My Neighbors Part 14

"I've come to start, zer," he said.

"Why wa.s.sn't you in the chapel yezterday?"

"I wa.s.s there, zer."

"Ho-ho. For me there are two people in the chapel--me and Him."

"Yez, indeed. Shall I gommence now?"

"Gommence what?"

"My crib what I leave to join up."

"Things have changed. There has been a war on, mister. They are all smart young ladies here now. And it is not right to sack them and shove them on the streets."

"But--"

"Don't answer back, or I'll have you chucked from the premizes and locked up. Much grat.i.tude you show for all I did for the soders."

"Beg pardon, zer."

"We too did our bits at home. Slaved like horses. Me and the two sons.

And they had to do work of national importance. Disgraceful I call it in a free country."

"I would be much obliged, zer, if you would take me on."

"You left on your own accord, didn't you? I never take back a hand that leave on their own. Why don't you be patriotic and rejoin and finish up the Huns?"

Bowed down, the soldier made himself drunk, and the drink enlivened his dismettled heart; and in the evening he stole into the loft which is above the Big Seat of Capel Kingsend, purposing to disturb the praying men with loud curses.

But Llew slept, and while he slept the words of the praying men came through the ceiling like the pieces of a child's jigsaw puzzle; some floated sluggishly and fell upon the wall and the roof, and some because of their little strength did not reach above the floor; and none went through the roof. Saint David closed his hands on many, and there was no soundness in them, and they became as though they were nothing. He formed a bag of the soldier's handkerchief, and he filled it with the words, but as he drew to the edges they crumbled into less than dust.

He pondered; and he made a sack out of cobwebs, and when the sack could not contain any more words, he wove a lid of cobwebs over the mouth of it. Jealous that no mishap should befall his treasure, he mounted a low, slow-moving cloud, and folding his wings rode up to the Gate of the Highway.

VIII

JOSEPH'S HOUSE

A woman named Madlen, who lived in Penlan--the crumbling mud walls of which are in a nook of the narrow lane that rises from the valley of Bern--was concerned about the future state of her son Joseph. Men who judged themselves worthy to counsel her gave her such counsels as these: "Blower bellows for the smith," "Cobblar clox," "b.o.o.boo for crows."

Madlen flattered her counselors, though none spoke that which was pleasing unto her.

"Cobblar clox, ach y fy," she cried to herself. "Wan is the lad bach with decline. And unbecoming to his Nuncle Essec that he follows low tasks."

Moreover, people, look you at John Lewis. Study his marble gravestone in the burial ground of Capel Sion: "His name is John Newton-Lewis; Paris House, London, his address. From his big shop in Putney, Home they brought him by railway." Genteel are shops for boys who are consumptive.

Always dry are their coats and feet, and they have white cuffs on their wrists and chains on their waistcoats. Not blight nor disease nor frost can ruin their sellings. And every minute their fingers grabble in the purses of n.o.bles.

So Madlen thought, and having acted in accordance with her design, she took her son to the other side of Avon Bern, that is to Capel Mount Moriah, over which Essec her husband's brother lorded; and him she addressed decorously, as one does address a ruler of the capel.

"Your help I seek," she said.

"Poor is the reward of the Big Preacher's son in this part," Essec announced. "A lot of atheists they are."

"Not pleading I have not the rent am I," said Madlen. "How if I prentice Joseph to a shop draper. Has he any odds?"

"Proper that you seek," replied Essec. "Seekers we all are. Sit you. No room there is for Joseph now I am selling Penlan."

"Like that is the plan of your head?" Madlen murmured, concealing her dread.

"Seven of pounds of rent is small. Sell at eighty I must."

"Wait for Joseph to prosper. Buy then he will. Buy for your mam you will, Joseph?"

"Sorry I cannot change my think," Essec declared.

"Hard is my lot; no male have I to ease my burden."

"A weighty responsibility my brother put on me," said Essec. "'Dying with old decline I am,' the brother mouthed. 'Fruitful is the soil.

Watch Madlen keeps her fruitful.' But I am generous. Eight shall be the rent. Are you not the wife of my flesh?"

After she had wiped away her tears, "Be kind," said Madlen, "and wisdom it to Joseph."

"The last evening in the seiet I commanded the congregation to give the Big Man's photograph a larger hire," said Essec. "A few of my proverbs I will now spout." He spat his spittle and bundling his beard blew the residue of his nose therein; and he chanted: "Remember Essec Pugh, whose right foot is tied into a club knot. Here's the club to kick sinners as my perished brother tried to kick the Bad Satan from the inside of his female Madlen with his club of his baston. Some preachers search over the Word. Some preachers search in the Word. But search under the Word does preacher Capel Moriah. What's the light I find? A stutterer was Moses. As the middle of a b.u.t.ter cask were the knees of Paul. A splotch like a red cabbage leaf was on the cheek of Solomon. By the signs shall the saints be known. 'Preacher Club Foot, come forward to tell about Moriah,' the Big Man will say. Mean scamps, remember Essec Pugh, for I shall remember you the Day of Rising."

It came to be that on a morning in the last month of his thirteenth year Joseph was bidden to stand at the side of the cow which Madlen was milking and to give an ear to these commandments: "The serpent is in the bottom of the gla.s.s. The hand on the tavern window is the hand of Satan.

On the Sabbath eve get one penny for two ha'pennies for the plate collection. Put money in the handkerchief corner. Say to persons you are a nephew of Respected Essec Pugh and you will have credit. Pick the white sixpence from the floor and give her to the mishtir; she will have fallen from his pocket trowis."

Then Joseph turned, and carrying his yellow tin box, he climbed into the craggy moorland path which takes you to the tramping road. By the pump of Tavarn Ffos he rested until Shim Carrier came thereby; and while Shim's horse drank of barley water, Joseph stepped into the wagon; and at the end of the pa.s.sage Shim showed him the business of getting a ticket and that of going into and coming down from a railway carriage.

In that manner did Joseph go to the drapery shop of Rees Jones in Carmarthen; and at the beginning he was instructed in the keeping and the selling of such wares as reels of cotton, needles, pins, bootlaces, mending wool, b.u.t.tons, and such like--all those things which together are known as haberdashery. He marked how this and that were done, and in what sort to fashion his visage and frame his phrases to this or that woman. His oncoming was rapid. He could measure, cut, and wrap in a parcel twelve yards of brown or white calico quicker than any one in the shop, and he understood by rote the folds of linen tablecloths and bedsheets; and in the town this was said of him: "Shopmen quite ordinary can sell what a customer wants; Pugh Rees Jones can sell what n.o.body wants."

The first year pa.s.sed happily, and the second year; and in the third Joseph was stirred to go forward.

"What use to stop here all the life?" he asked himself. "Better to go off."

He put his belongings in his box and went to Swansea.

"Very busy emporium I am in," were the words he sent to Madlen. "And the wage is twenty pounds."

Madlen rejoiced at her labor and sang: "Ten acres of land, and a cow-house with three stalls and a stall for the new calf, and a pigsty, and a house for my bones and a barn for my hay and straw, and a loft for my hens: why should men pray for more?" She ambled to Moriah, diverting pa.s.sers-by with boastful tales of Joseph, and loosened her imaginings to the Respected.

"Pounds without number he is earning," she cried. "Rich he'll be.

Swells are youths shop."

"Gifts from the tip of my tongue fell on him," said Essec. "Religious were my gifts."