THE MEMBER
Ostensibly, Mr. Tudor Williams came to Llanyglo to assist at a Sasiwn, which is a gathering very much like the Love Feasts of other parts of the country (indeed, if memory serves, Mr. Wesley gave these assemblies for prayer and mutual consolation the latter name as far north in Wales as Builth—but then Mr. Wesley did not speak Welsh). Neither the fencing dispute nor the question of the Hafod Unos had taken nominal precedence of this. But Mr. Tudor Williams's visit was also something more. He was a Member returning to his own constituency—exalted, yet their servant, familiar with the great ones of the land, yet by their favour. For that reason they liked him to bring the evidences of his greatness back with him.
Mr. Tudor Williams did so, and handsomely. He was a small nimble man with black brows and a ragged silvery moustache, and a very erect and conscious carriage of the head. He wore a silk hat, a turned-down collar with a flat black bow, a frockcoat with voluminous lapels of watered silk, grey trousers, and new black kid gloves. He drove from Porth Neigr in the carriage that had been lent him by a political supporter, and alighted at the gap opposite John Pritchard's farm. They would have run forward to greet him, but a certain awe of his clothes and equipage combined with their own dignity as makers and unmakers of such as he to keep them where they stood, in a semicircle across the road.
But if they were at one and the same time a little intimidated and filled out with pride in him, Mr. Tudor Williams knew no hesitation. He sprang down from the carriage, grasped John Pritchard by the hand, and then, not content with that, patted him all up the arm as far as the shoulder and across the breast with the other hand, as if he conferred invisible decorations on him. His eyes were moist, but glad greetings flowed from his tongue, in an accent that would have put the most diffident speaker of English at his ease.
"Well, John Pritchard! Well, well! Indeed you have not grown any less! A lit-tle man like me, I hardly reach up to your shoulder! Aw-w-w, you look splen-did! I was spik-king of you a few days ago to the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs—but dear me, here am I neglecting the ladies—I tell you presently—How are you, Mrs. Gruffydd? This young man is never Eesaac Oliver! Aw-w-w, how he grows! Did you write the let-ter to me, Eesaac Oliver? That's the style! Education, knowledge—it is a grand thing!—Now, Dafydd Dafis! And how is the harp? You sing me Y Gadlys by and by:
'Mae cynhwrf yn y ceunant,
Ar derfyn dydd y gad——'
—dear, dear, you have to go away before you can come home again! There is nothing like this over there; there is not the sym-pathy; as I was saying to the Member for Caermarthen, Mr. Hughes Caegwynion, not three, four days ago, 'You get no sym-pathy from England and the Englishman'—and indeed you do not.—Here comes Howell Gruffydd, run-ning (indeed he runs like a deer, Mrs. Gruffydd!).—Now, Howell Gruffydd, you miss the train if you don't look sharp (he's making so much money he cannot leave the shop for a min-nit!).—Now, my old friend William Morgan! How is the rheumatics?—How are you, Hugh?—Is this your youngest, Mrs. Roberts? Hwhat! Another since! Aw-w-w—and you more like an elder sister than a mother!... And there is the Trwyn, just the same——"
He was staying the night with John Pritchard, and the two moved away to the house, the others following a yard or two behind. Mr. Tudor Williams advanced to ancient Mrs. Pritchard's chair, took the hand that resembled a dead bird's foot, and shouted in her ear:
"You see I do not lose a min-nit before I come to see you, Mrs. Pritchard!" he cried in Welsh. ("Indeed she is a wonderful old 'ooman!)—How many grandchildren have you now, Mrs. Pritchard?" (The old woman nodded her aged head.) "Great-grandchildren! No-o-o! Think of that! But I think you all live for ever at Llanyglo. It is not like London. If I could take bagsfull of this air back with me I make my for-tune!—Now, Miss Pritchard, I think I must have offended you, you are so long in spik-king to me! And how is all in school? I tell you press-ently something straight from the Board of Ed-u-ca-tion for you to try. You whisper a subject in the scholar's ear as he comes in at the door, and he walk straight to the middle of the room, no time for think-king, and speak for five minutes about it! That will make them ready speakers, hwhat? That will accustom them to public life and speaking in the Chapel? But I tell you later.—Now, my old friend John, if I could wash my hands before sitting down to a cup of tea—then we will talk——"
He was shown into the best bedroom, with the cork-framed funeral-cards and the cardboard watch-pockets on the walls, and the sound of his moving about and pouring out water and spluttering as he washed his face could be heard by those who waited below. Then he descended again and sat down.