Judgments in Vacation

by Sir Edward Abbott Parry

“‘But I do,’ said the vicar. ‘He will just be drowning you in the pool, and we shall have all the Dissenters going about saying Hopkins fell in the pool late at night, when he was coming home drunk, and that will be a very bad thing for the Church. No, I will have none of it at all.’

“‘But what shall I tell him then?’ I asked.

“‘Tell him to go to—the Presbyterians,’ says the vicar, and I knew well what he meant.”

You rarely saw the rector going through the lanes without a few of the children of the parish at his heels. For they all loved him. He stuffed the pockets of his long black coat with sweets, and was never in too much of a hurry to have a chat with his young parishioners and hear the news of their families, and listen to the recital of a text from the Welsh Bible. He knew even more of his Welsh Bible by heart than his Greek Testament and would correct the least slips in the recital. But when the text was said, it was duly rewarded by bull’s-eyes and toffee, and a few kindly words of encouragement. I heard that, when he was dying, several of the shyest and wildest lads in the place used to haunt the rectory for news of their friend, and when the end came they would not believe that he was gone until they saw the coffin being carried from the house, and then they burst into a dismal howl of mourning and despair. Certainly, the Rector of Rhoscolyn was a friend to all the children under his care.

He did not shine as an English preacher, for to him it always remained a foreign language, though he was a great student of the English classics and always seeking to improve his English. Milton was a favourite author. His idea of winter happiness was to draw by the fire after his porridge supper and read Milton. As a Welsh preacher he was sought after and I have heard the chanting song of his eloquence through the open windows of the church, as I sat upon the hillside, many fields away, on a still summer evening. He read the service in English fairly well, with some curious tricks of pronunciation, and I remember that we “hurried and strayed from thy ways” rather than “erred,” which in these modern days sounded a very reasonable reading. But in a sermon, the foreign tongue with which he wrestled bravely and visibly sometimes threw him, and one still remembers with a smile phrases such as “I must tell you this, said St. Peter,” and “Excuse me”—another favourite form of words to gain time for translation—“Excuse me, but we are all mortal.” I think, in the use of the last phrase, there was an expression of his constant desire not to give pain, and perhaps a feeling that the well-dressed West-End English congregation that filled his little church from many miles round in the summer holidays were unused to hear these home truths in their own elegant tongue.

But the great charm of the service was the welcome he gave you. The Welsh service was ended, and the English service started at half-past eleven. The rector stood at the door of his church in a prehistoric but very square and dignified top-hat, shaking hands with all as they arrived. He used to scandalise the stricter brethren somewhat by his greeting to me. “Good morning Judge Parry, I am glad to see you. I saw you going down to bathe. I was afraid you would not be back in time for church. How was the water this morning?”

I think he was—like many another good man—at his very best in his own home. Many a visitor to Rhoscolyn will have taken part in one of his picnic cricket matches. We played in a field in front of the rectory, from which the grass had been recently mown with scythes. The pitch was of the nature of rough stubble; but as everyone played between the ages of two and seventy, without restraint of sex, there was, of course, no swift bowling, and the science of the game as we play it in the east was neither wanted nor missed. For there was great excitement and enthusiasm, and the heartiest cheering when the rector thundered across from wicket to wicket, and this was redoubled when, at length—having been technically out on several occasions—he gave up his bat from sheer fatigue, and hurried off to look after the preparations for his tea. His anxiety that the buns should arrive in time from Holyhead, and that the butter should be put on thickly, and that the tea should be well-brewed, makes his feasts more memorable to me than many an important banquet I have assisted at.

But in his own study, when two or three were gathered together, he was even more at ease and at home. He had never been a rich man, and had always been a lover of books, and his shelves were crowded with the most unkempt collection of dear friends that ever a book-lover had gathered together. Bindings were in many cases conspicuous by their absence, and in a series of volumes one or two were often missing. These were bargains he had picked up on some of his rare visits to English towns. The most of his books were theological, and many were Welsh; but the English classics were well represented. There were no decorative books. Favourite volumes were placed lengthways on the shelves instead of upright, with slips of paper in them, so that the passages he wished to read again could be readily found. He was, I fancy, a slow reader and a thoughtful one. I was often astonished at the passages from Milton and Shakespeare he could quote. These he translated in thought, he told me, into Welsh, to get their real meaning into his mind.

I have heard say that he was eloquent in extempore prayer, and I can well believe it. He used to be very indignant over the alleged shortcomings of some of the Nonconformists in this respect. “I must tell you this indeed,” he said: “there are fellows who will repeat the most beautiful passages of our beautiful Prayer-book in a chapel, and pretend to the poor people it is extempore prayer. I wonder what they think! Do they think God has never heard our Prayer-book at all?” Then he would speak with great respect of the powers of extempore prayer of some of the great Welsh Nonconformist divines, but he always wound up in a spirit of sportsmanlike churchmanship rather than boasting: “Excuse me, but I think I could pray extempore against any of them.”