +of Commons, yes, and he was coming down to speak at the Chapel and to +see for himself. It was a cold night for building walls, whatever---- + +So they stayed in bed, and only the revolving Trwyn light, two reds and +a white, saw the planting of the thorn in Llanyglo's side. + +The two Kerrs did not do it alone. It took four of them--"a Kerr to each +corner," as Howell Gruffydd afterwards said. The two other brothers had +been sent for from Ratchet, where one of them worked in an asbestos +factory and the other was a builder's labourer; and if these imported +ones lacked that spur of conviction that their watches had been tampered +with by tricky Welshmen, they had another and a double incentive--the +sense of family unity, and of the honour of the gradeliest county on +earth, Lancashire. No Kerr, no lad from Lancashire whomsoever, could +thole to be bested by a Welshman. Lancashire was the place for which +Johnnie Briggs played cricket, the place where the Waterloo Cup Meeting +was held. They danced in clogs there, clogs with soles of Welsh alder, +and laaked at quoits and knurr and spell, and knew a bit about homing +pigeons, not to speak of cocks, the game kind. They were lads, and +right, in Lancashire.--Wales? Wales produced nothing but alders and oats +and goats and Chapels. + +The idea had been that of Ned, the eldest brother, and it was part of +the miscellaneous general information he had picked up on his +alder-prospecting through Merionethshire and Montgomery and Carnarvon +and Denbigh and Flint. He had seen a way of convicting Llanyglo out of +its own mouth. They threw down fences on the grounds that the land was +common land; very well, if it was common, as they claimed, it was a +proper site for a Hafod Unos. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander; +and merely as a poke in the eye for watch-tinkering Welshmen, and a +vindication of Lancashire's superior wit and malice, it would be worth a +night's work to see their faces in the morning. + +So to work in the dark the four brothers got. + +They helped themselves to a modest slice of Llanyglo earth, plotted it +out with stakes and string, and then began to dig. The night was +moonless, and they worked by the light of four lanterns. These +illumined little enough of the waste; the moving, straddling shadows +they cast hardly began before they were lost in the darkness again. +Knitting-needles of light came and went again on the polished handles of +the rising and falling spades, and faintly, regularly, and as if a +spirit passed high overhead in the night, the intermittent Trwyn beam +swung--red, red, white--red, red, white---- + +They had not to dig deep; there is much volcanic rock under the Llanyglo +sand; and they had not set up fences half a dozen times without having a +notion where it was. + +"Here we are," Harry, the builder's labourer grunted as his spade gave a +clink and a jump in his hand. "I thowt it wadn't be far off.--Is t' +barril there, Tommy?" + +Across a mound of thrown-up sand one of the lanterns cast a short +parabola of shadow. It was the shadow of a nine-gallon barrel of beer. + +"Nay, we mun do a bit first," Tommy replied, spitting on his hands and +driving in his spade again. + +Their house already existed, complete in their practical heads, before +ever a spade was lifted. They had seen through its entire anatomy in the +taproom of the Station Hotel, with beer to solve all difficulties. +Nothing was done twice, and brother did not get in brother's way. Even +as Howell Gruffydd said, they took a corner of their plan apiece and +dry-walled, all save Tommy, who went to and fro with a hand-cart, +fetching stone, not too much at a time, because of the dead softness of +the sand. For the general design Ned's word was law; for details, each +used his own gumption. They worked and grunted, and worked and grunted, +and worked. By the time Sirius appeared over faraway Delyn, and Orion +balanced himself on Mynedd Mawr, they had a serviceable first course +laid. Then they put on their coats again, for it was a bitter night and +they perspired, and with a single blow Tommy neatly tapped the barrel. +They drank, threw off their coats again, and set to work once more. + +"Never heed that, Sam," Ned said once, seeing his brother elaborating +the stark essential plan that had been agreed upon in the taproom of the +Station Hotel. "T' corners, t' beams, and t' roof; we haven't time to +paint it and put a pot o' geraniums i' t' window." + +By one o'clock the lanterns showed four irregular angles of masonry, +shoulder-high, as rough as you please, but true by plumb and level. This +might be a joke against Llanyglo, but it was a workmanlike one. Only two +of the brothers now walled, for they had only two ladders; Sam helped +Tom to lift and carry beams. + +By three o'clock only two of the beams were laid, but they were the +principal ones, and Ned seemed well content. + +"That's t' main o' t' work," he said, with satisfaction. "How's t' +barril going on, Tom?" + +"True by t' level yet," Tom replied. "Shall we start on th' bread and +cheese?----" + +"Did ye think on to bring some pickled onions?" + +"Ay." + +"Then we'll ha' we're nooning." + +They took their nooning, with Sirius now over Mynedd Mawr, and Orion +soaring like a kite. They took it at their leisure; they were "lads from +a reight place," setting about a job as if they meant to finish it, not +Welshmen matchboarding. A mountain of sand filled the space within their +four corners, and they lay on their backs on it, smoking, and watching +the red and white spokes of the light high over their heads, twenty-mile +spokes, of a wheel that had no circumference but its sweep through the +night. Now and then Sam gave a low chuckle; but Ned smoked, spat, and +was silent, save that he said from time to time, "Did ye number and +letter them chamfers, Harry?" or some similar question. You would have +said they had a month before them. Certainly the Kerrs, when there was a +surprise to be prepared for foreigners who meddled with their watches, +were members one of another. + +At half-past three they set to work again. By four Ned had climbed up +above, and was sitting astride a beam with the light of a lantern +shining up on his streaming face. + +"Give us another inch, Sam," he grunted, "--a bit more--a bit +more--_whoa!_ Tom, that quoin--no, th' one wi' th' bolt--this is th' +chimney end--and get them three strutts ready, accordinglie to th' +letters.... How are ye down there, Harry?" + +The mason brother was building the chimney. It was an outside one, +massive as a buttress, and Harry was building it well and truly, for it +was the essential of the house. Smoke must go up it before dawn, the +hearth-smoke of civilised man, the lowly and secular and beautiful token +that he has made himself an abiding-place on a spot of earth, and +becomes part of that spot, and it part of him, so that to deracinate him +is to thrust him back again into the bestial state and to make the land +as desert as the sea. By all prognostication, Edward Garden's smoke +should have been the first to add itself to that of the cluster of +humble dwellings between the mountains and the waves that was Llanyglo; +but of that lawn of lightsome blue that veils Llanyglo to-day the +breakfast-smoke of the Kerrs was the fore-runner. At half-past four they +were shovelling out the mountain of sand and making the hearth for it. +By six Tommy had brought in the bundle of dry twigs and faggots he had +carefully hidden away. Harry was filling in the space between the main +beam and the transom of the door; when Tom asked him for a match he +sprang down, and Ned and Sam also descended from the roof. + +"What time is it?" Tom asked. + +Ned gave a glance round, and smiled for the first time that night as he +drew out his watch. + +"Five past six," he said, and added, with indescribable dryness, +"--unless som'b'dy's been meddling wi' my watch." + +"Here goes," said Tommy, striking a match.... + +They exchanged glances that were near to winks as they watched the +flames. It was their equivalent of a cheer. + +The night paled; the Trwyn light went out; and off the headland a seal +disported itself in the icy sea. The day stole across Delyn, but Mynedd +Mawr still remained an awful precipice of ink--the shadow of the morning +bank lay over him. Then came the first glitter on the waves, and, as if +with light all other faculties awake, folk became conscious of the +crowing of cocks and the falling of the breakers on the shore. Howell +Gruffydd got up and began to rekindle his fire. A bolt was shot back at +Pritchard's farm. Dafydd Dafis packed his breakfast in his tin and set +out for his day's work--a little reslating of the roof of the Baptist +Chapel. + +But on his way across the sandhills he suddenly changed, not only his +direction, but his gait also. He advanced cautiously, skirted certain +mounds of sand that he did not remember to have seen before, and then +as suddenly drew back. Then, instead of advancing again, he returned by +a circuitous route, dropped into a sunken sandy way, and then ran as +fast as his legs would carry him down to the cottages. There he thrust +his head into Morgan's cottage and said something, and ran to the next +one--or rather to the next but two, for Edward Garden's double cottage +had been locked up since October. Then Howell Gruffydd came to his shop +door, and Dafydd called him. + +Five minutes later half Llanyglo was out on the sandhills staring +through a gap at something that lay beyond. + +It was an extraordinary house they saw, and then went round to the back +to look at from another point of view. It appeared to consist of a +living-room and a scullery, with a patch under the skeleton of a sort of +penthouse at the back. It was not even on the land that had been fenced +and unfenced and fenced again. Of roof it had none--for you could hardly +call the three or four tarpaulins, that lifted as the wind got under +them and were kept down by stones, a roof. Parts of the walls were +solidly constructed; other parts had been battened up with hedgestakes, +filled in with sods and peats, stuffed up with coats, anything. It had +an old door that had been used somewhere else, and appeared to be +propped up with stones. Over one window-opening hung an old brown coat, +the other frame was empty. A bright glow shone on the rubble within, and +smoke and sparks came merrily from the chimney. The fire crackled +loudly, and there was a pleasant smell of cooking bacon. All about the +cavity in the sand lay stones big and little, timbers, stakes, loops of +rope. There was a hand-cart too, with its handle making a T in the air. +A scraping sound was heard, as of somebody cleaning out a pan, and then +came a low "Wouf" and flare of fat in the chimney. Then somebody spoke. + +"Squeeze t' barril, Tom, and see if there's another cup o' tea." + +"Nay, we've supped t' lot." + +"Blow down t' vent-hole...." + +As if those walls vanished again even more quickly than they had sprung +up, Llanyglo could see a picture vividly in its fancy--a picture of a +tilted barrel, with the cheeks of one man distended over the spigot-hole +while another caught a muddy trickle in a thick glass---- + +Then their vision fled, and they were staring at that unimaginable house +again---- + +Slowly, and without a word, they moved off through the soft sand in the +direction of the Baptist Chapel. + + + + +VI + +THE FOOT IN THE DOOR + + +IT was a Saturday, a day on which the school did not assemble, and the +door of the schoolhouse was locked. Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd was sent off +in haste for the key. They waited for him to come back, twenty of them, +men and women, with others hurrying over the sandhills to join them. +Eesaac Oliver ran panting up again, and they entered the schoolhouse. +This was a large, yellow-washed room with beams making triangles +overhead and hot-water pipes running round the walls below. A small +squad of desks stood upright behind, and a number of smaller benches +knelt, as it were, in front of them. These faced the raised desk of Miss +Nancy Pritchard, the schoolmistress. A yellow chair or two, a couple of +glass-fronted cupboards, a row of hooks for caps and cloaks at the back, +and a harmonium, completed the furniture. A short covered way near Miss +Pritchard's desk gave access to the adjoining Chapel. A door at the side +of this led to the little stone outhouse where the water for the pipes +both of school and Chapel was heated. + +Their astonished exclamations had broken out now. As something legendary +and dear and native to their land, it was in their hearts to defend the +Hafod Unos; but for a stranger to set one up! + +"Look you, it can-not be legal!" exclaimed Hugh Morgan, a little tubby +man with semicircular brows and a round bald forehead. "It iss not even +finiss; there iss holes in the walls so-a big I put my head through +them! And that iss not a roof--it iss only rick-covers----" + +"It is wonderful how they did it, whatever!" said little restless-eyed +Mrs. Gruffydd. Those predatory eyes in Blodwen Gruffydd's pale face +could see a sixpence a mile away, and, having seen it, would not leave +it again until it had been safely dropped through the slot of the +money-box into which the savings for Eesaac Oliver's education went. +Eesaac Oliver was not to serve packets of tea and pennyworths of +bicarbonate of soda over a grocer's counter. He was to go to Aberystwith +College, and to become a preacher, and wear a black chip straw hat. + +Howell Gruffydd, who had been as thunderstruck as the rest of them, now +affected to take a jocular view of the matter. + +"De-ar me, first Mr. Garden's house, and now Ty Kerr! Well, it make +trade. Indeed, I need a bigger s'op presently--I think I start a Limited +Company----" + +But big consumptive John Pritchard spoke in deep tones. More vividly +than any of them, John had seen, as if in a camera obscura, that vision +of a Kerr blowing into the vent-hole of a barrel, while another Kerr +anxiously watched the tap.--"We need a bigger public-house, I think," he +said grimly. + +"Indeed you are right, John Pritchard," Hugh Morgan struck eagerly in, +the curves of his brows all marred with anxiety. "They sit in the +Sta-tion Hotel Porth Neigr, and do noth-thing but drinking all day--it +set a s'ock-king example, whatever." + +"And they call it 'ano-ther cup of tea,'" said a third. + +"They very smart ones----" + +Again John Pritchard's deep voice came in.--"They're very deep ones." + +Little Hugh Morgan spoke excitedly. + +"Indeed you are right again, John Pritchard! John Williams Porth Neigr, +he say to me it would not surprise him if that Ned Kerr speak Welss so +well as nobody if he wiss!" + +A shocked "_Aw-w-w!_" broke out. "And he say in the Court, 'No Welss!'" + +"Tut-tut-tut--de-ar me!" + +They were silent for a moment, contemplating this duplicity. + +"And there iss four of them now," one resumed. "They send into England +for two more." + +"We soon have large population," said Howell Gruffydd again.... + +John Pritchard had sat down on one of the yellow chairs with his knees a +yard apart. His brows seemed knitted. + +"But there is noth-thing for them to do here," he said. "No work, no +wages--only building fences." + +"Perhaps they have lot of money. Their bacon smell very good, whatever." + +"They finiss their breakfast--I heard them wipe the frying-pan out as +plain as if I see it with my eyes!" + +Again John Pritchard's heavy voice: "Finiss their breakfast indeed! They +finiss a whole barrel of beer!" + +"And it is right what Hugh Morgan says," another struck in. "That Ned +Kerr, he know Wales as well as I know my two hands! I have let-ter from +my cousin Thomas Thomas in Towyn, and he say they buy lot-t of alders up +the Dysynni two years ago of Mr. Llewelyn Jones of Abergynolwyn, and set +up a hut in the 'ood, and make their clog soles, and pay six-pence a +foot for the trees." + +"He set up more than a hut at Llanyglo, whatever!" + +"Indeed they do no such thing! The Hafod Unos belong to the old days. +There iss no new Hafod Unos I don't know this how many years!" + +"All the old things was new things once, Hugh Morgan." + +Then, as if all at once they saw anew that house so magically sprung up +out of the sand, there fell a silence. Howell Gruffydd might make his +jests about taking a larger shop and forming a Limited Company, but the +hard fact remained, that aliens had squatted down at Llanyglo while they +had slept, and, by force or process of law, might be difficult to turn +out again. Howell's jocosity subsided; among the children's forms and +benches they took counsel together; and when, at half-past ten, John +Pritchard's eldest lad came in with the news that one of the Kerrs had +departed along the Porth Neigr road, while the other three kept guard +over what they had won, they drew closer together still, and spoke in +low tones of boycott. + +Then suddenly somebody asked what Mr. Tudor Williams of Ponteglwys would +say, and the quick little outburst of "Yes, indeed," "Well said," "Mr. +Tudor Williams have some-thing to say," showed how pertinent the +observation was considered. For Mr. Tudor Williams, the Member, would be +able to tell them, if anybody could, whether the Hafod Unos was +countenanced by the Law, and whether the intruders could be served with +notice to quit. His promised visit now took on an added urgency. + +"It is a pit-ty Mr. Williams fall out with Squire Wynne," Hugh Morgan +remarked. "It will be the Squire who will have to give them notice, +whatever." + +"They quarrel one day outside the Court at Porth Neigr." + +"But indeed, Howell Gruffydd, Mr. Tudor Williams wass in the right--it +was about the Tithes, and the Tithe iss a wick-ked system----" + +"Aw-w-w, but the Welss Members they alter all that very soon!" + +"But the Squire and the Bis-sop of St. Asaph is great friends----" + +"Indeed that Bis-sop of St. Asaph he look at a Chap-pil like as if it +wass not worth his eyesight!" + +Dafydd Dafis, who sat on a child's bench, looking moodily at the floor, +had not spoken yet. He gave a quick glance up, and then looked down +again. + +"The Church iss a great robber," he muttered within his moustache.... + +They discussed questions of ecclesiastical polity.... + +"It iss a great robber," said Dafydd Dafis, again resuming his former +attitude. + +Then Howell Gruffydd rose, and one or two others followed his example. +There was the day's work to be done. Soon all moved to the door, but +before going about their businesses they went to take another look at +that astonishing house. + +But they looked only from a distance. If they had assumed that the +Kerrs, having worked all night, would now be sleeping, they were wrong. +They could see them, three of them, still busily walling, filling, +shovelling out sand. + +"They try to finiss before Sunday," Hugh Morgan said. + +But big John Pritchard glared sternly at him. + +"They care noth-thing for Sunday, those ones," he said. "That other one +will have gone for more beer." And he added, in solemn tones, "It iss a +den of li-ons!" + +The fencing dispute had now sunk into insignificance. + +It quickly appeared, even as John Pritchard had said, that the Kerrs +cared nothing for Sunday. At a quarter to ten on the morning of that +day, Howell Gruffydd, in his tight black frock-coat and bowler hat, +passing up the sandy gully on his way to the Methodist Chapel, heard +sounds of carousing. He turned aside to look. The door of the Hafod +stood open, and a second barrel of beer, together with provisions and +some sticks of furniture, had been fetched during the night. Tommy, the +youngest of the Kerrs, was already drunk and singing. The eldest of +them, seeing Howell Gruffydd, gave him an insolently familiar nod, as if +he had as much right to be there as anybody else. + +"Cold mornin'," he said. "Are ye coming in to hev' a tot?" + +Howell turned away. + +After service, Howell encountered John Pritchard. John, too, had heard +that godless levity from afar. Others gathered round them by the gap in +the thymy earth-wall, and John raised his voice on high. It shook with +bitter zeal. + +"We hear them in the Chap-pil, in the mid-dle of prayers, singing!" he +cried. "On a Sunday morning they sing; they sing '_Thomas, make Room for +your Uncle_!' I said it was a den of li-ons, but indeed no li-ons ever +behave so s'ock-kingly! They sing '_Thomas, make Room for your Uncle_,' +in the mid-dle of prayers, like if it was out of the belly of hell!" + +Dafydd Dafis, whose head for a day and a half had drooped like a wet +head of corn, gave a quick gleaming glance. + +"They not build it any more quick than it can be pulled down again," he +said quickly. "They come out of the house sometime to work, I think. +They not gentry with lot of money, whatever." + +And that was true. The Kerrs could hardly earn their living by drinking +beer and having continually to mount guard over the house they had made. + +"There will be no peace in Llanyglo now till Mr. Tudor Williams has +been." + +Dafydd Dafis's head drooped again. + +"Indeed we do not need Mr. Tudor Williams for this," he muttered under +his breath. + +And the Kerrs themselves? Did they suppose they could plant themselves +thus in the enemy's midst and not meet with hostile entertainment? + +For this we may perhaps go once more to the gentleman without whose +friendly help the _Llanyglo Guide_ would have been done quite as well as +it needed to be, and in half the time. + +"It's difficult to say, for two reasons," this gentleman said. "In the +first place, the humour of some of these Lancashire fellows is such an +incalculable thing; you never know how far they will carry it, nor how +soon it will end in black eyes and bloody noses. And in the second +place, there was that humanitarian scatterbrain, Armfield. I believe +myself that probably Armfield had already told Ned Kerr that there +_would_ be work presently.... + +"Of course, you've heard what Armfield's scheme was. The Syndicate had +decided not to rectify any more errors of Providence about the +disposition of coal and manganese; they only wanted to clear out +altogether, leaving somebody else 'holding the baby'--I believe that's +the expression. Their idea was simplicity itself: to buy land at a +shilling and sell it again at ten; but they didn't express it quite so +nakedly. That was where Terry Armfield came in--to dress the enterprise +up and make it attractive. As long as he enabled them to cut their loss +they didn't care what he did with Llanyglo. + +"And there was nothing really wrong with the scheme, except that Terry +was twenty years before his time, and naturally had to suffer for it. I +think he called it '_The Thelema Estate Development Company_,' and +nowadays it would be called a Garden City. And if Terry hadn't Edward +Garden's sense of the line of least resistance, you must remember that +he hadn't Edward Garden's 'inside' information either. He had nothing +but that ecstatic power of persuading people. And he did persuade them. +I doubt if half a dozen of the people he sold to ever saw the place. Two +of them did, though, two brothers, in the produce line. They went down, +and came back again, and quietly sold out, keeping strictly to Terry's +representations; and I believe they warned Terry then that if he wasn't +careful he'd be getting into trouble. I asked them what they'd been +thinking of to let themselves be persuaded by a hare-brained enthusiast +like that. They told me it was all very well for me to talk _now_. They +knew perfectly well all the time that it was only one of Terry's dreams +of a better and a brighter world, but they bought for all that, and so +did crowds of others. Terry didn't admit a single difficulty. He talked +about angels and the higher life. He talked about Pugin and the soul's +need for seasons of contemplation and repose. He talked about the air +and the sea and the mountains and the Trwyn, and he made it out to be +Llanyglo's chief merit that it took a whole day to get there.... And so +on. To cut it short, they were to do their own building, but Terry, as +vendor, undertook the rest--laying out certain roads, draining and +lighting them, I believe the building of a sort of public hall, and so +forth. I don't think he said anything about the Chapels. + +"And that (to get back where we started from) is probably the reason the +Kerrs stood by." + + * * * * * + +Whether Dafydd Dafis would have watched the Kerrs out of the Hafod, or, +failing that, whether he would have pulled it down over their heads, is +hardly worth debating; for, as it happened, that very Sunday night there +befell something that for the time being had all the effect of a +declared truce between the hamlet and its invaders. Something deeper and +more solemn than the machinations of man took a hand in the making of +Llanyglo. This was the wind. It began to get up at about three o'clock +that afternoon; all day there had been a swell; and Dafydd Dafis and +others, returning from Howell Gruffydd's house (where a second letter to +Mr. Tudor Williams Ponteglwys had been written, as urgent as Eesaac +Oliver's pen could make it), saw all four of the brothers on the roof, +trying to secure the tarpaulin in which the wind volleyed; their +roof-slates were not expected till the following Wednesday. The ground +was a blurr of flying sand; the sea resembled a tossing fleece as far as +the eye could see; and from moment to moment the waves, breaking over +the Trwyn, rose in slow, gigantic fountains, fell again, and then came +the roar. The four men clung like limpets to the roof, crouching until +the worst gusts were past and then resuming their hammering. They were +trying to nail the covering down, using pieces of wood as washers to +prevent the material from ripping. + +Suddenly Dafydd Dafis, looking up under his brows, saw Ned Kerr pause +with his hammer lifted and peer out to sea. Then, without moving his +head, Ned put up his hand and appeared to be shouting something to the +others. All four looked, and so did the men of Llanyglo, but from the +ground below they could see nothing. + +Then, all in a moment, Ned Kerr gave a scramble and a spring, came down +like a bundle into a mound of soft sand, and was followed tumblingwise +by the others. There was a rip and a crack, and the released tarpaulin +was a hundred yards away, flapping grotesquely over the sandhills. Ned +was up again in an instant, and as he passed Dafydd Dafis at a run he +shouted a single word in Welsh: + +"_Llongddrylliad!_" + +It was a wreck. + +The boats by the short thumb of a jetty had not been used for a week, +and lay high up the beach. Could they have got them through that boiling +of white sea and brown sand there was a towering ridge to be seen +beyond, maned with spray, that rushed forward and burst only to show +another in the same place. No more than one at a time could be seen. The +boats were open boats, and night was coming on. Small wonder there +seemed little to do but pray. + +But Ned Kerr shouted another word.--"_Bâd!_" + +From the top of the Hafod he had seen a ship's boat. + +The next moment he and Dafydd Dafis had each a shoulder to Hugh Morgan's +boat, and William Morgan, the three remaining Kerrs, and another man, +were hauling. All save the youngest Kerr continued to tumble aboard as +the boat lifted. He tried to struggle after it, but was overturned, and +they dragged him out and turned him upside down to pour the water out of +him. + +They have a lifeboat now at Llanyglo, _The Ratchet_, presented and +maintained by the town of that name; but that night the men of +Lancashire and the men of Llanyglo went out in one of the half-dozen +open boats. They put her into the brown, and a moment later the water +had slipped from under her and she sat down on the sand, with every +plank started. They got ashore again as best they could, and raced for +another boat and more oars. They put out again. They dare not use the +wooden jetty, of which only the beginning could be seen. The first boat +was already matchwood. A sea crawled up the Trwyn almost as far as the +Light. They inspected its ravage the next day. It stood as a record for +many years. + +Then the boat passed the brown, and stood out to that pale wall smoking +with spray. The wall came on and broke with a crash that shook the +shore. A woman gave a shrill scream ... then they saw the boat again---- + +It seemed madness to think that that open boat would be safer out +beyond---- + +After that, though they watched, they saw nothing. + +Then the Trwyn Light opened its eye, two reds and a white. All Llanyglo +was gathered on the beach, and none thought of going to Chapel. Night +fell; the sky became clear as black ice; the dim seas resembled a lair +of white bears at play. Seven o'clock passed, and eight.... Already in +folks' minds the grim thought was born; it might have been worse. They +had dragged Hugh Morgan back as the second boat had pushed off, and +none of the Llanyglo men was married. Whether the three Kerrs were +married or not nobody knew. + +Nine o'clock came.... + +Blodwen Gruffydd saw the return first, if, indeed, that vague speck lost +in the grey combings were they. Again the wave came on, and another +hideous range lifted its grey ridge.... By a miracle, it boiled far away +to right and left, but rolled, a grey-dappled dead weight, under the +boat. Already half a dozen men with a rope were waist-deep in the +water.... + +Then, as the boat crawled on its oars like an insect, another crest +rose, tilted them so that man fell on man, and a man came out.... + +They at the rope were swept out by the backwash to meet them.... + +And after all, they had come back empty-handed. They had seen neither +ship nor boat. + +But (and this, in this tale of Llanyglo and of those who made it and +were made by it, is the point), an hour later Dafydd Dafis, opening his +eyes for the first time since he had been hauled out of the water, said +something in Welsh to John Pritchard, who bent over him. Translated it +ran: + +"I would not pull that one's house down." + +Then he closed his eyes again. + +As far as the Hafod Unos was concerned, Mr. Tudor Williams's visit now +seemed superfluous. + + + + +VII + +THE MEMBER + + +Ostensibly, Mr. Tudor Williams came to Llanyglo to assist at a Sasiwn, +which is a gathering very much like the Love Feasts of other parts of +the country (indeed, if memory serves, Mr. Wesley gave these assemblies +for prayer and mutual consolation the latter name as far north in Wales +as Builth--but then Mr. Wesley did not speak Welsh). Neither the fencing +dispute nor the question of the Hafod Unos had taken nominal precedence +of this. But Mr. Tudor Williams's visit was also something more. He was +a Member returning to his own constituency--exalted, yet their servant, +familiar with the great ones of the land, yet by their favour. For that +reason they liked him to bring the evidences of his greatness back with +him. + +Mr. Tudor Williams did so, and handsomely. He was a small nimble man +with black brows and a ragged silvery moustache, and a very erect and +conscious carriage of the head. He wore a silk hat, a turned-down collar +with a flat black bow, a frockcoat with voluminous lapels of watered +silk, grey trousers, and new black kid gloves. He drove from Porth Neigr +in the carriage that had been lent him by a political supporter, and +alighted at the gap opposite John Pritchard's farm. They would have run +forward to greet him, but a certain awe of his clothes and equipage +combined with their own dignity as makers and unmakers of such as he to +keep them where they stood, in a semicircle across the road. + +But if they were at one and the same time a little intimidated and +filled out with pride in him, Mr. Tudor Williams knew no hesitation. He +sprang down from the carriage, grasped John Pritchard by the hand, and +then, not content with that, patted him all up the arm as far as the +shoulder and across the breast with the other hand, as if he conferred +invisible decorations on him. His eyes were moist, but glad greetings +flowed from his tongue, in an accent that would have put the most +diffident speaker of English at his ease. + +"Well, John Pritchard! Well, well! Indeed you have not grown any less! A +lit-tle man like me, I hardly reach up to your shoulder! Aw-w-w, you +look splen-did! I was spik-king of you a few days ago to the Member for +Carnarvon Boroughs--but dear me, here am I neglecting the ladies--I tell +you presently--How are you, Mrs. Gruffydd? This young man is never +Eesaac Oliver! Aw-w-w, how he grows! Did you write the let-ter to me, +Eesaac Oliver? That's the style! Education, knowledge--it is a grand +thing!--Now, Dafydd Dafis! And how is the harp? You sing me _Y Gadlys_ +by and by: + + '_Mae cynhwrf yn y ceunant, + Ar derfyn dydd y gad_----' + +--dear, dear, you have to go away before you can come home again! There +is nothing like this over there; there is not the sym-pathy; as I was +saying to the Member for Caermarthen, Mr. Hughes Caegwynion, not three, +four days ago, 'You get no sym-pathy from England and the +Englishman'--and indeed you do not.--Here comes Howell Gruffydd, +run-ning (indeed he runs like a deer, Mrs. Gruffydd!).--Now, Howell +Gruffydd, you miss the train if you don't look sharp (he's making so +much money he cannot leave the shop for a min-nit!).--Now, my old friend +William Morgan! How is the rheumatics?--How are you, Hugh?--Is this your +youngest, Mrs. Roberts? Hwhat! Another since! Aw-w-w--and you more like +an elder sister than a mother!... And there is the Trwyn, just the +same----" + +He was staying the night with John Pritchard, and the two moved away to +the house, the others following a yard or two behind. Mr. Tudor Williams +advanced to ancient Mrs. Pritchard's chair, took the hand that resembled +a dead bird's foot, and shouted in her ear: + +"You see I do not lose a min-nit before I come to see you, Mrs. +Pritchard!" he cried in Welsh. ("Indeed she is a wonderful old +'ooman!)--How many grandchildren have you now, Mrs. Pritchard?" (The old +woman nodded her aged head.) "Great-grandchildren! _No-o-o!_ Think of +that! But I think you all live for ever at Llanyglo. It is not like +London. If I could take bagsfull of this air back with me I make my +for-tune!--Now, Miss Pritchard, I think I must have offended you, you +are so long in spik-king to me! And how is all in school? I tell you +press-ently something straight from the Board of Ed-u-ca-tion for you to +try. You whisper a subject in the scholar's ear as he comes in at the +door, and he walk straight to the middle of the room, no time for +think-king, and speak for five minutes about it! That will make them +ready speakers, hwhat? That will accustom them to public life and +speaking in the Chapel? But I tell you later.--Now, my old friend John, +if I could wash my hands before sitting down to a cup of tea--then we +will talk----" + +He was shown into the best bedroom, with the cork-framed funeral-cards +and the cardboard watch-pockets on the walls, and the sound of his +moving about and pouring out water and spluttering as he washed his face +could be heard by those who waited below. Then he descended again and +sat down. + +"Well," he said by and by, from his place where he sat at the table +alone, they respectfully yet proprietorially watching him eat and drink +his tea, "now tell me about those matters in the letter you wrote.... I +mean the other matters...." + +But let us, before we pass to the other matters, look at the company +that watched Mr. Tudor Williams eat. + +First there was John Pritchard, sitting on the other side of the table +with his hands upon his knees, and now and then turning his body a +little aside and bowing his back to cough. There was John, stern +religionist, believing in God and Disendowment; obstinate, dull, just, +unsmiling; as ready for the Day of Judgment as if it had been the +audit-day of the accounts he kept as principal trustee of the Baptist +Chapel. For all that he was so rooted in Llanyglo that he had never +travelled farther than Porth Neigr in the whole of his life, he was as +ardent a supporter of Missionary Endeavour abroad as his voice was +powerful at the Sasiwn at home. He watched Mr. Tudor Williams's plate, +and with his thumb made signs for his daughter to replenish it. + +Next, there was Howell Gruffydd, with his pale and studious son, Eesaac +Oliver. You might have been sure even then that, should Llanyglo ever +grow, Howell Gruffydd's fortune would grow with it. Howell considered a +good penny worth the putting into his pocket, and, as if his apron +(which, however, he had now left behind at the shop) had made half a +housewife of him, he cared nothing, so it brought in money, whether he +did a man's labour or washed up the dishes or black-leaded the grate. He +could not read, but if at Porth Neigr a stranger chanced to ask him the +way, he would smile and reply, "There is the signpost," allowing it to +be understood that his questioner might read as well as he himself. +Howell had his inner dream. It was of a shop with two large windows, and +a bell inside the door, and brightly varnished showcards, and pyramids +of tinned salmon, and peas within the window that should suggest the +noses of children flattened against the pane, and handbills distributed +in the streets, and two assistants, and a son at College, who should +read for two, and perhaps--who knew?--sit while his constituents watched +him eat his tea--Mr. Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd, M.P. + +Then, with his cap in his hands and his feet shifting nervously, there +was Dafydd Dafis, next to Eesaac Oliver, on the sofa. Should purchases +and rumoured purchases of land prove to be a portent, Dafydd had all to +lose and nothing to gain by change. With that soft cruelty of his of +which the hard and more profoundly sentimental Englishman knows nothing, +Dafydd was at least disinterested. The Kerrs he had forborne to harm, +but he only hated them the more on that account. He himself would not +have killed one of the blue and primrose butterflies that in the summer +hovered over the Llanyglo buffets of wild thyme, and he could not +understand a country that said it was fond of animals and yet, like +these Lancashire men, hunted rats with terriers and coursed hares with +dogs. Alone of that nation he had for a time loved delicate little +Minetta Garden, and had told her stories of fairies and had sung _Serch +Hudol_ and _Mentra Gwen_ to her; but Minetta had gone. All the things +for which Dafydd Dafis cared had gone, or were going, and Dafydd was +lonely. He told his harp so, with those warped and stealing fingers, and +the harp made music of his pain. All that Dafydd would gain by change +would be memories that became ever the more poignant the more they were +attenuated, and the less the world cared for him and his unprofitable +life. + +Passing constantly between Mr. Tudor Williams and the saucepan where the +eggs boiled, or the plate in the fender where the lightcakes kept hot, +was Miss Nancy (_née_ Nansi) Pritchard, schoolmistress and virtual +custodian of the Post Office. The development of Llanyglo, did that ever +come to pass, would be a good thing for Nancy, for otherwise there was +none in Llanyglo to marry her, and to domestic service elsewhere she +could not have stooped. She was tall and plump and ruddy, with black +hair and black-lashed blue eyes, and in her conversation she gave the +preference to the longer words. She had been to school in Bangor, wore +the longest skirts in Llanyglo, and between her and her father's guest +was the bond of their common superiority to everybody else there. She +was a _partie_, for John Pritchard was well-to-do; but for whom? +Apparently for nobody whom Llanyglo had yet seen. + +The remaining spectators, with the exception of old Mrs. Pritchard, who +resembled a mummy rather than a spectator, partook in varying degrees of +these same characteristics; and there at the table sat Mr. Tudor +Williams, M.P., of Ponteglwys, one of his eyes aflow with tears of +sensibility while the other was glued to the main chance; Baptist, +nationalist, and arguer by metaphor and analogy; an elocutionist, and a +maker of elocutionists by that process of education that consists of +giving a scholar a subject and bidding him straightway speak for five +minutes upon it; and, above all, ever and again suggesting, by slight +gesture or quick glance, that his secret thought was that there, in cap +or corduroys, but for the Grace of God, went Mr. Tudor Williams of +Ponteglwys.... + +At last he put up his hand, refusing to eat more. + +"No more, no more indeed! It is the best bread and but-ter I have tasted +since I was here before, but I should be ill in my stomach.--Dear me, +John Pritchard, the happy hours I have spent in this room! '_Mid +Pleas-sures and Palaces_'--indeed there is tears in my eyes when I see +the dres-ser with the plates on it, and the jugs, and Mrs. Prit-chard's +Bible in the window, just the same as when I was a boy!--Well, I have +had a splen-did tea at all events, and if you will excuse me a min-nit I +will return thanks for it.... Now, my friends!----" + +Five minutes later, Mr. Tudor Williams, not so near to the Kerrs' Hafod +that he had the appearance of specially watching it, nor yet so far from +it but that he could see Ned Kerr and his brother Sam setting a rough +window-sash into position, was once more shaking hands and patting +shoulders and exchanging greetings with such of the men and women and +children of Llanyglo as he had not yet seen. + +And now that they had got him there they hardly knew what they wanted of +him. That building exploit of the Kerrs having thrust the Inclosures +Dispute a good deal into the background, and Dafydd Dafis's honourable +if sullen refusal to injure men who had risked their lives with him +having given that exploit itself a kind of condonation, it seemed as if +their Member had merely come to a Sasiwn after all. But land had changed +hands: they had a vague sense of impending change and of the discomfort +of change; and, as they answered their Member's questions, the very +presence in their midst of this man who moved behind the scenes of the +drama of large events accentuated this feeling. + +"What is he like, this one?" Mr. Tudor Williams asked, gently yet +absent-mindedly patting big John Pritchard's back as he stooped to +cough. They had been speaking of Terry Armfield. + +They described Terry as he had appeared to them in the Court at Porth +Neigr. + +"Is he taking over any other land?" ... + +You would not have supposed, from the way in which Mr. Tudor Williams, +M.P., asked the question that he merely sought to know how much _they_ +knew. And it had not occurred to Llanyglo that these transfers of land +might be, not an end, but only a beginning. Yet Mr. Tudor Williams had +good, if private reasons, for knowing that this very land might soon be +more than merely worth acquiring.... He was not deceiving them. It +pleased them to think that their Member was the repository of weighty +secrets, and he was merely indulging this simple and legitimate liking. +But already he intended to go to Liverpool in order to find out what +this Syndicate's plans really were. He wanted to know whether the +Syndicate, in its turn, was aware of something else, something still +very secret indeed, so secret that five minutes at certain keyholes +might have been worth many thousands of pounds.... + +"And this Hafod Unos--on whose land is it erected?" he next asked. + +He made a little grimace when they told him, on Squire Wynne's. + +"Then perhaps he will let it stand; he is cracked in his head about old +customs, and antiquities, and suchlike foolishness, when there is great +work wait-ing to be done. It is not our business if he likes to let +these people squat upon his land." + +But here John Pritchard interposed heavily. + +"But it is our business if they sing '_Thomas, make Room for your +Uncle_' in the middle of prayers," he said. + +"No-o-o!" exclaimed Mr. Tudor Williams, shocked. Perhaps also he wished +to gain a little time; he had no wish to call upon Squire Wynne, either +about this or anything else. "Don't tell me they did that!" he added. + +"Indeed, they did," said John quickly. + +"Aw-w-w!--But it is a Liberal maxim, John, and Radical, too, that force +is no remedy. In my opinion our friend Dafydd here----" he put his arm +affectionately about Dafydd Dafis's waist, "--was a lit-tle headstrong +about burning the fences." + +"I will not burn their house," said Dafydd sullenly. (By the way, had +the case been altered, it is doubtful whether the Kerrs would have done +as much for him.) + +"Well--we can always take what the doc-tor told the man who wanted +information for noth-thing to take--advice," said Mr. Tudor Williams. + +"It would be better to see Mr. Wynne first," said John Pritchard. "If +one comes others may come, and indeed I never saw such behaviour, no, +not in a den of li-ons!" + +They continued to discuss the matter, while, before their eyes, the +Kerrs fitted their window-sash. + +Yet it was curious to note how, within the bond of their passionate, if +loquacious nationalism, each man was jealously for himself. It was not +that their democracy was more conspicuously lacking in democrats than +are other democracies; perhaps it was rather that the Welshman +recognises two ties and two ties only--the tie of unity against the +foreigner, and the private claim of his strong family affections. +Between these two things is his void and vulnerable place. He has not +set up for himself the Englishman's stiff and serviceable and +systematised falsity of Compromise, that has no justification save that +it works. He has his age-long tradition, but no daily rule that can (and +indeed must) be applied without question. Each of his acts is his first +act, and so a retail act. Because his hypocrisy lacks the magnificent +scope of that of the Saxon, he bears the odium of a personal +stealthiness. Thus, perhaps, it comes about that while too strict an +adherence to the letter is the Englishman's ever-present danger, for his +brother Celt the spirit slayeth. Noble dreams, petty acts; and here, if +a little obscurely, may be hidden the reason why, when he seeks his +fortune in London, his greatest successes are the minor successes of +drapery and milk.... + +"Well," said Mr. Tudor Williams at last, "Wynne is a man of no ideas. He +is only a pettifogging country Squire, whose views on the Land Question +are ob-solete in _tot-to_. But if he harbours men that are a nuisance, +as John Pritchard says, perhaps it would be better if I went to see +him----" + +Nevertheless, he had no intention whatever of doing so. The truth was +that the Squire's views on the Land Question were too obsolete +altogether. They were so obsolete that he had sold when (as first Edward +Garden had known, and now Mr. Tudor Williams, M.P., knew) he ought to +have held; and it was for Mr. Tudor Williams to profit by his error if +he could, rather than to call his attention to it. He was very far from +being a wealthy man. + + + + +VIII + +THELEMA + + +Because Terry Armfield, believing in his idea, would not have abated one +jot of it for all the money in Liverpool, therefore he got all the money +he wanted. This--alas!--is not optimism, nor a hardy belief that merit +infallibly meets with its deserts in this world; it merely means that a +number of businessmen with rudimentary consciences were willing to pay a +kind of hedging-premium on the off-chance of being, after all, on the +side of Terry and the angels. It is astonishing how often your visionary +can get money out of your man of affairs when another man of affairs +would fail. + +And, even as the man who chatted to the author of the _Sixpenny Guide_ +said, Terry was only a few years before his time. The things he dreamed +of have not come to pass yet, but they are confidently promised +to-morrow. As happy as the day was long, he was merely setting up the +City that is not built with hands, and lighting it with the Light that +never was. And if the "_Thelema Estate Development Company_" had done +nothing else, it did, at any rate, put an end to that dispute that had +begun when Dafydd Dafis had pulled down fences and burned them in his +beautiful Red Dragon of a bonfire. + +But, over and above that, it did leave its little mark on Llanyglo--a +fleeting mark, laughable, bathetic, sad, hauntingly vacant, and lunatic +(as Mr. Tudor Williams would have said) "_in tot-to_." Come to that +little office near St. George's Hall, Liverpool, and see Terry Armfield +in the closing stages of his minding of Llanyglo. + +He not only conceived his Thelema; he drew the plans of it as well. He +drew them on drawing-paper, on tracing-paper, on note-paper and +bill-heads and the backs of envelopes. A paper-weight, with a knob in +the shape of a clenched fist grasping a short staff, kept half a hundred +of his hasty drafts from flying off again into the air that gave them +birth. And he added to them day by day, almost hour by hour.... Forty or +forty-five or fifty houses, say, each with its little plot for private +meditation and repose, yet sharing in common among them a spacious +pleasaunce where friend should meet friend and none but friends should +come--that was the idea. A fair wide Way, with the mountains looking +down its perspective to where gentle steps led down to the tawny +sand--that was the idea. A wall all about it, or a ha-ha perhaps, not as +against trespass, but as a symbol that here was an Isle that the tides +of the care and of the trouble of the world did not invade--a shining +and galleried chamber where light and happy laughter should rise to the +groining of the roof (dim blue with gilt stars), and should echo and +linger there as if the fane itself whispered--that was the idea. None of +it existed, none of it was ever likely to exist; but without some such +dreaming our life on earth is little worth. The people who put up the +real money for it laughed at it, and laughed at Terry when he had gone, +but humoured him while he was there as a nuisance, but a gentle one. If +they lost their money there would, at any rate, be a good many of them +in company, the land was exceedingly cheap, and they need not begin to +build upon it till they pleased. Besides, by taking shares in his +Thelema they had bought Terry off. When he came with his other wild and +beautiful schemes they could say, "No, no, Terry, we'll see how Thelema +turns out first," and pass him on to somebody else. That alone was worth +the money. + +Then there came to Terry one day a man who not only did not laugh at +him, but grasped him by the hand, patted him all up the arm and across +the breast as if he conferred invisible decorations upon him, gave +Thelema his blessing, and said, in moved tones, "Indeed it is +splen-did--splen-did--without vis-ion the people perish-eth." He told +Terry that his name was Tudor Williams, and that he was the +parliamentary representative of the constituency a portion of which +Terry and the gods on high were developing. He did not ask outright for +anything. He told Terry that, while he himself was a good Radical, +believing that God made the land for the people, nevertheless, in this +imperfect world things had to be done a lit-tle at a time, and his +principal objection to the (temporary) private ownership of land was +that it was too often in the wrong hands. If it could be put into the +right hands much of the ini-quit-ty would disappear, whatever. Then, +when he came to inform Terry that in his opinion he could be of great +use to the Estate, he told him also that he was far from being a wealthy +man, and that his usefulness must be set off as against the cost of any +interest Terry might think fit to confer upon him.... + +"Look you," he said, "the conditions of labour are peculiar, and things +that would be easy for me you might find a lit-tle diff-fi-cult. I do +not say you would, and indeed I am a good democrat, and do not believe +in one law for the ritss and another for the poor; but nowadays, when +every man has his rights and his vote ... well, without a word here and +a word there it might be a lit-tle diff-fi-cult...." + +And Terry, who was quite acute enough to see this, asked Mr. Tudor +Williams to come again. + +When Mr. Tudor Williams came to see Terry for the third time, Terry +pressed him to accept a seat on the Board. But Mr. Tudor Williams put up +a deprecating hand. + +"Aw-w-w, no!" he said. "Indeed it is very good of you, and I am very +pleased you show so much confidence in me, but it would not do. There is +my public position to consider. Indeed I would rather have a nominee. It +is hard to make people understand a proper motive. If the time was ripe +for it I would nationalise all land, yes indeed I would, but if it must +be privately owned for a lit-tle while longer it is better that it +should be in the trust of men like you and me for the public good. There +is as many different kinds of landowning as there is of landowners. That +pet-ti-fog-ging country squire, Wynne, he is repre-sen-ta-tive of all +that is worst in a vic-ious sys-tem; he has no more vis-ion than that +chair you sit on now; but we are not like that. I have not often found a +sym-pathy like yours; indeed there has been tears in my eyes while you +have talked.... But I will have a nominee. It will be better. And I will +see you get your labour. There is John Jones, Contractor, Porth Neigr. +He may even be willing to pay a lit-tle commission. We shall not quarrel +about that.--But I am bet-ter off the Board." + +Very curiously, he was not the only one who seemed a little shy about +being put on the Board. Others displayed an equal bashfulness. This +puzzled Terry. But it never puzzled him for long at a time. Always a +fresh inspiration sent him off into his cloudland again. It was about +that time that he acquired his second slice of Llanyglo, a tract +adjoining the first and running down to that shore that Copley Fielding +depicted with such accomplishment, elegance, and taste. And he took with +that second piece of land a responsibility greater than that he had +assumed when he had merely cajoled money out of the pockets of men who +had known his tea-clipping father and whose fathers had known his +privateering great-grandfather. Briefly, by enlarging his enterprise, +Terry threw away the immediate advantage of his personal idealism and +charm. The thing went to allotment shorn of his peculiar magnetism. He +received money that would not, merely on the score that they liked him, +be indulgently written off by those who would see that money no more. + +His Prospectus is extant. Edward Garden's unfinished house came into it, +and an affiliated interest, "_Porth Neigr Omnibuses, Ltd._," about which +Mr. Tudor Williams knew something. There were great swathes about the +natural beauties of the situation, and lesser ones (the Syndicate pruned +them down behind Terry's back) about the Thelema Idea. And there were a +number of other things that are impossible, yet facts in the amazing +History of Flotation. It is no good saying these things cannot happen +when they happen daily. Had you or I bought shares in the "_Thelema +Estate Development Company, Limited_," we should merely have bought, you +and I, shares in that moonshine that poor, gentle, rapturous, cat's-paw +Terry Armfield drew with freehand and French curves on his bits of paper +and presently spread out in such a lunatic fashion over the sandhills of +Llanyglo. Come, before we leave this dim chapter of the twilight of +Llanyglo's forebeing, and see what Terry did. + +Starting at right angles from the Porth Neigr road, a couple of hundred +yards short of John Pritchard's farm, there runs straight down to the +shore a street of rather more than a quarter of a mile in length. +Crossing this street in the middle runs another street, not so long, but +unfinished. These two streets intersect in an open space or circus +perhaps a hundred yards in diameter. The first street is called Delyn +Avenue, because of the mountain that commands it. The second one is +called Trwyn Way. The central circus is called by the names of the four +Crescents it comprises. Farther back from the intersecting points are +other streets. They also are named. + +But do not suppose that these streets and Crescents and Avenues and Ways +are streets in any ordinary sense. They are twenty-two and thirty-five +foot roads, metalled, crowned, drained, and with a good stone kerb +running parallel on either side. But there are no houses. There is not +even a pavement, no, not a vestige of one, flagged, macadamed, cobbled, +nor of any other description. There are no standards for gas or electric +light; there are no standards even for the names of the +thoroughfares--for you can hardly call those things standards--those low +wooden boards, rather like the "_Please Keep off the Grass_" notices in +a public park, that inform you that this is Delyn Avenue or that that is +Trwyn Way. Exactly as it was all drawn on Terry Armfield's tracing-paper +and envelopes and memo-heads, so it is now drawn on the Llanyglo +sandhills, with strips of stone kerbing for pencil lines and the +wind-blown sand where his india-rubber has passed. Lie down on the +sandhills with your eyes at the level of the kerbs, and, save for those +eighteen-inch-high street name-boards, all disappears. Or if you care to +climb the Trwyn you can see it all rather well from there.... + +There you are. Just a little patch of strapwork in the middle of the +waste. Or like a rather large gridiron somebody has thrown away. And, if +you are capable of seeing what Terry saw, namely all the things that are +not there and that never will be there, then that little grid of +laid-down and abandoned streets has a curiously mocking effect. You +imagine the ghosts of Terry's Thelemites moving noiselessly there, +passing to and from their non-existent habitations. They are going, +friendly ghost taking friendly ghost by the hand, to that groined and +lofty chamber of Terry's dream, where the faint echoes of laughter +linger in the roof of dim blue with gilt stars. They are going to walk +in Terry's closes and courts and arbours, happy in that the sorrows and +pains and substantialities of the world touch them not in their retreat. +They are going down Delyn Avenue, to where the broad and gentle steps +descend to the yellow shore. And all about them, but only to be seen if +you can see what Terry saw (otherwise you will see only the sand and the +wild thyme and the sulphur butterflies and the blue), are Calaer and +Anatole, Crière and Hesperia, Mesembrine and Arctic, which are the six +towers of that Place with the great gate where bigots and hypocrites and +defrauded and whining shareholders enter not, nor the violent Huns of +the world of business nor the cruel Ostrogoths of commerce, but only the +spruce and noble devotees of the Best, the Terrys before their time. + +But when the wind gets up, then the sand blows over it all, and John +Pritchard or somebody else, catching his foot against the unseen kerb, +comes down his length into the middle of Terry's lovely and desired +Place. But the men and women of Llanyglo are beginning to know their +way about this phantom town, and none other, save the Gardens (whose +house is now finished), and a friend or so of the Gardens' in the +summer, ever comes there. The Kerrs, however, still have their Hafod, +which they inhabit together when they are not away buying and cutting +alders and shaping them into clog-soles with the free-hinged knife in +the little canvas hut. And among the businessmen of Liverpool the whole +thing is still a rich joke.--"Well, have you started building that house +of yours in Wales yet?" a man who has not bought will ask a man who did; +and this one will reply, "Oh, I'm thinking about it," or, "You must come +down there and stop with me," or some other put-off. And it was rich in +the extreme when, one day, the man at whose expense the joke was made +took the jester by the button, smiled, and whispered something +confidential.... "What!" gasped the jester. "You've _sold_!... Wherever +did you find him? In Manchester? Ha, ha, ha! Splendid! That's a dig in +the ribs for Manchester!--I should like to see his face when he sees +it!... A pity about poor Armfield, though--he'll catch snuff----" + +For Terry had been refused bail. + + + + +PART TWO + + + + +I + +RAILHEAD + + +But something was coming to Llanyglo. + +As Edward Garden might have said, looking at this something under his +glasses and over his glasses as it crept slowly up out of the east--as +Edward Garden might have said, looking at it again and yet again, and +then gazing mildly and mistrustfully through the glasses at you, it +appeared to be a railway. + +At any rate, if it was not coming to Llanyglo it was coming within three +miles of it. + +As if a snail should leave behind it a track, not of slime, but of new +iron, grey at first, then red with rust, but soon to be bright again, so +it came on; and in other respects also it resembled a snail. It carried, +for example, its lodging with it. And it put forward sensitive and +intelligent antennæ as it sought its food thirty miles away down the +coast--manganese. It left the junction half a mile beyond Porth Neigr, +and it was going to Abercelyn. + +The lodging that the snail carried with it was called Railhead. Seen +from a distance of a couple of miles it resembled a small excoriation on +the face of the land; seen nearer it resolved itself into a town of wood +and corrugated iron, with stockades of creosoted sleepers and trenches +of earth and ramparts of ballast and metal for the laying of the +permanent way. There were superintendents' offices and the sheds of +clerks of works; there were forges and stables and strings of waggons +and a telegraph cabin; there were huts and pumping-stations and cranes, +stationary and travelling, and a gas-plant; and there were watchmen's +boxes and the temporary dwellings of hundreds of men. By day these could +be seen, spread out on the level or clustering about the embankments as +the flies clustered about the treacled strings and fly-papers Howell +Gruffydd hung up in his shop in Llanyglo; at night the oncoming snail +seemed phosphorescent, its phosphorescence the flares and fires and +lamps in cabin-windows and red eyes for danger that appeared when the +other shift took over the work from the men of the day. Whistle of +construction-engine and roar of dynamite cartridge; hiss of steam and +clang of hammers as they fished the joints; rattle of road-metal as it +was shot from the carts, and thud of the paviors' rammers; clank of +couplings and agonised scream of a circular saw; purr of telephone-bells +and the "Hallo!" as the clerk took down the receiver; sough of pumps and +bubbling of cauldrons of tar; cries to horses, slish and slap of mortar +and the clinking of the trowels; spitting of dinners cooking over the +firebaskets, sounds of singing at night; with these and a hundred other +noises the snail crept on with a spirit-level inside him--the level that +kept him true to the line that had been laid down by staff and chain and +theodolite a couple of years before. + +And in some respects that something that looked so very much like a +railway resembled not so much a snail as a snake. Did you ever see the +great python that died lately at the Zoo climb his ragged staff of a +tree? Not a joint or section of him but seemed to have that separate +life of each of Dafydd Dafis's fingers when he mourned over his harp. A +yard, two yards of the gorgeous waist-thick creature would ripple and +flow and roll upwards to the crutch of the stump; another yard would +follow, piling ever up and up; and you would wait for the toppling over +of the great golden reticulated cable. And then all motion in that +portion of the great fake would suddenly cease. Beyond the stump you +would become aware that another glittering section was a-crawl, +balancing, making fast, ever continuing the ascent.... Even so, before +and behind Railhead, the work progressed. At a point the +construction-engine stopped, the regiment of red and blue shirts and +wondrous forearms and corduroy would move off, and presently all the +life of the line would be five miles ahead, where they dug and built and +drained and by and by passed back the word that all was well. So they +moved, between the finished and tested line at one point and the warning +bell and the dynamite stick at the other; and there was an end of much +gorse and heath and of many banks of flowering campion and hassocks of +wild thyme. + +And, for all this snail with its iron slime was not passing within three +miles of Llanyglo, it was bringing the hamlet's appointed destiny with +it. It was bringing (though, to be sure, not for some years yet) a +passenger-junction where yet only irises and bog-cotton grew and frogs +boomed out over the marsh at night. It was bringing sidings where John +Pritchard's farthest field of oats now rippled silver-green in the wind. +It was bringing a goods-yard and signal-bridges, and sheds and platforms +and turntables and a cabrank in front and rows of railwaymen's dwellings +behind. It was bringing a different breed of men, a breed that so far +Llanyglo knows only in the persons of the four Kerrs. More than this, +it was bringing progress, and sophistication, and wealth for some but +nothing for others, and jollity, and vice, and some knowledge that was +good and some that Llanyglo would have been no worse without, and always +loads, loads, trainloads of white-faced people from the smoky towns. And +most of all it was bringing to that vague yet unmistakable town-soul of +Llanyglo growth and experience, growth that it could not escape and +experience that it must square with those numbered days of its idyllic +nonage as best it can. Through growing-pains and wild-oats, through +revulsions of young remorse and impossible panaceas of repentance, +through shrugging worldliness and cynicism and the forgetfulness that +lies in laughter, Llanyglo must pass before it becomes--whatever it is +to be. One thing only is certain: it can never again be as it was when +Edward Garden first went there. Its wild thyme will remain only in +patches on its Trwyn, and its sandhills will be glaucous with the blue +sea-holly no more. The black cattle have not much longer in which to +pace its shore, and Terry Armfield's gridiron will be forgotten--no +_Sixpenny Guide_ will point the way down Delyn Avenue nor past his +immaterial Crescents along Trwyn Way. Railhead is creeping on. Two of +the Kerrs are already working there, the other two have just bought the +last of Squire Wynne's alders. Squire Wynne has now no land except that +occupied by the Plas and its tangled and mossy and grassy and neglected +gardens. "_Porth Neigr Omnibuses, Limited_," is already a serious +undertaking, for it will ply between Llanyglo and the nearest point of +the line. Howell Gruffydd has an option on the two original cottages +that Edward Garden had had matchboarded--he may soon be requiring a +larger shop. Compensations will be paid right and left. And there will +soon be a larger assortment of young men for Miss Nancy Pritchard to +choose a husband from.... + +For something is coming to Llanyglo. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Tudor Williams Ponteglwys had been clever enough in the matter of +the Omnibuses, Limited, nor, for the matter of that, had his cleverness +stopped there; but for astuteness he could not hold a candle to Edward +Garden. Edward Garden was not a Member of Parliament. As he musingly +said when people asked him why he was not, it was out of his line. +Therefore, he and his friends had left to others the promotion of the +Bill, its steering through Select Committees of both Houses, and the +whole conduct of the negotiations that, in their different way, were no +less complicated than that concentration of various forces by virtue of +which Railhead crept ever slowly forward. To a regiment of lawyers had +likewise been left the adjustments under the general Acts to which, on +the passing of the Bill, the enterprise had become subject. Members and +lawyers alike, those drest in a little brief obedience to the commands +of the party whips, these as often as not Members themselves, were +virtually the nominees of Edward Garden and his friends. Politics Edward +Garden's "line"?... To all outward appearances he had no "line" at all. +He merely added another emblem to that little cluster of Mercuries and +Greyhounds and Winged Orbs that formed the pendant of his watch-chain. +It was only when others, full of plans and hope and secrecy, sought +"lines" for themselves that they discovered that he had been beforehand +with them. To give an instance: When Mr. Tudor Williams, M.P., +apparently as representing somebody else, had come forward with an offer +to take up the remnants of poor Terry's Thelema, he had found there +were no remnants to take up. To give another instance: When, by +carefully engineered good offices and intermediaries, Mr. Tudor Williams +had sought a reconciliation with Squire Wynne, and presently had gone to +see him, he had found that he had pocketed his pride for nothing--the +Squire no longer had a yard of land to sell. In a word, before ever +whispers of the Bill had begun to circulate in the lobbies of the House +of Commons, the sandhills and oat-fields of Llanyglo had been cut up +like a jigsaw puzzle, raffled, dealt in, apportioned, and owned; and, +save for his small holding in Thelema, between the Omnibuses at Porth +Neigr and manganese at Abercelyn, there were very few pickings for Mr. +Tudor Williams of Ponteglwys. + +Therefore he returned with an enthusiasm more ardent than ever to his +original crusade against the private ownership of the land that God made +for the people, and took his constituents by the button-holes, and spoke +darkly of other Acts--Acts which by and by should give the Local +Authority powers of compulsory purchase. + +And all this time the eye still saw nothing to purchase but bents and +blown sand, blue and lemon butterflies, nodding harebells, a few +tidemarks of black seaweed, a wooden jetty, a cluster of thatched kerb, +the three Chapels, Edward Garden's house, and Ty Kerr. + +But something was coming to Llanyglo. + + * * * * * + +On the whole they did not talk very much about it. Each had his reason +for reticence, or brooding, or resentment, or calculation, as the case +might be. Nevertheless, with Railhead still many miles away, they began +to become accustomed to the coming and going of strangers. They came, +these strangers, to Edward Garden's house, sleeping either there or else +at the double cottage down by the beach; Edward Garden himself, with a +lantern in his hand, saw them hospitably over the sandhills to bed. They +were surveyors and architects, accountants, geologists, prospectors, men +in control of the snail that left the track of iron and grey ballast and +upturned clay across the land, lawyers, conveyancers, the directors of +the stone-quarries along the Porth Neigr road, and others at whose +business Llanyglo could only guess. And Mr. Tudor Williams also went +there, perhaps to talk about compulsory powers. These and others +wandered in groups along the straggling lines of seaweed, and up the +Trwyn, and far inland behind John Pritchard's farm, pointing, pacing, +discussing, exactly as those minions of the Liverpool Syndicate had done +that morning when work had suddenly ceased on Edward Garden's new house; +but there was no talk of fence-burning now. Even Dafydd Dafis saw the +hopelessness of it, and once more went about with his head bowed like a +head of corn heavy with rain. Already men were widening and levelling +the Porth Neigr road. One week-end in July, after an unusually large +gathering at Edward Garden's house, a new waggonette from Porth Neigr +came to take them back in a body. It had a pair of horses, and it took +the hills in style. Dafydd Dafis, whom the vehicle overtook on his ten +miles' trudge into the town, was offered a seat, but he appeared not to +hear, and the vehicle drove on, enveloping him in its dust. Half-way to +Porth Neigr he came upon a squad of men setting up a telegraph pole. One +of them spoke to him, in English. "Dim Saesneg," he muttered, and then +perhaps wondered why he had done so. It might be "Dim Cymraeg" +presently. A little farther on the waggonette passed him again, once +more hiding him in its dust. No doubt it had turned aside up the rough +road that led to the stone-quarries. Dafydd continued his trudge. + +But in the household of Howell Gruffydd the grocer, a suppressed +excitement reigned. This, when Dafydd Dafis happened to be there, showed +only as resignation and a bowing to the inevitable; but at other times +it seemed to confer a more frequent glitter to Howell's teeth, a new +impulse to his jocularity, and a sparkle and sharpness to his wife's +eyes. Cases and canisters the like of which he had never handled before +were delivered at his door by the Porth Neigr carrier; these were for +the consumption of Edward Garden and his guests; and he waited in person +upon Mrs. Garden every Monday morning. He thought of having a Christmas +almanack with his own name printed upon it. Blodwen, his wife, made him, +in anticipation, a pair of linen half-sleeves that drew up over his +forearms. Eesaac Oliver was forbidden any longer to fetch the eggs from +the light-keeper's wife up the Trwyn; one of Hugh Morgan's boys might do +this. As a preparation for Aberystwith, Eesaac Oliver was packed off to +a second cousin of Blodwen's at Porth Neigr, there to attend an +excellent endowed school. With the railway passing so near it would be a +simple matter for him to spend his week-ends at Llanyglo. + +And big consumptive John Pritchard rarely said a word about that +onward-creeping snail that left its double thread of permanent track +behind it, but he thought exaltedly and powerfully. Stories had already +reached him of drunkenness at Railhead, and fights, and singing at +nights, and other godless orgies, and his brow was sternly set. When he +preached at the Baptist Chapel about such as loved darkness and the evil +paths in which they walked, it was known that he was thinking of +Railhead. Men were now plotting their levels almost within sight of +Llanyglo. They turned their surveying instruments on the hamlet as if +they had been guns, and laid out their chains as if they had been +enslaving the soil itself. Then an advance gang approached, and, even +while John knew that the end was near (but not so near as all that), +that end came. Eight men marched one evening into Llanyglo, bawling a +bawdy chorus, with Sam Kerr showing the way. They had bottles and +piggins and stone jars of beer, and, slung with joined-up leather belts +between two of them, swung a barrel. They stumbled through the loose +sand towards the Hafod Unos, hiccoughing and polluting the peaceful +evening. Ned Kerr had evidently been advised of their coming; he stood +at the door of the Hafod to receive them; and the carousing began.... It +lasted half the night, and then each clay-stained navvy and tattooed +platelayer slept and snored where he fell. John Pritchard did not sleep. +Faintly he could hear their singing where he lay. The red and white of +the Trwyn light dyed the darkness overhead. John remembered his own +words: "It is a den of li-ons----" + +Something had already come to Llanyglo. + + + + +II + +THE CLERK OF THE WORKS + + +John Willie Garden was by this time at the age when he occasionally +washed himself without being told. This he probably did, not out of any +great love of cleanliness, but because by washing unbidden he acquired +the right to retort, when the order to wash came, "I have--there!" Did +one of the maids give the order he might add the word "Sucks!" This word +he withheld when the command came from his mother. + +He was still at school at Pannal, but ardently longed to leave. It was +intended that sooner or later he should go into business with his +father, and during the past Christmas vacation, which the Gardens had +spent at home in Manchester, he had had the run of the offices and +spinning-sheds. His real education, as distinct from his scholastic one, +had been immensely advanced thereby. This real advance had taken place +principally after working hours. In such cases there is usually a young +clerk or market-man ready to take the son of the firm into his charge, +and a certain Jack Webster had had the bringing of John Willie out. This +he had done at football matches, in the dressing-rooms where the titans +clad themselves for the fray, and at their sing-songs and smokers +afterwards. Therefore, John Willie esteemed himself a boy of the world, +and already the day seemed far distant when he had shot the Llanyglo +rabbits with his bow and arrow, and had buried a sixpence beneath the +date-stone of his father's house. + +To Llanyglo John Willie went again that summer, as the snail crept +forward yard by yard to Abercelyn and the manganese. + +All things considered, you might have been pardoned had you supposed +that, without John Willie, the work at Railhead must have come to a +stop. Had you wished to know anything about that railway--its cost per +mile, its contractors' time-limits and penalties, its wages bills, its +estimated upkeep--you would have gone, not to those men who spent +week-ends at Edward Garden's house, but to John Willie. Railhead was now +to him what the building of the Llanyglo house had formerly been, and +the fence-burning, and rugby football, and many another interest of the +days when he had been a kid and immature. It was in the summer of 1884 +that the snail's antennæ approached within sight of Llanyglo, and, rain +or shine, permitted or forbidden, John Willie spent most of his waking +hours among the masons and smiths and navvies and plate-layers who +formed the population of that nomad town of wood and earth and sleepers +and rolling stock and escaping steam and corrugated iron. He knew half +the men by name. He joined them at dinner when the great buzzer told +half a county that it was half-past twelve. He knitted his brows over +the curling and thumb-marked plans in the foremen's cabins. He passed +this section of work or that, and gave the other his imprimatur. He +adapted his stride to the distance between sleeper and sleeper. He spat +reflectively on heaps of clay and mortar. With his hands, not in his +pockets, but thrust (in imitation of the labourers with the +"drop-front" corduroys) deep into his waist-band, and his cap on the +back of his yellow, thistle-down head, he gave off-hand nods of greeting +and warning "Steadys." He was variously known as "t' gaffer," "t' +ganger," "t' clerk o' t' works," and "t' foreman." + +And his friend, Percy Briggs, of Pannal School and Roundhay (where his +father was an architect) accompanied him. Percy's father was one of +Edward Garden's week-enders. He was making the plans of a second house, +not far from where Terry Armfield's Thelemites were to have descended +the shallow, marble steps to the golden shore. There was also some talk +of an hotel. + +For by this time quite a number of people knew at least the name of +Llanyglo, and there is very little doubt that, had the place but had +houses, it might even then have been that within another three or four +years it actually had become--a quiet but not inaccessible resort, with +perhaps a dozen striped bathing-tents and a row or two of deck-chairs +drawn up on its beach, a couple of comfortable hydros established and a +large new hotel a-building, a few donkeys (but no niggers nor pierrots), +a place for children and for such of their elders as sought a quiet not +to be found at Blackpool nor the Isle of Man, a spot unvisited by +trippers, "select," a little on the expensive side, where an +acquaintance struck up between families might without too much risk be +improved afterwards, where the nurses would be uniformed and the luggage +would be sent on in advance, where a wealthy patron might even build a +house of his own (if he could get the land), a "nice" place, a place you +could afterwards tell _any_body you had been to, a place from which you +would go back feeling well and not in need of another holiday, a +place--in short, a place like So-and-So, or So-and-So, out of which we +try to shut history and change by being a little jealously secret about +them. Llanyglo might have been, and for a short time actually was, such +a place; and Percy Briggs's father, with others to tell him what to do +and what not to do, was even now in the act of planning how to make it +so. + +In the meantime, Edward Garden's own house was a very different place +from those two cottages that Dafydd Dafis had taken his own good time +about matchboarding. That first lodging had been no more than a +temporary camping-place for the summer. Any sagging old wicker-chairs or +tables or chests of drawers from lumber-rooms had been good enough for +it, and its crockery and kitchen appointments had been of the cheapest +kind that Porth Neigr could supply. But not so with the new house. +Everything about it spoke of permanence. The large plate-box was carried +backwards and forwards at the beginning and end of the summer season, +but not the Worcester dinner-service, nor the glass that filled its +cupboards, nor the linen in its closets, nor the blankets nor the +eiderdowns set by for winter, nor the few--the rather few--books. Mrs. +Garden herself had told Howell Gruffydd that it was not likely that the +place would be locked up for the winter months again. Edward Garden +intended to spend more and more time there; indeed he must, unless by +and by he would look musingly and a little ill-favouringly through his +glasses at that sparse line of bathing-tents and that little knot of +combination-saddled donkeys and say, "This does not appear to be much of +a watering-place." Already he had made special arrangement for the +delivery of his Manchester letters; upstairs on the first floor he had +his office, with a deep window, the side bays of which looked, the one +towards the sea, the other to the mighty deltoid-shaped outline of +Mynedd Mawr; and where Edward Garden settled he liked to settle +comfortably. In that quiet and rugged and curtained room he was once +more following the line of least resistance. The chances were that he +already foresaw the direction that line was likely to take. + +For Lancashire, which had been remote when folk had had to jog the ten +miles from Porth Neigr behind a somnolent old brown horse, would be near +when that snail had packed his lodging up and departed, leaving only its +iron pathway behind it; and the Kerrs in their Hafod Unos would have +been astonished to learn how much Edward Garden mused upon Lancashire +and upon just such people as themselves. He mused upon the cost of +living of such as they; and he mused upon their standard of living, +which is a related thing, but not the same thing. He mused again as he +saw the gradual change in that standard, and contrasted the things he +saw with the things he remembered in his own early days. In those days, +expressly taken holidays had been unheard-of things. Folk's excursions +had reached little farther afield than their own legs could carry them. +If John Pritchard, of Llanyglo, had never been to Porth Neigr, many and +many a Manchester man of the days of Edward Garden's boyhood had never +been to Liverpool. Many thousands had never seen the sea. It had been +holiday enough in those days to meet in the streets, to play knurr and +spell in the nearest field, to lean over walls and watch their pigs, and +to tend their gardens. Slate Clubs and Goose Clubs and Holiday Clubs had +not been invented. A shilling or half a crown a week painfully saved +would not have been squandered again for the sake of that little +superfluity that had now become the minimum itself. The mass of the +people of his day would no more have dreamed of saving money in order +that seaside lodging-house keepers should profit than they would have +dreamed of taking the Grand Tour. + +But a generation seemed to have arisen, very different in some ways, yet +exactly the same in others. They were different in that they refused to +be exploited any longer according to the old familiar formulas, yet the +same in that they were as subject as their fathers had been, and as +their sons and grandsons will be, to the man who could devise a new one. +All manner of circumstances contributed to their unuttered invitation +(it was that in effect, and the only thing they did not utter) that +somebody should bring to their exploitation the spice of variety. There +were smoulderings everywhere--smoulderings at Durham and West Ham, at +Ayr and Lanark and Swansea, at Sheffield and Manchester and Liverpool +and Leeds and Hull. Over his glasses and under his glasses Edward Garden +noted them, and inferred that the sum of it all was that folk intended +to have a better time than they had been having. They were quite +unmistakably resolved to have a much better time. Their grandfathers' +idea of a Wakes Week, for example, might have been staying at home and +timing the pigeons into the cote; but they meant to improve on that. +They intended to doff their clogs and to put on their thinnest shoes, to +draw extravagant sums from the Club, to take railway-tickets, and not to +rest from their arduous relaxation as long as a penny remained +unspent.... Manganese? The moment they showed signs of coming his way, +Edward Garden was after richer returns than manganese would yield. He +granted that without manganese there would have been no Railhead coming +up out of the east, but what he had his eye on was the new generation's +deadly resolve to be amused, the crammed coffers of its Holiday Clubs, +the beginnings of those tens and scores and hundreds of thousands of +pounds that to-day a single town will get rid of in a single fortnight +by the sea. + +But _only_ if it came his way. He was no Terry. It was his business to +take things as they were, not to try to make them something they were +not. He had no theories, no criticisms, no impulses, no hesitations. He +asked for nothing but uncoloured data. Therefore, and to that extent, +Llanyglo's future was not entirely in his hands. It was still free, and +always, always, save for a little rising of new stone here and there, +just the same to look at--watched over by the Light on its noble Trwyn, +guarded by the majestic mountain behind, and presenting to its diurnal +tides the same shore that Copley Fielding drew. + +Now it befell towards the end of the July of that year that the Welshmen +of Llanyglo held an open-air service for the young in one of the hollows +of the sandhills. It was a blazing Sunday afternoon, with the sea like +silk and the pale mountains seeming thrice their distance away. They had +brought a small moveable platform and reading-desk from the Baptist +Chapel, and first John Pritchard, and then Howell Gruffydd had mounted +it. The sun beat on the bare heads and best bonnets and black-coated +shoulders of parents; myriads of tiny hopping insects gave the surface +of the sand the appearance of being in motion; and a buzzard sailed in +great steady circles in the sky of larkspur blue, now standing out to +sea, now a speck in the direction of Delyn or Mynedd Mawr. + +Howell was teaching the twelve or fourteen urchins a new hymn-tune, +singing it now alone, now with them, now listening with little gestures +of encouragement and nods of pleasure as their voices rose. His secular +jocularity was not absent, but tempered to the occasion. + +"Louder, louder and quicker--it give you an appetite for your tea," he +said, waving his arms and beating with his foot to the accelerated time. +"You will not wake Mrs. Hughes at the lighthouse--now--'_Joyful, +Joyful_----'" + +And, with Eesaac Oliver leading, they went through the tune again. + +That a special exhortation should be given to those of tenderer years +had been deliberately resolved upon. Since that evening when the eight +men from the line had rolled drunkenly over the sandhills to the Kerrs' +house, a fear had weighed on the chapel-goers of Llanyglo. Until then, +their children had known nothing of the wide and wicked world; but that +ignorance could not now be maintained. They must be put on their guard, +and for that job the ingratiating Howell was the man. + +The tune came to an end, and he put his leaflet of printed words into +his pocket and shepherded the row of urchins into position with +movements of his hands. + +"Move that way, John Roberts--I cannot see Olwen Morgan's face. Hugh +Morgan, stop poking your foot into that rabbit-hole or you fall down it +and we have to dig you out. Miss Pritchard, give Gwen Roberts her +sunbonnet, if you please, or she catss a sunstroke. Ithel, where is your +handkerchief? Your nose resem-bles a snail.... Now listen to me. If I +see a boy or girl not pay atten-sson I stop till he do pay +atten-sson----" + +And he began. He told them that soon, with the coming of the railway, +there would come also all manner of pip-ple, some good pip-ple, some bad +pip-ple. He told them that at Railhead were many bad pip-ple, who swore, +and drank a great deal more than was good for them. He told them +(discreetly, since he had no wish to preach a _jehad_ against customers +so good as the Gardens) that while some boys might go to Railhead to +play, boys like some he would not mention, who had lived in large towns, +yet it would be bet-ter if they kept themselves to themselves.... He did +not go the length of asserting that all good boys were Welsh and country +boys, and that all bad ones were town-bred and English, but--but--well, +things have to be put a little starkly to the young. They shuffled their +feet in the hot loose sand as he talked. The buzzard sailed back from +the mountains. The sandhoppers danced as if the ground had been a +frying-pan. A holy peace brooded over the land. Away at Railhead men, +those sinful men who drank and swore slept in rows, stretched +face-downwards on the grass or the thrown-up banks of clay. + +Then the grocer began to promise the rewards of virtue. He turned with +an interrogative smile to John Pritchard. + +"And now, Mr. Pritchard, do you think I might tell them that sec-ret? +Indeed I think I get into trouble if I do! But yess, I will tell +them.--Atten-sson now. Hugh Morgan, do not scratss your head. Now!--Can +any boy or girl tell me what there iss to be in Mr. Pritchard's field +next month?" + +They guessed at once, with one voice. Howell Gruffydd knew better than +to ask an audience questions it could not answer. He held up his hands +in admiring surprise. + +"Indeed they guess--they are every one right, Miss Pritchard! +Astonissing! Dear me, I never saw such s'arp young men and women!--Yess, +they are right. There is to be a Treat for the Sunday School scholars! +There now! And there will be races, and prizes, and tea, and the books +will be given for those who have had the largest num-ber of attendances +and have not been late.--And now: who is giving this Treat?" + +"Mr. Tudor Williams!" they cried. + +"Right again--it is Mr. Tudor Williams, the Member of Parliament! And +Mr. Williams is giv-ing something else too. He is giv-ing--I have seen +them--new pictures--pictures of the construc-tion of flowers--(bot-tany +I think it is called, Miss Pritchard?)--and an-i-mals--and +fiss-sses----" + +He turned up his eyes, as if to the heavens from which these rewards of +virtuous living descended. The croupy shrilling of a cock came from down +by the beach. The bees droned, and the wheeling buzzard suddenly dropped +like a plummet a hundred yards through the larkspur blue. + +It was then, in that very moment, that Howell Gruffydd's face was seen +to change. He stopped, listening. Beyond the hot cuplike hollow in which +they were assembled was another sunken way, and along this way somebody +was approaching. Probably in complete unconsciousness that any hearer +was at hand, this somebody was singing softly as he came. It was Tommy, +the youngest of the Kerrs, and he was singing to himself, in very bad +Welsh, _Glan Meddwdod Mwyn_. + +Now this song is one of the less reputable songs of Wales. The English +drinking song usually contents itself with extolling the mere convivial +act, drawing a decent veil over the lamentable effects of that act; but +even in its title _Glan Meddwdod Mwyn_ (which words mean _Fair, Kind +Drunkenness_) has no such reticence. It depicts ... but you can see the +difference for yourself. No wonder it froze the words on Howell +Gruffydd's lips. In the singer's complete unconsciousness that he was +not alone lay the whole sting. The malice, the intent, the hateful +Lancashire humour of the Kerrs they had had before, but not _this_ +home-thrust with a weapon they themselves had provided! + +Tommy might just as well have climbed the hummock and told them that, +since their language provided equally for these eventualities, they were +no better than anyone else.... + +An English drunkard, to grub in the lees of their own language like +this!---- + +And little Hugh Morgan had sniggered!---- + +The unseen Tommy and his (their) song passed on towards the Hafod Unos. + +Then Howell bestirred himself again. "There, now!" he said; "what had he +just been tell-ing them? Indeed, that was opp-por-tune, whatever!" ... +But, though he strove to hide it, there was a hollowness now in his +exhortation. He felt as if he had been building a wall against a +contagion that crept in upon the invisible air. If Thomas Kerr knew +_Glan Meddwdod Mwyn_ he might also know viler ditties still; if little +Hugh Morgan, whom he had thought pure, had sniggered at _Glan Meddwdod_ +he might guffaw outright at the baser version of _Sospan Bach_.... + +It could only (Howell thought) be original sin.... + +It was at least a little balm to him to hear the fervour with which +Eesaac Oliver once more led the singing of _Joyful, Joyful_. + +And, by the way (speaking of songs), Eesaac Oliver's choice of the +narrow and difficult path had already involved him in a persecution in +which song played a minor part. This persecution was at the hands of +John Willie Garden. For, in an unguarded moment, Eesaac Oliver had +confided to John Willie his plans for his career; and since then the +unfeeling John Willie, on his way to Railhead and debauchery, had held +over him the song that contains the lines:-- + + "_He wass go to Je-sus College + For to try to get some knowledge---- + Wass you ever see," etc. etc._ + +John Willie, itching to get away from Pannal, could not understand why +anybody wanted to go to Jesus, Aberystwith, or any other College. + + "_I think it would be wiser + For to stay with Sister Liza---- + Wass you ever see," etc. etc._ + +he would hum softly and (alas) contemptuously; and, since it was part of +his chosen career to do so, Eesaac Oliver would very expressly forgive +John Willie, getting into quite a Christian heat about it. + +On the day after that homily on the Llanyglo sandhills, John Willie +Garden went as usual to Railhead, and was enabled to delight his +leather-belted and corduroyed friends there with a piece of information, +hitherto secret, that he had from his father's table. This was that the +line was to be opened in the following Spring by His Royal Highness the +Duke of Snell. The announcement produced an astonishing effect. Not one +in ten of the men either knew or cared what the enterprise was all +about. They knew that the railway was a railway, but beyond that, none +of its dividends being destined for their pockets, it was merely the +job--"the" job, the job of the moment, the job not very different from +the last job, and very, very like all the other jobs to come, until +their living hands should become as stiff as the picks they plied, and +the light of their eyes be extinguished as their own lanterns were +extinguished at daybreak. But at the news that the Duke of Snell was to +do his trick when they had finished theirs, they were innocently +uplifted and delighted. _This_ would be something to tell their +grandchildren in the years to come! They would spit on their hands and +work better all the afternoon for _this_!... In the meantime they +discussed it when the great buzzer called them to their beef and bacon +sandwiches, their chops and pickles and bread and cheese. + +"So it's to be t' Dewk o' Snell!" one of them admired, with as much +satisfaction as if he himself had had a tremendous leg-up in the world +thereby; he was a West Riding navvy, whom twenty years of digging up the +length and breadth of England had delocalised of everything save his +powerful accent. "Well, now, I'd figgered it out 'at it'ld happen be t' +Prince o' Wales mesen----" + +Here struck in a Cardiff man, so lean that you would not have got +another pennyweight of fat off him if you had fried him in his own +frying-pan. + +"Wass-n't it the Duke of Snell that mar-ried the Prin-cess Victorine?" + +"Noa. That wor t' Dewk o' Flint," the Yorkshire navvy replied, with +authority. "T' Dewk o' Snell wed t' youngest, t' Princess Alix. I knaw +all t' lot on 'em; t' missis hed all their pic'ters o' biscuit-boxes; +they reached from one end o' t' chimley-piece to t'other; ye couldn't +ha' got a finger in between." + +"Well, well," said the Cardiff man, an inquiring mind among many +complacent ones, "it is curious, how lit-tle diff-ference it makes to +us. The Prinss of Wales, say you? If I wait for the Prinss of Wales to +give me ano-ther piece of this ba-con I wait a long time, whatever!... +But prapss we get our in-vi-ta-tions soon," he added jocularly, taking +an enormous bite of bread. "S'all you be there, John Willie?" + +John Willie answered, a little doubtfully, that he hoped to be present +at the ceremony if he could get away from school. The Cardiff man wagged +his head. There are few Welshmen who do not wag their heads at the sound +of the word school. + +"Ah, school; it iss a gra-and thing," he said, still wagging. "I not be +work-king here with my shirt wet-t on my back if I go to a prop-per +school." + +"Oh, be dinged to that tale!" returned the Yorkshireman bluntly, cutting +cheese on his leathery palm. "T' schools is all my backside! They learn +'em a lot o' newfangled stuff, but I remember 'at when tea wor eight +shillin' a pund, an' they kept a penny nutmeg in a wood case as if it +wor diamonds----" + +"Aw-w-w, there iss that Burkie, talk-king again!" said the Cardiff man. + +"It's reight, for all that----" + +And presently the talk had veered round to those very changes of +standards and conditions, his careful study of which had led Edward +Garden to the conclusion that a generation had arisen that intended +thenceforward to have more of the world's good things than it had been +having or know the reason why. + +As it happened, the work on the line had that day taken a new leap +forward. Again all the life of the python had rolled on ahead, and John +Willie, lunching with his friends, was doing so at a point actually +beyond Llanyglo, two miles nearer to Abercelyn. From the Abercelyn end +also the line was coming to meet them, and the two sections would meet +at a place called Sarn. Sarn means Causeway, and there the sea showed, +like a piece of bright piano-wire, across a waste of fleecy bog-cotton +and bog-myrtle, sundew and flags and rushes. A siding was to be made +there. Because of Sarn Church, a tiny little building with an odd +Fifteenth-Century circular tower, Squire Wynne loved this region, and +attended service there; but as that Service was held only once a year, +the "Hough!" of the shunting-engines and the clanking of couplings would +disturb it little. The Squire sighed to think that, among so many, many +other changes, it would be only one change the more. His sales of land +had provided him with just enough money to last his time out, and on the +whole he thought he did not want to outlive his time. Perhaps he too had +had his glimpse of that vision of Edward Garden's, though as it were in +obverse; and, looking, he shrugged his shoulders. Who, in another twenty +or thirty years, would care for the things he had cared for? Who would +waste a thought on antiquity? Who would open his County History, or his +books on Brasses or Church Plate, Memorials or Heraldry or Glass? Who +would know each tree he came upon on his walks, as a country doctor +knows his patients--its sickness, its health, its need of air, its +treatment, its amputations? Who would repair the staircase at the Plas, +and restore its magnificent ceilings, and set the merry smoke streaming +up its chimneys once more?... Mr. Tudor Williams would probably do this +last. He would no doubt convert the Plas into a Museum (as he would have +converted Sarn Church itself into a Museum), and fill it with cases of +ice-scratched pebbles, and diagrams of strata and flowers, for reluctant +and educated urchins to gape at. The Squire was entirely in sympathy +with John Willie Garden's corduroyed friend Burkie about these things. +It seemed to him that the multitude, which after all had backbone enough +to starve rather than go on the Parish, would not resist this organised +pauperisation of its mind. It was time the Squire died, since he held +that not everybody has the right to everything and no questions asked. +Otherwise not an inhumane man, there were nevertheless abstractions +which he loved more than he loved his fellow-being.... + +And who would drink what was left of that wondrous old port? + +Well, the Squire, sighing and smiling a little wistfully both at once, +intended to see to that himself. + + + + +III + +THE CURTAIN RAISER + + +But while the march of events drove the aborigines of Llanyglo ever more +and more closely together, as the reaping of a field of corn drives the +mice and snakes and rabbits to the narrowing square in the centre, at +the same time something of the opposite process went on. Two or three +stood aloof, Welsh when it suited them to be Welsh, less Welsh at other +times. One of these was Mr. Tudor Williams, the Member of Parliament. +Another was Howell Gruffydd, the grocer. + +For thick as thieves now were Edward Garden and Tudor Williams, and to +their frequent councils was admitted also Raymond Briggs, the architect, +whose son had been John Willie's schoolfellow at Pannal. + +This Raymond Briggs was a Yorkshireman, from Hunslet, but you wouldn't +have thought it to look at him. You saw at a glance that he was +superfine, but you had no idea how superfine until he opened his mouth. +He was tall, plumpish, very erect, numerously chinned and faultlessly +dressed; and, having entered into culture by one of the noblest of its +portals, architecture, it was small wonder that he wished to forget +Hunslet, with its black canal, its serried weaving-sheds, its grimy +warehouses, and its sooty brickfields. Certainly he had completely +forgotten it in his speech. Over an alien mode he had acquired a really +remarkable mastery; and had it not been for a trifling uncertainty +about his vowels, particularly his "a's," you would have set him down as +quite as much London as Leeds. And so more or less with everything else +about Raymond.--But his wife haled you north again. To her, acquirements +were like hot plates to the fingers, to be kept constantly in motion or +else dropped altogether. Her husband was probably the most humourless +man who ever came to Llanyglo; but Maud Briggs would use the homeliest +of dialect-words in the most artificial of accents, and would tell you, +even while she was mothering you with cool drinks in the most hospitable +fashion, that the piece of ice she dropped with a clink into your glass +was positively "the last piece in the hoil"--if you know your West +Riding well enough to understand the peculiar significance of the word +"hoil" as applied to a house. Her rings were dazzling, for Raymond's +invaluable lack of humour had enabled him to make his mark on the world; +the blue-and-white collapsible boat which their son Percy brought with +him to Llanyglo had cost his father a cool twenty-five pounds in London; +and it would not be for lack of money if Percy did not turn out a very +superior silk purse indeed. + +So when the snail, his journey finished, rested and made the siding at +Sarn and then returned to Porth Neigr again, and Railhead was +dismantled, and grasses began to seed themselves about the upturned +soil, Edward Garden and Raymond Briggs and Tudor Williams, M.P., had +their heads frequently together; and no longer were the short days and +long nights a season of hibernation for Llanyglo. Three years out of +four the Llanyglo winters are mild; this particular winter was not so +inclement that it stopped building-operations for more than a day or two +at a time; and, with a sort of miniature Railhead strung out along the +Porth Neigr road for his labour, Raymond's second house rose steadily +course by course, and already they were draining and digging for the +first hotel. If they were mainly Porth Neigr men Raymond employed, that +did not mean that Dafydd Dafis or any other Llanyglo man who was so +minded would not be taken on; indeed they were taken on; but it did mean +that the centre of gravity of the labour-supply had shifted, and would +never shift back again. Those temporary dwellings along the Porth Neigr +road were a constant reminder that if the Llanyglo men did not like it +they might lump it; and as they did neither, but while disliking it +intensely, bore a hand and took their wages just the same, they appeared +to be sufficiently quelled. + +Edward Garden, while making Llanyglo his headquarters, was again much +away. A whisper was started that he was once more treating for land, +but, as no further land appeared to be available, the rumour was derided +as idle. Howell Gruffydd was already converting the two original +matchboarded cottages to his own use. Something Departmental happened +somewhere beyond Llanyglo's ken (probably Mr. Tudor Williams knew all +about it), and the word came that the Post Office was to be transferred +from John Pritchard's to Howell's new shop; and though the Post Office +was on the whole more trouble than it was worth, for a little while +Howell seemed likely to have a quarrel on his hands. + +But Howell had not definitely taken a part without knowing equally +definitely how to bear himself in that part. _He_ did not intend to be +herded into the gloomy company of a lot of beaten and sulking Welsh +nationalists! As if already a vast spud had cut about Manchester or +Liverpool, and an equally vast spade had taken either of these cities up +bodily like a square of peat and had set it down again on the Llanyglo +sandhills, so the idea of expansion had taken hold of Howell's mind. He +even went a little preposterously beyond bounds, as others did later, +when they learned that their old Welsh dressers and armchairs were a +rarity and marketable, and proceeded to put ridiculous prices upon them. +And probably Edward Garden had a use for Howell. Already it looked like +it. The answer with which Howell appeased John Pritchard in the matter +of the transference of the Post Office looked very much like it. Edward +Garden himself could not so have reconciled John to all this innovation +with a single whispered word. + +For "_Bazaars_," Howell said furtively to John, behind his hand; and the +quick electric gleam in his eyes was instantly extinguished again.... + +You see. They had never had a bazaar at Llanyglo. There would have been +little profit in passing their own money about among themselves. But +_strangers'_ money.... That was the soul of good in things otherwise +evil that Howell whispered to John Pritchard, and later it was so +observingly distilled out for the benefit of the Baptist and other +Chapels that for a time there was actually a danger lest the mulcting +should keep folk away. + +And if even Mr. Tudor Williams himself now appeared a little +absent-minded among his constituents, and hauled himself, as it were, +out of remote fastnesses of thought to grasp them fervently (if +indiscriminately) by the hand, and to inquire after their rheumatics and +wives and other plagues, well, he was a busy, and not at all a wealthy +man. At Llanyglo, as elsewhere, it was not only Welsh and English; it +was also Get or Go Wanting. The early bird.... + +So (to push on) circular smears of white appeared on the windows of the +second of Raymond Briggs's houses (it was finished by Christmas), and +these gave it the appearance of a sudden new Argus, looking out on every +side for other houses to join it; and the scaffold-poles began to rise +about the new hotel like a larch-plantation. Raymond came and went, and +Mr. Tudor Williams came and went, and short winter day followed short +winter day. Then, with cat's-ice still glazing the ruts and pools but a +feeling of Spring in the air, Porth Neigr, ten miles away, came +bustlingly to life. An emissary of the Lord-Lieutenant of the County +took up his quarters at the Royal Hotel, and there he was one day joined +by the Lord-Lieutenant himself, with Sir Somebody Something, of the +Office of Works. These summoned others, who in turn summoned others, and +maps and plans were sent for and a line of route was chosen. Police were +drafted in, and folk went up into their upper front rooms to see which +bedstead or table-leg would best stand the strain of a rope across the +street. The old station had been repainted to suit with the new +extension, and masts rose at its entrance. To the residents in the +principal streets the Council lent loyal emblems and devices. The sounds +of bands practising could be heard. His Royal Highness the Duke of Snell +was coming to open the line. + +Then on the appointed day, the town broke into a flutter of bunting. The +March sun shone merrily on Royal Standard and Red Dragon, on Union Jack +and ensign, on gold-fringed banners with "CROESAW" on one side and +"WELCOME" on the other. On the new metals a Royal Salute of fog-signals +was laid. Warning of the Approach passed along the line, on the +red-druggeted platform officials great and small waited, and John Willie +Garden's friends, whose picks and shovels had made the clay fly, would +no doubt read all about it a few days later in the papers. + +So, with detonation of fog-signals, and some cheers, but more wide-eyed +gazing, and bared heads and bowing backs, and an Address, and other +circumstances of loyalty and fraternisation and joy, His Royal Highness +and John Willie Garden between them declared the line open; but only the +Duke rode on the footplate of the garlanded engine with the crossed +flags on its belly. Probably intensely bored, he rode out about a mile +towards Abercelyn, and then returned to luncheon at the Royal Hotel. An +hour later, coming out again, he passed away to Lancashire. All was +over. Folk might now take down their bunting as soon as they pleased. +The trick was virtually done for Llanyglo. A loop at Sarn or a new +junction, and a realisation on the part of those in authority that there +were things that paid better than Abercelyn manganese, and Llanyglo +would be "linked up" with rigid iron to the rest of the world. + +Nay, it is already linked up even more straitly. A few poles and a +thread of wire, crossing the sandhills and ending at the Llanyglo +Stores, have some weeks ago put an end to its isolation. It is the nerve +that accompanies the sinew, and Howell Gruffydd now receives and +despatches telegrams. All is over bar the shouting, and it will not be +long before that begins. They are busy now, painting and papering the +new hotel, and decorating and upholstering it. It reeks of new paint and +varnish and furniture-polish and the plumbers' blowpipes. It resounds +with all the doubly loud noises of a half-empty place--with hammering +and tacking, clanking buckets, the "Whoas!" to the horses of the +delivery-vans, the jolting of heavy things moved upstairs, the rasp of +scrubbing-brushes, the squeak of window-cloths. It is spick-and-span, +from the feathery new larches in front to the silvery new dustbins +behind.... Wherefore, seeing that we shall only be in the way, with +never a chair to sit down on yet, and nothing to eat in the place save +what the charwoman and the green-aproned carters and carriers have +brought for themselves, we may as well leave all these things to the +folk whose business it is to attend to them, and take a nap for a month +or two, secure that when we wake up again the scene will be set for +Llanyglo's _lever de rideau_, that starched and polite and not quite +real little piece that preludes the main action of our tale. There is +heather and wild thyme up the Trwyn, very comfortable to doze on; +suppose we have our nap up there?... + +_Ah-h-h-h!_--That was the July sun that woke us. It's a warm and +brilliant morning. Stretch yourself first, and then have a look down.... + +That's a surprise, isn't it? You didn't quite expect that? Really not +much changed, and yet it's entirely changed. Two new houses and an hotel +(in this clean air they'll be new-looking for years yet), and that +little border of deck-chairs and bathing-tents and slowly moving +parasols, not a couple of hundred yards long altogether, and yet the +whole appearance of the place is altered. After a moment you find it +quite difficult to remember it as it was the last time we were up here. +See that little puff of smoke over there? That's a shunting-engine at +Sarn; you'll hear the sound in a moment; there!--Butterflies about us, +like hovering pansies; you can see just one corner of poor old Terry's +Thelema showing; and out there, where the sea changes colour, just where +the gulls are rocking, that's a bank of sand a storm threw up three or +four years ago. And that's the telegraph-wire I spoke of, running +straight across to Howell Gruffydd's shop there. Yes, that links +Llanyglo up.... + +Where did all these people come from? Well, it's hard to say, but no +doubt Edward Garden's got them here for one reason and another. He may +even have "packed" the place a little carefully; I don't know. At any +rate, he's lent "_Sea View_" there (that's the newer of the two houses) +to Gilbert Smythe. Who's Gilbert Smythe? Well, he's the Medical Officer +for Brannewsome, Lancs., and a very clever and quite an honest man. But +Gilbert's family's grown more quickly than his fortune, live as frugally +as he will he's always in debt, and he isn't going to say "No" to the +free offer of a well-built, roomy house, not three minutes from the +sands where the children can play all day, and furnished from the +potato-masher in the kitchen to the little square looking-glasses in the +servants' attics. And of course Edward Garden asks nothing in return. +But _if_ Gilbert cares to say that the Llanyglo water is abundant and +pure, Edward won't object--it is excellent water. And _if_ Gilbert likes +to praise its air and low rainfall (low for Wales), well, he'll be +telling no more than the truth. And _if_ Gilbert (not bearing ancient +Mrs. Pritchard too much in mind) finds the longevity at Llanyglo +remarkable, what's the harm in that? As a matter of fact, there is a +saying that the oldest inhabitant always dies first at Llanyglo, and the +others follow in order of age, which would be a poor look-out for +anybody setting up in the Insurance business here.... So if by and by +Gilbert signs a statement to this general effect, you can hardly blame +him. He has his way to make, and he is a wise man who allows the +galleons of the Gardens of the world to give his skiff a tow. + +The others? Well, Edward Garden's a cleverer man than I, and you can +hardly expect me to explain the workings of his mind to you in detail. +But I think we may assume he knows what he is about. I needn't say +they're all very well-to-do; you can see that even from here; but +there's something else about them, something we saw in Raymond Briggs, +that's a little difficult to describe--perhaps it's merely that they too +intend (_mutatis mutandis_, of course) that their children shall have a +better time than their parents have had--or perhaps we'd better say +their grandparents had, for their parents do themselves very well, +indeed. I don't think you can say more about them than that--it's just +that dash of Raymond Briggs.... Squire Wynne wouldn't understand them in +the least. The Squire's wasted too much time over antiquity. He doesn't +know anything about these people who are coming on. Except in their +clothes, and so on, he'd see very little difference between them and +people Raymond Briggs would look at as if they weren't there. He +wouldn't understand Philip Lacey, for example. (Do you see that +orange-and-black striped blazer--there by the seaweed: he's pointing; +that's Philip Lacey.) Philip is the big Liverpool florist, seedsman, and +landscape-gardener; if he hasn't his "roots in the land" in exactly the +sense the Squire understands, his plants have; and Philip distinctly +does not intend that Euonyma and Wygelia, who are at present at school +at Brighton, shall go into one of his fourteen or fifteen retail shops. +Philip isn't spending all that money for that.... (Understand me, I +think Philip's perfectly right; the only thing I don't quite see is why +he should veneer good sound stuff with something that's an obvious +sham.) Of his wife, frankly, I don't think very much. Her processes show +too plainly. Philip has his business to attend to, but Mrs. Lacey never +leaves her one idea, day or night.... There, Philip's stopped and spoken +to Mr. Morrell. Mr. Morrell has just as many hopes and plans for Hilda +as the Laceys have for Euonyma and Wygelia, but he knows that his "a's" +are past praying for, so he makes rather a display of his native speech. +I needn't tell you what a trial that is to Hilda.... + +And bear in mind that these are prosperous people, well-travelled people +(though they mostly keep to the beaten tracks where they meet one +another--it's Mrs. Briggs's chief recollection of Florence that she met +some people she knew in Leeds there), people who put up at far better +hotels than you or I do. And if these, who can afford it, can be shown +the way to Llanyglo, the chances are that a crowd of other people, who +certainly can't afford it but as certainly won't be out of it, will come +in their wake. + +What do you say to our going down and having a closer look at them? We +might take a stroll as far as Howell Gruffydd's shop--I beg its pardon, +Stores. Sit still a moment though; here's Minetta Garden behind us. +She's been sketching the Dinas, very likely. Minetta very much wants to +be an artist, and you meet her with her sketching things all over the +place. It may or may not be a passing fancy; she certainly has what +Raymond Briggs calls a "Rossetti head"--enormous dark eyes, sharpish +jaw, straight dark hair, and a disconcerting way of staring at people +who are "putting it on" a little more thickly than usual (she stares +pretty frequently at Raymond himself). Ah, she's taking the steep way +down. We'll take the other way.... + + * * * * * + +Now we're on the level; better put your tie straight--or aren't you +overpowered by these things? I confess I am; Raymond Briggs always +chills me when he casts his eye over my front elevation. No thick-booted +undergraduates' holiday-parties nor furry art-students with knickers and +bare throats here. We're spruce at Llanyglo. Even on a week-day it's +like a Church Parade, and on Sundays we go one better still. All the men +have brightly coloured flannel blazers and gaudy cammerbands, and the +women carry many-flounced parasols by a ring at the ferrule end, and +wear toilettes straight out of the "Queen." Some of them will change for +lunch; all of them will for _table d'hôte_ at seven. They protest that +they vastly prefer dinner at seven, but what with the servants' dinners +at midday, and husbands who prefer the old-fashioned hour, and one thing +and another, they take their principal meal at one. There's no reason +they shouldn't. There's no reason they should mention it at all. But +they do, every day. If you're introduced to them, they'll all have told +you within twenty-four hours. It's as if they didn't want there to be +any mistake about something or other.... + +Here's where the donkeys turn. They have red and white housings, and +their names across their foreheads--"_Tiny_," "_Prince_," and so on; the +donkey-rides are a little offshoot of _Porth Neigr Omnibuses_. +Kite-flying's popular here too--that's Mr. Morrell's, the big +star-shaped one. The bathing-tents and deck-chairs are mostly hired from +Howell Gruffydd, but there are no boats yet except Percy Briggs's +twenty-five-pound collapsible one; those who want to go fishing have to +use one of those old Copley Fielding things by the jetty there.... Now +we're coming to the people. Here's Raymond Briggs with Mr. Lacey, +Raymond in his orange-and-black blazer and a white Homburg hat, Philip +in a blue blazer with white braid and a plain straw hat; both with +perfect creamy rippling white trousers and spotless white doeskin boots. +They're talking off-handedly about other holiday-places--Norway, the +Highlands, the Riviera--and they're afraid of showing any enthusiasm or +delight. Of every place they know they say that it has "gone off" since +they first went there. There's a subtle undercurrent of contest about +their conversation. Philip was at Hyères as recently as last winter, +looking at the violets; but Raymond has been three times to Arles and +Nimes. I suppose honours are easy. + +"Roman, I've heard?" Philip remarks. (You can hear him as you pass.) + +"Yes, Roman, with a Saracenic tower." + +"Ah, that tower's Saracenic, is it?" + +"Saracenic." + +"Wonderful people!" + +"Indeed yes!" + +"Curious how it takes you back into ancient times." + +"Yes, yes, it shortens history." + +"But the hotel accommodation!----" + +"Oh, bad in the extreme!" + +"What they want is entirely new and up-to-date management----" + +"Quite so----" + +"Can't say I thought much of their _bouillabaisse_." + +"An acquired taste, I suppose----" + +And they pass on. They'll talk like that the whole morning. They're not +really interested in their subject. As I say, it makes you think of a +sort of contest. Personally, I always want to applaud when somebody +scores a good point. Perhaps the idea is that they're doing Llanyglo a +favour by coming here-- + +There, stepping over the tent-ropes, are Mrs. Briggs and Mr. Ashton. Mr. +Ashton is Edward Garden's chief London representative, a man of pleasure +and of the world, and for all I know his function may be to keep these +prosperous northerners up to the metropolitan mark. Mrs. Briggs, for +example, who is very short and stout, and wears a lavender bonnet and +pelisse, and certainly will not walk far on the sand in those heels, is +on her mettle now. She is telling Mr. Ashton some London hotel +experience or other. I like Mrs. Briggs. She's worth ten of Raymond. But +I don't think she quite knows which is the paste and which the jewels in +her speech. + +"----and so at the 'Metropole' they couldn't take Ray and I in; not that +I was surprised in the very least, such frights as we looked after the +voyage, and hardly any luggage; it hadn't come on from Paris, you see. +So I says to Ray, 'It's no good making a noration here, for it's plain +they don't want us. _I_'m glad they're doing so well they can afford to +turn money away.' So I turns to the manager, who was staring at my +slippers I'd put on for the railway-journey, and 'Don't if it hurts +you,' I said, and with that we slammed our things together and drove off +to the 'Grand'----" + +You can hear Mr. Ashton's sympathetic murmurs ... but that's Mrs. Lacey, +with Mr. Morrell, just turning; she thinks that Euonyma and Wygelia have +been quite long enough in the water. Mr. Morrell is in cool-looking +cream alpaca; Mrs. Lacey, who is hook-nosed and pepper-and-salt haired +and thin as a hop-pole, resembles a many-flounced hollyhock in her +silvery battleship grey. + +"They'll tak' no harm, weather like this," Mr. Morrell is saying. +"What's that I was going to ask you, now?... I have it. Is it right 'at +Briggs is to build you a new house ovver yonder?" + +A foot or so over Mr. Morrell's head, Mrs. Lacey replies that Mr. Lacey +hasn't decided yet.--"You see, with the girls at Brighton for another +year yet, and then of course they'll have to go to Paris, it's early to +say." + +"There's some talk of his making a Floral Valley, isn't there?" + +"I've not heard.--But I'm sure those girls----" + +"They're as right as rain wi' Mrs. Maynard----" + +But that is precisely where Mrs. Lacey thinks Mr. Morrell is mistaken. +She has nothing whatever against Mrs. Maynard, who is a young widow, but +she would like to know a little more about the late Mr. Maynard before +admitting her to unreserved intimacy. Mrs. Maynard has not quite the +figure a "Mrs." ought to have, and does more bathing than swimming (if +you understand me). That's an accomplishment she learned at Ostend (for +if Mr. Ashton, the London agent, is metropolitan, Mrs. Maynard brings +quite a cosmopolitan air to Llanyglo). The misses Euonyma and Wygelia, +on the other hand, learned to swim at Brighton, walking to the +bathing-place in a crocodile. You see the difference. Brighton is not +Ostend, any more than Llanyglo is either, and Mrs. Lacey considers that +you can't be too careful.... That's Mrs. Maynard, with her back to the +oncoming breaker. Her bathing-dress is quite complete, as complete as +Mrs. Garden's, drying outside her tent there; but Mrs. Lacey +disapproves of those twinkling scarlet ribbons. She considers them to be +little points of attraction, that do all that is asked of them, and +more. She prophesied that the red would "run" in the water, but it +didn't, and that makes matters rather worse, for if Mrs. Maynard knows +as well as that which red will run and which won't she is practised---- + +And those two graceful but rather skinned-rabbit-looking young shapes in +the gleaming navy-blue costumes with the white braid are the girls. + +Now we're among the castles. Quite a horde of children, and very pretty +children too, with their spades and buckets and their petticoats bunched +up inside striped knickers (those too you get at Gruffydd's). That's +Gilbert Smythe, the Medical Officer, the tall shaggy man carrying the +bucket of water for the little boy's moat. He'll be giving Llanyglo its +bathing testimonial too. Don't tread on that seaweed; it may be a castle +garden, or a sea-serpent, or anything else in the child's +imagination.... There are the boys trying to launch the collapsible +boat. John Willie hasn't grown much; he won't be a tall man; but he's +filling out. That minx Mrs. Maynard makes quite a lot of him, and says +she likes the feel of his fine-spun hair. Whether John Willie likes her +to feel it or not he does not betray. + +Now for Howell Gruffydd's.... + + * * * * * + +There you are. "THE LLANYGLO STORES," in big gold letters right across +the front of the two cottages. What do you think of it? + +Yes in one way and another, there must be a largish sum sunk in "stock." +Whether Howell's buying on credit or not I don't know, but he looks +prosperous; he's had his beard trimmed, and he wears a new hat. Green +butterfly-nets and brown and white and grey sandshoes--spades and +buckets and balls and fishing-lines and toy ships--bottles of scent and +the "Llanyglo Sunburn Cure" (made up for him by the chemist at Porth +Neigr)--a new board with "Tricycles for Hire" on it (that's the shed at +the back, and Eesaac Oliver, home for the holidays, books the hirings +and does the repairs)--baskets and spirit-kettles and ironmongery, all +in addition to the groceries.--Yes, Howell has quite a big business now. +Let's go inside and buy something. + +"Good morning, Mr. Gruffydd; papers in yet? No? I thought I saw Hugh +coming down the Sarn road half an hour ago. Yes, a lovely day. How's +Eesaac Oliver? Still at Porth Neigr?... No, no, I know he's home for his +holidays; I saw him driving Mr. Pritchard's hay-cart yesterday; I mean +when is he going to Aberystwith?... Next year? Good! He'll make his mark +in the world!--Mr. Garden been in this morning yet?... He's driving in +the mountains? Well, there's always a breeze in the mountains.... No, +serve Mrs. Roberts first. How are you, Mrs. Roberts?" + +Howell still sells Mrs. Roberts her pennyworth of bicarbonate of soda, +and with the same smile as ever, but he could do without her custom now. +Look round. Crates of eggs (the Trwyn hens can't keep pace with the +demand now), great Elizabethan gables of tinned fruits and salmon, a +newspaper counter, the Post Office behind the wire grating there, +strings of things hanging from the ceiling, scarcely an inch of Edward +Garden's matchboarding to be seen, and three assistants, all busily +weighing, packing, checking, snipping the string off on the little +knives on the wooden string-boxes, and passing the parcels to the boys +with the hand-carts. But we ought to have been here a couple of hours +ago. Mrs. Briggs and Mrs. Lacey and Mrs. Garden were giving their orders +for the day then. They come every morning, rings on their fingers and +bells on their toes, high heels and flounced parasols and all the lot, +and Howell doesn't have it all his own way then, I can tell you. For +this is where our ladies are really efficient. They may never dream of +travelling otherwise than first-class, but they know the price of +everything to a halfpenny and a farthing. There's no "If 'twill do +'twill do" about them when it comes to the management of a house. And +when Hilda Morrell grows out of the stage of wishing her father would +talk "like other people," the chances are that she'll discover too that +this is her real strength, as it was her mother's. Mrs. Maynard comes in +with them of a morning sometimes, and tells them how tre-_men_-dously +clever she thinks them, to know the differences between things like +that, and vows that _her_ tradesmen rob her right and left because she +hasn't been properly brought up; and then Mrs. Briggs, putting down the +egg she is holding to the light, cries, "Eh, it's nothing, love--I could +learn you in a month!" + +But Mrs. Lacey detects a secret sarcasm in the phrase about the +bringing-up. + +And the men will be in for their newspapers presently. + +Now a stroll to the hotel, and just a peep at them by and by as they +have lunch.... + + * * * * * + +This is the hotel lounge. The varnish is quite dry, though it doesn't +look it. A dozen little round tables, chairs heavily upholstered in +crimson velvet, festoons of heavy gilt cord on the curtains, and that's +the service-hatch in the corner. The waiters are rather melancholy; you +see, it isn't a public-house; everything goes down on the residents' +bills; and that means fewer tips. Tea is served here in the afternoon, +but of course the ladies never dream of tipping. Those excellent +purchasers work out everything at cost price, omit such items as +interest on capital, insurance, depreciation, and so on, and find a +shilling for two pennyworth of bread and butter, a twopenny cake, and a +pinch of two-shilling tea with hot water thrown in, tip enough. + +"_Ting! Ting! Ting!_" + +It is Val Clayton, ordering another drink for himself and his two +friends. He drinks vermouth, his friends bottles of beer. Val drinks +vermouth because it is foreign (he runs over to Paris frequently, and +travels to Egypt for Clayton Brothers and Clayton), and perhaps he makes +love to Mrs. Maynard (if you can call it making love) because she too is +almost a continental. Since Mrs. Maynard is to be seen in her red +ribbons, you might expect to find Val on the beach instead of drinking +vermouth in the hotel lounge; but that is far from being "in character" +when you know Val. The world's pleasures a little in excess have already +set their mark on Val. He will tell you that he would not miss his +morning drink, "not for the best woman living." Others may fetch and +carry for their hearts' mistresses, but not Val. In the afternoon, +perhaps, if he feels a little less jaded, in a hollow of the sandhills +and with the warm sun to help, Val may bestir himself a little, but in +the meantime he wants another vermouth. + +"_Ting! Ting! Ting!_--They want to have French waiters here," Val +grumbles. "I never mind tipping a waiter if I can get what I want when I +want it. _Wai_--oh, you've come, have you? Well, since you are here, +you may as well bring these again, and then see if the papers have come +in yet----" + +"And bring me a box of Egyptian cigarettes." + +"No--hi!--don't bring those cigarettes.--You don't want to smoke the +rubbish they sell here. Fill your case out of this--I've a thousand +upstairs I brought from Cairo myself----" + +"Oh!... Thanks.--Well, as I was saying----" + +And the speaker (who might as well be in Manchester for all he sees of +Llanyglo, at any rate in the mornings) resumes some narrative that the +replenishing of the glasses has interrupted. + +Now the others are dropping in, those who like one _aperatif_ before +lunch but not half a dozen. Their wives have gone upstairs to tittivate +themselves. The velvet chairs fill; extra waiters appear; and a light +haze ascends from cigars and cigarettes to the roof. Listen to the +restrained hubbub. + +"Waiter! _Ting!_ Waiter!----" and then a slight gesture; the waiters are +supposed to know the tastes of the real _habitués_ by this time; (it +counts almost as a "score" if the waiter brings your refection without +your having as much as opened your mouth to ask for it).--"The usual, +sir--yes, sir--coming!" And again they are talking, not on subjects, but +as if the act of talking were itself subject enough. Philip Lacey +discusses with Mr. Ashton the improvement in the Harwich-Hook of Holland +crossing, and Mr. Morrell exchanges views on Local Government with +Raymond Briggs. "_Ting! ting!_ You haven't cassis? Then why haven't you +cassis?"--"Very sorry, sir--coming, sir!"--"What's happened to the +newspapers this morning?"--"Of course, if it goes to +arbitration----"--"Nay, John, don't drown t' miller!" "Ten o'clock, +first stop Willesden----" "Your very good health, Mr. Morrell----" +"Debentures----" "New heating in both greenhouses----"--"Same again, +Val?"--"_Ting!_"---- + +"BOO-O-O-OOM-M-MMMMM!" + +It is the luncheon gong. + + * * * * * + +Just a glance as they sit at table. Don't you think it's a pleasant +room? Three tall windows looking out on the sea, noiseless carpet, +ornaments on the sideboards rather like wooden broccoli, but the +decorations straight from London. But those two large chandelier +gas-brackets don't work yet; the plant isn't installed; that's why the +red-shaded oil-lamps are placed at intervals down the T of tables. The +older folk gather round the head of the T, and down the stalk stretch +the children. These will rise before their parents, just as they go out +of Church after the Second Lesson; they will break off just below John +Willie Garden and the Misses Euonyma and Wygelia there--who, by the way, +are more usually called June and Wy. The flowers are chosen to "last +well," for Llanyglo is almost as short of flowers as it is of trees; but +the linen and plate and other appointments are all good--these actors in +Llanyglo's little fore-piece are not accustomed to roughing it, even on +a holiday. + +As I told you they would, half the women have changed their frocks. Mrs. +Lacey is a pink hollyhock now, of which her daughters seem cuttings, and +her hat is a sort of pink straw _képi_, trimmed with flowers that +resemble virginia stock. She sits at the end of one arm of the T, with +her back to the window. Near her is Mrs. Briggs, in stamped +electric-blue velvet--her forearms, on which bracelets shiver, are as +uniform in contour from whatever point you look at them as if they had +been turned in a lathe. The Misses June and Wy also wear bracelets, from +which depend bundles of sixpences, a sixpence for each of their +birthdays, sixteen for Wiggie, fourteen for June. John Willie is +lunching with Percy Briggs to-day, who lunched with him yesterday. Next +to his chair is an empty one. It is Mrs. Maynard's, who has not come +down yet. Then comes Val Clayton. Over all, with his napkin tucked into +his collar as if he had prepared, not for a lunch, but for a shave, Mr. +Morrell presides. + +For some reason or other, lunch always begins a little stiffly; but they +unbend as they go on. At present Raymond Briggs cannot get away from the +subject of the newspapers and their unaccountable lateness. + +"Can't understand it," he says for the fifth or sixth time. + +"And they were late last Wednesday--no, Thursday--no, I was right, it +was Wednesday." + +"Was it Wednesday?" + +"Yes, the day it looked like rain; you remember?" + +"Ah, yes; the day it cleared up again." + +"All but a drop or two--nothing to hurt----" + +A pause. + +"Well, I don't suppose there's anything in them." + +"Speaking for myself, I don't care a button. I don't want to see the +newspapers. 'No letters, no newspapers,' I always say when I go away." + +"A real country holiday, eh?" + +"Change and rest--those are the great things." + +"You're right. Complete change. No trouble about how you dress nor what +you eat. That's the best of this place." + +"Still, if the newspapers are coming we may as well know when they are +coming." + +"They ought to have a man, not that young boy." + +"Hugh Morgan?" + +"Is that his name? There are so many Morgans." + +"Common Welsh name." + +"Met another boy, I expect." + +"Boys are all alike." + +"Not a pin to choose among 'em." + +"Wish I was behind him with a stick for all that." + +"Another glass of wine, Mr. Ashton?" ... + +Then there enters with a little commotion, and trips half running to the +empty chair between John Willie Garden and Val Clayton, Mrs. Maynard. +She wears a big black hat swathed in black tulle, and her dress is of +black lace, with close sleeves that reach to the middle knuckles of her +taper fingers. She shakes out the mitre of her napkin and breaks forth +to Val as she settles in her chair. + +"My horrid hair!" she pouts; "it always takes me three-quarters of an +hour! Really, I shall have to stop bathing, but I do love it so. It +seems a kind of fate; I always have to give up the things I love!" + +Hereupon Val--or perhaps vermouth, since Val seems a little astonished +at his own gallantry--suddenly replies that if he were like that he +would have to give up Mrs. Maynard. If Mrs. Maynard also is a little +surprised she covers it with great readiness. + +"Oh, now the dreadful man's beginning again!" she cries. "If you _will_ +say those things, Mr. Clayton, I shall have to change places at table!" + +Mr. Clayton asks here what is wrong with her hair.--"I think it's +champion," he adds. "Very nice indeed," he adds once more. + +"Oh, how _can_ you!" (As a matter of fact, Mrs. Maynard's hair is +rather wonderful, dark, and so long that she can sit on it.) "No fish, +thank you," she says, with a smile to the waiter. + +Then Mrs. Lacey's firm voice is heard. "Can anybody tell me whether +there have been many wrecks on this coast?" + +The person best qualified to give this information is John Willie +Garden, but Mrs. Maynard has turned to John Willie, and is asking him +whether he does not think she swims rather nicely. Her tendril-like +fingers are again stroking his hair. Mrs. Lacey considers Mrs. Maynard's +tulle-swathed hat the ostentation of modesty and the coquetry of +mourning (if she is in mourning), and, getting no answer to her question +about the wrecks, invents a name for Mrs. Maynard: "Mrs. Maynard--as she +calls herself." Plates are changed, corks pop, and from time to time a +seltzogene gives a spurt and a cough. Raymond Briggs explains that he is +fond of strawberries, but strawberries are not fond of him. The chatter +grows louder. + +"I took her as a kitchen-maid, but she turned out quite a good plain +cook----" + +"Oh, like a top--as Dr. Smythe says, it's the air." + +"Oh, I _prefer_ it rustic; like this!" + +"Quite so--the first tripper and I'm off!" + +"So I opened her box myself; and there they were, if you please--four +silver spoons!----" + +"Now, June, you and Wy talk French--you haven't talked it for days----" + +"John's booked the rooms for next year already----" + +"Oh, _Mis_-ter Clayton! I never promised any such thing!" + +"They can talk it if they like, as fast as a mill----" + +"If I were you I should see Tudor Williams about it----" + +"You can put on your oldest things and there's nobody to see you----" + +"But really I'm almost ashamed to go about the fright I do!----" + +"But that's a new dress?----" + +"_New!_--Last year--but it's good enough for here----" + +"Can't manage those double-l's----" + +"Gutturals----" + +"Llan--Thlan--Lan----" + +"June, your legs are younger than mine--run and get Aunt May's letter +out of my dressing-table drawer----" + +"Mrs. Smythe?... The best thing for the baby, of course, but I can't +help thinking that not _quite_ so publicly----" + +"Oh, I always let Percy suck, whoever was there!----" + +"John will have his dinner in the middle of the day----" + +"Smythe? Oh, one of the nicest fellows, but no push, I'm afraid----" + +"That's his failing----" + +"Where he misses it----" + +"Extraordinary----" + +"Well, some men are born like that----" + +"Wait for things to come to them instead of going to fetch them----" + +"Up t' Trwyn? We'll talk about it after I've had my forty winks. I must +have my forty winks after my dinner." + +"Lunch, William." + +"Lunch, then." + +"He _will_ call it his dinner----" + +"It _is_ my dinner----" + +Then Mr. Morrell makes a signal, the younger ones troop out, breaking +into loud shouts the moment they are clear of the room. They are off to +the beach again. Shall we follow them?... + + * * * * * + +What do the Welshmen think of it all? It suits Howell Gruffydd's book, +as you see, and Howell has pacified John Pritchard with the promise of +Bazaars; but the others? Dafydd Dafis, say? + +Again nothing is going right for Dafydd. He feels that another friend +has changed towards him--Minetta, to whom he used to sing _Serch Hudol_, +and tell his stories of fays and water-beings and knights, and make much +of for her elfin looks and quick and un-Saxon ways. For Minetta is +already displaying the artist's heartlessness, and does not see the +sorrow in Dafydd's eyes, but only what sort of a "head" he has from her +special point of view, and how he will "come" upon a piece of paper. She +tried to draw Dafydd only the other day, and ordered him, half absently, +to turn his head this way and that, and grew petulant when her drawing +went all wrong, and suddenly cried "Don't look at me like that!" when +Dafydd turned his eyes on her with a tear in the corner of each. Poor +Dafydd! He, like the Squire, would be better out of all this swiftly +oncoming change.... + +But Dafydd, who is of the phrase-making kind, has made out of his +sadness a phrase that more or less represents the attitude of every +Welshman in Llanyglo. He watched all these people coming in ones and +twos and threes out of the hotel one morning and walking down to their +deck-chairs and bathing-tents on the beach. He stood for a while, +looking at the gay parterre of sun-shades and summer clothes, of kites +and spades and buckets, and rings on fingers more carefully tended but +of coarser stuff than his own. And he listened to the accents that even +his alien ear told him were strained and affected and false. And he gave +them a half contemptuous and half pitying look as he turned away. + +"_These summer things_," he said.... + +But Howell Gruffydd has Dafydd Dafis's measure also, and takes it, just +as he took John Pritchard's, in a single word. + +"_Eisteddfodau_," he whispered to Dafydd behind his hand.... + +For they may by and by be advertising Llanyglo by means of an +Eisteddfod, and, as long as he is allowed to play, Dafydd does not +greatly care who he plays to nor whether they understand him or not. + + + + +IV + +YNYS + + +There came one day at about that time a Welsh gipsy fortune-teller to +Llanyglo. Her name was Belle Lovell, she was a known character all over +the countryside, and she was some sort of a connection of Dafydd +Dafis's. There was always a packet of tobacco for her in the Squire's +kitchen when she appeared, and her companion on her travels was her +thirteen-years-old daughter Ynys.[1] Belle sold baskets and mended +chairs, and Ynys drew the cart, which was no more than a large deal +packing-case mounted on four perambulator wheels, and with two flat +shafts roughly nailed to its sides. The mother's boots, which you might +have hit with a hammer and not have dinted, resembled grey old wooden +dug-outs; the child went barefooted and barelegged, and it would have +been a stout thorn that could have pierced the calloused pads of her +hardened soles. + +[Footnote 1: Pron. "Unnis."] + +These two appeared at Llanyglo at midday, ate their frugal meal on the +doorstep of Dafydd's single-roomed cottage behind the Independent +Chapel, and then, leaving the cart behind them, strolled down to have a +look at that splendacious new caravan, Howell Gruffydd's shop. Belle, +her greenish light brown eyes never for a moment still, gossiped with +her old acquaintances; her daughter, whose head was as steadily held as +if she balanced an invisible pitcher on it, stood looking at the green +butterfly-nets and red-painted buckets, admiring, but no more desiring +them than she would have desired anything else impossibly beyond her +reach. Her mother joined a group about Mrs. Roberts's door; the +visitors, who had lunched, began to descend to the beach again; and +there approached down the path that led to the Hafod Unos Ned, the +oldest of the Kerrs. + +Now Ned had run across Belle on many alder-expeditions, and, while the +invasion of "summer things" had not driven Ned into naturalisation as a +Welshman, it had, by emphasising the distinction between the well-to-do +and the poor of the world, shown him how to jog along in peace with his +neighbours. He gave Belle an intelligent grin, and jerked his head in +the direction of the bathing-tents. + +"Well, mother," he said, "ye've dropped in at just about th' right +time." + +"There iss no wrong time for seeing friends," Belle replied, in an +up-and-down and very musical Welsh accent. + +"Nay, I wanna thinking-g o' that," Ned replied, strongly doubling the +"g" that terminated the present participle. "I wor thinking-g of a bit +o' fortune-telling. There's a lot ovver yonder wi' more brass nor sense, +and it allus tickles 'em to talk about sweethearts an' sich." + +"Indeed Llanyglo has become grea-a-at big place, whatever," the gipsy +replied, and continued her conversation with Mrs. Roberts. + +And presently, whether she took the hint or whether she had come +precisely for that purpose, Belle's greenish-brown eyes roved again, she +made a slight gesture to Ynys, who had turned from the butterfly-nets +and was looking out to sea, and the pair of them made off along the +beach in the direction of that bright plot of colour that made as it +were a herbaceous border between the grey-green tussocks and the +glittering sea. + +For a hundred yards Belle's dug-outs left behind her a heavy shuffling +track in the sand, parallel with the light kidney-shaped prints of the +child who walked as if she carried an invisible pitcher on her head; and +then, with the cluster of tents and parasols still far ahead, they +stopped. John Willie Garden and Percy Briggs, with Eesaac Oliver +Gruffydd ready to bear a hand if called upon to do so, but otherwise a +little fearful of intruding, were victualling the blue-and-white +collapsible boat for a cruise. But it was not in order to tell the +fortunes of the three boys that Belle stopped. She stopped for the same +reason that the street-seller pulls out his rattle or his conjuring +trick, while his quick-silver eyes dart this way and that in search of +his crowd. The only difference was that Belle was her own +conjuring-trick. The gesture with which she performed it was superbly +negligent. She had a wonderful old mignonette-coloured shawl, which, +when she had talked with the group about Mrs. Roberts's doorstep, had +been drawn up over her head; and suddenly she allowed it to fall to her +shoulders. The effect might well have carried twice the distance it was +intended to carry. Out of the folds of the shawl her neck rose as erect +as the pistil of an arum lily. Against it gleamed her heavy gold +earrings. Her cheekbones and the nodule of her high nose gleamed like +bronze, and about the whorl of the springing of her hair at the back of +her head the sunshine made as it were a sun-dog on the lustrous +blackness. Her silver wedding-ring, an old tweed jacket that might have +belonged to her kinsman Dafydd Dafis, and a patched old indigo +petticoat, completed the legerdemain. Ynys, clad to all appearances in +a single garment only, watched the boys exactly as she had watched the +balls and butterfly-nets and buckets outside Howell Gruffydd's shop. + +They too made a shining _coup d'oeil_. There was just swell enough to +set the long breakers hurdling in, and wind enough to take the tops off +them in rattling showers of brilliant spray. Indeed it was so merry a +sea that, not half an hour before, Mrs. Maynard had declared to John +Willie that she had come within an ace of drowning during her bathe that +morning, and had asked him whether, had he seen her in difficulties, he +would have come to her rescue. "Mmmmm, John Willie?" she had asked, +curling his hair with her perfumed fingers; but John Willie, seeing +Percy Briggs approaching, had jerked away his head. This had not been +because he had been afraid of being laughed at by Percy. For that +matter, Percy had confided to John Willie only a week before that he +"liked their Minetta," and so was in no position to jeer at the softer +relations. No; it had merely been that, as Llanyglo's curtain had risen, +suddenly revealing a soft and alluring group of Euonymas and Wygelias +and Hildas, not to speak of Mrs. Maynard herself, all temptingly set out +like fruit upon a stall, the curtain of John Willie Garden's peculiar +privacy had come down with a run. Mrs. Maynard was always trying to peep +behind it, but probably there was nothing behind. Probably that was the +reason it had come so sharply and closely down. No boy wants to show +that he has nothing to show. + +Smack!--A bucketful of spray drenched the stores, and the wave ran +hissing and creaming back under the counter of the blue-and-white boat. +John Willie shouted rather crossly to Eesaac Oliver. + +"Pull her up a bit, can't you, instead of standing there doing nothing!" + +Eesaac Oliver started to life and obeyed. He was rather a fetcher and +carrier for these more happily circumstanced boys, but privately he knew +himself to be in some things their superior. To tell the truth, Eesaac +Oliver knew just a lee-tle too much about what went on within himself, +and communicated it just a lee-tle too readily to others. For he dropped +no curtain; on the contrary, the windows of his soul were flung wide +open. The experience of the world he had acquired at the school at Porth +Neigr had already caused him to declare himself as being thenceforward +powerfully on the side of the angels; and that ingenious educational +exercise which consists of speaking extempore on any subject given only +a moment ago had a lee-tle abnormally developed certain natural powers +of expression which his race rarely lacks. Had Mrs. Maynard attempted to +stroke Eesaac Oliver's hair (which was thick and black, and rose in a +great lump in front, falling thence in a lappet over his pale forehead), +he would either have cried "Apage!" or else, suffering the seduction, +would have undergone torments of remorse afterwards. + +Therefore it was with a meek dignity that Eesaac Oliver bore a hand with +the boat, and then fell back and a little enviously watched again. + +Then that crafty and stately piece of legerdemain of Belle's had its +reward. In his rippling cream alpaca, there approached along the sands +Mr. Morrell himself, and Belle's neck no longer resembled the pistil of +an arum lily. She bent ingratiatingly forward; as if a key had clicked, +a dazzling smile cut her face into two; and after a jocular word or two +Mr. Morrell bore her off, Ynys following. Let us follow too. + +Do look at the contrast--those summer things, and the two wanderers in +whom all the seasons are ingrained; carefully veiled and sunburn-cured +complexions, and these other vagrants, brown as the upturned earth; the +indefatigable maintenance of artificial attitudes even before one +another, and the grave ease of the child, the deliberate gesture with +which the mother looses as it were in the sheath the only weapon she has +against the world.... Frith's "_Derby Day_?" Yes, it is a little like +it; but listen. Mrs. Maynard, with a sparkling glance about her that +says "Mum," has slipped off her wedding-ring, and Belle has taken her +hand. It is slim as a glove that has never been put on, and Mrs. Maynard +intends to trip Belle if she can. + +So, when Belle begins to promise Mrs. Maynard a husband who shall be +such-and-such, there are winks and glances and nudges, as much as to say +that now they are going to have some fun, and Mr. Morrell says, "Here, +ho'd on a bit, mother--how do you know she isn't married?" + +If Belle shows the knife for a moment, she does it so delicately that +nobody notices it. + +"If the prit-ty lady was married, her man he srink a ring upon her +finger, red-hot, as they srink a tyre on a cart-wheel," Belle replies; +and the reading of Mrs. Maynard's palm continues. + +Mrs. Lacey, a pale blue hollyhock, looks as if she pooh-poohed the whole +thing; but inwardly she is a-tremble with eagerness to have the fortunes +of her two daughters told. As it happens, no sooner is Mrs. Maynard's +hand dropped than Mr. Morrell, who happens to be standing next to June, +catches her by the arm. + +"Come on, June, and be told how to get a husband!" he cries, and he +slips a shilling into Belle's hand. + +June will never be prettier than she is now. She is indeed very +pretty--apple-blossom and cream, bright-haired, freshly starched, back +straight and elbows well down, and as glossy from top to toe as the +broad mauve ribbon of her sash. Soon she will be as tall as her mother; +already she is taller than her father, the landscape-gardener; and the +thought of whether she will marry or not, and whether brilliantly or +otherwise, never enters her head. Of course she will marry, and of +course her marriage will be a brilliant one. "Marriage" and "brilliant +marriage" are one and the same thing. In this, as in most other things, +Wygelia is of the same opinion as June. A close understanding, which has +not yet outgrown the form of surreptitious kicks under the table, and +private and abbreviated words, exists between the two sisters. Other +things being equal, they would probably prefer to marry two brothers. + +"I tell the prit-ty miss a harder thing than that--I tell her how to +keep her man when she has got him," Belle replied amid laughter; and she +proceeds to describe June's husband. He is to come over the water +(landing at Newhaven, Mrs. Lacey instantly concludes, and taking the +first train to the Boarding School at Brighton), and he shall be devoted +to her, and she shall have such-and-such a number of children. (Mrs. +Lacey straightens her back; this is something like; her grandfather, +whom she remembers quite well, was June's great-grandfather, and will +have been the great-great-grandfather of June's boys and girls, which is +getting on, especially when you remember the younger sons and grandsons +of somebodies, who are estate-bailiffs and engine-drivers and carriers +of milk-cans in the Colonies.) When June's fortune is finished all +applaud her, as if she had performed some feat of skill, and then Mr. +Morrell seizes Wy. + +"Come on, Wy--no hanging back--let's see what sort of a fist Wy's going +to make of it----" + +And Wy also is haled forward, blushing and conscious and biting her lip, +and is told that for her too somebody is languishing, and that presently +he will drink out of her glass and thenceforward think her thoughts, +which are already complex. And Hilda's palm is read, and little Victoria +Smythe's fat one, and Val Clayton's, and others, and silver rains into +Belle's palm. Chaffingly Mr. Morrell offers her a sovereign for her +takings, uncounted, but is refused. Then Mrs. Briggs "wants the boys +done," and somebody is despatched along the shore for Percy and John +Willie, and as they arrive, bearing their bottles of milk and parcels of +jam-sandwiches (for the blue-and-white boat had been paid off), there +comes up also Minetta, carrying her sketching-kit. She stands peering at +Ynys, more as seeing in her a subject than as at a fellow-being. + +So, idly and laughingly, an hour of the summer afternoon passes; and +then an accident mars its harmony. John Willie and Percy, feeling the +pangs of thirst, had drunk their milk and had then set up the bottle as +a mark to throw stones at; and Ynys, walking down to the sea-marge, has +set her foot upon a piece of the broken glass. Unconcernedly she bathes +the cut in the salt water. + +But as the laughing group breaks up, and her mother calls her again, the +blood wells out once more, dabbling with a dark stain those light +kidney-shaped prints in the sand. Mrs. Garden and Mrs. Briggs see the +child's plight simultaneously. It is a cruel gash, and the two ladies +utter loud cries. + +"Nay, nay, whativver in the world!" cries Mrs. Briggs, all of her that +is not pure mother suddenly becoming pure Hunslet. "Nay, nay! Come here, +doy!----" + +She and Mrs. Garden kneel down before the gipsy child, and a dozen +others gather round. Cries of sympathy break out. + +"T' poor bairn!----" + +"What a mess!" + +"How did she do it?" + +"John Willie, quick, run and get the kettle from the picnic-basket----" + +"Indeed, lady dear, it iss noth-thing----" + +"Quick, Ray, give me your handkercher too----" + +Ynys' foot is bathed in fresh water from the picnic-kettle, and bound up +with Mrs. Briggs's tiny lace handkerchief, with Raymond's large one over +it to secure it. The blood has already come through before the tying is +finished. And you forget the false accents and the elaborate pretences +of these "summer things" of Llanyglo's little preliminary piece, and +remember only the better things that lie beneath them. They flatter +Ynys, and encourage her with admiring words. + +"She's a very brave little girl, anyway!" + +"What did you say her name was?" + +"Ynys." + +"Well done, Ynys! Soon be well----" + +"John Willie, I've told you about throwing stones at bottles before--get +you home till I come----" + +"And you too, Percy Briggs; and you dare to stir out till I tell you!" + +"Don't cry, little girl----" + +Ynys has no thought whatever of crying. She makes no more motion than a +pine makes when it bleeds its gouts of resin in the spring. But they +continue to comfort her. + +"She'll never be able to walk like that!" + +"Better fetch Gilbert Smythe." + +"June, you run----" + +"Here's half a crown for you, Ynys, for being a brave little girl." + +Then Minetta, who has been conferring with Belle, speaks.--"All right, +mother, she's to come home with us; I'm going to paint her." + +"There, now, Ynys, you're going to be painted! Won't that be fun!" + +"And if she ever comes to Liverpool and asks for me," says Philip Lacey, +"I'll see she's all right. Yes, I will. She shall sell flowers. That'll +be better than going about barefoot and getting her poor little foot +cut, won't it?" + +But at that, for the first time, the child seems to see and to hear. Her +eyes, greenish-brown and deep like her mother's, look into Philip +Lacey's small but kindly ones as if she had not seen him before. The +half-crown Philip has given her is still tightly clasped in her hand, +but then half-crowns are things that do sometimes visit people precisely +like that. And she knows that they have some mystic power or virtue by +means of which they can buy things--green butterfly-nets and red-painted +buckets; but Ynys can not quite understand the people who can sell these +wondrous things for mere half-crowns.... Then she realises again that +somebody has just said something about selling flowers.... + +They are promising her that if she is a brave little girl and lets +Doctor Smythe dress her foot she shall one day sell flowers.... + +Sometimes, meeting Belle Lovell and her daughter upon the road, the one +with her loops of cane upon her back and the other drawing the cart made +of the deal box mounted upon perambulator wheels, you will give them +good-day and pass on; and then, five minutes or so afterwards perhaps, +you will be conscious of an almost noiseless pattering behind you, and +will turn. It is Ynys, holding out to you a little posy of +hedge-flowers. She may not refuse your penny for them; indeed she will +not; but you are not to suppose that it is for the penny that she has +brought you the nosegay. The poor sticky little thing is unpurchasable. +You would have got it just the same had you been as poor as herself. + + + + +PART THREE + + + + +I + +THE HOLIDAY CAMP + + +The writer of the _Sixpenny Guide to Llanyglo and Neighbourhood_, in +speaking of the rise of the town, made use of an obvious image which we +will take leave to borrow from him. "Thenceforward," he wrote, "Llanyglo +sprang up as if by magic out of the soil itself." + +Indeed it did something like it. Watching it, you would have thought of +one of Philip Lacey's gardens in the short days before Spring had begun +to warm the air. Neat, bare, brown, friable soil, with not yet a crocus +or a snowdrop to be seen; here and there a stick with a tiny linen tab +fluttering (reminding you of Terry Armfield's little "_Keep off the +Grass_" board with "Delyn Avenue" written upon it); frames half open and +inverted bells, dibbing-strings, sprinklings of lime, and a few +whirligigs to keep the birds away; these, and the promise of the scent +and colour to come--it did indeed resemble Llanyglo. Not all at once did +the pea-sticks become builders' scaffold-poles, the lines of string the +plotting-out of streets. As of Philip's gardens, you could not have said +of Llanyglo on any particular day, "This has changed more than it was +changing yesterday, more than it will be again changing to-morrow." But +for all that, nothing remained any longer the same. Philip's men, +working over the blindfold earth with clay and spittle, caused its lids +to open; Edward Garden and his associates, similarly, with money for +manure, labour to let in the air and light, and the gentle airs of +advertisement already fanning an incipient repute, made a garden of +stone and iron, with buds of stucco, flowers of paint and glass and +gilding, and fruit after its kind to ripen by and by. + +Humanity was the soil he worked on, and his knowledge of it the force +with which he did so. Its hopes and appetites, its need of noise and +change and laughter, its stretching itself after fetters struck off and +its resolve to have a better, a much better time than it had ever had +before--out of these things came Edward Garden's beds and borders. He +would grow flowers of pleasure for those of the towns to pick. And, +since you do not advance the glory of July by neglecting to make the +most of March, his crops also had their rotation. For this, in a manner +of speaking, was Llanyglo's March, and what though it lasted two, three, +four years? The Laceys and the Raymond Briggses were to be cultivated +while they were yet there. Blooming and falling again, they would make +an excellent preparation, and there was plenty to do in the meantime. +There were other hotels to build, and a wet-weather pavilion for tea and +talk and dancing, and a landing-stage for the twenty new boats, and this +and that and the other--and always, always, the coming full summer to +look forward to, the summer of ten, eleven, twelve years thence, the +summer when, not the Laceys, but the employees of their fourteen or +fifteen shops should talk of Llanyglo; the summer when Mr. Morrell +should come no more, but his operatives should draw their thousands +from the Clubs and rain them upon the town; the summer when all should +be changed but the steadfast Trwyn, and all different save the mountains +behind, and nothing the same save the still and watching sea. + +The Sarn-Porth Neigr Loop was constructed in 1886-7, and opened in the +May of the last-named year. One of its earlier trains brought, in a +first-class compartment, Philip and Mrs. Lacey and the Misses June and +Wygelia, fresh from Paris; and in a third-class compartment it brought a +family called Topham. Mr. Topham was head-clerk in a Liverpool +Irish-bacon-importing concern, and Philip Lacey, meeting him once or +twice at Philharmonic Promenade Concerts, had forgotten the golden rule +that it is easier to get into conversation with a man than it is to +shake him off again, and had fallen into the habit of nodding to him. In +fact, a sort of acquaintanceship had been struck up. He had learned +Topham's name, and Topham his. All this had been in Liverpool. + +But it was one thing to strike up an acquaintanceship in Liverpool, and +quite another to continue that acquaintanceship elsewhere. Philip Lacey, +seeing Barry Topham get into the train, had not doubted that the +bacon-importer's clerk would be dropping off again after a few stations. +But at Stockport, where Philip had descended to stretch his legs, Topham +had met him on the platform and had informed him that he was going to +Llanyglo. + +Now when Philip went away for a few weeks' change he liked that change +to be a change. He didn't come to Llanyglo to meet casuals from +Liverpool. + +He began to wonder whether Llanyglo was quite what it had been. + +And so did Mr. Morrell, who brought his daughter Hilda from Brighton +that year. + +And so did Val Clayton, who also came that year, merely in order to see +what sort of vermouth they sold at the other hotels. + +For soon there were three hotels, the original "Cambrian," the +"Cardigan," and the "Montgomery." All these were on what by and by +became the front, and between the "Cambrian" and the "Cardigan" was a +space of perhaps a couple of hundred yards. Thence to the "Montgomery," +however, was quite a walk for Val of a morning--a quarter of a mile or +more on towards the Trwyn. Of the three hotels the "Montgomery" was the +largest. It had sixty bedrooms. Its stabling (for there was now a +landau-service up into the mountains) blocked up one of Terry's +dream-avenues a hundred yards from where the easy marble steps were to +have descended to the shore. A wide metalled road ran past the three +hotels, but it reminded you of unexplored rivers on an ancient map, +which are traced for a score or a hundred miles, and then dissipate in +interrogative dots. Another road at right angles ran past the Kerrs' +Hafod to the gap opposite Pritchard's farm, and there were yet other +roads, if those widish alleys bounded by stakes and wire could properly +be called roads. When the wind rose the sand still whistled everywhere, +scouring paint, rounding wooden corners, stinging faces; but so far it +had made very little impression on a large, black, tarred notice-board +firmly stayed into the sand midway between the "Cardigan" and +"Montgomery" hotels, a board bigger than the whole front of the Kerrs' +Hafod, which bore a straggling plan upon it in white, and the words: + + LEASEHOLD! + For 999 Years! + Lots as Under: + + Apply----------- + +To tell the truth, Llanyglo was now rather a dreary-looking place. They +had broken its sylvan eggs, but had hardly yet begun the making of its +urban omelette. The above-mentioned announcement was not the only one of +its kind; there was another halfway between the Kerrs' house and +Pritchard's, and a third at Pritchard's corner. These, it was known, +awoke faint and distant echoes in little paragraphs in Manchester and +Liverpool papers. The Company so far was a private one; it hardly knew +yet what powers it might presently expect to possess; but Mr. Tudor +Williams and others were finding out. As a matter of fact, they were +rather anxious about these powers. An Act of Parliament two years before +had seemed to promise them certain things that might prove immensely to +their advantage; but of the two great Local Government Acts (of 1888 and +1894), the first was still in a plastic state, and the second not yet +thought of. Hitherto Porth Neigr had been the centre of administration; +it was now being sought to shift that centre. And, with the cumbrous old +machinery of Boards of Guardians and Poor Law Overseers out of the way, +Howell Gruffydd, it was whispered, might before long become a +Councillor. Indeed, who would make a better one? Edward Garden? Edward +Garden preferred to depute powers of this kind. The Laceys and +Briggses, on a property qualification? These had their own affairs to +attend to, and were summer residents only. John Pritchard? Stern John, +as unchallenged ruler of the Baptist Chapel, was already a Councillor in +a deeper sense than that defined by any mundane Act. William Morgan? Not +substantial enough. John Roberts? Dafydd Dafis? The Squire?--The claims +of all of them paled before that of Howell Gruffydd the grocer.... + +The leases were being taken up too. The Llanyglo Pavilion, Limited, was +incorporated before a spade was set in the sand. The great blackboard +between the Kerrs' house and Pritchard's Corner bore a significant +diagonal paper strip with four fifteen-inch letters in red upon +it--SOLD. Negotiations were proceeding for the acquisition of the land +at the Corner itself. And Edward Garden had completed that rumoured +purchase of his far up in the mountains. It was a "catchment area" for +water, and if, under the new distribution, the Council should find +itself possessed of large borrowing-powers, it might possibly find the +private ownership of those hundreds of acres far away up Delyn an +awkward matter. + +And the excavation was already being made for the row of houses that +later was known as "Ham-and-Egg Terrace"--a hundred and fifty yards of +building that at first awed Llanyglo by its grandeur, but which they +subsequently came to think a poor affair and did their best to conceal. + +It was only partly for a holiday that those first visitor-discoverers +came to Llanyglo now. Considerations of business had begun to play a +part in their coming. Mr. Morrell, for example, had sunk quite a lot of +money in the place, and liked to keep an eye on his interests. Philip +Lacey pored over a dozen sketch-drafts of his Floral Valley, a project +for converting a coombe or dean that clove one portion of the Trwyn into +an ornamental arrangement of flower-beds with a bandstand in the centre. +And Raymond Briggs mused on houses and hotels, on hotels and more and +yet more houses. For these Llanyglo was no longer simply a place +"delightfully rural," a place "where you could dress as you liked," a +place for "a real rustic holiday." It was the Tophams who made these +discoveries and bestowed these encomiums now. + +Whether or not Barry Topham dressed as he liked, he certainly dressed as +the Briggses and the Laceys disliked. At the Promenade Concerts his +appearance had been just decently unremarkable; alas, it was so no +longer! Now, in the country, he broke out into a loose tweed jacket, +knickers made of a pair of long trousers of striped cashmere cut down, +low shoes, a flannel shirt, no hat, and a tightly knotted red tie, this +last as a voucher for the socialism that, Philip Lacey discovered to his +horror, he talked in and out of season. He was a small, bearded, wiry +man of forty-four or five, who gave you a curious impression of ferocity +and mildness mingled. The mildness was perhaps due to his bolt-upright +shock of frightened-looking sandy hair, the ferocity to the pince-nez +marks on either side of his nose that gave his glance a concentrated +look. His wife did not appear to dress (you cannot call mere concealment +of the person "dressing") until four o'clock in the afternoon, and his +two daughters, aged nineteen and twenty-one, were school-teachers, less +buxom than Miss Nancy Pritchard, but more professionally eager, as if +all the vital force in them had gone, not to the waste of mere pleasant +flesh, but into the severer regions of the mind. + +This taking of Llanyglo at its word in the matter of dress was bad +enough, but worse was to come. + +Scarcely were the Tophams installed at the "Montgomery" when it became +known that, though they had appeared to come alone, they were merely an +advance party. Two days later the main body arrived, and Llanyglo +experienced its first social slump. + +The party called itself a Holiday Camp. It was a union of two +semi-secular, semi-Nonconformist Institutions whose idea of having a +better time than their fathers had had was to botanise, to geologise, to +read, and to discuss these activities afterwards in whirlwinds of +communal talk. Strictly speaking, they did not "camp" at all: they put +up at the "Montgomery"; but they had camped, hoped to camp again, and +called their more convivial gatherings, when studies were cast aside, +Pow-Wows. + +They overran the place instantaneously. You met them with their brown +canvas satchels and japanned tin specimen-cases, poking about up the +Trwyn or groping in the boggy patches about Sarn. They were to be met in +the lanes, carrying picnic paraphernalia. They lighted fires of +driftwood on the shore, which coatless young men blew while the young +women combed their hair out in the sun. And wherever they went a little +red rash went with them, the rash of the small red-backed book, Sir +Thomas More's _Utopia_, of which the contagion had raged among them. Not +that they had not books of other hues also. They had Hugh Miller's _Old +Red Sandstone_ in green, and _Selected Sayings_ of Marcus Aurelius in +brown, and others in various colours; but it was the red that struck the +eye at the greater distance. They and the books were inseparable. The +unmarried ones, sharing a book between them, seemed already to be +creating that sage community of intellectual interest that, as all the +world knows, comes in so very handy when the first fires of love have +become less devouringly hot; the married ones, with a book apiece, kept +the calm connubial ideal before the maids' and bachelors' eyes.... And +it was all exceedingly disquieting and difficult to understand. One +hoped that the books were portals into high and fair and spacious +places, but feared that they might be but pathetic posterns of escape +from the world's weary drudgery that has got to be done and that +therefore somebody must do. One had struggles of compunction and +abasement and doubt, and the humiliating feeling that some clean and +heathery and wind-swept place of the mind was being invaded to sadly, +sadly little purpose. One tried, desperately tried, to tell oneself that +if poor lame Harry Stone got one single half-hour's joy out of it all, +nothing else mattered; and then one wondered whether even this was true. +It is hard to be social over an anti-social thing.... So one bore, +humble heart and arrogant heart alike, each his portion of Education's +shame. + +The coming of the Montgomeryites acted instantaneously. Within an hour +of their issuing from their sixty-bedroom hotel, the Cambrians and their +deck-chairs and bathing-tents had drawn a little more compactly together +on the sands. Certainly the Cambrians did not see why they should take, +intellectually, a second place to these loftily and botanically thinking +ones, merely because they chose to pay a little attention to appearances +also. Moreover, the fact that the Reading Party had come to Llanyglo +only for a fortnight filled the Briggses and the Laceys with a certain +compassion. This was not compassion that the ecstacies with which a +zoophyte was discovered, or the glad cries with which a bit of sundew +was hailed, must be such transient joys. It was rather compassion that +the Montgomeryites should find the place pristine. Llanyglo +"pristine"--now!... "Ah," they thought, "they wouldn't think that if +they'd known it as _we_ knew it--two houses and a single hotel +only!" ... The thought opened a vista. Perhaps, in time to come, these +Utopians would tell others how, when _they_ first set eyes on Llanyglo, +the place had not begun to be spoiled, but had had three hotels only, a +dozen or so houses, Ham-and-Egg Terrace, and a blackboard here and there +that had emphasised rather than detracted from its virgin charm. And +these others would pass it on to others still, and so it would go on, +and so, in one sense, Llanyglo would never grow. There would always be +somebody who had known it before somebody else, and would say, "Ah, yes, +but you ought to have seen it _then_!" ... Well, thought the Cambrians, +perhaps it was a good thing. To have inferiors is one of the great +solaces of Life, and they supposed that the Tophams also had their +inferiors. Perhaps some day a tripper would look even on Philip Lacey's +Floral Valley with much the same shock of delight with which Eve opened +her eyes on the dew of Eden.... + +A sorely tried man now was Philip. Sadly he lamented the evening that +had taken him and Barry Topham to the same Philharmonic Concert in +Liverpool. For the starched and hotpressed ones of the "Cambrian," +though they did not openly say so, held him as in a manner responsible +for this inferior spilling all over their idyllic place. They seemed to +be trying to make out that the Tophams were Philip's chosen friends. +Philip felt this to be unfair. It was an accident that might have +happened to anybody, and Philip's views on culture and the multitude +were every bit as sound as Raymond Briggs's own. And as Philip did not +intend to be sat upon by Raymond Briggs or anybody, he acted well, nay, +even nobly. He had recognised Topham; very well. He had not positively +encouraged the fellow, but say that certain narrow-minded persons wished +to make it appear that he had done so; well again. He would stand by +what he had done. He would ask the Tophams to dinner at his hotel. + +He did so, and took the disastrous consequences. For the Tophams came, +and, with the eyes of the whole "Cambrian" upon them, behaved for all +the world as if they had been dining at their own inferior Liberty Hall +of a "Montgomery." So at least it seemed to Philip, and bad enough +surely that would have been; but Mrs. Lacey made it far, far worse. It +was plain as plain could be (she said afterwards) that the Tophams' +sprawls and freedoms were all put on, and that they had been like four +fishes out of water every minute of the time--he ought to be ashamed of +himself, showing them up before everybody's eyes like that!... "Come as +you are," Philip Lacey had said, with the truest delicacy, since it was +very unlikely that the Tophams had brought evening clothes to their +Camps and Pow-Wows; and so nobody dressed. The "Cambrian's" tables were +no longer arranged in the form of a T. With the installation of gas, +numerous smaller tables, with a couple of large oval ones among them, +had taken its place, and at one of the oval tables the four Laceys and +the four Tophams sat. Mr. Lacey was at one end, with Mrs. Topham on his +right, Mrs. Lacey was at the other end with Mr. Topham on her right. At +the sides sat the younger ones, a Topham and a Lacey on either side. +This was not the happiest of arrangements, since young ladies who have +just "finished" in Paris usually think they have seen enough of +school-teachers for some time to come, but it was the best that could be +managed. Nor could Miss June kick Miss Wy under the table. + +The discord showed from the very first moment. The Laceys, as urbane +hosts, would have kept to such light and frothy conversational matters +as how the Tophams liked Llanyglo, whether they had been up into the +mountains yet, and similar subjects; but not so the Tophams. Briefly, +they went for the eternal verities like four steam-navvies. Before she +had unfolded her napkin, Mrs. Topham had Philip Lacey helpless in the +toils of More's _Utopia_, and by the time she had asked him half a dozen +searching questions, looking mistrustfully at him as much as to say, +"You _dare_ to lie to me, sir!" the unhappy man had to confess that it +was some time since he had read the book, and that his textual memory +was by no means as good as it had been. A second attack rendered him +abject. The third was not delivered. Seeing him such a rank and pitiable +outsider, Mrs. Topham contemptuously spared him. + +"And _this_ is the state of education to-day!" she said scornfully to +her husband afterwards.... + +Mr. Topham, in the meantime, tackled Mrs. Lacey on certain problems of +the Distribution of Wealth, with no happier results. Quite simply, Mrs. +Lacey was unaware that such problems existed save insofar as they were +included in the specific question of marriage-settlements for daughters. +She scarcely troubled to answer Mr. Topham, but, glancing from June and +Wy to the Misses Amy and Norah Topham, lost herself in the problems of +the Distribution of Proposals instead. So she too, from the point of +view of those who carried Mill and Smith in their pockets and read these +inhuman authors in the shade of the crumbling Dinas, became an outsider. + +But worst of all fared the Misses June and Wy; for the Topham sisters +had brought with them from Liverpool a holiday-pamphlet, which consisted +of forty-two questions, three of which, daily for a fortnight, the +holiday-maker was advised to ask himself. So: + +"As I came along the beach this afternoon," said Miss Amy to June, with +a chatty note in her voice, but the enthusiasm for knowledge smouldering +in her eyes, "I observed great quantities of seaweed. To what uses are +seaweeds put?" + +And said Miss Norah to Wy, slightly puckering her shining and melon-like +forehead: + +"One of the boatmen told me yesterday that in the Spring large masses of +the vernal squill are to be found upon the hills near here. Why is +this?" + +Then Miss Amy again: + +"There are fine examples of contorted strata on the other side of the +Trwyn. Perhaps you or your sister can tell me the reason why these +strata are contorted?" + +And again Miss Norah: + +"Who was Taliesin? When did he flourish? Tell me anything you know about +him." + +Dearly would June and Wy have liked to reply, in the words of Mrs. +Briggs when the hotel-manager had looked at her boots, "Don't if it +hurts you!" Wiggie nicknamed Miss Norah Topham "The Vernal Squill" on +the spot; June, a phanerogam herself, dubbed Miss Amy "The Club Moss." + +After that dinner, there was nothing for Philip Lacey to do but to live +his indiscretion down. + +But if this was the "Cambrian's" attitude to the "Montgomery," it was +not that of the Welshmen of Llanyglo. These were now more in number, for +half the staffs of the three hotels were Welsh, and others also had +scented prosperity in the air. Within a few hours friendly relations had +been established between the natives and the readers of _Utopia_. A +Welshman's eyes will always sparkle at the sight of a book or other +piece of the apparatus of knowledge, and the Montgomeryites, friendly +souls all and ready chatters with whomsoever they met, began to drop +into Howell's shop of a morning. None too reluctantly, they suffered +themselves to be drawn out by Howell on the subjects of their studies, +and then it was that Howell became a proud man indeed. For he produced +Eesaac Oliver, home once more from Aberystwith College. Without even +having the titles given to him as he came in at the door that divided +the shop from the dwelling-rooms behind, Eesaac Oliver swapped them book +for book. Howell's breast swelled. "Blodwen--Blodwen--come quick!" he +called. Then, with his eyes sparkling like bits of mica in a pebble and +his small teeth gleaming like a double row of barley, he looked fondly +on the assembly and murmured, "Dear me, I did not know till to-day there +wass so-o-a many books written!" One morning Mrs. Briggs and Mrs. Garden +came in in the very middle of one of these galas of the intellect. They +were kept waiting for a minute and more. There were times when the +Llanyglo Stores almost resembled a Debating Room. + +It was left to the Misses Euonyma and Wygelia Lacey to restore the +balance that their father's luckless dinner-party had disturbed; and +right well they laboured to that end. They brought all the resources of +Brighton and Paris to bear upon those two amiable but indefatigable +school-teachers, the sisters Topham. They did not avoid them; on the +contrary, they put their heads together and then went out in search of +them. Then, when they had met them, they asked them to tell them whether +it was true that the guillemot laid its blunt-ended egg in order that it +should not roll off ledges, and whether the person who said that +serviceable knife-handles could be made of the stems of the Great Oar +Weed had been correctly informed. And when they failed to come upon +their unsuspecting victims, they cathechised one another. + +"As I was ascending the mountains the other day," June would suddenly +break out in the Vernal Squill's raised and staccato voice, "I found +myself walking upon grass. What is grass? State reasons for your +answer." + +And Wiggie, assuming the _viva voce_ examination tones of the Club Moss, +would ask her sister what a man was, and whether Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd +could properly be classed as one. + +Failing the turning up of those two marriageable brothers, the Misses +June and Wy were likely to be what Mrs. Briggs called "bad to suit." + +It was when the _Utopia_-readers had been at the "Montgomery" rather +more than half their time that the first bruit went abroad of the +jollification that presently made memorable the eve of their departure. +Nor was this jollification to be confined to their own set. All (as +afterwards at the Llanyglo P.S.A. Meetings) were to be welcome. The +project was talked over, at first informally at the Llanyglo Stores, +afterwards more seriously at the "Montgomery"; and a few days later the +rumour was confirmed by print. Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd and Hugh Morgan +distributed a number of handbills, thrusting them into folk's hands in +the stake-and-wire-enclosed streets, pushing them under doors, and even +entering that Reservation on the shore where the Cambrians sat stiffly, +reading their novels, toying with their fancy-work, or dozing after +lunch. Then, on the land-agents' blackboards and in the windows of the +Llanyglo Stores, larger bills appeared. Large bills and small alike read +as follows: + + _Llanyglo Holiday Camp, July, 1887._ + THE AIGBURTH STREET AND CHOW BENT + SQUARE UNITED READING CIRCLES + beg to announce that a + GRAND POW-WOW + will be held in the Dinas, the Trwyn, Llanyglo, + on + Friday Evening, the 22nd, at 8.30 sharp. + BRING YOUR REFRESHMENTS! + BRING YOUR VOICE LOZENGES! + BRING YOUR MUSIC! + BRING YOUR LANTERNS! + BRING YOUR FRIENDS! + Visitors and Residents alike are Welcome! + _Songs!! Recitations!!! Short Speeches!!!!_ + LADIES SPECIALLY INVITED! + _Grand Chief:_ _Deputy Grand Chief:_ + BARRY TOPHAM, Esqr. HOWELL GRUFFYDD, Esqr. + Committee: ................ + ................ + ................ + + The Proceedings will open with the singing of + "_God Save the People_," + and will close with "_Hen Wlad fy Nhadau_." + + * * * * * + + EDWARD JONES, PRINTER, PORTH NEIGR. 0616. + + +"Boy!" called Raymond Briggs, as Eesaac Oliver, having distributed this +announcement to the occupants of the Reservation, was passing on; and +Eesaac Oliver turned. "Pick those papers up at once!" Raymond ordered, +pointing to a litter of handbills where the wavelets lapped the marge of +seaweed. Then, over his shoulder to Philip Lacey, who reclined almost +horizontally in the next deck-chair: "Making a mess of the beach like +that! Paper wherever you go; they're as bad as a lot of trippers! Can't +make out what you see in that fellow Topham----" + +Philip, who was frowning over the handbill, spoke, also over his +shoulder.--"You going to this?" + +Raymond gave a short laugh.--"Me?" + +It was almost as if he said, "I didn't ask them to dinner, my dear man! +_I'm_ perfectly free to stop away!" + +"Good. We'll have a game of chess, then," Philip replied off-handedly. +He could give Raymond pawn and move. + +Outside the Reservation, however, little but the Pow-Wow was talked of. +Howell Gruffydd had looked the word up in his little English-Welsh +Dictionary, and, though he had failed to find it, he was none the less +set-up at the thought of being a Deputy Grand Chief. But he became +thoughtful again when there arrived for him a bundle from Barry Topham, +which, on being opened, was found to contain a pair of very much creased +moccasins, a broad-striped blanket, and a head-dress of feathers +similar to the one the Grand Chief himself was to wear. Howell had +remembered Dafydd Dafis. Dafydd might not like him to bedeck himself +thus, and what Dafydd might think always mattered a great deal in +Llanyglo. Dafydd, his old corduroys notwithstanding, stood for the +integrity of Nationalism, and even Howell, willing to be English, must +be careful not to be too English--or, in the present case, too Indian. + +But the aliens themselves showed no such reserve. They had bracketed a +Welsh name with an English one on their handbill, had placed _Hen Wlad_ +by the side of _God Save the People_, and been otherwise hearty; and +they did not know that even in their hospitality they were a little +bustling, urgent, and compelling. As for differences of race, such +things were presently about to be abolished. So they bade Llanyglo +almost boisterously welcome to its own Trwyn, and Barry Topham, passing +Dafydd Dafis on the afternoon of the day of the celebration, shouted +cheerily over his shoulder, "Don't forget your harp, Davis. I'm not +going to call you 'Dafis'--we'll make an Englishman of you before we've +done with you! Eight-thirty sharp.... Eh?... Stuff and nonsense! +Fiddlededee! What sort o' talk's that, man alive! Of course you're +bringing your harp!" + +It was on a dullish summer evening, and none too warm up there, that the +Montgomeryites, in threes and fours and sixes, began the ascent of the +Trwyn. Some of them had already set match to their lanterns, though the +Trwyn beam was not alight yet, and they carried with them more than one +copy of _The Scottish Students' Song Book_. They tried their voices as +they climbed, and called to one another, pointing out false easy ways +and bursting into laughter when the misdirected ones had to return +again; and the Trwyn sheep started up from before their feet and fled, +baa-ing. The refreshments had gone on ahead, as also had the fuel for +the camp-fire, but no Welshmen were to be seen yet. Perhaps, gruff +heartiness notwithstanding, they felt that they were guests who should +have been hosts. Perhaps they felt that here was not the urgency there +had been on the only other occasion when they and the Saxon had rushed +hurriedly and tumultuously together--that wild nightfall when Ned Kerr, +from the roof of the new Hafod Unos, had seen something out in the lair +of grey, and, with a cry of "_Llongddrylliad!_" Celt and new-comer had +flung themselves into an open boat pell mell. + +But by and by they also began to move in a body slowly along the shore, +sometimes over the dry, sometimes plodding over their own reflections in +the ebb. There was no pointing out false ascents to them. Eesaac Oliver +Gruffydd, who came first, had fetched eggs too often from the Trwyn +light not to know every cranny of the promontory, and his father +remembered the building of the lighthouse. Howell had seen them, as a +boy, locking and dowelling the great blocks of masonry, shaped each like +an intricate Chinese puzzle; and in thirty odd years the Light seemed to +have become almost as much part of the headland as the ancient Dinas +itself. That seemed to be the way with building. Even Edward Garden's +house seemed a settled thing now. So, in another year or two, would the +"Montgomery," the "Cardigan," Ham-and-Egg Terrace. And Howell reflected +that stones meant grocery-orders. But that was not all. If he must be +English, but not too English for Dafydd Dafis, he must still be careful +to be the right sort of English. He made little out of these _Utopia_ +readers. They simply came in under the "Montgomery's" contract. The +Briggses and Laceys still provided the richer yield. Whether was the +better--the "Montgomery," where one visitor would presently be creeping +into a bed that his predecessor had left still warm, or these more +prosperous ones, who, Howell knew, would presently come no more?... +Moreover, he was already feeling the pressure of outside competition. +Ellis, of Porth Neigr, was even now quoting cutting rates for the +"Cardigan's" butter and cheese, and for a long time Llanyglo had had to +depend on outsiders for its milk. The railway, that brought people, also +brought their provender.... + +Oh, don't think for a moment that Howell was prospering without giving +deep thought to things! + +They gained the Dinas, where already the fire was yellow and crackling, +and stood smiling Good evenings, as if they waited to be asked inside. + +How long ago it was since the foundations of that Dinas had been +sprinkled with the blood of Merlin--how long ago it was since the Red +and White Dragons had contended about it, now one gaining the advantage, +now the other--how long ago these things had been, not even Miss Amy +Topham would have dared to ask June Lacey. Now it resembled a grey old +heel of cheese, with a little scrabbling in one corner. This scrabbling +was where Bert Stoy, one of the younger and most indefatigable of the +Readers, had hoped he might find a British grave. + +"We thought you'd maybe changed your minds about coming," were the words +with which Barry Topham welcomed them. He was an Indian, but a bearded +one, and he bustled here and there, wanting to know where So-and-So +was, and whether this requisite or that had been brought up, and seeing +to this and the other. The goblin shadows of eighteen or twenty of the +Readers danced on the ruined works, and the sky behind their illumined +faces was of a sad and leaden lavender hue. The lanterns made little +patches in the short grass; matches lighted faces momentarily; and then +suddenly there broke out over the shoulder of the headland and continued +thenceforward, the Light. Red, red, white--red, red, white--it was +numbing, intolerable. It dyed the clouds that seemed to sag over the +earth as the ceiling-sheets sagged in the cottages, and its glare was +not lost high overhead now, as it had been on that night when the Kerrs +had rested for their "nooning" in the midst of their building of their +Hafod. The staggering blaze passed not twenty feet above them, seeming +to stumble and trip over the cloud-folds, and driving the revellers to +fresh places with their backs to it. You would have said that those +ancient Red and White Dragons had come to life again and were chasing +one another across the rafters of the night. + +Then Barry Topham, placing himself by a jagged tooth of rock, held up +his hand for silence. He had motioned Howell Gruffydd to his side, and +had pointed at somebody's cap. His fingers tweaked a tuning-fork; he set +the vibrating prong against his teeth; he gave them a soft +note--"Doh----" and then: + + "_When wilt Thou save the people, + O God of Mercy, when?..._" + +Then when it was finished, Barry again stood with uplifted hand. Caps +were put on again by such as wore them. + +"Not weft enough," was Barry's brief comment on the singing; the Welsh, +unfamiliar with the air, had not sung. "Never mind; it might ha' been +worse.--Now I'm just going to say a few words, and then we'll make a +start." + +And he began. + +"Well, we've been here a fortnight now, and I think we've all enjoyed +it. I have for one. Some of us has been up these grand mountains, +finding out how they were made, and some of us has been improving +ourselves among the rocks and on the shore. Some of us has botanised, +and some's collected butterflies, and one and all we've read the books +set down for us in the Syllabus. That's a job done, at all events. + +"But I think we shall one and all admit that we've a great deal to learn +about Llanyglo yet. There'd still be something to learn if we were to +come here six, ten, twenty times. That's the grand thing about +knowledge--we need never be afraid we shall come to the end of it. When +we've read fifty books there's always fifty more. Ay, and there'll be +another fifty after that. + +"But we've got other things besides knowledge at Llanyglo. We've got +health, health to keep us going for another year. And we've got friends, +new friends. I think we can say," here he laid his hand on Howell's +shoulder, "that we've all done the little bit that in us lies to break +down prejudices and dislikes and racial differences. We've had our +quarrels, us Welsh and English, in the past; no doubt there's been +battles fought on this very spot; but that's all over, and, speaking as +Grand Chief for the year, though unworthy to succeed Comrade Walker, who +occupied this same position last year at our Holiday Camp at Keswick, I +think I may say we've buried the hatchet now. So in the name of one and +all I greet these friends of ours. I think it does us both good to come +together like this. They're a bit--what shall I say?--on the poetical +side, perhaps; more romantic than us; we're just plain, practical folk +that has to tew for our livings; but what I mean is, it's a good thing +for both of us to get to understand one another. We do understand one +another now, and I'm sure we're all very glad to see them here." +(Applause, and cries from the Lancashire men of "Good old Wales!") "You +here that, Gruffydd--Comrade Gruffydd? That's hearty. That's Lancashire. +No flowers o' speech, but we say a thing and mean it. And we mean it +when we say we're very glad to see you indeed, and hope this won't be +our last visit to Llanyglo.--And now I won't take up any more of your +time. We've a long programme before us, and I see that the first item +is----" he consulted a paper in his hand, "----is the old favourite, +_There is a Tavern_. What's the key, Harry? C? (Doh, lah--lah, te, +doh----)." + +And with the singing of _There is a Tavern in the Town_ the Pow-Wow +began. + +Did they come to understand one another the better for it? Were they who +took part in that Pow-Wow so "poetical and romantic" for the one part, +so blunt and rough and practical for the other? Did a score or so of +Saxons suddenly and miraculously cease that night to belong to the +world's most sentimental race, and were the hearts of as many Celts as +miraculously changed? No doubt it all seemed simple enough to Barry +Topham. Hard-rinded himself, but not without a generous juice within, he +would have found it hard to believe that pulpier fruits existed, with a +stone inside he would but crack his teeth upon. Perhaps--perhaps--it was +not so; and yet--what, after all, can the victor do to the vanquished +more than vanquish him?... Barry saw their smiles only, and for every +smile they received they gave three. The jovial Campers became ever +bluffer and heartier and fonder of them as song followed song. Nor did +the Welshmen refuse to sing. Enlightened Young Wales, in the person of +Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd, was presently to be seen with his back to the +intolerable Trwyn beam while the Dragons of the Light chased one another +behind his head; and his voice was lifted up in _Vale of Llangollen_. +Was the song a success? It was doubly a success. The blunt and genial +aliens applauded him as a breaker of the ice, his compatriots applauded +him as a stepper into the breach from which they themselves had hung +back. Hardly had he sat down before he was beset with requests to hum +the air all over again, in order that they might take it down in the +Tonic Sol-fa notation.... Then, almost immediately, the clapping swelled +again, and there were cries of "Harry! Harry!" Harry Stone, who had the +voice of an angel, was allowed to sing as he sat, because of his +lameness, and he could not be seen in his dim angle of masonry, but only +the unhurrying but unceasing red and white spokes, that strode from afar +over the sea, passed overhead, and were off on their wide circle again. +Hearing his voice and not seeing him, you thought of a pure spring that +gushes suddenly out of the dark and grudging earth.--_Cannibalee_, he +sang---- + +It was poor enough stuff. Its words were a laborious parody, its +harmonies exactly predicable; it was facetious or nothing, and it marred +an original with a remote and deathly grace of its own; but these things +were forgotten as Harry sang. To-morrow they were leaving Llanyglo. +To-morrow they were filing back through that postern that had given +them this, their fortnight's respite, from tasks too often ignoble, from +cramped circumstances, from savourless lives. And it weighed on them, +tenderly yet heavily. Next year seemed so sadly, sadly far away.... + + "_Her eyes were as fair as the star of the morn + And her teeth were as sharp as the point of a thorn---- + She was very fair to see!_----" + +Harry sang; and the hands of young men sought those of young women in +the blackness of the Dinas's shadows, and the married ones drew a little +closer together, and there was no parody at all in the little soft +punctuations of the refrain, in which every voice joined: + + "_She was very fair to see---- + (So she was!) + She was very fair to see---- + (So she was!)_----" + +Edward Garden was right---- + + "_Her eyes were as fair as the star of the morn + And her teeth were as sharp as the point of a thorn---- + My beautiful Cannibalee_----" + +Edward Garden was right. That tender but heavy weight, so tender, so +heavy that it bore down the stupid expression of the song, lay even on +the Welshmen too. He was admirably shrewd and right. It would not be yet +awhile--it was too early yet--but presently, as an advertisement for +Llanyglo, an Eisteddfod--an Eisteddfod, say, when the holiday season +began in July, and a Brass Band Contest towards its close in +September.... + +They were still singing when they came down again, at eleven o'clock. +You might have thought, from the way in which Barry Topham clung to +Howell Gruffydd's arm, that he was slightly drunk, but he was not; that +was only brotherliness and exaltation. He still wore the gala-dress of +the Grand Chief, but in that particular Howell thought that he had come +out of his dilemma rather well. The feather head-dress he had tried on +had proved too big for his head, and in trying to shorten the band he +had torn off the button, thus rendering the adornment useless. As for +the striped blanket about his shoulders--well, it was a coolish night, +and there is no sense in taking a chill when there is a blanket to be +had to keep you warm. Even Dafydd would see that. So Howell had worn +it.... + +And looked at from below again, the Trwyn beam no longer appeared a hunt +of raving red and white monsters, but a little lonely thing, familiar +and disregarded, old, wise, minding its own business, and meanwhile +quietly opening and shutting an eye. + + + + +II + +THE GIANT'S STRIDE + + +After that summer they began in earnest the building of Llanyglo. Come +and see them at it. + +Whence came these stone-carts and timber-carts, these girders and +castings, a single one only taking up a couple of trucks? Whence came +these wains of floor-boards with their trailing tails bobbing up and +down within an inch or two of the white road, these bastions of metal +and ballast, these crawling and earth-shaking traction-engines with the +little bellies and the monstrous wheels and the dotted line of lorries +and trollies behind them? Whence these sawn planks, these massive frames +with machinery parts on them so heavy that every rut threatens a +standstill, these contractors' vans with absurd little trolley-wheels, +these gatlings of drain-pipes, these wagons of plumbers' material, these +vans of provisions, this army of men? Why do these now choke the roads +that formerly were empty save for the passing of a wain of whispering +hay, or the light market-cart that left a smell of raspberries and a +stain of Welsh song behind, or Ned Kerr with his folding hut and +clogging-knife, or Ynys Lovell with her packing-case cart and her mother +with her loops of cane seeking chairs to mend? Where did they come from, +and what are they doing here? + +The stone, of course, comes from the Porth Neigr quarry, where the +blasts shake the rocks and the shooting of waste resounds throughout +the day. And the castings come from Manchester and Middlesborough and +Wigan and Leeds. And the sawn planks come from Russia and the Baltic, +and the larches for scaffolding from the Merionethshire valleys. These +things come from these places--if you look at it that way. But look at +it the other way and they have an origin mystical indeed. They are +conceived of fecund nods and looks, of the germination of writing and +initials and signatures and contract-stamps. They are born of print and +promotion and allotment, and the cord is cut when sums are paid on +application, and more in three months' time. They thrive when Chairmen, +standing up on platforms, say "the adoption of the Accounts has been +moved and seconded----," and become lusty when more clerks have to be +called in, and temporary premises have to be taken, to cope with the +public rush for the splendid thing. You see their real origin on those +blackboards that seem to set Llanyglo its new multiplication sum, and in +those paragraphs in the Manchester and Liverpool and London papers. You +see it again when the new Local Government Bill receives the Royal +Assent. You see it once more when from the machines of printers in +Nottingham and Harrow and Frome and Belfast there are turned out the +posters that already overspread the northern hoardings, bidding +Blackpool look to itself, warning Douglas that it has another +competitor, elbowing Bridlington, shoving Yarmouth aside. There are half +a dozen of these posters out already, and if they are not strictly +speaking representations of Llanyglo, they are something more--they are +prophecies, which you will do well to heed if you want to put your money +on a good thing. There is one in Lime Street Station, Liverpool (you +need not glance at that upper window; you'd have a job to find poor +Terry Armfield's Trwyn Avenue now). It is the "Welsh Giantess" one. She +is dressed in a black steeple hat with a white hood underneath it, red +check shawl, striped petticoat, and has buckles on her shoes. She holds +the town in a three-quarter circle in her arms, with children at play on +the sands and super-Briggses and super-Laceys all spilling out in the +foreground. The mountains are indigo, the hotels pink, the sands chrome +yellow, and the name LLANYGLO sprawls across the sky as if the Trwyn +Light had dropped it there in passing, a letter at a time.... The +poster, of course, is a little grandiose: nobody cries stinking fish. +The Pier, for example, isn't there yet. But it is somewhere, in +somebody's desk-drawer, perhaps, or perhaps it has even got farther than +that. Perhaps the caissons are already on the way; certainly a group of +strangers has been busy on the shore any time this past twelve months. +And the Promenade isn't ex-_act_-ly like that yet. It has railings not +unlike those, but not yet that fine stretch of impregnable sea-wall. And +so with the hotels.... But all in good time. These things will all be +ready quite as soon as those posters have sunk into the perception of +the public. We mustn't have a completely equipped town standing empty +for a number of seasons while folk make up their minds whether they'll +come or not. We have the money, the men, powers under the new Act ample +as our hearts could wish, and the certainty of the coming reward. + +Llanyglo itself found it difficult to realise what was happening. It all +came in such strides. Where the stake-and-wire-enclosed roads had been, +a giant hoarding would rise, twenty, forty, fifty yards long. On this +hoarding, by means of the railway posters, Llanyglo would be told all +about itself--its climate, its mild winters, its accessibility from all +parts, and its "unrivalled attractions." It read Gilbert Smythe's +signature there. And among these were other bills curiously opposite, +which told them that if they in their turn needed change, there were +week-end tickets to be had to Liverpool and Belle Vue at specially +reduced rates.--And while Llanyglo knew, as month succeeded month, that +work was going on behind these hoardings, the effect was none the less +magical when, on the day they were knocked to pieces again, the +astounding frontage appeared. They had known nothing like it since that +piece of witchcraft of the Kerrs, and now several times they had seen it +happen. It had happened between the "Cambrian" and "Cardigan" hotels. It +had happened at Pritchard's Corner. And now it was about to happen +again, along a line that ran from a point just below the Kerrs' Hafod to +the piece of land, not built on yet, where for three days one Spring a +circus was set up, its cages and caravans and the guy-ropes of its +tenting all mingled with the timber-stacks and mortar-engines and +breastworks of stone setts and other dumpings of a dozen different +contractors. Later, a temporary wooden shed occupied this space. This +shed was town-hall, concert-hall, general purposes hall, and theatre +thrown into one. That was the time Llanyglo began to discover that if +one of its inhabitants wished to meet another he had better appoint a +time and place to do so. To climb up the nearest sandhill and take a +look round no longer served. + +And even these amazing unfoldings were as nothing compared with that +which (it was already known) was to happen next--the construction of the +sea-wall and the Pier. + +Philip Lacey's Floral Valley was already finished. Its gravelled walks, +with steps every few yards, straggled up both sides of the ravine in the +side of the Trwyn, and from the topmost of these you could look down on +the octagonal roof of the bandstand that occupied the levelled plot in +the middle. Sticking (as it were) the point of his compasses into the +bandstand, Philip had described successions of eighth and +quarter-circles, with radiating paths and variously shaped smaller +beds in between; and of these he had made a piece of crewel-work +of colour. Golden feather and London pride, lobelia and pinks and +bachelors'-buttons, formed the borders; behind them, in ovals and stars +and crown-shapes and monograms, mignonette and arabis and dwarf pansies +and Virginia stock were set; and so he had brushed-and-combed and curled +and scented the whole place. He had staked his professional reputation, +too, that from the first crocus to the last Michaelmas daisy, the gaudy +Catherine-wheel would never be for a single day out of bloom; and then +he had departed, leaving the responsibility of upkeep to the delighted +town. John Willie Garden, looking at the Valley's logical plan, wished +that the town itself had had as fair, if severe, a start. + +For John Willie was Clerk of the Works now in a very different sense +from that in which he had had charge of the coming of Railhead. He was +now nineteen, and had no longer any wish to go into the business in +Manchester. His father, noting his tastes and capacity, had judged it +perfectly safe to depart, leaving John Willie to look after things in +his stead; and as no contractor's foreman wished to quarrel with the son +of the principal maker of the place, he had a fairly large authority. So +John Willie occupied the house by the shore, with Minetta to make him +comfortable. He spent his days in passing from this building to that, +pushing at doors in hoardings marked "No Admittance," threading his way +along the wheeling-planks, mounting ladders, looking down on the +swarming men from the stagings, looking up through the groves of the +scaffold-poles, looking out, not over the sandhills now, but over other +houses built and building. The masts and spars of other scaffold-poles +here and there might almost have made you think that a navigable river +twisted through Llanyglo, and that these were the rigging of the vessels +upon it. From one work to another he passed, approving, questioning, +telephoning, making notes. There is scarce a room of that period of +Llanyglo's up-springing but, even to-day, John Willie Garden can tell +you the lie of its water-pipes, where its main-cocks are, where its +drains, its gas-connections, the depth of its foundations, the +branchings of its chimney-flues. He hasn't been into half of them since, +but the present occupiers can tell him nothing about which cellars are +on the rock and when the girders are due to be repainted. And he could +talk to the men as well as to their bosses. He addressed them +authoritatively, but he knew their football and their drinking, their +jokes and songs, which dog belonged to which and which among them +"subbed" or "liened" before his wage was due. John Willie Garden's +boyhood lay behind him now. + +What was John Willie like to look at by this time, and what was his +outlook on the world? + +You may meet his kind at six o'clock any morning, the sons of Alderman +This or Sir John That, going to their fathers' engineering-shops in +Leeds, or to Manchester spinning-sheds, or Rochdale factories, or +dye-works, or rolling-mills, or drawing-offices, or electrical works. +They wear greasy blue overalls and carry tin luncheon-cans, and use +cotton-waste for handkerchiefs. They glory in the readiness of their +repartee to their fathers' workmen, to be mistaken for one of whom gives +them the keenest pleasure. Joyously they attack the blackest and +greasiest of the work, honestly forgetting that they could leave this to +others if they wished.--But see them in the evening! They have had tea +and a "clean-up" by this time. Their heads have been soused and their +hands pumiced, they have on their mahogany boots and their white +collars, the hands that wielded crowbars or strained with the grip of +spanners ply thin and expensive canes now, and you can see the radiance +of their approach a quarter of a mile away. They are off to +billiard-rooms and card-parties, theatre-boxes, or courting. They will +be home fairly early, because of the five-o'clock alarum in the morning, +but until then they are so evidently about to enjoy themselves that you +sigh if you are unable to join them. Go one night and watch them when +next the Pantomime comes. Sit in the second row of the stalls (you won't +be able to get into the first row). If the leading lady is pretty, and +John Willie and Percy Briggs are there, you won't consider your evening +wasted. The show is sure to "go." + +That, more or less, was John Willie. He had rather a lot of money to +spend, but nowhere much to spend it yet. His hair was a little less +primrose coloured than it had been (pomatum does darken hair a little), +but his eyes had not altered. They were still just as receptive or just +as stupid as he cared to make them, blue as flax, and capable, if you +happened to catch him at something he did not wish to be caught at, of a +rather hard and prolonged stare. He was not tall--long ago it had been +plain he would not be--but, looking at his shoulders, hung as it were +from an apex at the back of his head, you would have wondered at the +lightness of the pit-pat of his feet when he did a step-dance on the +occasion of one of the men's "birthdays" (which have nothing to do with +days of birth, by the way, but frequently much to do with an unfancied +horse and a longish price). In a word, he was a nicish, powerful young +rascal, with an expensive dressing-case and a trace of those Lancashire +final "g's"; and he and his friends (of whom he had a good many down to +Llanyglo) had their own corner in the "Cambrian" lounge, unless the +evening's programme included cards or involved the use of a room with a +piano in it. + +Yet, though the Llanyglo air might thrill with the clink-clink of +chisels on stone, and vibrate with the jolting of the builders' carts, +and resound with all the noises of the swift building, still, nobody who +now came thought it ruined. On the contrary, exactly as the Briggses and +the Laceys had predicted, it came to them with shocks of delight. For +think of it: here was no twopenny ride on a clanging tram through naked, +unshaded streets before they could reach the sea. Here was no two-miles +plod back again over the burning asphalt, slackening every nerve that +had been braced up by the bathe. Here was no Brighton nor Scarborough +nor Blackpool yet, with nettings of electric wires overhead and +perspective of rails below. No: from any part of the place, three +minutes would take you, if not in every case to the beach itself, at any +rate to an open space of thyme and harebells and hillocks of clean sand, +where, if you got on the right side of the sandhill, you might not know +that there was a crane or a scaffold within miles. And if the beach was +ploughed and harrowed and tramped and trodden until it resembled a +dirty batter-pudding, half a day and a tide, and the sands were smooth +and shining again, and the wet stretches seemed as much sky as land, and +passing birds were reflected in their depths. The sea tidied up the +shore again as the housemaids took up the crumbs from the hotel +carpets.--And there were dozens of boats now, in which you could push +out a few hundred yards and find yourself in spots that man can never +sully. Five minutes' tugging at the oars and you could rock and gaze up +at the sky, or look over the boat's side at the translucent green +reflection of its curving boards below, and past that into glassy clear +depths, and so past that again to where the water began to show you, not +its depths, but the broken mirroring of the sky again. The boating was +one of the "unrivalled attractions." By nine o'clock every morning a row +of boatmen leaned against the railings between the "Cambrian" and the +jetty, smoking, scanning the front, showing you fresh bait, and offering +boats by the hour, the morning, or the day. Foremost among them, as +likely as not, would be Tommy, the youngest of the Kerrs. He wore a blue +gausey with a diamond woven across the breast, touched the peak of his +dirty old petty-officer's cap constantly, and told folk it was "a +gradely morning for fishing." Though the youngest, he was the least +reputable of the Kerrs. Ned, the eldest, Llanyglo counted part of +itself; the two middle ones were both contractors' foremen, and +respected citizens; but Tommy had become the scandal of Llanyglo. You +were well advised to allow him double time or more if you gave him a bag +to carry anywhere and there was the temptation of beer on the way; and +you might catch him sober if you engaged him and his boat soon after +breakfast, but your chance of doing so became ever less as the day wore +on. + +Who were these people who strolled among the droning bees of the +sandhills or pushed out from the shore in boats? Well, they were of more +kinds than one or two now. The charges at the "Cambrian" were still +stiffish; a week there cost as much as a fortnight at the "Cardigan," or +a month at the "Montgomery"; and so we still exhibit the social degrees. +There has even been a certain amount of "feeling" about this. Of two +Rochdale men, say, with little to choose between them in point of +income, one will be seen on the "Cambrian's" balcony in the evening +after dinner, his heart-shaped dinner-shirt one of a number of +heart-shaped dinner-shirts, the bosom and neck and head of the lady he +is chatting with rising out of her lacy corsage as a bouquet rises from +the paper frill that encloses and bedecks it. He will be seen there, +with the red-shaded lamps of the empty dining-room behind him and the +moonlight making his sunburnt face very dark. But the other's face is +sunburnt too, and at half the cost. He too could attitudinise like this +were he so minded. And he reflects that Jones or Jackson may cut a dash +among strangers, but he mustn't try it on with people who know him at +home. As for himself, he's thankful to say that he's just the same +wherever he is, at home or away on a holiday.... + +In fact Jones or Jackson is precisely the man Edward Garden more than +half expected--the man who can't quite afford it, but will.... But this, +it is hardly necessary to observe, is to take the "Cambrian" at less +than its average and the "Cardigan" at rather more. + +The "Montgomery" is actually outclassed by the better "Private Hotels" +and one or two of the superior "Boarding Establishments." Indeed, of +these last the "Cadwallader" almost ranks with the "Cambrian" itself. +And so we come by degrees down to Ham-and-Egg Terrace.--But enough of +these _nuances_ of difference of a fortnight's duration. Who, taken +by-and-large, are these people, and where do they come from? + +You have only to ask yourself, "Who else should they be?" and your +question is half answered. Remember the smallness of these Islands, and +the scores of pulsing, radiating, almost radio-active centres within +them, every one swarming with folk who intend to have a better time than +their fathers have had. Could the East Coast be pushed out beyond the +North Sea, and Lancashire be stretched until it took in Galway, St. +George's Channel and all, there might be room enough on England's shores +for every parliamentary voter to have a few acres of Trwyn foreshore of +his own and a black cow walking up and down them, seeking coolness and +food hock-deep in the glistening ebb; but, as things are, the littoral +is by much too small. True, scores and fifties of miles of it remain +practically unvisited; but no snail has snuffled out its manganese +there, and they are not within a few hours and a thirty-shilling +circular fare of the human ant-heaps of the land, where King's Ransoms +of Holiday Club money are put by. There was no wonder about the growth +of Llanyglo. Geographically situated as it was, the marvel would have +been had it not grown. With a few posters and similar devices to +advertise it, it would presently continue to advertise itself. + +Therefore the folk who flocked there were of every kind, short of the +grey and overwhelming multitude itself. _Because_ it was only partly +built, _because_ it had not yet shaken down to a definite character and +physiognomy and personality, it spread its net the wider. Did you want +to dress for dinner, and to have your luggage carried by a man in a red +jacket? There was the "Cambrian." Did you want everything that the +Cambrians had, barring only the luxury of being seen lounging in one of +the wicker-chairs about its portals, and still to keep your money in +your pocket? There was the "Cardigan." Did you want to read or to idle, +to botanise or merely to forget your cares for a fortnight, to picnic up +the Trwyn or to have your meals in bed? They asked no questions at the +"Montgomery." From Philip Lacey's piece of Floral Geometry to the nooks +on the farther side of the Trwyn where you could spend a whole morning +undisturbed, there was something for every taste. And they actually had +to turn people away who had been so ill-advised as to come with their +luggage without having first secured their lodging. + +And now it had come to this: that while these came to Llanyglo for a +change of air, John Willie Garden, who spent his days among lime and +mortar and wheeling-planks and newly dressed stone, frequently turned +his back on Llanyglo for precisely the same reason. Once a week or so he +was seen to drive past Pritchard's Corner in a light yellow trap at nine +o'clock in the morning. He was off to see to another of his father's +interests--that "catchment area" far away up in the mountains. He drove +eight miles, put up at an inn past which a trout-stream brawled (hardly +yet settled from its precipitous plunging cataracts), and then set out +on foot up a road that rose one-in-five under a whispering wood, to see +the skyline of which you had to throw your head back. It took him an +hour of walking to get to his destination--a solitary wooden cabin +where the agent lived. The agent had on the whole an easy time of it, +for hardly a hundred yards from his cabin door, above the woods now, lay +Llyn Delyn, pure looking-glass in the mile long crook of the mountain. +An old boat was moored among the sedges at one end, the launching of +which on the unbroken surface of that lovely water always seemed to +invoke vague judgments, penalties perhaps forborne, but none the less +incurred. Here the agent, whose name was Sharpe, fished. John Willie +fished with him. Fishing was a good enough way of passing the time, for +they were not really doing anything up there. They were merely +waiting--waiting for more people to come to Llanyglo, for the Town Hall +to rise, for the seat of local administration to be shifted from Porth +Neigr, and then for the Waterworks Scheme. They had the water as fast as +prevision and Law could make it. They would not drive too hard a bargain +with the town. In the meantime they fished, speaking little, noting +whether it was the gnat or the cochybondhu that killed, casting so +lightly that the boat scarcely rocked. Sometimes, when the amber evening +light was clear behind them, so impeccable was the profound mirror below +that, while their tweed-clad forms could hardly be distinguished from +the hues of the mountain behind, the upside-down shapes beneath them +were sharp and dark as the silhouettes in your grandmother's little oval +frames. + + + + +III + +THE BLANK CHEQUE + + +Death took a hand that winter in Llanyglo's making. They were getting +well up with the Town Hall, in what is now Gardd Street; still the flag +floated at the polehead, in token that they had got thus far without +serious mishap; and then it had to be run down to the half-mast. It was +a common scaffold accident. Harry Kerr, on one of the upper stages, +stepped back upon empty air; Sam sprang forward to save him; and they +picked them both up from among the debris below. A few remembered the +launching of that open boat on that wild night seven years before, and +said that it seemed out of nature that these comparatively young men +should go off before ancient Mrs. Pritchard; and Mrs. Pritchard herself +baa-ed, and said that there would be more room now in the Hafod Unos +whatever. But most of the residents were new-comers now, who knew more +of Tommy Kerr's present delinquencies than of the history of his +brothers, and they could hardly be expected to grieve. They buried them +both at Sarn, under the shadow of that pepper-caster of a +fifteenth-century church tower, and the problem of however the Hafod had +held them all became a thing of the past. + +The Town Hall was the outward and visible sign that Llanyglo had not +only caught up with Porth Neigr, but had outstripped it. It had special +conveniences for a centre of administration, which it forthwith became; +and at the election that Autumn Howell Gruffydd was made a Councillor. +He had two branch shops now, one at Porth Neigr and the other at Sarn, +and to his newspaper counter he had added a Library of books bought at +Mudies' clearance sales. He charged fourpence a week for the loan of +each book, which was twopence more than the old stationer's library at +Porth Neigr had charged; but there was the railway-fare to take into +account if you considered the charge extortionate. Later, a good deal +later, when the picture postcard was invented, Howell did rather well +out of that too. He praised your amateur snapshot of the Trwyn or the +Promenade of the façade of the Town Hall, and made you what no doubt +seemed to him a fair offer; namely to give you a dozen prints in +exchange for your film. He then proceeded to fill a revolving stand with +other prints, which he sold at seven for sixpence, or, highly glazed, at +twopence apiece. With pennies and twopences accumulated in this and +similar ways he bought certain house-property behind Ham-and-Egg +Terrace, paying a ground-rent to Edward Garden. He had by this time +acquired a little personal habit of Mr. Tudor Williams's--the habit of +shaking hands with one hand, while the other affectionately kneaded and +patted his interlocutor's right arm from the wrist up to the shoulder. + +Hitherto the developments of Llanyglo had lain in a few hands only--the +hands of Edward Garden and his shareholders, of one or two others who +had forgotten they had a holding in Terry Armfield's Thelema, but +remember it now with joy and thanksgiving, of Mr. Tudor Williams, and of +not very many more. But now a more ponderous machine began to rumble +into motion. This was the machine of which the Railway Companies and a +couple of Pleasure Packet Services were the visible active parts. +Rumours now began to fly about of developments long since planned and +now imminent, developments astounding and gigantic. These rumours began +with hotels. Hitherto the "Cambrian" had been thought to be rather more +than so-so, but of course nobody would have dreamed of comparing it with +the "Grands" and "Majesties" which "_Lancashire Hotels, Limited_" +possessed in the great centres of the North. These had half a dozen +tennis-courts in front, palm-courts and winter-gardens behind, and five +and six and seven hundred bedrooms. But now the rumour ran that, not one +of these, but two, owned by opposing Syndicates, were to be set up in +Llanyglo. The sites on which they were to be built varied according to +the version of the tale. Some said that the "Montgomery" was to be +pulled down again, some that the whole row of fishermen's cottages was +to be demolished, some that a terrace was to be dug out of the side of +the Trwyn itself and a funicular railway constructed. However it might +be, it was known that there were prolonged meetings of the Council about +it, and that at one point the whole thing, whatever it might be, seemed +likely to fall through. And that, as they now knew, would be their +death-blow. They would do anything, anything rather than that these +immense reservoirs of capital, already partly opened, should be shut up +again. They would hold out the town itself as security, a twopenny rate, +promises, accommodations, anything. It was said that Sheard, the Porth +Neigr solicitor, who had moved to new premises opposite the Llanyglo +Town Hall, sat up five nights in the week, making actuarial +calculations, estimating yields, measuring margins, and balancing all +with the possibility of the town's bankruptcy. Edward Garden was once +more at Llanyglo, and closeted frequently with Mr. Tudor Williams and +Howell Gruffydd.... Even the two projected hotels were not much more +than a detail as matters now stood; the whole town must now be given a +tremendous upward heave or collapse with a crash. Even those hotels +could go up now only on one condition--namely, that the base of the +visiting population, that foundation of which innumerable units are the +strength, should at once be immensely broadened. For every individual +who could afford to put up at a palace, they must rake in scores, +hundreds of people who could not. The real foundation of the hotels must +be row on row, acre on acre, of Ham-and-Egg Terraces. For the rest, a +place that must live through the year on the takings of three months +must be big, as those places of entertainment must be big that are full +on Saturdays only and empty during the rest of the week. Nothing smaller +would tempt the Railway Companies. (This, by the way, was not altogether +good news for Raymond Briggs. Architecture is not needed for that +broadened base. Any working master-builder can run up houses that are +good enough. The pattern of one is the pattern of all, and Raymond would +have small chance in competition with the bigger men of his profession.) + +Nor would it suffice merely to house and feed the people who came. Other +watering-places were awake to the new menace now, so that the rival +announcements on the hoardings resembled a desperate grapple for the +possession of those sixpences and shillings and half-crowns that were +poured without ceasing into the coffers of the Holiday Clubs. Not one in +five hundred of those who contributed those shillings and half-crowns +stopped to think that Wales herself has no Holiday Clubs--that Wales +does not go abroad with a year's savings in her pocket of which it is +black shame to bring as much as a single penny back again. They wanted +amusement. The Resort or Spa that could provide the most amusement would +get the lion's share. Amusements were a more urgent necessity than +chairs and tables and roofs. + +So it was that, between this place and that, the people who intended to +have a better time than their fathers had had were in some danger of +being pampered. + +The project for the Llanyglo Big Wheel was set a-going. + +The promise that Howell Gruffydd had made behind his hand to John +Pritchard had already begun to be redeemed. The Town Hall was not three +months old before a Grand Bazaar was held there in aid of the Llanyglo +Joint Chapels. On the first of the four days during which the Bazaar +lasted the proceedings were opened by Tudor Williams, Esquire, M.P. On +the second day they were opened by Edward Garden, Esquire. On the third +Mrs. Howell Gruffydd opened them, in heliotrope satin; and on the fourth +day Raymond Briggs, Esquire, who scented Chapel-building in the air, +performed the ceremony. Raymond guessed that at least three new Chapels +were certain presently to go up in the stead of those buildings of tin +and boards and sickly blue paint that had so outraged Terry Armfield's +Oxford Movement susceptibilities. As a matter of fact, five went up, and +have debts on them to this day, in spite of the long series of Bazaars, +two a season at least, at which the Saxon veins were opened.... For the +money poured in. It rained into the square collecting-sheets that were +placed at intervals along all the principal streets. It clattered into +the slots of the wooden boxes that were rattled under the nose of the +passer-by. It was minted in the Bran Tubs from which, paying your +threepence, you drew forth a penny toy. It multiplied with every flower +Miss Nancy Pritchard, with twenty other young women in Welsh national +costume, sold. It made heavy the pockets of the stall-holders, who had +never any change. It made little cylinders of silver and copper, three +and four and five inches high, on the tables folk had to pass before +they were admitted to the Concerts.... Believe it, the Chapel-goers of +Llanyglo, seeing all that money to be had for little more than the +asking, opened their eyes, and sat up, and took notice. If _this_ was +the Saxon invasion, why had they not welcomed it long ago? A few bales +of hired bunting, a few pounds for evergreens and velvet banners with +texts on them, a few paid assistants and a not unreasonable printers' +bill, and--_these_ splendid results! + +As big as John Pritchard himself said, putting on his spectacles to see +whether the astonishing total could really be true, "They must be very +rit-ss, whatever!" + +But the Bazaars had not this golden harvest to themselves. They found +competition, which they a little resented. Secular amusements more than +held their own. Gigantic castings had begun to arrive for the Big Wheel; +under the booth-awnings of Gardd Street (recently christened) penny +articles could be had for a penny; and a long row of automatic +machines--Wheels of Fortune, little iron men who kicked footballs, +Sibyls of Fate and Try-your-Grip machines--had sprung up along the +railings of the sea-front. A few stage-gipsies with green parrakeets had +made the town their summer home. There was a rifle-range on the farther +sandhills--you could hear the "plunk" of the bullets on the iron +targets. Near it was a travelling Merry-go-Round. Photographers had +their "pitches" on the sands, with humourous canvas flats with oval +holes in them, through which you put your face, so that you could have +your portrait taken as "_He Won't be Happy till He Gets It_" or in the +act of embracing a two-dimensional young woman, whichever was to your +liking. And there were niggers. These danced and sang and played the +banjo on a raised platform, dressed in wide turned-down schoolboy +collars and pink striped trousers; the concentric rings of green chairs +about them resembled the spread of a large symmetrical thistle plant; +and outside this ring one or other of the troupe constantly moved, +shaking a sort of jellybag under your nose (as the Chapel-goers had +shaken the collecting-boxes) and blinking the pink lids in his +burnt-cork face. A little farther on was the men's bathing-place. They +had wooden machines now, into which youths entered four at a time--no +more the trim and private striped tents of the Laceys and the Raymond +Briggses. The ladies' bathing-place was farther on still--a boat stood +off between the two lest the sexes should not keep their distance. And a +hundred yards past that, beyond a great scabrous groyne of loose stone, +clay-coloured at the shore end but slimy with green as it ran down to +the sea, with red flags and notice-boards along the top and a moveable +rope-barrier at its base where two men walked on sentry-go, they were at +work upon the Pier. + +By this time there was one question which, more than others, was +beginning to disturb Llanyglo. This was the question of drink. In the +old days, when the old brown horse who had walked as carefully as if he +had had a spirit-level inside him had first brought the Gardens and +their luggage so softly over the sandhills, there had been no inn nearer +than Porth Neigr. Save on market-days, scarce a drop of alcohol passed +a Llanyglo man's lips from year's end to year's end. If John Pritchard +had preached occasionally against drunkenness, it had been +conventionally only, with little more bearing on Llanyglo's own habits +than if he had preached against cannibalism. Then Railhead had crawled +across the land; Howell Gruffydd had found it necessary to warn the +young against contamination; and with the building of the "Cambrian" had +come Llanyglo's first licence. + +But for long enough after that there had been no public-houses. The +travelling army of labourers had had their own canteens, and even when a +necessary beer-licence or two had been applied for at Sessions, the +applications had been granted as it were behind the hand, and the affair +had been got over as quickly as possible. No: Tommy Kerr's unconscious +soft carolling of _Glan Meddwdod Mwyn_ as he had crossed the sandhills +on that torrid Sunday afternoon had held no real personal reproach for +Llanyglo. For Porth Neigr, perhaps yes; for other places, yes; but not +for Llanyglo. + +But since then things had changed. Things had changed since they had +been able to tell themselves that what went on in the "Cambrian" lounge +was no concern of theirs. They had begun to change when Llanyglo had +been no longer able to shut its eyes to the beer-drinking of the navvies +and bricklayers and the brothers Kerr. Then for a time a convenient +connection had been established between drunkenness and rough trousers +tied about the knees with string. For cases such as these, the little +Station at the extreme end of Gardd Street, with "Police" over the door +and geraniums in the windows, had ample powers. The half-dozen +constables must exercise discretion, that was all. + +But it became a not uncommon sight to see a tipsy reveller singing +himself unsteadily home on one side of the street, while the officer, +watching him from the other side, stood questioning his discretion until +the delinquent had passed out of sight. For a time Tommy Kerr, who had +been twice run in, had served as a scapegoat, but that was little +permanent help. It began to be seen that the real problem was, that if +they would get folk with money to spend into the town, they must accept +these folk, within reason, as they were, tipplers and teetotalers alike. +For some reason or other, convivial drinking also seemed to come under +the head of amusements. Blackpool provided liquor; Douglas was in an +exceptional position for the provision of liquor; and more and more it +appeared that Llanyglo must open the Bazaar doors with one hand and the +doors of inns and taverns with the other. + +Meanwhile, the "Lancashire Rose," on one side of Gardd Street, and the +"Trafford" on the other, were quickly becoming notorious. These were +both fully licenced houses, with Tap and Saloon entrances, and it was +idle to pretend to think that all the scandal originated in the humbler +compartments. Heady young men with full pockets, respectable fathers of +families, and others whom they could by no means lock up as they could +lock up Tommy Kerr, went into these places in broad daylight, sometimes +coming out again obviously affected: and it was almost certain that not +all their stomachs were so innocent and unaccustomed that a single glass +of the poison had produced this result. Dolefully they wished that a +sober Lancashire would come to Llanyglo; but--a Lancashire of some sort +they _must_ have. Why else were they doing all they could to win its +favour? What else was their Big Wheel for, of which four mammoth +standards of plate and lattice-girder had already risen thirty feet +above the sandhills, where they were stepped and anchored into the +oldest rocks of earth? Why else were they toiling day and night at their +Pier, and at the building, section by section, of the sea-wall? Why else +were they setting up gasometers beyond Pritchard's, and discussing a +Sewage Scheme, and--most urgent of all--gnawing their fingers anxiously +until some arrangement should be come to with Edward Garden's lawyers +about that water far away up Delyn? The supply was becoming terrifyingly +insufficient. For want of mere water the growth of the town might come +to a stop as plants shrivel and fall again in an arid bed.... And, save +to get Lancashire folk there, drunk or sober, why did they solemnly +discuss this inanity of an amusement or that--Big Wheels and +Switchbacks, Scenic Railways, Toboggan Slides, Panoramas, Fat Women, +Dancing Halls, Floral Valleys and Concerts and Town Bands? There was no +going back now. They had spent money that they would never, never see +again if they persisted in being visionaries in business and +irreconcilables on mere minor points of demeanour.... + +"They spend more when they are ... like that," said Howell Gruffydd one +day to the Council assembled. He said it a little shamefacedly, his +fingers fiddling with the green cloth of the Council-table. + +Nobody spoke. + +"I--saw--a--man," Howell continued, "a respectable man, with good +clothes on his back and a new hat, all spoiled--it was a pity to see +it--I saw him knock over row of bot-tles at John Parry's in Gardd +Street, just for amusement, and he laugh, and say 'How mut-ss?' like it +wass noth-thing, he was so-a drunk----" + +"It is a pit-ty they make such a noise sometimes," somebody said, in a +curiously aggrieved voice.... + +Evan Pugh, the landlord of the "Trafford," was of precisely the same +opinion. + +They escaped their dilemma by means of a noteworthy bit of government by +minority. There was a small section of the Council, easily outvotable at +ordinary times, which urged that, after all, things were _as_ they were, +that you must live and let live in this world, and that even good things +could be pushed to extremes when they became no longer good. And, as +these began to speak, one stern bazaar-promoter after another began to +look at his watch and to mutter "Dear me--I had no idea it wass so +late--indeed I not catss him if I not go now----" + +They left. + +This, or else a tactful absenteeism, became their custom whenever +licencing matters came up to be discussed. + +But cases of conscience are cases of conscience all the world over. + +The sum that Edward Garden proposed as a fair price for that +catchment-area up Delyn was two hundred thousand pounds--this for about +two thousand acres; and on the day when his lawyers named the figure it +was a wonder that the whole Council did not take in a body to their +beds. Two hundred thousand pounds! They could not believe their ears. +Nor could they believe their eyes either when they got it in writing, +words first, and the figures in brackets afterwards. If they had written +the single word "_Fancy!_" across that document and sent it straightway +back to the lawyers they would no doubt have followed their first +impulse; but somebody, less hard hit in the wind than the rest, managed +to gasp out the proposal that they should sleep on it, and sleep on it +they did. But the night did not alter it. In the morning it was still +two hundred thousand pounds (£200,000). + +News of the rapacity of the demand had leaked out almost immediately. +Ordinarily, anybody who had stopped Howell Gruffydd in the street and +had asked him a Council secret would have been met with the smiling +facer he deserved, but this was extraordinary altogether. On the morning +after they had slept on it, William Morgan saw Howell on the Promenade, +came up to him, and, making no bones about it whatever, asked him +whether it was true. + +"Who told you, William Morgan?" Howell began ... but he really had not +the heart to go on. He took off his hat, wiped the lining of it with his +handkerchief, and the bright sunlight showed his brows lined with +anxiety and sick fear, crumpled and embossed like one of his own pats of +butter. He replaced his hat and blew his nose violently. + +"Is it true?" demanded William Morgan again. + +Howell became grim.--"It was an e-vil day for this town when that man +came here," he said, forgetting how little town there had been when that +old brown horse had first brought the Gardens softly jolting across the +sandhills. + +"Then it is true?" said William Morgan once again. + +"It is true that a man sometimes asks one thing, and finiss by getting +something very diff-ferent from what he ask," Howell replied, and walked +abruptly away. + +He crossed the Promenade and turned into Pontnewydd Street. There he +stood, irresolutely plucking his lip and gazing into a stationer's +window. Dafydd Dafis's voice in his ear caused him to start almost +violently. + +"H-what is this, Howell Gruffydd?" Dafydd demanded without preface, his +eyes burningly and truculently on the Chairman's face. He wore his +everyday corduroys, but his air was that of a monarch in banishment. +Howell turned. + +"Ah, how are you, Dafydd? Indeed you look well! They do say the smell of +road-tar is a very healthy smell----" + +"H-what is this we hear, Howell Gruffydd?" Dafydd repeated. + +Howell tried to smile.--"Indeed, how can I answer a question like that, +'What is this we hear?'----" + +"H-what is this about Delyn and the Water?" + +There was a dangerous quickness in Dafydd's voice. Involuntarily Howell +gave a little hiccough of emotion, which answered Dafydd sufficiently. +His eyes were like the windows of a burning house. + +"He sell us two thousand acres, of our own land, for how mut-ss?" + +"Two--hundred--thou-sand--pounds," sobbed Howell. + +"Of our own mountains--Delyn, that belong to us--he sell us Delyn, this +Saxon?----" + +"Indeed, indeed, Dafydd, do not excite yourself--it will have to go to +arbi-tra-tion----" + +"It will go to Hell, with his soul!" Dafydd replied fiercely. "He sell +us Delyn--he sell us Delyn water--he sell us our own moun-tains!--It iss +not for this we make you Chairman of the Council, Howell Gruffydd!" + +Howell trembled, but put up a soothing hand. + +"Aw-w-w, you wait and see, Dafydd Dafis! A prof-fit is a prof-fit, but +this is wick-ed, and preposterous, and out of all reason! You wait and +see! We have a meeting this morning, and p'rapss we show Mister Edward +Garden he is not so clever as he think he is! He think he put his Saxon +pistol to our heads like this? Indeed he make a great mistake! You wait +and see, Dafydd. There iss a saying, 'He laughs best who laughs +last'--you wait and see!" He patted Dafydd's shoulder and arm +reassuringly, and perhaps felt heartened by his own words. "You wait and +see!" he said once more, almost cheerily now. "We not pay it--never +fear! I see you later----" + +And he hurried away, leaving Dafydd standing on the pavement. + +But the Council Meeting that morning settled nothing, and neither did +the next Meeting nor the next after that. They wrote to Mr. Tudor +Williams, but it almost looked as if Mr. Tudor Williams was taking a +leaf out of their own book: if they had pressing private affairs when +questions of ales and wines and spirits appeared on the agenda, so Mr. +Tudor Williams pleaded a multiplicity of urgent engagements now that it +was a question of water. The meeting adjourned, reassembled, adjourned +again, and met again. Days passed, weeks passed. Legal opinions were +taken, but no action. They fetched Mr. Tudor Williams down almost by +force, and he proffered his good offices, but deprecated the serving of +notices of compulsory arbitration. He advised an amicable settlement if +one could possibly be arrived at. Llanyglo's anger died away, and blank +despair began to take its place. + +Then one day Edward Garden's lawyers hinted that in the event of an +arrangement being come to within a given time they were in a position +to enter into certain pledges on behalf of the Railway Companies. They +hinted also that they were equally in a position to do the other thing. +Surely, they said, Llanyglo saw that this was a matter of its life or +its death; and surely, they added, it was plain that it would not really +be _they_ who were paying! Nothing of the sort! Lancashire would pay. +Yorkshire would pay. The Midlands would help to pay, and perhaps also +the West and South. Whoever footed his bill at hotel or +boarding-establishment would be contributing--they must see that he did +contribute--his portion. What though visitors grumbled and talked about +extortion? They forgot all about it the next day. What though residents +groaned under the burden of the rates? They must submit to conditions, +like everybody else. Llanyglo must pay, and pass it on. + +In short, all the people who intended to have a better time than their +fathers had had were to be shaven and shorn exactly as their fathers had +been. + +Llanyglo saw it, sighed, and acquiesced. There was nothing else to do. + +And if Parry, of the "Lancashire Rose," or Pugh, of the "Trafford," +reaped too rich a harvest by making people drunk, they must be assessed +higher and higher still, and still higher, that was all. + + + + +IV + +PAWB + + +This question of assessment had already raised another question, which +at first seemed a small one, but swelled afterwards into ominous +proportions. When the rumours of those two towering new hotels had first +begun to circulate, it had been a gentle and stimulating mental exercise +to place, in fancy, these palaces on this spot or that. Among other +suggestions, the vacant plot of land adjacent to the Kerrs' Hafod Unos +had been mentioned as a fitting site for one of them. Hereupon folk had +begun to ask one another: What about the Kerrs' title? + +Hitherto they had not thought of this. The four brothers had planted +themselves there when all about had been a waste of sand, had since +taken firm root, and there two of them still remained. But between such +a squatting eight or nine years ago, and a sitting tight now that +everything had gone up a hundredfold in value, was an immense +difference. To this difference, moreover, was now added the evil repute +in which Tommy Kerr lived. Ned, the alder-cutter, they would have +accepted; they could live with Ned; but his brother, besides being in +his unpleasant person a public nuisance, was beginning to appear a +setter-back of the fingers of History's clock, a mongrel in their fine +new manger, a thorn in the side of that lusty young Welsh Giantess whose +figure was now one of the familiar sights on a thousand hoardings in +the North. The invisible odour of stale beer-fumes in which he moved +poisoned the air of the Promenade, and, though he certainly did his best +to remedy this as far as the staleness was concerned (invariably +beginning the day with pints and ending it with quarts), that did not +improve matters in the long run. + +As long as Tommy Kerr was merely locked up once in a while for +drunkenness, he himself paid no heed to the whispers that had begun to +gather about him. He could sleep as heavily and happily in a cell as in +his own Hafod. Nor were his eyes at once opened even when an inspector +appeared at the Hafod and began to ask questions about its +sanitation--which, by the way, was of a low order. But his brother Ned +began to "study," as he called it, and the result of his studying was +that he said one day to Tommy, "They'll be wanting to be shut o' you and +me, Tommy." + +Tommy was in the act of wiping out a greasy frying-pan with a piece of +old newspaper. He stopped suddenly. After a pause, "Eh?" he said.... +"D'ye mean purr us out?" + +"We're a bit i' t' road to my way o' thinking," Ned replied, sinking +back into his arm-chair again and closing his eyes. + +He had taken badly to heart the deaths of his brothers Harry and Sam; +indeed he had not been the same man since. He frequently walked over to +Sarn churchyard, sat on a flat tombstone near his brothers' grave, and +smoked and spat; he was "studying" about a stone for them. +Intermittently he talked about carving this with his own hands, but he +delayed to do so. All the work he now did was to doze in a +street-watch-man's hut, with a two-days-old newspaper on his knee and a +firebasket in front of him set sideways on the wind. He was no longer +the beer-drinker he had been. "Think ye?" said Tommy, after another +silence. "But we donnot want to be purred out," he added resuming the +wiping of the frying-pan, though more slowly. + +And as it seemed to be a condition of their remaining in their Hafod +unmolested that they should make a show of satisfying the sanitary +inspector's demands, they overhauled their drainage system and gave it +the minimum of attention it demanded. + +Then one day an offer was made them, which was also an admission. It was +an offer of compensation and of another dwelling elsewhere, and the +admission apparently was that their title was a good one. Ned was for +accepting the offer, and accepted it would probably have been but for a +circumstance that Tommy discovered only in a roundabout way. He was +congratulated one morning in the "Marine" Tap on having escaped +ejectment. This was the first he had heard of ejectment. He asked a few +questions, and soon after went out for a walk. + +Ejectment! Apparently they had been considering his ejectment, had found +it for some reason or other not to be feasible, and had substituted the +offer of compensation.... + +Then, while this offer was still neither accepted nor rejected, +something else came to Tommy Kerr's ears. This was that the sites, not +of one, but of both the new hotels, were at last decided on. As a matter +of fact, this choice was now almost a foregone conclusion. Next to Gardd +Street, which ran parallel with the shore, Pontnewydd Street, in which +lay the Hafod, was becoming the principal street of the town. It ran +from the shore to Pritchard's Corner, was prolonged past that to the +new station, and was the main thoroughfare for landaus and wagonettes +off to the mountains. The hotels were to be built one on either side of +the Hafod, not actually adjoining it, but not more than a couple of +strides away. + +Already in Tommy Kerr's suspicious mind the mischief was done. Howell +Gruffydd, all blandishments to his face, had been making secret +inquiries behind his back, had he? He had been talking about +compensation and whispering with attorneys and such-like, had he? Very +well. That settled it. Tommy would go when he was purred out, and not +before. As for that snuffling Howell Gruffydd.... + +"So that's it, Mister Treacle-Tongue, is it?" he had muttered. "Reight. +As long as we know where we are. I'm off out to buy a ha'porth o' +thread----" + +And with the ha'porth of thread he had sewn a large button on each of +his pocket-flaps, and thenceforward meeting Howell Gruffydd in the +street, had ostentatiously buttoned every pocket up before answering the +prosperous grocer's smiling "Good morning." + +They began to dig the foundations of those glittering hotels. + +They did so, as it happened, in the early part of that same summer that +saw Edward Garden's ingenious advertisements put into execution--the +summer of the Eisteddfod and the Brass Band Contest. Llanyglo was packed +with people. Two days before the Eisteddfod, there began to troop into +the town from all parts bards and singers, poets and harpers and +minstrels and the members of a chorus five hundred voices strong. They +came in their everyday clothes, moustached like vikings, bearded and +maned like lions, and instantly with their coming the Saxon took a back +seat. Shopkeepers left their counters, publicans clapped down the +half-filled glasses, and ran to their doors as this honoured singer or +that famous bard passed their windows. They walked with stately slow +walk and stately slow head-turnings, and happy was the Welshman who got +a motion of the hand or a benign smile from them. The Gorsedd had been +publicly proclaimed; the temporary dancing hall behind Gardd Street, big +enough for a regiment to drill in, had been made ready; the insignia in +the Town Hall were as jealously watched and guarded as are the Crown +Jewels in the Tower of London; and he was a prudent visitor who had +realised that for three whole days he was likely to get but negligent +attention from those who at other times were his humble servitors. For, +fleer as aliens would, this was the Awakening of the Red Dragon. Their +reproach that he was but a pasteboard Dragon fell to the ground. The +Dragon was what the Dragon was, and if his service was theatrical, +theatricalism is ennobled when its boards are the soil itself and each +of its actors an Antæus, strong because his foot is upon the ground that +bred him. In England, behind his smile, the Welshman is an enigma of +reserve; but see him at his Eisteddfod, with money waiting to be taken +at his closed shop-doors.... + +With the ceremony of the Gorsedd on the opening day Dafydd Dafis's +spellbound and uplifted hours began. At the sounding of the trumpets his +head flew proudly up; at the Drawing of the Sword and the solemn +question, "Is there Peace in the land?" his voice joined in the reply, +like a thunder-clap, "There is Peace"--for that was before the year +when, for three whole days, the blade remained naked and bright, while +far over the seas brave Englishmen and brave Welshmen fell and died +together. It was the single victory of Dafydd's life. On ordinary days +he now drove a road-engine--Howell Gruffydd had got him the job under +the Council; but he was a Lord of Song now. He had put his name down for +the "penillion" contest; should he prove successful, not he himself +only, but Llanyglo also, the place of his birth, would be forever +famous. He sat behind the semicircle of white-robed and oak-crowned and +druid-like figures that occupied the front part of the platform, looking +down on the vast oblong of faces, Saxon and Welsh, that resembled a +packed bed of London Pride; he was in the tenor wedge of the chorus; and +as the five hundred voices pealed together you thought of the roof and +of that singer whose voice had shivered vessels of glass.... Coming out +of the hall again at the end of the first day, Dafydd was still in his +trance. As he walked along the street past the "Trafford" Tap, Tommy +Kerr, who sat within drinking, hailed him and called for a song, while +one of his boon companions crying "Nay, we don't ask nobody to sing for +nowt!" cast a couple of pennies on the ground; but Dafydd seemed neither +to see nor to hear. At the break-up after the last chorus an august hand +had been placed on Dafydd's shoulder, and an archangelic voice had +spoken to him, saying that he, he the great one, had heard of Dafydd +Dafis; and what, after that, did pot-house insults matter? He passed on, +his eyes still flashing and his face shining like the Silver Chair +itself.... + +Two days later he was proclaimed the victor in the "penillion" contest, +and on the day after that, still drunk with song, he drove his +road-engine again. And so passed Llanyglo's first Eisteddfod. + +The Brass Band Contest five weeks later was a triumph in a different +way. The impression now was one, not of unity, but of the keen spirit of +faction. The "_Besses o' th' Barn_" were at the crest of their fame, +but the "_Black Dike_" ran them close, and not far behind came "_Wyke +Temperance_" and "_Meltham Mills_"; and had these been, not Bands, but +football teams, local rivalry could not have run higher. True, +underneath the sporting interest lay the musical. This performer's +"lipping" and the "triple-tonguing" of the other were matters of endless +debate among the expert; nuances of ensemble and attack were hotly +argued in strong Lancashire and Yorkshire accents; and the devotees were +ready to fight with their fists over the fame of the conductors of their +fancy. But, without unity, the Contest proved, for all save the +Brass-band-maniacs, a little wearisome. The ear began to revolt against +the reiterated "test-piece," and one pitied the judge hidden away in his +carefully guarded cubicle. Fewer Welsh attended the Contest than had +English the Eisteddfod, and a day was judged sufficient for it. After a +sensational replay with the "_Besses_," "_Black Dike_" took pride of +place, with "_Meltham Mills_" third. The strains of _Zampa_ and _The +Bronze Horse_ sounded once more only, when they massed the Bands in the +evening in the Floral Valley; and (the Council having sanctioned a +charge of sixpence as the fee for entrance) the sum of £115 was taken at +the temporary barriers. So passed the Brass Band Contest also. + +By the June of that year the understructure of the Pier was finished, +and the rest was advancing with the speed of paper-hanging. The +contractors were under time-penalties to be ready for the formal opening +on the forthcoming August Bank Holiday. All through the night the sounds +of the planking could be heard, and pavilion-parts, lettered and +numbered and ready gilded and painted, were rushed along in haste. At +the same time the Big Wheel began to resemble the largest circle of the +Floral Valley set up on end; it was wonderful to stand beneath it and to +gaze up through the intricacy of tie and strut and lattice at the sky. +Immense hoardings filled a large part of Pontnewydd Street; by and by +they would be taken down again, and the façades of those magnificent new +hotels would appear; but Llanyglo would scarcely turn its head to look +at them. They were getting used to this now. Besides, they had plenty +else to do. The town was so full that they were turning away money into +its nearest place of overflow--Porth Neigr. + +Then, in the beginning of August, a hundred portents were fulfilled. +There began to run into the station train after train, with three or +four faces at each window. Doors opened almost before the engines had +begun to slow down, and (as if the trains had been veins and somebody +had suddenly slit them up, spilling out the life within) the platforms +were suddenly black and overrun with people. They carried bags, baskets, +hampers, parcels, stools, pillows, babies. Inside the carriages they +left crumpled newspapers, trodden sandwiches, bottles, nuts, corks, the +heads and tails of shrimps. Their tickets had been taken miles back--no +collecting-staff could have coped for a moment with the emptying of +those wheeled and windowed veins of impoverished blood. Parents carrying +babies stood prudently aside from that first mad rush to the entrance. +Many of them had been up since half-past four that morning; they had +spent seven hours in the train, twelve and thirteen and fourteen in a +carriage, standing, sitting on one another's knees, lying on the rows of +feet; and now they made straight for air. Certain trains had been told +off for week-end travellers; others were labelled "_Special_" or "_Day +Excursion Only_." Those who had come by these would have seven hours in +Llanyglo, and at the end of that time they would squeeze into the trains +again for seven, eight, ten hours more--for on the return journey they +must attend the convenience of every other wheel on the line, and a +stand of an hour or so at two o'clock in the morning would be but an +incident. During that short space in which they would breathe the +wonderful Llanyglo air they would eat the meals they had brought with +them, or else besiege the inns and eating-houses and tea-rooms and +confectioners'-shops. They were the first trippers--spinning operatives, +weavers, twisters, warp-dressers, mechanics, asbestos-hands, stokers, +clerks, shopkeepers, the grey and unnumbered multitude itself. Some +would enjoy themselves, some would vow they enjoyed themselves, and some +would declare it "a toil of a pleasure," and would drag about on hot and +swollen and weary feet, repeating at intervals, "Niver again--niver as +long as I live!" And the lagging children's arms would be almost +wrenched off at the shoulders, and some would fall asleep with the +sticky paint of the penny toys dyeing their hands, and the platforms +would begin to fill up again three hours before the time of departure of +the train, for the sake of the chances of corner seats, or indeed of +seats at all, and also because, on that horrible arduous day, the +station itself would seem almost like a home.... + +Yes, as the Laceys and Briggses had followed Edward Garden, and those +who could not (but would) afford it had followed the Briggses and +Laceys, and the _Utopia_ readers these, and the fortnight and ten-days' +people these, and all sorts and conditions of people for varying lengths +of time these again, so now the unnumbered rest had come.... "The first +tripper, and I'm off," the Briggses and the Laceys had said; and which +of us is not a Briggs or a Lacey in this? Which of us can say without +misgiving that he would have remained in Llanyglo? Could we have endured +the sight of our kind in this bulk--or could we have endured to think, +either, that if they were not there for that dreadful day they would +still be elsewhere? Can we, in the unshared solitude of our hearts, bear +to think of this rank and damp and steaming human undergrowth at all? +Would the Squire, seeing these, still have thought as much of his books +on Church Plate and Brasses, still have defended the integrity of +something not for all? Would Minetta Garden have looked on them with a +sort of incurious interest as so many "types"? Or would we all, Minetta, +the Squire, you, I, have felt meanly and skulkingly relieved when the +last tail-light had died away in the night again? + +There is neither "Yes" nor "No" to be answered. I may rant of +brotherhood and humanity, but you--you may remember that cart jolting +without noise over the sandhills, the blue and primrose petals of those +butterflies, the amethyst-tufts of wild thyme, the milkwort, the +harebells, and then, of a sudden, that V with the sea beyond. I, +choosing to shoulder all the responsibility of a world in the making of +which I was not consulted, may moisten that human peat with my tears, +but you--you, passionate for beauty's sake, may mourn a loveliness +deflowered and a simplicity destroyed. It is no virtue in me, no +harshness in you. We both are what we are and do what we can. Llanyglo +also was what it had become and did what it could. And Llanyglo, after +all, had a solace that we lack. It was an inferior one, but better than +nothing. Their beach might be littered, their streets made pitiful; +their lodging-house keepers might put every loose jug or china dog or +ornament away, and replace them again only after these had gone; strange +accents might grate upon their ears, different and disliked minds frame +the thoughts those accents expressed; yet balm remained. There was not a +tripper, no, not the poorest of them, but spent his three, four, or five +shillings in the town. + + + + +PART FOUR + + + + +I + +THE BLIND EYE + + +Drub-drub--drub-drub-drub--drub-drub---- + +It was the sound of heels on the Pier. From one end of it to the other +they walked, past the recesses and lamp-standards and the bright kiosks +where tobacco and confectionery and walking-sticks and picture-postcards +and souvenirs were sold, and then they turned and walked back. After a +time the drub-drubbing became curiously hypnotising. At moments it +conformed almost to a regular rhythm; then it broke up again into mere +confusion, out of which another metrical beat would rise for a second or +so and then become lost again. For long spaces the ear would become +accustomed and cease to hear it, and would take in instead the lighter +registers of tittering, soft laughter, the striking of matches and an +occasional scuffle and call; but the groundwork of sound would break +through again, like a muffled drum tapped by many performers at once, +monotonous, reverberating, dead---- + +Drub-drub-drub--drub-drub--drub-drub---- + +It was half-past eight of a July night. Crowded as the Pier was, it +would become still more so when the Concert Hall just within the +turnstiles, and the Pavilion at the pier-head, turned out their +audiences again. There would hardly be space to move them. The +Promenade was a sweep of brilliants; Gardd Street lay unseen behind it +under a golden haze; behind that again the lighted rosette of the Big +Wheel turned slowly high in the sky; and the great hotels of the front +were squared and mascled with window-lights. All this dance of gold and +silver made an already blue evening intensely blue, and the Pier was so +long that, even with quick walking, several minutes passed between your +losing the rattle of hand-clapping outside the Concert Hall at one end +of it, and your picking up the strains of the Pavilion orchestra at the +other. + +Drub-drub-drub--drub-drub-drub--drub-drub---- + +There was hardly a bed to be had in Llanyglo. Visitors who had rashly +chosen to take their chance commonly passed their first night in the +waiting-rooms of the railway station. Servant-girls lay in their clothes +under kitchen tables, while their own garrets were let for half a +sovereign a night. Dozens slept on sofas, chairs, hearthrugs, +billiard-tables, on the Promenade benches, under the tarpaulins of +wagonettes and chars-à-bancs, or curled up in the boats on the shore. +They Boxed-and-coxed it as they could, and the police did not trouble to +shake the slumberers on whom they turned their bull's-eyes in the nooks +and arbours of the Floral Valley. + +Drub-drub-drub--drub--drub---- + +And who were they now, they whose heels wore down the Pier timbers and +made the brain drowsy with their ceaseless tramp? + +It was a curious and a rather arresting change. To all appearances, +Llanyglo had now got a "better class of visitor" than it had had since +the Briggses and Laceys had shaken the dust of the place from their +feet. Even in this puzzle of gold and silver light and deep mysterious +blue, it could be seen that there was not much Holiday Club money there. +In another fortnight or so those coffers would burst over the town, +drenching it with gold; but in the meantime who were these others, and +what were they doing at Llanyglo? + +Let us ask the author of the _Sixpenny Guide_. + + * * * * * + +"When did you arrive? Only last night? And you're stopping at the +'Majestic'? Well, you've somebody there who can tell you more about it +than I can--Big Annie the head-chambermaid on the first floor. There are +a good many things about Llanyglo now that I've had to keep out of my +_Guide_, you see. But I'll tell you what I can. + +"And I don't want to give you any false impression. Don't forget that +scores and hundreds of families come here and bathe, and picnic, and +dance, and go for drives, and enjoy themselves, and go away again +without a notion that everybody here isn't exactly like themselves. And +there's no harm in the Wakes people either. The worst you can say of +them is that now and then one of them gets violently or torpidly drunk, +as the case may be, and that all of them make a most hideous and +infernal noise. So don't think I'm talking disproportionately, and that +this is the only place of its kind I was ever in. + +"But I do mean this: that somehow or other we've now acquired a very +peculiar kind of notoriety. You can deny it, disprove it, show that it +isn't there at all, and--there it remains all the time. For one thing, +you'll see if you look round that the place is very much less northern +in character than it was, and as it happens that's very significant. For +it might conceivably happen that a northerner--or a southerner, or +anybody else--might have his reasons for avoiding a place that was full +of other northerners, many of whom might know him (they have an +expression in the North for the kind of thing I mean; they call it +'making mucky doorstones'). So you'll find lots and lots of Londoners +here now, and midlanders, and easterners and westerners. They come here, +where nobody's ever seen them before and will never see them again +perhaps, for much the same reason that some Englishmen are said to go to +Paris. + +"I don't want to make them out more in number than they are. Spread out +over the whole country they'd only be a fractional percentage, and you'd +never notice them; but when they're brought together here they're quite +enough to give the place a character. They aren't the open and reckless +kind. Furtiveness--complete disappearance if possible--is the whole +point. They're the men who arrange for somebody to post their letters +home from the place they're supposed to be really at, and the women who, +as the Bible says, eat and wipe their lips and say they haven't eaten. +They want to dodge, not only everybody else, but themselves also, +something they're perhaps afraid of in themselves, for a fortnight, +three weeks, a month. You see, they've persuaded themselves (and +Llanyglo's done too well out of them to undeceive them) that things done +here somehow 'don't count.' If you want to do something you'd never dare +to do in a place where you were known, you come to Llanyglo to do it. If +you can imagine the oasis in the desert with exactly the contrary +meaning--that's us. We're an asylum for those who've lost their moral +memories. + +"And it isn't that wedding-rings are juggled off and on, and false names +entered in hotel registers, nor anything of that kind. That goes on more +or less everywhere, and we haven't become notorious merely for that. +And as usual, it's easier to say what it isn't than what it is. It isn't +the Trwyn, for example, though that does twitter so with kisses from +morning till night that you'd think it was the grasshoppers. And it +isn't the almost open displays you see at certain hours wherever you go. +It isn't any one fact, not even the worst. It's a faint attar of some +_abandonment_, some bottomlessness, that you can't name. It may be my +imagination, but I've fancied I've actually smelt it with my nostrils, +coming into it from a mile out of the town. They relinquish even +appearances. Most of us have the grace to cover up our sins with a +decent and saving hypocrisy, but these know and understand one another +so horribly well. They seem to find a comfort that they're all in the +same boat. As they say themselves, 'Heaven for climate but Hell for +company.' Give them your name on your visiting-card and they'll ask you +by and by what your _real_ name is. Until then, neither your name nor +anything else about you is their business. They haven't any business. +For a week, or a fortnight, or a month, they've turned their backs on +that tremendous common business that keeps the world going. It's the +blind eye, and Llanyglo provides the blinkers.... + +"But go and talk to Big Annie. She's really a rather remarkable woman. +At stated hours she sits on point duty on the landing of her floor of +eighty bedrooms, just where everybody's got to pass her, and if you look +like making--er--a mistake (and your hotel's quite an easy place to get +lost in) she sets you right without a quiver of her face. Yes, she's +rather an alarming person. There's a swiftness about her way of summing +up people from a single glance at their faces. Oh, you don't take Annie +in with a wedding-ring and a 'darling' or so--especially when the lady +asks the darling whether he takes sugar in his early morning cup of +tea.... + +"Yes, you go and see Annie." + + * * * * * + +Drub-drub--drub-drub-drub---- + +After a time that stupor of the ear became a stupor of the eye also. +Even when a match glowed before a face for a moment, the stage-like +lighting gave you no physiognomical information. The lamps shone on the +crowns of the passing hats, but the faces beneath them were lost; all +cats were grey. Any one of them might have been a giggling flapper with +her eyes still sealed to Life, or one of those others mentioned by the +too-curious author of the _Guide_, who would be dead to sight and +thought for a space that didn't count. Light frocks and darker hues, +bare heads and plaits and shawls and hooded dominoes, shop-girl and +high-school girl, caps and straws and panamas, pipes and cigarettes, +youths thoughtless and youths predatory--you paid your threepence at the +turnstiles and watched them pass and repass. Drub-drub-drub.... And if +you sat long enough, changes began to be perceptible. The flappers who +were evidently high-school girls began to be fewer, and others took +their places--for most of the shops of Llanyglo closed at nine or +half-past, and the released waitresses and assistants who had been on +their feet all day were still not too weary to add to the drub-drubbing. +It was difficult to say in what particular these were distinguishable. +It was not their dress--the universal attainment of a certain standard +of dressing is one of our modern miracles. You would not have had it +from their own lips--you would have been tactless in the extreme not to +have assumed that they also were visitors (as a matter of fact, they +would calmly make appointments for four o'clock of the next day, +knowing perfectly well that at that hour they would be giving change in +a cash-desk or hurrying hither and thither with piles of bread and +butter and trays awash with spilt tea). Perhaps it was the young men +they greeted and their way of greeting them. They didn't come out for +these last hours of the day to gossip with those to whom they had called +"Sign!" all the afternoon, their own foremen, companions, or the +tradesmen of the shop opposite. + +Drub-drub--drub-drub---- + +There passed through the Season Ticket turnstile two young men. Both +wore dark suits and conventional collars and ties (as if they, at any +rate, had no need to don their coloured jackets and flannel trousers +while they could), and the attendant at the turnstile had touched his +cap as they had passed. One of them, the taller of the two, wore his +straw hat halo-wise at the back of his head, filled his pipe as he +walked, and looked cheerfully and unobservingly about him; the other's +straw was well down, and the eyes beneath its brim sought somebody or +something, and would apparently be satisfied with nothing less. The +first was Percy Briggs, and everybody in Llanyglo knew Percy +Briggs--Percy Briggs, who strolled casually into Hotel Cosies towards +midday, nodded to the more favoured ones, said to the barmaid "So and So +been in yet?" and, getting a bright "No, Mr. Briggs, not yet" for an +answer, lounged out again without having had a drink--a sufficient gage +of privilege and familiarity with the place. The other was John Willie +Garden, who knew Llanyglo, knew which faces had been there last year and +the year before, and was now looking for a face he had seen yesterday +evening for one moment only and had then lost again. + +The Pier was an old, old story to him now. Between seasons, on winter +nights, the drub-drub of a few months before seemed sometimes still +faintly to echo in his ears--this when the grey skies came, and in the +hotels a few rooms only were kept open for unprofitable commercial +travellers, and the Promenade was empty, and the Pleasure Packet Service +laid up, and a walk to the end of the Pier and back seemed a long way to +feet that had covered the distance twenty times on a summer's evening, +and the colourless sea seemed to give to the red and white blink of the +Trwyn Light a sudden and nearer significance. He knew every hour of +Llanyglo's day--the hours of departure of the pleasure-boats to Rhyl and +Llandudno and round Anglesey, the bathing-hours in the morning, the +high-school parade at midday, the second bathing relay in the afternoon, +the tea-hour, the walk of parents and children to see the boats come in +again in the early evening, and then, as the evening wore on, the +successive appearances and droppings out of this kind or that, the +emptying of the Pavilions, the inflow of the shop-girls and waitresses, +the rush for the public-houses half an hour before the Pier lights went +out, the thinning numbers who beat the Promenade, the parties of the +Alsatians who sat up in one another's hotels long after every public +drinking-place had been closed. He had nothing further to learn about it +all, and it bored him. Only his search for that girl had brought him on +the Pier to-night. + +He had been almost certain he knew her, but where he had seen her face +before he could not for the life of him remember. Perhaps he did not +know her after all; indeed, when he came to think of it, no memory of a +voice seemed to go with the face, so that the probability was that if he +had seen her before he had never spoken to her. She had been standing, +in that blue twilight, clear of the throng, under the single crimson +pier-head light, looking out over the water that seemed still to reflect +a light that had faded from the sky, and for a moment John Willie had +wondered what she was looking at. The next moment he had seen--and so, +confound it, had twenty others. A yellow spot, like a riding-light, had +risen out of the sea; almost as quickly as the second-hand of a watch +moves, it had become a tip; and then the lookers-in at the glass sides +of the Pavilion had run to see the rising of the bloated, +refraction-magnified, burning yellow horn. In that little running of +people he had lost her. Twice, thrice he had walked the whole length of +the Pier, but without seeing her again. All of her that he could now +remember was the carriage of her head and her plain black dress, and he +knew that dress, in this extraordinary raising of the standard of +dressing which implies the possession by almost everybody of two dresses +at least, was an uncertain guide. + +Another rattle of hand-clapping broke out as Percy Briggs and John +Willie passed the turnstiles. "Any good looking in there?" Percy asked, +nodding towards the Concert Hall, but John Willie made no reply. He was +as cross as a bear with a sore head. Twice already he had rounded on +Percy, who had proposed drinks at this place or that, and had snapped +"You go if you want--I'm not keeping you;" but Percy had replied +good-naturedly, "Oh, all right, keep your hair on." + +The sounds of two more pairs of heels were added to the drub-drubbing on +the planks of the Pier. + +It seemed idle to seek, but John Willie stood looking in at the glass +sides of the Pavilion at the pier-head, searching the bright and crowded +interior. His mind was as obstinately set as that of a mule. It seemed +to him idiotic that all those rows and rows of people should clap the +inanities of the young man in knee-breeched evening-dress who strutted +and made painted eyes over the top of a flattened opera-hat, or encore +Miss Sal Volatile, all spidery black silk stockings below and +cocksfeather boa and enormous black halfmoon hat above. John Willie +turned away to the low-burning crimson pier-light. He stood there for +some moments, and then began to stride back the length of the Pier +again. + +"Chucking it?" said Percy, half sympathetic, half "getting at" John +Willie. + +"Come on to the Kursaal," John Willie grunted. + +The Kursaal lay behind the two frontages of Gardd and Pontnewydd +Streets, and it could be reached from either thoroughfare. From Gardd +Street, up another short street, the great lighted semicircle of what +was then its Main Entrance could be seen; and if the minor entrance from +Pontnewydd Street was at that time less resplendent, that was because +the Kerrs' Hafod stood in the way of opening it up. With its grounds and +theatre and vast dancing-hall, the Kursaal covered getting on for an +eighth of a square mile; but a third or more of that was still in +progress of being laid out and planted--once more by Philip Lacey. + +Crossing the Promenade to the less crowded pavement beyond, John Willie +and Percy strode the half-mile to the Kursaal. There was a queue about +the turnstiles, but John Willie made a sign to an attendant, who flung +up the Exit Only barrier. They passed under trees with many-coloured +electric lights among the branches, and the slowly turning Big Wheel, +which made a quarter-arch of lights over the tower of the Central Hall, +dipped behind it again as they reached the steps that led to the +vestibule. + +For size alone, apart from any other consideration, the dancing-hall of +the Llanyglo Kursaal is one of the wonders of the North. It cost a +hundred thousand pounds to build, and since it can dance a thousand +couples, to seek anybody there without going up into the balconies is +like looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. The band was not playing +at the moment when Percy and John Willie entered; but before they had +reached the top of an empty half-lighted series of staircases the +distant strains of a Barn Dance had broken out. Then, with the pushing +at a door, it burst loudly upon them. John Willie strode down the +shallow gallery steps, made for a front seat whence he could see the +whole length of the vast oblong below, spread out his elbows and set his +chin on his wrists, and, once more muttering "You go and get your drink +if you want," began to search the hall with gloomy blue eyes, very much +as a boy flashes a bit of looking-glass hither and thither in the sun. + +Now when the Wakes people come to Llanyglo, and the pleasant family +parties yield place a little, and drive in the mountains more +frequently, and leave the Pier and Promenade a little earlier, and +gather more often at one another's hotels--even then that dancing-hall +is so vast that twenty different elements can be accommodated there +without mixing or encroachment. But that series of precipitations had +not yet taken place. That night all was homogeneous. Perhaps here and +there other contacts had sparsely "crossed," as it were, that fresh +blooming, as the white hawthorn takes on faintly the hue of the pink in +the spring, but that was probably rare. John Willie, had he had eyes +for it, looked down upon a wonderful sight. The hall was a creamy gold, +with bow after bow along its balcony tiers; without its other +innumerable clusters of lights, the eight arc-lamps in its high roof +would have lighted it no better than a railway station is lighted; and +the mirrors on the walls were hardly more polished than its satiny +floor. A fully appointed stage half-way down one of the sides held an +orchestra of thirty performers; walking across that wonderfully swung +floor you felt something almost alive under your feet; and four thousand +feet moved upon it that night. + +It was beautiful. The band was playing, slowly, as is the +dancing-fashion of the North, that Barn Dance; and almost every girl was +in white. The whites were the whites of flowers--the greenish white of +guelder-roses, the yellow white of elder or of meadow-sweet, the pinkish +white of the faintest dog-rose, the dead white of narcissi, but little +that was not white. And because of all that soft whiteness, faces caught +by the sun were browner, and hair that the wind had blown through all +day glossier, and eyes brighter, and perhaps blushes quicker and more +readily seen. And to the whole bright spectacle was added the +impressiveness of unfaltering rhythm and simultaneousness of movement. +The Colour on the Horse Guards' Parade is not honoured with greater +precision of physical movement than these disciplined feet, these +turning bodies; the pulsing floor itself answered to the delicate dip of +the conductor's stick. For two bars ... but look at them as they pour +towards you down the left side of the room. Every face is towards you, +forty abreast, and forty following those, and more forties, columns and +squadrons of them, coming forward as grain comes down a channel, as +graded fruit pours down a shoot. You do not see where they come +from--their turn is far away under the pillars there; you do not see +where they go to--they pass away out of sight again beneath you. They do +not seem the same over and over again, but all the youths and maidens of +the world, coming on and on, and new, always new.... Then you look to +the right, and instantly your eyes are sensible of a darker ensemble. +That is because you see, not faces now, but the backs of heads; not +gaily striped shirts and bright ties, but plain shoulders only. And they +pass away as they came, all the youths and maidens of the world with +their backs to you. Not one turns for a look at you, not one nods you +farewell. It is like your own youth leaving you.... And then magically +all alters. Two more bars and, as if some strange and all-potent and +instantaneously acting element had been dropped into the setting and +returning human fluid, of a sudden it all breaks up. It effervesces. +Every couple is seen to be waltzing. Two by two they turn, and your +youth is no longer coming to you nor departing from you, but stops and +plays. It stops and plays--for two bars--and lo, the other again. Once +more they troop towards you with their faces seen, once more troop away +with faces averted. The illusion becomes a spell. Coming, going, all +different, all the same, parallel legions with faces to the future and +faces to the grave--it is a little like Llanyglo itself. Suddenly you +find yourself drawn a little closer to John Willie Garden. You do not +want to look down from a balcony on all the young manhood and young +womanhood of the world. One, one only, will suffice you, and with her +you will come brightly down, all eyes and rosiness and laughter, and +with her go in a soberer livery away again.... But luckier you than John +Willie if you find that one. His eyes, practised as they were in +scanning the Kursaal throng, did not see her. The _coda_ came; the vast +oblong well lighted up for a moment as a poplar lights up when the wind +blows upon it--it was the slightly wider swing of skirts seen from above +as the dance quickened to its finale; and then, as if something else +potent and inimical had been dropped into the solution, there was a +break for the sides, and the shining floor was seen again. + +"Damn!" muttered John Willie Garden. + +Percy, relishing the spectacle of John Willie on the hunt, was in no +hurry. "The arbours?" he suggested laconically as John Willie rose; but +again John Willie did not reply. For one thing, it was a little +difficult to see into those dark nooks among Philip Lacey's barrows and +planks and new larches and heaps of upturned earth; for another, he had +an assurance that she he sought would not be there. + +"Come on," he grunted. + +"Ah!" said Percy, with an exaggerated shake of himself. "Has the moment +at last arrived when we quaff?" + +But already John Willie had stridden on ahead. + +They took a known short cut through dark and obstructed windings, and +presently reached the side-door of the adjoining hotel. It had certain +rooms where ladies unaccompanied might get a drink, but into these they +barely glanced. Percy grinned. Should John Willie find the object of his +search in one of the other rooms, then there was reasonable hope of a +row. He had never before seen John Willie so persistently asking for +trouble. + +The door at which they paused showed a room crowded, bright, and full of +a lawn of tobacco-smoke. It was not a large room, but it must have held +twenty men and as many women, and you could have seen their like on any +summer Sunday at Tagg's Island, or any day in Regent Street, or on +Brighton Front. They sat in chairs of saddlebag or leather, and the +fingers of the men were poised over the large cigar-boxes the waiters +held before them, or else made little circular gestures about the +circumference of the little round tables, as much as to say "Same again" +or "Mine." Little but champagne, liqueurs, or brandies-and-soda seemed +to be to their taste, and John Pritchard might indeed have thought them +"very ritss whatever"; gold seemed to come from them at a touch, notes +at little more. Just within the door a very brown man sat with a plump +little lady about whose short fingers gems seemed to have candied, as +sugar candies about a string; and next to them another man admired as +much of his companion's shoes as could be seen for the champagne cooler +on the floor. There was not much noise. There was a good deal of +whispering about horses. + +A ring was widened for the new-comers about one of the larger +tables--"Arthur!" Percy called as he passed one of the waiters. "Bag o' +beer, and Mr. P. Briggs's compliments to Miss Price and will she please +come at once." They settled down. + +This was Percy's present humour--to drink pints of beer from a silver +tankard that resembled a tun among the gem-like liqueur-glasses, and to +make love to Miss Price, the fat and creasy and unapproachable +hotel-manageress. Perhaps he intended to convey that few other new +sensations remained to him at the end of his three-and-twenty hard-lived +years. Sometimes John Willie laughed at this posture of his friend's, +but to-night he thought it merely stupid and idiotic. He had come here +because he had thought he might as well be having a drink as +fruitlessly searching; now he thought he might as well be searching as +having a drink he didn't want. Percy was ordering the drinks +now--"Vermouth, Val? Cissie, your's is avocat, I know. Now, Johannes +Guglielmus, what will you imbibe?" Presently John Willie sat glowering +at a whiskey-and-soda. The girl on his left, whom Percy had addressed as +Cissie, made an arch attempt to talk to him, and then gave up the +laborious task and turned her back. Miss Price, the manageress, +appeared, and Percy began his stupid and facetious love-making. John +Willie wondered whether he had searched the Dancing-Hall thoroughly +after all. + +The table grew noisy, and there were appreciative grins from other +tables; Percy was trying to draw that disgustingly fat manageress on to +his knee. And, with the pace thus set by Percy, the whole room woke up. +The waiters began to move about more quickly and to call for assistance, +and there was applause as somebody opened the lid of the piano.... + +John Willie sat before his untouched whiskey-and-soda. He was once more +wondering whether it would be worth while to return to the Dancing-Hall, +or whether she might not by this time be on the Pier. And again, and +ever again, he wondered when and where he had seen her before.... + +Again Percy's silly joyous voice broke in. He was expostulating with +Miss Price. + +"Look, Cissie's sitting on Val's----" + +"Let be, Mr. Briggs--indeed I will not be pulled about like that!----" + +"Then sit on Mr. Garden's--cheer him up--he's looking for Gertie, the +Double-Blank from Blackburn, and can't find her----" + +"There, now, Mr. Briggs!--Now I shall have to go and get a needle and +thread!----" + +Somebody interposed.--"Here, chuck it, Percy; somebody might come in.... +Hallo, John Willie, you off?" + +For John Willie had pushed back his chair. He reached for his hat. +"Leave us a lock of your hair for my mourning-brooch," Percy's muffled +voice came after him, but he was off. + +Perhaps she would be at the Wheel.... + +But she was not at that immense tyre slung with upholstered coaches, nor +yet to be seen at the side-shows round about. He left the Kursaal, and +joined the dense throng that made a double stream under the Promenade +lamps. He told himself he was a fool. She might have left Llanyglo +within a few hours of his having seen her--might be back in any of the +towns of England or Scotland or Wales by this time. But he did not cease +to seek. He reached the Pier again. Drub-drub-drub-drub-drub-drub-drub. +It was now solid with flesh, and indeed he had not walked half its +length when the closing-bell clanged. The glow over the pier-head +Pavilion went suddenly out, and so, a few moments later, did a hundred +yards of the lamps on either side. He heard the usual cries of +mock-terror. It was no good going up there now.... + +Nor would she be in the Floral Valley. In fact, he had better give it +up. He had better clear out of Llanyglo for a bit. He was sick of this +dusty dance of pleasure, and the Wakes crowds would be here in a few +days.... He would go and fish up Delyn. The Water Scheme hadn't spoiled +the lake; they had only built a quite small dam with locks at one end, +and the grid of service-reservoirs was lower down. Sharpe had left the +hut. He would go there for a few days and have his bread and mutton and +cheese sent up from the inn in the valley below. He would tell Minetta +to get somebody to stay with her, and would go in the morning.... + +He was passing the closed fancy-shop at the corner of Gardd Street when +he came to this resolution; and suddenly he stopped dead. Minetta!... +What was it that the thought of his sister, coming at this moment, +reminded him of? It was odd, but it had certainly reminded him of +something that had seemed to come near him only to escape him again +immediately. Minetta!... He saw Minetta daily. There was nothing new +about Minetta. She looked after the house, and if he wasn't going to be +in for meals he mentioned the fact, or sometimes didn't, and beyond +that, to tell the truth, he didn't very often think of Minetta. He +didn't suppose she would ever marry--wasn't that kind. He remembered +that years ago that genial idiot Percy Briggs had fancied himself +"sweet" on her, but that sketching of hers---- + +_Ah!_ + +John Willie, who had been still standing at the corner, moved slowly +forward again. He had got it. + +He _knew_ he'd been right! It was a little boast of his that he +remembered faces rather well, and the thing that had perplexed him for +two days was now clear. In a flash he saw in his mind the Llanyglo of +the days of the Briggses and Laceys. He saw a bright diminutive picture +of deck-chairs and bathing-tents on the shore, and June Lacey and Wiggie +having their fortunes told. And he saw a gipsy child, with a head held +as if it had borne an invisible pitcher, and then a foot cut by a piece +of glass, and himself and Percy packed off home in disgrace, and Percy's +mother washing the gashed foot with water from a picnic-basket and +tying it up with a handkerchief. Then Minetta had come up, and had said +that she was going to make a sketch of the child.... + +Ah! It was _she_ who had stood under the red pier-light, watching that +cadmium horn of the moon that lifted itself out of the sea! + + + + +II + +JUNE + + +As it happened, John Willie did not go off fishing on the morrow. He +expected that Minetta would be in bed when he got home, but as he passed +up the path he saw a light burning high in the front of the house. It +was in the room beneath that date-stone under which he had once put a +sixpence, and that room, because of its high and uninterrupted view of +the sea, was one of the guest-chambers. He wondered who had come. + +His supper was laid in the dining-room, but he did not want it, and so +passed straight upstairs. As he turned along the landing to his own room +he heard a door opened on the floor above, and his sister called "Is +that you?" He answered, entered his bedroom, and began to undress. + +But he had scarcely got his boots unlaced when there came a tap at the +door, and Minetta entered. Her dark hair was in plaits, she wore a wrap +over her nightdress, and she carried on her hip a tray with two +claret-stained glasses and a salver with a cut cake. Evidently there had +been a girls' bedroom orgie. + +"Who's come?" John Willie asked, throwing aside his second boot. + +"June Lacey. You knew she was coming," Minetta answered accusingly. + +"No, I didn't--first I've heard of it." + +"You never hear anything when you're reading a newspaper. I told you at +breakfast this morning, and that she was going to wire the time of the +train. And you were out, and I had to leave everything and go and meet +her myself." + +"Sorry," John Willie grunted. He remembered now. "I mean, I didn't +gather it was to-day." + +"Well, I hope you'll manage to spare her an hour or two now that she's +here," Minetta said a little crossly. "I did tell her to come just +whenever she wished, and she didn't know the Wakes were coming on." + +"All right," John Willie yawned. "I was going fishing, that's all; but I +won't if you don't want. How long's she staying?" + +"At least a fortnight. So don't say I haven't told you that. And do try +to be in just occasionally. Have you had supper?" + +"I didn't want any, thanks. Sorry I forgot, Min. Say good night to June +for me." + +Five minutes later he had turned out the gas and tumbled into bed. + +Except that she postponed his escape from ennui for a day or two, June's +arrival was a matter of indifference to him. He had known her for so +long that he regarded her almost as if she had been a split-off portion +of Minetta herself, that happened to possess its own apparatus of speech +and locomotion. He could no more have said whether she was pretty than +he could have said whether Minetta was pretty. It was no trouble to talk +to June. As much talk as was necessary came of itself. He had only to +say "You remember so-and-so----" or "Like that time when----" and +conversation sustained itself out of a hundred trifles desultorily +familiar to both of them. That, at any rate, was a comfort. With +anybody new he would have had to take a certain amount of trouble. With +June it didn't matter. + +So, at breakfast the next morning, he did not actually read the +newspaper as he ate, but he threw out a remark from time to time as it +were over the edge of an imaginary newspaper, and then asked June what +she would like to do that morning. When she replied that she wanted him +to do just whatever he had intended to do, he even hoisted himself to +the level of a little ceremoniousness, and told her that he had no plans +at all save to amuse her--what about a bathe, the morning Concert in the +Pavilion, a drive in the afternoon, and so on? By keeping to this beaten +track of enjoyment, he could, at one and the same time, be entertaining +June and keeping an eye open for that gipsy girl who haunted his +imagination. + +"A bathe?" said June.... "Oh, of course! How stupid of me! I'd forgotten +there was mixed bathing here now. What a change!... Wasn't there a +frightful row about it?" + +There had been a row, but it had been short and sharp. Briefly, +Blackpool and Douglas and Llandudno had settled the matter for them, +and, after a protest for conscience's sake--and also a little more +well-judged absenteeism--even Howell Gruffydd, now Chairman of the +Council, and John Pritchard, a Councillor in his second year, had +yielded. A portion of the shore had been set apart for this "playing +with fire," but within a year even this had become a dead letter. The +only thing that now distinguished this portion of the beach from the +rest was a certain heightened jocundity in the advertisements on the +sides of the bathing-machines at that spot. The virtues of Pills and +Laxatives were a little more loudly announced there, and this +heartiness and lack of false shame culminated in a long hoarding that +was erected on one of the groynes, and bore on one side the legend "THE +NAKED TRUTH" (which was that Somebody's Remedies were the Best), and on +the other the words "TO THE PURE" (who were warned against Fraudulent +Imitations). For the rest folk now bathed where they would. + +So, idly, John Willie told June of the town's struggle between its +principles and its living, and then they rose from the table. When June +heard that Minetta wasn't coming with them she wanted to stay behind and +help; but Minetta persuaded her that she would only be in the way, and +that anyway she couldn't help her with her painting; and presently, with +towels and costumes, she and John Willie went forth and, after a casual +discussion about its being rather soon after breakfast to bathe, +descended to the beach. + +June was certainly a pretty enough girl for even a fastidious young man +to be seen about with. No neater shoes than those that moved beneath the +gypsophylla of her petticoats were to be seen on the whole Promenade, +and she held her longish figure trimly, and was almost on the "fast" +side with her little thin switch of a cane. She was an inch taller than +John Willie, too, which was another inch of smartness to be seen walking +with. He found her a bathing-machine and secured another for himself; +and when, presently, they lay on their backs side by side a hundred +yards farther out from the shore than anybody else, with the sun hot on +their faces and their eyes blinking up at the intense blue, they +continued to talk as they had talked before--of who had been to Llanyglo +lately and who had not, and of what had become of Mrs. Maynard, and +whether anybody had seen Hilda Morrell lately, and whether that London +man--what was his name--Mr. Ashton--had been heard of since. John +Willie, for his part, asked how Mrs. Lacey and Wiggie were, and told +June what a lot was thought of her father's laying out of the Kursaal +Gardens, and asked her when the work was expected to be finished. + +Then they came in again, dressed, and regained the Promenade. + +John Willie was surprised to find how quickly the morning went. The +Concert was half over by the time they reached the Pavilion, and when +the Concert was over and the drub-drub on the boards of the Pier became +incessant, June said that, build as they would, it would be a long time +before they built on the Trwyn. To that John Willie replied that he +wasn't so sure, and told her of how at one time it had been a toss-up +whether they wouldn't make a terrace there and build the "Imperial" on +it; and June's reply was that she would never have thought it. Then John +Willie looked at his watch, and at first thought it must have stopped, +the time had flown so. They turned their faces to the Promenade again, +and at a Booking Kiosk John Willie ordered a landau for half-past two. +Minetta (he told June) would have finished her work by then, and the +three of them could go either out Abercelyn way, or through Porth Neigr +and round home, or along the Delyn road, just as June wished. June said +that if she really had her choice, she would like the Abercelyn drive, +because it was years since she had been there, and she would like to see +how much it had altered. + +So out towards Abercelyn the three of them went that afternoon, and +June's eyes opened wide at the Sarn manganese sidings, and John Willie +told her to mind that gypsophylla of her petticoats against the +coal-heaps and grease-boxes of the wagons. Then back in the landau +again, he took a well-earned rest while Minetta and June talked. He +leaned back against the hot leather, and smoked and watched them, and +wondered, first, whether anybody would ever marry Minetta, and, next, +whether anybody would ever marry June, and then all at once found +himself wondering about the gipsy girl again. + +Suppose he should take seats for June and Minetta at some entertainment +that evening, should see them comfortably settled, and should then go +out for another look for her?... + +But, now that he knew who she was, he thought of her, somehow, ever so +slightly differently. He was no less set on finding her; indeed he was +more set; but part of the possible surprise and excitement had certainly +gone. Had he apparently not been destined not to see her again, the +thing would have been less of an adventure than he had at first +supposed. There would have been far fewer discoveries to make. It might +even have been difficult to talk to her. He could talk pleasantly to +June and be thinking of something else all the time; but he could hardly +have asked Ynys Lovell how her mother was getting on with her +chair-mending and fortune-telling, or have told her that he had heard +that her kinsman Dafydd Dafis had won the "penillion" contest at the +Eisteddfod.... + +_Ah!_---- + +Again he had it, and, lying back on the hot leather of the hired landau, +wondered that he had not had it sooner. Of course--Dafydd Dafis. If +anybody knew where she was, Dafydd would know. _That_ was what he would +do that evening while Minetta and June were at the Concert. He would +take a stroll to Dafydd's house (which was no longer the single-roomed +cottage near the old Independent Chapel, but a two-roomed one in +Maengwyn Street), and he would sit down and have a smoke and ask Dafydd +how all was with him.... + +At this point he became conscious that June was speaking to him. She was +offering him a penny for his thoughts. Instantly he fell into the rut of +easy conversation again. It took him hardly a moment to find a topic. + +"Eh?" he said.... "Oh!--You can have them for nothing. I was just +thinking of that place of the Kerrs in Pontnewydd Street. I suppose +you've heard all about that?" + +"No, I've not heard a word," June declared. "Do tell me!" + +After all, it was but a step from his real thought to the narrative he +now told June. Between Dafydd Dafis and Tommy Kerr was now the +association of an all but declared feud, which would break out into open +enmity the moment anything happened to Tommy's brother Ned. More than +any man in Llanyglo Dafydd had writhed at that wonderful building of the +Hafod Unos, and since then he had remembered something else that had set +him darkly flushing. It had been Tommy Kerr (or one of his boon +companions--it came to the same thing) who, when Dafydd had returned +rapt after the first day of the Eisteddfod, had cast two-pence on the +ground and had drunkenly demanded a song. Yes, that remark, scarce heard +at the time, had come back since. They had offered him, Dafydd, their +dirty dross in exchange for Song, and had bidden him stoop to pick it +up.... + +And that mortal insult had reminded Dafydd of an older memory still. +This was, that of the four Kerrs, Tommy had been the only one who had +not tumbled into that open boat when that chilling cry of +"_Llongddrylliad!_" had sounded on that stormy night years and years +before. That that had not been Tommy's fault mattered nothing; as soon +as Dafydd had remembered this he had felt himself released from the last +shadow of an obligation. It was another stick to beat Tommy with and +"beating him" now meant, as everybody knew, waiting until his brother +died and then "purring" him out of the Hafod, if not by fair means, +then--well, purring him out none the less. + +And that stick Tommy was to be beaten with was only the latest of many. +It was a whole history of sticks--of the Council's Sons of Belial set at +Tommy, collectors, inspectors of this and that and the other, policemen +to apprehend him for drunkenness, sergeants to warn publicans that if +they harboured Tommy they might be made to feel it in other ways.... But +lately they had withdrawn this last prohibition. Putting their heads +together, they had judged it best that Tommy should drink all he could, +and more.... He had done so, and did not seem a single penny the worse +for it. Moreover, he had now openly declared himself an abominator of +Welshmen and everything else Welsh. Nightly he zig-zagged home crying +out against the whole smiling, thievish crew, their Kursaals and +Pavilions and Dancing-Halls and Concerts Llanyglo. He lurched along +Pontnewydd Street after everybody else had gone to bed, roaring "_Glan +Meddwdod Mwyn_." How he had twenty times escaped breaking his neck when +they had laid down the Pontnewydd Street tramlines nobody knew.... And +whenever he remembered that they wanted his Hafod and would have it as +soon as Ned died, he offered to _give_ it away to any Welshman who would +repeat after him, word for word ... but his forms of words varied +widely, and no more than the Amalekites could some of those against whom +he railed pronounce his words that began with "sh." + +So John Willie, as the landau bowled homewards, had to tell June all +this, and June was extraordinarily interested. Minetta watched them +both, and, in her turn, wondered about John Willie and _his_ marrying. +She liked to have June to visit her; she wasn't so sure that she wanted +June as a standing ornamental dish. Indeed she rather thought she +didn't, and, allowing for many large but still accidental differences, +Minetta was not without a trace of the malicious humour of Tommy Kerr +himself. + +In fairness she had to admit, however, that so far there were no signs +that June was setting her cap at John Willie. + +That night again, however, John Willie had little luck of his searching, +this time of Dafydd Dafis. He sought him at his home, he sought him +abroad, but he failed to find him and he joined June and his sister +again where they sat listening to The Lunas, those incomparable +Drawing-Room Entertainers. He bought them chocolate and he bought them +ices, and then, at the end of the performance, he proposed a walk along +the Promenade before they turned in. Not to lose them, he passed an arm +through either of theirs, his sister's arm and that of this tall and +pretty and undisturbing extension of his sister. They set their faces +towards the Pier that stretched like a sparkling finger out to sea. + +It was the hour of the ebb, and lately, at that hour, an odd and new +activity had begun to make sharper that contrast between the bright and +crowded and restless Promenade and the solemn void that pushed as it +were its dark breast against that two-miles-long chain of gold and +silver lamps, straining the slender fetter into a curve. Down below the +railings, at three or four points, not more, an upturned face with +tightly shut eyes was praying aloud. They looked like little floating, +drowned, yet speaking masks. Each evangelist had his little knot of +three or four companions, but these had come with him, and of hearers +they had none. They stood on the trampled sand, just below the +gas-lighted line of pebbles; a boat drawn up, or a yard or two of +groyne, struggled between light and shadow beyond them; far out in the +bay the twinkle of a solitary light could be seen; the rest was +blackness and immensity. It made Infinity seem strangely weak. Here It +was, striving to make Itself known to the finite, Its sole instrument a +little oval mask and a voice that could not be heard five yards away; +and never a head was turned. Calling and laughing, the babel of their +voices like the rattle of the pebbles that roll back with the retiring +wave, they passed and passed and passed. One would have said that some +vast angelic skater had cut that sweeping outside-edge of light, and +then, repulsed, had rushed away into the darkness again. + +And this was something else for John Willie to tell this pretty, +unexigent June. It had only been going on about a fortnight, he said, +but he didn't think they'd heard the last of it yet. There was a Revival +or something coming slowly up the coast, he said, and--who did June +think was doing it?--why, Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd! + +"Never!" June exclaimed. + +"Rather! You remember him, don't you? Howell Gruffydd the grocer's son; +pale-faced chap, with a great lump of hair; and by Jove, he is stirring +'em up! He started at Aberystwith, and worked his way up through +Aberdovey and Towyn and Barmouth and Portmadoc, with no end of crowds +following him wherever he went. I expect he'll be here presently. If he +comes when the Wakes are on there will be a shindy!... I say, aren't you +feeling a bit cold? Better be getting along home. I'll take you as far +as the corner, and then if you don't mind I'll leave you--I want to find +a man if I can----" + +Five minutes later he had got rid of them, and stood in meditation. Was +it worth while trying for Dafydd Dafis again? Or taking another stroll +along the Pier? Perhaps it wasn't. He was rather tired, and this seemed +a stupid kind of thing he had been doing for the last few days. He'd +potter about with June for another day--perhaps he had rather neglected +Minetta lately--and then for the fishing up Delyn. In that way he would +be off just as the Wakes people arrived. Already the lodging-house +keepers were getting ready for them, putting away their ornaments and so +on. They would be here on Friday night; to-day was Wednesday; John +Willie would be off on Friday morning. + +This time he kept to his decision. He walked about with the pretty and +untroublesome June all the next morning, and in the afternoon Minetta +joined them. She approved warmly of his fishing-plan, and said she was +sure the change would do him good. He told them to keep away from the +crowds and not to be out too late, and then, on the Friday morning set +off. + +When, at nine o'clock the same night, he walked up the path again and +appeared in the dining-room just as June and Minetta were thinking of +going to bed, Minetta stared. She had thought him miles away. + +She stared still harder when he mumbled that he had "forgotten +something," and intended to be off again in the morning. + + + + +III + +DELYN + + +He had not at first seen that black dress. Sharpe's old cottage was +never locked, and he had walked straight in, had put down his little +dressing-bag, and had begun to empty his pockets, setting his flask, his +fly-book, his store of tobacco and certain provisions on the little deal +table under the single window. At a first glance there was nothing to +show that the place had been entered since he had last been there. The +mattress of Sharpe's narrow pallet had been rolled up at the bed-head +and a patchwork quilt spread over it; the two windsor chairs stood in +their accustomed places; and the rods in their brown canvas covers stood +as usual in the corner. Only Sharpe's photographs had gone from the +walls, leaving the little black heads of nails and tacks, each over its +slightly paler oblong of plain deal boarding. + +Had not John Willie thought that he had better drag the bedding on which +he was to sleep out into the sun at once, he would not have found the +frock. It had been thrown across the roll of mattress and covered with +that old piece of patchwork. Nor, since it was folded in a square, did +he even then recognise the thing for a frock. Only when he had picked it +up and it had revealed itself had he stood, suddenly arrested, +alternately gazing at it and then looking obliquely at the floor. Then, +as he had slowly put it down again, at its full length this time, there +had peeped at him from half under the roll of mattress, first a white +linen collar with one of the little sham pearl studs that are given away +with such things still in one of its button-holes, and next a pair of +tiny cylindrical cuffs.... + +Perhaps already, deep within himself, he had known that she was not far +away.... + +Then, slowly and methodically, he had begun to search the hut. His +search had been productive of the following discoveries:-- + +Thrust under the bed: A newish oval brown tin box (which he had not +opened), and a pair of black shoes. + +On the lower shelf of Sharpe's little provision-cupboard: a round +narrow-brimmed black hat. + +On the upper shelf, among cups, plates, and other odds and ends: A +seven-pound paper bag half full of flour, and a mug with some still +fresh milk in it--he tasted it. + +Outside the hut: A stone or two in a little clearing in the fern, a +stick-heap, the ashes of a recent fire, and a frying-pan. + +Then he had re-entered the hut. He had sat down in one of the windsor +chairs. He had been filling his third or perhaps his fourth pipe when +she herself had appeared in the doorway. + +All this had been the day before. + + * * * * * + +As he now walked up that one-in-seven slope under the firs he remembered +again, for the fiftieth time in twenty hours, her appearance as she had +stood there. She had worn an old red blouse which she had not troubled +to tuck in at the waist, a petticoat of faded greenish-blue (no +gypsophylla there), and her legs and feet had been bare. And at first +he had thought she was going to run away. But she had only recoiled as a +cat recoils, yielding ground without abandoning it. He himself had not +moved. Move, and she might still be off as suddenly as a hare; sit still +and say "Hallo, Ynys, not much in the chair-mending line up here, is +there?" and she might stay.... And now, as he trudged up under the firs, +he blamed Llanyglo that he had not heard that her mother was dead. Had +Llanyglo remained a hamlet, or had it grown merely reasonably and within +measure, the death even of Belle Lovell would have been an event; now, +with towns in Lancashire half-emptied (he had seen it that morning, +Llanyglo black and boiling like a cauldron of pitch with the people of +the Wakes)--now such simple happenings passed unnoticed. Belle had died +a year before, but that was not the reason Ynys wore black. She wore +black because black was the livery of Philip Lacey's Liverpool +flower-shop girls. Black showed up the flowers to better advantage. +Ynys, after months of lonely wanderings and getting of her bread as best +she could, had remembered Philip Lacey's promise when she had cut her +foot that morning on the shore, had tramped to Liverpool, had asked for +Philip at his principal establishment in Lord Street, and now sold +stately blooms the poor hedgerow cousins of which she had formerly given +away, pattering bare-foot after pedestrians on the road with them in her +hand. She had been given a fortnight's holiday, and had come to Llanyglo +to spend it. + +As the path under the firs grew steeper still, John Willie wondered +whether she would have kept her word to him. He had made her welcome to +the cottage of which she had already made free, but that, he knew, did +not mean that she might not have packed up and fled the moment he had +turned his back--no, not even though she had promised not to do so. He +had seen enough of her yesterday to guess that her word given would be +an empty and artificial thing the moment her inclination changed; nay, +she might have given it with no intention whatever of keeping it, just +to gain a little time. Even should he find her frock and her oval tin +box still there, that would not necessarily mean that she would return. +A box of matches was her luggage. Except as a depository for these +things she had not used the hut. She had cooked her meals outside, and +had slept on a litter of bracken. + +Nevertheless, John Willie had left the cottage to her, and, for fear a +stray shepherd might gossip, had himself returned home rather than sleep +at the inn a few miles below. + +He continued to climb, past rocks spotted with pennywort and trickling +with rills, orange and whitey-green with lichen and tongued with +polypodi, past crops of dead nettle and vistas of fronds, past dust of +pine-needles and debris of cones. Now and then a flutter of wings broke +the stillness of the aisles, but no song; and always he had the skyline +almost overhead on his right, and on his left, beyond the little grid of +reservoirs far below, the crisscrossing AAAA's of a mountain-side of +larches. + +She had not taken advantage of his absence to fly. He saw her as he +ceased to climb and gained the half-way fold that held Llyn Delyn in its +crook. She was standing outside the hut, but she was not wearing the old +unconfined red blouse of the day before now. The small spot he saw a +quarter of a mile ahead was a black one. He waved his hand, but she did +not respond. He saw her sit down with her back against the wall of the +hut and cross her arms over her knees. Three minutes later he was +standing beside her. + +And now that he had come he was not very clear in his mind why he had +come. True, he could have given a dozen reasons--the bursting over the +town of that flood of operatives he had seen that morning, his desire to +fish, his wish (as he now suddenly and rather startlingly knew) to +escape further attendance on June, and so forth; and these reasons would +have been precisely a dozen too many. Had all Lancashire been drubbing +on the Pier and she standing under the crimson light watching that +strange and dhowlike sail of the moon glaring orange over the water, +John Willie would not have been up Delyn. He had intended to fish, but +fishing was now far from his thoughts. And already he was aware of +another thing, namely, that while June had been no trouble at all to +talk to, talk with Ynys was a heavy business. Yesterday, every sentence +he had attempted had been as difficult as if it had been the first. Only +by a series of almost violent extractions had he learned that her mother +was dead and that she sold flowers (curious that they should have been +June's father's flowers!) in Liverpool. He supposed he must begin to +talk again now. He could hardly be with her and not talk. Well, if he +must talk, he would. + +"I say, you're well out of it all to-day!" he exclaimed, with apparent +heartiness. "They began to come in at eleven last evening, and they've +been coming in all night. Whew, but I ran, I can tell you!" + +She had been looking in the direction of the lake, which, however, she +could hardly have seen, so low did she sit; and he, as he stood, could +see no more of her than the straight white parting of her hair and her +tanned forearms and wrists about her knees. The black of her dress was a +sooty black, but you would only have called her hair black because there +was nothing else to call it. It was neither more nor less black than a +bowl of black lustre is black; it had a surface, but it had also depths +where you saw the sun again, and the sky lurked, and the green of the +ferns that grew about the hut. Had John Willie put his hand near it it +might have been dimly reflected, as it would have been reflected in a +peat pool. + +The sound of his voice seemed almost to startle her, but she did not +look up. + +"Hwhat do you say?" she said. She slightly overstressed the internal +"h's," and her accent was Welsh, but uniquely soft. As she had not +heard, he had to repeat his remark. + +"I mean those Wakes people. There are thousands of them there now." He +made a little motion of his head behind him. "It's better up here." +Then, as still she did not reply, he asked her a direct question. "You +didn't stay long in Llanyglo, did you?" + +"I stay there one day," she answered. A scarcely perceptible movement of +her forefinger accompanied the numeral. + +"Oh, then of course that was the day I saw you. Did you see me?" + +"No." + +"You were standing at the pier-head, watching the moon rise." + +Ynys did not deny this. Neither did she confirm it. + +"Then you disappeared," John Willie continued, "and I couldn't find you +again." + +To this she replied after a moment.--"I went back to the house, and +paid the Englishwoman, and then I came away. In the morning I arrive +here." + +"Do you mean you walked all night?" + +"There is lit-tle night this time of the year." + +John Willie was silent. Only a week before he had left an evening party +at the "Imperial" to find the sun already burning a hole in the edge of +Mynedd Mawr. + +"And how much longer holiday have you?" John Willie asked presently. + +"Six days," answered the girl; and again the numeral was accompanied by +a slight gesture of her fingers. + +"And then you go back to Liverpool?" + +Complete silence was all the answer he had to that question. + +Then, suddenly, Ynys moved. She stood up. For the first time her +seaweed-coloured eyes looked straight into John Willie's. + +"You left that place early. You will be hungry. I caught some +fis-s--_brithyll_. I think she cooked now." + +She disappeared round the corner of the hut. + +John Willie would have liked to ask her why she had put on the black +dress and the black shoes, but something seemed to whisper to him not to +do so. No doubt she had caught the trout with her hand, in one of the +pools of a stream that slid and chattered under fern down the side of +Delyn, and he feared that did he approach her too suddenly even by words +she might be off, even as those trout would have vanished in a flash at +the least disturbance of the water by her hand. She had cooked them on +the wood; she had also made a cake of flour and water and no salt; and +she served the fish in a tin platter by the little clearing she had made +for the hearth. He sat now, and she stood; she brought also a mug of +milk, from the surface of which she took a tiny caterpillar with the +tip of a frond; and when he had eaten she cleaned the platter by +scouring it with a handful of fern-rot and then setting it in a little +stream with a stone upon it. Then they stood before one another again, +he with his back to the hut, she in front of him, her head always +superbly erect, but slowly turning from time to time, while her eyes +sought the lake, the line of bracken against the sky where the mountain +dropped, and his own eyes, indifferently. + +Then, unexpectedly, she asked a question. + +"You come to fis-s?" she asked. + +He said that he had thought of it. + +"There is wa-ter in the boat, but indeed I not touch it. I go and empty +it," she said. + +But he stopped her.--"Oh, it's no good now--too bright," he said. "Might +try in the evening. Sit down, won't you? I want to ask you some +questions." + +She curled herself up in the bracken, and he set his back against the +wall of the hut and began to fill his pipe. + +But instead of questioning her, John Willie had all the appearances of a +man who was questioning himself. He sat a little behind Ynys, so that +when she looked straight before her he lost her full profile; and he +moved no more than she. He was suddenly thinking how thoroughly sick he +was of Llanyglo. + +For if he had helped to make Llanyglo, and knew its lighting and its +watering, its building and its leases and its subsoil, Llanyglo had also +helped to make him. The drub-drub on the Pier, the inanities of his +friend Percy Briggs, evening parties that began at midnight and ended +with the sun high in the sky, complaints from his sister that she saw +him only in the short intervals between a coming home and a setting out +again--this had been pretty much the reaction of Llanyglo on John Willie +Garden. He was a very ordinary young man.--But here was a world peopled +only by sheep, the myriad insects that hopped and wove and chirruped in +the tall fern, the kites and curlews overhead, and the trout far below +the surface of the lake. His lashes made rainbows before his half-closed +eyes, and those eyes, opening again, could gaze at the tips of the sunny +fern against the deeps of the sky until the difference between them +became almost as intensified as the difference between dark and bright. +Spiders no bigger than freckles seemed to be doing important things +under their bright green roofs--for only the under sides of the fronds +were green and translucent: the fern on which the sun beat directly was +no more green than Ynys's hair was black.... And the sunny parts of +Ynys's arms were of the colour of a hayfield with much sorrel, while the +round beneath was as cool as the under curve of a boat on the water.... + +It would have been part of the peace of that hot midday could he have +dozed with his head in the crook of that arm. + +Of other desire to break its peace had he none. + +And Ynys? + +She had seen those fretted parasols of the fern, meshed and lacy and +interpenetrating, a vast rug of whispering frondage--she had seen them, +or their like, since they had been no more than tender, uncurling +pastoral staffs, brown, with tiny inner crocketts not even green yet. +She had watched them unfold their weak fingers--yes, from Lord Street, +Liverpool, she had watched them unroll as a soft caterpillar unrolls. In +a cool and darkened shop, with the floor always wet, she had seen, with +those seaweed-coloured eyes, not the great queenly hydrangeas, nor the +burning torches of the gladioli, nor the fat and scentless roses, nor +the great half-pint pitchers of the arum lilies--she had seen, not these +cold grandiflora, but the celandine and anemone of the hedge-bottoms, +and the cool pennywort on the rocks, and the soft and imperceptible +change, day by day, of those mountains many, many railway stations away. +Those other great robed and wedding-dressed blooms? She had not +considered them to be flowers. Flowers were the sappy bluebells she had +pulled, white-stalked and squeaking, from the banks, receiving a penny +for them--but not in exchange. She had sold the hydrangea-things without +even seeing them. And her own weekly fifteen shillings of wages had not +purchased a single glance of her eyes nor a single emotion of her heart. + +And her eyes had not distinguished less between magnificent bloom and +magnificent bloom than they had between this and the other collar, tie, +and bowler hat who, his purchase made, had lingered, and had tried to +talk to her, and had come again. Young women who can see Delyn from +Liverpool can hardly be expected so to distinguish. These young men had +not even been, as the balls and buckets of Howell Gruffydd's shop-window +had been, beyond her reach, she below theirs. She and they might breathe +the same air, but they extracted different elements from it. + +Was that true also of herself and John Willie Garden, lying now among +the fern of Delyn--John Willie, whose clothes (even) were what they were +by a kind of artifice, and not, like Dafydd Dafis's, as if the cropped +grasses themselves had by some natural alchemy become wool, and the wool +clothing, that would be worn out by labour not far from the grasses +again?... + +Because he did not know, John Willie lay there, and watched her cheek +and arm, and forgot that he had said he was going to ask her questions. + +The silence lasted for so long that, when at last he spoke, she might +(he thought) have supposed that he had had a nap in the meantime. He +hoisted himself to his feet, stretched himself, yawned "Ah, that's +better!" and then added, "I say, you might show me where you got those +fish." + +Instantly, a gillie incongruously in a flower-seller's dress, she was on +her feet and walking a little ahead. But he caught her up and kept +abreast of her. They reached the boat, half in and half out of the +gravelly shallow, but she went straight on across a swampy little stream +that led to the upper margin of the lake. Presently it seemed to John +Willie that they would have done better to take the boat, for they had +to skirt a deep shaly spur the slope of which continued unbroken down +under the water and gave under their feet the moment they tried to +ascend it. At a point where she splashed a few yards ahead of him John +Willie suggested that they should take their boots and stockings off, +and he had a momentary fancy that the brown of her cheek deepened a +little; but she made no reply, and they kept on. Then, after more +hundreds of yards of walking and wading, they gained firm earth again. +They were at the bottom of a V-shaped ravine into which all the trees +and scrub of the mountain-sides seemed to have settled. It was known to +a few shepherds as Glyn Iago, and the stream came down it over jagged +stairs of purple slate and under dwarf-oak and birch, thorn and briar +and mountain-ash. + +Again it would have been better to wade through the noisy shallows and +round the boulders spongy with drenched moss, and again he suggested it; +but perhaps the deep gurgle of the fall they were approaching drowned +his voice. He went ahead, putting aside the worst of the brambles, and +he knew without telling when they reached the pool. It was long enough +to have plunged into, too wide to have leapt across even had the rocks +afforded any take-off, and it deepened gradually to blackness, and then +boiled pale and tumultuous again under the plunge of a twelve-foot fall. +Over the pool itself the sunlight glowed in spots only through the +leaves, but on one bank there was a sunny clearing of a few yards +square. Then the trees began again, up and up and up to the sky, a cliff +of leaves that shut the mountains out and the stream in. + +He let her sit down first. This she did where she could see the little +plants and mosses at the water's edge endlessly a-quiver with the tumult +of the fall. Then, sitting down beside her, he again felt that he must +begin talking to her all over again. His mouth flickered for a moment as +he thought of Percy Briggs on the Pier, and then he spoke. + +"If I were you I should move up here," he said. + +She was picking up a snail-shell to throw into the water. She turned, +extraordinarily quickly, and in the seaweed eyes there was a hard and +defensive look, instant, yet old. + +"It iss only my hat and my box," she said quickly. + +"Eh? Oh!----" He laughed. "I only mean there'll be brakes and wagonettes +all over the place now, and anybody might come to the lake.--I say, you +didn't think I meant to chuck you out, did you?" + +"I thought prapss you want to fiss," she replied, turning away and +looking at the gasogene of black water again. + +He laughed again.--"Oh, no. I mean you don't sleep there, and nobody'd +come here, and I could get you a lock and key so that your things would +be safe. You could go there if it rained." + +She tossed the snail-shell into the water, neither accepting his offer +nor rejecting it. + +"Besides," he went on, "I know that if anybody disturbed you you'd be +off. Look here. I'll get you that lock and key. I'm off back to-night, +and I'll bring 'em up to-morrow.--But you will be here won't you?" + +Again--he could not be sure--he fancied her colour deepened. + +"Hwhere should I go to?" she said over her shoulder. + +"Well--anywhere--Liverpool--anywhere." + +And again her reply was to gaze at the boiling of the air-bubbles at the +foot of the fall. + +But John Willie no longer wondered that he should struggle thus with a +conversation when there were rills and rivulets of talk waiting for him +at home at Llanyglo. She was not mute; there were a thousand +communications wrapped up in her very presence. She ran over with +unspoken meanings, babbled for all her silence. Her hair, nearly all +cool green now, as the black water was cool green; that unlearned +balance of her head; the curve of her cheek; those lovely, despotic +forearms--whether that least member of her whole sweet parliament, her +tongue, moved or was still, there was more of approach in all of these +than in June's "Fancy! Do tell me! And how's So-and-So getting on?" +These were the weeds, the dusty groundsel of words; Ynys was her own +vocabulary, every part of her a part of speech.... + +And the theme? The theme that every corpuscle of her announced as she +sat there, listlessly tossing snail-shells and twigs and rolled-up +leaves and blades of grass into the water? + +John Willie was a very ordinary young man. In Liverpool, his eyes would +have seen very little but Liverpool. Perhaps that was why, in Glyn Iago, +he had not the perfect freedom of sun and air, of growing and dying +things, and things growing again, of moving water, of that essential +speech with this creature at his side that at the last has no need of +words. For, for good and ill mingled, they make shames and fears in the +Liverpools of the land, and codes, and suppressions, and the apparatus +of Conscience, and it is too late for you, too late for me, too late for +John Willie, to unmake them. John Willie had begun by questioning Ynys; +now, far more searchingly, Ynys was questioning him. + +And the end of her questioning of him was that he would have called +himself a cur had he as much as thought of not doing "the decent +thing...." + +Indeed it was precisely because he thought so resolutely and intently of +doing that thing that by and by he rose. It was only half-past four; he +could be home in two, or two-and-a-half hours; and for that matter he +was not in any hurry to get home. He was in a hurry now only because +Ynys spoke too much. She gave him no rest from her close inquisition. He +must answer those questions that she so pressed home or take himself +quickly off, to add (as he knew) the fuel of thought to that flame with +which he already burned. + +Therefore, again standing by her, he asked her one more question only. + +"You will be here to-morrow?" he said, his eyes anxiously on her face. + +What his answer would have been had she said "No," or had he not +believed that nod of her head, it is useless to ask. + +He left her still tossing the debris into the water. + + * * * * * + +He began to be aware of the change the Wakes people had wrought in +Llanyglo before the trap had carried him a mile along the road. Twice in +that distance he had to whip up to get through the dust of vehicles +ahead. He had been right in saying that the landaus and brakes and +wagonettes would be all over the place now. They were taking the family +parties back to dinner at the hotels. + +Then, still five miles from Llanyglo, he began to allow the brakes and +wagonettes to overtake him again. He had remembered that he was in no +hurry. Hurry would only mean the crowd sooner, the noise sooner, and +supper sooner, with the conversation of June and Minetta. At a place +called Doll he turned aside into a narrow lane that would take him by a +circuitous route into the Porth Neigr road near the stone quarries. +Then, sitting sideways on the seat, with his head sunk and the whiplash +trailing over the dashboard, he allowed the horse to take him at its own +pace. + +Of course, he could marry Ynys; there was nothing to be said against +that except that hitherto he had not thought of marriage. Marriage, in +John Willie's observation of his married friends and acquaintances, was +a quite definite and circumscribed thing, in which prospects played a +part, and settlements, and houses of a certain kind, and certain +well-marked changes in the bride's demeanour towards her still +unmarried friends, and a certain tendency to stoutness and baldness on +the part of the groom. Moreover, behind every suggested marriage there +lurked the question whether it "would do." His father and mother, when +he came to speak of marriage, would want to know whether it would "do"; +Minetta would have her opinion about whether it would "do"; and if it +did not "do," all his friends and acquaintances would by and by shake +their heads and say that it had been plain all along how _that_ would +turn out.... + +On the other hand, the case was complicated--not in principle (that was +beastly clear)--but by allowances in practise. Llanyglo had for some +time been far from exacting; it was now, in certain of its phases, at +any rate, almost exacting in the opposite direction. As many social +allowances were made for the young man who had something "on" as +liberties were granted to properly affianced couples who had got their +certificate that it would "do." Percy Briggs would have gone off alone, +with his hat on the back of his head and cheerfully whistling, at the +least hint that John Willie had something "on." ... But this that had +come so suddenly and overmasteringly over John Willie was a different +thing altogether. Here was not somebody who played a game of which the +rules and forfeits were known. That game, under one veiling or another, +might form the staple of the Lunas' Drawing-room Entertainment at the +Palace, or of the songs of Miss Sal Volatile in the Pavilion on the +Pier; but Ynys had not even known what she had turned her back on when +she had stood under the raspberry-coloured light, looking out at the +gathering darkness of sky and the still lingering gleam on the sea. +Warned probably, not by hearing and sight, but by some apprehension more +sensitive still, she had stayed to see that orange rising, and then, +before it had become a setting again, had been far on the road to +Delyn.... + +Suddenly John Willie sat up and shook the reins. + +"No, damn it," he said. + +He began to bowl more briskly along the hilly lanes. + +It was after eight o'clock when he reached the quarry, and then for a +time he had to go carefully down the by-lane that the stone-carts had +deeply scored. But on the Porth Neigr road he whipped up again. Hearing +a sound behind him, he drew in; and when there had passed him a great +brake hung all over with Chinese lanterns and full of people singing, +the spell of silence under which he had lain all day was broken. +Thereafter sound merely succeeded sound. As he took the railway bridge, +a "special" roared past below, carrying more people to Llanyglo; and +before its red tail-lights had mingled with the other rubies and +emeralds of the line he had come upon the first couple turning at the +limit of their walk. Then came a large board with "Imperial Hotel" on +it, then a new horse-trough; then benches, then walls with placards on +them. A mile ahead lay the golden corona of the town. This began to +break up into single lights and groups of lights, and then, at a turn, +he saw the Wheel and the jewelled finger of the Pier. He could hear the +noise, an indistinguishable something in the air that was not the wind +and not the sound of the sea; and then at the first roadside lamp it +seemed suddenly to become night. More slowly he rounded Pritchard's +Corner; at the tram terminus the belated shopkeepers made a press about +the Promenade-Pontnewydd Street car; and from the open doors of the +"Tudor Arms" was wafted the smell of beer. + +Delyn and Glyn Iago were part of the night behind him. + +He did not attempt to drive through the crowd that suddenly thickened +about the middle of Pontnewydd Street, where half the road was being +taken up. One of the "Imperial" ostlers took the horse's head, said "All +right, Mr. Garden," and John Willie descended and walked. On the +balconies of the "Grand" and "Imperial," people stood and watched the +stream that descended to the Front. From the Kursaal Gardens came a +noise that presently the ear ceased to hear, so steady and monotonous +was it. Then, walking in the wake of a tram that moved slowly forward +among the street barriers with an incessant clanging of its bell, John +Willie reached the Promenade. + +It was thrice the width of Pontnewydd Street, and so there was more +room; but for all that it was difficult to walk at more than the general +pace. This, nevertheless, football-packs of young men attempted from +time to time to do, breaking their way through. They played +mouth-organs, and at moments, apparently without plan or premeditation, +suddenly formed into rings, feet pattering in clog-steps, eyes fixedly +on those same feet, their backs a fence to hold back the spectators, +while in the middle a couple of young men or a young man and a young +woman danced. Then, as suddenly as they had stopped, they were off +again, arms linked in arms or locked about the waist in front, each +figure a vertebra of a many-jointed onward-rushing snake. Under the +Promenade lamps they advanced, everybody else yielding place as they +came. The little rail-enclosed plots that lay between the pavements and +the hotels were magpied with torn paper and strown with lying figures. +They lay there, in meaningless embrace, moaning long harmonies in +thirds, hats decorated with penny gauds, eating nuts and "rock" and +chocolate, hardly moving when passers-by all but strode over them. +Probably they were discussing nothing more than "So I said to her, +straight to her face----" or the conduct of the shed-overlooker where +they worked throughout the year together and if the passers-by almost +trod on them, they, in return, half absently flirted the passing ankles +with whisks and penny canes. + +But if these lay like bivalves, torpid and content, another and more +active element had awoke in the throng. The Alsatians, had they required +it, were put into countenance now. One felt that they veined and +threaded the mass with something that worked as quietly and as rapidly +as yeast. They fed on it, drawing from it at last an open and confirmed +sanction for all those things they would not have dreamed of doing at +home. One met them here and there in couples, or in couples of couples +with the invisible link between each pair of couples drawing ever +farther and farther out, the women with shawls and hoods and dominoes +over their dinner attire, the men with restless eyes, quick to show by a +touch of hand or elbow that avoidance was desirable or a glance of +complicity no harm. Lamps showed these gestures of understanding between +those who could not have sworn to one another's names. Of the two +solitudes, that of the mountain-top and that of this press where ribs +could hardly lift, they sought and found the second. Perhaps--who +knows?--they were even grateful to those others who moaned those gummy +thirds stretched on the lamplit grass.... + +And scarce two hundred yards away, under the railings of the sea-wall, +here and there a mask, with struggling breast and tightly shut eyes and +writhing lips, prayed.... + +As John Willie pushed at the garden gate, the door at the other end of +the path opened and closed again behind Minetta and June. He met them in +the middle of the path and asked them where they were going. When they +said they were only going for a stroll he ordered them back. Minetta's +"_Oh_--how you startled us!--why, we didn't know you were coming +back----" suggested that she thought her brother might have spoken in +another tone; but John Willie was not thinking of tones. He was thinking +that perhaps after all he had no business to be spending days up Delyn +just at present. A stroll with him to take care of them--well and good; +but not two girls alone.... He said so, rather curtly, in the +dining-room as Minetta got him some supper; but Minetta made no reply. +Again she was thinking that June was a very nice girl, but it was odd +that she should twice have brought her brother back from his fishing +like this. + +John Willie, eating his supper almost savagely, had some ado to reply +politely to June's rills of pretty speech. He wondered now why she +should talk when she had nothing whatever to say. Only her tongue +wagged, and he hardly heard his own tongue wagging in reply. _This_ was +not speech; _this_ was not language!... "Not if I know it," he found +himself suddenly thinking, as June asked him whether the Water Scheme +had spoiled Delyn much, and said that she would like to go and see. But +Minetta said little. She only asked John Willie one direct question. +This was, Whether he had come back for good now. He replied that he +didn't know, and added some futility about fishing-weather and the +difference a night sometimes made. + +Minetta thought that the only extraordinary thing about his reappearance +was that he should have troubled to go away at all. + +June had one piece of information to give him, however. It was two days +old, she said, but there--if John Willie _would_ take himself off on his +unsociable excursions like this he must expect to be a bit out of +things. But she would forgive him, and tell him.--Ned Kerr was dead. It +seemed (June said) that he had once given somebody in Porth Neigr a +canary, and reports had reached him that the canary was not doing very +well--had the pip or the croup or whatever it was canaries did have. He +had worried a lot about the canary (June said), and, a week before, had +been to Porth Neigr to see it. He had had a cold or something himself, +June didn't know what; anyway, he had come back from seeing the canary +and the next day hadn't got up. So his brother had sent for a doctor, +and of course had told the doctor all about it--Ned, the canary, and all +the lot. The doctor had said that _he_ could see nothing the matter with +Ned (which was more than some of them admitted, going on sending bottles +of coloured water and so on and then a bill coming in for pounds and +pounds), but Ned hadn't said anything at all--he'd just died at two +o'clock in the morning. He might just as well have _had_ something the +matter with him, June said. And all about a stupid canary!---- + +Soon after that John Willie told them it was time they went to bed. He +followed them upstairs himself a few minutes later. + +But it was long before he slept. Perhaps he knew already in his heart +that if he really meant that "Damn it, no" he might as well stay at +home now instead of leaving June and Minetta alone in the house. And he +had meant it. He vowed he meant it still. The rusty light on his +ceiling, cast from the corona outside, did not prevent his seeing the +hut again--Glyn Iago--the black-dressed gillie who had tossed the +snail-shells into the water; nor did the faint and harsh and ceaseless +noise outside drown that powerful and wordless eloquence that he had +heard with some faculty other than his bodily hearing.... Then the +sounds grew thinner, yet louder also; fewer, but clearer in the growing +silence of the night. He heard a long-drawn strain of tipsy song, the +tinny thread of sound of a mouth-organ, and then a clock striking +three.... + +But he must go up to Delyn on the morrow. It would be a rotten thing to +tell a girl to be sure to be there and then not to turn up himself. + +And he would take her that lock and key. + + + + +IV + +AN ORDINARY YOUNG MAN + + +He began to spend his days up Delyn and his nights at Llanyglo. To avoid +the shaly spur, he pulled across in the boat each morning from the +beaching-place near the hut to the foot of Glyn Iago, and she had his +breakfast ready for him when he arrived, which was between half-past ten +and eleven o'clock. As if his suggestion had been a command, she had +made her little encampment up the Glyn, fetching dry sticks from up the +steep wood; her hat and her box only remained in the locked shed. + +He did not cast a fly. Minetta began to ask him, when he returned at +night, first what sport he had had, and then why he always chose to fish +in the middle of the day. Then one night he returned to find his sister +showing June her sketches. For some minutes he affected not to be +interested; then, with a highly elaborate yawn, he said, "Oh, I say, +Min--what became of that sketch you once made of that gipsy kid--you +remember--the one mother once took in with a cut foot?--Best thing she +ever did," he added carelessly to June. + +"Oh, it got shoved away somewhere. Why?" said Minetta; but there was a +little quick dropping look in her eyes. + +"Nothing. I just happened to remember it. It was better than some of +these." + +The next morning the sketch, unearthed from some dusty heap or other, +was on his plate when he came down to breakfast. Presently June and +Minetta also came down. By that time he was able to say, quite +composedly, "Oh, I see you found that thing. That's the sketch I was +speaking of, June----" + +But he wondered whether Minetta also could by any chance have seen Ynys +on that, her single night in Llanyglo. + +One rapidly advancing trouble was on his mind. He had not spoken to Ynys +of the passing of her holiday, but he himself could almost hear its +seconds ticking away. Soon two days only remained; the morrow, when he +would see her on Delyn again, would be the eve of her departure. She had +told him that she had taken a return ticket; already he seemed to hear +the whistle of the train by which it was available. She could take that +train either at Llanyglo or at Porth Neigr. + +On the morning of her last whole day he ascended the Glyn and found, as +usual, his trout cooked for him and keeping hot between two plates. He +ate it abstractedly. Again Minetta had remarked pointedly on his lack of +fishing-luck, but it was not that that was troubling him. He was +wondering, not for the first time, what explanation Ynys gave herself of +his untouched rods and buckled fly-book, and whether she too thought it +unusual that he should come so far merely to lie by the stream with her +hour after hour, or else, with a "Shall we go up there?" to ascend the +stream, skirt the wood, gain the open mountain-side, and toil for half +an hour to the summit. He had substituted no other pretence for his +first pretence of fishing. What did she think of it? Or did she not +think of it at all? + +Again that morning, when she had scoured the plates and set them in a +little rocky basin by the quivering moss, he proposed the mountain +climb. In half an hour they were at the top. It was a plateau of +volcanic rock, with scrubs of hazel, and bents and reeds and harebells +ceaselessly stroked by the wind. Behind them, as they sat down under a +rock, only Mynedd Mawr rose higher than they; below them Llyn Delyn lay +like a bit of grey looking-glass set in its little mile-long cleft. They +had raised other bits of looking-glass, too, in other far-off clefts. +About them the mountains rolled as if invisible giants were being tossed +in the visible blankets of the land. On the left only, far from +Llanyglo, a scratch of silver showed that the sea was there. + +"So you're off to-morrow," he said, when they had lain long. He did not +hide from himself the ache the words caused him. + +"My tick-ket say to-morrow," she answered, without emotion. + +He muttered something foolish about an extension.--"But I suppose they +wouldn't keep your place open," he answered himself hopelessly. + +Her next words caused him a marvellous pang of lightness and hope. + +"I think-k I not go back," she said, the seaweed eyes looking at that +far-off silver scratch that was the sea. + +Why did that pang at which he had winced instantly become another pang, +at which he winced no less? What was it that the eyes of his spirit saw, +far, far, farther off than her seaweed ones saw the sea? Her decision to +stay, if she really meant that she would stay, should have meant the +continuance of his happiness; what, then, should change it into +something like an unhappiness and a fear? + +He did not know. He was only an ordinary young man. He only knew that +over that moment, which should have been one of a care removed, a faint +shadow of an irremovable care already impinged. + +He had sat up, and was looking at her.--"You mean--that you won't go +back at all?" he said. + +"Indeed I think I cannot go back," she answered; and her imperfect +speech left it uncertain whether indeed she meant that she was still +unresolved, or whether to her, who had not been able to endure a night +in Llanyglo, a return to Liverpool would be more than she could bear. + +"But--but--what would you do?" he asked. + +"I stay here lit-tle longer, and then I get wick-ker from Dafydd Dafis, +and mend chairs, like my mother." + +"But--but----" It was so new to his experience. "You mean you'd just go +from place to place?" + +"If I go to Liverpool I die," she answered. + +John Willie, torturing himself over this long afterwards, could never +decide what that subtle yet essential change was that came over their +relationship from that moment. It was quite contrary to any change that +might have been expected. But for that sullen "No, damn it," he might +have been conscious of hardier impulses as the term of her holiday +approached; but very curiously, it was now that he learned that it had +no term that he felt those hardier stirrings. It was exactly as if, with +little time to spare, he had wasted time, and now, with time enough +before him, he must lose no time. Perhaps it was also that growing +wonder what she must think of fishing expeditions without fishing. + +Or--or--could it be that that sweet clamour of her person had all along +shown patient intention, and that he, he only, had been dull?... + +But, more quickly than he had thought of charging her with this--(he +was only an ordinary young man)--he had to acquit her again. Certainly +she had not decided not to leave because, staying, she saw him daily. +She merely dreaded towns and disliked those over-glorious waxen +cenotaphs that were raised to the memory of the humble flowers she knew. +And he was still sure that at an unguarded movement from him she would +have fled days ago. At an unguarded movement she would fly now. He had +what he had only on the condition that, by comparison with his hunger, +it was and must remain nothing.... What then? Must he come, and still +come, until the wraiths of the mists began to drive over a dead and +sodden Delyn, and those tossing blankets of the mountains became hidden +in rain, and the wood of Glyn Iago became brown and thin, and the stream +an icy torrent, and Llanyglo itself as empty as a piece of old +honeycomb? + +He did not know, nor did he know how, without risking all, to ascertain. + +Yet know he must; and in that moment, forgetting his "Damn it, no," he +contrived as if by accident to touch her hand. But he was none the wiser +for doing so. As his hand moved with intent, hers moved innocently; her +fingers began to pull to pieces the little yellow flower she had +plucked; and he had not the courage to essay it twice. + +Nor did he, his broodings notwithstanding, find that courage again that +day. The sun crept round; tiny Llyn Delyn far below began to shine with +an amethyst light; and a quietude filled the heavens above and the land +beneath, so that the rolling mountains seemed to be no longer the +tossing of giants, but rather as if the giants, their tumbling game +ended, had crept under the blankets and had gathered them about their +heads and shoulders for the night. The sea and sky became a shining +golden bloom of air. They descended to the Glyn again. There they ate a +packet of sandwiches which John Willie had brought, and then he rose and +stood, irresolute. He must go, he must go.... She was setting her +stick-heap in order; her plain black dress, that showed off Philip +Lacey's superfatted flowers, was an anomaly by the side of the Delyn +twigs.... + +"Nos da," he said. + +If the face she lifted had not been glorious, his thoughts of it would +now have made it so. + +"Nos da," she replied.... + +If he still said "No," it was not with the sturdy expletive now. Chiefly +he now feared to risk and fail. + +He left abruptly. + +He drove to Llanyglo that night with a brassy sunset on his left that +sank to the colours of dying dahlias as mile succeeded mile; and this +time he did not turn into the winding lanes that led to the quarry. From +the main road to which he kept he could see Llanyglo's corona three +miles away. But it moved him now, not to the revulsion and distaste of a +week ago, but only to a careless contempt. Some aroma seemed to have +passed away from his dreamings. For the first time, he felt himself to +be an ordinary young man returning from the mountains where he had +something "on." This new slight bitterness extended even to his thoughts +about the perspicacious Minetta. Be hanged to Minetta. If Minetta +overstepped the mark he would very quickly tell her to mind her own +business. He had to pull himself out of his moroseness and to remind +himself that she had not done so yet. + +As he passed along the Pontnewydd Street he did not at first notice the +diminution in the number of people usually to be seen there at that +hour. Nor, as he sank into his reverie again, did it immediately strike +him that the greater number of the people on the Promenade were hurrying +in one direction--the direction of the Trwyn. But he entered the +dining-room at home in time to find June and Minetta scrambling hastily +through their supper. All the dishes had been laid on the table at once, +and their shawls were cast in readiness over the backs of chairs. This +time he deemed it prudent not to raise any opposition to their plans, +whatever these had been. Instead, he drew up his own chair. + +"Off out?" he remarked. "Well, I hurried back to take you somewhere. +Just let me swallow something, and then I'll come with you. What's up?" + +In telling him what was "up" Minetta seemed to make the most of some +advantage she apparently fancied herself to possess. If he had only +glanced at the newspapers, she said, instead of rushing off the moment +he'd bolted his breakfast, he'd have known what was "up." It had been +"up" in Llanyglo that afternoon--such a crowd as never was, and Eesaac +Oliver was to preach in the Floral Valley again that night. + +"Unless he changes his mind," Minetta added. "Of course it's part of it +all that he doesn't make arrangements. He'll stop in the middle of a +walk and begin to preach just where he is, and then at other times, when +they've made all ready for him and everybody waiting, he's praying in +his bedroom or something and nobody dares go near him. So they never +really know till he begins. There's only one thing he won't do----" + +"Eesaac Oliver?" John Willie began, puzzled. "Wait a minute----" + +Then, as Minetta once more tossed her head, he remembered. Of course. +The Revival.... + +And what he did not remember he did not, in the circumstances, choose to +ask his sister. It would only be giving her another opportunity to +comment on his remarkable absences. He remembered much. He remembered +those rumours of the great spiritual thing that had broken out at +Aberystwith, had then rolled tumultuously up the coast to Barmouth, and +thence to Harlech and Portmadoc, and thence up the sky-high steeps of +Ffestiniog, and through the folds of those tossed blankets west into +Lleyn. He remembered--yes, he remembered now that his eyes were turned +outward from himself and his own affairs again--the preachings of Eesaac +Oliver on the bare mountain-sides, and his fastings among the rocks, and +his baptisms in rivers, and his liftings-up of his voice on the +outskirts of towns that had presently emptied to hear him, and his +calling on folk to turn from the wickedness of their ways while there +was yet time, for the Day of Judgment was at hand. He remembered these +things because at the time he had thought them rather one in the eye for +the Howell Gruffydds and the John Pritchards who, when the Council came +to debate such delicate but profitable subjects as licencing and mixed +bathing, had tactfully allowed themselves to be represented by the soft +closing of the door behind them. He knew what that interrupted sentence +of Minetta's meant, "There's only one thing he won't do----" The only +thing that Eesaac Oliver would not do was to preach within the stone +walls of their new Chapels. He held these bazaar-supported buildings to +be defiled, their Baptist temples places out of which the traffickers in +money and doves must be driven with scourges. It mattered not that John +Pritchard was a pillar, Howell his own father. "He that loveth father +and mother more than Me----" He would preach as the mighty Wesley +preached, from wall-tops, from the boulders of the stony places, from +the wheelbarrow, from the milking-stool, from the saddle. He would +journey and preach, and journey and preach again, four, six times a day. +There was a Door which, entering by it, gave his instant and flaming +Theme--the Door open to Llanyglo itself unless it would sink, it and its +Kursaals and its Big Wheels, its Lunas' Entertainments and its bivalves +lying under the lighted lamps on the public grass-plots, its Alsatians +and its greedy Chapel-goers, its harlotry and its cupidity and its +bright sin and its blasphemy of the Name, into the pit where it must be +destroyed. + +"Oh, _do_ hurry up!" said Minetta impatiently.... + +Ten minutes later they were hastening along the half-empty Promenade. + +The Floral Valley was no longer as it had been when Philip Lacey had +plotted it out so neatly with his pair of compasses and coloured it with +his geranium and lobelia and golden feather. At its upper end, a +Switchback now humped itself like a multiple dromedary, and clear across +it, from a staging on one side to a staging on the other, was swung the +cabled apparatus known as an Aerial Flight. Philip's bandstand still +occupied the middle, but the rest, save for a few outlying dusty beds, +was as barren as a gravel playground. The Valley had held five thousand +people on the occasion of the Brass Band Contest; that night it held and +overflowed with thrice five thousand. Half-way up the ascending path +that led to it John Willie Garden saw that there was no approach from +that quarter; there was nothing for it but to take to the slippery grass +and the darkness, avoiding the bivalves open and the bivalves shut, and +struggling as best they could to the crest. There, with an arm about +each of them, he led them through the slowly moving outer circle of +people who struck matches and laughed and occasionally craned their +necks forward to look over the dense mass in front. By degrees they +gained the ring where, if little was to be seen, a word now and then +could be heard; and thereafter, by losing no chance of wriggling +forward, they reached a point from which they could see the bandstand. + +A ladder ran up to its roof, and up this ladder Eesaac Oliver and two +other men had climbed. The bight of a rope had been passed about Eesaac +Oliver's body, its ends running round the gilded spike that crowned the +flat eight-sided pyramid; and the men who crouched on the slope varied +the tether as Eesaac Oliver moved this way and that round the octagonal +gutter. The trapeze of the Flight hung motionless in the air above him; +the shrieking Switchback had stopped; and the slight white figure, so +precariously perched, turned to all sides of the vast speckled bowl +about him. + +"See who that is, at the right hand rope?" John Willie whispered to +June. He still had an arm about either of their waists, and he fancied +that June pressed a little closer to him. + +"No. Who?" she whispered back. + +"Tudor Williams. Expect he couldn't get out of it. He made a speech the +other day, all about Young Wales, a regular dead set at them, and he'll +sweep the poll after this. I don't know who the other is.--Listen, he's +turning this way now----" + +Eesaac Oliver's voice came across the packed still basin. + +"Cry aloud--spare not--lift up your voice like a trumppp-pet! I say to +you young men, and I say to you young women, that this cit-ty by the sea +shall not be spared, no, no more than the cit-ties of the plain were +spared! It smells of corrupp-tion; it is an offence in the nostrils of +God! There is more sin packed into it than there is drops of blood in +your bodies, and more wick-kedness, and more fornication, and more +irreligion. And those who should help, do they help? Indeed they do not! +They fill their pock-kets instead! I tell them, their own souls go, +perhaps this night, into the pock-kets of Hell! Aw-w-w, their bazaars +prof-fit them lit-tle there! Their new Chap-pils prof-fit them lit-tle +there! Their funds, and their balance-sheets, and their +foundation-stones with their names on them, prof-fit them lit-tle +there!--But I say to you young men, and you young women, that the Wa-ter +of Life is free. Come now, come now! Do not say, 'I will sin one more +sin and then repent'--perhaps you be taken away before that sin iss +commit-ted----" + +He turned again, and his voice became less clear. + +Perhaps John Willie and his charges were well where they were, high on +the rim of the basin. Whether with the pressure of those behind, or with +the swelling of their own emotion, many below were moaning softly, and +one or two small and hushed commotions seemed to be centres of fainting. +The inner ring, close to the bandstand, was hatless; the belt above them +was packed so that it would have been impossible to remove a hat; and +always about the uppermost circle matches twinkled in and out. Again +Eesaac Oliver's voice was heard, as if borne upon a wind: + +"--he that loveth father and mother more than Me----" + +"Is his father here?" June whispered to John Willie.... + + * * * * * + +Howell was at his own home, surrounded by sympathetic neighbours. Sunk +into his arm-chair, he sobbed. Big John Pritchard tried to console him, +but he was inconsolable. He shook with his emotion. + +"My own fless and blood!" he sobbed. "To turn from his parents, that fed +him, and clothed him, and sent him to the Coll-idge, and gave him +allowance of twen-ty-six pounds a quarter, and bring him up in the fear +of God! Oh, oh!--John Pritchard, give me a drink of water if you +please.--And to call his father and mother sinful pip-ple! Indeed, Hugh +Morgan, you are happy you have no children! They know bet-ter than you +always; indeed the 'orld go on at a great rate, we get so wise! And the +Chap-els burdened with debt! There is half a dozen Chap-els for him to +preach in, but he say the highways and the hedges is his Chap-pil!... +Look you, he not even come home. I meet him in the street, I, his +father; and I say to him, 'Eesaac Oliver,' I say, 'if you will not +preach in the Chap-pils, then you preach in that field on the Sarn road; +you get crowds of pip-ple; it is a big field, and will hold crowds of +pip-ple.' But he turn away, indeed he turn his back on his own +father!... Look you: If he preached in that field, they find their way +to that field, look you, all those pip-ple--they learn the way to that +field as well as they learn the way to the sta-tion--and the Chap-el buy +it cheap--oh, oh!... By and by that field be worth ten bazaars--oh, +oh!... Blodwen, if the gas is lighted upstairs I think I go to bed--the +things that were good enough for his father and mother are not good +enough for him--this is a heavy day----" + +John Pritchard and Hugh Morgan helped him up the stairs to bed. + + * * * * * + +June, Minetta, and John Willie left the valley before Eesaac Oliver +descended from the bandstand. As they walked along the now rather more +crowded Promenade Minetta seemed to be in livelier spirits; she +chattered with June; but John Willie was morose again. Again he was +wondering what would have happened had Ynys not chanced to pick a flower +at the moment when his hand had moved imperceptibly towards hers. He saw +her again, bending over the stick-heap and looking up as she gave him +that expressionless "Nos da." By this time she was probably asleep, +asleep far away up that Glyn, with the deep plunge of the fall for her +lullaby, the stars for her night-lights, and the sun over the wood-edge +for her alarum in the morning. Before the noises of Llanyglo should +awaken him, she would be lying flat on the bank, taking trout for his +breakfast. + +And, again and ever again, he wondered whether, had that attempted touch +of his not miscarried, she would have been off as the trout would have +been off at the falling of her shadow on the water.... + +For one moment, just before he went to sleep, he seemed to hear Eesaac +Oliver's voice again: + +"Do not say, 'I will sin one more sin and then repent'--perhaps you will +be taken away before that sin is committed----" + +Then he slept, brokenly, waking at intervals to mutter "Damn it----" and +to think of her again where she lay, far up Glyn Iago. + + + + +V + +THE DWELLING OF A NIGHT + + +John Willie began to spend his days up Delyn and his nights elsewhere +than at Llanyglo. He too passed them under the night-lights of the +stars--for if she could go to bed by those candles, so could he. On the +first night on which he did not return to Llanyglo they peeped down on +him where he lay, gazing at them, a mile and more over the head of +Delyn, to the summit of which he had reascended after bidding her "Nos +da" in the Glyn. On the second night he put another mile between herself +and him, bathing in the morning in a brook the chilliness of which only +a little refreshed him after his night's tossing; he slept for three +hours that afternoon, with her keeping watch by his side. And on the +third night he lay among the fern, in her own old place behind Sharpe's +hut. She did not know that he did not return each night to that dusty +town by the sea. + +And now once again he was muttering to himself, fiercely and frequently, +"No--no----" + +June's stay began to draw to a close. Minetta suspected her of moping +for John Willie, and told her that he often disappeared for days at a +time like that. Sometimes, she added, he called it fishing. + +"But he'd be fearfully annoyed if we went to look for him," she said; +and she turned away and smiled. + +She smiled again when one morning June had a letter from Wygelia, with a +postscript for herself. "_A bit of gossip for Minetta_," the postscript +ran. "_Ask her if she remembers a girl from Llanyglo father took into +one of his shops. He's thinking of sending out search-parties for her. +She went off for a holiday, and hasn't turned up again----_" etc., etc., +etc. + +And so it was that John Willie, filled now with one thought only, came +to miss quite a number of things that went down into the history of +Llanyglo. He missed, for example, those first days of Revival in which +the town, self-accused of sin, strove to purify itself. He missed that +storm of impassioned evangelicalism in which Eesaac Oliver, walking one +day on the Porth Neigr road, stopped at the foot of the lane that led to +the quarries, suddenly threw up his hands, broke forth, and presently +had the occupants of a dozen brakes and wagonettes listening to him in +the great echoing excavation of the quarry itself. He missed, too, an +odd little by-product of that gale of spiritual awakening--the +black-faced group that one morning made its appearance on the beach, and +resembled a troupe of ordinary seaside niggers until it broke, not into +Plantation Melodies, but into hymns, one of which had a catchy pattering +chorus that told over the names of the blest ones the redeemed would +meet in Heaven: + + "_There'll be Timothy, Philip and Andrew, + Peter, Paul and Barnabas, + James the Great, James the Less + And Bar-tholo-mew_----" + +He missed that other great storm of groans and fervour, when the pale +young regenerator, mounting the railway embankment from a low-lying +meadow near Porth Neigr, began to preach before sunset, preached until +the stars came out, and then sent hysterical young women and overstrung +young men home in couples along the benighted lanes together, to comfort +and enhearten and uplift one another as they went.... And he missed, +among these and a multitude of other things, a certain rather famous +exploit of his compatriot, Tommy Kerr. + +He knew how Tommy had flouted and insulted Llanyglo, and how Llanyglo in +return had long been looking for signs that Tommy was drinking himself +to death. But neither John Willie Garden nor anybody else had thought of +the alternative solution of the inconvenience of Tommy's presence in +Llanyglo. This was, not that Tommy himself should fall one night and +break his neck, but that something should happen to the house that, +having been put up by the four brothers in a single night, was enjoyable +by them as long as they or any of them should remain alive. + +During Ned's illness, if that listless state in which he had moved +between the accident to Harry and Sam and the death of the canary had +been an illness, the care of the Hafod had fallen to Tommy; and that was +as much as to say that it had been cared for very little. Moreover, the +fabric itself was perhaps by this time impaired. The digging of the +foundations of the hotels on either side of it had done it no good, and +the constant vibration of the Pontnewydd Street trams had done it even +less. On a certain Sunday morning, some weeks before the sickening of +the canary, Tommy had taken it into his head to make a thorough +examination of the place, while Ned had dozed in his chair. That +examination had given Tommy a bad fright. Mounting a short ladder and +looking up into the roof-space above the single living-room, he had +found the loft far lighter than it ought to have been; but it had not +been the gap in the roof that had scared him so badly. It had been what +he had seen through the gap--the chimney-stack all tottering, hooped out +on one side like a barrel.... + +With boards and baulks, an old pole-mast and other timbers from the +unsightly little backyard, it had taken him the greater part of the day +to shore the chimney up again. + +Whew! He and Ned had been sleeping under _that_!---- + +It may be that there had been plotting against Tommy, too--or, if not +actually plotting, a great deal of quiet watching to see what would +happen, backed by a powerful desire that something should happen. Both +Howell Gruffydd and John Pritchard were on the Roads Committee, +and--well, it was obvious that Pontnewydd Street could not remain +unrepaired merely because these Kerrs happened to live there. Orders had +gone forth that its mains were to be seen to, pits had been dug in the +street and barriers erected round them, and red flags set there by day +and red lanterns by night. + +Nothing had happened. + +Then the excavations had been filled up again, and the road-metal carts +had come. The surface was to be tackled.... + +So it had been that John Willie Garden returning one night from Delyn, +had seen Dafydd Dafis's road-engine drawn up for the night opposite the +Imperial Hotel. + +The engine had remained in Pontnewydd Street ever since. + +It shook the Hafod as if it had been brought there expressly for its +destruction. During the very first hour of its slow and ponderous +passing backwards and forwards, Tommy's newly cobbled chimney had given +a not very loud crack, and, like a heavy sleeper, had settled down into +a more comfortable shape. Tommy had come out, and had hailed the man who +walked in front of the machine with a red flag. Nervously, almost +politely, he had asked him how long they were likely to be. The man had +replied that they had orders to "make a job of it." Then Tommy had seen +Dafydd Dafis's face, watching him from the cab.... Half an hour later he +had met Howell Gruffydd in the Marine Arcade. The Chairman of the +Council had stopped. He had patted the shoulder of the common enemy +gently with his hand, and his smile had been odiously affable. + +"Well, Thomas Kerr," he had said, "how are you? I hear there is +improvements at Plas Kerr; you have a grand road to your house soon, +whatever! I think we have to assess you higher. How are you, Thomas +Kerr?" + +Kerr had hated the Welshman's fine, small, regular teeth. They were +false, but by no means the falsest thing about his mouth. As he had made +to move away Howell had continued. + +"I hope Dafydd Dafis does not incommode you with the road-engine, Thomas +Kerr? He has orders not to be a nuis-ance to the town. 'Drive as gently +as you can, Dafydd Dafis' is his orders.... You are off to the Marine +Hotel now, Thomas Kerr? Dear me, it is a curious fas-cin-ation such +places have for some pip-ple! Would it not be bet-ter to come to the +Chap-pel on Sundays?... Thomas Kerr." (Tommy had been shuffling +miserably away.) "Excuse me, Thomas Kerr, but you lose your handkerchief +if you are not careful!" + +And at this reminder that he had intended to button up his pockets in +the presence of his foe, Tommy had been wellnigh ready to weep. + +And then Ned had died.... + +There was a good deal of "edge," or vanity, or self-esteem, or conceit, +or whatever you like to call it, about Tommy Kerr. He knew now that that +road-engine would not be taken off as long as his crazy house stood, and +he was stung and mortified that a few beggarly Welshmen, backed by a +pettifogging Railway Company or two, with Kursaals Limited, a miserable +District Council, a Pleasure Boats' Amalgamation, a few Hotel Syndicates +and other such trifles, should be able to beat him. He felt very lonely +without Ned. He would have liked to see Lancashire again, particularly +Rochdale, his own town. He wanted to walk its hilly streets, and to see +the Asbestos Factory again, and Hollingworth Lake. He would almost +rather be found dead there than continue to live among these indigo +mountains and pink hotels and chrome-yellow sands. + +And so he set about his exploit. + +At the very outset they tried once more to baulk him. For the thing that +he intended to do certain timbers were necessary, and at six o'clock one +night he passed, none too steadily, to a timber-merchant's, and gave an +order to a clerk. The clerk smiled, and sent for his principal. Kerr +pointed to various pieces in the yard. "Ye can send that--an' that--an' +that t'other," he said thickly; "ye can get 'em out now--I'll fetch a +cart." Then, looking at the builder's face, he saw that he too, like the +clerk, was smiling.... + +There was no need of words. Howell Gruffydd had been beforehand with him +again. If one builder refused to sell to him, so, he knew, would all the +others. He was wasting precious time with builders. + +How many inns he had been to that day he could not have told, but he now +felt the heart in him again. They thought they could dish Tommy Kerr +like that, did they? Well, he would show them.... He lurched away to the +"Lancashire Rose," in Gardd Street, and then crossed to the "Trafford." +But at neither of them did he stay very long. He left the "Trafford" at +a little after eight, three hours before he needed to have done so. He +wanted those three hours. He also wanted all the hours he could get +between then and sunrise. + + * * * * * + +No sober man would have dreamed of attempting it; but sobriety and large +deeds do not always go hand in hand. Neither do large deeds and very +clear thinking--which, stout hearts being commoner than unmuddled +brains, is lucky for us. Through Kerr's bemused head ran one thought and +one thought only, namely, that the Hafod had been built by himself and +his three brothers in a night--built in a night--built in a night---- + +If it had been built in a night it could be rebuilt in a night---- + +It had taken four of them to build it, but the rebuilding ought not to +be nearly so heavy a job---- + +He would show them he did not come from Lancashire for nothing! + +But before entering his dwelling that night he committed an act of +theft. That damned road-engine had again been left drawn up opposite the +Imperial Hotel, and Tommy, fumbling under the tarpaulin that covered it, +stole something from the cab. He chuckled as he seemed to see again +Dafydd Dafis's cat-like face looking at him round the fly-wheel. _He'd_ +show Dafydd Dafis!---- + +He entered his house and locked the door behind him. + +He had formed no plan, but yet, somehow, he was conscious of a plan, and +a reasonably clear one. Where it had come from he did not know; it was +as if he heard again, somewhere in the air quite near, the voices of his +brothers again, saying, in the loved Ratchet accents, "Never heed that, +Sam--here's where th' strain comes--we'll do th' paperin' and put a pot +o' geraniums i' th' window after." He saw these vital points and +master-members of his plan as if they had been marked in his mind in +red. He had not to stop to reason about them. He knew--dead Ned seemed +to tell him--that the wall between the living-room and the scullery +might stand. He knew--he seemed to have it from Sam--that the whole of +the street-frontage was sound. The ends, near the two hotels, were the +danger-points; most perilous of all was the main beam under the lately +propped chimney. The chimney must be taken down first of all. "To +lighten th' beam, ye see," Harry's voice seemed to sound; "nay, donnot +fiddle wi' it--shove it ovver into th' alley--we're pushed for time----" + +So, whether you call it drink, or whatever you call it, Tommy did not +set to work quite unassisted. + +At the very beginning he almost came to grief. This was over the +chimney, that essential member of the dwelling up whose throat the +comfortable smoke had passed on that far-off morning as a token of +habitation before the eyes of astonished little Llanyglo. He had climbed +out on to the perilous roof and had begun to "study" how best to take it +down; then, as cautiously he had unlashed and removed the baulks and the +pole-mast, the chimney had suddenly thrust out its stomach at him. His +heart gave a jump, and in a twink he had set his back against it, +grasping a rope to check his heave.... But the chimney would neither +stand, nor yet fall as he wished it to fall, over the end of the Hafod +into the side-alley. It wanted to fall inwards, over Tommy's head. He +thought his agonised effort would never end.... But end it did. He felt +the release of weight. The thing hung poised for a moment, and then.... + +He was once more down in his kitchen before the windows which had been +flung up in the two hotels had closed again. No doubt they had been +waiting for days for that crash. They did not know that the scandalous +Tommy himself had caused it. The ghost of a malicious smile crossed his +face. "Sucks," he muttered, "for Gruffydd." + +Then, at eleven o'clock at night, he fell to his house-breaking. + + * * * * * + +"Kerr?" said the author of the _Sixpenny Guide_, when asked about this. +"I suppose you mean Tommy Kerr? Yes, I remember him.--His cottage? That +Hafod Unos place?--Yes, it's perfectly true. He did pull it down or put +it up again in one night, or at any rate something like it. An uncouth +little animal he was; a drunken little beast; still, he did this. Made +quite a job of it too.--How? That I can't tell you. But I saw the place +the next morning, and it seems to me that at one time during the night +both the ends and half the back must have been as open as an empty +rick-shed. Of course the whole thing was altogether preposterous. Six +men's work. I was staying a little farther up the road, and by daybreak +there must have been a thousand people in Pontnewydd Street. Nobody +lifted a finger. They just watched. He wasn't to be seen mostly; he was +busy inside; but when he did come out he never turned his head.--Sober? +Impossible to say. And of course he didn't quite finish the job. But +you've heard the rest." + +The rest was as follows: + + * * * * * + +By three o'clock in the morning Tommy was neither drunk nor sober. He +was a will and a piece of muscular apparatus, the two things quite +separate, yet working together with never a jerk to mar the harmony. As +a worn-out old machine will continue to run provided it is not +interrupted, so Kerr worked, in a state to which the only fatal thing +would have been to stop. The Tommy Kerr Llanyglo knew was a base thing, +senseless as the lime and stone through which his chisel drove (with a +fearful racket), obstinate as the beams under which he hammered his +wedges; but this was another Tommy Kerr--somehow the name yet somehow +another--a Kerr who might have been imagined to mutter, as he laboured, +that it was a gradely night for a titanic act--that he came from +Lancashire, where men did impossible things as a matter of course--and +that if any Welshman would pocket his pride and ask him, he would pull +down and put up again their whole blasted flashy town for them while he +was about it. + +And perhaps he was not really patching up his tottering cottage at all +that night. Perhaps he was rather doing one of those useless and +splendid things that alone among man's contrivances do not crumble and +fall. Perhaps he was doing in his ruined Hafod pretty much the same +thing that Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd did from bandstands and railway +embankments and rocks and bedroom windows--setting up an ideal, and +bidding men remember, though they might never attain, to strive. Or +perhaps he was working from the most religious motive known to man--to +please himself, trusting that if he did so he might please Something +greater than himself. If so, his idea might have had grandeur, but that +grandeur was curiously expressed. For he did not cease to grunt from +time to time, as his face became grimy and then washed clean again with +perspiration: "Damned Treacle-tongue! I'll _sew_ my pockets up next +time! Owd false-teeth--their road-engines--him an' his new brolly!----" + +By four o'clock twenty road-engines could not have shaken down the beam +on the chimney side of the house, and without another look at it he +turned to the other wall. It was Ned's remembered voice that bade him +hasten. As he tackled the second beam he grew quite chatty with Ned. It +was Ned who kept him to those red-marked crucial points, and told him +that he needn't bother about the walls, for the ceiling-sheets would do +to cram into the interstices, and that, if he made haste, the golden +days would come again when he had mocked at all Welshmen, and had had on +the hip the Railway Companies and Kursaals and Hotels and Steamboats +that had done their utmost to get rid of him. + +It was soon after this that he became conscious of other whispers than +Ned's. At last he had seen the crowd gathered in Pontnewydd Street. But +by this time he had ripped his ceiling-cloth down, and the grey incoming +day was suddenly darkened again as he ploughed across the talus of +debris and made a wall of cloth, fastening it anywise from beam to beam. +Ned said that that was quite good enough. You never caught wise old Ned +napping. Tommy Kerr had been very fond of his brother Ned. He had gone +ratting with him, and alder-cutting, and he remembered a whippet Ned +had once had, a rare dog for nipping 'em as they turned, and a canary +too.... + +Then Tommy Kerr's brain, which for more than seven hours had been as +steady as a sleeping top, gave a little wobble. This was as he paused in +the middle of the floor of his incredible house. There was something +else he had to do; what was it?... _What_ was it, now?... He knew there +was something else he had to do.... + +He would have done better to begin his work all over again than to stop +and think. + +What ... ah yes, he remembered! He remembered and chuckled. Why, he had +been on the point of forgetting the cream of the whole joke!---- + +He stooped by the rounded grey mound of lime and plaster that +represented his bed, but his knees gave, and he came with a little thump +to the floor. But he rolled over on his side, and his fingers found what +they sought, and after a few minutes he rose again. In his hand was the +red flag he had stolen from the cab of Dafydd Dafis's road-engine. That +was to go up where his chimney had been, that chimney that had emitted +that first smoke on that far-off first morning. The town, when it awoke, +must on no account miss _that_. Tommy Kerr wanted to see the faces of +Howell Gruffydd, John Pritchard, Dafydd Dafis and Co. when they saw that +flag.... + +He tottered to the ladder that ran up into the loft. + +He fell twice from the lower rungs of it, but a foot of lime made his +fall soft. He mounted to the top, and crawled on his belly across the +open rafters of the loft. He did not know how he got out on to the roof; +it seemed to him that he lay below for a long time, gazing up through a +gap at the paling sky and wondering how it was to be done, and then +miraculously found himself where he wished to be. Then he got on his +feet. + +Then he saw them, the people in the street below. He had again forgotten +they were there. So much the better; they should see him do it. Then +he'd give a shout that should wake all Wales, and--and--by that time the +pubs ought to be opening.... + +But the little hand-staff of the flag was not long enough to please him. +He wanted a longer one, to make more of a show. It took a whole tree to +carry the flag over the Kursaal Dancing Rooms there. It was stupid of +Tommy not to have thought of that--not to have brought one up from +below, where there were plenty--yes, plenty---- + +As it happened, he did not need the stick. It all came about very softly +and gently. He was standing up, again looking about for a longer stick, +when once more his brain gave a wobble. The watchers below saw him lean, +as formerly his chimney had leaned, only now Tommy Kerr leaned the other +way---- + +And so gently did he come over, and so comparatively short a distance +had he to fall, that you would have sworn it did not hurt him very much. +He stuck to the little square of red calico at the end of the short +staff; it was still in his hand when they picked him up from the heap of +chimney-bricks that choked the little alley where the principal entrance +to the Kursaal Gardens now is. + +Ancient Mrs. Pritchard, when she heard of it, baa-ed, and said that folk +came and went--came and went---- + + + + +VI + +THE GLYN + + +From sleeping badly, John Willie Garden had passed to sleeping hardly at +all. From that same fear of startling her, he still did not appear in +the Glyn much before his accustomed hour (though there had been times +without number when he had resolved otherwise); instead, he wandered +about, a mile, two miles away, sometimes setting himself a distant point +to walk to, on his return from which it would surely be time he was +seeking her. On the first two mornings of his absence from home he had +not shaved; then he had decided that that would never do, and has sent +somebody from the inn below to fetch him a bag. With the bag had come a +short note from Minetta. It had merely said that June was leaving on the +following Saturday, and that after that day she would be alone in the +house. + +He now wished he had not asked Minetta to show June that sketch. She had +put it on his breakfast-plate for all the world as if _he_ had wished to +see it, instead of merely to show June how much better it was than the +others. He didn't think that Minetta cared in the least how he spent his +time, but she was so sharp, and queer as well as sharp. She watched +things without taking any part in them. The more self-absorbed the +actors showed themselves, the more keenly interested Minetta became. In +many respects she took after her father. Edward Garden too had that +habit of poking and prying into people's tastes and enjoyments and +passions and desires, noting and understanding them while remaining +himself inaccessible to such weaknesses. It wouldn't greatly have +surprised John Willie to learn that Minetta guessed what he was about up +Delyn. + +The curious thing was that, if that were so, he didn't think that +Minetta would disapprove. She would look as it were over the tops of a +pair of imaginary glasses, and under them, and finally through them, and +her ironical glance would say as plainly as words, "This seems to be a +love-affair." She would neither disapprove nor approve, or, if she did +approve, it would be of his provision of entertainment for her. Her +disapproval would appear only if John Willie involved her in something +that would not "do." + +This brought John Willie straightway back face to face with his old and +torturing dilemma, of having something "on"--but something that would +not "do." + +A hundred times he had fought it out, and a hundred times he had come to +the conclusion that, while Minetta might resemble her not quite human +father, he, John Willie, was his mother's son. His mother would have +been entirely for that "No" that a hundred times had gained the day. +After each of these victories he had been on the point of turning his +back on the mountains and of not returning as long as he knew her to be +there. These impulses had now nothing to do with his fear of startling +her. They were born of that stiff and indispensable code. He had only to +thank her for a few breakfasts, to tell her he was going, to wish her +well, and all would be over. He found rest in the thought. He might +suffer an ache or two afterwards, but it would be the best way out. It +had been his first impulse, and it had proved to be his last +conclusion. He would consider it settled so. It would be much the best +course to act like an ordinary young man. + +For several days he had said that. + +He said it again on the morning when he shaved off half a week's growth +of beard. + +Once more he had slept within a stone's-throw of the hut. There had been +light showers during the night, but hardly enough to call a break of the +weather; the drops twinkled on fern and grass and spiders'-webs and tiny +flowers, but the ground was still as dry as tinder. As he shaved, with +the little mirror of his dressing-bag hung on a hazel, he reflected that +it was only half-past seven, and that the Llyn ought to be a good colour +for fishing. There would be plenty of time for a cast or two before +saying good-bye. But his rod was in the locked hut, of which she had the +key. No matter. Since he had now come to his decision, it would make no +difference did he seek her in the Glyn a little earlier than usual. He +would then be able to get away earlier in order to say good-bye to the +neglected June. + +He was heartily glad it was all over. The only possible course seemed so +plain that he wondered now what he had been tormenting himself about all +this time. Smiling a little, he even thought of all the awkwardnesses +and dissimulations and machinations and deceits he was by one stroke +escaping. He _would_ have felt rather a brute had he come upon Dafydd +Dafis one day, and asked him how he was getting on, and, casually, what +had become of that little niece or cousin of his, whose name he would +have had to make a lying pretence of having forgotten. It _would_ have +been behaving rather off-handedly to June, to see her for the first two +days only of her stay and then to let her go without as much as seeing +her off. It _would_ be better that Minetta should not have to write home +saying that John Willie was away (fishing) and she alone in the house, +but she was quite all right. It _would_ be better to think of the things +that would permanently "do"--altogether more comfortable and +satisfactory not to have to call himself, in the waking hours of nights +in the years ahead, or in the days to come when business claimed him, by +a disquieting name. It was not as if there were not plenty of other +things to think of. This particular aspect of life was far too much +dwelt on. Percy Briggs dwelt on it too much, he himself had dwelt too +much on it. He wasn't sure that he hadn't been getting even a little +morbid about it. Not every lovely flower is picked because it is lovely +and then thrown wilting away again. John Willie had come to his senses. +It had taken him some time, but he was all right again now. He wondered +how those people at the inn below had been looking after his horse. +They'd probably let him get fat and lazy. Well, he would give him a +twisting on the way home. Too much inaction is good for neither horse +nor man.... + +He finished shaving, and began to whistle as he packed his tackle and +strapped the case. He would leave the case where it was, and pick it up +on his way back. He would take the boat, pull straight across, get it +over, and then have a swinging walk down to the inn. Despite his moping +wanderings, he felt the need of a really good hard walk. + +He strode down to the lake, unfastened the boat, dashed the waterdrops +from the thwart with his cap, and pushed off. + +It was a brilliant, if broken, sky. Up the mountain-side the light +mists were quickly evaporating, and a great crag of dazzling white +cloud, shaped like the north of Scotland on a map, was perfectly +reduplicated in the glassy Llyn. As if the surface of the water had had +a tenuity without abating a jot of its crystal clearness, the smooth V +from the bows seemed to shear through something that, even when the +water settled to rest again, did not return; there fled at each stroke +an intact perfection. He altered the boat's course, and the reflection +of the edge of Delyn broke into long smooth stripes. He altered it +again, and an invisible comb seemed to pass through the towering +inverted cloud. His wake was a dancing of broken glittering facets. He +stood in towards the shaly spur; a few more strong strokes and he +grounded abruptly; and he gathered up his boots and stockings from the +bottom of the boat, stepped out, and made fast at the bottom of the +Glyn. + +The showers had swollen the stream a little, and mossy stones that had +been dry the day before were lapped by the water, and pools came farther +up his calf. But suddenly at a thought he stopped. In the new +circumstances it was a new thought. She did not expect him for some +hours yet; it might be better--in case of his coming upon her as she +might not wish to be come upon--to give a call. On second thoughts he +was sure that he ought to give a call. He opened his mouth---- + +But it was not necessary. Suddenly he saw her twenty yards ahead. She +had probably been up for hours, and had got her bathe over long since. + +But even that glimpse of her through the leaves had been as it were two +glimpses. In the first of them he had seen that she was there; in the +second he had noted that her appearance was not her usual appearance. +She was no longer wearing the black dress of Philip Lacey's flower-shop, +but that old blouse, unconfined at the waist, and again, as on that day +when she had started back from the door of the hut, her legs and feet +were bare. Four trout lay on the grass beside her, one of them still +fluttering. She was stroking the drops of water from her forearms, and +wiping her hands on her old striped petticoat. + +He did not call, but all in a moment she looked round as quickly as if +he had done so. At first he thought she was going to start to her feet +and run, but she remained seated. Then a bough intervened. He put it +aside behind him, threw his boots and stockings ashore, and climbed the +bank. + +"Hallo, Ynys," he said, as he sat down beside her. "I'm a bit early, but +I've got to get off soon. They want me down there. There are some people +I must see before they go." + +Then he wondered whether, after all, he had not startled her. In her +eyes was once more that look that had been there that other day, when +she had fallen back, though no farther than a cat falls back. If that +was so he must reassure her by going on talking. Without pausing, he +continued. + +"Yes, I shall have to get off by eleven. I've not been home, you see. +Couldn't stand going back to that place, so I just made myself +comfortable by the hut there.--I say, I hope you didn't get wet with +that rain in the night?" + +Simply, freely, naturally, and without a second thought, he put out his +hand to feel whether her petticoat was dry. He supposed she slept in her +petticoat, and that his early visit had not allowed her time to change. + +But she crouched back so swiftly that he also fell a little back, +surprised. He forgot that his own words, "I'm a bit early," raised +twenty questions--questions of why he was there at all, of how it had +come to pass that a variation in his habit was a thing to be remarked +on, of why his announcement that he must be off early seemed even to +himself a breach of something that had never been established, but only +tacitly allowed. He forgot these things, stared at her, and suddenly +exclaimed, "Why, what's the matter?" Had she feared that he was about to +put his hand upon her? One of her elbows had shot up as if she would +have defended herself, and the frightened seaweed eyes looked at him +over the guarding forearm. Her other hand, behind her on the grass, +supported her. So they sat, she trembling, he covering her with an +astonished stare. + +Then, as quickly as she had raised it, she dropped the defending arm. +She made a swift clutch at her petticoats and scrambled a foot farther +away from him. Her breast fluttered like that of the still living trout, +and her hand was clasped betrayingly about one foot hidden in the short +striped petticoat. + +And in a twink John Willie saw his mistake. It was not from his advanced +hand that she had shrunk. It was from the resting of his eyes--those +eyes that, even as she had drawn herself back, had already rested. Those +eyes, of Scandinavian blue, had sought hers again, of the wet greenish +brown of the seaweed of the shore. + +He spoke quietly. + +"Come here, Ynys," he said. + +She did not move. + +"Come here, Ynys," he said again. + +Her trembling became violent. + +"Come here, Ynys--I want----" + +He did not finish. His hand shot quickly forth. The next moment it held +what she had striven to hide. He was gazing at the silver mark that ran +round the outer edge of her foot near the little toe as a vein runs +round a pebble. + +She had twisted her body so that her face lay on the grass, covered with +her hands. She made one feeble movement to draw the foot from his hand, +and then lay still. When, presently, he put it gently down, she made no +further attempt to hide it; what was the good, since he had seen? It lay +still now, a little crinkled brown sole with bits of vegetation pressed +into it, and, running across it, that old thread, silver, like the +wedding-ring of her mother--that hard little sole that had made the +kidney-shaped footprints on the Llanyglo beach, that had pattered after +pedestrians on the road, and that would take to the roads again rather +than be pressed into a shoe and walk the pavements of a town. + +Yet, though he had seen the foot, she seemed determined he should not +see her face too. Presently she was conscious that he was trying to do +so, that he was gently trying to draw away the concealing hands. That +she resisted. "Ynys! Ynys!" he was saying remorsefully in her ear. She +lay quite still, and "Ynys! Ynys!" he continued to repeat, over and over +again. + +At last he heard that uniquely soft voice of hers in reply. She spoke +into the grass, not sobbingly, only a little dully. + +"I 'ould not show you," she begged him--movingly begged him--to +believe. + +"Ynys--dear!----" + +"Indeed you ask me, one day, if I take off my boots and stock-kings, and +I 'ould not----" + +"No, no----" he soothed her. + +"I not show nobody, in lot-t of years, never." She turned her face to +him for a moment; the anger of a fury lurked there for him had he not +believed her. "I not show nobody, if they kill me," she went on. "Lot-t +of years I _hate_ it----" the vindictiveness of the single word died +away, and he scarcely heard what came next, "--but I not hate it any +more now----" + +His answer was to rise suddenly to his knees, to stoop again, and to +kiss the foot he had innocently maimed. He was conscious as he did so of +its quick little pressure against his mouth.... + +The next moment his arm was about her shoulder, and he was gently +seeking to see her face again. + +"Cariad!" he murmured, his lips to her ear. + +And he knew that by no other means could it have come to pass. "Lot-t of +years I hate it--but I not hate it any more." She had hated the foot for +its disfigurement. She had loved it for him. + +There was no question of Yes or No as they ate their breakfast together; +it was as it was, and neither guilt nor innocence had any part in it. +From time to time, as they sat, he flung his arms about her shoulders as +frankly as children embrace, and she suffered the crushing with lips +parted and eyes immeasurably far away. The black pool was flecked with +froth; it danced over the whitey-green ebullition at the foot of the +swollen fall; and two dragon-flies, one blue as a scarab and the other +like a darting twig of green metal, hovered and set and spun. There +seemed to be no wind, but the great country of white cloud up aloft had +advanced, and a soft gloom filled the Glyn. They did not wash up; +impatiently John Willie tossed the platter they had shared aside; and +they embraced again. + +Midday did not find John Willie on his way to Llanyglo, nor yet did he +see June off by the three o'clock train. By three o'clock he was on the +summit of Delyn again, under the same rock where he had tried, as if by +accident, to touch her hand. She had put on her shoes, but not her +stockings, for the climb, but he had drawn them off again, and once more +she lay, luxuriating with her foot under his hand. Even now she did not +talk very much. She had only one thing to say, with lovely monotony and +very few words to say it in; she strayed no farther from her little +store of English than to say, over and over again, "Boy bach!" with the +greenish-brown eyes slavishly on his, and her parted lips hurrying out +the diminutive before he crushed them again. She started from her dream +once, as a stray sheep close behind them gave a call like a rich oboe; +then she relapsed into it again. The shadows lay still and leagues long +over the rumple of mountains, and she had not changed, and had promised +that she would not again change, that unfastened bodice and short and +faded old petticoat. + +So June steamed away, while Ynys's face was framed in John Willie's arm +on the summit of Delyn. + +They descended to the Glyn again between the afternoon and the early +evening, and with each step as they dropped down the mountain a silence +grew and deepened on them. He knew its meaning, if she did not, and, +back by the pool again, he first cleaned the forgotten platter (which +she tried to prevent), and then stood before her as he had stood when +once, with an abrupt, "Nos da," he had stridden away. And in that pause +of gazing silence he knew how much was packed--his Yes, his No, hers +too; all that lay behind them, all that lay before. For him, there lay +enwrapped in it that slight black figure he had seen under the crimson +pier-light; his searching for her; his finding her; his struggles, his +decision, and then, even in the act of his relinquishment, his wonderful +recovery of her. And her memory took a farther flight still. She saw +herself, a little girl, sitting with a bandaged foot upon a chair, while +a testy girl not two years older than herself drew her likeness. She +remembered the unendurable length of those half-hours--unendurable, save +that occasionally there looked in at the door or passed the window a +cowslip-haired boy, with hard blue eyes that would stare down even his +own conscience and none be the wiser, a conquering boy, of a race so +habituated to conquest that it takes with the sword-hand and carelessly +tosses twice as much back with the other. That was what it meant to her, +that silver mark that ran round the edge of her foot as a vein runs +round the edge of a pebble.... + +And for the future? His future might be anything, but hers could be one +thing only. For the gipsy loves never but the once. In all but love, the +waters of the world are not more unstable than she; in love, the rocks +are not more irremovable. Therefore she has no past and no regrets. She +has no regrets, for there is no scar upon her heart--how can there be a +scar, when a scar is a healing, and this wound is never healed, but ever +new, ever quivering? And she has no past--how can she have a past when +all is a poignant and lovely present, that endures to the end?... + +There was so little for John Willie to do. He had only to go away +without kissing her again. + +Kiss her, however, he must not--he was only an ordinary young man---- + +He knew it, and---- + +He passed his arms about her waist and drew her down by his side. + +It was dark in the Glyn long before the light had faded from the open +hillside above. In Llyn Delyn not a fish rose to break that dark and +intact perfection. The fall into the pool diminished a little in volume, +and mossy cushions that had lately been covered began to rise out of the +water again. And a heart was laid quiveringly open where formerly only a +foot had been maimed. She was twice conquered, for she was Welsh and +woman too. In the hearts of the men of her race the fame of their story +still lives, and while it lives strife will not cease. As their own +proverb says, what the sword took, the tongue will take back again. + +But the woman goes with the land. + + + + +PART FIVE + + + + +I + +THE WHEEL + + +It was a summer nightfall in the Kursaal Gardens. The turnstiles of the +new Main Entrance in Pontnewydd Street revolved ceaselessly, with a +noise as of an unending rack and pinion. The lightly clad merrymakers +poured under the trees that had electric globes for fruit; they moved +towards the cream-coloured buildings that, with their illuminations, +seemed no more than footlights to the solemn stage of the immeasurable +blue beyond. Most of them were going to that Dancing-Hall where all the +youths and maidens of the world seemed to dance together; the others +hurried to keep appointments, to sit at the little tables where the +waiters moved on the grass, to join the slowly moving circle about the +bandstand, or to see the side-shows. The band played the "Lohengrin" +Prelude; the soft sound of gravel crunching underfoot mingled with the +music; and the great lighted circle of the Big Wheel rose against the +sky. + +In the topmost coach of the Wheel sat John Willie Garden and June Lacey. +They were alone in the bright upholstered compartment. June wore her +Juniest frock and an engagement ring; John Willie, who had been walking, +was in cap and knickers. They had been engaged since the Spring, and +everybody had said how splendidly it would "do." They had played +together (everybody had said) since childhood, knew exactly what to +expect and what not to expect of one another, had (as they put it) the +solid cake to cut at when the sugar and the almond-paste had begun to +pall, and what could have been more romantic? + +"They'd be hard put to it to think of anything they're short of," +everybody had said. + +From the windows of the car they could see the whole of Llanyglo. With +the turning of the Wheel they had watched its lights rise slowly over +the intervening roofs, and then slowly sink away again. Now, to see the +grounds below, they had to step to the windows and to look almost +vertically down, through the intricacy of girders and lattice and +mammoth supporting piers. + +"It takes about twenty minutes to go round, doesn't it?" June asked. + +"About that," John Willie replied absently. + +"Look at the Trwyn light!" + +"Yes, dear." + +"We aren't as high as that, are we?" + +"Oh dear no." + +"I suppose we've stopped to take more passengers up?" + +"I expect so." + +Then, after a pause, June said, "Do you know, dear, I think I've finally +decided about the drawing-room. I think I shall have it all white--every +bit----" + +From her white gloves to her gypsophylla petticoats, she was a girl any +young man would have been glad to spend his shillings on, and her house +was going to be as smart and complete as herself. Her father was coming +down very handsomely for her wedding, and in addition to his other +gifts, was going to lay out the gardens and the greenhouse for them. +Counting her silver, tapping her flower-pots to see which was in need of +water, trimming bits of raffia with her scissors and putting drops of +gum into her geraniums, June would be exactly in her right place. She +was already attending a Cookery Class, and had all her household linen +marked. And already they were promised any number of presents. "Presents +are so useful," she had said to John Willie, "because then you have +them, and so often they're the kind of thing you'd put off buying for +yourself." It was all going to "do" very splendidly. + +"I say," said John Willie by and by, "we don't seem to be moving." + +"The Wheel?" June asked. + +"Yes. But it will go on in a minute, I expect." + +"I hope it won't stop long," June replied. + +John Willie also hoped it would not stop long, but for the life of him +he couldn't have told you why he hoped so. Indeed he tried to smother +the hope. He tried to smother it because he had an obscure feeling +that--that--well, if a reason can smile, that his reason for not wishing +to stay up there too long was quietly smiling at him. It seemed to +tell him that he and everything about him were enviably all +right--safe--thoroughly and entirely comfortable--need have no fears for +the future--and that all would continue to be just as comfortable and +safe and altogether all right until he should come to die, in a best +bed, with eiderdowns, and frilled pillow-cases, and hot bottles, and the +certainty of a handsomely appointed funeral a few days later. Few were +as sure of their future as that. John Willie was one of the lucky +ones.... + +He moved, not to the windows from which he could look down on the +lights of the Promenade and Pier, but to those that were turned to the +dark and unseen mountains. Somehow this reason he had for hoping that +the car would not stop long seemed to come from there. He told himself +that he would be better presently. He had these--bad humours, call +them--sometimes. He hid them from June, but Minetta had noticed them, +and he knew all about them himself. He turned to June again. + +"I wonder what's happened," he said. + +"It's--it's quite safe, isn't it?" June asked. + +"Oh, quite." His lips compressed a little. It was quite safe--neither +more nor less safe than everything else in John Willie's life. That, +somehow, was at the bottom of these ill-humours of his. + +"Dash it," he muttered.... + +"It is a nuisance," June agreed. "But I don't suppose Minetta will be +anxious." + +"I wasn't thinking of Minetta," John Willie replied. + +Now when you are reluctant to enter into explanation, and there is +something you badly want to do, you never (if you are an ordinary young +man) look very far for a reason. The first that comes will serve your +turn. If it is a flimsy one, no matter; you then get angry when its +flimsiness is pointed out to you, and presently out of your anger and +obstinacy you will have found a reason as good as another. John Willie +did not at all like those interior smiling taunts of himself that took +the form of congratulations on his neatly planned life and pillowed and +feathered death to close it. If anybody of his own weight had taunted +him thus he would have knocked that person down. But you cannot knock +down a whisper that seems to come on the wind from the mountains +through the night, making you, your ordered comfort notwithstanding, +absolutely wretched. Again John Willie turned to June. + +"I say, June; this won't do, you know," he said. + +June looked enquiringly at him. + +"But we can't do anything but wait, dear, can we?" + +He did not answer. + +They waited. Half an hour passed. Then John Willie muttered again that, +among so many other things that would "do" beautifully, this particular +thing would not "do." June coloured a little. + +"But--but--it isn't our fault," she murmured, picking at the fingers of +her gloves. + +He saw she understood. Again they waited. + +Then, suddenly, John Willie came shortly out with that reason that must +serve in the stead of his real reason. He knew how lame it was. A score +or two of other young couples were in precisely the same situation as +they, and more that cheerfully resigned to their plight; but then they +were not being goaded and taunted as John Willie was being goaded and +taunted. They were not being told that their paths lay, so to speak, on +flowers, while the paths of others were the stony road, that cut and +blistered the foot, and tired the eyes, and bowed the back (but had no +power, perhaps, thus to reproach the heart).... Anyway, John Willie was +not disposed to stand it. + +"June," he said abruptly, "I can't stay up here all night with you." + +Her wail interrupted him.--"Oh-h-h!----" + +"It wouldn't do." + +"Oh-h-h--it isn't our fault----" + +"No, but that can't be helped. The woman I marry----" + +"Oh-h-h--but there isn't anything to do!" + +"Oh, yes there is. We needn't be together. I can get into another car or +something. It will only be like walking along the footboard of a train." + +She gave a little shriek.--"Oh--if you do I shall throw myself out--I +know I shall!----" + +"You won't do anything so silly. Get up, dear; I've quite made up my +mind. I tell you it wouldn't do. The woman I marry...." + +With gentle force he picked her up and set her on the seat of the car. +Then he approached the window. There was a bar across it, which it took +him a minute to bend, but the chances were that where his head would +pass the rest of his body might follow. June hid her face and moaned as +he took off his coat; then he kissed her and thrust his head under the +bar. He wriggled through, stood on the footboard, smiled again grimly +through the window, and then looked down. + +At any rate, he had given a reason of sorts. + +Then he looked up. + +Instantly he saw that, unless head or wrist or finger should +unexpectedly fail him, the most dangerous part of his exploit lay at the +very beginning. There was no descent from the step on which he stood. +The cars were slung from axles, and in order to get to the rim that held +the axles themselves he must climb to the roof of the coach. He glanced +at the roof of the coach twenty feet below and to his left. He saw that +it had a curved rain-sill like that of the top of a railway carriage. +Good; the coaches would be all alike. He set his knees in the +window-frame once more. June was still lying with her face hidden on the +seat. His fingers felt blindly for the rain-sill; they found it, and he +moistened his other hand. He wished he could have glued it, for for some +moments mere friction must be half his support. For an instant he +thought calmly and abysmally; then he risked it.... + +It succeeded. He knelt on the roof, holding the sling and coupling that +hung from the car-axle overhead. He glanced up at the axle to which he +must swarm. The singing in the cars continued, and a babble of sound +rose lightly from below. Evidently he had not been seen to get out of +the car. + +But then, who would have thought of looking? + + * * * * * + +It was as he swarmed up the coupling that there first came over him the +sense of the difference between the reason he had given, and the real +reason that had brought him out from that brightly lighted and cushioned +car in which he might far more easily have stopped. And the realisation +of that difference brought with it, very strangely, the sense, not of +bodily peril, but of inner peace. It was unaccountable, but there it +was, not to be argued about. The only thing that disturbed this peace, +and that but lightly, was that his venture had not a more profitable +object. Folk did less dangerous things for far better reason--to save +life, or property, or something else worth while. But this neck-risking +of his was--could only be--bravado. He knew perfectly well that in the +circumstances nobody would have thought a penny the worse of June. "The +woman I marry----" he had known that to be an hypocrisy even when he had +said it. No, he was merely idiotically showing-off, and that peace at +his heart would presently prove to be an illusion.... + +It was quite suddenly, as he lay out along the Wheel's topmost +car-axle, that the thought of Ynys came to him. He didn't know why it +should come at that moment, unless it was born of his bodily isolation +on the very top of that immense bracelet hung with trinkets of cars. But +perhaps it was that; perhaps there was a connection, if only an idle and +fanciful one. Save perhaps the keeper of the Trwyn light, nobody in +Llanyglo was nearer the stars than he that night; and only Mynedd Mawr +had been higher than he when he had lain on the rocky head of Delyn.... + +Or was it, not the isolation of his body at all, but his isolation of +soul, that had brought that mysterious and inexplicable and probably +fallacious peace. + +While not ceasing to keep his carefully calculating eyes open, and every +motor-fold of his brain intent on the preservation of his balance, he +began to think of Delyn. + +He had stayed many days up there; some weeks perhaps; he couldn't have +told you how long. Its rain had soaked him, and its winds dried him +again; its streams had fed him and its herbage furnished his litter at +night; but the sun itself had not warmed him more than had her impulsive +looks and surrendering gestures when he had but lifted up a hand. With +another eye than that that now measured the distances between girders +and axles and ties, he seemed to see the rocks again, and the lake +shining in its morning intactness, and the drowned bubbles of the fall +in the Glyn, and the thin wind stroking the short grass, and the +mountain-ashes under which they had sat, their leaves like finger-prints +against the sky. He could see again the trout she had cooked for +him--her breast had fluttered as those dying silvery things had +fluttered, silvery as that dry old scar he had kissed. He could smell +the smoke of her morning fire again, her hair, her breast.... And he +could hear again the shrill warning note in that unique voice of hers +that had first set him wondering whether, after all, it would "do." ... + +That quarrel had not been on that heart-breaking morning of their +parting. There had been no quarrel then. No; it had been at something +unguarded he had said about his sister and her friends. Yes, he saw +again the insensate jealous flame in those seaweed eyes, and heard the +ugly passionate cracking of the voice in which she had cried, "They +noth-thing, your fine miss-es! They mar-ry house without a man if they +could--they take house in their arms--they make those eyes at house, and +kiss house, and call it cariad! You no dif-ferent from them! You go to +your miss and say, 'I have house'--she want-t you then!----" It had +taken a whole morning before he had had her, humble and sobbing and +remorseful and enslaved, in his arms again.... No, it wouldn't have done +to marry a temper like that--and, temper altogether apart, it wouldn't +have done. There are only a few years of this world and its +companionships, and, though your friends may have their twists and +crankinesses, they are still your friends, all you are likely to have. +Better be in the stream with them while you are here. He would only have +been sorry for it later, on her account as well as on his own. She had +been quicker to see that than he, and had spoken of it in her soft and +halting English. At first he had laughed and said "Kiss me" ... but she +had been right.... + +But John Willie, with a Wheel to descend, must not let these things take +him too far from the business in hand. + +He had reached a chain in a great guiding sprocket, but he thought of +what at any moment a hand upon a lever in the power-house far below +might do, and of one of his father's men who had once been carried round +shafting. No moving parts for him.... He looked down through an +iron-framed lozenge at the people below. The grounds resembled a tray of +many-coloured moving beads. All Llanyglo seemed to have run to see the +stopped Wheel. Probably the Pier itself was half empty. If so, all the +more room for anybody who wanted to watch, not a Wheel, but the moon +lift her gilded sacrificial horn out of the sea.... There had been far +too much drub-drub-drubbing. John Willie was weary of it. It was time he +settled down. And Llanyglo itself seemed to have come to much the same +conclusion. It had begun to make a restriction here and a regulation +there, as if it wished to purge itself of its evil name. There was no +doubt that for a time it had been a very sinful place, and ... (here +John Willie, with a slow steady pull, hoisted himself to where he wished +to be, on the long curved upper plate of a massive H, rivet-studded like +a boiler, that was knitted with iron lace to other H's--John Willie must +not venture too far down that slope unless he should suddenly acquire a +fly's faculty for walking upside-down) ... and perhaps the town had +begun to get a little frightened, as sinful people, and perhaps sinful +towns also, sometimes do. But that would be all right presently. +Llanyglo was going, in a manner of speaking, to be married. It was +turning over, had turned over, a new leaf. Soon it would be a churlish +thing to reproach it for a past that it had lived down; it was becoming +sadder and wiser, and better able to distinguish between the things that +would "do" and the things that would not. The less talk ... (here John +Willie began to realise that he was not a fly, and to collect his nerves +for the turn-over to the under side of that H that a few yards away +dropped over, with a little gleam, into nothing) ... the less talk the +soonest mended. He did not intend to say--anything--to June. Indeed he +intended ... (there: that was rather a jerk to his shoulder socket, but +he was safely underneath) ... indeed he intended that his attitude to +June about such matters should be rather severe. This was not because +June's own thoughts were in the least degree lax (she erred, if +anywhere, on the prudish side), but because women were very tender +things. A whisper was fatal to them. That was why John Willie was +clinging now to that enormous piece of knitting of iron and upholstered +carriages and electric light. He had climbed out in order that nobody +should be able to say, after that, that.... + +Then it was that he knew, once and for ever, that this was a lie. Then +it was that he knew that he was not where he was, suspended between the +stars of heaven and the lamps of earth, on June's account. He was there +because a gipsy girl had called him. This was his service, not of the +pretty and pleasant June he was presently going to marry, but of one +whom he had not married, of one he had not feared to compromise, of one +who had known nothing, cared nothing, save that she had been lost in a +wild and tender and beautiful love. She, none other, had called him---- + +Then, too, it was that there rose to him from below a faint yet high and +shuddering "A-a-a-ah!" that was followed by a sudden cessation of all +sound whatever save only a distant throb and pulsing in the +Dancing-Hall. It surprised him for a moment; then he remembered. Of +course. He had been seen---- + +She, none other, had called him, and he knew now that so she would +continue to call him, wherever he might be--from his labour by day and +from his rest by night, from his laughter with his children and his +clasping of his wife. She would continue to call him until softness and +ease should have done their slow and fatal work, would continue to call +him until that nerve, with her harping on it, should have become +dull.... + +He seemed to hear the echoes of that voiceless calling, diminishing +through the years to come. They would end in a silence that his wife's +innocent garrulity would never, never be able to break---- + +The faint throb in the Dancing-Hall also ceased. The Kursaal Gardens +were a bead mat of faces. There was not a whisper. Delyn was not +stiller. + +Unconscious that already he was black and torn and bleeding, he looked +down from his girder upon the bead mat. He knew what, presently, if he +came down alive, every bead there would be singing--his daring and his +quixotry and his devotion, and the possession by June of a husband who +would do this rather than suffer the lightest breath upon the mirror of +her name---- + +He looked at them as he clung, scarce bigger than a speck, high in that +webbed diadem of the Wheel---- + +And as he hung there, with only the guardian of the Trwyn light higher +than he, and the rest of the descent still to make, he still could not +decide, of the two things that oppressed his heart, which was the +atonement and which the sin. + + + + +II + +ADIEU + + +"You're leaving Llanyglo? Well, holidays must come to an end.--You'd +like another walk up the Trwyn? Very well; but you've seen all there is +to see.... + +"Here we are.... What's going on at the Light? Oh, that's the Board of +Trade, experimenting with some new fog apparatus or other. By the way, +the Light people are rather sore because of a new Regulation, that they +mustn't have lodgers at the farm; and also because they'd like to grow +roses up the look-out wall, and that's prohibited too; I suppose the +authorities think they'd be spending the day looking at the roses +instead of at the ships. They've moved the rocket apparatus farther +along the coast; they found it wasn't much use here, and it's turned out +very successfully at Abercelyn.--Eh? Yes, where the manganese comes +from. They still get a certain quantity, but there's peace in the +Balkans or wherever it is for the moment, so nobody's growing very rich +out of the mines here.... + +"Hallo, that's rather a coincidence. Don't look round too quickly. You +see that tallish man over there? I don't suppose you've even seen him +before; as a matter of fact he hasn't been--er--to be seen. He got into +trouble once; in plain English, they put him in prison. His name's +Armfield, and his trouble was all about Llanyglo. Awkward things, +meetings like these. I think Armfield's a capital chap, and I should +like to go and talk to him; but prison's a cruel thing, and you never +know how the poor fellow himself feels about it.... Ah! As I thought, he +looks rather broken. If you don't mind we won't watch him. Come on to +the Dinas and have a smoke.... + + * * * * * + +"How's John Willie Garden? Perfectly rosy, if beginning to get a bit +fat. Lucky dog! Four children, two boys and two girls, quite an amiable +chatter-box of a wife, and rich enough to buy almost anything he wants. +Lucky, lucky dog!--Did I tell you he was the adopted Conservative Free +Trade candidate for one of the Manchester divisions? Not that he cares a +snap about Free Trade politically; economically it merely happens to be +a good part of his bread and butter; but then you have to be careful +about what you say on platforms, and so John Willie talks like the +editor of the _Spectator_ himself. June Garden runs her two houses, one +here and one in Manchester, like clockwork, and they go backwards and +forwards between them in a really regal car. Every tramp and gipsy on +the road knows that car. However fast he's driving, John Willie always +pulls up and gives them a shilling. Just a foible of his. We all have +'em in one shape or form. + +"Llanyglo's going in heartily for these new proposals for advertising +the town out of the rates. A young man called Ithel Williams is very +keen on it; he's a son of Tudor Williams, the Tudor Williams who used to +be M.P. for this division. Young Ithel's got rather a nice billet here, +as Librarian or something for the Council, and if this new thing goes +through he'll be quite in clover.--Jobbery? Well, I suppose that's the +name for it, but personally I'm not altogether against it. It seems to +me that the only alternative is putting these berths up for competitive +examination, which in my opinion's failed all along the line, so find +the right man and then job him in, I say.--The right man's so frequently +a relative? Well ... there you are. That _is_ the weak spot. But there's +always a crab somewhere.... + + * * * * * + +"I wonder if Armfield's gone yet? Let's have a look.... No, he's still +there.... + + * * * * * + +"A good season? Yes, from all accounts it's been a very good season. +There have been better from the purely money point of view, I should +say, but after all everybody can't be everything, and every place can't +get all there is. Llanyglo, like other places, has its natural limits of +expansion. I don't think it will get any bigger yet awhile. There's no +doubt the Wakes people were the people who flung the money about, and +they've a little fallen off; but even if Llanyglo has to write down some +of its obligations it will probably gain in the long run. A section of +the Council's coming to see that, and is pressing for reconstruction +(that's always rather wonderful to me, that they should construct things +of solid materials and then reconstruct them by saying they cost less +than they did); but that's the Council's business, or rather the powers +behind the Council. Edward Garden isn't one of these any longer, at any +rate not to the extent he was. He sits in Manchester and makes towns in +Canada now. But he still looks at letters under his glasses, and over +them, and backwards and forwards and upside down, and then looks mildly +up at you and says the letter seems to be a letter.... + +"A last look at the place: there you are: bay, Promenade, Pier, the ring +of mountains behind. It grew from a few fishermen's huts to +over-capitalisation in a very few years. And there's Terry Armfield, +still looking at it all, like a not very old Rip Van Winkle. I wonder +what he's thinking! I suppose he couldn't keep away, but must come and +remember it as it was and dream over it again as it was never, never to +be.... Walk past quickly; he's sobbing, poor chap. His dream was of a +place--I don't know how to describe it--all friendliness and loveliness +and graciousness, fowl and flesh and good red-herring all in one, so to +speak, what you might call a diaphanous sort of place, a jolly place to +think of during those few minutes of the morning or evening when you're +not quite asleep and not quite awake, but--hm!--I'm not so sure ... not +in this imperfect world.... + +"Anyway, that down there is what he sees.... + +"I suppose the other wouldn't have done.... + +"Shall we go?" + + +THE END + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Note: Hyphen variations left as printed. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mushroom Town, by Oliver Onions + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MUSHROOM TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 39482-8.txt or 39482-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/4/8/39482/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mushroom Town + +Author: Oliver Onions + +Release Date: April 19, 2012 [EBook #39482] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MUSHROOM TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + +<h1>MUSHROOM TOWN</h1> + +<h2>BY OLIVER ONIONS</h2> + +<h3>Author of "Gray Youth," "In Accordance with the Evidence," "Debit +Account," etc., etc.</h3> + +<p class="center">GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY<br /> +NEW YORK</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Publishers in America for Hodder & Stoughton</i></p> + +<p class="center">Copyright, 1914,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By George H. Doran Company</span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>DEDICATION</h2> + + +<p><i>In the following pages I have permitted myself to take a number of +liberties—geographical, historical, etymological, and even +geological—with a country for which I have conceived a strong +affection; I trust I have taken none with its beauty nor with its +hospitality. It will be useless to search for Llanyglo on any map. It is +neither in North Carnarvonshire, in Merioneth, nor in Lleyn. Of certain +features of existing places I have made a composite, which is the</i> +"<span class="smcap">Mushroom Town</span>" <i>of this book.</i></p> + +<p><i>The kindnesses I have received in Wales during the past six years have +been innumerable; indeed, much of my work has consisted of writing down +(and not always improving) things told me by one of my hosts. For this +and other reasons I should like to render him such acknowledgment as a +Dedication may express.</i> "<span class="smcap">Mushroom Town</span>" <i>is therefore inscribed, in +gratitude and affection, to</i></p> + +<p class="center">ARTHUR ASHLEY RUCK</p> + +<p><i>Hampstead</i>, 1914</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="contents"> +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#THE_INVITATION"><span class="smcap">The Invitation</span> </a></td><td align="right">9</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td align="center"> </td><td align="right"></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td align="center">PART I</td><td align="right"></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#I">I </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Year Dot</span> </td><td align="right">17</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#II">II </a></td><td><span class="smcap">Its Nonage</span> </td><td align="right">31</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#III">III </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Minder</span> </td><td align="right">46</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#IV">IV </a></td><td>"<i>Dim</i> <span class="smcap">Saesneg</span>" </td><td align="right">52</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#V">V </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Hafod Unos</span> </td><td align="right">75</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#VI">VI </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Foot in the Door</span> </td><td align="right">86</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#VII">VII </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Member</span> </td><td align="right">98</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#VIII">VIII </a></td><td><span class="smcap">Thelema</span> </td><td align="right">109</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td align="center"> </td><td align="right"></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td align="center">PART II</td><td align="right"></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#IX">I </a></td><td><span class="smcap">Railhead</span> </td><td align="right">117</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#X">II </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Clerk of the Works</span> </td><td align="right">126</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XI">III </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Curtain Raiser</span> </td><td align="right">142</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XII">IV </a></td><td><span class="smcap">Ynys</span> </td><td align="right">168</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td align="center"> </td><td align="right"></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td align="center">PART III</td><td align="right"></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XIII">I </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Holiday Camp</span> </td><td align="right">179</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XIV">II </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Giant's Stride</span> </td><td align="right">205</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XV">III </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Blank Cheque</span> </td><td align="right">218</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XVI">IV </a></td><td><span class="smcap">Pawb</span> </td><td align="right">233</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td align="center"> </td><td align="right"></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td align="center">PART IV</td><td align="right"></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XVII">I </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Blind Eye</span> </td><td align="right">244</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XVIII">II </a></td><td><span class="smcap">June</span> </td><td align="right">263</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XIX">III </a></td><td><span class="smcap">Delyn</span> </td><td align="right">275</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XX">IV </a></td><td><span class="smcap">An Ordinary Young Man</span> </td><td align="right">297</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXI">V </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Dwelling of a Night</span> </td><td align="right">310</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXII">VI </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Glyn</span> </td><td align="right">323</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td align="center"> </td><td align="right"></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td align="center">PART V</td><td align="right"></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXIII">I </a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Wheel</span> </td><td align="right">335</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXIV">II </a></td><td><span class="smcap">Adieu</span> </td><td align="right">347</td></tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_INVITATION" id="THE_INVITATION"></a>THE INVITATION</h2> + + +<p>"We'll take the little cable-tram, if you like, but it's not far to +walk—twenty minutes or so—the Trwyn's seven hundred feet high. You'll +see the whole of the town from the top. The sun will have made the grass +a little slippery, but there are paths everywhere; the sheep began them, +and then the visitors wore them bare. And we shall get the breeze....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"There you are: Llanyglo. You see it from up here almost as the gulls +and razorbills see it. The bay's a fine curve, isn't it?—rather like a +strongly blown kite-string; and the Promenade's nearly two miles long. +But as you see, the town doesn't go very far back. From the Imperial +there to the railway station and the gasometers at the back isn't much +more than half a mile; the town seems to press down to the front just as +the horses draw the bathing-vans down to the tide. Shall we sit down? +Here's a boulder. It's chipped all over with initials, of course; so are +the benches, and even the turf; but you'd wonder that there was a bit of +wood or stone or turf left at all if you saw the crowds that come here +when the Wakes are on. It's odd that you should never see anybody +actually cutting them. Some of them must have taken an hour or two with +a hammer and chisel, but I've been up here countless times and never +seen anybody at it yet.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's Llanyglo; but look at the mountains first. This isn't the +best time of the day for seeing them; the morning or the evening's the +best time; the sun isn't far enough round yet. But sometimes, when the +light's just right, they start out into folds and wrinkles almost as +quickly as you could snap your fingers—it's quite dramatic. Foels and +Moels and Pens and Mynedds, look—half the North Cambrian Range. You +couldn't have a better centre for motor-cycle and char-à-banc tours than +Llanyglo.... Then on the other side's the sea. That's only a tinny sort +of glitter just now, but you should see the moon rise over it. People +come out from the concerts on the pier-head just to have a look....</p> + +<p>"The Pier looks tiny from up here? Yes, but it's three furlongs long for +all that, and those two tart-tin-looking things at the end hold nearly a +thousand people apiece. But, as you say, it is rather like one of those +children's toy railways they sell on the stalls in Gardd Street for +sixpence-halfpenny. And that always strikes me as rather a curious thing +about Llanyglo. It's a big place now—nine thousand winter population; +but somehow it has a smaller look than it had when it was just a score +of cottages, all put together not much bigger than the Kursaal Gardens +there. I don't know why the cottages should have seemed more in scale +with the mountains than all this, but they did. I suppose it was because +they didn't set up for anything, like the Kursaal and the Majestic and +the Imperial.... But it doesn't do to tell the Llanyglo folk that. They +look at it in quite another way. To them the sea and the mountains are +so many adjuncts, something they can turn into money by dipping people +at sixpence a time and motoring them round at four-and-sixpence the +tour.... And sometimes you can't help thinking that it wouldn't take +very much (a wind a bit stronger than usual or an extra heave of the +sea, say) and all these hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of stone +and iron and paint and gilding would just disappear—be sponged out like +the castles and hoof-marks on the sands when the tide comes in—or like +a made-up face when you wipe the carmine and pencilling from it.... +Eh?—No, I'm not saying they've spoiled the place—nor yet that they +haven't. You mustn't come here if you want a couple of miles of beach to +yourself. It all depends how you look at it. If Llanyglo's cheapjack in +one way, perhaps it isn't in another. It's merely that I remember it as +it used to be....</p> + +<p>"Would it surprise you to learn that the whole place is only about +thirty years old? That's all. It grew like a mushroom; there are people +who were born here who don't know their way about their own town.... +Mostly Welsh? Oh dear no, not by any means. I should say about +half-and-half. I suppose you're thinking of the Welsh names of the +streets? They don't mean very much. There's Gardd Street, for instance; +'gardd' is only the Welsh for 'garden,' and Edward Garden, John Willie +Garden's father, built the greater part of it (for that matter, he built +the greater part of Llanyglo). And if anybody called Wood (say) had put +up a house here, he'd probably have called it 'Ty Coed.' And some of it, +of course, is genuine Welsh. The Porth Neigr Road does go to Porth +Neigr, and Sarn, over there, has always been Sarn. But people think +they're getting better value for their money if they come away for a +fortnight and see foreign names everywhere; they've a travelled sort of +feeling; so they give the streets these names, and print all the +placards in two columns, with 'Rhybudd' on one side and 'Notice' on the +other.</p> + +<p>"And that's given rise to one rather amusing little mistake. As you +know, this headland that we're on is called the Trwyn, and 'trwyn' +simply means a nose or a promontory. But over past the Lighthouse +there, there are the remains of an old Dinas, a British camp, and +half these Lancashire trippers think the headland's called after +that—'t'ruin'—'th' ruin'—you know how they talk....</p> + +<p>"I'm interested in the place for several reasons (not money ones, I'm +sorry to say). For one thing, I like to watch the Welsh and Lancashire +folk together; that's been very amusing. And then, it's not often you +get the chance of seeing a whole development quite so concisely +epitomised as we've had it here. Llanyglo started from practically +nothing, and it's grown to this before John Willie Garden has a single +grey hair on his head (though, to be sure, that cowslip colour doesn't +show grey very much). Then there's that curious essence—I don't know +what you call it—the thing a town would still keep even though you +cleared every brick away and built it all over again, and sent every +inhabitant packing and re-peopled it. There's a field for speculation +there, too, though perhaps not a very profitable one. But most of all +I've been interested in seeing what various sets of people have given +Llanyglo, and what it's given to them in return—how the stones and the +people have taken colour from one another, if you understand me, and +what colour—in fact (if it doesn't sound a little pompous) in Llanyglo +as an expression of the life of our time. It's sometimes hard to believe +that something almost human hasn't got into its stone and paint and +mortar. The whole place, as it's spread out down there now—two-mile +line of front, houses, hotels, railway, gasometers and all—has had +almost a personal birth, and adolescence, and growing-pains, and sown +its wild oats, and has its things that it tells and its things that it +doesn't tell, in an extraordinary way—or else, as I say, it seems +extraordinary, because you get it all into a single focus. There may +even be a bit of me in Llanyglo. If you came half a dozen times there'd +be a bit of you too.</p> + +<p>"I should like you to meet John Willie Garden. He's the man to go to if +you want to know anything about these streets and hotels and the seaside +and the stations on the front. Why not come to the Kursaal, on the +Terrace, at about nine to-night?—Good. He's a capital chap; a Something +or other on the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, adopted Conservative +Free Trade candidate for his division (but a Protectionist in other +countries) and probably worth a quarter of a million, a good deal of it +out of Llanyglo. Not bad for a little turned forty, eh? He'll probably +ask you to dinner. You can't see his house from here; it stands back +from Gardd Street. It was the first house to go up in Llanyglo—no, I'm +forgetting. There was one before it—just one before it, not counting +the original cottages, of course....</p> + +<p>"What do you say to a turn? We've time to have a look at the Dinas +before we go down....</p> + +<p>"It's British, and the <i>Sixpenny Guide</i> will tell you all that's known +about it—possibly more. Its foundations are said to have been sprinkled +with the blood of Merlin. What's left of it's certainly sprinkled with +these everlasting initials. The Trwyn Light's just behind, two reds and +a white, and they're experimenting with the Rocket Apparatus, but I +don't think that will come to much.—There's little Porth Neigr, +look—and that point thirty miles away's Abercelyn....</p> + +<p>"Now the mountains are beginning to show; there they are—Delyn on the +left, then Moel Eryr, then Mynedd Mawr. That's Penyffestyn, with the +great cavity in his side, and his shadow's right across Bwlch.... Yes, +very fine, and a perfect evening for it. The posters at Euston don't +overstate it, do they? Of course, you've seen that very familiar one, of +a Welsh Giantess, shawl, apron, steeple hat and all the lot, holding a +view of Llanyglo in her arms? Pink hotels, indigo mountains and +chrome-yellow sands....</p> + +<p>"There's the <i>Queen of the Waters</i> coming in. If we wait a few minutes +longer we shall see the town light up. Yes, electricity; the +power-station was finished only last year; it's over there beyond the +filter-beds; Llanyglo handles its own sewage.... Ah! There goes the +Promenade lights; three jumps, and the two miles are lighted up from end +to end; the kite-string's a necklace now; pretty, isn't it?... And there +goes the Pier.... There'll be a glare behind us like a shout of light in +a moment—the Trwyn Light....</p> + +<p>"The mountains are dark now, but how the day lingers on the sea! +To-night it's like ribbon-grass.... Hear the post-horns? Those are the +chars-à-bancs coming in. The last tripper's running for the station +now.... Now the light's dying on the sea; it's a new moon and a spring +tide. Two or three riding-lights only—I say, it's solemn out there.... +But they'll be dining at the Majestic presently. That long golden haze +is Gardd Street, and that spangle at the end of it's the New Bazaar. +There goes the Big Wheel in the Kursaal Gardens, with its advertisement +on it. We might look in at the Dancing Hall to-night; that's rather a +sight. They have firework displays in the grounds, too, and last year +there was one out in the bay; they put bombs and flares and serpents on +rafts, and laid them from boats, like mines. That was in honour of the +Investiture of the Prince of Wales....</p> + +<p>"We'd better take the tram down, I think; we might stumble and break our +necks....</p> + +<p>"The other turnstile.—That kiosk place? That's the visitors' bureau. +They'll tell you quite a number of useful things there—cab fares, +porters' charges, time and tide tables, excursions and so on; but John +Willie Garden can tell you more interesting things than those. Don't +forget you're to meet him to-night....</p> + +<p>"You're sure you can't dine with me? Very well. The Kursaal, then, on +the Terrace, at a quarter to nine...."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART ONE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + +<h3>THE YEAR DOT</h3> + + +<p>On a Friday afternoon in the June of the year 1880, a roomy old +shandrydan, midway between a trap and a wagonette, moved slowly along +the Porth Neigr and Llanyglo road. It had been built as a pair-horse +vehicle for Squire Wynne, of Plas Neigr, but the door at the back of it +now bore the words, "Royal Hotel, Porth Neigr," and its present or some +intermediate owner had converted it to the use of a single horse. The +shaky-kneed old brown animal at present between the shafts might have +had a spirit-level inside him, so unerringly did he become aware when +the road departed by as much as a fraction from the true horizontal. +Taking the good with the bad, he was doing a fair five miles an hour. At +each of its revolutions the off hind-wheel gave a dry squeak like a pair +of boots that has not been paid for.</p> + +<p>The day was warm, and hay was cutting. Combings of hay striped the +hedges where the carts had passed, and as the Royal Hotel conveyance was +so wide that it had to draw in in order to allow anything else to pass +it, wisps had lodged also in the cords of the great pile of boxes and +brown tin trunks that occupied the forward part of it. Honeysuckle +tangled the hedge-tops; the wild roses were out below; and in the +ditches the paler scabious was of the colour of the sky, the deeper +that of the mountains towards which the old horse lazily clop-clopped.</p> + +<p>The pile of trunks in front hid the driver and the two print-skirted and +black-jacketed young women who sat beside him from those inside the +vehicle. These two young women were two of Mrs. Garden's domestics, and +they travelled far more comfortably than did their mistress. Packed up +by her bustle behind, on her right by her seven-years-old daughter who +slept with her head on her shoulders, on her left by the angle of the +trap, and in front by the hamper, the three or four straw basses, the +cardboard boxes, the hold-all of sticks and umbrellas, with a +travelling-rug thrown in (all of which articles she strove to balance on +her short, steep lap), she could only perspire. Her husband, who sat +opposite, could see no more of her than the top of her hen's-tail, +lavender bonnet. Even this he shut out when he took up, now his +newspaper (every line of which he had read twice), and now his +daughter's <i>Little Folks</i> (for the inspection of which periodical, +though the print was much bigger than that of the newspaper, he put on +his gold-rimmed glasses). The smell of his excellent cigar mingled with +the scents of the roses and hay, and trailed like an invisible wake a +hundred yards behind.</p> + +<p>John Willie Garden, who was eleven, had travelled half the distance from +Porth Neigr on the step of the trap. During the rest of the time, now +falling behind and now running on ahead, now up a campion-grown bank and +again lying down flat to drink at a brook, he had covered as much +distance as a dog that is taken out for a walk. He wore a navy blue +jersey, which, when peeled off over his head, had the double effect of +wiping his short nose and causing his shock of gilded hair to stand up +like flames, all in one movement. He carried a catapult in one hand. +Both pockets of his moleskin knickers bulged with ammunition for this +engine. In the heat of a catapult action, against hens or windows, he +used his mouth as a magazine, discharging and loading again with great +dexterity.—But, a mile or so back, his father, looking up over his +paper, had called the Cease Firing. John Willie now plipped the catapult +furtively, and without pebble. It was the chief drawback of the holiday +from his point of view that it had to be taken in the company of his +father. Among his brighter hopes was that Mr. Garden, having seen them +installed, would return to Manchester on the Monday.</p> + +<p>Mr. Garden was head of the firm of Garden, Scharf and Garden, spinners, +and, to judge from his attire, he might have stepped straight from the +exchange. His square-crowned billycock hat, buttoned-up pepper-and-salt +grey suit, and crossover bird's-eye tie with the pebble pin in it, were +at odds with the slumbrous lanes and the scabious-blue mountains. He +carried a wooden-sticked, horn-handled umbrella, wrapped in a protecting +sheath, and from his heavy gold watch-chain depended a cluster of little +silver emblems that he would not have exchanged for as many Balas +rubies. All Manchester knew that he could have given up the dogcart in +which he drove daily to business, and set up a carriage and a pair of +horses in its stead, any day it had pleased him; and his opinions and +judgments, when he saw fit to utter them, were quoted. But he rarely +uttered them. When asked for his advice, say upon a letter, he would +adjust his glasses, read the letter slowly through, turn back and read +it all over again more slowly still, and then, when the person in +difficulties was awaiting the weighty pronouncement, would look through +the letter rapidly a third time, and at last, glancing over the top of +his glasses, would mildly observe, "This seems to be a letter." +Sometimes he would come to the very verge of committing himself by +adding, "From So-and-So." The grey eyes that looked over those gold rims +were remarkable. They seemed to serve less as appreciative organs of +immediate vision than as passers-on of an infinite number of visual +data, which would be accepted or rejected or laid for the present aside +by some piece of mechanism hidden behind. He was forty-four, clean +shaven, save for a pair of small mutton-chop whiskers already turning +grey, darkish and rather delicate-looking, and only half the size of his +stout, blonde wife. As long as Free Trade remained untouched, he had no +politics, and he was an adherent of the lower forms of the Established +Church. He was taking this journey on his daughter Minetta's account, +who was not doing so well as she ought to be. He had bought a couple of +the Llanyglo cottages, and judged that by this time they must be ready +for occupation.</p> + +<p>The mountains drew nearer, and other pale colours began to show through +the scabious blue. The pile of luggage continued to brush the hedges, +and the off wheel to creak. Minetta snored lightly as she slept, and the +black legs that issued from her pink check frock, trimmed with crimson +braid, swung slackly with every jolt of the cart. Mrs. Garden's face +glistened; Mr. Garden allowed <i>Little Folks</i> to fall from his hand, and +dozed; John Willie sought birds' nests and rabbits; and the old horse +continued to change from lumpish trot to slow walk and from slow walk to +lumpish trot, as if he had had a spirit-level inside him.</p> + +<p>After this fashion the Gardens jogged along the lanes where to-day the +summer dust never settles for touring-cars, motor-cycles and the +Llanyglo motor chars-à-bancs.</p> + +<p>"John Willie!"</p> + +<p>It was five o'clock, and they had arrived. Leaving the cluster of three +or four farms that formed the land-ward part of Llanyglo, they had +turned through a gateless gap in a thymy earth-wall, and all save Mrs. +Garden and Minetta had descended. The cart-track had become less and +less distinct, and had finally lost itself altogether in deep, sandy +drifts in which their approach made no noise. There was a fresher feel +in the air.</p> + +<p>And then, through a V in the sandhills, the sea had appeared, and the +lazy crash of a breaker had been heard.</p> + +<p>The irregular row of thatched cottages was set perhaps a hundred yards +back from high-water mark, and the intervening space was a waste of +sand, coarse tussocks, and the glaucous blue sea-holly. Half-overblown +rubbish strewed the beach—rusty tin pans and kettles, old kedge +anchors, corks, a mass of potato-parings in which three or four hens +scratched, and the skeletons of a couple of disused boats. The +half-dozen serviceable boats were gathered a couple of hundred yards +away about a short wooden jetty. A mile away in the other direction rose +the Trwyn, bronze with sunny heather and purple with airy shadow, with +the lighthouse and the Dinas on the top. A small herd of black cattle +had wandered slowly out to it, and was wandering slowly back again at +the edge of the tide.</p> + +<p>"John Willie!"</p> + +<p>The cottages were thatched and claywashed, and while some of them had a +couple of strides of garden in front, others rose from little taluses +of blown sand. Sand was everywhere. It lodged in the crevices, took the +paint off the doors, and had blunted the angles of posts and palings +until they were as smooth and rounded as the two or three ships' +figure-heads that stood within them. Grey old oars leaned up in corners; +umber nets, with cork floats like dangling fruit upon them, hung from +hooks in the walls; and the squat chimneys had flat stones on the tops +of them. The windows were provided with swing-back wooden shutters. +Between the farming part and the fishing part of Llanyglo the family had +passed three chapels.</p> + +<p>"John Willie!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Garden had descended, and stood over her neat boot-tops in sand, +wondering which of her cramped members it would be best to try to +straighten first. Standing by her only half awake, Minetta rubbed her +eyes. At a respectful distance, but a convenient nearness, half a dozen +barefooted children described as it were rainbow-curves in the air with +their hands from the foreheads downwards, and a little further away the +maritime population of Llanyglo watched the Royal Hotel driver struggle +with the luggage. They did not stand off from hostility, but from an +excess of delicacy. Then, as a heavy trunk slipped and stuck, a young +man with braces over his gansey gave a quick smile, started forward, and +bore a hand.</p> + +<p>"John—Willie!"</p> + +<p>It was Mr. Garden who called. He had put his key into the door of the +cottage where the house-leek grew like a turkey's neck on the claywashed +gate-post, and he wanted John Willie to help carry in the smaller +parcels. Now John Willie was neither deaf, nor did he feign deafness, +but he had a fine sense of the defensive uses of stupidity. Question +him directly (say about those apples or that broken window-pane), and he +knew nothing whatever. Question him further, and he knew less than +nothing. You might conceivably have questioned him to the extreme point +when his unadmitting blue eyes would have said, as plain as speech, +"What is an apple?" His primrose head could be seen at this moment fifty +yards away down the beach. He was watching a fisherman scrape hooks with +an old clasp-knife. He had just spoken to the man. "<i>Dim Saesneg</i>," the +man had replied. John Willie was now watching him, not as a man who +scraped hooks, but as the possessor of a new and admirable defence +against questions.</p> + +<p>"John Wil——"</p> + +<p>But this time the summons was broken in two on Mr. Garden's lips. He had +opened the cottage door, and was looking mildly within.</p> + +<p>The orders he had given for the preparation of the double cottage for +his wife and children had included the lining of the interior with +match-boarding, and he had understood that this had been finished a week +and more ago. It was a month since he had had the advice-note from the +timber merchant at Porth Neigr that the material had been delivered. And +so it had. There it was. There, too, were the walls. But the +matchboarding was not on the walls. It lay, tongued and grooved, with +the scantling for fixing it, just where the timber merchant's men had +deposited it—on the floor. It filled half the place. On the top of it, +still in the sacking in which they had been sewn, were the articles of +furniture that had been brought from Mr. Garden's Manchester attics and +lumber-rooms. The rest of the furniture he had taken over from the +previous tenants, whom some vicissitude of fortune had taken far away +to South Wales.</p> + +<p>Mr. Garden removed his glasses, wiped them, replaced them, and then, +looking over the top of them, spoke:</p> + +<p>"Where's Dafydd Dafis?" he said.</p> + +<p>But a cry from his wife, who had come up behind him, interrupted him. +She fell back again, not mildly, but in consternation.</p> + +<p>"Nay, nay, Edward!—I never——" she gasped.</p> + +<p>"Where's Dafydd Dafis?" Mr. Garden asked again.</p> + +<p>"Of all the sights! If it isn't enough to—I thought you told me——"</p> + +<p>Mr. Garden blew his nose and slowly put his handkerchief away again.</p> + +<p>"Does anybody know where Dafydd Dafis is?"</p> + +<p>"—and us fit to drop for a cup of tea!" Mrs. Garden continued. "Up +since five this morning, and come all that way, and not so much as a +fire lighted nor a kettle on to boil——"</p> + +<p>Mr. Garden was looking about him again, as if he would have said, "These +appear to be boards," when suddenly his wife broke energetically in.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's no good standing looking at it; we must all turn to, that's +all.—Jane! Ellen!—Off with them jackets, and one of you make a fire +while the other unpacks the groceries. The tea and things are in that +box under the shawls—and to think we might have come in wet, and not +even a winter-hedge to dry our things on!—There's no wood, you say? +Wood enough, marry! I can see nothing else!—And the tea isn't there? +Then run out and buy a quarter of a pound to be going on with; I won't +have everything unpacked now, not in the middle of this joiner's +shop!—Tell her where the grocer's is, Edward——"</p> + +<p>And she threw off her lavender dolman and bonnet, and bustled about, +like the capable creature she was, as ready to turn to as if she had +never had a day's help in her life.</p> + +<p>A little girl stood at the door, still describing rainbows from her +forehead; but scarce had Ellen asked her where the grocer's was when +there came up at a half run Howell Gruffydd himself, the keeper of the +single shop of the place. He was in his shirt-sleeves, wore an old +bowler hat, and wiped his hands on the coarse, white apron about his +middle. Over his glasses Edward Garden watched his approach, but he did +not speak. It was not anger that kept him silent. Already he had +accepted <i>fait accompli</i>—or in this case <i>inaccompli</i>. Howell Gruffydd +broke into sunny smiles of welcome.</p> + +<p>"How d'you do, Mr. Garden? So you have arrived? How d'you do, madam? How +d'you do, miss? You had a pless-sant journey?"</p> + +<p>He beamed on each of them, and then beamed on them again.</p> + +<p>"Do you know where Dafydd Dafis is?" Mr. Garden asked once more.</p> + +<p>"Indeed I do not, Mr. Garden. Perhaps he maake fenss for Squire Wynne. +Perhaps he fiss."</p> + +<p>Then Howell Gruffydd's eyes fell on the boards as if he had not noticed +them before. He gave a heartfelt "Aw-w-w!"</p> + +<p>"It is not finiss! Dear me, dear me! Hwhat a pitt-ty!" Then he became +cheerfully explanatory. "That will be old Mrs. Pritchard—Dafydd Dafis +he that fond of her as if she wass his own fless and blood. She iss +nine-ty, and for two weeks they have prayers for her in the chap-pil, +and Doctor Williams, he come from Porth Neigr, and that is five +s'illing, but the pains in her body was soa bad she not know hwhat to +dooa!—And it was good fiss-ing these three weeks and more—and the man +who bring the boards, he say they well season, but it do them no harm to +wait a little while longer——"</p> + +<p>Mr. Garden's eyes were still looking over his glasses.</p> + +<p>"Then is he going to let them season for ever?" he said.</p> + +<p>Howell Gruffydd smiled soothingly.—"Naw-w-w! Not for ev-er, Mr. +Garden!"</p> + +<p>"It's a good job he hasn't got to get his living in Manchester," Mr. +Garden observed.</p> + +<p>At that Howell Gruffydd clasped his hands, as if he congratulated +himself that an interesting rumour was confirmed.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, now," he said, "they do say that the pip-ple there is not the +same as the pip-ple here!"</p> + +<p>At this point Mrs. Garden's voice was raised. She was on her knees by +the boxes, and could not find the sugar for tea. At the word "tea," +Howell Gruffydd broke out with eager hospitality.</p> + +<p>"Indeed it is cup of tea I came about," he said. "I say to Mrs. +Gruffydd, 'They come all this way,' I say, 'and they will be want-ting +cup of tea whatever.' It is all ready ... Eesaac Oliver!"—he called +from the doorway—"run to your mother, and say we be there in one +minnit! And do not answer me in Welss when there are pip-ple who do not +understand it—where are your manners, indeed!" He turned to the +new-comers again. "You s'all have cup of tea whatever, Mrs. Garden—it +cost you noth-thing—and the young gentleman, he is down at the boats, +but Eesaac Oliver s'all fetch him—come on——"</p> + +<p>Howell Gruffydd, the grocer, speaks rather better English to-day than +he spoke then, but there is no more quickness and keenness in his +black-lashed light-blue eyes, and no more persuasiveness in his purring +voice. To the half-unpacked boxes of provisions on the floor he did not +drop an eye. He led the way past half a dozen cottages to the little +shop with showcards and paper packages in the diminutive window. He +showed them in and round the counter, lifting the old curtain that shut +off the parlour from the public part of the shop. Blodwen, his wife, in +a clean apron that showed the knife-edged creases of its ironing, was +curtsying as if she did not know how to stop. The parlour communicated +with the inner side of the counter, and behind the counter, on the left, +was the window. Bottles and canisters stood on the shelves, and below +them were innumerable small drawers. The fire-place had a high +mantelpiece with countless china objects upon it, and a large dresser +with blue and white plates stood against the inner wall. Next to the +dresser was a tall clock, with a ship sailing round the world on the +dial. A gigantic black turnip of a kettle sent out a cloud of steam; +cranpogs were keeping hot in a dish within the fender; and near them an +enormous marmalade-coloured cat slept. The room smelt of pepper and soap +and pickles and cheese, and Howell Gruffydd's guests filled it. He +helped his wife to wait upon them, and in the intervals attended to the +shop. A little girl came in for a pennyworth of bicarbonate of soda, and +Howell, returning from serving her, again showed his white, but false, +teeth.</p> + +<p>"It maake the tea last longer," he said, with a jerk of his head; "but +there is no bi——" he smiled again apologetically, though he was +perfectly well able to pronounce the word, "—there is none of that in +this tea, Mrs. Garden. It is not tea like the fine pip-ple in +Manchester drink, but we are simple pip-ple here. Blodwen, the cranpogs; +make a good tea, Mr. Garden; indeed, you eat noth-thing; tut, tut, they +taake up no room!—You say what is that, young gentleman? That is a +Welss Bible. Aha, you cannot read that! Nor you cannot say, +'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychyndrobwlantysiligogogoch!'—You try? I say +it slowly——"</p> + +<p>Though Howell had repeated the jaw-breaker twenty times, John Willie +Garden would still have maintained the silence of defence.</p> + +<p>"Ha, ha, ha! It is easy!... Well, I ask you riddle instead.—There +was a young gentleman, and he have eight"—he held up his +fingers—"eight—sisters. And every one of them has a brother. Now you +tell me how many brothers and sisters there are!" He winked, but +respectfully, at Mr. Garden.</p> + +<p>"Nine," said John Willie Garden contemptuously, with his mouth full of +cranpogs and jam.</p> + +<p>Howell showed no discomfiture. He laughed.</p> + +<p>"Ha, ha, ha! He say nine! I ask him again.—There was a young +gentleman ... but, dear me, there is the s'op again! We must earn our +living, all of us. Business before pleas-sure—it is a good rule——"</p> + +<p>And he squeezed through to the counter again, while his wife boiled more +eggs and spiked the cranpogs on a fork, five at a time.</p> + +<p>After tea Mrs. Garden was seen to be pulling up her skirt and to be +feeling for her pocket in the folds of her petticoat; but with an +imperceptible gesture her husband restrained her. He thanked Gruffydds, +and they returned to their own cottage, Eesaac Oliver accompanying them +to help to pile up the matchboards and to take the furniture from its +sacking. The cottage was much like the other cottages of the place. Its +ceiling consisted of tacked-up sheets, inside which spiders and dust and +sand whispered and the wind rippled. The black mantelpiece had brass +candlesticks and china ornaments, and on one side of the tall clock was +a grocer's almanac-portrait of Mr. Gladstone, while on the other was one +of Dr. Rees, the President of the Congregational Union of England and +Wales. A sampler, rather difficult to see in the bad light, hung +immediately within the door, and the window opened six inches, in which +position it had to be propped with a short stick. There were geraniums +on its sill, and a red sausage filled with sand kept out the draught +when it was closed. The outer door of the second cottage was to be +permanently fastened up when the match-boarding should be finished. The +cottages adjoining belonged to fishermen, the one with a wife and +children, the other a widower who kept his departed wife in mind by +means of a number of framed and glazed cenotaphs, consisting of a black +ground with white angels mourning over a tombstone, and, above, the +words, "<i>Er Serchog Cof</i>——"</p> + +<p>This was Llanyglo when Minetta Garden was first brought there for the +benefit of her health. The authors of the Itineraries had not thought it +worth mentioning; Wyndham has nothing to say about it, Skrine did not +visit it, Pennant passes it by. But you may find an excellent steel +engraving of it, by Copley Fielding, full of accomplishment, elegance +and taste, and published by the London Art Union. If Minetta did well +there, it was Edward Garden's intention, so far as Edward Garden's +intentions were ever known, to let or sell his cottage and to build a +more convenient house of his own. There was stone to be had in abundance +within three or four miles. Mutton was plentiful and delicious, beef +not quite so plentiful nor quite so good. The larger grocery supplies +could be sent direct from Manchester, the odds and ends purchased from +Howell Gruffydd. Water was to fetch only a hundred yards, and lamp oil, +etc., came twice a week in the cart from Porth Neigr. And soon—Edward +Garden did not know yet, and if he did not know you may be sure nobody +else did—Porth Neigr might be brought nearer to the rest of the world +than ten miles' journey by road. For, besides being a spinner and a good +many other things, Edward Garden was a Director of the Ratchet and +Rawtonstall Railway, and, as is the compliment between railway and +railway, those little silver trinkets that dangled from his gold +watch-chain—little greyhounds and locomotives, winged orbs and other +emblems of speed—were the tokens of his freedom at all times over other +lines, and of his personal intimacy with men who open up land, not a +field at a time with a plough, but by running a sinew of steel through +it, with a nerve alongside that, touched at any point, quickens and +thrills throughout its length.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, it is quite true that he came to Llanyglo first of all for +the benefit of his daughter's health.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<h3>ITS NONAGE</h3> + + +<p>At bottom, neither the good fishing nor the illness of ancient Mrs. +Pritchard had been the real cause of Dafydd Dafis's procrastination in +the matter of the match-boarding—any more than those greased cartridges +were the real cause of the Mutiny. He was merely vindicating the claims +of a temperament that kept him, and would always keep him, poor, yet a +power. He was a day-labourer, whom anybody could hire to build a wall, +mend a thatch or caulk a boat; but—and this was the secret of his +influence—he had a harp in his cottage. In a glorious baritone voice he +sang <i>Mentra Gwen</i>, <i>Y Deryn Pur</i>, and lorn songs of love and wild +songs of battle. More than that, he sang <i>penillion</i>; and as +<i>penillion</i>—which is an extempore form of song into which you may +plunge at any point you please, provided you finish pat and triumphant +with the double bar—as <i>penillion</i> concerns itself mainly with two +themes, namely, the loved mountains and lakes of Cambria, and quick and +topical inventions of personal gossip, Dafydd Dafis held his hearers +both by their deeper sentiments and their lighter foibles. He was a +spare and roughly clad man of thirty, unmarried, with a kindling eye, a +handsome nose, and a ragged dark moustache; and when his head was bowed +by the side of his harp, all the life of him seemed to run out into the +lean and roughened fingers on the strings.</p> + +<p>He came to see Edward Garden about that match-boarding on the Saturday +morning, bringing a youth of eighteen with him. Edward Garden, who had +had experience of the Welsh in Liverpool, which is the capital of Wales, +received him with resignation. Fair and softly goes far in a day, and he +knew that the luxury of chiding the bard of Llanyglo would prove a dear +one did Mrs. Garden find her egg supply suddenly fail and the Llanyglo +cows mysteriously cease to yield milk.</p> + +<p>His forbearance was rewarded. Before he departed for Manchester on the +Monday morning he had the satisfaction of seeing Dafydd Dafis and the +youth actually begin the job. No doubt it would be finished by the time +divinely appointed for its finishing.</p> + +<p>But whether Dafydd Dafis sang much as he worked, or worked a little as +he sang, remained an open question.</p> + +<p>Now in whatever other respects Llanyglo may have changed, its air then +was the same air that the Guide Book so justly praises to-day. Minetta +felt the benefit of it at once. During her illness she had had her dark +hair close-cropped; for fear of taking cold, she still wore a red +"pirate" cap, that is, a cone of knitted wool with a bob at the peak +that fell on one side of her head: and for the same reason she wore +black stockings pulled well up over the bamboo-like joints of her bony +knees. She was a slight, dark pixy of a child, on whom so much care had +been expended that she had begun to care for herself and to talk wisely +about draughts and wet feet; and sometimes she consoled herself for the +loss of her hair by repeating her mother's assurance, that it would grow +the more strongly afterwards.</p> + +<p>But within a fortnight of the Gardens' settling at Llanyglo there was no +further thought of taking her back home until the cold weather should +come. Her doll's-house and paint-box were sent for. Her health +continued to improve. By and by she was to be found squatted down by the +sand-blown palings, surrounded by the Llanyglo children, keeping a shop, +of which the commodities were shells, pebbles, starfish and the like. +Her dolls and their house were neglected. But the other little girls, +who had seen these wonders once, sometimes lingered wistfully about Mrs. +Garden's door, looking within, and whispering, "There it is, +Gwladys—see, by the cloch——"</p> + +<p>Long before the match-boarding of a single room was completed, John +Willie Garden, whom at first his mother had not been able to drive out +of doors, had lost interest in Dafydd Dafis, his sawing, his hammering, +and his songs. He disappeared by the half-day together. It was a holiday +time at the school by the Baptist Chapel, and, with Eesaac Oliver +Gruffydd and other youngsters as his companions, he scrambled among the +rocks at the base of the Trwyn, or climbed the headland itself, or +digged for bait, or went out in the boats, or fished for crabs with +split mussels off the jetty end (he stuffed his catch up underneath his +blue jersey, where the animals crawled about on his friendly and naked +skin). The rainbow curves of the children ceased when he or Minetta +appeared, but they continued as a salute to Mrs. Garden. The weather +continued superb: it rained scarcely at all. The mountains were never +for two hours the same; the sea in the evenings was mother-of-pearl; and +the rising moon seemed to stand up on it, like the lateen of a felucca +of gold.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Garden sent to Manchester for her tricycle.</p> + +<p>Then the school by the Baptist Chapel re-opened, and for some days John +Willie, hanging idly about and listening to the droning within, was +undecided whether to give the insulting cry of liberty or to lament +that he was left to his own devices. He himself would not have to go +back to school till the middle of September. Then he still further +enlarged his circle of acquaintance. He attached himself to a farmer's +lad, who shot rabbits of an evening among the sandhills, and, after +being allowed to fire the gun, gave his catapult away to a "kid." July +passed. The match-boarding progressed by fits and starts. It was now +Minetta who impeded its progress. Dafydd Dafis loved her as if she had +been his own child, and told her stories of dragons and knights and +enchantments and fairies, and sang <i>Mentra Gwen</i> to her, all by the hour +together, careless whether Edward Garden paid him for those same hours +or not.</p> + +<p>With the passing of August, Llanyglo had made far more difference to the +Gardens than the Gardens had to Llanyglo. Indeed, Llanyglo looked like +absorbing them altogether, as animals not ultimately capable of +domestication are sucked back into the feral state. In the matter of +dress, for example, they had deteriorated alarmingly. Half his days John +Willie spent in and out of the water without a stitch on him, and he no +longer had a pair of sand-shoes to his name.—And Minetta? First she +lost the bob from the peak of her red "pirate" cap, and then the cap +itself was cast aside. From careful nightly brushings of her "new" +pleated navy-blue frock with the white braid, she allowed the pleats to +get full of sand, and, where the prints of her ribbed soles had been, +now her bare feet patterned the beach. Her bamboo legs were brown as +seaweed and barked up the shins; and when (with a totally abandoned +display of knickers) she emptied her shoes of sand, she would sit down +in a pool as soon as not.—And Mrs. Garden? Not for worlds would she +have had anybody from Manchester see her as she returned on her tricycle +from bathing among the Trwyn rocks, sessile on the saddle, a mackintosh +over her voluminous bathing-dress, a towel cast across her shoulders, +and her plump ivory legs rising and falling on the pedals like the twin +cranks of a vertical human engine. Yes, the Gardens were slipping back +into savagery. They were becoming part of Llanyglo. Manchester seemed, +not so much a hundred miles, as a hundred years away.</p> + +<p>And when, on a Monday morning, it became necessary that Mrs. Garden +should put on her garments of civilisation again and traverse those +hundred miles, or years, in order to see how her other home was getting +on, the whole population gathered about the Royal Hotel shandrydan that +came to take her to Porth Neigr, and tears stood in eyes, and sobs +choked throats, and shawls and hands and handkerchiefs were waved as the +vehicle started off over the muffling sandhills, and as many promises +were made that Minetta and John Willie should be well looked after as if +she had been departing never to return, instead of coming back again on +the Friday. Howell Gruffydd picked a tear from his eye with his little +finger, and spoke of the mutability of human affairs.</p> + +<p>"The one is ta-a-ke, the other left," he said. "It is all change. Dear +dear, it make me think of my cousin Evan Evans, of Carnarvon, and his +three boys, as fine boys as ever you see, and so-a hap-py, all living +under one roof, till Mary Evans die and wass buried, and the changes +come, and where are those boys now? They are scatter. One is in Bangor, +and one is in Menai Bridge, and one is in Pwllheli. Dear me! Dear me! +Mrs. Garden was a very kind one. There was no kinder 'ooman. Al-ways +the sa-a-me. She seem like one of ourselves. Well, well——"</p> + +<p>And he picked away another tear, as grief-stricken as if he had been +reciting an epitaph "<i>Er Serchog Cof Am Amelia Garden</i>."</p> + +<p>Then, when on the Friday she duly returned, there was as much rejoicing +as if she had been a sister, come back again from a long wandering.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Garden had brought back with her in the Royal Hotel conveyance +wellnigh as much luggage as had laden the vehicle on their first coming; +for it had been decided that Minetta's stay was to be still further +prolonged. So warm clothing had been brought, and more blankets, and a +screen for the door, and a small family medicine-chest, and Minetta's +Compendium Box of Games. And that was bad news for John Willie Garden, +for it brought the shadow of his own departure near; and yet it was good +news too, for it seemed to promise a more sure establishment in the +place, with perhaps another visit for himself during the Christmas +holidays. He could not think how the summer days had slipped away, and +grew doleful as he remembered how few of them now remained.</p> + +<p>Then, when September was a week or so old, he climbed the Trwyn in order +to take his good-bye look at Llanyglo.</p> + +<p>A straggling row of cottages, a few paths over the sandhills, three +Chapels, a school, and a few scattered farms: the rest, mountains, sea, +and air. The tide was creaming over the short thumb of a jetty, and the +herd of small black cows was patrolling the beach. Morgan's cottage, +Roberts's cottage, their own cottage, not more than a dozen other +cottages; and then Howell Gruffydd's shop: already the place was full of +memories for John Willie Garden. That wide pool in the sands that +reflected the sky had not been there a fortnight before—for the sea had +now lost its summer look, and it changed the configuration of the shore +at night. A puff of low-blown smoke showed where Dafydd Dafis was giving +a boat a coat of tar. There was the small crack of a gun—John Willie's +friend was shooting rabbits. On the top of Mrs. Roberts's chimney a new +flat stone had been placed, and a new staple for the shutter had been +driven into the wall. John Willie had still no stockings on, but he was +sensible now of the wind on his legs. They were as brown as rope. His +hands too were brown and grimy, and smelt pleasant. That morning he had +been helping the men to get in the winter peat....</p> + +<p>So he watched, and at tea-time he descended; but already he was making +up the exultant tales he would tell the boys of his form, of the +spanking place where his father had taken a cottage and might presently +be building a house. He would boast over them in the Welsh words he had +learned, and triumph no end that they did not understand him. Only to a +few of his special friends would he confide the meanings of his +expressions in English.</p> + +<p>Three days later he was doing even so, at Pannal School, near Harrogate, +in Yorkshire.</p> + +<p>Mr. Garden came to Llanyglo once more, bringing a doctor with him this +time in order that Minetta's health might be authoritatively reported +upon, and again he departed. The cottages, which in summer had been +places to live outside of, began to have a comfortable look as the +afternoons drew in. Minetta wore her boots and stockings again now, and +her maroon serge frock with the white collar, and Mrs. Garden put her +tricycle away in the little lean-to behind the house, smothering the +bright parts with vaseline and covering it up with sacking. The +last—the very last—piece of match-board had been nailed in its place, +and all had been pale oak-varnished, so that the sheen of the fire could +be seen in the walls. The glowing peats were reflected too, in still red +spots, in the black glass rolling-pin, the brass candlesticks, the +windows of the dolls' house, the plates and lustre jugs, and the china +sitting hen where they kept the eggs. The wind began to hoot in the +throat of the chimney. Mrs. Garden's ears became accustomed to the +louder falling of the breakers; soon the cessation of this noise would +have been the arresting thing. October wore on. There was very little +fishing now. Each of the three Chapels had a week-night service, and +nearly everybody went to all three. Twice the schoolroom was thrown open +for concerts; but most of the singing took place in the kitchen. +Sometimes, on the edge of the dark, a fantastic irregular shape would be +seen, rising and dipping and lurching as it approached over the +sandhills; it was Dafydd Dafis, carrying on his back the wooden case +that contained his harp. Save for these infrequent diversions, the +winter was a dead time at Llanyglo. The hamlet rolled itself up and +hibernated. Mrs. Garden sometimes sighed for a Hallé concert, or a +dance, or "a few friends in the evening," but she bore up for the sake +of the dry and sunny and exhilarating days and the good they did +Minetta. Minetta got out her dolls, their house, and the Compendium Box +of Games; and she and Gwladys Roberts and Morwenna Morgan and Mary +Price, with the oil lamp on the table and the firelight glowing low on +the ceiling, had spring-cleanings of the mimic dwelling (to which the +Welsh children did not take with any great heartiness), and epidemics +among the dolls (which were more interesting), and once a funeral (to +which they gave themselves rapturously). They played Snap and Fishponds, +and then Minetta set about the making of a picture screen, with coloured +figures which she cut from the <i>Queen</i> and <i>Lady's Pictorial</i> and plain +ones which she coloured with her paint-box.</p> + +<p>At Christmas Mr. Garden and John Willie came down, the former for a few +days, John Willie for a fortnight. One of his days Mr. Garden spent in a +visit to Squire Wynne, who lived at the Plas, three miles away. The sea +was some days as black as iron, on others as white as ash with the +tumult of the wind. There was snow on the mountains, but little at +Llanyglo. Even John Willie did not want to bathe. In the daytime he +tried to rig up a sail on his mother's tricycle, so that he might coast +along the two miles of beach before the wind; at night he often walked +down to the edge of the dimly creaming water, and stood looking out into +the blackness, or else at the Trwyn Light, two reds and a white.</p> + +<p>Squire Wynne, the former owner of the Royal Hotel shandrydan, was the +ground landlord of Llanyglo, and the reason of Edward Garden's Christmas +call on him was—still quite simply and on Minetta's account—that he +had decided to build and wanted certain land to build on. But this was +not quite the simple matter it might have appeared to be. With this, +that, and the other, the Squire floundered in a morass of mortgages, +and, for the scraping together of his interest money, could scarce have +re-papered the dilapidated walls of the Plas dining-room. He had other +property also, thirty miles down the coast, which he had never the heart +to go and see. It was there that the family fortunes had been sunk. A +score of broken shaft-chimneys and heaps of fallen masonry on a +promontory were all he had to show for the good Wynne money—these, and +a deed-box full of scrip and warrants which you could have had for the +price of the stamps on them. For that remote volcanic waste had been a +happy hunting-ground for the prospectus-monger with hopeful views on +paying quantities, and the Squire had granted more concessions than he +could count. It was to be presumed that somebody had made money out of +the concessions, if not out of the mines themselves. The last enterprise +had been manganese.</p> + +<p>"Let me pour you out a glass of port first; it's the only thing I have +that hasn't some sort of a charge on it," said the Squire. He was a +heavy man of near sixty, the owner of a family pew in Porth Neigr +Church, a stickler for rainbowing, and, in a feckless sort of way, +something of an antiquary. His adherence to the three-bottle habit +helped to make the fortunes of several quacks in our own day, who +advertise infallible cures for the neuritis he and his kind have +bequeathed to their descendants. The only sign the Squire himself showed +of this was a slightly ochreous eye.—Then, when he had poured out the +port, "It's you who have the money nowadays," he said, meaning by "you" +Gladstonian Liberals. "Look at this ceiling of mine. There isn't a +ceiling in Wales with a finer coffering, but look at the state it's +in!—And that chandelier! It holds forty candles, but <i>I</i> can't afford +'em! This is what <i>I</i> use." He pointed to his father's old reservoir +colza lamp on the table.—"And I'll show you the staircase presently.... +Sell? It won't make sixpence difference to me one way or the other. +Which piece is it you want?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Garden told him.</p> + +<p>"Well, you'd better see my man about it. Sheard, Porth Neigr, next to +the corn-chandler's shop. Or I'll see him if you like. But if we do come +to terms I should like to give you a piece of advice."</p> + +<p>"What is that?" Edward Garden asked.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you're not Welsh by any chance?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm half Welsh, and things jog on well enough as long as I'm +alive. There are all sorts of questions that simply don't arise. But +they're a queer people here, and when you get to the bottom of it, +practically the question of landowning resolves itself into keeping on +the right side of Dafydd Dafis, if you see what I mean." It was not +necessary to tell Edward Garden that, but he begged the Squire to go on.</p> + +<p>"For instance," the Squire continued, "I've a couple of mortgages +foreclosing any time now—Sheard will tell you—I don't even know who +the mortgagees are. But if they're Welsh, so much the better for them. I +mean if they introduce changes, or go at things like a bull at a gate, +they'll wish I'd gone on paying them interest. A smile does more than a +smack here. If they inclose, for example——"</p> + +<p>"Ah, this new Act——"</p> + +<p>"Or any other Act There was a case at that No Man's Land of mine over +there——" The Squire jerked his head in the direction of the shafts +where the family fortunes had been sunk. "An Englishman came, and began +to fence, and there was a Dafydd Dafis sort of fellow there, and this +man Rodgers thought that because he wore strings round the knees of his +corduroys he wasn't anybody of consequence ... and there you are. The +only thing Edward the First could do with the bards was to destroy +them, and they're the same breed yet.—So that's my advice. For the +rest, you'd better see Sheard. Have another glass of port."</p> + +<p>And, after he had been shown the magnificent ruin of a staircase, and +had noted without showing the grass on the Squire's paths and the moss +in the Squire's grass, Edward Garden thanked the Squire for his advice +and took his leave. He was able to come to terms with Sheard, and in the +following spring a new house began to go up in Llanyglo.</p> + +<p>The site Edward Garden had selected for his house lay a little way +behind the row of cottages, over the thatches of which it looked out to +the sea. Rock cropped up there, amid a waste of bents and potentilla and +sea-thrift and thyme, and a rill slipped over moss and, a little further +on, disappeared into the sand, to emerge again down by the shore. From a +stone quarry on the Porth Neigr road stone was still being got for the +extension of Porth Neigr itself; and it would actually be nearer to +bring it to Llanyglo. Sheard saw to that also, and Edward Garden, taking +the Squire's advice, put Dafydd Dafis, match-boarder, in charge of the +work. It would take time, but it would save time. And, so long as it was +understood that it was Dafydd Dafis who might say to this man "Come," +and he came, and to the other "Go," and he went, Edward Garden did not +anticipate difficulties did he wish, later, to "stiffen" his supply of +labour by importing a plumber, or a mason, or a carpenter or two from +Manchester.</p> + +<p>So, in the spring, the rock was cleared and chisels began to clink; and +John Willie Garden, away at school in Pannal, could scarce contain +himself until the summer holidays should come. He sent, by letter, the +most peremptory specifications. His room was to be thus and thus, and +not otherwise. The letters also contained complaints to his mother that +his health was seriously impaired by arduous study; so was the health of +his friend Percy Briggs: indeed, all the fellows were remarking how +greatly in need of a change of air he and Percy seemed. Mrs. Garden's +chief preoccupation was that the new house should have water upstairs +and a cupboard at every turn.</p> + +<p>And as that was the first building of their own that the folk of +Llanyglo had ever seen, its progress became their daily talk. The +farmers came from inland to look at it, and, as the weather grew milder, +the fishermen no longer smoked of an evening under the shelter of their +boats down by the jetty, but instead made a kind of club-house of the +triangular pile of floor-boards that the Porth Neigr timber merchant +presently delivered. They climbed inside this slatted prism, hung the +interstices with sacking as a protection from the wind, and smoked and +talked, while the stars peeped down on them. They talked of progress and +innovation, and of how little they had ever thought they would live to +see such a change as this on the face of their sandhills.</p> + +<p>"But it will not be as big as the Plas, whatever," one of them would +remark, not so much as belittling Edward Garden's new house as in order +to correct a certain tendency to wild and disproportionate talk. Indeed, +they were proud of Llanyglo's growth. Only the building of another +chapel could have made them prouder.</p> + +<p>"Aw-w-w, William Morgan, h-what a way to talk!" another would reply. +"You talk like a great simpleton! You say next it is not so big as the +railway station at Porth Neigr! Indeed, the Plas is big-ger, but it is +di-lap-i-date, a pit-ty to see, and the staircase—aw-w-w dear! They do +say Squire Wynne he go in lit-tle bedroom, not to fall through the +floor!"</p> + +<p>"And the stables is lock up, all but one stall, and you shan't find a +handful of corn there, no, not more than will feed one horse!"</p> + +<p>"There was sixteen horses there——"</p> + +<p>"And the Squire, he hunt——"</p> + +<p>"It all go to that Abercelyn in the mines—thousands of pounds!—--"</p> + +<p>"There is land here to build stables if Mr. Garden wiss——"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, Hugh Roberts, if he build any more we be bigger than Porth +Neigr, whatever!—--"</p> + +<p>And this hyperbole always raised a laugh. Porth Neigr, besides being the +head of the railway, had a market place, two banks, a stone quay, a +court house, and an English Church.</p> + +<p>The house rose higher and higher, and by the time John Willie Garden +came again, in July, it had reached the first floor. Long rows of roof +slates were stacked under a temporary shed, and, as if he had not had +lessons enough in the school by the Baptist Chapel, Eesaac Oliver +Gruffydd did multiplication sums and Welsh-English exercises upon them. +John Willie's eyes danced when they saw the scaffolding and ladders. He +was six rungs up a ladder before you could have turned round. He was up +that ladder and down a second and up a third almost as quickly, nor did +he take breath until, short of swarming up the scaffold-poles, he had +stood on the topmost point of the structure. Then, with the air of +something accomplished, he condescended to the level ground again.</p> + +<p>Half of Dafydd Dafis's men lodged at one or other of the farms and +cottages, to the tenants of which they were bound by ties of +consanguinity; the others put up at the little alehouse half a mile out +on the Porth Neigr road, which served also as a shop for the outlying +farms. Dafydd paid their wages, and they had built a hearth near the +mortar heap for the cooking of their dinners. John Willie dined daily +with them. Never was such importance as that with which he came nigh to +bursting. The rocks and the rabbits, the boats and the Trwyn, no longer +called him; here was not only a house going up, but his house. In his +father's absence he could give orders. He became knowing in limes and +mortars, expert in the use of the plumb and level. He strutted about +with a square, setting it carelessly against angles, and derided Eesaac +Oliver and his slates and long-division sums. The eaves-level was +reached; they began to get the roof-timbers up; the sandhills resounded +with hammering and sawing; and the upper part of the house began to +resemble a toast-rack against the sky. Only one stone remained to be set +in position. This was the gable-stone with "E. G., 1882" upon it. John +Willie warned Eesaac Oliver that the slates on which he ciphered would +soon be required.</p> + +<p>As matters turned out, he was wrong in this. Already three men, a +plumber, his mate, and a carpenter, had been down from Manchester, and +fresh supplies of timber—sections of staircase and so on—had come in +carts over the sound-deadening sandhills. But how all at once the work +came to a sudden stop—how that toast-rack stood against the sky for +another year without a slate upon it—and how Edward Garden, away in +Manchester, had once more to accept the line of least resistance, while +his son loitered disconsolately about the unfinished building until +something even more exciting claimed his interest—to tell these things +another chapter had better be begun.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + +<h3>THE MINDER</h3> + + +<p>The land on which, as Squire Wynne had told Edward Garden, other +mortgages were being foreclosed, began a furlong or so behind the +unfinished house, reaching to and including one of the farms—Fotty, +John Pritchard's. It formed a three-hundred-yards-wide strip of bents +and rough grazing, which spread out inland with Fotty in the middle of +its base. The mortgagee was Squire Wynne's Liverpool wine-merchant, and +he had accepted the mortgage partly because he did not wish to be at +cross-purposes with such of Squire Wynne's friends as were good +customers of his, and partly because he was not very likely to get +anything else in settlement of a longish account. This account had been +reckoned off the sum advanced, which, besides, was based on a low +valuation; and, not wanting the land himself, he was ready enough to +sell to any optimist who did.</p> + +<p>The land remained in the possession of the wine-merchant for exactly +eleven weeks. At the end of that time he had found his optimist in the +person of Terry Armfield.</p> + +<p>And who was Terry Armfield, that his affairs should thus become mixed up +with those of Llanyglo?</p> + +<p>Well, the name of one of his grandfathers, which need not be mentioned, +is to be found, in certain circumstances of notoriety, in Gomer +Williams's <i>History of the Liverpool Privateers</i>; and that of his +father is associated with the bright story of the tea-clippers. Thus a +certain adventurousness in Terry may perhaps be accounted for. But +whence the rest of him derived was a mystery. Belated young Tractarians +who burn incense in their monastic bedrooms were no more common in +Liverpool then than they are to-day. In appearance, Terry was an +ill-adjusted compromise between an ascetic and a young man about town. +He was tall and of a buoyant movement, excellently dressed, had burning +and ecstatic brown eyes, and was possessed of an extraordinary power of +impressing people as long as, and even a little longer than, he was +actually in their presence. This was all very well as long as he spoke +only of pictures that this self-made merchant ought to buy, or of books +without which some shipper's newly formed library would be incomplete. +He really knew a little about these things, as also he did about +architecture and engravings, vestments and Ritualism and furniture. The +trouble began when he went beyond them. Wealthy business men, looking up +as Terry lounged into their offices, would put up their hands +defensively, cry, "It's no good, Terry—I won't listen," but would +presently find themselves listening none the less. It was not that Terry +was plausible. Plausible was not the word. He persuaded you only because +he was, for the time being, overwhelmingly persuaded himself. His +capacity for enthusiasm was astonishing. Circumstances having driven him +from his true vocation (the Church) into business, he traded as it were +under Letters of Marque that had had an apostolic blessing. +House-property, leases, patents, picture-exhibitions, concessions, bills +for discount, Irish-harvester agencies, philanthropy on a paying basis, +and a hundred even vaguer values—some idealistic strain in Terry so +moved the dullard-on-the-make that he had a new light on business as a +benison, and on money-making as something nobler than he had supposed. +What such an one commonly lacked, Terry was full and running over with; +and the end of the matter frequently was that it was judged to be worth +a certain amount of risk to be on the side of Terry and the angels.</p> + +<p>Of course, Terry ought to have been locked up as a public danger. +Anybody but Terry would have been locked up. But you cannot lock +innocence and rapturous good faith up. Terry, if you had locked him up, +would merely have sent for his crucifix, plunged into fresh scheming, +and would have come out again as running over with piracies and the +humanities as ever.</p> + +<p>So Terry Armfield, who hitherto had never heard of Llanyglo and of whom +Llanyglo had never heard, took over Fotty and the strip of land that ran +down to Edward Garden's unfinished house, with, as it happened, +extremely notable results.</p> + +<p>For nobody who knew Terry ever supposed that he made purchases of real +estate solely upon his own account. He represented others; and it is +perhaps significant that the nickname by which he was known among the +members of the Syndicate which made use of him was borrowed from the +slang of the "swell mob." He was called "The Minder."</p> + +<p>Now the Minder, as you ought not to know, is the gentleman who makes +himself charming to you while the others consult about how much you may +be worth, and how you may most conveniently be made worth less. Often, +like Terry, he himself is not in the real councils of his allies. They +want his looks, his candours, his repute, his address, and in Terry's +case they especially wanted his powers remarkable of persuasion. Until +it should be decided what people were to be persuaded of, Terry minded.</p> + +<p>Little did John Pritchard, tenant-farmer of Fotty, dream of the +solicitude with which his farm was regarded by a number of people who +had never seen it and did not want ever to see it. Little did he think +that that middling oat-bearing land was being minded and brooded upon. +Little did he imagine what interest, what benevolence, what affectionate +regard ... or, to put it in plain English, he had no notion whatever +that, instead of having Squire Wynne for a landlord, he was now the +tenant of a set of prospectus-vendors of whom two or three were the same +men who had held those hopeful views on the paying-quantities of +manganese that could be obtained from that other property of Squire +Wynne's, the Abercelyn mines, thirty miles further down the coast.</p> + +<p>The Corporation did not insist on manganese or on anything else. On the +contrary, it was accommodating in the extreme. You paid your money and +took your choice what commodity you found on its properties; you could +have had tin, iron, copper, lead, anything you happened to fancy. It +merely wished to be able to show, in case of need, its indefeasible +title to real land, at Llanyglo or anywhere else, but the further from +civilisation the better. It would be safer, and really not much dearer, +to buy Pritchard's farm, than it would be to have to confess in open +Court that the tin or iron or lead shares of which it was trying to +create the value, unfortunately happened to have Pritchard's farm +sitting on the top of them.</p> + +<p>"No, we'd better get hold of a bit of real land from somewhere," the +Syndicate had said. "Better have it in a new name too. All Abercelyn +names exempt for three years. Who is there?... What about Armfield?"</p> + +<p>All had agreed that Terry would make an excellent Minder.</p> + +<p>When, in course of time, the Syndicate first heard from Terry (who heard +it goodness knows where) that "glo" was the Welsh word for "coal," it +was on the point of plumping for coal without further question.</p> + +<p>"What more do you want?" it asked itself. "'Glo'—'coal'; there you are. +Place-name. Awful lot in a genuine place-name. Find it on an old map, to +show that we didn't invent it, and the whole thing settles itself. +There's bound to <i>be</i> coal. Sure to be. They didn't call it that for +nothing. All ground's got <i>some</i>thing in it. <i>I</i> say coal. On the face +of it. It seems to me Providential. (Shut up, Abercelyn; we're talking +about Llanyglo now.) ... Who says coal, then?" ...</p> + +<p>But Llanyglo was not destined to be a colliery village. Latticed +shaft-heads were not to rise under the Trwyn, nor men to descend in +cages to the galleries deep under the sandhills. Edward Garden's house +was not to become a mine-manager's residence, nor a coal-quay to be +constructed where the wooden jetty stuck out like a stumpy thumb into +the sea.—Nevertheless, it almost looked at one time as if it might have +been so.</p> + +<p>The Syndicate's registered offices were within a hundred yards of Lime +Street Station, and Terry, looking forth from an upper window, could see +the august portico of St. George's Hall and the cabs and steam-trams +running to and fro past it. He sat day by day at a high sloping desk, +perched on a tall stool. A small pile of letters lay by his side, +weighted with a surveyor's reel-tape, and on a shelf above the press +with the dumb-bell arm, thrust among directories and files, were <i>Stones +of Venice</i> and <i>The Christian Year</i>. There was a green cardboard shade +on the double-elbowed gas-bracket, and on the wall near it hung an +ebony-edged T-square and a number of French curves. There was a second +stool for callers, and in a small outer office a youth of sixteen read +<i>The Boys of London and New York</i> and chewed root-liquorice. The place +was shabby, as befitted a hole-in-corner enterprise, but Terry saw not +that shabbiness. He had splendour enough in his own visions. He did not +look very busy, but he was. A dozen inspired and half-baked schemes +fermented in his head, and besides these, he was minding Llanyglo—the +thyme and wild pansies and butterflies of its sandhills, the glaucous +blue sea-holly of its shore, its heathery Trwyn, its coal or what-not +underfoot, and its crystal air overhead—especially its crystal air +overhead....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + +<h3>"DIM SAESNEG"</h3> + + +<p>On the forenoon of that day on which work on Edward Garden's house +suddenly ceased, Dafydd Dafis, sitting astride of a coping, was singing +as he drove heavy cut nails into a beam. His song was martial, and it +almost made his joinering warlike. The burden of it was that Cambria's +foes (here a bang with the hammer) should fall beneath the sword +(another bang) as the pine falls when the levin (bang) flashes from the +cloud that hides the head of Arenig (bang, and a nail well home). John +Willie Garden, who had heard somewhere that coins of the current mintage +were placed in cavities in foundation stones, was chipping a hollow in +the bedding of the "E.G." stone for the reception of a well-brightened +sixpence and a document in his own handwriting, that should tell future +ages how one John Willie Garden had lived and had done thus and thus. +The sun was hot; the new timbers were as bright as John Willie's own +primrose-coloured hair against the intense blue; and the workmen below +seemed to stand on their shadows as lead soldiers stand on their little +bases of metal. John Willie finished his cavity, and then clambered up +to the ridge-tree. There, putting his hands behind his head, he lay on +his back, his dangling legs balancing him below. He blinked up at the +sky, and from time to time called across to Dafydd Dafis, "Peth a elwir +(whatever the English word might be) yn Cymraeg, Dafydd?" Then Dafydd +would give him the Welsh, and he would practise it softly.</p> + +<p>It was just on the stroke of midday when Dafydd abruptly broke off his +singing in the middle of a word. John Willie, blinking up at the blue, +waited for him to resume; as he did not do so, John Willie turned his +head. Dafydd was looking away over the sandhills in the direction of +John Pritchard's farm.</p> + +<p>John Willie sat up.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Dafydd continued to look under his hand.—"Indeed, it look like Mr. +Sheard," he muttered, "but he have strangers with him. It is Mr. +Sheard's carr-adge, whatever.... Hugh Roberts!" He called to the men +down below, who were making ready for their midday meal. He said +something in Welsh to them, and they too looked.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sheard's governess-cart was drawn up by the earth-wall half a mile +away, and from it three figures had descended. They climbed over the +wall and began to cross the sandhills. One of them walked slowly and +somewhat after the manner of a clock-work toy, as if he was pacing a +distance; and another, after looking this way and that about him, moved +off to the right, apparently also pacing. He stopped and held up his +hand, and then returned, laying out along the ground as he went, +something that made a little glitter in the sun. They came together +again, and seemed to confer. Then over the earth-wall John Pritchard +climbed, and William Sheard went to meet him. After that they all +pointed, in various directions.</p> + +<p>Dafydd Dafis, from the top of the pale yellow toast-rack, called +something else in Welsh, too quick for John Willie to hear. Then he +gazed again. Something else was coming along the Porth Neigr road. +Dafydd, who had the eyes of a river-poacher, knew both the cart and the +two men who rode on the load. It drew nearer. Sheard and the two men +seemed to be explaining something to John Pritchard. After a time John +Pritchard walked away.</p> + +<p>Dafydd Dafis descended from the roof, followed by John Willie Garden. He +had put his hammer into his pocket; his little heap of cut nails +remained on the coping. The men had gathered into a cluster, but none +went over the sandhills to see what was happening.</p> + +<p>Then a frequently repeated word struck John Willie's ear. He turned to +Dafydd Dafis.</p> + +<p>"Peth a elwir 'adwydd' yn Saesneg, Dafydd?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Dafydd Dafis looked as if he had never sung in his life.</p> + +<p>"Post—hedgestake," he replied.</p> + +<p>Slowly they got out their dinner.</p> + +<p>As they did so Howell Gruffydd came up from the beach. Formerly, he had +rebuked Eesaac Oliver for speaking Welsh in the presence of those who +did not understand it; now, John Willie Garden's presence was entirely +disregarded. He did not understand six words of the low, rapid +conversation.</p> + +<p>Then in the middle of it a light sound came over the sandhills, and the +talk suddenly ceased. They waited. The sound came again.</p> + +<p>Hedgestakes were being flung from the cart down by the side of the road.</p> + +<p>The workmen continued to sit after dinner, but not a ladder was mounted +again that day.</p> + +<p>John Pritchard was big and sickly and consumptive, and his farm kitchen +was also the Llanyglo Post Office. There John Willie went at six +o'clock that evening to post a letter for his mother. Nominally, John's +mother, ancient Mrs. Pritchard, whom Dafydd Dafis so greatly loved, was +the postmistress, but actually Miss Nancy Pritchard, the schoolmistress, +did most of the work. She was sealing the letter-bag from a saucer of +melted wax when John Willie entered. The postman's cart waited at the +door, and beyond it, past the gate, could be seen the hedgestakes that +had been shot down on the opposite side of the road. The postman was +explaining something to John Pritchard, and Dafydd Dafis and his +labourers listened in silence. In her chair by the fire sat ancient Mrs. +Pritchard, seeming old as the Dinas itself, her face a skull with a +membrane stretched over it, a black gophered snood surrounding it, her +hands anatomies, and her mouth from time to time making a sort of weak +baa-ing.</p> + +<p>Of the hushed and rapid conversation at the door, John Willie caught +this time a phrase or two he understood. "Wait and see, whatever," he +heard them say; "let them drive them in ... adwydd ... perhaps it be on +Thursday ... Saesneg...." He approached the group.</p> + +<p>"Peth a elwir——" he began.</p> + +<p>But the men who formerly had made much of him now took no notice of him +at all.</p> + +<p>The next day two strangers from Porth Neigr appeared at Llanyglo, and +began to stake out and to enclose a belt of land that extended, roughly, +from the Porth Neigr road on both sides of John Pritchard's farm nearly +as far as Edward Garden's house. John Willie watched these two men at +work with their pawls, measuring and driving, but the curious thing was +that nobody else did so. Save for the Porth Neigr men, the blue and +sulphur butterflies and the rabbits, the sandhills were extraordinarily +deserted. John Willie wandered here and there in search of somebody to +talk to, and by and by found himself in Howell Gruffydd's shop. The +grocer showed his false teeth in a smile, and then continued to weigh +sugar.</p> + +<p>"Well, John Willie Garden, can you say 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyll——' yet?" +he asked, his eyes gleaming as brightly as the bright scoop in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Where's everybody?" John Willie demanded.</p> + +<p>"You look for Eesaac Oliver?" Howell asked. "He go errand for me, to the +lighthouse. You meet him coming back if you go."</p> + +<p>"Where are all the men?" John Willie demanded again, and Howell made a +quick and mocking gesture.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, one hide behind that cur-tain—quick, look see!... Ha, ha, ha!" +he laughed when John Willie involuntarily turned in the direction in +which he had pointed. "I cat-ss you that time, John Willie Garden! You +think there's a man behind that lit-tle cur-tain, hardly so big as my +apron! Your sister, she s'arper than that, whatever!... You go find +Eesaac Oliver. He fetch eggs from the lighthouse. Perhaps you meet all +the men there too——"</p> + +<p>And that was as much as John Willie could get out of him.</p> + +<p>It was plain that something extraordinary was toward. It was a habit of +John Willie Garden's to look in at Pritchard's farm of an evening, and +there to pass the news with John Pritchard and to watch his ancient +mother, bent doublefold over her Bible, running a rush-light along line +after line so close to the page that the book was scored across with +bars of smoky brown. He went as usual that evening. But he had hardly +opened the door when it was closed again upon him. "We go to bed," said +John Pritchard, and packed John Willie off without his customary "Nos +da."</p> + +<p>But John Willie knew that they were not going to bed. The door had not +been closed so quickly but that he had seen a dozen men crowding the +kitchen, and Dafydd Dafis's eyes, hollower than ever in the light of the +candle that stood at his elbow, with a sentimental and knife-like gleam +in them as they turned.</p> + +<p>The next morning, every stake that those two Porth Neigr men had driven +in had been uprooted again, and a board with "Rhybudd" on it lay down +the beach, already lapped by the rising tide.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was once told to the writer of <i>The Visitors' Sixpenny Guide to +Llanyglo and Neighbourhood</i>—a young man with so little regard for his +bread and butter that he made a labour of love of a job that brought him +in exactly ten pounds—it was once told to this over-conscientious +author, by a man who had known Squire Wynne very well, that the Squire, +finding himself one day in Liverpool, and taking a walk to the docks +with an acquaintance in the Royal Engineers, pointed down the Mersey +past New Brighton, and said, "Do you know, I've sometimes had the idea +that if this country was ever invaded the enemy would come up +there?"—"But surely," exclaimed his friend, "it's a difficult piece of +navigation?"—"Yes," the Squire replied, "but half the pilots are +Welshmen."</p> + +<p>No doubt the Squire said it without accepting too much responsibility +for it. No doubt, too, he would not have allowed anybody else to suggest +that Wales might slyly open a back-door into England. But that there was +something, much or little, in it, the famous Llanyglo Inclosures +Dispute, that now began, lasted off and on for three years, and then +came to an end in as fantastic a manner as you could conceive, seemed to +show.</p> + +<p>For that dispute would not have been so obstinate and envenomed had it +been simply a question of grazing, turbary, and right-of-way. True, +there might still have been the fence-destruction and gate-burning that +presently filled John Willie Garden's heart with a fearful joy; but—and +this is what made the difference—Owen Glyndwr and his triumph over +Mortimer would not have been dragged in, nor Taliesin and his prophecy, +nor Howell Dda, nor Gruffydd ap Rhys, nor Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, nor a +hundred other grey and valiant and unforgotten ghosts of princes and +saints and bards whose names string (as it were) all Wales, from +Braich-y-Pwll to St. David's Head, making of it one Western Harp in +which the wind of sentiment is never still.</p> + +<p>For these fences on the Llanyglo sandhills were not fences—they were +Saxon fences. They were not notice-boards and gates—they were the +insulting tokens of invasion and rapine and defeat. The Welshman says of +himself that he is able to keep only that which he has lost, and, in +Dafydd Dafis's view of it, at all events, not a piratical Liverpool +Syndicate, but a marauding Saesneg king had come again.</p> + +<p>On the evening of the day on which those fences were laid flat again, +John Willie went once more to Pritchard's farm, and this time was not +refused admittance. Perhaps nobody either saw or heard him enter. As if +it had been put there for a signal, a single candle in a flat tin stick +stood among the geraniums in the little square window-recess, and, save +for a dull glow from the shell of peats on the hearth, that was the only +light in the room. Again seven or eight men were gathered there, some +sitting on the hard old horsehair sofa, two on the table, and others +crouched or standing in corners; and the candle-light rested here on a +bit of lustre-ware, there on a chair knob, and elsewhere on a cheekbone +or the knuckles of a hand. It barely reached Dafydd Dafis, who sat in +the farthest corner, with his cap on his head and his head resting +against a Post Office proclamation that hung on the wall. No sound could +be heard save the loud tock-tocking of the tall clock with the in-turned +scrolls on the top and the gilt pippin between them.</p> + +<p>John Willie thought it would be more grown-up to accept their silence +and to share their motionlessness. He set his elbows on the dresser and +sank his neck between his shoulders. The shadow of great John Pritchard, +who sat on the sofa's end, covered John Willie and half the wall behind +him as well, and John Willie's eyes only discovered Dafydd Dafis in the +farther corner when Dafydd moved. As he moved, a bit of gilt fluting +dipped forward out of the gloom of the chimney-corner. Dafydd had his +harp.</p> + +<p>The next moment a single thrumming note had broken out. It was followed +by a soft chord of three or four more....</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Mae hen wlad fy Nhadau yn anwyl i mi,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Gwlad beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri</i>——"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is the commonest air you will hear in Wales—<i>Land of my Fathers</i>. +Quarrymen sing it as they work by their trucks, slate-splitters whistle +it as they tap in their wedges, farmers' lads tss-tss it between their +teeth as they clump along the road, sitting sideways on their horses. +You would think it had died an age ago of familiarity and repetition. +Had it been <i>God Save the King</i>, played at an English theatre, there +would have been a single line of it, half lost in the reaching for +shawls and cloaks and fans, and here and there a man would have stood +with an interval of an inch between his hat and his head, and already +the attendants would have been getting out the sheeting for the +stalls—so long is it since we knew adversity. But here, it needed but a +stake driven into a foreshore that would hardly have pastured a donkey, +and that was enough—so much adversity have they seen.... Then, as John +Willie craned his neck, a man moved from in front of the candle among +the geraniums, and Dafydd Dafis's hands could be seen. They seemed not +so much hands as multiple things, assemblies of members each one of +which was possessed of an independent life and will. There was not a +finger that did not lurk, stiffen, clutch, and then start back from the +throbbing string as if each note had been a poignant deed done, an old +and secret vow redeemed. For the images that were evoked were cruel +images. Those fingers of Dafydd's might have been choosing, not among +strings of wire and gut, but among the living nerves of an enemy whose +moans of suffering were transmuted into music. Know, that this—not the +languid wrist nor the caressing hand, not the swans-neck forearm nor the +coquetry of the foot on the pedal—not these, but the hook, the claw, +the distortion, and the wreaking and the more than human and yet somehow +less than human love—this is the harping of Wales....</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Gwlad! Gwlad!</i>——"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Dafydd's head against the Post Office notice did not move, but his +twisted hand might have wrenched the sinews from their shoulder-blade of +a frame——</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Pleidiol wyf i'm Gwlad!</i>——"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He did not sing the words, but the words that sang themselves in the ear +of every man there meant that he was so enwrapped in his country that an +alien stake in her soil was a stake in his heart also....</p> + +<p>Within a week of that harping of <i>Hen Wlad</i>, Terry Armfield had more to +mind than he had ever reckoned for.</p> + +<p>There was no doubt that the flame was fanned largely by the Chapels. +These were, respectively, of the three denominations most common in +Wales, namely, Baptist, Calvinistic Methodist, and Independent; and +Terry Armfield, coming down presently to see for himself what all the +trouble was about, gave one affrighted look at their architecture, +gasped, "Shade of Pugin!" and fled. The Baptist Chapel was a plain +slate-roofed Noah's Ark of stone that, with the day-school adjoining it, +stood alone in the middle of the sandhills. At one end of its roof-ridge +was a small structure in which a bell swung, and the building had this +further peculiarity, that, good stone being cheaper at Llanyglo than +common bricks, the latter material had been used wherever an +embellishment had been desired. The Independent Chapel was also of +stone, with zinc ventilators like those of a weaving-shed; these looked +over the fishermen's cottages out to sea not far from Edward Garden's +house. And the third Chapel, that of the Methodists, of which body +Howell Gruffydd was the principal pillar, lay behind the farms. It was +of corrugated iron and wood, painted inside with a skirting of chocolate +brown and upper walls of a peculiarly sickly light blue. On the walls +were stencilled ribbons with V-shaped ends, and these bore texts in +Welsh. Architecturally all these were hideous, but, to those whose +grandfathers had worshipped in the fields and in clefts of the barren +mountains and on the wide seashore, they had the beauty of a thing that +has been ardently desired, and long suffered for, and passionately +loved.</p> + +<p>For from these three Chapels came not only the impulse of the spiritual +life of Llanyglo, but its local politics of dissent also. Education, the +Poor Law, matters of Local Government, Temperance, Tenure, the +Eisteddfod, and the nursing of Nationalism—if these things were not +actually Llanyglo's religion, they were hardly divisible from it. And +this welding of Faith with secular works was helped by two other +circumstances. The first circumstance was that no language was heard in +the chapels but Welsh; and the second was that, as a result of the +local-preacher system, three times out of four the Welsh issued from the +same mouths—from Howell Gruffydd's mouth at the Methodist Chapel, from +big John Pritchard at the Baptists', and from Owen Morgan's among the +Independents. None of these went quite so far as openly to incite to the +destruction of fences.</p> + +<p>They merely prayed to be delivered from the situation in which they +found themselves.</p> + +<p>Whereupon, like Drake's men, heartened by prayer, they rose from their +knees again to take another pull on the rope.</p> + +<p>So three times in six weeks those fences were set up and laid flat +again; and then it was that Terry Armfield came down, saw the Chapels +(as above mentioned), gasped "Shade of Pugin!" and straightway sought +Squire Wynne.</p> + +<p>But before ever he set eyes on the Squire he had already almost +forgotten the errand that had brought him. As the servant showed him to +the dining-room he saw that noble ruin of a staircase, and his eyes +became illumined. Then, in the dining-room, those same eyes rested on +the coffered ceiling and the portraits and the wide mullioned lattice. +By the time the Squire entered he was adoring the stately stone +fireplace. He swung round, hearing the Squire's step.</p> + +<p>"Magnificent, magnificent!" he cried. "Show me over the house—I beg you +to show me over the house!—--"</p> + +<p>The Squire, who had had this kind of visitor before (though none with +quite that perilous smoulder in his eye that Terry had) naturally +concluded that a fellow-antiquary, finding himself in the neighbourhood, +had permitted himself to beg for a sight of the faded glories of the +Plas.</p> + +<p>"I'll show you over part of the house with pleasure," said the Squire; +and he did so.</p> + +<p>"Magnificent!" Terry cried again, when they were once more back in the +dining-room. "And oh, that rood-screen—early sixteenth—and those +sedilia—in your Church over there! I spent an hour there as I came +along."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you came Porth Neigr way, did you?" said the Squire.</p> + +<p>As if he had previously written the Squire a letter setting forth his +business in detail, which therefore he need not repeat, Terry leaped +light-heartedly ahead.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir—and then, after that, to come upon those incredible Chapels! +(That's a misnomer, by the way, unless they contain relics.) ... Of +course, after that I'm not surprised at anything these people do—fences +or anything else——"</p> + +<p>The Squire was reaching port from the sideboard.—"Eh?" he said, not +quite understanding.</p> + +<p>"<i>Those</i> places an expression of religious emotion!" Terry cried, +throwing up his hands. "Of course, what's happened was a perfectly +natural result! Commit such an outrage on the æsthetic sense as that +and—and <i>no</i> fence is safe! If I'd seen those Chapels first I'd as soon +have bought a volcano as that land! They ought to have been mentioned by +the vendors—flagrant <i>suppressio veri</i>—deliberate concealment of a +material fact—an action ought to lie—by Jove, I've a good mind to take +advice about it!—--"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon?" said the puzzled Squire.</p> + +<p>A very few questions served to enlighten him. His mouth twitched as he +filled his harebrained visitor's glass.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I don't quite follow your processes, but your result +seems all right. If you mean there's some connection between the Chapels +and your fences being pulled down, I dare say you're not very far wrong. +The places of worship do settle a good many things indirectly here. But +our own Establishment's been called a branch of the Civil Service, so I +don't see how we can complain if some of their activities are a little +secular too."</p> + +<p>"'A little secular!'" echoed Terry. "Pulling down fences 'a little +secular!' ... Now I'm anxious not to go to extreme lengths——"</p> + +<p>"Eh?" said the Squire rather quickly. He gave Terry a longish look.... +"Do you know Wales?" he asked politely.</p> + +<p>"I do not. But I've not heard that it's outside the Law. I was going to +say, that I don't want to issue summonses if it can be avoided——"</p> + +<p>Thereupon the Squire, who was inclined to like this half-mystical zany +of a guest, gave him the same advice he had given to Edward Garden.</p> + +<p>"Oh, avoid it if you possibly can!" he said good-humouredly. "There's +nothing these people won't do for you if you go the right way about it, +but it must be the right way. A new neighbour of yours seems to be +getting along with them quite successfully, a man called Garden. Quite +an opportunist, I should say—takes things just as he finds +them—settles every question strictly on its merits and has a good deal +of audacity up his sleeve for use at the right moment, I don't doubt. +Can't you take a leaf out of his book?"</p> + +<p>"Do they pull down his fences?" Terry demanded over his shoulder; he had +been looking at that marvellous fireplace again.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so. As a matter of fact they're building his house for +him.—By the way—Sheard's told me very little about it—have you bought +your land to build on?"</p> + +<p>Terry, remembering his Syndicate, had a momentary check.—"I don't know +yet," he confessed.</p> + +<p>"Because if you have," the Squire continued, "and find them +employment—spend money in the place—and use a certain amount of +tact—you might hit it off with them. But do try to overlook their +Chapels. A soul's sometimes saved under a tin roof, you know."</p> + +<p>Terry looked as if he would far rather have his soul damned under a +Gothic nave.—"That's simply buying 'em off," he said. He would have +preferred to burn them, each at one of the stakes they had uprooted.</p> + +<p>"Well.... I'm afraid it's all the advice I can give you.—And now I +shall have to ask you to excuse me. I'll show you a rather fine carved +kingpost before you go if you like——"</p> + +<p>And Terry presently departed for Porth Neigr again, where he took the +taste of the Chapels out of his mouth in a further ecstatic +contemplation of the early sixteenth-century rood-screen.</p> + +<p>The fences were set up again.</p> + +<p>John Willie Garden could never be sufficiently grateful to his stars +that what happened next came before he departed for school again. He had +gone to bed that night, but was lying awake, thinking of the suspended +building. He knew that the resumption of that building was not +irremediably involved in the fencing dispute; Edward Garden had +established a serviceable goodwill in Llanyglo; and that very night, +standing by Pritchard's manure-heap, Dafydd Dafis had all but told John +Willie that when Llanyglo had settled with the intruder it would have +time to spare for the child of its adoption again. He had told him this, +and had then ruffled up John Willie's fair hair with his hand and had +added that it was ten o'clock and time he was in bed.</p> + +<p>His little window, as well as that of the next room, where his mother +slept, overlooked the sandhills, and John Willie, lying awake, did not +at first notice the change in its colour. Neither did his ears hear at +first a low muffled cracking that had been going on for some time. But +suddenly he sat up. The muslin curtains and the claywashed embrasure of +the window had a rusty glow, which reached the counterpane of the bed in +which John Willie lay.</p> + +<p>The moment he saw this John Willie was out of bed. Then, within thirty +seconds, he had plunged into his jersey, tucked his nightgown hastily +into his knickers, and, making as little noise as possible, had tiptoed +down the stairs and out of the cottage.</p> + +<p>The bright glow over the sandhills guided him, and he ran as fast as he +could through the muffling sand. The continuous cracks were like +pistols, and a deep roaring could be heard, which became louder. Then, +mounting a hillock, John Willie saw the beautiful blaze. It was as high +as a cottage, and the twisting, upstreaming column of sparks above it +rose fifty feet into the night. It illumined the sandhills far and wide. +The Baptist Chapel and schoolhouse looked as if they were cut out of red +cardboard against the night. Even the zinc ventilators of the +Independent Chapel, down by the sea, showed faintly. Then all became +grey again as a dozen fresh stakes were piled on. By the time John +Willie Garden got there these too had caught, with volleys of cracks. +Every man in Llanyglo was there, and, farther off, groups of women also. +The heat was intense, so that the men and lads who ran in to throw back +half-consumed ends did so with their faces averted.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell me?" said John Willie to Dafydd Dafis +reproachfully.</p> + +<p>Dafydd was watching this beautiful Red Dragon of a flame that was +burning Saxon stakes. His eyes blinked rapidly. Then he leant over John +Willie, and his forefinger tapped two or three times on the boy's heart.</p> + +<p>"You wass tell me you go to bed," he whispered. "You wass tell me that, +at ten o'clock, at John Pritchard's. There iss two men over there——" +suddenly he straightened himself again and pointed, "—you can tell them +the same whatever."</p> + +<p>A hundred and fifty yards away two men watched. They were the men from +Porth Neigr who had set up the fences. They put up at a wayside cottage +two miles away, and probably they were not surprised at what was +happening. They did not approach any nearer.</p> + +<p>Then there was a call of "John Willie!" and Mrs. Garden's terrified face +could be seen in the outer ring of light. John Willie was haled off, in +a rage that was nearer to tears than he would have admitted.</p> + +<p>Four days later summonses were served on Dafydd Dafis and two other men.</p> + +<p>The serving of those summonses had an instant and very remarkable +effect. This effect was, that three of the inhabitants of Llanyglo +straightway lost all recollection of the English language. And not only +did they, the summoned ones, lose it, but every witness called from +Llanyglo fell into an ignorance as blank. This happened at Sessions, +before Squire Wynne himself, who, in the days before this visitation of +forgetfulness, had talked English to all of them. The gloomy +magistrates' Court opposite Porth Neigr railway station was crowded. +Terry Armfield, at whose instance the summonses had been issued, thought +he had never seen such a set of pigjobbers as stood against the +perspiring walls or sat with their chins on their outspread forearms, +their caps in their hands or in the pockets of their corduroys. The two +men who had put up the fences sat in the well of the Court. They were +brothers, and their name was Kerr. The skylight shone on the baldish +head of the elder of them, and both had given their evidence in a strong +Lancashire accent. They had been watching on the sandhills, they said, +expecting something of the sort, and knew that it had taken place at +exactly ten o'clock, because they had both looked at their watches....</p> + +<p>So "Dim Saesneg," said man after man; and the Squire could only make +dots with his pen on the blotting-paper before him, keep his eyes from +Terry Armfield, and call for an interpreter.</p> + +<p>Now interpretation takes time, during which time the person with most +to gain can be thinking of the tale he will tell next. So the +prosecuting solicitor stood up before Dafydd Dafis, and this kind of +thing began:</p> + +<p>"Were you on this land at ten o'clock that night?"</p> + +<p>("<i>Oeddych chi ar y tir yma am ddeg o'r gloch y noson hono, Dafydd +Dafis?</i>" This from the interpreter.)</p> + +<p>A rapid denial from Dafydd, not a hair of his shaggy moustache moving.</p> + +<p>"Ask him where he was."</p> + +<p>"<i>Lle r'oeddych chi, Dafydd Dafis?</i>"</p> + +<p>The harpist, his fingers twisting his cap, answered that he had been at +Pritchard's farm, and this also was translated.</p> + +<p>"Have you any witnesses?"</p> + +<p>("<i>Oes genych chi dystion, Dafydd Dafis?</i>")</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Oes genych chi dystion?</i>"</p> + +<p>"<i>R'oeddwn efo John Willie Garden.</i>"</p> + +<p>("He says he can call the son of the man who is building a house there, +sir.") ...</p> + +<p>And so it went on, hour after hour, with the English evidence likewise +translated for the benefit of the defendants. At the end of the first +day the case was adjourned, but it came on again on the morrow, and +again on the day after that. It began to dam all other business. As a +block in traffic causes an accumulation behind, so other cases began to +collect—drunks, dog-licences, drivings without lights, and innumerable +other petty disputes. There was no question that the fences had been +burned; the only question was whether they had got hold of the right +men. The Bench could not understand the obstinacy with which the two +Lancashire witnesses persisted that the outrage had occurred at exactly +ten o'clock.</p> + +<p>"But mightn't it have been half-past ten, or eleven, or even half-past +eleven?" they were asked again and again.</p> + +<p>"Ah, it might," they admitted open-mindedly. "But it wasn't," they added +unshakably.</p> + +<p>Dafydd Dafis wanted to know what they said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, translate it," the Squire sighed, and for the fortieth time it was +translated.</p> + +<p>"<i>R'oeddwn efo John Willie Garden</i>," said Dafydd once more....</p> + +<p>And that was great glory for John Willie, for he was called, asked +whether he knew the nature of an oath, was sworn, and raised a general +laugh by varying the formula with which the Court was not so drearily +familiar, and saying, in Welsh, "<i>Dim Cymraeg.</i>" He stood to it that at +ten o'clock Dafydd Dafis had been talking to him by Pritchard's +manure-heap.</p> + +<p>"Oh, for God's sake settle it or do something!" the Squire said +impatiently to Terry Armfield, as he crossed the road to the Station +Hotel for lunch. "You can't say I didn't warn you."</p> + +<p>"I doubt whether my own witnesses would let me now," Terry replied. +"They're as cranky in their way as your own Fenians. Besides, as I told +you, I'm acting for others."</p> + +<p>"Well, if I bind 'em over they'll only do it again," sighed the Squire.</p> + +<p>Terry himself began to weary. After all, he had other things to mind +than a piece of beggarly waste land dotted with Chapels that were a +blasphemy of the name of beauty.</p> + +<p>As the Squire ate his chop in the coffee-room, the two witnesses from +Lancashire sat each on a tall stool in the sawdusted tap round the +corner. Thick imperial pint glasses of mild ale stood on the counter +before them. The elder and baldish one was a man of three or four and +forty, a hard, handy little man, with a curious dip and slope about his +right shoulder. This slight lopsidedness he had acquired during the +years in which he had wandered North Wales buying and felling alders for +clog-soles. Any time this last twenty years you might have come across +him in his little canvas hut in the middle of a wood, with a pile of +split alder-billets on one side of him which, plying his hinged knife on +its solid base with marvellous dexterity, he shaped roughly into the +clog-soles which he cast on a pile on his other side, while his brother +felled. He would buy all the alders in a wood, at so much a foot over +all; the rough-dressed soles went off to Manchester; and no doubt a good +many of them found their way into Edward Garden's spinning-sheds. In the +course of his travels he had picked up from the gentry and their +stewards volumes of gossip of families and their vicissitudes, of wills, +boundaries, timber-news, and customs and tenures rapidly becoming +obsolete; and his coat, a brown check with wide pockets, had probably +been made a dozen years before in Conduit Street. He wore a tie, but no +collar. As the Court had assumed on its own responsibility that he spoke +no Welsh, he had not considered it his business to correct the mistake, +but had allowed them to translate for him also—perhaps for reasons not +fundamentally different from those of Dafydd Dafis himself. He had half +a week's stubble on his chin and thin upper lip; he spat with great +accuracy; and he turned to humour things not generally accounted +humorous, such as scaffold accidents, fights, and deaths from dropsy.</p> + +<p>His brother, save that he wore a collar and no tie, was a younger +edition of him.</p> + +<p>They drank from the thick glasses in silence, and then the elder of them +drew out a short clay pipe with a dottle in the bottom of the bowl, +struck a match on the side of it, and lighted up. The dottle made a +noise like frying. His brother also drew out his pipe, a clay shaped +like a cowboy's head. He gave an indescribably short jerk of his head in +the direction of the other's waistcoat pocket, then, when the stub of +cake was thrown over to him, cut it with a knife with a curved blade. He +stuffed these brains of black tobacco into the cowboy's head, and made +another minute gesture. This was a request for a match. Then, bringing +out sixpence from his pocket, he knocked once with the heavy glass on +the counter.</p> + +<p>"Two more cups o' tea," he said to the young woman who approached.</p> + +<p>They smoked again in silence.</p> + +<p>It was the elder brother who spoke first.</p> + +<p>"I'm capped about them watches, an' right!" he mused.</p> + +<p>The other took a pull at his beer, and replaced the cowboy pipe in his +mouth.</p> + +<p>"I cannot think th' bairn wor telling 'em lies," the elder one mused +again.</p> + +<p>"Gi'e me another match," said his brother.</p> + +<p>The alder-buyer's wrinkled eyes were peering sideways at an auction +announcement pinned to the wall. He shifted his feet in the legs of the +tall stool. By and by he spoke again.</p> + +<p>"Let's see. Let's study it out.... We com' home at tea-time that day, +didn't we?"</p> + +<p>"Ay."</p> + +<p>"Then we went out into th' yard and washed we'rsens at th' bucket."</p> + +<p>"Ay."</p> + +<p>A pause, and then, the speaker's eyes on his hearer's face like two +prickers:</p> + +<p>"Did yet tak' your waistcoat off?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell ye."</p> + +<p>"I did mine. I threw it down on a chair i' t' kitchen."</p> + +<p>This time the younger brother shifted his feet.</p> + +<p>"Happen I did mine an' all."</p> + +<p>"Wor your watch i' your pocket?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, it wad be."</p> + +<p>"So wor mine."</p> + +<p>They drank thoughtfully and simultaneously, and again the silence fell.</p> + +<p>Then, more slowly still, the elder Kerr resumed.</p> + +<p>"D'ye remember a chap coming in, a thin chap, 'at spoke Welsh to t' +Missis?"</p> + +<p>"Ay."</p> + +<p>"He com' to fetch a pair o' boots to mend."</p> + +<p>"Ay."</p> + +<p>"Think ye——" again the look as of prickers, "—think ye there wor +owt?"</p> + +<p>"How, owt?"</p> + +<p>"'At he wanted to know what time it wor, or owt?"</p> + +<p>"There wor t' clock."</p> + +<p>"Ay...."</p> + +<p>There were minutes of silence this time. Evidently the younger brother +occupied them by taking, in thought, a considerable journey. He spoke as +if in objection to some far-fetched surmise.</p> + +<p>"But they'd ha' to be set forrard again," he grunted.</p> + +<p>"Ay, I'm bothered wi' that," the elder admitted, "—wi'out t' Missis +herself——"</p> + +<p>"Aw!... Think ye?..."</p> + +<p>They knocked for two more cups of tea.</p> + +<p>"And we've been swearing to ten o'clock."</p> + +<p>"So ye think there wor summat?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot think t' lad wor telling 'em lies," said the alder-buyer.</p> + +<p>This time they both peered reflectively at the auction announcement on +the wall, smoking and spitting as they peered.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + +<h3>THE HAFOD UNOS</h3> + + +<p>"Then," said Terry's Syndicate, or such of its members as lounged in +Terry's office, looking down on the Lime Street and St. George's Hall +pavements as if they had been so many fishermen selecting a likely spot +for the casting of a fly, "what about going back to the old idea—coal?"</p> + +<p>"Hm!——" (a very dubious "Hm!").—"Far better have another shot at +manganese—especially after what's happened——"</p> + +<p>What had happened had started remotely enough from Llanyglo. It had +started, to be exact, in the Balkans. Much manganese comes from the +Balkans; a war there had suddenly made the supply a mere trickle, so +that prices had whooped up; and—wonder of wonders—those old workings +of Squire Wynne's, farther along the coast, actually looked like paying. +Terry's Company, unhappily, had just transferred its rights, and was +rather sore about it.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't that be a little too—timely?" a timid member suggested.</p> + +<p>"Not if you—er—put it properly. It's only thirty miles away——" The +speaker paused from delicacy. "From the real manganese" was understood.</p> + +<p>"Might send a geologist down—one we could trust——"</p> + +<p>A very young member of the Syndicate hazarded a remark.—"But wouldn't +burnt mine-works come dearer than burnt fences?"</p> + +<p>They smiled indulgently at him. He was merely suffering from a slight +confusion of ideas. Nobody had said anything about mine-works. Then they +turned to Terry.</p> + +<p>"What do you say, Armfield?" ...</p> + +<p>It was now winter, and the dispute was still dragging on. There had been +no further fence-burning, but the Member for the constituency had been +memorialised, a joint meeting had been held in the Llanyglo schoolroom, +and he had promised to come down and see for himself how matters stood. +Until he should do so the disputants glared, so to speak, at one +another. A certain element of contempt, that looked at first like +tolerance, had even entered into the quarrel. Thus, a section of fence +on a portion of the sandhills that it would have been a positive +inconvenience to visit was allowed to stand. Llanyglo preferred to +reserve its strength. But elsewhere the stakes lay half buried in the +sand, and John Willie Garden now and then wondered what sort of a raft +they would make.</p> + +<p>"The whole thing looks like being a damned bad spec," the Syndicate +grumbled.</p> + +<p>That opinion seemed to be gaming strength.</p> + +<p>There seemed to be more than a chance that Llanyglo, its heathery Trwyn +and its purple mountains, its unproductive sandhills and its non +dividend-paying sea, would be written off by Terry's Syndicate as a +total loss.</p> + +<p>Then, all in a night, something astonishing happened at Llanyglo.</p> + +<p>The words "all in a night" are to be understood in their very plainest +sense. Granted that it was a winter's night, and therefore a long one, +with the darkness setting in soon after four and the sun not coming up +behind the mountains again until nearly eight; none the less the fact +remained that Llanyglo went to bed as usual, and woke up to rub its +eyes, unable to believe what it so plainly saw. What had happened was +this:</p> + +<p>With Edward Garden's house-roof still a toast-rack against the wintry +sky, and his slates just as they had been left after Eesaac Oliver's +last long-division sum, and only half the staircase yet fitted, and the +little socket John Willie had scooped out under the date-stone still +awaiting its sixpence—with all this arrested as life and growth and +motion were arrested in the Enchanted Palace, the first new house had +gone up in Llanyglo. Where had been nothing the night before, there it +now was, staring at them when the sun rose, a house, with smoke coming +out of its chimney.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>That same friend of Squire Wynne's who repeated to the author of the +<i>Sixpenny Guide</i> the Squire's remark about invasion <i>viâ</i> the Mersey, +told him also what a Welsh "Hafod Unos" is.</p> + +<p>"You know what the words mean," he said. "Strictly speaking, it's the +summer-house—pavilion—shelter—of a night. The essentials are that it +must be built on common land, and in a single night. Then they can't +eject you. At least that's the idea. Don't ask me how it stands in Law. +It may be a kind of squatter's right, or anything else, or it may have +no standing at all. Probably it hasn't. But that's neither here nor +there. They have their notions about it, and those at any rate are +immemorial. Look here: you're pottering about this country just now; +just count how many houses you find with the name 'Hafod Unos.' You'll +find quite a lot. There's a very big one Bangor way, that probably took +some years to build, but probably one of these places was its +foundation.... And a house 'within the meaning of the Act,' so to speak, +means that smoke must have gone up the chimney. Cook your breakfast +there, and—well, after that you're a sort of tolerated freeholder. It +might be worth putting into your Guide Book. You'd better add a +footnote, though, that the 'f' in 'hafod' is a 'v,' and 'unos' is +pronounced 'innos.' ... Not at all; you're welcome to any help I can +give you——"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Llanyglo, snugly in bed, had heard the sounds across the sandhills +during the night, but they had been set down to the newest development +of the fencing dispute. This development was that, a week or so before, +several cartloads of undressed stone had been shot down by the side of +the sandy gully that ran from Pritchard's gap down to the shore. And +Llanyglo had smiled. Aha! They were going to build a walled enclosure, +were they? Something that wouldn't burn, whatever? Well, well, if it +amused them to build walls on winter nights when everybody else was warm +in bed, they might. They would only lose their labour in the end. Mr. +Tudor Williams, of Ponteglwys, was going to ask a question in the House +of Commons, yes, and he was coming down to speak at the Chapel and to +see for himself. It was a cold night for building walls, whatever——</p> + +<p>So they stayed in bed, and only the revolving Trwyn light, two reds and +a white, saw the planting of the thorn in Llanyglo's side.</p> + +<p>The two Kerrs did not do it alone. It took four of them—"a Kerr to each +corner," as Howell Gruffydd afterwards said. The two other brothers had +been sent for from Ratchet, where one of them worked in an asbestos +factory and the other was a builder's labourer; and if these imported +ones lacked that spur of conviction that their watches had been tampered +with by tricky Welshmen, they had another and a double incentive—the +sense of family unity, and of the honour of the gradeliest county on +earth, Lancashire. No Kerr, no lad from Lancashire whomsoever, could +thole to be bested by a Welshman. Lancashire was the place for which +Johnnie Briggs played cricket, the place where the Waterloo Cup Meeting +was held. They danced in clogs there, clogs with soles of Welsh alder, +and laaked at quoits and knurr and spell, and knew a bit about homing +pigeons, not to speak of cocks, the game kind. They were lads, and +right, in Lancashire.—Wales? Wales produced nothing but alders and oats +and goats and Chapels.</p> + +<p>The idea had been that of Ned, the eldest brother, and it was part of +the miscellaneous general information he had picked up on his +alder-prospecting through Merionethshire and Montgomery and Carnarvon +and Denbigh and Flint. He had seen a way of convicting Llanyglo out of +its own mouth. They threw down fences on the grounds that the land was +common land; very well, if it was common, as they claimed, it was a +proper site for a Hafod Unos. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander; +and merely as a poke in the eye for watch-tinkering Welshmen, and a +vindication of Lancashire's superior wit and malice, it would be worth a +night's work to see their faces in the morning.</p> + +<p>So to work in the dark the four brothers got.</p> + +<p>They helped themselves to a modest slice of Llanyglo earth, plotted it +out with stakes and string, and then began to dig. The night was +moonless, and they worked by the light of four lanterns. These +illumined little enough of the waste; the moving, straddling shadows +they cast hardly began before they were lost in the darkness again. +Knitting-needles of light came and went again on the polished handles of +the rising and falling spades, and faintly, regularly, and as if a +spirit passed high overhead in the night, the intermittent Trwyn beam +swung—red, red, white—red, red, white——</p> + +<p>They had not to dig deep; there is much volcanic rock under the Llanyglo +sand; and they had not set up fences half a dozen times without having a +notion where it was.</p> + +<p>"Here we are," Harry, the builder's labourer grunted as his spade gave a +clink and a jump in his hand. "I thowt it wadn't be far off.—Is t' +barril there, Tommy?"</p> + +<p>Across a mound of thrown-up sand one of the lanterns cast a short +parabola of shadow. It was the shadow of a nine-gallon barrel of beer.</p> + +<p>"Nay, we mun do a bit first," Tommy replied, spitting on his hands and +driving in his spade again.</p> + +<p>Their house already existed, complete in their practical heads, before +ever a spade was lifted. They had seen through its entire anatomy in the +taproom of the Station Hotel, with beer to solve all difficulties. +Nothing was done twice, and brother did not get in brother's way. Even +as Howell Gruffydd said, they took a corner of their plan apiece and +dry-walled, all save Tommy, who went to and fro with a hand-cart, +fetching stone, not too much at a time, because of the dead softness of +the sand. For the general design Ned's word was law; for details, each +used his own gumption. They worked and grunted, and worked and grunted, +and worked. By the time Sirius appeared over faraway Delyn, and Orion +balanced himself on Mynedd Mawr, they had a serviceable first course +laid. Then they put on their coats again, for it was a bitter night and +they perspired, and with a single blow Tommy neatly tapped the barrel. +They drank, threw off their coats again, and set to work once more.</p> + +<p>"Never heed that, Sam," Ned said once, seeing his brother elaborating +the stark essential plan that had been agreed upon in the taproom of the +Station Hotel. "T' corners, t' beams, and t' roof; we haven't time to +paint it and put a pot o' geraniums i' t' window."</p> + +<p>By one o'clock the lanterns showed four irregular angles of masonry, +shoulder-high, as rough as you please, but true by plumb and level. This +might be a joke against Llanyglo, but it was a workmanlike one. Only two +of the brothers now walled, for they had only two ladders; Sam helped +Tom to lift and carry beams.</p> + +<p>By three o'clock only two of the beams were laid, but they were the +principal ones, and Ned seemed well content.</p> + +<p>"That's t' main o' t' work," he said, with satisfaction. "How's t' +barril going on, Tom?"</p> + +<p>"True by t' level yet," Tom replied. "Shall we start on th' bread and +cheese?——"</p> + +<p>"Did ye think on to bring some pickled onions?"</p> + +<p>"Ay."</p> + +<p>"Then we'll ha' we're nooning."</p> + +<p>They took their nooning, with Sirius now over Mynedd Mawr, and Orion +soaring like a kite. They took it at their leisure; they were "lads from +a reight place," setting about a job as if they meant to finish it, not +Welshmen matchboarding. A mountain of sand filled the space within their +four corners, and they lay on their backs on it, smoking, and watching +the red and white spokes of the light high over their heads, twenty-mile +spokes, of a wheel that had no circumference but its sweep through the +night. Now and then Sam gave a low chuckle; but Ned smoked, spat, and +was silent, save that he said from time to time, "Did ye number and +letter them chamfers, Harry?" or some similar question. You would have +said they had a month before them. Certainly the Kerrs, when there was a +surprise to be prepared for foreigners who meddled with their watches, +were members one of another.</p> + +<p>At half-past three they set to work again. By four Ned had climbed up +above, and was sitting astride a beam with the light of a lantern +shining up on his streaming face.</p> + +<p>"Give us another inch, Sam," he grunted, "—a bit more—a bit +more—<i>whoa!</i> Tom, that quoin—no, th' one wi' th' bolt—this is th' +chimney end—and get them three strutts ready, accordinglie to th' +letters.... How are ye down there, Harry?"</p> + +<p>The mason brother was building the chimney. It was an outside one, +massive as a buttress, and Harry was building it well and truly, for it +was the essential of the house. Smoke must go up it before dawn, the +hearth-smoke of civilised man, the lowly and secular and beautiful token +that he has made himself an abiding-place on a spot of earth, and +becomes part of that spot, and it part of him, so that to deracinate him +is to thrust him back again into the bestial state and to make the land +as desert as the sea. By all prognostication, Edward Garden's smoke +should have been the first to add itself to that of the cluster of +humble dwellings between the mountains and the waves that was Llanyglo; +but of that lawn of lightsome blue that veils Llanyglo to-day the +breakfast-smoke of the Kerrs was the fore-runner. At half-past four they +were shovelling out the mountain of sand and making the hearth for it. +By six Tommy had brought in the bundle of dry twigs and faggots he had +carefully hidden away. Harry was filling in the space between the main +beam and the transom of the door; when Tom asked him for a match he +sprang down, and Ned and Sam also descended from the roof.</p> + +<p>"What time is it?" Tom asked.</p> + +<p>Ned gave a glance round, and smiled for the first time that night as he +drew out his watch.</p> + +<p>"Five past six," he said, and added, with indescribable dryness, +"—unless som'b'dy's been meddling wi' my watch."</p> + +<p>"Here goes," said Tommy, striking a match....</p> + +<p>They exchanged glances that were near to winks as they watched the +flames. It was their equivalent of a cheer.</p> + +<p>The night paled; the Trwyn light went out; and off the headland a seal +disported itself in the icy sea. The day stole across Delyn, but Mynedd +Mawr still remained an awful precipice of ink—the shadow of the morning +bank lay over him. Then came the first glitter on the waves, and, as if +with light all other faculties awake, folk became conscious of the +crowing of cocks and the falling of the breakers on the shore. Howell +Gruffydd got up and began to rekindle his fire. A bolt was shot back at +Pritchard's farm. Dafydd Dafis packed his breakfast in his tin and set +out for his day's work—a little reslating of the roof of the Baptist +Chapel.</p> + +<p>But on his way across the sandhills he suddenly changed, not only his +direction, but his gait also. He advanced cautiously, skirted certain +mounds of sand that he did not remember to have seen before, and then +as suddenly drew back. Then, instead of advancing again, he returned by +a circuitous route, dropped into a sunken sandy way, and then ran as +fast as his legs would carry him down to the cottages. There he thrust +his head into Morgan's cottage and said something, and ran to the next +one—or rather to the next but two, for Edward Garden's double cottage +had been locked up since October. Then Howell Gruffydd came to his shop +door, and Dafydd called him.</p> + +<p>Five minutes later half Llanyglo was out on the sandhills staring +through a gap at something that lay beyond.</p> + +<p>It was an extraordinary house they saw, and then went round to the back +to look at from another point of view. It appeared to consist of a +living-room and a scullery, with a patch under the skeleton of a sort of +penthouse at the back. It was not even on the land that had been fenced +and unfenced and fenced again. Of roof it had none—for you could hardly +call the three or four tarpaulins, that lifted as the wind got under +them and were kept down by stones, a roof. Parts of the walls were +solidly constructed; other parts had been battened up with hedgestakes, +filled in with sods and peats, stuffed up with coats, anything. It had +an old door that had been used somewhere else, and appeared to be +propped up with stones. Over one window-opening hung an old brown coat, +the other frame was empty. A bright glow shone on the rubble within, and +smoke and sparks came merrily from the chimney. The fire crackled +loudly, and there was a pleasant smell of cooking bacon. All about the +cavity in the sand lay stones big and little, timbers, stakes, loops of +rope. There was a hand-cart too, with its handle making a T in the air. +A scraping sound was heard, as of somebody cleaning out a pan, and then +came a low "Wouf" and flare of fat in the chimney. Then somebody spoke.</p> + +<p>"Squeeze t' barril, Tom, and see if there's another cup o' tea."</p> + +<p>"Nay, we've supped t' lot."</p> + +<p>"Blow down t' vent-hole...."</p> + +<p>As if those walls vanished again even more quickly than they had sprung +up, Llanyglo could see a picture vividly in its fancy—a picture of a +tilted barrel, with the cheeks of one man distended over the spigot-hole +while another caught a muddy trickle in a thick glass——</p> + +<p>Then their vision fled, and they were staring at that unimaginable house +again——</p> + +<p>Slowly, and without a word, they moved off through the soft sand in the +direction of the Baptist Chapel.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + +<h3>THE FOOT IN THE DOOR</h3> + + +<p>IT was a Saturday, a day on which the school did not assemble, and the +door of the schoolhouse was locked. Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd was sent off +in haste for the key. They waited for him to come back, twenty of them, +men and women, with others hurrying over the sandhills to join them. +Eesaac Oliver ran panting up again, and they entered the schoolhouse. +This was a large, yellow-washed room with beams making triangles +overhead and hot-water pipes running round the walls below. A small +squad of desks stood upright behind, and a number of smaller benches +knelt, as it were, in front of them. These faced the raised desk of Miss +Nancy Pritchard, the schoolmistress. A yellow chair or two, a couple of +glass-fronted cupboards, a row of hooks for caps and cloaks at the back, +and a harmonium, completed the furniture. A short covered way near Miss +Pritchard's desk gave access to the adjoining Chapel. A door at the side +of this led to the little stone outhouse where the water for the pipes +both of school and Chapel was heated.</p> + +<p>Their astonished exclamations had broken out now. As something legendary +and dear and native to their land, it was in their hearts to defend the +Hafod Unos; but for a stranger to set one up!</p> + +<p>"Look you, it can-not be legal!" exclaimed Hugh Morgan, a little tubby +man with semicircular brows and a round bald forehead. "It iss not even +finiss; there iss holes in the walls so-a big I put my head through +them! And that iss not a roof—it iss only rick-covers——"</p> + +<p>"It is wonderful how they did it, whatever!" said little restless-eyed +Mrs. Gruffydd. Those predatory eyes in Blodwen Gruffydd's pale face +could see a sixpence a mile away, and, having seen it, would not leave +it again until it had been safely dropped through the slot of the +money-box into which the savings for Eesaac Oliver's education went. +Eesaac Oliver was not to serve packets of tea and pennyworths of +bicarbonate of soda over a grocer's counter. He was to go to Aberystwith +College, and to become a preacher, and wear a black chip straw hat.</p> + +<p>Howell Gruffydd, who had been as thunderstruck as the rest of them, now +affected to take a jocular view of the matter.</p> + +<p>"De-ar me, first Mr. Garden's house, and now Ty Kerr! Well, it make +trade. Indeed, I need a bigger s'op presently—I think I start a Limited +Company——"</p> + +<p>But big consumptive John Pritchard spoke in deep tones. More vividly +than any of them, John had seen, as if in a camera obscura, that vision +of a Kerr blowing into the vent-hole of a barrel, while another Kerr +anxiously watched the tap.—"We need a bigger public-house, I think," he +said grimly.</p> + +<p>"Indeed you are right, John Pritchard," Hugh Morgan struck eagerly in, +the curves of his brows all marred with anxiety. "They sit in the +Sta-tion Hotel Porth Neigr, and do noth-thing but drinking all day—it +set a s'ock-king example, whatever."</p> + +<p>"And they call it 'ano-ther cup of tea,'" said a third.</p> + +<p>"They very smart ones——"</p> + +<p>Again John Pritchard's deep voice came in.—"They're very deep ones."</p> + +<p>Little Hugh Morgan spoke excitedly.</p> + +<p>"Indeed you are right again, John Pritchard! John Williams Porth Neigr, +he say to me it would not surprise him if that Ned Kerr speak Welss so +well as nobody if he wiss!"</p> + +<p>A shocked "<i>Aw-w-w!</i>" broke out. "And he say in the Court, 'No Welss!'"</p> + +<p>"Tut-tut-tut—de-ar me!"</p> + +<p>They were silent for a moment, contemplating this duplicity.</p> + +<p>"And there iss four of them now," one resumed. "They send into England +for two more."</p> + +<p>"We soon have large population," said Howell Gruffydd again....</p> + +<p>John Pritchard had sat down on one of the yellow chairs with his knees a +yard apart. His brows seemed knitted.</p> + +<p>"But there is noth-thing for them to do here," he said. "No work, no +wages—only building fences."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps they have lot of money. Their bacon smell very good, whatever."</p> + +<p>"They finiss their breakfast—I heard them wipe the frying-pan out as +plain as if I see it with my eyes!"</p> + +<p>Again John Pritchard's heavy voice: "Finiss their breakfast indeed! They +finiss a whole barrel of beer!"</p> + +<p>"And it is right what Hugh Morgan says," another struck in. "That Ned +Kerr, he know Wales as well as I know my two hands! I have let-ter from +my cousin Thomas Thomas in Towyn, and he say they buy lot-t of alders up +the Dysynni two years ago of Mr. Llewelyn Jones of Abergynolwyn, and set +up a hut in the 'ood, and make their clog soles, and pay six-pence a +foot for the trees."</p> + +<p>"He set up more than a hut at Llanyglo, whatever!"</p> + +<p>"Indeed they do no such thing! The Hafod Unos belong to the old days. +There iss no new Hafod Unos I don't know this how many years!"</p> + +<p>"All the old things was new things once, Hugh Morgan."</p> + +<p>Then, as if all at once they saw anew that house so magically sprung up +out of the sand, there fell a silence. Howell Gruffydd might make his +jests about taking a larger shop and forming a Limited Company, but the +hard fact remained, that aliens had squatted down at Llanyglo while they +had slept, and, by force or process of law, might be difficult to turn +out again. Howell's jocosity subsided; among the children's forms and +benches they took counsel together; and when, at half-past ten, John +Pritchard's eldest lad came in with the news that one of the Kerrs had +departed along the Porth Neigr road, while the other three kept guard +over what they had won, they drew closer together still, and spoke in +low tones of boycott.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly somebody asked what Mr. Tudor Williams of Ponteglwys would +say, and the quick little outburst of "Yes, indeed," "Well said," "Mr. +Tudor Williams have some-thing to say," showed how pertinent the +observation was considered. For Mr. Tudor Williams, the Member, would be +able to tell them, if anybody could, whether the Hafod Unos was +countenanced by the Law, and whether the intruders could be served with +notice to quit. His promised visit now took on an added urgency.</p> + +<p>"It is a pit-ty Mr. Williams fall out with Squire Wynne," Hugh Morgan +remarked. "It will be the Squire who will have to give them notice, +whatever."</p> + +<p>"They quarrel one day outside the Court at Porth Neigr."</p> + +<p>"But indeed, Howell Gruffydd, Mr. Tudor Williams wass in the right—it +was about the Tithes, and the Tithe iss a wick-ked system——"</p> + +<p>"Aw-w-w, but the Welss Members they alter all that very soon!"</p> + +<p>"But the Squire and the Bis-sop of St. Asaph is great friends——"</p> + +<p>"Indeed that Bis-sop of St. Asaph he look at a Chap-pil like as if it +wass not worth his eyesight!"</p> + +<p>Dafydd Dafis, who sat on a child's bench, looking moodily at the floor, +had not spoken yet. He gave a quick glance up, and then looked down +again.</p> + +<p>"The Church iss a great robber," he muttered within his moustache....</p> + +<p>They discussed questions of ecclesiastical polity....</p> + +<p>"It iss a great robber," said Dafydd Dafis, again resuming his former +attitude.</p> + +<p>Then Howell Gruffydd rose, and one or two others followed his example. +There was the day's work to be done. Soon all moved to the door, but +before going about their businesses they went to take another look at +that astonishing house.</p> + +<p>But they looked only from a distance. If they had assumed that the +Kerrs, having worked all night, would now be sleeping, they were wrong. +They could see them, three of them, still busily walling, filling, +shovelling out sand.</p> + +<p>"They try to finiss before Sunday," Hugh Morgan said.</p> + +<p>But big John Pritchard glared sternly at him.</p> + +<p>"They care noth-thing for Sunday, those ones," he said. "That other one +will have gone for more beer." And he added, in solemn tones, "It iss a +den of li-ons!"</p> + +<p>The fencing dispute had now sunk into insignificance.</p> + +<p>It quickly appeared, even as John Pritchard had said, that the Kerrs +cared nothing for Sunday. At a quarter to ten on the morning of that +day, Howell Gruffydd, in his tight black frock-coat and bowler hat, +passing up the sandy gully on his way to the Methodist Chapel, heard +sounds of carousing. He turned aside to look. The door of the Hafod +stood open, and a second barrel of beer, together with provisions and +some sticks of furniture, had been fetched during the night. Tommy, the +youngest of the Kerrs, was already drunk and singing. The eldest of +them, seeing Howell Gruffydd, gave him an insolently familiar nod, as if +he had as much right to be there as anybody else.</p> + +<p>"Cold mornin'," he said. "Are ye coming in to hev' a tot?"</p> + +<p>Howell turned away.</p> + +<p>After service, Howell encountered John Pritchard. John, too, had heard +that godless levity from afar. Others gathered round them by the gap in +the thymy earth-wall, and John raised his voice on high. It shook with +bitter zeal.</p> + +<p>"We hear them in the Chap-pil, in the mid-dle of prayers, singing!" he +cried. "On a Sunday morning they sing; they sing '<i>Thomas, make Room for +your Uncle</i>!' I said it was a den of li-ons, but indeed no li-ons ever +behave so s'ock-kingly! They sing '<i>Thomas, make Room for your Uncle</i>,' +in the mid-dle of prayers, like if it was out of the belly of hell!"</p> + +<p>Dafydd Dafis, whose head for a day and a half had drooped like a wet +head of corn, gave a quick gleaming glance.</p> + +<p>"They not build it any more quick than it can be pulled down again," he +said quickly. "They come out of the house sometime to work, I think. +They not gentry with lot of money, whatever."</p> + +<p>And that was true. The Kerrs could hardly earn their living by drinking +beer and having continually to mount guard over the house they had made.</p> + +<p>"There will be no peace in Llanyglo now till Mr. Tudor Williams has +been."</p> + +<p>Dafydd Dafis's head drooped again.</p> + +<p>"Indeed we do not need Mr. Tudor Williams for this," he muttered under +his breath.</p> + +<p>And the Kerrs themselves? Did they suppose they could plant themselves +thus in the enemy's midst and not meet with hostile entertainment?</p> + +<p>For this we may perhaps go once more to the gentleman without whose +friendly help the <i>Llanyglo Guide</i> would have been done quite as well as +it needed to be, and in half the time.</p> + +<p>"It's difficult to say, for two reasons," this gentleman said. "In the +first place, the humour of some of these Lancashire fellows is such an +incalculable thing; you never know how far they will carry it, nor how +soon it will end in black eyes and bloody noses. And in the second +place, there was that humanitarian scatterbrain, Armfield. I believe +myself that probably Armfield had already told Ned Kerr that there +<i>would</i> be work presently....</p> + +<p>"Of course, you've heard what Armfield's scheme was. The Syndicate had +decided not to rectify any more errors of Providence about the +disposition of coal and manganese; they only wanted to clear out +altogether, leaving somebody else 'holding the baby'—I believe that's +the expression. Their idea was simplicity itself: to buy land at a +shilling and sell it again at ten; but they didn't express it quite so +nakedly. That was where Terry Armfield came in—to dress the enterprise +up and make it attractive. As long as he enabled them to cut their loss +they didn't care what he did with Llanyglo.</p> + +<p>"And there was nothing really wrong with the scheme, except that Terry +was twenty years before his time, and naturally had to suffer for it. I +think he called it '<i>The Thelema Estate Development Company</i>,' and +nowadays it would be called a Garden City. And if Terry hadn't Edward +Garden's sense of the line of least resistance, you must remember that +he hadn't Edward Garden's 'inside' information either. He had nothing +but that ecstatic power of persuading people. And he did persuade them. +I doubt if half a dozen of the people he sold to ever saw the place. Two +of them did, though, two brothers, in the produce line. They went down, +and came back again, and quietly sold out, keeping strictly to Terry's +representations; and I believe they warned Terry then that if he wasn't +careful he'd be getting into trouble. I asked them what they'd been +thinking of to let themselves be persuaded by a hare-brained enthusiast +like that. They told me it was all very well for me to talk <i>now</i>. They +knew perfectly well all the time that it was only one of Terry's dreams +of a better and a brighter world, but they bought for all that, and so +did crowds of others. Terry didn't admit a single difficulty. He talked +about angels and the higher life. He talked about Pugin and the soul's +need for seasons of contemplation and repose. He talked about the air +and the sea and the mountains and the Trwyn, and he made it out to be +Llanyglo's chief merit that it took a whole day to get there.... And so +on. To cut it short, they were to do their own building, but Terry, as +vendor, undertook the rest—laying out certain roads, draining and +lighting them, I believe the building of a sort of public hall, and so +forth. I don't think he said anything about the Chapels.</p> + +<p>"And that (to get back where we started from) is probably the reason the +Kerrs stood by."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Whether Dafydd Dafis would have watched the Kerrs out of the Hafod, or, +failing that, whether he would have pulled it down over their heads, is +hardly worth debating; for, as it happened, that very Sunday night there +befell something that for the time being had all the effect of a +declared truce between the hamlet and its invaders. Something deeper and +more solemn than the machinations of man took a hand in the making of +Llanyglo. This was the wind. It began to get up at about three o'clock +that afternoon; all day there had been a swell; and Dafydd Dafis and +others, returning from Howell Gruffydd's house (where a second letter to +Mr. Tudor Williams Ponteglwys had been written, as urgent as Eesaac +Oliver's pen could make it), saw all four of the brothers on the roof, +trying to secure the tarpaulin in which the wind volleyed; their +roof-slates were not expected till the following Wednesday. The ground +was a blurr of flying sand; the sea resembled a tossing fleece as far as +the eye could see; and from moment to moment the waves, breaking over +the Trwyn, rose in slow, gigantic fountains, fell again, and then came +the roar. The four men clung like limpets to the roof, crouching until +the worst gusts were past and then resuming their hammering. They were +trying to nail the covering down, using pieces of wood as washers to +prevent the material from ripping.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Dafydd Dafis, looking up under his brows, saw Ned Kerr pause +with his hammer lifted and peer out to sea. Then, without moving his +head, Ned put up his hand and appeared to be shouting something to the +others. All four looked, and so did the men of Llanyglo, but from the +ground below they could see nothing.</p> + +<p>Then, all in a moment, Ned Kerr gave a scramble and a spring, came down +like a bundle into a mound of soft sand, and was followed tumblingwise +by the others. There was a rip and a crack, and the released tarpaulin +was a hundred yards away, flapping grotesquely over the sandhills. Ned +was up again in an instant, and as he passed Dafydd Dafis at a run he +shouted a single word in Welsh:</p> + +<p>"<i>Llongddrylliad!</i>"</p> + +<p>It was a wreck.</p> + +<p>The boats by the short thumb of a jetty had not been used for a week, +and lay high up the beach. Could they have got them through that boiling +of white sea and brown sand there was a towering ridge to be seen +beyond, maned with spray, that rushed forward and burst only to show +another in the same place. No more than one at a time could be seen. The +boats were open boats, and night was coming on. Small wonder there +seemed little to do but pray.</p> + +<p>But Ned Kerr shouted another word.—"<i>Bâd!</i>"</p> + +<p>From the top of the Hafod he had seen a ship's boat.</p> + +<p>The next moment he and Dafydd Dafis had each a shoulder to Hugh Morgan's +boat, and William Morgan, the three remaining Kerrs, and another man, +were hauling. All save the youngest Kerr continued to tumble aboard as +the boat lifted. He tried to struggle after it, but was overturned, and +they dragged him out and turned him upside down to pour the water out of +him.</p> + +<p>They have a lifeboat now at Llanyglo, <i>The Ratchet</i>, presented and +maintained by the town of that name; but that night the men of +Lancashire and the men of Llanyglo went out in one of the half-dozen +open boats. They put her into the brown, and a moment later the water +had slipped from under her and she sat down on the sand, with every +plank started. They got ashore again as best they could, and raced for +another boat and more oars. They put out again. They dare not use the +wooden jetty, of which only the beginning could be seen. The first boat +was already matchwood. A sea crawled up the Trwyn almost as far as the +Light. They inspected its ravage the next day. It stood as a record for +many years.</p> + +<p>Then the boat passed the brown, and stood out to that pale wall smoking +with spray. The wall came on and broke with a crash that shook the +shore. A woman gave a shrill scream ... then they saw the boat again——</p> + +<p>It seemed madness to think that that open boat would be safer out +beyond——</p> + +<p>After that, though they watched, they saw nothing.</p> + +<p>Then the Trwyn Light opened its eye, two reds and a white. All Llanyglo +was gathered on the beach, and none thought of going to Chapel. Night +fell; the sky became clear as black ice; the dim seas resembled a lair +of white bears at play. Seven o'clock passed, and eight.... Already in +folks' minds the grim thought was born; it might have been worse. They +had dragged Hugh Morgan back as the second boat had pushed off, and +none of the Llanyglo men was married. Whether the three Kerrs were +married or not nobody knew.</p> + +<p>Nine o'clock came....</p> + +<p>Blodwen Gruffydd saw the return first, if, indeed, that vague speck lost +in the grey combings were they. Again the wave came on, and another +hideous range lifted its grey ridge.... By a miracle, it boiled far away +to right and left, but rolled, a grey-dappled dead weight, under the +boat. Already half a dozen men with a rope were waist-deep in the +water....</p> + +<p>Then, as the boat crawled on its oars like an insect, another crest +rose, tilted them so that man fell on man, and a man came out....</p> + +<p>They at the rope were swept out by the backwash to meet them....</p> + +<p>And after all, they had come back empty-handed. They had seen neither +ship nor boat.</p> + +<p>But (and this, in this tale of Llanyglo and of those who made it and +were made by it, is the point), an hour later Dafydd Dafis, opening his +eyes for the first time since he had been hauled out of the water, said +something in Welsh to John Pritchard, who bent over him. Translated it +ran:</p> + +<p>"I would not pull that one's house down."</p> + +<p>Then he closed his eyes again.</p> + +<p>As far as the Hafod Unos was concerned, Mr. Tudor Williams's visit now +seemed superfluous.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + +<h3>THE MEMBER</h3> + + +<p>Ostensibly, Mr. Tudor Williams came to Llanyglo to assist at a Sasiwn, +which is a gathering very much like the Love Feasts of other parts of +the country (indeed, if memory serves, Mr. Wesley gave these assemblies +for prayer and mutual consolation the latter name as far north in Wales +as Builth—but then Mr. Wesley did not speak Welsh). Neither the fencing +dispute nor the question of the Hafod Unos had taken nominal precedence +of this. But Mr. Tudor Williams's visit was also something more. He was +a Member returning to his own constituency—exalted, yet their servant, +familiar with the great ones of the land, yet by their favour. For that +reason they liked him to bring the evidences of his greatness back with +him.</p> + +<p>Mr. Tudor Williams did so, and handsomely. He was a small nimble man +with black brows and a ragged silvery moustache, and a very erect and +conscious carriage of the head. He wore a silk hat, a turned-down collar +with a flat black bow, a frockcoat with voluminous lapels of watered +silk, grey trousers, and new black kid gloves. He drove from Porth Neigr +in the carriage that had been lent him by a political supporter, and +alighted at the gap opposite John Pritchard's farm. They would have run +forward to greet him, but a certain awe of his clothes and equipage +combined with their own dignity as makers and unmakers of such as he to +keep them where they stood, in a semicircle across the road.</p> + +<p>But if they were at one and the same time a little intimidated and +filled out with pride in him, Mr. Tudor Williams knew no hesitation. He +sprang down from the carriage, grasped John Pritchard by the hand, and +then, not content with that, patted him all up the arm as far as the +shoulder and across the breast with the other hand, as if he conferred +invisible decorations on him. His eyes were moist, but glad greetings +flowed from his tongue, in an accent that would have put the most +diffident speaker of English at his ease.</p> + +<p>"Well, John Pritchard! Well, well! Indeed you have not grown any less! A +lit-tle man like me, I hardly reach up to your shoulder! Aw-w-w, you +look splen-did! I was spik-king of you a few days ago to the Member for +Carnarvon Boroughs—but dear me, here am I neglecting the ladies—I tell +you presently—How are you, Mrs. Gruffydd? This young man is never +Eesaac Oliver! Aw-w-w, how he grows! Did you write the let-ter to me, +Eesaac Oliver? That's the style! Education, knowledge—it is a grand +thing!—Now, Dafydd Dafis! And how is the harp? You sing me <i>Y Gadlys</i> +by and by:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'<i>Mae cynhwrf yn y ceunant,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Ar derfyn dydd y gad</i>——'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>—dear, dear, you have to go away before you can come home again! There +is nothing like this over there; there is not the sym-pathy; as I was +saying to the Member for Caermarthen, Mr. Hughes Caegwynion, not three, +four days ago, 'You get no sym-pathy from England and the +Englishman'—and indeed you do not.—Here comes Howell Gruffydd, +run-ning (indeed he runs like a deer, Mrs. Gruffydd!).—Now, Howell +Gruffydd, you miss the train if you don't look sharp (he's making so +much money he cannot leave the shop for a min-nit!).—Now, my old friend +William Morgan! How is the rheumatics?—How are you, Hugh?—Is this your +youngest, Mrs. Roberts? Hwhat! Another since! Aw-w-w—and you more like +an elder sister than a mother!... And there is the Trwyn, just the +same——"</p> + +<p>He was staying the night with John Pritchard, and the two moved away to +the house, the others following a yard or two behind. Mr. Tudor Williams +advanced to ancient Mrs. Pritchard's chair, took the hand that resembled +a dead bird's foot, and shouted in her ear:</p> + +<p>"You see I do not lose a min-nit before I come to see you, Mrs. +Pritchard!" he cried in Welsh. ("Indeed she is a wonderful old +'ooman!)—How many grandchildren have you now, Mrs. Pritchard?" (The old +woman nodded her aged head.) "Great-grandchildren! <i>No-o-o!</i> Think of +that! But I think you all live for ever at Llanyglo. It is not like +London. If I could take bagsfull of this air back with me I make my +for-tune!—Now, Miss Pritchard, I think I must have offended you, you +are so long in spik-king to me! And how is all in school? I tell you +press-ently something straight from the Board of Ed-u-ca-tion for you to +try. You whisper a subject in the scholar's ear as he comes in at the +door, and he walk straight to the middle of the room, no time for +think-king, and speak for five minutes about it! That will make them +ready speakers, hwhat? That will accustom them to public life and +speaking in the Chapel? But I tell you later.—Now, my old friend John, +if I could wash my hands before sitting down to a cup of tea—then we +will talk——"</p> + +<p>He was shown into the best bedroom, with the cork-framed funeral-cards +and the cardboard watch-pockets on the walls, and the sound of his +moving about and pouring out water and spluttering as he washed his face +could be heard by those who waited below. Then he descended again and +sat down.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said by and by, from his place where he sat at the table +alone, they respectfully yet proprietorially watching him eat and drink +his tea, "now tell me about those matters in the letter you wrote.... I +mean the other matters...."</p> + +<p>But let us, before we pass to the other matters, look at the company +that watched Mr. Tudor Williams eat.</p> + +<p>First there was John Pritchard, sitting on the other side of the table +with his hands upon his knees, and now and then turning his body a +little aside and bowing his back to cough. There was John, stern +religionist, believing in God and Disendowment; obstinate, dull, just, +unsmiling; as ready for the Day of Judgment as if it had been the +audit-day of the accounts he kept as principal trustee of the Baptist +Chapel. For all that he was so rooted in Llanyglo that he had never +travelled farther than Porth Neigr in the whole of his life, he was as +ardent a supporter of Missionary Endeavour abroad as his voice was +powerful at the Sasiwn at home. He watched Mr. Tudor Williams's plate, +and with his thumb made signs for his daughter to replenish it.</p> + +<p>Next, there was Howell Gruffydd, with his pale and studious son, Eesaac +Oliver. You might have been sure even then that, should Llanyglo ever +grow, Howell Gruffydd's fortune would grow with it. Howell considered a +good penny worth the putting into his pocket, and, as if his apron +(which, however, he had now left behind at the shop) had made half a +housewife of him, he cared nothing, so it brought in money, whether he +did a man's labour or washed up the dishes or black-leaded the grate. He +could not read, but if at Porth Neigr a stranger chanced to ask him the +way, he would smile and reply, "There is the signpost," allowing it to +be understood that his questioner might read as well as he himself. +Howell had his inner dream. It was of a shop with two large windows, and +a bell inside the door, and brightly varnished showcards, and pyramids +of tinned salmon, and peas within the window that should suggest the +noses of children flattened against the pane, and handbills distributed +in the streets, and two assistants, and a son at College, who should +read for two, and perhaps—who knew?—sit while his constituents watched +him eat his tea—Mr. Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd, M.P.</p> + +<p>Then, with his cap in his hands and his feet shifting nervously, there +was Dafydd Dafis, next to Eesaac Oliver, on the sofa. Should purchases +and rumoured purchases of land prove to be a portent, Dafydd had all to +lose and nothing to gain by change. With that soft cruelty of his of +which the hard and more profoundly sentimental Englishman knows nothing, +Dafydd was at least disinterested. The Kerrs he had forborne to harm, +but he only hated them the more on that account. He himself would not +have killed one of the blue and primrose butterflies that in the summer +hovered over the Llanyglo buffets of wild thyme, and he could not +understand a country that said it was fond of animals and yet, like +these Lancashire men, hunted rats with terriers and coursed hares with +dogs. Alone of that nation he had for a time loved delicate little +Minetta Garden, and had told her stories of fairies and had sung <i>Serch +Hudol</i> and <i>Mentra Gwen</i> to her; but Minetta had gone. All the things +for which Dafydd Dafis cared had gone, or were going, and Dafydd was +lonely. He told his harp so, with those warped and stealing fingers, and +the harp made music of his pain. All that Dafydd would gain by change +would be memories that became ever the more poignant the more they were +attenuated, and the less the world cared for him and his unprofitable +life.</p> + +<p>Passing constantly between Mr. Tudor Williams and the saucepan where the +eggs boiled, or the plate in the fender where the lightcakes kept hot, +was Miss Nancy (<i>née</i> Nansi) Pritchard, schoolmistress and virtual +custodian of the Post Office. The development of Llanyglo, did that ever +come to pass, would be a good thing for Nancy, for otherwise there was +none in Llanyglo to marry her, and to domestic service elsewhere she +could not have stooped. She was tall and plump and ruddy, with black +hair and black-lashed blue eyes, and in her conversation she gave the +preference to the longer words. She had been to school in Bangor, wore +the longest skirts in Llanyglo, and between her and her father's guest +was the bond of their common superiority to everybody else there. She +was a <i>partie</i>, for John Pritchard was well-to-do; but for whom? +Apparently for nobody whom Llanyglo had yet seen.</p> + +<p>The remaining spectators, with the exception of old Mrs. Pritchard, who +resembled a mummy rather than a spectator, partook in varying degrees of +these same characteristics; and there at the table sat Mr. Tudor +Williams, M.P., of Ponteglwys, one of his eyes aflow with tears of +sensibility while the other was glued to the main chance; Baptist, +nationalist, and arguer by metaphor and analogy; an elocutionist, and a +maker of elocutionists by that process of education that consists of +giving a scholar a subject and bidding him straightway speak for five +minutes upon it; and, above all, ever and again suggesting, by slight +gesture or quick glance, that his secret thought was that there, in cap +or corduroys, but for the Grace of God, went Mr. Tudor Williams of +Ponteglwys....</p> + +<p>At last he put up his hand, refusing to eat more.</p> + +<p>"No more, no more indeed! It is the best bread and but-ter I have tasted +since I was here before, but I should be ill in my stomach.—Dear me, +John Pritchard, the happy hours I have spent in this room! '<i>Mid +Pleas-sures and Palaces</i>'—indeed there is tears in my eyes when I see +the dres-ser with the plates on it, and the jugs, and Mrs. Prit-chard's +Bible in the window, just the same as when I was a boy!—Well, I have +had a splen-did tea at all events, and if you will excuse me a min-nit I +will return thanks for it.... Now, my friends!—--"</p> + +<p>Five minutes later, Mr. Tudor Williams, not so near to the Kerrs' Hafod +that he had the appearance of specially watching it, nor yet so far from +it but that he could see Ned Kerr and his brother Sam setting a rough +window-sash into position, was once more shaking hands and patting +shoulders and exchanging greetings with such of the men and women and +children of Llanyglo as he had not yet seen.</p> + +<p>And now that they had got him there they hardly knew what they wanted of +him. That building exploit of the Kerrs having thrust the Inclosures +Dispute a good deal into the background, and Dafydd Dafis's honourable +if sullen refusal to injure men who had risked their lives with him +having given that exploit itself a kind of condonation, it seemed as if +their Member had merely come to a Sasiwn after all. But land had changed +hands: they had a vague sense of impending change and of the discomfort +of change; and, as they answered their Member's questions, the very +presence in their midst of this man who moved behind the scenes of the +drama of large events accentuated this feeling.</p> + +<p>"What is he like, this one?" Mr. Tudor Williams asked, gently yet +absent-mindedly patting big John Pritchard's back as he stooped to +cough. They had been speaking of Terry Armfield.</p> + +<p>They described Terry as he had appeared to them in the Court at Porth +Neigr.</p> + +<p>"Is he taking over any other land?" ...</p> + +<p>You would not have supposed, from the way in which Mr. Tudor Williams, +M.P., asked the question that he merely sought to know how much <i>they</i> +knew. And it had not occurred to Llanyglo that these transfers of land +might be, not an end, but only a beginning. Yet Mr. Tudor Williams had +good, if private reasons, for knowing that this very land might soon be +more than merely worth acquiring.... He was not deceiving them. It +pleased them to think that their Member was the repository of weighty +secrets, and he was merely indulging this simple and legitimate liking. +But already he intended to go to Liverpool in order to find out what +this Syndicate's plans really were. He wanted to know whether the +Syndicate, in its turn, was aware of something else, something still +very secret indeed, so secret that five minutes at certain keyholes +might have been worth many thousands of pounds....</p> + +<p>"And this Hafod Unos—on whose land is it erected?" he next asked.</p> + +<p>He made a little grimace when they told him, on Squire Wynne's.</p> + +<p>"Then perhaps he will let it stand; he is cracked in his head about old +customs, and antiquities, and suchlike foolishness, when there is great +work wait-ing to be done. It is not our business if he likes to let +these people squat upon his land."</p> + +<p>But here John Pritchard interposed heavily.</p> + +<p>"But it is our business if they sing '<i>Thomas, make Room for your +Uncle</i>' in the middle of prayers," he said.</p> + +<p>"No-o-o!" exclaimed Mr. Tudor Williams, shocked. Perhaps also he wished +to gain a little time; he had no wish to call upon Squire Wynne, either +about this or anything else. "Don't tell me they did that!" he added.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, they did," said John quickly.</p> + +<p>"Aw-w-w!—But it is a Liberal maxim, John, and Radical, too, that force +is no remedy. In my opinion our friend Dafydd here——" he put his arm +affectionately about Dafydd Dafis's waist, "—was a lit-tle headstrong +about burning the fences."</p> + +<p>"I will not burn their house," said Dafydd sullenly. (By the way, had +the case been altered, it is doubtful whether the Kerrs would have done +as much for him.)</p> + +<p>"Well—we can always take what the doc-tor told the man who wanted +information for noth-thing to take—advice," said Mr. Tudor Williams.</p> + +<p>"It would be better to see Mr. Wynne first," said John Pritchard. "If +one comes others may come, and indeed I never saw such behaviour, no, +not in a den of li-ons!"</p> + +<p>They continued to discuss the matter, while, before their eyes, the +Kerrs fitted their window-sash.</p> + +<p>Yet it was curious to note how, within the bond of their passionate, if +loquacious nationalism, each man was jealously for himself. It was not +that their democracy was more conspicuously lacking in democrats than +are other democracies; perhaps it was rather that the Welshman +recognises two ties and two ties only—the tie of unity against the +foreigner, and the private claim of his strong family affections. +Between these two things is his void and vulnerable place. He has not +set up for himself the Englishman's stiff and serviceable and +systematised falsity of Compromise, that has no justification save that +it works. He has his age-long tradition, but no daily rule that can (and +indeed must) be applied without question. Each of his acts is his first +act, and so a retail act. Because his hypocrisy lacks the magnificent +scope of that of the Saxon, he bears the odium of a personal +stealthiness. Thus, perhaps, it comes about that while too strict an +adherence to the letter is the Englishman's ever-present danger, for his +brother Celt the spirit slayeth. Noble dreams, petty acts; and here, if +a little obscurely, may be hidden the reason why, when he seeks his +fortune in London, his greatest successes are the minor successes of +drapery and milk....</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Tudor Williams at last, "Wynne is a man of no ideas. He +is only a pettifogging country Squire, whose views on the Land Question +are ob-solete in <i>tot-to</i>. But if he harbours men that are a nuisance, +as John Pritchard says, perhaps it would be better if I went to see +him——"</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he had no intention whatever of doing so. The truth was +that the Squire's views on the Land Question were too obsolete +altogether. They were so obsolete that he had sold when (as first Edward +Garden had known, and now Mr. Tudor Williams, M.P., knew) he ought to +have held; and it was for Mr. Tudor Williams to profit by his error if +he could, rather than to call his attention to it. He was very far from +being a wealthy man.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + +<h3>THELEMA</h3> + + +<p>Because Terry Armfield, believing in his idea, would not have abated one +jot of it for all the money in Liverpool, therefore he got all the money +he wanted. This—alas!—is not optimism, nor a hardy belief that merit +infallibly meets with its deserts in this world; it merely means that a +number of businessmen with rudimentary consciences were willing to pay a +kind of hedging-premium on the off-chance of being, after all, on the +side of Terry and the angels. It is astonishing how often your visionary +can get money out of your man of affairs when another man of affairs +would fail.</p> + +<p>And, even as the man who chatted to the author of the <i>Sixpenny Guide</i> +said, Terry was only a few years before his time. The things he dreamed +of have not come to pass yet, but they are confidently promised +to-morrow. As happy as the day was long, he was merely setting up the +City that is not built with hands, and lighting it with the Light that +never was. And if the "<i>Thelema Estate Development Company</i>" had done +nothing else, it did, at any rate, put an end to that dispute that had +begun when Dafydd Dafis had pulled down fences and burned them in his +beautiful Red Dragon of a bonfire.</p> + +<p>But, over and above that, it did leave its little mark on Llanyglo—a +fleeting mark, laughable, bathetic, sad, hauntingly vacant, and lunatic +(as Mr. Tudor Williams would have said) "<i>in tot-to</i>." Come to that +little office near St. George's Hall, Liverpool, and see Terry Armfield +in the closing stages of his minding of Llanyglo.</p> + +<p>He not only conceived his Thelema; he drew the plans of it as well. He +drew them on drawing-paper, on tracing-paper, on note-paper and +bill-heads and the backs of envelopes. A paper-weight, with a knob in +the shape of a clenched fist grasping a short staff, kept half a hundred +of his hasty drafts from flying off again into the air that gave them +birth. And he added to them day by day, almost hour by hour.... Forty or +forty-five or fifty houses, say, each with its little plot for private +meditation and repose, yet sharing in common among them a spacious +pleasaunce where friend should meet friend and none but friends should +come—that was the idea. A fair wide Way, with the mountains looking +down its perspective to where gentle steps led down to the tawny +sand—that was the idea. A wall all about it, or a ha-ha perhaps, not as +against trespass, but as a symbol that here was an Isle that the tides +of the care and of the trouble of the world did not invade—a shining +and galleried chamber where light and happy laughter should rise to the +groining of the roof (dim blue with gilt stars), and should echo and +linger there as if the fane itself whispered—that was the idea. None of +it existed, none of it was ever likely to exist; but without some such +dreaming our life on earth is little worth. The people who put up the +real money for it laughed at it, and laughed at Terry when he had gone, +but humoured him while he was there as a nuisance, but a gentle one. If +they lost their money there would, at any rate, be a good many of them +in company, the land was exceedingly cheap, and they need not begin to +build upon it till they pleased. Besides, by taking shares in his +Thelema they had bought Terry off. When he came with his other wild and +beautiful schemes they could say, "No, no, Terry, we'll see how Thelema +turns out first," and pass him on to somebody else. That alone was worth +the money.</p> + +<p>Then there came to Terry one day a man who not only did not laugh at +him, but grasped him by the hand, patted him all up the arm and across +the breast as if he conferred invisible decorations upon him, gave +Thelema his blessing, and said, in moved tones, "Indeed it is +splen-did—splen-did—without vis-ion the people perish-eth." He told +Terry that his name was Tudor Williams, and that he was the +parliamentary representative of the constituency a portion of which +Terry and the gods on high were developing. He did not ask outright for +anything. He told Terry that, while he himself was a good Radical, +believing that God made the land for the people, nevertheless, in this +imperfect world things had to be done a lit-tle at a time, and his +principal objection to the (temporary) private ownership of land was +that it was too often in the wrong hands. If it could be put into the +right hands much of the ini-quit-ty would disappear, whatever. Then, +when he came to inform Terry that in his opinion he could be of great +use to the Estate, he told him also that he was far from being a wealthy +man, and that his usefulness must be set off as against the cost of any +interest Terry might think fit to confer upon him....</p> + +<p>"Look you," he said, "the conditions of labour are peculiar, and things +that would be easy for me you might find a lit-tle diff-fi-cult. I do +not say you would, and indeed I am a good democrat, and do not believe +in one law for the ritss and another for the poor; but nowadays, when +every man has his rights and his vote ... well, without a word here and +a word there it might be a lit-tle diff-fi-cult...."</p> + +<p>And Terry, who was quite acute enough to see this, asked Mr. Tudor +Williams to come again.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Tudor Williams came to see Terry for the third time, Terry +pressed him to accept a seat on the Board. But Mr. Tudor Williams put up +a deprecating hand.</p> + +<p>"Aw-w-w, no!" he said. "Indeed it is very good of you, and I am very +pleased you show so much confidence in me, but it would not do. There is +my public position to consider. Indeed I would rather have a nominee. It +is hard to make people understand a proper motive. If the time was ripe +for it I would nationalise all land, yes indeed I would, but if it must +be privately owned for a lit-tle while longer it is better that it +should be in the trust of men like you and me for the public good. There +is as many different kinds of landowning as there is of landowners. That +pet-ti-fog-ging country squire, Wynne, he is repre-sen-ta-tive of all +that is worst in a vic-ious sys-tem; he has no more vis-ion than that +chair you sit on now; but we are not like that. I have not often found a +sym-pathy like yours; indeed there has been tears in my eyes while you +have talked.... But I will have a nominee. It will be better. And I will +see you get your labour. There is John Jones, Contractor, Porth Neigr. +He may even be willing to pay a lit-tle commission. We shall not quarrel +about that.—But I am bet-ter off the Board."</p> + +<p>Very curiously, he was not the only one who seemed a little shy about +being put on the Board. Others displayed an equal bashfulness. This +puzzled Terry. But it never puzzled him for long at a time. Always a +fresh inspiration sent him off into his cloudland again. It was about +that time that he acquired his second slice of Llanyglo, a tract +adjoining the first and running down to that shore that Copley Fielding +depicted with such accomplishment, elegance, and taste. And he took with +that second piece of land a responsibility greater than that he had +assumed when he had merely cajoled money out of the pockets of men who +had known his tea-clipping father and whose fathers had known his +privateering great-grandfather. Briefly, by enlarging his enterprise, +Terry threw away the immediate advantage of his personal idealism and +charm. The thing went to allotment shorn of his peculiar magnetism. He +received money that would not, merely on the score that they liked him, +be indulgently written off by those who would see that money no more.</p> + +<p>His Prospectus is extant. Edward Garden's unfinished house came into it, +and an affiliated interest, "<i>Porth Neigr Omnibuses, Ltd.</i>," about which +Mr. Tudor Williams knew something. There were great swathes about the +natural beauties of the situation, and lesser ones (the Syndicate pruned +them down behind Terry's back) about the Thelema Idea. And there were a +number of other things that are impossible, yet facts in the amazing +History of Flotation. It is no good saying these things cannot happen +when they happen daily. Had you or I bought shares in the "<i>Thelema +Estate Development Company, Limited</i>," we should merely have bought, you +and I, shares in that moonshine that poor, gentle, rapturous, cat's-paw +Terry Armfield drew with freehand and French curves on his bits of paper +and presently spread out in such a lunatic fashion over the sandhills of +Llanyglo. Come, before we leave this dim chapter of the twilight of +Llanyglo's forebeing, and see what Terry did.</p> + +<p>Starting at right angles from the Porth Neigr road, a couple of hundred +yards short of John Pritchard's farm, there runs straight down to the +shore a street of rather more than a quarter of a mile in length. +Crossing this street in the middle runs another street, not so long, but +unfinished. These two streets intersect in an open space or circus +perhaps a hundred yards in diameter. The first street is called Delyn +Avenue, because of the mountain that commands it. The second one is +called Trwyn Way. The central circus is called by the names of the four +Crescents it comprises. Farther back from the intersecting points are +other streets. They also are named.</p> + +<p>But do not suppose that these streets and Crescents and Avenues and Ways +are streets in any ordinary sense. They are twenty-two and thirty-five +foot roads, metalled, crowned, drained, and with a good stone kerb +running parallel on either side. But there are no houses. There is not +even a pavement, no, not a vestige of one, flagged, macadamed, cobbled, +nor of any other description. There are no standards for gas or electric +light; there are no standards even for the names of the +thoroughfares—for you can hardly call those things standards—those low +wooden boards, rather like the "<i>Please Keep off the Grass</i>" notices in +a public park, that inform you that this is Delyn Avenue or that that is +Trwyn Way. Exactly as it was all drawn on Terry Armfield's tracing-paper +and envelopes and memo-heads, so it is now drawn on the Llanyglo +sandhills, with strips of stone kerbing for pencil lines and the +wind-blown sand where his india-rubber has passed. Lie down on the +sandhills with your eyes at the level of the kerbs, and, save for those +eighteen-inch-high street name-boards, all disappears. Or if you care to +climb the Trwyn you can see it all rather well from there....</p> + +<p>There you are. Just a little patch of strapwork in the middle of the +waste. Or like a rather large gridiron somebody has thrown away. And, if +you are capable of seeing what Terry saw, namely all the things that are +not there and that never will be there, then that little grid of +laid-down and abandoned streets has a curiously mocking effect. You +imagine the ghosts of Terry's Thelemites moving noiselessly there, +passing to and from their non-existent habitations. They are going, +friendly ghost taking friendly ghost by the hand, to that groined and +lofty chamber of Terry's dream, where the faint echoes of laughter +linger in the roof of dim blue with gilt stars. They are going to walk +in Terry's closes and courts and arbours, happy in that the sorrows and +pains and substantialities of the world touch them not in their retreat. +They are going down Delyn Avenue, to where the broad and gentle steps +descend to the yellow shore. And all about them, but only to be seen if +you can see what Terry saw (otherwise you will see only the sand and the +wild thyme and the sulphur butterflies and the blue), are Calaer and +Anatole, Crière and Hesperia, Mesembrine and Arctic, which are the six +towers of that Place with the great gate where bigots and hypocrites and +defrauded and whining shareholders enter not, nor the violent Huns of +the world of business nor the cruel Ostrogoths of commerce, but only the +spruce and noble devotees of the Best, the Terrys before their time.</p> + +<p>But when the wind gets up, then the sand blows over it all, and John +Pritchard or somebody else, catching his foot against the unseen kerb, +comes down his length into the middle of Terry's lovely and desired +Place. But the men and women of Llanyglo are beginning to know their +way about this phantom town, and none other, save the Gardens (whose +house is now finished), and a friend or so of the Gardens' in the +summer, ever comes there. The Kerrs, however, still have their Hafod, +which they inhabit together when they are not away buying and cutting +alders and shaping them into clog-soles with the free-hinged knife in +the little canvas hut. And among the businessmen of Liverpool the whole +thing is still a rich joke.—"Well, have you started building that house +of yours in Wales yet?" a man who has not bought will ask a man who did; +and this one will reply, "Oh, I'm thinking about it," or, "You must come +down there and stop with me," or some other put-off. And it was rich in +the extreme when, one day, the man at whose expense the joke was made +took the jester by the button, smiled, and whispered something +confidential.... "What!" gasped the jester. "You've <i>sold</i>!... Wherever +did you find him? In Manchester? Ha, ha, ha! Splendid! That's a dig in +the ribs for Manchester!—I should like to see his face when he sees +it!... A pity about poor Armfield, though—he'll catch snuff——"</p> + +<p>For Terry had been refused bail.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART TWO</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>I</h2> + +<h3>RAILHEAD</h3> + + +<p>But something was coming to Llanyglo.</p> + +<p>As Edward Garden might have said, looking at this something under his +glasses and over his glasses as it crept slowly up out of the east—as +Edward Garden might have said, looking at it again and yet again, and +then gazing mildly and mistrustfully through the glasses at you, it +appeared to be a railway.</p> + +<p>At any rate, if it was not coming to Llanyglo it was coming within three +miles of it.</p> + +<p>As if a snail should leave behind it a track, not of slime, but of new +iron, grey at first, then red with rust, but soon to be bright again, so +it came on; and in other respects also it resembled a snail. It carried, +for example, its lodging with it. And it put forward sensitive and +intelligent antennæ as it sought its food thirty miles away down the +coast—manganese. It left the junction half a mile beyond Porth Neigr, +and it was going to Abercelyn.</p> + +<p>The lodging that the snail carried with it was called Railhead. Seen +from a distance of a couple of miles it resembled a small excoriation on +the face of the land; seen nearer it resolved itself into a town of wood +and corrugated iron, with stockades of creosoted sleepers and trenches +of earth and ramparts of ballast and metal for the laying of the +permanent way. There were superintendents' offices and the sheds of +clerks of works; there were forges and stables and strings of waggons +and a telegraph cabin; there were huts and pumping-stations and cranes, +stationary and travelling, and a gas-plant; and there were watchmen's +boxes and the temporary dwellings of hundreds of men. By day these could +be seen, spread out on the level or clustering about the embankments as +the flies clustered about the treacled strings and fly-papers Howell +Gruffydd hung up in his shop in Llanyglo; at night the oncoming snail +seemed phosphorescent, its phosphorescence the flares and fires and +lamps in cabin-windows and red eyes for danger that appeared when the +other shift took over the work from the men of the day. Whistle of +construction-engine and roar of dynamite cartridge; hiss of steam and +clang of hammers as they fished the joints; rattle of road-metal as it +was shot from the carts, and thud of the paviors' rammers; clank of +couplings and agonised scream of a circular saw; purr of telephone-bells +and the "Hallo!" as the clerk took down the receiver; sough of pumps and +bubbling of cauldrons of tar; cries to horses, slish and slap of mortar +and the clinking of the trowels; spitting of dinners cooking over the +firebaskets, sounds of singing at night; with these and a hundred other +noises the snail crept on with a spirit-level inside him—the level that +kept him true to the line that had been laid down by staff and chain and +theodolite a couple of years before.</p> + +<p>And in some respects that something that looked so very much like a +railway resembled not so much a snail as a snake. Did you ever see the +great python that died lately at the Zoo climb his ragged staff of a +tree? Not a joint or section of him but seemed to have that separate +life of each of Dafydd Dafis's fingers when he mourned over his harp. A +yard, two yards of the gorgeous waist-thick creature would ripple and +flow and roll upwards to the crutch of the stump; another yard would +follow, piling ever up and up; and you would wait for the toppling over +of the great golden reticulated cable. And then all motion in that +portion of the great fake would suddenly cease. Beyond the stump you +would become aware that another glittering section was a-crawl, +balancing, making fast, ever continuing the ascent.... Even so, before +and behind Railhead, the work progressed. At a point the +construction-engine stopped, the regiment of red and blue shirts and +wondrous forearms and corduroy would move off, and presently all the +life of the line would be five miles ahead, where they dug and built and +drained and by and by passed back the word that all was well. So they +moved, between the finished and tested line at one point and the warning +bell and the dynamite stick at the other; and there was an end of much +gorse and heath and of many banks of flowering campion and hassocks of +wild thyme.</p> + +<p>And, for all this snail with its iron slime was not passing within three +miles of Llanyglo, it was bringing the hamlet's appointed destiny with +it. It was bringing (though, to be sure, not for some years yet) a +passenger-junction where yet only irises and bog-cotton grew and frogs +boomed out over the marsh at night. It was bringing sidings where John +Pritchard's farthest field of oats now rippled silver-green in the wind. +It was bringing a goods-yard and signal-bridges, and sheds and platforms +and turntables and a cabrank in front and rows of railwaymen's dwellings +behind. It was bringing a different breed of men, a breed that so far +Llanyglo knows only in the persons of the four Kerrs. More than this, +it was bringing progress, and sophistication, and wealth for some but +nothing for others, and jollity, and vice, and some knowledge that was +good and some that Llanyglo would have been no worse without, and always +loads, loads, trainloads of white-faced people from the smoky towns. And +most of all it was bringing to that vague yet unmistakable town-soul of +Llanyglo growth and experience, growth that it could not escape and +experience that it must square with those numbered days of its idyllic +nonage as best it can. Through growing-pains and wild-oats, through +revulsions of young remorse and impossible panaceas of repentance, +through shrugging worldliness and cynicism and the forgetfulness that +lies in laughter, Llanyglo must pass before it becomes—whatever it is +to be. One thing only is certain: it can never again be as it was when +Edward Garden first went there. Its wild thyme will remain only in +patches on its Trwyn, and its sandhills will be glaucous with the blue +sea-holly no more. The black cattle have not much longer in which to +pace its shore, and Terry Armfield's gridiron will be forgotten—no +<i>Sixpenny Guide</i> will point the way down Delyn Avenue nor past his +immaterial Crescents along Trwyn Way. Railhead is creeping on. Two of +the Kerrs are already working there, the other two have just bought the +last of Squire Wynne's alders. Squire Wynne has now no land except that +occupied by the Plas and its tangled and mossy and grassy and neglected +gardens. "<i>Porth Neigr Omnibuses, Limited</i>," is already a serious +undertaking, for it will ply between Llanyglo and the nearest point of +the line. Howell Gruffydd has an option on the two original cottages +that Edward Garden had had matchboarded—he may soon be requiring a +larger shop. Compensations will be paid right and left. And there will +soon be a larger assortment of young men for Miss Nancy Pritchard to +choose a husband from....</p> + +<p>For something is coming to Llanyglo.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Mr. Tudor Williams Ponteglwys had been clever enough in the matter of +the Omnibuses, Limited, nor, for the matter of that, had his cleverness +stopped there; but for astuteness he could not hold a candle to Edward +Garden. Edward Garden was not a Member of Parliament. As he musingly +said when people asked him why he was not, it was out of his line. +Therefore, he and his friends had left to others the promotion of the +Bill, its steering through Select Committees of both Houses, and the +whole conduct of the negotiations that, in their different way, were no +less complicated than that concentration of various forces by virtue of +which Railhead crept ever slowly forward. To a regiment of lawyers had +likewise been left the adjustments under the general Acts to which, on +the passing of the Bill, the enterprise had become subject. Members and +lawyers alike, those drest in a little brief obedience to the commands +of the party whips, these as often as not Members themselves, were +virtually the nominees of Edward Garden and his friends. Politics Edward +Garden's "line"?... To all outward appearances he had no "line" at all. +He merely added another emblem to that little cluster of Mercuries and +Greyhounds and Winged Orbs that formed the pendant of his watch-chain. +It was only when others, full of plans and hope and secrecy, sought +"lines" for themselves that they discovered that he had been beforehand +with them. To give an instance: When Mr. Tudor Williams, M.P., +apparently as representing somebody else, had come forward with an offer +to take up the remnants of poor Terry's Thelema, he had found there +were no remnants to take up. To give another instance: When, by +carefully engineered good offices and intermediaries, Mr. Tudor Williams +had sought a reconciliation with Squire Wynne, and presently had gone to +see him, he had found that he had pocketed his pride for nothing—the +Squire no longer had a yard of land to sell. In a word, before ever +whispers of the Bill had begun to circulate in the lobbies of the House +of Commons, the sandhills and oat-fields of Llanyglo had been cut up +like a jigsaw puzzle, raffled, dealt in, apportioned, and owned; and, +save for his small holding in Thelema, between the Omnibuses at Porth +Neigr and manganese at Abercelyn, there were very few pickings for Mr. +Tudor Williams of Ponteglwys.</p> + +<p>Therefore he returned with an enthusiasm more ardent than ever to his +original crusade against the private ownership of the land that God made +for the people, and took his constituents by the button-holes, and spoke +darkly of other Acts—Acts which by and by should give the Local +Authority powers of compulsory purchase.</p> + +<p>And all this time the eye still saw nothing to purchase but bents and +blown sand, blue and lemon butterflies, nodding harebells, a few +tidemarks of black seaweed, a wooden jetty, a cluster of thatched kerb, +the three Chapels, Edward Garden's house, and Ty Kerr.</p> + +<p>But something was coming to Llanyglo.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>On the whole they did not talk very much about it. Each had his reason +for reticence, or brooding, or resentment, or calculation, as the case +might be. Nevertheless, with Railhead still many miles away, they began +to become accustomed to the coming and going of strangers. They came, +these strangers, to Edward Garden's house, sleeping either there or else +at the double cottage down by the beach; Edward Garden himself, with a +lantern in his hand, saw them hospitably over the sandhills to bed. They +were surveyors and architects, accountants, geologists, prospectors, men +in control of the snail that left the track of iron and grey ballast and +upturned clay across the land, lawyers, conveyancers, the directors of +the stone-quarries along the Porth Neigr road, and others at whose +business Llanyglo could only guess. And Mr. Tudor Williams also went +there, perhaps to talk about compulsory powers. These and others +wandered in groups along the straggling lines of seaweed, and up the +Trwyn, and far inland behind John Pritchard's farm, pointing, pacing, +discussing, exactly as those minions of the Liverpool Syndicate had done +that morning when work had suddenly ceased on Edward Garden's new house; +but there was no talk of fence-burning now. Even Dafydd Dafis saw the +hopelessness of it, and once more went about with his head bowed like a +head of corn heavy with rain. Already men were widening and levelling +the Porth Neigr road. One week-end in July, after an unusually large +gathering at Edward Garden's house, a new waggonette from Porth Neigr +came to take them back in a body. It had a pair of horses, and it took +the hills in style. Dafydd Dafis, whom the vehicle overtook on his ten +miles' trudge into the town, was offered a seat, but he appeared not to +hear, and the vehicle drove on, enveloping him in its dust. Half-way to +Porth Neigr he came upon a squad of men setting up a telegraph pole. One +of them spoke to him, in English. "Dim Saesneg," he muttered, and then +perhaps wondered why he had done so. It might be "Dim Cymraeg" +presently. A little farther on the waggonette passed him again, once +more hiding him in its dust. No doubt it had turned aside up the rough +road that led to the stone-quarries. Dafydd continued his trudge.</p> + +<p>But in the household of Howell Gruffydd the grocer, a suppressed +excitement reigned. This, when Dafydd Dafis happened to be there, showed +only as resignation and a bowing to the inevitable; but at other times +it seemed to confer a more frequent glitter to Howell's teeth, a new +impulse to his jocularity, and a sparkle and sharpness to his wife's +eyes. Cases and canisters the like of which he had never handled before +were delivered at his door by the Porth Neigr carrier; these were for +the consumption of Edward Garden and his guests; and he waited in person +upon Mrs. Garden every Monday morning. He thought of having a Christmas +almanack with his own name printed upon it. Blodwen, his wife, made him, +in anticipation, a pair of linen half-sleeves that drew up over his +forearms. Eesaac Oliver was forbidden any longer to fetch the eggs from +the light-keeper's wife up the Trwyn; one of Hugh Morgan's boys might do +this. As a preparation for Aberystwith, Eesaac Oliver was packed off to +a second cousin of Blodwen's at Porth Neigr, there to attend an +excellent endowed school. With the railway passing so near it would be a +simple matter for him to spend his week-ends at Llanyglo.</p> + +<p>And big consumptive John Pritchard rarely said a word about that +onward-creeping snail that left its double thread of permanent track +behind it, but he thought exaltedly and powerfully. Stories had already +reached him of drunkenness at Railhead, and fights, and singing at +nights, and other godless orgies, and his brow was sternly set. When he +preached at the Baptist Chapel about such as loved darkness and the evil +paths in which they walked, it was known that he was thinking of +Railhead. Men were now plotting their levels almost within sight of +Llanyglo. They turned their surveying instruments on the hamlet as if +they had been guns, and laid out their chains as if they had been +enslaving the soil itself. Then an advance gang approached, and, even +while John knew that the end was near (but not so near as all that), +that end came. Eight men marched one evening into Llanyglo, bawling a +bawdy chorus, with Sam Kerr showing the way. They had bottles and +piggins and stone jars of beer, and, slung with joined-up leather belts +between two of them, swung a barrel. They stumbled through the loose +sand towards the Hafod Unos, hiccoughing and polluting the peaceful +evening. Ned Kerr had evidently been advised of their coming; he stood +at the door of the Hafod to receive them; and the carousing began.... It +lasted half the night, and then each clay-stained navvy and tattooed +platelayer slept and snored where he fell. John Pritchard did not sleep. +Faintly he could hear their singing where he lay. The red and white of +the Trwyn light dyed the darkness overhead. John remembered his own +words: "It is a den of li-ons——"</p> + +<p>Something had already come to Llanyglo.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>II</h2> + +<h3>THE CLERK OF THE WORKS</h3> + + +<p>John Willie Garden was by this time at the age when he occasionally +washed himself without being told. This he probably did, not out of any +great love of cleanliness, but because by washing unbidden he acquired +the right to retort, when the order to wash came, "I have—there!" Did +one of the maids give the order he might add the word "Sucks!" This word +he withheld when the command came from his mother.</p> + +<p>He was still at school at Pannal, but ardently longed to leave. It was +intended that sooner or later he should go into business with his +father, and during the past Christmas vacation, which the Gardens had +spent at home in Manchester, he had had the run of the offices and +spinning-sheds. His real education, as distinct from his scholastic one, +had been immensely advanced thereby. This real advance had taken place +principally after working hours. In such cases there is usually a young +clerk or market-man ready to take the son of the firm into his charge, +and a certain Jack Webster had had the bringing of John Willie out. This +he had done at football matches, in the dressing-rooms where the titans +clad themselves for the fray, and at their sing-songs and smokers +afterwards. Therefore, John Willie esteemed himself a boy of the world, +and already the day seemed far distant when he had shot the Llanyglo +rabbits with his bow and arrow, and had buried a sixpence beneath the +date-stone of his father's house.</p> + +<p>To Llanyglo John Willie went again that summer, as the snail crept +forward yard by yard to Abercelyn and the manganese.</p> + +<p>All things considered, you might have been pardoned had you supposed +that, without John Willie, the work at Railhead must have come to a +stop. Had you wished to know anything about that railway—its cost per +mile, its contractors' time-limits and penalties, its wages bills, its +estimated upkeep—you would have gone, not to those men who spent +week-ends at Edward Garden's house, but to John Willie. Railhead was now +to him what the building of the Llanyglo house had formerly been, and +the fence-burning, and rugby football, and many another interest of the +days when he had been a kid and immature. It was in the summer of 1884 +that the snail's antennæ approached within sight of Llanyglo, and, rain +or shine, permitted or forbidden, John Willie spent most of his waking +hours among the masons and smiths and navvies and plate-layers who +formed the population of that nomad town of wood and earth and sleepers +and rolling stock and escaping steam and corrugated iron. He knew half +the men by name. He joined them at dinner when the great buzzer told +half a county that it was half-past twelve. He knitted his brows over +the curling and thumb-marked plans in the foremen's cabins. He passed +this section of work or that, and gave the other his imprimatur. He +adapted his stride to the distance between sleeper and sleeper. He spat +reflectively on heaps of clay and mortar. With his hands, not in his +pockets, but thrust (in imitation of the labourers with the +"drop-front" corduroys) deep into his waist-band, and his cap on the +back of his yellow, thistle-down head, he gave off-hand nods of greeting +and warning "Steadys." He was variously known as "t' gaffer," "t' +ganger," "t' clerk o' t' works," and "t' foreman."</p> + +<p>And his friend, Percy Briggs, of Pannal School and Roundhay (where his +father was an architect) accompanied him. Percy's father was one of +Edward Garden's week-enders. He was making the plans of a second house, +not far from where Terry Armfield's Thelemites were to have descended +the shallow, marble steps to the golden shore. There was also some talk +of an hotel.</p> + +<p>For by this time quite a number of people knew at least the name of +Llanyglo, and there is very little doubt that, had the place but had +houses, it might even then have been that within another three or four +years it actually had become—a quiet but not inaccessible resort, with +perhaps a dozen striped bathing-tents and a row or two of deck-chairs +drawn up on its beach, a couple of comfortable hydros established and a +large new hotel a-building, a few donkeys (but no niggers nor pierrots), +a place for children and for such of their elders as sought a quiet not +to be found at Blackpool nor the Isle of Man, a spot unvisited by +trippers, "select," a little on the expensive side, where an +acquaintance struck up between families might without too much risk be +improved afterwards, where the nurses would be uniformed and the luggage +would be sent on in advance, where a wealthy patron might even build a +house of his own (if he could get the land), a "nice" place, a place you +could afterwards tell <i>any</i>body you had been to, a place from which you +would go back feeling well and not in need of another holiday, a +place—in short, a place like So-and-So, or So-and-So, out of which we +try to shut history and change by being a little jealously secret about +them. Llanyglo might have been, and for a short time actually was, such +a place; and Percy Briggs's father, with others to tell him what to do +and what not to do, was even now in the act of planning how to make it +so.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, Edward Garden's own house was a very different place +from those two cottages that Dafydd Dafis had taken his own good time +about matchboarding. That first lodging had been no more than a +temporary camping-place for the summer. Any sagging old wicker-chairs or +tables or chests of drawers from lumber-rooms had been good enough for +it, and its crockery and kitchen appointments had been of the cheapest +kind that Porth Neigr could supply. But not so with the new house. +Everything about it spoke of permanence. The large plate-box was carried +backwards and forwards at the beginning and end of the summer season, +but not the Worcester dinner-service, nor the glass that filled its +cupboards, nor the linen in its closets, nor the blankets nor the +eiderdowns set by for winter, nor the few—the rather few—books. Mrs. +Garden herself had told Howell Gruffydd that it was not likely that the +place would be locked up for the winter months again. Edward Garden +intended to spend more and more time there; indeed he must, unless by +and by he would look musingly and a little ill-favouringly through his +glasses at that sparse line of bathing-tents and that little knot of +combination-saddled donkeys and say, "This does not appear to be much of +a watering-place." Already he had made special arrangement for the +delivery of his Manchester letters; upstairs on the first floor he had +his office, with a deep window, the side bays of which looked, the one +towards the sea, the other to the mighty deltoid-shaped outline of +Mynedd Mawr; and where Edward Garden settled he liked to settle +comfortably. In that quiet and rugged and curtained room he was once +more following the line of least resistance. The chances were that he +already foresaw the direction that line was likely to take.</p> + +<p>For Lancashire, which had been remote when folk had had to jog the ten +miles from Porth Neigr behind a somnolent old brown horse, would be near +when that snail had packed his lodging up and departed, leaving only its +iron pathway behind it; and the Kerrs in their Hafod Unos would have +been astonished to learn how much Edward Garden mused upon Lancashire +and upon just such people as themselves. He mused upon the cost of +living of such as they; and he mused upon their standard of living, +which is a related thing, but not the same thing. He mused again as he +saw the gradual change in that standard, and contrasted the things he +saw with the things he remembered in his own early days. In those days, +expressly taken holidays had been unheard-of things. Folk's excursions +had reached little farther afield than their own legs could carry them. +If John Pritchard, of Llanyglo, had never been to Porth Neigr, many and +many a Manchester man of the days of Edward Garden's boyhood had never +been to Liverpool. Many thousands had never seen the sea. It had been +holiday enough in those days to meet in the streets, to play knurr and +spell in the nearest field, to lean over walls and watch their pigs, and +to tend their gardens. Slate Clubs and Goose Clubs and Holiday Clubs had +not been invented. A shilling or half a crown a week painfully saved +would not have been squandered again for the sake of that little +superfluity that had now become the minimum itself. The mass of the +people of his day would no more have dreamed of saving money in order +that seaside lodging-house keepers should profit than they would have +dreamed of taking the Grand Tour.</p> + +<p>But a generation seemed to have arisen, very different in some ways, yet +exactly the same in others. They were different in that they refused to +be exploited any longer according to the old familiar formulas, yet the +same in that they were as subject as their fathers had been, and as +their sons and grandsons will be, to the man who could devise a new one. +All manner of circumstances contributed to their unuttered invitation +(it was that in effect, and the only thing they did not utter) that +somebody should bring to their exploitation the spice of variety. There +were smoulderings everywhere—smoulderings at Durham and West Ham, at +Ayr and Lanark and Swansea, at Sheffield and Manchester and Liverpool +and Leeds and Hull. Over his glasses and under his glasses Edward Garden +noted them, and inferred that the sum of it all was that folk intended +to have a better time than they had been having. They were quite +unmistakably resolved to have a much better time. Their grandfathers' +idea of a Wakes Week, for example, might have been staying at home and +timing the pigeons into the cote; but they meant to improve on that. +They intended to doff their clogs and to put on their thinnest shoes, to +draw extravagant sums from the Club, to take railway-tickets, and not to +rest from their arduous relaxation as long as a penny remained +unspent.... Manganese? The moment they showed signs of coming his way, +Edward Garden was after richer returns than manganese would yield. He +granted that without manganese there would have been no Railhead coming +up out of the east, but what he had his eye on was the new generation's +deadly resolve to be amused, the crammed coffers of its Holiday Clubs, +the beginnings of those tens and scores and hundreds of thousands of +pounds that to-day a single town will get rid of in a single fortnight +by the sea.</p> + +<p>But <i>only</i> if it came his way. He was no Terry. It was his business to +take things as they were, not to try to make them something they were +not. He had no theories, no criticisms, no impulses, no hesitations. He +asked for nothing but uncoloured data. Therefore, and to that extent, +Llanyglo's future was not entirely in his hands. It was still free, and +always, always, save for a little rising of new stone here and there, +just the same to look at—watched over by the Light on its noble Trwyn, +guarded by the majestic mountain behind, and presenting to its diurnal +tides the same shore that Copley Fielding drew.</p> + +<p>Now it befell towards the end of the July of that year that the Welshmen +of Llanyglo held an open-air service for the young in one of the hollows +of the sandhills. It was a blazing Sunday afternoon, with the sea like +silk and the pale mountains seeming thrice their distance away. They had +brought a small moveable platform and reading-desk from the Baptist +Chapel, and first John Pritchard, and then Howell Gruffydd had mounted +it. The sun beat on the bare heads and best bonnets and black-coated +shoulders of parents; myriads of tiny hopping insects gave the surface +of the sand the appearance of being in motion; and a buzzard sailed in +great steady circles in the sky of larkspur blue, now standing out to +sea, now a speck in the direction of Delyn or Mynedd Mawr.</p> + +<p>Howell was teaching the twelve or fourteen urchins a new hymn-tune, +singing it now alone, now with them, now listening with little gestures +of encouragement and nods of pleasure as their voices rose. His secular +jocularity was not absent, but tempered to the occasion.</p> + +<p>"Louder, louder and quicker—it give you an appetite for your tea," he +said, waving his arms and beating with his foot to the accelerated time. +"You will not wake Mrs. Hughes at the lighthouse—now—'<i>Joyful, +Joyful</i>——'"</p> + +<p>And, with Eesaac Oliver leading, they went through the tune again.</p> + +<p>That a special exhortation should be given to those of tenderer years +had been deliberately resolved upon. Since that evening when the eight +men from the line had rolled drunkenly over the sandhills to the Kerrs' +house, a fear had weighed on the chapel-goers of Llanyglo. Until then, +their children had known nothing of the wide and wicked world; but that +ignorance could not now be maintained. They must be put on their guard, +and for that job the ingratiating Howell was the man.</p> + +<p>The tune came to an end, and he put his leaflet of printed words into +his pocket and shepherded the row of urchins into position with +movements of his hands.</p> + +<p>"Move that way, John Roberts—I cannot see Olwen Morgan's face. Hugh +Morgan, stop poking your foot into that rabbit-hole or you fall down it +and we have to dig you out. Miss Pritchard, give Gwen Roberts her +sunbonnet, if you please, or she catss a sunstroke. Ithel, where is your +handkerchief? Your nose resem-bles a snail.... Now listen to me. If I +see a boy or girl not pay atten-sson I stop till he do pay +atten-sson——"</p> + +<p>And he began. He told them that soon, with the coming of the railway, +there would come also all manner of pip-ple, some good pip-ple, some bad +pip-ple. He told them that at Railhead were many bad pip-ple, who swore, +and drank a great deal more than was good for them. He told them +(discreetly, since he had no wish to preach a <i>jehad</i> against customers +so good as the Gardens) that while some boys might go to Railhead to +play, boys like some he would not mention, who had lived in large towns, +yet it would be bet-ter if they kept themselves to themselves.... He did +not go the length of asserting that all good boys were Welsh and country +boys, and that all bad ones were town-bred and English, but—but—well, +things have to be put a little starkly to the young. They shuffled their +feet in the hot loose sand as he talked. The buzzard sailed back from +the mountains. The sandhoppers danced as if the ground had been a +frying-pan. A holy peace brooded over the land. Away at Railhead men, +those sinful men who drank and swore slept in rows, stretched +face-downwards on the grass or the thrown-up banks of clay.</p> + +<p>Then the grocer began to promise the rewards of virtue. He turned with +an interrogative smile to John Pritchard.</p> + +<p>"And now, Mr. Pritchard, do you think I might tell them that sec-ret? +Indeed I think I get into trouble if I do! But yess, I will tell +them.—Atten-sson now. Hugh Morgan, do not scratss your head. Now!—Can +any boy or girl tell me what there iss to be in Mr. Pritchard's field +next month?"</p> + +<p>They guessed at once, with one voice. Howell Gruffydd knew better than +to ask an audience questions it could not answer. He held up his hands +in admiring surprise.</p> + +<p>"Indeed they guess—they are every one right, Miss Pritchard! +Astonissing! Dear me, I never saw such s'arp young men and women!—Yess, +they are right. There is to be a Treat for the Sunday School scholars! +There now! And there will be races, and prizes, and tea, and the books +will be given for those who have had the largest num-ber of attendances +and have not been late.—And now: who is giving this Treat?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Tudor Williams!" they cried.</p> + +<p>"Right again—it is Mr. Tudor Williams, the Member of Parliament! And +Mr. Williams is giv-ing something else too. He is giv-ing—I have seen +them—new pictures—pictures of the construc-tion of flowers—(bot-tany +I think it is called, Miss Pritchard?)—and an-i-mals—and +fiss-sses——"</p> + +<p>He turned up his eyes, as if to the heavens from which these rewards of +virtuous living descended. The croupy shrilling of a cock came from down +by the beach. The bees droned, and the wheeling buzzard suddenly dropped +like a plummet a hundred yards through the larkspur blue.</p> + +<p>It was then, in that very moment, that Howell Gruffydd's face was seen +to change. He stopped, listening. Beyond the hot cuplike hollow in which +they were assembled was another sunken way, and along this way somebody +was approaching. Probably in complete unconsciousness that any hearer +was at hand, this somebody was singing softly as he came. It was Tommy, +the youngest of the Kerrs, and he was singing to himself, in very bad +Welsh, <i>Glan Meddwdod Mwyn</i>.</p> + +<p>Now this song is one of the less reputable songs of Wales. The English +drinking song usually contents itself with extolling the mere convivial +act, drawing a decent veil over the lamentable effects of that act; but +even in its title <i>Glan Meddwdod Mwyn</i> (which words mean <i>Fair, Kind +Drunkenness</i>) has no such reticence. It depicts ... but you can see the +difference for yourself. No wonder it froze the words on Howell +Gruffydd's lips. In the singer's complete unconsciousness that he was +not alone lay the whole sting. The malice, the intent, the hateful +Lancashire humour of the Kerrs they had had before, but not <i>this</i> +home-thrust with a weapon they themselves had provided!</p> + +<p>Tommy might just as well have climbed the hummock and told them that, +since their language provided equally for these eventualities, they were +no better than anyone else....</p> + +<p>An English drunkard, to grub in the lees of their own language like +this!——</p> + +<p>And little Hugh Morgan had sniggered!——</p> + +<p>The unseen Tommy and his (their) song passed on towards the Hafod Unos.</p> + +<p>Then Howell bestirred himself again. "There, now!" he said; "what had he +just been tell-ing them? Indeed, that was opp-por-tune, whatever!" ... +But, though he strove to hide it, there was a hollowness now in his +exhortation. He felt as if he had been building a wall against a +contagion that crept in upon the invisible air. If Thomas Kerr knew +<i>Glan Meddwdod Mwyn</i> he might also know viler ditties still; if little +Hugh Morgan, whom he had thought pure, had sniggered at <i>Glan Meddwdod</i> +he might guffaw outright at the baser version of <i>Sospan Bach</i>....</p> + +<p>It could only (Howell thought) be original sin....</p> + +<p>It was at least a little balm to him to hear the fervour with which +Eesaac Oliver once more led the singing of <i>Joyful, Joyful</i>.</p> + +<p>And, by the way (speaking of songs), Eesaac Oliver's choice of the +narrow and difficult path had already involved him in a persecution in +which song played a minor part. This persecution was at the hands of +John Willie Garden. For, in an unguarded moment, Eesaac Oliver had +confided to John Willie his plans for his career; and since then the +unfeeling John Willie, on his way to Railhead and debauchery, had held +over him the song that contains the lines:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>He wass go to Je-sus College</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>For to try to get some knowledge——</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Wass you ever see," etc. etc.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>John Willie, itching to get away from Pannal, could not understand why +anybody wanted to go to Jesus, Aberystwith, or any other College.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>I think it would be wiser</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>For to stay with Sister Liza——</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Wass you ever see," etc. etc.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he would hum softly and (alas) contemptuously; and, since it was part of +his chosen career to do so, Eesaac Oliver would very expressly forgive +John Willie, getting into quite a Christian heat about it.</p> + +<p>On the day after that homily on the Llanyglo sandhills, John Willie +Garden went as usual to Railhead, and was enabled to delight his +leather-belted and corduroyed friends there with a piece of information, +hitherto secret, that he had from his father's table. This was that the +line was to be opened in the following Spring by His Royal Highness the +Duke of Snell. The announcement produced an astonishing effect. Not one +in ten of the men either knew or cared what the enterprise was all +about. They knew that the railway was a railway, but beyond that, none +of its dividends being destined for their pockets, it was merely the +job—"the" job, the job of the moment, the job not very different from +the last job, and very, very like all the other jobs to come, until +their living hands should become as stiff as the picks they plied, and +the light of their eyes be extinguished as their own lanterns were +extinguished at daybreak. But at the news that the Duke of Snell was to +do his trick when they had finished theirs, they were innocently +uplifted and delighted. <i>This</i> would be something to tell their +grandchildren in the years to come! They would spit on their hands and +work better all the afternoon for <i>this</i>!... In the meantime they +discussed it when the great buzzer called them to their beef and bacon +sandwiches, their chops and pickles and bread and cheese.</p> + +<p>"So it's to be t' Dewk o' Snell!" one of them admired, with as much +satisfaction as if he himself had had a tremendous leg-up in the world +thereby; he was a West Riding navvy, whom twenty years of digging up the +length and breadth of England had delocalised of everything save his +powerful accent. "Well, now, I'd figgered it out 'at it'ld happen be t' +Prince o' Wales mesen——"</p> + +<p>Here struck in a Cardiff man, so lean that you would not have got +another pennyweight of fat off him if you had fried him in his own +frying-pan.</p> + +<p>"Wass-n't it the Duke of Snell that mar-ried the Prin-cess Victorine?"</p> + +<p>"Noa. That wor t' Dewk o' Flint," the Yorkshire navvy replied, with +authority. "T' Dewk o' Snell wed t' youngest, t' Princess Alix. I knaw +all t' lot on 'em; t' missis hed all their pic'ters o' biscuit-boxes; +they reached from one end o' t' chimley-piece to t'other; ye couldn't +ha' got a finger in between."</p> + +<p>"Well, well," said the Cardiff man, an inquiring mind among many +complacent ones, "it is curious, how lit-tle diff-ference it makes to +us. The Prinss of Wales, say you? If I wait for the Prinss of Wales to +give me ano-ther piece of this ba-con I wait a long time, whatever!... +But prapss we get our in-vi-ta-tions soon," he added jocularly, taking +an enormous bite of bread. "S'all you be there, John Willie?"</p> + +<p>John Willie answered, a little doubtfully, that he hoped to be present +at the ceremony if he could get away from school. The Cardiff man wagged +his head. There are few Welshmen who do not wag their heads at the sound +of the word school.</p> + +<p>"Ah, school; it iss a gra-and thing," he said, still wagging. "I not be +work-king here with my shirt wet-t on my back if I go to a prop-per +school."</p> + +<p>"Oh, be dinged to that tale!" returned the Yorkshireman bluntly, cutting +cheese on his leathery palm. "T' schools is all my backside! They learn +'em a lot o' newfangled stuff, but I remember 'at when tea wor eight +shillin' a pund, an' they kept a penny nutmeg in a wood case as if it +wor diamonds——"</p> + +<p>"Aw-w-w, there iss that Burkie, talk-king again!" said the Cardiff man.</p> + +<p>"It's reight, for all that——"</p> + +<p>And presently the talk had veered round to those very changes of +standards and conditions, his careful study of which had led Edward +Garden to the conclusion that a generation had arisen that intended +thenceforward to have more of the world's good things than it had been +having or know the reason why.</p> + +<p>As it happened, the work on the line had that day taken a new leap +forward. Again all the life of the python had rolled on ahead, and John +Willie, lunching with his friends, was doing so at a point actually +beyond Llanyglo, two miles nearer to Abercelyn. From the Abercelyn end +also the line was coming to meet them, and the two sections would meet +at a place called Sarn. Sarn means Causeway, and there the sea showed, +like a piece of bright piano-wire, across a waste of fleecy bog-cotton +and bog-myrtle, sundew and flags and rushes. A siding was to be made +there. Because of Sarn Church, a tiny little building with an odd +Fifteenth-Century circular tower, Squire Wynne loved this region, and +attended service there; but as that Service was held only once a year, +the "Hough!" of the shunting-engines and the clanking of couplings would +disturb it little. The Squire sighed to think that, among so many, many +other changes, it would be only one change the more. His sales of land +had provided him with just enough money to last his time out, and on the +whole he thought he did not want to outlive his time. Perhaps he too had +had his glimpse of that vision of Edward Garden's, though as it were in +obverse; and, looking, he shrugged his shoulders. Who, in another twenty +or thirty years, would care for the things he had cared for? Who would +waste a thought on antiquity? Who would open his County History, or his +books on Brasses or Church Plate, Memorials or Heraldry or Glass? Who +would know each tree he came upon on his walks, as a country doctor +knows his patients—its sickness, its health, its need of air, its +treatment, its amputations? Who would repair the staircase at the Plas, +and restore its magnificent ceilings, and set the merry smoke streaming +up its chimneys once more?... Mr. Tudor Williams would probably do this +last. He would no doubt convert the Plas into a Museum (as he would have +converted Sarn Church itself into a Museum), and fill it with cases of +ice-scratched pebbles, and diagrams of strata and flowers, for reluctant +and educated urchins to gape at. The Squire was entirely in sympathy +with John Willie Garden's corduroyed friend Burkie about these things. +It seemed to him that the multitude, which after all had backbone enough +to starve rather than go on the Parish, would not resist this organised +pauperisation of its mind. It was time the Squire died, since he held +that not everybody has the right to everything and no questions asked. +Otherwise not an inhumane man, there were nevertheless abstractions +which he loved more than he loved his fellow-being....</p> + +<p>And who would drink what was left of that wondrous old port?</p> + +<p>Well, the Squire, sighing and smiling a little wistfully both at once, +intended to see to that himself.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>III</h2> + +<h3>THE CURTAIN RAISER</h3> + + +<p>But while the march of events drove the aborigines of Llanyglo ever more +and more closely together, as the reaping of a field of corn drives the +mice and snakes and rabbits to the narrowing square in the centre, at +the same time something of the opposite process went on. Two or three +stood aloof, Welsh when it suited them to be Welsh, less Welsh at other +times. One of these was Mr. Tudor Williams, the Member of Parliament. +Another was Howell Gruffydd, the grocer.</p> + +<p>For thick as thieves now were Edward Garden and Tudor Williams, and to +their frequent councils was admitted also Raymond Briggs, the architect, +whose son had been John Willie's schoolfellow at Pannal.</p> + +<p>This Raymond Briggs was a Yorkshireman, from Hunslet, but you wouldn't +have thought it to look at him. You saw at a glance that he was +superfine, but you had no idea how superfine until he opened his mouth. +He was tall, plumpish, very erect, numerously chinned and faultlessly +dressed; and, having entered into culture by one of the noblest of its +portals, architecture, it was small wonder that he wished to forget +Hunslet, with its black canal, its serried weaving-sheds, its grimy +warehouses, and its sooty brickfields. Certainly he had completely +forgotten it in his speech. Over an alien mode he had acquired a really +remarkable mastery; and had it not been for a trifling uncertainty +about his vowels, particularly his "a's," you would have set him down as +quite as much London as Leeds. And so more or less with everything else +about Raymond.—But his wife haled you north again. To her, acquirements +were like hot plates to the fingers, to be kept constantly in motion or +else dropped altogether. Her husband was probably the most humourless +man who ever came to Llanyglo; but Maud Briggs would use the homeliest +of dialect-words in the most artificial of accents, and would tell you, +even while she was mothering you with cool drinks in the most hospitable +fashion, that the piece of ice she dropped with a clink into your glass +was positively "the last piece in the hoil"—if you know your West +Riding well enough to understand the peculiar significance of the word +"hoil" as applied to a house. Her rings were dazzling, for Raymond's +invaluable lack of humour had enabled him to make his mark on the world; +the blue-and-white collapsible boat which their son Percy brought with +him to Llanyglo had cost his father a cool twenty-five pounds in London; +and it would not be for lack of money if Percy did not turn out a very +superior silk purse indeed.</p> + +<p>So when the snail, his journey finished, rested and made the siding at +Sarn and then returned to Porth Neigr again, and Railhead was +dismantled, and grasses began to seed themselves about the upturned +soil, Edward Garden and Raymond Briggs and Tudor Williams, M.P., had +their heads frequently together; and no longer were the short days and +long nights a season of hibernation for Llanyglo. Three years out of +four the Llanyglo winters are mild; this particular winter was not so +inclement that it stopped building-operations for more than a day or two +at a time; and, with a sort of miniature Railhead strung out along the +Porth Neigr road for his labour, Raymond's second house rose steadily +course by course, and already they were draining and digging for the +first hotel. If they were mainly Porth Neigr men Raymond employed, that +did not mean that Dafydd Dafis or any other Llanyglo man who was so +minded would not be taken on; indeed they were taken on; but it did mean +that the centre of gravity of the labour-supply had shifted, and would +never shift back again. Those temporary dwellings along the Porth Neigr +road were a constant reminder that if the Llanyglo men did not like it +they might lump it; and as they did neither, but while disliking it +intensely, bore a hand and took their wages just the same, they appeared +to be sufficiently quelled.</p> + +<p>Edward Garden, while making Llanyglo his headquarters, was again much +away. A whisper was started that he was once more treating for land, +but, as no further land appeared to be available, the rumour was derided +as idle. Howell Gruffydd was already converting the two original +matchboarded cottages to his own use. Something Departmental happened +somewhere beyond Llanyglo's ken (probably Mr. Tudor Williams knew all +about it), and the word came that the Post Office was to be transferred +from John Pritchard's to Howell's new shop; and though the Post Office +was on the whole more trouble than it was worth, for a little while +Howell seemed likely to have a quarrel on his hands.</p> + +<p>But Howell had not definitely taken a part without knowing equally +definitely how to bear himself in that part. <i>He</i> did not intend to be +herded into the gloomy company of a lot of beaten and sulking Welsh +nationalists! As if already a vast spud had cut about Manchester or +Liverpool, and an equally vast spade had taken either of these cities up +bodily like a square of peat and had set it down again on the Llanyglo +sandhills, so the idea of expansion had taken hold of Howell's mind. He +even went a little preposterously beyond bounds, as others did later, +when they learned that their old Welsh dressers and armchairs were a +rarity and marketable, and proceeded to put ridiculous prices upon them. +And probably Edward Garden had a use for Howell. Already it looked like +it. The answer with which Howell appeased John Pritchard in the matter +of the transference of the Post Office looked very much like it. Edward +Garden himself could not so have reconciled John to all this innovation +with a single whispered word.</p> + +<p>For "<i>Bazaars</i>," Howell said furtively to John, behind his hand; and the +quick electric gleam in his eyes was instantly extinguished again....</p> + +<p>You see. They had never had a bazaar at Llanyglo. There would have been +little profit in passing their own money about among themselves. But +<i>strangers'</i> money.... That was the soul of good in things otherwise +evil that Howell whispered to John Pritchard, and later it was so +observingly distilled out for the benefit of the Baptist and other +Chapels that for a time there was actually a danger lest the mulcting +should keep folk away.</p> + +<p>And if even Mr. Tudor Williams himself now appeared a little +absent-minded among his constituents, and hauled himself, as it were, +out of remote fastnesses of thought to grasp them fervently (if +indiscriminately) by the hand, and to inquire after their rheumatics and +wives and other plagues, well, he was a busy, and not at all a wealthy +man. At Llanyglo, as elsewhere, it was not only Welsh and English; it +was also Get or Go Wanting. The early bird....</p> + +<p>So (to push on) circular smears of white appeared on the windows of the +second of Raymond Briggs's houses (it was finished by Christmas), and +these gave it the appearance of a sudden new Argus, looking out on every +side for other houses to join it; and the scaffold-poles began to rise +about the new hotel like a larch-plantation. Raymond came and went, and +Mr. Tudor Williams came and went, and short winter day followed short +winter day. Then, with cat's-ice still glazing the ruts and pools but a +feeling of Spring in the air, Porth Neigr, ten miles away, came +bustlingly to life. An emissary of the Lord-Lieutenant of the County +took up his quarters at the Royal Hotel, and there he was one day joined +by the Lord-Lieutenant himself, with Sir Somebody Something, of the +Office of Works. These summoned others, who in turn summoned others, and +maps and plans were sent for and a line of route was chosen. Police were +drafted in, and folk went up into their upper front rooms to see which +bedstead or table-leg would best stand the strain of a rope across the +street. The old station had been repainted to suit with the new +extension, and masts rose at its entrance. To the residents in the +principal streets the Council lent loyal emblems and devices. The sounds +of bands practising could be heard. His Royal Highness the Duke of Snell +was coming to open the line.</p> + +<p>Then on the appointed day, the town broke into a flutter of bunting. The +March sun shone merrily on Royal Standard and Red Dragon, on Union Jack +and ensign, on gold-fringed banners with "CROESAW" on one side and +"WELCOME" on the other. On the new metals a Royal Salute of fog-signals +was laid. Warning of the Approach passed along the line, on the +red-druggeted platform officials great and small waited, and John Willie +Garden's friends, whose picks and shovels had made the clay fly, would +no doubt read all about it a few days later in the papers.</p> + +<p>So, with detonation of fog-signals, and some cheers, but more wide-eyed +gazing, and bared heads and bowing backs, and an Address, and other +circumstances of loyalty and fraternisation and joy, His Royal Highness +and John Willie Garden between them declared the line open; but only the +Duke rode on the footplate of the garlanded engine with the crossed +flags on its belly. Probably intensely bored, he rode out about a mile +towards Abercelyn, and then returned to luncheon at the Royal Hotel. An +hour later, coming out again, he passed away to Lancashire. All was +over. Folk might now take down their bunting as soon as they pleased. +The trick was virtually done for Llanyglo. A loop at Sarn or a new +junction, and a realisation on the part of those in authority that there +were things that paid better than Abercelyn manganese, and Llanyglo +would be "linked up" with rigid iron to the rest of the world.</p> + +<p>Nay, it is already linked up even more straitly. A few poles and a +thread of wire, crossing the sandhills and ending at the Llanyglo +Stores, have some weeks ago put an end to its isolation. It is the nerve +that accompanies the sinew, and Howell Gruffydd now receives and +despatches telegrams. All is over bar the shouting, and it will not be +long before that begins. They are busy now, painting and papering the +new hotel, and decorating and upholstering it. It reeks of new paint and +varnish and furniture-polish and the plumbers' blowpipes. It resounds +with all the doubly loud noises of a half-empty place—with hammering +and tacking, clanking buckets, the "Whoas!" to the horses of the +delivery-vans, the jolting of heavy things moved upstairs, the rasp of +scrubbing-brushes, the squeak of window-cloths. It is spick-and-span, +from the feathery new larches in front to the silvery new dustbins +behind.... Wherefore, seeing that we shall only be in the way, with +never a chair to sit down on yet, and nothing to eat in the place save +what the charwoman and the green-aproned carters and carriers have +brought for themselves, we may as well leave all these things to the +folk whose business it is to attend to them, and take a nap for a month +or two, secure that when we wake up again the scene will be set for +Llanyglo's <i>lever de rideau</i>, that starched and polite and not quite +real little piece that preludes the main action of our tale. There is +heather and wild thyme up the Trwyn, very comfortable to doze on; +suppose we have our nap up there?...</p> + +<p><i>Ah-h-h-h!</i>—That was the July sun that woke us. It's a warm and +brilliant morning. Stretch yourself first, and then have a look down....</p> + +<p>That's a surprise, isn't it? You didn't quite expect that? Really not +much changed, and yet it's entirely changed. Two new houses and an hotel +(in this clean air they'll be new-looking for years yet), and that +little border of deck-chairs and bathing-tents and slowly moving +parasols, not a couple of hundred yards long altogether, and yet the +whole appearance of the place is altered. After a moment you find it +quite difficult to remember it as it was the last time we were up here. +See that little puff of smoke over there? That's a shunting-engine at +Sarn; you'll hear the sound in a moment; there!—Butterflies about us, +like hovering pansies; you can see just one corner of poor old Terry's +Thelema showing; and out there, where the sea changes colour, just where +the gulls are rocking, that's a bank of sand a storm threw up three or +four years ago. And that's the telegraph-wire I spoke of, running +straight across to Howell Gruffydd's shop there. Yes, that links +Llanyglo up....</p> + +<p>Where did all these people come from? Well, it's hard to say, but no +doubt Edward Garden's got them here for one reason and another. He may +even have "packed" the place a little carefully; I don't know. At any +rate, he's lent "<i>Sea View</i>" there (that's the newer of the two houses) +to Gilbert Smythe. Who's Gilbert Smythe? Well, he's the Medical Officer +for Brannewsome, Lancs., and a very clever and quite an honest man. But +Gilbert's family's grown more quickly than his fortune, live as frugally +as he will he's always in debt, and he isn't going to say "No" to the +free offer of a well-built, roomy house, not three minutes from the +sands where the children can play all day, and furnished from the +potato-masher in the kitchen to the little square looking-glasses in the +servants' attics. And of course Edward Garden asks nothing in return. +But <i>if</i> Gilbert cares to say that the Llanyglo water is abundant and +pure, Edward won't object—it is excellent water. And <i>if</i> Gilbert likes +to praise its air and low rainfall (low for Wales), well, he'll be +telling no more than the truth. And <i>if</i> Gilbert (not bearing ancient +Mrs. Pritchard too much in mind) finds the longevity at Llanyglo +remarkable, what's the harm in that? As a matter of fact, there is a +saying that the oldest inhabitant always dies first at Llanyglo, and the +others follow in order of age, which would be a poor look-out for +anybody setting up in the Insurance business here.... So if by and by +Gilbert signs a statement to this general effect, you can hardly blame +him. He has his way to make, and he is a wise man who allows the +galleons of the Gardens of the world to give his skiff a tow.</p> + +<p>The others? Well, Edward Garden's a cleverer man than I, and you can +hardly expect me to explain the workings of his mind to you in detail. +But I think we may assume he knows what he is about. I needn't say +they're all very well-to-do; you can see that even from here; but +there's something else about them, something we saw in Raymond Briggs, +that's a little difficult to describe—perhaps it's merely that they too +intend (<i>mutatis mutandis</i>, of course) that their children shall have a +better time than their parents have had—or perhaps we'd better say +their grandparents had, for their parents do themselves very well, +indeed. I don't think you can say more about them than that—it's just +that dash of Raymond Briggs.... Squire Wynne wouldn't understand them in +the least. The Squire's wasted too much time over antiquity. He doesn't +know anything about these people who are coming on. Except in their +clothes, and so on, he'd see very little difference between them and +people Raymond Briggs would look at as if they weren't there. He +wouldn't understand Philip Lacey, for example. (Do you see that +orange-and-black striped blazer—there by the seaweed: he's pointing; +that's Philip Lacey.) Philip is the big Liverpool florist, seedsman, and +landscape-gardener; if he hasn't his "roots in the land" in exactly the +sense the Squire understands, his plants have; and Philip distinctly +does not intend that Euonyma and Wygelia, who are at present at school +at Brighton, shall go into one of his fourteen or fifteen retail shops. +Philip isn't spending all that money for that.... (Understand me, I +think Philip's perfectly right; the only thing I don't quite see is why +he should veneer good sound stuff with something that's an obvious +sham.) Of his wife, frankly, I don't think very much. Her processes show +too plainly. Philip has his business to attend to, but Mrs. Lacey never +leaves her one idea, day or night.... There, Philip's stopped and spoken +to Mr. Morrell. Mr. Morrell has just as many hopes and plans for Hilda +as the Laceys have for Euonyma and Wygelia, but he knows that his "a's" +are past praying for, so he makes rather a display of his native speech. +I needn't tell you what a trial that is to Hilda....</p> + +<p>And bear in mind that these are prosperous people, well-travelled people +(though they mostly keep to the beaten tracks where they meet one +another—it's Mrs. Briggs's chief recollection of Florence that she met +some people she knew in Leeds there), people who put up at far better +hotels than you or I do. And if these, who can afford it, can be shown +the way to Llanyglo, the chances are that a crowd of other people, who +certainly can't afford it but as certainly won't be out of it, will come +in their wake.</p> + +<p>What do you say to our going down and having a closer look at them? We +might take a stroll as far as Howell Gruffydd's shop—I beg its pardon, +Stores. Sit still a moment though; here's Minetta Garden behind us. +She's been sketching the Dinas, very likely. Minetta very much wants to +be an artist, and you meet her with her sketching things all over the +place. It may or may not be a passing fancy; she certainly has what +Raymond Briggs calls a "Rossetti head"—enormous dark eyes, sharpish +jaw, straight dark hair, and a disconcerting way of staring at people +who are "putting it on" a little more thickly than usual (she stares +pretty frequently at Raymond himself). Ah, she's taking the steep way +down. We'll take the other way....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Now we're on the level; better put your tie straight—or aren't you +overpowered by these things? I confess I am; Raymond Briggs always +chills me when he casts his eye over my front elevation. No thick-booted +undergraduates' holiday-parties nor furry art-students with knickers and +bare throats here. We're spruce at Llanyglo. Even on a week-day it's +like a Church Parade, and on Sundays we go one better still. All the men +have brightly coloured flannel blazers and gaudy cammerbands, and the +women carry many-flounced parasols by a ring at the ferrule end, and +wear toilettes straight out of the "Queen." Some of them will change for +lunch; all of them will for <i>table d'hôte</i> at seven. They protest that +they vastly prefer dinner at seven, but what with the servants' dinners +at midday, and husbands who prefer the old-fashioned hour, and one thing +and another, they take their principal meal at one. There's no reason +they shouldn't. There's no reason they should mention it at all. But +they do, every day. If you're introduced to them, they'll all have told +you within twenty-four hours. It's as if they didn't want there to be +any mistake about something or other....</p> + +<p>Here's where the donkeys turn. They have red and white housings, and +their names across their foreheads—"<i>Tiny</i>," "<i>Prince</i>," and so on; the +donkey-rides are a little offshoot of <i>Porth Neigr Omnibuses</i>. +Kite-flying's popular here too—that's Mr. Morrell's, the big +star-shaped one. The bathing-tents and deck-chairs are mostly hired from +Howell Gruffydd, but there are no boats yet except Percy Briggs's +twenty-five-pound collapsible one; those who want to go fishing have to +use one of those old Copley Fielding things by the jetty there.... Now +we're coming to the people. Here's Raymond Briggs with Mr. Lacey, +Raymond in his orange-and-black blazer and a white Homburg hat, Philip +in a blue blazer with white braid and a plain straw hat; both with +perfect creamy rippling white trousers and spotless white doeskin boots. +They're talking off-handedly about other holiday-places—Norway, the +Highlands, the Riviera—and they're afraid of showing any enthusiasm or +delight. Of every place they know they say that it has "gone off" since +they first went there. There's a subtle undercurrent of contest about +their conversation. Philip was at Hyères as recently as last winter, +looking at the violets; but Raymond has been three times to Arles and +Nimes. I suppose honours are easy.</p> + +<p>"Roman, I've heard?" Philip remarks. (You can hear him as you pass.)</p> + +<p>"Yes, Roman, with a Saracenic tower."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that tower's Saracenic, is it?"</p> + +<p>"Saracenic."</p> + +<p>"Wonderful people!"</p> + +<p>"Indeed yes!"</p> + +<p>"Curious how it takes you back into ancient times."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, it shortens history."</p> + +<p>"But the hotel accommodation!—--"</p> + +<p>"Oh, bad in the extreme!"</p> + +<p>"What they want is entirely new and up-to-date management——"</p> + +<p>"Quite so——"</p> + +<p>"Can't say I thought much of their <i>bouillabaisse</i>."</p> + +<p>"An acquired taste, I suppose——"</p> + +<p>And they pass on. They'll talk like that the whole morning. They're not +really interested in their subject. As I say, it makes you think of a +sort of contest. Personally, I always want to applaud when somebody +scores a good point. Perhaps the idea is that they're doing Llanyglo a +favour by coming here—</p> + +<p>There, stepping over the tent-ropes, are Mrs. Briggs and Mr. Ashton. Mr. +Ashton is Edward Garden's chief London representative, a man of pleasure +and of the world, and for all I know his function may be to keep these +prosperous northerners up to the metropolitan mark. Mrs. Briggs, for +example, who is very short and stout, and wears a lavender bonnet and +pelisse, and certainly will not walk far on the sand in those heels, is +on her mettle now. She is telling Mr. Ashton some London hotel +experience or other. I like Mrs. Briggs. She's worth ten of Raymond. But +I don't think she quite knows which is the paste and which the jewels in +her speech.</p> + +<p>"——and so at the 'Metropole' they couldn't take Ray and I in; not that +I was surprised in the very least, such frights as we looked after the +voyage, and hardly any luggage; it hadn't come on from Paris, you see. +So I says to Ray, 'It's no good making a noration here, for it's plain +they don't want us. <i>I</i>'m glad they're doing so well they can afford to +turn money away.' So I turns to the manager, who was staring at my +slippers I'd put on for the railway-journey, and 'Don't if it hurts +you,' I said, and with that we slammed our things together and drove off +to the 'Grand'——"</p> + +<p>You can hear Mr. Ashton's sympathetic murmurs ... but that's Mrs. Lacey, +with Mr. Morrell, just turning; she thinks that Euonyma and Wygelia have +been quite long enough in the water. Mr. Morrell is in cool-looking +cream alpaca; Mrs. Lacey, who is hook-nosed and pepper-and-salt haired +and thin as a hop-pole, resembles a many-flounced hollyhock in her +silvery battleship grey.</p> + +<p>"They'll tak' no harm, weather like this," Mr. Morrell is saying. +"What's that I was going to ask you, now?... I have it. Is it right 'at +Briggs is to build you a new house ovver yonder?"</p> + +<p>A foot or so over Mr. Morrell's head, Mrs. Lacey replies that Mr. Lacey +hasn't decided yet.—"You see, with the girls at Brighton for another +year yet, and then of course they'll have to go to Paris, it's early to +say."</p> + +<p>"There's some talk of his making a Floral Valley, isn't there?"</p> + +<p>"I've not heard.—But I'm sure those girls——"</p> + +<p>"They're as right as rain wi' Mrs. Maynard——"</p> + +<p>But that is precisely where Mrs. Lacey thinks Mr. Morrell is mistaken. +She has nothing whatever against Mrs. Maynard, who is a young widow, but +she would like to know a little more about the late Mr. Maynard before +admitting her to unreserved intimacy. Mrs. Maynard has not quite the +figure a "Mrs." ought to have, and does more bathing than swimming (if +you understand me). That's an accomplishment she learned at Ostend (for +if Mr. Ashton, the London agent, is metropolitan, Mrs. Maynard brings +quite a cosmopolitan air to Llanyglo). The misses Euonyma and Wygelia, +on the other hand, learned to swim at Brighton, walking to the +bathing-place in a crocodile. You see the difference. Brighton is not +Ostend, any more than Llanyglo is either, and Mrs. Lacey considers that +you can't be too careful.... That's Mrs. Maynard, with her back to the +oncoming breaker. Her bathing-dress is quite complete, as complete as +Mrs. Garden's, drying outside her tent there; but Mrs. Lacey +disapproves of those twinkling scarlet ribbons. She considers them to be +little points of attraction, that do all that is asked of them, and +more. She prophesied that the red would "run" in the water, but it +didn't, and that makes matters rather worse, for if Mrs. Maynard knows +as well as that which red will run and which won't she is practised——</p> + +<p>And those two graceful but rather skinned-rabbit-looking young shapes in +the gleaming navy-blue costumes with the white braid are the girls.</p> + +<p>Now we're among the castles. Quite a horde of children, and very pretty +children too, with their spades and buckets and their petticoats bunched +up inside striped knickers (those too you get at Gruffydd's). That's +Gilbert Smythe, the Medical Officer, the tall shaggy man carrying the +bucket of water for the little boy's moat. He'll be giving Llanyglo its +bathing testimonial too. Don't tread on that seaweed; it may be a castle +garden, or a sea-serpent, or anything else in the child's +imagination.... There are the boys trying to launch the collapsible +boat. John Willie hasn't grown much; he won't be a tall man; but he's +filling out. That minx Mrs. Maynard makes quite a lot of him, and says +she likes the feel of his fine-spun hair. Whether John Willie likes her +to feel it or not he does not betray.</p> + +<p>Now for Howell Gruffydd's....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There you are. "THE LLANYGLO STORES," in big gold letters right across +the front of the two cottages. What do you think of it?</p> + +<p>Yes in one way and another, there must be a largish sum sunk in "stock." +Whether Howell's buying on credit or not I don't know, but he looks +prosperous; he's had his beard trimmed, and he wears a new hat. Green +butterfly-nets and brown and white and grey sandshoes—spades and +buckets and balls and fishing-lines and toy ships—bottles of scent and +the "Llanyglo Sunburn Cure" (made up for him by the chemist at Porth +Neigr)—a new board with "Tricycles for Hire" on it (that's the shed at +the back, and Eesaac Oliver, home for the holidays, books the hirings +and does the repairs)—baskets and spirit-kettles and ironmongery, all +in addition to the groceries.—Yes, Howell has quite a big business now. +Let's go inside and buy something.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Mr. Gruffydd; papers in yet? No? I thought I saw Hugh +coming down the Sarn road half an hour ago. Yes, a lovely day. How's +Eesaac Oliver? Still at Porth Neigr?... No, no, I know he's home for his +holidays; I saw him driving Mr. Pritchard's hay-cart yesterday; I mean +when is he going to Aberystwith?... Next year? Good! He'll make his mark +in the world!—Mr. Garden been in this morning yet?... He's driving in +the mountains? Well, there's always a breeze in the mountains.... No, +serve Mrs. Roberts first. How are you, Mrs. Roberts?"</p> + +<p>Howell still sells Mrs. Roberts her pennyworth of bicarbonate of soda, +and with the same smile as ever, but he could do without her custom now. +Look round. Crates of eggs (the Trwyn hens can't keep pace with the +demand now), great Elizabethan gables of tinned fruits and salmon, a +newspaper counter, the Post Office behind the wire grating there, +strings of things hanging from the ceiling, scarcely an inch of Edward +Garden's matchboarding to be seen, and three assistants, all busily +weighing, packing, checking, snipping the string off on the little +knives on the wooden string-boxes, and passing the parcels to the boys +with the hand-carts. But we ought to have been here a couple of hours +ago. Mrs. Briggs and Mrs. Lacey and Mrs. Garden were giving their orders +for the day then. They come every morning, rings on their fingers and +bells on their toes, high heels and flounced parasols and all the lot, +and Howell doesn't have it all his own way then, I can tell you. For +this is where our ladies are really efficient. They may never dream of +travelling otherwise than first-class, but they know the price of +everything to a halfpenny and a farthing. There's no "If 'twill do +'twill do" about them when it comes to the management of a house. And +when Hilda Morrell grows out of the stage of wishing her father would +talk "like other people," the chances are that she'll discover too that +this is her real strength, as it was her mother's. Mrs. Maynard comes in +with them of a morning sometimes, and tells them how tre-<i>men</i>-dously +clever she thinks them, to know the differences between things like +that, and vows that <i>her</i> tradesmen rob her right and left because she +hasn't been properly brought up; and then Mrs. Briggs, putting down the +egg she is holding to the light, cries, "Eh, it's nothing, love—I could +learn you in a month!"</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Lacey detects a secret sarcasm in the phrase about the +bringing-up.</p> + +<p>And the men will be in for their newspapers presently.</p> + +<p>Now a stroll to the hotel, and just a peep at them by and by as they +have lunch....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>This is the hotel lounge. The varnish is quite dry, though it doesn't +look it. A dozen little round tables, chairs heavily upholstered in +crimson velvet, festoons of heavy gilt cord on the curtains, and that's +the service-hatch in the corner. The waiters are rather melancholy; you +see, it isn't a public-house; everything goes down on the residents' +bills; and that means fewer tips. Tea is served here in the afternoon, +but of course the ladies never dream of tipping. Those excellent +purchasers work out everything at cost price, omit such items as +interest on capital, insurance, depreciation, and so on, and find a +shilling for two pennyworth of bread and butter, a twopenny cake, and a +pinch of two-shilling tea with hot water thrown in, tip enough.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ting! Ting! Ting!</i>"</p> + +<p>It is Val Clayton, ordering another drink for himself and his two +friends. He drinks vermouth, his friends bottles of beer. Val drinks +vermouth because it is foreign (he runs over to Paris frequently, and +travels to Egypt for Clayton Brothers and Clayton), and perhaps he makes +love to Mrs. Maynard (if you can call it making love) because she too is +almost a continental. Since Mrs. Maynard is to be seen in her red +ribbons, you might expect to find Val on the beach instead of drinking +vermouth in the hotel lounge; but that is far from being "in character" +when you know Val. The world's pleasures a little in excess have already +set their mark on Val. He will tell you that he would not miss his +morning drink, "not for the best woman living." Others may fetch and +carry for their hearts' mistresses, but not Val. In the afternoon, +perhaps, if he feels a little less jaded, in a hollow of the sandhills +and with the warm sun to help, Val may bestir himself a little, but in +the meantime he wants another vermouth.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ting! Ting! Ting!</i>—They want to have French waiters here," Val +grumbles. "I never mind tipping a waiter if I can get what I want when I +want it. <i>Wai</i>—oh, you've come, have you? Well, since you are here, +you may as well bring these again, and then see if the papers have come +in yet——"</p> + +<p>"And bring me a box of Egyptian cigarettes."</p> + +<p>"No—hi!—don't bring those cigarettes.—You don't want to smoke the +rubbish they sell here. Fill your case out of this—I've a thousand +upstairs I brought from Cairo myself——"</p> + +<p>"Oh!... Thanks.—Well, as I was saying——"</p> + +<p>And the speaker (who might as well be in Manchester for all he sees of +Llanyglo, at any rate in the mornings) resumes some narrative that the +replenishing of the glasses has interrupted.</p> + +<p>Now the others are dropping in, those who like one <i>aperatif</i> before +lunch but not half a dozen. Their wives have gone upstairs to tittivate +themselves. The velvet chairs fill; extra waiters appear; and a light +haze ascends from cigars and cigarettes to the roof. Listen to the +restrained hubbub.</p> + +<p>"Waiter! <i>Ting!</i> Waiter!—--" and then a slight gesture; the waiters are +supposed to know the tastes of the real <i>habitués</i> by this time; (it +counts almost as a "score" if the waiter brings your refection without +your having as much as opened your mouth to ask for it).—"The usual, +sir—yes, sir—coming!" And again they are talking, not on subjects, but +as if the act of talking were itself subject enough. Philip Lacey +discusses with Mr. Ashton the improvement in the Harwich-Hook of Holland +crossing, and Mr. Morrell exchanges views on Local Government with +Raymond Briggs. "<i>Ting! ting!</i> You haven't cassis? Then why haven't you +cassis?"—"Very sorry, sir—coming, sir!"—"What's happened to the +newspapers this morning?"—"Of course, if it goes to +arbitration——"—"Nay, John, don't drown t' miller!" "Ten o'clock, +first stop Willesden——" "Your very good health, Mr. Morrell——" +"Debentures——" "New heating in both greenhouses——"—"Same again, +Val?"—"<i>Ting!</i>"——</p> + +<p>"BOO-O-O-OOM-M-MMMMM!"</p> + +<p>It is the luncheon gong.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Just a glance as they sit at table. Don't you think it's a pleasant +room? Three tall windows looking out on the sea, noiseless carpet, +ornaments on the sideboards rather like wooden broccoli, but the +decorations straight from London. But those two large chandelier +gas-brackets don't work yet; the plant isn't installed; that's why the +red-shaded oil-lamps are placed at intervals down the T of tables. The +older folk gather round the head of the T, and down the stalk stretch +the children. These will rise before their parents, just as they go out +of Church after the Second Lesson; they will break off just below John +Willie Garden and the Misses Euonyma and Wygelia there—who, by the way, +are more usually called June and Wy. The flowers are chosen to "last +well," for Llanyglo is almost as short of flowers as it is of trees; but +the linen and plate and other appointments are all good—these actors in +Llanyglo's little fore-piece are not accustomed to roughing it, even on +a holiday.</p> + +<p>As I told you they would, half the women have changed their frocks. Mrs. +Lacey is a pink hollyhock now, of which her daughters seem cuttings, and +her hat is a sort of pink straw <i>képi</i>, trimmed with flowers that +resemble virginia stock. She sits at the end of one arm of the T, with +her back to the window. Near her is Mrs. Briggs, in stamped +electric-blue velvet—her forearms, on which bracelets shiver, are as +uniform in contour from whatever point you look at them as if they had +been turned in a lathe. The Misses June and Wy also wear bracelets, from +which depend bundles of sixpences, a sixpence for each of their +birthdays, sixteen for Wiggie, fourteen for June. John Willie is +lunching with Percy Briggs to-day, who lunched with him yesterday. Next +to his chair is an empty one. It is Mrs. Maynard's, who has not come +down yet. Then comes Val Clayton. Over all, with his napkin tucked into +his collar as if he had prepared, not for a lunch, but for a shave, Mr. +Morrell presides.</p> + +<p>For some reason or other, lunch always begins a little stiffly; but they +unbend as they go on. At present Raymond Briggs cannot get away from the +subject of the newspapers and their unaccountable lateness.</p> + +<p>"Can't understand it," he says for the fifth or sixth time.</p> + +<p>"And they were late last Wednesday—no, Thursday—no, I was right, it +was Wednesday."</p> + +<p>"Was it Wednesday?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, the day it looked like rain; you remember?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes; the day it cleared up again."</p> + +<p>"All but a drop or two—nothing to hurt——"</p> + +<p>A pause.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't suppose there's anything in them."</p> + +<p>"Speaking for myself, I don't care a button. I don't want to see the +newspapers. 'No letters, no newspapers,' I always say when I go away."</p> + +<p>"A real country holiday, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Change and rest—those are the great things."</p> + +<p>"You're right. Complete change. No trouble about how you dress nor what +you eat. That's the best of this place."</p> + +<p>"Still, if the newspapers are coming we may as well know when they are +coming."</p> + +<p>"They ought to have a man, not that young boy."</p> + +<p>"Hugh Morgan?"</p> + +<p>"Is that his name? There are so many Morgans."</p> + +<p>"Common Welsh name."</p> + +<p>"Met another boy, I expect."</p> + +<p>"Boys are all alike."</p> + +<p>"Not a pin to choose among 'em."</p> + +<p>"Wish I was behind him with a stick for all that."</p> + +<p>"Another glass of wine, Mr. Ashton?" ...</p> + +<p>Then there enters with a little commotion, and trips half running to the +empty chair between John Willie Garden and Val Clayton, Mrs. Maynard. +She wears a big black hat swathed in black tulle, and her dress is of +black lace, with close sleeves that reach to the middle knuckles of her +taper fingers. She shakes out the mitre of her napkin and breaks forth +to Val as she settles in her chair.</p> + +<p>"My horrid hair!" she pouts; "it always takes me three-quarters of an +hour! Really, I shall have to stop bathing, but I do love it so. It +seems a kind of fate; I always have to give up the things I love!"</p> + +<p>Hereupon Val—or perhaps vermouth, since Val seems a little astonished +at his own gallantry—suddenly replies that if he were like that he +would have to give up Mrs. Maynard. If Mrs. Maynard also is a little +surprised she covers it with great readiness.</p> + +<p>"Oh, now the dreadful man's beginning again!" she cries. "If you <i>will</i> +say those things, Mr. Clayton, I shall have to change places at table!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Clayton asks here what is wrong with her hair.—"I think it's +champion," he adds. "Very nice indeed," he adds once more.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how <i>can</i> you!" (As a matter of fact, Mrs. Maynard's hair is +rather wonderful, dark, and so long that she can sit on it.) "No fish, +thank you," she says, with a smile to the waiter.</p> + +<p>Then Mrs. Lacey's firm voice is heard. "Can anybody tell me whether +there have been many wrecks on this coast?"</p> + +<p>The person best qualified to give this information is John Willie +Garden, but Mrs. Maynard has turned to John Willie, and is asking him +whether he does not think she swims rather nicely. Her tendril-like +fingers are again stroking his hair. Mrs. Lacey considers Mrs. Maynard's +tulle-swathed hat the ostentation of modesty and the coquetry of +mourning (if she is in mourning), and, getting no answer to her question +about the wrecks, invents a name for Mrs. Maynard: "Mrs. Maynard—as she +calls herself." Plates are changed, corks pop, and from time to time a +seltzogene gives a spurt and a cough. Raymond Briggs explains that he is +fond of strawberries, but strawberries are not fond of him. The chatter +grows louder.</p> + +<p>"I took her as a kitchen-maid, but she turned out quite a good plain +cook——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, like a top—as Dr. Smythe says, it's the air."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I <i>prefer</i> it rustic; like this!"</p> + +<p>"Quite so—the first tripper and I'm off!"</p> + +<p>"So I opened her box myself; and there they were, if you please—four +silver spoons!—--"</p> + +<p>"Now, June, you and Wy talk French—you haven't talked it for days——"</p> + +<p>"John's booked the rooms for next year already——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>Mis</i>-ter Clayton! I never promised any such thing!"</p> + +<p>"They can talk it if they like, as fast as a mill——"</p> + +<p>"If I were you I should see Tudor Williams about it——"</p> + +<p>"You can put on your oldest things and there's nobody to see you——"</p> + +<p>"But really I'm almost ashamed to go about the fright I do!—--"</p> + +<p>"But that's a new dress?——"</p> + +<p>"<i>New!</i>—Last year—but it's good enough for here——"</p> + +<p>"Can't manage those double-l's——"</p> + +<p>"Gutturals——"</p> + +<p>"Llan—Thlan—Lan——"</p> + +<p>"June, your legs are younger than mine—run and get Aunt May's letter +out of my dressing-table drawer——"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Smythe?... The best thing for the baby, of course, but I can't +help thinking that not <i>quite</i> so publicly——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I always let Percy suck, whoever was there!—--"</p> + +<p>"John will have his dinner in the middle of the day——"</p> + +<p>"Smythe? Oh, one of the nicest fellows, but no push, I'm afraid——"</p> + +<p>"That's his failing——"</p> + +<p>"Where he misses it——"</p> + +<p>"Extraordinary——"</p> + +<p>"Well, some men are born like that——"</p> + +<p>"Wait for things to come to them instead of going to fetch them——"</p> + +<p>"Up t' Trwyn? We'll talk about it after I've had my forty winks. I must +have my forty winks after my dinner."</p> + +<p>"Lunch, William."</p> + +<p>"Lunch, then."</p> + +<p>"He <i>will</i> call it his dinner——"</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> my dinner——"</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Morrell makes a signal, the younger ones troop out, breaking +into loud shouts the moment they are clear of the room. They are off to +the beach again. Shall we follow them?...</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>What do the Welshmen think of it all? It suits Howell Gruffydd's book, +as you see, and Howell has pacified John Pritchard with the promise of +Bazaars; but the others? Dafydd Dafis, say?</p> + +<p>Again nothing is going right for Dafydd. He feels that another friend +has changed towards him—Minetta, to whom he used to sing <i>Serch Hudol</i>, +and tell his stories of fays and water-beings and knights, and make much +of for her elfin looks and quick and un-Saxon ways. For Minetta is +already displaying the artist's heartlessness, and does not see the +sorrow in Dafydd's eyes, but only what sort of a "head" he has from her +special point of view, and how he will "come" upon a piece of paper. She +tried to draw Dafydd only the other day, and ordered him, half absently, +to turn his head this way and that, and grew petulant when her drawing +went all wrong, and suddenly cried "Don't look at me like that!" when +Dafydd turned his eyes on her with a tear in the corner of each. Poor +Dafydd! He, like the Squire, would be better out of all this swiftly +oncoming change....</p> + +<p>But Dafydd, who is of the phrase-making kind, has made out of his +sadness a phrase that more or less represents the attitude of every +Welshman in Llanyglo. He watched all these people coming in ones and +twos and threes out of the hotel one morning and walking down to their +deck-chairs and bathing-tents on the beach. He stood for a while, +looking at the gay parterre of sun-shades and summer clothes, of kites +and spades and buckets, and rings on fingers more carefully tended but +of coarser stuff than his own. And he listened to the accents that even +his alien ear told him were strained and affected and false. And he gave +them a half contemptuous and half pitying look as he turned away.</p> + +<p>"<i>These summer things</i>," he said....</p> + +<p>But Howell Gruffydd has Dafydd Dafis's measure also, and takes it, just +as he took John Pritchard's, in a single word.</p> + +<p>"<i>Eisteddfodau</i>," he whispered to Dafydd behind his hand....</p> + +<p>For they may by and by be advertising Llanyglo by means of an +Eisteddfod, and, as long as he is allowed to play, Dafydd does not +greatly care who he plays to nor whether they understand him or not.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2> + +<h3>YNYS</h3> + + +<p>There came one day at about that time a Welsh gipsy fortune-teller to +Llanyglo. Her name was Belle Lovell, she was a known character all over +the countryside, and she was some sort of a connection of Dafydd +Dafis's. There was always a packet of tobacco for her in the Squire's +kitchen when she appeared, and her companion on her travels was her +thirteen-years-old daughter Ynys.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Belle sold baskets and mended +chairs, and Ynys drew the cart, which was no more than a large deal +packing-case mounted on four perambulator wheels, and with two flat +shafts roughly nailed to its sides. The mother's boots, which you might +have hit with a hammer and not have dinted, resembled grey old wooden +dug-outs; the child went barefooted and barelegged, and it would have +been a stout thorn that could have pierced the calloused pads of her +hardened soles.</p> + +<p>These two appeared at Llanyglo at midday, ate their frugal meal on the +doorstep of Dafydd's single-roomed cottage behind the Independent +Chapel, and then, leaving the cart behind them, strolled down to have a +look at that splendacious new caravan, Howell Gruffydd's shop. Belle, +her greenish light brown eyes never for a moment still, gossiped with +her old acquaintances; her daughter, whose head was as steadily held as +if she balanced an invisible pitcher on it, stood looking at the green +butterfly-nets and red-painted buckets, admiring, but no more desiring +them than she would have desired anything else impossibly beyond her +reach. Her mother joined a group about Mrs. Roberts's door; the +visitors, who had lunched, began to descend to the beach again; and +there approached down the path that led to the Hafod Unos Ned, the +oldest of the Kerrs.</p> + +<p>Now Ned had run across Belle on many alder-expeditions, and, while the +invasion of "summer things" had not driven Ned into naturalisation as a +Welshman, it had, by emphasising the distinction between the well-to-do +and the poor of the world, shown him how to jog along in peace with his +neighbours. He gave Belle an intelligent grin, and jerked his head in +the direction of the bathing-tents.</p> + +<p>"Well, mother," he said, "ye've dropped in at just about th' right +time."</p> + +<p>"There iss no wrong time for seeing friends," Belle replied, in an +up-and-down and very musical Welsh accent.</p> + +<p>"Nay, I wanna thinking-g o' that," Ned replied, strongly doubling the +"g" that terminated the present participle. "I wor thinking-g of a bit +o' fortune-telling. There's a lot ovver yonder wi' more brass nor sense, +and it allus tickles 'em to talk about sweethearts an' sich."</p> + +<p>"Indeed Llanyglo has become grea-a-at big place, whatever," the gipsy +replied, and continued her conversation with Mrs. Roberts.</p> + +<p>And presently, whether she took the hint or whether she had come +precisely for that purpose, Belle's greenish-brown eyes roved again, she +made a slight gesture to Ynys, who had turned from the butterfly-nets +and was looking out to sea, and the pair of them made off along the +beach in the direction of that bright plot of colour that made as it +were a herbaceous border between the grey-green tussocks and the +glittering sea.</p> + +<p>For a hundred yards Belle's dug-outs left behind her a heavy shuffling +track in the sand, parallel with the light kidney-shaped prints of the +child who walked as if she carried an invisible pitcher on her head; and +then, with the cluster of tents and parasols still far ahead, they +stopped. John Willie Garden and Percy Briggs, with Eesaac Oliver +Gruffydd ready to bear a hand if called upon to do so, but otherwise a +little fearful of intruding, were victualling the blue-and-white +collapsible boat for a cruise. But it was not in order to tell the +fortunes of the three boys that Belle stopped. She stopped for the same +reason that the street-seller pulls out his rattle or his conjuring +trick, while his quick-silver eyes dart this way and that in search of +his crowd. The only difference was that Belle was her own +conjuring-trick. The gesture with which she performed it was superbly +negligent. She had a wonderful old mignonette-coloured shawl, which, +when she had talked with the group about Mrs. Roberts's doorstep, had +been drawn up over her head; and suddenly she allowed it to fall to her +shoulders. The effect might well have carried twice the distance it was +intended to carry. Out of the folds of the shawl her neck rose as erect +as the pistil of an arum lily. Against it gleamed her heavy gold +earrings. Her cheekbones and the nodule of her high nose gleamed like +bronze, and about the whorl of the springing of her hair at the back of +her head the sunshine made as it were a sun-dog on the lustrous +blackness. Her silver wedding-ring, an old tweed jacket that might have +belonged to her kinsman Dafydd Dafis, and a patched old indigo +petticoat, completed the legerdemain. Ynys, clad to all appearances in +a single garment only, watched the boys exactly as she had watched the +balls and butterfly-nets and buckets outside Howell Gruffydd's shop.</p> + +<p>They too made a shining <i>coup d'œil</i>. There was just swell enough to +set the long breakers hurdling in, and wind enough to take the tops off +them in rattling showers of brilliant spray. Indeed it was so merry a +sea that, not half an hour before, Mrs. Maynard had declared to John +Willie that she had come within an ace of drowning during her bathe that +morning, and had asked him whether, had he seen her in difficulties, he +would have come to her rescue. "Mmmmm, John Willie?" she had asked, +curling his hair with her perfumed fingers; but John Willie, seeing +Percy Briggs approaching, had jerked away his head. This had not been +because he had been afraid of being laughed at by Percy. For that +matter, Percy had confided to John Willie only a week before that he +"liked their Minetta," and so was in no position to jeer at the softer +relations. No; it had merely been that, as Llanyglo's curtain had risen, +suddenly revealing a soft and alluring group of Euonymas and Wygelias +and Hildas, not to speak of Mrs. Maynard herself, all temptingly set out +like fruit upon a stall, the curtain of John Willie Garden's peculiar +privacy had come down with a run. Mrs. Maynard was always trying to peep +behind it, but probably there was nothing behind. Probably that was the +reason it had come so sharply and closely down. No boy wants to show +that he has nothing to show.</p> + +<p>Smack!—A bucketful of spray drenched the stores, and the wave ran +hissing and creaming back under the counter of the blue-and-white boat. +John Willie shouted rather crossly to Eesaac Oliver.</p> + +<p>"Pull her up a bit, can't you, instead of standing there doing nothing!"</p> + +<p>Eesaac Oliver started to life and obeyed. He was rather a fetcher and +carrier for these more happily circumstanced boys, but privately he knew +himself to be in some things their superior. To tell the truth, Eesaac +Oliver knew just a lee-tle too much about what went on within himself, +and communicated it just a lee-tle too readily to others. For he dropped +no curtain; on the contrary, the windows of his soul were flung wide +open. The experience of the world he had acquired at the school at Porth +Neigr had already caused him to declare himself as being thenceforward +powerfully on the side of the angels; and that ingenious educational +exercise which consists of speaking extempore on any subject given only +a moment ago had a lee-tle abnormally developed certain natural powers +of expression which his race rarely lacks. Had Mrs. Maynard attempted to +stroke Eesaac Oliver's hair (which was thick and black, and rose in a +great lump in front, falling thence in a lappet over his pale forehead), +he would either have cried "Apage!" or else, suffering the seduction, +would have undergone torments of remorse afterwards.</p> + +<p>Therefore it was with a meek dignity that Eesaac Oliver bore a hand with +the boat, and then fell back and a little enviously watched again.</p> + +<p>Then that crafty and stately piece of legerdemain of Belle's had its +reward. In his rippling cream alpaca, there approached along the sands +Mr. Morrell himself, and Belle's neck no longer resembled the pistil of +an arum lily. She bent ingratiatingly forward; as if a key had clicked, +a dazzling smile cut her face into two; and after a jocular word or two +Mr. Morrell bore her off, Ynys following. Let us follow too.</p> + +<p>Do look at the contrast—those summer things, and the two wanderers in +whom all the seasons are ingrained; carefully veiled and sunburn-cured +complexions, and these other vagrants, brown as the upturned earth; the +indefatigable maintenance of artificial attitudes even before one +another, and the grave ease of the child, the deliberate gesture with +which the mother looses as it were in the sheath the only weapon she has +against the world.... Frith's "<i>Derby Day</i>?" Yes, it is a little like +it; but listen. Mrs. Maynard, with a sparkling glance about her that +says "Mum," has slipped off her wedding-ring, and Belle has taken her +hand. It is slim as a glove that has never been put on, and Mrs. Maynard +intends to trip Belle if she can.</p> + +<p>So, when Belle begins to promise Mrs. Maynard a husband who shall be +such-and-such, there are winks and glances and nudges, as much as to say +that now they are going to have some fun, and Mr. Morrell says, "Here, +ho'd on a bit, mother—how do you know she isn't married?"</p> + +<p>If Belle shows the knife for a moment, she does it so delicately that +nobody notices it.</p> + +<p>"If the prit-ty lady was married, her man he srink a ring upon her +finger, red-hot, as they srink a tyre on a cart-wheel," Belle replies; +and the reading of Mrs. Maynard's palm continues.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Lacey, a pale blue hollyhock, looks as if she pooh-poohed the whole +thing; but inwardly she is a-tremble with eagerness to have the fortunes +of her two daughters told. As it happens, no sooner is Mrs. Maynard's +hand dropped than Mr. Morrell, who happens to be standing next to June, +catches her by the arm.</p> + +<p>"Come on, June, and be told how to get a husband!" he cries, and he +slips a shilling into Belle's hand.</p> + +<p>June will never be prettier than she is now. She is indeed very +pretty—apple-blossom and cream, bright-haired, freshly starched, back +straight and elbows well down, and as glossy from top to toe as the +broad mauve ribbon of her sash. Soon she will be as tall as her mother; +already she is taller than her father, the landscape-gardener; and the +thought of whether she will marry or not, and whether brilliantly or +otherwise, never enters her head. Of course she will marry, and of +course her marriage will be a brilliant one. "Marriage" and "brilliant +marriage" are one and the same thing. In this, as in most other things, +Wygelia is of the same opinion as June. A close understanding, which has +not yet outgrown the form of surreptitious kicks under the table, and +private and abbreviated words, exists between the two sisters. Other +things being equal, they would probably prefer to marry two brothers.</p> + +<p>"I tell the prit-ty miss a harder thing than that—I tell her how to +keep her man when she has got him," Belle replied amid laughter; and she +proceeds to describe June's husband. He is to come over the water +(landing at Newhaven, Mrs. Lacey instantly concludes, and taking the +first train to the Boarding School at Brighton), and he shall be devoted +to her, and she shall have such-and-such a number of children. (Mrs. +Lacey straightens her back; this is something like; her grandfather, +whom she remembers quite well, was June's great-grandfather, and will +have been the great-great-grandfather of June's boys and girls, which is +getting on, especially when you remember the younger sons and grandsons +of somebodies, who are estate-bailiffs and engine-drivers and carriers +of milk-cans in the Colonies.) When June's fortune is finished all +applaud her, as if she had performed some feat of skill, and then Mr. +Morrell seizes Wy.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Wy—no hanging back—let's see what sort of a fist Wy's going +to make of it——"</p> + +<p>And Wy also is haled forward, blushing and conscious and biting her lip, +and is told that for her too somebody is languishing, and that presently +he will drink out of her glass and thenceforward think her thoughts, +which are already complex. And Hilda's palm is read, and little Victoria +Smythe's fat one, and Val Clayton's, and others, and silver rains into +Belle's palm. Chaffingly Mr. Morrell offers her a sovereign for her +takings, uncounted, but is refused. Then Mrs. Briggs "wants the boys +done," and somebody is despatched along the shore for Percy and John +Willie, and as they arrive, bearing their bottles of milk and parcels of +jam-sandwiches (for the blue-and-white boat had been paid off), there +comes up also Minetta, carrying her sketching-kit. She stands peering at +Ynys, more as seeing in her a subject than as at a fellow-being.</p> + +<p>So, idly and laughingly, an hour of the summer afternoon passes; and +then an accident mars its harmony. John Willie and Percy, feeling the +pangs of thirst, had drunk their milk and had then set up the bottle as +a mark to throw stones at; and Ynys, walking down to the sea-marge, has +set her foot upon a piece of the broken glass. Unconcernedly she bathes +the cut in the salt water.</p> + +<p>But as the laughing group breaks up, and her mother calls her again, the +blood wells out once more, dabbling with a dark stain those light +kidney-shaped prints in the sand. Mrs. Garden and Mrs. Briggs see the +child's plight simultaneously. It is a cruel gash, and the two ladies +utter loud cries.</p> + +<p>"Nay, nay, whativver in the world!" cries Mrs. Briggs, all of her that +is not pure mother suddenly becoming pure Hunslet. "Nay, nay! Come here, +doy!—--"</p> + +<p>She and Mrs. Garden kneel down before the gipsy child, and a dozen +others gather round. Cries of sympathy break out.</p> + +<p>"T' poor bairn!—--"</p> + +<p>"What a mess!"</p> + +<p>"How did she do it?"</p> + +<p>"John Willie, quick, run and get the kettle from the picnic-basket——"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, lady dear, it iss noth-thing——"</p> + +<p>"Quick, Ray, give me your handkercher too——"</p> + +<p>Ynys' foot is bathed in fresh water from the picnic-kettle, and bound up +with Mrs. Briggs's tiny lace handkerchief, with Raymond's large one over +it to secure it. The blood has already come through before the tying is +finished. And you forget the false accents and the elaborate pretences +of these "summer things" of Llanyglo's little preliminary piece, and +remember only the better things that lie beneath them. They flatter +Ynys, and encourage her with admiring words.</p> + +<p>"She's a very brave little girl, anyway!"</p> + +<p>"What did you say her name was?"</p> + +<p>"Ynys."</p> + +<p>"Well done, Ynys! Soon be well——"</p> + +<p>"John Willie, I've told you about throwing stones at bottles before—get +you home till I come——"</p> + +<p>"And you too, Percy Briggs; and you dare to stir out till I tell you!"</p> + +<p>"Don't cry, little girl——"</p> + +<p>Ynys has no thought whatever of crying. She makes no more motion than a +pine makes when it bleeds its gouts of resin in the spring. But they +continue to comfort her.</p> + +<p>"She'll never be able to walk like that!"</p> + +<p>"Better fetch Gilbert Smythe."</p> + +<p>"June, you run——"</p> + +<p>"Here's half a crown for you, Ynys, for being a brave little girl."</p> + +<p>Then Minetta, who has been conferring with Belle, speaks.—"All right, +mother, she's to come home with us; I'm going to paint her."</p> + +<p>"There, now, Ynys, you're going to be painted! Won't that be fun!"</p> + +<p>"And if she ever comes to Liverpool and asks for me," says Philip Lacey, +"I'll see she's all right. Yes, I will. She shall sell flowers. That'll +be better than going about barefoot and getting her poor little foot +cut, won't it?"</p> + +<p>But at that, for the first time, the child seems to see and to hear. Her +eyes, greenish-brown and deep like her mother's, look into Philip +Lacey's small but kindly ones as if she had not seen him before. The +half-crown Philip has given her is still tightly clasped in her hand, +but then half-crowns are things that do sometimes visit people precisely +like that. And she knows that they have some mystic power or virtue by +means of which they can buy things—green butterfly-nets and red-painted +buckets; but Ynys can not quite understand the people who can sell these +wondrous things for mere half-crowns.... Then she realises again that +somebody has just said something about selling flowers....</p> + +<p>They are promising her that if she is a brave little girl and lets +Doctor Smythe dress her foot she shall one day sell flowers....</p> + +<p>Sometimes, meeting Belle Lovell and her daughter upon the road, the one +with her loops of cane upon her back and the other drawing the cart made +of the deal box mounted upon perambulator wheels, you will give them +good-day and pass on; and then, five minutes or so afterwards perhaps, +you will be conscious of an almost noiseless pattering behind you, and +will turn. It is Ynys, holding out to you a little posy of +hedge-flowers. She may not refuse your penny for them; indeed she will +not; but you are not to suppose that it is for the penny that she has +brought you the nosegay. The poor sticky little thing is unpurchasable. +You would have got it just the same had you been as poor as herself.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART THREE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>I</h2> + +<h3>THE HOLIDAY CAMP</h3> + + +<p>The writer of the <i>Sixpenny Guide to Llanyglo and Neighbourhood</i>, in +speaking of the rise of the town, made use of an obvious image which we +will take leave to borrow from him. "Thenceforward," he wrote, "Llanyglo +sprang up as if by magic out of the soil itself."</p> + +<p>Indeed it did something like it. Watching it, you would have thought of +one of Philip Lacey's gardens in the short days before Spring had begun +to warm the air. Neat, bare, brown, friable soil, with not yet a crocus +or a snowdrop to be seen; here and there a stick with a tiny linen tab +fluttering (reminding you of Terry Armfield's little "<i>Keep off the +Grass</i>" board with "Delyn Avenue" written upon it); frames half open and +inverted bells, dibbing-strings, sprinklings of lime, and a few +whirligigs to keep the birds away; these, and the promise of the scent +and colour to come—it did indeed resemble Llanyglo. Not all at once did +the pea-sticks become builders' scaffold-poles, the lines of string the +plotting-out of streets. As of Philip's gardens, you could not have said +of Llanyglo on any particular day, "This has changed more than it was +changing yesterday, more than it will be again changing to-morrow." But +for all that, nothing remained any longer the same. Philip's men, +working over the blindfold earth with clay and spittle, caused its lids +to open; Edward Garden and his associates, similarly, with money for +manure, labour to let in the air and light, and the gentle airs of +advertisement already fanning an incipient repute, made a garden of +stone and iron, with buds of stucco, flowers of paint and glass and +gilding, and fruit after its kind to ripen by and by.</p> + +<p>Humanity was the soil he worked on, and his knowledge of it the force +with which he did so. Its hopes and appetites, its need of noise and +change and laughter, its stretching itself after fetters struck off and +its resolve to have a better, a much better time than it had ever had +before—out of these things came Edward Garden's beds and borders. He +would grow flowers of pleasure for those of the towns to pick. And, +since you do not advance the glory of July by neglecting to make the +most of March, his crops also had their rotation. For this, in a manner +of speaking, was Llanyglo's March, and what though it lasted two, three, +four years? The Laceys and the Raymond Briggses were to be cultivated +while they were yet there. Blooming and falling again, they would make +an excellent preparation, and there was plenty to do in the meantime. +There were other hotels to build, and a wet-weather pavilion for tea and +talk and dancing, and a landing-stage for the twenty new boats, and this +and that and the other—and always, always, the coming full summer to +look forward to, the summer of ten, eleven, twelve years thence, the +summer when, not the Laceys, but the employees of their fourteen or +fifteen shops should talk of Llanyglo; the summer when Mr. Morrell +should come no more, but his operatives should draw their thousands +from the Clubs and rain them upon the town; the summer when all should +be changed but the steadfast Trwyn, and all different save the mountains +behind, and nothing the same save the still and watching sea.</p> + +<p>The Sarn-Porth Neigr Loop was constructed in 1886-7, and opened in the +May of the last-named year. One of its earlier trains brought, in a +first-class compartment, Philip and Mrs. Lacey and the Misses June and +Wygelia, fresh from Paris; and in a third-class compartment it brought a +family called Topham. Mr. Topham was head-clerk in a Liverpool +Irish-bacon-importing concern, and Philip Lacey, meeting him once or +twice at Philharmonic Promenade Concerts, had forgotten the golden rule +that it is easier to get into conversation with a man than it is to +shake him off again, and had fallen into the habit of nodding to him. In +fact, a sort of acquaintanceship had been struck up. He had learned +Topham's name, and Topham his. All this had been in Liverpool.</p> + +<p>But it was one thing to strike up an acquaintanceship in Liverpool, and +quite another to continue that acquaintanceship elsewhere. Philip Lacey, +seeing Barry Topham get into the train, had not doubted that the +bacon-importer's clerk would be dropping off again after a few stations. +But at Stockport, where Philip had descended to stretch his legs, Topham +had met him on the platform and had informed him that he was going to +Llanyglo.</p> + +<p>Now when Philip went away for a few weeks' change he liked that change +to be a change. He didn't come to Llanyglo to meet casuals from +Liverpool.</p> + +<p>He began to wonder whether Llanyglo was quite what it had been.</p> + +<p>And so did Mr. Morrell, who brought his daughter Hilda from Brighton +that year.</p> + +<p>And so did Val Clayton, who also came that year, merely in order to see +what sort of vermouth they sold at the other hotels.</p> + +<p>For soon there were three hotels, the original "Cambrian," the +"Cardigan," and the "Montgomery." All these were on what by and by +became the front, and between the "Cambrian" and the "Cardigan" was a +space of perhaps a couple of hundred yards. Thence to the "Montgomery," +however, was quite a walk for Val of a morning—a quarter of a mile or +more on towards the Trwyn. Of the three hotels the "Montgomery" was the +largest. It had sixty bedrooms. Its stabling (for there was now a +landau-service up into the mountains) blocked up one of Terry's +dream-avenues a hundred yards from where the easy marble steps were to +have descended to the shore. A wide metalled road ran past the three +hotels, but it reminded you of unexplored rivers on an ancient map, +which are traced for a score or a hundred miles, and then dissipate in +interrogative dots. Another road at right angles ran past the Kerrs' +Hafod to the gap opposite Pritchard's farm, and there were yet other +roads, if those widish alleys bounded by stakes and wire could properly +be called roads. When the wind rose the sand still whistled everywhere, +scouring paint, rounding wooden corners, stinging faces; but so far it +had made very little impression on a large, black, tarred notice-board +firmly stayed into the sand midway between the "Cardigan" and +"Montgomery" hotels, a board bigger than the whole front of the Kerrs' +Hafod, which bore a straggling plan upon it in white, and the words:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">LEASEHOLD!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For 999 Years!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lots as Under:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Apply———<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>To tell the truth, Llanyglo was now rather a dreary-looking place. They +had broken its sylvan eggs, but had hardly yet begun the making of its +urban omelette. The above-mentioned announcement was not the only one of +its kind; there was another halfway between the Kerrs' house and +Pritchard's, and a third at Pritchard's corner. These, it was known, +awoke faint and distant echoes in little paragraphs in Manchester and +Liverpool papers. The Company so far was a private one; it hardly knew +yet what powers it might presently expect to possess; but Mr. Tudor +Williams and others were finding out. As a matter of fact, they were +rather anxious about these powers. An Act of Parliament two years before +had seemed to promise them certain things that might prove immensely to +their advantage; but of the two great Local Government Acts (of 1888 and +1894), the first was still in a plastic state, and the second not yet +thought of. Hitherto Porth Neigr had been the centre of administration; +it was now being sought to shift that centre. And, with the cumbrous old +machinery of Boards of Guardians and Poor Law Overseers out of the way, +Howell Gruffydd, it was whispered, might before long become a +Councillor. Indeed, who would make a better one? Edward Garden? Edward +Garden preferred to depute powers of this kind. The Laceys and +Briggses, on a property qualification? These had their own affairs to +attend to, and were summer residents only. John Pritchard? Stern John, +as unchallenged ruler of the Baptist Chapel, was already a Councillor in +a deeper sense than that defined by any mundane Act. William Morgan? Not +substantial enough. John Roberts? Dafydd Dafis? The Squire?—The claims +of all of them paled before that of Howell Gruffydd the grocer....</p> + +<p>The leases were being taken up too. The Llanyglo Pavilion, Limited, was +incorporated before a spade was set in the sand. The great blackboard +between the Kerrs' house and Pritchard's Corner bore a significant +diagonal paper strip with four fifteen-inch letters in red upon +it—SOLD. Negotiations were proceeding for the acquisition of the land +at the Corner itself. And Edward Garden had completed that rumoured +purchase of his far up in the mountains. It was a "catchment area" for +water, and if, under the new distribution, the Council should find +itself possessed of large borrowing-powers, it might possibly find the +private ownership of those hundreds of acres far away up Delyn an +awkward matter.</p> + +<p>And the excavation was already being made for the row of houses that +later was known as "Ham-and-Egg Terrace"—a hundred and fifty yards of +building that at first awed Llanyglo by its grandeur, but which they +subsequently came to think a poor affair and did their best to conceal.</p> + +<p>It was only partly for a holiday that those first visitor-discoverers +came to Llanyglo now. Considerations of business had begun to play a +part in their coming. Mr. Morrell, for example, had sunk quite a lot of +money in the place, and liked to keep an eye on his interests. Philip +Lacey pored over a dozen sketch-drafts of his Floral Valley, a project +for converting a coombe or dean that clove one portion of the Trwyn into +an ornamental arrangement of flower-beds with a bandstand in the centre. +And Raymond Briggs mused on houses and hotels, on hotels and more and +yet more houses. For these Llanyglo was no longer simply a place +"delightfully rural," a place "where you could dress as you liked," a +place for "a real rustic holiday." It was the Tophams who made these +discoveries and bestowed these encomiums now.</p> + +<p>Whether or not Barry Topham dressed as he liked, he certainly dressed as +the Briggses and the Laceys disliked. At the Promenade Concerts his +appearance had been just decently unremarkable; alas, it was so no +longer! Now, in the country, he broke out into a loose tweed jacket, +knickers made of a pair of long trousers of striped cashmere cut down, +low shoes, a flannel shirt, no hat, and a tightly knotted red tie, this +last as a voucher for the socialism that, Philip Lacey discovered to his +horror, he talked in and out of season. He was a small, bearded, wiry +man of forty-four or five, who gave you a curious impression of ferocity +and mildness mingled. The mildness was perhaps due to his bolt-upright +shock of frightened-looking sandy hair, the ferocity to the pince-nez +marks on either side of his nose that gave his glance a concentrated +look. His wife did not appear to dress (you cannot call mere concealment +of the person "dressing") until four o'clock in the afternoon, and his +two daughters, aged nineteen and twenty-one, were school-teachers, less +buxom than Miss Nancy Pritchard, but more professionally eager, as if +all the vital force in them had gone, not to the waste of mere pleasant +flesh, but into the severer regions of the mind.</p> + +<p>This taking of Llanyglo at its word in the matter of dress was bad +enough, but worse was to come.</p> + +<p>Scarcely were the Tophams installed at the "Montgomery" when it became +known that, though they had appeared to come alone, they were merely an +advance party. Two days later the main body arrived, and Llanyglo +experienced its first social slump.</p> + +<p>The party called itself a Holiday Camp. It was a union of two +semi-secular, semi-Nonconformist Institutions whose idea of having a +better time than their fathers had had was to botanise, to geologise, to +read, and to discuss these activities afterwards in whirlwinds of +communal talk. Strictly speaking, they did not "camp" at all: they put +up at the "Montgomery"; but they had camped, hoped to camp again, and +called their more convivial gatherings, when studies were cast aside, +Pow-Wows.</p> + +<p>They overran the place instantaneously. You met them with their brown +canvas satchels and japanned tin specimen-cases, poking about up the +Trwyn or groping in the boggy patches about Sarn. They were to be met in +the lanes, carrying picnic paraphernalia. They lighted fires of +driftwood on the shore, which coatless young men blew while the young +women combed their hair out in the sun. And wherever they went a little +red rash went with them, the rash of the small red-backed book, Sir +Thomas More's <i>Utopia</i>, of which the contagion had raged among them. Not +that they had not books of other hues also. They had Hugh Miller's <i>Old +Red Sandstone</i> in green, and <i>Selected Sayings</i> of Marcus Aurelius in +brown, and others in various colours; but it was the red that struck the +eye at the greater distance. They and the books were inseparable. The +unmarried ones, sharing a book between them, seemed already to be +creating that sage community of intellectual interest that, as all the +world knows, comes in so very handy when the first fires of love have +become less devouringly hot; the married ones, with a book apiece, kept +the calm connubial ideal before the maids' and bachelors' eyes.... And +it was all exceedingly disquieting and difficult to understand. One +hoped that the books were portals into high and fair and spacious +places, but feared that they might be but pathetic posterns of escape +from the world's weary drudgery that has got to be done and that +therefore somebody must do. One had struggles of compunction and +abasement and doubt, and the humiliating feeling that some clean and +heathery and wind-swept place of the mind was being invaded to sadly, +sadly little purpose. One tried, desperately tried, to tell oneself that +if poor lame Harry Stone got one single half-hour's joy out of it all, +nothing else mattered; and then one wondered whether even this was true. +It is hard to be social over an anti-social thing.... So one bore, +humble heart and arrogant heart alike, each his portion of Education's +shame.</p> + +<p>The coming of the Montgomeryites acted instantaneously. Within an hour +of their issuing from their sixty-bedroom hotel, the Cambrians and their +deck-chairs and bathing-tents had drawn a little more compactly together +on the sands. Certainly the Cambrians did not see why they should take, +intellectually, a second place to these loftily and botanically thinking +ones, merely because they chose to pay a little attention to appearances +also. Moreover, the fact that the Reading Party had come to Llanyglo +only for a fortnight filled the Briggses and the Laceys with a certain +compassion. This was not compassion that the ecstacies with which a +zoophyte was discovered, or the glad cries with which a bit of sundew +was hailed, must be such transient joys. It was rather compassion that +the Montgomeryites should find the place pristine. Llanyglo +"pristine"—now!... "Ah," they thought, "they wouldn't think that if +they'd known it as <i>we</i> knew it—two houses and a single hotel +only!" ... The thought opened a vista. Perhaps, in time to come, these +Utopians would tell others how, when <i>they</i> first set eyes on Llanyglo, +the place had not begun to be spoiled, but had had three hotels only, a +dozen or so houses, Ham-and-Egg Terrace, and a blackboard here and there +that had emphasised rather than detracted from its virgin charm. And +these others would pass it on to others still, and so it would go on, +and so, in one sense, Llanyglo would never grow. There would always be +somebody who had known it before somebody else, and would say, "Ah, yes, +but you ought to have seen it <i>then</i>!" ... Well, thought the Cambrians, +perhaps it was a good thing. To have inferiors is one of the great +solaces of Life, and they supposed that the Tophams also had their +inferiors. Perhaps some day a tripper would look even on Philip Lacey's +Floral Valley with much the same shock of delight with which Eve opened +her eyes on the dew of Eden....</p> + +<p>A sorely tried man now was Philip. Sadly he lamented the evening that +had taken him and Barry Topham to the same Philharmonic Concert in +Liverpool. For the starched and hotpressed ones of the "Cambrian," +though they did not openly say so, held him as in a manner responsible +for this inferior spilling all over their idyllic place. They seemed to +be trying to make out that the Tophams were Philip's chosen friends. +Philip felt this to be unfair. It was an accident that might have +happened to anybody, and Philip's views on culture and the multitude +were every bit as sound as Raymond Briggs's own. And as Philip did not +intend to be sat upon by Raymond Briggs or anybody, he acted well, nay, +even nobly. He had recognised Topham; very well. He had not positively +encouraged the fellow, but say that certain narrow-minded persons wished +to make it appear that he had done so; well again. He would stand by +what he had done. He would ask the Tophams to dinner at his hotel.</p> + +<p>He did so, and took the disastrous consequences. For the Tophams came, +and, with the eyes of the whole "Cambrian" upon them, behaved for all +the world as if they had been dining at their own inferior Liberty Hall +of a "Montgomery." So at least it seemed to Philip, and bad enough +surely that would have been; but Mrs. Lacey made it far, far worse. It +was plain as plain could be (she said afterwards) that the Tophams' +sprawls and freedoms were all put on, and that they had been like four +fishes out of water every minute of the time—he ought to be ashamed of +himself, showing them up before everybody's eyes like that!... "Come as +you are," Philip Lacey had said, with the truest delicacy, since it was +very unlikely that the Tophams had brought evening clothes to their +Camps and Pow-Wows; and so nobody dressed. The "Cambrian's" tables were +no longer arranged in the form of a T. With the installation of gas, +numerous smaller tables, with a couple of large oval ones among them, +had taken its place, and at one of the oval tables the four Laceys and +the four Tophams sat. Mr. Lacey was at one end, with Mrs. Topham on his +right, Mrs. Lacey was at the other end with Mr. Topham on her right. At +the sides sat the younger ones, a Topham and a Lacey on either side. +This was not the happiest of arrangements, since young ladies who have +just "finished" in Paris usually think they have seen enough of +school-teachers for some time to come, but it was the best that could be +managed. Nor could Miss June kick Miss Wy under the table.</p> + +<p>The discord showed from the very first moment. The Laceys, as urbane +hosts, would have kept to such light and frothy conversational matters +as how the Tophams liked Llanyglo, whether they had been up into the +mountains yet, and similar subjects; but not so the Tophams. Briefly, +they went for the eternal verities like four steam-navvies. Before she +had unfolded her napkin, Mrs. Topham had Philip Lacey helpless in the +toils of More's <i>Utopia</i>, and by the time she had asked him half a dozen +searching questions, looking mistrustfully at him as much as to say, +"You <i>dare</i> to lie to me, sir!" the unhappy man had to confess that it +was some time since he had read the book, and that his textual memory +was by no means as good as it had been. A second attack rendered him +abject. The third was not delivered. Seeing him such a rank and pitiable +outsider, Mrs. Topham contemptuously spared him.</p> + +<p>"And <i>this</i> is the state of education to-day!" she said scornfully to +her husband afterwards....</p> + +<p>Mr. Topham, in the meantime, tackled Mrs. Lacey on certain problems of +the Distribution of Wealth, with no happier results. Quite simply, Mrs. +Lacey was unaware that such problems existed save insofar as they were +included in the specific question of marriage-settlements for daughters. +She scarcely troubled to answer Mr. Topham, but, glancing from June and +Wy to the Misses Amy and Norah Topham, lost herself in the problems of +the Distribution of Proposals instead. So she too, from the point of +view of those who carried Mill and Smith in their pockets and read these +inhuman authors in the shade of the crumbling Dinas, became an outsider.</p> + +<p>But worst of all fared the Misses June and Wy; for the Topham sisters +had brought with them from Liverpool a holiday-pamphlet, which consisted +of forty-two questions, three of which, daily for a fortnight, the +holiday-maker was advised to ask himself. So:</p> + +<p>"As I came along the beach this afternoon," said Miss Amy to June, with +a chatty note in her voice, but the enthusiasm for knowledge smouldering +in her eyes, "I observed great quantities of seaweed. To what uses are +seaweeds put?"</p> + +<p>And said Miss Norah to Wy, slightly puckering her shining and melon-like +forehead:</p> + +<p>"One of the boatmen told me yesterday that in the Spring large masses of +the vernal squill are to be found upon the hills near here. Why is +this?"</p> + +<p>Then Miss Amy again:</p> + +<p>"There are fine examples of contorted strata on the other side of the +Trwyn. Perhaps you or your sister can tell me the reason why these +strata are contorted?"</p> + +<p>And again Miss Norah:</p> + +<p>"Who was Taliesin? When did he flourish? Tell me anything you know about +him."</p> + +<p>Dearly would June and Wy have liked to reply, in the words of Mrs. +Briggs when the hotel-manager had looked at her boots, "Don't if it +hurts you!" Wiggie nicknamed Miss Norah Topham "The Vernal Squill" on +the spot; June, a phanerogam herself, dubbed Miss Amy "The Club Moss."</p> + +<p>After that dinner, there was nothing for Philip Lacey to do but to live +his indiscretion down.</p> + +<p>But if this was the "Cambrian's" attitude to the "Montgomery," it was +not that of the Welshmen of Llanyglo. These were now more in number, for +half the staffs of the three hotels were Welsh, and others also had +scented prosperity in the air. Within a few hours friendly relations had +been established between the natives and the readers of <i>Utopia</i>. A +Welshman's eyes will always sparkle at the sight of a book or other +piece of the apparatus of knowledge, and the Montgomeryites, friendly +souls all and ready chatters with whomsoever they met, began to drop +into Howell's shop of a morning. None too reluctantly, they suffered +themselves to be drawn out by Howell on the subjects of their studies, +and then it was that Howell became a proud man indeed. For he produced +Eesaac Oliver, home once more from Aberystwith College. Without even +having the titles given to him as he came in at the door that divided +the shop from the dwelling-rooms behind, Eesaac Oliver swapped them book +for book. Howell's breast swelled. "Blodwen—Blodwen—come quick!" he +called. Then, with his eyes sparkling like bits of mica in a pebble and +his small teeth gleaming like a double row of barley, he looked fondly +on the assembly and murmured, "Dear me, I did not know till to-day there +wass so-o-a many books written!" One morning Mrs. Briggs and Mrs. Garden +came in in the very middle of one of these galas of the intellect. They +were kept waiting for a minute and more. There were times when the +Llanyglo Stores almost resembled a Debating Room.</p> + +<p>It was left to the Misses Euonyma and Wygelia Lacey to restore the +balance that their father's luckless dinner-party had disturbed; and +right well they laboured to that end. They brought all the resources of +Brighton and Paris to bear upon those two amiable but indefatigable +school-teachers, the sisters Topham. They did not avoid them; on the +contrary, they put their heads together and then went out in search of +them. Then, when they had met them, they asked them to tell them whether +it was true that the guillemot laid its blunt-ended egg in order that it +should not roll off ledges, and whether the person who said that +serviceable knife-handles could be made of the stems of the Great Oar +Weed had been correctly informed. And when they failed to come upon +their unsuspecting victims, they cathechised one another.</p> + +<p>"As I was ascending the mountains the other day," June would suddenly +break out in the Vernal Squill's raised and staccato voice, "I found +myself walking upon grass. What is grass? State reasons for your +answer."</p> + +<p>And Wiggie, assuming the <i>viva voce</i> examination tones of the Club Moss, +would ask her sister what a man was, and whether Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd +could properly be classed as one.</p> + +<p>Failing the turning up of those two marriageable brothers, the Misses +June and Wy were likely to be what Mrs. Briggs called "bad to suit."</p> + +<p>It was when the <i>Utopia</i>-readers had been at the "Montgomery" rather +more than half their time that the first bruit went abroad of the +jollification that presently made memorable the eve of their departure. +Nor was this jollification to be confined to their own set. All (as +afterwards at the Llanyglo P.S.A. Meetings) were to be welcome. The +project was talked over, at first informally at the Llanyglo Stores, +afterwards more seriously at the "Montgomery"; and a few days later the +rumour was confirmed by print. Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd and Hugh Morgan +distributed a number of handbills, thrusting them into folk's hands in +the stake-and-wire-enclosed streets, pushing them under doors, and even +entering that Reservation on the shore where the Cambrians sat stiffly, +reading their novels, toying with their fancy-work, or dozing after +lunch. Then, on the land-agents' blackboards and in the windows of the +Llanyglo Stores, larger bills appeared. Large bills and small alike read +as follows:</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Llanyglo Holiday Camp, July, 1887.</i><br /> +THE AIGBURTH STREET AND CHOW BENT<br /> +SQUARE UNITED READING CIRCLES<br /> +beg to announce that a<br /> +GRAND POW-WOW<br /> +will be held in the Dinas, the Trwyn, Llanyglo,<br /> +on<br /> +Friday Evening, the 22nd, at 8.30 sharp.<br /> +BRING YOUR REFRESHMENTS!<br /> +BRING YOUR VOICE LOZENGES!<br /> +BRING YOUR MUSIC!<br /> +BRING YOUR LANTERNS!<br /> +BRING YOUR FRIENDS!<br /> +Visitors and Residents alike are Welcome!<br /> +<i>Songs!! Recitations!!! Short Speeches!!!!</i><br /> +LADIES SPECIALLY INVITED!<br /> +<i>Grand Chief:</i> <i>Deputy Grand Chief:</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">Barry Topham</span>, Esqr. <span class="smcap">Howell Gruffydd</span>, Esqr.<br /> +Committee: ................ <br /> +................<br /> +................<br /> +The Proceedings will open with the singing of<br /> +"<i>God Save the People</i>,"<br /> +and will close with "<i>Hen Wlad fy Nhadau</i>."<br /><br /> +<span class="smcap">Edward Jones, Printer, Porth Neigr</span>. 0616.</p> + + + +<p>"Boy!" called Raymond Briggs, as Eesaac Oliver, having distributed this +announcement to the occupants of the Reservation, was passing on; and +Eesaac Oliver turned. "Pick those papers up at once!" Raymond ordered, +pointing to a litter of handbills where the wavelets lapped the marge of +seaweed. Then, over his shoulder to Philip Lacey, who reclined almost +horizontally in the next deck-chair: "Making a mess of the beach like +that! Paper wherever you go; they're as bad as a lot of trippers! Can't +make out what you see in that fellow Topham——"</p> + +<p>Philip, who was frowning over the handbill, spoke, also over his +shoulder.—"You going to this?"</p> + +<p>Raymond gave a short laugh.—"Me?"</p> + +<p>It was almost as if he said, "I didn't ask them to dinner, my dear man! +<i>I'm</i> perfectly free to stop away!"</p> + +<p>"Good. We'll have a game of chess, then," Philip replied off-handedly. +He could give Raymond pawn and move.</p> + +<p>Outside the Reservation, however, little but the Pow-Wow was talked of. +Howell Gruffydd had looked the word up in his little English-Welsh +Dictionary, and, though he had failed to find it, he was none the less +set-up at the thought of being a Deputy Grand Chief. But he became +thoughtful again when there arrived for him a bundle from Barry Topham, +which, on being opened, was found to contain a pair of very much creased +moccasins, a broad-striped blanket, and a head-dress of feathers +similar to the one the Grand Chief himself was to wear. Howell had +remembered Dafydd Dafis. Dafydd might not like him to bedeck himself +thus, and what Dafydd might think always mattered a great deal in +Llanyglo. Dafydd, his old corduroys notwithstanding, stood for the +integrity of Nationalism, and even Howell, willing to be English, must +be careful not to be too English—or, in the present case, too Indian.</p> + +<p>But the aliens themselves showed no such reserve. They had bracketed a +Welsh name with an English one on their handbill, had placed <i>Hen Wlad</i> +by the side of <i>God Save the People</i>, and been otherwise hearty; and +they did not know that even in their hospitality they were a little +bustling, urgent, and compelling. As for differences of race, such +things were presently about to be abolished. So they bade Llanyglo +almost boisterously welcome to its own Trwyn, and Barry Topham, passing +Dafydd Dafis on the afternoon of the day of the celebration, shouted +cheerily over his shoulder, "Don't forget your harp, Davis. I'm not +going to call you 'Dafis'—we'll make an Englishman of you before we've +done with you! Eight-thirty sharp.... Eh?... Stuff and nonsense! +Fiddlededee! What sort o' talk's that, man alive! Of course you're +bringing your harp!"</p> + +<p>It was on a dullish summer evening, and none too warm up there, that the +Montgomeryites, in threes and fours and sixes, began the ascent of the +Trwyn. Some of them had already set match to their lanterns, though the +Trwyn beam was not alight yet, and they carried with them more than one +copy of <i>The Scottish Students' Song Book</i>. They tried their voices as +they climbed, and called to one another, pointing out false easy ways +and bursting into laughter when the misdirected ones had to return +again; and the Trwyn sheep started up from before their feet and fled, +baa-ing. The refreshments had gone on ahead, as also had the fuel for +the camp-fire, but no Welshmen were to be seen yet. Perhaps, gruff +heartiness notwithstanding, they felt that they were guests who should +have been hosts. Perhaps they felt that here was not the urgency there +had been on the only other occasion when they and the Saxon had rushed +hurriedly and tumultuously together—that wild nightfall when Ned Kerr, +from the roof of the new Hafod Unos, had seen something out in the lair +of grey, and, with a cry of "<i>Llongddrylliad!</i>" Celt and new-comer had +flung themselves into an open boat pell mell.</p> + +<p>But by and by they also began to move in a body slowly along the shore, +sometimes over the dry, sometimes plodding over their own reflections in +the ebb. There was no pointing out false ascents to them. Eesaac Oliver +Gruffydd, who came first, had fetched eggs too often from the Trwyn +light not to know every cranny of the promontory, and his father +remembered the building of the lighthouse. Howell had seen them, as a +boy, locking and dowelling the great blocks of masonry, shaped each like +an intricate Chinese puzzle; and in thirty odd years the Light seemed to +have become almost as much part of the headland as the ancient Dinas +itself. That seemed to be the way with building. Even Edward Garden's +house seemed a settled thing now. So, in another year or two, would the +"Montgomery," the "Cardigan," Ham-and-Egg Terrace. And Howell reflected +that stones meant grocery-orders. But that was not all. If he must be +English, but not too English for Dafydd Dafis, he must still be careful +to be the right sort of English. He made little out of these <i>Utopia</i> +readers. They simply came in under the "Montgomery's" contract. The +Briggses and Laceys still provided the richer yield. Whether was the +better—the "Montgomery," where one visitor would presently be creeping +into a bed that his predecessor had left still warm, or these more +prosperous ones, who, Howell knew, would presently come no more?... +Moreover, he was already feeling the pressure of outside competition. +Ellis, of Porth Neigr, was even now quoting cutting rates for the +"Cardigan's" butter and cheese, and for a long time Llanyglo had had to +depend on outsiders for its milk. The railway, that brought people, also +brought their provender....</p> + +<p>Oh, don't think for a moment that Howell was prospering without giving +deep thought to things!</p> + +<p>They gained the Dinas, where already the fire was yellow and crackling, +and stood smiling Good evenings, as if they waited to be asked inside.</p> + +<p>How long ago it was since the foundations of that Dinas had been +sprinkled with the blood of Merlin—how long ago it was since the Red +and White Dragons had contended about it, now one gaining the advantage, +now the other—how long ago these things had been, not even Miss Amy +Topham would have dared to ask June Lacey. Now it resembled a grey old +heel of cheese, with a little scrabbling in one corner. This scrabbling +was where Bert Stoy, one of the younger and most indefatigable of the +Readers, had hoped he might find a British grave.</p> + +<p>"We thought you'd maybe changed your minds about coming," were the words +with which Barry Topham welcomed them. He was an Indian, but a bearded +one, and he bustled here and there, wanting to know where So-and-So +was, and whether this requisite or that had been brought up, and seeing +to this and the other. The goblin shadows of eighteen or twenty of the +Readers danced on the ruined works, and the sky behind their illumined +faces was of a sad and leaden lavender hue. The lanterns made little +patches in the short grass; matches lighted faces momentarily; and then +suddenly there broke out over the shoulder of the headland and continued +thenceforward, the Light. Red, red, white—red, red, white—it was +numbing, intolerable. It dyed the clouds that seemed to sag over the +earth as the ceiling-sheets sagged in the cottages, and its glare was +not lost high overhead now, as it had been on that night when the Kerrs +had rested for their "nooning" in the midst of their building of their +Hafod. The staggering blaze passed not twenty feet above them, seeming +to stumble and trip over the cloud-folds, and driving the revellers to +fresh places with their backs to it. You would have said that those +ancient Red and White Dragons had come to life again and were chasing +one another across the rafters of the night.</p> + +<p>Then Barry Topham, placing himself by a jagged tooth of rock, held up +his hand for silence. He had motioned Howell Gruffydd to his side, and +had pointed at somebody's cap. His fingers tweaked a tuning-fork; he set +the vibrating prong against his teeth; he gave them a soft +note—"Doh——" and then:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>When wilt Thou save the people,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>O God of Mercy, when?...</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Then when it was finished, Barry again stood with uplifted hand. Caps +were put on again by such as wore them.</p> + +<p>"Not weft enough," was Barry's brief comment on the singing; the Welsh, +unfamiliar with the air, had not sung. "Never mind; it might ha' been +worse.—Now I'm just going to say a few words, and then we'll make a +start."</p> + +<p>And he began.</p> + +<p>"Well, we've been here a fortnight now, and I think we've all enjoyed +it. I have for one. Some of us has been up these grand mountains, +finding out how they were made, and some of us has been improving +ourselves among the rocks and on the shore. Some of us has botanised, +and some's collected butterflies, and one and all we've read the books +set down for us in the Syllabus. That's a job done, at all events.</p> + +<p>"But I think we shall one and all admit that we've a great deal to learn +about Llanyglo yet. There'd still be something to learn if we were to +come here six, ten, twenty times. That's the grand thing about +knowledge—we need never be afraid we shall come to the end of it. When +we've read fifty books there's always fifty more. Ay, and there'll be +another fifty after that.</p> + +<p>"But we've got other things besides knowledge at Llanyglo. We've got +health, health to keep us going for another year. And we've got friends, +new friends. I think we can say," here he laid his hand on Howell's +shoulder, "that we've all done the little bit that in us lies to break +down prejudices and dislikes and racial differences. We've had our +quarrels, us Welsh and English, in the past; no doubt there's been +battles fought on this very spot; but that's all over, and, speaking as +Grand Chief for the year, though unworthy to succeed Comrade Walker, who +occupied this same position last year at our Holiday Camp at Keswick, I +think I may say we've buried the hatchet now. So in the name of one and +all I greet these friends of ours. I think it does us both good to come +together like this. They're a bit—what shall I say?—on the poetical +side, perhaps; more romantic than us; we're just plain, practical folk +that has to tew for our livings; but what I mean is, it's a good thing +for both of us to get to understand one another. We do understand one +another now, and I'm sure we're all very glad to see them here." +(Applause, and cries from the Lancashire men of "Good old Wales!") "You +here that, Gruffydd—Comrade Gruffydd? That's hearty. That's Lancashire. +No flowers o' speech, but we say a thing and mean it. And we mean it +when we say we're very glad to see you indeed, and hope this won't be +our last visit to Llanyglo.—And now I won't take up any more of your +time. We've a long programme before us, and I see that the first item +is——" he consulted a paper in his hand, "——is the old favourite, +<i>There is a Tavern</i>. What's the key, Harry? C? (Doh, lah—lah, te, +doh——)."</p> + +<p>And with the singing of <i>There is a Tavern in the Town</i> the Pow-Wow +began.</p> + +<p>Did they come to understand one another the better for it? Were they who +took part in that Pow-Wow so "poetical and romantic" for the one part, +so blunt and rough and practical for the other? Did a score or so of +Saxons suddenly and miraculously cease that night to belong to the +world's most sentimental race, and were the hearts of as many Celts as +miraculously changed? No doubt it all seemed simple enough to Barry +Topham. Hard-rinded himself, but not without a generous juice within, he +would have found it hard to believe that pulpier fruits existed, with a +stone inside he would but crack his teeth upon. Perhaps—perhaps—it was +not so; and yet—what, after all, can the victor do to the vanquished +more than vanquish him?... Barry saw their smiles only, and for every +smile they received they gave three. The jovial Campers became ever +bluffer and heartier and fonder of them as song followed song. Nor did +the Welshmen refuse to sing. Enlightened Young Wales, in the person of +Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd, was presently to be seen with his back to the +intolerable Trwyn beam while the Dragons of the Light chased one another +behind his head; and his voice was lifted up in <i>Vale of Llangollen</i>. +Was the song a success? It was doubly a success. The blunt and genial +aliens applauded him as a breaker of the ice, his compatriots applauded +him as a stepper into the breach from which they themselves had hung +back. Hardly had he sat down before he was beset with requests to hum +the air all over again, in order that they might take it down in the +Tonic Sol-fa notation.... Then, almost immediately, the clapping swelled +again, and there were cries of "Harry! Harry!" Harry Stone, who had the +voice of an angel, was allowed to sing as he sat, because of his +lameness, and he could not be seen in his dim angle of masonry, but only +the unhurrying but unceasing red and white spokes, that strode from afar +over the sea, passed overhead, and were off on their wide circle again. +Hearing his voice and not seeing him, you thought of a pure spring that +gushes suddenly out of the dark and grudging earth.—<i>Cannibalee</i>, he +sang——</p> + +<p>It was poor enough stuff. Its words were a laborious parody, its +harmonies exactly predicable; it was facetious or nothing, and it marred +an original with a remote and deathly grace of its own; but these things +were forgotten as Harry sang. To-morrow they were leaving Llanyglo. +To-morrow they were filing back through that postern that had given +them this, their fortnight's respite, from tasks too often ignoble, from +cramped circumstances, from savourless lives. And it weighed on them, +tenderly yet heavily. Next year seemed so sadly, sadly far away....</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Her eyes were as fair as the star of the morn</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And her teeth were as sharp as the point of a thorn——</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>She was very fair to see!</i>——"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Harry sang; and the hands of young men sought those of young women in +the blackness of the Dinas's shadows, and the married ones drew a little +closer together, and there was no parody at all in the little soft +punctuations of the refrain, in which every voice joined:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>She was very fair to see——</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>(So she was!)</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>She was very fair to see——</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>(So she was!)</i>——"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Edward Garden was right——</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Her eyes were as fair as the star of the morn</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And her teeth were as sharp as the point of a thorn——</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>My beautiful Cannibalee</i>——"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Edward Garden was right. That tender but heavy weight, so tender, so +heavy that it bore down the stupid expression of the song, lay even on +the Welshmen too. He was admirably shrewd and right. It would not be yet +awhile—it was too early yet—but presently, as an advertisement for +Llanyglo, an Eisteddfod—an Eisteddfod, say, when the holiday season +began in July, and a Brass Band Contest towards its close in +September....</p> + +<p>They were still singing when they came down again, at eleven o'clock. +You might have thought, from the way in which Barry Topham clung to +Howell Gruffydd's arm, that he was slightly drunk, but he was not; that +was only brotherliness and exaltation. He still wore the gala-dress of +the Grand Chief, but in that particular Howell thought that he had come +out of his dilemma rather well. The feather head-dress he had tried on +had proved too big for his head, and in trying to shorten the band he +had torn off the button, thus rendering the adornment useless. As for +the striped blanket about his shoulders—well, it was a coolish night, +and there is no sense in taking a chill when there is a blanket to be +had to keep you warm. Even Dafydd would see that. So Howell had worn +it....</p> + +<p>And looked at from below again, the Trwyn beam no longer appeared a hunt +of raving red and white monsters, but a little lonely thing, familiar +and disregarded, old, wise, minding its own business, and meanwhile +quietly opening and shutting an eye.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>II</h2> + +<h3>THE GIANT'S STRIDE</h3> + + +<p>After that summer they began in earnest the building of Llanyglo. Come +and see them at it.</p> + +<p>Whence came these stone-carts and timber-carts, these girders and +castings, a single one only taking up a couple of trucks? Whence came +these wains of floor-boards with their trailing tails bobbing up and +down within an inch or two of the white road, these bastions of metal +and ballast, these crawling and earth-shaking traction-engines with the +little bellies and the monstrous wheels and the dotted line of lorries +and trollies behind them? Whence these sawn planks, these massive frames +with machinery parts on them so heavy that every rut threatens a +standstill, these contractors' vans with absurd little trolley-wheels, +these gatlings of drain-pipes, these wagons of plumbers' material, these +vans of provisions, this army of men? Why do these now choke the roads +that formerly were empty save for the passing of a wain of whispering +hay, or the light market-cart that left a smell of raspberries and a +stain of Welsh song behind, or Ned Kerr with his folding hut and +clogging-knife, or Ynys Lovell with her packing-case cart and her mother +with her loops of cane seeking chairs to mend? Where did they come from, +and what are they doing here?</p> + +<p>The stone, of course, comes from the Porth Neigr quarry, where the +blasts shake the rocks and the shooting of waste resounds throughout +the day. And the castings come from Manchester and Middlesborough and +Wigan and Leeds. And the sawn planks come from Russia and the Baltic, +and the larches for scaffolding from the Merionethshire valleys. These +things come from these places—if you look at it that way. But look at +it the other way and they have an origin mystical indeed. They are +conceived of fecund nods and looks, of the germination of writing and +initials and signatures and contract-stamps. They are born of print and +promotion and allotment, and the cord is cut when sums are paid on +application, and more in three months' time. They thrive when Chairmen, +standing up on platforms, say "the adoption of the Accounts has been +moved and seconded——," and become lusty when more clerks have to be +called in, and temporary premises have to be taken, to cope with the +public rush for the splendid thing. You see their real origin on those +blackboards that seem to set Llanyglo its new multiplication sum, and in +those paragraphs in the Manchester and Liverpool and London papers. You +see it again when the new Local Government Bill receives the Royal +Assent. You see it once more when from the machines of printers in +Nottingham and Harrow and Frome and Belfast there are turned out the +posters that already overspread the northern hoardings, bidding +Blackpool look to itself, warning Douglas that it has another +competitor, elbowing Bridlington, shoving Yarmouth aside. There are half +a dozen of these posters out already, and if they are not strictly +speaking representations of Llanyglo, they are something more—they are +prophecies, which you will do well to heed if you want to put your money +on a good thing. There is one in Lime Street Station, Liverpool (you +need not glance at that upper window; you'd have a job to find poor +Terry Armfield's Trwyn Avenue now). It is the "Welsh Giantess" one. She +is dressed in a black steeple hat with a white hood underneath it, red +check shawl, striped petticoat, and has buckles on her shoes. She holds +the town in a three-quarter circle in her arms, with children at play on +the sands and super-Briggses and super-Laceys all spilling out in the +foreground. The mountains are indigo, the hotels pink, the sands chrome +yellow, and the name LLANYGLO sprawls across the sky as if the Trwyn +Light had dropped it there in passing, a letter at a time.... The +poster, of course, is a little grandiose: nobody cries stinking fish. +The Pier, for example, isn't there yet. But it is somewhere, in +somebody's desk-drawer, perhaps, or perhaps it has even got farther than +that. Perhaps the caissons are already on the way; certainly a group of +strangers has been busy on the shore any time this past twelve months. +And the Promenade isn't ex-<i>act</i>-ly like that yet. It has railings not +unlike those, but not yet that fine stretch of impregnable sea-wall. And +so with the hotels.... But all in good time. These things will all be +ready quite as soon as those posters have sunk into the perception of +the public. We mustn't have a completely equipped town standing empty +for a number of seasons while folk make up their minds whether they'll +come or not. We have the money, the men, powers under the new Act ample +as our hearts could wish, and the certainty of the coming reward.</p> + +<p>Llanyglo itself found it difficult to realise what was happening. It all +came in such strides. Where the stake-and-wire-enclosed roads had been, +a giant hoarding would rise, twenty, forty, fifty yards long. On this +hoarding, by means of the railway posters, Llanyglo would be told all +about itself—its climate, its mild winters, its accessibility from all +parts, and its "unrivalled attractions." It read Gilbert Smythe's +signature there. And among these were other bills curiously opposite, +which told them that if they in their turn needed change, there were +week-end tickets to be had to Liverpool and Belle Vue at specially +reduced rates.—And while Llanyglo knew, as month succeeded month, that +work was going on behind these hoardings, the effect was none the less +magical when, on the day they were knocked to pieces again, the +astounding frontage appeared. They had known nothing like it since that +piece of witchcraft of the Kerrs, and now several times they had seen it +happen. It had happened between the "Cambrian" and "Cardigan" hotels. It +had happened at Pritchard's Corner. And now it was about to happen +again, along a line that ran from a point just below the Kerrs' Hafod to +the piece of land, not built on yet, where for three days one Spring a +circus was set up, its cages and caravans and the guy-ropes of its +tenting all mingled with the timber-stacks and mortar-engines and +breastworks of stone setts and other dumpings of a dozen different +contractors. Later, a temporary wooden shed occupied this space. This +shed was town-hall, concert-hall, general purposes hall, and theatre +thrown into one. That was the time Llanyglo began to discover that if +one of its inhabitants wished to meet another he had better appoint a +time and place to do so. To climb up the nearest sandhill and take a +look round no longer served.</p> + +<p>And even these amazing unfoldings were as nothing compared with that +which (it was already known) was to happen next—the construction of the +sea-wall and the Pier.</p> + +<p>Philip Lacey's Floral Valley was already finished. Its gravelled walks, +with steps every few yards, straggled up both sides of the ravine in the +side of the Trwyn, and from the topmost of these you could look down on +the octagonal roof of the bandstand that occupied the levelled plot in +the middle. Sticking (as it were) the point of his compasses into the +bandstand, Philip had described successions of eighth and +quarter-circles, with radiating paths and variously shaped smaller +beds in between; and of these he had made a piece of crewel-work +of colour. Golden feather and London pride, lobelia and pinks and +bachelors'-buttons, formed the borders; behind them, in ovals and stars +and crown-shapes and monograms, mignonette and arabis and dwarf pansies +and Virginia stock were set; and so he had brushed-and-combed and curled +and scented the whole place. He had staked his professional reputation, +too, that from the first crocus to the last Michaelmas daisy, the gaudy +Catherine-wheel would never be for a single day out of bloom; and then +he had departed, leaving the responsibility of upkeep to the delighted +town. John Willie Garden, looking at the Valley's logical plan, wished +that the town itself had had as fair, if severe, a start.</p> + +<p>For John Willie was Clerk of the Works now in a very different sense +from that in which he had had charge of the coming of Railhead. He was +now nineteen, and had no longer any wish to go into the business in +Manchester. His father, noting his tastes and capacity, had judged it +perfectly safe to depart, leaving John Willie to look after things in +his stead; and as no contractor's foreman wished to quarrel with the son +of the principal maker of the place, he had a fairly large authority. So +John Willie occupied the house by the shore, with Minetta to make him +comfortable. He spent his days in passing from this building to that, +pushing at doors in hoardings marked "No Admittance," threading his way +along the wheeling-planks, mounting ladders, looking down on the +swarming men from the stagings, looking up through the groves of the +scaffold-poles, looking out, not over the sandhills now, but over other +houses built and building. The masts and spars of other scaffold-poles +here and there might almost have made you think that a navigable river +twisted through Llanyglo, and that these were the rigging of the vessels +upon it. From one work to another he passed, approving, questioning, +telephoning, making notes. There is scarce a room of that period of +Llanyglo's up-springing but, even to-day, John Willie Garden can tell +you the lie of its water-pipes, where its main-cocks are, where its +drains, its gas-connections, the depth of its foundations, the +branchings of its chimney-flues. He hasn't been into half of them since, +but the present occupiers can tell him nothing about which cellars are +on the rock and when the girders are due to be repainted. And he could +talk to the men as well as to their bosses. He addressed them +authoritatively, but he knew their football and their drinking, their +jokes and songs, which dog belonged to which and which among them +"subbed" or "liened" before his wage was due. John Willie Garden's +boyhood lay behind him now.</p> + +<p>What was John Willie like to look at by this time, and what was his +outlook on the world?</p> + +<p>You may meet his kind at six o'clock any morning, the sons of Alderman +This or Sir John That, going to their fathers' engineering-shops in +Leeds, or to Manchester spinning-sheds, or Rochdale factories, or +dye-works, or rolling-mills, or drawing-offices, or electrical works. +They wear greasy blue overalls and carry tin luncheon-cans, and use +cotton-waste for handkerchiefs. They glory in the readiness of their +repartee to their fathers' workmen, to be mistaken for one of whom gives +them the keenest pleasure. Joyously they attack the blackest and +greasiest of the work, honestly forgetting that they could leave this to +others if they wished.—But see them in the evening! They have had tea +and a "clean-up" by this time. Their heads have been soused and their +hands pumiced, they have on their mahogany boots and their white +collars, the hands that wielded crowbars or strained with the grip of +spanners ply thin and expensive canes now, and you can see the radiance +of their approach a quarter of a mile away. They are off to +billiard-rooms and card-parties, theatre-boxes, or courting. They will +be home fairly early, because of the five-o'clock alarum in the morning, +but until then they are so evidently about to enjoy themselves that you +sigh if you are unable to join them. Go one night and watch them when +next the Pantomime comes. Sit in the second row of the stalls (you won't +be able to get into the first row). If the leading lady is pretty, and +John Willie and Percy Briggs are there, you won't consider your evening +wasted. The show is sure to "go."</p> + +<p>That, more or less, was John Willie. He had rather a lot of money to +spend, but nowhere much to spend it yet. His hair was a little less +primrose coloured than it had been (pomatum does darken hair a little), +but his eyes had not altered. They were still just as receptive or just +as stupid as he cared to make them, blue as flax, and capable, if you +happened to catch him at something he did not wish to be caught at, of a +rather hard and prolonged stare. He was not tall—long ago it had been +plain he would not be—but, looking at his shoulders, hung as it were +from an apex at the back of his head, you would have wondered at the +lightness of the pit-pat of his feet when he did a step-dance on the +occasion of one of the men's "birthdays" (which have nothing to do with +days of birth, by the way, but frequently much to do with an unfancied +horse and a longish price). In a word, he was a nicish, powerful young +rascal, with an expensive dressing-case and a trace of those Lancashire +final "g's"; and he and his friends (of whom he had a good many down to +Llanyglo) had their own corner in the "Cambrian" lounge, unless the +evening's programme included cards or involved the use of a room with a +piano in it.</p> + +<p>Yet, though the Llanyglo air might thrill with the clink-clink of +chisels on stone, and vibrate with the jolting of the builders' carts, +and resound with all the noises of the swift building, still, nobody who +now came thought it ruined. On the contrary, exactly as the Briggses and +the Laceys had predicted, it came to them with shocks of delight. For +think of it: here was no twopenny ride on a clanging tram through naked, +unshaded streets before they could reach the sea. Here was no two-miles +plod back again over the burning asphalt, slackening every nerve that +had been braced up by the bathe. Here was no Brighton nor Scarborough +nor Blackpool yet, with nettings of electric wires overhead and +perspective of rails below. No: from any part of the place, three +minutes would take you, if not in every case to the beach itself, at any +rate to an open space of thyme and harebells and hillocks of clean sand, +where, if you got on the right side of the sandhill, you might not know +that there was a crane or a scaffold within miles. And if the beach was +ploughed and harrowed and tramped and trodden until it resembled a +dirty batter-pudding, half a day and a tide, and the sands were smooth +and shining again, and the wet stretches seemed as much sky as land, and +passing birds were reflected in their depths. The sea tidied up the +shore again as the housemaids took up the crumbs from the hotel +carpets.—And there were dozens of boats now, in which you could push +out a few hundred yards and find yourself in spots that man can never +sully. Five minutes' tugging at the oars and you could rock and gaze up +at the sky, or look over the boat's side at the translucent green +reflection of its curving boards below, and past that into glassy clear +depths, and so past that again to where the water began to show you, not +its depths, but the broken mirroring of the sky again. The boating was +one of the "unrivalled attractions." By nine o'clock every morning a row +of boatmen leaned against the railings between the "Cambrian" and the +jetty, smoking, scanning the front, showing you fresh bait, and offering +boats by the hour, the morning, or the day. Foremost among them, as +likely as not, would be Tommy, the youngest of the Kerrs. He wore a blue +gausey with a diamond woven across the breast, touched the peak of his +dirty old petty-officer's cap constantly, and told folk it was "a +gradely morning for fishing." Though the youngest, he was the least +reputable of the Kerrs. Ned, the eldest, Llanyglo counted part of +itself; the two middle ones were both contractors' foremen, and +respected citizens; but Tommy had become the scandal of Llanyglo. You +were well advised to allow him double time or more if you gave him a bag +to carry anywhere and there was the temptation of beer on the way; and +you might catch him sober if you engaged him and his boat soon after +breakfast, but your chance of doing so became ever less as the day wore +on.</p> + +<p>Who were these people who strolled among the droning bees of the +sandhills or pushed out from the shore in boats? Well, they were of more +kinds than one or two now. The charges at the "Cambrian" were still +stiffish; a week there cost as much as a fortnight at the "Cardigan," or +a month at the "Montgomery"; and so we still exhibit the social degrees. +There has even been a certain amount of "feeling" about this. Of two +Rochdale men, say, with little to choose between them in point of +income, one will be seen on the "Cambrian's" balcony in the evening +after dinner, his heart-shaped dinner-shirt one of a number of +heart-shaped dinner-shirts, the bosom and neck and head of the lady he +is chatting with rising out of her lacy corsage as a bouquet rises from +the paper frill that encloses and bedecks it. He will be seen there, +with the red-shaded lamps of the empty dining-room behind him and the +moonlight making his sunburnt face very dark. But the other's face is +sunburnt too, and at half the cost. He too could attitudinise like this +were he so minded. And he reflects that Jones or Jackson may cut a dash +among strangers, but he mustn't try it on with people who know him at +home. As for himself, he's thankful to say that he's just the same +wherever he is, at home or away on a holiday....</p> + +<p>In fact Jones or Jackson is precisely the man Edward Garden more than +half expected—the man who can't quite afford it, but will.... But this, +it is hardly necessary to observe, is to take the "Cambrian" at less +than its average and the "Cardigan" at rather more.</p> + +<p>The "Montgomery" is actually outclassed by the better "Private Hotels" +and one or two of the superior "Boarding Establishments." Indeed, of +these last the "Cadwallader" almost ranks with the "Cambrian" itself. +And so we come by degrees down to Ham-and-Egg Terrace.—But enough of +these <i>nuances</i> of difference of a fortnight's duration. Who, taken +by-and-large, are these people, and where do they come from?</p> + +<p>You have only to ask yourself, "Who else should they be?" and your +question is half answered. Remember the smallness of these Islands, and +the scores of pulsing, radiating, almost radio-active centres within +them, every one swarming with folk who intend to have a better time than +their fathers have had. Could the East Coast be pushed out beyond the +North Sea, and Lancashire be stretched until it took in Galway, St. +George's Channel and all, there might be room enough on England's shores +for every parliamentary voter to have a few acres of Trwyn foreshore of +his own and a black cow walking up and down them, seeking coolness and +food hock-deep in the glistening ebb; but, as things are, the littoral +is by much too small. True, scores and fifties of miles of it remain +practically unvisited; but no snail has snuffled out its manganese +there, and they are not within a few hours and a thirty-shilling +circular fare of the human ant-heaps of the land, where King's Ransoms +of Holiday Club money are put by. There was no wonder about the growth +of Llanyglo. Geographically situated as it was, the marvel would have +been had it not grown. With a few posters and similar devices to +advertise it, it would presently continue to advertise itself.</p> + +<p>Therefore the folk who flocked there were of every kind, short of the +grey and overwhelming multitude itself. <i>Because</i> it was only partly +built, <i>because</i> it had not yet shaken down to a definite character and +physiognomy and personality, it spread its net the wider. Did you want +to dress for dinner, and to have your luggage carried by a man in a red +jacket? There was the "Cambrian." Did you want everything that the +Cambrians had, barring only the luxury of being seen lounging in one of +the wicker-chairs about its portals, and still to keep your money in +your pocket? There was the "Cardigan." Did you want to read or to idle, +to botanise or merely to forget your cares for a fortnight, to picnic up +the Trwyn or to have your meals in bed? They asked no questions at the +"Montgomery." From Philip Lacey's piece of Floral Geometry to the nooks +on the farther side of the Trwyn where you could spend a whole morning +undisturbed, there was something for every taste. And they actually had +to turn people away who had been so ill-advised as to come with their +luggage without having first secured their lodging.</p> + +<p>And now it had come to this: that while these came to Llanyglo for a +change of air, John Willie Garden, who spent his days among lime and +mortar and wheeling-planks and newly dressed stone, frequently turned +his back on Llanyglo for precisely the same reason. Once a week or so he +was seen to drive past Pritchard's Corner in a light yellow trap at nine +o'clock in the morning. He was off to see to another of his father's +interests—that "catchment area" far away up in the mountains. He drove +eight miles, put up at an inn past which a trout-stream brawled (hardly +yet settled from its precipitous plunging cataracts), and then set out +on foot up a road that rose one-in-five under a whispering wood, to see +the skyline of which you had to throw your head back. It took him an +hour of walking to get to his destination—a solitary wooden cabin +where the agent lived. The agent had on the whole an easy time of it, +for hardly a hundred yards from his cabin door, above the woods now, lay +Llyn Delyn, pure looking-glass in the mile long crook of the mountain. +An old boat was moored among the sedges at one end, the launching of +which on the unbroken surface of that lovely water always seemed to +invoke vague judgments, penalties perhaps forborne, but none the less +incurred. Here the agent, whose name was Sharpe, fished. John Willie +fished with him. Fishing was a good enough way of passing the time, for +they were not really doing anything up there. They were merely +waiting—waiting for more people to come to Llanyglo, for the Town Hall +to rise, for the seat of local administration to be shifted from Porth +Neigr, and then for the Waterworks Scheme. They had the water as fast as +prevision and Law could make it. They would not drive too hard a bargain +with the town. In the meantime they fished, speaking little, noting +whether it was the gnat or the cochybondhu that killed, casting so +lightly that the boat scarcely rocked. Sometimes, when the amber evening +light was clear behind them, so impeccable was the profound mirror below +that, while their tweed-clad forms could hardly be distinguished from +the hues of the mountain behind, the upside-down shapes beneath them +were sharp and dark as the silhouettes in your grandmother's little oval +frames.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>III</h2> + +<h3>THE BLANK CHEQUE</h3> + + +<p>Death took a hand that winter in Llanyglo's making. They were getting +well up with the Town Hall, in what is now Gardd Street; still the flag +floated at the polehead, in token that they had got thus far without +serious mishap; and then it had to be run down to the half-mast. It was +a common scaffold accident. Harry Kerr, on one of the upper stages, +stepped back upon empty air; Sam sprang forward to save him; and they +picked them both up from among the debris below. A few remembered the +launching of that open boat on that wild night seven years before, and +said that it seemed out of nature that these comparatively young men +should go off before ancient Mrs. Pritchard; and Mrs. Pritchard herself +baa-ed, and said that there would be more room now in the Hafod Unos +whatever. But most of the residents were new-comers now, who knew more +of Tommy Kerr's present delinquencies than of the history of his +brothers, and they could hardly be expected to grieve. They buried them +both at Sarn, under the shadow of that pepper-caster of a +fifteenth-century church tower, and the problem of however the Hafod had +held them all became a thing of the past.</p> + +<p>The Town Hall was the outward and visible sign that Llanyglo had not +only caught up with Porth Neigr, but had outstripped it. It had special +conveniences for a centre of administration, which it forthwith became; +and at the election that Autumn Howell Gruffydd was made a Councillor. +He had two branch shops now, one at Porth Neigr and the other at Sarn, +and to his newspaper counter he had added a Library of books bought at +Mudies' clearance sales. He charged fourpence a week for the loan of +each book, which was twopence more than the old stationer's library at +Porth Neigr had charged; but there was the railway-fare to take into +account if you considered the charge extortionate. Later, a good deal +later, when the picture postcard was invented, Howell did rather well +out of that too. He praised your amateur snapshot of the Trwyn or the +Promenade of the façade of the Town Hall, and made you what no doubt +seemed to him a fair offer; namely to give you a dozen prints in +exchange for your film. He then proceeded to fill a revolving stand with +other prints, which he sold at seven for sixpence, or, highly glazed, at +twopence apiece. With pennies and twopences accumulated in this and +similar ways he bought certain house-property behind Ham-and-Egg +Terrace, paying a ground-rent to Edward Garden. He had by this time +acquired a little personal habit of Mr. Tudor Williams's—the habit of +shaking hands with one hand, while the other affectionately kneaded and +patted his interlocutor's right arm from the wrist up to the shoulder.</p> + +<p>Hitherto the developments of Llanyglo had lain in a few hands only—the +hands of Edward Garden and his shareholders, of one or two others who +had forgotten they had a holding in Terry Armfield's Thelema, but +remember it now with joy and thanksgiving, of Mr. Tudor Williams, and of +not very many more. But now a more ponderous machine began to rumble +into motion. This was the machine of which the Railway Companies and a +couple of Pleasure Packet Services were the visible active parts. +Rumours now began to fly about of developments long since planned and +now imminent, developments astounding and gigantic. These rumours began +with hotels. Hitherto the "Cambrian" had been thought to be rather more +than so-so, but of course nobody would have dreamed of comparing it with +the "Grands" and "Majesties" which "<i>Lancashire Hotels, Limited</i>" +possessed in the great centres of the North. These had half a dozen +tennis-courts in front, palm-courts and winter-gardens behind, and five +and six and seven hundred bedrooms. But now the rumour ran that, not one +of these, but two, owned by opposing Syndicates, were to be set up in +Llanyglo. The sites on which they were to be built varied according to +the version of the tale. Some said that the "Montgomery" was to be +pulled down again, some that the whole row of fishermen's cottages was +to be demolished, some that a terrace was to be dug out of the side of +the Trwyn itself and a funicular railway constructed. However it might +be, it was known that there were prolonged meetings of the Council about +it, and that at one point the whole thing, whatever it might be, seemed +likely to fall through. And that, as they now knew, would be their +death-blow. They would do anything, anything rather than that these +immense reservoirs of capital, already partly opened, should be shut up +again. They would hold out the town itself as security, a twopenny rate, +promises, accommodations, anything. It was said that Sheard, the Porth +Neigr solicitor, who had moved to new premises opposite the Llanyglo +Town Hall, sat up five nights in the week, making actuarial +calculations, estimating yields, measuring margins, and balancing all +with the possibility of the town's bankruptcy. Edward Garden was once +more at Llanyglo, and closeted frequently with Mr. Tudor Williams and +Howell Gruffydd.... Even the two projected hotels were not much more +than a detail as matters now stood; the whole town must now be given a +tremendous upward heave or collapse with a crash. Even those hotels +could go up now only on one condition—namely, that the base of the +visiting population, that foundation of which innumerable units are the +strength, should at once be immensely broadened. For every individual +who could afford to put up at a palace, they must rake in scores, +hundreds of people who could not. The real foundation of the hotels must +be row on row, acre on acre, of Ham-and-Egg Terraces. For the rest, a +place that must live through the year on the takings of three months +must be big, as those places of entertainment must be big that are full +on Saturdays only and empty during the rest of the week. Nothing smaller +would tempt the Railway Companies. (This, by the way, was not altogether +good news for Raymond Briggs. Architecture is not needed for that +broadened base. Any working master-builder can run up houses that are +good enough. The pattern of one is the pattern of all, and Raymond would +have small chance in competition with the bigger men of his profession.)</p> + +<p>Nor would it suffice merely to house and feed the people who came. Other +watering-places were awake to the new menace now, so that the rival +announcements on the hoardings resembled a desperate grapple for the +possession of those sixpences and shillings and half-crowns that were +poured without ceasing into the coffers of the Holiday Clubs. Not one in +five hundred of those who contributed those shillings and half-crowns +stopped to think that Wales herself has no Holiday Clubs—that Wales +does not go abroad with a year's savings in her pocket of which it is +black shame to bring as much as a single penny back again. They wanted +amusement. The Resort or Spa that could provide the most amusement would +get the lion's share. Amusements were a more urgent necessity than +chairs and tables and roofs.</p> + +<p>So it was that, between this place and that, the people who intended to +have a better time than their fathers had had were in some danger of +being pampered.</p> + +<p>The project for the Llanyglo Big Wheel was set a-going.</p> + +<p>The promise that Howell Gruffydd had made behind his hand to John +Pritchard had already begun to be redeemed. The Town Hall was not three +months old before a Grand Bazaar was held there in aid of the Llanyglo +Joint Chapels. On the first of the four days during which the Bazaar +lasted the proceedings were opened by Tudor Williams, Esquire, M.P. On +the second day they were opened by Edward Garden, Esquire. On the third +Mrs. Howell Gruffydd opened them, in heliotrope satin; and on the fourth +day Raymond Briggs, Esquire, who scented Chapel-building in the air, +performed the ceremony. Raymond guessed that at least three new Chapels +were certain presently to go up in the stead of those buildings of tin +and boards and sickly blue paint that had so outraged Terry Armfield's +Oxford Movement susceptibilities. As a matter of fact, five went up, and +have debts on them to this day, in spite of the long series of Bazaars, +two a season at least, at which the Saxon veins were opened.... For the +money poured in. It rained into the square collecting-sheets that were +placed at intervals along all the principal streets. It clattered into +the slots of the wooden boxes that were rattled under the nose of the +passer-by. It was minted in the Bran Tubs from which, paying your +threepence, you drew forth a penny toy. It multiplied with every flower +Miss Nancy Pritchard, with twenty other young women in Welsh national +costume, sold. It made heavy the pockets of the stall-holders, who had +never any change. It made little cylinders of silver and copper, three +and four and five inches high, on the tables folk had to pass before +they were admitted to the Concerts.... Believe it, the Chapel-goers of +Llanyglo, seeing all that money to be had for little more than the +asking, opened their eyes, and sat up, and took notice. If <i>this</i> was +the Saxon invasion, why had they not welcomed it long ago? A few bales +of hired bunting, a few pounds for evergreens and velvet banners with +texts on them, a few paid assistants and a not unreasonable printers' +bill, and—<i>these</i> splendid results!</p> + +<p>As big as John Pritchard himself said, putting on his spectacles to see +whether the astonishing total could really be true, "They must be very +rit-ss, whatever!"</p> + +<p>But the Bazaars had not this golden harvest to themselves. They found +competition, which they a little resented. Secular amusements more than +held their own. Gigantic castings had begun to arrive for the Big Wheel; +under the booth-awnings of Gardd Street (recently christened) penny +articles could be had for a penny; and a long row of automatic +machines—Wheels of Fortune, little iron men who kicked footballs, +Sibyls of Fate and Try-your-Grip machines—had sprung up along the +railings of the sea-front. A few stage-gipsies with green parrakeets had +made the town their summer home. There was a rifle-range on the farther +sandhills—you could hear the "plunk" of the bullets on the iron +targets. Near it was a travelling Merry-go-Round. Photographers had +their "pitches" on the sands, with humourous canvas flats with oval +holes in them, through which you put your face, so that you could have +your portrait taken as "<i>He Won't be Happy till He Gets It</i>" or in the +act of embracing a two-dimensional young woman, whichever was to your +liking. And there were niggers. These danced and sang and played the +banjo on a raised platform, dressed in wide turned-down schoolboy +collars and pink striped trousers; the concentric rings of green chairs +about them resembled the spread of a large symmetrical thistle plant; +and outside this ring one or other of the troupe constantly moved, +shaking a sort of jellybag under your nose (as the Chapel-goers had +shaken the collecting-boxes) and blinking the pink lids in his +burnt-cork face. A little farther on was the men's bathing-place. They +had wooden machines now, into which youths entered four at a time—no +more the trim and private striped tents of the Laceys and the Raymond +Briggses. The ladies' bathing-place was farther on still—a boat stood +off between the two lest the sexes should not keep their distance. And a +hundred yards past that, beyond a great scabrous groyne of loose stone, +clay-coloured at the shore end but slimy with green as it ran down to +the sea, with red flags and notice-boards along the top and a moveable +rope-barrier at its base where two men walked on sentry-go, they were at +work upon the Pier.</p> + +<p>By this time there was one question which, more than others, was +beginning to disturb Llanyglo. This was the question of drink. In the +old days, when the old brown horse who had walked as carefully as if he +had had a spirit-level inside him had first brought the Gardens and +their luggage so softly over the sandhills, there had been no inn nearer +than Porth Neigr. Save on market-days, scarce a drop of alcohol passed +a Llanyglo man's lips from year's end to year's end. If John Pritchard +had preached occasionally against drunkenness, it had been +conventionally only, with little more bearing on Llanyglo's own habits +than if he had preached against cannibalism. Then Railhead had crawled +across the land; Howell Gruffydd had found it necessary to warn the +young against contamination; and with the building of the "Cambrian" had +come Llanyglo's first licence.</p> + +<p>But for long enough after that there had been no public-houses. The +travelling army of labourers had had their own canteens, and even when a +necessary beer-licence or two had been applied for at Sessions, the +applications had been granted as it were behind the hand, and the affair +had been got over as quickly as possible. No: Tommy Kerr's unconscious +soft carolling of <i>Glan Meddwdod Mwyn</i> as he had crossed the sandhills +on that torrid Sunday afternoon had held no real personal reproach for +Llanyglo. For Porth Neigr, perhaps yes; for other places, yes; but not +for Llanyglo.</p> + +<p>But since then things had changed. Things had changed since they had +been able to tell themselves that what went on in the "Cambrian" lounge +was no concern of theirs. They had begun to change when Llanyglo had +been no longer able to shut its eyes to the beer-drinking of the navvies +and bricklayers and the brothers Kerr. Then for a time a convenient +connection had been established between drunkenness and rough trousers +tied about the knees with string. For cases such as these, the little +Station at the extreme end of Gardd Street, with "Police" over the door +and geraniums in the windows, had ample powers. The half-dozen +constables must exercise discretion, that was all.</p> + +<p>But it became a not uncommon sight to see a tipsy reveller singing +himself unsteadily home on one side of the street, while the officer, +watching him from the other side, stood questioning his discretion until +the delinquent had passed out of sight. For a time Tommy Kerr, who had +been twice run in, had served as a scapegoat, but that was little +permanent help. It began to be seen that the real problem was, that if +they would get folk with money to spend into the town, they must accept +these folk, within reason, as they were, tipplers and teetotalers alike. +For some reason or other, convivial drinking also seemed to come under +the head of amusements. Blackpool provided liquor; Douglas was in an +exceptional position for the provision of liquor; and more and more it +appeared that Llanyglo must open the Bazaar doors with one hand and the +doors of inns and taverns with the other.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the "Lancashire Rose," on one side of Gardd Street, and the +"Trafford" on the other, were quickly becoming notorious. These were +both fully licenced houses, with Tap and Saloon entrances, and it was +idle to pretend to think that all the scandal originated in the humbler +compartments. Heady young men with full pockets, respectable fathers of +families, and others whom they could by no means lock up as they could +lock up Tommy Kerr, went into these places in broad daylight, sometimes +coming out again obviously affected: and it was almost certain that not +all their stomachs were so innocent and unaccustomed that a single glass +of the poison had produced this result. Dolefully they wished that a +sober Lancashire would come to Llanyglo; but—a Lancashire of some sort +they <i>must</i> have. Why else were they doing all they could to win its +favour? What else was their Big Wheel for, of which four mammoth +standards of plate and lattice-girder had already risen thirty feet +above the sandhills, where they were stepped and anchored into the +oldest rocks of earth? Why else were they toiling day and night at their +Pier, and at the building, section by section, of the sea-wall? Why else +were they setting up gasometers beyond Pritchard's, and discussing a +Sewage Scheme, and—most urgent of all—gnawing their fingers anxiously +until some arrangement should be come to with Edward Garden's lawyers +about that water far away up Delyn? The supply was becoming terrifyingly +insufficient. For want of mere water the growth of the town might come +to a stop as plants shrivel and fall again in an arid bed.... And, save +to get Lancashire folk there, drunk or sober, why did they solemnly +discuss this inanity of an amusement or that—Big Wheels and +Switchbacks, Scenic Railways, Toboggan Slides, Panoramas, Fat Women, +Dancing Halls, Floral Valleys and Concerts and Town Bands? There was no +going back now. They had spent money that they would never, never see +again if they persisted in being visionaries in business and +irreconcilables on mere minor points of demeanour....</p> + +<p>"They spend more when they are ... like that," said Howell Gruffydd one +day to the Council assembled. He said it a little shamefacedly, his +fingers fiddling with the green cloth of the Council-table.</p> + +<p>Nobody spoke.</p> + +<p>"I—saw—a—man," Howell continued, "a respectable man, with good +clothes on his back and a new hat, all spoiled—it was a pity to see +it—I saw him knock over row of bot-tles at John Parry's in Gardd +Street, just for amusement, and he laugh, and say 'How mut-ss?' like it +wass noth-thing, he was so-a drunk——"</p> + +<p>"It is a pit-ty they make such a noise sometimes," somebody said, in a +curiously aggrieved voice....</p> + +<p>Evan Pugh, the landlord of the "Trafford," was of precisely the same +opinion.</p> + +<p>They escaped their dilemma by means of a noteworthy bit of government by +minority. There was a small section of the Council, easily outvotable at +ordinary times, which urged that, after all, things were <i>as</i> they were, +that you must live and let live in this world, and that even good things +could be pushed to extremes when they became no longer good. And, as +these began to speak, one stern bazaar-promoter after another began to +look at his watch and to mutter "Dear me—I had no idea it wass so +late—indeed I not catss him if I not go now——"</p> + +<p>They left.</p> + +<p>This, or else a tactful absenteeism, became their custom whenever +licencing matters came up to be discussed.</p> + +<p>But cases of conscience are cases of conscience all the world over.</p> + +<p>The sum that Edward Garden proposed as a fair price for that +catchment-area up Delyn was two hundred thousand pounds—this for about +two thousand acres; and on the day when his lawyers named the figure it +was a wonder that the whole Council did not take in a body to their +beds. Two hundred thousand pounds! They could not believe their ears. +Nor could they believe their eyes either when they got it in writing, +words first, and the figures in brackets afterwards. If they had written +the single word "<i>Fancy!</i>" across that document and sent it straightway +back to the lawyers they would no doubt have followed their first +impulse; but somebody, less hard hit in the wind than the rest, managed +to gasp out the proposal that they should sleep on it, and sleep on it +they did. But the night did not alter it. In the morning it was still +two hundred thousand pounds (£200,000).</p> + +<p>News of the rapacity of the demand had leaked out almost immediately. +Ordinarily, anybody who had stopped Howell Gruffydd in the street and +had asked him a Council secret would have been met with the smiling +facer he deserved, but this was extraordinary altogether. On the morning +after they had slept on it, William Morgan saw Howell on the Promenade, +came up to him, and, making no bones about it whatever, asked him +whether it was true.</p> + +<p>"Who told you, William Morgan?" Howell began ... but he really had not +the heart to go on. He took off his hat, wiped the lining of it with his +handkerchief, and the bright sunlight showed his brows lined with +anxiety and sick fear, crumpled and embossed like one of his own pats of +butter. He replaced his hat and blew his nose violently.</p> + +<p>"Is it true?" demanded William Morgan again.</p> + +<p>Howell became grim.—"It was an e-vil day for this town when that man +came here," he said, forgetting how little town there had been when that +old brown horse had first brought the Gardens softly jolting across the +sandhills.</p> + +<p>"Then it is true?" said William Morgan once again.</p> + +<p>"It is true that a man sometimes asks one thing, and finiss by getting +something very diff-ferent from what he ask," Howell replied, and walked +abruptly away.</p> + +<p>He crossed the Promenade and turned into Pontnewydd Street. There he +stood, irresolutely plucking his lip and gazing into a stationer's +window. Dafydd Dafis's voice in his ear caused him to start almost +violently.</p> + +<p>"H-what is this, Howell Gruffydd?" Dafydd demanded without preface, his +eyes burningly and truculently on the Chairman's face. He wore his +everyday corduroys, but his air was that of a monarch in banishment. +Howell turned.</p> + +<p>"Ah, how are you, Dafydd? Indeed you look well! They do say the smell of +road-tar is a very healthy smell——"</p> + +<p>"H-what is this we hear, Howell Gruffydd?" Dafydd repeated.</p> + +<p>Howell tried to smile.—"Indeed, how can I answer a question like that, +'What is this we hear?'——"</p> + +<p>"H-what is this about Delyn and the Water?"</p> + +<p>There was a dangerous quickness in Dafydd's voice. Involuntarily Howell +gave a little hiccough of emotion, which answered Dafydd sufficiently. +His eyes were like the windows of a burning house.</p> + +<p>"He sell us two thousand acres, of our own land, for how mut-ss?"</p> + +<p>"Two—hundred—thou-sand—pounds," sobbed Howell.</p> + +<p>"Of our own mountains—Delyn, that belong to us—he sell us Delyn, this +Saxon?——"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, indeed, Dafydd, do not excite yourself—it will have to go to +arbi-tra-tion——"</p> + +<p>"It will go to Hell, with his soul!" Dafydd replied fiercely. "He sell +us Delyn—he sell us Delyn water—he sell us our own moun-tains!—It iss +not for this we make you Chairman of the Council, Howell Gruffydd!"</p> + +<p>Howell trembled, but put up a soothing hand.</p> + +<p>"Aw-w-w, you wait and see, Dafydd Dafis! A prof-fit is a prof-fit, but +this is wick-ed, and preposterous, and out of all reason! You wait and +see! We have a meeting this morning, and p'rapss we show Mister Edward +Garden he is not so clever as he think he is! He think he put his Saxon +pistol to our heads like this? Indeed he make a great mistake! You wait +and see, Dafydd. There iss a saying, 'He laughs best who laughs +last'—you wait and see!" He patted Dafydd's shoulder and arm +reassuringly, and perhaps felt heartened by his own words. "You wait and +see!" he said once more, almost cheerily now. "We not pay it—never +fear! I see you later——"</p> + +<p>And he hurried away, leaving Dafydd standing on the pavement.</p> + +<p>But the Council Meeting that morning settled nothing, and neither did +the next Meeting nor the next after that. They wrote to Mr. Tudor +Williams, but it almost looked as if Mr. Tudor Williams was taking a +leaf out of their own book: if they had pressing private affairs when +questions of ales and wines and spirits appeared on the agenda, so Mr. +Tudor Williams pleaded a multiplicity of urgent engagements now that it +was a question of water. The meeting adjourned, reassembled, adjourned +again, and met again. Days passed, weeks passed. Legal opinions were +taken, but no action. They fetched Mr. Tudor Williams down almost by +force, and he proffered his good offices, but deprecated the serving of +notices of compulsory arbitration. He advised an amicable settlement if +one could possibly be arrived at. Llanyglo's anger died away, and blank +despair began to take its place.</p> + +<p>Then one day Edward Garden's lawyers hinted that in the event of an +arrangement being come to within a given time they were in a position +to enter into certain pledges on behalf of the Railway Companies. They +hinted also that they were equally in a position to do the other thing. +Surely, they said, Llanyglo saw that this was a matter of its life or +its death; and surely, they added, it was plain that it would not really +be <i>they</i> who were paying! Nothing of the sort! Lancashire would pay. +Yorkshire would pay. The Midlands would help to pay, and perhaps also +the West and South. Whoever footed his bill at hotel or +boarding-establishment would be contributing—they must see that he did +contribute—his portion. What though visitors grumbled and talked about +extortion? They forgot all about it the next day. What though residents +groaned under the burden of the rates? They must submit to conditions, +like everybody else. Llanyglo must pay, and pass it on.</p> + +<p>In short, all the people who intended to have a better time than their +fathers had had were to be shaven and shorn exactly as their fathers had +been.</p> + +<p>Llanyglo saw it, sighed, and acquiesced. There was nothing else to do.</p> + +<p>And if Parry, of the "Lancashire Rose," or Pugh, of the "Trafford," +reaped too rich a harvest by making people drunk, they must be assessed +higher and higher still, and still higher, that was all.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>IV</h2> + +<h3>PAWB</h3> + + +<p>This question of assessment had already raised another question, which +at first seemed a small one, but swelled afterwards into ominous +proportions. When the rumours of those two towering new hotels had first +begun to circulate, it had been a gentle and stimulating mental exercise +to place, in fancy, these palaces on this spot or that. Among other +suggestions, the vacant plot of land adjacent to the Kerrs' Hafod Unos +had been mentioned as a fitting site for one of them. Hereupon folk had +begun to ask one another: What about the Kerrs' title?</p> + +<p>Hitherto they had not thought of this. The four brothers had planted +themselves there when all about had been a waste of sand, had since +taken firm root, and there two of them still remained. But between such +a squatting eight or nine years ago, and a sitting tight now that +everything had gone up a hundredfold in value, was an immense +difference. To this difference, moreover, was now added the evil repute +in which Tommy Kerr lived. Ned, the alder-cutter, they would have +accepted; they could live with Ned; but his brother, besides being in +his unpleasant person a public nuisance, was beginning to appear a +setter-back of the fingers of History's clock, a mongrel in their fine +new manger, a thorn in the side of that lusty young Welsh Giantess whose +figure was now one of the familiar sights on a thousand hoardings in +the North. The invisible odour of stale beer-fumes in which he moved +poisoned the air of the Promenade, and, though he certainly did his best +to remedy this as far as the staleness was concerned (invariably +beginning the day with pints and ending it with quarts), that did not +improve matters in the long run.</p> + +<p>As long as Tommy Kerr was merely locked up once in a while for +drunkenness, he himself paid no heed to the whispers that had begun to +gather about him. He could sleep as heavily and happily in a cell as in +his own Hafod. Nor were his eyes at once opened even when an inspector +appeared at the Hafod and began to ask questions about its +sanitation—which, by the way, was of a low order. But his brother Ned +began to "study," as he called it, and the result of his studying was +that he said one day to Tommy, "They'll be wanting to be shut o' you and +me, Tommy."</p> + +<p>Tommy was in the act of wiping out a greasy frying-pan with a piece of +old newspaper. He stopped suddenly. After a pause, "Eh?" he said.... +"D'ye mean purr us out?"</p> + +<p>"We're a bit i' t' road to my way o' thinking," Ned replied, sinking +back into his arm-chair again and closing his eyes.</p> + +<p>He had taken badly to heart the deaths of his brothers Harry and Sam; +indeed he had not been the same man since. He frequently walked over to +Sarn churchyard, sat on a flat tombstone near his brothers' grave, and +smoked and spat; he was "studying" about a stone for them. +Intermittently he talked about carving this with his own hands, but he +delayed to do so. All the work he now did was to doze in a +street-watch-man's hut, with a two-days-old newspaper on his knee and a +firebasket in front of him set sideways on the wind. He was no longer +the beer-drinker he had been. "Think ye?" said Tommy, after another +silence. "But we donnot want to be purred out," he added resuming the +wiping of the frying-pan, though more slowly.</p> + +<p>And as it seemed to be a condition of their remaining in their Hafod +unmolested that they should make a show of satisfying the sanitary +inspector's demands, they overhauled their drainage system and gave it +the minimum of attention it demanded.</p> + +<p>Then one day an offer was made them, which was also an admission. It was +an offer of compensation and of another dwelling elsewhere, and the +admission apparently was that their title was a good one. Ned was for +accepting the offer, and accepted it would probably have been but for a +circumstance that Tommy discovered only in a roundabout way. He was +congratulated one morning in the "Marine" Tap on having escaped +ejectment. This was the first he had heard of ejectment. He asked a few +questions, and soon after went out for a walk.</p> + +<p>Ejectment! Apparently they had been considering his ejectment, had found +it for some reason or other not to be feasible, and had substituted the +offer of compensation....</p> + +<p>Then, while this offer was still neither accepted nor rejected, +something else came to Tommy Kerr's ears. This was that the sites, not +of one, but of both the new hotels, were at last decided on. As a matter +of fact, this choice was now almost a foregone conclusion. Next to Gardd +Street, which ran parallel with the shore, Pontnewydd Street, in which +lay the Hafod, was becoming the principal street of the town. It ran +from the shore to Pritchard's Corner, was prolonged past that to the +new station, and was the main thoroughfare for landaus and wagonettes +off to the mountains. The hotels were to be built one on either side of +the Hafod, not actually adjoining it, but not more than a couple of +strides away.</p> + +<p>Already in Tommy Kerr's suspicious mind the mischief was done. Howell +Gruffydd, all blandishments to his face, had been making secret +inquiries behind his back, had he? He had been talking about +compensation and whispering with attorneys and such-like, had he? Very +well. That settled it. Tommy would go when he was purred out, and not +before. As for that snuffling Howell Gruffydd....</p> + +<p>"So that's it, Mister Treacle-Tongue, is it?" he had muttered. "Reight. +As long as we know where we are. I'm off out to buy a ha'porth o' +thread——"</p> + +<p>And with the ha'porth of thread he had sewn a large button on each of +his pocket-flaps, and thenceforward meeting Howell Gruffydd in the +street, had ostentatiously buttoned every pocket up before answering the +prosperous grocer's smiling "Good morning."</p> + +<p>They began to dig the foundations of those glittering hotels.</p> + +<p>They did so, as it happened, in the early part of that same summer that +saw Edward Garden's ingenious advertisements put into execution—the +summer of the Eisteddfod and the Brass Band Contest. Llanyglo was packed +with people. Two days before the Eisteddfod, there began to troop into +the town from all parts bards and singers, poets and harpers and +minstrels and the members of a chorus five hundred voices strong. They +came in their everyday clothes, moustached like vikings, bearded and +maned like lions, and instantly with their coming the Saxon took a back +seat. Shopkeepers left their counters, publicans clapped down the +half-filled glasses, and ran to their doors as this honoured singer or +that famous bard passed their windows. They walked with stately slow +walk and stately slow head-turnings, and happy was the Welshman who got +a motion of the hand or a benign smile from them. The Gorsedd had been +publicly proclaimed; the temporary dancing hall behind Gardd Street, big +enough for a regiment to drill in, had been made ready; the insignia in +the Town Hall were as jealously watched and guarded as are the Crown +Jewels in the Tower of London; and he was a prudent visitor who had +realised that for three whole days he was likely to get but negligent +attention from those who at other times were his humble servitors. For, +fleer as aliens would, this was the Awakening of the Red Dragon. Their +reproach that he was but a pasteboard Dragon fell to the ground. The +Dragon was what the Dragon was, and if his service was theatrical, +theatricalism is ennobled when its boards are the soil itself and each +of its actors an Antæus, strong because his foot is upon the ground that +bred him. In England, behind his smile, the Welshman is an enigma of +reserve; but see him at his Eisteddfod, with money waiting to be taken +at his closed shop-doors....</p> + +<p>With the ceremony of the Gorsedd on the opening day Dafydd Dafis's +spellbound and uplifted hours began. At the sounding of the trumpets his +head flew proudly up; at the Drawing of the Sword and the solemn +question, "Is there Peace in the land?" his voice joined in the reply, +like a thunder-clap, "There is Peace"—for that was before the year +when, for three whole days, the blade remained naked and bright, while +far over the seas brave Englishmen and brave Welshmen fell and died +together. It was the single victory of Dafydd's life. On ordinary days +he now drove a road-engine—Howell Gruffydd had got him the job under +the Council; but he was a Lord of Song now. He had put his name down for +the "penillion" contest; should he prove successful, not he himself +only, but Llanyglo also, the place of his birth, would be forever +famous. He sat behind the semicircle of white-robed and oak-crowned and +druid-like figures that occupied the front part of the platform, looking +down on the vast oblong of faces, Saxon and Welsh, that resembled a +packed bed of London Pride; he was in the tenor wedge of the chorus; and +as the five hundred voices pealed together you thought of the roof and +of that singer whose voice had shivered vessels of glass.... Coming out +of the hall again at the end of the first day, Dafydd was still in his +trance. As he walked along the street past the "Trafford" Tap, Tommy +Kerr, who sat within drinking, hailed him and called for a song, while +one of his boon companions crying "Nay, we don't ask nobody to sing for +nowt!" cast a couple of pennies on the ground; but Dafydd seemed neither +to see nor to hear. At the break-up after the last chorus an august hand +had been placed on Dafydd's shoulder, and an archangelic voice had +spoken to him, saying that he, he the great one, had heard of Dafydd +Dafis; and what, after that, did pot-house insults matter? He passed on, +his eyes still flashing and his face shining like the Silver Chair +itself....</p> + +<p>Two days later he was proclaimed the victor in the "penillion" contest, +and on the day after that, still drunk with song, he drove his +road-engine again. And so passed Llanyglo's first Eisteddfod.</p> + +<p>The Brass Band Contest five weeks later was a triumph in a different +way. The impression now was one, not of unity, but of the keen spirit of +faction. The "<i>Besses o' th' Barn</i>" were at the crest of their fame, +but the "<i>Black Dike</i>" ran them close, and not far behind came "<i>Wyke +Temperance</i>" and "<i>Meltham Mills</i>"; and had these been, not Bands, but +football teams, local rivalry could not have run higher. True, +underneath the sporting interest lay the musical. This performer's +"lipping" and the "triple-tonguing" of the other were matters of endless +debate among the expert; nuances of ensemble and attack were hotly +argued in strong Lancashire and Yorkshire accents; and the devotees were +ready to fight with their fists over the fame of the conductors of their +fancy. But, without unity, the Contest proved, for all save the +Brass-band-maniacs, a little wearisome. The ear began to revolt against +the reiterated "test-piece," and one pitied the judge hidden away in his +carefully guarded cubicle. Fewer Welsh attended the Contest than had +English the Eisteddfod, and a day was judged sufficient for it. After a +sensational replay with the "<i>Besses</i>," "<i>Black Dike</i>" took pride of +place, with "<i>Meltham Mills</i>" third. The strains of <i>Zampa</i> and <i>The +Bronze Horse</i> sounded once more only, when they massed the Bands in the +evening in the Floral Valley; and (the Council having sanctioned a +charge of sixpence as the fee for entrance) the sum of £115 was taken at +the temporary barriers. So passed the Brass Band Contest also.</p> + +<p>By the June of that year the understructure of the Pier was finished, +and the rest was advancing with the speed of paper-hanging. The +contractors were under time-penalties to be ready for the formal opening +on the forthcoming August Bank Holiday. All through the night the sounds +of the planking could be heard, and pavilion-parts, lettered and +numbered and ready gilded and painted, were rushed along in haste. At +the same time the Big Wheel began to resemble the largest circle of the +Floral Valley set up on end; it was wonderful to stand beneath it and to +gaze up through the intricacy of tie and strut and lattice at the sky. +Immense hoardings filled a large part of Pontnewydd Street; by and by +they would be taken down again, and the façades of those magnificent new +hotels would appear; but Llanyglo would scarcely turn its head to look +at them. They were getting used to this now. Besides, they had plenty +else to do. The town was so full that they were turning away money into +its nearest place of overflow—Porth Neigr.</p> + +<p>Then, in the beginning of August, a hundred portents were fulfilled. +There began to run into the station train after train, with three or +four faces at each window. Doors opened almost before the engines had +begun to slow down, and (as if the trains had been veins and somebody +had suddenly slit them up, spilling out the life within) the platforms +were suddenly black and overrun with people. They carried bags, baskets, +hampers, parcels, stools, pillows, babies. Inside the carriages they +left crumpled newspapers, trodden sandwiches, bottles, nuts, corks, the +heads and tails of shrimps. Their tickets had been taken miles back—no +collecting-staff could have coped for a moment with the emptying of +those wheeled and windowed veins of impoverished blood. Parents carrying +babies stood prudently aside from that first mad rush to the entrance. +Many of them had been up since half-past four that morning; they had +spent seven hours in the train, twelve and thirteen and fourteen in a +carriage, standing, sitting on one another's knees, lying on the rows of +feet; and now they made straight for air. Certain trains had been told +off for week-end travellers; others were labelled "<i>Special</i>" or "<i>Day +Excursion Only</i>." Those who had come by these would have seven hours in +Llanyglo, and at the end of that time they would squeeze into the trains +again for seven, eight, ten hours more—for on the return journey they +must attend the convenience of every other wheel on the line, and a +stand of an hour or so at two o'clock in the morning would be but an +incident. During that short space in which they would breathe the +wonderful Llanyglo air they would eat the meals they had brought with +them, or else besiege the inns and eating-houses and tea-rooms and +confectioners'-shops. They were the first trippers—spinning operatives, +weavers, twisters, warp-dressers, mechanics, asbestos-hands, stokers, +clerks, shopkeepers, the grey and unnumbered multitude itself. Some +would enjoy themselves, some would vow they enjoyed themselves, and some +would declare it "a toil of a pleasure," and would drag about on hot and +swollen and weary feet, repeating at intervals, "Niver again—niver as +long as I live!" And the lagging children's arms would be almost +wrenched off at the shoulders, and some would fall asleep with the +sticky paint of the penny toys dyeing their hands, and the platforms +would begin to fill up again three hours before the time of departure of +the train, for the sake of the chances of corner seats, or indeed of +seats at all, and also because, on that horrible arduous day, the +station itself would seem almost like a home....</p> + +<p>Yes, as the Laceys and Briggses had followed Edward Garden, and those +who could not (but would) afford it had followed the Briggses and +Laceys, and the <i>Utopia</i> readers these, and the fortnight and ten-days' +people these, and all sorts and conditions of people for varying lengths +of time these again, so now the unnumbered rest had come.... "The first +tripper, and I'm off," the Briggses and the Laceys had said; and which +of us is not a Briggs or a Lacey in this? Which of us can say without +misgiving that he would have remained in Llanyglo? Could we have endured +the sight of our kind in this bulk—or could we have endured to think, +either, that if they were not there for that dreadful day they would +still be elsewhere? Can we, in the unshared solitude of our hearts, bear +to think of this rank and damp and steaming human undergrowth at all? +Would the Squire, seeing these, still have thought as much of his books +on Church Plate and Brasses, still have defended the integrity of +something not for all? Would Minetta Garden have looked on them with a +sort of incurious interest as so many "types"? Or would we all, Minetta, +the Squire, you, I, have felt meanly and skulkingly relieved when the +last tail-light had died away in the night again?</p> + +<p>There is neither "Yes" nor "No" to be answered. I may rant of +brotherhood and humanity, but you—you may remember that cart jolting +without noise over the sandhills, the blue and primrose petals of those +butterflies, the amethyst-tufts of wild thyme, the milkwort, the +harebells, and then, of a sudden, that V with the sea beyond. I, +choosing to shoulder all the responsibility of a world in the making of +which I was not consulted, may moisten that human peat with my tears, +but you—you, passionate for beauty's sake, may mourn a loveliness +deflowered and a simplicity destroyed. It is no virtue in me, no +harshness in you. We both are what we are and do what we can. Llanyglo +also was what it had become and did what it could. And Llanyglo, after +all, had a solace that we lack. It was an inferior one, but better than +nothing. Their beach might be littered, their streets made pitiful; +their lodging-house keepers might put every loose jug or china dog or +ornament away, and replace them again only after these had gone; strange +accents might grate upon their ears, different and disliked minds frame +the thoughts those accents expressed; yet balm remained. There was not a +tripper, no, not the poorest of them, but spent his three, four, or five +shillings in the town.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART FOUR</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>I</h2> + +<h3>THE BLIND EYE</h3> + + +<p>Drub-drub—drub-drub-drub—drub-drub——</p> + +<p>It was the sound of heels on the Pier. From one end of it to the other +they walked, past the recesses and lamp-standards and the bright kiosks +where tobacco and confectionery and walking-sticks and picture-postcards +and souvenirs were sold, and then they turned and walked back. After a +time the drub-drubbing became curiously hypnotising. At moments it +conformed almost to a regular rhythm; then it broke up again into mere +confusion, out of which another metrical beat would rise for a second or +so and then become lost again. For long spaces the ear would become +accustomed and cease to hear it, and would take in instead the lighter +registers of tittering, soft laughter, the striking of matches and an +occasional scuffle and call; but the groundwork of sound would break +through again, like a muffled drum tapped by many performers at once, +monotonous, reverberating, dead——</p> + +<p>Drub-drub-drub—drub-drub—drub-drub——</p> + +<p>It was half-past eight of a July night. Crowded as the Pier was, it +would become still more so when the Concert Hall just within the +turnstiles, and the Pavilion at the pier-head, turned out their +audiences again. There would hardly be space to move them. The +Promenade was a sweep of brilliants; Gardd Street lay unseen behind it +under a golden haze; behind that again the lighted rosette of the Big +Wheel turned slowly high in the sky; and the great hotels of the front +were squared and mascled with window-lights. All this dance of gold and +silver made an already blue evening intensely blue, and the Pier was so +long that, even with quick walking, several minutes passed between your +losing the rattle of hand-clapping outside the Concert Hall at one end +of it, and your picking up the strains of the Pavilion orchestra at the +other.</p> + +<p>Drub-drub-drub—drub-drub-drub—drub-drub——</p> + +<p>There was hardly a bed to be had in Llanyglo. Visitors who had rashly +chosen to take their chance commonly passed their first night in the +waiting-rooms of the railway station. Servant-girls lay in their clothes +under kitchen tables, while their own garrets were let for half a +sovereign a night. Dozens slept on sofas, chairs, hearthrugs, +billiard-tables, on the Promenade benches, under the tarpaulins of +wagonettes and chars-à-bancs, or curled up in the boats on the shore. +They Boxed-and-coxed it as they could, and the police did not trouble to +shake the slumberers on whom they turned their bull's-eyes in the nooks +and arbours of the Floral Valley.</p> + +<p>Drub-drub-drub—drub—drub——</p> + +<p>And who were they now, they whose heels wore down the Pier timbers and +made the brain drowsy with their ceaseless tramp?</p> + +<p>It was a curious and a rather arresting change. To all appearances, +Llanyglo had now got a "better class of visitor" than it had had since +the Briggses and Laceys had shaken the dust of the place from their +feet. Even in this puzzle of gold and silver light and deep mysterious +blue, it could be seen that there was not much Holiday Club money there. +In another fortnight or so those coffers would burst over the town, +drenching it with gold; but in the meantime who were these others, and +what were they doing at Llanyglo?</p> + +<p>Let us ask the author of the <i>Sixpenny Guide</i>.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"When did you arrive? Only last night? And you're stopping at the +'Majestic'? Well, you've somebody there who can tell you more about it +than I can—Big Annie the head-chambermaid on the first floor. There are +a good many things about Llanyglo now that I've had to keep out of my +<i>Guide</i>, you see. But I'll tell you what I can.</p> + +<p>"And I don't want to give you any false impression. Don't forget that +scores and hundreds of families come here and bathe, and picnic, and +dance, and go for drives, and enjoy themselves, and go away again +without a notion that everybody here isn't exactly like themselves. And +there's no harm in the Wakes people either. The worst you can say of +them is that now and then one of them gets violently or torpidly drunk, +as the case may be, and that all of them make a most hideous and +infernal noise. So don't think I'm talking disproportionately, and that +this is the only place of its kind I was ever in.</p> + +<p>"But I do mean this: that somehow or other we've now acquired a very +peculiar kind of notoriety. You can deny it, disprove it, show that it +isn't there at all, and—there it remains all the time. For one thing, +you'll see if you look round that the place is very much less northern +in character than it was, and as it happens that's very significant. For +it might conceivably happen that a northerner—or a southerner, or +anybody else—might have his reasons for avoiding a place that was full +of other northerners, many of whom might know him (they have an +expression in the North for the kind of thing I mean; they call it +'making mucky doorstones'). So you'll find lots and lots of Londoners +here now, and midlanders, and easterners and westerners. They come here, +where nobody's ever seen them before and will never see them again +perhaps, for much the same reason that some Englishmen are said to go to +Paris.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to make them out more in number than they are. Spread out +over the whole country they'd only be a fractional percentage, and you'd +never notice them; but when they're brought together here they're quite +enough to give the place a character. They aren't the open and reckless +kind. Furtiveness—complete disappearance if possible—is the whole +point. They're the men who arrange for somebody to post their letters +home from the place they're supposed to be really at, and the women who, +as the Bible says, eat and wipe their lips and say they haven't eaten. +They want to dodge, not only everybody else, but themselves also, +something they're perhaps afraid of in themselves, for a fortnight, +three weeks, a month. You see, they've persuaded themselves (and +Llanyglo's done too well out of them to undeceive them) that things done +here somehow 'don't count.' If you want to do something you'd never dare +to do in a place where you were known, you come to Llanyglo to do it. If +you can imagine the oasis in the desert with exactly the contrary +meaning—that's us. We're an asylum for those who've lost their moral +memories.</p> + +<p>"And it isn't that wedding-rings are juggled off and on, and false names +entered in hotel registers, nor anything of that kind. That goes on more +or less everywhere, and we haven't become notorious merely for that. +And as usual, it's easier to say what it isn't than what it is. It isn't +the Trwyn, for example, though that does twitter so with kisses from +morning till night that you'd think it was the grasshoppers. And it +isn't the almost open displays you see at certain hours wherever you go. +It isn't any one fact, not even the worst. It's a faint attar of some +<i>abandonment</i>, some bottomlessness, that you can't name. It may be my +imagination, but I've fancied I've actually smelt it with my nostrils, +coming into it from a mile out of the town. They relinquish even +appearances. Most of us have the grace to cover up our sins with a +decent and saving hypocrisy, but these know and understand one another +so horribly well. They seem to find a comfort that they're all in the +same boat. As they say themselves, 'Heaven for climate but Hell for +company.' Give them your name on your visiting-card and they'll ask you +by and by what your <i>real</i> name is. Until then, neither your name nor +anything else about you is their business. They haven't any business. +For a week, or a fortnight, or a month, they've turned their backs on +that tremendous common business that keeps the world going. It's the +blind eye, and Llanyglo provides the blinkers....</p> + +<p>"But go and talk to Big Annie. She's really a rather remarkable woman. +At stated hours she sits on point duty on the landing of her floor of +eighty bedrooms, just where everybody's got to pass her, and if you look +like making—er—a mistake (and your hotel's quite an easy place to get +lost in) she sets you right without a quiver of her face. Yes, she's +rather an alarming person. There's a swiftness about her way of summing +up people from a single glance at their faces. Oh, you don't take Annie +in with a wedding-ring and a 'darling' or so—especially when the lady +asks the darling whether he takes sugar in his early morning cup of +tea....</p> + +<p>"Yes, you go and see Annie."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Drub-drub—drub-drub-drub——</p> + +<p>After a time that stupor of the ear became a stupor of the eye also. +Even when a match glowed before a face for a moment, the stage-like +lighting gave you no physiognomical information. The lamps shone on the +crowns of the passing hats, but the faces beneath them were lost; all +cats were grey. Any one of them might have been a giggling flapper with +her eyes still sealed to Life, or one of those others mentioned by the +too-curious author of the <i>Guide</i>, who would be dead to sight and +thought for a space that didn't count. Light frocks and darker hues, +bare heads and plaits and shawls and hooded dominoes, shop-girl and +high-school girl, caps and straws and panamas, pipes and cigarettes, +youths thoughtless and youths predatory—you paid your threepence at the +turnstiles and watched them pass and repass. Drub-drub-drub.... And if +you sat long enough, changes began to be perceptible. The flappers who +were evidently high-school girls began to be fewer, and others took +their places—for most of the shops of Llanyglo closed at nine or +half-past, and the released waitresses and assistants who had been on +their feet all day were still not too weary to add to the drub-drubbing. +It was difficult to say in what particular these were distinguishable. +It was not their dress—the universal attainment of a certain standard +of dressing is one of our modern miracles. You would not have had it +from their own lips—you would have been tactless in the extreme not to +have assumed that they also were visitors (as a matter of fact, they +would calmly make appointments for four o'clock of the next day, +knowing perfectly well that at that hour they would be giving change in +a cash-desk or hurrying hither and thither with piles of bread and +butter and trays awash with spilt tea). Perhaps it was the young men +they greeted and their way of greeting them. They didn't come out for +these last hours of the day to gossip with those to whom they had called +"Sign!" all the afternoon, their own foremen, companions, or the +tradesmen of the shop opposite.</p> + +<p>Drub-drub—drub-drub——</p> + +<p>There passed through the Season Ticket turnstile two young men. Both +wore dark suits and conventional collars and ties (as if they, at any +rate, had no need to don their coloured jackets and flannel trousers +while they could), and the attendant at the turnstile had touched his +cap as they had passed. One of them, the taller of the two, wore his +straw hat halo-wise at the back of his head, filled his pipe as he +walked, and looked cheerfully and unobservingly about him; the other's +straw was well down, and the eyes beneath its brim sought somebody or +something, and would apparently be satisfied with nothing less. The +first was Percy Briggs, and everybody in Llanyglo knew Percy +Briggs—Percy Briggs, who strolled casually into Hotel Cosies towards +midday, nodded to the more favoured ones, said to the barmaid "So and So +been in yet?" and, getting a bright "No, Mr. Briggs, not yet" for an +answer, lounged out again without having had a drink—a sufficient gage +of privilege and familiarity with the place. The other was John Willie +Garden, who knew Llanyglo, knew which faces had been there last year and +the year before, and was now looking for a face he had seen yesterday +evening for one moment only and had then lost again.</p> + +<p>The Pier was an old, old story to him now. Between seasons, on winter +nights, the drub-drub of a few months before seemed sometimes still +faintly to echo in his ears—this when the grey skies came, and in the +hotels a few rooms only were kept open for unprofitable commercial +travellers, and the Promenade was empty, and the Pleasure Packet Service +laid up, and a walk to the end of the Pier and back seemed a long way to +feet that had covered the distance twenty times on a summer's evening, +and the colourless sea seemed to give to the red and white blink of the +Trwyn Light a sudden and nearer significance. He knew every hour of +Llanyglo's day—the hours of departure of the pleasure-boats to Rhyl and +Llandudno and round Anglesey, the bathing-hours in the morning, the +high-school parade at midday, the second bathing relay in the afternoon, +the tea-hour, the walk of parents and children to see the boats come in +again in the early evening, and then, as the evening wore on, the +successive appearances and droppings out of this kind or that, the +emptying of the Pavilions, the inflow of the shop-girls and waitresses, +the rush for the public-houses half an hour before the Pier lights went +out, the thinning numbers who beat the Promenade, the parties of the +Alsatians who sat up in one another's hotels long after every public +drinking-place had been closed. He had nothing further to learn about it +all, and it bored him. Only his search for that girl had brought him on +the Pier to-night.</p> + +<p>He had been almost certain he knew her, but where he had seen her face +before he could not for the life of him remember. Perhaps he did not +know her after all; indeed, when he came to think of it, no memory of a +voice seemed to go with the face, so that the probability was that if he +had seen her before he had never spoken to her. She had been standing, +in that blue twilight, clear of the throng, under the single crimson +pier-head light, looking out over the water that seemed still to reflect +a light that had faded from the sky, and for a moment John Willie had +wondered what she was looking at. The next moment he had seen—and so, +confound it, had twenty others. A yellow spot, like a riding-light, had +risen out of the sea; almost as quickly as the second-hand of a watch +moves, it had become a tip; and then the lookers-in at the glass sides +of the Pavilion had run to see the rising of the bloated, +refraction-magnified, burning yellow horn. In that little running of +people he had lost her. Twice, thrice he had walked the whole length of +the Pier, but without seeing her again. All of her that he could now +remember was the carriage of her head and her plain black dress, and he +knew that dress, in this extraordinary raising of the standard of +dressing which implies the possession by almost everybody of two dresses +at least, was an uncertain guide.</p> + +<p>Another rattle of hand-clapping broke out as Percy Briggs and John +Willie passed the turnstiles. "Any good looking in there?" Percy asked, +nodding towards the Concert Hall, but John Willie made no reply. He was +as cross as a bear with a sore head. Twice already he had rounded on +Percy, who had proposed drinks at this place or that, and had snapped +"You go if you want—I'm not keeping you;" but Percy had replied +good-naturedly, "Oh, all right, keep your hair on."</p> + +<p>The sounds of two more pairs of heels were added to the drub-drubbing on +the planks of the Pier.</p> + +<p>It seemed idle to seek, but John Willie stood looking in at the glass +sides of the Pavilion at the pier-head, searching the bright and crowded +interior. His mind was as obstinately set as that of a mule. It seemed +to him idiotic that all those rows and rows of people should clap the +inanities of the young man in knee-breeched evening-dress who strutted +and made painted eyes over the top of a flattened opera-hat, or encore +Miss Sal Volatile, all spidery black silk stockings below and +cocksfeather boa and enormous black halfmoon hat above. John Willie +turned away to the low-burning crimson pier-light. He stood there for +some moments, and then began to stride back the length of the Pier +again.</p> + +<p>"Chucking it?" said Percy, half sympathetic, half "getting at" John +Willie.</p> + +<p>"Come on to the Kursaal," John Willie grunted.</p> + +<p>The Kursaal lay behind the two frontages of Gardd and Pontnewydd +Streets, and it could be reached from either thoroughfare. From Gardd +Street, up another short street, the great lighted semicircle of what +was then its Main Entrance could be seen; and if the minor entrance from +Pontnewydd Street was at that time less resplendent, that was because +the Kerrs' Hafod stood in the way of opening it up. With its grounds and +theatre and vast dancing-hall, the Kursaal covered getting on for an +eighth of a square mile; but a third or more of that was still in +progress of being laid out and planted—once more by Philip Lacey.</p> + +<p>Crossing the Promenade to the less crowded pavement beyond, John Willie +and Percy strode the half-mile to the Kursaal. There was a queue about +the turnstiles, but John Willie made a sign to an attendant, who flung +up the Exit Only barrier. They passed under trees with many-coloured +electric lights among the branches, and the slowly turning Big Wheel, +which made a quarter-arch of lights over the tower of the Central Hall, +dipped behind it again as they reached the steps that led to the +vestibule.</p> + +<p>For size alone, apart from any other consideration, the dancing-hall of +the Llanyglo Kursaal is one of the wonders of the North. It cost a +hundred thousand pounds to build, and since it can dance a thousand +couples, to seek anybody there without going up into the balconies is +like looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. The band was not playing +at the moment when Percy and John Willie entered; but before they had +reached the top of an empty half-lighted series of staircases the +distant strains of a Barn Dance had broken out. Then, with the pushing +at a door, it burst loudly upon them. John Willie strode down the +shallow gallery steps, made for a front seat whence he could see the +whole length of the vast oblong below, spread out his elbows and set his +chin on his wrists, and, once more muttering "You go and get your drink +if you want," began to search the hall with gloomy blue eyes, very much +as a boy flashes a bit of looking-glass hither and thither in the sun.</p> + +<p>Now when the Wakes people come to Llanyglo, and the pleasant family +parties yield place a little, and drive in the mountains more +frequently, and leave the Pier and Promenade a little earlier, and +gather more often at one another's hotels—even then that dancing-hall +is so vast that twenty different elements can be accommodated there +without mixing or encroachment. But that series of precipitations had +not yet taken place. That night all was homogeneous. Perhaps here and +there other contacts had sparsely "crossed," as it were, that fresh +blooming, as the white hawthorn takes on faintly the hue of the pink in +the spring, but that was probably rare. John Willie, had he had eyes +for it, looked down upon a wonderful sight. The hall was a creamy gold, +with bow after bow along its balcony tiers; without its other +innumerable clusters of lights, the eight arc-lamps in its high roof +would have lighted it no better than a railway station is lighted; and +the mirrors on the walls were hardly more polished than its satiny +floor. A fully appointed stage half-way down one of the sides held an +orchestra of thirty performers; walking across that wonderfully swung +floor you felt something almost alive under your feet; and four thousand +feet moved upon it that night.</p> + +<p>It was beautiful. The band was playing, slowly, as is the +dancing-fashion of the North, that Barn Dance; and almost every girl was +in white. The whites were the whites of flowers—the greenish white of +guelder-roses, the yellow white of elder or of meadow-sweet, the pinkish +white of the faintest dog-rose, the dead white of narcissi, but little +that was not white. And because of all that soft whiteness, faces caught +by the sun were browner, and hair that the wind had blown through all +day glossier, and eyes brighter, and perhaps blushes quicker and more +readily seen. And to the whole bright spectacle was added the +impressiveness of unfaltering rhythm and simultaneousness of movement. +The Colour on the Horse Guards' Parade is not honoured with greater +precision of physical movement than these disciplined feet, these +turning bodies; the pulsing floor itself answered to the delicate dip of +the conductor's stick. For two bars ... but look at them as they pour +towards you down the left side of the room. Every face is towards you, +forty abreast, and forty following those, and more forties, columns and +squadrons of them, coming forward as grain comes down a channel, as +graded fruit pours down a shoot. You do not see where they come +from—their turn is far away under the pillars there; you do not see +where they go to—they pass away out of sight again beneath you. They do +not seem the same over and over again, but all the youths and maidens of +the world, coming on and on, and new, always new.... Then you look to +the right, and instantly your eyes are sensible of a darker ensemble. +That is because you see, not faces now, but the backs of heads; not +gaily striped shirts and bright ties, but plain shoulders only. And they +pass away as they came, all the youths and maidens of the world with +their backs to you. Not one turns for a look at you, not one nods you +farewell. It is like your own youth leaving you.... And then magically +all alters. Two more bars and, as if some strange and all-potent and +instantaneously acting element had been dropped into the setting and +returning human fluid, of a sudden it all breaks up. It effervesces. +Every couple is seen to be waltzing. Two by two they turn, and your +youth is no longer coming to you nor departing from you, but stops and +plays. It stops and plays—for two bars—and lo, the other again. Once +more they troop towards you with their faces seen, once more troop away +with faces averted. The illusion becomes a spell. Coming, going, all +different, all the same, parallel legions with faces to the future and +faces to the grave—it is a little like Llanyglo itself. Suddenly you +find yourself drawn a little closer to John Willie Garden. You do not +want to look down from a balcony on all the young manhood and young +womanhood of the world. One, one only, will suffice you, and with her +you will come brightly down, all eyes and rosiness and laughter, and +with her go in a soberer livery away again.... But luckier you than John +Willie if you find that one. His eyes, practised as they were in +scanning the Kursaal throng, did not see her. The <i>coda</i> came; the vast +oblong well lighted up for a moment as a poplar lights up when the wind +blows upon it—it was the slightly wider swing of skirts seen from above +as the dance quickened to its finale; and then, as if something else +potent and inimical had been dropped into the solution, there was a +break for the sides, and the shining floor was seen again.</p> + +<p>"Damn!" muttered John Willie Garden.</p> + +<p>Percy, relishing the spectacle of John Willie on the hunt, was in no +hurry. "The arbours?" he suggested laconically as John Willie rose; but +again John Willie did not reply. For one thing, it was a little +difficult to see into those dark nooks among Philip Lacey's barrows and +planks and new larches and heaps of upturned earth; for another, he had +an assurance that she he sought would not be there.</p> + +<p>"Come on," he grunted.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Percy, with an exaggerated shake of himself. "Has the moment +at last arrived when we quaff?"</p> + +<p>But already John Willie had stridden on ahead.</p> + +<p>They took a known short cut through dark and obstructed windings, and +presently reached the side-door of the adjoining hotel. It had certain +rooms where ladies unaccompanied might get a drink, but into these they +barely glanced. Percy grinned. Should John Willie find the object of his +search in one of the other rooms, then there was reasonable hope of a +row. He had never before seen John Willie so persistently asking for +trouble.</p> + +<p>The door at which they paused showed a room crowded, bright, and full of +a lawn of tobacco-smoke. It was not a large room, but it must have held +twenty men and as many women, and you could have seen their like on any +summer Sunday at Tagg's Island, or any day in Regent Street, or on +Brighton Front. They sat in chairs of saddlebag or leather, and the +fingers of the men were poised over the large cigar-boxes the waiters +held before them, or else made little circular gestures about the +circumference of the little round tables, as much as to say "Same again" +or "Mine." Little but champagne, liqueurs, or brandies-and-soda seemed +to be to their taste, and John Pritchard might indeed have thought them +"very ritss whatever"; gold seemed to come from them at a touch, notes +at little more. Just within the door a very brown man sat with a plump +little lady about whose short fingers gems seemed to have candied, as +sugar candies about a string; and next to them another man admired as +much of his companion's shoes as could be seen for the champagne cooler +on the floor. There was not much noise. There was a good deal of +whispering about horses.</p> + +<p>A ring was widened for the new-comers about one of the larger +tables—"Arthur!" Percy called as he passed one of the waiters. "Bag o' +beer, and Mr. P. Briggs's compliments to Miss Price and will she please +come at once." They settled down.</p> + +<p>This was Percy's present humour—to drink pints of beer from a silver +tankard that resembled a tun among the gem-like liqueur-glasses, and to +make love to Miss Price, the fat and creasy and unapproachable +hotel-manageress. Perhaps he intended to convey that few other new +sensations remained to him at the end of his three-and-twenty hard-lived +years. Sometimes John Willie laughed at this posture of his friend's, +but to-night he thought it merely stupid and idiotic. He had come here +because he had thought he might as well be having a drink as +fruitlessly searching; now he thought he might as well be searching as +having a drink he didn't want. Percy was ordering the drinks +now—"Vermouth, Val? Cissie, your's is avocat, I know. Now, Johannes +Guglielmus, what will you imbibe?" Presently John Willie sat glowering +at a whiskey-and-soda. The girl on his left, whom Percy had addressed as +Cissie, made an arch attempt to talk to him, and then gave up the +laborious task and turned her back. Miss Price, the manageress, +appeared, and Percy began his stupid and facetious love-making. John +Willie wondered whether he had searched the Dancing-Hall thoroughly +after all.</p> + +<p>The table grew noisy, and there were appreciative grins from other +tables; Percy was trying to draw that disgustingly fat manageress on to +his knee. And, with the pace thus set by Percy, the whole room woke up. +The waiters began to move about more quickly and to call for assistance, +and there was applause as somebody opened the lid of the piano....</p> + +<p>John Willie sat before his untouched whiskey-and-soda. He was once more +wondering whether it would be worth while to return to the Dancing-Hall, +or whether she might not by this time be on the Pier. And again, and +ever again, he wondered when and where he had seen her before....</p> + +<p>Again Percy's silly joyous voice broke in. He was expostulating with +Miss Price.</p> + +<p>"Look, Cissie's sitting on Val's——"</p> + +<p>"Let be, Mr. Briggs—indeed I will not be pulled about like that!—--"</p> + +<p>"Then sit on Mr. Garden's—cheer him up—he's looking for Gertie, the +Double-Blank from Blackburn, and can't find her——"</p> + +<p>"There, now, Mr. Briggs!—Now I shall have to go and get a needle and +thread!—--"</p> + +<p>Somebody interposed.—"Here, chuck it, Percy; somebody might come in.... +Hallo, John Willie, you off?"</p> + +<p>For John Willie had pushed back his chair. He reached for his hat. +"Leave us a lock of your hair for my mourning-brooch," Percy's muffled +voice came after him, but he was off.</p> + +<p>Perhaps she would be at the Wheel....</p> + +<p>But she was not at that immense tyre slung with upholstered coaches, nor +yet to be seen at the side-shows round about. He left the Kursaal, and +joined the dense throng that made a double stream under the Promenade +lamps. He told himself he was a fool. She might have left Llanyglo +within a few hours of his having seen her—might be back in any of the +towns of England or Scotland or Wales by this time. But he did not cease +to seek. He reached the Pier again. Drub-drub-drub-drub-drub-drub-drub. +It was now solid with flesh, and indeed he had not walked half its +length when the closing-bell clanged. The glow over the pier-head +Pavilion went suddenly out, and so, a few moments later, did a hundred +yards of the lamps on either side. He heard the usual cries of +mock-terror. It was no good going up there now....</p> + +<p>Nor would she be in the Floral Valley. In fact, he had better give it +up. He had better clear out of Llanyglo for a bit. He was sick of this +dusty dance of pleasure, and the Wakes crowds would be here in a few +days.... He would go and fish up Delyn. The Water Scheme hadn't spoiled +the lake; they had only built a quite small dam with locks at one end, +and the grid of service-reservoirs was lower down. Sharpe had left the +hut. He would go there for a few days and have his bread and mutton and +cheese sent up from the inn in the valley below. He would tell Minetta +to get somebody to stay with her, and would go in the morning....</p> + +<p>He was passing the closed fancy-shop at the corner of Gardd Street when +he came to this resolution; and suddenly he stopped dead. Minetta!... +What was it that the thought of his sister, coming at this moment, +reminded him of? It was odd, but it had certainly reminded him of +something that had seemed to come near him only to escape him again +immediately. Minetta!... He saw Minetta daily. There was nothing new +about Minetta. She looked after the house, and if he wasn't going to be +in for meals he mentioned the fact, or sometimes didn't, and beyond +that, to tell the truth, he didn't very often think of Minetta. He +didn't suppose she would ever marry—wasn't that kind. He remembered +that years ago that genial idiot Percy Briggs had fancied himself +"sweet" on her, but that sketching of hers——</p> + +<p><i>Ah!</i></p> + +<p>John Willie, who had been still standing at the corner, moved slowly +forward again. He had got it.</p> + +<p>He <i>knew</i> he'd been right! It was a little boast of his that he +remembered faces rather well, and the thing that had perplexed him for +two days was now clear. In a flash he saw in his mind the Llanyglo of +the days of the Briggses and Laceys. He saw a bright diminutive picture +of deck-chairs and bathing-tents on the shore, and June Lacey and Wiggie +having their fortunes told. And he saw a gipsy child, with a head held +as if it had borne an invisible pitcher, and then a foot cut by a piece +of glass, and himself and Percy packed off home in disgrace, and Percy's +mother washing the gashed foot with water from a picnic-basket and +tying it up with a handkerchief. Then Minetta had come up, and had said +that she was going to make a sketch of the child....</p> + +<p>Ah! It was <i>she</i> who had stood under the red pier-light, watching that +cadmium horn of the moon that lifted itself out of the sea!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>II</h2> + +<h3>JUNE</h3> + + +<p>As it happened, John Willie did not go off fishing on the morrow. He +expected that Minetta would be in bed when he got home, but as he passed +up the path he saw a light burning high in the front of the house. It +was in the room beneath that date-stone under which he had once put a +sixpence, and that room, because of its high and uninterrupted view of +the sea, was one of the guest-chambers. He wondered who had come.</p> + +<p>His supper was laid in the dining-room, but he did not want it, and so +passed straight upstairs. As he turned along the landing to his own room +he heard a door opened on the floor above, and his sister called "Is +that you?" He answered, entered his bedroom, and began to undress.</p> + +<p>But he had scarcely got his boots unlaced when there came a tap at the +door, and Minetta entered. Her dark hair was in plaits, she wore a wrap +over her nightdress, and she carried on her hip a tray with two +claret-stained glasses and a salver with a cut cake. Evidently there had +been a girls' bedroom orgie.</p> + +<p>"Who's come?" John Willie asked, throwing aside his second boot.</p> + +<p>"June Lacey. You knew she was coming," Minetta answered accusingly.</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't—first I've heard of it."</p> + +<p>"You never hear anything when you're reading a newspaper. I told you at +breakfast this morning, and that she was going to wire the time of the +train. And you were out, and I had to leave everything and go and meet +her myself."</p> + +<p>"Sorry," John Willie grunted. He remembered now. "I mean, I didn't +gather it was to-day."</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope you'll manage to spare her an hour or two now that she's +here," Minetta said a little crossly. "I did tell her to come just +whenever she wished, and she didn't know the Wakes were coming on."</p> + +<p>"All right," John Willie yawned. "I was going fishing, that's all; but I +won't if you don't want. How long's she staying?"</p> + +<p>"At least a fortnight. So don't say I haven't told you that. And do try +to be in just occasionally. Have you had supper?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't want any, thanks. Sorry I forgot, Min. Say good night to June +for me."</p> + +<p>Five minutes later he had turned out the gas and tumbled into bed.</p> + +<p>Except that she postponed his escape from ennui for a day or two, June's +arrival was a matter of indifference to him. He had known her for so +long that he regarded her almost as if she had been a split-off portion +of Minetta herself, that happened to possess its own apparatus of speech +and locomotion. He could no more have said whether she was pretty than +he could have said whether Minetta was pretty. It was no trouble to talk +to June. As much talk as was necessary came of itself. He had only to +say "You remember so-and-so——" or "Like that time when——" and +conversation sustained itself out of a hundred trifles desultorily +familiar to both of them. That, at any rate, was a comfort. With +anybody new he would have had to take a certain amount of trouble. With +June it didn't matter.</p> + +<p>So, at breakfast the next morning, he did not actually read the +newspaper as he ate, but he threw out a remark from time to time as it +were over the edge of an imaginary newspaper, and then asked June what +she would like to do that morning. When she replied that she wanted him +to do just whatever he had intended to do, he even hoisted himself to +the level of a little ceremoniousness, and told her that he had no plans +at all save to amuse her—what about a bathe, the morning Concert in the +Pavilion, a drive in the afternoon, and so on? By keeping to this beaten +track of enjoyment, he could, at one and the same time, be entertaining +June and keeping an eye open for that gipsy girl who haunted his +imagination.</p> + +<p>"A bathe?" said June.... "Oh, of course! How stupid of me! I'd forgotten +there was mixed bathing here now. What a change!... Wasn't there a +frightful row about it?"</p> + +<p>There had been a row, but it had been short and sharp. Briefly, +Blackpool and Douglas and Llandudno had settled the matter for them, +and, after a protest for conscience's sake—and also a little more +well-judged absenteeism—even Howell Gruffydd, now Chairman of the +Council, and John Pritchard, a Councillor in his second year, had +yielded. A portion of the shore had been set apart for this "playing +with fire," but within a year even this had become a dead letter. The +only thing that now distinguished this portion of the beach from the +rest was a certain heightened jocundity in the advertisements on the +sides of the bathing-machines at that spot. The virtues of Pills and +Laxatives were a little more loudly announced there, and this +heartiness and lack of false shame culminated in a long hoarding that +was erected on one of the groynes, and bore on one side the legend "THE +NAKED TRUTH" (which was that Somebody's Remedies were the Best), and on +the other the words "TO THE PURE" (who were warned against Fraudulent +Imitations). For the rest folk now bathed where they would.</p> + +<p>So, idly, John Willie told June of the town's struggle between its +principles and its living, and then they rose from the table. When June +heard that Minetta wasn't coming with them she wanted to stay behind and +help; but Minetta persuaded her that she would only be in the way, and +that anyway she couldn't help her with her painting; and presently, with +towels and costumes, she and John Willie went forth and, after a casual +discussion about its being rather soon after breakfast to bathe, +descended to the beach.</p> + +<p>June was certainly a pretty enough girl for even a fastidious young man +to be seen about with. No neater shoes than those that moved beneath the +gypsophylla of her petticoats were to be seen on the whole Promenade, +and she held her longish figure trimly, and was almost on the "fast" +side with her little thin switch of a cane. She was an inch taller than +John Willie, too, which was another inch of smartness to be seen walking +with. He found her a bathing-machine and secured another for himself; +and when, presently, they lay on their backs side by side a hundred +yards farther out from the shore than anybody else, with the sun hot on +their faces and their eyes blinking up at the intense blue, they +continued to talk as they had talked before—of who had been to Llanyglo +lately and who had not, and of what had become of Mrs. Maynard, and +whether anybody had seen Hilda Morrell lately, and whether that London +man—what was his name—Mr. Ashton—had been heard of since. John +Willie, for his part, asked how Mrs. Lacey and Wiggie were, and told +June what a lot was thought of her father's laying out of the Kursaal +Gardens, and asked her when the work was expected to be finished.</p> + +<p>Then they came in again, dressed, and regained the Promenade.</p> + +<p>John Willie was surprised to find how quickly the morning went. The +Concert was half over by the time they reached the Pavilion, and when +the Concert was over and the drub-drub on the boards of the Pier became +incessant, June said that, build as they would, it would be a long time +before they built on the Trwyn. To that John Willie replied that he +wasn't so sure, and told her of how at one time it had been a toss-up +whether they wouldn't make a terrace there and build the "Imperial" on +it; and June's reply was that she would never have thought it. Then John +Willie looked at his watch, and at first thought it must have stopped, +the time had flown so. They turned their faces to the Promenade again, +and at a Booking Kiosk John Willie ordered a landau for half-past two. +Minetta (he told June) would have finished her work by then, and the +three of them could go either out Abercelyn way, or through Porth Neigr +and round home, or along the Delyn road, just as June wished. June said +that if she really had her choice, she would like the Abercelyn drive, +because it was years since she had been there, and she would like to see +how much it had altered.</p> + +<p>So out towards Abercelyn the three of them went that afternoon, and +June's eyes opened wide at the Sarn manganese sidings, and John Willie +told her to mind that gypsophylla of her petticoats against the +coal-heaps and grease-boxes of the wagons. Then back in the landau +again, he took a well-earned rest while Minetta and June talked. He +leaned back against the hot leather, and smoked and watched them, and +wondered, first, whether anybody would ever marry Minetta, and, next, +whether anybody would ever marry June, and then all at once found +himself wondering about the gipsy girl again.</p> + +<p>Suppose he should take seats for June and Minetta at some entertainment +that evening, should see them comfortably settled, and should then go +out for another look for her?...</p> + +<p>But, now that he knew who she was, he thought of her, somehow, ever so +slightly differently. He was no less set on finding her; indeed he was +more set; but part of the possible surprise and excitement had certainly +gone. Had he apparently not been destined not to see her again, the +thing would have been less of an adventure than he had at first +supposed. There would have been far fewer discoveries to make. It might +even have been difficult to talk to her. He could talk pleasantly to +June and be thinking of something else all the time; but he could hardly +have asked Ynys Lovell how her mother was getting on with her +chair-mending and fortune-telling, or have told her that he had heard +that her kinsman Dafydd Dafis had won the "penillion" contest at the +Eisteddfod....</p> + +<p><i>Ah!</i>——</p> + +<p>Again he had it, and, lying back on the hot leather of the hired landau, +wondered that he had not had it sooner. Of course—Dafydd Dafis. If +anybody knew where she was, Dafydd would know. <i>That</i> was what he would +do that evening while Minetta and June were at the Concert. He would +take a stroll to Dafydd's house (which was no longer the single-roomed +cottage near the old Independent Chapel, but a two-roomed one in +Maengwyn Street), and he would sit down and have a smoke and ask Dafydd +how all was with him....</p> + +<p>At this point he became conscious that June was speaking to him. She was +offering him a penny for his thoughts. Instantly he fell into the rut of +easy conversation again. It took him hardly a moment to find a topic.</p> + +<p>"Eh?" he said.... "Oh!—You can have them for nothing. I was just +thinking of that place of the Kerrs in Pontnewydd Street. I suppose +you've heard all about that?"</p> + +<p>"No, I've not heard a word," June declared. "Do tell me!"</p> + +<p>After all, it was but a step from his real thought to the narrative he +now told June. Between Dafydd Dafis and Tommy Kerr was now the +association of an all but declared feud, which would break out into open +enmity the moment anything happened to Tommy's brother Ned. More than +any man in Llanyglo Dafydd had writhed at that wonderful building of the +Hafod Unos, and since then he had remembered something else that had set +him darkly flushing. It had been Tommy Kerr (or one of his boon +companions—it came to the same thing) who, when Dafydd had returned +rapt after the first day of the Eisteddfod, had cast two-pence on the +ground and had drunkenly demanded a song. Yes, that remark, scarce heard +at the time, had come back since. They had offered him, Dafydd, their +dirty dross in exchange for Song, and had bidden him stoop to pick it +up....</p> + +<p>And that mortal insult had reminded Dafydd of an older memory still. +This was, that of the four Kerrs, Tommy had been the only one who had +not tumbled into that open boat when that chilling cry of +"<i>Llongddrylliad!</i>" had sounded on that stormy night years and years +before. That that had not been Tommy's fault mattered nothing; as soon +as Dafydd had remembered this he had felt himself released from the last +shadow of an obligation. It was another stick to beat Tommy with and +"beating him" now meant, as everybody knew, waiting until his brother +died and then "purring" him out of the Hafod, if not by fair means, +then—well, purring him out none the less.</p> + +<p>And that stick Tommy was to be beaten with was only the latest of many. +It was a whole history of sticks—of the Council's Sons of Belial set at +Tommy, collectors, inspectors of this and that and the other, policemen +to apprehend him for drunkenness, sergeants to warn publicans that if +they harboured Tommy they might be made to feel it in other ways.... But +lately they had withdrawn this last prohibition. Putting their heads +together, they had judged it best that Tommy should drink all he could, +and more.... He had done so, and did not seem a single penny the worse +for it. Moreover, he had now openly declared himself an abominator of +Welshmen and everything else Welsh. Nightly he zig-zagged home crying +out against the whole smiling, thievish crew, their Kursaals and +Pavilions and Dancing-Halls and Concerts Llanyglo. He lurched along +Pontnewydd Street after everybody else had gone to bed, roaring "<i>Glan +Meddwdod Mwyn</i>." How he had twenty times escaped breaking his neck when +they had laid down the Pontnewydd Street tramlines nobody knew.... And +whenever he remembered that they wanted his Hafod and would have it as +soon as Ned died, he offered to <i>give</i> it away to any Welshman who would +repeat after him, word for word ... but his forms of words varied +widely, and no more than the Amalekites could some of those against whom +he railed pronounce his words that began with "sh."</p> + +<p>So John Willie, as the landau bowled homewards, had to tell June all +this, and June was extraordinarily interested. Minetta watched them +both, and, in her turn, wondered about John Willie and <i>his</i> marrying. +She liked to have June to visit her; she wasn't so sure that she wanted +June as a standing ornamental dish. Indeed she rather thought she +didn't, and, allowing for many large but still accidental differences, +Minetta was not without a trace of the malicious humour of Tommy Kerr +himself.</p> + +<p>In fairness she had to admit, however, that so far there were no signs +that June was setting her cap at John Willie.</p> + +<p>That night again, however, John Willie had little luck of his searching, +this time of Dafydd Dafis. He sought him at his home, he sought him +abroad, but he failed to find him and he joined June and his sister +again where they sat listening to The Lunas, those incomparable +Drawing-Room Entertainers. He bought them chocolate and he bought them +ices, and then, at the end of the performance, he proposed a walk along +the Promenade before they turned in. Not to lose them, he passed an arm +through either of theirs, his sister's arm and that of this tall and +pretty and undisturbing extension of his sister. They set their faces +towards the Pier that stretched like a sparkling finger out to sea.</p> + +<p>It was the hour of the ebb, and lately, at that hour, an odd and new +activity had begun to make sharper that contrast between the bright and +crowded and restless Promenade and the solemn void that pushed as it +were its dark breast against that two-miles-long chain of gold and +silver lamps, straining the slender fetter into a curve. Down below the +railings, at three or four points, not more, an upturned face with +tightly shut eyes was praying aloud. They looked like little floating, +drowned, yet speaking masks. Each evangelist had his little knot of +three or four companions, but these had come with him, and of hearers +they had none. They stood on the trampled sand, just below the +gas-lighted line of pebbles; a boat drawn up, or a yard or two of +groyne, struggled between light and shadow beyond them; far out in the +bay the twinkle of a solitary light could be seen; the rest was +blackness and immensity. It made Infinity seem strangely weak. Here It +was, striving to make Itself known to the finite, Its sole instrument a +little oval mask and a voice that could not be heard five yards away; +and never a head was turned. Calling and laughing, the babel of their +voices like the rattle of the pebbles that roll back with the retiring +wave, they passed and passed and passed. One would have said that some +vast angelic skater had cut that sweeping outside-edge of light, and +then, repulsed, had rushed away into the darkness again.</p> + +<p>And this was something else for John Willie to tell this pretty, +unexigent June. It had only been going on about a fortnight, he said, +but he didn't think they'd heard the last of it yet. There was a Revival +or something coming slowly up the coast, he said, and—who did June +think was doing it?—why, Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd!</p> + +<p>"Never!" June exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Rather! You remember him, don't you? Howell Gruffydd the grocer's son; +pale-faced chap, with a great lump of hair; and by Jove, he is stirring +'em up! He started at Aberystwith, and worked his way up through +Aberdovey and Towyn and Barmouth and Portmadoc, with no end of crowds +following him wherever he went. I expect he'll be here presently. If he +comes when the Wakes are on there will be a shindy!... I say, aren't you +feeling a bit cold? Better be getting along home. I'll take you as far +as the corner, and then if you don't mind I'll leave you—I want to find +a man if I can——"</p> + +<p>Five minutes later he had got rid of them, and stood in meditation. Was +it worth while trying for Dafydd Dafis again? Or taking another stroll +along the Pier? Perhaps it wasn't. He was rather tired, and this seemed +a stupid kind of thing he had been doing for the last few days. He'd +potter about with June for another day—perhaps he had rather neglected +Minetta lately—and then for the fishing up Delyn. In that way he would +be off just as the Wakes people arrived. Already the lodging-house +keepers were getting ready for them, putting away their ornaments and so +on. They would be here on Friday night; to-day was Wednesday; John +Willie would be off on Friday morning.</p> + +<p>This time he kept to his decision. He walked about with the pretty and +untroublesome June all the next morning, and in the afternoon Minetta +joined them. She approved warmly of his fishing-plan, and said she was +sure the change would do him good. He told them to keep away from the +crowds and not to be out too late, and then, on the Friday morning set +off.</p> + +<p>When, at nine o'clock the same night, he walked up the path again and +appeared in the dining-room just as June and Minetta were thinking of +going to bed, Minetta stared. She had thought him miles away.</p> + +<p>She stared still harder when he mumbled that he had "forgotten +something," and intended to be off again in the morning.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>III</h2> + +<h3>DELYN</h3> + + +<p>He had not at first seen that black dress. Sharpe's old cottage was +never locked, and he had walked straight in, had put down his little +dressing-bag, and had begun to empty his pockets, setting his flask, his +fly-book, his store of tobacco and certain provisions on the little deal +table under the single window. At a first glance there was nothing to +show that the place had been entered since he had last been there. The +mattress of Sharpe's narrow pallet had been rolled up at the bed-head +and a patchwork quilt spread over it; the two windsor chairs stood in +their accustomed places; and the rods in their brown canvas covers stood +as usual in the corner. Only Sharpe's photographs had gone from the +walls, leaving the little black heads of nails and tacks, each over its +slightly paler oblong of plain deal boarding.</p> + +<p>Had not John Willie thought that he had better drag the bedding on which +he was to sleep out into the sun at once, he would not have found the +frock. It had been thrown across the roll of mattress and covered with +that old piece of patchwork. Nor, since it was folded in a square, did +he even then recognise the thing for a frock. Only when he had picked it +up and it had revealed itself had he stood, suddenly arrested, +alternately gazing at it and then looking obliquely at the floor. Then, +as he had slowly put it down again, at its full length this time, there +had peeped at him from half under the roll of mattress, first a white +linen collar with one of the little sham pearl studs that are given away +with such things still in one of its button-holes, and next a pair of +tiny cylindrical cuffs....</p> + +<p>Perhaps already, deep within himself, he had known that she was not far +away....</p> + +<p>Then, slowly and methodically, he had begun to search the hut. His +search had been productive of the following discoveries:—</p> + +<p>Thrust under the bed: A newish oval brown tin box (which he had not +opened), and a pair of black shoes.</p> + +<p>On the lower shelf of Sharpe's little provision-cupboard: a round +narrow-brimmed black hat.</p> + +<p>On the upper shelf, among cups, plates, and other odds and ends: A +seven-pound paper bag half full of flour, and a mug with some still +fresh milk in it—he tasted it.</p> + +<p>Outside the hut: A stone or two in a little clearing in the fern, a +stick-heap, the ashes of a recent fire, and a frying-pan.</p> + +<p>Then he had re-entered the hut. He had sat down in one of the windsor +chairs. He had been filling his third or perhaps his fourth pipe when +she herself had appeared in the doorway.</p> + +<p>All this had been the day before.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>As he now walked up that one-in-seven slope under the firs he remembered +again, for the fiftieth time in twenty hours, her appearance as she had +stood there. She had worn an old red blouse which she had not troubled +to tuck in at the waist, a petticoat of faded greenish-blue (no +gypsophylla there), and her legs and feet had been bare. And at first +he had thought she was going to run away. But she had only recoiled as a +cat recoils, yielding ground without abandoning it. He himself had not +moved. Move, and she might still be off as suddenly as a hare; sit still +and say "Hallo, Ynys, not much in the chair-mending line up here, is +there?" and she might stay.... And now, as he trudged up under the firs, +he blamed Llanyglo that he had not heard that her mother was dead. Had +Llanyglo remained a hamlet, or had it grown merely reasonably and within +measure, the death even of Belle Lovell would have been an event; now, +with towns in Lancashire half-emptied (he had seen it that morning, +Llanyglo black and boiling like a cauldron of pitch with the people of +the Wakes)—now such simple happenings passed unnoticed. Belle had died +a year before, but that was not the reason Ynys wore black. She wore +black because black was the livery of Philip Lacey's Liverpool +flower-shop girls. Black showed up the flowers to better advantage. +Ynys, after months of lonely wanderings and getting of her bread as best +she could, had remembered Philip Lacey's promise when she had cut her +foot that morning on the shore, had tramped to Liverpool, had asked for +Philip at his principal establishment in Lord Street, and now sold +stately blooms the poor hedgerow cousins of which she had formerly given +away, pattering bare-foot after pedestrians on the road with them in her +hand. She had been given a fortnight's holiday, and had come to Llanyglo +to spend it.</p> + +<p>As the path under the firs grew steeper still, John Willie wondered +whether she would have kept her word to him. He had made her welcome to +the cottage of which she had already made free, but that, he knew, did +not mean that she might not have packed up and fled the moment he had +turned his back—no, not even though she had promised not to do so. He +had seen enough of her yesterday to guess that her word given would be +an empty and artificial thing the moment her inclination changed; nay, +she might have given it with no intention whatever of keeping it, just +to gain a little time. Even should he find her frock and her oval tin +box still there, that would not necessarily mean that she would return. +A box of matches was her luggage. Except as a depository for these +things she had not used the hut. She had cooked her meals outside, and +had slept on a litter of bracken.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, John Willie had left the cottage to her, and, for fear a +stray shepherd might gossip, had himself returned home rather than sleep +at the inn a few miles below.</p> + +<p>He continued to climb, past rocks spotted with pennywort and trickling +with rills, orange and whitey-green with lichen and tongued with +polypodi, past crops of dead nettle and vistas of fronds, past dust of +pine-needles and debris of cones. Now and then a flutter of wings broke +the stillness of the aisles, but no song; and always he had the skyline +almost overhead on his right, and on his left, beyond the little grid of +reservoirs far below, the crisscrossing AAAA's of a mountain-side of +larches.</p> + +<p>She had not taken advantage of his absence to fly. He saw her as he +ceased to climb and gained the half-way fold that held Llyn Delyn in its +crook. She was standing outside the hut, but she was not wearing the old +unconfined red blouse of the day before now. The small spot he saw a +quarter of a mile ahead was a black one. He waved his hand, but she did +not respond. He saw her sit down with her back against the wall of the +hut and cross her arms over her knees. Three minutes later he was +standing beside her.</p> + +<p>And now that he had come he was not very clear in his mind why he had +come. True, he could have given a dozen reasons—the bursting over the +town of that flood of operatives he had seen that morning, his desire to +fish, his wish (as he now suddenly and rather startlingly knew) to +escape further attendance on June, and so forth; and these reasons would +have been precisely a dozen too many. Had all Lancashire been drubbing +on the Pier and she standing under the crimson light watching that +strange and dhowlike sail of the moon glaring orange over the water, +John Willie would not have been up Delyn. He had intended to fish, but +fishing was now far from his thoughts. And already he was aware of +another thing, namely, that while June had been no trouble at all to +talk to, talk with Ynys was a heavy business. Yesterday, every sentence +he had attempted had been as difficult as if it had been the first. Only +by a series of almost violent extractions had he learned that her mother +was dead and that she sold flowers (curious that they should have been +June's father's flowers!) in Liverpool. He supposed he must begin to +talk again now. He could hardly be with her and not talk. Well, if he +must talk, he would.</p> + +<p>"I say, you're well out of it all to-day!" he exclaimed, with apparent +heartiness. "They began to come in at eleven last evening, and they've +been coming in all night. Whew, but I ran, I can tell you!"</p> + +<p>She had been looking in the direction of the lake, which, however, she +could hardly have seen, so low did she sit; and he, as he stood, could +see no more of her than the straight white parting of her hair and her +tanned forearms and wrists about her knees. The black of her dress was a +sooty black, but you would only have called her hair black because there +was nothing else to call it. It was neither more nor less black than a +bowl of black lustre is black; it had a surface, but it had also depths +where you saw the sun again, and the sky lurked, and the green of the +ferns that grew about the hut. Had John Willie put his hand near it it +might have been dimly reflected, as it would have been reflected in a +peat pool.</p> + +<p>The sound of his voice seemed almost to startle her, but she did not +look up.</p> + +<p>"Hwhat do you say?" she said. She slightly overstressed the internal +"h's," and her accent was Welsh, but uniquely soft. As she had not +heard, he had to repeat his remark.</p> + +<p>"I mean those Wakes people. There are thousands of them there now." He +made a little motion of his head behind him. "It's better up here." +Then, as still she did not reply, he asked her a direct question. "You +didn't stay long in Llanyglo, did you?"</p> + +<p>"I stay there one day," she answered. A scarcely perceptible movement of +her forefinger accompanied the numeral.</p> + +<p>"Oh, then of course that was the day I saw you. Did you see me?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"You were standing at the pier-head, watching the moon rise."</p> + +<p>Ynys did not deny this. Neither did she confirm it.</p> + +<p>"Then you disappeared," John Willie continued, "and I couldn't find you +again."</p> + +<p>To this she replied after a moment.—"I went back to the house, and +paid the Englishwoman, and then I came away. In the morning I arrive +here."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean you walked all night?"</p> + +<p>"There is lit-tle night this time of the year."</p> + +<p>John Willie was silent. Only a week before he had left an evening party +at the "Imperial" to find the sun already burning a hole in the edge of +Mynedd Mawr.</p> + +<p>"And how much longer holiday have you?" John Willie asked presently.</p> + +<p>"Six days," answered the girl; and again the numeral was accompanied by +a slight gesture of her fingers.</p> + +<p>"And then you go back to Liverpool?"</p> + +<p>Complete silence was all the answer he had to that question.</p> + +<p>Then, suddenly, Ynys moved. She stood up. For the first time her +seaweed-coloured eyes looked straight into John Willie's.</p> + +<p>"You left that place early. You will be hungry. I caught some +fis-s—<i>brithyll</i>. I think she cooked now."</p> + +<p>She disappeared round the corner of the hut.</p> + +<p>John Willie would have liked to ask her why she had put on the black +dress and the black shoes, but something seemed to whisper to him not to +do so. No doubt she had caught the trout with her hand, in one of the +pools of a stream that slid and chattered under fern down the side of +Delyn, and he feared that did he approach her too suddenly even by words +she might be off, even as those trout would have vanished in a flash at +the least disturbance of the water by her hand. She had cooked them on +the wood; she had also made a cake of flour and water and no salt; and +she served the fish in a tin platter by the little clearing she had made +for the hearth. He sat now, and she stood; she brought also a mug of +milk, from the surface of which she took a tiny caterpillar with the +tip of a frond; and when he had eaten she cleaned the platter by +scouring it with a handful of fern-rot and then setting it in a little +stream with a stone upon it. Then they stood before one another again, +he with his back to the hut, she in front of him, her head always +superbly erect, but slowly turning from time to time, while her eyes +sought the lake, the line of bracken against the sky where the mountain +dropped, and his own eyes, indifferently.</p> + +<p>Then, unexpectedly, she asked a question.</p> + +<p>"You come to fis-s?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He said that he had thought of it.</p> + +<p>"There is wa-ter in the boat, but indeed I not touch it. I go and empty +it," she said.</p> + +<p>But he stopped her.—"Oh, it's no good now—too bright," he said. "Might +try in the evening. Sit down, won't you? I want to ask you some +questions."</p> + +<p>She curled herself up in the bracken, and he set his back against the +wall of the hut and began to fill his pipe.</p> + +<p>But instead of questioning her, John Willie had all the appearances of a +man who was questioning himself. He sat a little behind Ynys, so that +when she looked straight before her he lost her full profile; and he +moved no more than she. He was suddenly thinking how thoroughly sick he +was of Llanyglo.</p> + +<p>For if he had helped to make Llanyglo, and knew its lighting and its +watering, its building and its leases and its subsoil, Llanyglo had also +helped to make him. The drub-drub on the Pier, the inanities of his +friend Percy Briggs, evening parties that began at midnight and ended +with the sun high in the sky, complaints from his sister that she saw +him only in the short intervals between a coming home and a setting out +again—this had been pretty much the reaction of Llanyglo on John Willie +Garden. He was a very ordinary young man.—But here was a world peopled +only by sheep, the myriad insects that hopped and wove and chirruped in +the tall fern, the kites and curlews overhead, and the trout far below +the surface of the lake. His lashes made rainbows before his half-closed +eyes, and those eyes, opening again, could gaze at the tips of the sunny +fern against the deeps of the sky until the difference between them +became almost as intensified as the difference between dark and bright. +Spiders no bigger than freckles seemed to be doing important things +under their bright green roofs—for only the under sides of the fronds +were green and translucent: the fern on which the sun beat directly was +no more green than Ynys's hair was black.... And the sunny parts of +Ynys's arms were of the colour of a hayfield with much sorrel, while the +round beneath was as cool as the under curve of a boat on the water....</p> + +<p>It would have been part of the peace of that hot midday could he have +dozed with his head in the crook of that arm.</p> + +<p>Of other desire to break its peace had he none.</p> + +<p>And Ynys?</p> + +<p>She had seen those fretted parasols of the fern, meshed and lacy and +interpenetrating, a vast rug of whispering frondage—she had seen them, +or their like, since they had been no more than tender, uncurling +pastoral staffs, brown, with tiny inner crocketts not even green yet. +She had watched them unfold their weak fingers—yes, from Lord Street, +Liverpool, she had watched them unroll as a soft caterpillar unrolls. In +a cool and darkened shop, with the floor always wet, she had seen, with +those seaweed-coloured eyes, not the great queenly hydrangeas, nor the +burning torches of the gladioli, nor the fat and scentless roses, nor +the great half-pint pitchers of the arum lilies—she had seen, not these +cold grandiflora, but the celandine and anemone of the hedge-bottoms, +and the cool pennywort on the rocks, and the soft and imperceptible +change, day by day, of those mountains many, many railway stations away. +Those other great robed and wedding-dressed blooms? She had not +considered them to be flowers. Flowers were the sappy bluebells she had +pulled, white-stalked and squeaking, from the banks, receiving a penny +for them—but not in exchange. She had sold the hydrangea-things without +even seeing them. And her own weekly fifteen shillings of wages had not +purchased a single glance of her eyes nor a single emotion of her heart.</p> + +<p>And her eyes had not distinguished less between magnificent bloom and +magnificent bloom than they had between this and the other collar, tie, +and bowler hat who, his purchase made, had lingered, and had tried to +talk to her, and had come again. Young women who can see Delyn from +Liverpool can hardly be expected so to distinguish. These young men had +not even been, as the balls and buckets of Howell Gruffydd's shop-window +had been, beyond her reach, she below theirs. She and they might breathe +the same air, but they extracted different elements from it.</p> + +<p>Was that true also of herself and John Willie Garden, lying now among +the fern of Delyn—John Willie, whose clothes (even) were what they were +by a kind of artifice, and not, like Dafydd Dafis's, as if the cropped +grasses themselves had by some natural alchemy become wool, and the wool +clothing, that would be worn out by labour not far from the grasses +again?...</p> + +<p>Because he did not know, John Willie lay there, and watched her cheek +and arm, and forgot that he had said he was going to ask her questions.</p> + +<p>The silence lasted for so long that, when at last he spoke, she might +(he thought) have supposed that he had had a nap in the meantime. He +hoisted himself to his feet, stretched himself, yawned "Ah, that's +better!" and then added, "I say, you might show me where you got those +fish."</p> + +<p>Instantly, a gillie incongruously in a flower-seller's dress, she was on +her feet and walking a little ahead. But he caught her up and kept +abreast of her. They reached the boat, half in and half out of the +gravelly shallow, but she went straight on across a swampy little stream +that led to the upper margin of the lake. Presently it seemed to John +Willie that they would have done better to take the boat, for they had +to skirt a deep shaly spur the slope of which continued unbroken down +under the water and gave under their feet the moment they tried to +ascend it. At a point where she splashed a few yards ahead of him John +Willie suggested that they should take their boots and stockings off, +and he had a momentary fancy that the brown of her cheek deepened a +little; but she made no reply, and they kept on. Then, after more +hundreds of yards of walking and wading, they gained firm earth again. +They were at the bottom of a V-shaped ravine into which all the trees +and scrub of the mountain-sides seemed to have settled. It was known to +a few shepherds as Glyn Iago, and the stream came down it over jagged +stairs of purple slate and under dwarf-oak and birch, thorn and briar +and mountain-ash.</p> + +<p>Again it would have been better to wade through the noisy shallows and +round the boulders spongy with drenched moss, and again he suggested it; +but perhaps the deep gurgle of the fall they were approaching drowned +his voice. He went ahead, putting aside the worst of the brambles, and +he knew without telling when they reached the pool. It was long enough +to have plunged into, too wide to have leapt across even had the rocks +afforded any take-off, and it deepened gradually to blackness, and then +boiled pale and tumultuous again under the plunge of a twelve-foot fall. +Over the pool itself the sunlight glowed in spots only through the +leaves, but on one bank there was a sunny clearing of a few yards +square. Then the trees began again, up and up and up to the sky, a cliff +of leaves that shut the mountains out and the stream in.</p> + +<p>He let her sit down first. This she did where she could see the little +plants and mosses at the water's edge endlessly a-quiver with the tumult +of the fall. Then, sitting down beside her, he again felt that he must +begin talking to her all over again. His mouth flickered for a moment as +he thought of Percy Briggs on the Pier, and then he spoke.</p> + +<p>"If I were you I should move up here," he said.</p> + +<p>She was picking up a snail-shell to throw into the water. She turned, +extraordinarily quickly, and in the seaweed eyes there was a hard and +defensive look, instant, yet old.</p> + +<p>"It iss only my hat and my box," she said quickly.</p> + +<p>"Eh? Oh!—--" He laughed. "I only mean there'll be brakes and wagonettes +all over the place now, and anybody might come to the lake.—I say, you +didn't think I meant to chuck you out, did you?"</p> + +<p>"I thought prapss you want to fiss," she replied, turning away and +looking at the gasogene of black water again.</p> + +<p>He laughed again.—"Oh, no. I mean you don't sleep there, and nobody'd +come here, and I could get you a lock and key so that your things would +be safe. You could go there if it rained."</p> + +<p>She tossed the snail-shell into the water, neither accepting his offer +nor rejecting it.</p> + +<p>"Besides," he went on, "I know that if anybody disturbed you you'd be +off. Look here. I'll get you that lock and key. I'm off back to-night, +and I'll bring 'em up to-morrow.—But you will be here won't you?"</p> + +<p>Again—he could not be sure—he fancied her colour deepened.</p> + +<p>"Hwhere should I go to?" she said over her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Well—anywhere—Liverpool—anywhere."</p> + +<p>And again her reply was to gaze at the boiling of the air-bubbles at the +foot of the fall.</p> + +<p>But John Willie no longer wondered that he should struggle thus with a +conversation when there were rills and rivulets of talk waiting for him +at home at Llanyglo. She was not mute; there were a thousand +communications wrapped up in her very presence. She ran over with +unspoken meanings, babbled for all her silence. Her hair, nearly all +cool green now, as the black water was cool green; that unlearned +balance of her head; the curve of her cheek; those lovely, despotic +forearms—whether that least member of her whole sweet parliament, her +tongue, moved or was still, there was more of approach in all of these +than in June's "Fancy! Do tell me! And how's So-and-So getting on?" +These were the weeds, the dusty groundsel of words; Ynys was her own +vocabulary, every part of her a part of speech....</p> + +<p>And the theme? The theme that every corpuscle of her announced as she +sat there, listlessly tossing snail-shells and twigs and rolled-up +leaves and blades of grass into the water?</p> + +<p>John Willie was a very ordinary young man. In Liverpool, his eyes would +have seen very little but Liverpool. Perhaps that was why, in Glyn Iago, +he had not the perfect freedom of sun and air, of growing and dying +things, and things growing again, of moving water, of that essential +speech with this creature at his side that at the last has no need of +words. For, for good and ill mingled, they make shames and fears in the +Liverpools of the land, and codes, and suppressions, and the apparatus +of Conscience, and it is too late for you, too late for me, too late for +John Willie, to unmake them. John Willie had begun by questioning Ynys; +now, far more searchingly, Ynys was questioning him.</p> + +<p>And the end of her questioning of him was that he would have called +himself a cur had he as much as thought of not doing "the decent +thing...."</p> + +<p>Indeed it was precisely because he thought so resolutely and intently of +doing that thing that by and by he rose. It was only half-past four; he +could be home in two, or two-and-a-half hours; and for that matter he +was not in any hurry to get home. He was in a hurry now only because +Ynys spoke too much. She gave him no rest from her close inquisition. He +must answer those questions that she so pressed home or take himself +quickly off, to add (as he knew) the fuel of thought to that flame with +which he already burned.</p> + +<p>Therefore, again standing by her, he asked her one more question only.</p> + +<p>"You will be here to-morrow?" he said, his eyes anxiously on her face.</p> + +<p>What his answer would have been had she said "No," or had he not +believed that nod of her head, it is useless to ask.</p> + +<p>He left her still tossing the debris into the water.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He began to be aware of the change the Wakes people had wrought in +Llanyglo before the trap had carried him a mile along the road. Twice in +that distance he had to whip up to get through the dust of vehicles +ahead. He had been right in saying that the landaus and brakes and +wagonettes would be all over the place now. They were taking the family +parties back to dinner at the hotels.</p> + +<p>Then, still five miles from Llanyglo, he began to allow the brakes and +wagonettes to overtake him again. He had remembered that he was in no +hurry. Hurry would only mean the crowd sooner, the noise sooner, and +supper sooner, with the conversation of June and Minetta. At a place +called Doll he turned aside into a narrow lane that would take him by a +circuitous route into the Porth Neigr road near the stone quarries. +Then, sitting sideways on the seat, with his head sunk and the whiplash +trailing over the dashboard, he allowed the horse to take him at its own +pace.</p> + +<p>Of course, he could marry Ynys; there was nothing to be said against +that except that hitherto he had not thought of marriage. Marriage, in +John Willie's observation of his married friends and acquaintances, was +a quite definite and circumscribed thing, in which prospects played a +part, and settlements, and houses of a certain kind, and certain +well-marked changes in the bride's demeanour towards her still +unmarried friends, and a certain tendency to stoutness and baldness on +the part of the groom. Moreover, behind every suggested marriage there +lurked the question whether it "would do." His father and mother, when +he came to speak of marriage, would want to know whether it would "do"; +Minetta would have her opinion about whether it would "do"; and if it +did not "do," all his friends and acquaintances would by and by shake +their heads and say that it had been plain all along how <i>that</i> would +turn out....</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the case was complicated—not in principle (that was +beastly clear)—but by allowances in practise. Llanyglo had for some +time been far from exacting; it was now, in certain of its phases, at +any rate, almost exacting in the opposite direction. As many social +allowances were made for the young man who had something "on" as +liberties were granted to properly affianced couples who had got their +certificate that it would "do." Percy Briggs would have gone off alone, +with his hat on the back of his head and cheerfully whistling, at the +least hint that John Willie had something "on." ... But this that had +come so suddenly and overmasteringly over John Willie was a different +thing altogether. Here was not somebody who played a game of which the +rules and forfeits were known. That game, under one veiling or another, +might form the staple of the Lunas' Drawing-room Entertainment at the +Palace, or of the songs of Miss Sal Volatile in the Pavilion on the +Pier; but Ynys had not even known what she had turned her back on when +she had stood under the raspberry-coloured light, looking out at the +gathering darkness of sky and the still lingering gleam on the sea. +Warned probably, not by hearing and sight, but by some apprehension more +sensitive still, she had stayed to see that orange rising, and then, +before it had become a setting again, had been far on the road to +Delyn....</p> + +<p>Suddenly John Willie sat up and shook the reins.</p> + +<p>"No, damn it," he said.</p> + +<p>He began to bowl more briskly along the hilly lanes.</p> + +<p>It was after eight o'clock when he reached the quarry, and then for a +time he had to go carefully down the by-lane that the stone-carts had +deeply scored. But on the Porth Neigr road he whipped up again. Hearing +a sound behind him, he drew in; and when there had passed him a great +brake hung all over with Chinese lanterns and full of people singing, +the spell of silence under which he had lain all day was broken. +Thereafter sound merely succeeded sound. As he took the railway bridge, +a "special" roared past below, carrying more people to Llanyglo; and +before its red tail-lights had mingled with the other rubies and +emeralds of the line he had come upon the first couple turning at the +limit of their walk. Then came a large board with "Imperial Hotel" on +it, then a new horse-trough; then benches, then walls with placards on +them. A mile ahead lay the golden corona of the town. This began to +break up into single lights and groups of lights, and then, at a turn, +he saw the Wheel and the jewelled finger of the Pier. He could hear the +noise, an indistinguishable something in the air that was not the wind +and not the sound of the sea; and then at the first roadside lamp it +seemed suddenly to become night. More slowly he rounded Pritchard's +Corner; at the tram terminus the belated shopkeepers made a press about +the Promenade-Pontnewydd Street car; and from the open doors of the +"Tudor Arms" was wafted the smell of beer.</p> + +<p>Delyn and Glyn Iago were part of the night behind him.</p> + +<p>He did not attempt to drive through the crowd that suddenly thickened +about the middle of Pontnewydd Street, where half the road was being +taken up. One of the "Imperial" ostlers took the horse's head, said "All +right, Mr. Garden," and John Willie descended and walked. On the +balconies of the "Grand" and "Imperial," people stood and watched the +stream that descended to the Front. From the Kursaal Gardens came a +noise that presently the ear ceased to hear, so steady and monotonous +was it. Then, walking in the wake of a tram that moved slowly forward +among the street barriers with an incessant clanging of its bell, John +Willie reached the Promenade.</p> + +<p>It was thrice the width of Pontnewydd Street, and so there was more +room; but for all that it was difficult to walk at more than the general +pace. This, nevertheless, football-packs of young men attempted from +time to time to do, breaking their way through. They played +mouth-organs, and at moments, apparently without plan or premeditation, +suddenly formed into rings, feet pattering in clog-steps, eyes fixedly +on those same feet, their backs a fence to hold back the spectators, +while in the middle a couple of young men or a young man and a young +woman danced. Then, as suddenly as they had stopped, they were off +again, arms linked in arms or locked about the waist in front, each +figure a vertebra of a many-jointed onward-rushing snake. Under the +Promenade lamps they advanced, everybody else yielding place as they +came. The little rail-enclosed plots that lay between the pavements and +the hotels were magpied with torn paper and strown with lying figures. +They lay there, in meaningless embrace, moaning long harmonies in +thirds, hats decorated with penny gauds, eating nuts and "rock" and +chocolate, hardly moving when passers-by all but strode over them. +Probably they were discussing nothing more than "So I said to her, +straight to her face——" or the conduct of the shed-overlooker where +they worked throughout the year together and if the passers-by almost +trod on them, they, in return, half absently flirted the passing ankles +with whisks and penny canes.</p> + +<p>But if these lay like bivalves, torpid and content, another and more +active element had awoke in the throng. The Alsatians, had they required +it, were put into countenance now. One felt that they veined and +threaded the mass with something that worked as quietly and as rapidly +as yeast. They fed on it, drawing from it at last an open and confirmed +sanction for all those things they would not have dreamed of doing at +home. One met them here and there in couples, or in couples of couples +with the invisible link between each pair of couples drawing ever +farther and farther out, the women with shawls and hoods and dominoes +over their dinner attire, the men with restless eyes, quick to show by a +touch of hand or elbow that avoidance was desirable or a glance of +complicity no harm. Lamps showed these gestures of understanding between +those who could not have sworn to one another's names. Of the two +solitudes, that of the mountain-top and that of this press where ribs +could hardly lift, they sought and found the second. Perhaps—who +knows?—they were even grateful to those others who moaned those gummy +thirds stretched on the lamplit grass....</p> + +<p>And scarce two hundred yards away, under the railings of the sea-wall, +here and there a mask, with struggling breast and tightly shut eyes and +writhing lips, prayed....</p> + +<p>As John Willie pushed at the garden gate, the door at the other end of +the path opened and closed again behind Minetta and June. He met them in +the middle of the path and asked them where they were going. When they +said they were only going for a stroll he ordered them back. Minetta's +"<i>Oh</i>—how you startled us!—why, we didn't know you were coming +back——" suggested that she thought her brother might have spoken in +another tone; but John Willie was not thinking of tones. He was thinking +that perhaps after all he had no business to be spending days up Delyn +just at present. A stroll with him to take care of them—well and good; +but not two girls alone.... He said so, rather curtly, in the +dining-room as Minetta got him some supper; but Minetta made no reply. +Again she was thinking that June was a very nice girl, but it was odd +that she should twice have brought her brother back from his fishing +like this.</p> + +<p>John Willie, eating his supper almost savagely, had some ado to reply +politely to June's rills of pretty speech. He wondered now why she +should talk when she had nothing whatever to say. Only her tongue +wagged, and he hardly heard his own tongue wagging in reply. <i>This</i> was +not speech; <i>this</i> was not language!... "Not if I know it," he found +himself suddenly thinking, as June asked him whether the Water Scheme +had spoiled Delyn much, and said that she would like to go and see. But +Minetta said little. She only asked John Willie one direct question. +This was, Whether he had come back for good now. He replied that he +didn't know, and added some futility about fishing-weather and the +difference a night sometimes made.</p> + +<p>Minetta thought that the only extraordinary thing about his reappearance +was that he should have troubled to go away at all.</p> + +<p>June had one piece of information to give him, however. It was two days +old, she said, but there—if John Willie <i>would</i> take himself off on his +unsociable excursions like this he must expect to be a bit out of +things. But she would forgive him, and tell him.—Ned Kerr was dead. It +seemed (June said) that he had once given somebody in Porth Neigr a +canary, and reports had reached him that the canary was not doing very +well—had the pip or the croup or whatever it was canaries did have. He +had worried a lot about the canary (June said), and, a week before, had +been to Porth Neigr to see it. He had had a cold or something himself, +June didn't know what; anyway, he had come back from seeing the canary +and the next day hadn't got up. So his brother had sent for a doctor, +and of course had told the doctor all about it—Ned, the canary, and all +the lot. The doctor had said that <i>he</i> could see nothing the matter with +Ned (which was more than some of them admitted, going on sending bottles +of coloured water and so on and then a bill coming in for pounds and +pounds), but Ned hadn't said anything at all—he'd just died at two +o'clock in the morning. He might just as well have <i>had</i> something the +matter with him, June said. And all about a stupid canary!——</p> + +<p>Soon after that John Willie told them it was time they went to bed. He +followed them upstairs himself a few minutes later.</p> + +<p>But it was long before he slept. Perhaps he knew already in his heart +that if he really meant that "Damn it, no" he might as well stay at +home now instead of leaving June and Minetta alone in the house. And he +had meant it. He vowed he meant it still. The rusty light on his +ceiling, cast from the corona outside, did not prevent his seeing the +hut again—Glyn Iago—the black-dressed gillie who had tossed the +snail-shells into the water; nor did the faint and harsh and ceaseless +noise outside drown that powerful and wordless eloquence that he had +heard with some faculty other than his bodily hearing.... Then the +sounds grew thinner, yet louder also; fewer, but clearer in the growing +silence of the night. He heard a long-drawn strain of tipsy song, the +tinny thread of sound of a mouth-organ, and then a clock striking +three....</p> + +<p>But he must go up to Delyn on the morrow. It would be a rotten thing to +tell a girl to be sure to be there and then not to turn up himself.</p> + +<p>And he would take her that lock and key.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>IV</h2> + +<h3>AN ORDINARY YOUNG MAN</h3> + + +<p>He began to spend his days up Delyn and his nights at Llanyglo. To avoid +the shaly spur, he pulled across in the boat each morning from the +beaching-place near the hut to the foot of Glyn Iago, and she had his +breakfast ready for him when he arrived, which was between half-past ten +and eleven o'clock. As if his suggestion had been a command, she had +made her little encampment up the Glyn, fetching dry sticks from up the +steep wood; her hat and her box only remained in the locked shed.</p> + +<p>He did not cast a fly. Minetta began to ask him, when he returned at +night, first what sport he had had, and then why he always chose to fish +in the middle of the day. Then one night he returned to find his sister +showing June her sketches. For some minutes he affected not to be +interested; then, with a highly elaborate yawn, he said, "Oh, I say, +Min—what became of that sketch you once made of that gipsy kid—you +remember—the one mother once took in with a cut foot?—Best thing she +ever did," he added carelessly to June.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it got shoved away somewhere. Why?" said Minetta; but there was a +little quick dropping look in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Nothing. I just happened to remember it. It was better than some of +these."</p> + +<p>The next morning the sketch, unearthed from some dusty heap or other, +was on his plate when he came down to breakfast. Presently June and +Minetta also came down. By that time he was able to say, quite +composedly, "Oh, I see you found that thing. That's the sketch I was +speaking of, June——"</p> + +<p>But he wondered whether Minetta also could by any chance have seen Ynys +on that, her single night in Llanyglo.</p> + +<p>One rapidly advancing trouble was on his mind. He had not spoken to Ynys +of the passing of her holiday, but he himself could almost hear its +seconds ticking away. Soon two days only remained; the morrow, when he +would see her on Delyn again, would be the eve of her departure. She had +told him that she had taken a return ticket; already he seemed to hear +the whistle of the train by which it was available. She could take that +train either at Llanyglo or at Porth Neigr.</p> + +<p>On the morning of her last whole day he ascended the Glyn and found, as +usual, his trout cooked for him and keeping hot between two plates. He +ate it abstractedly. Again Minetta had remarked pointedly on his lack of +fishing-luck, but it was not that that was troubling him. He was +wondering, not for the first time, what explanation Ynys gave herself of +his untouched rods and buckled fly-book, and whether she too thought it +unusual that he should come so far merely to lie by the stream with her +hour after hour, or else, with a "Shall we go up there?" to ascend the +stream, skirt the wood, gain the open mountain-side, and toil for half +an hour to the summit. He had substituted no other pretence for his +first pretence of fishing. What did she think of it? Or did she not +think of it at all?</p> + +<p>Again that morning, when she had scoured the plates and set them in a +little rocky basin by the quivering moss, he proposed the mountain +climb. In half an hour they were at the top. It was a plateau of +volcanic rock, with scrubs of hazel, and bents and reeds and harebells +ceaselessly stroked by the wind. Behind them, as they sat down under a +rock, only Mynedd Mawr rose higher than they; below them Llyn Delyn lay +like a bit of grey looking-glass set in its little mile-long cleft. They +had raised other bits of looking-glass, too, in other far-off clefts. +About them the mountains rolled as if invisible giants were being tossed +in the visible blankets of the land. On the left only, far from +Llanyglo, a scratch of silver showed that the sea was there.</p> + +<p>"So you're off to-morrow," he said, when they had lain long. He did not +hide from himself the ache the words caused him.</p> + +<p>"My tick-ket say to-morrow," she answered, without emotion.</p> + +<p>He muttered something foolish about an extension.—"But I suppose they +wouldn't keep your place open," he answered himself hopelessly.</p> + +<p>Her next words caused him a marvellous pang of lightness and hope.</p> + +<p>"I think-k I not go back," she said, the seaweed eyes looking at that +far-off silver scratch that was the sea.</p> + +<p>Why did that pang at which he had winced instantly become another pang, +at which he winced no less? What was it that the eyes of his spirit saw, +far, far, farther off than her seaweed ones saw the sea? Her decision to +stay, if she really meant that she would stay, should have meant the +continuance of his happiness; what, then, should change it into +something like an unhappiness and a fear?</p> + +<p>He did not know. He was only an ordinary young man. He only knew that +over that moment, which should have been one of a care removed, a faint +shadow of an irremovable care already impinged.</p> + +<p>He had sat up, and was looking at her.—"You mean—that you won't go +back at all?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Indeed I think I cannot go back," she answered; and her imperfect +speech left it uncertain whether indeed she meant that she was still +unresolved, or whether to her, who had not been able to endure a night +in Llanyglo, a return to Liverpool would be more than she could bear.</p> + +<p>"But—but—what would you do?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I stay here lit-tle longer, and then I get wick-ker from Dafydd Dafis, +and mend chairs, like my mother."</p> + +<p>"But—but——" It was so new to his experience. "You mean you'd just go +from place to place?"</p> + +<p>"If I go to Liverpool I die," she answered.</p> + +<p>John Willie, torturing himself over this long afterwards, could never +decide what that subtle yet essential change was that came over their +relationship from that moment. It was quite contrary to any change that +might have been expected. But for that sullen "No, damn it," he might +have been conscious of hardier impulses as the term of her holiday +approached; but very curiously, it was now that he learned that it had +no term that he felt those hardier stirrings. It was exactly as if, with +little time to spare, he had wasted time, and now, with time enough +before him, he must lose no time. Perhaps it was also that growing +wonder what she must think of fishing expeditions without fishing.</p> + +<p>Or—or—could it be that that sweet clamour of her person had all along +shown patient intention, and that he, he only, had been dull?...</p> + +<p>But, more quickly than he had thought of charging her with this—(he +was only an ordinary young man)—he had to acquit her again. Certainly +she had not decided not to leave because, staying, she saw him daily. +She merely dreaded towns and disliked those over-glorious waxen +cenotaphs that were raised to the memory of the humble flowers she knew. +And he was still sure that at an unguarded movement from him she would +have fled days ago. At an unguarded movement she would fly now. He had +what he had only on the condition that, by comparison with his hunger, +it was and must remain nothing.... What then? Must he come, and still +come, until the wraiths of the mists began to drive over a dead and +sodden Delyn, and those tossing blankets of the mountains became hidden +in rain, and the wood of Glyn Iago became brown and thin, and the stream +an icy torrent, and Llanyglo itself as empty as a piece of old +honeycomb?</p> + +<p>He did not know, nor did he know how, without risking all, to ascertain.</p> + +<p>Yet know he must; and in that moment, forgetting his "Damn it, no," he +contrived as if by accident to touch her hand. But he was none the wiser +for doing so. As his hand moved with intent, hers moved innocently; her +fingers began to pull to pieces the little yellow flower she had +plucked; and he had not the courage to essay it twice.</p> + +<p>Nor did he, his broodings notwithstanding, find that courage again that +day. The sun crept round; tiny Llyn Delyn far below began to shine with +an amethyst light; and a quietude filled the heavens above and the land +beneath, so that the rolling mountains seemed to be no longer the +tossing of giants, but rather as if the giants, their tumbling game +ended, had crept under the blankets and had gathered them about their +heads and shoulders for the night. The sea and sky became a shining +golden bloom of air. They descended to the Glyn again. There they ate a +packet of sandwiches which John Willie had brought, and then he rose and +stood, irresolute. He must go, he must go.... She was setting her +stick-heap in order; her plain black dress, that showed off Philip +Lacey's superfatted flowers, was an anomaly by the side of the Delyn +twigs....</p> + +<p>"Nos da," he said.</p> + +<p>If the face she lifted had not been glorious, his thoughts of it would +now have made it so.</p> + +<p>"Nos da," she replied....</p> + +<p>If he still said "No," it was not with the sturdy expletive now. Chiefly +he now feared to risk and fail.</p> + +<p>He left abruptly.</p> + +<p>He drove to Llanyglo that night with a brassy sunset on his left that +sank to the colours of dying dahlias as mile succeeded mile; and this +time he did not turn into the winding lanes that led to the quarry. From +the main road to which he kept he could see Llanyglo's corona three +miles away. But it moved him now, not to the revulsion and distaste of a +week ago, but only to a careless contempt. Some aroma seemed to have +passed away from his dreamings. For the first time, he felt himself to +be an ordinary young man returning from the mountains where he had +something "on." This new slight bitterness extended even to his thoughts +about the perspicacious Minetta. Be hanged to Minetta. If Minetta +overstepped the mark he would very quickly tell her to mind her own +business. He had to pull himself out of his moroseness and to remind +himself that she had not done so yet.</p> + +<p>As he passed along the Pontnewydd Street he did not at first notice the +diminution in the number of people usually to be seen there at that +hour. Nor, as he sank into his reverie again, did it immediately strike +him that the greater number of the people on the Promenade were hurrying +in one direction—the direction of the Trwyn. But he entered the +dining-room at home in time to find June and Minetta scrambling hastily +through their supper. All the dishes had been laid on the table at once, +and their shawls were cast in readiness over the backs of chairs. This +time he deemed it prudent not to raise any opposition to their plans, +whatever these had been. Instead, he drew up his own chair.</p> + +<p>"Off out?" he remarked. "Well, I hurried back to take you somewhere. +Just let me swallow something, and then I'll come with you. What's up?"</p> + +<p>In telling him what was "up" Minetta seemed to make the most of some +advantage she apparently fancied herself to possess. If he had only +glanced at the newspapers, she said, instead of rushing off the moment +he'd bolted his breakfast, he'd have known what was "up." It had been +"up" in Llanyglo that afternoon—such a crowd as never was, and Eesaac +Oliver was to preach in the Floral Valley again that night.</p> + +<p>"Unless he changes his mind," Minetta added. "Of course it's part of it +all that he doesn't make arrangements. He'll stop in the middle of a +walk and begin to preach just where he is, and then at other times, when +they've made all ready for him and everybody waiting, he's praying in +his bedroom or something and nobody dares go near him. So they never +really know till he begins. There's only one thing he won't do——"</p> + +<p>"Eesaac Oliver?" John Willie began, puzzled. "Wait a minute——"</p> + +<p>Then, as Minetta once more tossed her head, he remembered. Of course. +The Revival....</p> + +<p>And what he did not remember he did not, in the circumstances, choose to +ask his sister. It would only be giving her another opportunity to +comment on his remarkable absences. He remembered much. He remembered +those rumours of the great spiritual thing that had broken out at +Aberystwith, had then rolled tumultuously up the coast to Barmouth, and +thence to Harlech and Portmadoc, and thence up the sky-high steeps of +Ffestiniog, and through the folds of those tossed blankets west into +Lleyn. He remembered—yes, he remembered now that his eyes were turned +outward from himself and his own affairs again—the preachings of Eesaac +Oliver on the bare mountain-sides, and his fastings among the rocks, and +his baptisms in rivers, and his liftings-up of his voice on the +outskirts of towns that had presently emptied to hear him, and his +calling on folk to turn from the wickedness of their ways while there +was yet time, for the Day of Judgment was at hand. He remembered these +things because at the time he had thought them rather one in the eye for +the Howell Gruffydds and the John Pritchards who, when the Council came +to debate such delicate but profitable subjects as licencing and mixed +bathing, had tactfully allowed themselves to be represented by the soft +closing of the door behind them. He knew what that interrupted sentence +of Minetta's meant, "There's only one thing he won't do——" The only +thing that Eesaac Oliver would not do was to preach within the stone +walls of their new Chapels. He held these bazaar-supported buildings to +be defiled, their Baptist temples places out of which the traffickers in +money and doves must be driven with scourges. It mattered not that John +Pritchard was a pillar, Howell his own father. "He that loveth father +and mother more than Me——" He would preach as the mighty Wesley +preached, from wall-tops, from the boulders of the stony places, from +the wheelbarrow, from the milking-stool, from the saddle. He would +journey and preach, and journey and preach again, four, six times a day. +There was a Door which, entering by it, gave his instant and flaming +Theme—the Door open to Llanyglo itself unless it would sink, it and its +Kursaals and its Big Wheels, its Lunas' Entertainments and its bivalves +lying under the lighted lamps on the public grass-plots, its Alsatians +and its greedy Chapel-goers, its harlotry and its cupidity and its +bright sin and its blasphemy of the Name, into the pit where it must be +destroyed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>do</i> hurry up!" said Minetta impatiently....</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later they were hastening along the half-empty Promenade.</p> + +<p>The Floral Valley was no longer as it had been when Philip Lacey had +plotted it out so neatly with his pair of compasses and coloured it with +his geranium and lobelia and golden feather. At its upper end, a +Switchback now humped itself like a multiple dromedary, and clear across +it, from a staging on one side to a staging on the other, was swung the +cabled apparatus known as an Aerial Flight. Philip's bandstand still +occupied the middle, but the rest, save for a few outlying dusty beds, +was as barren as a gravel playground. The Valley had held five thousand +people on the occasion of the Brass Band Contest; that night it held and +overflowed with thrice five thousand. Half-way up the ascending path +that led to it John Willie Garden saw that there was no approach from +that quarter; there was nothing for it but to take to the slippery grass +and the darkness, avoiding the bivalves open and the bivalves shut, and +struggling as best they could to the crest. There, with an arm about +each of them, he led them through the slowly moving outer circle of +people who struck matches and laughed and occasionally craned their +necks forward to look over the dense mass in front. By degrees they +gained the ring where, if little was to be seen, a word now and then +could be heard; and thereafter, by losing no chance of wriggling +forward, they reached a point from which they could see the bandstand.</p> + +<p>A ladder ran up to its roof, and up this ladder Eesaac Oliver and two +other men had climbed. The bight of a rope had been passed about Eesaac +Oliver's body, its ends running round the gilded spike that crowned the +flat eight-sided pyramid; and the men who crouched on the slope varied +the tether as Eesaac Oliver moved this way and that round the octagonal +gutter. The trapeze of the Flight hung motionless in the air above him; +the shrieking Switchback had stopped; and the slight white figure, so +precariously perched, turned to all sides of the vast speckled bowl +about him.</p> + +<p>"See who that is, at the right hand rope?" John Willie whispered to +June. He still had an arm about either of their waists, and he fancied +that June pressed a little closer to him.</p> + +<p>"No. Who?" she whispered back.</p> + +<p>"Tudor Williams. Expect he couldn't get out of it. He made a speech the +other day, all about Young Wales, a regular dead set at them, and he'll +sweep the poll after this. I don't know who the other is.—Listen, he's +turning this way now——"</p> + +<p>Eesaac Oliver's voice came across the packed still basin.</p> + +<p>"Cry aloud—spare not—lift up your voice like a trumppp-pet! I say to +you young men, and I say to you young women, that this cit-ty by the sea +shall not be spared, no, no more than the cit-ties of the plain were +spared! It smells of corrupp-tion; it is an offence in the nostrils of +God! There is more sin packed into it than there is drops of blood in +your bodies, and more wick-kedness, and more fornication, and more +irreligion. And those who should help, do they help? Indeed they do not! +They fill their pock-kets instead! I tell them, their own souls go, +perhaps this night, into the pock-kets of Hell! Aw-w-w, their bazaars +prof-fit them lit-tle there! Their new Chap-pils prof-fit them lit-tle +there! Their funds, and their balance-sheets, and their +foundation-stones with their names on them, prof-fit them lit-tle +there!—But I say to you young men, and you young women, that the Wa-ter +of Life is free. Come now, come now! Do not say, 'I will sin one more +sin and then repent'—perhaps you be taken away before that sin iss +commit-ted——"</p> + +<p>He turned again, and his voice became less clear.</p> + +<p>Perhaps John Willie and his charges were well where they were, high on +the rim of the basin. Whether with the pressure of those behind, or with +the swelling of their own emotion, many below were moaning softly, and +one or two small and hushed commotions seemed to be centres of fainting. +The inner ring, close to the bandstand, was hatless; the belt above them +was packed so that it would have been impossible to remove a hat; and +always about the uppermost circle matches twinkled in and out. Again +Eesaac Oliver's voice was heard, as if borne upon a wind:</p> + +<p>"—he that loveth father and mother more than Me——"</p> + +<p>"Is his father here?" June whispered to John Willie....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Howell was at his own home, surrounded by sympathetic neighbours. Sunk +into his arm-chair, he sobbed. Big John Pritchard tried to console him, +but he was inconsolable. He shook with his emotion.</p> + +<p>"My own fless and blood!" he sobbed. "To turn from his parents, that fed +him, and clothed him, and sent him to the Coll-idge, and gave him +allowance of twen-ty-six pounds a quarter, and bring him up in the fear +of God! Oh, oh!—John Pritchard, give me a drink of water if you +please.—And to call his father and mother sinful pip-ple! Indeed, Hugh +Morgan, you are happy you have no children! They know bet-ter than you +always; indeed the 'orld go on at a great rate, we get so wise! And the +Chap-els burdened with debt! There is half a dozen Chap-els for him to +preach in, but he say the highways and the hedges is his Chap-pil!... +Look you, he not even come home. I meet him in the street, I, his +father; and I say to him, 'Eesaac Oliver,' I say, 'if you will not +preach in the Chap-pils, then you preach in that field on the Sarn road; +you get crowds of pip-ple; it is a big field, and will hold crowds of +pip-ple.' But he turn away, indeed he turn his back on his own +father!... Look you: If he preached in that field, they find their way +to that field, look you, all those pip-ple—they learn the way to that +field as well as they learn the way to the sta-tion—and the Chap-el buy +it cheap—oh, oh!... By and by that field be worth ten bazaars—oh, +oh!... Blodwen, if the gas is lighted upstairs I think I go to bed—the +things that were good enough for his father and mother are not good +enough for him—this is a heavy day——"</p> + +<p>John Pritchard and Hugh Morgan helped him up the stairs to bed.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>June, Minetta, and John Willie left the valley before Eesaac Oliver +descended from the bandstand. As they walked along the now rather more +crowded Promenade Minetta seemed to be in livelier spirits; she +chattered with June; but John Willie was morose again. Again he was +wondering what would have happened had Ynys not chanced to pick a flower +at the moment when his hand had moved imperceptibly towards hers. He saw +her again, bending over the stick-heap and looking up as she gave him +that expressionless "Nos da." By this time she was probably asleep, +asleep far away up that Glyn, with the deep plunge of the fall for her +lullaby, the stars for her night-lights, and the sun over the wood-edge +for her alarum in the morning. Before the noises of Llanyglo should +awaken him, she would be lying flat on the bank, taking trout for his +breakfast.</p> + +<p>And, again and ever again, he wondered whether, had that attempted touch +of his not miscarried, she would have been off as the trout would have +been off at the falling of her shadow on the water....</p> + +<p>For one moment, just before he went to sleep, he seemed to hear Eesaac +Oliver's voice again:</p> + +<p>"Do not say, 'I will sin one more sin and then repent'—perhaps you will +be taken away before that sin is committed——"</p> + +<p>Then he slept, brokenly, waking at intervals to mutter "Damn it——" and +to think of her again where she lay, far up Glyn Iago.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>V</h2> + +<h3>THE DWELLING OF A NIGHT</h3> + + +<p>John Willie began to spend his days up Delyn and his nights elsewhere +than at Llanyglo. He too passed them under the night-lights of the +stars—for if she could go to bed by those candles, so could he. On the +first night on which he did not return to Llanyglo they peeped down on +him where he lay, gazing at them, a mile and more over the head of +Delyn, to the summit of which he had reascended after bidding her "Nos +da" in the Glyn. On the second night he put another mile between herself +and him, bathing in the morning in a brook the chilliness of which only +a little refreshed him after his night's tossing; he slept for three +hours that afternoon, with her keeping watch by his side. And on the +third night he lay among the fern, in her own old place behind Sharpe's +hut. She did not know that he did not return each night to that dusty +town by the sea.</p> + +<p>And now once again he was muttering to himself, fiercely and frequently, +"No—no——"</p> + +<p>June's stay began to draw to a close. Minetta suspected her of moping +for John Willie, and told her that he often disappeared for days at a +time like that. Sometimes, she added, he called it fishing.</p> + +<p>"But he'd be fearfully annoyed if we went to look for him," she said; +and she turned away and smiled.</p> + +<p>She smiled again when one morning June had a letter from Wygelia, with a +postscript for herself. "<i>A bit of gossip for Minetta</i>," the postscript +ran. "<i>Ask her if she remembers a girl from Llanyglo father took into +one of his shops. He's thinking of sending out search-parties for her. +She went off for a holiday, and hasn't turned up again——</i>" etc., etc., +etc.</p> + +<p>And so it was that John Willie, filled now with one thought only, came +to miss quite a number of things that went down into the history of +Llanyglo. He missed, for example, those first days of Revival in which +the town, self-accused of sin, strove to purify itself. He missed that +storm of impassioned evangelicalism in which Eesaac Oliver, walking one +day on the Porth Neigr road, stopped at the foot of the lane that led to +the quarries, suddenly threw up his hands, broke forth, and presently +had the occupants of a dozen brakes and wagonettes listening to him in +the great echoing excavation of the quarry itself. He missed, too, an +odd little by-product of that gale of spiritual awakening—the +black-faced group that one morning made its appearance on the beach, and +resembled a troupe of ordinary seaside niggers until it broke, not into +Plantation Melodies, but into hymns, one of which had a catchy pattering +chorus that told over the names of the blest ones the redeemed would +meet in Heaven:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>There'll be Timothy, Philip and Andrew,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Peter, Paul and Barnabas,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>James the Great, James the Less</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>And Bar-tholo-mew</i>——"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He missed that other great storm of groans and fervour, when the pale +young regenerator, mounting the railway embankment from a low-lying +meadow near Porth Neigr, began to preach before sunset, preached until +the stars came out, and then sent hysterical young women and overstrung +young men home in couples along the benighted lanes together, to comfort +and enhearten and uplift one another as they went.... And he missed, +among these and a multitude of other things, a certain rather famous +exploit of his compatriot, Tommy Kerr.</p> + +<p>He knew how Tommy had flouted and insulted Llanyglo, and how Llanyglo in +return had long been looking for signs that Tommy was drinking himself +to death. But neither John Willie Garden nor anybody else had thought of +the alternative solution of the inconvenience of Tommy's presence in +Llanyglo. This was, not that Tommy himself should fall one night and +break his neck, but that something should happen to the house that, +having been put up by the four brothers in a single night, was enjoyable +by them as long as they or any of them should remain alive.</p> + +<p>During Ned's illness, if that listless state in which he had moved +between the accident to Harry and Sam and the death of the canary had +been an illness, the care of the Hafod had fallen to Tommy; and that was +as much as to say that it had been cared for very little. Moreover, the +fabric itself was perhaps by this time impaired. The digging of the +foundations of the hotels on either side of it had done it no good, and +the constant vibration of the Pontnewydd Street trams had done it even +less. On a certain Sunday morning, some weeks before the sickening of +the canary, Tommy had taken it into his head to make a thorough +examination of the place, while Ned had dozed in his chair. That +examination had given Tommy a bad fright. Mounting a short ladder and +looking up into the roof-space above the single living-room, he had +found the loft far lighter than it ought to have been; but it had not +been the gap in the roof that had scared him so badly. It had been what +he had seen through the gap—the chimney-stack all tottering, hooped out +on one side like a barrel....</p> + +<p>With boards and baulks, an old pole-mast and other timbers from the +unsightly little backyard, it had taken him the greater part of the day +to shore the chimney up again.</p> + +<p>Whew! He and Ned had been sleeping under <i>that</i>!——</p> + +<p>It may be that there had been plotting against Tommy, too—or, if not +actually plotting, a great deal of quiet watching to see what would +happen, backed by a powerful desire that something should happen. Both +Howell Gruffydd and John Pritchard were on the Roads Committee, +and—well, it was obvious that Pontnewydd Street could not remain +unrepaired merely because these Kerrs happened to live there. Orders had +gone forth that its mains were to be seen to, pits had been dug in the +street and barriers erected round them, and red flags set there by day +and red lanterns by night.</p> + +<p>Nothing had happened.</p> + +<p>Then the excavations had been filled up again, and the road-metal carts +had come. The surface was to be tackled....</p> + +<p>So it had been that John Willie Garden returning one night from Delyn, +had seen Dafydd Dafis's road-engine drawn up for the night opposite the +Imperial Hotel.</p> + +<p>The engine had remained in Pontnewydd Street ever since.</p> + +<p>It shook the Hafod as if it had been brought there expressly for its +destruction. During the very first hour of its slow and ponderous +passing backwards and forwards, Tommy's newly cobbled chimney had given +a not very loud crack, and, like a heavy sleeper, had settled down into +a more comfortable shape. Tommy had come out, and had hailed the man who +walked in front of the machine with a red flag. Nervously, almost +politely, he had asked him how long they were likely to be. The man had +replied that they had orders to "make a job of it." Then Tommy had seen +Dafydd Dafis's face, watching him from the cab.... Half an hour later he +had met Howell Gruffydd in the Marine Arcade. The Chairman of the +Council had stopped. He had patted the shoulder of the common enemy +gently with his hand, and his smile had been odiously affable.</p> + +<p>"Well, Thomas Kerr," he had said, "how are you? I hear there is +improvements at Plas Kerr; you have a grand road to your house soon, +whatever! I think we have to assess you higher. How are you, Thomas +Kerr?"</p> + +<p>Kerr had hated the Welshman's fine, small, regular teeth. They were +false, but by no means the falsest thing about his mouth. As he had made +to move away Howell had continued.</p> + +<p>"I hope Dafydd Dafis does not incommode you with the road-engine, Thomas +Kerr? He has orders not to be a nuis-ance to the town. 'Drive as gently +as you can, Dafydd Dafis' is his orders.... You are off to the Marine +Hotel now, Thomas Kerr? Dear me, it is a curious fas-cin-ation such +places have for some pip-ple! Would it not be bet-ter to come to the +Chap-pel on Sundays?... Thomas Kerr." (Tommy had been shuffling +miserably away.) "Excuse me, Thomas Kerr, but you lose your handkerchief +if you are not careful!"</p> + +<p>And at this reminder that he had intended to button up his pockets in +the presence of his foe, Tommy had been wellnigh ready to weep.</p> + +<p>And then Ned had died....</p> + +<p>There was a good deal of "edge," or vanity, or self-esteem, or conceit, +or whatever you like to call it, about Tommy Kerr. He knew now that that +road-engine would not be taken off as long as his crazy house stood, and +he was stung and mortified that a few beggarly Welshmen, backed by a +pettifogging Railway Company or two, with Kursaals Limited, a miserable +District Council, a Pleasure Boats' Amalgamation, a few Hotel Syndicates +and other such trifles, should be able to beat him. He felt very lonely +without Ned. He would have liked to see Lancashire again, particularly +Rochdale, his own town. He wanted to walk its hilly streets, and to see +the Asbestos Factory again, and Hollingworth Lake. He would almost +rather be found dead there than continue to live among these indigo +mountains and pink hotels and chrome-yellow sands.</p> + +<p>And so he set about his exploit.</p> + +<p>At the very outset they tried once more to baulk him. For the thing that +he intended to do certain timbers were necessary, and at six o'clock one +night he passed, none too steadily, to a timber-merchant's, and gave an +order to a clerk. The clerk smiled, and sent for his principal. Kerr +pointed to various pieces in the yard. "Ye can send that—an' that—an' +that t'other," he said thickly; "ye can get 'em out now—I'll fetch a +cart." Then, looking at the builder's face, he saw that he too, like the +clerk, was smiling....</p> + +<p>There was no need of words. Howell Gruffydd had been beforehand with him +again. If one builder refused to sell to him, so, he knew, would all the +others. He was wasting precious time with builders.</p> + +<p>How many inns he had been to that day he could not have told, but he now +felt the heart in him again. They thought they could dish Tommy Kerr +like that, did they? Well, he would show them.... He lurched away to the +"Lancashire Rose," in Gardd Street, and then crossed to the "Trafford." +But at neither of them did he stay very long. He left the "Trafford" at +a little after eight, three hours before he needed to have done so. He +wanted those three hours. He also wanted all the hours he could get +between then and sunrise.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>No sober man would have dreamed of attempting it; but sobriety and large +deeds do not always go hand in hand. Neither do large deeds and very +clear thinking—which, stout hearts being commoner than unmuddled +brains, is lucky for us. Through Kerr's bemused head ran one thought and +one thought only, namely, that the Hafod had been built by himself and +his three brothers in a night—built in a night—built in a night——</p> + +<p>If it had been built in a night it could be rebuilt in a night——</p> + +<p>It had taken four of them to build it, but the rebuilding ought not to +be nearly so heavy a job——</p> + +<p>He would show them he did not come from Lancashire for nothing!</p> + +<p>But before entering his dwelling that night he committed an act of +theft. That damned road-engine had again been left drawn up opposite the +Imperial Hotel, and Tommy, fumbling under the tarpaulin that covered it, +stole something from the cab. He chuckled as he seemed to see again +Dafydd Dafis's cat-like face looking at him round the fly-wheel. <i>He'd</i> +show Dafydd Dafis!——</p> + +<p>He entered his house and locked the door behind him.</p> + +<p>He had formed no plan, but yet, somehow, he was conscious of a plan, and +a reasonably clear one. Where it had come from he did not know; it was +as if he heard again, somewhere in the air quite near, the voices of his +brothers again, saying, in the loved Ratchet accents, "Never heed that, +Sam—here's where th' strain comes—we'll do th' paperin' and put a pot +o' geraniums i' th' window after." He saw these vital points and +master-members of his plan as if they had been marked in his mind in +red. He had not to stop to reason about them. He knew—dead Ned seemed +to tell him—that the wall between the living-room and the scullery +might stand. He knew—he seemed to have it from Sam—that the whole of +the street-frontage was sound. The ends, near the two hotels, were the +danger-points; most perilous of all was the main beam under the lately +propped chimney. The chimney must be taken down first of all. "To +lighten th' beam, ye see," Harry's voice seemed to sound; "nay, donnot +fiddle wi' it—shove it ovver into th' alley—we're pushed for time——"</p> + +<p>So, whether you call it drink, or whatever you call it, Tommy did not +set to work quite unassisted.</p> + +<p>At the very beginning he almost came to grief. This was over the +chimney, that essential member of the dwelling up whose throat the +comfortable smoke had passed on that far-off morning as a token of +habitation before the eyes of astonished little Llanyglo. He had climbed +out on to the perilous roof and had begun to "study" how best to take it +down; then, as cautiously he had unlashed and removed the baulks and the +pole-mast, the chimney had suddenly thrust out its stomach at him. His +heart gave a jump, and in a twink he had set his back against it, +grasping a rope to check his heave.... But the chimney would neither +stand, nor yet fall as he wished it to fall, over the end of the Hafod +into the side-alley. It wanted to fall inwards, over Tommy's head. He +thought his agonised effort would never end.... But end it did. He felt +the release of weight. The thing hung poised for a moment, and then....</p> + +<p>He was once more down in his kitchen before the windows which had been +flung up in the two hotels had closed again. No doubt they had been +waiting for days for that crash. They did not know that the scandalous +Tommy himself had caused it. The ghost of a malicious smile crossed his +face. "Sucks," he muttered, "for Gruffydd."</p> + +<p>Then, at eleven o'clock at night, he fell to his house-breaking.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Kerr?" said the author of the <i>Sixpenny Guide</i>, when asked about this. +"I suppose you mean Tommy Kerr? Yes, I remember him.—His cottage? That +Hafod Unos place?—Yes, it's perfectly true. He did pull it down or put +it up again in one night, or at any rate something like it. An uncouth +little animal he was; a drunken little beast; still, he did this. Made +quite a job of it too.—How? That I can't tell you. But I saw the place +the next morning, and it seems to me that at one time during the night +both the ends and half the back must have been as open as an empty +rick-shed. Of course the whole thing was altogether preposterous. Six +men's work. I was staying a little farther up the road, and by daybreak +there must have been a thousand people in Pontnewydd Street. Nobody +lifted a finger. They just watched. He wasn't to be seen mostly; he was +busy inside; but when he did come out he never turned his head.—Sober? +Impossible to say. And of course he didn't quite finish the job. But +you've heard the rest."</p> + +<p>The rest was as follows:</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>By three o'clock in the morning Tommy was neither drunk nor sober. He +was a will and a piece of muscular apparatus, the two things quite +separate, yet working together with never a jerk to mar the harmony. As +a worn-out old machine will continue to run provided it is not +interrupted, so Kerr worked, in a state to which the only fatal thing +would have been to stop. The Tommy Kerr Llanyglo knew was a base thing, +senseless as the lime and stone through which his chisel drove (with a +fearful racket), obstinate as the beams under which he hammered his +wedges; but this was another Tommy Kerr—somehow the name yet somehow +another—a Kerr who might have been imagined to mutter, as he laboured, +that it was a gradely night for a titanic act—that he came from +Lancashire, where men did impossible things as a matter of course—and +that if any Welshman would pocket his pride and ask him, he would pull +down and put up again their whole blasted flashy town for them while he +was about it.</p> + +<p>And perhaps he was not really patching up his tottering cottage at all +that night. Perhaps he was rather doing one of those useless and +splendid things that alone among man's contrivances do not crumble and +fall. Perhaps he was doing in his ruined Hafod pretty much the same +thing that Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd did from bandstands and railway +embankments and rocks and bedroom windows—setting up an ideal, and +bidding men remember, though they might never attain, to strive. Or +perhaps he was working from the most religious motive known to man—to +please himself, trusting that if he did so he might please Something +greater than himself. If so, his idea might have had grandeur, but that +grandeur was curiously expressed. For he did not cease to grunt from +time to time, as his face became grimy and then washed clean again with +perspiration: "Damned Treacle-tongue! I'll <i>sew</i> my pockets up next +time! Owd false-teeth—their road-engines—him an' his new brolly!—--"</p> + +<p>By four o'clock twenty road-engines could not have shaken down the beam +on the chimney side of the house, and without another look at it he +turned to the other wall. It was Ned's remembered voice that bade him +hasten. As he tackled the second beam he grew quite chatty with Ned. It +was Ned who kept him to those red-marked crucial points, and told him +that he needn't bother about the walls, for the ceiling-sheets would do +to cram into the interstices, and that, if he made haste, the golden +days would come again when he had mocked at all Welshmen, and had had on +the hip the Railway Companies and Kursaals and Hotels and Steamboats +that had done their utmost to get rid of him.</p> + +<p>It was soon after this that he became conscious of other whispers than +Ned's. At last he had seen the crowd gathered in Pontnewydd Street. But +by this time he had ripped his ceiling-cloth down, and the grey incoming +day was suddenly darkened again as he ploughed across the talus of +debris and made a wall of cloth, fastening it anywise from beam to beam. +Ned said that that was quite good enough. You never caught wise old Ned +napping. Tommy Kerr had been very fond of his brother Ned. He had gone +ratting with him, and alder-cutting, and he remembered a whippet Ned +had once had, a rare dog for nipping 'em as they turned, and a canary +too....</p> + +<p>Then Tommy Kerr's brain, which for more than seven hours had been as +steady as a sleeping top, gave a little wobble. This was as he paused in +the middle of the floor of his incredible house. There was something +else he had to do; what was it?... <i>What</i> was it, now?... He knew there +was something else he had to do....</p> + +<p>He would have done better to begin his work all over again than to stop +and think.</p> + +<p>What ... ah yes, he remembered! He remembered and chuckled. Why, he had +been on the point of forgetting the cream of the whole joke!——</p> + +<p>He stooped by the rounded grey mound of lime and plaster that +represented his bed, but his knees gave, and he came with a little thump +to the floor. But he rolled over on his side, and his fingers found what +they sought, and after a few minutes he rose again. In his hand was the +red flag he had stolen from the cab of Dafydd Dafis's road-engine. That +was to go up where his chimney had been, that chimney that had emitted +that first smoke on that far-off first morning. The town, when it awoke, +must on no account miss <i>that</i>. Tommy Kerr wanted to see the faces of +Howell Gruffydd, John Pritchard, Dafydd Dafis and Co. when they saw that +flag....</p> + +<p>He tottered to the ladder that ran up into the loft.</p> + +<p>He fell twice from the lower rungs of it, but a foot of lime made his +fall soft. He mounted to the top, and crawled on his belly across the +open rafters of the loft. He did not know how he got out on to the roof; +it seemed to him that he lay below for a long time, gazing up through a +gap at the paling sky and wondering how it was to be done, and then +miraculously found himself where he wished to be. Then he got on his +feet.</p> + +<p>Then he saw them, the people in the street below. He had again forgotten +they were there. So much the better; they should see him do it. Then +he'd give a shout that should wake all Wales, and—and—by that time the +pubs ought to be opening....</p> + +<p>But the little hand-staff of the flag was not long enough to please him. +He wanted a longer one, to make more of a show. It took a whole tree to +carry the flag over the Kursaal Dancing Rooms there. It was stupid of +Tommy not to have thought of that—not to have brought one up from +below, where there were plenty—yes, plenty——</p> + +<p>As it happened, he did not need the stick. It all came about very softly +and gently. He was standing up, again looking about for a longer stick, +when once more his brain gave a wobble. The watchers below saw him lean, +as formerly his chimney had leaned, only now Tommy Kerr leaned the other +way——</p> + +<p>And so gently did he come over, and so comparatively short a distance +had he to fall, that you would have sworn it did not hurt him very much. +He stuck to the little square of red calico at the end of the short +staff; it was still in his hand when they picked him up from the heap of +chimney-bricks that choked the little alley where the principal entrance +to the Kursaal Gardens now is.</p> + +<p>Ancient Mrs. Pritchard, when she heard of it, baa-ed, and said that folk +came and went—came and went——</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>VI</h2> + +<h3>THE GLYN</h3> + + +<p>From sleeping badly, John Willie Garden had passed to sleeping hardly at +all. From that same fear of startling her, he still did not appear in +the Glyn much before his accustomed hour (though there had been times +without number when he had resolved otherwise); instead, he wandered +about, a mile, two miles away, sometimes setting himself a distant point +to walk to, on his return from which it would surely be time he was +seeking her. On the first two mornings of his absence from home he had +not shaved; then he had decided that that would never do, and has sent +somebody from the inn below to fetch him a bag. With the bag had come a +short note from Minetta. It had merely said that June was leaving on the +following Saturday, and that after that day she would be alone in the +house.</p> + +<p>He now wished he had not asked Minetta to show June that sketch. She had +put it on his breakfast-plate for all the world as if <i>he</i> had wished to +see it, instead of merely to show June how much better it was than the +others. He didn't think that Minetta cared in the least how he spent his +time, but she was so sharp, and queer as well as sharp. She watched +things without taking any part in them. The more self-absorbed the +actors showed themselves, the more keenly interested Minetta became. In +many respects she took after her father. Edward Garden too had that +habit of poking and prying into people's tastes and enjoyments and +passions and desires, noting and understanding them while remaining +himself inaccessible to such weaknesses. It wouldn't greatly have +surprised John Willie to learn that Minetta guessed what he was about up +Delyn.</p> + +<p>The curious thing was that, if that were so, he didn't think that +Minetta would disapprove. She would look as it were over the tops of a +pair of imaginary glasses, and under them, and finally through them, and +her ironical glance would say as plainly as words, "This seems to be a +love-affair." She would neither disapprove nor approve, or, if she did +approve, it would be of his provision of entertainment for her. Her +disapproval would appear only if John Willie involved her in something +that would not "do."</p> + +<p>This brought John Willie straightway back face to face with his old and +torturing dilemma, of having something "on"—but something that would +not "do."</p> + +<p>A hundred times he had fought it out, and a hundred times he had come to +the conclusion that, while Minetta might resemble her not quite human +father, he, John Willie, was his mother's son. His mother would have +been entirely for that "No" that a hundred times had gained the day. +After each of these victories he had been on the point of turning his +back on the mountains and of not returning as long as he knew her to be +there. These impulses had now nothing to do with his fear of startling +her. They were born of that stiff and indispensable code. He had only to +thank her for a few breakfasts, to tell her he was going, to wish her +well, and all would be over. He found rest in the thought. He might +suffer an ache or two afterwards, but it would be the best way out. It +had been his first impulse, and it had proved to be his last +conclusion. He would consider it settled so. It would be much the best +course to act like an ordinary young man.</p> + +<p>For several days he had said that.</p> + +<p>He said it again on the morning when he shaved off half a week's growth +of beard.</p> + +<p>Once more he had slept within a stone's-throw of the hut. There had been +light showers during the night, but hardly enough to call a break of the +weather; the drops twinkled on fern and grass and spiders'-webs and tiny +flowers, but the ground was still as dry as tinder. As he shaved, with +the little mirror of his dressing-bag hung on a hazel, he reflected that +it was only half-past seven, and that the Llyn ought to be a good colour +for fishing. There would be plenty of time for a cast or two before +saying good-bye. But his rod was in the locked hut, of which she had the +key. No matter. Since he had now come to his decision, it would make no +difference did he seek her in the Glyn a little earlier than usual. He +would then be able to get away earlier in order to say good-bye to the +neglected June.</p> + +<p>He was heartily glad it was all over. The only possible course seemed so +plain that he wondered now what he had been tormenting himself about all +this time. Smiling a little, he even thought of all the awkwardnesses +and dissimulations and machinations and deceits he was by one stroke +escaping. He <i>would</i> have felt rather a brute had he come upon Dafydd +Dafis one day, and asked him how he was getting on, and, casually, what +had become of that little niece or cousin of his, whose name he would +have had to make a lying pretence of having forgotten. It <i>would</i> have +been behaving rather off-handedly to June, to see her for the first two +days only of her stay and then to let her go without as much as seeing +her off. It <i>would</i> be better that Minetta should not have to write home +saying that John Willie was away (fishing) and she alone in the house, +but she was quite all right. It <i>would</i> be better to think of the things +that would permanently "do"—altogether more comfortable and +satisfactory not to have to call himself, in the waking hours of nights +in the years ahead, or in the days to come when business claimed him, by +a disquieting name. It was not as if there were not plenty of other +things to think of. This particular aspect of life was far too much +dwelt on. Percy Briggs dwelt on it too much, he himself had dwelt too +much on it. He wasn't sure that he hadn't been getting even a little +morbid about it. Not every lovely flower is picked because it is lovely +and then thrown wilting away again. John Willie had come to his senses. +It had taken him some time, but he was all right again now. He wondered +how those people at the inn below had been looking after his horse. +They'd probably let him get fat and lazy. Well, he would give him a +twisting on the way home. Too much inaction is good for neither horse +nor man....</p> + +<p>He finished shaving, and began to whistle as he packed his tackle and +strapped the case. He would leave the case where it was, and pick it up +on his way back. He would take the boat, pull straight across, get it +over, and then have a swinging walk down to the inn. Despite his moping +wanderings, he felt the need of a really good hard walk.</p> + +<p>He strode down to the lake, unfastened the boat, dashed the waterdrops +from the thwart with his cap, and pushed off.</p> + +<p>It was a brilliant, if broken, sky. Up the mountain-side the light +mists were quickly evaporating, and a great crag of dazzling white +cloud, shaped like the north of Scotland on a map, was perfectly +reduplicated in the glassy Llyn. As if the surface of the water had had +a tenuity without abating a jot of its crystal clearness, the smooth V +from the bows seemed to shear through something that, even when the +water settled to rest again, did not return; there fled at each stroke +an intact perfection. He altered the boat's course, and the reflection +of the edge of Delyn broke into long smooth stripes. He altered it +again, and an invisible comb seemed to pass through the towering +inverted cloud. His wake was a dancing of broken glittering facets. He +stood in towards the shaly spur; a few more strong strokes and he +grounded abruptly; and he gathered up his boots and stockings from the +bottom of the boat, stepped out, and made fast at the bottom of the +Glyn.</p> + +<p>The showers had swollen the stream a little, and mossy stones that had +been dry the day before were lapped by the water, and pools came farther +up his calf. But suddenly at a thought he stopped. In the new +circumstances it was a new thought. She did not expect him for some +hours yet; it might be better—in case of his coming upon her as she +might not wish to be come upon—to give a call. On second thoughts he +was sure that he ought to give a call. He opened his mouth——</p> + +<p>But it was not necessary. Suddenly he saw her twenty yards ahead. She +had probably been up for hours, and had got her bathe over long since.</p> + +<p>But even that glimpse of her through the leaves had been as it were two +glimpses. In the first of them he had seen that she was there; in the +second he had noted that her appearance was not her usual appearance. +She was no longer wearing the black dress of Philip Lacey's flower-shop, +but that old blouse, unconfined at the waist, and again, as on that day +when she had started back from the door of the hut, her legs and feet +were bare. Four trout lay on the grass beside her, one of them still +fluttering. She was stroking the drops of water from her forearms, and +wiping her hands on her old striped petticoat.</p> + +<p>He did not call, but all in a moment she looked round as quickly as if +he had done so. At first he thought she was going to start to her feet +and run, but she remained seated. Then a bough intervened. He put it +aside behind him, threw his boots and stockings ashore, and climbed the +bank.</p> + +<p>"Hallo, Ynys," he said, as he sat down beside her. "I'm a bit early, but +I've got to get off soon. They want me down there. There are some people +I must see before they go."</p> + +<p>Then he wondered whether, after all, he had not startled her. In her +eyes was once more that look that had been there that other day, when +she had fallen back, though no farther than a cat falls back. If that +was so he must reassure her by going on talking. Without pausing, he +continued.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I shall have to get off by eleven. I've not been home, you see. +Couldn't stand going back to that place, so I just made myself +comfortable by the hut there.—I say, I hope you didn't get wet with +that rain in the night?"</p> + +<p>Simply, freely, naturally, and without a second thought, he put out his +hand to feel whether her petticoat was dry. He supposed she slept in her +petticoat, and that his early visit had not allowed her time to change.</p> + +<p>But she crouched back so swiftly that he also fell a little back, +surprised. He forgot that his own words, "I'm a bit early," raised +twenty questions—questions of why he was there at all, of how it had +come to pass that a variation in his habit was a thing to be remarked +on, of why his announcement that he must be off early seemed even to +himself a breach of something that had never been established, but only +tacitly allowed. He forgot these things, stared at her, and suddenly +exclaimed, "Why, what's the matter?" Had she feared that he was about to +put his hand upon her? One of her elbows had shot up as if she would +have defended herself, and the frightened seaweed eyes looked at him +over the guarding forearm. Her other hand, behind her on the grass, +supported her. So they sat, she trembling, he covering her with an +astonished stare.</p> + +<p>Then, as quickly as she had raised it, she dropped the defending arm. +She made a swift clutch at her petticoats and scrambled a foot farther +away from him. Her breast fluttered like that of the still living trout, +and her hand was clasped betrayingly about one foot hidden in the short +striped petticoat.</p> + +<p>And in a twink John Willie saw his mistake. It was not from his advanced +hand that she had shrunk. It was from the resting of his eyes—those +eyes that, even as she had drawn herself back, had already rested. Those +eyes, of Scandinavian blue, had sought hers again, of the wet greenish +brown of the seaweed of the shore.</p> + +<p>He spoke quietly.</p> + +<p>"Come here, Ynys," he said.</p> + +<p>She did not move.</p> + +<p>"Come here, Ynys," he said again.</p> + +<p>Her trembling became violent.</p> + +<p>"Come here, Ynys—I want——"</p> + +<p>He did not finish. His hand shot quickly forth. The next moment it held +what she had striven to hide. He was gazing at the silver mark that ran +round the outer edge of her foot near the little toe as a vein runs +round a pebble.</p> + +<p>She had twisted her body so that her face lay on the grass, covered with +her hands. She made one feeble movement to draw the foot from his hand, +and then lay still. When, presently, he put it gently down, she made no +further attempt to hide it; what was the good, since he had seen? It lay +still now, a little crinkled brown sole with bits of vegetation pressed +into it, and, running across it, that old thread, silver, like the +wedding-ring of her mother—that hard little sole that had made the +kidney-shaped footprints on the Llanyglo beach, that had pattered after +pedestrians on the road, and that would take to the roads again rather +than be pressed into a shoe and walk the pavements of a town.</p> + +<p>Yet, though he had seen the foot, she seemed determined he should not +see her face too. Presently she was conscious that he was trying to do +so, that he was gently trying to draw away the concealing hands. That +she resisted. "Ynys! Ynys!" he was saying remorsefully in her ear. She +lay quite still, and "Ynys! Ynys!" he continued to repeat, over and over +again.</p> + +<p>At last he heard that uniquely soft voice of hers in reply. She spoke +into the grass, not sobbingly, only a little dully.</p> + +<p>"I 'ould not show you," she begged him—movingly begged him—to +believe.</p> + +<p>"Ynys—dear!—--"</p> + +<p>"Indeed you ask me, one day, if I take off my boots and stock-kings, and +I 'ould not——"</p> + +<p>"No, no——" he soothed her.</p> + +<p>"I not show nobody, in lot-t of years, never." She turned her face to +him for a moment; the anger of a fury lurked there for him had he not +believed her. "I not show nobody, if they kill me," she went on. "Lot-t +of years I <i>hate</i> it——" the vindictiveness of the single word died +away, and he scarcely heard what came next, "—but I not hate it any +more now——"</p> + +<p>His answer was to rise suddenly to his knees, to stoop again, and to +kiss the foot he had innocently maimed. He was conscious as he did so of +its quick little pressure against his mouth....</p> + +<p>The next moment his arm was about her shoulder, and he was gently +seeking to see her face again.</p> + +<p>"Cariad!" he murmured, his lips to her ear.</p> + +<p>And he knew that by no other means could it have come to pass. "Lot-t of +years I hate it—but I not hate it any more." She had hated the foot for +its disfigurement. She had loved it for him.</p> + +<p>There was no question of Yes or No as they ate their breakfast together; +it was as it was, and neither guilt nor innocence had any part in it. +From time to time, as they sat, he flung his arms about her shoulders as +frankly as children embrace, and she suffered the crushing with lips +parted and eyes immeasurably far away. The black pool was flecked with +froth; it danced over the whitey-green ebullition at the foot of the +swollen fall; and two dragon-flies, one blue as a scarab and the other +like a darting twig of green metal, hovered and set and spun. There +seemed to be no wind, but the great country of white cloud up aloft had +advanced, and a soft gloom filled the Glyn. They did not wash up; +impatiently John Willie tossed the platter they had shared aside; and +they embraced again.</p> + +<p>Midday did not find John Willie on his way to Llanyglo, nor yet did he +see June off by the three o'clock train. By three o'clock he was on the +summit of Delyn again, under the same rock where he had tried, as if by +accident, to touch her hand. She had put on her shoes, but not her +stockings, for the climb, but he had drawn them off again, and once more +she lay, luxuriating with her foot under his hand. Even now she did not +talk very much. She had only one thing to say, with lovely monotony and +very few words to say it in; she strayed no farther from her little +store of English than to say, over and over again, "Boy bach!" with the +greenish-brown eyes slavishly on his, and her parted lips hurrying out +the diminutive before he crushed them again. She started from her dream +once, as a stray sheep close behind them gave a call like a rich oboe; +then she relapsed into it again. The shadows lay still and leagues long +over the rumple of mountains, and she had not changed, and had promised +that she would not again change, that unfastened bodice and short and +faded old petticoat.</p> + +<p>So June steamed away, while Ynys's face was framed in John Willie's arm +on the summit of Delyn.</p> + +<p>They descended to the Glyn again between the afternoon and the early +evening, and with each step as they dropped down the mountain a silence +grew and deepened on them. He knew its meaning, if she did not, and, +back by the pool again, he first cleaned the forgotten platter (which +she tried to prevent), and then stood before her as he had stood when +once, with an abrupt, "Nos da," he had stridden away. And in that pause +of gazing silence he knew how much was packed—his Yes, his No, hers +too; all that lay behind them, all that lay before. For him, there lay +enwrapped in it that slight black figure he had seen under the crimson +pier-light; his searching for her; his finding her; his struggles, his +decision, and then, even in the act of his relinquishment, his wonderful +recovery of her. And her memory took a farther flight still. She saw +herself, a little girl, sitting with a bandaged foot upon a chair, while +a testy girl not two years older than herself drew her likeness. She +remembered the unendurable length of those half-hours—unendurable, save +that occasionally there looked in at the door or passed the window a +cowslip-haired boy, with hard blue eyes that would stare down even his +own conscience and none be the wiser, a conquering boy, of a race so +habituated to conquest that it takes with the sword-hand and carelessly +tosses twice as much back with the other. That was what it meant to her, +that silver mark that ran round the edge of her foot as a vein runs +round the edge of a pebble....</p> + +<p>And for the future? His future might be anything, but hers could be one +thing only. For the gipsy loves never but the once. In all but love, the +waters of the world are not more unstable than she; in love, the rocks +are not more irremovable. Therefore she has no past and no regrets. She +has no regrets, for there is no scar upon her heart—how can there be a +scar, when a scar is a healing, and this wound is never healed, but ever +new, ever quivering? And she has no past—how can she have a past when +all is a poignant and lovely present, that endures to the end?...</p> + +<p>There was so little for John Willie to do. He had only to go away +without kissing her again.</p> + +<p>Kiss her, however, he must not—he was only an ordinary young man——</p> + +<p>He knew it, and——</p> + +<p>He passed his arms about her waist and drew her down by his side.</p> + +<p>It was dark in the Glyn long before the light had faded from the open +hillside above. In Llyn Delyn not a fish rose to break that dark and +intact perfection. The fall into the pool diminished a little in volume, +and mossy cushions that had lately been covered began to rise out of the +water again. And a heart was laid quiveringly open where formerly only a +foot had been maimed. She was twice conquered, for she was Welsh and +woman too. In the hearts of the men of her race the fame of their story +still lives, and while it lives strife will not cease. As their own +proverb says, what the sword took, the tongue will take back again.</p> + +<p>But the woman goes with the land.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART FIVE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>I</h2> + +<h3>THE WHEEL</h3> + + +<p>It was a summer nightfall in the Kursaal Gardens. The turnstiles of the +new Main Entrance in Pontnewydd Street revolved ceaselessly, with a +noise as of an unending rack and pinion. The lightly clad merrymakers +poured under the trees that had electric globes for fruit; they moved +towards the cream-coloured buildings that, with their illuminations, +seemed no more than footlights to the solemn stage of the immeasurable +blue beyond. Most of them were going to that Dancing-Hall where all the +youths and maidens of the world seemed to dance together; the others +hurried to keep appointments, to sit at the little tables where the +waiters moved on the grass, to join the slowly moving circle about the +bandstand, or to see the side-shows. The band played the "Lohengrin" +Prelude; the soft sound of gravel crunching underfoot mingled with the +music; and the great lighted circle of the Big Wheel rose against the +sky.</p> + +<p>In the topmost coach of the Wheel sat John Willie Garden and June Lacey. +They were alone in the bright upholstered compartment. June wore her +Juniest frock and an engagement ring; John Willie, who had been walking, +was in cap and knickers. They had been engaged since the Spring, and +everybody had said how splendidly it would "do." They had played +together (everybody had said) since childhood, knew exactly what to +expect and what not to expect of one another, had (as they put it) the +solid cake to cut at when the sugar and the almond-paste had begun to +pall, and what could have been more romantic?</p> + +<p>"They'd be hard put to it to think of anything they're short of," +everybody had said.</p> + +<p>From the windows of the car they could see the whole of Llanyglo. With +the turning of the Wheel they had watched its lights rise slowly over +the intervening roofs, and then slowly sink away again. Now, to see the +grounds below, they had to step to the windows and to look almost +vertically down, through the intricacy of girders and lattice and +mammoth supporting piers.</p> + +<p>"It takes about twenty minutes to go round, doesn't it?" June asked.</p> + +<p>"About that," John Willie replied absently.</p> + +<p>"Look at the Trwyn light!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear."</p> + +<p>"We aren't as high as that, are we?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear no."</p> + +<p>"I suppose we've stopped to take more passengers up?"</p> + +<p>"I expect so."</p> + +<p>Then, after a pause, June said, "Do you know, dear, I think I've finally +decided about the drawing-room. I think I shall have it all white—every +bit——"</p> + +<p>From her white gloves to her gypsophylla petticoats, she was a girl any +young man would have been glad to spend his shillings on, and her house +was going to be as smart and complete as herself. Her father was coming +down very handsomely for her wedding, and in addition to his other +gifts, was going to lay out the gardens and the greenhouse for them. +Counting her silver, tapping her flower-pots to see which was in need of +water, trimming bits of raffia with her scissors and putting drops of +gum into her geraniums, June would be exactly in her right place. She +was already attending a Cookery Class, and had all her household linen +marked. And already they were promised any number of presents. "Presents +are so useful," she had said to John Willie, "because then you have +them, and so often they're the kind of thing you'd put off buying for +yourself." It was all going to "do" very splendidly.</p> + +<p>"I say," said John Willie by and by, "we don't seem to be moving."</p> + +<p>"The Wheel?" June asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes. But it will go on in a minute, I expect."</p> + +<p>"I hope it won't stop long," June replied.</p> + +<p>John Willie also hoped it would not stop long, but for the life of him +he couldn't have told you why he hoped so. Indeed he tried to smother +the hope. He tried to smother it because he had an obscure feeling +that—that—well, if a reason can smile, that his reason for not wishing +to stay up there too long was quietly smiling at him. It seemed to +tell him that he and everything about him were enviably all +right—safe—thoroughly and entirely comfortable—need have no fears for +the future—and that all would continue to be just as comfortable and +safe and altogether all right until he should come to die, in a best +bed, with eiderdowns, and frilled pillow-cases, and hot bottles, and the +certainty of a handsomely appointed funeral a few days later. Few were +as sure of their future as that. John Willie was one of the lucky +ones....</p> + +<p>He moved, not to the windows from which he could look down on the +lights of the Promenade and Pier, but to those that were turned to the +dark and unseen mountains. Somehow this reason he had for hoping that +the car would not stop long seemed to come from there. He told himself +that he would be better presently. He had these—bad humours, call +them—sometimes. He hid them from June, but Minetta had noticed them, +and he knew all about them himself. He turned to June again.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what's happened," he said.</p> + +<p>"It's—it's quite safe, isn't it?" June asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, quite." His lips compressed a little. It was quite safe—neither +more nor less safe than everything else in John Willie's life. That, +somehow, was at the bottom of these ill-humours of his.</p> + +<p>"Dash it," he muttered....</p> + +<p>"It is a nuisance," June agreed. "But I don't suppose Minetta will be +anxious."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't thinking of Minetta," John Willie replied.</p> + +<p>Now when you are reluctant to enter into explanation, and there is +something you badly want to do, you never (if you are an ordinary young +man) look very far for a reason. The first that comes will serve your +turn. If it is a flimsy one, no matter; you then get angry when its +flimsiness is pointed out to you, and presently out of your anger and +obstinacy you will have found a reason as good as another. John Willie +did not at all like those interior smiling taunts of himself that took +the form of congratulations on his neatly planned life and pillowed and +feathered death to close it. If anybody of his own weight had taunted +him thus he would have knocked that person down. But you cannot knock +down a whisper that seems to come on the wind from the mountains +through the night, making you, your ordered comfort notwithstanding, +absolutely wretched. Again John Willie turned to June.</p> + +<p>"I say, June; this won't do, you know," he said.</p> + +<p>June looked enquiringly at him.</p> + +<p>"But we can't do anything but wait, dear, can we?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer.</p> + +<p>They waited. Half an hour passed. Then John Willie muttered again that, +among so many other things that would "do" beautifully, this particular +thing would not "do." June coloured a little.</p> + +<p>"But—but—it isn't our fault," she murmured, picking at the fingers of +her gloves.</p> + +<p>He saw she understood. Again they waited.</p> + +<p>Then, suddenly, John Willie came shortly out with that reason that must +serve in the stead of his real reason. He knew how lame it was. A score +or two of other young couples were in precisely the same situation as +they, and more that cheerfully resigned to their plight; but then they +were not being goaded and taunted as John Willie was being goaded and +taunted. They were not being told that their paths lay, so to speak, on +flowers, while the paths of others were the stony road, that cut and +blistered the foot, and tired the eyes, and bowed the back (but had no +power, perhaps, thus to reproach the heart).... Anyway, John Willie was +not disposed to stand it.</p> + +<p>"June," he said abruptly, "I can't stay up here all night with you."</p> + +<p>Her wail interrupted him.—"Oh-h-h!—--"</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't do."</p> + +<p>"Oh-h-h—it isn't our fault——"</p> + +<p>"No, but that can't be helped. The woman I marry——"</p> + +<p>"Oh-h-h—but there isn't anything to do!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes there is. We needn't be together. I can get into another car or +something. It will only be like walking along the footboard of a train."</p> + +<p>She gave a little shriek.—"Oh—if you do I shall throw myself out—I +know I shall!—--"</p> + +<p>"You won't do anything so silly. Get up, dear; I've quite made up my +mind. I tell you it wouldn't do. The woman I marry...."</p> + +<p>With gentle force he picked her up and set her on the seat of the car. +Then he approached the window. There was a bar across it, which it took +him a minute to bend, but the chances were that where his head would +pass the rest of his body might follow. June hid her face and moaned as +he took off his coat; then he kissed her and thrust his head under the +bar. He wriggled through, stood on the footboard, smiled again grimly +through the window, and then looked down.</p> + +<p>At any rate, he had given a reason of sorts.</p> + +<p>Then he looked up.</p> + +<p>Instantly he saw that, unless head or wrist or finger should +unexpectedly fail him, the most dangerous part of his exploit lay at the +very beginning. There was no descent from the step on which he stood. +The cars were slung from axles, and in order to get to the rim that held +the axles themselves he must climb to the roof of the coach. He glanced +at the roof of the coach twenty feet below and to his left. He saw that +it had a curved rain-sill like that of the top of a railway carriage. +Good; the coaches would be all alike. He set his knees in the +window-frame once more. June was still lying with her face hidden on the +seat. His fingers felt blindly for the rain-sill; they found it, and he +moistened his other hand. He wished he could have glued it, for for some +moments mere friction must be half his support. For an instant he +thought calmly and abysmally; then he risked it....</p> + +<p>It succeeded. He knelt on the roof, holding the sling and coupling that +hung from the car-axle overhead. He glanced up at the axle to which he +must swarm. The singing in the cars continued, and a babble of sound +rose lightly from below. Evidently he had not been seen to get out of +the car.</p> + +<p>But then, who would have thought of looking?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was as he swarmed up the coupling that there first came over him the +sense of the difference between the reason he had given, and the real +reason that had brought him out from that brightly lighted and cushioned +car in which he might far more easily have stopped. And the realisation +of that difference brought with it, very strangely, the sense, not of +bodily peril, but of inner peace. It was unaccountable, but there it +was, not to be argued about. The only thing that disturbed this peace, +and that but lightly, was that his venture had not a more profitable +object. Folk did less dangerous things for far better reason—to save +life, or property, or something else worth while. But this neck-risking +of his was—could only be—bravado. He knew perfectly well that in the +circumstances nobody would have thought a penny the worse of June. "The +woman I marry——" he had known that to be an hypocrisy even when he had +said it. No, he was merely idiotically showing-off, and that peace at +his heart would presently prove to be an illusion....</p> + +<p>It was quite suddenly, as he lay out along the Wheel's topmost +car-axle, that the thought of Ynys came to him. He didn't know why it +should come at that moment, unless it was born of his bodily isolation +on the very top of that immense bracelet hung with trinkets of cars. But +perhaps it was that; perhaps there was a connection, if only an idle and +fanciful one. Save perhaps the keeper of the Trwyn light, nobody in +Llanyglo was nearer the stars than he that night; and only Mynedd Mawr +had been higher than he when he had lain on the rocky head of Delyn....</p> + +<p>Or was it, not the isolation of his body at all, but his isolation of +soul, that had brought that mysterious and inexplicable and probably +fallacious peace.</p> + +<p>While not ceasing to keep his carefully calculating eyes open, and every +motor-fold of his brain intent on the preservation of his balance, he +began to think of Delyn.</p> + +<p>He had stayed many days up there; some weeks perhaps; he couldn't have +told you how long. Its rain had soaked him, and its winds dried him +again; its streams had fed him and its herbage furnished his litter at +night; but the sun itself had not warmed him more than had her impulsive +looks and surrendering gestures when he had but lifted up a hand. With +another eye than that that now measured the distances between girders +and axles and ties, he seemed to see the rocks again, and the lake +shining in its morning intactness, and the drowned bubbles of the fall +in the Glyn, and the thin wind stroking the short grass, and the +mountain-ashes under which they had sat, their leaves like finger-prints +against the sky. He could see again the trout she had cooked for +him—her breast had fluttered as those dying silvery things had +fluttered, silvery as that dry old scar he had kissed. He could smell +the smoke of her morning fire again, her hair, her breast.... And he +could hear again the shrill warning note in that unique voice of hers +that had first set him wondering whether, after all, it would "do." ...</p> + +<p>That quarrel had not been on that heart-breaking morning of their +parting. There had been no quarrel then. No; it had been at something +unguarded he had said about his sister and her friends. Yes, he saw +again the insensate jealous flame in those seaweed eyes, and heard the +ugly passionate cracking of the voice in which she had cried, "They +noth-thing, your fine miss-es! They mar-ry house without a man if they +could—they take house in their arms—they make those eyes at house, and +kiss house, and call it cariad! You no dif-ferent from them! You go to +your miss and say, 'I have house'—she want-t you then!—--" It had +taken a whole morning before he had had her, humble and sobbing and +remorseful and enslaved, in his arms again.... No, it wouldn't have done +to marry a temper like that—and, temper altogether apart, it wouldn't +have done. There are only a few years of this world and its +companionships, and, though your friends may have their twists and +crankinesses, they are still your friends, all you are likely to have. +Better be in the stream with them while you are here. He would only have +been sorry for it later, on her account as well as on his own. She had +been quicker to see that than he, and had spoken of it in her soft and +halting English. At first he had laughed and said "Kiss me" ... but she +had been right....</p> + +<p>But John Willie, with a Wheel to descend, must not let these things take +him too far from the business in hand.</p> + +<p>He had reached a chain in a great guiding sprocket, but he thought of +what at any moment a hand upon a lever in the power-house far below +might do, and of one of his father's men who had once been carried round +shafting. No moving parts for him.... He looked down through an +iron-framed lozenge at the people below. The grounds resembled a tray of +many-coloured moving beads. All Llanyglo seemed to have run to see the +stopped Wheel. Probably the Pier itself was half empty. If so, all the +more room for anybody who wanted to watch, not a Wheel, but the moon +lift her gilded sacrificial horn out of the sea.... There had been far +too much drub-drub-drubbing. John Willie was weary of it. It was time he +settled down. And Llanyglo itself seemed to have come to much the same +conclusion. It had begun to make a restriction here and a regulation +there, as if it wished to purge itself of its evil name. There was no +doubt that for a time it had been a very sinful place, and ... (here +John Willie, with a slow steady pull, hoisted himself to where he wished +to be, on the long curved upper plate of a massive H, rivet-studded like +a boiler, that was knitted with iron lace to other H's—John Willie must +not venture too far down that slope unless he should suddenly acquire a +fly's faculty for walking upside-down) ... and perhaps the town had +begun to get a little frightened, as sinful people, and perhaps sinful +towns also, sometimes do. But that would be all right presently. +Llanyglo was going, in a manner of speaking, to be married. It was +turning over, had turned over, a new leaf. Soon it would be a churlish +thing to reproach it for a past that it had lived down; it was becoming +sadder and wiser, and better able to distinguish between the things that +would "do" and the things that would not. The less talk ... (here John +Willie began to realise that he was not a fly, and to collect his nerves +for the turn-over to the under side of that H that a few yards away +dropped over, with a little gleam, into nothing) ... the less talk the +soonest mended. He did not intend to say—anything—to June. Indeed he +intended ... (there: that was rather a jerk to his shoulder socket, but +he was safely underneath) ... indeed he intended that his attitude to +June about such matters should be rather severe. This was not because +June's own thoughts were in the least degree lax (she erred, if +anywhere, on the prudish side), but because women were very tender +things. A whisper was fatal to them. That was why John Willie was +clinging now to that enormous piece of knitting of iron and upholstered +carriages and electric light. He had climbed out in order that nobody +should be able to say, after that, that....</p> + +<p>Then it was that he knew, once and for ever, that this was a lie. Then +it was that he knew that he was not where he was, suspended between the +stars of heaven and the lamps of earth, on June's account. He was there +because a gipsy girl had called him. This was his service, not of the +pretty and pleasant June he was presently going to marry, but of one +whom he had not married, of one he had not feared to compromise, of one +who had known nothing, cared nothing, save that she had been lost in a +wild and tender and beautiful love. She, none other, had called him——</p> + +<p>Then, too, it was that there rose to him from below a faint yet high and +shuddering "A-a-a-ah!" that was followed by a sudden cessation of all +sound whatever save only a distant throb and pulsing in the +Dancing-Hall. It surprised him for a moment; then he remembered. Of +course. He had been seen——</p> + +<p>She, none other, had called him, and he knew now that so she would +continue to call him, wherever he might be—from his labour by day and +from his rest by night, from his laughter with his children and his +clasping of his wife. She would continue to call him until softness and +ease should have done their slow and fatal work, would continue to call +him until that nerve, with her harping on it, should have become +dull....</p> + +<p>He seemed to hear the echoes of that voiceless calling, diminishing +through the years to come. They would end in a silence that his wife's +innocent garrulity would never, never be able to break——</p> + +<p>The faint throb in the Dancing-Hall also ceased. The Kursaal Gardens +were a bead mat of faces. There was not a whisper. Delyn was not +stiller.</p> + +<p>Unconscious that already he was black and torn and bleeding, he looked +down from his girder upon the bead mat. He knew what, presently, if he +came down alive, every bead there would be singing—his daring and his +quixotry and his devotion, and the possession by June of a husband who +would do this rather than suffer the lightest breath upon the mirror of +her name——</p> + +<p>He looked at them as he clung, scarce bigger than a speck, high in that +webbed diadem of the Wheel——</p> + +<p>And as he hung there, with only the guardian of the Trwyn light higher +than he, and the rest of the descent still to make, he still could not +decide, of the two things that oppressed his heart, which was the +atonement and which the sin.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>II</h2> + +<h3>ADIEU</h3> + + +<p>"You're leaving Llanyglo? Well, holidays must come to an end.—You'd +like another walk up the Trwyn? Very well; but you've seen all there is +to see....</p> + +<p>"Here we are.... What's going on at the Light? Oh, that's the Board of +Trade, experimenting with some new fog apparatus or other. By the way, +the Light people are rather sore because of a new Regulation, that they +mustn't have lodgers at the farm; and also because they'd like to grow +roses up the look-out wall, and that's prohibited too; I suppose the +authorities think they'd be spending the day looking at the roses +instead of at the ships. They've moved the rocket apparatus farther +along the coast; they found it wasn't much use here, and it's turned out +very successfully at Abercelyn.—Eh? Yes, where the manganese comes +from. They still get a certain quantity, but there's peace in the +Balkans or wherever it is for the moment, so nobody's growing very rich +out of the mines here....</p> + +<p>"Hallo, that's rather a coincidence. Don't look round too quickly. You +see that tallish man over there? I don't suppose you've even seen him +before; as a matter of fact he hasn't been—er—to be seen. He got into +trouble once; in plain English, they put him in prison. His name's +Armfield, and his trouble was all about Llanyglo. Awkward things, +meetings like these. I think Armfield's a capital chap, and I should +like to go and talk to him; but prison's a cruel thing, and you never +know how the poor fellow himself feels about it.... Ah! As I thought, he +looks rather broken. If you don't mind we won't watch him. Come on to +the Dinas and have a smoke....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"How's John Willie Garden? Perfectly rosy, if beginning to get a bit +fat. Lucky dog! Four children, two boys and two girls, quite an amiable +chatter-box of a wife, and rich enough to buy almost anything he wants. +Lucky, lucky dog!—Did I tell you he was the adopted Conservative Free +Trade candidate for one of the Manchester divisions? Not that he cares a +snap about Free Trade politically; economically it merely happens to be +a good part of his bread and butter; but then you have to be careful +about what you say on platforms, and so John Willie talks like the +editor of the <i>Spectator</i> himself. June Garden runs her two houses, one +here and one in Manchester, like clockwork, and they go backwards and +forwards between them in a really regal car. Every tramp and gipsy on +the road knows that car. However fast he's driving, John Willie always +pulls up and gives them a shilling. Just a foible of his. We all have +'em in one shape or form.</p> + +<p>"Llanyglo's going in heartily for these new proposals for advertising +the town out of the rates. A young man called Ithel Williams is very +keen on it; he's a son of Tudor Williams, the Tudor Williams who used to +be M.P. for this division. Young Ithel's got rather a nice billet here, +as Librarian or something for the Council, and if this new thing goes +through he'll be quite in clover.—Jobbery? Well, I suppose that's the +name for it, but personally I'm not altogether against it. It seems to +me that the only alternative is putting these berths up for competitive +examination, which in my opinion's failed all along the line, so find +the right man and then job him in, I say.—The right man's so frequently +a relative? Well ... there you are. That <i>is</i> the weak spot. But there's +always a crab somewhere....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"I wonder if Armfield's gone yet? Let's have a look.... No, he's still +there....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"A good season? Yes, from all accounts it's been a very good season. +There have been better from the purely money point of view, I should +say, but after all everybody can't be everything, and every place can't +get all there is. Llanyglo, like other places, has its natural limits of +expansion. I don't think it will get any bigger yet awhile. There's no +doubt the Wakes people were the people who flung the money about, and +they've a little fallen off; but even if Llanyglo has to write down some +of its obligations it will probably gain in the long run. A section of +the Council's coming to see that, and is pressing for reconstruction +(that's always rather wonderful to me, that they should construct things +of solid materials and then reconstruct them by saying they cost less +than they did); but that's the Council's business, or rather the powers +behind the Council. Edward Garden isn't one of these any longer, at any +rate not to the extent he was. He sits in Manchester and makes towns in +Canada now. But he still looks at letters under his glasses, and over +them, and backwards and forwards and upside down, and then looks mildly +up at you and says the letter seems to be a letter....</p> + +<p>"A last look at the place: there you are: bay, Promenade, Pier, the ring +of mountains behind. It grew from a few fishermen's huts to +over-capitalisation in a very few years. And there's Terry Armfield, +still looking at it all, like a not very old Rip Van Winkle. I wonder +what he's thinking! I suppose he couldn't keep away, but must come and +remember it as it was and dream over it again as it was never, never to +be.... Walk past quickly; he's sobbing, poor chap. His dream was of a +place—I don't know how to describe it—all friendliness and loveliness +and graciousness, fowl and flesh and good red-herring all in one, so to +speak, what you might call a diaphanous sort of place, a jolly place to +think of during those few minutes of the morning or evening when you're +not quite asleep and not quite awake, but—hm!—I'm not so sure ... not +in this imperfect world....</p> + +<p>"Anyway, that down there is what he sees....</p> + +<p>"I suppose the other wouldn't have done....</p> + +<p>"Shall we go?"</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Pron. "Unnis."</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Transcriber's Note: Hyphen variations left as printed.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mushroom Town, by Oliver Onions + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MUSHROOM TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 39482-h.htm or 39482-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/4/8/39482/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mushroom Town + +Author: Oliver Onions + +Release Date: April 19, 2012 [EBook #39482] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MUSHROOM TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + + + MUSHROOM TOWN + + BY OLIVER ONIONS + +Author of "Gray Youth," "In Accordance with the Evidence," "Debit +Account," etc., etc. + + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + NEW YORK + + _Publishers in America for Hodder & Stoughton_ + + Copyright, 1914, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + +DEDICATION + + +_In the following pages I have permitted myself to take a number of +liberties--geographical, historical, etymological, and even +geological--with a country for which I have conceived a strong +affection; I trust I have taken none with its beauty nor with its +hospitality. It will be useless to search for Llanyglo on any map. It is +neither in North Carnarvonshire, in Merioneth, nor in Lleyn. Of certain +features of existing places I have made a composite, which is the_ +"MUSHROOM TOWN" _of this book._ + +_The kindnesses I have received in Wales during the past six years have +been innumerable; indeed, much of my work has consisted of writing down +(and not always improving) things told me by one of my hosts. For this +and other reasons I should like to render him such acknowledgment as a +Dedication may express._ "MUSHROOM TOWN" _is therefore inscribed, in +gratitude and affection, to_ + +ARTHUR ASHLEY RUCK + +_Hampstead_, 1914 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + + THE INVITATION 9 + + +PART I + + + I THE YEAR DOT 17 + + II ITS NONAGE 31 + + III THE MINDER 46 + + IV "_DIM_ SAESNEG" 52 + + V THE HAFOD UNOS 75 + + VI THE FOOT IN THE DOOR 86 + + VII THE MEMBER 98 + + VIII THELEMA 109 + + +PART II + + I RAILHEAD 117 + + II THE CLERK OF THE WORKS 126 + + III THE CURTAIN RAISER 142 + + IV YNYS 168 + + +PART III + + I THE HOLIDAY CAMP 179 + + II THE GIANT'S STRIDE 205 + + III THE BLANK CHEQUE 218 + + IV PAWB 233 + + +PART IV + + I THE BLIND EYE 244 + + II JUNE 263 + + III DELYN 275 + + IV AN ORDINARY YOUNG MAN 297 + + V THE DWELLING OF A NIGHT 310 + + VI THE GLYN 323 + + +PART V + + I THE WHEEL 335 + + II ADIEU 347 + + + + +THE INVITATION + + +"We'll take the little cable-tram, if you like, but it's not far to +walk--twenty minutes or so--the Trwyn's seven hundred feet high. You'll +see the whole of the town from the top. The sun will have made the grass +a little slippery, but there are paths everywhere; the sheep began them, +and then the visitors wore them bare. And we shall get the breeze.... + + * * * * * + +"There you are: Llanyglo. You see it from up here almost as the gulls +and razorbills see it. The bay's a fine curve, isn't it?--rather like a +strongly blown kite-string; and the Promenade's nearly two miles long. +But as you see, the town doesn't go very far back. From the Imperial +there to the railway station and the gasometers at the back isn't much +more than half a mile; the town seems to press down to the front just as +the horses draw the bathing-vans down to the tide. Shall we sit down? +Here's a boulder. It's chipped all over with initials, of course; so are +the benches, and even the turf; but you'd wonder that there was a bit of +wood or stone or turf left at all if you saw the crowds that come here +when the Wakes are on. It's odd that you should never see anybody +actually cutting them. Some of them must have taken an hour or two with +a hammer and chisel, but I've been up here countless times and never +seen anybody at it yet. + +"Yes, that's Llanyglo; but look at the mountains first. This isn't the +best time of the day for seeing them; the morning or the evening's the +best time; the sun isn't far enough round yet. But sometimes, when the +light's just right, they start out into folds and wrinkles almost as +quickly as you could snap your fingers--it's quite dramatic. Foels and +Moels and Pens and Mynedds, look--half the North Cambrian Range. You +couldn't have a better centre for motor-cycle and char-a-banc tours than +Llanyglo.... Then on the other side's the sea. That's only a tinny sort +of glitter just now, but you should see the moon rise over it. People +come out from the concerts on the pier-head just to have a look.... + +"The Pier looks tiny from up here? Yes, but it's three furlongs long for +all that, and those two tart-tin-looking things at the end hold nearly a +thousand people apiece. But, as you say, it is rather like one of those +children's toy railways they sell on the stalls in Gardd Street for +sixpence-halfpenny. And that always strikes me as rather a curious thing +about Llanyglo. It's a big place now--nine thousand winter population; +but somehow it has a smaller look than it had when it was just a score +of cottages, all put together not much bigger than the Kursaal Gardens +there. I don't know why the cottages should have seemed more in scale +with the mountains than all this, but they did. I suppose it was because +they didn't set up for anything, like the Kursaal and the Majestic and +the Imperial.... But it doesn't do to tell the Llanyglo folk that. They +look at it in quite another way. To them the sea and the mountains are +so many adjuncts, something they can turn into money by dipping people +at sixpence a time and motoring them round at four-and-sixpence the +tour.... And sometimes you can't help thinking that it wouldn't take +very much (a wind a bit stronger than usual or an extra heave of the +sea, say) and all these hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of stone +and iron and paint and gilding would just disappear--be sponged out like +the castles and hoof-marks on the sands when the tide comes in--or like +a made-up face when you wipe the carmine and pencilling from it.... +Eh?--No, I'm not saying they've spoiled the place--nor yet that they +haven't. You mustn't come here if you want a couple of miles of beach to +yourself. It all depends how you look at it. If Llanyglo's cheapjack in +one way, perhaps it isn't in another. It's merely that I remember it as +it used to be.... + +"Would it surprise you to learn that the whole place is only about +thirty years old? That's all. It grew like a mushroom; there are people +who were born here who don't know their way about their own town.... +Mostly Welsh? Oh dear no, not by any means. I should say about +half-and-half. I suppose you're thinking of the Welsh names of the +streets? They don't mean very much. There's Gardd Street, for instance; +'gardd' is only the Welsh for 'garden,' and Edward Garden, John Willie +Garden's father, built the greater part of it (for that matter, he built +the greater part of Llanyglo). And if anybody called Wood (say) had put +up a house here, he'd probably have called it 'Ty Coed.' And some of it, +of course, is genuine Welsh. The Porth Neigr Road does go to Porth +Neigr, and Sarn, over there, has always been Sarn. But people think +they're getting better value for their money if they come away for a +fortnight and see foreign names everywhere; they've a travelled sort of +feeling; so they give the streets these names, and print all the +placards in two columns, with 'Rhybudd' on one side and 'Notice' on the +other. + +"And that's given rise to one rather amusing little mistake. As you +know, this headland that we're on is called the Trwyn, and 'trwyn' +simply means a nose or a promontory. But over past the Lighthouse +there, there are the remains of an old Dinas, a British camp, and +half these Lancashire trippers think the headland's called after +that--'t'ruin'--'th' ruin'--you know how they talk.... + +"I'm interested in the place for several reasons (not money ones, I'm +sorry to say). For one thing, I like to watch the Welsh and Lancashire +folk together; that's been very amusing. And then, it's not often you +get the chance of seeing a whole development quite so concisely +epitomised as we've had it here. Llanyglo started from practically +nothing, and it's grown to this before John Willie Garden has a single +grey hair on his head (though, to be sure, that cowslip colour doesn't +show grey very much). Then there's that curious essence--I don't know +what you call it--the thing a town would still keep even though you +cleared every brick away and built it all over again, and sent every +inhabitant packing and re-peopled it. There's a field for speculation +there, too, though perhaps not a very profitable one. But most of all +I've been interested in seeing what various sets of people have given +Llanyglo, and what it's given to them in return--how the stones and the +people have taken colour from one another, if you understand me, and +what colour--in fact (if it doesn't sound a little pompous) in Llanyglo +as an expression of the life of our time. It's sometimes hard to believe +that something almost human hasn't got into its stone and paint and +mortar. The whole place, as it's spread out down there now--two-mile +line of front, houses, hotels, railway, gasometers and all--has had +almost a personal birth, and adolescence, and growing-pains, and sown +its wild oats, and has its things that it tells and its things that it +doesn't tell, in an extraordinary way--or else, as I say, it seems +extraordinary, because you get it all into a single focus. There may +even be a bit of me in Llanyglo. If you came half a dozen times there'd +be a bit of you too. + +"I should like you to meet John Willie Garden. He's the man to go to if +you want to know anything about these streets and hotels and the seaside +and the stations on the front. Why not come to the Kursaal, on the +Terrace, at about nine to-night?--Good. He's a capital chap; a Something +or other on the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, adopted Conservative +Free Trade candidate for his division (but a Protectionist in other +countries) and probably worth a quarter of a million, a good deal of it +out of Llanyglo. Not bad for a little turned forty, eh? He'll probably +ask you to dinner. You can't see his house from here; it stands back +from Gardd Street. It was the first house to go up in Llanyglo--no, I'm +forgetting. There was one before it--just one before it, not counting +the original cottages, of course.... + +"What do you say to a turn? We've time to have a look at the Dinas +before we go down.... + +"It's British, and the _Sixpenny Guide_ will tell you all that's known +about it--possibly more. Its foundations are said to have been sprinkled +with the blood of Merlin. What's left of it's certainly sprinkled with +these everlasting initials. The Trwyn Light's just behind, two reds and +a white, and they're experimenting with the Rocket Apparatus, but I +don't think that will come to much.--There's little Porth Neigr, +look--and that point thirty miles away's Abercelyn.... + +"Now the mountains are beginning to show; there they are--Delyn on the +left, then Moel Eryr, then Mynedd Mawr. That's Penyffestyn, with the +great cavity in his side, and his shadow's right across Bwlch.... Yes, +very fine, and a perfect evening for it. The posters at Euston don't +overstate it, do they? Of course, you've seen that very familiar one, of +a Welsh Giantess, shawl, apron, steeple hat and all the lot, holding a +view of Llanyglo in her arms? Pink hotels, indigo mountains and +chrome-yellow sands.... + +"There's the _Queen of the Waters_ coming in. If we wait a few minutes +longer we shall see the town light up. Yes, electricity; the +power-station was finished only last year; it's over there beyond the +filter-beds; Llanyglo handles its own sewage.... Ah! There goes the +Promenade lights; three jumps, and the two miles are lighted up from end +to end; the kite-string's a necklace now; pretty, isn't it?... And there +goes the Pier.... There'll be a glare behind us like a shout of light in +a moment--the Trwyn Light.... + +"The mountains are dark now, but how the day lingers on the sea! +To-night it's like ribbon-grass.... Hear the post-horns? Those are the +chars-a-bancs coming in. The last tripper's running for the station +now.... Now the light's dying on the sea; it's a new moon and a spring +tide. Two or three riding-lights only--I say, it's solemn out there.... +But they'll be dining at the Majestic presently. That long golden haze +is Gardd Street, and that spangle at the end of it's the New Bazaar. +There goes the Big Wheel in the Kursaal Gardens, with its advertisement +on it. We might look in at the Dancing Hall to-night; that's rather a +sight. They have firework displays in the grounds, too, and last year +there was one out in the bay; they put bombs and flares and serpents on +rafts, and laid them from boats, like mines. That was in honour of the +Investiture of the Prince of Wales.... + +"We'd better take the tram down, I think; we might stumble and break our +necks.... + +"The other turnstile.--That kiosk place? That's the visitors' bureau. +They'll tell you quite a number of useful things there--cab fares, +porters' charges, time and tide tables, excursions and so on; but John +Willie Garden can tell you more interesting things than those. Don't +forget you're to meet him to-night.... + +"You're sure you can't dine with me? Very well. The Kursaal, then, on +the Terrace, at a quarter to nine...." + + + + +PART ONE + + + + +I + +THE YEAR DOT + + +On a Friday afternoon in the June of the year 1880, a roomy old +shandrydan, midway between a trap and a wagonette, moved slowly along +the Porth Neigr and Llanyglo road. It had been built as a pair-horse +vehicle for Squire Wynne, of Plas Neigr, but the door at the back of it +now bore the words, "Royal Hotel, Porth Neigr," and its present or some +intermediate owner had converted it to the use of a single horse. The +shaky-kneed old brown animal at present between the shafts might have +had a spirit-level inside him, so unerringly did he become aware when +the road departed by as much as a fraction from the true horizontal. +Taking the good with the bad, he was doing a fair five miles an hour. At +each of its revolutions the off hind-wheel gave a dry squeak like a pair +of boots that has not been paid for. + +The day was warm, and hay was cutting. Combings of hay striped the +hedges where the carts had passed, and as the Royal Hotel conveyance was +so wide that it had to draw in in order to allow anything else to pass +it, wisps had lodged also in the cords of the great pile of boxes and +brown tin trunks that occupied the forward part of it. Honeysuckle +tangled the hedge-tops; the wild roses were out below; and in the +ditches the paler scabious was of the colour of the sky, the deeper +that of the mountains towards which the old horse lazily clop-clopped. + +The pile of trunks in front hid the driver and the two print-skirted and +black-jacketed young women who sat beside him from those inside the +vehicle. These two young women were two of Mrs. Garden's domestics, and +they travelled far more comfortably than did their mistress. Packed up +by her bustle behind, on her right by her seven-years-old daughter who +slept with her head on her shoulders, on her left by the angle of the +trap, and in front by the hamper, the three or four straw basses, the +cardboard boxes, the hold-all of sticks and umbrellas, with a +travelling-rug thrown in (all of which articles she strove to balance on +her short, steep lap), she could only perspire. Her husband, who sat +opposite, could see no more of her than the top of her hen's-tail, +lavender bonnet. Even this he shut out when he took up, now his +newspaper (every line of which he had read twice), and now his +daughter's _Little Folks_ (for the inspection of which periodical, +though the print was much bigger than that of the newspaper, he put on +his gold-rimmed glasses). The smell of his excellent cigar mingled with +the scents of the roses and hay, and trailed like an invisible wake a +hundred yards behind. + +John Willie Garden, who was eleven, had travelled half the distance from +Porth Neigr on the step of the trap. During the rest of the time, now +falling behind and now running on ahead, now up a campion-grown bank and +again lying down flat to drink at a brook, he had covered as much +distance as a dog that is taken out for a walk. He wore a navy blue +jersey, which, when peeled off over his head, had the double effect of +wiping his short nose and causing his shock of gilded hair to stand up +like flames, all in one movement. He carried a catapult in one hand. +Both pockets of his moleskin knickers bulged with ammunition for this +engine. In the heat of a catapult action, against hens or windows, he +used his mouth as a magazine, discharging and loading again with great +dexterity.--But, a mile or so back, his father, looking up over his +paper, had called the Cease Firing. John Willie now plipped the catapult +furtively, and without pebble. It was the chief drawback of the holiday +from his point of view that it had to be taken in the company of his +father. Among his brighter hopes was that Mr. Garden, having seen them +installed, would return to Manchester on the Monday. + +Mr. Garden was head of the firm of Garden, Scharf and Garden, spinners, +and, to judge from his attire, he might have stepped straight from the +exchange. His square-crowned billycock hat, buttoned-up pepper-and-salt +grey suit, and crossover bird's-eye tie with the pebble pin in it, were +at odds with the slumbrous lanes and the scabious-blue mountains. He +carried a wooden-sticked, horn-handled umbrella, wrapped in a protecting +sheath, and from his heavy gold watch-chain depended a cluster of little +silver emblems that he would not have exchanged for as many Balas +rubies. All Manchester knew that he could have given up the dogcart in +which he drove daily to business, and set up a carriage and a pair of +horses in its stead, any day it had pleased him; and his opinions and +judgments, when he saw fit to utter them, were quoted. But he rarely +uttered them. When asked for his advice, say upon a letter, he would +adjust his glasses, read the letter slowly through, turn back and read +it all over again more slowly still, and then, when the person in +difficulties was awaiting the weighty pronouncement, would look through +the letter rapidly a third time, and at last, glancing over the top of +his glasses, would mildly observe, "This seems to be a letter." +Sometimes he would come to the very verge of committing himself by +adding, "From So-and-So." The grey eyes that looked over those gold rims +were remarkable. They seemed to serve less as appreciative organs of +immediate vision than as passers-on of an infinite number of visual +data, which would be accepted or rejected or laid for the present aside +by some piece of mechanism hidden behind. He was forty-four, clean +shaven, save for a pair of small mutton-chop whiskers already turning +grey, darkish and rather delicate-looking, and only half the size of his +stout, blonde wife. As long as Free Trade remained untouched, he had no +politics, and he was an adherent of the lower forms of the Established +Church. He was taking this journey on his daughter Minetta's account, +who was not doing so well as she ought to be. He had bought a couple of +the Llanyglo cottages, and judged that by this time they must be ready +for occupation. + +The mountains drew nearer, and other pale colours began to show through +the scabious blue. The pile of luggage continued to brush the hedges, +and the off wheel to creak. Minetta snored lightly as she slept, and the +black legs that issued from her pink check frock, trimmed with crimson +braid, swung slackly with every jolt of the cart. Mrs. Garden's face +glistened; Mr. Garden allowed _Little Folks_ to fall from his hand, and +dozed; John Willie sought birds' nests and rabbits; and the old horse +continued to change from lumpish trot to slow walk and from slow walk to +lumpish trot, as if he had had a spirit-level inside him. + +After this fashion the Gardens jogged along the lanes where to-day the +summer dust never settles for touring-cars, motor-cycles and the +Llanyglo motor chars-a-bancs. + +"John Willie!" + +It was five o'clock, and they had arrived. Leaving the cluster of three +or four farms that formed the land-ward part of Llanyglo, they had +turned through a gateless gap in a thymy earth-wall, and all save Mrs. +Garden and Minetta had descended. The cart-track had become less and +less distinct, and had finally lost itself altogether in deep, sandy +drifts in which their approach made no noise. There was a fresher feel +in the air. + +And then, through a V in the sandhills, the sea had appeared, and the +lazy crash of a breaker had been heard. + +The irregular row of thatched cottages was set perhaps a hundred yards +back from high-water mark, and the intervening space was a waste of +sand, coarse tussocks, and the glaucous blue sea-holly. Half-overblown +rubbish strewed the beach--rusty tin pans and kettles, old kedge +anchors, corks, a mass of potato-parings in which three or four hens +scratched, and the skeletons of a couple of disused boats. The +half-dozen serviceable boats were gathered a couple of hundred yards +away about a short wooden jetty. A mile away in the other direction rose +the Trwyn, bronze with sunny heather and purple with airy shadow, with +the lighthouse and the Dinas on the top. A small herd of black cattle +had wandered slowly out to it, and was wandering slowly back again at +the edge of the tide. + +"John Willie!" + +The cottages were thatched and claywashed, and while some of them had a +couple of strides of garden in front, others rose from little taluses +of blown sand. Sand was everywhere. It lodged in the crevices, took the +paint off the doors, and had blunted the angles of posts and palings +until they were as smooth and rounded as the two or three ships' +figure-heads that stood within them. Grey old oars leaned up in corners; +umber nets, with cork floats like dangling fruit upon them, hung from +hooks in the walls; and the squat chimneys had flat stones on the tops +of them. The windows were provided with swing-back wooden shutters. +Between the farming part and the fishing part of Llanyglo the family had +passed three chapels. + +"John Willie!" + +Mrs. Garden had descended, and stood over her neat boot-tops in sand, +wondering which of her cramped members it would be best to try to +straighten first. Standing by her only half awake, Minetta rubbed her +eyes. At a respectful distance, but a convenient nearness, half a dozen +barefooted children described as it were rainbow-curves in the air with +their hands from the foreheads downwards, and a little further away the +maritime population of Llanyglo watched the Royal Hotel driver struggle +with the luggage. They did not stand off from hostility, but from an +excess of delicacy. Then, as a heavy trunk slipped and stuck, a young +man with braces over his gansey gave a quick smile, started forward, and +bore a hand. + +"John--Willie!" + +It was Mr. Garden who called. He had put his key into the door of the +cottage where the house-leek grew like a turkey's neck on the claywashed +gate-post, and he wanted John Willie to help carry in the smaller +parcels. Now John Willie was neither deaf, nor did he feign deafness, +but he had a fine sense of the defensive uses of stupidity. Question +him directly (say about those apples or that broken window-pane), and he +knew nothing whatever. Question him further, and he knew less than +nothing. You might conceivably have questioned him to the extreme point +when his unadmitting blue eyes would have said, as plain as speech, +"What is an apple?" His primrose head could be seen at this moment fifty +yards away down the beach. He was watching a fisherman scrape hooks with +an old clasp-knife. He had just spoken to the man. "_Dim Saesneg_," the +man had replied. John Willie was now watching him, not as a man who +scraped hooks, but as the possessor of a new and admirable defence +against questions. + +"John Wil----" + +But this time the summons was broken in two on Mr. Garden's lips. He had +opened the cottage door, and was looking mildly within. + +The orders he had given for the preparation of the double cottage for +his wife and children had included the lining of the interior with +match-boarding, and he had understood that this had been finished a week +and more ago. It was a month since he had had the advice-note from the +timber merchant at Porth Neigr that the material had been delivered. And +so it had. There it was. There, too, were the walls. But the +matchboarding was not on the walls. It lay, tongued and grooved, with +the scantling for fixing it, just where the timber merchant's men had +deposited it--on the floor. It filled half the place. On the top of it, +still in the sacking in which they had been sewn, were the articles of +furniture that had been brought from Mr. Garden's Manchester attics and +lumber-rooms. The rest of the furniture he had taken over from the +previous tenants, whom some vicissitude of fortune had taken far away +to South Wales. + +Mr. Garden removed his glasses, wiped them, replaced them, and then, +looking over the top of them, spoke: + +"Where's Dafydd Dafis?" he said. + +But a cry from his wife, who had come up behind him, interrupted him. +She fell back again, not mildly, but in consternation. + +"Nay, nay, Edward!--I never----" she gasped. + +"Where's Dafydd Dafis?" Mr. Garden asked again. + +"Of all the sights! If it isn't enough to--I thought you told me----" + +Mr. Garden blew his nose and slowly put his handkerchief away again. + +"Does anybody know where Dafydd Dafis is?" + +"--and us fit to drop for a cup of tea!" Mrs. Garden continued. "Up +since five this morning, and come all that way, and not so much as a +fire lighted nor a kettle on to boil----" + +Mr. Garden was looking about him again, as if he would have said, "These +appear to be boards," when suddenly his wife broke energetically in. + +"Well, it's no good standing looking at it; we must all turn to, that's +all.--Jane! Ellen!--Off with them jackets, and one of you make a fire +while the other unpacks the groceries. The tea and things are in that +box under the shawls--and to think we might have come in wet, and not +even a winter-hedge to dry our things on!--There's no wood, you say? +Wood enough, marry! I can see nothing else!--And the tea isn't there? +Then run out and buy a quarter of a pound to be going on with; I won't +have everything unpacked now, not in the middle of this joiner's +shop!--Tell her where the grocer's is, Edward----" + +And she threw off her lavender dolman and bonnet, and bustled about, +like the capable creature she was, as ready to turn to as if she had +never had a day's help in her life. + +A little girl stood at the door, still describing rainbows from her +forehead; but scarce had Ellen asked her where the grocer's was when +there came up at a half run Howell Gruffydd himself, the keeper of the +single shop of the place. He was in his shirt-sleeves, wore an old +bowler hat, and wiped his hands on the coarse, white apron about his +middle. Over his glasses Edward Garden watched his approach, but he did +not speak. It was not anger that kept him silent. Already he had +accepted _fait accompli_--or in this case _inaccompli_. Howell Gruffydd +broke into sunny smiles of welcome. + +"How d'you do, Mr. Garden? So you have arrived? How d'you do, madam? How +d'you do, miss? You had a pless-sant journey?" + +He beamed on each of them, and then beamed on them again. + +"Do you know where Dafydd Dafis is?" Mr. Garden asked once more. + +"Indeed I do not, Mr. Garden. Perhaps he maake fenss for Squire Wynne. +Perhaps he fiss." + +Then Howell Gruffydd's eyes fell on the boards as if he had not noticed +them before. He gave a heartfelt "Aw-w-w!" + +"It is not finiss! Dear me, dear me! Hwhat a pitt-ty!" Then he became +cheerfully explanatory. "That will be old Mrs. Pritchard--Dafydd Dafis +he that fond of her as if she wass his own fless and blood. She iss +nine-ty, and for two weeks they have prayers for her in the chap-pil, +and Doctor Williams, he come from Porth Neigr, and that is five +s'illing, but the pains in her body was soa bad she not know hwhat to +dooa!--And it was good fiss-ing these three weeks and more--and the man +who bring the boards, he say they well season, but it do them no harm to +wait a little while longer----" + +Mr. Garden's eyes were still looking over his glasses. + +"Then is he going to let them season for ever?" he said. + +Howell Gruffydd smiled soothingly.--"Naw-w-w! Not for ev-er, Mr. +Garden!" + +"It's a good job he hasn't got to get his living in Manchester," Mr. +Garden observed. + +At that Howell Gruffydd clasped his hands, as if he congratulated +himself that an interesting rumour was confirmed. + +"Indeed, now," he said, "they do say that the pip-ple there is not the +same as the pip-ple here!" + +At this point Mrs. Garden's voice was raised. She was on her knees by +the boxes, and could not find the sugar for tea. At the word "tea," +Howell Gruffydd broke out with eager hospitality. + +"Indeed it is cup of tea I came about," he said. "I say to Mrs. +Gruffydd, 'They come all this way,' I say, 'and they will be want-ting +cup of tea whatever.' It is all ready ... Eesaac Oliver!"--he called +from the doorway--"run to your mother, and say we be there in one +minnit! And do not answer me in Welss when there are pip-ple who do not +understand it--where are your manners, indeed!" He turned to the +new-comers again. "You s'all have cup of tea whatever, Mrs. Garden--it +cost you noth-thing--and the young gentleman, he is down at the boats, +but Eesaac Oliver s'all fetch him--come on----" + +Howell Gruffydd, the grocer, speaks rather better English to-day than +he spoke then, but there is no more quickness and keenness in his +black-lashed light-blue eyes, and no more persuasiveness in his purring +voice. To the half-unpacked boxes of provisions on the floor he did not +drop an eye. He led the way past half a dozen cottages to the little +shop with showcards and paper packages in the diminutive window. He +showed them in and round the counter, lifting the old curtain that shut +off the parlour from the public part of the shop. Blodwen, his wife, in +a clean apron that showed the knife-edged creases of its ironing, was +curtsying as if she did not know how to stop. The parlour communicated +with the inner side of the counter, and behind the counter, on the left, +was the window. Bottles and canisters stood on the shelves, and below +them were innumerable small drawers. The fire-place had a high +mantelpiece with countless china objects upon it, and a large dresser +with blue and white plates stood against the inner wall. Next to the +dresser was a tall clock, with a ship sailing round the world on the +dial. A gigantic black turnip of a kettle sent out a cloud of steam; +cranpogs were keeping hot in a dish within the fender; and near them an +enormous marmalade-coloured cat slept. The room smelt of pepper and soap +and pickles and cheese, and Howell Gruffydd's guests filled it. He +helped his wife to wait upon them, and in the intervals attended to the +shop. A little girl came in for a pennyworth of bicarbonate of soda, and +Howell, returning from serving her, again showed his white, but false, +teeth. + +"It maake the tea last longer," he said, with a jerk of his head; "but +there is no bi----" he smiled again apologetically, though he was +perfectly well able to pronounce the word, "--there is none of that in +this tea, Mrs. Garden. It is not tea like the fine pip-ple in +Manchester drink, but we are simple pip-ple here. Blodwen, the cranpogs; +make a good tea, Mr. Garden; indeed, you eat noth-thing; tut, tut, they +taake up no room!--You say what is that, young gentleman? That is a +Welss Bible. Aha, you cannot read that! Nor you cannot say, +'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychyndrobwlantysiligogogoch!'--You try? I say +it slowly----" + +Though Howell had repeated the jaw-breaker twenty times, John Willie +Garden would still have maintained the silence of defence. + +"Ha, ha, ha! It is easy!... Well, I ask you riddle instead.--There +was a young gentleman, and he have eight"--he held up his +fingers--"eight--sisters. And every one of them has a brother. Now you +tell me how many brothers and sisters there are!" He winked, but +respectfully, at Mr. Garden. + +"Nine," said John Willie Garden contemptuously, with his mouth full of +cranpogs and jam. + +Howell showed no discomfiture. He laughed. + +"Ha, ha, ha! He say nine! I ask him again.--There was a young +gentleman ... but, dear me, there is the s'op again! We must earn our +living, all of us. Business before pleas-sure--it is a good rule----" + +And he squeezed through to the counter again, while his wife boiled more +eggs and spiked the cranpogs on a fork, five at a time. + +After tea Mrs. Garden was seen to be pulling up her skirt and to be +feeling for her pocket in the folds of her petticoat; but with an +imperceptible gesture her husband restrained her. He thanked Gruffydds, +and they returned to their own cottage, Eesaac Oliver accompanying them +to help to pile up the matchboards and to take the furniture from its +sacking. The cottage was much like the other cottages of the place. Its +ceiling consisted of tacked-up sheets, inside which spiders and dust and +sand whispered and the wind rippled. The black mantelpiece had brass +candlesticks and china ornaments, and on one side of the tall clock was +a grocer's almanac-portrait of Mr. Gladstone, while on the other was one +of Dr. Rees, the President of the Congregational Union of England and +Wales. A sampler, rather difficult to see in the bad light, hung +immediately within the door, and the window opened six inches, in which +position it had to be propped with a short stick. There were geraniums +on its sill, and a red sausage filled with sand kept out the draught +when it was closed. The outer door of the second cottage was to be +permanently fastened up when the match-boarding should be finished. The +cottages adjoining belonged to fishermen, the one with a wife and +children, the other a widower who kept his departed wife in mind by +means of a number of framed and glazed cenotaphs, consisting of a black +ground with white angels mourning over a tombstone, and, above, the +words, "_Er Serchog Cof_----" + +This was Llanyglo when Minetta Garden was first brought there for the +benefit of her health. The authors of the Itineraries had not thought it +worth mentioning; Wyndham has nothing to say about it, Skrine did not +visit it, Pennant passes it by. But you may find an excellent steel +engraving of it, by Copley Fielding, full of accomplishment, elegance +and taste, and published by the London Art Union. If Minetta did well +there, it was Edward Garden's intention, so far as Edward Garden's +intentions were ever known, to let or sell his cottage and to build a +more convenient house of his own. There was stone to be had in abundance +within three or four miles. Mutton was plentiful and delicious, beef +not quite so plentiful nor quite so good. The larger grocery supplies +could be sent direct from Manchester, the odds and ends purchased from +Howell Gruffydd. Water was to fetch only a hundred yards, and lamp oil, +etc., came twice a week in the cart from Porth Neigr. And soon--Edward +Garden did not know yet, and if he did not know you may be sure nobody +else did--Porth Neigr might be brought nearer to the rest of the world +than ten miles' journey by road. For, besides being a spinner and a good +many other things, Edward Garden was a Director of the Ratchet and +Rawtonstall Railway, and, as is the compliment between railway and +railway, those little silver trinkets that dangled from his gold +watch-chain--little greyhounds and locomotives, winged orbs and other +emblems of speed--were the tokens of his freedom at all times over other +lines, and of his personal intimacy with men who open up land, not a +field at a time with a plough, but by running a sinew of steel through +it, with a nerve alongside that, touched at any point, quickens and +thrills throughout its length. + +Nevertheless, it is quite true that he came to Llanyglo first of all for +the benefit of his daughter's health. + + + + +II + +ITS NONAGE + + +At bottom, neither the good fishing nor the illness of ancient Mrs. +Pritchard had been the real cause of Dafydd Dafis's procrastination in +the matter of the match-boarding--any more than those greased cartridges +were the real cause of the Mutiny. He was merely vindicating the claims +of a temperament that kept him, and would always keep him, poor, yet a +power. He was a day-labourer, whom anybody could hire to build a wall, +mend a thatch or caulk a boat; but--and this was the secret of his +influence--he had a harp in his cottage. In a glorious baritone voice he +sang _Mentra Gwen_, _Y Deryn Pur_, and lorn songs of love and wild +songs of battle. More than that, he sang _penillion_; and as +_penillion_--which is an extempore form of song into which you may +plunge at any point you please, provided you finish pat and triumphant +with the double bar--as _penillion_ concerns itself mainly with two +themes, namely, the loved mountains and lakes of Cambria, and quick and +topical inventions of personal gossip, Dafydd Dafis held his hearers +both by their deeper sentiments and their lighter foibles. He was a +spare and roughly clad man of thirty, unmarried, with a kindling eye, a +handsome nose, and a ragged dark moustache; and when his head was bowed +by the side of his harp, all the life of him seemed to run out into the +lean and roughened fingers on the strings. + +He came to see Edward Garden about that match-boarding on the Saturday +morning, bringing a youth of eighteen with him. Edward Garden, who had +had experience of the Welsh in Liverpool, which is the capital of Wales, +received him with resignation. Fair and softly goes far in a day, and he +knew that the luxury of chiding the bard of Llanyglo would prove a dear +one did Mrs. Garden find her egg supply suddenly fail and the Llanyglo +cows mysteriously cease to yield milk. + +His forbearance was rewarded. Before he departed for Manchester on the +Monday morning he had the satisfaction of seeing Dafydd Dafis and the +youth actually begin the job. No doubt it would be finished by the time +divinely appointed for its finishing. + +But whether Dafydd Dafis sang much as he worked, or worked a little as +he sang, remained an open question. + +Now in whatever other respects Llanyglo may have changed, its air then +was the same air that the Guide Book so justly praises to-day. Minetta +felt the benefit of it at once. During her illness she had had her dark +hair close-cropped; for fear of taking cold, she still wore a red +"pirate" cap, that is, a cone of knitted wool with a bob at the peak +that fell on one side of her head: and for the same reason she wore +black stockings pulled well up over the bamboo-like joints of her bony +knees. She was a slight, dark pixy of a child, on whom so much care had +been expended that she had begun to care for herself and to talk wisely +about draughts and wet feet; and sometimes she consoled herself for the +loss of her hair by repeating her mother's assurance, that it would grow +the more strongly afterwards. + +But within a fortnight of the Gardens' settling at Llanyglo there was no +further thought of taking her back home until the cold weather should +come. Her doll's-house and paint-box were sent for. Her health +continued to improve. By and by she was to be found squatted down by the +sand-blown palings, surrounded by the Llanyglo children, keeping a shop, +of which the commodities were shells, pebbles, starfish and the like. +Her dolls and their house were neglected. But the other little girls, +who had seen these wonders once, sometimes lingered wistfully about Mrs. +Garden's door, looking within, and whispering, "There it is, +Gwladys--see, by the cloch----" + +Long before the match-boarding of a single room was completed, John +Willie Garden, whom at first his mother had not been able to drive out +of doors, had lost interest in Dafydd Dafis, his sawing, his hammering, +and his songs. He disappeared by the half-day together. It was a holiday +time at the school by the Baptist Chapel, and, with Eesaac Oliver +Gruffydd and other youngsters as his companions, he scrambled among the +rocks at the base of the Trwyn, or climbed the headland itself, or +digged for bait, or went out in the boats, or fished for crabs with +split mussels off the jetty end (he stuffed his catch up underneath his +blue jersey, where the animals crawled about on his friendly and naked +skin). The rainbow curves of the children ceased when he or Minetta +appeared, but they continued as a salute to Mrs. Garden. The weather +continued superb: it rained scarcely at all. The mountains were never +for two hours the same; the sea in the evenings was mother-of-pearl; and +the rising moon seemed to stand up on it, like the lateen of a felucca +of gold. + +Mrs. Garden sent to Manchester for her tricycle. + +Then the school by the Baptist Chapel re-opened, and for some days John +Willie, hanging idly about and listening to the droning within, was +undecided whether to give the insulting cry of liberty or to lament +that he was left to his own devices. He himself would not have to go +back to school till the middle of September. Then he still further +enlarged his circle of acquaintance. He attached himself to a farmer's +lad, who shot rabbits of an evening among the sandhills, and, after +being allowed to fire the gun, gave his catapult away to a "kid." July +passed. The match-boarding progressed by fits and starts. It was now +Minetta who impeded its progress. Dafydd Dafis loved her as if she had +been his own child, and told her stories of dragons and knights and +enchantments and fairies, and sang _Mentra Gwen_ to her, all by the hour +together, careless whether Edward Garden paid him for those same hours +or not. + +With the passing of August, Llanyglo had made far more difference to the +Gardens than the Gardens had to Llanyglo. Indeed, Llanyglo looked like +absorbing them altogether, as animals not ultimately capable of +domestication are sucked back into the feral state. In the matter of +dress, for example, they had deteriorated alarmingly. Half his days John +Willie spent in and out of the water without a stitch on him, and he no +longer had a pair of sand-shoes to his name.--And Minetta? First she +lost the bob from the peak of her red "pirate" cap, and then the cap +itself was cast aside. From careful nightly brushings of her "new" +pleated navy-blue frock with the white braid, she allowed the pleats to +get full of sand, and, where the prints of her ribbed soles had been, +now her bare feet patterned the beach. Her bamboo legs were brown as +seaweed and barked up the shins; and when (with a totally abandoned +display of knickers) she emptied her shoes of sand, she would sit down +in a pool as soon as not.--And Mrs. Garden? Not for worlds would she +have had anybody from Manchester see her as she returned on her tricycle +from bathing among the Trwyn rocks, sessile on the saddle, a mackintosh +over her voluminous bathing-dress, a towel cast across her shoulders, +and her plump ivory legs rising and falling on the pedals like the twin +cranks of a vertical human engine. Yes, the Gardens were slipping back +into savagery. They were becoming part of Llanyglo. Manchester seemed, +not so much a hundred miles, as a hundred years away. + +And when, on a Monday morning, it became necessary that Mrs. Garden +should put on her garments of civilisation again and traverse those +hundred miles, or years, in order to see how her other home was getting +on, the whole population gathered about the Royal Hotel shandrydan that +came to take her to Porth Neigr, and tears stood in eyes, and sobs +choked throats, and shawls and hands and handkerchiefs were waved as the +vehicle started off over the muffling sandhills, and as many promises +were made that Minetta and John Willie should be well looked after as if +she had been departing never to return, instead of coming back again on +the Friday. Howell Gruffydd picked a tear from his eye with his little +finger, and spoke of the mutability of human affairs. + +"The one is ta-a-ke, the other left," he said. "It is all change. Dear +dear, it make me think of my cousin Evan Evans, of Carnarvon, and his +three boys, as fine boys as ever you see, and so-a hap-py, all living +under one roof, till Mary Evans die and wass buried, and the changes +come, and where are those boys now? They are scatter. One is in Bangor, +and one is in Menai Bridge, and one is in Pwllheli. Dear me! Dear me! +Mrs. Garden was a very kind one. There was no kinder 'ooman. Al-ways +the sa-a-me. She seem like one of ourselves. Well, well----" + +And he picked away another tear, as grief-stricken as if he had been +reciting an epitaph "_Er Serchog Cof Am Amelia Garden_." + +Then, when on the Friday she duly returned, there was as much rejoicing +as if she had been a sister, come back again from a long wandering. + +Mrs. Garden had brought back with her in the Royal Hotel conveyance +wellnigh as much luggage as had laden the vehicle on their first coming; +for it had been decided that Minetta's stay was to be still further +prolonged. So warm clothing had been brought, and more blankets, and a +screen for the door, and a small family medicine-chest, and Minetta's +Compendium Box of Games. And that was bad news for John Willie Garden, +for it brought the shadow of his own departure near; and yet it was good +news too, for it seemed to promise a more sure establishment in the +place, with perhaps another visit for himself during the Christmas +holidays. He could not think how the summer days had slipped away, and +grew doleful as he remembered how few of them now remained. + +Then, when September was a week or so old, he climbed the Trwyn in order +to take his good-bye look at Llanyglo. + +A straggling row of cottages, a few paths over the sandhills, three +Chapels, a school, and a few scattered farms: the rest, mountains, sea, +and air. The tide was creaming over the short thumb of a jetty, and the +herd of small black cows was patrolling the beach. Morgan's cottage, +Roberts's cottage, their own cottage, not more than a dozen other +cottages; and then Howell Gruffydd's shop: already the place was full of +memories for John Willie Garden. That wide pool in the sands that +reflected the sky had not been there a fortnight before--for the sea had +now lost its summer look, and it changed the configuration of the shore +at night. A puff of low-blown smoke showed where Dafydd Dafis was giving +a boat a coat of tar. There was the small crack of a gun--John Willie's +friend was shooting rabbits. On the top of Mrs. Roberts's chimney a new +flat stone had been placed, and a new staple for the shutter had been +driven into the wall. John Willie had still no stockings on, but he was +sensible now of the wind on his legs. They were as brown as rope. His +hands too were brown and grimy, and smelt pleasant. That morning he had +been helping the men to get in the winter peat.... + +So he watched, and at tea-time he descended; but already he was making +up the exultant tales he would tell the boys of his form, of the +spanking place where his father had taken a cottage and might presently +be building a house. He would boast over them in the Welsh words he had +learned, and triumph no end that they did not understand him. Only to a +few of his special friends would he confide the meanings of his +expressions in English. + +Three days later he was doing even so, at Pannal School, near Harrogate, +in Yorkshire. + +Mr. Garden came to Llanyglo once more, bringing a doctor with him this +time in order that Minetta's health might be authoritatively reported +upon, and again he departed. The cottages, which in summer had been +places to live outside of, began to have a comfortable look as the +afternoons drew in. Minetta wore her boots and stockings again now, and +her maroon serge frock with the white collar, and Mrs. Garden put her +tricycle away in the little lean-to behind the house, smothering the +bright parts with vaseline and covering it up with sacking. The +last--the very last--piece of match-board had been nailed in its place, +and all had been pale oak-varnished, so that the sheen of the fire could +be seen in the walls. The glowing peats were reflected too, in still red +spots, in the black glass rolling-pin, the brass candlesticks, the +windows of the dolls' house, the plates and lustre jugs, and the china +sitting hen where they kept the eggs. The wind began to hoot in the +throat of the chimney. Mrs. Garden's ears became accustomed to the +louder falling of the breakers; soon the cessation of this noise would +have been the arresting thing. October wore on. There was very little +fishing now. Each of the three Chapels had a week-night service, and +nearly everybody went to all three. Twice the schoolroom was thrown open +for concerts; but most of the singing took place in the kitchen. +Sometimes, on the edge of the dark, a fantastic irregular shape would be +seen, rising and dipping and lurching as it approached over the +sandhills; it was Dafydd Dafis, carrying on his back the wooden case +that contained his harp. Save for these infrequent diversions, the +winter was a dead time at Llanyglo. The hamlet rolled itself up and +hibernated. Mrs. Garden sometimes sighed for a Halle concert, or a +dance, or "a few friends in the evening," but she bore up for the sake +of the dry and sunny and exhilarating days and the good they did +Minetta. Minetta got out her dolls, their house, and the Compendium Box +of Games; and she and Gwladys Roberts and Morwenna Morgan and Mary +Price, with the oil lamp on the table and the firelight glowing low on +the ceiling, had spring-cleanings of the mimic dwelling (to which the +Welsh children did not take with any great heartiness), and epidemics +among the dolls (which were more interesting), and once a funeral (to +which they gave themselves rapturously). They played Snap and Fishponds, +and then Minetta set about the making of a picture screen, with coloured +figures which she cut from the _Queen_ and _Lady's Pictorial_ and plain +ones which she coloured with her paint-box. + +At Christmas Mr. Garden and John Willie came down, the former for a few +days, John Willie for a fortnight. One of his days Mr. Garden spent in a +visit to Squire Wynne, who lived at the Plas, three miles away. The sea +was some days as black as iron, on others as white as ash with the +tumult of the wind. There was snow on the mountains, but little at +Llanyglo. Even John Willie did not want to bathe. In the daytime he +tried to rig up a sail on his mother's tricycle, so that he might coast +along the two miles of beach before the wind; at night he often walked +down to the edge of the dimly creaming water, and stood looking out into +the blackness, or else at the Trwyn Light, two reds and a white. + +Squire Wynne, the former owner of the Royal Hotel shandrydan, was the +ground landlord of Llanyglo, and the reason of Edward Garden's Christmas +call on him was--still quite simply and on Minetta's account--that he +had decided to build and wanted certain land to build on. But this was +not quite the simple matter it might have appeared to be. With this, +that, and the other, the Squire floundered in a morass of mortgages, +and, for the scraping together of his interest money, could scarce have +re-papered the dilapidated walls of the Plas dining-room. He had other +property also, thirty miles down the coast, which he had never the heart +to go and see. It was there that the family fortunes had been sunk. A +score of broken shaft-chimneys and heaps of fallen masonry on a +promontory were all he had to show for the good Wynne money--these, and +a deed-box full of scrip and warrants which you could have had for the +price of the stamps on them. For that remote volcanic waste had been a +happy hunting-ground for the prospectus-monger with hopeful views on +paying quantities, and the Squire had granted more concessions than he +could count. It was to be presumed that somebody had made money out of +the concessions, if not out of the mines themselves. The last enterprise +had been manganese. + +"Let me pour you out a glass of port first; it's the only thing I have +that hasn't some sort of a charge on it," said the Squire. He was a +heavy man of near sixty, the owner of a family pew in Porth Neigr +Church, a stickler for rainbowing, and, in a feckless sort of way, +something of an antiquary. His adherence to the three-bottle habit +helped to make the fortunes of several quacks in our own day, who +advertise infallible cures for the neuritis he and his kind have +bequeathed to their descendants. The only sign the Squire himself showed +of this was a slightly ochreous eye.--Then, when he had poured out the +port, "It's you who have the money nowadays," he said, meaning by "you" +Gladstonian Liberals. "Look at this ceiling of mine. There isn't a +ceiling in Wales with a finer coffering, but look at the state it's +in!--And that chandelier! It holds forty candles, but _I_ can't afford +'em! This is what _I_ use." He pointed to his father's old reservoir +colza lamp on the table.--"And I'll show you the staircase presently.... +Sell? It won't make sixpence difference to me one way or the other. +Which piece is it you want?" + +Mr. Garden told him. + +"Well, you'd better see my man about it. Sheard, Porth Neigr, next to +the corn-chandler's shop. Or I'll see him if you like. But if we do come +to terms I should like to give you a piece of advice." + +"What is that?" Edward Garden asked. + +"I suppose you're not Welsh by any chance?" + +"No." + +"Well, I'm half Welsh, and things jog on well enough as long as I'm +alive. There are all sorts of questions that simply don't arise. But +they're a queer people here, and when you get to the bottom of it, +practically the question of landowning resolves itself into keeping on +the right side of Dafydd Dafis, if you see what I mean." It was not +necessary to tell Edward Garden that, but he begged the Squire to go on. + +"For instance," the Squire continued, "I've a couple of mortgages +foreclosing any time now--Sheard will tell you--I don't even know who +the mortgagees are. But if they're Welsh, so much the better for them. I +mean if they introduce changes, or go at things like a bull at a gate, +they'll wish I'd gone on paying them interest. A smile does more than a +smack here. If they inclose, for example----" + +"Ah, this new Act----" + +"Or any other Act There was a case at that No Man's Land of mine over +there----" The Squire jerked his head in the direction of the shafts +where the family fortunes had been sunk. "An Englishman came, and began +to fence, and there was a Dafydd Dafis sort of fellow there, and this +man Rodgers thought that because he wore strings round the knees of his +corduroys he wasn't anybody of consequence ... and there you are. The +only thing Edward the First could do with the bards was to destroy +them, and they're the same breed yet.--So that's my advice. For the +rest, you'd better see Sheard. Have another glass of port." + +And, after he had been shown the magnificent ruin of a staircase, and +had noted without showing the grass on the Squire's paths and the moss +in the Squire's grass, Edward Garden thanked the Squire for his advice +and took his leave. He was able to come to terms with Sheard, and in the +following spring a new house began to go up in Llanyglo. + +The site Edward Garden had selected for his house lay a little way +behind the row of cottages, over the thatches of which it looked out to +the sea. Rock cropped up there, amid a waste of bents and potentilla and +sea-thrift and thyme, and a rill slipped over moss and, a little further +on, disappeared into the sand, to emerge again down by the shore. From a +stone quarry on the Porth Neigr road stone was still being got for the +extension of Porth Neigr itself; and it would actually be nearer to +bring it to Llanyglo. Sheard saw to that also, and Edward Garden, taking +the Squire's advice, put Dafydd Dafis, match-boarder, in charge of the +work. It would take time, but it would save time. And, so long as it was +understood that it was Dafydd Dafis who might say to this man "Come," +and he came, and to the other "Go," and he went, Edward Garden did not +anticipate difficulties did he wish, later, to "stiffen" his supply of +labour by importing a plumber, or a mason, or a carpenter or two from +Manchester. + +So, in the spring, the rock was cleared and chisels began to clink; and +John Willie Garden, away at school in Pannal, could scarce contain +himself until the summer holidays should come. He sent, by letter, the +most peremptory specifications. His room was to be thus and thus, and +not otherwise. The letters also contained complaints to his mother that +his health was seriously impaired by arduous study; so was the health of +his friend Percy Briggs: indeed, all the fellows were remarking how +greatly in need of a change of air he and Percy seemed. Mrs. Garden's +chief preoccupation was that the new house should have water upstairs +and a cupboard at every turn. + +And as that was the first building of their own that the folk of +Llanyglo had ever seen, its progress became their daily talk. The +farmers came from inland to look at it, and, as the weather grew milder, +the fishermen no longer smoked of an evening under the shelter of their +boats down by the jetty, but instead made a kind of club-house of the +triangular pile of floor-boards that the Porth Neigr timber merchant +presently delivered. They climbed inside this slatted prism, hung the +interstices with sacking as a protection from the wind, and smoked and +talked, while the stars peeped down on them. They talked of progress and +innovation, and of how little they had ever thought they would live to +see such a change as this on the face of their sandhills. + +"But it will not be as big as the Plas, whatever," one of them would +remark, not so much as belittling Edward Garden's new house as in order +to correct a certain tendency to wild and disproportionate talk. Indeed, +they were proud of Llanyglo's growth. Only the building of another +chapel could have made them prouder. + +"Aw-w-w, William Morgan, h-what a way to talk!" another would reply. +"You talk like a great simpleton! You say next it is not so big as the +railway station at Porth Neigr! Indeed, the Plas is big-ger, but it is +di-lap-i-date, a pit-ty to see, and the staircase--aw-w-w dear! They do +say Squire Wynne he go in lit-tle bedroom, not to fall through the +floor!" + +"And the stables is lock up, all but one stall, and you shan't find a +handful of corn there, no, not more than will feed one horse!" + +"There was sixteen horses there----" + +"And the Squire, he hunt----" + +"It all go to that Abercelyn in the mines--thousands of pounds!----" + +"There is land here to build stables if Mr. Garden wiss----" + +"Indeed, Hugh Roberts, if he build any more we be bigger than Porth +Neigr, whatever!----" + +And this hyperbole always raised a laugh. Porth Neigr, besides being the +head of the railway, had a market place, two banks, a stone quay, a +court house, and an English Church. + +The house rose higher and higher, and by the time John Willie Garden +came again, in July, it had reached the first floor. Long rows of roof +slates were stacked under a temporary shed, and, as if he had not had +lessons enough in the school by the Baptist Chapel, Eesaac Oliver +Gruffydd did multiplication sums and Welsh-English exercises upon them. +John Willie's eyes danced when they saw the scaffolding and ladders. He +was six rungs up a ladder before you could have turned round. He was up +that ladder and down a second and up a third almost as quickly, nor did +he take breath until, short of swarming up the scaffold-poles, he had +stood on the topmost point of the structure. Then, with the air of +something accomplished, he condescended to the level ground again. + +Half of Dafydd Dafis's men lodged at one or other of the farms and +cottages, to the tenants of which they were bound by ties of +consanguinity; the others put up at the little alehouse half a mile out +on the Porth Neigr road, which served also as a shop for the outlying +farms. Dafydd paid their wages, and they had built a hearth near the +mortar heap for the cooking of their dinners. John Willie dined daily +with them. Never was such importance as that with which he came nigh to +bursting. The rocks and the rabbits, the boats and the Trwyn, no longer +called him; here was not only a house going up, but his house. In his +father's absence he could give orders. He became knowing in limes and +mortars, expert in the use of the plumb and level. He strutted about +with a square, setting it carelessly against angles, and derided Eesaac +Oliver and his slates and long-division sums. The eaves-level was +reached; they began to get the roof-timbers up; the sandhills resounded +with hammering and sawing; and the upper part of the house began to +resemble a toast-rack against the sky. Only one stone remained to be set +in position. This was the gable-stone with "E. G., 1882" upon it. John +Willie warned Eesaac Oliver that the slates on which he ciphered would +soon be required. + +As matters turned out, he was wrong in this. Already three men, a +plumber, his mate, and a carpenter, had been down from Manchester, and +fresh supplies of timber--sections of staircase and so on--had come in +carts over the sound-deadening sandhills. But how all at once the work +came to a sudden stop--how that toast-rack stood against the sky for +another year without a slate upon it--and how Edward Garden, away in +Manchester, had once more to accept the line of least resistance, while +his son loitered disconsolately about the unfinished building until +something even more exciting claimed his interest--to tell these things +another chapter had better be begun. + + + + +III + +THE MINDER + + +The land on which, as Squire Wynne had told Edward Garden, other +mortgages were being foreclosed, began a furlong or so behind the +unfinished house, reaching to and including one of the farms--Fotty, +John Pritchard's. It formed a three-hundred-yards-wide strip of bents +and rough grazing, which spread out inland with Fotty in the middle of +its base. The mortgagee was Squire Wynne's Liverpool wine-merchant, and +he had accepted the mortgage partly because he did not wish to be at +cross-purposes with such of Squire Wynne's friends as were good +customers of his, and partly because he was not very likely to get +anything else in settlement of a longish account. This account had been +reckoned off the sum advanced, which, besides, was based on a low +valuation; and, not wanting the land himself, he was ready enough to +sell to any optimist who did. + +The land remained in the possession of the wine-merchant for exactly +eleven weeks. At the end of that time he had found his optimist in the +person of Terry Armfield. + +And who was Terry Armfield, that his affairs should thus become mixed up +with those of Llanyglo? + +Well, the name of one of his grandfathers, which need not be mentioned, +is to be found, in certain circumstances of notoriety, in Gomer +Williams's _History of the Liverpool Privateers_; and that of his +father is associated with the bright story of the tea-clippers. Thus a +certain adventurousness in Terry may perhaps be accounted for. But +whence the rest of him derived was a mystery. Belated young Tractarians +who burn incense in their monastic bedrooms were no more common in +Liverpool then than they are to-day. In appearance, Terry was an +ill-adjusted compromise between an ascetic and a young man about town. +He was tall and of a buoyant movement, excellently dressed, had burning +and ecstatic brown eyes, and was possessed of an extraordinary power of +impressing people as long as, and even a little longer than, he was +actually in their presence. This was all very well as long as he spoke +only of pictures that this self-made merchant ought to buy, or of books +without which some shipper's newly formed library would be incomplete. +He really knew a little about these things, as also he did about +architecture and engravings, vestments and Ritualism and furniture. The +trouble began when he went beyond them. Wealthy business men, looking up +as Terry lounged into their offices, would put up their hands +defensively, cry, "It's no good, Terry--I won't listen," but would +presently find themselves listening none the less. It was not that Terry +was plausible. Plausible was not the word. He persuaded you only because +he was, for the time being, overwhelmingly persuaded himself. His +capacity for enthusiasm was astonishing. Circumstances having driven him +from his true vocation (the Church) into business, he traded as it were +under Letters of Marque that had had an apostolic blessing. +House-property, leases, patents, picture-exhibitions, concessions, bills +for discount, Irish-harvester agencies, philanthropy on a paying basis, +and a hundred even vaguer values--some idealistic strain in Terry so +moved the dullard-on-the-make that he had a new light on business as a +benison, and on money-making as something nobler than he had supposed. +What such an one commonly lacked, Terry was full and running over with; +and the end of the matter frequently was that it was judged to be worth +a certain amount of risk to be on the side of Terry and the angels. + +Of course, Terry ought to have been locked up as a public danger. +Anybody but Terry would have been locked up. But you cannot lock +innocence and rapturous good faith up. Terry, if you had locked him up, +would merely have sent for his crucifix, plunged into fresh scheming, +and would have come out again as running over with piracies and the +humanities as ever. + +So Terry Armfield, who hitherto had never heard of Llanyglo and of whom +Llanyglo had never heard, took over Fotty and the strip of land that ran +down to Edward Garden's unfinished house, with, as it happened, +extremely notable results. + +For nobody who knew Terry ever supposed that he made purchases of real +estate solely upon his own account. He represented others; and it is +perhaps significant that the nickname by which he was known among the +members of the Syndicate which made use of him was borrowed from the +slang of the "swell mob." He was called "The Minder." + +Now the Minder, as you ought not to know, is the gentleman who makes +himself charming to you while the others consult about how much you may +be worth, and how you may most conveniently be made worth less. Often, +like Terry, he himself is not in the real councils of his allies. They +want his looks, his candours, his repute, his address, and in Terry's +case they especially wanted his powers remarkable of persuasion. Until +it should be decided what people were to be persuaded of, Terry minded. + +Little did John Pritchard, tenant-farmer of Fotty, dream of the +solicitude with which his farm was regarded by a number of people who +had never seen it and did not want ever to see it. Little did he think +that that middling oat-bearing land was being minded and brooded upon. +Little did he imagine what interest, what benevolence, what affectionate +regard ... or, to put it in plain English, he had no notion whatever +that, instead of having Squire Wynne for a landlord, he was now the +tenant of a set of prospectus-vendors of whom two or three were the same +men who had held those hopeful views on the paying-quantities of +manganese that could be obtained from that other property of Squire +Wynne's, the Abercelyn mines, thirty miles further down the coast. + +The Corporation did not insist on manganese or on anything else. On the +contrary, it was accommodating in the extreme. You paid your money and +took your choice what commodity you found on its properties; you could +have had tin, iron, copper, lead, anything you happened to fancy. It +merely wished to be able to show, in case of need, its indefeasible +title to real land, at Llanyglo or anywhere else, but the further from +civilisation the better. It would be safer, and really not much dearer, +to buy Pritchard's farm, than it would be to have to confess in open +Court that the tin or iron or lead shares of which it was trying to +create the value, unfortunately happened to have Pritchard's farm +sitting on the top of them. + +"No, we'd better get hold of a bit of real land from somewhere," the +Syndicate had said. "Better have it in a new name too. All Abercelyn +names exempt for three years. Who is there?... What about Armfield?" + +All had agreed that Terry would make an excellent Minder. + +When, in course of time, the Syndicate first heard from Terry (who heard +it goodness knows where) that "glo" was the Welsh word for "coal," it +was on the point of plumping for coal without further question. + +"What more do you want?" it asked itself. "'Glo'--'coal'; there you are. +Place-name. Awful lot in a genuine place-name. Find it on an old map, to +show that we didn't invent it, and the whole thing settles itself. +There's bound to _be_ coal. Sure to be. They didn't call it that for +nothing. All ground's got _some_thing in it. _I_ say coal. On the face +of it. It seems to me Providential. (Shut up, Abercelyn; we're talking +about Llanyglo now.) ... Who says coal, then?" ... + +But Llanyglo was not destined to be a colliery village. Latticed +shaft-heads were not to rise under the Trwyn, nor men to descend in +cages to the galleries deep under the sandhills. Edward Garden's house +was not to become a mine-manager's residence, nor a coal-quay to be +constructed where the wooden jetty stuck out like a stumpy thumb into +the sea.--Nevertheless, it almost looked at one time as if it might have +been so. + +The Syndicate's registered offices were within a hundred yards of Lime +Street Station, and Terry, looking forth from an upper window, could see +the august portico of St. George's Hall and the cabs and steam-trams +running to and fro past it. He sat day by day at a high sloping desk, +perched on a tall stool. A small pile of letters lay by his side, +weighted with a surveyor's reel-tape, and on a shelf above the press +with the dumb-bell arm, thrust among directories and files, were _Stones +of Venice_ and _The Christian Year_. There was a green cardboard shade +on the double-elbowed gas-bracket, and on the wall near it hung an +ebony-edged T-square and a number of French curves. There was a second +stool for callers, and in a small outer office a youth of sixteen read +_The Boys of London and New York_ and chewed root-liquorice. The place +was shabby, as befitted a hole-in-corner enterprise, but Terry saw not +that shabbiness. He had splendour enough in his own visions. He did not +look very busy, but he was. A dozen inspired and half-baked schemes +fermented in his head, and besides these, he was minding Llanyglo--the +thyme and wild pansies and butterflies of its sandhills, the glaucous +blue sea-holly of its shore, its heathery Trwyn, its coal or what-not +underfoot, and its crystal air overhead--especially its crystal air +overhead.... + + + + +IV + +"DIM SAESNEG" + + +On the forenoon of that day on which work on Edward Garden's house +suddenly ceased, Dafydd Dafis, sitting astride of a coping, was singing +as he drove heavy cut nails into a beam. His song was martial, and it +almost made his joinering warlike. The burden of it was that Cambria's +foes (here a bang with the hammer) should fall beneath the sword +(another bang) as the pine falls when the levin (bang) flashes from the +cloud that hides the head of Arenig (bang, and a nail well home). John +Willie Garden, who had heard somewhere that coins of the current mintage +were placed in cavities in foundation stones, was chipping a hollow in +the bedding of the "E.G." stone for the reception of a well-brightened +sixpence and a document in his own handwriting, that should tell future +ages how one John Willie Garden had lived and had done thus and thus. +The sun was hot; the new timbers were as bright as John Willie's own +primrose-coloured hair against the intense blue; and the workmen below +seemed to stand on their shadows as lead soldiers stand on their little +bases of metal. John Willie finished his cavity, and then clambered up +to the ridge-tree. There, putting his hands behind his head, he lay on +his back, his dangling legs balancing him below. He blinked up at the +sky, and from time to time called across to Dafydd Dafis, "Peth a elwir +(whatever the English word might be) yn Cymraeg, Dafydd?" Then Dafydd +would give him the Welsh, and he would practise it softly. + +It was just on the stroke of midday when Dafydd abruptly broke off his +singing in the middle of a word. John Willie, blinking up at the blue, +waited for him to resume; as he did not do so, John Willie turned his +head. Dafydd was looking away over the sandhills in the direction of +John Pritchard's farm. + +John Willie sat up. + +"Who is it?" he asked. + +Dafydd continued to look under his hand.--"Indeed, it look like Mr. +Sheard," he muttered, "but he have strangers with him. It is Mr. +Sheard's carr-adge, whatever.... Hugh Roberts!" He called to the men +down below, who were making ready for their midday meal. He said +something in Welsh to them, and they too looked. + +Mr. Sheard's governess-cart was drawn up by the earth-wall half a mile +away, and from it three figures had descended. They climbed over the +wall and began to cross the sandhills. One of them walked slowly and +somewhat after the manner of a clock-work toy, as if he was pacing a +distance; and another, after looking this way and that about him, moved +off to the right, apparently also pacing. He stopped and held up his +hand, and then returned, laying out along the ground as he went, +something that made a little glitter in the sun. They came together +again, and seemed to confer. Then over the earth-wall John Pritchard +climbed, and William Sheard went to meet him. After that they all +pointed, in various directions. + +Dafydd Dafis, from the top of the pale yellow toast-rack, called +something else in Welsh, too quick for John Willie to hear. Then he +gazed again. Something else was coming along the Porth Neigr road. +Dafydd, who had the eyes of a river-poacher, knew both the cart and the +two men who rode on the load. It drew nearer. Sheard and the two men +seemed to be explaining something to John Pritchard. After a time John +Pritchard walked away. + +Dafydd Dafis descended from the roof, followed by John Willie Garden. He +had put his hammer into his pocket; his little heap of cut nails +remained on the coping. The men had gathered into a cluster, but none +went over the sandhills to see what was happening. + +Then a frequently repeated word struck John Willie's ear. He turned to +Dafydd Dafis. + +"Peth a elwir 'adwydd' yn Saesneg, Dafydd?" he asked. + +Dafydd Dafis looked as if he had never sung in his life. + +"Post--hedgestake," he replied. + +Slowly they got out their dinner. + +As they did so Howell Gruffydd came up from the beach. Formerly, he had +rebuked Eesaac Oliver for speaking Welsh in the presence of those who +did not understand it; now, John Willie Garden's presence was entirely +disregarded. He did not understand six words of the low, rapid +conversation. + +Then in the middle of it a light sound came over the sandhills, and the +talk suddenly ceased. They waited. The sound came again. + +Hedgestakes were being flung from the cart down by the side of the road. + +The workmen continued to sit after dinner, but not a ladder was mounted +again that day. + +John Pritchard was big and sickly and consumptive, and his farm kitchen +was also the Llanyglo Post Office. There John Willie went at six +o'clock that evening to post a letter for his mother. Nominally, John's +mother, ancient Mrs. Pritchard, whom Dafydd Dafis so greatly loved, was +the postmistress, but actually Miss Nancy Pritchard, the schoolmistress, +did most of the work. She was sealing the letter-bag from a saucer of +melted wax when John Willie entered. The postman's cart waited at the +door, and beyond it, past the gate, could be seen the hedgestakes that +had been shot down on the opposite side of the road. The postman was +explaining something to John Pritchard, and Dafydd Dafis and his +labourers listened in silence. In her chair by the fire sat ancient Mrs. +Pritchard, seeming old as the Dinas itself, her face a skull with a +membrane stretched over it, a black gophered snood surrounding it, her +hands anatomies, and her mouth from time to time making a sort of weak +baa-ing. + +Of the hushed and rapid conversation at the door, John Willie caught +this time a phrase or two he understood. "Wait and see, whatever," he +heard them say; "let them drive them in ... adwydd ... perhaps it be on +Thursday ... Saesneg...." He approached the group. + +"Peth a elwir----" he began. + +But the men who formerly had made much of him now took no notice of him +at all. + +The next day two strangers from Porth Neigr appeared at Llanyglo, and +began to stake out and to enclose a belt of land that extended, roughly, +from the Porth Neigr road on both sides of John Pritchard's farm nearly +as far as Edward Garden's house. John Willie watched these two men at +work with their pawls, measuring and driving, but the curious thing was +that nobody else did so. Save for the Porth Neigr men, the blue and +sulphur butterflies and the rabbits, the sandhills were extraordinarily +deserted. John Willie wandered here and there in search of somebody to +talk to, and by and by found himself in Howell Gruffydd's shop. The +grocer showed his false teeth in a smile, and then continued to weigh +sugar. + +"Well, John Willie Garden, can you say 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyll----' yet?" +he asked, his eyes gleaming as brightly as the bright scoop in his hand. + +"Where's everybody?" John Willie demanded. + +"You look for Eesaac Oliver?" Howell asked. "He go errand for me, to the +lighthouse. You meet him coming back if you go." + +"Where are all the men?" John Willie demanded again, and Howell made a +quick and mocking gesture. + +"Indeed, one hide behind that cur-tain--quick, look see!... Ha, ha, ha!" +he laughed when John Willie involuntarily turned in the direction in +which he had pointed. "I cat-ss you that time, John Willie Garden! You +think there's a man behind that lit-tle cur-tain, hardly so big as my +apron! Your sister, she s'arper than that, whatever!... You go find +Eesaac Oliver. He fetch eggs from the lighthouse. Perhaps you meet all +the men there too----" + +And that was as much as John Willie could get out of him. + +It was plain that something extraordinary was toward. It was a habit of +John Willie Garden's to look in at Pritchard's farm of an evening, and +there to pass the news with John Pritchard and to watch his ancient +mother, bent doublefold over her Bible, running a rush-light along line +after line so close to the page that the book was scored across with +bars of smoky brown. He went as usual that evening. But he had hardly +opened the door when it was closed again upon him. "We go to bed," said +John Pritchard, and packed John Willie off without his customary "Nos +da." + +But John Willie knew that they were not going to bed. The door had not +been closed so quickly but that he had seen a dozen men crowding the +kitchen, and Dafydd Dafis's eyes, hollower than ever in the light of the +candle that stood at his elbow, with a sentimental and knife-like gleam +in them as they turned. + +The next morning, every stake that those two Porth Neigr men had driven +in had been uprooted again, and a board with "Rhybudd" on it lay down +the beach, already lapped by the rising tide. + + * * * * * + +It was once told to the writer of _The Visitors' Sixpenny Guide to +Llanyglo and Neighbourhood_--a young man with so little regard for his +bread and butter that he made a labour of love of a job that brought him +in exactly ten pounds--it was once told to this over-conscientious +author, by a man who had known Squire Wynne very well, that the Squire, +finding himself one day in Liverpool, and taking a walk to the docks +with an acquaintance in the Royal Engineers, pointed down the Mersey +past New Brighton, and said, "Do you know, I've sometimes had the idea +that if this country was ever invaded the enemy would come up +there?"--"But surely," exclaimed his friend, "it's a difficult piece of +navigation?"--"Yes," the Squire replied, "but half the pilots are +Welshmen." + +No doubt the Squire said it without accepting too much responsibility +for it. No doubt, too, he would not have allowed anybody else to suggest +that Wales might slyly open a back-door into England. But that there was +something, much or little, in it, the famous Llanyglo Inclosures +Dispute, that now began, lasted off and on for three years, and then +came to an end in as fantastic a manner as you could conceive, seemed to +show. + +For that dispute would not have been so obstinate and envenomed had it +been simply a question of grazing, turbary, and right-of-way. True, +there might still have been the fence-destruction and gate-burning that +presently filled John Willie Garden's heart with a fearful joy; but--and +this is what made the difference--Owen Glyndwr and his triumph over +Mortimer would not have been dragged in, nor Taliesin and his prophecy, +nor Howell Dda, nor Gruffydd ap Rhys, nor Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, nor a +hundred other grey and valiant and unforgotten ghosts of princes and +saints and bards whose names string (as it were) all Wales, from +Braich-y-Pwll to St. David's Head, making of it one Western Harp in +which the wind of sentiment is never still. + +For these fences on the Llanyglo sandhills were not fences--they were +Saxon fences. They were not notice-boards and gates--they were the +insulting tokens of invasion and rapine and defeat. The Welshman says of +himself that he is able to keep only that which he has lost, and, in +Dafydd Dafis's view of it, at all events, not a piratical Liverpool +Syndicate, but a marauding Saesneg king had come again. + +On the evening of the day on which those fences were laid flat again, +John Willie went once more to Pritchard's farm, and this time was not +refused admittance. Perhaps nobody either saw or heard him enter. As if +it had been put there for a signal, a single candle in a flat tin stick +stood among the geraniums in the little square window-recess, and, save +for a dull glow from the shell of peats on the hearth, that was the only +light in the room. Again seven or eight men were gathered there, some +sitting on the hard old horsehair sofa, two on the table, and others +crouched or standing in corners; and the candle-light rested here on a +bit of lustre-ware, there on a chair knob, and elsewhere on a cheekbone +or the knuckles of a hand. It barely reached Dafydd Dafis, who sat in +the farthest corner, with his cap on his head and his head resting +against a Post Office proclamation that hung on the wall. No sound could +be heard save the loud tock-tocking of the tall clock with the in-turned +scrolls on the top and the gilt pippin between them. + +John Willie thought it would be more grown-up to accept their silence +and to share their motionlessness. He set his elbows on the dresser and +sank his neck between his shoulders. The shadow of great John Pritchard, +who sat on the sofa's end, covered John Willie and half the wall behind +him as well, and John Willie's eyes only discovered Dafydd Dafis in the +farther corner when Dafydd moved. As he moved, a bit of gilt fluting +dipped forward out of the gloom of the chimney-corner. Dafydd had his +harp. + +The next moment a single thrumming note had broken out. It was followed +by a soft chord of three or four more.... + + "_Mae hen wlad fy Nhadau yn anwyl i mi, + Gwlad beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri_----" + +It is the commonest air you will hear in Wales--_Land of my Fathers_. +Quarrymen sing it as they work by their trucks, slate-splitters whistle +it as they tap in their wedges, farmers' lads tss-tss it between their +teeth as they clump along the road, sitting sideways on their horses. +You would think it had died an age ago of familiarity and repetition. +Had it been _God Save the King_, played at an English theatre, there +would have been a single line of it, half lost in the reaching for +shawls and cloaks and fans, and here and there a man would have stood +with an interval of an inch between his hat and his head, and already +the attendants would have been getting out the sheeting for the +stalls--so long is it since we knew adversity. But here, it needed but a +stake driven into a foreshore that would hardly have pastured a donkey, +and that was enough--so much adversity have they seen.... Then, as John +Willie craned his neck, a man moved from in front of the candle among +the geraniums, and Dafydd Dafis's hands could be seen. They seemed not +so much hands as multiple things, assemblies of members each one of +which was possessed of an independent life and will. There was not a +finger that did not lurk, stiffen, clutch, and then start back from the +throbbing string as if each note had been a poignant deed done, an old +and secret vow redeemed. For the images that were evoked were cruel +images. Those fingers of Dafydd's might have been choosing, not among +strings of wire and gut, but among the living nerves of an enemy whose +moans of suffering were transmuted into music. Know, that this--not the +languid wrist nor the caressing hand, not the swans-neck forearm nor the +coquetry of the foot on the pedal--not these, but the hook, the claw, +the distortion, and the wreaking and the more than human and yet somehow +less than human love--this is the harping of Wales.... + + "_Gwlad! Gwlad!_----" + +Dafydd's head against the Post Office notice did not move, but his +twisted hand might have wrenched the sinews from their shoulder-blade of +a frame---- + + "_Pleidiol wyf i'm Gwlad!_----" + +He did not sing the words, but the words that sang themselves in the ear +of every man there meant that he was so enwrapped in his country that an +alien stake in her soil was a stake in his heart also.... + +Within a week of that harping of _Hen Wlad_, Terry Armfield had more to +mind than he had ever reckoned for. + +There was no doubt that the flame was fanned largely by the Chapels. +These were, respectively, of the three denominations most common in +Wales, namely, Baptist, Calvinistic Methodist, and Independent; and +Terry Armfield, coming down presently to see for himself what all the +trouble was about, gave one affrighted look at their architecture, +gasped, "Shade of Pugin!" and fled. The Baptist Chapel was a plain +slate-roofed Noah's Ark of stone that, with the day-school adjoining it, +stood alone in the middle of the sandhills. At one end of its roof-ridge +was a small structure in which a bell swung, and the building had this +further peculiarity, that, good stone being cheaper at Llanyglo than +common bricks, the latter material had been used wherever an +embellishment had been desired. The Independent Chapel was also of +stone, with zinc ventilators like those of a weaving-shed; these looked +over the fishermen's cottages out to sea not far from Edward Garden's +house. And the third Chapel, that of the Methodists, of which body +Howell Gruffydd was the principal pillar, lay behind the farms. It was +of corrugated iron and wood, painted inside with a skirting of chocolate +brown and upper walls of a peculiarly sickly light blue. On the walls +were stencilled ribbons with V-shaped ends, and these bore texts in +Welsh. Architecturally all these were hideous, but, to those whose +grandfathers had worshipped in the fields and in clefts of the barren +mountains and on the wide seashore, they had the beauty of a thing that +has been ardently desired, and long suffered for, and passionately +loved. + +For from these three Chapels came not only the impulse of the spiritual +life of Llanyglo, but its local politics of dissent also. Education, the +Poor Law, matters of Local Government, Temperance, Tenure, the +Eisteddfod, and the nursing of Nationalism--if these things were not +actually Llanyglo's religion, they were hardly divisible from it. And +this welding of Faith with secular works was helped by two other +circumstances. The first circumstance was that no language was heard in +the chapels but Welsh; and the second was that, as a result of the +local-preacher system, three times out of four the Welsh issued from the +same mouths--from Howell Gruffydd's mouth at the Methodist Chapel, from +big John Pritchard at the Baptists', and from Owen Morgan's among the +Independents. None of these went quite so far as openly to incite to the +destruction of fences. + +They merely prayed to be delivered from the situation in which they +found themselves. + +Whereupon, like Drake's men, heartened by prayer, they rose from their +knees again to take another pull on the rope. + +So three times in six weeks those fences were set up and laid flat +again; and then it was that Terry Armfield came down, saw the Chapels +(as above mentioned), gasped "Shade of Pugin!" and straightway sought +Squire Wynne. + +But before ever he set eyes on the Squire he had already almost +forgotten the errand that had brought him. As the servant showed him to +the dining-room he saw that noble ruin of a staircase, and his eyes +became illumined. Then, in the dining-room, those same eyes rested on +the coffered ceiling and the portraits and the wide mullioned lattice. +By the time the Squire entered he was adoring the stately stone +fireplace. He swung round, hearing the Squire's step. + +"Magnificent, magnificent!" he cried. "Show me over the house--I beg you +to show me over the house!----" + +The Squire, who had had this kind of visitor before (though none with +quite that perilous smoulder in his eye that Terry had) naturally +concluded that a fellow-antiquary, finding himself in the neighbourhood, +had permitted himself to beg for a sight of the faded glories of the +Plas. + +"I'll show you over part of the house with pleasure," said the Squire; +and he did so. + +"Magnificent!" Terry cried again, when they were once more back in the +dining-room. "And oh, that rood-screen--early sixteenth--and those +sedilia--in your Church over there! I spent an hour there as I came +along." + +"Oh, you came Porth Neigr way, did you?" said the Squire. + +As if he had previously written the Squire a letter setting forth his +business in detail, which therefore he need not repeat, Terry leaped +light-heartedly ahead. + +"Yes, sir--and then, after that, to come upon those incredible Chapels! +(That's a misnomer, by the way, unless they contain relics.) ... Of +course, after that I'm not surprised at anything these people do--fences +or anything else----" + +The Squire was reaching port from the sideboard.--"Eh?" he said, not +quite understanding. + +"_Those_ places an expression of religious emotion!" Terry cried, +throwing up his hands. "Of course, what's happened was a perfectly +natural result! Commit such an outrage on the aesthetic sense as that +and--and _no_ fence is safe! If I'd seen those Chapels first I'd as soon +have bought a volcano as that land! They ought to have been mentioned by +the vendors--flagrant _suppressio veri_--deliberate concealment of a +material fact--an action ought to lie--by Jove, I've a good mind to take +advice about it!----" + +"I beg your pardon?" said the puzzled Squire. + +A very few questions served to enlighten him. His mouth twitched as he +filled his harebrained visitor's glass. + +"Well," he said, "I don't quite follow your processes, but your result +seems all right. If you mean there's some connection between the Chapels +and your fences being pulled down, I dare say you're not very far wrong. +The places of worship do settle a good many things indirectly here. But +our own Establishment's been called a branch of the Civil Service, so I +don't see how we can complain if some of their activities are a little +secular too." + +"'A little secular!'" echoed Terry. "Pulling down fences 'a little +secular!' ... Now I'm anxious not to go to extreme lengths----" + +"Eh?" said the Squire rather quickly. He gave Terry a longish look.... +"Do you know Wales?" he asked politely. + +"I do not. But I've not heard that it's outside the Law. I was going to +say, that I don't want to issue summonses if it can be avoided----" + +Thereupon the Squire, who was inclined to like this half-mystical zany +of a guest, gave him the same advice he had given to Edward Garden. + +"Oh, avoid it if you possibly can!" he said good-humouredly. "There's +nothing these people won't do for you if you go the right way about it, +but it must be the right way. A new neighbour of yours seems to be +getting along with them quite successfully, a man called Garden. Quite +an opportunist, I should say--takes things just as he finds +them--settles every question strictly on its merits and has a good deal +of audacity up his sleeve for use at the right moment, I don't doubt. +Can't you take a leaf out of his book?" + +"Do they pull down his fences?" Terry demanded over his shoulder; he had +been looking at that marvellous fireplace again. + +"I don't think so. As a matter of fact they're building his house for +him.--By the way--Sheard's told me very little about it--have you bought +your land to build on?" + +Terry, remembering his Syndicate, had a momentary check.--"I don't know +yet," he confessed. + +"Because if you have," the Squire continued, "and find them +employment--spend money in the place--and use a certain amount of +tact--you might hit it off with them. But do try to overlook their +Chapels. A soul's sometimes saved under a tin roof, you know." + +Terry looked as if he would far rather have his soul damned under a +Gothic nave.--"That's simply buying 'em off," he said. He would have +preferred to burn them, each at one of the stakes they had uprooted. + +"Well.... I'm afraid it's all the advice I can give you.--And now I +shall have to ask you to excuse me. I'll show you a rather fine carved +kingpost before you go if you like----" + +And Terry presently departed for Porth Neigr again, where he took the +taste of the Chapels out of his mouth in a further ecstatic +contemplation of the early sixteenth-century rood-screen. + +The fences were set up again. + +John Willie Garden could never be sufficiently grateful to his stars +that what happened next came before he departed for school again. He had +gone to bed that night, but was lying awake, thinking of the suspended +building. He knew that the resumption of that building was not +irremediably involved in the fencing dispute; Edward Garden had +established a serviceable goodwill in Llanyglo; and that very night, +standing by Pritchard's manure-heap, Dafydd Dafis had all but told John +Willie that when Llanyglo had settled with the intruder it would have +time to spare for the child of its adoption again. He had told him this, +and had then ruffled up John Willie's fair hair with his hand and had +added that it was ten o'clock and time he was in bed. + +His little window, as well as that of the next room, where his mother +slept, overlooked the sandhills, and John Willie, lying awake, did not +at first notice the change in its colour. Neither did his ears hear at +first a low muffled cracking that had been going on for some time. But +suddenly he sat up. The muslin curtains and the claywashed embrasure of +the window had a rusty glow, which reached the counterpane of the bed in +which John Willie lay. + +The moment he saw this John Willie was out of bed. Then, within thirty +seconds, he had plunged into his jersey, tucked his nightgown hastily +into his knickers, and, making as little noise as possible, had tiptoed +down the stairs and out of the cottage. + +The bright glow over the sandhills guided him, and he ran as fast as he +could through the muffling sand. The continuous cracks were like +pistols, and a deep roaring could be heard, which became louder. Then, +mounting a hillock, John Willie saw the beautiful blaze. It was as high +as a cottage, and the twisting, upstreaming column of sparks above it +rose fifty feet into the night. It illumined the sandhills far and wide. +The Baptist Chapel and schoolhouse looked as if they were cut out of red +cardboard against the night. Even the zinc ventilators of the +Independent Chapel, down by the sea, showed faintly. Then all became +grey again as a dozen fresh stakes were piled on. By the time John +Willie Garden got there these too had caught, with volleys of cracks. +Every man in Llanyglo was there, and, farther off, groups of women also. +The heat was intense, so that the men and lads who ran in to throw back +half-consumed ends did so with their faces averted. + +"Why didn't you tell me?" said John Willie to Dafydd Dafis +reproachfully. + +Dafydd was watching this beautiful Red Dragon of a flame that was +burning Saxon stakes. His eyes blinked rapidly. Then he leant over John +Willie, and his forefinger tapped two or three times on the boy's heart. + +"You wass tell me you go to bed," he whispered. "You wass tell me that, +at ten o'clock, at John Pritchard's. There iss two men over there----" +suddenly he straightened himself again and pointed, "--you can tell them +the same whatever." + +A hundred and fifty yards away two men watched. They were the men from +Porth Neigr who had set up the fences. They put up at a wayside cottage +two miles away, and probably they were not surprised at what was +happening. They did not approach any nearer. + +Then there was a call of "John Willie!" and Mrs. Garden's terrified face +could be seen in the outer ring of light. John Willie was haled off, in +a rage that was nearer to tears than he would have admitted. + +Four days later summonses were served on Dafydd Dafis and two other men. + +The serving of those summonses had an instant and very remarkable +effect. This effect was, that three of the inhabitants of Llanyglo +straightway lost all recollection of the English language. And not only +did they, the summoned ones, lose it, but every witness called from +Llanyglo fell into an ignorance as blank. This happened at Sessions, +before Squire Wynne himself, who, in the days before this visitation of +forgetfulness, had talked English to all of them. The gloomy +magistrates' Court opposite Porth Neigr railway station was crowded. +Terry Armfield, at whose instance the summonses had been issued, thought +he had never seen such a set of pigjobbers as stood against the +perspiring walls or sat with their chins on their outspread forearms, +their caps in their hands or in the pockets of their corduroys. The two +men who had put up the fences sat in the well of the Court. They were +brothers, and their name was Kerr. The skylight shone on the baldish +head of the elder of them, and both had given their evidence in a strong +Lancashire accent. They had been watching on the sandhills, they said, +expecting something of the sort, and knew that it had taken place at +exactly ten o'clock, because they had both looked at their watches.... + +So "Dim Saesneg," said man after man; and the Squire could only make +dots with his pen on the blotting-paper before him, keep his eyes from +Terry Armfield, and call for an interpreter. + +Now interpretation takes time, during which time the person with most +to gain can be thinking of the tale he will tell next. So the +prosecuting solicitor stood up before Dafydd Dafis, and this kind of +thing began: + +"Were you on this land at ten o'clock that night?" + +("_Oeddych chi ar y tir yma am ddeg o'r gloch y noson hono, Dafydd +Dafis?_" This from the interpreter.) + +A rapid denial from Dafydd, not a hair of his shaggy moustache moving. + +"Ask him where he was." + +"_Lle r'oeddych chi, Dafydd Dafis?_" + +The harpist, his fingers twisting his cap, answered that he had been at +Pritchard's farm, and this also was translated. + +"Have you any witnesses?" + +("_Oes genych chi dystion, Dafydd Dafis?_") + +"Eh?" + +"_Oes genych chi dystion?_" + +"_R'oeddwn efo John Willie Garden._" + +("He says he can call the son of the man who is building a house there, +sir.") ... + +And so it went on, hour after hour, with the English evidence likewise +translated for the benefit of the defendants. At the end of the first +day the case was adjourned, but it came on again on the morrow, and +again on the day after that. It began to dam all other business. As a +block in traffic causes an accumulation behind, so other cases began to +collect--drunks, dog-licences, drivings without lights, and innumerable +other petty disputes. There was no question that the fences had been +burned; the only question was whether they had got hold of the right +men. The Bench could not understand the obstinacy with which the two +Lancashire witnesses persisted that the outrage had occurred at exactly +ten o'clock. + +"But mightn't it have been half-past ten, or eleven, or even half-past +eleven?" they were asked again and again. + +"Ah, it might," they admitted open-mindedly. "But it wasn't," they added +unshakably. + +Dafydd Dafis wanted to know what they said. + +"Oh, translate it," the Squire sighed, and for the fortieth time it was +translated. + +"_R'oeddwn efo John Willie Garden_," said Dafydd once more.... + +And that was great glory for John Willie, for he was called, asked +whether he knew the nature of an oath, was sworn, and raised a general +laugh by varying the formula with which the Court was not so drearily +familiar, and saying, in Welsh, "_Dim Cymraeg._" He stood to it that at +ten o'clock Dafydd Dafis had been talking to him by Pritchard's +manure-heap. + +"Oh, for God's sake settle it or do something!" the Squire said +impatiently to Terry Armfield, as he crossed the road to the Station +Hotel for lunch. "You can't say I didn't warn you." + +"I doubt whether my own witnesses would let me now," Terry replied. +"They're as cranky in their way as your own Fenians. Besides, as I told +you, I'm acting for others." + +"Well, if I bind 'em over they'll only do it again," sighed the Squire. + +Terry himself began to weary. After all, he had other things to mind +than a piece of beggarly waste land dotted with Chapels that were a +blasphemy of the name of beauty. + +As the Squire ate his chop in the coffee-room, the two witnesses from +Lancashire sat each on a tall stool in the sawdusted tap round the +corner. Thick imperial pint glasses of mild ale stood on the counter +before them. The elder and baldish one was a man of three or four and +forty, a hard, handy little man, with a curious dip and slope about his +right shoulder. This slight lopsidedness he had acquired during the +years in which he had wandered North Wales buying and felling alders for +clog-soles. Any time this last twenty years you might have come across +him in his little canvas hut in the middle of a wood, with a pile of +split alder-billets on one side of him which, plying his hinged knife on +its solid base with marvellous dexterity, he shaped roughly into the +clog-soles which he cast on a pile on his other side, while his brother +felled. He would buy all the alders in a wood, at so much a foot over +all; the rough-dressed soles went off to Manchester; and no doubt a good +many of them found their way into Edward Garden's spinning-sheds. In the +course of his travels he had picked up from the gentry and their +stewards volumes of gossip of families and their vicissitudes, of wills, +boundaries, timber-news, and customs and tenures rapidly becoming +obsolete; and his coat, a brown check with wide pockets, had probably +been made a dozen years before in Conduit Street. He wore a tie, but no +collar. As the Court had assumed on its own responsibility that he spoke +no Welsh, he had not considered it his business to correct the mistake, +but had allowed them to translate for him also--perhaps for reasons not +fundamentally different from those of Dafydd Dafis himself. He had half +a week's stubble on his chin and thin upper lip; he spat with great +accuracy; and he turned to humour things not generally accounted +humorous, such as scaffold accidents, fights, and deaths from dropsy. + +His brother, save that he wore a collar and no tie, was a younger +edition of him. + +They drank from the thick glasses in silence, and then the elder of them +drew out a short clay pipe with a dottle in the bottom of the bowl, +struck a match on the side of it, and lighted up. The dottle made a +noise like frying. His brother also drew out his pipe, a clay shaped +like a cowboy's head. He gave an indescribably short jerk of his head in +the direction of the other's waistcoat pocket, then, when the stub of +cake was thrown over to him, cut it with a knife with a curved blade. He +stuffed these brains of black tobacco into the cowboy's head, and made +another minute gesture. This was a request for a match. Then, bringing +out sixpence from his pocket, he knocked once with the heavy glass on +the counter. + +"Two more cups o' tea," he said to the young woman who approached. + +They smoked again in silence. + +It was the elder brother who spoke first. + +"I'm capped about them watches, an' right!" he mused. + +The other took a pull at his beer, and replaced the cowboy pipe in his +mouth. + +"I cannot think th' bairn wor telling 'em lies," the elder one mused +again. + +"Gi'e me another match," said his brother. + +The alder-buyer's wrinkled eyes were peering sideways at an auction +announcement pinned to the wall. He shifted his feet in the legs of the +tall stool. By and by he spoke again. + +"Let's see. Let's study it out.... We com' home at tea-time that day, +didn't we?" + +"Ay." + +"Then we went out into th' yard and washed we'rsens at th' bucket." + +"Ay." + +A pause, and then, the speaker's eyes on his hearer's face like two +prickers: + +"Did yet tak' your waistcoat off?" + +"I cannot tell ye." + +"I did mine. I threw it down on a chair i' t' kitchen." + +This time the younger brother shifted his feet. + +"Happen I did mine an' all." + +"Wor your watch i' your pocket?" + +"Ay, it wad be." + +"So wor mine." + +They drank thoughtfully and simultaneously, and again the silence fell. + +Then, more slowly still, the elder Kerr resumed. + +"D'ye remember a chap coming in, a thin chap, 'at spoke Welsh to t' +Missis?" + +"Ay." + +"He com' to fetch a pair o' boots to mend." + +"Ay." + +"Think ye----" again the look as of prickers, "--think ye there wor +owt?" + +"How, owt?" + +"'At he wanted to know what time it wor, or owt?" + +"There wor t' clock." + +"Ay...." + +There were minutes of silence this time. Evidently the younger brother +occupied them by taking, in thought, a considerable journey. He spoke as +if in objection to some far-fetched surmise. + +"But they'd ha' to be set forrard again," he grunted. + +"Ay, I'm bothered wi' that," the elder admitted, "--wi'out t' Missis +herself----" + +"Aw!... Think ye?..." + +They knocked for two more cups of tea. + +"And we've been swearing to ten o'clock." + +"So ye think there wor summat?" + +"I cannot think t' lad wor telling 'em lies," said the alder-buyer. + +This time they both peered reflectively at the auction announcement on +the wall, smoking and spitting as they peered. + + + + +V + +THE HAFOD UNOS + + +"Then," said Terry's Syndicate, or such of its members as lounged in +Terry's office, looking down on the Lime Street and St. George's Hall +pavements as if they had been so many fishermen selecting a likely spot +for the casting of a fly, "what about going back to the old idea--coal?" + +"Hm!----" (a very dubious "Hm!").--"Far better have another shot at +manganese--especially after what's happened----" + +What had happened had started remotely enough from Llanyglo. It had +started, to be exact, in the Balkans. Much manganese comes from the +Balkans; a war there had suddenly made the supply a mere trickle, so +that prices had whooped up; and--wonder of wonders--those old workings +of Squire Wynne's, farther along the coast, actually looked like paying. +Terry's Company, unhappily, had just transferred its rights, and was +rather sore about it. + +"Wouldn't that be a little too--timely?" a timid member suggested. + +"Not if you--er--put it properly. It's only thirty miles away----" The +speaker paused from delicacy. "From the real manganese" was understood. + +"Might send a geologist down--one we could trust----" + +A very young member of the Syndicate hazarded a remark.--"But wouldn't +burnt mine-works come dearer than burnt fences?" + +They smiled indulgently at him. He was merely suffering from a slight +confusion of ideas. Nobody had said anything about mine-works. Then they +turned to Terry. + +"What do you say, Armfield?" ... + +It was now winter, and the dispute was still dragging on. There had been +no further fence-burning, but the Member for the constituency had been +memorialised, a joint meeting had been held in the Llanyglo schoolroom, +and he had promised to come down and see for himself how matters stood. +Until he should do so the disputants glared, so to speak, at one +another. A certain element of contempt, that looked at first like +tolerance, had even entered into the quarrel. Thus, a section of fence +on a portion of the sandhills that it would have been a positive +inconvenience to visit was allowed to stand. Llanyglo preferred to +reserve its strength. But elsewhere the stakes lay half buried in the +sand, and John Willie Garden now and then wondered what sort of a raft +they would make. + +"The whole thing looks like being a damned bad spec," the Syndicate +grumbled. + +That opinion seemed to be gaming strength. + +There seemed to be more than a chance that Llanyglo, its heathery Trwyn +and its purple mountains, its unproductive sandhills and its non +dividend-paying sea, would be written off by Terry's Syndicate as a +total loss. + +Then, all in a night, something astonishing happened at Llanyglo. + +The words "all in a night" are to be understood in their very plainest +sense. Granted that it was a winter's night, and therefore a long one, +with the darkness setting in soon after four and the sun not coming up +behind the mountains again until nearly eight; none the less the fact +remained that Llanyglo went to bed as usual, and woke up to rub its +eyes, unable to believe what it so plainly saw. What had happened was +this: + +With Edward Garden's house-roof still a toast-rack against the wintry +sky, and his slates just as they had been left after Eesaac Oliver's +last long-division sum, and only half the staircase yet fitted, and the +little socket John Willie had scooped out under the date-stone still +awaiting its sixpence--with all this arrested as life and growth and +motion were arrested in the Enchanted Palace, the first new house had +gone up in Llanyglo. Where had been nothing the night before, there it +now was, staring at them when the sun rose, a house, with smoke coming +out of its chimney. + + * * * * * + +That same friend of Squire Wynne's who repeated to the author of the +_Sixpenny Guide_ the Squire's remark about invasion _via_ the Mersey, +told him also what a Welsh "Hafod Unos" is. + +"You know what the words mean," he said. "Strictly speaking, it's the +summer-house--pavilion--shelter--of a night. The essentials are that it +must be built on common land, and in a single night. Then they can't +eject you. At least that's the idea. Don't ask me how it stands in Law. +It may be a kind of squatter's right, or anything else, or it may have +no standing at all. Probably it hasn't. But that's neither here nor +there. They have their notions about it, and those at any rate are +immemorial. Look here: you're pottering about this country just now; +just count how many houses you find with the name 'Hafod Unos.' You'll +find quite a lot. There's a very big one Bangor way, that probably took +some years to build, but probably one of these places was its +foundation.... And a house 'within the meaning of the Act,' so to speak, +means that smoke must have gone up the chimney. Cook your breakfast +there, and--well, after that you're a sort of tolerated freeholder. It +might be worth putting into your Guide Book. You'd better add a +footnote, though, that the 'f' in 'hafod' is a 'v,' and 'unos' is +pronounced 'innos.' ... Not at all; you're welcome to any help I can +give you----" + + * * * * * + +Llanyglo, snugly in bed, had heard the sounds across the sandhills +during the night, but they had been set down to the newest development +of the fencing dispute. This development was that, a week or so before, +several cartloads of undressed stone had been shot down by the side of +the sandy gully that ran from Pritchard's gap down to the shore. And +Llanyglo had smiled. Aha! They were going to build a walled enclosure, +were they? Something that wouldn't burn, whatever? Well, well, if it +amused them to build walls on winter nights when everybody else was warm +in bed, they might. They would only lose their labour in the end. Mr. +Tudor Williams, of Ponteglwys, was going to ask a question in the House +of Commons, yes, and he was coming down to speak at the Chapel and to +see for himself. It was a cold night for building walls, whatever---- + +So they stayed in bed, and only the revolving Trwyn light, two reds and +a white, saw the planting of the thorn in Llanyglo's side. + +The two Kerrs did not do it alone. It took four of them--"a Kerr to each +corner," as Howell Gruffydd afterwards said. The two other brothers had +been sent for from Ratchet, where one of them worked in an asbestos +factory and the other was a builder's labourer; and if these imported +ones lacked that spur of conviction that their watches had been tampered +with by tricky Welshmen, they had another and a double incentive--the +sense of family unity, and of the honour of the gradeliest county on +earth, Lancashire. No Kerr, no lad from Lancashire whomsoever, could +thole to be bested by a Welshman. Lancashire was the place for which +Johnnie Briggs played cricket, the place where the Waterloo Cup Meeting +was held. They danced in clogs there, clogs with soles of Welsh alder, +and laaked at quoits and knurr and spell, and knew a bit about homing +pigeons, not to speak of cocks, the game kind. They were lads, and +right, in Lancashire.--Wales? Wales produced nothing but alders and oats +and goats and Chapels. + +The idea had been that of Ned, the eldest brother, and it was part of +the miscellaneous general information he had picked up on his +alder-prospecting through Merionethshire and Montgomery and Carnarvon +and Denbigh and Flint. He had seen a way of convicting Llanyglo out of +its own mouth. They threw down fences on the grounds that the land was +common land; very well, if it was common, as they claimed, it was a +proper site for a Hafod Unos. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander; +and merely as a poke in the eye for watch-tinkering Welshmen, and a +vindication of Lancashire's superior wit and malice, it would be worth a +night's work to see their faces in the morning. + +So to work in the dark the four brothers got. + +They helped themselves to a modest slice of Llanyglo earth, plotted it +out with stakes and string, and then began to dig. The night was +moonless, and they worked by the light of four lanterns. These +illumined little enough of the waste; the moving, straddling shadows +they cast hardly began before they were lost in the darkness again. +Knitting-needles of light came and went again on the polished handles of +the rising and falling spades, and faintly, regularly, and as if a +spirit passed high overhead in the night, the intermittent Trwyn beam +swung--red, red, white--red, red, white---- + +They had not to dig deep; there is much volcanic rock under the Llanyglo +sand; and they had not set up fences half a dozen times without having a +notion where it was. + +"Here we are," Harry, the builder's labourer grunted as his spade gave a +clink and a jump in his hand. "I thowt it wadn't be far off.--Is t' +barril there, Tommy?" + +Across a mound of thrown-up sand one of the lanterns cast a short +parabola of shadow. It was the shadow of a nine-gallon barrel of beer. + +"Nay, we mun do a bit first," Tommy replied, spitting on his hands and +driving in his spade again. + +Their house already existed, complete in their practical heads, before +ever a spade was lifted. They had seen through its entire anatomy in the +taproom of the Station Hotel, with beer to solve all difficulties. +Nothing was done twice, and brother did not get in brother's way. Even +as Howell Gruffydd said, they took a corner of their plan apiece and +dry-walled, all save Tommy, who went to and fro with a hand-cart, +fetching stone, not too much at a time, because of the dead softness of +the sand. For the general design Ned's word was law; for details, each +used his own gumption. They worked and grunted, and worked and grunted, +and worked. By the time Sirius appeared over faraway Delyn, and Orion +balanced himself on Mynedd Mawr, they had a serviceable first course +laid. Then they put on their coats again, for it was a bitter night and +they perspired, and with a single blow Tommy neatly tapped the barrel. +They drank, threw off their coats again, and set to work once more. + +"Never heed that, Sam," Ned said once, seeing his brother elaborating +the stark essential plan that had been agreed upon in the taproom of the +Station Hotel. "T' corners, t' beams, and t' roof; we haven't time to +paint it and put a pot o' geraniums i' t' window." + +By one o'clock the lanterns showed four irregular angles of masonry, +shoulder-high, as rough as you please, but true by plumb and level. This +might be a joke against Llanyglo, but it was a workmanlike one. Only two +of the brothers now walled, for they had only two ladders; Sam helped +Tom to lift and carry beams. + +By three o'clock only two of the beams were laid, but they were the +principal ones, and Ned seemed well content. + +"That's t' main o' t' work," he said, with satisfaction. "How's t' +barril going on, Tom?" + +"True by t' level yet," Tom replied. "Shall we start on th' bread and +cheese?----" + +"Did ye think on to bring some pickled onions?" + +"Ay." + +"Then we'll ha' we're nooning." + +They took their nooning, with Sirius now over Mynedd Mawr, and Orion +soaring like a kite. They took it at their leisure; they were "lads from +a reight place," setting about a job as if they meant to finish it, not +Welshmen matchboarding. A mountain of sand filled the space within their +four corners, and they lay on their backs on it, smoking, and watching +the red and white spokes of the light high over their heads, twenty-mile +spokes, of a wheel that had no circumference but its sweep through the +night. Now and then Sam gave a low chuckle; but Ned smoked, spat, and +was silent, save that he said from time to time, "Did ye number and +letter them chamfers, Harry?" or some similar question. You would have +said they had a month before them. Certainly the Kerrs, when there was a +surprise to be prepared for foreigners who meddled with their watches, +were members one of another. + +At half-past three they set to work again. By four Ned had climbed up +above, and was sitting astride a beam with the light of a lantern +shining up on his streaming face. + +"Give us another inch, Sam," he grunted, "--a bit more--a bit +more--_whoa!_ Tom, that quoin--no, th' one wi' th' bolt--this is th' +chimney end--and get them three strutts ready, accordinglie to th' +letters.... How are ye down there, Harry?" + +The mason brother was building the chimney. It was an outside one, +massive as a buttress, and Harry was building it well and truly, for it +was the essential of the house. Smoke must go up it before dawn, the +hearth-smoke of civilised man, the lowly and secular and beautiful token +that he has made himself an abiding-place on a spot of earth, and +becomes part of that spot, and it part of him, so that to deracinate him +is to thrust him back again into the bestial state and to make the land +as desert as the sea. By all prognostication, Edward Garden's smoke +should have been the first to add itself to that of the cluster of +humble dwellings between the mountains and the waves that was Llanyglo; +but of that lawn of lightsome blue that veils Llanyglo to-day the +breakfast-smoke of the Kerrs was the fore-runner. At half-past four they +were shovelling out the mountain of sand and making the hearth for it. +By six Tommy had brought in the bundle of dry twigs and faggots he had +carefully hidden away. Harry was filling in the space between the main +beam and the transom of the door; when Tom asked him for a match he +sprang down, and Ned and Sam also descended from the roof. + +"What time is it?" Tom asked. + +Ned gave a glance round, and smiled for the first time that night as he +drew out his watch. + +"Five past six," he said, and added, with indescribable dryness, +"--unless som'b'dy's been meddling wi' my watch." + +"Here goes," said Tommy, striking a match.... + +They exchanged glances that were near to winks as they watched the +flames. It was their equivalent of a cheer. + +The night paled; the Trwyn light went out; and off the headland a seal +disported itself in the icy sea. The day stole across Delyn, but Mynedd +Mawr still remained an awful precipice of ink--the shadow of the morning +bank lay over him. Then came the first glitter on the waves, and, as if +with light all other faculties awake, folk became conscious of the +crowing of cocks and the falling of the breakers on the shore. Howell +Gruffydd got up and began to rekindle his fire. A bolt was shot back at +Pritchard's farm. Dafydd Dafis packed his breakfast in his tin and set +out for his day's work--a little reslating of the roof of the Baptist +Chapel. + +But on his way across the sandhills he suddenly changed, not only his +direction, but his gait also. He advanced cautiously, skirted certain +mounds of sand that he did not remember to have seen before, and then +as suddenly drew back. Then, instead of advancing again, he returned by +a circuitous route, dropped into a sunken sandy way, and then ran as +fast as his legs would carry him down to the cottages. There he thrust +his head into Morgan's cottage and said something, and ran to the next +one--or rather to the next but two, for Edward Garden's double cottage +had been locked up since October. Then Howell Gruffydd came to his shop +door, and Dafydd called him. + +Five minutes later half Llanyglo was out on the sandhills staring +through a gap at something that lay beyond. + +It was an extraordinary house they saw, and then went round to the back +to look at from another point of view. It appeared to consist of a +living-room and a scullery, with a patch under the skeleton of a sort of +penthouse at the back. It was not even on the land that had been fenced +and unfenced and fenced again. Of roof it had none--for you could hardly +call the three or four tarpaulins, that lifted as the wind got under +them and were kept down by stones, a roof. Parts of the walls were +solidly constructed; other parts had been battened up with hedgestakes, +filled in with sods and peats, stuffed up with coats, anything. It had +an old door that had been used somewhere else, and appeared to be +propped up with stones. Over one window-opening hung an old brown coat, +the other frame was empty. A bright glow shone on the rubble within, and +smoke and sparks came merrily from the chimney. The fire crackled +loudly, and there was a pleasant smell of cooking bacon. All about the +cavity in the sand lay stones big and little, timbers, stakes, loops of +rope. There was a hand-cart too, with its handle making a T in the air. +A scraping sound was heard, as of somebody cleaning out a pan, and then +came a low "Wouf" and flare of fat in the chimney. Then somebody spoke. + +"Squeeze t' barril, Tom, and see if there's another cup o' tea." + +"Nay, we've supped t' lot." + +"Blow down t' vent-hole...." + +As if those walls vanished again even more quickly than they had sprung +up, Llanyglo could see a picture vividly in its fancy--a picture of a +tilted barrel, with the cheeks of one man distended over the spigot-hole +while another caught a muddy trickle in a thick glass---- + +Then their vision fled, and they were staring at that unimaginable house +again---- + +Slowly, and without a word, they moved off through the soft sand in the +direction of the Baptist Chapel. + + + + +VI + +THE FOOT IN THE DOOR + + +IT was a Saturday, a day on which the school did not assemble, and the +door of the schoolhouse was locked. Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd was sent off +in haste for the key. They waited for him to come back, twenty of them, +men and women, with others hurrying over the sandhills to join them. +Eesaac Oliver ran panting up again, and they entered the schoolhouse. +This was a large, yellow-washed room with beams making triangles +overhead and hot-water pipes running round the walls below. A small +squad of desks stood upright behind, and a number of smaller benches +knelt, as it were, in front of them. These faced the raised desk of Miss +Nancy Pritchard, the schoolmistress. A yellow chair or two, a couple of +glass-fronted cupboards, a row of hooks for caps and cloaks at the back, +and a harmonium, completed the furniture. A short covered way near Miss +Pritchard's desk gave access to the adjoining Chapel. A door at the side +of this led to the little stone outhouse where the water for the pipes +both of school and Chapel was heated. + +Their astonished exclamations had broken out now. As something legendary +and dear and native to their land, it was in their hearts to defend the +Hafod Unos; but for a stranger to set one up! + +"Look you, it can-not be legal!" exclaimed Hugh Morgan, a little tubby +man with semicircular brows and a round bald forehead. "It iss not even +finiss; there iss holes in the walls so-a big I put my head through +them! And that iss not a roof--it iss only rick-covers----" + +"It is wonderful how they did it, whatever!" said little restless-eyed +Mrs. Gruffydd. Those predatory eyes in Blodwen Gruffydd's pale face +could see a sixpence a mile away, and, having seen it, would not leave +it again until it had been safely dropped through the slot of the +money-box into which the savings for Eesaac Oliver's education went. +Eesaac Oliver was not to serve packets of tea and pennyworths of +bicarbonate of soda over a grocer's counter. He was to go to Aberystwith +College, and to become a preacher, and wear a black chip straw hat. + +Howell Gruffydd, who had been as thunderstruck as the rest of them, now +affected to take a jocular view of the matter. + +"De-ar me, first Mr. Garden's house, and now Ty Kerr! Well, it make +trade. Indeed, I need a bigger s'op presently--I think I start a Limited +Company----" + +But big consumptive John Pritchard spoke in deep tones. More vividly +than any of them, John had seen, as if in a camera obscura, that vision +of a Kerr blowing into the vent-hole of a barrel, while another Kerr +anxiously watched the tap.--"We need a bigger public-house, I think," he +said grimly. + +"Indeed you are right, John Pritchard," Hugh Morgan struck eagerly in, +the curves of his brows all marred with anxiety. "They sit in the +Sta-tion Hotel Porth Neigr, and do noth-thing but drinking all day--it +set a s'ock-king example, whatever." + +"And they call it 'ano-ther cup of tea,'" said a third. + +"They very smart ones----" + +Again John Pritchard's deep voice came in.--"They're very deep ones." + +Little Hugh Morgan spoke excitedly. + +"Indeed you are right again, John Pritchard! John Williams Porth Neigr, +he say to me it would not surprise him if that Ned Kerr speak Welss so +well as nobody if he wiss!" + +A shocked "_Aw-w-w!_" broke out. "And he say in the Court, 'No Welss!'" + +"Tut-tut-tut--de-ar me!" + +They were silent for a moment, contemplating this duplicity. + +"And there iss four of them now," one resumed. "They send into England +for two more." + +"We soon have large population," said Howell Gruffydd again.... + +John Pritchard had sat down on one of the yellow chairs with his knees a +yard apart. His brows seemed knitted. + +"But there is noth-thing for them to do here," he said. "No work, no +wages--only building fences." + +"Perhaps they have lot of money. Their bacon smell very good, whatever." + +"They finiss their breakfast--I heard them wipe the frying-pan out as +plain as if I see it with my eyes!" + +Again John Pritchard's heavy voice: "Finiss their breakfast indeed! They +finiss a whole barrel of beer!" + +"And it is right what Hugh Morgan says," another struck in. "That Ned +Kerr, he know Wales as well as I know my two hands! I have let-ter from +my cousin Thomas Thomas in Towyn, and he say they buy lot-t of alders up +the Dysynni two years ago of Mr. Llewelyn Jones of Abergynolwyn, and set +up a hut in the 'ood, and make their clog soles, and pay six-pence a +foot for the trees." + +"He set up more than a hut at Llanyglo, whatever!" + +"Indeed they do no such thing! The Hafod Unos belong to the old days. +There iss no new Hafod Unos I don't know this how many years!" + +"All the old things was new things once, Hugh Morgan." + +Then, as if all at once they saw anew that house so magically sprung up +out of the sand, there fell a silence. Howell Gruffydd might make his +jests about taking a larger shop and forming a Limited Company, but the +hard fact remained, that aliens had squatted down at Llanyglo while they +had slept, and, by force or process of law, might be difficult to turn +out again. Howell's jocosity subsided; among the children's forms and +benches they took counsel together; and when, at half-past ten, John +Pritchard's eldest lad came in with the news that one of the Kerrs had +departed along the Porth Neigr road, while the other three kept guard +over what they had won, they drew closer together still, and spoke in +low tones of boycott. + +Then suddenly somebody asked what Mr. Tudor Williams of Ponteglwys would +say, and the quick little outburst of "Yes, indeed," "Well said," "Mr. +Tudor Williams have some-thing to say," showed how pertinent the +observation was considered. For Mr. Tudor Williams, the Member, would be +able to tell them, if anybody could, whether the Hafod Unos was +countenanced by the Law, and whether the intruders could be served with +notice to quit. His promised visit now took on an added urgency. + +"It is a pit-ty Mr. Williams fall out with Squire Wynne," Hugh Morgan +remarked. "It will be the Squire who will have to give them notice, +whatever." + +"They quarrel one day outside the Court at Porth Neigr." + +"But indeed, Howell Gruffydd, Mr. Tudor Williams wass in the right--it +was about the Tithes, and the Tithe iss a wick-ked system----" + +"Aw-w-w, but the Welss Members they alter all that very soon!" + +"But the Squire and the Bis-sop of St. Asaph is great friends----" + +"Indeed that Bis-sop of St. Asaph he look at a Chap-pil like as if it +wass not worth his eyesight!" + +Dafydd Dafis, who sat on a child's bench, looking moodily at the floor, +had not spoken yet. He gave a quick glance up, and then looked down +again. + +"The Church iss a great robber," he muttered within his moustache.... + +They discussed questions of ecclesiastical polity.... + +"It iss a great robber," said Dafydd Dafis, again resuming his former +attitude. + +Then Howell Gruffydd rose, and one or two others followed his example. +There was the day's work to be done. Soon all moved to the door, but +before going about their businesses they went to take another look at +that astonishing house. + +But they looked only from a distance. If they had assumed that the +Kerrs, having worked all night, would now be sleeping, they were wrong. +They could see them, three of them, still busily walling, filling, +shovelling out sand. + +"They try to finiss before Sunday," Hugh Morgan said. + +But big John Pritchard glared sternly at him. + +"They care noth-thing for Sunday, those ones," he said. "That other one +will have gone for more beer." And he added, in solemn tones, "It iss a +den of li-ons!" + +The fencing dispute had now sunk into insignificance. + +It quickly appeared, even as John Pritchard had said, that the Kerrs +cared nothing for Sunday. At a quarter to ten on the morning of that +day, Howell Gruffydd, in his tight black frock-coat and bowler hat, +passing up the sandy gully on his way to the Methodist Chapel, heard +sounds of carousing. He turned aside to look. The door of the Hafod +stood open, and a second barrel of beer, together with provisions and +some sticks of furniture, had been fetched during the night. Tommy, the +youngest of the Kerrs, was already drunk and singing. The eldest of +them, seeing Howell Gruffydd, gave him an insolently familiar nod, as if +he had as much right to be there as anybody else. + +"Cold mornin'," he said. "Are ye coming in to hev' a tot?" + +Howell turned away. + +After service, Howell encountered John Pritchard. John, too, had heard +that godless levity from afar. Others gathered round them by the gap in +the thymy earth-wall, and John raised his voice on high. It shook with +bitter zeal. + +"We hear them in the Chap-pil, in the mid-dle of prayers, singing!" he +cried. "On a Sunday morning they sing; they sing '_Thomas, make Room for +your Uncle_!' I said it was a den of li-ons, but indeed no li-ons ever +behave so s'ock-kingly! They sing '_Thomas, make Room for your Uncle_,' +in the mid-dle of prayers, like if it was out of the belly of hell!" + +Dafydd Dafis, whose head for a day and a half had drooped like a wet +head of corn, gave a quick gleaming glance. + +"They not build it any more quick than it can be pulled down again," he +said quickly. "They come out of the house sometime to work, I think. +They not gentry with lot of money, whatever." + +And that was true. The Kerrs could hardly earn their living by drinking +beer and having continually to mount guard over the house they had made. + +"There will be no peace in Llanyglo now till Mr. Tudor Williams has +been." + +Dafydd Dafis's head drooped again. + +"Indeed we do not need Mr. Tudor Williams for this," he muttered under +his breath. + +And the Kerrs themselves? Did they suppose they could plant themselves +thus in the enemy's midst and not meet with hostile entertainment? + +For this we may perhaps go once more to the gentleman without whose +friendly help the _Llanyglo Guide_ would have been done quite as well as +it needed to be, and in half the time. + +"It's difficult to say, for two reasons," this gentleman said. "In the +first place, the humour of some of these Lancashire fellows is such an +incalculable thing; you never know how far they will carry it, nor how +soon it will end in black eyes and bloody noses. And in the second +place, there was that humanitarian scatterbrain, Armfield. I believe +myself that probably Armfield had already told Ned Kerr that there +_would_ be work presently.... + +"Of course, you've heard what Armfield's scheme was. The Syndicate had +decided not to rectify any more errors of Providence about the +disposition of coal and manganese; they only wanted to clear out +altogether, leaving somebody else 'holding the baby'--I believe that's +the expression. Their idea was simplicity itself: to buy land at a +shilling and sell it again at ten; but they didn't express it quite so +nakedly. That was where Terry Armfield came in--to dress the enterprise +up and make it attractive. As long as he enabled them to cut their loss +they didn't care what he did with Llanyglo. + +"And there was nothing really wrong with the scheme, except that Terry +was twenty years before his time, and naturally had to suffer for it. I +think he called it '_The Thelema Estate Development Company_,' and +nowadays it would be called a Garden City. And if Terry hadn't Edward +Garden's sense of the line of least resistance, you must remember that +he hadn't Edward Garden's 'inside' information either. He had nothing +but that ecstatic power of persuading people. And he did persuade them. +I doubt if half a dozen of the people he sold to ever saw the place. Two +of them did, though, two brothers, in the produce line. They went down, +and came back again, and quietly sold out, keeping strictly to Terry's +representations; and I believe they warned Terry then that if he wasn't +careful he'd be getting into trouble. I asked them what they'd been +thinking of to let themselves be persuaded by a hare-brained enthusiast +like that. They told me it was all very well for me to talk _now_. They +knew perfectly well all the time that it was only one of Terry's dreams +of a better and a brighter world, but they bought for all that, and so +did crowds of others. Terry didn't admit a single difficulty. He talked +about angels and the higher life. He talked about Pugin and the soul's +need for seasons of contemplation and repose. He talked about the air +and the sea and the mountains and the Trwyn, and he made it out to be +Llanyglo's chief merit that it took a whole day to get there.... And so +on. To cut it short, they were to do their own building, but Terry, as +vendor, undertook the rest--laying out certain roads, draining and +lighting them, I believe the building of a sort of public hall, and so +forth. I don't think he said anything about the Chapels. + +"And that (to get back where we started from) is probably the reason the +Kerrs stood by." + + * * * * * + +Whether Dafydd Dafis would have watched the Kerrs out of the Hafod, or, +failing that, whether he would have pulled it down over their heads, is +hardly worth debating; for, as it happened, that very Sunday night there +befell something that for the time being had all the effect of a +declared truce between the hamlet and its invaders. Something deeper and +more solemn than the machinations of man took a hand in the making of +Llanyglo. This was the wind. It began to get up at about three o'clock +that afternoon; all day there had been a swell; and Dafydd Dafis and +others, returning from Howell Gruffydd's house (where a second letter to +Mr. Tudor Williams Ponteglwys had been written, as urgent as Eesaac +Oliver's pen could make it), saw all four of the brothers on the roof, +trying to secure the tarpaulin in which the wind volleyed; their +roof-slates were not expected till the following Wednesday. The ground +was a blurr of flying sand; the sea resembled a tossing fleece as far as +the eye could see; and from moment to moment the waves, breaking over +the Trwyn, rose in slow, gigantic fountains, fell again, and then came +the roar. The four men clung like limpets to the roof, crouching until +the worst gusts were past and then resuming their hammering. They were +trying to nail the covering down, using pieces of wood as washers to +prevent the material from ripping. + +Suddenly Dafydd Dafis, looking up under his brows, saw Ned Kerr pause +with his hammer lifted and peer out to sea. Then, without moving his +head, Ned put up his hand and appeared to be shouting something to the +others. All four looked, and so did the men of Llanyglo, but from the +ground below they could see nothing. + +Then, all in a moment, Ned Kerr gave a scramble and a spring, came down +like a bundle into a mound of soft sand, and was followed tumblingwise +by the others. There was a rip and a crack, and the released tarpaulin +was a hundred yards away, flapping grotesquely over the sandhills. Ned +was up again in an instant, and as he passed Dafydd Dafis at a run he +shouted a single word in Welsh: + +"_Llongddrylliad!_" + +It was a wreck. + +The boats by the short thumb of a jetty had not been used for a week, +and lay high up the beach. Could they have got them through that boiling +of white sea and brown sand there was a towering ridge to be seen +beyond, maned with spray, that rushed forward and burst only to show +another in the same place. No more than one at a time could be seen. The +boats were open boats, and night was coming on. Small wonder there +seemed little to do but pray. + +But Ned Kerr shouted another word.--"_Bad!_" + +From the top of the Hafod he had seen a ship's boat. + +The next moment he and Dafydd Dafis had each a shoulder to Hugh Morgan's +boat, and William Morgan, the three remaining Kerrs, and another man, +were hauling. All save the youngest Kerr continued to tumble aboard as +the boat lifted. He tried to struggle after it, but was overturned, and +they dragged him out and turned him upside down to pour the water out of +him. + +They have a lifeboat now at Llanyglo, _The Ratchet_, presented and +maintained by the town of that name; but that night the men of +Lancashire and the men of Llanyglo went out in one of the half-dozen +open boats. They put her into the brown, and a moment later the water +had slipped from under her and she sat down on the sand, with every +plank started. They got ashore again as best they could, and raced for +another boat and more oars. They put out again. They dare not use the +wooden jetty, of which only the beginning could be seen. The first boat +was already matchwood. A sea crawled up the Trwyn almost as far as the +Light. They inspected its ravage the next day. It stood as a record for +many years. + +Then the boat passed the brown, and stood out to that pale wall smoking +with spray. The wall came on and broke with a crash that shook the +shore. A woman gave a shrill scream ... then they saw the boat again---- + +It seemed madness to think that that open boat would be safer out +beyond---- + +After that, though they watched, they saw nothing. + +Then the Trwyn Light opened its eye, two reds and a white. All Llanyglo +was gathered on the beach, and none thought of going to Chapel. Night +fell; the sky became clear as black ice; the dim seas resembled a lair +of white bears at play. Seven o'clock passed, and eight.... Already in +folks' minds the grim thought was born; it might have been worse. They +had dragged Hugh Morgan back as the second boat had pushed off, and +none of the Llanyglo men was married. Whether the three Kerrs were +married or not nobody knew. + +Nine o'clock came.... + +Blodwen Gruffydd saw the return first, if, indeed, that vague speck lost +in the grey combings were they. Again the wave came on, and another +hideous range lifted its grey ridge.... By a miracle, it boiled far away +to right and left, but rolled, a grey-dappled dead weight, under the +boat. Already half a dozen men with a rope were waist-deep in the +water.... + +Then, as the boat crawled on its oars like an insect, another crest +rose, tilted them so that man fell on man, and a man came out.... + +They at the rope were swept out by the backwash to meet them.... + +And after all, they had come back empty-handed. They had seen neither +ship nor boat. + +But (and this, in this tale of Llanyglo and of those who made it and +were made by it, is the point), an hour later Dafydd Dafis, opening his +eyes for the first time since he had been hauled out of the water, said +something in Welsh to John Pritchard, who bent over him. Translated it +ran: + +"I would not pull that one's house down." + +Then he closed his eyes again. + +As far as the Hafod Unos was concerned, Mr. Tudor Williams's visit now +seemed superfluous. + + + + +VII + +THE MEMBER + + +Ostensibly, Mr. Tudor Williams came to Llanyglo to assist at a Sasiwn, +which is a gathering very much like the Love Feasts of other parts of +the country (indeed, if memory serves, Mr. Wesley gave these assemblies +for prayer and mutual consolation the latter name as far north in Wales +as Builth--but then Mr. Wesley did not speak Welsh). Neither the fencing +dispute nor the question of the Hafod Unos had taken nominal precedence +of this. But Mr. Tudor Williams's visit was also something more. He was +a Member returning to his own constituency--exalted, yet their servant, +familiar with the great ones of the land, yet by their favour. For that +reason they liked him to bring the evidences of his greatness back with +him. + +Mr. Tudor Williams did so, and handsomely. He was a small nimble man +with black brows and a ragged silvery moustache, and a very erect and +conscious carriage of the head. He wore a silk hat, a turned-down collar +with a flat black bow, a frockcoat with voluminous lapels of watered +silk, grey trousers, and new black kid gloves. He drove from Porth Neigr +in the carriage that had been lent him by a political supporter, and +alighted at the gap opposite John Pritchard's farm. They would have run +forward to greet him, but a certain awe of his clothes and equipage +combined with their own dignity as makers and unmakers of such as he to +keep them where they stood, in a semicircle across the road. + +But if they were at one and the same time a little intimidated and +filled out with pride in him, Mr. Tudor Williams knew no hesitation. He +sprang down from the carriage, grasped John Pritchard by the hand, and +then, not content with that, patted him all up the arm as far as the +shoulder and across the breast with the other hand, as if he conferred +invisible decorations on him. His eyes were moist, but glad greetings +flowed from his tongue, in an accent that would have put the most +diffident speaker of English at his ease. + +"Well, John Pritchard! Well, well! Indeed you have not grown any less! A +lit-tle man like me, I hardly reach up to your shoulder! Aw-w-w, you +look splen-did! I was spik-king of you a few days ago to the Member for +Carnarvon Boroughs--but dear me, here am I neglecting the ladies--I tell +you presently--How are you, Mrs. Gruffydd? This young man is never +Eesaac Oliver! Aw-w-w, how he grows! Did you write the let-ter to me, +Eesaac Oliver? That's the style! Education, knowledge--it is a grand +thing!--Now, Dafydd Dafis! And how is the harp? You sing me _Y Gadlys_ +by and by: + + '_Mae cynhwrf yn y ceunant, + Ar derfyn dydd y gad_----' + +--dear, dear, you have to go away before you can come home again! There +is nothing like this over there; there is not the sym-pathy; as I was +saying to the Member for Caermarthen, Mr. Hughes Caegwynion, not three, +four days ago, 'You get no sym-pathy from England and the +Englishman'--and indeed you do not.--Here comes Howell Gruffydd, +run-ning (indeed he runs like a deer, Mrs. Gruffydd!).--Now, Howell +Gruffydd, you miss the train if you don't look sharp (he's making so +much money he cannot leave the shop for a min-nit!).--Now, my old friend +William Morgan! How is the rheumatics?--How are you, Hugh?--Is this your +youngest, Mrs. Roberts? Hwhat! Another since! Aw-w-w--and you more like +an elder sister than a mother!... And there is the Trwyn, just the +same----" + +He was staying the night with John Pritchard, and the two moved away to +the house, the others following a yard or two behind. Mr. Tudor Williams +advanced to ancient Mrs. Pritchard's chair, took the hand that resembled +a dead bird's foot, and shouted in her ear: + +"You see I do not lose a min-nit before I come to see you, Mrs. +Pritchard!" he cried in Welsh. ("Indeed she is a wonderful old +'ooman!)--How many grandchildren have you now, Mrs. Pritchard?" (The old +woman nodded her aged head.) "Great-grandchildren! _No-o-o!_ Think of +that! But I think you all live for ever at Llanyglo. It is not like +London. If I could take bagsfull of this air back with me I make my +for-tune!--Now, Miss Pritchard, I think I must have offended you, you +are so long in spik-king to me! And how is all in school? I tell you +press-ently something straight from the Board of Ed-u-ca-tion for you to +try. You whisper a subject in the scholar's ear as he comes in at the +door, and he walk straight to the middle of the room, no time for +think-king, and speak for five minutes about it! That will make them +ready speakers, hwhat? That will accustom them to public life and +speaking in the Chapel? But I tell you later.--Now, my old friend John, +if I could wash my hands before sitting down to a cup of tea--then we +will talk----" + +He was shown into the best bedroom, with the cork-framed funeral-cards +and the cardboard watch-pockets on the walls, and the sound of his +moving about and pouring out water and spluttering as he washed his face +could be heard by those who waited below. Then he descended again and +sat down. + +"Well," he said by and by, from his place where he sat at the table +alone, they respectfully yet proprietorially watching him eat and drink +his tea, "now tell me about those matters in the letter you wrote.... I +mean the other matters...." + +But let us, before we pass to the other matters, look at the company +that watched Mr. Tudor Williams eat. + +First there was John Pritchard, sitting on the other side of the table +with his hands upon his knees, and now and then turning his body a +little aside and bowing his back to cough. There was John, stern +religionist, believing in God and Disendowment; obstinate, dull, just, +unsmiling; as ready for the Day of Judgment as if it had been the +audit-day of the accounts he kept as principal trustee of the Baptist +Chapel. For all that he was so rooted in Llanyglo that he had never +travelled farther than Porth Neigr in the whole of his life, he was as +ardent a supporter of Missionary Endeavour abroad as his voice was +powerful at the Sasiwn at home. He watched Mr. Tudor Williams's plate, +and with his thumb made signs for his daughter to replenish it. + +Next, there was Howell Gruffydd, with his pale and studious son, Eesaac +Oliver. You might have been sure even then that, should Llanyglo ever +grow, Howell Gruffydd's fortune would grow with it. Howell considered a +good penny worth the putting into his pocket, and, as if his apron +(which, however, he had now left behind at the shop) had made half a +housewife of him, he cared nothing, so it brought in money, whether he +did a man's labour or washed up the dishes or black-leaded the grate. He +could not read, but if at Porth Neigr a stranger chanced to ask him the +way, he would smile and reply, "There is the signpost," allowing it to +be understood that his questioner might read as well as he himself. +Howell had his inner dream. It was of a shop with two large windows, and +a bell inside the door, and brightly varnished showcards, and pyramids +of tinned salmon, and peas within the window that should suggest the +noses of children flattened against the pane, and handbills distributed +in the streets, and two assistants, and a son at College, who should +read for two, and perhaps--who knew?--sit while his constituents watched +him eat his tea--Mr. Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd, M.P. + +Then, with his cap in his hands and his feet shifting nervously, there +was Dafydd Dafis, next to Eesaac Oliver, on the sofa. Should purchases +and rumoured purchases of land prove to be a portent, Dafydd had all to +lose and nothing to gain by change. With that soft cruelty of his of +which the hard and more profoundly sentimental Englishman knows nothing, +Dafydd was at least disinterested. The Kerrs he had forborne to harm, +but he only hated them the more on that account. He himself would not +have killed one of the blue and primrose butterflies that in the summer +hovered over the Llanyglo buffets of wild thyme, and he could not +understand a country that said it was fond of animals and yet, like +these Lancashire men, hunted rats with terriers and coursed hares with +dogs. Alone of that nation he had for a time loved delicate little +Minetta Garden, and had told her stories of fairies and had sung _Serch +Hudol_ and _Mentra Gwen_ to her; but Minetta had gone. All the things +for which Dafydd Dafis cared had gone, or were going, and Dafydd was +lonely. He told his harp so, with those warped and stealing fingers, and +the harp made music of his pain. All that Dafydd would gain by change +would be memories that became ever the more poignant the more they were +attenuated, and the less the world cared for him and his unprofitable +life. + +Passing constantly between Mr. Tudor Williams and the saucepan where the +eggs boiled, or the plate in the fender where the lightcakes kept hot, +was Miss Nancy (_nee_ Nansi) Pritchard, schoolmistress and virtual +custodian of the Post Office. The development of Llanyglo, did that ever +come to pass, would be a good thing for Nancy, for otherwise there was +none in Llanyglo to marry her, and to domestic service elsewhere she +could not have stooped. She was tall and plump and ruddy, with black +hair and black-lashed blue eyes, and in her conversation she gave the +preference to the longer words. She had been to school in Bangor, wore +the longest skirts in Llanyglo, and between her and her father's guest +was the bond of their common superiority to everybody else there. She +was a _partie_, for John Pritchard was well-to-do; but for whom? +Apparently for nobody whom Llanyglo had yet seen. + +The remaining spectators, with the exception of old Mrs. Pritchard, who +resembled a mummy rather than a spectator, partook in varying degrees of +these same characteristics; and there at the table sat Mr. Tudor +Williams, M.P., of Ponteglwys, one of his eyes aflow with tears of +sensibility while the other was glued to the main chance; Baptist, +nationalist, and arguer by metaphor and analogy; an elocutionist, and a +maker of elocutionists by that process of education that consists of +giving a scholar a subject and bidding him straightway speak for five +minutes upon it; and, above all, ever and again suggesting, by slight +gesture or quick glance, that his secret thought was that there, in cap +or corduroys, but for the Grace of God, went Mr. Tudor Williams of +Ponteglwys.... + +At last he put up his hand, refusing to eat more. + +"No more, no more indeed! It is the best bread and but-ter I have tasted +since I was here before, but I should be ill in my stomach.--Dear me, +John Pritchard, the happy hours I have spent in this room! '_Mid +Pleas-sures and Palaces_'--indeed there is tears in my eyes when I see +the dres-ser with the plates on it, and the jugs, and Mrs. Prit-chard's +Bible in the window, just the same as when I was a boy!--Well, I have +had a splen-did tea at all events, and if you will excuse me a min-nit I +will return thanks for it.... Now, my friends!----" + +Five minutes later, Mr. Tudor Williams, not so near to the Kerrs' Hafod +that he had the appearance of specially watching it, nor yet so far from +it but that he could see Ned Kerr and his brother Sam setting a rough +window-sash into position, was once more shaking hands and patting +shoulders and exchanging greetings with such of the men and women and +children of Llanyglo as he had not yet seen. + +And now that they had got him there they hardly knew what they wanted of +him. That building exploit of the Kerrs having thrust the Inclosures +Dispute a good deal into the background, and Dafydd Dafis's honourable +if sullen refusal to injure men who had risked their lives with him +having given that exploit itself a kind of condonation, it seemed as if +their Member had merely come to a Sasiwn after all. But land had changed +hands: they had a vague sense of impending change and of the discomfort +of change; and, as they answered their Member's questions, the very +presence in their midst of this man who moved behind the scenes of the +drama of large events accentuated this feeling. + +"What is he like, this one?" Mr. Tudor Williams asked, gently yet +absent-mindedly patting big John Pritchard's back as he stooped to +cough. They had been speaking of Terry Armfield. + +They described Terry as he had appeared to them in the Court at Porth +Neigr. + +"Is he taking over any other land?" ... + +You would not have supposed, from the way in which Mr. Tudor Williams, +M.P., asked the question that he merely sought to know how much _they_ +knew. And it had not occurred to Llanyglo that these transfers of land +might be, not an end, but only a beginning. Yet Mr. Tudor Williams had +good, if private reasons, for knowing that this very land might soon be +more than merely worth acquiring.... He was not deceiving them. It +pleased them to think that their Member was the repository of weighty +secrets, and he was merely indulging this simple and legitimate liking. +But already he intended to go to Liverpool in order to find out what +this Syndicate's plans really were. He wanted to know whether the +Syndicate, in its turn, was aware of something else, something still +very secret indeed, so secret that five minutes at certain keyholes +might have been worth many thousands of pounds.... + +"And this Hafod Unos--on whose land is it erected?" he next asked. + +He made a little grimace when they told him, on Squire Wynne's. + +"Then perhaps he will let it stand; he is cracked in his head about old +customs, and antiquities, and suchlike foolishness, when there is great +work wait-ing to be done. It is not our business if he likes to let +these people squat upon his land." + +But here John Pritchard interposed heavily. + +"But it is our business if they sing '_Thomas, make Room for your +Uncle_' in the middle of prayers," he said. + +"No-o-o!" exclaimed Mr. Tudor Williams, shocked. Perhaps also he wished +to gain a little time; he had no wish to call upon Squire Wynne, either +about this or anything else. "Don't tell me they did that!" he added. + +"Indeed, they did," said John quickly. + +"Aw-w-w!--But it is a Liberal maxim, John, and Radical, too, that force +is no remedy. In my opinion our friend Dafydd here----" he put his arm +affectionately about Dafydd Dafis's waist, "--was a lit-tle headstrong +about burning the fences." + +"I will not burn their house," said Dafydd sullenly. (By the way, had +the case been altered, it is doubtful whether the Kerrs would have done +as much for him.) + +"Well--we can always take what the doc-tor told the man who wanted +information for noth-thing to take--advice," said Mr. Tudor Williams. + +"It would be better to see Mr. Wynne first," said John Pritchard. "If +one comes others may come, and indeed I never saw such behaviour, no, +not in a den of li-ons!" + +They continued to discuss the matter, while, before their eyes, the +Kerrs fitted their window-sash. + +Yet it was curious to note how, within the bond of their passionate, if +loquacious nationalism, each man was jealously for himself. It was not +that their democracy was more conspicuously lacking in democrats than +are other democracies; perhaps it was rather that the Welshman +recognises two ties and two ties only--the tie of unity against the +foreigner, and the private claim of his strong family affections. +Between these two things is his void and vulnerable place. He has not +set up for himself the Englishman's stiff and serviceable and +systematised falsity of Compromise, that has no justification save that +it works. He has his age-long tradition, but no daily rule that can (and +indeed must) be applied without question. Each of his acts is his first +act, and so a retail act. Because his hypocrisy lacks the magnificent +scope of that of the Saxon, he bears the odium of a personal +stealthiness. Thus, perhaps, it comes about that while too strict an +adherence to the letter is the Englishman's ever-present danger, for his +brother Celt the spirit slayeth. Noble dreams, petty acts; and here, if +a little obscurely, may be hidden the reason why, when he seeks his +fortune in London, his greatest successes are the minor successes of +drapery and milk.... + +"Well," said Mr. Tudor Williams at last, "Wynne is a man of no ideas. He +is only a pettifogging country Squire, whose views on the Land Question +are ob-solete in _tot-to_. But if he harbours men that are a nuisance, +as John Pritchard says, perhaps it would be better if I went to see +him----" + +Nevertheless, he had no intention whatever of doing so. The truth was +that the Squire's views on the Land Question were too obsolete +altogether. They were so obsolete that he had sold when (as first Edward +Garden had known, and now Mr. Tudor Williams, M.P., knew) he ought to +have held; and it was for Mr. Tudor Williams to profit by his error if +he could, rather than to call his attention to it. He was very far from +being a wealthy man. + + + + +VIII + +THELEMA + + +Because Terry Armfield, believing in his idea, would not have abated one +jot of it for all the money in Liverpool, therefore he got all the money +he wanted. This--alas!--is not optimism, nor a hardy belief that merit +infallibly meets with its deserts in this world; it merely means that a +number of businessmen with rudimentary consciences were willing to pay a +kind of hedging-premium on the off-chance of being, after all, on the +side of Terry and the angels. It is astonishing how often your visionary +can get money out of your man of affairs when another man of affairs +would fail. + +And, even as the man who chatted to the author of the _Sixpenny Guide_ +said, Terry was only a few years before his time. The things he dreamed +of have not come to pass yet, but they are confidently promised +to-morrow. As happy as the day was long, he was merely setting up the +City that is not built with hands, and lighting it with the Light that +never was. And if the "_Thelema Estate Development Company_" had done +nothing else, it did, at any rate, put an end to that dispute that had +begun when Dafydd Dafis had pulled down fences and burned them in his +beautiful Red Dragon of a bonfire. + +But, over and above that, it did leave its little mark on Llanyglo--a +fleeting mark, laughable, bathetic, sad, hauntingly vacant, and lunatic +(as Mr. Tudor Williams would have said) "_in tot-to_." Come to that +little office near St. George's Hall, Liverpool, and see Terry Armfield +in the closing stages of his minding of Llanyglo. + +He not only conceived his Thelema; he drew the plans of it as well. He +drew them on drawing-paper, on tracing-paper, on note-paper and +bill-heads and the backs of envelopes. A paper-weight, with a knob in +the shape of a clenched fist grasping a short staff, kept half a hundred +of his hasty drafts from flying off again into the air that gave them +birth. And he added to them day by day, almost hour by hour.... Forty or +forty-five or fifty houses, say, each with its little plot for private +meditation and repose, yet sharing in common among them a spacious +pleasaunce where friend should meet friend and none but friends should +come--that was the idea. A fair wide Way, with the mountains looking +down its perspective to where gentle steps led down to the tawny +sand--that was the idea. A wall all about it, or a ha-ha perhaps, not as +against trespass, but as a symbol that here was an Isle that the tides +of the care and of the trouble of the world did not invade--a shining +and galleried chamber where light and happy laughter should rise to the +groining of the roof (dim blue with gilt stars), and should echo and +linger there as if the fane itself whispered--that was the idea. None of +it existed, none of it was ever likely to exist; but without some such +dreaming our life on earth is little worth. The people who put up the +real money for it laughed at it, and laughed at Terry when he had gone, +but humoured him while he was there as a nuisance, but a gentle one. If +they lost their money there would, at any rate, be a good many of them +in company, the land was exceedingly cheap, and they need not begin to +build upon it till they pleased. Besides, by taking shares in his +Thelema they had bought Terry off. When he came with his other wild and +beautiful schemes they could say, "No, no, Terry, we'll see how Thelema +turns out first," and pass him on to somebody else. That alone was worth +the money. + +Then there came to Terry one day a man who not only did not laugh at +him, but grasped him by the hand, patted him all up the arm and across +the breast as if he conferred invisible decorations upon him, gave +Thelema his blessing, and said, in moved tones, "Indeed it is +splen-did--splen-did--without vis-ion the people perish-eth." He told +Terry that his name was Tudor Williams, and that he was the +parliamentary representative of the constituency a portion of which +Terry and the gods on high were developing. He did not ask outright for +anything. He told Terry that, while he himself was a good Radical, +believing that God made the land for the people, nevertheless, in this +imperfect world things had to be done a lit-tle at a time, and his +principal objection to the (temporary) private ownership of land was +that it was too often in the wrong hands. If it could be put into the +right hands much of the ini-quit-ty would disappear, whatever. Then, +when he came to inform Terry that in his opinion he could be of great +use to the Estate, he told him also that he was far from being a wealthy +man, and that his usefulness must be set off as against the cost of any +interest Terry might think fit to confer upon him.... + +"Look you," he said, "the conditions of labour are peculiar, and things +that would be easy for me you might find a lit-tle diff-fi-cult. I do +not say you would, and indeed I am a good democrat, and do not believe +in one law for the ritss and another for the poor; but nowadays, when +every man has his rights and his vote ... well, without a word here and +a word there it might be a lit-tle diff-fi-cult...." + +And Terry, who was quite acute enough to see this, asked Mr. Tudor +Williams to come again. + +When Mr. Tudor Williams came to see Terry for the third time, Terry +pressed him to accept a seat on the Board. But Mr. Tudor Williams put up +a deprecating hand. + +"Aw-w-w, no!" he said. "Indeed it is very good of you, and I am very +pleased you show so much confidence in me, but it would not do. There is +my public position to consider. Indeed I would rather have a nominee. It +is hard to make people understand a proper motive. If the time was ripe +for it I would nationalise all land, yes indeed I would, but if it must +be privately owned for a lit-tle while longer it is better that it +should be in the trust of men like you and me for the public good. There +is as many different kinds of landowning as there is of landowners. That +pet-ti-fog-ging country squire, Wynne, he is repre-sen-ta-tive of all +that is worst in a vic-ious sys-tem; he has no more vis-ion than that +chair you sit on now; but we are not like that. I have not often found a +sym-pathy like yours; indeed there has been tears in my eyes while you +have talked.... But I will have a nominee. It will be better. And I will +see you get your labour. There is John Jones, Contractor, Porth Neigr. +He may even be willing to pay a lit-tle commission. We shall not quarrel +about that.--But I am bet-ter off the Board." + +Very curiously, he was not the only one who seemed a little shy about +being put on the Board. Others displayed an equal bashfulness. This +puzzled Terry. But it never puzzled him for long at a time. Always a +fresh inspiration sent him off into his cloudland again. It was about +that time that he acquired his second slice of Llanyglo, a tract +adjoining the first and running down to that shore that Copley Fielding +depicted with such accomplishment, elegance, and taste. And he took with +that second piece of land a responsibility greater than that he had +assumed when he had merely cajoled money out of the pockets of men who +had known his tea-clipping father and whose fathers had known his +privateering great-grandfather. Briefly, by enlarging his enterprise, +Terry threw away the immediate advantage of his personal idealism and +charm. The thing went to allotment shorn of his peculiar magnetism. He +received money that would not, merely on the score that they liked him, +be indulgently written off by those who would see that money no more. + +His Prospectus is extant. Edward Garden's unfinished house came into it, +and an affiliated interest, "_Porth Neigr Omnibuses, Ltd._," about which +Mr. Tudor Williams knew something. There were great swathes about the +natural beauties of the situation, and lesser ones (the Syndicate pruned +them down behind Terry's back) about the Thelema Idea. And there were a +number of other things that are impossible, yet facts in the amazing +History of Flotation. It is no good saying these things cannot happen +when they happen daily. Had you or I bought shares in the "_Thelema +Estate Development Company, Limited_," we should merely have bought, you +and I, shares in that moonshine that poor, gentle, rapturous, cat's-paw +Terry Armfield drew with freehand and French curves on his bits of paper +and presently spread out in such a lunatic fashion over the sandhills of +Llanyglo. Come, before we leave this dim chapter of the twilight of +Llanyglo's forebeing, and see what Terry did. + +Starting at right angles from the Porth Neigr road, a couple of hundred +yards short of John Pritchard's farm, there runs straight down to the +shore a street of rather more than a quarter of a mile in length. +Crossing this street in the middle runs another street, not so long, but +unfinished. These two streets intersect in an open space or circus +perhaps a hundred yards in diameter. The first street is called Delyn +Avenue, because of the mountain that commands it. The second one is +called Trwyn Way. The central circus is called by the names of the four +Crescents it comprises. Farther back from the intersecting points are +other streets. They also are named. + +But do not suppose that these streets and Crescents and Avenues and Ways +are streets in any ordinary sense. They are twenty-two and thirty-five +foot roads, metalled, crowned, drained, and with a good stone kerb +running parallel on either side. But there are no houses. There is not +even a pavement, no, not a vestige of one, flagged, macadamed, cobbled, +nor of any other description. There are no standards for gas or electric +light; there are no standards even for the names of the +thoroughfares--for you can hardly call those things standards--those low +wooden boards, rather like the "_Please Keep off the Grass_" notices in +a public park, that inform you that this is Delyn Avenue or that that is +Trwyn Way. Exactly as it was all drawn on Terry Armfield's tracing-paper +and envelopes and memo-heads, so it is now drawn on the Llanyglo +sandhills, with strips of stone kerbing for pencil lines and the +wind-blown sand where his india-rubber has passed. Lie down on the +sandhills with your eyes at the level of the kerbs, and, save for those +eighteen-inch-high street name-boards, all disappears. Or if you care to +climb the Trwyn you can see it all rather well from there.... + +There you are. Just a little patch of strapwork in the middle of the +waste. Or like a rather large gridiron somebody has thrown away. And, if +you are capable of seeing what Terry saw, namely all the things that are +not there and that never will be there, then that little grid of +laid-down and abandoned streets has a curiously mocking effect. You +imagine the ghosts of Terry's Thelemites moving noiselessly there, +passing to and from their non-existent habitations. They are going, +friendly ghost taking friendly ghost by the hand, to that groined and +lofty chamber of Terry's dream, where the faint echoes of laughter +linger in the roof of dim blue with gilt stars. They are going to walk +in Terry's closes and courts and arbours, happy in that the sorrows and +pains and substantialities of the world touch them not in their retreat. +They are going down Delyn Avenue, to where the broad and gentle steps +descend to the yellow shore. And all about them, but only to be seen if +you can see what Terry saw (otherwise you will see only the sand and the +wild thyme and the sulphur butterflies and the blue), are Calaer and +Anatole, Criere and Hesperia, Mesembrine and Arctic, which are the six +towers of that Place with the great gate where bigots and hypocrites and +defrauded and whining shareholders enter not, nor the violent Huns of +the world of business nor the cruel Ostrogoths of commerce, but only the +spruce and noble devotees of the Best, the Terrys before their time. + +But when the wind gets up, then the sand blows over it all, and John +Pritchard or somebody else, catching his foot against the unseen kerb, +comes down his length into the middle of Terry's lovely and desired +Place. But the men and women of Llanyglo are beginning to know their +way about this phantom town, and none other, save the Gardens (whose +house is now finished), and a friend or so of the Gardens' in the +summer, ever comes there. The Kerrs, however, still have their Hafod, +which they inhabit together when they are not away buying and cutting +alders and shaping them into clog-soles with the free-hinged knife in +the little canvas hut. And among the businessmen of Liverpool the whole +thing is still a rich joke.--"Well, have you started building that house +of yours in Wales yet?" a man who has not bought will ask a man who did; +and this one will reply, "Oh, I'm thinking about it," or, "You must come +down there and stop with me," or some other put-off. And it was rich in +the extreme when, one day, the man at whose expense the joke was made +took the jester by the button, smiled, and whispered something +confidential.... "What!" gasped the jester. "You've _sold_!... Wherever +did you find him? In Manchester? Ha, ha, ha! Splendid! That's a dig in +the ribs for Manchester!--I should like to see his face when he sees +it!... A pity about poor Armfield, though--he'll catch snuff----" + +For Terry had been refused bail. + + + + +PART TWO + + + + +I + +RAILHEAD + + +But something was coming to Llanyglo. + +As Edward Garden might have said, looking at this something under his +glasses and over his glasses as it crept slowly up out of the east--as +Edward Garden might have said, looking at it again and yet again, and +then gazing mildly and mistrustfully through the glasses at you, it +appeared to be a railway. + +At any rate, if it was not coming to Llanyglo it was coming within three +miles of it. + +As if a snail should leave behind it a track, not of slime, but of new +iron, grey at first, then red with rust, but soon to be bright again, so +it came on; and in other respects also it resembled a snail. It carried, +for example, its lodging with it. And it put forward sensitive and +intelligent antennae as it sought its food thirty miles away down the +coast--manganese. It left the junction half a mile beyond Porth Neigr, +and it was going to Abercelyn. + +The lodging that the snail carried with it was called Railhead. Seen +from a distance of a couple of miles it resembled a small excoriation on +the face of the land; seen nearer it resolved itself into a town of wood +and corrugated iron, with stockades of creosoted sleepers and trenches +of earth and ramparts of ballast and metal for the laying of the +permanent way. There were superintendents' offices and the sheds of +clerks of works; there were forges and stables and strings of waggons +and a telegraph cabin; there were huts and pumping-stations and cranes, +stationary and travelling, and a gas-plant; and there were watchmen's +boxes and the temporary dwellings of hundreds of men. By day these could +be seen, spread out on the level or clustering about the embankments as +the flies clustered about the treacled strings and fly-papers Howell +Gruffydd hung up in his shop in Llanyglo; at night the oncoming snail +seemed phosphorescent, its phosphorescence the flares and fires and +lamps in cabin-windows and red eyes for danger that appeared when the +other shift took over the work from the men of the day. Whistle of +construction-engine and roar of dynamite cartridge; hiss of steam and +clang of hammers as they fished the joints; rattle of road-metal as it +was shot from the carts, and thud of the paviors' rammers; clank of +couplings and agonised scream of a circular saw; purr of telephone-bells +and the "Hallo!" as the clerk took down the receiver; sough of pumps and +bubbling of cauldrons of tar; cries to horses, slish and slap of mortar +and the clinking of the trowels; spitting of dinners cooking over the +firebaskets, sounds of singing at night; with these and a hundred other +noises the snail crept on with a spirit-level inside him--the level that +kept him true to the line that had been laid down by staff and chain and +theodolite a couple of years before. + +And in some respects that something that looked so very much like a +railway resembled not so much a snail as a snake. Did you ever see the +great python that died lately at the Zoo climb his ragged staff of a +tree? Not a joint or section of him but seemed to have that separate +life of each of Dafydd Dafis's fingers when he mourned over his harp. A +yard, two yards of the gorgeous waist-thick creature would ripple and +flow and roll upwards to the crutch of the stump; another yard would +follow, piling ever up and up; and you would wait for the toppling over +of the great golden reticulated cable. And then all motion in that +portion of the great fake would suddenly cease. Beyond the stump you +would become aware that another glittering section was a-crawl, +balancing, making fast, ever continuing the ascent.... Even so, before +and behind Railhead, the work progressed. At a point the +construction-engine stopped, the regiment of red and blue shirts and +wondrous forearms and corduroy would move off, and presently all the +life of the line would be five miles ahead, where they dug and built and +drained and by and by passed back the word that all was well. So they +moved, between the finished and tested line at one point and the warning +bell and the dynamite stick at the other; and there was an end of much +gorse and heath and of many banks of flowering campion and hassocks of +wild thyme. + +And, for all this snail with its iron slime was not passing within three +miles of Llanyglo, it was bringing the hamlet's appointed destiny with +it. It was bringing (though, to be sure, not for some years yet) a +passenger-junction where yet only irises and bog-cotton grew and frogs +boomed out over the marsh at night. It was bringing sidings where John +Pritchard's farthest field of oats now rippled silver-green in the wind. +It was bringing a goods-yard and signal-bridges, and sheds and platforms +and turntables and a cabrank in front and rows of railwaymen's dwellings +behind. It was bringing a different breed of men, a breed that so far +Llanyglo knows only in the persons of the four Kerrs. More than this, +it was bringing progress, and sophistication, and wealth for some but +nothing for others, and jollity, and vice, and some knowledge that was +good and some that Llanyglo would have been no worse without, and always +loads, loads, trainloads of white-faced people from the smoky towns. And +most of all it was bringing to that vague yet unmistakable town-soul of +Llanyglo growth and experience, growth that it could not escape and +experience that it must square with those numbered days of its idyllic +nonage as best it can. Through growing-pains and wild-oats, through +revulsions of young remorse and impossible panaceas of repentance, +through shrugging worldliness and cynicism and the forgetfulness that +lies in laughter, Llanyglo must pass before it becomes--whatever it is +to be. One thing only is certain: it can never again be as it was when +Edward Garden first went there. Its wild thyme will remain only in +patches on its Trwyn, and its sandhills will be glaucous with the blue +sea-holly no more. The black cattle have not much longer in which to +pace its shore, and Terry Armfield's gridiron will be forgotten--no +_Sixpenny Guide_ will point the way down Delyn Avenue nor past his +immaterial Crescents along Trwyn Way. Railhead is creeping on. Two of +the Kerrs are already working there, the other two have just bought the +last of Squire Wynne's alders. Squire Wynne has now no land except that +occupied by the Plas and its tangled and mossy and grassy and neglected +gardens. "_Porth Neigr Omnibuses, Limited_," is already a serious +undertaking, for it will ply between Llanyglo and the nearest point of +the line. Howell Gruffydd has an option on the two original cottages +that Edward Garden had had matchboarded--he may soon be requiring a +larger shop. Compensations will be paid right and left. And there will +soon be a larger assortment of young men for Miss Nancy Pritchard to +choose a husband from.... + +For something is coming to Llanyglo. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Tudor Williams Ponteglwys had been clever enough in the matter of +the Omnibuses, Limited, nor, for the matter of that, had his cleverness +stopped there; but for astuteness he could not hold a candle to Edward +Garden. Edward Garden was not a Member of Parliament. As he musingly +said when people asked him why he was not, it was out of his line. +Therefore, he and his friends had left to others the promotion of the +Bill, its steering through Select Committees of both Houses, and the +whole conduct of the negotiations that, in their different way, were no +less complicated than that concentration of various forces by virtue of +which Railhead crept ever slowly forward. To a regiment of lawyers had +likewise been left the adjustments under the general Acts to which, on +the passing of the Bill, the enterprise had become subject. Members and +lawyers alike, those drest in a little brief obedience to the commands +of the party whips, these as often as not Members themselves, were +virtually the nominees of Edward Garden and his friends. Politics Edward +Garden's "line"?... To all outward appearances he had no "line" at all. +He merely added another emblem to that little cluster of Mercuries and +Greyhounds and Winged Orbs that formed the pendant of his watch-chain. +It was only when others, full of plans and hope and secrecy, sought +"lines" for themselves that they discovered that he had been beforehand +with them. To give an instance: When Mr. Tudor Williams, M.P., +apparently as representing somebody else, had come forward with an offer +to take up the remnants of poor Terry's Thelema, he had found there +were no remnants to take up. To give another instance: When, by +carefully engineered good offices and intermediaries, Mr. Tudor Williams +had sought a reconciliation with Squire Wynne, and presently had gone to +see him, he had found that he had pocketed his pride for nothing--the +Squire no longer had a yard of land to sell. In a word, before ever +whispers of the Bill had begun to circulate in the lobbies of the House +of Commons, the sandhills and oat-fields of Llanyglo had been cut up +like a jigsaw puzzle, raffled, dealt in, apportioned, and owned; and, +save for his small holding in Thelema, between the Omnibuses at Porth +Neigr and manganese at Abercelyn, there were very few pickings for Mr. +Tudor Williams of Ponteglwys. + +Therefore he returned with an enthusiasm more ardent than ever to his +original crusade against the private ownership of the land that God made +for the people, and took his constituents by the button-holes, and spoke +darkly of other Acts--Acts which by and by should give the Local +Authority powers of compulsory purchase. + +And all this time the eye still saw nothing to purchase but bents and +blown sand, blue and lemon butterflies, nodding harebells, a few +tidemarks of black seaweed, a wooden jetty, a cluster of thatched kerb, +the three Chapels, Edward Garden's house, and Ty Kerr. + +But something was coming to Llanyglo. + + * * * * * + +On the whole they did not talk very much about it. Each had his reason +for reticence, or brooding, or resentment, or calculation, as the case +might be. Nevertheless, with Railhead still many miles away, they began +to become accustomed to the coming and going of strangers. They came, +these strangers, to Edward Garden's house, sleeping either there or else +at the double cottage down by the beach; Edward Garden himself, with a +lantern in his hand, saw them hospitably over the sandhills to bed. They +were surveyors and architects, accountants, geologists, prospectors, men +in control of the snail that left the track of iron and grey ballast and +upturned clay across the land, lawyers, conveyancers, the directors of +the stone-quarries along the Porth Neigr road, and others at whose +business Llanyglo could only guess. And Mr. Tudor Williams also went +there, perhaps to talk about compulsory powers. These and others +wandered in groups along the straggling lines of seaweed, and up the +Trwyn, and far inland behind John Pritchard's farm, pointing, pacing, +discussing, exactly as those minions of the Liverpool Syndicate had done +that morning when work had suddenly ceased on Edward Garden's new house; +but there was no talk of fence-burning now. Even Dafydd Dafis saw the +hopelessness of it, and once more went about with his head bowed like a +head of corn heavy with rain. Already men were widening and levelling +the Porth Neigr road. One week-end in July, after an unusually large +gathering at Edward Garden's house, a new waggonette from Porth Neigr +came to take them back in a body. It had a pair of horses, and it took +the hills in style. Dafydd Dafis, whom the vehicle overtook on his ten +miles' trudge into the town, was offered a seat, but he appeared not to +hear, and the vehicle drove on, enveloping him in its dust. Half-way to +Porth Neigr he came upon a squad of men setting up a telegraph pole. One +of them spoke to him, in English. "Dim Saesneg," he muttered, and then +perhaps wondered why he had done so. It might be "Dim Cymraeg" +presently. A little farther on the waggonette passed him again, once +more hiding him in its dust. No doubt it had turned aside up the rough +road that led to the stone-quarries. Dafydd continued his trudge. + +But in the household of Howell Gruffydd the grocer, a suppressed +excitement reigned. This, when Dafydd Dafis happened to be there, showed +only as resignation and a bowing to the inevitable; but at other times +it seemed to confer a more frequent glitter to Howell's teeth, a new +impulse to his jocularity, and a sparkle and sharpness to his wife's +eyes. Cases and canisters the like of which he had never handled before +were delivered at his door by the Porth Neigr carrier; these were for +the consumption of Edward Garden and his guests; and he waited in person +upon Mrs. Garden every Monday morning. He thought of having a Christmas +almanack with his own name printed upon it. Blodwen, his wife, made him, +in anticipation, a pair of linen half-sleeves that drew up over his +forearms. Eesaac Oliver was forbidden any longer to fetch the eggs from +the light-keeper's wife up the Trwyn; one of Hugh Morgan's boys might do +this. As a preparation for Aberystwith, Eesaac Oliver was packed off to +a second cousin of Blodwen's at Porth Neigr, there to attend an +excellent endowed school. With the railway passing so near it would be a +simple matter for him to spend his week-ends at Llanyglo. + +And big consumptive John Pritchard rarely said a word about that +onward-creeping snail that left its double thread of permanent track +behind it, but he thought exaltedly and powerfully. Stories had already +reached him of drunkenness at Railhead, and fights, and singing at +nights, and other godless orgies, and his brow was sternly set. When he +preached at the Baptist Chapel about such as loved darkness and the evil +paths in which they walked, it was known that he was thinking of +Railhead. Men were now plotting their levels almost within sight of +Llanyglo. They turned their surveying instruments on the hamlet as if +they had been guns, and laid out their chains as if they had been +enslaving the soil itself. Then an advance gang approached, and, even +while John knew that the end was near (but not so near as all that), +that end came. Eight men marched one evening into Llanyglo, bawling a +bawdy chorus, with Sam Kerr showing the way. They had bottles and +piggins and stone jars of beer, and, slung with joined-up leather belts +between two of them, swung a barrel. They stumbled through the loose +sand towards the Hafod Unos, hiccoughing and polluting the peaceful +evening. Ned Kerr had evidently been advised of their coming; he stood +at the door of the Hafod to receive them; and the carousing began.... It +lasted half the night, and then each clay-stained navvy and tattooed +platelayer slept and snored where he fell. John Pritchard did not sleep. +Faintly he could hear their singing where he lay. The red and white of +the Trwyn light dyed the darkness overhead. John remembered his own +words: "It is a den of li-ons----" + +Something had already come to Llanyglo. + + + + +II + +THE CLERK OF THE WORKS + + +John Willie Garden was by this time at the age when he occasionally +washed himself without being told. This he probably did, not out of any +great love of cleanliness, but because by washing unbidden he acquired +the right to retort, when the order to wash came, "I have--there!" Did +one of the maids give the order he might add the word "Sucks!" This word +he withheld when the command came from his mother. + +He was still at school at Pannal, but ardently longed to leave. It was +intended that sooner or later he should go into business with his +father, and during the past Christmas vacation, which the Gardens had +spent at home in Manchester, he had had the run of the offices and +spinning-sheds. His real education, as distinct from his scholastic one, +had been immensely advanced thereby. This real advance had taken place +principally after working hours. In such cases there is usually a young +clerk or market-man ready to take the son of the firm into his charge, +and a certain Jack Webster had had the bringing of John Willie out. This +he had done at football matches, in the dressing-rooms where the titans +clad themselves for the fray, and at their sing-songs and smokers +afterwards. Therefore, John Willie esteemed himself a boy of the world, +and already the day seemed far distant when he had shot the Llanyglo +rabbits with his bow and arrow, and had buried a sixpence beneath the +date-stone of his father's house. + +To Llanyglo John Willie went again that summer, as the snail crept +forward yard by yard to Abercelyn and the manganese. + +All things considered, you might have been pardoned had you supposed +that, without John Willie, the work at Railhead must have come to a +stop. Had you wished to know anything about that railway--its cost per +mile, its contractors' time-limits and penalties, its wages bills, its +estimated upkeep--you would have gone, not to those men who spent +week-ends at Edward Garden's house, but to John Willie. Railhead was now +to him what the building of the Llanyglo house had formerly been, and +the fence-burning, and rugby football, and many another interest of the +days when he had been a kid and immature. It was in the summer of 1884 +that the snail's antennae approached within sight of Llanyglo, and, rain +or shine, permitted or forbidden, John Willie spent most of his waking +hours among the masons and smiths and navvies and plate-layers who +formed the population of that nomad town of wood and earth and sleepers +and rolling stock and escaping steam and corrugated iron. He knew half +the men by name. He joined them at dinner when the great buzzer told +half a county that it was half-past twelve. He knitted his brows over +the curling and thumb-marked plans in the foremen's cabins. He passed +this section of work or that, and gave the other his imprimatur. He +adapted his stride to the distance between sleeper and sleeper. He spat +reflectively on heaps of clay and mortar. With his hands, not in his +pockets, but thrust (in imitation of the labourers with the +"drop-front" corduroys) deep into his waist-band, and his cap on the +back of his yellow, thistle-down head, he gave off-hand nods of greeting +and warning "Steadys." He was variously known as "t' gaffer," "t' +ganger," "t' clerk o' t' works," and "t' foreman." + +And his friend, Percy Briggs, of Pannal School and Roundhay (where his +father was an architect) accompanied him. Percy's father was one of +Edward Garden's week-enders. He was making the plans of a second house, +not far from where Terry Armfield's Thelemites were to have descended +the shallow, marble steps to the golden shore. There was also some talk +of an hotel. + +For by this time quite a number of people knew at least the name of +Llanyglo, and there is very little doubt that, had the place but had +houses, it might even then have been that within another three or four +years it actually had become--a quiet but not inaccessible resort, with +perhaps a dozen striped bathing-tents and a row or two of deck-chairs +drawn up on its beach, a couple of comfortable hydros established and a +large new hotel a-building, a few donkeys (but no niggers nor pierrots), +a place for children and for such of their elders as sought a quiet not +to be found at Blackpool nor the Isle of Man, a spot unvisited by +trippers, "select," a little on the expensive side, where an +acquaintance struck up between families might without too much risk be +improved afterwards, where the nurses would be uniformed and the luggage +would be sent on in advance, where a wealthy patron might even build a +house of his own (if he could get the land), a "nice" place, a place you +could afterwards tell _any_body you had been to, a place from which you +would go back feeling well and not in need of another holiday, a +place--in short, a place like So-and-So, or So-and-So, out of which we +try to shut history and change by being a little jealously secret about +them. Llanyglo might have been, and for a short time actually was, such +a place; and Percy Briggs's father, with others to tell him what to do +and what not to do, was even now in the act of planning how to make it +so. + +In the meantime, Edward Garden's own house was a very different place +from those two cottages that Dafydd Dafis had taken his own good time +about matchboarding. That first lodging had been no more than a +temporary camping-place for the summer. Any sagging old wicker-chairs or +tables or chests of drawers from lumber-rooms had been good enough for +it, and its crockery and kitchen appointments had been of the cheapest +kind that Porth Neigr could supply. But not so with the new house. +Everything about it spoke of permanence. The large plate-box was carried +backwards and forwards at the beginning and end of the summer season, +but not the Worcester dinner-service, nor the glass that filled its +cupboards, nor the linen in its closets, nor the blankets nor the +eiderdowns set by for winter, nor the few--the rather few--books. Mrs. +Garden herself had told Howell Gruffydd that it was not likely that the +place would be locked up for the winter months again. Edward Garden +intended to spend more and more time there; indeed he must, unless by +and by he would look musingly and a little ill-favouringly through his +glasses at that sparse line of bathing-tents and that little knot of +combination-saddled donkeys and say, "This does not appear to be much of +a watering-place." Already he had made special arrangement for the +delivery of his Manchester letters; upstairs on the first floor he had +his office, with a deep window, the side bays of which looked, the one +towards the sea, the other to the mighty deltoid-shaped outline of +Mynedd Mawr; and where Edward Garden settled he liked to settle +comfortably. In that quiet and rugged and curtained room he was once +more following the line of least resistance. The chances were that he +already foresaw the direction that line was likely to take. + +For Lancashire, which had been remote when folk had had to jog the ten +miles from Porth Neigr behind a somnolent old brown horse, would be near +when that snail had packed his lodging up and departed, leaving only its +iron pathway behind it; and the Kerrs in their Hafod Unos would have +been astonished to learn how much Edward Garden mused upon Lancashire +and upon just such people as themselves. He mused upon the cost of +living of such as they; and he mused upon their standard of living, +which is a related thing, but not the same thing. He mused again as he +saw the gradual change in that standard, and contrasted the things he +saw with the things he remembered in his own early days. In those days, +expressly taken holidays had been unheard-of things. Folk's excursions +had reached little farther afield than their own legs could carry them. +If John Pritchard, of Llanyglo, had never been to Porth Neigr, many and +many a Manchester man of the days of Edward Garden's boyhood had never +been to Liverpool. Many thousands had never seen the sea. It had been +holiday enough in those days to meet in the streets, to play knurr and +spell in the nearest field, to lean over walls and watch their pigs, and +to tend their gardens. Slate Clubs and Goose Clubs and Holiday Clubs had +not been invented. A shilling or half a crown a week painfully saved +would not have been squandered again for the sake of that little +superfluity that had now become the minimum itself. The mass of the +people of his day would no more have dreamed of saving money in order +that seaside lodging-house keepers should profit than they would have +dreamed of taking the Grand Tour. + +But a generation seemed to have arisen, very different in some ways, yet +exactly the same in others. They were different in that they refused to +be exploited any longer according to the old familiar formulas, yet the +same in that they were as subject as their fathers had been, and as +their sons and grandsons will be, to the man who could devise a new one. +All manner of circumstances contributed to their unuttered invitation +(it was that in effect, and the only thing they did not utter) that +somebody should bring to their exploitation the spice of variety. There +were smoulderings everywhere--smoulderings at Durham and West Ham, at +Ayr and Lanark and Swansea, at Sheffield and Manchester and Liverpool +and Leeds and Hull. Over his glasses and under his glasses Edward Garden +noted them, and inferred that the sum of it all was that folk intended +to have a better time than they had been having. They were quite +unmistakably resolved to have a much better time. Their grandfathers' +idea of a Wakes Week, for example, might have been staying at home and +timing the pigeons into the cote; but they meant to improve on that. +They intended to doff their clogs and to put on their thinnest shoes, to +draw extravagant sums from the Club, to take railway-tickets, and not to +rest from their arduous relaxation as long as a penny remained +unspent.... Manganese? The moment they showed signs of coming his way, +Edward Garden was after richer returns than manganese would yield. He +granted that without manganese there would have been no Railhead coming +up out of the east, but what he had his eye on was the new generation's +deadly resolve to be amused, the crammed coffers of its Holiday Clubs, +the beginnings of those tens and scores and hundreds of thousands of +pounds that to-day a single town will get rid of in a single fortnight +by the sea. + +But _only_ if it came his way. He was no Terry. It was his business to +take things as they were, not to try to make them something they were +not. He had no theories, no criticisms, no impulses, no hesitations. He +asked for nothing but uncoloured data. Therefore, and to that extent, +Llanyglo's future was not entirely in his hands. It was still free, and +always, always, save for a little rising of new stone here and there, +just the same to look at--watched over by the Light on its noble Trwyn, +guarded by the majestic mountain behind, and presenting to its diurnal +tides the same shore that Copley Fielding drew. + +Now it befell towards the end of the July of that year that the Welshmen +of Llanyglo held an open-air service for the young in one of the hollows +of the sandhills. It was a blazing Sunday afternoon, with the sea like +silk and the pale mountains seeming thrice their distance away. They had +brought a small moveable platform and reading-desk from the Baptist +Chapel, and first John Pritchard, and then Howell Gruffydd had mounted +it. The sun beat on the bare heads and best bonnets and black-coated +shoulders of parents; myriads of tiny hopping insects gave the surface +of the sand the appearance of being in motion; and a buzzard sailed in +great steady circles in the sky of larkspur blue, now standing out to +sea, now a speck in the direction of Delyn or Mynedd Mawr. + +Howell was teaching the twelve or fourteen urchins a new hymn-tune, +singing it now alone, now with them, now listening with little gestures +of encouragement and nods of pleasure as their voices rose. His secular +jocularity was not absent, but tempered to the occasion. + +"Louder, louder and quicker--it give you an appetite for your tea," he +said, waving his arms and beating with his foot to the accelerated time. +"You will not wake Mrs. Hughes at the lighthouse--now--'_Joyful, +Joyful_----'" + +And, with Eesaac Oliver leading, they went through the tune again. + +That a special exhortation should be given to those of tenderer years +had been deliberately resolved upon. Since that evening when the eight +men from the line had rolled drunkenly over the sandhills to the Kerrs' +house, a fear had weighed on the chapel-goers of Llanyglo. Until then, +their children had known nothing of the wide and wicked world; but that +ignorance could not now be maintained. They must be put on their guard, +and for that job the ingratiating Howell was the man. + +The tune came to an end, and he put his leaflet of printed words into +his pocket and shepherded the row of urchins into position with +movements of his hands. + +"Move that way, John Roberts--I cannot see Olwen Morgan's face. Hugh +Morgan, stop poking your foot into that rabbit-hole or you fall down it +and we have to dig you out. Miss Pritchard, give Gwen Roberts her +sunbonnet, if you please, or she catss a sunstroke. Ithel, where is your +handkerchief? Your nose resem-bles a snail.... Now listen to me. If I +see a boy or girl not pay atten-sson I stop till he do pay +atten-sson----" + +And he began. He told them that soon, with the coming of the railway, +there would come also all manner of pip-ple, some good pip-ple, some bad +pip-ple. He told them that at Railhead were many bad pip-ple, who swore, +and drank a great deal more than was good for them. He told them +(discreetly, since he had no wish to preach a _jehad_ against customers +so good as the Gardens) that while some boys might go to Railhead to +play, boys like some he would not mention, who had lived in large towns, +yet it would be bet-ter if they kept themselves to themselves.... He did +not go the length of asserting that all good boys were Welsh and country +boys, and that all bad ones were town-bred and English, but--but--well, +things have to be put a little starkly to the young. They shuffled their +feet in the hot loose sand as he talked. The buzzard sailed back from +the mountains. The sandhoppers danced as if the ground had been a +frying-pan. A holy peace brooded over the land. Away at Railhead men, +those sinful men who drank and swore slept in rows, stretched +face-downwards on the grass or the thrown-up banks of clay. + +Then the grocer began to promise the rewards of virtue. He turned with +an interrogative smile to John Pritchard. + +"And now, Mr. Pritchard, do you think I might tell them that sec-ret? +Indeed I think I get into trouble if I do! But yess, I will tell +them.--Atten-sson now. Hugh Morgan, do not scratss your head. Now!--Can +any boy or girl tell me what there iss to be in Mr. Pritchard's field +next month?" + +They guessed at once, with one voice. Howell Gruffydd knew better than +to ask an audience questions it could not answer. He held up his hands +in admiring surprise. + +"Indeed they guess--they are every one right, Miss Pritchard! +Astonissing! Dear me, I never saw such s'arp young men and women!--Yess, +they are right. There is to be a Treat for the Sunday School scholars! +There now! And there will be races, and prizes, and tea, and the books +will be given for those who have had the largest num-ber of attendances +and have not been late.--And now: who is giving this Treat?" + +"Mr. Tudor Williams!" they cried. + +"Right again--it is Mr. Tudor Williams, the Member of Parliament! And +Mr. Williams is giv-ing something else too. He is giv-ing--I have seen +them--new pictures--pictures of the construc-tion of flowers--(bot-tany +I think it is called, Miss Pritchard?)--and an-i-mals--and +fiss-sses----" + +He turned up his eyes, as if to the heavens from which these rewards of +virtuous living descended. The croupy shrilling of a cock came from down +by the beach. The bees droned, and the wheeling buzzard suddenly dropped +like a plummet a hundred yards through the larkspur blue. + +It was then, in that very moment, that Howell Gruffydd's face was seen +to change. He stopped, listening. Beyond the hot cuplike hollow in which +they were assembled was another sunken way, and along this way somebody +was approaching. Probably in complete unconsciousness that any hearer +was at hand, this somebody was singing softly as he came. It was Tommy, +the youngest of the Kerrs, and he was singing to himself, in very bad +Welsh, _Glan Meddwdod Mwyn_. + +Now this song is one of the less reputable songs of Wales. The English +drinking song usually contents itself with extolling the mere convivial +act, drawing a decent veil over the lamentable effects of that act; but +even in its title _Glan Meddwdod Mwyn_ (which words mean _Fair, Kind +Drunkenness_) has no such reticence. It depicts ... but you can see the +difference for yourself. No wonder it froze the words on Howell +Gruffydd's lips. In the singer's complete unconsciousness that he was +not alone lay the whole sting. The malice, the intent, the hateful +Lancashire humour of the Kerrs they had had before, but not _this_ +home-thrust with a weapon they themselves had provided! + +Tommy might just as well have climbed the hummock and told them that, +since their language provided equally for these eventualities, they were +no better than anyone else.... + +An English drunkard, to grub in the lees of their own language like +this!---- + +And little Hugh Morgan had sniggered!---- + +The unseen Tommy and his (their) song passed on towards the Hafod Unos. + +Then Howell bestirred himself again. "There, now!" he said; "what had he +just been tell-ing them? Indeed, that was opp-por-tune, whatever!" ... +But, though he strove to hide it, there was a hollowness now in his +exhortation. He felt as if he had been building a wall against a +contagion that crept in upon the invisible air. If Thomas Kerr knew +_Glan Meddwdod Mwyn_ he might also know viler ditties still; if little +Hugh Morgan, whom he had thought pure, had sniggered at _Glan Meddwdod_ +he might guffaw outright at the baser version of _Sospan Bach_.... + +It could only (Howell thought) be original sin.... + +It was at least a little balm to him to hear the fervour with which +Eesaac Oliver once more led the singing of _Joyful, Joyful_. + +And, by the way (speaking of songs), Eesaac Oliver's choice of the +narrow and difficult path had already involved him in a persecution in +which song played a minor part. This persecution was at the hands of +John Willie Garden. For, in an unguarded moment, Eesaac Oliver had +confided to John Willie his plans for his career; and since then the +unfeeling John Willie, on his way to Railhead and debauchery, had held +over him the song that contains the lines:-- + + "_He wass go to Je-sus College + For to try to get some knowledge---- + Wass you ever see," etc. etc._ + +John Willie, itching to get away from Pannal, could not understand why +anybody wanted to go to Jesus, Aberystwith, or any other College. + + "_I think it would be wiser + For to stay with Sister Liza---- + Wass you ever see," etc. etc._ + +he would hum softly and (alas) contemptuously; and, since it was part of +his chosen career to do so, Eesaac Oliver would very expressly forgive +John Willie, getting into quite a Christian heat about it. + +On the day after that homily on the Llanyglo sandhills, John Willie +Garden went as usual to Railhead, and was enabled to delight his +leather-belted and corduroyed friends there with a piece of information, +hitherto secret, that he had from his father's table. This was that the +line was to be opened in the following Spring by His Royal Highness the +Duke of Snell. The announcement produced an astonishing effect. Not one +in ten of the men either knew or cared what the enterprise was all +about. They knew that the railway was a railway, but beyond that, none +of its dividends being destined for their pockets, it was merely the +job--"the" job, the job of the moment, the job not very different from +the last job, and very, very like all the other jobs to come, until +their living hands should become as stiff as the picks they plied, and +the light of their eyes be extinguished as their own lanterns were +extinguished at daybreak. But at the news that the Duke of Snell was to +do his trick when they had finished theirs, they were innocently +uplifted and delighted. _This_ would be something to tell their +grandchildren in the years to come! They would spit on their hands and +work better all the afternoon for _this_!... In the meantime they +discussed it when the great buzzer called them to their beef and bacon +sandwiches, their chops and pickles and bread and cheese. + +"So it's to be t' Dewk o' Snell!" one of them admired, with as much +satisfaction as if he himself had had a tremendous leg-up in the world +thereby; he was a West Riding navvy, whom twenty years of digging up the +length and breadth of England had delocalised of everything save his +powerful accent. "Well, now, I'd figgered it out 'at it'ld happen be t' +Prince o' Wales mesen----" + +Here struck in a Cardiff man, so lean that you would not have got +another pennyweight of fat off him if you had fried him in his own +frying-pan. + +"Wass-n't it the Duke of Snell that mar-ried the Prin-cess Victorine?" + +"Noa. That wor t' Dewk o' Flint," the Yorkshire navvy replied, with +authority. "T' Dewk o' Snell wed t' youngest, t' Princess Alix. I knaw +all t' lot on 'em; t' missis hed all their pic'ters o' biscuit-boxes; +they reached from one end o' t' chimley-piece to t'other; ye couldn't +ha' got a finger in between." + +"Well, well," said the Cardiff man, an inquiring mind among many +complacent ones, "it is curious, how lit-tle diff-ference it makes to +us. The Prinss of Wales, say you? If I wait for the Prinss of Wales to +give me ano-ther piece of this ba-con I wait a long time, whatever!... +But prapss we get our in-vi-ta-tions soon," he added jocularly, taking +an enormous bite of bread. "S'all you be there, John Willie?" + +John Willie answered, a little doubtfully, that he hoped to be present +at the ceremony if he could get away from school. The Cardiff man wagged +his head. There are few Welshmen who do not wag their heads at the sound +of the word school. + +"Ah, school; it iss a gra-and thing," he said, still wagging. "I not be +work-king here with my shirt wet-t on my back if I go to a prop-per +school." + +"Oh, be dinged to that tale!" returned the Yorkshireman bluntly, cutting +cheese on his leathery palm. "T' schools is all my backside! They learn +'em a lot o' newfangled stuff, but I remember 'at when tea wor eight +shillin' a pund, an' they kept a penny nutmeg in a wood case as if it +wor diamonds----" + +"Aw-w-w, there iss that Burkie, talk-king again!" said the Cardiff man. + +"It's reight, for all that----" + +And presently the talk had veered round to those very changes of +standards and conditions, his careful study of which had led Edward +Garden to the conclusion that a generation had arisen that intended +thenceforward to have more of the world's good things than it had been +having or know the reason why. + +As it happened, the work on the line had that day taken a new leap +forward. Again all the life of the python had rolled on ahead, and John +Willie, lunching with his friends, was doing so at a point actually +beyond Llanyglo, two miles nearer to Abercelyn. From the Abercelyn end +also the line was coming to meet them, and the two sections would meet +at a place called Sarn. Sarn means Causeway, and there the sea showed, +like a piece of bright piano-wire, across a waste of fleecy bog-cotton +and bog-myrtle, sundew and flags and rushes. A siding was to be made +there. Because of Sarn Church, a tiny little building with an odd +Fifteenth-Century circular tower, Squire Wynne loved this region, and +attended service there; but as that Service was held only once a year, +the "Hough!" of the shunting-engines and the clanking of couplings would +disturb it little. The Squire sighed to think that, among so many, many +other changes, it would be only one change the more. His sales of land +had provided him with just enough money to last his time out, and on the +whole he thought he did not want to outlive his time. Perhaps he too had +had his glimpse of that vision of Edward Garden's, though as it were in +obverse; and, looking, he shrugged his shoulders. Who, in another twenty +or thirty years, would care for the things he had cared for? Who would +waste a thought on antiquity? Who would open his County History, or his +books on Brasses or Church Plate, Memorials or Heraldry or Glass? Who +would know each tree he came upon on his walks, as a country doctor +knows his patients--its sickness, its health, its need of air, its +treatment, its amputations? Who would repair the staircase at the Plas, +and restore its magnificent ceilings, and set the merry smoke streaming +up its chimneys once more?... Mr. Tudor Williams would probably do this +last. He would no doubt convert the Plas into a Museum (as he would have +converted Sarn Church itself into a Museum), and fill it with cases of +ice-scratched pebbles, and diagrams of strata and flowers, for reluctant +and educated urchins to gape at. The Squire was entirely in sympathy +with John Willie Garden's corduroyed friend Burkie about these things. +It seemed to him that the multitude, which after all had backbone enough +to starve rather than go on the Parish, would not resist this organised +pauperisation of its mind. It was time the Squire died, since he held +that not everybody has the right to everything and no questions asked. +Otherwise not an inhumane man, there were nevertheless abstractions +which he loved more than he loved his fellow-being.... + +And who would drink what was left of that wondrous old port? + +Well, the Squire, sighing and smiling a little wistfully both at once, +intended to see to that himself. + + + + +III + +THE CURTAIN RAISER + + +But while the march of events drove the aborigines of Llanyglo ever more +and more closely together, as the reaping of a field of corn drives the +mice and snakes and rabbits to the narrowing square in the centre, at +the same time something of the opposite process went on. Two or three +stood aloof, Welsh when it suited them to be Welsh, less Welsh at other +times. One of these was Mr. Tudor Williams, the Member of Parliament. +Another was Howell Gruffydd, the grocer. + +For thick as thieves now were Edward Garden and Tudor Williams, and to +their frequent councils was admitted also Raymond Briggs, the architect, +whose son had been John Willie's schoolfellow at Pannal. + +This Raymond Briggs was a Yorkshireman, from Hunslet, but you wouldn't +have thought it to look at him. You saw at a glance that he was +superfine, but you had no idea how superfine until he opened his mouth. +He was tall, plumpish, very erect, numerously chinned and faultlessly +dressed; and, having entered into culture by one of the noblest of its +portals, architecture, it was small wonder that he wished to forget +Hunslet, with its black canal, its serried weaving-sheds, its grimy +warehouses, and its sooty brickfields. Certainly he had completely +forgotten it in his speech. Over an alien mode he had acquired a really +remarkable mastery; and had it not been for a trifling uncertainty +about his vowels, particularly his "a's," you would have set him down as +quite as much London as Leeds. And so more or less with everything else +about Raymond.--But his wife haled you north again. To her, acquirements +were like hot plates to the fingers, to be kept constantly in motion or +else dropped altogether. Her husband was probably the most humourless +man who ever came to Llanyglo; but Maud Briggs would use the homeliest +of dialect-words in the most artificial of accents, and would tell you, +even while she was mothering you with cool drinks in the most hospitable +fashion, that the piece of ice she dropped with a clink into your glass +was positively "the last piece in the hoil"--if you know your West +Riding well enough to understand the peculiar significance of the word +"hoil" as applied to a house. Her rings were dazzling, for Raymond's +invaluable lack of humour had enabled him to make his mark on the world; +the blue-and-white collapsible boat which their son Percy brought with +him to Llanyglo had cost his father a cool twenty-five pounds in London; +and it would not be for lack of money if Percy did not turn out a very +superior silk purse indeed. + +So when the snail, his journey finished, rested and made the siding at +Sarn and then returned to Porth Neigr again, and Railhead was +dismantled, and grasses began to seed themselves about the upturned +soil, Edward Garden and Raymond Briggs and Tudor Williams, M.P., had +their heads frequently together; and no longer were the short days and +long nights a season of hibernation for Llanyglo. Three years out of +four the Llanyglo winters are mild; this particular winter was not so +inclement that it stopped building-operations for more than a day or two +at a time; and, with a sort of miniature Railhead strung out along the +Porth Neigr road for his labour, Raymond's second house rose steadily +course by course, and already they were draining and digging for the +first hotel. If they were mainly Porth Neigr men Raymond employed, that +did not mean that Dafydd Dafis or any other Llanyglo man who was so +minded would not be taken on; indeed they were taken on; but it did mean +that the centre of gravity of the labour-supply had shifted, and would +never shift back again. Those temporary dwellings along the Porth Neigr +road were a constant reminder that if the Llanyglo men did not like it +they might lump it; and as they did neither, but while disliking it +intensely, bore a hand and took their wages just the same, they appeared +to be sufficiently quelled. + +Edward Garden, while making Llanyglo his headquarters, was again much +away. A whisper was started that he was once more treating for land, +but, as no further land appeared to be available, the rumour was derided +as idle. Howell Gruffydd was already converting the two original +matchboarded cottages to his own use. Something Departmental happened +somewhere beyond Llanyglo's ken (probably Mr. Tudor Williams knew all +about it), and the word came that the Post Office was to be transferred +from John Pritchard's to Howell's new shop; and though the Post Office +was on the whole more trouble than it was worth, for a little while +Howell seemed likely to have a quarrel on his hands. + +But Howell had not definitely taken a part without knowing equally +definitely how to bear himself in that part. _He_ did not intend to be +herded into the gloomy company of a lot of beaten and sulking Welsh +nationalists! As if already a vast spud had cut about Manchester or +Liverpool, and an equally vast spade had taken either of these cities up +bodily like a square of peat and had set it down again on the Llanyglo +sandhills, so the idea of expansion had taken hold of Howell's mind. He +even went a little preposterously beyond bounds, as others did later, +when they learned that their old Welsh dressers and armchairs were a +rarity and marketable, and proceeded to put ridiculous prices upon them. +And probably Edward Garden had a use for Howell. Already it looked like +it. The answer with which Howell appeased John Pritchard in the matter +of the transference of the Post Office looked very much like it. Edward +Garden himself could not so have reconciled John to all this innovation +with a single whispered word. + +For "_Bazaars_," Howell said furtively to John, behind his hand; and the +quick electric gleam in his eyes was instantly extinguished again.... + +You see. They had never had a bazaar at Llanyglo. There would have been +little profit in passing their own money about among themselves. But +_strangers'_ money.... That was the soul of good in things otherwise +evil that Howell whispered to John Pritchard, and later it was so +observingly distilled out for the benefit of the Baptist and other +Chapels that for a time there was actually a danger lest the mulcting +should keep folk away. + +And if even Mr. Tudor Williams himself now appeared a little +absent-minded among his constituents, and hauled himself, as it were, +out of remote fastnesses of thought to grasp them fervently (if +indiscriminately) by the hand, and to inquire after their rheumatics and +wives and other plagues, well, he was a busy, and not at all a wealthy +man. At Llanyglo, as elsewhere, it was not only Welsh and English; it +was also Get or Go Wanting. The early bird.... + +So (to push on) circular smears of white appeared on the windows of the +second of Raymond Briggs's houses (it was finished by Christmas), and +these gave it the appearance of a sudden new Argus, looking out on every +side for other houses to join it; and the scaffold-poles began to rise +about the new hotel like a larch-plantation. Raymond came and went, and +Mr. Tudor Williams came and went, and short winter day followed short +winter day. Then, with cat's-ice still glazing the ruts and pools but a +feeling of Spring in the air, Porth Neigr, ten miles away, came +bustlingly to life. An emissary of the Lord-Lieutenant of the County +took up his quarters at the Royal Hotel, and there he was one day joined +by the Lord-Lieutenant himself, with Sir Somebody Something, of the +Office of Works. These summoned others, who in turn summoned others, and +maps and plans were sent for and a line of route was chosen. Police were +drafted in, and folk went up into their upper front rooms to see which +bedstead or table-leg would best stand the strain of a rope across the +street. The old station had been repainted to suit with the new +extension, and masts rose at its entrance. To the residents in the +principal streets the Council lent loyal emblems and devices. The sounds +of bands practising could be heard. His Royal Highness the Duke of Snell +was coming to open the line. + +Then on the appointed day, the town broke into a flutter of bunting. The +March sun shone merrily on Royal Standard and Red Dragon, on Union Jack +and ensign, on gold-fringed banners with "CROESAW" on one side and +"WELCOME" on the other. On the new metals a Royal Salute of fog-signals +was laid. Warning of the Approach passed along the line, on the +red-druggeted platform officials great and small waited, and John Willie +Garden's friends, whose picks and shovels had made the clay fly, would +no doubt read all about it a few days later in the papers. + +So, with detonation of fog-signals, and some cheers, but more wide-eyed +gazing, and bared heads and bowing backs, and an Address, and other +circumstances of loyalty and fraternisation and joy, His Royal Highness +and John Willie Garden between them declared the line open; but only the +Duke rode on the footplate of the garlanded engine with the crossed +flags on its belly. Probably intensely bored, he rode out about a mile +towards Abercelyn, and then returned to luncheon at the Royal Hotel. An +hour later, coming out again, he passed away to Lancashire. All was +over. Folk might now take down their bunting as soon as they pleased. +The trick was virtually done for Llanyglo. A loop at Sarn or a new +junction, and a realisation on the part of those in authority that there +were things that paid better than Abercelyn manganese, and Llanyglo +would be "linked up" with rigid iron to the rest of the world. + +Nay, it is already linked up even more straitly. A few poles and a +thread of wire, crossing the sandhills and ending at the Llanyglo +Stores, have some weeks ago put an end to its isolation. It is the nerve +that accompanies the sinew, and Howell Gruffydd now receives and +despatches telegrams. All is over bar the shouting, and it will not be +long before that begins. They are busy now, painting and papering the +new hotel, and decorating and upholstering it. It reeks of new paint and +varnish and furniture-polish and the plumbers' blowpipes. It resounds +with all the doubly loud noises of a half-empty place--with hammering +and tacking, clanking buckets, the "Whoas!" to the horses of the +delivery-vans, the jolting of heavy things moved upstairs, the rasp of +scrubbing-brushes, the squeak of window-cloths. It is spick-and-span, +from the feathery new larches in front to the silvery new dustbins +behind.... Wherefore, seeing that we shall only be in the way, with +never a chair to sit down on yet, and nothing to eat in the place save +what the charwoman and the green-aproned carters and carriers have +brought for themselves, we may as well leave all these things to the +folk whose business it is to attend to them, and take a nap for a month +or two, secure that when we wake up again the scene will be set for +Llanyglo's _lever de rideau_, that starched and polite and not quite +real little piece that preludes the main action of our tale. There is +heather and wild thyme up the Trwyn, very comfortable to doze on; +suppose we have our nap up there?... + +_Ah-h-h-h!_--That was the July sun that woke us. It's a warm and +brilliant morning. Stretch yourself first, and then have a look down.... + +That's a surprise, isn't it? You didn't quite expect that? Really not +much changed, and yet it's entirely changed. Two new houses and an hotel +(in this clean air they'll be new-looking for years yet), and that +little border of deck-chairs and bathing-tents and slowly moving +parasols, not a couple of hundred yards long altogether, and yet the +whole appearance of the place is altered. After a moment you find it +quite difficult to remember it as it was the last time we were up here. +See that little puff of smoke over there? That's a shunting-engine at +Sarn; you'll hear the sound in a moment; there!--Butterflies about us, +like hovering pansies; you can see just one corner of poor old Terry's +Thelema showing; and out there, where the sea changes colour, just where +the gulls are rocking, that's a bank of sand a storm threw up three or +four years ago. And that's the telegraph-wire I spoke of, running +straight across to Howell Gruffydd's shop there. Yes, that links +Llanyglo up.... + +Where did all these people come from? Well, it's hard to say, but no +doubt Edward Garden's got them here for one reason and another. He may +even have "packed" the place a little carefully; I don't know. At any +rate, he's lent "_Sea View_" there (that's the newer of the two houses) +to Gilbert Smythe. Who's Gilbert Smythe? Well, he's the Medical Officer +for Brannewsome, Lancs., and a very clever and quite an honest man. But +Gilbert's family's grown more quickly than his fortune, live as frugally +as he will he's always in debt, and he isn't going to say "No" to the +free offer of a well-built, roomy house, not three minutes from the +sands where the children can play all day, and furnished from the +potato-masher in the kitchen to the little square looking-glasses in the +servants' attics. And of course Edward Garden asks nothing in return. +But _if_ Gilbert cares to say that the Llanyglo water is abundant and +pure, Edward won't object--it is excellent water. And _if_ Gilbert likes +to praise its air and low rainfall (low for Wales), well, he'll be +telling no more than the truth. And _if_ Gilbert (not bearing ancient +Mrs. Pritchard too much in mind) finds the longevity at Llanyglo +remarkable, what's the harm in that? As a matter of fact, there is a +saying that the oldest inhabitant always dies first at Llanyglo, and the +others follow in order of age, which would be a poor look-out for +anybody setting up in the Insurance business here.... So if by and by +Gilbert signs a statement to this general effect, you can hardly blame +him. He has his way to make, and he is a wise man who allows the +galleons of the Gardens of the world to give his skiff a tow. + +The others? Well, Edward Garden's a cleverer man than I, and you can +hardly expect me to explain the workings of his mind to you in detail. +But I think we may assume he knows what he is about. I needn't say +they're all very well-to-do; you can see that even from here; but +there's something else about them, something we saw in Raymond Briggs, +that's a little difficult to describe--perhaps it's merely that they too +intend (_mutatis mutandis_, of course) that their children shall have a +better time than their parents have had--or perhaps we'd better say +their grandparents had, for their parents do themselves very well, +indeed. I don't think you can say more about them than that--it's just +that dash of Raymond Briggs.... Squire Wynne wouldn't understand them in +the least. The Squire's wasted too much time over antiquity. He doesn't +know anything about these people who are coming on. Except in their +clothes, and so on, he'd see very little difference between them and +people Raymond Briggs would look at as if they weren't there. He +wouldn't understand Philip Lacey, for example. (Do you see that +orange-and-black striped blazer--there by the seaweed: he's pointing; +that's Philip Lacey.) Philip is the big Liverpool florist, seedsman, and +landscape-gardener; if he hasn't his "roots in the land" in exactly the +sense the Squire understands, his plants have; and Philip distinctly +does not intend that Euonyma and Wygelia, who are at present at school +at Brighton, shall go into one of his fourteen or fifteen retail shops. +Philip isn't spending all that money for that.... (Understand me, I +think Philip's perfectly right; the only thing I don't quite see is why +he should veneer good sound stuff with something that's an obvious +sham.) Of his wife, frankly, I don't think very much. Her processes show +too plainly. Philip has his business to attend to, but Mrs. Lacey never +leaves her one idea, day or night.... There, Philip's stopped and spoken +to Mr. Morrell. Mr. Morrell has just as many hopes and plans for Hilda +as the Laceys have for Euonyma and Wygelia, but he knows that his "a's" +are past praying for, so he makes rather a display of his native speech. +I needn't tell you what a trial that is to Hilda.... + +And bear in mind that these are prosperous people, well-travelled people +(though they mostly keep to the beaten tracks where they meet one +another--it's Mrs. Briggs's chief recollection of Florence that she met +some people she knew in Leeds there), people who put up at far better +hotels than you or I do. And if these, who can afford it, can be shown +the way to Llanyglo, the chances are that a crowd of other people, who +certainly can't afford it but as certainly won't be out of it, will come +in their wake. + +What do you say to our going down and having a closer look at them? We +might take a stroll as far as Howell Gruffydd's shop--I beg its pardon, +Stores. Sit still a moment though; here's Minetta Garden behind us. +She's been sketching the Dinas, very likely. Minetta very much wants to +be an artist, and you meet her with her sketching things all over the +place. It may or may not be a passing fancy; she certainly has what +Raymond Briggs calls a "Rossetti head"--enormous dark eyes, sharpish +jaw, straight dark hair, and a disconcerting way of staring at people +who are "putting it on" a little more thickly than usual (she stares +pretty frequently at Raymond himself). Ah, she's taking the steep way +down. We'll take the other way.... + + * * * * * + +Now we're on the level; better put your tie straight--or aren't you +overpowered by these things? I confess I am; Raymond Briggs always +chills me when he casts his eye over my front elevation. No thick-booted +undergraduates' holiday-parties nor furry art-students with knickers and +bare throats here. We're spruce at Llanyglo. Even on a week-day it's +like a Church Parade, and on Sundays we go one better still. All the men +have brightly coloured flannel blazers and gaudy cammerbands, and the +women carry many-flounced parasols by a ring at the ferrule end, and +wear toilettes straight out of the "Queen." Some of them will change for +lunch; all of them will for _table d'hote_ at seven. They protest that +they vastly prefer dinner at seven, but what with the servants' dinners +at midday, and husbands who prefer the old-fashioned hour, and one thing +and another, they take their principal meal at one. There's no reason +they shouldn't. There's no reason they should mention it at all. But +they do, every day. If you're introduced to them, they'll all have told +you within twenty-four hours. It's as if they didn't want there to be +any mistake about something or other.... + +Here's where the donkeys turn. They have red and white housings, and +their names across their foreheads--"_Tiny_," "_Prince_," and so on; the +donkey-rides are a little offshoot of _Porth Neigr Omnibuses_. +Kite-flying's popular here too--that's Mr. Morrell's, the big +star-shaped one. The bathing-tents and deck-chairs are mostly hired from +Howell Gruffydd, but there are no boats yet except Percy Briggs's +twenty-five-pound collapsible one; those who want to go fishing have to +use one of those old Copley Fielding things by the jetty there.... Now +we're coming to the people. Here's Raymond Briggs with Mr. Lacey, +Raymond in his orange-and-black blazer and a white Homburg hat, Philip +in a blue blazer with white braid and a plain straw hat; both with +perfect creamy rippling white trousers and spotless white doeskin boots. +They're talking off-handedly about other holiday-places--Norway, the +Highlands, the Riviera--and they're afraid of showing any enthusiasm or +delight. Of every place they know they say that it has "gone off" since +they first went there. There's a subtle undercurrent of contest about +their conversation. Philip was at Hyeres as recently as last winter, +looking at the violets; but Raymond has been three times to Arles and +Nimes. I suppose honours are easy. + +"Roman, I've heard?" Philip remarks. (You can hear him as you pass.) + +"Yes, Roman, with a Saracenic tower." + +"Ah, that tower's Saracenic, is it?" + +"Saracenic." + +"Wonderful people!" + +"Indeed yes!" + +"Curious how it takes you back into ancient times." + +"Yes, yes, it shortens history." + +"But the hotel accommodation!----" + +"Oh, bad in the extreme!" + +"What they want is entirely new and up-to-date management----" + +"Quite so----" + +"Can't say I thought much of their _bouillabaisse_." + +"An acquired taste, I suppose----" + +And they pass on. They'll talk like that the whole morning. They're not +really interested in their subject. As I say, it makes you think of a +sort of contest. Personally, I always want to applaud when somebody +scores a good point. Perhaps the idea is that they're doing Llanyglo a +favour by coming here-- + +There, stepping over the tent-ropes, are Mrs. Briggs and Mr. Ashton. Mr. +Ashton is Edward Garden's chief London representative, a man of pleasure +and of the world, and for all I know his function may be to keep these +prosperous northerners up to the metropolitan mark. Mrs. Briggs, for +example, who is very short and stout, and wears a lavender bonnet and +pelisse, and certainly will not walk far on the sand in those heels, is +on her mettle now. She is telling Mr. Ashton some London hotel +experience or other. I like Mrs. Briggs. She's worth ten of Raymond. But +I don't think she quite knows which is the paste and which the jewels in +her speech. + +"----and so at the 'Metropole' they couldn't take Ray and I in; not that +I was surprised in the very least, such frights as we looked after the +voyage, and hardly any luggage; it hadn't come on from Paris, you see. +So I says to Ray, 'It's no good making a noration here, for it's plain +they don't want us. _I_'m glad they're doing so well they can afford to +turn money away.' So I turns to the manager, who was staring at my +slippers I'd put on for the railway-journey, and 'Don't if it hurts +you,' I said, and with that we slammed our things together and drove off +to the 'Grand'----" + +You can hear Mr. Ashton's sympathetic murmurs ... but that's Mrs. Lacey, +with Mr. Morrell, just turning; she thinks that Euonyma and Wygelia have +been quite long enough in the water. Mr. Morrell is in cool-looking +cream alpaca; Mrs. Lacey, who is hook-nosed and pepper-and-salt haired +and thin as a hop-pole, resembles a many-flounced hollyhock in her +silvery battleship grey. + +"They'll tak' no harm, weather like this," Mr. Morrell is saying. +"What's that I was going to ask you, now?... I have it. Is it right 'at +Briggs is to build you a new house ovver yonder?" + +A foot or so over Mr. Morrell's head, Mrs. Lacey replies that Mr. Lacey +hasn't decided yet.--"You see, with the girls at Brighton for another +year yet, and then of course they'll have to go to Paris, it's early to +say." + +"There's some talk of his making a Floral Valley, isn't there?" + +"I've not heard.--But I'm sure those girls----" + +"They're as right as rain wi' Mrs. Maynard----" + +But that is precisely where Mrs. Lacey thinks Mr. Morrell is mistaken. +She has nothing whatever against Mrs. Maynard, who is a young widow, but +she would like to know a little more about the late Mr. Maynard before +admitting her to unreserved intimacy. Mrs. Maynard has not quite the +figure a "Mrs." ought to have, and does more bathing than swimming (if +you understand me). That's an accomplishment she learned at Ostend (for +if Mr. Ashton, the London agent, is metropolitan, Mrs. Maynard brings +quite a cosmopolitan air to Llanyglo). The misses Euonyma and Wygelia, +on the other hand, learned to swim at Brighton, walking to the +bathing-place in a crocodile. You see the difference. Brighton is not +Ostend, any more than Llanyglo is either, and Mrs. Lacey considers that +you can't be too careful.... That's Mrs. Maynard, with her back to the +oncoming breaker. Her bathing-dress is quite complete, as complete as +Mrs. Garden's, drying outside her tent there; but Mrs. Lacey +disapproves of those twinkling scarlet ribbons. She considers them to be +little points of attraction, that do all that is asked of them, and +more. She prophesied that the red would "run" in the water, but it +didn't, and that makes matters rather worse, for if Mrs. Maynard knows +as well as that which red will run and which won't she is practised---- + +And those two graceful but rather skinned-rabbit-looking young shapes in +the gleaming navy-blue costumes with the white braid are the girls. + +Now we're among the castles. Quite a horde of children, and very pretty +children too, with their spades and buckets and their petticoats bunched +up inside striped knickers (those too you get at Gruffydd's). That's +Gilbert Smythe, the Medical Officer, the tall shaggy man carrying the +bucket of water for the little boy's moat. He'll be giving Llanyglo its +bathing testimonial too. Don't tread on that seaweed; it may be a castle +garden, or a sea-serpent, or anything else in the child's +imagination.... There are the boys trying to launch the collapsible +boat. John Willie hasn't grown much; he won't be a tall man; but he's +filling out. That minx Mrs. Maynard makes quite a lot of him, and says +she likes the feel of his fine-spun hair. Whether John Willie likes her +to feel it or not he does not betray. + +Now for Howell Gruffydd's.... + + * * * * * + +There you are. "THE LLANYGLO STORES," in big gold letters right across +the front of the two cottages. What do you think of it? + +Yes in one way and another, there must be a largish sum sunk in "stock." +Whether Howell's buying on credit or not I don't know, but he looks +prosperous; he's had his beard trimmed, and he wears a new hat. Green +butterfly-nets and brown and white and grey sandshoes--spades and +buckets and balls and fishing-lines and toy ships--bottles of scent and +the "Llanyglo Sunburn Cure" (made up for him by the chemist at Porth +Neigr)--a new board with "Tricycles for Hire" on it (that's the shed at +the back, and Eesaac Oliver, home for the holidays, books the hirings +and does the repairs)--baskets and spirit-kettles and ironmongery, all +in addition to the groceries.--Yes, Howell has quite a big business now. +Let's go inside and buy something. + +"Good morning, Mr. Gruffydd; papers in yet? No? I thought I saw Hugh +coming down the Sarn road half an hour ago. Yes, a lovely day. How's +Eesaac Oliver? Still at Porth Neigr?... No, no, I know he's home for his +holidays; I saw him driving Mr. Pritchard's hay-cart yesterday; I mean +when is he going to Aberystwith?... Next year? Good! He'll make his mark +in the world!--Mr. Garden been in this morning yet?... He's driving in +the mountains? Well, there's always a breeze in the mountains.... No, +serve Mrs. Roberts first. How are you, Mrs. Roberts?" + +Howell still sells Mrs. Roberts her pennyworth of bicarbonate of soda, +and with the same smile as ever, but he could do without her custom now. +Look round. Crates of eggs (the Trwyn hens can't keep pace with the +demand now), great Elizabethan gables of tinned fruits and salmon, a +newspaper counter, the Post Office behind the wire grating there, +strings of things hanging from the ceiling, scarcely an inch of Edward +Garden's matchboarding to be seen, and three assistants, all busily +weighing, packing, checking, snipping the string off on the little +knives on the wooden string-boxes, and passing the parcels to the boys +with the hand-carts. But we ought to have been here a couple of hours +ago. Mrs. Briggs and Mrs. Lacey and Mrs. Garden were giving their orders +for the day then. They come every morning, rings on their fingers and +bells on their toes, high heels and flounced parasols and all the lot, +and Howell doesn't have it all his own way then, I can tell you. For +this is where our ladies are really efficient. They may never dream of +travelling otherwise than first-class, but they know the price of +everything to a halfpenny and a farthing. There's no "If 'twill do +'twill do" about them when it comes to the management of a house. And +when Hilda Morrell grows out of the stage of wishing her father would +talk "like other people," the chances are that she'll discover too that +this is her real strength, as it was her mother's. Mrs. Maynard comes in +with them of a morning sometimes, and tells them how tre-_men_-dously +clever she thinks them, to know the differences between things like +that, and vows that _her_ tradesmen rob her right and left because she +hasn't been properly brought up; and then Mrs. Briggs, putting down the +egg she is holding to the light, cries, "Eh, it's nothing, love--I could +learn you in a month!" + +But Mrs. Lacey detects a secret sarcasm in the phrase about the +bringing-up. + +And the men will be in for their newspapers presently. + +Now a stroll to the hotel, and just a peep at them by and by as they +have lunch.... + + * * * * * + +This is the hotel lounge. The varnish is quite dry, though it doesn't +look it. A dozen little round tables, chairs heavily upholstered in +crimson velvet, festoons of heavy gilt cord on the curtains, and that's +the service-hatch in the corner. The waiters are rather melancholy; you +see, it isn't a public-house; everything goes down on the residents' +bills; and that means fewer tips. Tea is served here in the afternoon, +but of course the ladies never dream of tipping. Those excellent +purchasers work out everything at cost price, omit such items as +interest on capital, insurance, depreciation, and so on, and find a +shilling for two pennyworth of bread and butter, a twopenny cake, and a +pinch of two-shilling tea with hot water thrown in, tip enough. + +"_Ting! Ting! Ting!_" + +It is Val Clayton, ordering another drink for himself and his two +friends. He drinks vermouth, his friends bottles of beer. Val drinks +vermouth because it is foreign (he runs over to Paris frequently, and +travels to Egypt for Clayton Brothers and Clayton), and perhaps he makes +love to Mrs. Maynard (if you can call it making love) because she too is +almost a continental. Since Mrs. Maynard is to be seen in her red +ribbons, you might expect to find Val on the beach instead of drinking +vermouth in the hotel lounge; but that is far from being "in character" +when you know Val. The world's pleasures a little in excess have already +set their mark on Val. He will tell you that he would not miss his +morning drink, "not for the best woman living." Others may fetch and +carry for their hearts' mistresses, but not Val. In the afternoon, +perhaps, if he feels a little less jaded, in a hollow of the sandhills +and with the warm sun to help, Val may bestir himself a little, but in +the meantime he wants another vermouth. + +"_Ting! Ting! Ting!_--They want to have French waiters here," Val +grumbles. "I never mind tipping a waiter if I can get what I want when I +want it. _Wai_--oh, you've come, have you? Well, since you are here, +you may as well bring these again, and then see if the papers have come +in yet----" + +"And bring me a box of Egyptian cigarettes." + +"No--hi!--don't bring those cigarettes.--You don't want to smoke the +rubbish they sell here. Fill your case out of this--I've a thousand +upstairs I brought from Cairo myself----" + +"Oh!... Thanks.--Well, as I was saying----" + +And the speaker (who might as well be in Manchester for all he sees of +Llanyglo, at any rate in the mornings) resumes some narrative that the +replenishing of the glasses has interrupted. + +Now the others are dropping in, those who like one _aperatif_ before +lunch but not half a dozen. Their wives have gone upstairs to tittivate +themselves. The velvet chairs fill; extra waiters appear; and a light +haze ascends from cigars and cigarettes to the roof. Listen to the +restrained hubbub. + +"Waiter! _Ting!_ Waiter!----" and then a slight gesture; the waiters are +supposed to know the tastes of the real _habitues_ by this time; (it +counts almost as a "score" if the waiter brings your refection without +your having as much as opened your mouth to ask for it).--"The usual, +sir--yes, sir--coming!" And again they are talking, not on subjects, but +as if the act of talking were itself subject enough. Philip Lacey +discusses with Mr. Ashton the improvement in the Harwich-Hook of Holland +crossing, and Mr. Morrell exchanges views on Local Government with +Raymond Briggs. "_Ting! ting!_ You haven't cassis? Then why haven't you +cassis?"--"Very sorry, sir--coming, sir!"--"What's happened to the +newspapers this morning?"--"Of course, if it goes to +arbitration----"--"Nay, John, don't drown t' miller!" "Ten o'clock, +first stop Willesden----" "Your very good health, Mr. Morrell----" +"Debentures----" "New heating in both greenhouses----"--"Same again, +Val?"--"_Ting!_"---- + +"BOO-O-O-OOM-M-MMMMM!" + +It is the luncheon gong. + + * * * * * + +Just a glance as they sit at table. Don't you think it's a pleasant +room? Three tall windows looking out on the sea, noiseless carpet, +ornaments on the sideboards rather like wooden broccoli, but the +decorations straight from London. But those two large chandelier +gas-brackets don't work yet; the plant isn't installed; that's why the +red-shaded oil-lamps are placed at intervals down the T of tables. The +older folk gather round the head of the T, and down the stalk stretch +the children. These will rise before their parents, just as they go out +of Church after the Second Lesson; they will break off just below John +Willie Garden and the Misses Euonyma and Wygelia there--who, by the way, +are more usually called June and Wy. The flowers are chosen to "last +well," for Llanyglo is almost as short of flowers as it is of trees; but +the linen and plate and other appointments are all good--these actors in +Llanyglo's little fore-piece are not accustomed to roughing it, even on +a holiday. + +As I told you they would, half the women have changed their frocks. Mrs. +Lacey is a pink hollyhock now, of which her daughters seem cuttings, and +her hat is a sort of pink straw _kepi_, trimmed with flowers that +resemble virginia stock. She sits at the end of one arm of the T, with +her back to the window. Near her is Mrs. Briggs, in stamped +electric-blue velvet--her forearms, on which bracelets shiver, are as +uniform in contour from whatever point you look at them as if they had +been turned in a lathe. The Misses June and Wy also wear bracelets, from +which depend bundles of sixpences, a sixpence for each of their +birthdays, sixteen for Wiggie, fourteen for June. John Willie is +lunching with Percy Briggs to-day, who lunched with him yesterday. Next +to his chair is an empty one. It is Mrs. Maynard's, who has not come +down yet. Then comes Val Clayton. Over all, with his napkin tucked into +his collar as if he had prepared, not for a lunch, but for a shave, Mr. +Morrell presides. + +For some reason or other, lunch always begins a little stiffly; but they +unbend as they go on. At present Raymond Briggs cannot get away from the +subject of the newspapers and their unaccountable lateness. + +"Can't understand it," he says for the fifth or sixth time. + +"And they were late last Wednesday--no, Thursday--no, I was right, it +was Wednesday." + +"Was it Wednesday?" + +"Yes, the day it looked like rain; you remember?" + +"Ah, yes; the day it cleared up again." + +"All but a drop or two--nothing to hurt----" + +A pause. + +"Well, I don't suppose there's anything in them." + +"Speaking for myself, I don't care a button. I don't want to see the +newspapers. 'No letters, no newspapers,' I always say when I go away." + +"A real country holiday, eh?" + +"Change and rest--those are the great things." + +"You're right. Complete change. No trouble about how you dress nor what +you eat. That's the best of this place." + +"Still, if the newspapers are coming we may as well know when they are +coming." + +"They ought to have a man, not that young boy." + +"Hugh Morgan?" + +"Is that his name? There are so many Morgans." + +"Common Welsh name." + +"Met another boy, I expect." + +"Boys are all alike." + +"Not a pin to choose among 'em." + +"Wish I was behind him with a stick for all that." + +"Another glass of wine, Mr. Ashton?" ... + +Then there enters with a little commotion, and trips half running to the +empty chair between John Willie Garden and Val Clayton, Mrs. Maynard. +She wears a big black hat swathed in black tulle, and her dress is of +black lace, with close sleeves that reach to the middle knuckles of her +taper fingers. She shakes out the mitre of her napkin and breaks forth +to Val as she settles in her chair. + +"My horrid hair!" she pouts; "it always takes me three-quarters of an +hour! Really, I shall have to stop bathing, but I do love it so. It +seems a kind of fate; I always have to give up the things I love!" + +Hereupon Val--or perhaps vermouth, since Val seems a little astonished +at his own gallantry--suddenly replies that if he were like that he +would have to give up Mrs. Maynard. If Mrs. Maynard also is a little +surprised she covers it with great readiness. + +"Oh, now the dreadful man's beginning again!" she cries. "If you _will_ +say those things, Mr. Clayton, I shall have to change places at table!" + +Mr. Clayton asks here what is wrong with her hair.--"I think it's +champion," he adds. "Very nice indeed," he adds once more. + +"Oh, how _can_ you!" (As a matter of fact, Mrs. Maynard's hair is +rather wonderful, dark, and so long that she can sit on it.) "No fish, +thank you," she says, with a smile to the waiter. + +Then Mrs. Lacey's firm voice is heard. "Can anybody tell me whether +there have been many wrecks on this coast?" + +The person best qualified to give this information is John Willie +Garden, but Mrs. Maynard has turned to John Willie, and is asking him +whether he does not think she swims rather nicely. Her tendril-like +fingers are again stroking his hair. Mrs. Lacey considers Mrs. Maynard's +tulle-swathed hat the ostentation of modesty and the coquetry of +mourning (if she is in mourning), and, getting no answer to her question +about the wrecks, invents a name for Mrs. Maynard: "Mrs. Maynard--as she +calls herself." Plates are changed, corks pop, and from time to time a +seltzogene gives a spurt and a cough. Raymond Briggs explains that he is +fond of strawberries, but strawberries are not fond of him. The chatter +grows louder. + +"I took her as a kitchen-maid, but she turned out quite a good plain +cook----" + +"Oh, like a top--as Dr. Smythe says, it's the air." + +"Oh, I _prefer_ it rustic; like this!" + +"Quite so--the first tripper and I'm off!" + +"So I opened her box myself; and there they were, if you please--four +silver spoons!----" + +"Now, June, you and Wy talk French--you haven't talked it for days----" + +"John's booked the rooms for next year already----" + +"Oh, _Mis_-ter Clayton! I never promised any such thing!" + +"They can talk it if they like, as fast as a mill----" + +"If I were you I should see Tudor Williams about it----" + +"You can put on your oldest things and there's nobody to see you----" + +"But really I'm almost ashamed to go about the fright I do!----" + +"But that's a new dress?----" + +"_New!_--Last year--but it's good enough for here----" + +"Can't manage those double-l's----" + +"Gutturals----" + +"Llan--Thlan--Lan----" + +"June, your legs are younger than mine--run and get Aunt May's letter +out of my dressing-table drawer----" + +"Mrs. Smythe?... The best thing for the baby, of course, but I can't +help thinking that not _quite_ so publicly----" + +"Oh, I always let Percy suck, whoever was there!----" + +"John will have his dinner in the middle of the day----" + +"Smythe? Oh, one of the nicest fellows, but no push, I'm afraid----" + +"That's his failing----" + +"Where he misses it----" + +"Extraordinary----" + +"Well, some men are born like that----" + +"Wait for things to come to them instead of going to fetch them----" + +"Up t' Trwyn? We'll talk about it after I've had my forty winks. I must +have my forty winks after my dinner." + +"Lunch, William." + +"Lunch, then." + +"He _will_ call it his dinner----" + +"It _is_ my dinner----" + +Then Mr. Morrell makes a signal, the younger ones troop out, breaking +into loud shouts the moment they are clear of the room. They are off to +the beach again. Shall we follow them?... + + * * * * * + +What do the Welshmen think of it all? It suits Howell Gruffydd's book, +as you see, and Howell has pacified John Pritchard with the promise of +Bazaars; but the others? Dafydd Dafis, say? + +Again nothing is going right for Dafydd. He feels that another friend +has changed towards him--Minetta, to whom he used to sing _Serch Hudol_, +and tell his stories of fays and water-beings and knights, and make much +of for her elfin looks and quick and un-Saxon ways. For Minetta is +already displaying the artist's heartlessness, and does not see the +sorrow in Dafydd's eyes, but only what sort of a "head" he has from her +special point of view, and how he will "come" upon a piece of paper. She +tried to draw Dafydd only the other day, and ordered him, half absently, +to turn his head this way and that, and grew petulant when her drawing +went all wrong, and suddenly cried "Don't look at me like that!" when +Dafydd turned his eyes on her with a tear in the corner of each. Poor +Dafydd! He, like the Squire, would be better out of all this swiftly +oncoming change.... + +But Dafydd, who is of the phrase-making kind, has made out of his +sadness a phrase that more or less represents the attitude of every +Welshman in Llanyglo. He watched all these people coming in ones and +twos and threes out of the hotel one morning and walking down to their +deck-chairs and bathing-tents on the beach. He stood for a while, +looking at the gay parterre of sun-shades and summer clothes, of kites +and spades and buckets, and rings on fingers more carefully tended but +of coarser stuff than his own. And he listened to the accents that even +his alien ear told him were strained and affected and false. And he gave +them a half contemptuous and half pitying look as he turned away. + +"_These summer things_," he said.... + +But Howell Gruffydd has Dafydd Dafis's measure also, and takes it, just +as he took John Pritchard's, in a single word. + +"_Eisteddfodau_," he whispered to Dafydd behind his hand.... + +For they may by and by be advertising Llanyglo by means of an +Eisteddfod, and, as long as he is allowed to play, Dafydd does not +greatly care who he plays to nor whether they understand him or not. + + + + +IV + +YNYS + + +There came one day at about that time a Welsh gipsy fortune-teller to +Llanyglo. Her name was Belle Lovell, she was a known character all over +the countryside, and she was some sort of a connection of Dafydd +Dafis's. There was always a packet of tobacco for her in the Squire's +kitchen when she appeared, and her companion on her travels was her +thirteen-years-old daughter Ynys.[1] Belle sold baskets and mended +chairs, and Ynys drew the cart, which was no more than a large deal +packing-case mounted on four perambulator wheels, and with two flat +shafts roughly nailed to its sides. The mother's boots, which you might +have hit with a hammer and not have dinted, resembled grey old wooden +dug-outs; the child went barefooted and barelegged, and it would have +been a stout thorn that could have pierced the calloused pads of her +hardened soles. + +[Footnote 1: Pron. "Unnis."] + +These two appeared at Llanyglo at midday, ate their frugal meal on the +doorstep of Dafydd's single-roomed cottage behind the Independent +Chapel, and then, leaving the cart behind them, strolled down to have a +look at that splendacious new caravan, Howell Gruffydd's shop. Belle, +her greenish light brown eyes never for a moment still, gossiped with +her old acquaintances; her daughter, whose head was as steadily held as +if she balanced an invisible pitcher on it, stood looking at the green +butterfly-nets and red-painted buckets, admiring, but no more desiring +them than she would have desired anything else impossibly beyond her +reach. Her mother joined a group about Mrs. Roberts's door; the +visitors, who had lunched, began to descend to the beach again; and +there approached down the path that led to the Hafod Unos Ned, the +oldest of the Kerrs. + +Now Ned had run across Belle on many alder-expeditions, and, while the +invasion of "summer things" had not driven Ned into naturalisation as a +Welshman, it had, by emphasising the distinction between the well-to-do +and the poor of the world, shown him how to jog along in peace with his +neighbours. He gave Belle an intelligent grin, and jerked his head in +the direction of the bathing-tents. + +"Well, mother," he said, "ye've dropped in at just about th' right +time." + +"There iss no wrong time for seeing friends," Belle replied, in an +up-and-down and very musical Welsh accent. + +"Nay, I wanna thinking-g o' that," Ned replied, strongly doubling the +"g" that terminated the present participle. "I wor thinking-g of a bit +o' fortune-telling. There's a lot ovver yonder wi' more brass nor sense, +and it allus tickles 'em to talk about sweethearts an' sich." + +"Indeed Llanyglo has become grea-a-at big place, whatever," the gipsy +replied, and continued her conversation with Mrs. Roberts. + +And presently, whether she took the hint or whether she had come +precisely for that purpose, Belle's greenish-brown eyes roved again, she +made a slight gesture to Ynys, who had turned from the butterfly-nets +and was looking out to sea, and the pair of them made off along the +beach in the direction of that bright plot of colour that made as it +were a herbaceous border between the grey-green tussocks and the +glittering sea. + +For a hundred yards Belle's dug-outs left behind her a heavy shuffling +track in the sand, parallel with the light kidney-shaped prints of the +child who walked as if she carried an invisible pitcher on her head; and +then, with the cluster of tents and parasols still far ahead, they +stopped. John Willie Garden and Percy Briggs, with Eesaac Oliver +Gruffydd ready to bear a hand if called upon to do so, but otherwise a +little fearful of intruding, were victualling the blue-and-white +collapsible boat for a cruise. But it was not in order to tell the +fortunes of the three boys that Belle stopped. She stopped for the same +reason that the street-seller pulls out his rattle or his conjuring +trick, while his quick-silver eyes dart this way and that in search of +his crowd. The only difference was that Belle was her own +conjuring-trick. The gesture with which she performed it was superbly +negligent. She had a wonderful old mignonette-coloured shawl, which, +when she had talked with the group about Mrs. Roberts's doorstep, had +been drawn up over her head; and suddenly she allowed it to fall to her +shoulders. The effect might well have carried twice the distance it was +intended to carry. Out of the folds of the shawl her neck rose as erect +as the pistil of an arum lily. Against it gleamed her heavy gold +earrings. Her cheekbones and the nodule of her high nose gleamed like +bronze, and about the whorl of the springing of her hair at the back of +her head the sunshine made as it were a sun-dog on the lustrous +blackness. Her silver wedding-ring, an old tweed jacket that might have +belonged to her kinsman Dafydd Dafis, and a patched old indigo +petticoat, completed the legerdemain. Ynys, clad to all appearances in +a single garment only, watched the boys exactly as she had watched the +balls and butterfly-nets and buckets outside Howell Gruffydd's shop. + +They too made a shining _coup d'oeil_. There was just swell enough to +set the long breakers hurdling in, and wind enough to take the tops off +them in rattling showers of brilliant spray. Indeed it was so merry a +sea that, not half an hour before, Mrs. Maynard had declared to John +Willie that she had come within an ace of drowning during her bathe that +morning, and had asked him whether, had he seen her in difficulties, he +would have come to her rescue. "Mmmmm, John Willie?" she had asked, +curling his hair with her perfumed fingers; but John Willie, seeing +Percy Briggs approaching, had jerked away his head. This had not been +because he had been afraid of being laughed at by Percy. For that +matter, Percy had confided to John Willie only a week before that he +"liked their Minetta," and so was in no position to jeer at the softer +relations. No; it had merely been that, as Llanyglo's curtain had risen, +suddenly revealing a soft and alluring group of Euonymas and Wygelias +and Hildas, not to speak of Mrs. Maynard herself, all temptingly set out +like fruit upon a stall, the curtain of John Willie Garden's peculiar +privacy had come down with a run. Mrs. Maynard was always trying to peep +behind it, but probably there was nothing behind. Probably that was the +reason it had come so sharply and closely down. No boy wants to show +that he has nothing to show. + +Smack!--A bucketful of spray drenched the stores, and the wave ran +hissing and creaming back under the counter of the blue-and-white boat. +John Willie shouted rather crossly to Eesaac Oliver. + +"Pull her up a bit, can't you, instead of standing there doing nothing!" + +Eesaac Oliver started to life and obeyed. He was rather a fetcher and +carrier for these more happily circumstanced boys, but privately he knew +himself to be in some things their superior. To tell the truth, Eesaac +Oliver knew just a lee-tle too much about what went on within himself, +and communicated it just a lee-tle too readily to others. For he dropped +no curtain; on the contrary, the windows of his soul were flung wide +open. The experience of the world he had acquired at the school at Porth +Neigr had already caused him to declare himself as being thenceforward +powerfully on the side of the angels; and that ingenious educational +exercise which consists of speaking extempore on any subject given only +a moment ago had a lee-tle abnormally developed certain natural powers +of expression which his race rarely lacks. Had Mrs. Maynard attempted to +stroke Eesaac Oliver's hair (which was thick and black, and rose in a +great lump in front, falling thence in a lappet over his pale forehead), +he would either have cried "Apage!" or else, suffering the seduction, +would have undergone torments of remorse afterwards. + +Therefore it was with a meek dignity that Eesaac Oliver bore a hand with +the boat, and then fell back and a little enviously watched again. + +Then that crafty and stately piece of legerdemain of Belle's had its +reward. In his rippling cream alpaca, there approached along the sands +Mr. Morrell himself, and Belle's neck no longer resembled the pistil of +an arum lily. She bent ingratiatingly forward; as if a key had clicked, +a dazzling smile cut her face into two; and after a jocular word or two +Mr. Morrell bore her off, Ynys following. Let us follow too. + +Do look at the contrast--those summer things, and the two wanderers in +whom all the seasons are ingrained; carefully veiled and sunburn-cured +complexions, and these other vagrants, brown as the upturned earth; the +indefatigable maintenance of artificial attitudes even before one +another, and the grave ease of the child, the deliberate gesture with +which the mother looses as it were in the sheath the only weapon she has +against the world.... Frith's "_Derby Day_?" Yes, it is a little like +it; but listen. Mrs. Maynard, with a sparkling glance about her that +says "Mum," has slipped off her wedding-ring, and Belle has taken her +hand. It is slim as a glove that has never been put on, and Mrs. Maynard +intends to trip Belle if she can. + +So, when Belle begins to promise Mrs. Maynard a husband who shall be +such-and-such, there are winks and glances and nudges, as much as to say +that now they are going to have some fun, and Mr. Morrell says, "Here, +ho'd on a bit, mother--how do you know she isn't married?" + +If Belle shows the knife for a moment, she does it so delicately that +nobody notices it. + +"If the prit-ty lady was married, her man he srink a ring upon her +finger, red-hot, as they srink a tyre on a cart-wheel," Belle replies; +and the reading of Mrs. Maynard's palm continues. + +Mrs. Lacey, a pale blue hollyhock, looks as if she pooh-poohed the whole +thing; but inwardly she is a-tremble with eagerness to have the fortunes +of her two daughters told. As it happens, no sooner is Mrs. Maynard's +hand dropped than Mr. Morrell, who happens to be standing next to June, +catches her by the arm. + +"Come on, June, and be told how to get a husband!" he cries, and he +slips a shilling into Belle's hand. + +June will never be prettier than she is now. She is indeed very +pretty--apple-blossom and cream, bright-haired, freshly starched, back +straight and elbows well down, and as glossy from top to toe as the +broad mauve ribbon of her sash. Soon she will be as tall as her mother; +already she is taller than her father, the landscape-gardener; and the +thought of whether she will marry or not, and whether brilliantly or +otherwise, never enters her head. Of course she will marry, and of +course her marriage will be a brilliant one. "Marriage" and "brilliant +marriage" are one and the same thing. In this, as in most other things, +Wygelia is of the same opinion as June. A close understanding, which has +not yet outgrown the form of surreptitious kicks under the table, and +private and abbreviated words, exists between the two sisters. Other +things being equal, they would probably prefer to marry two brothers. + +"I tell the prit-ty miss a harder thing than that--I tell her how to +keep her man when she has got him," Belle replied amid laughter; and she +proceeds to describe June's husband. He is to come over the water +(landing at Newhaven, Mrs. Lacey instantly concludes, and taking the +first train to the Boarding School at Brighton), and he shall be devoted +to her, and she shall have such-and-such a number of children. (Mrs. +Lacey straightens her back; this is something like; her grandfather, +whom she remembers quite well, was June's great-grandfather, and will +have been the great-great-grandfather of June's boys and girls, which is +getting on, especially when you remember the younger sons and grandsons +of somebodies, who are estate-bailiffs and engine-drivers and carriers +of milk-cans in the Colonies.) When June's fortune is finished all +applaud her, as if she had performed some feat of skill, and then Mr. +Morrell seizes Wy. + +"Come on, Wy--no hanging back--let's see what sort of a fist Wy's going +to make of it----" + +And Wy also is haled forward, blushing and conscious and biting her lip, +and is told that for her too somebody is languishing, and that presently +he will drink out of her glass and thenceforward think her thoughts, +which are already complex. And Hilda's palm is read, and little Victoria +Smythe's fat one, and Val Clayton's, and others, and silver rains into +Belle's palm. Chaffingly Mr. Morrell offers her a sovereign for her +takings, uncounted, but is refused. Then Mrs. Briggs "wants the boys +done," and somebody is despatched along the shore for Percy and John +Willie, and as they arrive, bearing their bottles of milk and parcels of +jam-sandwiches (for the blue-and-white boat had been paid off), there +comes up also Minetta, carrying her sketching-kit. She stands peering at +Ynys, more as seeing in her a subject than as at a fellow-being. + +So, idly and laughingly, an hour of the summer afternoon passes; and +then an accident mars its harmony. John Willie and Percy, feeling the +pangs of thirst, had drunk their milk and had then set up the bottle as +a mark to throw stones at; and Ynys, walking down to the sea-marge, has +set her foot upon a piece of the broken glass. Unconcernedly she bathes +the cut in the salt water. + +But as the laughing group breaks up, and her mother calls her again, the +blood wells out once more, dabbling with a dark stain those light +kidney-shaped prints in the sand. Mrs. Garden and Mrs. Briggs see the +child's plight simultaneously. It is a cruel gash, and the two ladies +utter loud cries. + +"Nay, nay, whativver in the world!" cries Mrs. Briggs, all of her that +is not pure mother suddenly becoming pure Hunslet. "Nay, nay! Come here, +doy!----" + +She and Mrs. Garden kneel down before the gipsy child, and a dozen +others gather round. Cries of sympathy break out. + +"T' poor bairn!----" + +"What a mess!" + +"How did she do it?" + +"John Willie, quick, run and get the kettle from the picnic-basket----" + +"Indeed, lady dear, it iss noth-thing----" + +"Quick, Ray, give me your handkercher too----" + +Ynys' foot is bathed in fresh water from the picnic-kettle, and bound up +with Mrs. Briggs's tiny lace handkerchief, with Raymond's large one over +it to secure it. The blood has already come through before the tying is +finished. And you forget the false accents and the elaborate pretences +of these "summer things" of Llanyglo's little preliminary piece, and +remember only the better things that lie beneath them. They flatter +Ynys, and encourage her with admiring words. + +"She's a very brave little girl, anyway!" + +"What did you say her name was?" + +"Ynys." + +"Well done, Ynys! Soon be well----" + +"John Willie, I've told you about throwing stones at bottles before--get +you home till I come----" + +"And you too, Percy Briggs; and you dare to stir out till I tell you!" + +"Don't cry, little girl----" + +Ynys has no thought whatever of crying. She makes no more motion than a +pine makes when it bleeds its gouts of resin in the spring. But they +continue to comfort her. + +"She'll never be able to walk like that!" + +"Better fetch Gilbert Smythe." + +"June, you run----" + +"Here's half a crown for you, Ynys, for being a brave little girl." + +Then Minetta, who has been conferring with Belle, speaks.--"All right, +mother, she's to come home with us; I'm going to paint her." + +"There, now, Ynys, you're going to be painted! Won't that be fun!" + +"And if she ever comes to Liverpool and asks for me," says Philip Lacey, +"I'll see she's all right. Yes, I will. She shall sell flowers. That'll +be better than going about barefoot and getting her poor little foot +cut, won't it?" + +But at that, for the first time, the child seems to see and to hear. Her +eyes, greenish-brown and deep like her mother's, look into Philip +Lacey's small but kindly ones as if she had not seen him before. The +half-crown Philip has given her is still tightly clasped in her hand, +but then half-crowns are things that do sometimes visit people precisely +like that. And she knows that they have some mystic power or virtue by +means of which they can buy things--green butterfly-nets and red-painted +buckets; but Ynys can not quite understand the people who can sell these +wondrous things for mere half-crowns.... Then she realises again that +somebody has just said something about selling flowers.... + +They are promising her that if she is a brave little girl and lets +Doctor Smythe dress her foot she shall one day sell flowers.... + +Sometimes, meeting Belle Lovell and her daughter upon the road, the one +with her loops of cane upon her back and the other drawing the cart made +of the deal box mounted upon perambulator wheels, you will give them +good-day and pass on; and then, five minutes or so afterwards perhaps, +you will be conscious of an almost noiseless pattering behind you, and +will turn. It is Ynys, holding out to you a little posy of +hedge-flowers. She may not refuse your penny for them; indeed she will +not; but you are not to suppose that it is for the penny that she has +brought you the nosegay. The poor sticky little thing is unpurchasable. +You would have got it just the same had you been as poor as herself. + + + + +PART THREE + + + + +I + +THE HOLIDAY CAMP + + +The writer of the _Sixpenny Guide to Llanyglo and Neighbourhood_, in +speaking of the rise of the town, made use of an obvious image which we +will take leave to borrow from him. "Thenceforward," he wrote, "Llanyglo +sprang up as if by magic out of the soil itself." + +Indeed it did something like it. Watching it, you would have thought of +one of Philip Lacey's gardens in the short days before Spring had begun +to warm the air. Neat, bare, brown, friable soil, with not yet a crocus +or a snowdrop to be seen; here and there a stick with a tiny linen tab +fluttering (reminding you of Terry Armfield's little "_Keep off the +Grass_" board with "Delyn Avenue" written upon it); frames half open and +inverted bells, dibbing-strings, sprinklings of lime, and a few +whirligigs to keep the birds away; these, and the promise of the scent +and colour to come--it did indeed resemble Llanyglo. Not all at once did +the pea-sticks become builders' scaffold-poles, the lines of string the +plotting-out of streets. As of Philip's gardens, you could not have said +of Llanyglo on any particular day, "This has changed more than it was +changing yesterday, more than it will be again changing to-morrow." But +for all that, nothing remained any longer the same. Philip's men, +working over the blindfold earth with clay and spittle, caused its lids +to open; Edward Garden and his associates, similarly, with money for +manure, labour to let in the air and light, and the gentle airs of +advertisement already fanning an incipient repute, made a garden of +stone and iron, with buds of stucco, flowers of paint and glass and +gilding, and fruit after its kind to ripen by and by. + +Humanity was the soil he worked on, and his knowledge of it the force +with which he did so. Its hopes and appetites, its need of noise and +change and laughter, its stretching itself after fetters struck off and +its resolve to have a better, a much better time than it had ever had +before--out of these things came Edward Garden's beds and borders. He +would grow flowers of pleasure for those of the towns to pick. And, +since you do not advance the glory of July by neglecting to make the +most of March, his crops also had their rotation. For this, in a manner +of speaking, was Llanyglo's March, and what though it lasted two, three, +four years? The Laceys and the Raymond Briggses were to be cultivated +while they were yet there. Blooming and falling again, they would make +an excellent preparation, and there was plenty to do in the meantime. +There were other hotels to build, and a wet-weather pavilion for tea and +talk and dancing, and a landing-stage for the twenty new boats, and this +and that and the other--and always, always, the coming full summer to +look forward to, the summer of ten, eleven, twelve years thence, the +summer when, not the Laceys, but the employees of their fourteen or +fifteen shops should talk of Llanyglo; the summer when Mr. Morrell +should come no more, but his operatives should draw their thousands +from the Clubs and rain them upon the town; the summer when all should +be changed but the steadfast Trwyn, and all different save the mountains +behind, and nothing the same save the still and watching sea. + +The Sarn-Porth Neigr Loop was constructed in 1886-7, and opened in the +May of the last-named year. One of its earlier trains brought, in a +first-class compartment, Philip and Mrs. Lacey and the Misses June and +Wygelia, fresh from Paris; and in a third-class compartment it brought a +family called Topham. Mr. Topham was head-clerk in a Liverpool +Irish-bacon-importing concern, and Philip Lacey, meeting him once or +twice at Philharmonic Promenade Concerts, had forgotten the golden rule +that it is easier to get into conversation with a man than it is to +shake him off again, and had fallen into the habit of nodding to him. In +fact, a sort of acquaintanceship had been struck up. He had learned +Topham's name, and Topham his. All this had been in Liverpool. + +But it was one thing to strike up an acquaintanceship in Liverpool, and +quite another to continue that acquaintanceship elsewhere. Philip Lacey, +seeing Barry Topham get into the train, had not doubted that the +bacon-importer's clerk would be dropping off again after a few stations. +But at Stockport, where Philip had descended to stretch his legs, Topham +had met him on the platform and had informed him that he was going to +Llanyglo. + +Now when Philip went away for a few weeks' change he liked that change +to be a change. He didn't come to Llanyglo to meet casuals from +Liverpool. + +He began to wonder whether Llanyglo was quite what it had been. + +And so did Mr. Morrell, who brought his daughter Hilda from Brighton +that year. + +And so did Val Clayton, who also came that year, merely in order to see +what sort of vermouth they sold at the other hotels. + +For soon there were three hotels, the original "Cambrian," the +"Cardigan," and the "Montgomery." All these were on what by and by +became the front, and between the "Cambrian" and the "Cardigan" was a +space of perhaps a couple of hundred yards. Thence to the "Montgomery," +however, was quite a walk for Val of a morning--a quarter of a mile or +more on towards the Trwyn. Of the three hotels the "Montgomery" was the +largest. It had sixty bedrooms. Its stabling (for there was now a +landau-service up into the mountains) blocked up one of Terry's +dream-avenues a hundred yards from where the easy marble steps were to +have descended to the shore. A wide metalled road ran past the three +hotels, but it reminded you of unexplored rivers on an ancient map, +which are traced for a score or a hundred miles, and then dissipate in +interrogative dots. Another road at right angles ran past the Kerrs' +Hafod to the gap opposite Pritchard's farm, and there were yet other +roads, if those widish alleys bounded by stakes and wire could properly +be called roads. When the wind rose the sand still whistled everywhere, +scouring paint, rounding wooden corners, stinging faces; but so far it +had made very little impression on a large, black, tarred notice-board +firmly stayed into the sand midway between the "Cardigan" and +"Montgomery" hotels, a board bigger than the whole front of the Kerrs' +Hafod, which bore a straggling plan upon it in white, and the words: + + LEASEHOLD! + For 999 Years! + Lots as Under: + + Apply----------- + +To tell the truth, Llanyglo was now rather a dreary-looking place. They +had broken its sylvan eggs, but had hardly yet begun the making of its +urban omelette. The above-mentioned announcement was not the only one of +its kind; there was another halfway between the Kerrs' house and +Pritchard's, and a third at Pritchard's corner. These, it was known, +awoke faint and distant echoes in little paragraphs in Manchester and +Liverpool papers. The Company so far was a private one; it hardly knew +yet what powers it might presently expect to possess; but Mr. Tudor +Williams and others were finding out. As a matter of fact, they were +rather anxious about these powers. An Act of Parliament two years before +had seemed to promise them certain things that might prove immensely to +their advantage; but of the two great Local Government Acts (of 1888 and +1894), the first was still in a plastic state, and the second not yet +thought of. Hitherto Porth Neigr had been the centre of administration; +it was now being sought to shift that centre. And, with the cumbrous old +machinery of Boards of Guardians and Poor Law Overseers out of the way, +Howell Gruffydd, it was whispered, might before long become a +Councillor. Indeed, who would make a better one? Edward Garden? Edward +Garden preferred to depute powers of this kind. The Laceys and +Briggses, on a property qualification? These had their own affairs to +attend to, and were summer residents only. John Pritchard? Stern John, +as unchallenged ruler of the Baptist Chapel, was already a Councillor in +a deeper sense than that defined by any mundane Act. William Morgan? Not +substantial enough. John Roberts? Dafydd Dafis? The Squire?--The claims +of all of them paled before that of Howell Gruffydd the grocer.... + +The leases were being taken up too. The Llanyglo Pavilion, Limited, was +incorporated before a spade was set in the sand. The great blackboard +between the Kerrs' house and Pritchard's Corner bore a significant +diagonal paper strip with four fifteen-inch letters in red upon +it--SOLD. Negotiations were proceeding for the acquisition of the land +at the Corner itself. And Edward Garden had completed that rumoured +purchase of his far up in the mountains. It was a "catchment area" for +water, and if, under the new distribution, the Council should find +itself possessed of large borrowing-powers, it might possibly find the +private ownership of those hundreds of acres far away up Delyn an +awkward matter. + +And the excavation was already being made for the row of houses that +later was known as "Ham-and-Egg Terrace"--a hundred and fifty yards of +building that at first awed Llanyglo by its grandeur, but which they +subsequently came to think a poor affair and did their best to conceal. + +It was only partly for a holiday that those first visitor-discoverers +came to Llanyglo now. Considerations of business had begun to play a +part in their coming. Mr. Morrell, for example, had sunk quite a lot of +money in the place, and liked to keep an eye on his interests. Philip +Lacey pored over a dozen sketch-drafts of his Floral Valley, a project +for converting a coombe or dean that clove one portion of the Trwyn into +an ornamental arrangement of flower-beds with a bandstand in the centre. +And Raymond Briggs mused on houses and hotels, on hotels and more and +yet more houses. For these Llanyglo was no longer simply a place +"delightfully rural," a place "where you could dress as you liked," a +place for "a real rustic holiday." It was the Tophams who made these +discoveries and bestowed these encomiums now. + +Whether or not Barry Topham dressed as he liked, he certainly dressed as +the Briggses and the Laceys disliked. At the Promenade Concerts his +appearance had been just decently unremarkable; alas, it was so no +longer! Now, in the country, he broke out into a loose tweed jacket, +knickers made of a pair of long trousers of striped cashmere cut down, +low shoes, a flannel shirt, no hat, and a tightly knotted red tie, this +last as a voucher for the socialism that, Philip Lacey discovered to his +horror, he talked in and out of season. He was a small, bearded, wiry +man of forty-four or five, who gave you a curious impression of ferocity +and mildness mingled. The mildness was perhaps due to his bolt-upright +shock of frightened-looking sandy hair, the ferocity to the pince-nez +marks on either side of his nose that gave his glance a concentrated +look. His wife did not appear to dress (you cannot call mere concealment +of the person "dressing") until four o'clock in the afternoon, and his +two daughters, aged nineteen and twenty-one, were school-teachers, less +buxom than Miss Nancy Pritchard, but more professionally eager, as if +all the vital force in them had gone, not to the waste of mere pleasant +flesh, but into the severer regions of the mind. + +This taking of Llanyglo at its word in the matter of dress was bad +enough, but worse was to come. + +Scarcely were the Tophams installed at the "Montgomery" when it became +known that, though they had appeared to come alone, they were merely an +advance party. Two days later the main body arrived, and Llanyglo +experienced its first social slump. + +The party called itself a Holiday Camp. It was a union of two +semi-secular, semi-Nonconformist Institutions whose idea of having a +better time than their fathers had had was to botanise, to geologise, to +read, and to discuss these activities afterwards in whirlwinds of +communal talk. Strictly speaking, they did not "camp" at all: they put +up at the "Montgomery"; but they had camped, hoped to camp again, and +called their more convivial gatherings, when studies were cast aside, +Pow-Wows. + +They overran the place instantaneously. You met them with their brown +canvas satchels and japanned tin specimen-cases, poking about up the +Trwyn or groping in the boggy patches about Sarn. They were to be met in +the lanes, carrying picnic paraphernalia. They lighted fires of +driftwood on the shore, which coatless young men blew while the young +women combed their hair out in the sun. And wherever they went a little +red rash went with them, the rash of the small red-backed book, Sir +Thomas More's _Utopia_, of which the contagion had raged among them. Not +that they had not books of other hues also. They had Hugh Miller's _Old +Red Sandstone_ in green, and _Selected Sayings_ of Marcus Aurelius in +brown, and others in various colours; but it was the red that struck the +eye at the greater distance. They and the books were inseparable. The +unmarried ones, sharing a book between them, seemed already to be +creating that sage community of intellectual interest that, as all the +world knows, comes in so very handy when the first fires of love have +become less devouringly hot; the married ones, with a book apiece, kept +the calm connubial ideal before the maids' and bachelors' eyes.... And +it was all exceedingly disquieting and difficult to understand. One +hoped that the books were portals into high and fair and spacious +places, but feared that they might be but pathetic posterns of escape +from the world's weary drudgery that has got to be done and that +therefore somebody must do. One had struggles of compunction and +abasement and doubt, and the humiliating feeling that some clean and +heathery and wind-swept place of the mind was being invaded to sadly, +sadly little purpose. One tried, desperately tried, to tell oneself that +if poor lame Harry Stone got one single half-hour's joy out of it all, +nothing else mattered; and then one wondered whether even this was true. +It is hard to be social over an anti-social thing.... So one bore, +humble heart and arrogant heart alike, each his portion of Education's +shame. + +The coming of the Montgomeryites acted instantaneously. Within an hour +of their issuing from their sixty-bedroom hotel, the Cambrians and their +deck-chairs and bathing-tents had drawn a little more compactly together +on the sands. Certainly the Cambrians did not see why they should take, +intellectually, a second place to these loftily and botanically thinking +ones, merely because they chose to pay a little attention to appearances +also. Moreover, the fact that the Reading Party had come to Llanyglo +only for a fortnight filled the Briggses and the Laceys with a certain +compassion. This was not compassion that the ecstacies with which a +zoophyte was discovered, or the glad cries with which a bit of sundew +was hailed, must be such transient joys. It was rather compassion that +the Montgomeryites should find the place pristine. Llanyglo +"pristine"--now!... "Ah," they thought, "they wouldn't think that if +they'd known it as _we_ knew it--two houses and a single hotel +only!" ... The thought opened a vista. Perhaps, in time to come, these +Utopians would tell others how, when _they_ first set eyes on Llanyglo, +the place had not begun to be spoiled, but had had three hotels only, a +dozen or so houses, Ham-and-Egg Terrace, and a blackboard here and there +that had emphasised rather than detracted from its virgin charm. And +these others would pass it on to others still, and so it would go on, +and so, in one sense, Llanyglo would never grow. There would always be +somebody who had known it before somebody else, and would say, "Ah, yes, +but you ought to have seen it _then_!" ... Well, thought the Cambrians, +perhaps it was a good thing. To have inferiors is one of the great +solaces of Life, and they supposed that the Tophams also had their +inferiors. Perhaps some day a tripper would look even on Philip Lacey's +Floral Valley with much the same shock of delight with which Eve opened +her eyes on the dew of Eden.... + +A sorely tried man now was Philip. Sadly he lamented the evening that +had taken him and Barry Topham to the same Philharmonic Concert in +Liverpool. For the starched and hotpressed ones of the "Cambrian," +though they did not openly say so, held him as in a manner responsible +for this inferior spilling all over their idyllic place. They seemed to +be trying to make out that the Tophams were Philip's chosen friends. +Philip felt this to be unfair. It was an accident that might have +happened to anybody, and Philip's views on culture and the multitude +were every bit as sound as Raymond Briggs's own. And as Philip did not +intend to be sat upon by Raymond Briggs or anybody, he acted well, nay, +even nobly. He had recognised Topham; very well. He had not positively +encouraged the fellow, but say that certain narrow-minded persons wished +to make it appear that he had done so; well again. He would stand by +what he had done. He would ask the Tophams to dinner at his hotel. + +He did so, and took the disastrous consequences. For the Tophams came, +and, with the eyes of the whole "Cambrian" upon them, behaved for all +the world as if they had been dining at their own inferior Liberty Hall +of a "Montgomery." So at least it seemed to Philip, and bad enough +surely that would have been; but Mrs. Lacey made it far, far worse. It +was plain as plain could be (she said afterwards) that the Tophams' +sprawls and freedoms were all put on, and that they had been like four +fishes out of water every minute of the time--he ought to be ashamed of +himself, showing them up before everybody's eyes like that!... "Come as +you are," Philip Lacey had said, with the truest delicacy, since it was +very unlikely that the Tophams had brought evening clothes to their +Camps and Pow-Wows; and so nobody dressed. The "Cambrian's" tables were +no longer arranged in the form of a T. With the installation of gas, +numerous smaller tables, with a couple of large oval ones among them, +had taken its place, and at one of the oval tables the four Laceys and +the four Tophams sat. Mr. Lacey was at one end, with Mrs. Topham on his +right, Mrs. Lacey was at the other end with Mr. Topham on her right. At +the sides sat the younger ones, a Topham and a Lacey on either side. +This was not the happiest of arrangements, since young ladies who have +just "finished" in Paris usually think they have seen enough of +school-teachers for some time to come, but it was the best that could be +managed. Nor could Miss June kick Miss Wy under the table. + +The discord showed from the very first moment. The Laceys, as urbane +hosts, would have kept to such light and frothy conversational matters +as how the Tophams liked Llanyglo, whether they had been up into the +mountains yet, and similar subjects; but not so the Tophams. Briefly, +they went for the eternal verities like four steam-navvies. Before she +had unfolded her napkin, Mrs. Topham had Philip Lacey helpless in the +toils of More's _Utopia_, and by the time she had asked him half a dozen +searching questions, looking mistrustfully at him as much as to say, +"You _dare_ to lie to me, sir!" the unhappy man had to confess that it +was some time since he had read the book, and that his textual memory +was by no means as good as it had been. A second attack rendered him +abject. The third was not delivered. Seeing him such a rank and pitiable +outsider, Mrs. Topham contemptuously spared him. + +"And _this_ is the state of education to-day!" she said scornfully to +her husband afterwards.... + +Mr. Topham, in the meantime, tackled Mrs. Lacey on certain problems of +the Distribution of Wealth, with no happier results. Quite simply, Mrs. +Lacey was unaware that such problems existed save insofar as they were +included in the specific question of marriage-settlements for daughters. +She scarcely troubled to answer Mr. Topham, but, glancing from June and +Wy to the Misses Amy and Norah Topham, lost herself in the problems of +the Distribution of Proposals instead. So she too, from the point of +view of those who carried Mill and Smith in their pockets and read these +inhuman authors in the shade of the crumbling Dinas, became an outsider. + +But worst of all fared the Misses June and Wy; for the Topham sisters +had brought with them from Liverpool a holiday-pamphlet, which consisted +of forty-two questions, three of which, daily for a fortnight, the +holiday-maker was advised to ask himself. So: + +"As I came along the beach this afternoon," said Miss Amy to June, with +a chatty note in her voice, but the enthusiasm for knowledge smouldering +in her eyes, "I observed great quantities of seaweed. To what uses are +seaweeds put?" + +And said Miss Norah to Wy, slightly puckering her shining and melon-like +forehead: + +"One of the boatmen told me yesterday that in the Spring large masses of +the vernal squill are to be found upon the hills near here. Why is +this?" + +Then Miss Amy again: + +"There are fine examples of contorted strata on the other side of the +Trwyn. Perhaps you or your sister can tell me the reason why these +strata are contorted?" + +And again Miss Norah: + +"Who was Taliesin? When did he flourish? Tell me anything you know about +him." + +Dearly would June and Wy have liked to reply, in the words of Mrs. +Briggs when the hotel-manager had looked at her boots, "Don't if it +hurts you!" Wiggie nicknamed Miss Norah Topham "The Vernal Squill" on +the spot; June, a phanerogam herself, dubbed Miss Amy "The Club Moss." + +After that dinner, there was nothing for Philip Lacey to do but to live +his indiscretion down. + +But if this was the "Cambrian's" attitude to the "Montgomery," it was +not that of the Welshmen of Llanyglo. These were now more in number, for +half the staffs of the three hotels were Welsh, and others also had +scented prosperity in the air. Within a few hours friendly relations had +been established between the natives and the readers of _Utopia_. A +Welshman's eyes will always sparkle at the sight of a book or other +piece of the apparatus of knowledge, and the Montgomeryites, friendly +souls all and ready chatters with whomsoever they met, began to drop +into Howell's shop of a morning. None too reluctantly, they suffered +themselves to be drawn out by Howell on the subjects of their studies, +and then it was that Howell became a proud man indeed. For he produced +Eesaac Oliver, home once more from Aberystwith College. Without even +having the titles given to him as he came in at the door that divided +the shop from the dwelling-rooms behind, Eesaac Oliver swapped them book +for book. Howell's breast swelled. "Blodwen--Blodwen--come quick!" he +called. Then, with his eyes sparkling like bits of mica in a pebble and +his small teeth gleaming like a double row of barley, he looked fondly +on the assembly and murmured, "Dear me, I did not know till to-day there +wass so-o-a many books written!" One morning Mrs. Briggs and Mrs. Garden +came in in the very middle of one of these galas of the intellect. They +were kept waiting for a minute and more. There were times when the +Llanyglo Stores almost resembled a Debating Room. + +It was left to the Misses Euonyma and Wygelia Lacey to restore the +balance that their father's luckless dinner-party had disturbed; and +right well they laboured to that end. They brought all the resources of +Brighton and Paris to bear upon those two amiable but indefatigable +school-teachers, the sisters Topham. They did not avoid them; on the +contrary, they put their heads together and then went out in search of +them. Then, when they had met them, they asked them to tell them whether +it was true that the guillemot laid its blunt-ended egg in order that it +should not roll off ledges, and whether the person who said that +serviceable knife-handles could be made of the stems of the Great Oar +Weed had been correctly informed. And when they failed to come upon +their unsuspecting victims, they cathechised one another. + +"As I was ascending the mountains the other day," June would suddenly +break out in the Vernal Squill's raised and staccato voice, "I found +myself walking upon grass. What is grass? State reasons for your +answer." + +And Wiggie, assuming the _viva voce_ examination tones of the Club Moss, +would ask her sister what a man was, and whether Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd +could properly be classed as one. + +Failing the turning up of those two marriageable brothers, the Misses +June and Wy were likely to be what Mrs. Briggs called "bad to suit." + +It was when the _Utopia_-readers had been at the "Montgomery" rather +more than half their time that the first bruit went abroad of the +jollification that presently made memorable the eve of their departure. +Nor was this jollification to be confined to their own set. All (as +afterwards at the Llanyglo P.S.A. Meetings) were to be welcome. The +project was talked over, at first informally at the Llanyglo Stores, +afterwards more seriously at the "Montgomery"; and a few days later the +rumour was confirmed by print. Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd and Hugh Morgan +distributed a number of handbills, thrusting them into folk's hands in +the stake-and-wire-enclosed streets, pushing them under doors, and even +entering that Reservation on the shore where the Cambrians sat stiffly, +reading their novels, toying with their fancy-work, or dozing after +lunch. Then, on the land-agents' blackboards and in the windows of the +Llanyglo Stores, larger bills appeared. Large bills and small alike read +as follows: + + _Llanyglo Holiday Camp, July, 1887._ + THE AIGBURTH STREET AND CHOW BENT + SQUARE UNITED READING CIRCLES + beg to announce that a + GRAND POW-WOW + will be held in the Dinas, the Trwyn, Llanyglo, + on + Friday Evening, the 22nd, at 8.30 sharp. + BRING YOUR REFRESHMENTS! + BRING YOUR VOICE LOZENGES! + BRING YOUR MUSIC! + BRING YOUR LANTERNS! + BRING YOUR FRIENDS! + Visitors and Residents alike are Welcome! + _Songs!! Recitations!!! Short Speeches!!!!_ + LADIES SPECIALLY INVITED! + _Grand Chief:_ _Deputy Grand Chief:_ + BARRY TOPHAM, Esqr. HOWELL GRUFFYDD, Esqr. + Committee: ................ + ................ + ................ + + The Proceedings will open with the singing of + "_God Save the People_," + and will close with "_Hen Wlad fy Nhadau_." + + * * * * * + + EDWARD JONES, PRINTER, PORTH NEIGR. 0616. + + +"Boy!" called Raymond Briggs, as Eesaac Oliver, having distributed this +announcement to the occupants of the Reservation, was passing on; and +Eesaac Oliver turned. "Pick those papers up at once!" Raymond ordered, +pointing to a litter of handbills where the wavelets lapped the marge of +seaweed. Then, over his shoulder to Philip Lacey, who reclined almost +horizontally in the next deck-chair: "Making a mess of the beach like +that! Paper wherever you go; they're as bad as a lot of trippers! Can't +make out what you see in that fellow Topham----" + +Philip, who was frowning over the handbill, spoke, also over his +shoulder.--"You going to this?" + +Raymond gave a short laugh.--"Me?" + +It was almost as if he said, "I didn't ask them to dinner, my dear man! +_I'm_ perfectly free to stop away!" + +"Good. We'll have a game of chess, then," Philip replied off-handedly. +He could give Raymond pawn and move. + +Outside the Reservation, however, little but the Pow-Wow was talked of. +Howell Gruffydd had looked the word up in his little English-Welsh +Dictionary, and, though he had failed to find it, he was none the less +set-up at the thought of being a Deputy Grand Chief. But he became +thoughtful again when there arrived for him a bundle from Barry Topham, +which, on being opened, was found to contain a pair of very much creased +moccasins, a broad-striped blanket, and a head-dress of feathers +similar to the one the Grand Chief himself was to wear. Howell had +remembered Dafydd Dafis. Dafydd might not like him to bedeck himself +thus, and what Dafydd might think always mattered a great deal in +Llanyglo. Dafydd, his old corduroys notwithstanding, stood for the +integrity of Nationalism, and even Howell, willing to be English, must +be careful not to be too English--or, in the present case, too Indian. + +But the aliens themselves showed no such reserve. They had bracketed a +Welsh name with an English one on their handbill, had placed _Hen Wlad_ +by the side of _God Save the People_, and been otherwise hearty; and +they did not know that even in their hospitality they were a little +bustling, urgent, and compelling. As for differences of race, such +things were presently about to be abolished. So they bade Llanyglo +almost boisterously welcome to its own Trwyn, and Barry Topham, passing +Dafydd Dafis on the afternoon of the day of the celebration, shouted +cheerily over his shoulder, "Don't forget your harp, Davis. I'm not +going to call you 'Dafis'--we'll make an Englishman of you before we've +done with you! Eight-thirty sharp.... Eh?... Stuff and nonsense! +Fiddlededee! What sort o' talk's that, man alive! Of course you're +bringing your harp!" + +It was on a dullish summer evening, and none too warm up there, that the +Montgomeryites, in threes and fours and sixes, began the ascent of the +Trwyn. Some of them had already set match to their lanterns, though the +Trwyn beam was not alight yet, and they carried with them more than one +copy of _The Scottish Students' Song Book_. They tried their voices as +they climbed, and called to one another, pointing out false easy ways +and bursting into laughter when the misdirected ones had to return +again; and the Trwyn sheep started up from before their feet and fled, +baa-ing. The refreshments had gone on ahead, as also had the fuel for +the camp-fire, but no Welshmen were to be seen yet. Perhaps, gruff +heartiness notwithstanding, they felt that they were guests who should +have been hosts. Perhaps they felt that here was not the urgency there +had been on the only other occasion when they and the Saxon had rushed +hurriedly and tumultuously together--that wild nightfall when Ned Kerr, +from the roof of the new Hafod Unos, had seen something out in the lair +of grey, and, with a cry of "_Llongddrylliad!_" Celt and new-comer had +flung themselves into an open boat pell mell. + +But by and by they also began to move in a body slowly along the shore, +sometimes over the dry, sometimes plodding over their own reflections in +the ebb. There was no pointing out false ascents to them. Eesaac Oliver +Gruffydd, who came first, had fetched eggs too often from the Trwyn +light not to know every cranny of the promontory, and his father +remembered the building of the lighthouse. Howell had seen them, as a +boy, locking and dowelling the great blocks of masonry, shaped each like +an intricate Chinese puzzle; and in thirty odd years the Light seemed to +have become almost as much part of the headland as the ancient Dinas +itself. That seemed to be the way with building. Even Edward Garden's +house seemed a settled thing now. So, in another year or two, would the +"Montgomery," the "Cardigan," Ham-and-Egg Terrace. And Howell reflected +that stones meant grocery-orders. But that was not all. If he must be +English, but not too English for Dafydd Dafis, he must still be careful +to be the right sort of English. He made little out of these _Utopia_ +readers. They simply came in under the "Montgomery's" contract. The +Briggses and Laceys still provided the richer yield. Whether was the +better--the "Montgomery," where one visitor would presently be creeping +into a bed that his predecessor had left still warm, or these more +prosperous ones, who, Howell knew, would presently come no more?... +Moreover, he was already feeling the pressure of outside competition. +Ellis, of Porth Neigr, was even now quoting cutting rates for the +"Cardigan's" butter and cheese, and for a long time Llanyglo had had to +depend on outsiders for its milk. The railway, that brought people, also +brought their provender.... + +Oh, don't think for a moment that Howell was prospering without giving +deep thought to things! + +They gained the Dinas, where already the fire was yellow and crackling, +and stood smiling Good evenings, as if they waited to be asked inside. + +How long ago it was since the foundations of that Dinas had been +sprinkled with the blood of Merlin--how long ago it was since the Red +and White Dragons had contended about it, now one gaining the advantage, +now the other--how long ago these things had been, not even Miss Amy +Topham would have dared to ask June Lacey. Now it resembled a grey old +heel of cheese, with a little scrabbling in one corner. This scrabbling +was where Bert Stoy, one of the younger and most indefatigable of the +Readers, had hoped he might find a British grave. + +"We thought you'd maybe changed your minds about coming," were the words +with which Barry Topham welcomed them. He was an Indian, but a bearded +one, and he bustled here and there, wanting to know where So-and-So +was, and whether this requisite or that had been brought up, and seeing +to this and the other. The goblin shadows of eighteen or twenty of the +Readers danced on the ruined works, and the sky behind their illumined +faces was of a sad and leaden lavender hue. The lanterns made little +patches in the short grass; matches lighted faces momentarily; and then +suddenly there broke out over the shoulder of the headland and continued +thenceforward, the Light. Red, red, white--red, red, white--it was +numbing, intolerable. It dyed the clouds that seemed to sag over the +earth as the ceiling-sheets sagged in the cottages, and its glare was +not lost high overhead now, as it had been on that night when the Kerrs +had rested for their "nooning" in the midst of their building of their +Hafod. The staggering blaze passed not twenty feet above them, seeming +to stumble and trip over the cloud-folds, and driving the revellers to +fresh places with their backs to it. You would have said that those +ancient Red and White Dragons had come to life again and were chasing +one another across the rafters of the night. + +Then Barry Topham, placing himself by a jagged tooth of rock, held up +his hand for silence. He had motioned Howell Gruffydd to his side, and +had pointed at somebody's cap. His fingers tweaked a tuning-fork; he set +the vibrating prong against his teeth; he gave them a soft +note--"Doh----" and then: + + "_When wilt Thou save the people, + O God of Mercy, when?..._" + +Then when it was finished, Barry again stood with uplifted hand. Caps +were put on again by such as wore them. + +"Not weft enough," was Barry's brief comment on the singing; the Welsh, +unfamiliar with the air, had not sung. "Never mind; it might ha' been +worse.--Now I'm just going to say a few words, and then we'll make a +start." + +And he began. + +"Well, we've been here a fortnight now, and I think we've all enjoyed +it. I have for one. Some of us has been up these grand mountains, +finding out how they were made, and some of us has been improving +ourselves among the rocks and on the shore. Some of us has botanised, +and some's collected butterflies, and one and all we've read the books +set down for us in the Syllabus. That's a job done, at all events. + +"But I think we shall one and all admit that we've a great deal to learn +about Llanyglo yet. There'd still be something to learn if we were to +come here six, ten, twenty times. That's the grand thing about +knowledge--we need never be afraid we shall come to the end of it. When +we've read fifty books there's always fifty more. Ay, and there'll be +another fifty after that. + +"But we've got other things besides knowledge at Llanyglo. We've got +health, health to keep us going for another year. And we've got friends, +new friends. I think we can say," here he laid his hand on Howell's +shoulder, "that we've all done the little bit that in us lies to break +down prejudices and dislikes and racial differences. We've had our +quarrels, us Welsh and English, in the past; no doubt there's been +battles fought on this very spot; but that's all over, and, speaking as +Grand Chief for the year, though unworthy to succeed Comrade Walker, who +occupied this same position last year at our Holiday Camp at Keswick, I +think I may say we've buried the hatchet now. So in the name of one and +all I greet these friends of ours. I think it does us both good to come +together like this. They're a bit--what shall I say?--on the poetical +side, perhaps; more romantic than us; we're just plain, practical folk +that has to tew for our livings; but what I mean is, it's a good thing +for both of us to get to understand one another. We do understand one +another now, and I'm sure we're all very glad to see them here." +(Applause, and cries from the Lancashire men of "Good old Wales!") "You +here that, Gruffydd--Comrade Gruffydd? That's hearty. That's Lancashire. +No flowers o' speech, but we say a thing and mean it. And we mean it +when we say we're very glad to see you indeed, and hope this won't be +our last visit to Llanyglo.--And now I won't take up any more of your +time. We've a long programme before us, and I see that the first item +is----" he consulted a paper in his hand, "----is the old favourite, +_There is a Tavern_. What's the key, Harry? C? (Doh, lah--lah, te, +doh----)." + +And with the singing of _There is a Tavern in the Town_ the Pow-Wow +began. + +Did they come to understand one another the better for it? Were they who +took part in that Pow-Wow so "poetical and romantic" for the one part, +so blunt and rough and practical for the other? Did a score or so of +Saxons suddenly and miraculously cease that night to belong to the +world's most sentimental race, and were the hearts of as many Celts as +miraculously changed? No doubt it all seemed simple enough to Barry +Topham. Hard-rinded himself, but not without a generous juice within, he +would have found it hard to believe that pulpier fruits existed, with a +stone inside he would but crack his teeth upon. Perhaps--perhaps--it was +not so; and yet--what, after all, can the victor do to the vanquished +more than vanquish him?... Barry saw their smiles only, and for every +smile they received they gave three. The jovial Campers became ever +bluffer and heartier and fonder of them as song followed song. Nor did +the Welshmen refuse to sing. Enlightened Young Wales, in the person of +Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd, was presently to be seen with his back to the +intolerable Trwyn beam while the Dragons of the Light chased one another +behind his head; and his voice was lifted up in _Vale of Llangollen_. +Was the song a success? It was doubly a success. The blunt and genial +aliens applauded him as a breaker of the ice, his compatriots applauded +him as a stepper into the breach from which they themselves had hung +back. Hardly had he sat down before he was beset with requests to hum +the air all over again, in order that they might take it down in the +Tonic Sol-fa notation.... Then, almost immediately, the clapping swelled +again, and there were cries of "Harry! Harry!" Harry Stone, who had the +voice of an angel, was allowed to sing as he sat, because of his +lameness, and he could not be seen in his dim angle of masonry, but only +the unhurrying but unceasing red and white spokes, that strode from afar +over the sea, passed overhead, and were off on their wide circle again. +Hearing his voice and not seeing him, you thought of a pure spring that +gushes suddenly out of the dark and grudging earth.--_Cannibalee_, he +sang---- + +It was poor enough stuff. Its words were a laborious parody, its +harmonies exactly predicable; it was facetious or nothing, and it marred +an original with a remote and deathly grace of its own; but these things +were forgotten as Harry sang. To-morrow they were leaving Llanyglo. +To-morrow they were filing back through that postern that had given +them this, their fortnight's respite, from tasks too often ignoble, from +cramped circumstances, from savourless lives. And it weighed on them, +tenderly yet heavily. Next year seemed so sadly, sadly far away.... + + "_Her eyes were as fair as the star of the morn + And her teeth were as sharp as the point of a thorn---- + She was very fair to see!_----" + +Harry sang; and the hands of young men sought those of young women in +the blackness of the Dinas's shadows, and the married ones drew a little +closer together, and there was no parody at all in the little soft +punctuations of the refrain, in which every voice joined: + + "_She was very fair to see---- + (So she was!) + She was very fair to see---- + (So she was!)_----" + +Edward Garden was right---- + + "_Her eyes were as fair as the star of the morn + And her teeth were as sharp as the point of a thorn---- + My beautiful Cannibalee_----" + +Edward Garden was right. That tender but heavy weight, so tender, so +heavy that it bore down the stupid expression of the song, lay even on +the Welshmen too. He was admirably shrewd and right. It would not be yet +awhile--it was too early yet--but presently, as an advertisement for +Llanyglo, an Eisteddfod--an Eisteddfod, say, when the holiday season +began in July, and a Brass Band Contest towards its close in +September.... + +They were still singing when they came down again, at eleven o'clock. +You might have thought, from the way in which Barry Topham clung to +Howell Gruffydd's arm, that he was slightly drunk, but he was not; that +was only brotherliness and exaltation. He still wore the gala-dress of +the Grand Chief, but in that particular Howell thought that he had come +out of his dilemma rather well. The feather head-dress he had tried on +had proved too big for his head, and in trying to shorten the band he +had torn off the button, thus rendering the adornment useless. As for +the striped blanket about his shoulders--well, it was a coolish night, +and there is no sense in taking a chill when there is a blanket to be +had to keep you warm. Even Dafydd would see that. So Howell had worn +it.... + +And looked at from below again, the Trwyn beam no longer appeared a hunt +of raving red and white monsters, but a little lonely thing, familiar +and disregarded, old, wise, minding its own business, and meanwhile +quietly opening and shutting an eye. + + + + +II + +THE GIANT'S STRIDE + + +After that summer they began in earnest the building of Llanyglo. Come +and see them at it. + +Whence came these stone-carts and timber-carts, these girders and +castings, a single one only taking up a couple of trucks? Whence came +these wains of floor-boards with their trailing tails bobbing up and +down within an inch or two of the white road, these bastions of metal +and ballast, these crawling and earth-shaking traction-engines with the +little bellies and the monstrous wheels and the dotted line of lorries +and trollies behind them? Whence these sawn planks, these massive frames +with machinery parts on them so heavy that every rut threatens a +standstill, these contractors' vans with absurd little trolley-wheels, +these gatlings of drain-pipes, these wagons of plumbers' material, these +vans of provisions, this army of men? Why do these now choke the roads +that formerly were empty save for the passing of a wain of whispering +hay, or the light market-cart that left a smell of raspberries and a +stain of Welsh song behind, or Ned Kerr with his folding hut and +clogging-knife, or Ynys Lovell with her packing-case cart and her mother +with her loops of cane seeking chairs to mend? Where did they come from, +and what are they doing here? + +The stone, of course, comes from the Porth Neigr quarry, where the +blasts shake the rocks and the shooting of waste resounds throughout +the day. And the castings come from Manchester and Middlesborough and +Wigan and Leeds. And the sawn planks come from Russia and the Baltic, +and the larches for scaffolding from the Merionethshire valleys. These +things come from these places--if you look at it that way. But look at +it the other way and they have an origin mystical indeed. They are +conceived of fecund nods and looks, of the germination of writing and +initials and signatures and contract-stamps. They are born of print and +promotion and allotment, and the cord is cut when sums are paid on +application, and more in three months' time. They thrive when Chairmen, +standing up on platforms, say "the adoption of the Accounts has been +moved and seconded----," and become lusty when more clerks have to be +called in, and temporary premises have to be taken, to cope with the +public rush for the splendid thing. You see their real origin on those +blackboards that seem to set Llanyglo its new multiplication sum, and in +those paragraphs in the Manchester and Liverpool and London papers. You +see it again when the new Local Government Bill receives the Royal +Assent. You see it once more when from the machines of printers in +Nottingham and Harrow and Frome and Belfast there are turned out the +posters that already overspread the northern hoardings, bidding +Blackpool look to itself, warning Douglas that it has another +competitor, elbowing Bridlington, shoving Yarmouth aside. There are half +a dozen of these posters out already, and if they are not strictly +speaking representations of Llanyglo, they are something more--they are +prophecies, which you will do well to heed if you want to put your money +on a good thing. There is one in Lime Street Station, Liverpool (you +need not glance at that upper window; you'd have a job to find poor +Terry Armfield's Trwyn Avenue now). It is the "Welsh Giantess" one. She +is dressed in a black steeple hat with a white hood underneath it, red +check shawl, striped petticoat, and has buckles on her shoes. She holds +the town in a three-quarter circle in her arms, with children at play on +the sands and super-Briggses and super-Laceys all spilling out in the +foreground. The mountains are indigo, the hotels pink, the sands chrome +yellow, and the name LLANYGLO sprawls across the sky as if the Trwyn +Light had dropped it there in passing, a letter at a time.... The +poster, of course, is a little grandiose: nobody cries stinking fish. +The Pier, for example, isn't there yet. But it is somewhere, in +somebody's desk-drawer, perhaps, or perhaps it has even got farther than +that. Perhaps the caissons are already on the way; certainly a group of +strangers has been busy on the shore any time this past twelve months. +And the Promenade isn't ex-_act_-ly like that yet. It has railings not +unlike those, but not yet that fine stretch of impregnable sea-wall. And +so with the hotels.... But all in good time. These things will all be +ready quite as soon as those posters have sunk into the perception of +the public. We mustn't have a completely equipped town standing empty +for a number of seasons while folk make up their minds whether they'll +come or not. We have the money, the men, powers under the new Act ample +as our hearts could wish, and the certainty of the coming reward. + +Llanyglo itself found it difficult to realise what was happening. It all +came in such strides. Where the stake-and-wire-enclosed roads had been, +a giant hoarding would rise, twenty, forty, fifty yards long. On this +hoarding, by means of the railway posters, Llanyglo would be told all +about itself--its climate, its mild winters, its accessibility from all +parts, and its "unrivalled attractions." It read Gilbert Smythe's +signature there. And among these were other bills curiously opposite, +which told them that if they in their turn needed change, there were +week-end tickets to be had to Liverpool and Belle Vue at specially +reduced rates.--And while Llanyglo knew, as month succeeded month, that +work was going on behind these hoardings, the effect was none the less +magical when, on the day they were knocked to pieces again, the +astounding frontage appeared. They had known nothing like it since that +piece of witchcraft of the Kerrs, and now several times they had seen it +happen. It had happened between the "Cambrian" and "Cardigan" hotels. It +had happened at Pritchard's Corner. And now it was about to happen +again, along a line that ran from a point just below the Kerrs' Hafod to +the piece of land, not built on yet, where for three days one Spring a +circus was set up, its cages and caravans and the guy-ropes of its +tenting all mingled with the timber-stacks and mortar-engines and +breastworks of stone setts and other dumpings of a dozen different +contractors. Later, a temporary wooden shed occupied this space. This +shed was town-hall, concert-hall, general purposes hall, and theatre +thrown into one. That was the time Llanyglo began to discover that if +one of its inhabitants wished to meet another he had better appoint a +time and place to do so. To climb up the nearest sandhill and take a +look round no longer served. + +And even these amazing unfoldings were as nothing compared with that +which (it was already known) was to happen next--the construction of the +sea-wall and the Pier. + +Philip Lacey's Floral Valley was already finished. Its gravelled walks, +with steps every few yards, straggled up both sides of the ravine in the +side of the Trwyn, and from the topmost of these you could look down on +the octagonal roof of the bandstand that occupied the levelled plot in +the middle. Sticking (as it were) the point of his compasses into the +bandstand, Philip had described successions of eighth and +quarter-circles, with radiating paths and variously shaped smaller +beds in between; and of these he had made a piece of crewel-work +of colour. Golden feather and London pride, lobelia and pinks and +bachelors'-buttons, formed the borders; behind them, in ovals and stars +and crown-shapes and monograms, mignonette and arabis and dwarf pansies +and Virginia stock were set; and so he had brushed-and-combed and curled +and scented the whole place. He had staked his professional reputation, +too, that from the first crocus to the last Michaelmas daisy, the gaudy +Catherine-wheel would never be for a single day out of bloom; and then +he had departed, leaving the responsibility of upkeep to the delighted +town. John Willie Garden, looking at the Valley's logical plan, wished +that the town itself had had as fair, if severe, a start. + +For John Willie was Clerk of the Works now in a very different sense +from that in which he had had charge of the coming of Railhead. He was +now nineteen, and had no longer any wish to go into the business in +Manchester. His father, noting his tastes and capacity, had judged it +perfectly safe to depart, leaving John Willie to look after things in +his stead; and as no contractor's foreman wished to quarrel with the son +of the principal maker of the place, he had a fairly large authority. So +John Willie occupied the house by the shore, with Minetta to make him +comfortable. He spent his days in passing from this building to that, +pushing at doors in hoardings marked "No Admittance," threading his way +along the wheeling-planks, mounting ladders, looking down on the +swarming men from the stagings, looking up through the groves of the +scaffold-poles, looking out, not over the sandhills now, but over other +houses built and building. The masts and spars of other scaffold-poles +here and there might almost have made you think that a navigable river +twisted through Llanyglo, and that these were the rigging of the vessels +upon it. From one work to another he passed, approving, questioning, +telephoning, making notes. There is scarce a room of that period of +Llanyglo's up-springing but, even to-day, John Willie Garden can tell +you the lie of its water-pipes, where its main-cocks are, where its +drains, its gas-connections, the depth of its foundations, the +branchings of its chimney-flues. He hasn't been into half of them since, +but the present occupiers can tell him nothing about which cellars are +on the rock and when the girders are due to be repainted. And he could +talk to the men as well as to their bosses. He addressed them +authoritatively, but he knew their football and their drinking, their +jokes and songs, which dog belonged to which and which among them +"subbed" or "liened" before his wage was due. John Willie Garden's +boyhood lay behind him now. + +What was John Willie like to look at by this time, and what was his +outlook on the world? + +You may meet his kind at six o'clock any morning, the sons of Alderman +This or Sir John That, going to their fathers' engineering-shops in +Leeds, or to Manchester spinning-sheds, or Rochdale factories, or +dye-works, or rolling-mills, or drawing-offices, or electrical works. +They wear greasy blue overalls and carry tin luncheon-cans, and use +cotton-waste for handkerchiefs. They glory in the readiness of their +repartee to their fathers' workmen, to be mistaken for one of whom gives +them the keenest pleasure. Joyously they attack the blackest and +greasiest of the work, honestly forgetting that they could leave this to +others if they wished.--But see them in the evening! They have had tea +and a "clean-up" by this time. Their heads have been soused and their +hands pumiced, they have on their mahogany boots and their white +collars, the hands that wielded crowbars or strained with the grip of +spanners ply thin and expensive canes now, and you can see the radiance +of their approach a quarter of a mile away. They are off to +billiard-rooms and card-parties, theatre-boxes, or courting. They will +be home fairly early, because of the five-o'clock alarum in the morning, +but until then they are so evidently about to enjoy themselves that you +sigh if you are unable to join them. Go one night and watch them when +next the Pantomime comes. Sit in the second row of the stalls (you won't +be able to get into the first row). If the leading lady is pretty, and +John Willie and Percy Briggs are there, you won't consider your evening +wasted. The show is sure to "go." + +That, more or less, was John Willie. He had rather a lot of money to +spend, but nowhere much to spend it yet. His hair was a little less +primrose coloured than it had been (pomatum does darken hair a little), +but his eyes had not altered. They were still just as receptive or just +as stupid as he cared to make them, blue as flax, and capable, if you +happened to catch him at something he did not wish to be caught at, of a +rather hard and prolonged stare. He was not tall--long ago it had been +plain he would not be--but, looking at his shoulders, hung as it were +from an apex at the back of his head, you would have wondered at the +lightness of the pit-pat of his feet when he did a step-dance on the +occasion of one of the men's "birthdays" (which have nothing to do with +days of birth, by the way, but frequently much to do with an unfancied +horse and a longish price). In a word, he was a nicish, powerful young +rascal, with an expensive dressing-case and a trace of those Lancashire +final "g's"; and he and his friends (of whom he had a good many down to +Llanyglo) had their own corner in the "Cambrian" lounge, unless the +evening's programme included cards or involved the use of a room with a +piano in it. + +Yet, though the Llanyglo air might thrill with the clink-clink of +chisels on stone, and vibrate with the jolting of the builders' carts, +and resound with all the noises of the swift building, still, nobody who +now came thought it ruined. On the contrary, exactly as the Briggses and +the Laceys had predicted, it came to them with shocks of delight. For +think of it: here was no twopenny ride on a clanging tram through naked, +unshaded streets before they could reach the sea. Here was no two-miles +plod back again over the burning asphalt, slackening every nerve that +had been braced up by the bathe. Here was no Brighton nor Scarborough +nor Blackpool yet, with nettings of electric wires overhead and +perspective of rails below. No: from any part of the place, three +minutes would take you, if not in every case to the beach itself, at any +rate to an open space of thyme and harebells and hillocks of clean sand, +where, if you got on the right side of the sandhill, you might not know +that there was a crane or a scaffold within miles. And if the beach was +ploughed and harrowed and tramped and trodden until it resembled a +dirty batter-pudding, half a day and a tide, and the sands were smooth +and shining again, and the wet stretches seemed as much sky as land, and +passing birds were reflected in their depths. The sea tidied up the +shore again as the housemaids took up the crumbs from the hotel +carpets.--And there were dozens of boats now, in which you could push +out a few hundred yards and find yourself in spots that man can never +sully. Five minutes' tugging at the oars and you could rock and gaze up +at the sky, or look over the boat's side at the translucent green +reflection of its curving boards below, and past that into glassy clear +depths, and so past that again to where the water began to show you, not +its depths, but the broken mirroring of the sky again. The boating was +one of the "unrivalled attractions." By nine o'clock every morning a row +of boatmen leaned against the railings between the "Cambrian" and the +jetty, smoking, scanning the front, showing you fresh bait, and offering +boats by the hour, the morning, or the day. Foremost among them, as +likely as not, would be Tommy, the youngest of the Kerrs. He wore a blue +gausey with a diamond woven across the breast, touched the peak of his +dirty old petty-officer's cap constantly, and told folk it was "a +gradely morning for fishing." Though the youngest, he was the least +reputable of the Kerrs. Ned, the eldest, Llanyglo counted part of +itself; the two middle ones were both contractors' foremen, and +respected citizens; but Tommy had become the scandal of Llanyglo. You +were well advised to allow him double time or more if you gave him a bag +to carry anywhere and there was the temptation of beer on the way; and +you might catch him sober if you engaged him and his boat soon after +breakfast, but your chance of doing so became ever less as the day wore +on. + +Who were these people who strolled among the droning bees of the +sandhills or pushed out from the shore in boats? Well, they were of more +kinds than one or two now. The charges at the "Cambrian" were still +stiffish; a week there cost as much as a fortnight at the "Cardigan," or +a month at the "Montgomery"; and so we still exhibit the social degrees. +There has even been a certain amount of "feeling" about this. Of two +Rochdale men, say, with little to choose between them in point of +income, one will be seen on the "Cambrian's" balcony in the evening +after dinner, his heart-shaped dinner-shirt one of a number of +heart-shaped dinner-shirts, the bosom and neck and head of the lady he +is chatting with rising out of her lacy corsage as a bouquet rises from +the paper frill that encloses and bedecks it. He will be seen there, +with the red-shaded lamps of the empty dining-room behind him and the +moonlight making his sunburnt face very dark. But the other's face is +sunburnt too, and at half the cost. He too could attitudinise like this +were he so minded. And he reflects that Jones or Jackson may cut a dash +among strangers, but he mustn't try it on with people who know him at +home. As for himself, he's thankful to say that he's just the same +wherever he is, at home or away on a holiday.... + +In fact Jones or Jackson is precisely the man Edward Garden more than +half expected--the man who can't quite afford it, but will.... But this, +it is hardly necessary to observe, is to take the "Cambrian" at less +than its average and the "Cardigan" at rather more. + +The "Montgomery" is actually outclassed by the better "Private Hotels" +and one or two of the superior "Boarding Establishments." Indeed, of +these last the "Cadwallader" almost ranks with the "Cambrian" itself. +And so we come by degrees down to Ham-and-Egg Terrace.--But enough of +these _nuances_ of difference of a fortnight's duration. Who, taken +by-and-large, are these people, and where do they come from? + +You have only to ask yourself, "Who else should they be?" and your +question is half answered. Remember the smallness of these Islands, and +the scores of pulsing, radiating, almost radio-active centres within +them, every one swarming with folk who intend to have a better time than +their fathers have had. Could the East Coast be pushed out beyond the +North Sea, and Lancashire be stretched until it took in Galway, St. +George's Channel and all, there might be room enough on England's shores +for every parliamentary voter to have a few acres of Trwyn foreshore of +his own and a black cow walking up and down them, seeking coolness and +food hock-deep in the glistening ebb; but, as things are, the littoral +is by much too small. True, scores and fifties of miles of it remain +practically unvisited; but no snail has snuffled out its manganese +there, and they are not within a few hours and a thirty-shilling +circular fare of the human ant-heaps of the land, where King's Ransoms +of Holiday Club money are put by. There was no wonder about the growth +of Llanyglo. Geographically situated as it was, the marvel would have +been had it not grown. With a few posters and similar devices to +advertise it, it would presently continue to advertise itself. + +Therefore the folk who flocked there were of every kind, short of the +grey and overwhelming multitude itself. _Because_ it was only partly +built, _because_ it had not yet shaken down to a definite character and +physiognomy and personality, it spread its net the wider. Did you want +to dress for dinner, and to have your luggage carried by a man in a red +jacket? There was the "Cambrian." Did you want everything that the +Cambrians had, barring only the luxury of being seen lounging in one of +the wicker-chairs about its portals, and still to keep your money in +your pocket? There was the "Cardigan." Did you want to read or to idle, +to botanise or merely to forget your cares for a fortnight, to picnic up +the Trwyn or to have your meals in bed? They asked no questions at the +"Montgomery." From Philip Lacey's piece of Floral Geometry to the nooks +on the farther side of the Trwyn where you could spend a whole morning +undisturbed, there was something for every taste. And they actually had +to turn people away who had been so ill-advised as to come with their +luggage without having first secured their lodging. + +And now it had come to this: that while these came to Llanyglo for a +change of air, John Willie Garden, who spent his days among lime and +mortar and wheeling-planks and newly dressed stone, frequently turned +his back on Llanyglo for precisely the same reason. Once a week or so he +was seen to drive past Pritchard's Corner in a light yellow trap at nine +o'clock in the morning. He was off to see to another of his father's +interests--that "catchment area" far away up in the mountains. He drove +eight miles, put up at an inn past which a trout-stream brawled (hardly +yet settled from its precipitous plunging cataracts), and then set out +on foot up a road that rose one-in-five under a whispering wood, to see +the skyline of which you had to throw your head back. It took him an +hour of walking to get to his destination--a solitary wooden cabin +where the agent lived. The agent had on the whole an easy time of it, +for hardly a hundred yards from his cabin door, above the woods now, lay +Llyn Delyn, pure looking-glass in the mile long crook of the mountain. +An old boat was moored among the sedges at one end, the launching of +which on the unbroken surface of that lovely water always seemed to +invoke vague judgments, penalties perhaps forborne, but none the less +incurred. Here the agent, whose name was Sharpe, fished. John Willie +fished with him. Fishing was a good enough way of passing the time, for +they were not really doing anything up there. They were merely +waiting--waiting for more people to come to Llanyglo, for the Town Hall +to rise, for the seat of local administration to be shifted from Porth +Neigr, and then for the Waterworks Scheme. They had the water as fast as +prevision and Law could make it. They would not drive too hard a bargain +with the town. In the meantime they fished, speaking little, noting +whether it was the gnat or the cochybondhu that killed, casting so +lightly that the boat scarcely rocked. Sometimes, when the amber evening +light was clear behind them, so impeccable was the profound mirror below +that, while their tweed-clad forms could hardly be distinguished from +the hues of the mountain behind, the upside-down shapes beneath them +were sharp and dark as the silhouettes in your grandmother's little oval +frames. + + + + +III + +THE BLANK CHEQUE + + +Death took a hand that winter in Llanyglo's making. They were getting +well up with the Town Hall, in what is now Gardd Street; still the flag +floated at the polehead, in token that they had got thus far without +serious mishap; and then it had to be run down to the half-mast. It was +a common scaffold accident. Harry Kerr, on one of the upper stages, +stepped back upon empty air; Sam sprang forward to save him; and they +picked them both up from among the debris below. A few remembered the +launching of that open boat on that wild night seven years before, and +said that it seemed out of nature that these comparatively young men +should go off before ancient Mrs. Pritchard; and Mrs. Pritchard herself +baa-ed, and said that there would be more room now in the Hafod Unos +whatever. But most of the residents were new-comers now, who knew more +of Tommy Kerr's present delinquencies than of the history of his +brothers, and they could hardly be expected to grieve. They buried them +both at Sarn, under the shadow of that pepper-caster of a +fifteenth-century church tower, and the problem of however the Hafod had +held them all became a thing of the past. + +The Town Hall was the outward and visible sign that Llanyglo had not +only caught up with Porth Neigr, but had outstripped it. It had special +conveniences for a centre of administration, which it forthwith became; +and at the election that Autumn Howell Gruffydd was made a Councillor. +He had two branch shops now, one at Porth Neigr and the other at Sarn, +and to his newspaper counter he had added a Library of books bought at +Mudies' clearance sales. He charged fourpence a week for the loan of +each book, which was twopence more than the old stationer's library at +Porth Neigr had charged; but there was the railway-fare to take into +account if you considered the charge extortionate. Later, a good deal +later, when the picture postcard was invented, Howell did rather well +out of that too. He praised your amateur snapshot of the Trwyn or the +Promenade of the facade of the Town Hall, and made you what no doubt +seemed to him a fair offer; namely to give you a dozen prints in +exchange for your film. He then proceeded to fill a revolving stand with +other prints, which he sold at seven for sixpence, or, highly glazed, at +twopence apiece. With pennies and twopences accumulated in this and +similar ways he bought certain house-property behind Ham-and-Egg +Terrace, paying a ground-rent to Edward Garden. He had by this time +acquired a little personal habit of Mr. Tudor Williams's--the habit of +shaking hands with one hand, while the other affectionately kneaded and +patted his interlocutor's right arm from the wrist up to the shoulder. + +Hitherto the developments of Llanyglo had lain in a few hands only--the +hands of Edward Garden and his shareholders, of one or two others who +had forgotten they had a holding in Terry Armfield's Thelema, but +remember it now with joy and thanksgiving, of Mr. Tudor Williams, and of +not very many more. But now a more ponderous machine began to rumble +into motion. This was the machine of which the Railway Companies and a +couple of Pleasure Packet Services were the visible active parts. +Rumours now began to fly about of developments long since planned and +now imminent, developments astounding and gigantic. These rumours began +with hotels. Hitherto the "Cambrian" had been thought to be rather more +than so-so, but of course nobody would have dreamed of comparing it with +the "Grands" and "Majesties" which "_Lancashire Hotels, Limited_" +possessed in the great centres of the North. These had half a dozen +tennis-courts in front, palm-courts and winter-gardens behind, and five +and six and seven hundred bedrooms. But now the rumour ran that, not one +of these, but two, owned by opposing Syndicates, were to be set up in +Llanyglo. The sites on which they were to be built varied according to +the version of the tale. Some said that the "Montgomery" was to be +pulled down again, some that the whole row of fishermen's cottages was +to be demolished, some that a terrace was to be dug out of the side of +the Trwyn itself and a funicular railway constructed. However it might +be, it was known that there were prolonged meetings of the Council about +it, and that at one point the whole thing, whatever it might be, seemed +likely to fall through. And that, as they now knew, would be their +death-blow. They would do anything, anything rather than that these +immense reservoirs of capital, already partly opened, should be shut up +again. They would hold out the town itself as security, a twopenny rate, +promises, accommodations, anything. It was said that Sheard, the Porth +Neigr solicitor, who had moved to new premises opposite the Llanyglo +Town Hall, sat up five nights in the week, making actuarial +calculations, estimating yields, measuring margins, and balancing all +with the possibility of the town's bankruptcy. Edward Garden was once +more at Llanyglo, and closeted frequently with Mr. Tudor Williams and +Howell Gruffydd.... Even the two projected hotels were not much more +than a detail as matters now stood; the whole town must now be given a +tremendous upward heave or collapse with a crash. Even those hotels +could go up now only on one condition--namely, that the base of the +visiting population, that foundation of which innumerable units are the +strength, should at once be immensely broadened. For every individual +who could afford to put up at a palace, they must rake in scores, +hundreds of people who could not. The real foundation of the hotels must +be row on row, acre on acre, of Ham-and-Egg Terraces. For the rest, a +place that must live through the year on the takings of three months +must be big, as those places of entertainment must be big that are full +on Saturdays only and empty during the rest of the week. Nothing smaller +would tempt the Railway Companies. (This, by the way, was not altogether +good news for Raymond Briggs. Architecture is not needed for that +broadened base. Any working master-builder can run up houses that are +good enough. The pattern of one is the pattern of all, and Raymond would +have small chance in competition with the bigger men of his profession.) + +Nor would it suffice merely to house and feed the people who came. Other +watering-places were awake to the new menace now, so that the rival +announcements on the hoardings resembled a desperate grapple for the +possession of those sixpences and shillings and half-crowns that were +poured without ceasing into the coffers of the Holiday Clubs. Not one in +five hundred of those who contributed those shillings and half-crowns +stopped to think that Wales herself has no Holiday Clubs--that Wales +does not go abroad with a year's savings in her pocket of which it is +black shame to bring as much as a single penny back again. They wanted +amusement. The Resort or Spa that could provide the most amusement would +get the lion's share. Amusements were a more urgent necessity than +chairs and tables and roofs. + +So it was that, between this place and that, the people who intended to +have a better time than their fathers had had were in some danger of +being pampered. + +The project for the Llanyglo Big Wheel was set a-going. + +The promise that Howell Gruffydd had made behind his hand to John +Pritchard had already begun to be redeemed. The Town Hall was not three +months old before a Grand Bazaar was held there in aid of the Llanyglo +Joint Chapels. On the first of the four days during which the Bazaar +lasted the proceedings were opened by Tudor Williams, Esquire, M.P. On +the second day they were opened by Edward Garden, Esquire. On the third +Mrs. Howell Gruffydd opened them, in heliotrope satin; and on the fourth +day Raymond Briggs, Esquire, who scented Chapel-building in the air, +performed the ceremony. Raymond guessed that at least three new Chapels +were certain presently to go up in the stead of those buildings of tin +and boards and sickly blue paint that had so outraged Terry Armfield's +Oxford Movement susceptibilities. As a matter of fact, five went up, and +have debts on them to this day, in spite of the long series of Bazaars, +two a season at least, at which the Saxon veins were opened.... For the +money poured in. It rained into the square collecting-sheets that were +placed at intervals along all the principal streets. It clattered into +the slots of the wooden boxes that were rattled under the nose of the +passer-by. It was minted in the Bran Tubs from which, paying your +threepence, you drew forth a penny toy. It multiplied with every flower +Miss Nancy Pritchard, with twenty other young women in Welsh national +costume, sold. It made heavy the pockets of the stall-holders, who had +never any change. It made little cylinders of silver and copper, three +and four and five inches high, on the tables folk had to pass before +they were admitted to the Concerts.... Believe it, the Chapel-goers of +Llanyglo, seeing all that money to be had for little more than the +asking, opened their eyes, and sat up, and took notice. If _this_ was +the Saxon invasion, why had they not welcomed it long ago? A few bales +of hired bunting, a few pounds for evergreens and velvet banners with +texts on them, a few paid assistants and a not unreasonable printers' +bill, and--_these_ splendid results! + +As big as John Pritchard himself said, putting on his spectacles to see +whether the astonishing total could really be true, "They must be very +rit-ss, whatever!" + +But the Bazaars had not this golden harvest to themselves. They found +competition, which they a little resented. Secular amusements more than +held their own. Gigantic castings had begun to arrive for the Big Wheel; +under the booth-awnings of Gardd Street (recently christened) penny +articles could be had for a penny; and a long row of automatic +machines--Wheels of Fortune, little iron men who kicked footballs, +Sibyls of Fate and Try-your-Grip machines--had sprung up along the +railings of the sea-front. A few stage-gipsies with green parrakeets had +made the town their summer home. There was a rifle-range on the farther +sandhills--you could hear the "plunk" of the bullets on the iron +targets. Near it was a travelling Merry-go-Round. Photographers had +their "pitches" on the sands, with humourous canvas flats with oval +holes in them, through which you put your face, so that you could have +your portrait taken as "_He Won't be Happy till He Gets It_" or in the +act of embracing a two-dimensional young woman, whichever was to your +liking. And there were niggers. These danced and sang and played the +banjo on a raised platform, dressed in wide turned-down schoolboy +collars and pink striped trousers; the concentric rings of green chairs +about them resembled the spread of a large symmetrical thistle plant; +and outside this ring one or other of the troupe constantly moved, +shaking a sort of jellybag under your nose (as the Chapel-goers had +shaken the collecting-boxes) and blinking the pink lids in his +burnt-cork face. A little farther on was the men's bathing-place. They +had wooden machines now, into which youths entered four at a time--no +more the trim and private striped tents of the Laceys and the Raymond +Briggses. The ladies' bathing-place was farther on still--a boat stood +off between the two lest the sexes should not keep their distance. And a +hundred yards past that, beyond a great scabrous groyne of loose stone, +clay-coloured at the shore end but slimy with green as it ran down to +the sea, with red flags and notice-boards along the top and a moveable +rope-barrier at its base where two men walked on sentry-go, they were at +work upon the Pier. + +By this time there was one question which, more than others, was +beginning to disturb Llanyglo. This was the question of drink. In the +old days, when the old brown horse who had walked as carefully as if he +had had a spirit-level inside him had first brought the Gardens and +their luggage so softly over the sandhills, there had been no inn nearer +than Porth Neigr. Save on market-days, scarce a drop of alcohol passed +a Llanyglo man's lips from year's end to year's end. If John Pritchard +had preached occasionally against drunkenness, it had been +conventionally only, with little more bearing on Llanyglo's own habits +than if he had preached against cannibalism. Then Railhead had crawled +across the land; Howell Gruffydd had found it necessary to warn the +young against contamination; and with the building of the "Cambrian" had +come Llanyglo's first licence. + +But for long enough after that there had been no public-houses. The +travelling army of labourers had had their own canteens, and even when a +necessary beer-licence or two had been applied for at Sessions, the +applications had been granted as it were behind the hand, and the affair +had been got over as quickly as possible. No: Tommy Kerr's unconscious +soft carolling of _Glan Meddwdod Mwyn_ as he had crossed the sandhills +on that torrid Sunday afternoon had held no real personal reproach for +Llanyglo. For Porth Neigr, perhaps yes; for other places, yes; but not +for Llanyglo. + +But since then things had changed. Things had changed since they had +been able to tell themselves that what went on in the "Cambrian" lounge +was no concern of theirs. They had begun to change when Llanyglo had +been no longer able to shut its eyes to the beer-drinking of the navvies +and bricklayers and the brothers Kerr. Then for a time a convenient +connection had been established between drunkenness and rough trousers +tied about the knees with string. For cases such as these, the little +Station at the extreme end of Gardd Street, with "Police" over the door +and geraniums in the windows, had ample powers. The half-dozen +constables must exercise discretion, that was all. + +But it became a not uncommon sight to see a tipsy reveller singing +himself unsteadily home on one side of the street, while the officer, +watching him from the other side, stood questioning his discretion until +the delinquent had passed out of sight. For a time Tommy Kerr, who had +been twice run in, had served as a scapegoat, but that was little +permanent help. It began to be seen that the real problem was, that if +they would get folk with money to spend into the town, they must accept +these folk, within reason, as they were, tipplers and teetotalers alike. +For some reason or other, convivial drinking also seemed to come under +the head of amusements. Blackpool provided liquor; Douglas was in an +exceptional position for the provision of liquor; and more and more it +appeared that Llanyglo must open the Bazaar doors with one hand and the +doors of inns and taverns with the other. + +Meanwhile, the "Lancashire Rose," on one side of Gardd Street, and the +"Trafford" on the other, were quickly becoming notorious. These were +both fully licenced houses, with Tap and Saloon entrances, and it was +idle to pretend to think that all the scandal originated in the humbler +compartments. Heady young men with full pockets, respectable fathers of +families, and others whom they could by no means lock up as they could +lock up Tommy Kerr, went into these places in broad daylight, sometimes +coming out again obviously affected: and it was almost certain that not +all their stomachs were so innocent and unaccustomed that a single glass +of the poison had produced this result. Dolefully they wished that a +sober Lancashire would come to Llanyglo; but--a Lancashire of some sort +they _must_ have. Why else were they doing all they could to win its +favour? What else was their Big Wheel for, of which four mammoth +standards of plate and lattice-girder had already risen thirty feet +above the sandhills, where they were stepped and anchored into the +oldest rocks of earth? Why else were they toiling day and night at their +Pier, and at the building, section by section, of the sea-wall? Why else +were they setting up gasometers beyond Pritchard's, and discussing a +Sewage Scheme, and--most urgent of all--gnawing their fingers anxiously +until some arrangement should be come to with Edward Garden's lawyers +about that water far away up Delyn? The supply was becoming terrifyingly +insufficient. For want of mere water the growth of the town might come +to a stop as plants shrivel and fall again in an arid bed.... And, save +to get Lancashire folk there, drunk or sober, why did they solemnly +discuss this inanity of an amusement or that--Big Wheels and +Switchbacks, Scenic Railways, Toboggan Slides, Panoramas, Fat Women, +Dancing Halls, Floral Valleys and Concerts and Town Bands? There was no +going back now. They had spent money that they would never, never see +again if they persisted in being visionaries in business and +irreconcilables on mere minor points of demeanour.... + +"They spend more when they are ... like that," said Howell Gruffydd one +day to the Council assembled. He said it a little shamefacedly, his +fingers fiddling with the green cloth of the Council-table. + +Nobody spoke. + +"I--saw--a--man," Howell continued, "a respectable man, with good +clothes on his back and a new hat, all spoiled--it was a pity to see +it--I saw him knock over row of bot-tles at John Parry's in Gardd +Street, just for amusement, and he laugh, and say 'How mut-ss?' like it +wass noth-thing, he was so-a drunk----" + +"It is a pit-ty they make such a noise sometimes," somebody said, in a +curiously aggrieved voice.... + +Evan Pugh, the landlord of the "Trafford," was of precisely the same +opinion. + +They escaped their dilemma by means of a noteworthy bit of government by +minority. There was a small section of the Council, easily outvotable at +ordinary times, which urged that, after all, things were _as_ they were, +that you must live and let live in this world, and that even good things +could be pushed to extremes when they became no longer good. And, as +these began to speak, one stern bazaar-promoter after another began to +look at his watch and to mutter "Dear me--I had no idea it wass so +late--indeed I not catss him if I not go now----" + +They left. + +This, or else a tactful absenteeism, became their custom whenever +licencing matters came up to be discussed. + +But cases of conscience are cases of conscience all the world over. + +The sum that Edward Garden proposed as a fair price for that +catchment-area up Delyn was two hundred thousand pounds--this for about +two thousand acres; and on the day when his lawyers named the figure it +was a wonder that the whole Council did not take in a body to their +beds. Two hundred thousand pounds! They could not believe their ears. +Nor could they believe their eyes either when they got it in writing, +words first, and the figures in brackets afterwards. If they had written +the single word "_Fancy!_" across that document and sent it straightway +back to the lawyers they would no doubt have followed their first +impulse; but somebody, less hard hit in the wind than the rest, managed +to gasp out the proposal that they should sleep on it, and sleep on it +they did. But the night did not alter it. In the morning it was still +two hundred thousand pounds (L200,000). + +News of the rapacity of the demand had leaked out almost immediately. +Ordinarily, anybody who had stopped Howell Gruffydd in the street and +had asked him a Council secret would have been met with the smiling +facer he deserved, but this was extraordinary altogether. On the morning +after they had slept on it, William Morgan saw Howell on the Promenade, +came up to him, and, making no bones about it whatever, asked him +whether it was true. + +"Who told you, William Morgan?" Howell began ... but he really had not +the heart to go on. He took off his hat, wiped the lining of it with his +handkerchief, and the bright sunlight showed his brows lined with +anxiety and sick fear, crumpled and embossed like one of his own pats of +butter. He replaced his hat and blew his nose violently. + +"Is it true?" demanded William Morgan again. + +Howell became grim.--"It was an e-vil day for this town when that man +came here," he said, forgetting how little town there had been when that +old brown horse had first brought the Gardens softly jolting across the +sandhills. + +"Then it is true?" said William Morgan once again. + +"It is true that a man sometimes asks one thing, and finiss by getting +something very diff-ferent from what he ask," Howell replied, and walked +abruptly away. + +He crossed the Promenade and turned into Pontnewydd Street. There he +stood, irresolutely plucking his lip and gazing into a stationer's +window. Dafydd Dafis's voice in his ear caused him to start almost +violently. + +"H-what is this, Howell Gruffydd?" Dafydd demanded without preface, his +eyes burningly and truculently on the Chairman's face. He wore his +everyday corduroys, but his air was that of a monarch in banishment. +Howell turned. + +"Ah, how are you, Dafydd? Indeed you look well! They do say the smell of +road-tar is a very healthy smell----" + +"H-what is this we hear, Howell Gruffydd?" Dafydd repeated. + +Howell tried to smile.--"Indeed, how can I answer a question like that, +'What is this we hear?'----" + +"H-what is this about Delyn and the Water?" + +There was a dangerous quickness in Dafydd's voice. Involuntarily Howell +gave a little hiccough of emotion, which answered Dafydd sufficiently. +His eyes were like the windows of a burning house. + +"He sell us two thousand acres, of our own land, for how mut-ss?" + +"Two--hundred--thou-sand--pounds," sobbed Howell. + +"Of our own mountains--Delyn, that belong to us--he sell us Delyn, this +Saxon?----" + +"Indeed, indeed, Dafydd, do not excite yourself--it will have to go to +arbi-tra-tion----" + +"It will go to Hell, with his soul!" Dafydd replied fiercely. "He sell +us Delyn--he sell us Delyn water--he sell us our own moun-tains!--It iss +not for this we make you Chairman of the Council, Howell Gruffydd!" + +Howell trembled, but put up a soothing hand. + +"Aw-w-w, you wait and see, Dafydd Dafis! A prof-fit is a prof-fit, but +this is wick-ed, and preposterous, and out of all reason! You wait and +see! We have a meeting this morning, and p'rapss we show Mister Edward +Garden he is not so clever as he think he is! He think he put his Saxon +pistol to our heads like this? Indeed he make a great mistake! You wait +and see, Dafydd. There iss a saying, 'He laughs best who laughs +last'--you wait and see!" He patted Dafydd's shoulder and arm +reassuringly, and perhaps felt heartened by his own words. "You wait and +see!" he said once more, almost cheerily now. "We not pay it--never +fear! I see you later----" + +And he hurried away, leaving Dafydd standing on the pavement. + +But the Council Meeting that morning settled nothing, and neither did +the next Meeting nor the next after that. They wrote to Mr. Tudor +Williams, but it almost looked as if Mr. Tudor Williams was taking a +leaf out of their own book: if they had pressing private affairs when +questions of ales and wines and spirits appeared on the agenda, so Mr. +Tudor Williams pleaded a multiplicity of urgent engagements now that it +was a question of water. The meeting adjourned, reassembled, adjourned +again, and met again. Days passed, weeks passed. Legal opinions were +taken, but no action. They fetched Mr. Tudor Williams down almost by +force, and he proffered his good offices, but deprecated the serving of +notices of compulsory arbitration. He advised an amicable settlement if +one could possibly be arrived at. Llanyglo's anger died away, and blank +despair began to take its place. + +Then one day Edward Garden's lawyers hinted that in the event of an +arrangement being come to within a given time they were in a position +to enter into certain pledges on behalf of the Railway Companies. They +hinted also that they were equally in a position to do the other thing. +Surely, they said, Llanyglo saw that this was a matter of its life or +its death; and surely, they added, it was plain that it would not really +be _they_ who were paying! Nothing of the sort! Lancashire would pay. +Yorkshire would pay. The Midlands would help to pay, and perhaps also +the West and South. Whoever footed his bill at hotel or +boarding-establishment would be contributing--they must see that he did +contribute--his portion. What though visitors grumbled and talked about +extortion? They forgot all about it the next day. What though residents +groaned under the burden of the rates? They must submit to conditions, +like everybody else. Llanyglo must pay, and pass it on. + +In short, all the people who intended to have a better time than their +fathers had had were to be shaven and shorn exactly as their fathers had +been. + +Llanyglo saw it, sighed, and acquiesced. There was nothing else to do. + +And if Parry, of the "Lancashire Rose," or Pugh, of the "Trafford," +reaped too rich a harvest by making people drunk, they must be assessed +higher and higher still, and still higher, that was all. + + + + +IV + +PAWB + + +This question of assessment had already raised another question, which +at first seemed a small one, but swelled afterwards into ominous +proportions. When the rumours of those two towering new hotels had first +begun to circulate, it had been a gentle and stimulating mental exercise +to place, in fancy, these palaces on this spot or that. Among other +suggestions, the vacant plot of land adjacent to the Kerrs' Hafod Unos +had been mentioned as a fitting site for one of them. Hereupon folk had +begun to ask one another: What about the Kerrs' title? + +Hitherto they had not thought of this. The four brothers had planted +themselves there when all about had been a waste of sand, had since +taken firm root, and there two of them still remained. But between such +a squatting eight or nine years ago, and a sitting tight now that +everything had gone up a hundredfold in value, was an immense +difference. To this difference, moreover, was now added the evil repute +in which Tommy Kerr lived. Ned, the alder-cutter, they would have +accepted; they could live with Ned; but his brother, besides being in +his unpleasant person a public nuisance, was beginning to appear a +setter-back of the fingers of History's clock, a mongrel in their fine +new manger, a thorn in the side of that lusty young Welsh Giantess whose +figure was now one of the familiar sights on a thousand hoardings in +the North. The invisible odour of stale beer-fumes in which he moved +poisoned the air of the Promenade, and, though he certainly did his best +to remedy this as far as the staleness was concerned (invariably +beginning the day with pints and ending it with quarts), that did not +improve matters in the long run. + +As long as Tommy Kerr was merely locked up once in a while for +drunkenness, he himself paid no heed to the whispers that had begun to +gather about him. He could sleep as heavily and happily in a cell as in +his own Hafod. Nor were his eyes at once opened even when an inspector +appeared at the Hafod and began to ask questions about its +sanitation--which, by the way, was of a low order. But his brother Ned +began to "study," as he called it, and the result of his studying was +that he said one day to Tommy, "They'll be wanting to be shut o' you and +me, Tommy." + +Tommy was in the act of wiping out a greasy frying-pan with a piece of +old newspaper. He stopped suddenly. After a pause, "Eh?" he said.... +"D'ye mean purr us out?" + +"We're a bit i' t' road to my way o' thinking," Ned replied, sinking +back into his arm-chair again and closing his eyes. + +He had taken badly to heart the deaths of his brothers Harry and Sam; +indeed he had not been the same man since. He frequently walked over to +Sarn churchyard, sat on a flat tombstone near his brothers' grave, and +smoked and spat; he was "studying" about a stone for them. +Intermittently he talked about carving this with his own hands, but he +delayed to do so. All the work he now did was to doze in a +street-watch-man's hut, with a two-days-old newspaper on his knee and a +firebasket in front of him set sideways on the wind. He was no longer +the beer-drinker he had been. "Think ye?" said Tommy, after another +silence. "But we donnot want to be purred out," he added resuming the +wiping of the frying-pan, though more slowly. + +And as it seemed to be a condition of their remaining in their Hafod +unmolested that they should make a show of satisfying the sanitary +inspector's demands, they overhauled their drainage system and gave it +the minimum of attention it demanded. + +Then one day an offer was made them, which was also an admission. It was +an offer of compensation and of another dwelling elsewhere, and the +admission apparently was that their title was a good one. Ned was for +accepting the offer, and accepted it would probably have been but for a +circumstance that Tommy discovered only in a roundabout way. He was +congratulated one morning in the "Marine" Tap on having escaped +ejectment. This was the first he had heard of ejectment. He asked a few +questions, and soon after went out for a walk. + +Ejectment! Apparently they had been considering his ejectment, had found +it for some reason or other not to be feasible, and had substituted the +offer of compensation.... + +Then, while this offer was still neither accepted nor rejected, +something else came to Tommy Kerr's ears. This was that the sites, not +of one, but of both the new hotels, were at last decided on. As a matter +of fact, this choice was now almost a foregone conclusion. Next to Gardd +Street, which ran parallel with the shore, Pontnewydd Street, in which +lay the Hafod, was becoming the principal street of the town. It ran +from the shore to Pritchard's Corner, was prolonged past that to the +new station, and was the main thoroughfare for landaus and wagonettes +off to the mountains. The hotels were to be built one on either side of +the Hafod, not actually adjoining it, but not more than a couple of +strides away. + +Already in Tommy Kerr's suspicious mind the mischief was done. Howell +Gruffydd, all blandishments to his face, had been making secret +inquiries behind his back, had he? He had been talking about +compensation and whispering with attorneys and such-like, had he? Very +well. That settled it. Tommy would go when he was purred out, and not +before. As for that snuffling Howell Gruffydd.... + +"So that's it, Mister Treacle-Tongue, is it?" he had muttered. "Reight. +As long as we know where we are. I'm off out to buy a ha'porth o' +thread----" + +And with the ha'porth of thread he had sewn a large button on each of +his pocket-flaps, and thenceforward meeting Howell Gruffydd in the +street, had ostentatiously buttoned every pocket up before answering the +prosperous grocer's smiling "Good morning." + +They began to dig the foundations of those glittering hotels. + +They did so, as it happened, in the early part of that same summer that +saw Edward Garden's ingenious advertisements put into execution--the +summer of the Eisteddfod and the Brass Band Contest. Llanyglo was packed +with people. Two days before the Eisteddfod, there began to troop into +the town from all parts bards and singers, poets and harpers and +minstrels and the members of a chorus five hundred voices strong. They +came in their everyday clothes, moustached like vikings, bearded and +maned like lions, and instantly with their coming the Saxon took a back +seat. Shopkeepers left their counters, publicans clapped down the +half-filled glasses, and ran to their doors as this honoured singer or +that famous bard passed their windows. They walked with stately slow +walk and stately slow head-turnings, and happy was the Welshman who got +a motion of the hand or a benign smile from them. The Gorsedd had been +publicly proclaimed; the temporary dancing hall behind Gardd Street, big +enough for a regiment to drill in, had been made ready; the insignia in +the Town Hall were as jealously watched and guarded as are the Crown +Jewels in the Tower of London; and he was a prudent visitor who had +realised that for three whole days he was likely to get but negligent +attention from those who at other times were his humble servitors. For, +fleer as aliens would, this was the Awakening of the Red Dragon. Their +reproach that he was but a pasteboard Dragon fell to the ground. The +Dragon was what the Dragon was, and if his service was theatrical, +theatricalism is ennobled when its boards are the soil itself and each +of its actors an Antaeus, strong because his foot is upon the ground that +bred him. In England, behind his smile, the Welshman is an enigma of +reserve; but see him at his Eisteddfod, with money waiting to be taken +at his closed shop-doors.... + +With the ceremony of the Gorsedd on the opening day Dafydd Dafis's +spellbound and uplifted hours began. At the sounding of the trumpets his +head flew proudly up; at the Drawing of the Sword and the solemn +question, "Is there Peace in the land?" his voice joined in the reply, +like a thunder-clap, "There is Peace"--for that was before the year +when, for three whole days, the blade remained naked and bright, while +far over the seas brave Englishmen and brave Welshmen fell and died +together. It was the single victory of Dafydd's life. On ordinary days +he now drove a road-engine--Howell Gruffydd had got him the job under +the Council; but he was a Lord of Song now. He had put his name down for +the "penillion" contest; should he prove successful, not he himself +only, but Llanyglo also, the place of his birth, would be forever +famous. He sat behind the semicircle of white-robed and oak-crowned and +druid-like figures that occupied the front part of the platform, looking +down on the vast oblong of faces, Saxon and Welsh, that resembled a +packed bed of London Pride; he was in the tenor wedge of the chorus; and +as the five hundred voices pealed together you thought of the roof and +of that singer whose voice had shivered vessels of glass.... Coming out +of the hall again at the end of the first day, Dafydd was still in his +trance. As he walked along the street past the "Trafford" Tap, Tommy +Kerr, who sat within drinking, hailed him and called for a song, while +one of his boon companions crying "Nay, we don't ask nobody to sing for +nowt!" cast a couple of pennies on the ground; but Dafydd seemed neither +to see nor to hear. At the break-up after the last chorus an august hand +had been placed on Dafydd's shoulder, and an archangelic voice had +spoken to him, saying that he, he the great one, had heard of Dafydd +Dafis; and what, after that, did pot-house insults matter? He passed on, +his eyes still flashing and his face shining like the Silver Chair +itself.... + +Two days later he was proclaimed the victor in the "penillion" contest, +and on the day after that, still drunk with song, he drove his +road-engine again. And so passed Llanyglo's first Eisteddfod. + +The Brass Band Contest five weeks later was a triumph in a different +way. The impression now was one, not of unity, but of the keen spirit of +faction. The "_Besses o' th' Barn_" were at the crest of their fame, +but the "_Black Dike_" ran them close, and not far behind came "_Wyke +Temperance_" and "_Meltham Mills_"; and had these been, not Bands, but +football teams, local rivalry could not have run higher. True, +underneath the sporting interest lay the musical. This performer's +"lipping" and the "triple-tonguing" of the other were matters of endless +debate among the expert; nuances of ensemble and attack were hotly +argued in strong Lancashire and Yorkshire accents; and the devotees were +ready to fight with their fists over the fame of the conductors of their +fancy. But, without unity, the Contest proved, for all save the +Brass-band-maniacs, a little wearisome. The ear began to revolt against +the reiterated "test-piece," and one pitied the judge hidden away in his +carefully guarded cubicle. Fewer Welsh attended the Contest than had +English the Eisteddfod, and a day was judged sufficient for it. After a +sensational replay with the "_Besses_," "_Black Dike_" took pride of +place, with "_Meltham Mills_" third. The strains of _Zampa_ and _The +Bronze Horse_ sounded once more only, when they massed the Bands in the +evening in the Floral Valley; and (the Council having sanctioned a +charge of sixpence as the fee for entrance) the sum of L115 was taken at +the temporary barriers. So passed the Brass Band Contest also. + +By the June of that year the understructure of the Pier was finished, +and the rest was advancing with the speed of paper-hanging. The +contractors were under time-penalties to be ready for the formal opening +on the forthcoming August Bank Holiday. All through the night the sounds +of the planking could be heard, and pavilion-parts, lettered and +numbered and ready gilded and painted, were rushed along in haste. At +the same time the Big Wheel began to resemble the largest circle of the +Floral Valley set up on end; it was wonderful to stand beneath it and to +gaze up through the intricacy of tie and strut and lattice at the sky. +Immense hoardings filled a large part of Pontnewydd Street; by and by +they would be taken down again, and the facades of those magnificent new +hotels would appear; but Llanyglo would scarcely turn its head to look +at them. They were getting used to this now. Besides, they had plenty +else to do. The town was so full that they were turning away money into +its nearest place of overflow--Porth Neigr. + +Then, in the beginning of August, a hundred portents were fulfilled. +There began to run into the station train after train, with three or +four faces at each window. Doors opened almost before the engines had +begun to slow down, and (as if the trains had been veins and somebody +had suddenly slit them up, spilling out the life within) the platforms +were suddenly black and overrun with people. They carried bags, baskets, +hampers, parcels, stools, pillows, babies. Inside the carriages they +left crumpled newspapers, trodden sandwiches, bottles, nuts, corks, the +heads and tails of shrimps. Their tickets had been taken miles back--no +collecting-staff could have coped for a moment with the emptying of +those wheeled and windowed veins of impoverished blood. Parents carrying +babies stood prudently aside from that first mad rush to the entrance. +Many of them had been up since half-past four that morning; they had +spent seven hours in the train, twelve and thirteen and fourteen in a +carriage, standing, sitting on one another's knees, lying on the rows of +feet; and now they made straight for air. Certain trains had been told +off for week-end travellers; others were labelled "_Special_" or "_Day +Excursion Only_." Those who had come by these would have seven hours in +Llanyglo, and at the end of that time they would squeeze into the trains +again for seven, eight, ten hours more--for on the return journey they +must attend the convenience of every other wheel on the line, and a +stand of an hour or so at two o'clock in the morning would be but an +incident. During that short space in which they would breathe the +wonderful Llanyglo air they would eat the meals they had brought with +them, or else besiege the inns and eating-houses and tea-rooms and +confectioners'-shops. They were the first trippers--spinning operatives, +weavers, twisters, warp-dressers, mechanics, asbestos-hands, stokers, +clerks, shopkeepers, the grey and unnumbered multitude itself. Some +would enjoy themselves, some would vow they enjoyed themselves, and some +would declare it "a toil of a pleasure," and would drag about on hot and +swollen and weary feet, repeating at intervals, "Niver again--niver as +long as I live!" And the lagging children's arms would be almost +wrenched off at the shoulders, and some would fall asleep with the +sticky paint of the penny toys dyeing their hands, and the platforms +would begin to fill up again three hours before the time of departure of +the train, for the sake of the chances of corner seats, or indeed of +seats at all, and also because, on that horrible arduous day, the +station itself would seem almost like a home.... + +Yes, as the Laceys and Briggses had followed Edward Garden, and those +who could not (but would) afford it had followed the Briggses and +Laceys, and the _Utopia_ readers these, and the fortnight and ten-days' +people these, and all sorts and conditions of people for varying lengths +of time these again, so now the unnumbered rest had come.... "The first +tripper, and I'm off," the Briggses and the Laceys had said; and which +of us is not a Briggs or a Lacey in this? Which of us can say without +misgiving that he would have remained in Llanyglo? Could we have endured +the sight of our kind in this bulk--or could we have endured to think, +either, that if they were not there for that dreadful day they would +still be elsewhere? Can we, in the unshared solitude of our hearts, bear +to think of this rank and damp and steaming human undergrowth at all? +Would the Squire, seeing these, still have thought as much of his books +on Church Plate and Brasses, still have defended the integrity of +something not for all? Would Minetta Garden have looked on them with a +sort of incurious interest as so many "types"? Or would we all, Minetta, +the Squire, you, I, have felt meanly and skulkingly relieved when the +last tail-light had died away in the night again? + +There is neither "Yes" nor "No" to be answered. I may rant of +brotherhood and humanity, but you--you may remember that cart jolting +without noise over the sandhills, the blue and primrose petals of those +butterflies, the amethyst-tufts of wild thyme, the milkwort, the +harebells, and then, of a sudden, that V with the sea beyond. I, +choosing to shoulder all the responsibility of a world in the making of +which I was not consulted, may moisten that human peat with my tears, +but you--you, passionate for beauty's sake, may mourn a loveliness +deflowered and a simplicity destroyed. It is no virtue in me, no +harshness in you. We both are what we are and do what we can. Llanyglo +also was what it had become and did what it could. And Llanyglo, after +all, had a solace that we lack. It was an inferior one, but better than +nothing. Their beach might be littered, their streets made pitiful; +their lodging-house keepers might put every loose jug or china dog or +ornament away, and replace them again only after these had gone; strange +accents might grate upon their ears, different and disliked minds frame +the thoughts those accents expressed; yet balm remained. There was not a +tripper, no, not the poorest of them, but spent his three, four, or five +shillings in the town. + + + + +PART FOUR + + + + +I + +THE BLIND EYE + + +Drub-drub--drub-drub-drub--drub-drub---- + +It was the sound of heels on the Pier. From one end of it to the other +they walked, past the recesses and lamp-standards and the bright kiosks +where tobacco and confectionery and walking-sticks and picture-postcards +and souvenirs were sold, and then they turned and walked back. After a +time the drub-drubbing became curiously hypnotising. At moments it +conformed almost to a regular rhythm; then it broke up again into mere +confusion, out of which another metrical beat would rise for a second or +so and then become lost again. For long spaces the ear would become +accustomed and cease to hear it, and would take in instead the lighter +registers of tittering, soft laughter, the striking of matches and an +occasional scuffle and call; but the groundwork of sound would break +through again, like a muffled drum tapped by many performers at once, +monotonous, reverberating, dead---- + +Drub-drub-drub--drub-drub--drub-drub---- + +It was half-past eight of a July night. Crowded as the Pier was, it +would become still more so when the Concert Hall just within the +turnstiles, and the Pavilion at the pier-head, turned out their +audiences again. There would hardly be space to move them. The +Promenade was a sweep of brilliants; Gardd Street lay unseen behind it +under a golden haze; behind that again the lighted rosette of the Big +Wheel turned slowly high in the sky; and the great hotels of the front +were squared and mascled with window-lights. All this dance of gold and +silver made an already blue evening intensely blue, and the Pier was so +long that, even with quick walking, several minutes passed between your +losing the rattle of hand-clapping outside the Concert Hall at one end +of it, and your picking up the strains of the Pavilion orchestra at the +other. + +Drub-drub-drub--drub-drub-drub--drub-drub---- + +There was hardly a bed to be had in Llanyglo. Visitors who had rashly +chosen to take their chance commonly passed their first night in the +waiting-rooms of the railway station. Servant-girls lay in their clothes +under kitchen tables, while their own garrets were let for half a +sovereign a night. Dozens slept on sofas, chairs, hearthrugs, +billiard-tables, on the Promenade benches, under the tarpaulins of +wagonettes and chars-a-bancs, or curled up in the boats on the shore. +They Boxed-and-coxed it as they could, and the police did not trouble to +shake the slumberers on whom they turned their bull's-eyes in the nooks +and arbours of the Floral Valley. + +Drub-drub-drub--drub--drub---- + +And who were they now, they whose heels wore down the Pier timbers and +made the brain drowsy with their ceaseless tramp? + +It was a curious and a rather arresting change. To all appearances, +Llanyglo had now got a "better class of visitor" than it had had since +the Briggses and Laceys had shaken the dust of the place from their +feet. Even in this puzzle of gold and silver light and deep mysterious +blue, it could be seen that there was not much Holiday Club money there. +In another fortnight or so those coffers would burst over the town, +drenching it with gold; but in the meantime who were these others, and +what were they doing at Llanyglo? + +Let us ask the author of the _Sixpenny Guide_. + + * * * * * + +"When did you arrive? Only last night? And you're stopping at the +'Majestic'? Well, you've somebody there who can tell you more about it +than I can--Big Annie the head-chambermaid on the first floor. There are +a good many things about Llanyglo now that I've had to keep out of my +_Guide_, you see. But I'll tell you what I can. + +"And I don't want to give you any false impression. Don't forget that +scores and hundreds of families come here and bathe, and picnic, and +dance, and go for drives, and enjoy themselves, and go away again +without a notion that everybody here isn't exactly like themselves. And +there's no harm in the Wakes people either. The worst you can say of +them is that now and then one of them gets violently or torpidly drunk, +as the case may be, and that all of them make a most hideous and +infernal noise. So don't think I'm talking disproportionately, and that +this is the only place of its kind I was ever in. + +"But I do mean this: that somehow or other we've now acquired a very +peculiar kind of notoriety. You can deny it, disprove it, show that it +isn't there at all, and--there it remains all the time. For one thing, +you'll see if you look round that the place is very much less northern +in character than it was, and as it happens that's very significant. For +it might conceivably happen that a northerner--or a southerner, or +anybody else--might have his reasons for avoiding a place that was full +of other northerners, many of whom might know him (they have an +expression in the North for the kind of thing I mean; they call it +'making mucky doorstones'). So you'll find lots and lots of Londoners +here now, and midlanders, and easterners and westerners. They come here, +where nobody's ever seen them before and will never see them again +perhaps, for much the same reason that some Englishmen are said to go to +Paris. + +"I don't want to make them out more in number than they are. Spread out +over the whole country they'd only be a fractional percentage, and you'd +never notice them; but when they're brought together here they're quite +enough to give the place a character. They aren't the open and reckless +kind. Furtiveness--complete disappearance if possible--is the whole +point. They're the men who arrange for somebody to post their letters +home from the place they're supposed to be really at, and the women who, +as the Bible says, eat and wipe their lips and say they haven't eaten. +They want to dodge, not only everybody else, but themselves also, +something they're perhaps afraid of in themselves, for a fortnight, +three weeks, a month. You see, they've persuaded themselves (and +Llanyglo's done too well out of them to undeceive them) that things done +here somehow 'don't count.' If you want to do something you'd never dare +to do in a place where you were known, you come to Llanyglo to do it. If +you can imagine the oasis in the desert with exactly the contrary +meaning--that's us. We're an asylum for those who've lost their moral +memories. + +"And it isn't that wedding-rings are juggled off and on, and false names +entered in hotel registers, nor anything of that kind. That goes on more +or less everywhere, and we haven't become notorious merely for that. +And as usual, it's easier to say what it isn't than what it is. It isn't +the Trwyn, for example, though that does twitter so with kisses from +morning till night that you'd think it was the grasshoppers. And it +isn't the almost open displays you see at certain hours wherever you go. +It isn't any one fact, not even the worst. It's a faint attar of some +_abandonment_, some bottomlessness, that you can't name. It may be my +imagination, but I've fancied I've actually smelt it with my nostrils, +coming into it from a mile out of the town. They relinquish even +appearances. Most of us have the grace to cover up our sins with a +decent and saving hypocrisy, but these know and understand one another +so horribly well. They seem to find a comfort that they're all in the +same boat. As they say themselves, 'Heaven for climate but Hell for +company.' Give them your name on your visiting-card and they'll ask you +by and by what your _real_ name is. Until then, neither your name nor +anything else about you is their business. They haven't any business. +For a week, or a fortnight, or a month, they've turned their backs on +that tremendous common business that keeps the world going. It's the +blind eye, and Llanyglo provides the blinkers.... + +"But go and talk to Big Annie. She's really a rather remarkable woman. +At stated hours she sits on point duty on the landing of her floor of +eighty bedrooms, just where everybody's got to pass her, and if you look +like making--er--a mistake (and your hotel's quite an easy place to get +lost in) she sets you right without a quiver of her face. Yes, she's +rather an alarming person. There's a swiftness about her way of summing +up people from a single glance at their faces. Oh, you don't take Annie +in with a wedding-ring and a 'darling' or so--especially when the lady +asks the darling whether he takes sugar in his early morning cup of +tea.... + +"Yes, you go and see Annie." + + * * * * * + +Drub-drub--drub-drub-drub---- + +After a time that stupor of the ear became a stupor of the eye also. +Even when a match glowed before a face for a moment, the stage-like +lighting gave you no physiognomical information. The lamps shone on the +crowns of the passing hats, but the faces beneath them were lost; all +cats were grey. Any one of them might have been a giggling flapper with +her eyes still sealed to Life, or one of those others mentioned by the +too-curious author of the _Guide_, who would be dead to sight and +thought for a space that didn't count. Light frocks and darker hues, +bare heads and plaits and shawls and hooded dominoes, shop-girl and +high-school girl, caps and straws and panamas, pipes and cigarettes, +youths thoughtless and youths predatory--you paid your threepence at the +turnstiles and watched them pass and repass. Drub-drub-drub.... And if +you sat long enough, changes began to be perceptible. The flappers who +were evidently high-school girls began to be fewer, and others took +their places--for most of the shops of Llanyglo closed at nine or +half-past, and the released waitresses and assistants who had been on +their feet all day were still not too weary to add to the drub-drubbing. +It was difficult to say in what particular these were distinguishable. +It was not their dress--the universal attainment of a certain standard +of dressing is one of our modern miracles. You would not have had it +from their own lips--you would have been tactless in the extreme not to +have assumed that they also were visitors (as a matter of fact, they +would calmly make appointments for four o'clock of the next day, +knowing perfectly well that at that hour they would be giving change in +a cash-desk or hurrying hither and thither with piles of bread and +butter and trays awash with spilt tea). Perhaps it was the young men +they greeted and their way of greeting them. They didn't come out for +these last hours of the day to gossip with those to whom they had called +"Sign!" all the afternoon, their own foremen, companions, or the +tradesmen of the shop opposite. + +Drub-drub--drub-drub---- + +There passed through the Season Ticket turnstile two young men. Both +wore dark suits and conventional collars and ties (as if they, at any +rate, had no need to don their coloured jackets and flannel trousers +while they could), and the attendant at the turnstile had touched his +cap as they had passed. One of them, the taller of the two, wore his +straw hat halo-wise at the back of his head, filled his pipe as he +walked, and looked cheerfully and unobservingly about him; the other's +straw was well down, and the eyes beneath its brim sought somebody or +something, and would apparently be satisfied with nothing less. The +first was Percy Briggs, and everybody in Llanyglo knew Percy +Briggs--Percy Briggs, who strolled casually into Hotel Cosies towards +midday, nodded to the more favoured ones, said to the barmaid "So and So +been in yet?" and, getting a bright "No, Mr. Briggs, not yet" for an +answer, lounged out again without having had a drink--a sufficient gage +of privilege and familiarity with the place. The other was John Willie +Garden, who knew Llanyglo, knew which faces had been there last year and +the year before, and was now looking for a face he had seen yesterday +evening for one moment only and had then lost again. + +The Pier was an old, old story to him now. Between seasons, on winter +nights, the drub-drub of a few months before seemed sometimes still +faintly to echo in his ears--this when the grey skies came, and in the +hotels a few rooms only were kept open for unprofitable commercial +travellers, and the Promenade was empty, and the Pleasure Packet Service +laid up, and a walk to the end of the Pier and back seemed a long way to +feet that had covered the distance twenty times on a summer's evening, +and the colourless sea seemed to give to the red and white blink of the +Trwyn Light a sudden and nearer significance. He knew every hour of +Llanyglo's day--the hours of departure of the pleasure-boats to Rhyl and +Llandudno and round Anglesey, the bathing-hours in the morning, the +high-school parade at midday, the second bathing relay in the afternoon, +the tea-hour, the walk of parents and children to see the boats come in +again in the early evening, and then, as the evening wore on, the +successive appearances and droppings out of this kind or that, the +emptying of the Pavilions, the inflow of the shop-girls and waitresses, +the rush for the public-houses half an hour before the Pier lights went +out, the thinning numbers who beat the Promenade, the parties of the +Alsatians who sat up in one another's hotels long after every public +drinking-place had been closed. He had nothing further to learn about it +all, and it bored him. Only his search for that girl had brought him on +the Pier to-night. + +He had been almost certain he knew her, but where he had seen her face +before he could not for the life of him remember. Perhaps he did not +know her after all; indeed, when he came to think of it, no memory of a +voice seemed to go with the face, so that the probability was that if he +had seen her before he had never spoken to her. She had been standing, +in that blue twilight, clear of the throng, under the single crimson +pier-head light, looking out over the water that seemed still to reflect +a light that had faded from the sky, and for a moment John Willie had +wondered what she was looking at. The next moment he had seen--and so, +confound it, had twenty others. A yellow spot, like a riding-light, had +risen out of the sea; almost as quickly as the second-hand of a watch +moves, it had become a tip; and then the lookers-in at the glass sides +of the Pavilion had run to see the rising of the bloated, +refraction-magnified, burning yellow horn. In that little running of +people he had lost her. Twice, thrice he had walked the whole length of +the Pier, but without seeing her again. All of her that he could now +remember was the carriage of her head and her plain black dress, and he +knew that dress, in this extraordinary raising of the standard of +dressing which implies the possession by almost everybody of two dresses +at least, was an uncertain guide. + +Another rattle of hand-clapping broke out as Percy Briggs and John +Willie passed the turnstiles. "Any good looking in there?" Percy asked, +nodding towards the Concert Hall, but John Willie made no reply. He was +as cross as a bear with a sore head. Twice already he had rounded on +Percy, who had proposed drinks at this place or that, and had snapped +"You go if you want--I'm not keeping you;" but Percy had replied +good-naturedly, "Oh, all right, keep your hair on." + +The sounds of two more pairs of heels were added to the drub-drubbing on +the planks of the Pier. + +It seemed idle to seek, but John Willie stood looking in at the glass +sides of the Pavilion at the pier-head, searching the bright and crowded +interior. His mind was as obstinately set as that of a mule. It seemed +to him idiotic that all those rows and rows of people should clap the +inanities of the young man in knee-breeched evening-dress who strutted +and made painted eyes over the top of a flattened opera-hat, or encore +Miss Sal Volatile, all spidery black silk stockings below and +cocksfeather boa and enormous black halfmoon hat above. John Willie +turned away to the low-burning crimson pier-light. He stood there for +some moments, and then began to stride back the length of the Pier +again. + +"Chucking it?" said Percy, half sympathetic, half "getting at" John +Willie. + +"Come on to the Kursaal," John Willie grunted. + +The Kursaal lay behind the two frontages of Gardd and Pontnewydd +Streets, and it could be reached from either thoroughfare. From Gardd +Street, up another short street, the great lighted semicircle of what +was then its Main Entrance could be seen; and if the minor entrance from +Pontnewydd Street was at that time less resplendent, that was because +the Kerrs' Hafod stood in the way of opening it up. With its grounds and +theatre and vast dancing-hall, the Kursaal covered getting on for an +eighth of a square mile; but a third or more of that was still in +progress of being laid out and planted--once more by Philip Lacey. + +Crossing the Promenade to the less crowded pavement beyond, John Willie +and Percy strode the half-mile to the Kursaal. There was a queue about +the turnstiles, but John Willie made a sign to an attendant, who flung +up the Exit Only barrier. They passed under trees with many-coloured +electric lights among the branches, and the slowly turning Big Wheel, +which made a quarter-arch of lights over the tower of the Central Hall, +dipped behind it again as they reached the steps that led to the +vestibule. + +For size alone, apart from any other consideration, the dancing-hall of +the Llanyglo Kursaal is one of the wonders of the North. It cost a +hundred thousand pounds to build, and since it can dance a thousand +couples, to seek anybody there without going up into the balconies is +like looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. The band was not playing +at the moment when Percy and John Willie entered; but before they had +reached the top of an empty half-lighted series of staircases the +distant strains of a Barn Dance had broken out. Then, with the pushing +at a door, it burst loudly upon them. John Willie strode down the +shallow gallery steps, made for a front seat whence he could see the +whole length of the vast oblong below, spread out his elbows and set his +chin on his wrists, and, once more muttering "You go and get your drink +if you want," began to search the hall with gloomy blue eyes, very much +as a boy flashes a bit of looking-glass hither and thither in the sun. + +Now when the Wakes people come to Llanyglo, and the pleasant family +parties yield place a little, and drive in the mountains more +frequently, and leave the Pier and Promenade a little earlier, and +gather more often at one another's hotels--even then that dancing-hall +is so vast that twenty different elements can be accommodated there +without mixing or encroachment. But that series of precipitations had +not yet taken place. That night all was homogeneous. Perhaps here and +there other contacts had sparsely "crossed," as it were, that fresh +blooming, as the white hawthorn takes on faintly the hue of the pink in +the spring, but that was probably rare. John Willie, had he had eyes +for it, looked down upon a wonderful sight. The hall was a creamy gold, +with bow after bow along its balcony tiers; without its other +innumerable clusters of lights, the eight arc-lamps in its high roof +would have lighted it no better than a railway station is lighted; and +the mirrors on the walls were hardly more polished than its satiny +floor. A fully appointed stage half-way down one of the sides held an +orchestra of thirty performers; walking across that wonderfully swung +floor you felt something almost alive under your feet; and four thousand +feet moved upon it that night. + +It was beautiful. The band was playing, slowly, as is the +dancing-fashion of the North, that Barn Dance; and almost every girl was +in white. The whites were the whites of flowers--the greenish white of +guelder-roses, the yellow white of elder or of meadow-sweet, the pinkish +white of the faintest dog-rose, the dead white of narcissi, but little +that was not white. And because of all that soft whiteness, faces caught +by the sun were browner, and hair that the wind had blown through all +day glossier, and eyes brighter, and perhaps blushes quicker and more +readily seen. And to the whole bright spectacle was added the +impressiveness of unfaltering rhythm and simultaneousness of movement. +The Colour on the Horse Guards' Parade is not honoured with greater +precision of physical movement than these disciplined feet, these +turning bodies; the pulsing floor itself answered to the delicate dip of +the conductor's stick. For two bars ... but look at them as they pour +towards you down the left side of the room. Every face is towards you, +forty abreast, and forty following those, and more forties, columns and +squadrons of them, coming forward as grain comes down a channel, as +graded fruit pours down a shoot. You do not see where they come +from--their turn is far away under the pillars there; you do not see +where they go to--they pass away out of sight again beneath you. They do +not seem the same over and over again, but all the youths and maidens of +the world, coming on and on, and new, always new.... Then you look to +the right, and instantly your eyes are sensible of a darker ensemble. +That is because you see, not faces now, but the backs of heads; not +gaily striped shirts and bright ties, but plain shoulders only. And they +pass away as they came, all the youths and maidens of the world with +their backs to you. Not one turns for a look at you, not one nods you +farewell. It is like your own youth leaving you.... And then magically +all alters. Two more bars and, as if some strange and all-potent and +instantaneously acting element had been dropped into the setting and +returning human fluid, of a sudden it all breaks up. It effervesces. +Every couple is seen to be waltzing. Two by two they turn, and your +youth is no longer coming to you nor departing from you, but stops and +plays. It stops and plays--for two bars--and lo, the other again. Once +more they troop towards you with their faces seen, once more troop away +with faces averted. The illusion becomes a spell. Coming, going, all +different, all the same, parallel legions with faces to the future and +faces to the grave--it is a little like Llanyglo itself. Suddenly you +find yourself drawn a little closer to John Willie Garden. You do not +want to look down from a balcony on all the young manhood and young +womanhood of the world. One, one only, will suffice you, and with her +you will come brightly down, all eyes and rosiness and laughter, and +with her go in a soberer livery away again.... But luckier you than John +Willie if you find that one. His eyes, practised as they were in +scanning the Kursaal throng, did not see her. The _coda_ came; the vast +oblong well lighted up for a moment as a poplar lights up when the wind +blows upon it--it was the slightly wider swing of skirts seen from above +as the dance quickened to its finale; and then, as if something else +potent and inimical had been dropped into the solution, there was a +break for the sides, and the shining floor was seen again. + +"Damn!" muttered John Willie Garden. + +Percy, relishing the spectacle of John Willie on the hunt, was in no +hurry. "The arbours?" he suggested laconically as John Willie rose; but +again John Willie did not reply. For one thing, it was a little +difficult to see into those dark nooks among Philip Lacey's barrows and +planks and new larches and heaps of upturned earth; for another, he had +an assurance that she he sought would not be there. + +"Come on," he grunted. + +"Ah!" said Percy, with an exaggerated shake of himself. "Has the moment +at last arrived when we quaff?" + +But already John Willie had stridden on ahead. + +They took a known short cut through dark and obstructed windings, and +presently reached the side-door of the adjoining hotel. It had certain +rooms where ladies unaccompanied might get a drink, but into these they +barely glanced. Percy grinned. Should John Willie find the object of his +search in one of the other rooms, then there was reasonable hope of a +row. He had never before seen John Willie so persistently asking for +trouble. + +The door at which they paused showed a room crowded, bright, and full of +a lawn of tobacco-smoke. It was not a large room, but it must have held +twenty men and as many women, and you could have seen their like on any +summer Sunday at Tagg's Island, or any day in Regent Street, or on +Brighton Front. They sat in chairs of saddlebag or leather, and the +fingers of the men were poised over the large cigar-boxes the waiters +held before them, or else made little circular gestures about the +circumference of the little round tables, as much as to say "Same again" +or "Mine." Little but champagne, liqueurs, or brandies-and-soda seemed +to be to their taste, and John Pritchard might indeed have thought them +"very ritss whatever"; gold seemed to come from them at a touch, notes +at little more. Just within the door a very brown man sat with a plump +little lady about whose short fingers gems seemed to have candied, as +sugar candies about a string; and next to them another man admired as +much of his companion's shoes as could be seen for the champagne cooler +on the floor. There was not much noise. There was a good deal of +whispering about horses. + +A ring was widened for the new-comers about one of the larger +tables--"Arthur!" Percy called as he passed one of the waiters. "Bag o' +beer, and Mr. P. Briggs's compliments to Miss Price and will she please +come at once." They settled down. + +This was Percy's present humour--to drink pints of beer from a silver +tankard that resembled a tun among the gem-like liqueur-glasses, and to +make love to Miss Price, the fat and creasy and unapproachable +hotel-manageress. Perhaps he intended to convey that few other new +sensations remained to him at the end of his three-and-twenty hard-lived +years. Sometimes John Willie laughed at this posture of his friend's, +but to-night he thought it merely stupid and idiotic. He had come here +because he had thought he might as well be having a drink as +fruitlessly searching; now he thought he might as well be searching as +having a drink he didn't want. Percy was ordering the drinks +now--"Vermouth, Val? Cissie, your's is avocat, I know. Now, Johannes +Guglielmus, what will you imbibe?" Presently John Willie sat glowering +at a whiskey-and-soda. The girl on his left, whom Percy had addressed as +Cissie, made an arch attempt to talk to him, and then gave up the +laborious task and turned her back. Miss Price, the manageress, +appeared, and Percy began his stupid and facetious love-making. John +Willie wondered whether he had searched the Dancing-Hall thoroughly +after all. + +The table grew noisy, and there were appreciative grins from other +tables; Percy was trying to draw that disgustingly fat manageress on to +his knee. And, with the pace thus set by Percy, the whole room woke up. +The waiters began to move about more quickly and to call for assistance, +and there was applause as somebody opened the lid of the piano.... + +John Willie sat before his untouched whiskey-and-soda. He was once more +wondering whether it would be worth while to return to the Dancing-Hall, +or whether she might not by this time be on the Pier. And again, and +ever again, he wondered when and where he had seen her before.... + +Again Percy's silly joyous voice broke in. He was expostulating with +Miss Price. + +"Look, Cissie's sitting on Val's----" + +"Let be, Mr. Briggs--indeed I will not be pulled about like that!----" + +"Then sit on Mr. Garden's--cheer him up--he's looking for Gertie, the +Double-Blank from Blackburn, and can't find her----" + +"There, now, Mr. Briggs!--Now I shall have to go and get a needle and +thread!----" + +Somebody interposed.--"Here, chuck it, Percy; somebody might come in.... +Hallo, John Willie, you off?" + +For John Willie had pushed back his chair. He reached for his hat. +"Leave us a lock of your hair for my mourning-brooch," Percy's muffled +voice came after him, but he was off. + +Perhaps she would be at the Wheel.... + +But she was not at that immense tyre slung with upholstered coaches, nor +yet to be seen at the side-shows round about. He left the Kursaal, and +joined the dense throng that made a double stream under the Promenade +lamps. He told himself he was a fool. She might have left Llanyglo +within a few hours of his having seen her--might be back in any of the +towns of England or Scotland or Wales by this time. But he did not cease +to seek. He reached the Pier again. Drub-drub-drub-drub-drub-drub-drub. +It was now solid with flesh, and indeed he had not walked half its +length when the closing-bell clanged. The glow over the pier-head +Pavilion went suddenly out, and so, a few moments later, did a hundred +yards of the lamps on either side. He heard the usual cries of +mock-terror. It was no good going up there now.... + +Nor would she be in the Floral Valley. In fact, he had better give it +up. He had better clear out of Llanyglo for a bit. He was sick of this +dusty dance of pleasure, and the Wakes crowds would be here in a few +days.... He would go and fish up Delyn. The Water Scheme hadn't spoiled +the lake; they had only built a quite small dam with locks at one end, +and the grid of service-reservoirs was lower down. Sharpe had left the +hut. He would go there for a few days and have his bread and mutton and +cheese sent up from the inn in the valley below. He would tell Minetta +to get somebody to stay with her, and would go in the morning.... + +He was passing the closed fancy-shop at the corner of Gardd Street when +he came to this resolution; and suddenly he stopped dead. Minetta!... +What was it that the thought of his sister, coming at this moment, +reminded him of? It was odd, but it had certainly reminded him of +something that had seemed to come near him only to escape him again +immediately. Minetta!... He saw Minetta daily. There was nothing new +about Minetta. She looked after the house, and if he wasn't going to be +in for meals he mentioned the fact, or sometimes didn't, and beyond +that, to tell the truth, he didn't very often think of Minetta. He +didn't suppose she would ever marry--wasn't that kind. He remembered +that years ago that genial idiot Percy Briggs had fancied himself +"sweet" on her, but that sketching of hers---- + +_Ah!_ + +John Willie, who had been still standing at the corner, moved slowly +forward again. He had got it. + +He _knew_ he'd been right! It was a little boast of his that he +remembered faces rather well, and the thing that had perplexed him for +two days was now clear. In a flash he saw in his mind the Llanyglo of +the days of the Briggses and Laceys. He saw a bright diminutive picture +of deck-chairs and bathing-tents on the shore, and June Lacey and Wiggie +having their fortunes told. And he saw a gipsy child, with a head held +as if it had borne an invisible pitcher, and then a foot cut by a piece +of glass, and himself and Percy packed off home in disgrace, and Percy's +mother washing the gashed foot with water from a picnic-basket and +tying it up with a handkerchief. Then Minetta had come up, and had said +that she was going to make a sketch of the child.... + +Ah! It was _she_ who had stood under the red pier-light, watching that +cadmium horn of the moon that lifted itself out of the sea! + + + + +II + +JUNE + + +As it happened, John Willie did not go off fishing on the morrow. He +expected that Minetta would be in bed when he got home, but as he passed +up the path he saw a light burning high in the front of the house. It +was in the room beneath that date-stone under which he had once put a +sixpence, and that room, because of its high and uninterrupted view of +the sea, was one of the guest-chambers. He wondered who had come. + +His supper was laid in the dining-room, but he did not want it, and so +passed straight upstairs. As he turned along the landing to his own room +he heard a door opened on the floor above, and his sister called "Is +that you?" He answered, entered his bedroom, and began to undress. + +But he had scarcely got his boots unlaced when there came a tap at the +door, and Minetta entered. Her dark hair was in plaits, she wore a wrap +over her nightdress, and she carried on her hip a tray with two +claret-stained glasses and a salver with a cut cake. Evidently there had +been a girls' bedroom orgie. + +"Who's come?" John Willie asked, throwing aside his second boot. + +"June Lacey. You knew she was coming," Minetta answered accusingly. + +"No, I didn't--first I've heard of it." + +"You never hear anything when you're reading a newspaper. I told you at +breakfast this morning, and that she was going to wire the time of the +train. And you were out, and I had to leave everything and go and meet +her myself." + +"Sorry," John Willie grunted. He remembered now. "I mean, I didn't +gather it was to-day." + +"Well, I hope you'll manage to spare her an hour or two now that she's +here," Minetta said a little crossly. "I did tell her to come just +whenever she wished, and she didn't know the Wakes were coming on." + +"All right," John Willie yawned. "I was going fishing, that's all; but I +won't if you don't want. How long's she staying?" + +"At least a fortnight. So don't say I haven't told you that. And do try +to be in just occasionally. Have you had supper?" + +"I didn't want any, thanks. Sorry I forgot, Min. Say good night to June +for me." + +Five minutes later he had turned out the gas and tumbled into bed. + +Except that she postponed his escape from ennui for a day or two, June's +arrival was a matter of indifference to him. He had known her for so +long that he regarded her almost as if she had been a split-off portion +of Minetta herself, that happened to possess its own apparatus of speech +and locomotion. He could no more have said whether she was pretty than +he could have said whether Minetta was pretty. It was no trouble to talk +to June. As much talk as was necessary came of itself. He had only to +say "You remember so-and-so----" or "Like that time when----" and +conversation sustained itself out of a hundred trifles desultorily +familiar to both of them. That, at any rate, was a comfort. With +anybody new he would have had to take a certain amount of trouble. With +June it didn't matter. + +So, at breakfast the next morning, he did not actually read the +newspaper as he ate, but he threw out a remark from time to time as it +were over the edge of an imaginary newspaper, and then asked June what +she would like to do that morning. When she replied that she wanted him +to do just whatever he had intended to do, he even hoisted himself to +the level of a little ceremoniousness, and told her that he had no plans +at all save to amuse her--what about a bathe, the morning Concert in the +Pavilion, a drive in the afternoon, and so on? By keeping to this beaten +track of enjoyment, he could, at one and the same time, be entertaining +June and keeping an eye open for that gipsy girl who haunted his +imagination. + +"A bathe?" said June.... "Oh, of course! How stupid of me! I'd forgotten +there was mixed bathing here now. What a change!... Wasn't there a +frightful row about it?" + +There had been a row, but it had been short and sharp. Briefly, +Blackpool and Douglas and Llandudno had settled the matter for them, +and, after a protest for conscience's sake--and also a little more +well-judged absenteeism--even Howell Gruffydd, now Chairman of the +Council, and John Pritchard, a Councillor in his second year, had +yielded. A portion of the shore had been set apart for this "playing +with fire," but within a year even this had become a dead letter. The +only thing that now distinguished this portion of the beach from the +rest was a certain heightened jocundity in the advertisements on the +sides of the bathing-machines at that spot. The virtues of Pills and +Laxatives were a little more loudly announced there, and this +heartiness and lack of false shame culminated in a long hoarding that +was erected on one of the groynes, and bore on one side the legend "THE +NAKED TRUTH" (which was that Somebody's Remedies were the Best), and on +the other the words "TO THE PURE" (who were warned against Fraudulent +Imitations). For the rest folk now bathed where they would. + +So, idly, John Willie told June of the town's struggle between its +principles and its living, and then they rose from the table. When June +heard that Minetta wasn't coming with them she wanted to stay behind and +help; but Minetta persuaded her that she would only be in the way, and +that anyway she couldn't help her with her painting; and presently, with +towels and costumes, she and John Willie went forth and, after a casual +discussion about its being rather soon after breakfast to bathe, +descended to the beach. + +June was certainly a pretty enough girl for even a fastidious young man +to be seen about with. No neater shoes than those that moved beneath the +gypsophylla of her petticoats were to be seen on the whole Promenade, +and she held her longish figure trimly, and was almost on the "fast" +side with her little thin switch of a cane. She was an inch taller than +John Willie, too, which was another inch of smartness to be seen walking +with. He found her a bathing-machine and secured another for himself; +and when, presently, they lay on their backs side by side a hundred +yards farther out from the shore than anybody else, with the sun hot on +their faces and their eyes blinking up at the intense blue, they +continued to talk as they had talked before--of who had been to Llanyglo +lately and who had not, and of what had become of Mrs. Maynard, and +whether anybody had seen Hilda Morrell lately, and whether that London +man--what was his name--Mr. Ashton--had been heard of since. John +Willie, for his part, asked how Mrs. Lacey and Wiggie were, and told +June what a lot was thought of her father's laying out of the Kursaal +Gardens, and asked her when the work was expected to be finished. + +Then they came in again, dressed, and regained the Promenade. + +John Willie was surprised to find how quickly the morning went. The +Concert was half over by the time they reached the Pavilion, and when +the Concert was over and the drub-drub on the boards of the Pier became +incessant, June said that, build as they would, it would be a long time +before they built on the Trwyn. To that John Willie replied that he +wasn't so sure, and told her of how at one time it had been a toss-up +whether they wouldn't make a terrace there and build the "Imperial" on +it; and June's reply was that she would never have thought it. Then John +Willie looked at his watch, and at first thought it must have stopped, +the time had flown so. They turned their faces to the Promenade again, +and at a Booking Kiosk John Willie ordered a landau for half-past two. +Minetta (he told June) would have finished her work by then, and the +three of them could go either out Abercelyn way, or through Porth Neigr +and round home, or along the Delyn road, just as June wished. June said +that if she really had her choice, she would like the Abercelyn drive, +because it was years since she had been there, and she would like to see +how much it had altered. + +So out towards Abercelyn the three of them went that afternoon, and +June's eyes opened wide at the Sarn manganese sidings, and John Willie +told her to mind that gypsophylla of her petticoats against the +coal-heaps and grease-boxes of the wagons. Then back in the landau +again, he took a well-earned rest while Minetta and June talked. He +leaned back against the hot leather, and smoked and watched them, and +wondered, first, whether anybody would ever marry Minetta, and, next, +whether anybody would ever marry June, and then all at once found +himself wondering about the gipsy girl again. + +Suppose he should take seats for June and Minetta at some entertainment +that evening, should see them comfortably settled, and should then go +out for another look for her?... + +But, now that he knew who she was, he thought of her, somehow, ever so +slightly differently. He was no less set on finding her; indeed he was +more set; but part of the possible surprise and excitement had certainly +gone. Had he apparently not been destined not to see her again, the +thing would have been less of an adventure than he had at first +supposed. There would have been far fewer discoveries to make. It might +even have been difficult to talk to her. He could talk pleasantly to +June and be thinking of something else all the time; but he could hardly +have asked Ynys Lovell how her mother was getting on with her +chair-mending and fortune-telling, or have told her that he had heard +that her kinsman Dafydd Dafis had won the "penillion" contest at the +Eisteddfod.... + +_Ah!_---- + +Again he had it, and, lying back on the hot leather of the hired landau, +wondered that he had not had it sooner. Of course--Dafydd Dafis. If +anybody knew where she was, Dafydd would know. _That_ was what he would +do that evening while Minetta and June were at the Concert. He would +take a stroll to Dafydd's house (which was no longer the single-roomed +cottage near the old Independent Chapel, but a two-roomed one in +Maengwyn Street), and he would sit down and have a smoke and ask Dafydd +how all was with him.... + +At this point he became conscious that June was speaking to him. She was +offering him a penny for his thoughts. Instantly he fell into the rut of +easy conversation again. It took him hardly a moment to find a topic. + +"Eh?" he said.... "Oh!--You can have them for nothing. I was just +thinking of that place of the Kerrs in Pontnewydd Street. I suppose +you've heard all about that?" + +"No, I've not heard a word," June declared. "Do tell me!" + +After all, it was but a step from his real thought to the narrative he +now told June. Between Dafydd Dafis and Tommy Kerr was now the +association of an all but declared feud, which would break out into open +enmity the moment anything happened to Tommy's brother Ned. More than +any man in Llanyglo Dafydd had writhed at that wonderful building of the +Hafod Unos, and since then he had remembered something else that had set +him darkly flushing. It had been Tommy Kerr (or one of his boon +companions--it came to the same thing) who, when Dafydd had returned +rapt after the first day of the Eisteddfod, had cast two-pence on the +ground and had drunkenly demanded a song. Yes, that remark, scarce heard +at the time, had come back since. They had offered him, Dafydd, their +dirty dross in exchange for Song, and had bidden him stoop to pick it +up.... + +And that mortal insult had reminded Dafydd of an older memory still. +This was, that of the four Kerrs, Tommy had been the only one who had +not tumbled into that open boat when that chilling cry of +"_Llongddrylliad!_" had sounded on that stormy night years and years +before. That that had not been Tommy's fault mattered nothing; as soon +as Dafydd had remembered this he had felt himself released from the last +shadow of an obligation. It was another stick to beat Tommy with and +"beating him" now meant, as everybody knew, waiting until his brother +died and then "purring" him out of the Hafod, if not by fair means, +then--well, purring him out none the less. + +And that stick Tommy was to be beaten with was only the latest of many. +It was a whole history of sticks--of the Council's Sons of Belial set at +Tommy, collectors, inspectors of this and that and the other, policemen +to apprehend him for drunkenness, sergeants to warn publicans that if +they harboured Tommy they might be made to feel it in other ways.... But +lately they had withdrawn this last prohibition. Putting their heads +together, they had judged it best that Tommy should drink all he could, +and more.... He had done so, and did not seem a single penny the worse +for it. Moreover, he had now openly declared himself an abominator of +Welshmen and everything else Welsh. Nightly he zig-zagged home crying +out against the whole smiling, thievish crew, their Kursaals and +Pavilions and Dancing-Halls and Concerts Llanyglo. He lurched along +Pontnewydd Street after everybody else had gone to bed, roaring "_Glan +Meddwdod Mwyn_." How he had twenty times escaped breaking his neck when +they had laid down the Pontnewydd Street tramlines nobody knew.... And +whenever he remembered that they wanted his Hafod and would have it as +soon as Ned died, he offered to _give_ it away to any Welshman who would +repeat after him, word for word ... but his forms of words varied +widely, and no more than the Amalekites could some of those against whom +he railed pronounce his words that began with "sh." + +So John Willie, as the landau bowled homewards, had to tell June all +this, and June was extraordinarily interested. Minetta watched them +both, and, in her turn, wondered about John Willie and _his_ marrying. +She liked to have June to visit her; she wasn't so sure that she wanted +June as a standing ornamental dish. Indeed she rather thought she +didn't, and, allowing for many large but still accidental differences, +Minetta was not without a trace of the malicious humour of Tommy Kerr +himself. + +In fairness she had to admit, however, that so far there were no signs +that June was setting her cap at John Willie. + +That night again, however, John Willie had little luck of his searching, +this time of Dafydd Dafis. He sought him at his home, he sought him +abroad, but he failed to find him and he joined June and his sister +again where they sat listening to The Lunas, those incomparable +Drawing-Room Entertainers. He bought them chocolate and he bought them +ices, and then, at the end of the performance, he proposed a walk along +the Promenade before they turned in. Not to lose them, he passed an arm +through either of theirs, his sister's arm and that of this tall and +pretty and undisturbing extension of his sister. They set their faces +towards the Pier that stretched like a sparkling finger out to sea. + +It was the hour of the ebb, and lately, at that hour, an odd and new +activity had begun to make sharper that contrast between the bright and +crowded and restless Promenade and the solemn void that pushed as it +were its dark breast against that two-miles-long chain of gold and +silver lamps, straining the slender fetter into a curve. Down below the +railings, at three or four points, not more, an upturned face with +tightly shut eyes was praying aloud. They looked like little floating, +drowned, yet speaking masks. Each evangelist had his little knot of +three or four companions, but these had come with him, and of hearers +they had none. They stood on the trampled sand, just below the +gas-lighted line of pebbles; a boat drawn up, or a yard or two of +groyne, struggled between light and shadow beyond them; far out in the +bay the twinkle of a solitary light could be seen; the rest was +blackness and immensity. It made Infinity seem strangely weak. Here It +was, striving to make Itself known to the finite, Its sole instrument a +little oval mask and a voice that could not be heard five yards away; +and never a head was turned. Calling and laughing, the babel of their +voices like the rattle of the pebbles that roll back with the retiring +wave, they passed and passed and passed. One would have said that some +vast angelic skater had cut that sweeping outside-edge of light, and +then, repulsed, had rushed away into the darkness again. + +And this was something else for John Willie to tell this pretty, +unexigent June. It had only been going on about a fortnight, he said, +but he didn't think they'd heard the last of it yet. There was a Revival +or something coming slowly up the coast, he said, and--who did June +think was doing it?--why, Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd! + +"Never!" June exclaimed. + +"Rather! You remember him, don't you? Howell Gruffydd the grocer's son; +pale-faced chap, with a great lump of hair; and by Jove, he is stirring +'em up! He started at Aberystwith, and worked his way up through +Aberdovey and Towyn and Barmouth and Portmadoc, with no end of crowds +following him wherever he went. I expect he'll be here presently. If he +comes when the Wakes are on there will be a shindy!... I say, aren't you +feeling a bit cold? Better be getting along home. I'll take you as far +as the corner, and then if you don't mind I'll leave you--I want to find +a man if I can----" + +Five minutes later he had got rid of them, and stood in meditation. Was +it worth while trying for Dafydd Dafis again? Or taking another stroll +along the Pier? Perhaps it wasn't. He was rather tired, and this seemed +a stupid kind of thing he had been doing for the last few days. He'd +potter about with June for another day--perhaps he had rather neglected +Minetta lately--and then for the fishing up Delyn. In that way he would +be off just as the Wakes people arrived. Already the lodging-house +keepers were getting ready for them, putting away their ornaments and so +on. They would be here on Friday night; to-day was Wednesday; John +Willie would be off on Friday morning. + +This time he kept to his decision. He walked about with the pretty and +untroublesome June all the next morning, and in the afternoon Minetta +joined them. She approved warmly of his fishing-plan, and said she was +sure the change would do him good. He told them to keep away from the +crowds and not to be out too late, and then, on the Friday morning set +off. + +When, at nine o'clock the same night, he walked up the path again and +appeared in the dining-room just as June and Minetta were thinking of +going to bed, Minetta stared. She had thought him miles away. + +She stared still harder when he mumbled that he had "forgotten +something," and intended to be off again in the morning. + + + + +III + +DELYN + + +He had not at first seen that black dress. Sharpe's old cottage was +never locked, and he had walked straight in, had put down his little +dressing-bag, and had begun to empty his pockets, setting his flask, his +fly-book, his store of tobacco and certain provisions on the little deal +table under the single window. At a first glance there was nothing to +show that the place had been entered since he had last been there. The +mattress of Sharpe's narrow pallet had been rolled up at the bed-head +and a patchwork quilt spread over it; the two windsor chairs stood in +their accustomed places; and the rods in their brown canvas covers stood +as usual in the corner. Only Sharpe's photographs had gone from the +walls, leaving the little black heads of nails and tacks, each over its +slightly paler oblong of plain deal boarding. + +Had not John Willie thought that he had better drag the bedding on which +he was to sleep out into the sun at once, he would not have found the +frock. It had been thrown across the roll of mattress and covered with +that old piece of patchwork. Nor, since it was folded in a square, did +he even then recognise the thing for a frock. Only when he had picked it +up and it had revealed itself had he stood, suddenly arrested, +alternately gazing at it and then looking obliquely at the floor. Then, +as he had slowly put it down again, at its full length this time, there +had peeped at him from half under the roll of mattress, first a white +linen collar with one of the little sham pearl studs that are given away +with such things still in one of its button-holes, and next a pair of +tiny cylindrical cuffs.... + +Perhaps already, deep within himself, he had known that she was not far +away.... + +Then, slowly and methodically, he had begun to search the hut. His +search had been productive of the following discoveries:-- + +Thrust under the bed: A newish oval brown tin box (which he had not +opened), and a pair of black shoes. + +On the lower shelf of Sharpe's little provision-cupboard: a round +narrow-brimmed black hat. + +On the upper shelf, among cups, plates, and other odds and ends: A +seven-pound paper bag half full of flour, and a mug with some still +fresh milk in it--he tasted it. + +Outside the hut: A stone or two in a little clearing in the fern, a +stick-heap, the ashes of a recent fire, and a frying-pan. + +Then he had re-entered the hut. He had sat down in one of the windsor +chairs. He had been filling his third or perhaps his fourth pipe when +she herself had appeared in the doorway. + +All this had been the day before. + + * * * * * + +As he now walked up that one-in-seven slope under the firs he remembered +again, for the fiftieth time in twenty hours, her appearance as she had +stood there. She had worn an old red blouse which she had not troubled +to tuck in at the waist, a petticoat of faded greenish-blue (no +gypsophylla there), and her legs and feet had been bare. And at first +he had thought she was going to run away. But she had only recoiled as a +cat recoils, yielding ground without abandoning it. He himself had not +moved. Move, and she might still be off as suddenly as a hare; sit still +and say "Hallo, Ynys, not much in the chair-mending line up here, is +there?" and she might stay.... And now, as he trudged up under the firs, +he blamed Llanyglo that he had not heard that her mother was dead. Had +Llanyglo remained a hamlet, or had it grown merely reasonably and within +measure, the death even of Belle Lovell would have been an event; now, +with towns in Lancashire half-emptied (he had seen it that morning, +Llanyglo black and boiling like a cauldron of pitch with the people of +the Wakes)--now such simple happenings passed unnoticed. Belle had died +a year before, but that was not the reason Ynys wore black. She wore +black because black was the livery of Philip Lacey's Liverpool +flower-shop girls. Black showed up the flowers to better advantage. +Ynys, after months of lonely wanderings and getting of her bread as best +she could, had remembered Philip Lacey's promise when she had cut her +foot that morning on the shore, had tramped to Liverpool, had asked for +Philip at his principal establishment in Lord Street, and now sold +stately blooms the poor hedgerow cousins of which she had formerly given +away, pattering bare-foot after pedestrians on the road with them in her +hand. She had been given a fortnight's holiday, and had come to Llanyglo +to spend it. + +As the path under the firs grew steeper still, John Willie wondered +whether she would have kept her word to him. He had made her welcome to +the cottage of which she had already made free, but that, he knew, did +not mean that she might not have packed up and fled the moment he had +turned his back--no, not even though she had promised not to do so. He +had seen enough of her yesterday to guess that her word given would be +an empty and artificial thing the moment her inclination changed; nay, +she might have given it with no intention whatever of keeping it, just +to gain a little time. Even should he find her frock and her oval tin +box still there, that would not necessarily mean that she would return. +A box of matches was her luggage. Except as a depository for these +things she had not used the hut. She had cooked her meals outside, and +had slept on a litter of bracken. + +Nevertheless, John Willie had left the cottage to her, and, for fear a +stray shepherd might gossip, had himself returned home rather than sleep +at the inn a few miles below. + +He continued to climb, past rocks spotted with pennywort and trickling +with rills, orange and whitey-green with lichen and tongued with +polypodi, past crops of dead nettle and vistas of fronds, past dust of +pine-needles and debris of cones. Now and then a flutter of wings broke +the stillness of the aisles, but no song; and always he had the skyline +almost overhead on his right, and on his left, beyond the little grid of +reservoirs far below, the crisscrossing AAAA's of a mountain-side of +larches. + +She had not taken advantage of his absence to fly. He saw her as he +ceased to climb and gained the half-way fold that held Llyn Delyn in its +crook. She was standing outside the hut, but she was not wearing the old +unconfined red blouse of the day before now. The small spot he saw a +quarter of a mile ahead was a black one. He waved his hand, but she did +not respond. He saw her sit down with her back against the wall of the +hut and cross her arms over her knees. Three minutes later he was +standing beside her. + +And now that he had come he was not very clear in his mind why he had +come. True, he could have given a dozen reasons--the bursting over the +town of that flood of operatives he had seen that morning, his desire to +fish, his wish (as he now suddenly and rather startlingly knew) to +escape further attendance on June, and so forth; and these reasons would +have been precisely a dozen too many. Had all Lancashire been drubbing +on the Pier and she standing under the crimson light watching that +strange and dhowlike sail of the moon glaring orange over the water, +John Willie would not have been up Delyn. He had intended to fish, but +fishing was now far from his thoughts. And already he was aware of +another thing, namely, that while June had been no trouble at all to +talk to, talk with Ynys was a heavy business. Yesterday, every sentence +he had attempted had been as difficult as if it had been the first. Only +by a series of almost violent extractions had he learned that her mother +was dead and that she sold flowers (curious that they should have been +June's father's flowers!) in Liverpool. He supposed he must begin to +talk again now. He could hardly be with her and not talk. Well, if he +must talk, he would. + +"I say, you're well out of it all to-day!" he exclaimed, with apparent +heartiness. "They began to come in at eleven last evening, and they've +been coming in all night. Whew, but I ran, I can tell you!" + +She had been looking in the direction of the lake, which, however, she +could hardly have seen, so low did she sit; and he, as he stood, could +see no more of her than the straight white parting of her hair and her +tanned forearms and wrists about her knees. The black of her dress was a +sooty black, but you would only have called her hair black because there +was nothing else to call it. It was neither more nor less black than a +bowl of black lustre is black; it had a surface, but it had also depths +where you saw the sun again, and the sky lurked, and the green of the +ferns that grew about the hut. Had John Willie put his hand near it it +might have been dimly reflected, as it would have been reflected in a +peat pool. + +The sound of his voice seemed almost to startle her, but she did not +look up. + +"Hwhat do you say?" she said. She slightly overstressed the internal +"h's," and her accent was Welsh, but uniquely soft. As she had not +heard, he had to repeat his remark. + +"I mean those Wakes people. There are thousands of them there now." He +made a little motion of his head behind him. "It's better up here." +Then, as still she did not reply, he asked her a direct question. "You +didn't stay long in Llanyglo, did you?" + +"I stay there one day," she answered. A scarcely perceptible movement of +her forefinger accompanied the numeral. + +"Oh, then of course that was the day I saw you. Did you see me?" + +"No." + +"You were standing at the pier-head, watching the moon rise." + +Ynys did not deny this. Neither did she confirm it. + +"Then you disappeared," John Willie continued, "and I couldn't find you +again." + +To this she replied after a moment.--"I went back to the house, and +paid the Englishwoman, and then I came away. In the morning I arrive +here." + +"Do you mean you walked all night?" + +"There is lit-tle night this time of the year." + +John Willie was silent. Only a week before he had left an evening party +at the "Imperial" to find the sun already burning a hole in the edge of +Mynedd Mawr. + +"And how much longer holiday have you?" John Willie asked presently. + +"Six days," answered the girl; and again the numeral was accompanied by +a slight gesture of her fingers. + +"And then you go back to Liverpool?" + +Complete silence was all the answer he had to that question. + +Then, suddenly, Ynys moved. She stood up. For the first time her +seaweed-coloured eyes looked straight into John Willie's. + +"You left that place early. You will be hungry. I caught some +fis-s--_brithyll_. I think she cooked now." + +She disappeared round the corner of the hut. + +John Willie would have liked to ask her why she had put on the black +dress and the black shoes, but something seemed to whisper to him not to +do so. No doubt she had caught the trout with her hand, in one of the +pools of a stream that slid and chattered under fern down the side of +Delyn, and he feared that did he approach her too suddenly even by words +she might be off, even as those trout would have vanished in a flash at +the least disturbance of the water by her hand. She had cooked them on +the wood; she had also made a cake of flour and water and no salt; and +she served the fish in a tin platter by the little clearing she had made +for the hearth. He sat now, and she stood; she brought also a mug of +milk, from the surface of which she took a tiny caterpillar with the +tip of a frond; and when he had eaten she cleaned the platter by +scouring it with a handful of fern-rot and then setting it in a little +stream with a stone upon it. Then they stood before one another again, +he with his back to the hut, she in front of him, her head always +superbly erect, but slowly turning from time to time, while her eyes +sought the lake, the line of bracken against the sky where the mountain +dropped, and his own eyes, indifferently. + +Then, unexpectedly, she asked a question. + +"You come to fis-s?" she asked. + +He said that he had thought of it. + +"There is wa-ter in the boat, but indeed I not touch it. I go and empty +it," she said. + +But he stopped her.--"Oh, it's no good now--too bright," he said. "Might +try in the evening. Sit down, won't you? I want to ask you some +questions." + +She curled herself up in the bracken, and he set his back against the +wall of the hut and began to fill his pipe. + +But instead of questioning her, John Willie had all the appearances of a +man who was questioning himself. He sat a little behind Ynys, so that +when she looked straight before her he lost her full profile; and he +moved no more than she. He was suddenly thinking how thoroughly sick he +was of Llanyglo. + +For if he had helped to make Llanyglo, and knew its lighting and its +watering, its building and its leases and its subsoil, Llanyglo had also +helped to make him. The drub-drub on the Pier, the inanities of his +friend Percy Briggs, evening parties that began at midnight and ended +with the sun high in the sky, complaints from his sister that she saw +him only in the short intervals between a coming home and a setting out +again--this had been pretty much the reaction of Llanyglo on John Willie +Garden. He was a very ordinary young man.--But here was a world peopled +only by sheep, the myriad insects that hopped and wove and chirruped in +the tall fern, the kites and curlews overhead, and the trout far below +the surface of the lake. His lashes made rainbows before his half-closed +eyes, and those eyes, opening again, could gaze at the tips of the sunny +fern against the deeps of the sky until the difference between them +became almost as intensified as the difference between dark and bright. +Spiders no bigger than freckles seemed to be doing important things +under their bright green roofs--for only the under sides of the fronds +were green and translucent: the fern on which the sun beat directly was +no more green than Ynys's hair was black.... And the sunny parts of +Ynys's arms were of the colour of a hayfield with much sorrel, while the +round beneath was as cool as the under curve of a boat on the water.... + +It would have been part of the peace of that hot midday could he have +dozed with his head in the crook of that arm. + +Of other desire to break its peace had he none. + +And Ynys? + +She had seen those fretted parasols of the fern, meshed and lacy and +interpenetrating, a vast rug of whispering frondage--she had seen them, +or their like, since they had been no more than tender, uncurling +pastoral staffs, brown, with tiny inner crocketts not even green yet. +She had watched them unfold their weak fingers--yes, from Lord Street, +Liverpool, she had watched them unroll as a soft caterpillar unrolls. In +a cool and darkened shop, with the floor always wet, she had seen, with +those seaweed-coloured eyes, not the great queenly hydrangeas, nor the +burning torches of the gladioli, nor the fat and scentless roses, nor +the great half-pint pitchers of the arum lilies--she had seen, not these +cold grandiflora, but the celandine and anemone of the hedge-bottoms, +and the cool pennywort on the rocks, and the soft and imperceptible +change, day by day, of those mountains many, many railway stations away. +Those other great robed and wedding-dressed blooms? She had not +considered them to be flowers. Flowers were the sappy bluebells she had +pulled, white-stalked and squeaking, from the banks, receiving a penny +for them--but not in exchange. She had sold the hydrangea-things without +even seeing them. And her own weekly fifteen shillings of wages had not +purchased a single glance of her eyes nor a single emotion of her heart. + +And her eyes had not distinguished less between magnificent bloom and +magnificent bloom than they had between this and the other collar, tie, +and bowler hat who, his purchase made, had lingered, and had tried to +talk to her, and had come again. Young women who can see Delyn from +Liverpool can hardly be expected so to distinguish. These young men had +not even been, as the balls and buckets of Howell Gruffydd's shop-window +had been, beyond her reach, she below theirs. She and they might breathe +the same air, but they extracted different elements from it. + +Was that true also of herself and John Willie Garden, lying now among +the fern of Delyn--John Willie, whose clothes (even) were what they were +by a kind of artifice, and not, like Dafydd Dafis's, as if the cropped +grasses themselves had by some natural alchemy become wool, and the wool +clothing, that would be worn out by labour not far from the grasses +again?... + +Because he did not know, John Willie lay there, and watched her cheek +and arm, and forgot that he had said he was going to ask her questions. + +The silence lasted for so long that, when at last he spoke, she might +(he thought) have supposed that he had had a nap in the meantime. He +hoisted himself to his feet, stretched himself, yawned "Ah, that's +better!" and then added, "I say, you might show me where you got those +fish." + +Instantly, a gillie incongruously in a flower-seller's dress, she was on +her feet and walking a little ahead. But he caught her up and kept +abreast of her. They reached the boat, half in and half out of the +gravelly shallow, but she went straight on across a swampy little stream +that led to the upper margin of the lake. Presently it seemed to John +Willie that they would have done better to take the boat, for they had +to skirt a deep shaly spur the slope of which continued unbroken down +under the water and gave under their feet the moment they tried to +ascend it. At a point where she splashed a few yards ahead of him John +Willie suggested that they should take their boots and stockings off, +and he had a momentary fancy that the brown of her cheek deepened a +little; but she made no reply, and they kept on. Then, after more +hundreds of yards of walking and wading, they gained firm earth again. +They were at the bottom of a V-shaped ravine into which all the trees +and scrub of the mountain-sides seemed to have settled. It was known to +a few shepherds as Glyn Iago, and the stream came down it over jagged +stairs of purple slate and under dwarf-oak and birch, thorn and briar +and mountain-ash. + +Again it would have been better to wade through the noisy shallows and +round the boulders spongy with drenched moss, and again he suggested it; +but perhaps the deep gurgle of the fall they were approaching drowned +his voice. He went ahead, putting aside the worst of the brambles, and +he knew without telling when they reached the pool. It was long enough +to have plunged into, too wide to have leapt across even had the rocks +afforded any take-off, and it deepened gradually to blackness, and then +boiled pale and tumultuous again under the plunge of a twelve-foot fall. +Over the pool itself the sunlight glowed in spots only through the +leaves, but on one bank there was a sunny clearing of a few yards +square. Then the trees began again, up and up and up to the sky, a cliff +of leaves that shut the mountains out and the stream in. + +He let her sit down first. This she did where she could see the little +plants and mosses at the water's edge endlessly a-quiver with the tumult +of the fall. Then, sitting down beside her, he again felt that he must +begin talking to her all over again. His mouth flickered for a moment as +he thought of Percy Briggs on the Pier, and then he spoke. + +"If I were you I should move up here," he said. + +She was picking up a snail-shell to throw into the water. She turned, +extraordinarily quickly, and in the seaweed eyes there was a hard and +defensive look, instant, yet old. + +"It iss only my hat and my box," she said quickly. + +"Eh? Oh!----" He laughed. "I only mean there'll be brakes and wagonettes +all over the place now, and anybody might come to the lake.--I say, you +didn't think I meant to chuck you out, did you?" + +"I thought prapss you want to fiss," she replied, turning away and +looking at the gasogene of black water again. + +He laughed again.--"Oh, no. I mean you don't sleep there, and nobody'd +come here, and I could get you a lock and key so that your things would +be safe. You could go there if it rained." + +She tossed the snail-shell into the water, neither accepting his offer +nor rejecting it. + +"Besides," he went on, "I know that if anybody disturbed you you'd be +off. Look here. I'll get you that lock and key. I'm off back to-night, +and I'll bring 'em up to-morrow.--But you will be here won't you?" + +Again--he could not be sure--he fancied her colour deepened. + +"Hwhere should I go to?" she said over her shoulder. + +"Well--anywhere--Liverpool--anywhere." + +And again her reply was to gaze at the boiling of the air-bubbles at the +foot of the fall. + +But John Willie no longer wondered that he should struggle thus with a +conversation when there were rills and rivulets of talk waiting for him +at home at Llanyglo. She was not mute; there were a thousand +communications wrapped up in her very presence. She ran over with +unspoken meanings, babbled for all her silence. Her hair, nearly all +cool green now, as the black water was cool green; that unlearned +balance of her head; the curve of her cheek; those lovely, despotic +forearms--whether that least member of her whole sweet parliament, her +tongue, moved or was still, there was more of approach in all of these +than in June's "Fancy! Do tell me! And how's So-and-So getting on?" +These were the weeds, the dusty groundsel of words; Ynys was her own +vocabulary, every part of her a part of speech.... + +And the theme? The theme that every corpuscle of her announced as she +sat there, listlessly tossing snail-shells and twigs and rolled-up +leaves and blades of grass into the water? + +John Willie was a very ordinary young man. In Liverpool, his eyes would +have seen very little but Liverpool. Perhaps that was why, in Glyn Iago, +he had not the perfect freedom of sun and air, of growing and dying +things, and things growing again, of moving water, of that essential +speech with this creature at his side that at the last has no need of +words. For, for good and ill mingled, they make shames and fears in the +Liverpools of the land, and codes, and suppressions, and the apparatus +of Conscience, and it is too late for you, too late for me, too late for +John Willie, to unmake them. John Willie had begun by questioning Ynys; +now, far more searchingly, Ynys was questioning him. + +And the end of her questioning of him was that he would have called +himself a cur had he as much as thought of not doing "the decent +thing...." + +Indeed it was precisely because he thought so resolutely and intently of +doing that thing that by and by he rose. It was only half-past four; he +could be home in two, or two-and-a-half hours; and for that matter he +was not in any hurry to get home. He was in a hurry now only because +Ynys spoke too much. She gave him no rest from her close inquisition. He +must answer those questions that she so pressed home or take himself +quickly off, to add (as he knew) the fuel of thought to that flame with +which he already burned. + +Therefore, again standing by her, he asked her one more question only. + +"You will be here to-morrow?" he said, his eyes anxiously on her face. + +What his answer would have been had she said "No," or had he not +believed that nod of her head, it is useless to ask. + +He left her still tossing the debris into the water. + + * * * * * + +He began to be aware of the change the Wakes people had wrought in +Llanyglo before the trap had carried him a mile along the road. Twice in +that distance he had to whip up to get through the dust of vehicles +ahead. He had been right in saying that the landaus and brakes and +wagonettes would be all over the place now. They were taking the family +parties back to dinner at the hotels. + +Then, still five miles from Llanyglo, he began to allow the brakes and +wagonettes to overtake him again. He had remembered that he was in no +hurry. Hurry would only mean the crowd sooner, the noise sooner, and +supper sooner, with the conversation of June and Minetta. At a place +called Doll he turned aside into a narrow lane that would take him by a +circuitous route into the Porth Neigr road near the stone quarries. +Then, sitting sideways on the seat, with his head sunk and the whiplash +trailing over the dashboard, he allowed the horse to take him at its own +pace. + +Of course, he could marry Ynys; there was nothing to be said against +that except that hitherto he had not thought of marriage. Marriage, in +John Willie's observation of his married friends and acquaintances, was +a quite definite and circumscribed thing, in which prospects played a +part, and settlements, and houses of a certain kind, and certain +well-marked changes in the bride's demeanour towards her still +unmarried friends, and a certain tendency to stoutness and baldness on +the part of the groom. Moreover, behind every suggested marriage there +lurked the question whether it "would do." His father and mother, when +he came to speak of marriage, would want to know whether it would "do"; +Minetta would have her opinion about whether it would "do"; and if it +did not "do," all his friends and acquaintances would by and by shake +their heads and say that it had been plain all along how _that_ would +turn out.... + +On the other hand, the case was complicated--not in principle (that was +beastly clear)--but by allowances in practise. Llanyglo had for some +time been far from exacting; it was now, in certain of its phases, at +any rate, almost exacting in the opposite direction. As many social +allowances were made for the young man who had something "on" as +liberties were granted to properly affianced couples who had got their +certificate that it would "do." Percy Briggs would have gone off alone, +with his hat on the back of his head and cheerfully whistling, at the +least hint that John Willie had something "on." ... But this that had +come so suddenly and overmasteringly over John Willie was a different +thing altogether. Here was not somebody who played a game of which the +rules and forfeits were known. That game, under one veiling or another, +might form the staple of the Lunas' Drawing-room Entertainment at the +Palace, or of the songs of Miss Sal Volatile in the Pavilion on the +Pier; but Ynys had not even known what she had turned her back on when +she had stood under the raspberry-coloured light, looking out at the +gathering darkness of sky and the still lingering gleam on the sea. +Warned probably, not by hearing and sight, but by some apprehension more +sensitive still, she had stayed to see that orange rising, and then, +before it had become a setting again, had been far on the road to +Delyn.... + +Suddenly John Willie sat up and shook the reins. + +"No, damn it," he said. + +He began to bowl more briskly along the hilly lanes. + +It was after eight o'clock when he reached the quarry, and then for a +time he had to go carefully down the by-lane that the stone-carts had +deeply scored. But on the Porth Neigr road he whipped up again. Hearing +a sound behind him, he drew in; and when there had passed him a great +brake hung all over with Chinese lanterns and full of people singing, +the spell of silence under which he had lain all day was broken. +Thereafter sound merely succeeded sound. As he took the railway bridge, +a "special" roared past below, carrying more people to Llanyglo; and +before its red tail-lights had mingled with the other rubies and +emeralds of the line he had come upon the first couple turning at the +limit of their walk. Then came a large board with "Imperial Hotel" on +it, then a new horse-trough; then benches, then walls with placards on +them. A mile ahead lay the golden corona of the town. This began to +break up into single lights and groups of lights, and then, at a turn, +he saw the Wheel and the jewelled finger of the Pier. He could hear the +noise, an indistinguishable something in the air that was not the wind +and not the sound of the sea; and then at the first roadside lamp it +seemed suddenly to become night. More slowly he rounded Pritchard's +Corner; at the tram terminus the belated shopkeepers made a press about +the Promenade-Pontnewydd Street car; and from the open doors of the +"Tudor Arms" was wafted the smell of beer. + +Delyn and Glyn Iago were part of the night behind him. + +He did not attempt to drive through the crowd that suddenly thickened +about the middle of Pontnewydd Street, where half the road was being +taken up. One of the "Imperial" ostlers took the horse's head, said "All +right, Mr. Garden," and John Willie descended and walked. On the +balconies of the "Grand" and "Imperial," people stood and watched the +stream that descended to the Front. From the Kursaal Gardens came a +noise that presently the ear ceased to hear, so steady and monotonous +was it. Then, walking in the wake of a tram that moved slowly forward +among the street barriers with an incessant clanging of its bell, John +Willie reached the Promenade. + +It was thrice the width of Pontnewydd Street, and so there was more +room; but for all that it was difficult to walk at more than the general +pace. This, nevertheless, football-packs of young men attempted from +time to time to do, breaking their way through. They played +mouth-organs, and at moments, apparently without plan or premeditation, +suddenly formed into rings, feet pattering in clog-steps, eyes fixedly +on those same feet, their backs a fence to hold back the spectators, +while in the middle a couple of young men or a young man and a young +woman danced. Then, as suddenly as they had stopped, they were off +again, arms linked in arms or locked about the waist in front, each +figure a vertebra of a many-jointed onward-rushing snake. Under the +Promenade lamps they advanced, everybody else yielding place as they +came. The little rail-enclosed plots that lay between the pavements and +the hotels were magpied with torn paper and strown with lying figures. +They lay there, in meaningless embrace, moaning long harmonies in +thirds, hats decorated with penny gauds, eating nuts and "rock" and +chocolate, hardly moving when passers-by all but strode over them. +Probably they were discussing nothing more than "So I said to her, +straight to her face----" or the conduct of the shed-overlooker where +they worked throughout the year together and if the passers-by almost +trod on them, they, in return, half absently flirted the passing ankles +with whisks and penny canes. + +But if these lay like bivalves, torpid and content, another and more +active element had awoke in the throng. The Alsatians, had they required +it, were put into countenance now. One felt that they veined and +threaded the mass with something that worked as quietly and as rapidly +as yeast. They fed on it, drawing from it at last an open and confirmed +sanction for all those things they would not have dreamed of doing at +home. One met them here and there in couples, or in couples of couples +with the invisible link between each pair of couples drawing ever +farther and farther out, the women with shawls and hoods and dominoes +over their dinner attire, the men with restless eyes, quick to show by a +touch of hand or elbow that avoidance was desirable or a glance of +complicity no harm. Lamps showed these gestures of understanding between +those who could not have sworn to one another's names. Of the two +solitudes, that of the mountain-top and that of this press where ribs +could hardly lift, they sought and found the second. Perhaps--who +knows?--they were even grateful to those others who moaned those gummy +thirds stretched on the lamplit grass.... + +And scarce two hundred yards away, under the railings of the sea-wall, +here and there a mask, with struggling breast and tightly shut eyes and +writhing lips, prayed.... + +As John Willie pushed at the garden gate, the door at the other end of +the path opened and closed again behind Minetta and June. He met them in +the middle of the path and asked them where they were going. When they +said they were only going for a stroll he ordered them back. Minetta's +"_Oh_--how you startled us!--why, we didn't know you were coming +back----" suggested that she thought her brother might have spoken in +another tone; but John Willie was not thinking of tones. He was thinking +that perhaps after all he had no business to be spending days up Delyn +just at present. A stroll with him to take care of them--well and good; +but not two girls alone.... He said so, rather curtly, in the +dining-room as Minetta got him some supper; but Minetta made no reply. +Again she was thinking that June was a very nice girl, but it was odd +that she should twice have brought her brother back from his fishing +like this. + +John Willie, eating his supper almost savagely, had some ado to reply +politely to June's rills of pretty speech. He wondered now why she +should talk when she had nothing whatever to say. Only her tongue +wagged, and he hardly heard his own tongue wagging in reply. _This_ was +not speech; _this_ was not language!... "Not if I know it," he found +himself suddenly thinking, as June asked him whether the Water Scheme +had spoiled Delyn much, and said that she would like to go and see. But +Minetta said little. She only asked John Willie one direct question. +This was, Whether he had come back for good now. He replied that he +didn't know, and added some futility about fishing-weather and the +difference a night sometimes made. + +Minetta thought that the only extraordinary thing about his reappearance +was that he should have troubled to go away at all. + +June had one piece of information to give him, however. It was two days +old, she said, but there--if John Willie _would_ take himself off on his +unsociable excursions like this he must expect to be a bit out of +things. But she would forgive him, and tell him.--Ned Kerr was dead. It +seemed (June said) that he had once given somebody in Porth Neigr a +canary, and reports had reached him that the canary was not doing very +well--had the pip or the croup or whatever it was canaries did have. He +had worried a lot about the canary (June said), and, a week before, had +been to Porth Neigr to see it. He had had a cold or something himself, +June didn't know what; anyway, he had come back from seeing the canary +and the next day hadn't got up. So his brother had sent for a doctor, +and of course had told the doctor all about it--Ned, the canary, and all +the lot. The doctor had said that _he_ could see nothing the matter with +Ned (which was more than some of them admitted, going on sending bottles +of coloured water and so on and then a bill coming in for pounds and +pounds), but Ned hadn't said anything at all--he'd just died at two +o'clock in the morning. He might just as well have _had_ something the +matter with him, June said. And all about a stupid canary!---- + +Soon after that John Willie told them it was time they went to bed. He +followed them upstairs himself a few minutes later. + +But it was long before he slept. Perhaps he knew already in his heart +that if he really meant that "Damn it, no" he might as well stay at +home now instead of leaving June and Minetta alone in the house. And he +had meant it. He vowed he meant it still. The rusty light on his +ceiling, cast from the corona outside, did not prevent his seeing the +hut again--Glyn Iago--the black-dressed gillie who had tossed the +snail-shells into the water; nor did the faint and harsh and ceaseless +noise outside drown that powerful and wordless eloquence that he had +heard with some faculty other than his bodily hearing.... Then the +sounds grew thinner, yet louder also; fewer, but clearer in the growing +silence of the night. He heard a long-drawn strain of tipsy song, the +tinny thread of sound of a mouth-organ, and then a clock striking +three.... + +But he must go up to Delyn on the morrow. It would be a rotten thing to +tell a girl to be sure to be there and then not to turn up himself. + +And he would take her that lock and key. + + + + +IV + +AN ORDINARY YOUNG MAN + + +He began to spend his days up Delyn and his nights at Llanyglo. To avoid +the shaly spur, he pulled across in the boat each morning from the +beaching-place near the hut to the foot of Glyn Iago, and she had his +breakfast ready for him when he arrived, which was between half-past ten +and eleven o'clock. As if his suggestion had been a command, she had +made her little encampment up the Glyn, fetching dry sticks from up the +steep wood; her hat and her box only remained in the locked shed. + +He did not cast a fly. Minetta began to ask him, when he returned at +night, first what sport he had had, and then why he always chose to fish +in the middle of the day. Then one night he returned to find his sister +showing June her sketches. For some minutes he affected not to be +interested; then, with a highly elaborate yawn, he said, "Oh, I say, +Min--what became of that sketch you once made of that gipsy kid--you +remember--the one mother once took in with a cut foot?--Best thing she +ever did," he added carelessly to June. + +"Oh, it got shoved away somewhere. Why?" said Minetta; but there was a +little quick dropping look in her eyes. + +"Nothing. I just happened to remember it. It was better than some of +these." + +The next morning the sketch, unearthed from some dusty heap or other, +was on his plate when he came down to breakfast. Presently June and +Minetta also came down. By that time he was able to say, quite +composedly, "Oh, I see you found that thing. That's the sketch I was +speaking of, June----" + +But he wondered whether Minetta also could by any chance have seen Ynys +on that, her single night in Llanyglo. + +One rapidly advancing trouble was on his mind. He had not spoken to Ynys +of the passing of her holiday, but he himself could almost hear its +seconds ticking away. Soon two days only remained; the morrow, when he +would see her on Delyn again, would be the eve of her departure. She had +told him that she had taken a return ticket; already he seemed to hear +the whistle of the train by which it was available. She could take that +train either at Llanyglo or at Porth Neigr. + +On the morning of her last whole day he ascended the Glyn and found, as +usual, his trout cooked for him and keeping hot between two plates. He +ate it abstractedly. Again Minetta had remarked pointedly on his lack of +fishing-luck, but it was not that that was troubling him. He was +wondering, not for the first time, what explanation Ynys gave herself of +his untouched rods and buckled fly-book, and whether she too thought it +unusual that he should come so far merely to lie by the stream with her +hour after hour, or else, with a "Shall we go up there?" to ascend the +stream, skirt the wood, gain the open mountain-side, and toil for half +an hour to the summit. He had substituted no other pretence for his +first pretence of fishing. What did she think of it? Or did she not +think of it at all? + +Again that morning, when she had scoured the plates and set them in a +little rocky basin by the quivering moss, he proposed the mountain +climb. In half an hour they were at the top. It was a plateau of +volcanic rock, with scrubs of hazel, and bents and reeds and harebells +ceaselessly stroked by the wind. Behind them, as they sat down under a +rock, only Mynedd Mawr rose higher than they; below them Llyn Delyn lay +like a bit of grey looking-glass set in its little mile-long cleft. They +had raised other bits of looking-glass, too, in other far-off clefts. +About them the mountains rolled as if invisible giants were being tossed +in the visible blankets of the land. On the left only, far from +Llanyglo, a scratch of silver showed that the sea was there. + +"So you're off to-morrow," he said, when they had lain long. He did not +hide from himself the ache the words caused him. + +"My tick-ket say to-morrow," she answered, without emotion. + +He muttered something foolish about an extension.--"But I suppose they +wouldn't keep your place open," he answered himself hopelessly. + +Her next words caused him a marvellous pang of lightness and hope. + +"I think-k I not go back," she said, the seaweed eyes looking at that +far-off silver scratch that was the sea. + +Why did that pang at which he had winced instantly become another pang, +at which he winced no less? What was it that the eyes of his spirit saw, +far, far, farther off than her seaweed ones saw the sea? Her decision to +stay, if she really meant that she would stay, should have meant the +continuance of his happiness; what, then, should change it into +something like an unhappiness and a fear? + +He did not know. He was only an ordinary young man. He only knew that +over that moment, which should have been one of a care removed, a faint +shadow of an irremovable care already impinged. + +He had sat up, and was looking at her.--"You mean--that you won't go +back at all?" he said. + +"Indeed I think I cannot go back," she answered; and her imperfect +speech left it uncertain whether indeed she meant that she was still +unresolved, or whether to her, who had not been able to endure a night +in Llanyglo, a return to Liverpool would be more than she could bear. + +"But--but--what would you do?" he asked. + +"I stay here lit-tle longer, and then I get wick-ker from Dafydd Dafis, +and mend chairs, like my mother." + +"But--but----" It was so new to his experience. "You mean you'd just go +from place to place?" + +"If I go to Liverpool I die," she answered. + +John Willie, torturing himself over this long afterwards, could never +decide what that subtle yet essential change was that came over their +relationship from that moment. It was quite contrary to any change that +might have been expected. But for that sullen "No, damn it," he might +have been conscious of hardier impulses as the term of her holiday +approached; but very curiously, it was now that he learned that it had +no term that he felt those hardier stirrings. It was exactly as if, with +little time to spare, he had wasted time, and now, with time enough +before him, he must lose no time. Perhaps it was also that growing +wonder what she must think of fishing expeditions without fishing. + +Or--or--could it be that that sweet clamour of her person had all along +shown patient intention, and that he, he only, had been dull?... + +But, more quickly than he had thought of charging her with this--(he +was only an ordinary young man)--he had to acquit her again. Certainly +she had not decided not to leave because, staying, she saw him daily. +She merely dreaded towns and disliked those over-glorious waxen +cenotaphs that were raised to the memory of the humble flowers she knew. +And he was still sure that at an unguarded movement from him she would +have fled days ago. At an unguarded movement she would fly now. He had +what he had only on the condition that, by comparison with his hunger, +it was and must remain nothing.... What then? Must he come, and still +come, until the wraiths of the mists began to drive over a dead and +sodden Delyn, and those tossing blankets of the mountains became hidden +in rain, and the wood of Glyn Iago became brown and thin, and the stream +an icy torrent, and Llanyglo itself as empty as a piece of old +honeycomb? + +He did not know, nor did he know how, without risking all, to ascertain. + +Yet know he must; and in that moment, forgetting his "Damn it, no," he +contrived as if by accident to touch her hand. But he was none the wiser +for doing so. As his hand moved with intent, hers moved innocently; her +fingers began to pull to pieces the little yellow flower she had +plucked; and he had not the courage to essay it twice. + +Nor did he, his broodings notwithstanding, find that courage again that +day. The sun crept round; tiny Llyn Delyn far below began to shine with +an amethyst light; and a quietude filled the heavens above and the land +beneath, so that the rolling mountains seemed to be no longer the +tossing of giants, but rather as if the giants, their tumbling game +ended, had crept under the blankets and had gathered them about their +heads and shoulders for the night. The sea and sky became a shining +golden bloom of air. They descended to the Glyn again. There they ate a +packet of sandwiches which John Willie had brought, and then he rose and +stood, irresolute. He must go, he must go.... She was setting her +stick-heap in order; her plain black dress, that showed off Philip +Lacey's superfatted flowers, was an anomaly by the side of the Delyn +twigs.... + +"Nos da," he said. + +If the face she lifted had not been glorious, his thoughts of it would +now have made it so. + +"Nos da," she replied.... + +If he still said "No," it was not with the sturdy expletive now. Chiefly +he now feared to risk and fail. + +He left abruptly. + +He drove to Llanyglo that night with a brassy sunset on his left that +sank to the colours of dying dahlias as mile succeeded mile; and this +time he did not turn into the winding lanes that led to the quarry. From +the main road to which he kept he could see Llanyglo's corona three +miles away. But it moved him now, not to the revulsion and distaste of a +week ago, but only to a careless contempt. Some aroma seemed to have +passed away from his dreamings. For the first time, he felt himself to +be an ordinary young man returning from the mountains where he had +something "on." This new slight bitterness extended even to his thoughts +about the perspicacious Minetta. Be hanged to Minetta. If Minetta +overstepped the mark he would very quickly tell her to mind her own +business. He had to pull himself out of his moroseness and to remind +himself that she had not done so yet. + +As he passed along the Pontnewydd Street he did not at first notice the +diminution in the number of people usually to be seen there at that +hour. Nor, as he sank into his reverie again, did it immediately strike +him that the greater number of the people on the Promenade were hurrying +in one direction--the direction of the Trwyn. But he entered the +dining-room at home in time to find June and Minetta scrambling hastily +through their supper. All the dishes had been laid on the table at once, +and their shawls were cast in readiness over the backs of chairs. This +time he deemed it prudent not to raise any opposition to their plans, +whatever these had been. Instead, he drew up his own chair. + +"Off out?" he remarked. "Well, I hurried back to take you somewhere. +Just let me swallow something, and then I'll come with you. What's up?" + +In telling him what was "up" Minetta seemed to make the most of some +advantage she apparently fancied herself to possess. If he had only +glanced at the newspapers, she said, instead of rushing off the moment +he'd bolted his breakfast, he'd have known what was "up." It had been +"up" in Llanyglo that afternoon--such a crowd as never was, and Eesaac +Oliver was to preach in the Floral Valley again that night. + +"Unless he changes his mind," Minetta added. "Of course it's part of it +all that he doesn't make arrangements. He'll stop in the middle of a +walk and begin to preach just where he is, and then at other times, when +they've made all ready for him and everybody waiting, he's praying in +his bedroom or something and nobody dares go near him. So they never +really know till he begins. There's only one thing he won't do----" + +"Eesaac Oliver?" John Willie began, puzzled. "Wait a minute----" + +Then, as Minetta once more tossed her head, he remembered. Of course. +The Revival.... + +And what he did not remember he did not, in the circumstances, choose to +ask his sister. It would only be giving her another opportunity to +comment on his remarkable absences. He remembered much. He remembered +those rumours of the great spiritual thing that had broken out at +Aberystwith, had then rolled tumultuously up the coast to Barmouth, and +thence to Harlech and Portmadoc, and thence up the sky-high steeps of +Ffestiniog, and through the folds of those tossed blankets west into +Lleyn. He remembered--yes, he remembered now that his eyes were turned +outward from himself and his own affairs again--the preachings of Eesaac +Oliver on the bare mountain-sides, and his fastings among the rocks, and +his baptisms in rivers, and his liftings-up of his voice on the +outskirts of towns that had presently emptied to hear him, and his +calling on folk to turn from the wickedness of their ways while there +was yet time, for the Day of Judgment was at hand. He remembered these +things because at the time he had thought them rather one in the eye for +the Howell Gruffydds and the John Pritchards who, when the Council came +to debate such delicate but profitable subjects as licencing and mixed +bathing, had tactfully allowed themselves to be represented by the soft +closing of the door behind them. He knew what that interrupted sentence +of Minetta's meant, "There's only one thing he won't do----" The only +thing that Eesaac Oliver would not do was to preach within the stone +walls of their new Chapels. He held these bazaar-supported buildings to +be defiled, their Baptist temples places out of which the traffickers in +money and doves must be driven with scourges. It mattered not that John +Pritchard was a pillar, Howell his own father. "He that loveth father +and mother more than Me----" He would preach as the mighty Wesley +preached, from wall-tops, from the boulders of the stony places, from +the wheelbarrow, from the milking-stool, from the saddle. He would +journey and preach, and journey and preach again, four, six times a day. +There was a Door which, entering by it, gave his instant and flaming +Theme--the Door open to Llanyglo itself unless it would sink, it and its +Kursaals and its Big Wheels, its Lunas' Entertainments and its bivalves +lying under the lighted lamps on the public grass-plots, its Alsatians +and its greedy Chapel-goers, its harlotry and its cupidity and its +bright sin and its blasphemy of the Name, into the pit where it must be +destroyed. + +"Oh, _do_ hurry up!" said Minetta impatiently.... + +Ten minutes later they were hastening along the half-empty Promenade. + +The Floral Valley was no longer as it had been when Philip Lacey had +plotted it out so neatly with his pair of compasses and coloured it with +his geranium and lobelia and golden feather. At its upper end, a +Switchback now humped itself like a multiple dromedary, and clear across +it, from a staging on one side to a staging on the other, was swung the +cabled apparatus known as an Aerial Flight. Philip's bandstand still +occupied the middle, but the rest, save for a few outlying dusty beds, +was as barren as a gravel playground. The Valley had held five thousand +people on the occasion of the Brass Band Contest; that night it held and +overflowed with thrice five thousand. Half-way up the ascending path +that led to it John Willie Garden saw that there was no approach from +that quarter; there was nothing for it but to take to the slippery grass +and the darkness, avoiding the bivalves open and the bivalves shut, and +struggling as best they could to the crest. There, with an arm about +each of them, he led them through the slowly moving outer circle of +people who struck matches and laughed and occasionally craned their +necks forward to look over the dense mass in front. By degrees they +gained the ring where, if little was to be seen, a word now and then +could be heard; and thereafter, by losing no chance of wriggling +forward, they reached a point from which they could see the bandstand. + +A ladder ran up to its roof, and up this ladder Eesaac Oliver and two +other men had climbed. The bight of a rope had been passed about Eesaac +Oliver's body, its ends running round the gilded spike that crowned the +flat eight-sided pyramid; and the men who crouched on the slope varied +the tether as Eesaac Oliver moved this way and that round the octagonal +gutter. The trapeze of the Flight hung motionless in the air above him; +the shrieking Switchback had stopped; and the slight white figure, so +precariously perched, turned to all sides of the vast speckled bowl +about him. + +"See who that is, at the right hand rope?" John Willie whispered to +June. He still had an arm about either of their waists, and he fancied +that June pressed a little closer to him. + +"No. Who?" she whispered back. + +"Tudor Williams. Expect he couldn't get out of it. He made a speech the +other day, all about Young Wales, a regular dead set at them, and he'll +sweep the poll after this. I don't know who the other is.--Listen, he's +turning this way now----" + +Eesaac Oliver's voice came across the packed still basin. + +"Cry aloud--spare not--lift up your voice like a trumppp-pet! I say to +you young men, and I say to you young women, that this cit-ty by the sea +shall not be spared, no, no more than the cit-ties of the plain were +spared! It smells of corrupp-tion; it is an offence in the nostrils of +God! There is more sin packed into it than there is drops of blood in +your bodies, and more wick-kedness, and more fornication, and more +irreligion. And those who should help, do they help? Indeed they do not! +They fill their pock-kets instead! I tell them, their own souls go, +perhaps this night, into the pock-kets of Hell! Aw-w-w, their bazaars +prof-fit them lit-tle there! Their new Chap-pils prof-fit them lit-tle +there! Their funds, and their balance-sheets, and their +foundation-stones with their names on them, prof-fit them lit-tle +there!--But I say to you young men, and you young women, that the Wa-ter +of Life is free. Come now, come now! Do not say, 'I will sin one more +sin and then repent'--perhaps you be taken away before that sin iss +commit-ted----" + +He turned again, and his voice became less clear. + +Perhaps John Willie and his charges were well where they were, high on +the rim of the basin. Whether with the pressure of those behind, or with +the swelling of their own emotion, many below were moaning softly, and +one or two small and hushed commotions seemed to be centres of fainting. +The inner ring, close to the bandstand, was hatless; the belt above them +was packed so that it would have been impossible to remove a hat; and +always about the uppermost circle matches twinkled in and out. Again +Eesaac Oliver's voice was heard, as if borne upon a wind: + +"--he that loveth father and mother more than Me----" + +"Is his father here?" June whispered to John Willie.... + + * * * * * + +Howell was at his own home, surrounded by sympathetic neighbours. Sunk +into his arm-chair, he sobbed. Big John Pritchard tried to console him, +but he was inconsolable. He shook with his emotion. + +"My own fless and blood!" he sobbed. "To turn from his parents, that fed +him, and clothed him, and sent him to the Coll-idge, and gave him +allowance of twen-ty-six pounds a quarter, and bring him up in the fear +of God! Oh, oh!--John Pritchard, give me a drink of water if you +please.--And to call his father and mother sinful pip-ple! Indeed, Hugh +Morgan, you are happy you have no children! They know bet-ter than you +always; indeed the 'orld go on at a great rate, we get so wise! And the +Chap-els burdened with debt! There is half a dozen Chap-els for him to +preach in, but he say the highways and the hedges is his Chap-pil!... +Look you, he not even come home. I meet him in the street, I, his +father; and I say to him, 'Eesaac Oliver,' I say, 'if you will not +preach in the Chap-pils, then you preach in that field on the Sarn road; +you get crowds of pip-ple; it is a big field, and will hold crowds of +pip-ple.' But he turn away, indeed he turn his back on his own +father!... Look you: If he preached in that field, they find their way +to that field, look you, all those pip-ple--they learn the way to that +field as well as they learn the way to the sta-tion--and the Chap-el buy +it cheap--oh, oh!... By and by that field be worth ten bazaars--oh, +oh!... Blodwen, if the gas is lighted upstairs I think I go to bed--the +things that were good enough for his father and mother are not good +enough for him--this is a heavy day----" + +John Pritchard and Hugh Morgan helped him up the stairs to bed. + + * * * * * + +June, Minetta, and John Willie left the valley before Eesaac Oliver +descended from the bandstand. As they walked along the now rather more +crowded Promenade Minetta seemed to be in livelier spirits; she +chattered with June; but John Willie was morose again. Again he was +wondering what would have happened had Ynys not chanced to pick a flower +at the moment when his hand had moved imperceptibly towards hers. He saw +her again, bending over the stick-heap and looking up as she gave him +that expressionless "Nos da." By this time she was probably asleep, +asleep far away up that Glyn, with the deep plunge of the fall for her +lullaby, the stars for her night-lights, and the sun over the wood-edge +for her alarum in the morning. Before the noises of Llanyglo should +awaken him, she would be lying flat on the bank, taking trout for his +breakfast. + +And, again and ever again, he wondered whether, had that attempted touch +of his not miscarried, she would have been off as the trout would have +been off at the falling of her shadow on the water.... + +For one moment, just before he went to sleep, he seemed to hear Eesaac +Oliver's voice again: + +"Do not say, 'I will sin one more sin and then repent'--perhaps you will +be taken away before that sin is committed----" + +Then he slept, brokenly, waking at intervals to mutter "Damn it----" and +to think of her again where she lay, far up Glyn Iago. + + + + +V + +THE DWELLING OF A NIGHT + + +John Willie began to spend his days up Delyn and his nights elsewhere +than at Llanyglo. He too passed them under the night-lights of the +stars--for if she could go to bed by those candles, so could he. On the +first night on which he did not return to Llanyglo they peeped down on +him where he lay, gazing at them, a mile and more over the head of +Delyn, to the summit of which he had reascended after bidding her "Nos +da" in the Glyn. On the second night he put another mile between herself +and him, bathing in the morning in a brook the chilliness of which only +a little refreshed him after his night's tossing; he slept for three +hours that afternoon, with her keeping watch by his side. And on the +third night he lay among the fern, in her own old place behind Sharpe's +hut. She did not know that he did not return each night to that dusty +town by the sea. + +And now once again he was muttering to himself, fiercely and frequently, +"No--no----" + +June's stay began to draw to a close. Minetta suspected her of moping +for John Willie, and told her that he often disappeared for days at a +time like that. Sometimes, she added, he called it fishing. + +"But he'd be fearfully annoyed if we went to look for him," she said; +and she turned away and smiled. + +She smiled again when one morning June had a letter from Wygelia, with a +postscript for herself. "_A bit of gossip for Minetta_," the postscript +ran. "_Ask her if she remembers a girl from Llanyglo father took into +one of his shops. He's thinking of sending out search-parties for her. +She went off for a holiday, and hasn't turned up again----_" etc., etc., +etc. + +And so it was that John Willie, filled now with one thought only, came +to miss quite a number of things that went down into the history of +Llanyglo. He missed, for example, those first days of Revival in which +the town, self-accused of sin, strove to purify itself. He missed that +storm of impassioned evangelicalism in which Eesaac Oliver, walking one +day on the Porth Neigr road, stopped at the foot of the lane that led to +the quarries, suddenly threw up his hands, broke forth, and presently +had the occupants of a dozen brakes and wagonettes listening to him in +the great echoing excavation of the quarry itself. He missed, too, an +odd little by-product of that gale of spiritual awakening--the +black-faced group that one morning made its appearance on the beach, and +resembled a troupe of ordinary seaside niggers until it broke, not into +Plantation Melodies, but into hymns, one of which had a catchy pattering +chorus that told over the names of the blest ones the redeemed would +meet in Heaven: + + "_There'll be Timothy, Philip and Andrew, + Peter, Paul and Barnabas, + James the Great, James the Less + And Bar-tholo-mew_----" + +He missed that other great storm of groans and fervour, when the pale +young regenerator, mounting the railway embankment from a low-lying +meadow near Porth Neigr, began to preach before sunset, preached until +the stars came out, and then sent hysterical young women and overstrung +young men home in couples along the benighted lanes together, to comfort +and enhearten and uplift one another as they went.... And he missed, +among these and a multitude of other things, a certain rather famous +exploit of his compatriot, Tommy Kerr. + +He knew how Tommy had flouted and insulted Llanyglo, and how Llanyglo in +return had long been looking for signs that Tommy was drinking himself +to death. But neither John Willie Garden nor anybody else had thought of +the alternative solution of the inconvenience of Tommy's presence in +Llanyglo. This was, not that Tommy himself should fall one night and +break his neck, but that something should happen to the house that, +having been put up by the four brothers in a single night, was enjoyable +by them as long as they or any of them should remain alive. + +During Ned's illness, if that listless state in which he had moved +between the accident to Harry and Sam and the death of the canary had +been an illness, the care of the Hafod had fallen to Tommy; and that was +as much as to say that it had been cared for very little. Moreover, the +fabric itself was perhaps by this time impaired. The digging of the +foundations of the hotels on either side of it had done it no good, and +the constant vibration of the Pontnewydd Street trams had done it even +less. On a certain Sunday morning, some weeks before the sickening of +the canary, Tommy had taken it into his head to make a thorough +examination of the place, while Ned had dozed in his chair. That +examination had given Tommy a bad fright. Mounting a short ladder and +looking up into the roof-space above the single living-room, he had +found the loft far lighter than it ought to have been; but it had not +been the gap in the roof that had scared him so badly. It had been what +he had seen through the gap--the chimney-stack all tottering, hooped out +on one side like a barrel.... + +With boards and baulks, an old pole-mast and other timbers from the +unsightly little backyard, it had taken him the greater part of the day +to shore the chimney up again. + +Whew! He and Ned had been sleeping under _that_!---- + +It may be that there had been plotting against Tommy, too--or, if not +actually plotting, a great deal of quiet watching to see what would +happen, backed by a powerful desire that something should happen. Both +Howell Gruffydd and John Pritchard were on the Roads Committee, +and--well, it was obvious that Pontnewydd Street could not remain +unrepaired merely because these Kerrs happened to live there. Orders had +gone forth that its mains were to be seen to, pits had been dug in the +street and barriers erected round them, and red flags set there by day +and red lanterns by night. + +Nothing had happened. + +Then the excavations had been filled up again, and the road-metal carts +had come. The surface was to be tackled.... + +So it had been that John Willie Garden returning one night from Delyn, +had seen Dafydd Dafis's road-engine drawn up for the night opposite the +Imperial Hotel. + +The engine had remained in Pontnewydd Street ever since. + +It shook the Hafod as if it had been brought there expressly for its +destruction. During the very first hour of its slow and ponderous +passing backwards and forwards, Tommy's newly cobbled chimney had given +a not very loud crack, and, like a heavy sleeper, had settled down into +a more comfortable shape. Tommy had come out, and had hailed the man who +walked in front of the machine with a red flag. Nervously, almost +politely, he had asked him how long they were likely to be. The man had +replied that they had orders to "make a job of it." Then Tommy had seen +Dafydd Dafis's face, watching him from the cab.... Half an hour later he +had met Howell Gruffydd in the Marine Arcade. The Chairman of the +Council had stopped. He had patted the shoulder of the common enemy +gently with his hand, and his smile had been odiously affable. + +"Well, Thomas Kerr," he had said, "how are you? I hear there is +improvements at Plas Kerr; you have a grand road to your house soon, +whatever! I think we have to assess you higher. How are you, Thomas +Kerr?" + +Kerr had hated the Welshman's fine, small, regular teeth. They were +false, but by no means the falsest thing about his mouth. As he had made +to move away Howell had continued. + +"I hope Dafydd Dafis does not incommode you with the road-engine, Thomas +Kerr? He has orders not to be a nuis-ance to the town. 'Drive as gently +as you can, Dafydd Dafis' is his orders.... You are off to the Marine +Hotel now, Thomas Kerr? Dear me, it is a curious fas-cin-ation such +places have for some pip-ple! Would it not be bet-ter to come to the +Chap-pel on Sundays?... Thomas Kerr." (Tommy had been shuffling +miserably away.) "Excuse me, Thomas Kerr, but you lose your handkerchief +if you are not careful!" + +And at this reminder that he had intended to button up his pockets in +the presence of his foe, Tommy had been wellnigh ready to weep. + +And then Ned had died.... + +There was a good deal of "edge," or vanity, or self-esteem, or conceit, +or whatever you like to call it, about Tommy Kerr. He knew now that that +road-engine would not be taken off as long as his crazy house stood, and +he was stung and mortified that a few beggarly Welshmen, backed by a +pettifogging Railway Company or two, with Kursaals Limited, a miserable +District Council, a Pleasure Boats' Amalgamation, a few Hotel Syndicates +and other such trifles, should be able to beat him. He felt very lonely +without Ned. He would have liked to see Lancashire again, particularly +Rochdale, his own town. He wanted to walk its hilly streets, and to see +the Asbestos Factory again, and Hollingworth Lake. He would almost +rather be found dead there than continue to live among these indigo +mountains and pink hotels and chrome-yellow sands. + +And so he set about his exploit. + +At the very outset they tried once more to baulk him. For the thing that +he intended to do certain timbers were necessary, and at six o'clock one +night he passed, none too steadily, to a timber-merchant's, and gave an +order to a clerk. The clerk smiled, and sent for his principal. Kerr +pointed to various pieces in the yard. "Ye can send that--an' that--an' +that t'other," he said thickly; "ye can get 'em out now--I'll fetch a +cart." Then, looking at the builder's face, he saw that he too, like the +clerk, was smiling.... + +There was no need of words. Howell Gruffydd had been beforehand with him +again. If one builder refused to sell to him, so, he knew, would all the +others. He was wasting precious time with builders. + +How many inns he had been to that day he could not have told, but he now +felt the heart in him again. They thought they could dish Tommy Kerr +like that, did they? Well, he would show them.... He lurched away to the +"Lancashire Rose," in Gardd Street, and then crossed to the "Trafford." +But at neither of them did he stay very long. He left the "Trafford" at +a little after eight, three hours before he needed to have done so. He +wanted those three hours. He also wanted all the hours he could get +between then and sunrise. + + * * * * * + +No sober man would have dreamed of attempting it; but sobriety and large +deeds do not always go hand in hand. Neither do large deeds and very +clear thinking--which, stout hearts being commoner than unmuddled +brains, is lucky for us. Through Kerr's bemused head ran one thought and +one thought only, namely, that the Hafod had been built by himself and +his three brothers in a night--built in a night--built in a night---- + +If it had been built in a night it could be rebuilt in a night---- + +It had taken four of them to build it, but the rebuilding ought not to +be nearly so heavy a job---- + +He would show them he did not come from Lancashire for nothing! + +But before entering his dwelling that night he committed an act of +theft. That damned road-engine had again been left drawn up opposite the +Imperial Hotel, and Tommy, fumbling under the tarpaulin that covered it, +stole something from the cab. He chuckled as he seemed to see again +Dafydd Dafis's cat-like face looking at him round the fly-wheel. _He'd_ +show Dafydd Dafis!---- + +He entered his house and locked the door behind him. + +He had formed no plan, but yet, somehow, he was conscious of a plan, and +a reasonably clear one. Where it had come from he did not know; it was +as if he heard again, somewhere in the air quite near, the voices of his +brothers again, saying, in the loved Ratchet accents, "Never heed that, +Sam--here's where th' strain comes--we'll do th' paperin' and put a pot +o' geraniums i' th' window after." He saw these vital points and +master-members of his plan as if they had been marked in his mind in +red. He had not to stop to reason about them. He knew--dead Ned seemed +to tell him--that the wall between the living-room and the scullery +might stand. He knew--he seemed to have it from Sam--that the whole of +the street-frontage was sound. The ends, near the two hotels, were the +danger-points; most perilous of all was the main beam under the lately +propped chimney. The chimney must be taken down first of all. "To +lighten th' beam, ye see," Harry's voice seemed to sound; "nay, donnot +fiddle wi' it--shove it ovver into th' alley--we're pushed for time----" + +So, whether you call it drink, or whatever you call it, Tommy did not +set to work quite unassisted. + +At the very beginning he almost came to grief. This was over the +chimney, that essential member of the dwelling up whose throat the +comfortable smoke had passed on that far-off morning as a token of +habitation before the eyes of astonished little Llanyglo. He had climbed +out on to the perilous roof and had begun to "study" how best to take it +down; then, as cautiously he had unlashed and removed the baulks and the +pole-mast, the chimney had suddenly thrust out its stomach at him. His +heart gave a jump, and in a twink he had set his back against it, +grasping a rope to check his heave.... But the chimney would neither +stand, nor yet fall as he wished it to fall, over the end of the Hafod +into the side-alley. It wanted to fall inwards, over Tommy's head. He +thought his agonised effort would never end.... But end it did. He felt +the release of weight. The thing hung poised for a moment, and then.... + +He was once more down in his kitchen before the windows which had been +flung up in the two hotels had closed again. No doubt they had been +waiting for days for that crash. They did not know that the scandalous +Tommy himself had caused it. The ghost of a malicious smile crossed his +face. "Sucks," he muttered, "for Gruffydd." + +Then, at eleven o'clock at night, he fell to his house-breaking. + + * * * * * + +"Kerr?" said the author of the _Sixpenny Guide_, when asked about this. +"I suppose you mean Tommy Kerr? Yes, I remember him.--His cottage? That +Hafod Unos place?--Yes, it's perfectly true. He did pull it down or put +it up again in one night, or at any rate something like it. An uncouth +little animal he was; a drunken little beast; still, he did this. Made +quite a job of it too.--How? That I can't tell you. But I saw the place +the next morning, and it seems to me that at one time during the night +both the ends and half the back must have been as open as an empty +rick-shed. Of course the whole thing was altogether preposterous. Six +men's work. I was staying a little farther up the road, and by daybreak +there must have been a thousand people in Pontnewydd Street. Nobody +lifted a finger. They just watched. He wasn't to be seen mostly; he was +busy inside; but when he did come out he never turned his head.--Sober? +Impossible to say. And of course he didn't quite finish the job. But +you've heard the rest." + +The rest was as follows: + + * * * * * + +By three o'clock in the morning Tommy was neither drunk nor sober. He +was a will and a piece of muscular apparatus, the two things quite +separate, yet working together with never a jerk to mar the harmony. As +a worn-out old machine will continue to run provided it is not +interrupted, so Kerr worked, in a state to which the only fatal thing +would have been to stop. The Tommy Kerr Llanyglo knew was a base thing, +senseless as the lime and stone through which his chisel drove (with a +fearful racket), obstinate as the beams under which he hammered his +wedges; but this was another Tommy Kerr--somehow the name yet somehow +another--a Kerr who might have been imagined to mutter, as he laboured, +that it was a gradely night for a titanic act--that he came from +Lancashire, where men did impossible things as a matter of course--and +that if any Welshman would pocket his pride and ask him, he would pull +down and put up again their whole blasted flashy town for them while he +was about it. + +And perhaps he was not really patching up his tottering cottage at all +that night. Perhaps he was rather doing one of those useless and +splendid things that alone among man's contrivances do not crumble and +fall. Perhaps he was doing in his ruined Hafod pretty much the same +thing that Eesaac Oliver Gruffydd did from bandstands and railway +embankments and rocks and bedroom windows--setting up an ideal, and +bidding men remember, though they might never attain, to strive. Or +perhaps he was working from the most religious motive known to man--to +please himself, trusting that if he did so he might please Something +greater than himself. If so, his idea might have had grandeur, but that +grandeur was curiously expressed. For he did not cease to grunt from +time to time, as his face became grimy and then washed clean again with +perspiration: "Damned Treacle-tongue! I'll _sew_ my pockets up next +time! Owd false-teeth--their road-engines--him an' his new brolly!----" + +By four o'clock twenty road-engines could not have shaken down the beam +on the chimney side of the house, and without another look at it he +turned to the other wall. It was Ned's remembered voice that bade him +hasten. As he tackled the second beam he grew quite chatty with Ned. It +was Ned who kept him to those red-marked crucial points, and told him +that he needn't bother about the walls, for the ceiling-sheets would do +to cram into the interstices, and that, if he made haste, the golden +days would come again when he had mocked at all Welshmen, and had had on +the hip the Railway Companies and Kursaals and Hotels and Steamboats +that had done their utmost to get rid of him. + +It was soon after this that he became conscious of other whispers than +Ned's. At last he had seen the crowd gathered in Pontnewydd Street. But +by this time he had ripped his ceiling-cloth down, and the grey incoming +day was suddenly darkened again as he ploughed across the talus of +debris and made a wall of cloth, fastening it anywise from beam to beam. +Ned said that that was quite good enough. You never caught wise old Ned +napping. Tommy Kerr had been very fond of his brother Ned. He had gone +ratting with him, and alder-cutting, and he remembered a whippet Ned +had once had, a rare dog for nipping 'em as they turned, and a canary +too.... + +Then Tommy Kerr's brain, which for more than seven hours had been as +steady as a sleeping top, gave a little wobble. This was as he paused in +the middle of the floor of his incredible house. There was something +else he had to do; what was it?... _What_ was it, now?... He knew there +was something else he had to do.... + +He would have done better to begin his work all over again than to stop +and think. + +What ... ah yes, he remembered! He remembered and chuckled. Why, he had +been on the point of forgetting the cream of the whole joke!---- + +He stooped by the rounded grey mound of lime and plaster that +represented his bed, but his knees gave, and he came with a little thump +to the floor. But he rolled over on his side, and his fingers found what +they sought, and after a few minutes he rose again. In his hand was the +red flag he had stolen from the cab of Dafydd Dafis's road-engine. That +was to go up where his chimney had been, that chimney that had emitted +that first smoke on that far-off first morning. The town, when it awoke, +must on no account miss _that_. Tommy Kerr wanted to see the faces of +Howell Gruffydd, John Pritchard, Dafydd Dafis and Co. when they saw that +flag.... + +He tottered to the ladder that ran up into the loft. + +He fell twice from the lower rungs of it, but a foot of lime made his +fall soft. He mounted to the top, and crawled on his belly across the +open rafters of the loft. He did not know how he got out on to the roof; +it seemed to him that he lay below for a long time, gazing up through a +gap at the paling sky and wondering how it was to be done, and then +miraculously found himself where he wished to be. Then he got on his +feet. + +Then he saw them, the people in the street below. He had again forgotten +they were there. So much the better; they should see him do it. Then +he'd give a shout that should wake all Wales, and--and--by that time the +pubs ought to be opening.... + +But the little hand-staff of the flag was not long enough to please him. +He wanted a longer one, to make more of a show. It took a whole tree to +carry the flag over the Kursaal Dancing Rooms there. It was stupid of +Tommy not to have thought of that--not to have brought one up from +below, where there were plenty--yes, plenty---- + +As it happened, he did not need the stick. It all came about very softly +and gently. He was standing up, again looking about for a longer stick, +when once more his brain gave a wobble. The watchers below saw him lean, +as formerly his chimney had leaned, only now Tommy Kerr leaned the other +way---- + +And so gently did he come over, and so comparatively short a distance +had he to fall, that you would have sworn it did not hurt him very much. +He stuck to the little square of red calico at the end of the short +staff; it was still in his hand when they picked him up from the heap of +chimney-bricks that choked the little alley where the principal entrance +to the Kursaal Gardens now is. + +Ancient Mrs. Pritchard, when she heard of it, baa-ed, and said that folk +came and went--came and went---- + + + + +VI + +THE GLYN + + +From sleeping badly, John Willie Garden had passed to sleeping hardly at +all. From that same fear of startling her, he still did not appear in +the Glyn much before his accustomed hour (though there had been times +without number when he had resolved otherwise); instead, he wandered +about, a mile, two miles away, sometimes setting himself a distant point +to walk to, on his return from which it would surely be time he was +seeking her. On the first two mornings of his absence from home he had +not shaved; then he had decided that that would never do, and has sent +somebody from the inn below to fetch him a bag. With the bag had come a +short note from Minetta. It had merely said that June was leaving on the +following Saturday, and that after that day she would be alone in the +house. + +He now wished he had not asked Minetta to show June that sketch. She had +put it on his breakfast-plate for all the world as if _he_ had wished to +see it, instead of merely to show June how much better it was than the +others. He didn't think that Minetta cared in the least how he spent his +time, but she was so sharp, and queer as well as sharp. She watched +things without taking any part in them. The more self-absorbed the +actors showed themselves, the more keenly interested Minetta became. In +many respects she took after her father. Edward Garden too had that +habit of poking and prying into people's tastes and enjoyments and +passions and desires, noting and understanding them while remaining +himself inaccessible to such weaknesses. It wouldn't greatly have +surprised John Willie to learn that Minetta guessed what he was about up +Delyn. + +The curious thing was that, if that were so, he didn't think that +Minetta would disapprove. She would look as it were over the tops of a +pair of imaginary glasses, and under them, and finally through them, and +her ironical glance would say as plainly as words, "This seems to be a +love-affair." She would neither disapprove nor approve, or, if she did +approve, it would be of his provision of entertainment for her. Her +disapproval would appear only if John Willie involved her in something +that would not "do." + +This brought John Willie straightway back face to face with his old and +torturing dilemma, of having something "on"--but something that would +not "do." + +A hundred times he had fought it out, and a hundred times he had come to +the conclusion that, while Minetta might resemble her not quite human +father, he, John Willie, was his mother's son. His mother would have +been entirely for that "No" that a hundred times had gained the day. +After each of these victories he had been on the point of turning his +back on the mountains and of not returning as long as he knew her to be +there. These impulses had now nothing to do with his fear of startling +her. They were born of that stiff and indispensable code. He had only to +thank her for a few breakfasts, to tell her he was going, to wish her +well, and all would be over. He found rest in the thought. He might +suffer an ache or two afterwards, but it would be the best way out. It +had been his first impulse, and it had proved to be his last +conclusion. He would consider it settled so. It would be much the best +course to act like an ordinary young man. + +For several days he had said that. + +He said it again on the morning when he shaved off half a week's growth +of beard. + +Once more he had slept within a stone's-throw of the hut. There had been +light showers during the night, but hardly enough to call a break of the +weather; the drops twinkled on fern and grass and spiders'-webs and tiny +flowers, but the ground was still as dry as tinder. As he shaved, with +the little mirror of his dressing-bag hung on a hazel, he reflected that +it was only half-past seven, and that the Llyn ought to be a good colour +for fishing. There would be plenty of time for a cast or two before +saying good-bye. But his rod was in the locked hut, of which she had the +key. No matter. Since he had now come to his decision, it would make no +difference did he seek her in the Glyn a little earlier than usual. He +would then be able to get away earlier in order to say good-bye to the +neglected June. + +He was heartily glad it was all over. The only possible course seemed so +plain that he wondered now what he had been tormenting himself about all +this time. Smiling a little, he even thought of all the awkwardnesses +and dissimulations and machinations and deceits he was by one stroke +escaping. He _would_ have felt rather a brute had he come upon Dafydd +Dafis one day, and asked him how he was getting on, and, casually, what +had become of that little niece or cousin of his, whose name he would +have had to make a lying pretence of having forgotten. It _would_ have +been behaving rather off-handedly to June, to see her for the first two +days only of her stay and then to let her go without as much as seeing +her off. It _would_ be better that Minetta should not have to write home +saying that John Willie was away (fishing) and she alone in the house, +but she was quite all right. It _would_ be better to think of the things +that would permanently "do"--altogether more comfortable and +satisfactory not to have to call himself, in the waking hours of nights +in the years ahead, or in the days to come when business claimed him, by +a disquieting name. It was not as if there were not plenty of other +things to think of. This particular aspect of life was far too much +dwelt on. Percy Briggs dwelt on it too much, he himself had dwelt too +much on it. He wasn't sure that he hadn't been getting even a little +morbid about it. Not every lovely flower is picked because it is lovely +and then thrown wilting away again. John Willie had come to his senses. +It had taken him some time, but he was all right again now. He wondered +how those people at the inn below had been looking after his horse. +They'd probably let him get fat and lazy. Well, he would give him a +twisting on the way home. Too much inaction is good for neither horse +nor man.... + +He finished shaving, and began to whistle as he packed his tackle and +strapped the case. He would leave the case where it was, and pick it up +on his way back. He would take the boat, pull straight across, get it +over, and then have a swinging walk down to the inn. Despite his moping +wanderings, he felt the need of a really good hard walk. + +He strode down to the lake, unfastened the boat, dashed the waterdrops +from the thwart with his cap, and pushed off. + +It was a brilliant, if broken, sky. Up the mountain-side the light +mists were quickly evaporating, and a great crag of dazzling white +cloud, shaped like the north of Scotland on a map, was perfectly +reduplicated in the glassy Llyn. As if the surface of the water had had +a tenuity without abating a jot of its crystal clearness, the smooth V +from the bows seemed to shear through something that, even when the +water settled to rest again, did not return; there fled at each stroke +an intact perfection. He altered the boat's course, and the reflection +of the edge of Delyn broke into long smooth stripes. He altered it +again, and an invisible comb seemed to pass through the towering +inverted cloud. His wake was a dancing of broken glittering facets. He +stood in towards the shaly spur; a few more strong strokes and he +grounded abruptly; and he gathered up his boots and stockings from the +bottom of the boat, stepped out, and made fast at the bottom of the +Glyn. + +The showers had swollen the stream a little, and mossy stones that had +been dry the day before were lapped by the water, and pools came farther +up his calf. But suddenly at a thought he stopped. In the new +circumstances it was a new thought. She did not expect him for some +hours yet; it might be better--in case of his coming upon her as she +might not wish to be come upon--to give a call. On second thoughts he +was sure that he ought to give a call. He opened his mouth---- + +But it was not necessary. Suddenly he saw her twenty yards ahead. She +had probably been up for hours, and had got her bathe over long since. + +But even that glimpse of her through the leaves had been as it were two +glimpses. In the first of them he had seen that she was there; in the +second he had noted that her appearance was not her usual appearance. +She was no longer wearing the black dress of Philip Lacey's flower-shop, +but that old blouse, unconfined at the waist, and again, as on that day +when she had started back from the door of the hut, her legs and feet +were bare. Four trout lay on the grass beside her, one of them still +fluttering. She was stroking the drops of water from her forearms, and +wiping her hands on her old striped petticoat. + +He did not call, but all in a moment she looked round as quickly as if +he had done so. At first he thought she was going to start to her feet +and run, but she remained seated. Then a bough intervened. He put it +aside behind him, threw his boots and stockings ashore, and climbed the +bank. + +"Hallo, Ynys," he said, as he sat down beside her. "I'm a bit early, but +I've got to get off soon. They want me down there. There are some people +I must see before they go." + +Then he wondered whether, after all, he had not startled her. In her +eyes was once more that look that had been there that other day, when +she had fallen back, though no farther than a cat falls back. If that +was so he must reassure her by going on talking. Without pausing, he +continued. + +"Yes, I shall have to get off by eleven. I've not been home, you see. +Couldn't stand going back to that place, so I just made myself +comfortable by the hut there.--I say, I hope you didn't get wet with +that rain in the night?" + +Simply, freely, naturally, and without a second thought, he put out his +hand to feel whether her petticoat was dry. He supposed she slept in her +petticoat, and that his early visit had not allowed her time to change. + +But she crouched back so swiftly that he also fell a little back, +surprised. He forgot that his own words, "I'm a bit early," raised +twenty questions--questions of why he was there at all, of how it had +come to pass that a variation in his habit was a thing to be remarked +on, of why his announcement that he must be off early seemed even to +himself a breach of something that had never been established, but only +tacitly allowed. He forgot these things, stared at her, and suddenly +exclaimed, "Why, what's the matter?" Had she feared that he was about to +put his hand upon her? One of her elbows had shot up as if she would +have defended herself, and the frightened seaweed eyes looked at him +over the guarding forearm. Her other hand, behind her on the grass, +supported her. So they sat, she trembling, he covering her with an +astonished stare. + +Then, as quickly as she had raised it, she dropped the defending arm. +She made a swift clutch at her petticoats and scrambled a foot farther +away from him. Her breast fluttered like that of the still living trout, +and her hand was clasped betrayingly about one foot hidden in the short +striped petticoat. + +And in a twink John Willie saw his mistake. It was not from his advanced +hand that she had shrunk. It was from the resting of his eyes--those +eyes that, even as she had drawn herself back, had already rested. Those +eyes, of Scandinavian blue, had sought hers again, of the wet greenish +brown of the seaweed of the shore. + +He spoke quietly. + +"Come here, Ynys," he said. + +She did not move. + +"Come here, Ynys," he said again. + +Her trembling became violent. + +"Come here, Ynys--I want----" + +He did not finish. His hand shot quickly forth. The next moment it held +what she had striven to hide. He was gazing at the silver mark that ran +round the outer edge of her foot near the little toe as a vein runs +round a pebble. + +She had twisted her body so that her face lay on the grass, covered with +her hands. She made one feeble movement to draw the foot from his hand, +and then lay still. When, presently, he put it gently down, she made no +further attempt to hide it; what was the good, since he had seen? It lay +still now, a little crinkled brown sole with bits of vegetation pressed +into it, and, running across it, that old thread, silver, like the +wedding-ring of her mother--that hard little sole that had made the +kidney-shaped footprints on the Llanyglo beach, that had pattered after +pedestrians on the road, and that would take to the roads again rather +than be pressed into a shoe and walk the pavements of a town. + +Yet, though he had seen the foot, she seemed determined he should not +see her face too. Presently she was conscious that he was trying to do +so, that he was gently trying to draw away the concealing hands. That +she resisted. "Ynys! Ynys!" he was saying remorsefully in her ear. She +lay quite still, and "Ynys! Ynys!" he continued to repeat, over and over +again. + +At last he heard that uniquely soft voice of hers in reply. She spoke +into the grass, not sobbingly, only a little dully. + +"I 'ould not show you," she begged him--movingly begged him--to +believe. + +"Ynys--dear!----" + +"Indeed you ask me, one day, if I take off my boots and stock-kings, and +I 'ould not----" + +"No, no----" he soothed her. + +"I not show nobody, in lot-t of years, never." She turned her face to +him for a moment; the anger of a fury lurked there for him had he not +believed her. "I not show nobody, if they kill me," she went on. "Lot-t +of years I _hate_ it----" the vindictiveness of the single word died +away, and he scarcely heard what came next, "--but I not hate it any +more now----" + +His answer was to rise suddenly to his knees, to stoop again, and to +kiss the foot he had innocently maimed. He was conscious as he did so of +its quick little pressure against his mouth.... + +The next moment his arm was about her shoulder, and he was gently +seeking to see her face again. + +"Cariad!" he murmured, his lips to her ear. + +And he knew that by no other means could it have come to pass. "Lot-t of +years I hate it--but I not hate it any more." She had hated the foot for +its disfigurement. She had loved it for him. + +There was no question of Yes or No as they ate their breakfast together; +it was as it was, and neither guilt nor innocence had any part in it. +From time to time, as they sat, he flung his arms about her shoulders as +frankly as children embrace, and she suffered the crushing with lips +parted and eyes immeasurably far away. The black pool was flecked with +froth; it danced over the whitey-green ebullition at the foot of the +swollen fall; and two dragon-flies, one blue as a scarab and the other +like a darting twig of green metal, hovered and set and spun. There +seemed to be no wind, but the great country of white cloud up aloft had +advanced, and a soft gloom filled the Glyn. They did not wash up; +impatiently John Willie tossed the platter they had shared aside; and +they embraced again. + +Midday did not find John Willie on his way to Llanyglo, nor yet did he +see June off by the three o'clock train. By three o'clock he was on the +summit of Delyn again, under the same rock where he had tried, as if by +accident, to touch her hand. She had put on her shoes, but not her +stockings, for the climb, but he had drawn them off again, and once more +she lay, luxuriating with her foot under his hand. Even now she did not +talk very much. She had only one thing to say, with lovely monotony and +very few words to say it in; she strayed no farther from her little +store of English than to say, over and over again, "Boy bach!" with the +greenish-brown eyes slavishly on his, and her parted lips hurrying out +the diminutive before he crushed them again. She started from her dream +once, as a stray sheep close behind them gave a call like a rich oboe; +then she relapsed into it again. The shadows lay still and leagues long +over the rumple of mountains, and she had not changed, and had promised +that she would not again change, that unfastened bodice and short and +faded old petticoat. + +So June steamed away, while Ynys's face was framed in John Willie's arm +on the summit of Delyn. + +They descended to the Glyn again between the afternoon and the early +evening, and with each step as they dropped down the mountain a silence +grew and deepened on them. He knew its meaning, if she did not, and, +back by the pool again, he first cleaned the forgotten platter (which +she tried to prevent), and then stood before her as he had stood when +once, with an abrupt, "Nos da," he had stridden away. And in that pause +of gazing silence he knew how much was packed--his Yes, his No, hers +too; all that lay behind them, all that lay before. For him, there lay +enwrapped in it that slight black figure he had seen under the crimson +pier-light; his searching for her; his finding her; his struggles, his +decision, and then, even in the act of his relinquishment, his wonderful +recovery of her. And her memory took a farther flight still. She saw +herself, a little girl, sitting with a bandaged foot upon a chair, while +a testy girl not two years older than herself drew her likeness. She +remembered the unendurable length of those half-hours--unendurable, save +that occasionally there looked in at the door or passed the window a +cowslip-haired boy, with hard blue eyes that would stare down even his +own conscience and none be the wiser, a conquering boy, of a race so +habituated to conquest that it takes with the sword-hand and carelessly +tosses twice as much back with the other. That was what it meant to her, +that silver mark that ran round the edge of her foot as a vein runs +round the edge of a pebble.... + +And for the future? His future might be anything, but hers could be one +thing only. For the gipsy loves never but the once. In all but love, the +waters of the world are not more unstable than she; in love, the rocks +are not more irremovable. Therefore she has no past and no regrets. She +has no regrets, for there is no scar upon her heart--how can there be a +scar, when a scar is a healing, and this wound is never healed, but ever +new, ever quivering? And she has no past--how can she have a past when +all is a poignant and lovely present, that endures to the end?... + +There was so little for John Willie to do. He had only to go away +without kissing her again. + +Kiss her, however, he must not--he was only an ordinary young man---- + +He knew it, and---- + +He passed his arms about her waist and drew her down by his side. + +It was dark in the Glyn long before the light had faded from the open +hillside above. In Llyn Delyn not a fish rose to break that dark and +intact perfection. The fall into the pool diminished a little in volume, +and mossy cushions that had lately been covered began to rise out of the +water again. And a heart was laid quiveringly open where formerly only a +foot had been maimed. She was twice conquered, for she was Welsh and +woman too. In the hearts of the men of her race the fame of their story +still lives, and while it lives strife will not cease. As their own +proverb says, what the sword took, the tongue will take back again. + +But the woman goes with the land. + + + + +PART FIVE + + + + +I + +THE WHEEL + + +It was a summer nightfall in the Kursaal Gardens. The turnstiles of the +new Main Entrance in Pontnewydd Street revolved ceaselessly, with a +noise as of an unending rack and pinion. The lightly clad merrymakers +poured under the trees that had electric globes for fruit; they moved +towards the cream-coloured buildings that, with their illuminations, +seemed no more than footlights to the solemn stage of the immeasurable +blue beyond. Most of them were going to that Dancing-Hall where all the +youths and maidens of the world seemed to dance together; the others +hurried to keep appointments, to sit at the little tables where the +waiters moved on the grass, to join the slowly moving circle about the +bandstand, or to see the side-shows. The band played the "Lohengrin" +Prelude; the soft sound of gravel crunching underfoot mingled with the +music; and the great lighted circle of the Big Wheel rose against the +sky. + +In the topmost coach of the Wheel sat John Willie Garden and June Lacey. +They were alone in the bright upholstered compartment. June wore her +Juniest frock and an engagement ring; John Willie, who had been walking, +was in cap and knickers. They had been engaged since the Spring, and +everybody had said how splendidly it would "do." They had played +together (everybody had said) since childhood, knew exactly what to +expect and what not to expect of one another, had (as they put it) the +solid cake to cut at when the sugar and the almond-paste had begun to +pall, and what could have been more romantic? + +"They'd be hard put to it to think of anything they're short of," +everybody had said. + +From the windows of the car they could see the whole of Llanyglo. With +the turning of the Wheel they had watched its lights rise slowly over +the intervening roofs, and then slowly sink away again. Now, to see the +grounds below, they had to step to the windows and to look almost +vertically down, through the intricacy of girders and lattice and +mammoth supporting piers. + +"It takes about twenty minutes to go round, doesn't it?" June asked. + +"About that," John Willie replied absently. + +"Look at the Trwyn light!" + +"Yes, dear." + +"We aren't as high as that, are we?" + +"Oh dear no." + +"I suppose we've stopped to take more passengers up?" + +"I expect so." + +Then, after a pause, June said, "Do you know, dear, I think I've finally +decided about the drawing-room. I think I shall have it all white--every +bit----" + +From her white gloves to her gypsophylla petticoats, she was a girl any +young man would have been glad to spend his shillings on, and her house +was going to be as smart and complete as herself. Her father was coming +down very handsomely for her wedding, and in addition to his other +gifts, was going to lay out the gardens and the greenhouse for them. +Counting her silver, tapping her flower-pots to see which was in need of +water, trimming bits of raffia with her scissors and putting drops of +gum into her geraniums, June would be exactly in her right place. She +was already attending a Cookery Class, and had all her household linen +marked. And already they were promised any number of presents. "Presents +are so useful," she had said to John Willie, "because then you have +them, and so often they're the kind of thing you'd put off buying for +yourself." It was all going to "do" very splendidly. + +"I say," said John Willie by and by, "we don't seem to be moving." + +"The Wheel?" June asked. + +"Yes. But it will go on in a minute, I expect." + +"I hope it won't stop long," June replied. + +John Willie also hoped it would not stop long, but for the life of him +he couldn't have told you why he hoped so. Indeed he tried to smother +the hope. He tried to smother it because he had an obscure feeling +that--that--well, if a reason can smile, that his reason for not wishing +to stay up there too long was quietly smiling at him. It seemed to +tell him that he and everything about him were enviably all +right--safe--thoroughly and entirely comfortable--need have no fears for +the future--and that all would continue to be just as comfortable and +safe and altogether all right until he should come to die, in a best +bed, with eiderdowns, and frilled pillow-cases, and hot bottles, and the +certainty of a handsomely appointed funeral a few days later. Few were +as sure of their future as that. John Willie was one of the lucky +ones.... + +He moved, not to the windows from which he could look down on the +lights of the Promenade and Pier, but to those that were turned to the +dark and unseen mountains. Somehow this reason he had for hoping that +the car would not stop long seemed to come from there. He told himself +that he would be better presently. He had these--bad humours, call +them--sometimes. He hid them from June, but Minetta had noticed them, +and he knew all about them himself. He turned to June again. + +"I wonder what's happened," he said. + +"It's--it's quite safe, isn't it?" June asked. + +"Oh, quite." His lips compressed a little. It was quite safe--neither +more nor less safe than everything else in John Willie's life. That, +somehow, was at the bottom of these ill-humours of his. + +"Dash it," he muttered.... + +"It is a nuisance," June agreed. "But I don't suppose Minetta will be +anxious." + +"I wasn't thinking of Minetta," John Willie replied. + +Now when you are reluctant to enter into explanation, and there is +something you badly want to do, you never (if you are an ordinary young +man) look very far for a reason. The first that comes will serve your +turn. If it is a flimsy one, no matter; you then get angry when its +flimsiness is pointed out to you, and presently out of your anger and +obstinacy you will have found a reason as good as another. John Willie +did not at all like those interior smiling taunts of himself that took +the form of congratulations on his neatly planned life and pillowed and +feathered death to close it. If anybody of his own weight had taunted +him thus he would have knocked that person down. But you cannot knock +down a whisper that seems to come on the wind from the mountains +through the night, making you, your ordered comfort notwithstanding, +absolutely wretched. Again John Willie turned to June. + +"I say, June; this won't do, you know," he said. + +June looked enquiringly at him. + +"But we can't do anything but wait, dear, can we?" + +He did not answer. + +They waited. Half an hour passed. Then John Willie muttered again that, +among so many other things that would "do" beautifully, this particular +thing would not "do." June coloured a little. + +"But--but--it isn't our fault," she murmured, picking at the fingers of +her gloves. + +He saw she understood. Again they waited. + +Then, suddenly, John Willie came shortly out with that reason that must +serve in the stead of his real reason. He knew how lame it was. A score +or two of other young couples were in precisely the same situation as +they, and more that cheerfully resigned to their plight; but then they +were not being goaded and taunted as John Willie was being goaded and +taunted. They were not being told that their paths lay, so to speak, on +flowers, while the paths of others were the stony road, that cut and +blistered the foot, and tired the eyes, and bowed the back (but had no +power, perhaps, thus to reproach the heart).... Anyway, John Willie was +not disposed to stand it. + +"June," he said abruptly, "I can't stay up here all night with you." + +Her wail interrupted him.--"Oh-h-h!----" + +"It wouldn't do." + +"Oh-h-h--it isn't our fault----" + +"No, but that can't be helped. The woman I marry----" + +"Oh-h-h--but there isn't anything to do!" + +"Oh, yes there is. We needn't be together. I can get into another car or +something. It will only be like walking along the footboard of a train." + +She gave a little shriek.--"Oh--if you do I shall throw myself out--I +know I shall!----" + +"You won't do anything so silly. Get up, dear; I've quite made up my +mind. I tell you it wouldn't do. The woman I marry...." + +With gentle force he picked her up and set her on the seat of the car. +Then he approached the window. There was a bar across it, which it took +him a minute to bend, but the chances were that where his head would +pass the rest of his body might follow. June hid her face and moaned as +he took off his coat; then he kissed her and thrust his head under the +bar. He wriggled through, stood on the footboard, smiled again grimly +through the window, and then looked down. + +At any rate, he had given a reason of sorts. + +Then he looked up. + +Instantly he saw that, unless head or wrist or finger should +unexpectedly fail him, the most dangerous part of his exploit lay at the +very beginning. There was no descent from the step on which he stood. +The cars were slung from axles, and in order to get to the rim that held +the axles themselves he must climb to the roof of the coach. He glanced +at the roof of the coach twenty feet below and to his left. He saw that +it had a curved rain-sill like that of the top of a railway carriage. +Good; the coaches would be all alike. He set his knees in the +window-frame once more. June was still lying with her face hidden on the +seat. His fingers felt blindly for the rain-sill; they found it, and he +moistened his other hand. He wished he could have glued it, for for some +moments mere friction must be half his support. For an instant he +thought calmly and abysmally; then he risked it.... + +It succeeded. He knelt on the roof, holding the sling and coupling that +hung from the car-axle overhead. He glanced up at the axle to which he +must swarm. The singing in the cars continued, and a babble of sound +rose lightly from below. Evidently he had not been seen to get out of +the car. + +But then, who would have thought of looking? + + * * * * * + +It was as he swarmed up the coupling that there first came over him the +sense of the difference between the reason he had given, and the real +reason that had brought him out from that brightly lighted and cushioned +car in which he might far more easily have stopped. And the realisation +of that difference brought with it, very strangely, the sense, not of +bodily peril, but of inner peace. It was unaccountable, but there it +was, not to be argued about. The only thing that disturbed this peace, +and that but lightly, was that his venture had not a more profitable +object. Folk did less dangerous things for far better reason--to save +life, or property, or something else worth while. But this neck-risking +of his was--could only be--bravado. He knew perfectly well that in the +circumstances nobody would have thought a penny the worse of June. "The +woman I marry----" he had known that to be an hypocrisy even when he had +said it. No, he was merely idiotically showing-off, and that peace at +his heart would presently prove to be an illusion.... + +It was quite suddenly, as he lay out along the Wheel's topmost +car-axle, that the thought of Ynys came to him. He didn't know why it +should come at that moment, unless it was born of his bodily isolation +on the very top of that immense bracelet hung with trinkets of cars. But +perhaps it was that; perhaps there was a connection, if only an idle and +fanciful one. Save perhaps the keeper of the Trwyn light, nobody in +Llanyglo was nearer the stars than he that night; and only Mynedd Mawr +had been higher than he when he had lain on the rocky head of Delyn.... + +Or was it, not the isolation of his body at all, but his isolation of +soul, that had brought that mysterious and inexplicable and probably +fallacious peace. + +While not ceasing to keep his carefully calculating eyes open, and every +motor-fold of his brain intent on the preservation of his balance, he +began to think of Delyn. + +He had stayed many days up there; some weeks perhaps; he couldn't have +told you how long. Its rain had soaked him, and its winds dried him +again; its streams had fed him and its herbage furnished his litter at +night; but the sun itself had not warmed him more than had her impulsive +looks and surrendering gestures when he had but lifted up a hand. With +another eye than that that now measured the distances between girders +and axles and ties, he seemed to see the rocks again, and the lake +shining in its morning intactness, and the drowned bubbles of the fall +in the Glyn, and the thin wind stroking the short grass, and the +mountain-ashes under which they had sat, their leaves like finger-prints +against the sky. He could see again the trout she had cooked for +him--her breast had fluttered as those dying silvery things had +fluttered, silvery as that dry old scar he had kissed. He could smell +the smoke of her morning fire again, her hair, her breast.... And he +could hear again the shrill warning note in that unique voice of hers +that had first set him wondering whether, after all, it would "do." ... + +That quarrel had not been on that heart-breaking morning of their +parting. There had been no quarrel then. No; it had been at something +unguarded he had said about his sister and her friends. Yes, he saw +again the insensate jealous flame in those seaweed eyes, and heard the +ugly passionate cracking of the voice in which she had cried, "They +noth-thing, your fine miss-es! They mar-ry house without a man if they +could--they take house in their arms--they make those eyes at house, and +kiss house, and call it cariad! You no dif-ferent from them! You go to +your miss and say, 'I have house'--she want-t you then!----" It had +taken a whole morning before he had had her, humble and sobbing and +remorseful and enslaved, in his arms again.... No, it wouldn't have done +to marry a temper like that--and, temper altogether apart, it wouldn't +have done. There are only a few years of this world and its +companionships, and, though your friends may have their twists and +crankinesses, they are still your friends, all you are likely to have. +Better be in the stream with them while you are here. He would only have +been sorry for it later, on her account as well as on his own. She had +been quicker to see that than he, and had spoken of it in her soft and +halting English. At first he had laughed and said "Kiss me" ... but she +had been right.... + +But John Willie, with a Wheel to descend, must not let these things take +him too far from the business in hand. + +He had reached a chain in a great guiding sprocket, but he thought of +what at any moment a hand upon a lever in the power-house far below +might do, and of one of his father's men who had once been carried round +shafting. No moving parts for him.... He looked down through an +iron-framed lozenge at the people below. The grounds resembled a tray of +many-coloured moving beads. All Llanyglo seemed to have run to see the +stopped Wheel. Probably the Pier itself was half empty. If so, all the +more room for anybody who wanted to watch, not a Wheel, but the moon +lift her gilded sacrificial horn out of the sea.... There had been far +too much drub-drub-drubbing. John Willie was weary of it. It was time he +settled down. And Llanyglo itself seemed to have come to much the same +conclusion. It had begun to make a restriction here and a regulation +there, as if it wished to purge itself of its evil name. There was no +doubt that for a time it had been a very sinful place, and ... (here +John Willie, with a slow steady pull, hoisted himself to where he wished +to be, on the long curved upper plate of a massive H, rivet-studded like +a boiler, that was knitted with iron lace to other H's--John Willie must +not venture too far down that slope unless he should suddenly acquire a +fly's faculty for walking upside-down) ... and perhaps the town had +begun to get a little frightened, as sinful people, and perhaps sinful +towns also, sometimes do. But that would be all right presently. +Llanyglo was going, in a manner of speaking, to be married. It was +turning over, had turned over, a new leaf. Soon it would be a churlish +thing to reproach it for a past that it had lived down; it was becoming +sadder and wiser, and better able to distinguish between the things that +would "do" and the things that would not. The less talk ... (here John +Willie began to realise that he was not a fly, and to collect his nerves +for the turn-over to the under side of that H that a few yards away +dropped over, with a little gleam, into nothing) ... the less talk the +soonest mended. He did not intend to say--anything--to June. Indeed he +intended ... (there: that was rather a jerk to his shoulder socket, but +he was safely underneath) ... indeed he intended that his attitude to +June about such matters should be rather severe. This was not because +June's own thoughts were in the least degree lax (she erred, if +anywhere, on the prudish side), but because women were very tender +things. A whisper was fatal to them. That was why John Willie was +clinging now to that enormous piece of knitting of iron and upholstered +carriages and electric light. He had climbed out in order that nobody +should be able to say, after that, that.... + +Then it was that he knew, once and for ever, that this was a lie. Then +it was that he knew that he was not where he was, suspended between the +stars of heaven and the lamps of earth, on June's account. He was there +because a gipsy girl had called him. This was his service, not of the +pretty and pleasant June he was presently going to marry, but of one +whom he had not married, of one he had not feared to compromise, of one +who had known nothing, cared nothing, save that she had been lost in a +wild and tender and beautiful love. She, none other, had called him---- + +Then, too, it was that there rose to him from below a faint yet high and +shuddering "A-a-a-ah!" that was followed by a sudden cessation of all +sound whatever save only a distant throb and pulsing in the +Dancing-Hall. It surprised him for a moment; then he remembered. Of +course. He had been seen---- + +She, none other, had called him, and he knew now that so she would +continue to call him, wherever he might be--from his labour by day and +from his rest by night, from his laughter with his children and his +clasping of his wife. She would continue to call him until softness and +ease should have done their slow and fatal work, would continue to call +him until that nerve, with her harping on it, should have become +dull.... + +He seemed to hear the echoes of that voiceless calling, diminishing +through the years to come. They would end in a silence that his wife's +innocent garrulity would never, never be able to break---- + +The faint throb in the Dancing-Hall also ceased. The Kursaal Gardens +were a bead mat of faces. There was not a whisper. Delyn was not +stiller. + +Unconscious that already he was black and torn and bleeding, he looked +down from his girder upon the bead mat. He knew what, presently, if he +came down alive, every bead there would be singing--his daring and his +quixotry and his devotion, and the possession by June of a husband who +would do this rather than suffer the lightest breath upon the mirror of +her name---- + +He looked at them as he clung, scarce bigger than a speck, high in that +webbed diadem of the Wheel---- + +And as he hung there, with only the guardian of the Trwyn light higher +than he, and the rest of the descent still to make, he still could not +decide, of the two things that oppressed his heart, which was the +atonement and which the sin. + + + + +II + +ADIEU + + +"You're leaving Llanyglo? Well, holidays must come to an end.--You'd +like another walk up the Trwyn? Very well; but you've seen all there is +to see.... + +"Here we are.... What's going on at the Light? Oh, that's the Board of +Trade, experimenting with some new fog apparatus or other. By the way, +the Light people are rather sore because of a new Regulation, that they +mustn't have lodgers at the farm; and also because they'd like to grow +roses up the look-out wall, and that's prohibited too; I suppose the +authorities think they'd be spending the day looking at the roses +instead of at the ships. They've moved the rocket apparatus farther +along the coast; they found it wasn't much use here, and it's turned out +very successfully at Abercelyn.--Eh? Yes, where the manganese comes +from. They still get a certain quantity, but there's peace in the +Balkans or wherever it is for the moment, so nobody's growing very rich +out of the mines here.... + +"Hallo, that's rather a coincidence. Don't look round too quickly. You +see that tallish man over there? I don't suppose you've even seen him +before; as a matter of fact he hasn't been--er--to be seen. He got into +trouble once; in plain English, they put him in prison. His name's +Armfield, and his trouble was all about Llanyglo. Awkward things, +meetings like these. I think Armfield's a capital chap, and I should +like to go and talk to him; but prison's a cruel thing, and you never +know how the poor fellow himself feels about it.... Ah! As I thought, he +looks rather broken. If you don't mind we won't watch him. Come on to +the Dinas and have a smoke.... + + * * * * * + +"How's John Willie Garden? Perfectly rosy, if beginning to get a bit +fat. Lucky dog! Four children, two boys and two girls, quite an amiable +chatter-box of a wife, and rich enough to buy almost anything he wants. +Lucky, lucky dog!--Did I tell you he was the adopted Conservative Free +Trade candidate for one of the Manchester divisions? Not that he cares a +snap about Free Trade politically; economically it merely happens to be +a good part of his bread and butter; but then you have to be careful +about what you say on platforms, and so John Willie talks like the +editor of the _Spectator_ himself. June Garden runs her two houses, one +here and one in Manchester, like clockwork, and they go backwards and +forwards between them in a really regal car. Every tramp and gipsy on +the road knows that car. However fast he's driving, John Willie always +pulls up and gives them a shilling. Just a foible of his. We all have +'em in one shape or form. + +"Llanyglo's going in heartily for these new proposals for advertising +the town out of the rates. A young man called Ithel Williams is very +keen on it; he's a son of Tudor Williams, the Tudor Williams who used to +be M.P. for this division. Young Ithel's got rather a nice billet here, +as Librarian or something for the Council, and if this new thing goes +through he'll be quite in clover.--Jobbery? Well, I suppose that's the +name for it, but personally I'm not altogether against it. It seems to +me that the only alternative is putting these berths up for competitive +examination, which in my opinion's failed all along the line, so find +the right man and then job him in, I say.--The right man's so frequently +a relative? Well ... there you are. That _is_ the weak spot. But there's +always a crab somewhere.... + + * * * * * + +"I wonder if Armfield's gone yet? Let's have a look.... No, he's still +there.... + + * * * * * + +"A good season? Yes, from all accounts it's been a very good season. +There have been better from the purely money point of view, I should +say, but after all everybody can't be everything, and every place can't +get all there is. Llanyglo, like other places, has its natural limits of +expansion. I don't think it will get any bigger yet awhile. There's no +doubt the Wakes people were the people who flung the money about, and +they've a little fallen off; but even if Llanyglo has to write down some +of its obligations it will probably gain in the long run. A section of +the Council's coming to see that, and is pressing for reconstruction +(that's always rather wonderful to me, that they should construct things +of solid materials and then reconstruct them by saying they cost less +than they did); but that's the Council's business, or rather the powers +behind the Council. Edward Garden isn't one of these any longer, at any +rate not to the extent he was. He sits in Manchester and makes towns in +Canada now. But he still looks at letters under his glasses, and over +them, and backwards and forwards and upside down, and then looks mildly +up at you and says the letter seems to be a letter.... + +"A last look at the place: there you are: bay, Promenade, Pier, the ring +of mountains behind. It grew from a few fishermen's huts to +over-capitalisation in a very few years. And there's Terry Armfield, +still looking at it all, like a not very old Rip Van Winkle. I wonder +what he's thinking! I suppose he couldn't keep away, but must come and +remember it as it was and dream over it again as it was never, never to +be.... Walk past quickly; he's sobbing, poor chap. His dream was of a +place--I don't know how to describe it--all friendliness and loveliness +and graciousness, fowl and flesh and good red-herring all in one, so to +speak, what you might call a diaphanous sort of place, a jolly place to +think of during those few minutes of the morning or evening when you're +not quite asleep and not quite awake, but--hm!--I'm not so sure ... not +in this imperfect world.... + +"Anyway, that down there is what he sees.... + +"I suppose the other wouldn't have done.... + +"Shall we go?" + + +THE END + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Note: Hyphen variations left as printed. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mushroom Town, by Oliver Onions + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MUSHROOM TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 39482.txt or 39482.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/4/8/39482/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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