Through Welsh Doorways Part 26

"'Tis seldom Rhyd Ddu sees black candles with Scripture words on them,"

a.s.sented Nance.

"Pooh! the candles, _they_ was nothin' to the cards Mrs. James had had printed for him--nothin'. Here's mine. They have his last words."

Nance looked eagerly towards the card.

"Scripture words, too," added Megan. "'Tis sanctifyin' how many people in Rhyd Ddu die repeatin' such words."

"What was they, Mrs. Griffiths?" asked Nance, her eagerness turning into trembling.

Megan opened the large card with its wide border of black and inner borders of silver and black, and read the words. The verses were long, and during their reading no sound came from the adjoining room. Then, aloud, Megan counted off on her fingers neighbours who had left life in this approved fas.h.i.+on, while the excitement in Nance's eyes was deepening and her cheeks were quivering.

"Show it me," she said.

"Indeed, 'tis a safe way to----" Megan commenced speaking, but commands and a sudden breaking forth of song interrupted her.

"'Tis the dog takin' him his slippers," Nance apologised.

"Yes, a safe way to die," concluded Megan testily.

In the midst of a blithe refrain of "Smile again, lovely Jane," she rose to go, muttering as she repocketed the card.

In Rhyd Ddu the rush of the modern world had not cut up the time of the folk into a fringe of unsatisfying days. With these Welsh mountain people from sunrise to sunset was a good solid day, full of solid joys and comforts or equally solid woes and sorrows. In Rhyd Ddu a man might know the complete tragic or joyous meaning of twenty-four hours, with solemn pa.s.sages from starlight to dawn and manifold song from sunrise to dusk. There was no illusion in such a day, so that when he came to the Edge of the Great Confine, sharper than the ridge of his own thatched roof, that, too, seemed merely a part of the general illusion. Rather, he knew that step from the green and gold room of his outdoor world, with its inclosed hearth of daily pleasures, was a step into another room not known to him at all. But he said to himself, especially when he had spent his days among the hills and amid mountain winds and valleys, that he could not get beyond the love in the room he knew well; so trusting what he could not see, he stepped forward quietly. And the deep waters of an infinite s.p.a.ce closed over his head. One soul after another came to the Great Edge. There were no outcries, no lamentations over lost days, no shattering questions, no wail to trouble the ears of those who made grave signs of farewell. But there was a pang, part of the pang of birth and of love, and taken as the workman takes the ache in his crushed finger--silently. So simple were they that the coming and going of the mown gra.s.s was as an allegory of their own days, and the circ.u.mstance of death was as natural to them as the reaping of their abundant valley fruit, or the dropping of a leaf from a tree.

In Rhyd Ddu, however, the acceptance of death differed from life in one respect, for the simple pride of life was as nothing compared with the pride centring about some incident of death. They honoured dying with the frank, unhushed voice with which they praised a beautiful song or the narration of some stirring tale. They discussed it freely at a knitting-night or a merry-making; even at the "bidding" of a bride the subject was acceptable discourse. The ways of their living taught them no evasion of this last moment.

To Nance the little old man in the next room, with his arched eyebrows, delicate features, and whimsical sprightly look, had been more than life itself, and more completely than she had words to express, her hero. The one object through the years of living that seemed worth remembering at all--those with Silvan--had been to Nance the glorification of this husband about whom the Rhyd Ddu folk were by no manner of means in concord, for pranks of speech and hand are disconcerting to the slow-moving wits of the average human being. Now, in the end, Nance foresaw wrested away from Silvan the last of the distinctions she had hoped to win for him. When she entered the room revolving these ambitions, beautiful only because love was their source, he was shaking his finger at Pedr and taking advantage of his good humour.

"Och, mam, this poor dog has had nothin' to eat. Ye're pinchin' him, whatever."

"Pinchin' him!" exclaimed Nance. "Tut, he'll not be gettin' in an' out'n the door much longer, an' I see the neighbours a-laughin' now when they look at him. He'll die with over-feedin', he will."

"He will," mocked Silvan, "die of over-feedin', he will!"

"Lad, Mrs. Griffiths's been here."

"Well, dearie, do ye think I didn't know Megan Griffiths was here? She'd crack the gates of heaven with that voice. Was she tellin' ye everythin'

that didn't happen, now was she?"

"Dad, what will ye say such things about Megan for? She was tellin' of Harry James's funeral."

"Nance, she's a bell for every tooth, an' they jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle."

Nance's eyes filled.

"Och, mam, I'm just teasin' ye; an' ye were thinkin' of me the while, now weren't ye?"

"Aye, father. 'Twas a grand funeral, an' he died with them wonderful verses on his lips."

"Did he so!" exclaimed Silvan. "Well, the man had need to, drinkin' as he did."

"But, lad, there's been others, too."

"Aye, dearie, I heard Megan shoutin' them for my entertainment. I'm not deaf. But, mam," he continued, the merriment leaving his eyes, "ye're ambitious for me? Aye?"

"Aye, lad, I am," she whispered, looking away from Silvan, "I am, lad, for ye have been so long the cleverest man in Rhyd Ddu, an' the handsomest an' the kindest, an' nothin's too fine for ye. There's no woman ever had a better man nor I have, lad."

"These girls----"

Nance put up her hand.

"Lad, lad, I cannot stand it, I cannot."

"Och, dearie, I'm just teasin' ye; come here."

She went over to him and sat beside him, her head turned away from the bright eyes.

"Father, have ye thought of what's comin', have ye?"

"Nance, I'm thinkin' of it all the while, but I'm not afraid, only for ye. Dearie, ye're not to believe everythin' ye hear; Megan has a good memory, an' it takes a good memory to tell lies. 'Tisn't everybody dies repeatin' Bible verses."

"Aye, but father, Harry James _did_ say those words on the card, an' all the time he never was a good man, swearin' an' drinkin' so, an' ye've been _so_ good, dad, for all your teasin' an' fun."

"Tut, mam, ye're just wantin' to spoil me, a-makin' out I'm the best man in Rhyd Ddu. An' ye're wantin' me to have more honour among the neighbours nor any one else when I'm gone, now isn't that it?"

"Aye," she whispered.

"An' ye're wis.h.i.+n' me to promise to say some text? Would it comfort ye, mam?"

"Aye," she answered.

"What text?"

Nance thought and repeated some verses.

"No, I can't," he said, shaking his head, "I can't. They're sad, an'

I've always been merrylike."

In the silence that followed these words Silvan turned to Nance.

"I might, if 'twould please ye, say _these_ words." Silvan repeated a verse. "But I cannot promise even these."

As she listened Nance's face fell.

"Aye, well, dad darlin'," she said, as bravely as she could, "they're good words indeed, over-cheerful, I'm thinkin', but Holy Writ, aye, Holy Writ."

Whatever happened in the luxuriant green of the Rhyd Ddu valley, which the bees still preferred to Paradise, and the flowers to the Garden of Eden itself,--whatever happened in this valley--some phenomenal spring season, the flood that swept away their plots of mid-summer marigolds, the little life that suddenly began to make its needs felt, or the life with its last need answered--was adjudged with the most primitive wisdom and philosophy.