The tune came to an end, and he put his leaflet of printed words into his pocket and shepherded the row of urchins into position with movements of his hands.
"Move that way, John Roberts—I cannot see Olwen Morgan's face. Hugh Morgan, stop poking your foot into that rabbit-hole or you fall down it and we have to dig you out. Miss Pritchard, give Gwen Roberts her sunbonnet, if you please, or she catss a sunstroke. Ithel, where is your handkerchief? Your nose resem-bles a snail.... Now listen to me. If I see a boy or girl not pay atten-sson I stop till he do pay atten-sson——"
And he began. He told them that soon, with the coming of the railway, there would come also all manner of pip-ple, some good pip-ple, some bad pip-ple. He told them that at Railhead were many bad pip-ple, who swore, and drank a great deal more than was good for them. He told them (discreetly, since he had no wish to preach a jehad against customers so good as the Gardens) that while some boys might go to Railhead to play, boys like some he would not mention, who had lived in large towns, yet it would be bet-ter if they kept themselves to themselves.... He did not go the length of asserting that all good boys were Welsh and country boys, and that all bad ones were town-bred and English, but—but—well, things have to be put a little starkly to the young. They shuffled their feet in the hot loose sand as he talked. The buzzard sailed back from the mountains. The sandhoppers danced as if the ground had been a frying-pan. A holy peace brooded over the land. Away at Railhead men, those sinful men who drank and swore slept in rows, stretched face-downwards on the grass or the thrown-up banks of clay.
Then the grocer began to promise the rewards of virtue. He turned with an interrogative smile to John Pritchard.
"And now, Mr. Pritchard, do you think I might tell them that sec-ret? Indeed I think I get into trouble if I do! But yess, I will tell them.—Atten-sson now. Hugh Morgan, do not scratss your head. Now!—Can any boy or girl tell me what there iss to be in Mr. Pritchard's field next month?"
They guessed at once, with one voice. Howell Gruffydd knew better than to ask an audience questions it could not answer. He held up his hands in admiring surprise.
"Indeed they guess—they are every one right, Miss Pritchard! Astonissing! Dear me, I never saw such s'arp young men and women!—Yess, they are right. There is to be a Treat for the Sunday School scholars! There now! And there will be races, and prizes, and tea, and the books will be given for those who have had the largest num-ber of attendances and have not been late.—And now: who is giving this Treat?"
"Mr. Tudor Williams!" they cried.
"Right again—it is Mr. Tudor Williams, the Member of Parliament! And Mr. Williams is giv-ing something else too. He is giv-ing—I have seen them—new pictures—pictures of the construc-tion of flowers—(bot-tany I think it is called, Miss Pritchard?)—and an-i-mals—and fiss-sses——"
He turned up his eyes, as if to the heavens from which these rewards of virtuous living descended. The croupy shrilling of a cock came from down by the beach. The bees droned, and the wheeling buzzard suddenly dropped like a plummet a hundred yards through the larkspur blue.