very bad do we in Capel Salem." Josi immediately asked leave of God to
tell Bern-Davydd that which the man from Morfa had said. God gave him
leave, wherefore Bern-Davydd, whose spirit waxed hot, answered: "Boy,
boy, why for did you not kick the she cat on the backhead?"

Then Josi said to his mother Mali: "A preacher will I be. Go will I at
the finish of my servant term to the school for Grammar in
Castellybryn."

"Glad am I to hear you talk," said Mali. "Serious pity that my
belongings are so few."

"Small is your knowledge of the Speeches," Josi rebuked his mother. "How
go they: 'Sell all that you have?' Iss-iss, all, mam fach."

Now Mali lived in Pencoch, which is in the valley about midway between
Shop Rhys and the Schoolhouse, and she rented nearly nine acres of the
land which is on the hill above Sion. Beyond the furnishings of her
two-roomed house, she owned three cows, a heifer, two pigs, and fowls.
She fattened her pigs and sold them, and she sold also her heifer; and
Josi went to the School of Grammar. Mali labored hard on the land, and
she got therefrom all that there was to be got; and whatever that she
earned she hid in a hole in the ground. "Handy is little money," she
murmured, "to pay for lodgings and clothes preacher, and the old scamps
of boys who teach him." She lived on potatoes and buttermilk, and she
dressed her land all the time. People came to remark of her: "There's no
difference between Mali Pencoch and the mess in her cow-house."

Days, weeks, and months moved slowly; and years sped. Josi passed from
the School of Grammar to College Carmarthen, and Mali gave him all the
money that she had, and prayed thus: "Big Man bach, terrible would
affairs be if I perished before the boy was all right. Let you me keep
my strength that Josi becomes as large as Bern-Davydd. Amen."

Even so. Josi had a name among Students' College, and even among
ordained rulers of pulpits; and Mali went about her duties joyful and
glad; it was as if the Kingdom of the Palace of White Shirts was within
her. While at her labor she mumbled praises to the Big Man for His
goodness, until an awful thought came to her: "Insulting am I to the
Large One bach. Only preachers are holy enough to stand in their pray.
Not stop must I now; go on my knees will I in the dark."

She did not kneel on her knees for the stiffness that was in her limbs.

Her joy was increased exceedingly when Josi was called to minister unto
Capel Beulah in Carmarthen, and she boasted: "Bigger than Sion is Moriah
and of lofts has not the Temple two?"

"Idle is your babbling," one admonished her. "Does a calf feed his
mother?"

Josi heard the call. His name grew; men and women spoke his sayings one
to another, and Beulah could not contain all the people who would hear
his word; and he wrote a letter to his mother: "God has given me to wed
Mary Ann, the daughter of Daniel Shop Guildhall. Kill you a pig and salt
him and send to me the meat."

All that Josi asked Mali gave, and more; she did not abate in any of her
toil for five years, when a disease laid hold on Josi and he died. Mali
cleaned her face and her hands in the Big Pistil from which you draw
drinking water, and she brought forth her black garments and put them on
her; and because of her age she could not weep. The day before that her
son was to be buried, she went to the house of her neighbor Sara Eye
Glass, and to her she said: "Wench nice, perished is Josi and off away
am I. Console his widow fach I must. Tell you me that you will milk my
cow."

Sara turned her seeing eye upon Mali. "An old woman very mad you are to
go two nines of miles."

"Milk you my cow," said Mali. "And milk you her dry. Butter from me the
widow fach shall have. And give ladlings of the hogshead to my pigs and
scatter food for my hens."

She tore a baston from a tree, trimmed it and blackened it with
blacking, and at noon she set forth to the house of her
daughter-in-law; and she carried in a basket butter, two dead fowls,
potatoes, carrots, and a white-hearted cabbage, and she came to Josi's
house in the darkness which is in the morning, and it was so that she
rested on the threshold; and in the bright light Mary Ann opened the
door, and was astonished. "Mam-in-law," she said, "there's nasty for you
to come like this. Speak what you want. Sitting there is not
respectable. You are like an old woman from the country."

"Come am I to sorrow," answered Mali. "Boy all grand was Josi bach. Look
at him now will I."

"Talking no sense you are," said Mary Ann. "Why you do not see that the
house is full of muster? Will there not be many Respecteds at the
funeral?"

"Much preaching shall I say?"

"Indeed, iss. But haste about now and help to prepare food to eat. Slow
you are, female."

Presently mourners came to the house, and when each had walked up and
gazed upon the features of the dead, and when the singers had sung and
the Respecteds had spoken, and while a carpenter turned screws into the
coffin, Mary Ann said to Mali: "Clear you the dishes now, and cut bread
and spread butter for those who will return after the funeral. After all
have been served go you home to Pencoch." She drew a veil over her face
and fell to weeping as she followed the six men who carried Josi's
coffin to the hearse.

Having finished, Mali took her baston and her empty basket and began her
journey. As she passed over Towy Street--the public way which is set
with stones--she saw that many people were gathered at the gates of
Beulah to witness Mary Ann's loud lamentations at Josi's grave.

Mali stayed a little time; then she went on, for the light was dimming.
At the hour she reached Pencoch the mown hay was dry and the people were
gathering it together. She cried outside the house of Sara Eye Glass:
"Large thanks, Sara fach. Home am I, and like pouring water were the
tears. And there's preaching." She milked her cows and fed her pigs and
her fowls, and then she stepped up to her bed. The sounds of dawn
aroused her. She said to herself: "There's sluggish am I. Dear-dear,
rise must I in a haste, for Mary Ann will need butter to feed the baban
bach that Josi gave her."




XI

UNANSWERED PRAYERS


When Winnie Davies was let out of prison, shame pressed heavily on her
feelings; and though her mother Martha and her father Tim prayed almost
without ceasing, she did not come home. It was so that one night Martha
watched for her at a window and Tim prayed for her at the door of the
Tabernacle, and a bomb fell upon the ground that was between them, and
they were both destroyed.

All the days of their life, Tim and Martha were poor and meek and
religious; they were cheaper than the value set on them by their
cheapeners. As a reward for their pious humility, they were appointed
keepers of the Welsh Tabernacle, which is at Kingsend. At that they took
their belongings into the three rooms that are below the chapel; and
their spirits were lifted up marvelously that the Reverend Eylwin Jones
and the deacons of the Tabernacle had given to them the way of life.

In this fashion did Tim declare his blessedness: "Charitable are Welsh
to Welsh. Little Big Man, boys tidy are boys Capel Tabernacle."

"What if we were old atheists?" cried Martha.

"Wife fach, don't you send me in a fright," Tim said.

They two applied themselves to their tasks: the woman washed the linen
and cleaned the doorsteps and the houses of her neighbors, the man put
posters on hoardings, trimmed gardens, stood at the doors of Welsh
gatherings. By night they mustered, sweeping the floor of the chapel,
polishing the wood and brass that were therein, and beating the cushions
and hassocks which were in the pews of the most honored of the
congregation. Sunday mornings Tim put a white india-rubber collar under
the Adam's apple in his throat, and Martha covered her long, thin body
in black garments, and drew her few hairs tightly from her forehead.

Though they clad and comported themselves soberly Enoch Harries, who, at
this day, was the treasurer and head deacon of the chapel, spoke up
against them to Eylwin Jones. This is his complaint: "Careless was Tim
in the dispatch department, delivering the parcel always to the wrong
customers and for why he was sacked. Good was I to get him the capel.
Careless he is now also. By twilight, dark, and thick blackness, light
electric burns in Tabernacle. Waste that is. Sound will I my think. Why
cannot the work be done in the day I don't know."

"You cannot say less," said Eylwin Jones. "Pay they ought for this, the
irreligious couple. As the English proverb--'There's no gratitude in the
poor.'"

"Another serious piece of picking have I," continued Harries. "I saw
Tim sticking on hoarding. 'What, dear me,' I mumbled between the
teeth--I don't speech to myself, man, as usual. The Apostles did, now.
They wrote their minds. Benefit for many if I put down my religious
thinks for a second New Testament. What say you, Eylwin Jones? Lots of
says very clever I can give you--'is he sticking?' A biggish paper was
the black pasting about Walham Green Music Hall. What do you mean for
that? And the posters for my between season's sale were waiting to go
out."

Rebuked, Tim and Martha left over sinning: and Tim put Enoch Harries'
posters in places where they should not have been put, wherefore Enoch
smiled upon him.

"Try will I some further," said Tim by and by.

"Don't you crave too much," advised Martha. "The Bad Man craved the
pulpit of the Big Man."

"Shut your backhead. Out of school will Winnie be very near now."

"Speak clear."

"Ask Enoch Harries will I to make her his servant."

"Be modest in your manner," Martha warned her husband. "Man grand is
Enoch."

"Needing servants hap he does."

"Perhaps, iss; perhaps, no."

"Cute is Winnie," said Tim; "and quick. Sense she has."

Tim addressed Enoch, and Enoch answered: "Blabber you do to me, why for?
Send your old female to Mishtress Harries. Order you her to go quite
respectable."

Curtsying before Mrs. Harries, Martha said: "I am Tim Dafis' wife."

"Oh, really. The person that is in charge of that funny little Welsh
chapel." Mrs. Harries sat at a table. "Give me your girl's name, age,
and names of previous employers for references." Having written all
that Martha said, she remarked: "We are moving next week to a large
establishment in Thornton East. I am going to call it Windsor. Of course
the husband and I will go to the English church. I thought I could take
your girl with me to Windsor."

"The titcher give her an excellent character."

"I'll find that out for myself. Well, as you are so poor, I'll give her
a trial. I'll pay her five pounds a year and her keep. I do hope she is
ladylike."

Martha told Tim that which Mrs. Harries had said, and Tim observed: "I
will rejoice in a bit of prayer."

"Iss," Martha agreed. "In the parlor of the preacher. They go up
quicker."

God was requested by Tim to heap money upon Mrs. Harries, and to give
Winnie the wisdom, understanding, and obedience which enable one to
serve faithfully those who sit in the first pews in the chapel.

Now Winnie found favor in the sight of her mistress, whose personal
maid she was made and whose habits she copied. She painted her cheeks
and dyed her hair and eyebrows and eyelashes; and she frequented
Thornton Vale English Congregational Chapel, where now worshiped Enoch
and his wife. Some of the men who came to Windsor ogled her impudently,
but she did not give herself to any man. These ogles Mrs. Harries
interpreted truthfully and she whipped up her jealous rage.

"You're too fast," she chided Winnie. "Look at your blouse. You might be
undressed. You are a shame to your sex. One would say you are a
Piccadilly street-walker and they wouldn't be far wrong. I won't have
you making faces at my visitors. Understand that."

Winnie said: "I don't."

"You must change, miss," Mrs. Harries went on. "Or you can pack your box
and go on the streets. Must not think because you are Welsh you can do
as you like here."

On a sudden Winnie spoke and charged her mistress with a want of virtue.

"Is that the kind of miss you are!" Mrs. Harries shouted. "Where did you
get those shoes from?"

"You yourself gave them to me."

"You thief! You know I didn't. They are far too small for your big feet.
Come along--let's see what you've got upstairs."

That hour Mrs. Harries summoned a policeman, and in due time Winnie was
put in prison.

Tim and Martha did not speak to any one of this that had been done to
their daughter.

"Punished must a thief be," said Tim. "Bad is the wench."

"Bad is our little daughter," answered Martha.

Sabbath morning came and she wept.

"Showing your lament you are, old fool," cried Tim.

"For sure, no. But the mother am I."

Tim said: "My inside shivers oddly. Girl fach too young to be in jail."

A fire was set in the preacher's parlor and the doors of the Tabernacle
were opened. Tim, the Bible in his hands, stepped up to the pulpit, his
eyes closed in prayer, and as he passed up he stumbled.

Eylwin Jones heard the noise of his fall and ran into the chapel.

"What's the matter?" he cried. "Comic you look on your stomach. Great
one am I for to see jokes."

"An old rod did catch my toe," Tim explained.

Eylwin changed the cast of his countenance. "Awful you are," he reproved
Tim. "Suppose that was me. Examine you the stairs. Now indeed forget a
handkerchief have I for to wipe the flow of the nose. Order Winnie to
give me one of Enoch Harries. Handkerchiefs white and smelly he has."

"Ill is Winnie fach," said Martha.

"Gone she has for brief weeks to Wales," Tim added.

In the morning Eylwin came to the Tabernacle.

"Not healthy am I," he said. "Shock I had yesterday. Fancy I do a rabbit
from Wales for the goiter."

"Tasty are rabbits," Tim uttered.

"Clap up, indeed," said Martha. "Too young they are to eat and are they
not breeding?"

"Rabbits very young don't breed," remarked Eylwin.

"They do," Martha avowed. "Sometimes, iss; sometimes, no. Poison they
are when they breed."

"Not talking properly you are," said Eylwin. "Why for you palaver about
breeding to the preacher? Cross I will be."

"Be you quiet now, Martha," said Tim. "Lock your tongue."

"Send a letter to Winnie for a rabbit; two rabbits if she is small,"
ordered Eylwin. "And not see your faults will I."

Tim and Martha were perplexed and communed with each other; and Tim
walked to Wimbledon where he was not known and so have his errand
guessed. He bought a rabbit and carried it to the door of the minister's
house. "A rabbit from Winnie fach in Wales," he said.

"Eat her I will before I judge her," replied Eylwin; and after he had
eaten it he said: "Quite fair was the animal. Serious dirty is the
capel. As I flap my hand on the cushion Bible in my eloquence, like
chimney smoke is the dust. Clean you at once. For are not the
anniversary meetings on the sixth Sabbath? All the rich Welsh will be
there, and Enoch Harries and the wife of him."

He came often to view Tim and Martha at their labor.

"Fortunate is your wench to have holiday," he said one day. "Hard have
preachers to do in the vineyard."

"Hear we did this morning," Tim began to speak.

"In a hurry am I," Eylwin interrupted. "Fancy I do butter from Wales
with one pinch of salt in him. Tell Winnie to send butter that is
salted."

Martha bought two pounds of butter.

"Mean is his size," Tim grieved.

"Much is his cost," Martha whined.

"Get you one pound of marsherin and make him one and put him on a wetted
cabbage leaf."

The fifth Sunday dawned.

"Next to-morrow," said Martha, "the daughter will be home. Go you to the
jail and fetch her, and take you for her a big hat for old jailers cut
the hair very short."

"No-no," Tim replied. "Better she returns and speak nothing. With no
questions shall we question her."

Monday opened and closed.

"Mistake is in your count," Martha hinted.

"Slow scolar am I," said Tim. "Count will I once more."

"Don't you, boy bach," Martha hastened to say. "Come she will."

At the dusk of Friday Eylwin Jones, his goitered chin shivering, ran
furiously and angrily into the Tabernacle. "Ho-ho," he cried. "In jail
is Winnie. A scampess is she and a whore. Here's scandal. Mother and
father of a thief in the house of the capel bach of Jesus Christ. Robbed
Mistress Harries she did. Broke is the health of the woman nice as a
consequent. She will not be at the anniversary meetings because the
place is contaminated by you pair. And her husband won't. Five shillings
each they give to the collection. The capel wants the half soferen. Out
you go. Now at once."

Tim and Martha were sorely troubled that Winnie would come to the Chapel
House and not finding them, would go away.

"Loiter will I near by," said Tim.

"Say we rent a room and peer for her," said Martha.

Thereon from dusk to day either Tim or Martha sat at the window of their
room and watched. The year died and spring and summer declined into
autumn, when on a moon-lit night men flew in machines over London and
loosened bombs upon the people thereof.

"Feared am I," said Martha, "that our daughter is not in the shelter."
She screamed: "Don't stand there like a mule. Pray, Tim man."

Remembering how that he had prayed, Tim answered: "Try a prayer will I
near the capel."

So Martha watched at her window and Tim prayed at the door of the
Tabernacle.




XII

LOST TREASURE


Here is the tale that is told about Hugh Evans, who was a commercial
traveler in drapery wares, going forth on his journeys on Mondays and
coming home on Fridays. The tale tells how on a Friday night Hugh sat at
the table in the kitchen of his house, which is in Parson's Green. He
had before him coins of gold, silver, and copper, and also bills of his
debts; and upon each bill he placed certain monies in accordance with
the sum marked thereon. Having fixed the residue of his coins and having
seen that he held ten pounds, his mind was filled with such bliss that
he said within himself: "A nice little amount indeed. Brisk are
affairs."

"Millie," he addressed his wife, "look over them and add them together."

"Wait till I'm done," was the answer. "The irons are all hotted up."

Hugh chided her. "You are not interested in my saving. You don't care.
It's nothing to you. Forward, as I call."

"If I sit down," Millie offered, "I feel I shall never get up again and
the irons are hotted and what I think is a shame to waste gas like this
the price it is."

"Why didn't you say so at the first opportunity? Be quick then. I shan't
allow the cash to lay here."

Duly Millie observed her husband's order, and what time she proved that
which Hugh had done, she was admonished that she had spent too much on
this and that.

"I'm doing all I can not to be extravagant," she whimpered. "I don't buy
a thing for my back." Her short upper lip curled above her broken teeth
and trembled; she wept.

"But whatever," said Hugh softening his spirit, "I got ten soferens in
hand. Next quarter less you need and more you have. Less gass and
electric. You don't gobble food so ravishingly in warm weather. The more
I save."

Having exchanged the ten pounds for a ten-pound note, remorse seized
Hugh. "A son of a mule am I," he said. "Dangerous is paper as he blows.
If he blows! Bulky are soferens and shillings. If you lose two, you got
the remnants. But they are showy and tempting." He laid the note under
his pillow and slept, and he took it with him, secreted on his person,
to Kingsend Chapel, where every Sunday morning and evening he sang
hymns, bowed under prayer, and entertained his soul with sermons.

Just before departing on Monday he gave the note to Millie. "Keep him
securely," he counseled her. "Tell nobody we stock so much cash."

Millie put the note between the folds of a Paisley shawl, which was
precious to her inasmuch as it had been her mother's, and she wrapped a
blanket over the shawl and placed it in a cupboard. But on Friday she
could not remember where she had hidden the note; "never mind," she
consoled herself, "it will occur to me all of a sudden."

As that night Hugh cast off his silk hat and his frock coat, he shouted:
"Got the money all tightly?"

"Yes," replied Millie quickly. "As safe as in the Bank of England."

"Can't be safer than that. Keep him close to you and tell no one. Paper
money has funny ways." Hugh then prophesied that in a year his wealth in
a mass would be fifty pounds.

"With ordinary luck, and I'm sure you desire it because you're always at
it, it will," Millie agreed.

"No luck about it. No stop to me. We've nothing to purchase. And you
don't. At home you are, with food and clothes and a ceyling above you.
Kings don't want many more."

"Yes," said Millie. "No."

Weeks passed and Millie was concerned that she could not find the note,
tried she never so hard. At the side of her bed she entreated to be led
to it, and in the day she often paused and closing her eyes prayed:
"Almighty Father, bring it to me."

The last Friday of the quarter Hugh divided his money in lots, and it
was that he had eleven pounds over his debts. "Eleven soferens now," he
cried to his wife. "That's grand! Makes twenty-one the first six months
of the wedded life."

"It reflects great credit on you," said Millie, concealing her
unhappiness.

"Another eighty and I'd have an agency. Start a factory, p'raps. There's
John Daniel. He purchases an house. Ten hands he has working gents'
shirts for him."

Millie turned away her face and demanded from God strength with which to
acquaint her husband of her misfortune. What she asked for was granted
unto her at her husband's amorous moment of the Sabbath morning.

Hugh's passion deadened, and in his agony he sweated.

"They're gone! Every soferen," he cried. "They can't all have gone. The
whole ten." He opened his eyes widely. "Woe is me. Dear me. Dear me."

Until day dimmed and night grayed did they two search, neither of them
eating and neither of them discovering the treasure.

Therefore Hugh had not peace nor quietness. Grief he uttered with his
tongue, arms, and feet, and it was in the crease of his garments. He
sought sympathy and instruction from those with whom he traded. "All the
steam is gone out of me," he wailed. One shopkeeper advised him: "Has it
slipped under the lino?" Another said: "Any mice in the house? Money has
been found in their holes." The third said: "Sure the wife hasn't spent
it on dress. You know what ladies are." These hints and more Hugh wrote
down on paper, and he mused in this wise: "An old liar is the wench. For
why I wedded the English? Right was mam fach; senseless they are. Crying
she has lost the yellow gold, the bitch. What blockhead lost one penny?
What is in the stomach of my purse this one minute? Three
shillings--soferen--five pennies--half a penny--ticket railway. Hie
backwards will I on Thursday on the surprise. No comfort is mine before
I peep once again."

He pried in every drawer and cupboard, and in the night he arose and
inquired into the clothes his wife had left off; and he pushed his
fingers into the holes of mice and under the floor coverings, and groped
in the fireplaces; and he put subtle questions to Millie.

"If you'd done like this in a shop you'd be sacked without a ref," he
said when his search was over. "We must have him back. It's a sin to let
him go. Reduce expenses at once."

Millie disrobed herself by the light of a street lamp, and she ate
little of such foods as are cheapest, whereat her white cheeks sunk and
there was no more luster in her brown hair; and her larder was as though
there was a famine in the country. If she said to Hugh: "Your boots are
leaking," she was told: "Had I the soferens I would get a pair"; or if
she said: "We haven't a towel in the place," the reply was: "Find the
soferens and buy one or two."

The more Hugh sorrowed and scrimped, the more he gained; and word of his
fellows' hardships struck his broad, loose ears with a pleasant tinkle.
While on his journeys he stayed at common lodging-houses, and he did not
give back to his employers any of the money which was allowed him to
stay at hotels. Some folk despised him, some mocked him, and many
nicknamed him "the ten-pound traveler." To the shopkeeper who hesitated
to deal with him he whined his loss, making it greater than it was, and
expressing: "The interest alone is very big."

By such methods he came to possess one hundred and twenty pounds in two
years. His employers had knowledge of his deeds, and they summoned him
to them and said to him that because of the drab shabbiness of his
clothes and his dishonest acts they had appointed another in his stead.

"You started this," he admonished Millie. "Bring light upon mattar."

"What can I do?" Millie replied. "Shall I go back to the dressmaking as
I was?"

Hugh was not mollified. By means of such women man is brought to a
penny. He felt dishonored and wounded. Of the London Welsh he was the
least. Look at Enos-Harries and Ben Lloyd and Eynon Davies. There's boys
for you. And look at the black John Daniel, who was a prentice with him
at Carmarthen. Hark him ordering preacher Kingsend. Watch him on the
platform on the Day of David the Saint. And all, dear me, out of J.D.'s
Ritfit three-and-sixpence gents' tunic shirts.

He considered a way, of which he spoke darkly to Millie, lest she might
cry out his intention.

"No use troubling," he said in a changed manner. "Come West and see the
shops."

Westward they two went, pausing at windows behind which were displayed
costly blouses.

"That's plenty at two guineas," Hugh said of one.

"It's a Paris model," said Millie.

"Nothing in her. Nothing."

"Not much material, I grant," Millie observed. "The style is fashionable
and they charge a lot."

"I like to see you in her," said Hugh. "Take in the points and make her
with an odd length of silk."

When the blouse was finished, Hugh took it to a man at whose shop trade
the poorest sort of middle-class women, saying: "I can let you have a
line like this at thirty-five and six a dozen."

"I'll try three twelves," said the man.

Then Hugh went into the City and fetched up Japanese silk, and lace, and
large white buttons; and Millie sewed with her might.

Hugh thrived, and his success was noised among the London Welsh. The
preacher of Kingsend Chapel visited him.

"Not been in the Temple you have, Mistar Eevanss, almost since you were
spliced," he said. "Don't say the wife makes you go to the capel of the
English."

"Busy am I making money."

"News that is to me, Mistar Eevanss. Much welcome there is for you with
us."

In four years Hugh had eighteen machines, at each of which a skilled
woman sat; and he hired young girls to sew through buttons and
hook-and-eyes and to make button-holes. These women and girls were under
the hand of Millie, who kept count of their comings and goings and the
work they performed, holding from their wages the value of the material
they spoilt and of the minutes they were not at their task. Millie
labored faithfully, her heart being perfect with her husband's. She and
Hugh slept in the kitchen, for all the other rooms were stockrooms or
workrooms; and the name by which the concern was called was "The French
Model Blouse Co. Manageress--Mme. Zetta, the notorious French Modiste."

Howsoever bitterly people were pressed, Hugh did not cease to prosper.
In riches, honor, and respect he passed many of the London Welsh.