My People: Stories of the Peasantry of West Wales/A Father in Sion
A FATHER IN SION
I
A FATHER IN SION
On the banks of Avon Bern there lived a man who was a Father in Sion. His name was Sadrach, and the name of the farmhouse in which he dwelt was Danyrefail. He was a man whose thoughts were continually employed upon sacred subjects. He began the day and ended the day with the words of a chapter from the Book and a prayer on his lips. The Sabbath he observed from first to last; he neither laboured himself nor allowed any in his household to labour. If in the Seiet, the solemn, soul-searching assembly that gathers in Capel Sion on the nights of Wednesdays after Communion Sundays, he was entreated to deliver a message to the congregation, he often prefaced his remarks with, “Dear people, on my way to Sion I asked God what He meant”
This episode in the life of Sadrach Danyrefail covers a long period; it has its beginning on a March night with Sadrach closing the Bible and giving utterance to these words:
“May the blessing of the Big Man be upon the reading of His Word.” Then, “Let us pray.”
Sadrach fell on his knees, the open palms of his hands together, his elbows resting on the table; his eight childrenSadrach the Small, Esau, Simon, Rachel, Sarah, Daniel, Samuel, and Miriamfollowed his example.
Usually Sadrach prayed fluently, in phrases not unworthy of the minister, so universal, so intimate his pleading: tonight he stumbled and halted, and the working of his spiritful mind lacked the heavenly symmetry of the mind of the godly; usually the note of abundant faith and childlike resignation rang grandly throughout his supplications: tonight the note was one of despair and gloom. With Job he compared himself, for was not the Lord trying His servant to the uttermost? Would the all-powerful Big Man, the Big Man who delivered the Children of Israel from the hold of the Egyptians, give him a morsel of strength to bear his cross? Sadrach reminded God of his loneliness. Man was born to be mated, even as the animals in the fields. Without mate man was like an estate without an overseer, or a field of ripe corn rotting for the reaping-hook.
Sadrach rose from his knees. Sadrach the Small lit the lantern which was to light him and Esau to their bed over the stable.
“My children,” said Sadrach, “do you gather round me now, for have I not something to tell you?” Rachel, the eldest daughter, a girl of twelve, with reddish cheeks and bright eyes, interposed with:
“Indeed, indeed, now, little father; you are not going to preach to us this time of night!”
Sadrach stretched forth his hand and motioned his children be seated.
“Put out your lantern, Sadrach the Small,” he said. “No, Rachel, don't you light the candle. Dear ones, it is not the light of this earth we need, but the light that comes from above.”
“Iss, iss,” Sadrach the Small said. “The true light. The light the Big Man puts in the hearts of those who believe, dear me.”
“Well spoken, Sadrach the Small. Now be you all silent awhile, for I have things of great import to tell you. Heard you all my prayer?”
“Iss, iss,” said Sadrach the Small.
“Sadrach the Small only answers. My children, heard you all my prayer? Don't you be blockheads nowspeak out.”
“There’s lovely it was,” said Sadrach the Small.
“My children?” said Sadrach.
“Iss, iss,” they answered.
“Well, well, then. How can I tell you?” Sadrach put his fingers through the thin beard which covered the opening of his waistcoat, closed his eyes, and murmured a prayer. “Your mother Achsah is not what she should be. Indeed to goodness, now, what disgrace this is! Is it not breaking my heart? You did hear how I said to the nice Big Man that I was like Job? Achsah is mad.”
Rachel sobbed.
“Weep you not, Rachel. It is not for us to question the all-wise ways of the Big Man. Do you dry your eyes on your apron now, my daughter. You, too, have your mother's eyes. Let me weep in my solitude. Oh, what sin have I committed, that God should visit this affliction on me?”
Rachel went to the foot of the stairs.
“Mam!” she called.
“She will not hear you,” Sadrach interrupted. “Dear me, have I not put her in the harness loft? It is not respectable to let her out. Twm Tybach would have sent his wife to the madhouse of Carmarthen. But that is not Christian. Rachel, Rachel, dry your eyes. It is not your fault that Achsah is mad. Nor do I blame Sadrach the Small, nor Esau, nor Simon, nor Sarah, nor Daniel, nor Samuel, nor Miriam. Goodly names have I given you all. Live you up to them. Still, my sons and daughters, are you not all responsible for Achsah’s condition? With the birth of each of you she has got worse and worse. Child-bearing has made her foolish. Yet it is un-Christian to blame you.”
Sadrach placed his head in his arms. Sadrach the Small took the lantern and he and Esau departed for their bed over the stable; one by one the remaining six put off their clogs and crept up the narrow staircase to their beds.
Wherefore to her husband Achsah became as a cross, to her children as one forgotten, to every one living in Manteg and in the several houses scattered on the banks of Avon Bern as Achsah the madwoman.
The next day Sadrach removed the harness to the room in the dwelling-house in which slept the four youngest children; and he put a straw mattress and a straw pillow on the floor, and on the mattress he spread three sacks; and these were the furnishings of the loft where Achsah spent her time. The frame of the small window in the roof he nailed down, after fixing on the outside of it three solid bars of iron of uniform thickness; the trap-door he padlocked, and the key of the lock never left his possession. Achsah's food he himself carried to her twice a day, a procedure which until the coming of Martha some time later he did not entrust to other hands.
Once a week when the household was asleep he placed a ladder from the floor to the loft, and cried:
“Achsah, come you down now.”
Meekly the woman obeyed, and as her feet touched the last rung Sadrach threw a cow's halter over her shoulders, and drove her out into the fields for an airing.
Once, when the moon was full, the pair was met by Lloyd the Schoolin' and the sight caused Mishtir Lloyd to run like a frightened dog, telling one of the women of his household that Achsah, the madwoman, had eyes like a cow’s.
At the time of her marriage Achsah was ten years older than her husband. She was rich, too: Danyrefail, with its stock of good cattle and a hundred acres of fair land, was her gift to the bridegroom. Six months after the wedding Sadrach the Small was born. Tongues wagged that the boy was a child of sin. Sadrach answered neither yea nor nay. He answered neither yea nor nay until the first Communion Sabbath, when he seized the bread and wine from Old Shemmi and walked to the Big Seat. He stood under the pulpit, the fringe of the minister’s Bible-marker curling on the bald patch on his head.
“Dear people,” he proclaimed, the silver-plated wine cup in one hand, the bread plate in the other, “it has been said to me that some of you think Sadrach the Small was born out of sin. You do not speak truly. Achsah, dear me, was frightened by the old bull. The bull I bought in the September fair. You, Shemmi, you know the animal. The red-and-white bull. Well, well, dear people, Achsah was shocked by him. She was running away from him, and as she crossed the threshold of Danyrefail, did she not give birth to Sadrach the Small? Do you believe me now, dear people. As the Lord liveth, this is the truth. Achsah, Achsah, stand you up now, and say you to the congregation if this is not right.”
Achsah, the babe suckling at her breast, rose and murmured:
“Sadrach speaks the truth.”
Sadrach ate of the bread and drank of the wine.
Three months after Achsah had been put in the loft Sadrach set out at daybreak on a journey to Aberystwith. He returned late at night, and, behold, a strange woman sat beside him in the horse car; and the coming of this strange woman made life different in Danyrefail. Early in the day she was astir, bustling up the children, bidding them fetch the cows, assist with the milking, feed the pigs, or do whatever work was in season.
Rachel rebuked Sadrach, saying, “Little father, why for cannot I manage the house for you? Indeed now, you have given to Martha the position that belongs to me, your eldest daughter.”
“What mean you, my dear child?” returned Sadrach. “Cast you evil at your father? Turn you against him? Go you and read your Commandments.”
“People are whispering,” said Rachel. “They do even say that you will not be among the First Men of the Big Seat.”
“Martha is a gift from the Big Man,” answered Sadrach. “She has been sent to comfort me in my tribulation, and to mother you, my children.”
“Mother!”
“Tut, tut, Rachel,” said Sadrach, “Martha is only a servant in my house.”
Rachel knew that Martha was more than a servant. Had not her transfer letter been accepted by Capel Sion, and did she not occupy Achsah's seat in the family pew? Did she not, when it was Sadrach's turn to keep the minister’s month, herself on each of the four Saturdays take a basket laden with a chicken, two white-hearted cabbages, a peck of potatoes, a loaf of bread, and half a pound of butter to the chapel house of Capel Sion? Did she not drive with Sadrach to market and fair and barter for his butter and cheese and cattle and what not? Did she not tell Ellen the Weaver's Widow what cloth to weave for the garments of the children of Achsah?
These things Martha did; and Danyrefail prospered exceedingly: its possessions spread even to the other side of Avon Bern. Sadrach declared in the Seiet that the Lord was heaping blessings on the head of His servant. Of all who worshipped in Sion none was stronger than the male of Danyrefail; none more respected. The congregation elected him to the Big Seat. Sadrach was a tower of strength unto Sion.
But in the wake of his prosperity lay vexation. Rachel developed fits; while hoeing turnips in the twilight of an afternoon she shivered and fell, her head resting in the water ditch that is alongside the hedge. In the morning Sadrach came that way with a load of manure.
“Rachel fach,” he said, “wake you up now. What will Martha say if you get ill?”
He passed on.
When he came back Rachel had not moved, and Sadrach drove away, without noticing the small pool of water which had gathered over the girl's head. Within an hour he came again, and said:
“Rachel, Rachel, wake you up. There's lazy you are.”
Rachel was silent. Death had come before the milking of the cows. Sadrach went to the end of the field and emptied his cart of the manure. Then he turned and cast Rachel’s body into the cart, and covered it with a sack, and drove home, singing the hymn which begins:
- “Safely, safely gather’d in,
- Far from sorrow, far from sin,
- No more childish griefs or fears,
- No more sadness, no more tears;
- For the life so young and fair
- Now hath passed from earthly care;
- God Himself the soul will keep,
- Giving His beloved—sleep.”
Esau was kicked by a horse, and was hurt to his death; six weeks later Simon gashed his thumb while slicing mangolds, and he died. Two years went by, by the end of which period Old Ianto, the gravedigger of Capel Sion, dug three more graves for the children of Sadrach and Achsah; and over these graves Sadrach and Martha lamented.
But Sadrach the Small brought gladness and cheer to Danyrefail with the announcement of his desire to wed Sara Ann, the daughter of Old Shemmi. Martha and Sadrach agreed to the union provided Old Shemmi gave to his daughter a stack of hay, a cow in calf, a heifer, a quantity of bedclothes, and four cheeses. Old Shemmi, on his part, demanded with Sadrach the Small ten sovereigns, a horse and a cart, and a bedstead.
The night before the wedding Sadrach drove Achsah into the fields, and he told her how the Big Man had looked with good-will upon Sadrach the Small, and was giving him Sara Ann to wife.
What occurred in the loft over the cowshed before dawn crept in through the window with the iron bars I cannot tell you. God can. But the rising sun found Achsah crouching behind one of the hedges of the lane that brings you from Danyrefail to the tramping road, and there she stayed, her eyes peering through the foliage, until the procession came by: first Old Shemmi and Sadrach, with Sadrach the Small between them; then the minister of Capel Sion and his wife; then the men and the women of the congregation; and last came Martha and Sara Ann.
The party disappeared round the bend: Achsah remained.
“Goodness me,” she said to herself. “There’s a large mistake now. Indeed, indeed, mad am I.”
She hurried to the gateway, crossed the road and entered another field, through which she ran as hard as she could. She came to a hedge, and waited.
The procession was passing.
Sadrach and Sadrach the Small.
Achsah doubled a finger.
Among those who followed on the heels of the minister was Miriam.
Achsah doubled another finger.
The party moved out of sight: Achsah still waited.
“Sadrach the Small and Miriam!” she said, spreading out her doubled-up fingers. “Two. Others? Esau. Simon. Rachel. Sarah. Daniel. Samuel. Dear me, where shall I say they are? Six. Six of my children. Mad, mad am I? " … She laughed. “They are grown, and I didn’t know them.”
Achsah waited the third time for the wedding procession. This time she scanned each face, but only in the faces of Sadrach the Small and Miriam did she recognise her own children. She threw herself on the grass. Esau and Simon and Rachel, and Sarah and Daniel and Samuel. She remembered the circumstances attending the birth of each.… And she had been a good wife. Never once did she deny Sadrach his rights. So long as she lasted she was a woman to him.
“Sadrach the Small and Miriam,” she said.
She rose and went to the graveyard. She came to the earth under which are Essec and Shan, Sadrach's father and mother, and at a distance of the space of one grave from theirs were the graves of six of the children born of Sadrach and Achsah. She parted the hair that had fallen over her face, and traced with her fingers the letters which formed the names of each of her six children. ••••• As Sara Ann crossed the threshold of Danyrefail, and as she set her feet on the flagstone on which Sadrach the Small is said to have been born, the door of the parlour was opened and a lunatic embraced her.