Without any hesitation Mr. Lloyd George advised them to act on their rights. Following his daring counsel, they entered the graveyard and reopened the filled-in grave. Then they made a pathetic appeal to the rector. He still forbade them to act. Then they made a demand on the rector. He still refused. Meanwhile young David had spent a night in foraging and rummaging through the church records, and he had discovered that in 1864 the rector had allowed the public to enclose the piece of ground without any conditions. He advised the relatives to go on. Let them, if necessary, break into the churchyard.
They went on. They broke into the churchyard. They borrowed a bier from the church. They gave the old man a Christian burial by his daughter. The Calvinist minister spoke the service, and the relatives went home happier—contented with the feeling that they had buried the old man where he had wished to lie.
Infuriated by their defiance, the stubborn rector sued the relatives for damages in Portmadoc County Court. Mr. Lloyd George took up the defence and asked for a jury. The jury decided that his facts were correct. The County Court Judge decided against him on the point of law. Fortunately for Mr. Lloyd George, the Judge made an incorrect record of the jury’s verdict and refused to correct it. David Lloyd George appealed to the Divisional Court. He was heard by Lord Chief Justice Coleridge and Justice Manisty. In the middle of the case Lord Chief Justice Coleridge discovered the incorrect record by the County Court Judge. Result—fury of the Lord Chief Justice, anger of the Court, and, finally, a verdict in favour of the quarryman.
So that poor old quarryman of Llanfrothen was after all laid to rest in peace in that little burial-ground beneath the mighty precipices of Snowdon; and the fame of Mr. Lloyd George spread wider and wider throughout North Wales. It was felt that here at last the people had a man who had the courage to support them in their struggles against the powers in high places.
He now began to act as a popular pleader in cases of social injustice before the Petty Courts of the Principality.
It was during this period of dawning thoughts and powers that David Lloyd George wooed and won the woman who became his wife. The young man was at that time a keen-eyed, attractive youth; and the silver tongue which he was already using in Court and on the platform was also very social in private life. He was from the beginning a sociable, conservative man. Dowered with welded gifts of wit and wisdom, he had already the makings of a good talker. Above all, he had that gift of sympathy with the views of others which is more popular with women than with men. So it was that the cottage-born boy of Llanystumdwy, the promising son of Morvin House, was a prime favourite with the girls of Criccieth—and with one girl in particular who lived just outside Criccieth.
For about a mile inland from the sea, on a hundred-acre farm called Mynydd Ednyfed, there lived a farming family of old lineage and high standing possessing the proud, historic Welsh name of Owen. They claimed descent from Owen Glyndwr, and they faced life with that simple Homeric pride which lends dignity to worthy living. The yeomen farmers of Wales, like the “statesmen” of the Cumberland Dales, inherit the pride of landed men; and the Owens were no exception to this rule.
The Owens of Ednyfed had a daughter—Maggie by name—whom they loved passing well. She was the apple of her father’s eye; and no man who sought her hand was likely to have an easy time. That, of course, was likely to make Maggie not less, but more desirable to David Lloyd George.
Maggie went to chapel at Criccieth, and the young people met in that simple but thrilling way—when the heart is at its best and highest—as they went to and from their little chapels. They did not worship together; for the Owens were Methodists. But love has leapt higher barriers than that between Baptists and Methodists.