My People: Stories of the Peasantry of West Wales/The Devil in Eden
THE DEVIL IN EDEN
VI
THE DEVIL IN EDEN
If ever the innermost meaning of the Word was in dispute in Capel Sion the Big Man sent an angel in a cloud with a message to Old Ianto of the Road, and this message Old Ianto interpreted to the congregation. Thus, honoured above men, Ianto got puffed up and vain-glorious, whereat the Big Man sent a tempter to test him.
The tempter, in the flesh of a tramp, came to Manteg in the quiet of a Sabbath eve, and he found Ianto setting his thoughts in tune with Sion on the bank of the waters which are against the hedge of Abel Shones’s garden.
The tramp stood over Old Ianto, and spoke to him:
“Tell you me now how far I am from the poorhouse of Castellybryn.”
“Man, man,” answered Ianto, “you’re seven miles good and more.”
Although it was then dusk the tempter made no move to pass on his journey.
“You seem weary, man bach,” remarked Ianto.
“Indeed to goodness now, weary I am,” answered the tramp.
“Sit you down and rest your little old feet,” Ianto counselled him.
The tramp removed his shoes. His feet were blistered, wherefore he rebuked the sun and its heat and the stones on the roads, and they were dusty.
“Say from where you are, boy bach nice?” asked Ianto.
“From far enough, small male, not to want to walk another step.”
“Say you where you hail from and your place of abode.”
“The foxes in the fields have their holes,” was the reply, “the birds of the air their nests, but I have nowhere to lay my head.”
Old Ianto turned his face upon the figure on the ground, saying:
“For what you say that? Dear, dear, has not the little Big Man said, ‘Ye are of more value than many sparrows’?”
“Nowhere to lay this old head,” the tempter repeated through his thick lips.
“Welshman too!” exclaimed Ianto. “Not religious are your words, man. What for you don’t know that you utter these vain things in the Garden of Eden? Open your eyes, and look you. Does not this river break out into four little heads? Saw you Shop Rhys as you came by? There the Creator placed Adam, and was not Adam the first sinner? Behind you is the evil tree, boy bach. See you how crooked the old trunk is! And here just is the spring that gave Eva fresh water to brew tea.”
The tempter opened his heavy eyelids and said:
“You male alive, now why you are not a preacher?”
Ianto’s heart rejoiced.
“Iss, indeed,” he said, “this is the Garden spoken of in the Book of Words. The nice Respected Ruler of the Lord in Capel Sion says that Eva ate of the sour apples on the tree. Does not Abel Shones still pray for Eva?”
“Who is Abel Shones, whatever?” asked the tramp.
“He is the officer for Poor Relief,” answered Ianto. “Wise indeed is Abel. Dear man, you should hear him praying! Asking the Big Man to help him find out wrong-doers.”
“Ho, ho, and you say like that!” said the tempter.
Then Old Ianto sang, and this is what he sang:
“Iss, iss, dear man. This is the garden of Eden. This is the beginning of the world. Goodness me, here was put breath into clay; here God gave Adam the tongue that I am speaking in now.”
The song finished, the tempter said:
“Woe my poor flesh! I am tired.”
“Of course, of course,” said Ianto; and he raised his long, thin legs from the ground. “Do you come with me, dear stranger, and tarry a while in my house. But first put on your old shoes, for it is not seemly to go about in bare feet on the eve of the Sabbath.”
Ianto took the tramp home, and he bade his daughter Dinah warm up a bowl of broth and lay it before his guest; and while the tempter ate of the broth and bread, Ianto, preparing for the Sabbath when none shall work, went to the stream and cleansed his hands and face with small gravel; and when he was returned to the house he sheared the ends of his beard.
The tempter having eaten his meal, pulled off his shoes and lit his pipe.
“Do you ever pray, one’s brother bach?” asked Ianto.
“Brother, indeed!” said Dinah.
“Hold thy chin, little Dinah,” Ianto reproved her. “Brother I mean in the spirit rather than in the letter. Brother bach, do you pray steadfast?”
“What a question, dear me!” answered the tempter. “Indeed, do I not live by faith?”
Ianto placed a bunch of tobacco inside his right cheek, and the black mole thereon moved up and down and in and out in progress with it.
“Come you now,” said Dinah, “speak you your name.”
“Michael,” said the tempter.
Ianto opened his Bible and read. Afterwards he removed the tobacco from his mouth and laid it on the table, and he reported to God with a clean mouth.
When he had risen from his knees and had shaken the stiffness out of his joints, Dinah addressed him:
“Little father, for why you are an old mule? Shame on you to bring here a dirty, bad tramp. What then will folk say? Tell you him to go about his business.”
“Hush, hush, Dinah. Say you not so. ‘Inasmuch as ye do unto the least of my little ones.’ Michael is tired. Look you!”
The tramp had fallen asleep; a silver line of spittle ran from his lips along the stem of his pipe, dropping from the base of the bowl.
Ianto wound up his watch, and took off his clothes, and stepped over the mud floor to his bed, which stood against the nailed-down window-frame.
Dinah rested her elbows on her stockinged knees, and she settled her eyes on the sleeping strangera muscular figure with tanned, hairy skin showing under his buttonless shirt.
Old Ianto spoke from his bed:
“Dinah, go you off to your loft now. Indulge in no evil thoughts concerning Michael. Think you no less of him, little daughter, because the Big Man has not blessed him with much.”
Dinah untied the tape which held her skirt around her waist, and removed the cotton bodice which covered her loosely hanging breasts, and went up the ladder into the loft.
In the morning she baked a loaf of plank bread, which with a bowl of milk warm from the cow she laid before the tramp. To her father she observed:
“I think that old serpent of a straggler can abide here a time, and help to do something about the place. What say you now if he set to mend the wall of the pigsty?”
The tempter fattened many days in Ianto’s house. He built a new wall to the pigsty and on the inside of the door of the cowshed he contrived a trickish bolt.
On the afternoon of the second Sunday after his coming he fondled Dinah and made mischief with her, and when they had committed their sin, the woman was revengeful, and she cried to him:
“Go your way! Take to the dunghill ! You lout ! For sure I will shout your wickedness.” She seized his head and clawed his scalp, until the tramp’s hair was dyed red.
But Michael understood the ways of women, and Dinah, far from divulging what had taken place, went out in the darkness of that night, and when she had secured the door she laid with him on a little straw spread on the floor of the cow-stall.
In the ripeness of time Dinah sorely repented herself, and was much shamed; she drew in the seams of her garments, and pressed herself as butter is pressed into an over-full cask.
People remarked her, and said things one to another.
Ianto spoke to his daughter.
“Bad you were to go out of your way to tempt poor Michael. Tell you the boy bach that it’s good for him to get beyond the sense of your wickedness.”
Dinah acted; she said to Michael:
“Get you out of our home, the old hen! Get away off, else I’ll stick this old pitchfork in your eyes.”
Michael grew feared, and departed; and in a week he came back.
“Sure, dear me, now,” he observed to Ianto, “you won't turn your guest into the highway. Let me rest in your house for a small period.”
“Remain here as long as you like, little son,” replied Ianto. ”But steel your heart against the wiles of my wench.”
During the month which followed Dinah employed divers methods to rid the house of Michael. On a day she said to him:
“Off now, you boy bach, and buy two pounds of sugar in Shop Rhys. Take you this silver little sixpence.” On another day she said to him: “Go off, now indeed to death, and change these eggs for money at Shop Rhys,” and she gave him thirty eggs, each egg worth a penny. Yet on another day she said to him: “A broom I must have. Take a shilling and buy one in Shop Rhys.” But Michael, to her great distress, performed these errands faithfully.
In the twilight of an afternoon Dinah was preparing Ianto’s supper. Michael was sleeping in a chair under the chimney. The room was illumined by a thin light from the fire; Dinah turned around, and she beheld that Michael’s feet were cloven hoofs, and that from his head there came forth two horns. In the twinkling of an eye she knew whom she had been entertaining. Hastening into the lower parlour, she placed the palms of her hands on the cover of the Bible and prayed:
“In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, get thee behind me, Satan. Jesus bach, be with your Ruler in Capel Sion. Amen.”
She re-entered the kitchen.
“Michael, man,” she said, “how say you to a nice cup bach of tea?”
“Iss, indeed, Dinah,” answered the tramp.
Dinah lifted an empty tin pitcher.
“Dear now,” she exclaimed, “what pity! There's not a drop of water. Go you and draw some.”
The tramp pushed his feet into his clogs.
“Give me the old pitcher then,” he said.
“Have I not need of the pitcher for milking?” Dinah said.
“I’ll bring it in the bucket that is outside the pigsty,” said Michael, walking towards the door.
“Don’t you be dirty, boy bach,” cried Dinah. “That bucket is for the pigs’ wash.”
Michael had moved to the threshold and was holding the door ajar. He looked along the road and saw that Abel Shones, the officer for Poor Relief, was running to the house.
He came back into the kitchen.
“What shall I fetch it in, then?” he asked. “Be you hasty now, for am I not thirsty?”
“Dear me, what a calf you are, man! Bring it in this,” and Dinah gave him the cinder sifter.
Since these things happened Dinah has been blessed with second-sight and visionary power. On dark nights she goes to the well and mocks the Angel Michael, who until he performs the task that is set him, will remain upon the earth in the flesh of a tramp.