FOOTNOTES:
[6] Llangastanau: Castanau is the Welsh for chestnuts: I cannot imagine how the parish got its name. I saw no chestnuts, and I ought to know one.
CHAPTER V
LLANGASTANAU: THE LIBRARY
Dissolve frigus ligna super foco
Large reponens, atque benignius
Deprome quadrimum Sabina,
O Thaliarche, merum diota.
Horace, Od. I. 9.
Heap high the logs, and melt the cold,
Good Thaliarch; draw the wine we ask,
That mellower vintage, four-year old,
From out the cellar’d Sabine cask.
Conington.
I found that the Rector had a quaint custom, a survival of his Common-room days at St. Peter’s. Dinner was in the dining-room; Wine with the eponymous chestnuts was served in the library, and it was an older bin than Horace offered to his guests. We sat in a half-circle before the fire, and each man had a small table in front of him. There was even a mimic railway, copied from the St. Peter’s Common-room, to carry the decanters across the fireplace, under the mantel-shelf.
But at the dining-room door my host stopped me, and at the same time signalled to the Druid to stop. With many apologies he explained that the schoolmaster, Mr. Evans, whom I was to inspect next morning, was very anxious to see me just for a moment, if I would oblige the worthy man. Mr. Morgan, who was one of the managers, would accompany me.
Of course I consented, and we went into another room. As we passed through the hall I noticed that the Rev. David gave the master a kindly greeting, and that the latter returned it with a respectful but reproachful smile. Our business was entirely uninteresting, and in fact might have well been postponed to the morrow; but I had already learned that in country schools the Annual Inspection was the event of the year, and the filling up of Form IX. (the school statistics supplied to the Department) was like the settling of a marriage contract. Two minutes sufficed to pacify the master, and I bade him good-night. As I was leaving the room, however, I heard him say to the Druid:
“You have Mr. Williams, Llanbedr, here to-night, Mr. Morgan. Fery pleasant chentleman: eferybotty likes Mr. Williams, indeed. Did you hear about Capel Zion? Oh it wass too bahd.” And he stroked his beard with intense enjoyment.
“Capel Zion? No, what was it?” asked the Druid eagerly. “Stop, Inspector, this is good for the digestion.”
“Well indeed it wass too bahd,” repeated Evans. “You know Capel Zion, Mr. Morgan, that they have built between Llanbedr and Llanfawr? and just before it wass finished, Mr. Williams wass riding past the chapel door, and saw that they were putting up a board with a text painted on it, and it wass ‘Tʸ Gweddi y Gelwir Fy nhʸ i’; that is, sir (he explained to me), ‘My house shall be called the House of Prayer.’ So Mr. Williams looks at it, and just then Meshach Morgan, the deacon, you know, came out, and Mr. Williams says, ‘Morning, Meshach: pity to haf it painted like thaht: it will want doing again efery two years in this valley: why not have it carved on slate?’ ‘Too much money, Mr. Williams,’ says the deacon. But Reverend Williams says, oh, he should like to have the pri-vi-ledsh of presenting the new chapel with a suitable text like thaht, out off the Book that they all valued (thaht wass bahd for Meshach, because he would not haf it in the Board School at the last meeting), just to show his friendship for his Nonconformist brethren. And so it wass settled. Mr. Williams goes down to Dolgellau and orders a slab of slate to be carved, and he gives the man a copy of the text: and after a time it comes, and the Capel Zion congregashun were very proud of it, and efery one praised the Vicar for being so liberal to those from whom he differed, and the Herald bach (Carnarvon Herald) praised him too.
“But one day Elias Morgan, Felin-ddu, wass riding by the chapel after dining with the Captain, and they say he had had a glass or two—well, it is a peety—and he sees the deacon there, and calls out, ‘Hallo, Meshach, Hen Ogof Lladron!’—that iss, sir, ‘old den of thieves’—and he points to the slab. Well, Meshach Morgan looked up, and all in a moment it came to him what it wass, when he saw the slab, and the text: there it wass ofer the door:
‘Tʸ Gweddi y Gelwir Fy nhʸ i; eithr chwi a’i
gwnaethoch yn ogof Lladron.’
That iss, sir, ‘My House shall be called the House of Prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.’ Oh, it wass too bahd; and now they don’t know what to do with the slahb whatefer. Well, good-night now, gentlemen,” and he went.
The Druid lay back in a low chair, and kicked his little fat legs in the air, screaming with suppressed joy, but anxiously looking round to see whether the Rector was within hearing. I think I enjoyed the story no less. There are moments when life is worth living.
We made our way to the library, and found that our host was waxing impatient. The chestnuts were getting cold. “Castan da iawn” (first-rate chestnut) said the Druid with a reminiscent chuckle, and we sat down to the College port.
“Old wine, old friends, old books,” murmured the Rector, and the squire grasped his hand with a tear of affection in his eye.
“Old jokes too, eh? hen Castan,”[7] said David.
“Hen ogof lladron,”[8] replied the Druid in a low voice, and they both looked nervously to see whether the Rector was listening. Happily he was absorbed in meditation. I wondered at times whether there had been some tragedy in his life, leaving him a lonely man. But it was not my business.
“Good old chap, Evans,” said the Squire: “parish couldn’t get on without him; but he gets bothered a bit when you fellows come round every autumn. Runs the school from nine to four; keeps the accounts of a small quarry, and of a Co-operative Store at night: measures land for the farmers on Saturdays.”
“Helps me with my figures on Saturdays, too,” murmured Harry, whose education had been severely classical.
“Runs Sunday School on Sundays, and plays the organ in Church,” continued the Squire.
“With approximate accuracy,” added Harry in a carping spirit; “gets a foot on the wrong pedal now and then.” It seemed that Harry was choirmaster; and choirmaster and organist are like Bishop and Dean.
“Extraneous duties: hard work,” said I professionally.
“But good pay,” pleaded the Rector: “one way and another he gets not less than £250, with house, garden and coal.”
I admitted that this was better than the Bar; but a man who could measure an irregularly polygonous field with a semi-circular bulge in it was worth all that.
David Nantgwyn sagely remarked that some of these men were better than others. Harry interpolated the offensive comment that this differentiation applied equally to Vicars. David waved him aside with an “Avaunt, stripling,” and proceeded with a recent painful experience. His school had been vacant, and a man had applied with a testimonial from the Rural Dean, deposing that Mr. A. B. was equally admirable whether you regarded him as a schoolmaster or as a Christian—“rather implying, you know, that they are separate walks in life”—in the former capacity he was most efficient; in the latter he was exemplary. David went to see the Rural Dean, and asked his real opinion of A. B. The reply was that A. B. was a reprobate person: he had been dismissed for a series of offences, culminating in brawling in church with suspicions of intemperance.
“But, Good Heavens,” David had objected, “you stated in black and white that he was ‘equally efficient’ and all the rest of it.”
The Rural Dean was entirely unabashed: “that was only a tes-ti-mo-ni-al.”
I remarked that this sin was not confined to the Principality. An English Inspector had told me a story of a school manager who came to him at the inspection about the middle of October with a lamentable account of the schoolmistress. Visiting the school a few days back he had found that the mistress was absent; and on calling at her house he had found her dead drunk. She had been but recently appointed, chiefly on the strength of an excellent character from a clerical neighbour. He added that this giving of false testimonials was immoral and unneighbourly.
(“Whether you regard him as a Christian or a neighbour,” suggested David aside, and I accepted the amendment.)
The inspector agreed, and suggested that he should prosecute his friend and get him six months. The manager said he should hardly like to do that, but it was a scandal. Meanwhile the inspector had been glancing at what we call Form IX., the paper that Evans brought just now, and on page four he read:
“Qu. (4) Are the managers satisfied with the teacher’s character, conduct, and attention to duty?”
The answer was “YES.”
“Quite so,” the official said, in continuation of the discussion, “but I think if I were you I would modify the answer to that question,” and he laid an incisive finger on Qu. (4).
The manager was not at all abashed. “That refers,” he retorted, “to her conduct up to the end of the school year, September 30. It was on October 7 that I found her so drunk.”
My modest contribution to the gaiety of the evening was received with the courtesy due to a stranger, and many similar stories followed. The Squire, who in those dark days before the invention of county councils had to give many votes in the appointment of officials, besides his own considerable share as landlord, and quarry-lord, was strong on the moral side. The Druid and David were lamentably lax. What were you to do when a poor beggar, or (still worse) a half starved widow, demanded a testimonial for himself, herself, or son?
“What I do,” said David, the Oxford casuist, “in such cases, is to ignore the special exigencies of the post. A man comes to me for help to get a place as organist. I know he can’t play any more than your Evans; so I dilate on his moral character, his tenor voice, and his excellent business capacity. The appointer looks at the signature, and says ‘Excellent man, Mr. Williams, Vicar of Llanbedr; glad to find he speaks so highly of you,’ and ten to one the man is appointed merely by reason of my superabundant merits.”
Much plain speaking followed this audacious assertion, and all talked at once for some minutes. The Squire effected a diversion by enquiring about the expected visit of a common friend named Jenkins, a returned missionary, who was to preach for his Society next Sunday. David also knew him; had entertained him as a guest at Llanbedr a fortnight before; and in turn had been entertained by him with anecdotes of his deputation tour. “In August he was staying with Hugh Hughes, Pen-y-garth, and Hugh had kept him there for three days, so cheery a guest was he. On the Monday they had started over the pass to collect some subscriptions from the farmers; it was very hot, and old Hugh is a bad walker: when they had got about half-way, Hugh stopped him and said with his delightful stammer, ‘I s-say, w-w-what do you think this f-f-fellow will give?’
“‘Five shillings, I should say.’
“‘W-well, l-look here; here’s five shillings; l-let’s g-go home again.’ And they went home.
“Hugh admitted that he was not interested in missionary work. He added that the only Society he subscribed to was the Patagonian Mission. Jenkins naturally enquired why he selected that one.
“‘Because they tell me,’ said Hugh, ‘that the P-p-patagonians eat all the m-missionaries.’ Jenkins declared that was worthy of Sydney Smith.”
The Druid lit a cigar with thoughtful care. “We want a missionary in my parish,” said he deliberately; “some of my people are heathens. Last week I met William Roberts, Tan-y-fron: you know him, Mr. Trevor? and after a little talk—I wanted him to subscribe to the school—he says to me: ‘Well, indeed, Mr. Morgan, I don’t believe there is a God at all.’
“‘Singular thing, Roberts,’ I said, ‘but I have a cow in my field of the same opeenion.’ Oh, he wass mahd.”
This led to an acrimonious discussion on “Christian Missions,” all leaning forward in their chairs and filling and lighting their pipes with feverish haste; the Druid and David pessimist, the Rector optimist, the Squire benevolent, for, as he remarked, if the missionaries don’t do much good, they don’t have much of a time out there; and he waved a comprehensive hand over the earth beyond Wales.
Harry and I pulled out of the stream, and filled up a whisky and soda to last till peace should be declared. And Harry told me of his strange life up in the hill-country, where the joy of living atoned for the loss of Oxford society. The Rector was the finest old chap in the world; the Squire was a rattling good sort, and gave him a free hand; some of the quarrymen were first-rate fellows; of course they wanted a lot of looking after, and an Englishman would have a rough time of it, but he himself was a Welshman, and he knew their little ways. Then there was fishing, and there was shooting, and he was always fit.
And so on, till the war of words ended, and the Druid came for his whisky, and sat down by my side.
“You seem to have some remarkable parishioners, Mr. Morgan,” I remarked with deference; “but I gather that you get the better of them.”
He was much flattered. He admitted that he was too many for them. When he first came there, he confessed it was uphill work, but he had learned by ex-pee-ri-ence, and he prolonged the word to indicate the time required for his complete education. It was in the autumn, after he came to Llanfair, that a young man came to him one Saturday evening, and asked him (in Welsh) “to cry the nuts in church next morning.” “Well, of course, I did not like to let him know that I did not understand, and I asked a few questions about it; in the end I found that his mother had an orchard full of nut-trees, and the nuts were ripe, and I was to give out after the Second Lesson that an-ny one that took them, you know, would be prosecuted by law.”
“With the Banns of Marriage? And what did you do, Mr. Morgan?”
He smiled in a superior manner. “I told him it wass no use for me to cry the nuts to the people that were in church; they would not touch his nuts; it wass the people outside that wanted to be told.”
What an admirable doctrine! and what simplification of sermons it would produce if generally promulgated. But most congregations prefer to
“Compound for sins they are inclined to”
in the manner indicated by Butler. “I suppose the population is scattered in your parish?” I rashly remarked.
The Druid seized his opportunity, and drew up his chair nearer to me.
“Well, yes, my dear sir, that is what I wanted to speak to you about. It is like this. Llanfair-castanwydd-uwch-y-mynydd—that is the Church of St. Mary of the chestnut trees on the mountain, and Harry there calls me ‘Old Chestnuts,’ and I tell him if there were no chestnut trees there would be no chestnuts, that is castanau, you know—well, the parish is divided in two: there is Llanfair-castanwydd-uwch-y-mynydd-uchaf, that is the upper part, and we call that Moriah, because of the big chapel up there; and there is uwch-y-mynydd-isaf, that is the lower part at the foot of the mountain, and they call it Llan; that is where the church is. Well, the chapel folk in Moriah say——”
But at this moment—sic me servavit Apollo—Phyllis Jones, parlourmaid, announced the Squire’s carriage, and the others, who had been watching my bewilderment with much delight, rose from their arm-chairs and came around us, laughing uproariously.
“Come with me, Mr. Morgan,” said the Squire; “I will put you down outside your gate.”
“Don’t go, Druid,” protested Harry, “don’t be put down; the Rector will put you up. The inspector doesn’t yet understand which is ‘uchaf,’ and which is ‘isaf,’ and how can you expect him to make it clear to those fellows in London? Stop, and I will lend you a tooth-brush.”
The Druid saw the lead and followed suit. “Thank you, Harry,” he said, “but I will not deprive you and the Rector of it.”
And so they vanished into the night.