My People: Stories of the Peasantry of West Wales/The Blast of God
THE BLAST OF GOD
XV
THE BLAST OF GOD
Owen TygwynTygwyn is the zinc-roofed house that is in a group of trees at the back of Capel Sion—was ploughing when his wife Shan came to the break in the hedge, crying:
“For what you think, little man? Dai is hanging in the cowhouse. Come you now and see to him.”
Owen ended the furrow and unharnessed the horse, which he led into the stable and fed with hay. Then he unravelled the knot in the rope which had choked the breath of his son Dai. When he was finished and Dai was laid on the floor of the cowhouse, Shan said to him:
“Eat you your middle-of-the-day morsel now, before you go back to the old plough.”
Having eaten to his liking of the beaten potatoes and buttermilk, Owen resumed his labour, and while he was labouring he rehearsed a prayer he would make for a male child, and that prayer he said to the Big Husband at the far end of the light. His petition reached the ears of God, and after twenty months it was answered: the cry of the infant woke him, and he got out of bed and lit a tallow candle, and read his Bible, because he was very glad. With the rising of the sun he brought his three cows into the close.
“Lissi Mari,” he said to his daughter, who slept at the foot of the bed, “get you up now, wench fach, and milk the creatures, for things are so-so with Shan. Are not their old udders bursting?”
The child was named Samuel, and in Capel Sion on the Sabbath Owen glorified the Big Man.
But his words were not pleasing to Joshua Lancoch, who corrected him, saying:
“An old veil females wear must divide you from the face of the Big Man. Indeed, like lead is my heart for you. Over-vain you are to expect too much from your brat. He is not of the Lord’s giving.”
“Sober, Joshua,” said Owen, “speak you out, dear me, there's a wise little man.”
“Well-well, now, ill is my stomach to make speech, but Shan is a miscarrying woman, and a miscarrying woman is dung in the nose of the Man of Terror. Two she miscarried before Dai, Owen bach, and Dai hanged himself to the Fiery Pool in the cowhouse. Ach y fi! Do you be humble, and tempt you the Big Man not overmuch. He is quick to anger.”
Because of this chiding Owen entreated the Lord continually, and he also made sacrifices unto Capel Sion: his possessions got small and he whipped his spirit into humility and subjection, for is it not written that the meek shall inherit the Kingdom? He sold live stock to pay his rent, and this stock he was never able to replace. After the birth of Samuel Shan miscarried two children, and the price of two pigs provided them with coffins and graves.
In his bitterness Owen turned to his wife and said: “Pity the Big Man has made you such a spoilful curse.”
Shan spread her hands over her wasteful breasts, and moaned:
“Make you not that speech, little Owen. Have you not Samuel? Did not the Great Husband send him in answer to your prayer?”
“Right true, Shan. Now indeed, pious the boy bach is.”
“Iss-iss. Does he not tongue prayers like a preacher? And his learning is more than the old Schoolin’s.”
“Why you speak stupid for, woman? That old blockhead of a Schoolin’ knows nothing.”
“Grand will be if we send him to the School of Grammar in Castellybryn.”
“Iss, dear me.”
“Holy joy will be to listen to him preach the Word.”
“Sam bach will make every one weep with his eloquence.”
Owen called his son to him.
“Stand you on an old chair,” he said to him, “and say out a small hymn and make a bit of prayer.”
When the lad finished, Owen said:
“Well done, little boy bach clever. Did I not think I was in Capel Sion?”
“Pretty his speech,” exclaimed Shan. “Heard you how he sang, ‘Be with Thy nice servant bach in the Temple of Sion, prosper his work among the sinful congregation’?”
Samuel passed the seventh standard in the School of Lloyd, whereat Owen, asked in the Seiet to bear testimony, spoke these words:
“Do you be glad with me that the Big Man has inspired my son Samuel to noise abroad His Word. Has not the Lord been good to me then? You all know that Shan is a miscarrying woman. Yet, lo, He blesses her iniquity. Mouth you this miracle throughout all the land.”
In due season he went to Castellybryn and said to the Chief Teacher of the School of Grammar:
“Mishtir bach, make you room for my son Samuel, the child the Big Husband sent in answer to my groanings.”
The day of the Harvest Fair he journeyed there again, and he drove before him a cow in calf, and one part of the money he got for the animal he gave to the Chief Teacher, and with the other part he caused to be made for Samuel a preacher’s coat, which is of shiny black material.
Owen and Shan bent their backs and tilled and turned the soil, but they reaped less than they sowed. Lissi Mari became a servant-maid on Abel’s farm (which is on the sea side of the moor). Before the term of her hire was over she returned to her father’s house.
“Lissi Mari is carrying her cross,” Shan mourned.
“We will keep this a secret from my son,” said Owen. “Very holy must his thoughts be stored.”
Samuel entered College Carmarthen, and Owen sold two sheep so that his son might have clothes that would be for glory and holiness.
“That’s fair, little man,” said Shan. “He must be kept presentable,” and every Friday she killed a fattened hen and had it sent to the house where he lodged.
For all that Owen and Shan did, Samuel was grateful, and he said: “In me they will find their stronghold;” and in the call of Capel Bethel, in Morfa, he distinguished the voice of God.
And Owen said to his wife Shan:
“The Great Father is repenting of His doings against you, Shan fach.”
“Little man, iss. Iss, little man,” she answered gladly. “Joyful am I to see the boy in the pulpit.”
As their souls rejoiced, the weariness which follows heavy toil made their bones stiff. Shan was flat and unlovely, and of the colour of earth. Except on the Sabbath she covered her bosom with many shawls and a discarded waistcoat, and in the wrinkles of her face there was much dirt.
There was a day when Samuel came to Tygwyn and looked upon the burdens of his father and mother, and he said to them:
“People bach, leave Tygwyn and go you and abide in the cottage against the back of Shop Rhys. Take you Lissi Mari’s baby.”
“Foolish is your speech,“ said Shan. “How shall we fend without a little cow and a little pig?”
“Am I not of your flesh?” asked Samuel.
“Gift of the Big Father, good are you,” and the woman shivered in her happiness, and Owen and Shan lifted their feet and took all that was in the house and went to abide in the place appointed by Samuel.
Three years passed. Lissi Mari was out in the world. Owen was a power in Capel Sion, for the brand was lifted from the face of Shan.
Then a horrible thing happened: Samuel wrought folly in Capel Bethel, in Morfa, and the sound of it reached the high places of all the Capels.
Hugh Morgan, a deacon in Bethel, stopped his pony in front of Shop Rhys.
“Show him me the abode of Owen the Father of Samuel the minister of Bethel,” he said to Rhys.
Rhys asked: “Explain him to me his little errand now, dear stranger.”
“Little man who sells things in a shop, why for will he plead? Take him me now hasty to the place.”
“Tell him me then at once quickly,” said Rhys.
“Has he not heard of this infamy? Man, man, Samuel the son of Satan has hanged his clay.”
“Solemn! Solemn!”
“Was not the nanny-goat the father of Esther’s child? Esther the daughter of Shon of the Boats?”
“Speak he like that now?”
“Was there not a meeting of First Men the last night, and did I not accuse him? ‘You put her big,’ I speeched.”
“Talk in that manner then?” said Rhys of the Shop. “What glory has ever come from a miscarrying woman?”
Rhys Shop and Hugh Morgan went into the house of Owen and Shan.
“For shame, man of the bad,” said Rhys. “And you too, Shan, the serpent in the Great One’s Temple. An old abomination you are then! There was Dai, and the dead, though not born. And now Samuel.”
“Dear little Rhys, harsh are your words,” said Owen.
Hugh Morgan stood on the threshold. “Dear me, man,” he said to Rhys, “there’s a talker he is for sure! Am I not the messenger?” Then he turned to Owen and Shan and spoke to them wrathfully: “Is not Samuel the father of Esther’s child? And has he not hanged himself?”
“Shame on you, sinners,” said Rhys.
“Fetch you Satan’s carcase away this day,” said Hugh Morgan. “The smelly clay is lying in my barn. Fetch you the unholy object.”
Owen hired a cart and horse and he placed three sacks and a little straw on the floor of the cart; and Shan said to him: “Hide you this little patchwork quilt under the sacks and straw, for fear men’s eyes will see it and they jeer at you.”
Before departing, Owen said:
“Go you and dig a grave and have it ready that we can bury your son this night. Leave space between Dai’s and his for my coffin. When the Big Trumpet tones I will rise early and make excuses to the Angel not to be too hard on your sons as they were born of a miscarrying woman.”