My People: Stories of the Peasantry of West Wales

Front matter

MY PEOPLE

MY PEOPLE

STORIES OF THE PEASANTRY OF WEST WALES

A Father in Sion

A FATHER IN SION

I

A FATHER IN SION

On the banks of Avon Bern there lived a man who was a Father in Sion. His name was Sadrach, and the name of the farmhouse in which he dwelt was Danyrefail. He was a man whose thoughts were continually employed upon sacred subjects. He began the day and ended the day with the words of a chapter from the Book and a prayer on his lips. The Sabbath he observed from first to last; he neither laboured himself nor allowed any in his household to labour. If in the Seiet, the solemn, soul-searching assembly that gathers in Capel Sion on the nights of Wednesdays after Communion Sundays, he was entreated to deliver a message to the congregation, he often prefaced his remarks with, “Dear people, on my way to Sion I asked God what He meant2”

This episode in the life of Sadrach Danyrefail covers a long period; it has its beginning on a March night with Sadrach closing the Bible and giving utterance to these words:

“May the blessing of the Big Man be upon the reading of His Word.” Then, “Let us pray.”

Sadrach fell on his knees, the open palms of his hands together, his elbows resting on the table; his eight children1Sadrach the Small, Esau, Simon, Rachel, Sarah, Daniel, Samuel, and Miriam1followed his example.

Usually Sadrach prayed fluently, in phrases not unworthy of the minister, so universal, so intimate his pleading: tonight he stumbled and halted, and the working of his spiritful mind lacked the heavenly symmetry of the mind of the godly; usually the note of abundant faith and childlike resignation rang grandly throughout his supplications: tonight the note was one of despair and gloom. With Job he compared himself, for was not the Lord trying His servant to the uttermost? Would the all-powerful Big Man, the Big Man who delivered the Children of Israel from the hold of the Egyptians, give him a morsel of strength to bear his cross? Sadrach reminded God of his loneliness. Man was born to be mated, even as the animals in the fields. Without mate man was like an estate without an overseer, or a field of ripe corn rotting for the reaping-hook.

Sadrach rose from his knees. Sadrach the Small lit the lantern which was to light him and Esau to their bed over the stable.

“My children,” said Sadrach, “do you gather round me now, for have I not something to tell you?” Rachel, the eldest daughter, a girl of twelve, with reddish cheeks and bright eyes, interposed with:

“Indeed, indeed, now, little father; you are not going to preach to us this time of night!”

Sadrach stretched forth his hand and motioned his children be seated.

“Put out your lantern, Sadrach the Small,” he said. “No, Rachel, don't you light the candle. Dear ones, it is not the light of this earth we need, but the light that comes from above.”

“Iss, iss,” Sadrach the Small said. “The true light. The light the Big Man puts in the hearts of those who believe, dear me.”

“Well spoken, Sadrach the Small. Now be you all silent awhile, for I have things of great import to tell you. Heard you all my prayer?”

“Iss, iss,” said Sadrach the Small.

“Sadrach the Small only answers. My children, heard you all my prayer? Don't you be blockheads now1speak out.”

“There’s lovely it was,” said Sadrach the Small.

“My children?” said Sadrach.

“Iss, iss,” they answered.

“Well, well, then. How can I tell you?” Sadrach put his fingers through the thin beard which covered the opening of his waistcoat, closed his eyes, and murmured a prayer. “Your mother Achsah is not what she should be. Indeed to goodness, now, what disgrace this is! Is it not breaking my heart? You did hear how I said to the nice Big Man that I was like Job? Achsah is mad.”

Rachel sobbed.

“Weep you not, Rachel. It is not for us to question the all-wise ways of the Big Man. Do you dry your eyes on your apron now, my daughter. You, too, have your mother's eyes. Let me weep in my solitude. Oh, what sin have I committed, that God should visit this affliction on me?”

Rachel went to the foot of the stairs.

“Mam!” she called.

“She will not hear you,” Sadrach interrupted. “Dear me, have I not put her in the harness loft? It is not respectable to let her out. Twm Tybach would have sent his wife to the madhouse of Carmarthen. But that is not Christian. Rachel, Rachel, dry your eyes. It is not your fault that Achsah is mad. Nor do I blame Sadrach the Small, nor Esau, nor Simon, nor Sarah, nor Daniel, nor Samuel, nor Miriam. Goodly names have I given you all. Live you up to them. Still, my sons and daughters, are you not all responsible for Achsah’s condition? With the birth of each of you she has got worse and worse. Child-bearing has made her foolish. Yet it is un-Christian to blame you.”

Sadrach placed his head in his arms. Sadrach the Small took the lantern and he and Esau departed for their bed over the stable; one by one the remaining six put off their clogs and crept up the narrow staircase to their beds.

Wherefore to her husband Achsah became as a cross, to her children as one forgotten, to every one living in Manteg and in the several houses scattered on the banks of Avon Bern as Achsah the madwoman.

The next day Sadrach removed the harness to the room in the dwelling-house in which slept the four youngest children; and he put a straw mattress and a straw pillow on the floor, and on the mattress he spread three sacks; and these were the furnishings of the loft where Achsah spent her time. The frame of the small window in the roof he nailed down, after fixing on the outside of it three solid bars of iron of uniform thickness; the trap-door he padlocked, and the key of the lock never left his possession. Achsah's food he himself carried to her twice a day, a procedure which until the coming of Martha some time later he did not entrust to other hands.

Once a week when the household was asleep he placed a ladder from the floor to the loft, and cried:

“Achsah, come you down now.”

Meekly the woman obeyed, and as her feet touched the last rung Sadrach threw a cow's halter over her shoulders, and drove her out into the fields for an airing.

Once, when the moon was full, the pair was met by Lloyd the Schoolin' and the sight caused Mishtir Lloyd to run like a frightened dog, telling one of the women of his household that Achsah, the madwoman, had eyes like a cow’s.

At the time of her marriage Achsah was ten years older than her husband. She was rich, too: Danyrefail, with its stock of good cattle and a hundred acres of fair land, was her gift to the bridegroom. Six months after the wedding Sadrach the Small was born. Tongues wagged that the boy was a child of sin. Sadrach answered neither yea nor nay. He answered neither yea nor nay until the first Communion Sabbath, when he seized the bread and wine from Old Shemmi and walked to the Big Seat. He stood under the pulpit, the fringe of the minister’s Bible-marker curling on the bald patch on his head.

“Dear people,” he proclaimed, the silver-plated wine cup in one hand, the bread plate in the other, “it has been said to me that some of you think Sadrach the Small was born out of sin. You do not speak truly. Achsah, dear me, was frightened by the old bull. The bull I bought in the September fair. You, Shemmi, you know the animal. The red-and-white bull. Well, well, dear people, Achsah was shocked by him. She was running away from him, and as she crossed the threshold of Danyrefail, did she not give birth to Sadrach the Small? Do you believe me now, dear people. As the Lord liveth, this is the truth. Achsah, Achsah, stand you up now, and say you to the congregation if this is not right.”

Achsah, the babe suckling at her breast, rose and murmured:

“Sadrach speaks the truth.”

Sadrach ate of the bread and drank of the wine.

Three months after Achsah had been put in the loft Sadrach set out at daybreak on a journey to Aberystwith. He returned late at night, and, behold, a strange woman sat beside him in the horse car; and the coming of this strange woman made life different in Danyrefail. Early in the day she was astir, bustling up the children, bidding them fetch the cows, assist with the milking, feed the pigs, or do whatever work was in season.

Rachel rebuked Sadrach, saying, “Little father, why for cannot I manage the house for you? Indeed now, you have given to Martha the position that belongs to me, your eldest daughter.”

“What mean you, my dear child?” returned Sadrach. “Cast you evil at your father? Turn you against him? Go you and read your Commandments.”

“People are whispering,” said Rachel. “They do even say that you will not be among the First Men of the Big Seat.”

“Martha is a gift from the Big Man,” answered Sadrach. “She has been sent to comfort me in my tribulation, and to mother you, my children.”

“Mother!”

“Tut, tut, Rachel,” said Sadrach, “Martha is only a servant in my house.”

Rachel knew that Martha was more than a servant. Had not her transfer letter been accepted by Capel Sion, and did she not occupy Achsah's seat in the family pew? Did she not, when it was Sadrach's turn to keep the minister’s month, herself on each of the four Saturdays take a basket laden with a chicken, two white-hearted cabbages, a peck of potatoes, a loaf of bread, and half a pound of butter to the chapel house of Capel Sion? Did she not drive with Sadrach to market and fair and barter for his butter and cheese and cattle and what not? Did she not tell Ellen the Weaver's Widow what cloth to weave for the garments of the children of Achsah?

These things Martha did; and Danyrefail prospered exceedingly: its possessions spread even to the other side of Avon Bern. Sadrach declared in the Seiet that the Lord was heaping blessings on the head of His servant. Of all who worshipped in Sion none was stronger than the male of Danyrefail; none more respected. The congregation elected him to the Big Seat. Sadrach was a tower of strength unto Sion.

But in the wake of his prosperity lay vexation. Rachel developed fits; while hoeing turnips in the twilight of an afternoon she shivered and fell, her head resting in the water ditch that is alongside the hedge. In the morning Sadrach came that way with a load of manure.

“Rachel fach,” he said, “wake you up now. What will Martha say if you get ill?”

He passed on.

When he came back Rachel had not moved, and Sadrach drove away, without noticing the small pool of water which had gathered over the girl's head. Within an hour he came again, and said:

“Rachel, Rachel, wake you up. There's lazy you are.”

Rachel was silent. Death had come before the milking of the cows. Sadrach went to the end of the field and emptied his cart of the manure. Then he turned and cast Rachel’s body into the cart, and covered it with a sack, and drove home, singing the hymn which begins:

“Safely, safely gather’d in,

Far from sorrow, far from sin,

No more childish griefs or fears,

No more sadness, no more tears;

For the life so young and fair

Now hath passed from earthly care;

God Himself the soul will keep,

Giving His beloved—sleep.”

Esau was kicked by a horse, and was hurt to his death; six weeks later Simon gashed his thumb while slicing mangolds, and he died. Two years went by, by the end of which period Old Ianto, the gravedigger of Capel Sion, dug three more graves for the children of Sadrach and Achsah; and over these graves Sadrach and Martha lamented.

But Sadrach the Small brought gladness and cheer to Danyrefail with the announcement of his desire to wed Sara Ann, the daughter of Old Shemmi. Martha and Sadrach agreed to the union provided Old Shemmi gave to his daughter a stack of hay, a cow in calf, a heifer, a quantity of bedclothes, and four cheeses. Old Shemmi, on his part, demanded with Sadrach the Small ten sovereigns, a horse and a cart, and a bedstead.

The night before the wedding Sadrach drove Achsah into the fields, and he told her how the Big Man had looked with good-will upon Sadrach the Small, and was giving him Sara Ann to wife.

What occurred in the loft over the cowshed before dawn crept in through the window with the iron bars I cannot tell you. God can. But the rising sun found Achsah crouching behind one of the hedges of the lane that brings you from Danyrefail to the tramping road, and there she stayed, her eyes peering through the foliage, until the procession came by: first Old Shemmi and Sadrach, with Sadrach the Small between them; then the minister of Capel Sion and his wife; then the men and the women of the congregation; and last came Martha and Sara Ann.

The party disappeared round the bend: Achsah remained.

“Goodness me,” she said to herself. “There’s a large mistake now. Indeed, indeed, mad am I.”

She hurried to the gateway, crossed the road and entered another field, through which she ran as hard as she could. She came to a hedge, and waited.

The procession was passing.

Sadrach and Sadrach the Small.

Achsah doubled a finger.

Among those who followed on the heels of the minister was Miriam.

Achsah doubled another finger.

The party moved out of sight: Achsah still waited.

“Sadrach the Small and Miriam!” she said, spreading out her doubled-up fingers. “Two. Others? Esau. Simon. Rachel. Sarah. Daniel. Samuel. Dear me, where shall I say they are? Six. Six of my children. Mad, mad am I? " … She laughed. “They are grown, and I didn’t know them.”

Achsah waited the third time for the wedding procession. This time she scanned each face, but only in the faces of Sadrach the Small and Miriam did she recognise her own children. She threw herself on the grass. Esau and Simon and Rachel, and Sarah and Daniel and Samuel. She remembered the circumstances attending the birth of each.… And she had been a good wife. Never once did she deny Sadrach his rights. So long as she lasted she was a woman to him.

“Sadrach the Small and Miriam,” she said.

She rose and went to the graveyard. She came to the earth under which are Essec and Shan, Sadrach's father and mother, and at a distance of the space of one grave from theirs were the graves of six of the children born of Sadrach and Achsah. She parted the hair that had fallen over her face, and traced with her fingers the letters which formed the names of each of her six children.

As Sara Ann crossed the threshold of Danyrefail, and as she set her feet on the flagstone on which Sadrach the Small is said to have been born, the door of the parlour was opened and a lunatic embraced her.

A Heifer Without Blemish

A HEIFER WITHOUT BLEMISH

II

A HEIFER WITHOUT BLEMISH

Deio and Katto Parcdu had been entertaining Job of the Stallion. Having made an end to eating, and Job and his stallion having taken to the road, Deio lifted his voice:

“Tomos, come you in here now.”

Tomos passed over the earthen floor of the kitchen, and discarded his clogs on the threshold of the lower end, which is the parlour.

“Job of the old Stallion does say that Enoch Dinas has taken a farm near the shore of Morfa,” said Deio.

“Indeed, now, there's a daft boy bach!” exclaimed Tomos. “What say you does Enoch want to do that for! Sure me, Dinas is as much as he can manage.”

“Is not that what Job did say?” spoke Katto.

“Dinas is a fairish farm,” said Deio. “Out of his old head is Enoch to leave it.”

“Sad is Enoch’s lot,” said Katto. “A high female is his wife. And an unprofitable madam is the female.”

“Iss, iss,” said Deio. “She is a burden on the place. Where is the sense now in Enoch keeping a wife and a servant?”

“Enoch is head-stiff,” said Katto. “Did not every one tell him before he married that he would have to keep a servant? For why, dear me, did the iob marry such a useless woman? What is the matter with the female? She brought with her nothing to Dinas.”

“Look you at the wife of Tydu,” said Deio gravely. “Isn’t she a sampler?”

“She’s as useful as a male about the place,” added Katto. “And she works like a black bach. And Evan her husband is always in his place in the meeting for prayer.”

“Religion comes before all with Evan,” said Deio.

“Large money indeed he puts in the Post Office,” Katto went on. “Mistress Morgan of the Post does say that he's got thirty yellow sovereigns there now. What pity Tomos cannot find a woman like her.”

Tomos came near to the round table, and bending his crooked body, spat into the fire.

“Think you now of Sara Jane the daughter of old Simon2” he began.

“Boy bach foolish!” cried Katto. “What nonsense you talk out of the back of your head! Sober serious, mouth not that you have thrown gravel at Sara Jane’s window! She's not worth her broth.”

“Katto is right,” Deio put in. “There was me and Katto talking about renting Dinas for you if you could find a thrifty, tidy female.”

“How voice you then about Gwen the widow of Noah?” asked Tomos, “There’s a one she is for tending to the house!”

“You would have to pay her,” said Deio. “It is not some one to look after the house you want. You need a woman to look after the land, and the cattle, and your milk, man. And after you. A woman who will be profitable. Sara Jane, indeed ! No, boy bach, don't you deal lightly with Old Simon's wench. Not respectable is that to Capel Sion.”

“Your father speaks sense, Tomos nice,” said Katto. “It’s time you wedded. Do you look round you for one like the wife of Tydu. Is she not tidy and saving? Was she not carting dung into the field when she was full? You will be five over forty in the eleventh month.”

Deio took out from his mouth the tobacco that was therein and placed it on the table, and he also emptied his mouth of its tainted spittle. “Be you restful now, folk bach,” he said, “for am I not going to speak about religion?” Then he raised his face and sang after the manner of the Welsh preacher: “Me and your mam are full of years, and the hearse from Capel Sion will soon take us home to the Big Man’s Palace a home, Tomos, where we will wear White Shirts, and where there is no old rent to pay. Tomos, Tomos, weepful you will be when I am up above. Little Great One, keep an eye on Tomos. Be with your son in Capel Sion. Amen.”

When he had made an end, he put the tobacco back into his mouth, and he said: “One hundred and half a hundred sovereigns is the mortgage on Parcdu now.”

“Do you listen, Tomos bach," Katto counselled her son.

“Go you off yourself to-morrow to the April Fair to search for a woman,” said Deio.

Tomos said: “Iss, iss, indeed, then.”

“And take you a cask of butter with you,” said Katto. “Leave you the butter in the back of the old trap till your eyes have fallen upon a maid; and when she has found favour with you, ask her to sell for you the butter. If she has got a sharp tongue in her mouth and makes a good bargain, say to her that you will marry her, but if she is not free of tongue, say you nothing more to her, but go in search of another.”

Deio spoke: “Tell her your father sits in the Big Seat in Sion, in the parish of Troedfawr, in Shire Cardigan. As earnest of your intention say that you are commanded to buy a heifer to start life with in Dinas. Now, little son, don't you say anything about the old mortgage.”

Tomos promised to observe his father’s instructions. “Get you there early in the morning, then,” his father said to him. “Put the black mare in the car. And, Tomos, don't you give a ride to anybody, for fear those old robbers of excisemen will catch you.”

“Make yourself comely,” said Katto. “And when you get there, put out your belly largely. See too that you get a heifer without blemish.”

Tomos shaved his chin and his long upper lip and combed his side whiskers, and he put axle-grease on his boots, and clothed himself in his Sabbath garments of homespun cloth; and harnessing the black mare to the car, in the back of which he placed a cask full of butter, he set out for the Fair of the month of April. Tomos got out of the car at Penrhiw, as the ascent therefrom into Castellybryn is rocky and steep, and guided the mare by the bridle. At the foot of the hill1this morning a street of many people and much cattle1he turned into the yard of the Drivers’ Arms.

“Fair morning, Tomos the son of Deio,” said the ostler of the Drivers' Arms to him.

“Say you have an empty stall, little son?” Tomos asked. “Surely.”

“Fair morning, Tomos. How was you, man? And how was your old father?”

Tomos turned round and looked into the face of Job of the Stallion.

“Quite well, thanks be to you, Job bach.”

“What’s your errand, boy bach? Old Deio your father did not say anything the day before to-day.”

Job, his small feet planted close together underneath his bandy legs, gazed reproachfully at Tomos.

“Well1well,” said Tomos, “am I not selling a cask of butter, man?”

“There's excuse for you now, dear me; old Katto must be mad to send you with a cask of butter to the fair. Now, now, Tomos, do you mouth to me then your errand quick at once.”

“For what you don’t know that Dinas is going, man?” replied Tomos.

“But, Tomos, why act so foolish? Was not me that told old Deio about it?”

“Of course. Father wants me to take it.”

“Little Tomos, do you speak plainly. I am not curious, but what in the name of goodness are you doing here? Be you immediate, for have I not a lot of business to do?”

“Job of the Stallion, why you are so hasty for, man? Look you, indeed, I am come for a wife.”

Job pouted his lips reprovingly, and he squeezed the large, cracked mole which was between his eyebrows with forefinger and thumb.

“I blame you, Tomos, for being so secret about your affairs.”

He thought.

“Dango!” he exclaimed. “There’s Nell Blaenffos. Do you know Nell, Tomos?”

“Nell Blaenffos?”

“You are as stupid as a frog, man. Blaenffos. Near Henllan. Nell the daughter of Sam.”

“Is she a tidy wench?”

“For why you make me savage, Tomos? Nell is Sam’s only child. She is here with her old father paying off the last of the mortgage.”

Job shouted across the yard into the inn : “Is Nell Blaenffos there?”

“Dammo!” came the reply. “She was here this one minute. Nell Blaenffos! Nell Blaenffos!”

Many voices repeated the call. They cried: “Nell Blaenffos! Nell Blaenffos! Job of the Stallion wants you.”

The cry was taken up by folk standing on the doorstep, and it reached a group of men and women gossiping in the middle of the roadway. “Nell fach,” said one of the group, “is not old Job of the Stallion needing you?”

“For shame!” observed a ponderous-waisted woman. “What for you are thinking? For shame, Nell Blaenffos!”

The people laughed.

“Go you, little daughter,” said the large woman, “and see what that old Job needs you for.”

Nell1stout and red of face, and puffing1appeared before Job, and Job informed her that Tomos begotten of Deio Parcdu (this Deio being the strongest farmer in the parish of Troedfawr, and the saintliest man in the Big Seat in Capel Sion) was desirous of taking her into his bed.

Tomos nodded his head, and said: ”Iss1iss. How was you, Nell fach?”

Nell proved him with questions.

Job took Tomos to a corner in the yard, and held a whispered conversation with him; returning he told Nell that Dinas, a farm of sixty acres, was to be let, that Deio was prepared to perform his share in stocking the farm, that as earnest of this Tomos was authorised that day to buy a heifer for Dinas.

“You see, Nell fach, that you will have to be quick, or else the best cattle will be sold,” said Job.

”Dear, dear, now," said Tomos, “I had forgotten the old cask of butter I have to sell.”

“There, indeed!” said Job. “Go off you two together and sell the cask and talk this thing over. Remember when you settle down in Dinas that my Stallion bach is to serve your first mare. Thus you will pay me for this.”

Tomos lifted the cask out of the car and placed it on Nell's shoulder, and he followed Nell to the place where butter merchants assemble. One dealer came and offered tenpence three-farthings a pound; for him Nell refused to remove even the cloth from the mouth of the cask. Another came and offered tenpence half-penny; in reply to him Nell said: “Go your way, you fool. You would rob me pure.” Now the dealer was a young man, who did not know the ways of Castellybryn, and he was aware that the first dealer was a big buyer and a cunning bargainer; so he purchased the butter for elevenpence farthing a pound, being a farthing a pound above the market price of that day.

Tomos took the money and tied his handkerchief over it, and he bought a penny cake, and while he was eating it he said to Nell:

“How speak you about Dinas?”

“Is the land well watered?” asked Nell.

“Iss, indeed.”

“Is there water in the close?”

“Well, well, not in the close, Nell fach, but at the bottom of the field under the house.”

“Mouth you now about the out-houses.”

“Enoch had a new roof put over the stable when he went there four years ago.”

“How much money has your father Deio got?”

”Now you've asked me a puzzle, Nell fach. I don’t know, for sure!”

“Is Parcdu his?”

“Indeed it is.”

“Is it mortgaged?”

“Not for a red penny, Nell Blaenffos.”

“How many brothers and sisters have you got?”

“Not one, Nell fach.”

“Come you back with me to the Drivers’ and mouth to old father.” Sam Blaenffos had already seen Job of the Stallion and had conversed with him, and he had been told nothing except that which was good about Deio Parcdu and his son Tomos.

”When is the wedding to be, little son?” Sam asked Tomos.

“What say you now?”

“There’s plenty of time to discuss that," said Sam. "Tell you old Deio to meet me here next market day, and we will arrange matters.”

“I will indeed, man,” replied Tomos.

“Good-bye now, and good-bye to your father as well,” said Sam.

Tomos turned his back on the Drivers’ Arms, and on Nell Blaenffos, and on the father of Nell Blaenffos, and with a hand in the pocket of his coat and a hand in the pocket of his trousers he moved slowly in and out among the cattle. The fingers of the clock over the door of the surgery of Dr. Morgan pointed to fifteen minutes past ten, wherefore Tomos bent his shoulders and rebuked himself:

“The morning is far spent. And there's a small bit of work I've done!”

When he came that way again the fingers of the clock pointed to twenty-five minutes past five in the afternoon, and there was a pleasing smile in his face, for was he not leading on a halter a heifer without blemish?

The Way of the Earth

THE WAY OF THE EARTH

III

THE WAY OF THE EARTH

Simon and Beca are waiting for Death. The ten acres of land over Penrhos1their peat-thatched cottage under the edge of the moor1grows wilder and weedier. For Simon and Beca can do nothing now. Often the mood comes on the broken, helpless old man to speak to his daughter of the only thing that troubles him.

“When the time comes, Sara Jane fach,” he says, “don’t you hire the old hearse. Go you down to Dai the son of Mali, and Isaac the Cobbler, and Dennis the larger servant of Dan, and Twm Tybach, and mouth you like this to them: ‘Jasto, now, my little father Simon has gone to wear the White Shirt in the Palace. Come you then and carry him on your shoulders nice into Sion.’”

“Yea, Sara fach,” Beca says, “and speak you to Lias the Carpenter that you will give no more than ten over twenty shillings for the coffin.”