And pure religion, breathing household laws.”
There was also much kindness and humanity. Richard Lloyd could not for long be a stern uncle. The pictures handed down to us are Goldsmithian in their quaint and simple charm—the little David sitting on one of his uncle’s knees and punctuating his infant periods by beating his fist on the other; or, in later years, wheedling his uncle with some clever boyish defence of an indefensible prank; or listening for long hours, with open mouth and eyes, to the “deep sighing of the poor,” as the farmers and labourers from all the district round poured their tales of woe into the ears of the gentle village seer.
I saw much of Richard Lloyd at a later time. He was a man who always lived on the heights of thought and feeling; he was one of nature’s great men to whom goodness was a delight: he was one of God’s crusaders. Tall and bearded, but with a clean-shaven mouth and dark eyebrows, he was a man of singular dignity and strength both in bearing and expression. It is difficult to describe the impression of mingled strength and tenderness which he gave. His face had some of the vigour of the eagle; and yet with it all his voice had some of the softness of the dove. He loved children with all the strength of his large, warm heart; and yet he was never weak with them, but sometimes very stern, with the strength of those who can be “cruel only to be kind.”
“He was the most selfless man I ever knew,” is the deliberate verdict of one of his foster children to-day. “Even in illness he never spoke of himself. It was painful to him even to think of himself.”
Such was the high influence that filled that little cottage and made it a fit nursery for a ruler of men. From the moment that Richard Lloyd took over the guardianship of his sister’s bereaved family he gave to the task all his resources of money, love, and wisdom. He was not one of those who know limits to giving—
“Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely calculated less or more.”
He laboured for these children as if they had been his own. If money was spared it was only to save it for their better training in later years.
The only available school at that time in Llandystumdwy was the National School provided by the Established Church of England and Wales; and to that school the children had to go. Many years afterwards, when the House of Commons was in the midst of one of its chronic wrangles over religious education, Mr. Lloyd George startled the High Churchmen by putting himself forward as a specimen of their chosen education. He was well within the letter of the fact; but I doubt whether the Llanystumdwy Voluntary School at that time could be called an average Church School; for the head master of the school—a Welshman named David Evans—was more than an average schoolmaster.[[9]] He was a good “scholar” and mathematician, and he taught well. He gave the young boys that thorough grounding in the elements of knowledge which is really a better gift for the young than all the frills of a more dainty schooling. Richard Lloyd, at any rate, showed his confidenec in this teaching by keeping the boys on at school for two years beyond the ordinary limited time. From twelve to fourteen years of age David Lloyd George worked with a small group of boys also still remaining on at school in what would now be called an “Ex VIIth” standard. These boys carried their mathematics on as far as trigonometry, learned the elements of Latin, and were encouraged to read widely. David Evans kept a close eye on these studies, and Richard Lloyd found the fees well worth his while.
I have talked to one of the boys[[10]] who stayed on at school with David Lloyd George, and his impressions of that time are still very vivid. His recollection is that David Lloyd George was the quickest boy of this little group. David could do twice as much work as any other boy in the same time. He still remembers the envy and annoyance which this habit used to cause among David’s companions. But little David was especially quick at higher mathematics. “He was through trigonometry,” says this witness, “by the time we started.” He was very rapid at mental arithmetic.