PONTYSTRAD
On a morning in mid-July, 1901, Mr. D.V. Williams bicycled to
Paddington Station from New Square, Lincoln's Inn. The brown canvas
case fitted to the frame of his male bicycle contained a change of
clothes, a suit of paijamas, a safety razor, tooth-brush, hair-brush
and comb. He himself was wearing a well-cut dark grey suit--Norfolk
jacket, knickerbockers and thick stockings.
Having had his bicycle labelled "Swansea," he entered a first-class
compartment of the South Wales express. Though not lavish on his
expenditure he was travelling first because he still felt a little
uneasy in the presence of men--mostly men of the rougher type.
Perhaps there was a second class in those days; there may be still.
But I have a distinct impression that Mr. Vavasour Williams, law
student, travelled "first" on this occasion: for this was how
he met a person of whom his friend, Honoria Fraser, had often
spoken--Michael Rossiter.
He did not of course--till after they had passed Swindon--know the
name of his travelling companion. Five minutes before the train left
Paddington there entered his compartment of the corridor carriage a
tall man with a short, curly black beard and nice eyes--eyes like
agates in colour. There was a touch of grey about the temples,
otherwise the head hair, when he changed from a hard felt hat to a
soft travelling cap, showed as dark as the beard and moustache. His
frame was strong, muscular and loosely built, and he had clever,
nervous hands with fingers somewhat spatulate. His clothes did not
much suggest the tourist--they seemed more like a too well-worn town
morning suit of dark blue serge; as though he had left home in an
absent-minded mood intent on some hurriedly conceived plan. He cast
one or two quick glances at David; once, indeed, as they got out
into full daylight, away from tunnels and high walls, letting his
glance lengthen into a searching look. Then he busied himself with a
number of scientific periodicals he had brought to read in the
train.
Impelled, he knew not why, to provoke conversation, David asked
(quite needlessly), "This _is_ the South Wales express, I mean the
Swansea train, is it not?"
Blackbeard was struck with the unusualness of the voice--a very
pleasant one to come from the lips of a man--and replied: "It is; at
least I got in under that impression as I am intending to go to
Swansea; but in any case the ticket inspector is sure to come along
the corridor presently and we'll make sure then. We stop at Swindon,
I think, so if we've made a mistake we can rectify it there."
Then after a pause he resumed: "I think you said you were going to
Swansea? Might I ask if you are bound on the same errand as I am? I
mean, are you one of Boyd Dawkins's party to examine the new cave on
the Gower coast?"
_D.V.W._: "Oh no--I--I am going inland from Swansea to--to have a
bicycling tour. I'm going to a place on the river--I don't know how
to pronounce it--at least I've forgotten. The river's name is spelt
Llwchwr."
_Blackbeard_: "You should change your mind and turn south--come and
see these extraordinary caves. Are you interested in palæontology?"
(David hesitates) "What careless people call 'prehistoric animals'
or 'prehistoric man.' They have been ridiculously misled by comic
artists in _Punch_ who imagine a few thousand years of Prehistory
would take us back to the Cretaceous period; really four or five
million years before Man came into existence, when this country and
most other lands swarmed with preposterous reptiles that had become
extinct long before the age of mammals. However, I don't suppose
this interests you. I only spoke because I thought you might be one
of Boyd Dawkins's pupils ... or one of mine."
_David_: "On the contrary, I am very, very much interested in the
subject, but I am afraid it has lain rather outside my line of
studies so far--p'raps I will turn south when I have seen something
of the part of Glamorgan I am going to. I'm really Welsh in origin,
but I know Wales imperfectly because I left it when I was quite
young" ("This'll be good practice," Vivie's brain voice was saying
to herself) ... "I've returned recently from South Africa."
_Blackbeard_: "What were you doing there?"
_David_: "I--I--was in the army ... at least in a police force ... I
got wounded, had to go into hospital--necrosis of the jaw ... I came
home when I got well..."
_Blackbeard_: _"Necrosis of the jaw!_ That was a bad thing. But you
seem to have got over it very well. I can't see any scar from where
I am..."
_David_: "Oh no. It was only a _slight_ touch and I dare say I
exaggerate ... I've left the Army however and now I'm reading
Law..."
Blackbeard thinks at this point that he has gone far enough in
cross-examination and returns to his periodicals and pamphlets. But
there's something he likes--a wistfulness--in the young man's face,
and he can't quite detach his mind to the presence of palæolithic
man in South Wales. At Swindon they both get out--there was still
lingering the practice of taking lunch there--have a hasty lunch
together and more talk, and share a bottle of claret.
On returning to their compartment, Rossiter offers David a cigar but
the young man prefers smoking a cigarette. By this time they have
exchanged names. D.V.W. however is reticent about the South African
War--says it was all too horrible for words, and should never have
taken place and he can't bear to think about it and was knocked out
quite early in the day. Now all he asks is peace and quiet and the
opportunity of studying law in London so that he may become some day
a barrister. Rossiter says--after more talk, "Pity you're going in
for the Bar--we've too many lawyers already. You should take up
Science"--and as far as the Severn Tunnel discourses illuminatingly
on biology, mineralogy, astronomy, chemistry as David-Vivien had
never heard them treated previously. In the Severn Tunnel the noise
of the train silences both professor and listener, who willingly
takes up the position of pupil. Between Newport and Neath, David
thinks he has never met any one so interesting. It has been his
first real induction into the greatest of all books: the Book of the
Earth itself. Rossiter on his part feels indefinably attracted by
this young expatriated Welshman. David does not say much, but what
he does contribute to the conversation shows him a quick thinker and
a person of trained intelligence. Yet somehow the professor of
Biology in the University of London--and many other things
beside--F.R.S., F.Z.S., F.L.S., Gold Medallist of this and that
Academy and University abroad--does not "see" him as a soldier or a
non-commissioned officer in the British Army: law-student is a more
likely qualification. However as they near Swansea, Michael Rossiter
gives Mr. D.V. Williams his card (D.V.W. regrets he cannot
reciprocate but says he has hardly settled down yet to any address)
and--though as a rule he is taciturn in trains and cautious about
making acquaintances--expresses the hope he will call at 1, Park
Crescent some afternoon--"My wife and I are generally at home on
Thursdays"--when all are back in town for the autumn. They separate
at Swansea station.
David spends the night at Swansea, employing some of his time there
by enquiring at the Terminus Hotel as to the roads that lead up the
valley of the Llwchwr, what sort of a place is Pontystrad ("the
bridge by the meadow"), whether any one knows the clergyman of that
parish, Mr.... er ... Howel Vaughan Williams. The "boots" or one of
the "bootses," it appears, comes from the neighbourhood of
Pontystrad and knows the reverend gentleman by sight--a nice old
gentleman--has heard that he's aged much of late years since his son
ran away and disappeared out in Africa. His sight was getting bad,
Boots understood, and he could not see to do all the reading and
writing he was once so great at.
After a rather wakeful night, during which D.V. Williams is more
disturbed by his thoughts and schemes than by the continual noises
of the trains passing into and out of Swansea, he rises early and
drafts a telegram:--
Revd. Howel Williams, Vicarage, Pontystrad, Glamorgan. Hope
return home this evening. All is well.
DAVID.
Then pays his bill and tries to mount his bicycle the wrong way to
the great amusement of the Boots; then remembers the right way and
rides off, with the confidence of one long accustomed to bicycling,
through the crowded traffic of Swansea in the direction of Llwchwr.
It was a very hot ride through a very lovely country, now largely
spoilt by mining and metallurgy, along a road that was constantly
climbing up steeply to descend abruptly. David of course could have
travelled by rail to the Pontyffynon station and thence have ridden
back three miles to Pontystrad. But he wished purposely to bicycle
the whole way from Swansea and take in with the eye the land of his
fathers. He was postponing as long as possible the test of meeting
his father, the father of the young n'eer-do-weel who had been lying
for months in a South African field hospital the year before. He
halted for a cup of tea at Llandeilotalybont ... Wales has many
place names like this ... and being there not many miles from
Pontystrad was able to glean more recent and more circumstantial
information about the man he proposed to greet as "father."
At half-past six that evening, having perspired and dried, perspired
and dried, strained a tendon and acquired a headache, he halted
before the gate of the Vicarage garden at Pontystrad, having been
followed thither to his secret annoyance by quite a troop of village
boys of whom he had imprudently asked the way. As they talked Welsh
he could not tell what they were saying, but conjectured that his
telegram had arrived and that he was expected.
Standing under the porch of the house was an old man with a long
white beard like a Druid in spectacles shading his eyes and
expectant...
A bicycle might prove an incumbrance in the ensuing interview, so
David hastily propped his against a fuchsia hedge and hurried
forward to meet the old man, who extended hands to envelop him, not
trusting to his eyes. An old, rosy-cheeked woman in a sunbonnet came
up behind the old man, shrieked out "Master David!" and only waited
with twitching fingers for her own onslaught till the father had
first embraced his prodigal son. This was done at least three times,
accompanied with tears, blessings, prayers, the uplifting of poor
filmy eyes to a cloudless Heaven--"Diolch i Dduw!"--ejaculations as
to the wonder of it--"Rhyfeddol yw yn eiholl ffyrdd"--God's
Providence--His ways are past finding out! "Ni ellir olrain ei
Ragluniaeth!"--"My own dear boy! Fy machgen annwyli!"
Then the old woman took her turn: "Master David! Eh, but you're
changed, mun!"--then a lot of Welsh exclamations, which until the
Welsh can agree to spell their tongue phonetically I shall not
insert--"Five years since you left us! Eh, and I never thought to
see you no more. Some said you wass dead, others that you wass taken
prisoner by the Wild Boars. But here you are, and welcome--indeed--"
Then Master David between the embraces was scanned, a little more
critically than by the purblind father, but with distinct approval.
At last David stood apart in the stone-flagged hall of the Vicarage.
His abundant hair was rumpled, his face was stained by other
people's tears, his collar, tie, dress disordered, and his heart
touched. It was a rare experience in his twenty-four years of
life--he guessed that should be his age--to find himself really
taken on trust, really desired and loved. Honoria's friendship
was a pure and precious thing, but in its very purity carefully
restrained. Praddy's kindness, and the office boy's worship had both
been gratifying to Vivie's self-esteem, but both had to be kept at
bay. Somehow the love of a father and of an old nurse were of a
different category to these other contacts.
All these thoughts passed through David's brain in thirty seconds.
He shook himself, straightened himself, smiled adequately, and tried
to live up to the situation.
"Dear father! And dear ... Nannie! (A bold but successful
deduction). How sweet of you both--greeting me like this. I've come
home a very different David to the one that left you--what was it?
Five--six years ago?--to go to Mr. Praed's studio. I've learnt a lot
in the interval. But I'm so sick of the past, I don't want to talk
about it more than I can help, and I've been in very queer health
since I got ill--and--wounded--in--South Africa. My memory has gone
for many things--I'm afraid I've forgotten all my Welsh, Nannie, but
it'll soon come back, that is, if I may stay here a bit."
(Exclamations from father and nurse: "This is your _home_,
Davy-bach!") "I'm not going to stay too long this time because I've
got my living to earn in London....
"Did you never hear anything about me from ... South Africa ... or
the War Office--or--your old college chum, Mr. Gardner?"
"I heard--my own dear boy--" said the Revd. Howel, again taking him
in his arms in a renewed spasm of affection. "I heard you were
wounded and very ill in the camp hospital at Colesberg. It was a
nursing sister, I think, who sent me the information. I wrote
several times to the War Office, my letters were acknowledged, that
was all. Then Sam Gardner wrote to me from Margate and said his son
had been in the same hospital with you. Later on I saw in a Bristol
paper that this hospital--Colesberg--had fallen into the hands of
the Boers and the Cape insurgents. Then I said to myself 'My poor
boy's been taken prisoner' and as time went on, 'My poor boy's dead,
or he would have written to me.'"
Here the Revd. Howel stopped to wipe his eyes and blow his nose.
David touched through his armour of cynicism, said--Nannie retiring
to prepare the evening meal--"Father dear, though I don't want to
refer too often to the past, I behaved disgracefully some time ago
and the Colonies seemed my only chance of setting myself right. I
did manage to get away from the Boers, but I had not the courage to
present myself before you till I had done something to regain your
good opinion. I have got now good employment in London and I'm even
reading up Law. We will talk of that by and bye but I tell you
now--from my heart--I am a different David to the one you knew, and
you shall never regret taking me back."
Both father and son were crying now, for emotion especially in Wales
is catching. But the father laughed through his tears; and
incoherently thanked God for the return of the prodigal--a fine
upstanding lad--whole and sound. "No taint about _you_, Davy, _I'll_
be bound. Why your voice alone shows you've been a clean liver. It's
music in my ears, and if I could see as well as I can hear I'd wager
you're a handsome lad and have lost much of your foolishness. Davy,
lad" (lowering his voice) "you've no cause to be anxious about
Jenny. She--she--had a boy, but we got her married to a miner--I
made it right with him. She has another child now, but they're being
brought up together. We won't refer to it again. She lives twenty
miles from here, at Gower--and ... and ... there's an end of it....
"Now you won't run away back to London till you're obliged? Where's
your luggage? At Pontyffynon?"
"No," said David, a little non-plussed at evidences of his dissolute
past and this unexpected fatherhood assumed on his account. "I
haven't more luggage than what is contained in my bicycle bag. But
don't let that concern you. I'll go over to Swansea one day or some
nearer town and buy what may be necessary, and I'll stay with you
all my holidays, tell you all my plans, and even after I go back to
London I'll always come down here when I can get away. For the
present I'm going simply to enjoy myself for the first time in my
life. The last four years we'll look on as a horrid dream. What a
paradise you live in." His eye ranged over the two-storeyed,
soundly-built stone house facing south, with mountains behind and
the western sun throwing shafts of warm yellow green over the lawn
and the flower beds; over clumps of elms in the middle, southern
distance, that might have been planted by the Romans (who loved this
part of Wales). Bees, butterflies and swallows were in the air; the
distant lowing of kine, the scent of the roses, the clatter in the
kitchen where Nannie aided by another female servant was preparing
supper, even the barking of a watch dog; aware that something
unusual was going on, completed the impression of the blissful
countryside. "What a paradise you live in! How _could_ I have left
it?"
"Ay, dear lad; I doubt not it looks strange and new to you since
you've been in South Africa and London. But it'll soon seem homelike
enough. And now you'll like to see your room, and have a wash before
supper. Tom, the gardener, shall take in your bicycle and give it a
rub over. I've still got the old one here in the coach-house which
you left behind. Tom's new, since you left. He's not so clever with
the bees as your old friend Evan was, but he's a steadier lad. I
fear me Evan led you into some of your scrapes. The fault was partly
mine. I shouldn't have let you run wild so much, but I was so
wrapped up in my studies--Well, well!"
David was careful to play his part sufficiently to say when shown
into his old bedroom, "Just the same, father; scarcely a bit
altered--but isn't the bed moved--to another place?"
"You're right, my boy--Ah! your memory can't be as bad as you
pretend. Yes, we moved it there, Bridget and I, because the
Archdeacon came once to stay and complained of the draught from the
window."
"The deuce he did!" said David. "Well, _I_ shan't complain of
anything."
His father left him and he then proceeded to lay out the small
store of things he had brought in his bicycle bag, giving special
prominence to the shaving tackle. He had just finished a summary
toilet when there was a tap on the door, and, suppressing an
exclamation of impatience--for he dearly wanted time and solitude
for collected thought--he admitted Bridget.
"Well, Nannie," he said, "come for a gossip?"
"Yess. I can hardly bear to take my eyes off you, for you've
changed, you _have_ changed. And yet, I don't know? You don't look
much older than you wass when you went off to London to be an
architect. Your cheek--" (lifting her hand and stroking it, while
David tried hard not to wince) "Your cheek's as soft and smooth as
it was then, as any young girl's. Wherever you've been, the world
has not treated you very bad. No one would have dreamt you'd been
all the way to South Africa to them Wild Boars. But some men wear
wonderful well. I suppose your father giv' you a bit of a shock?
He's much older looking; and he wassn't suffering, to speak of, from
his sight when you went away. And now he can hardly see to read even
with his new spectol. Old Doctor Murgatroyd can't do nothing for
him--Advises him to go to see some Bristol or London eye-doctor. But
after you seemed to disappear in Africa he had no heart for trying
to get his sight back. He'd sit for hours doing nothing but think
and talk, all about old Welsh times, or Bible times. Of course he
knows hiss services by heart; hiss only job wass with the
Lessons.... But you see, he'd often only have me and the girl and
Tom in church. There's a new preacher up at Little Bethel that's
drawn all the village folk to hear him. But your father'll be a
different man now--you see, he'll be like a boy again. And if you
could stay long enough, you might take him to Bristol--or Clifton I
think it wass--to see if they could do anything about his eyes....
"The past's the past and we aren't going to say no more about it,
and now you've turned over a new leaf--somehow I _can't_ feel you're
the same person--don't go worrying yourself about that slut Jenny.
_She's_ all right. After your baby was born at her mother's, she
went into service at Llanelly and there she met a miner who's at
work on the new coal mine in Gower. He wasn't a bad sort of chap and
when he'd heard her story he said for a matter of twenty pound he'd
marry her and take over her baby. So your father paid the twenty
pounds, and if she'll only keep straight she'll be none the worse
for what's happened. I always said it wass my fault. It wass the
year I had to go away to my sister, and your father had to go to St.
David's, and after all, if it hadn't 'a-been you, it 'd 'a-been
young Evan. Why there's bin some girls in the village have had two
and even three babies before they settled down and got married. Now
we must dish up supper. I've given you lots and lots of pancakes and
the cream and honey you wass always so fond of--you bad boy--" She
ventured a kiss on the smooth cheek of her nursling and heavily
descended the stairs.
David had a very bad night, because to please his old nurse he had
eaten too many of her pancakes with cream and honey. In fact, he had
at last to tip-toe down through a sleeping house cautiously to let
himself out and relieve his feelings by pacing the verandah till the
nausea passed off. After that he lay long awake trying to size up
the situation. He got his thoughts at last into some such shape as
this:--
"It's clear I was a regular young rake before I was sent up to
London to be Praddy's pupil. Apparently I seduced the housemaid or
kitchenmaid--my father's establishment seems to consist of Nannie
who is housekeeper and cook, and a maid who does housework and
helps in the kitchen--and this unfortunate girl who fell a prey to
my solicitations--or more likely misled me--afterwards gave birth to
a child attributed either to my fatherhood or the gardener's. But
the matter has been hushed up by a payment of twenty pounds and the
girl is now married and respectable and ought to give no further
trouble. I suppose that was a climax of naughtiness on my part and
the main reason why I was sent away. The two people who matter most
have received me without doubt or question, but the one to be
wary about is the old nurse, whose very affection makes her
inconveniently inquisitive. _Mem._ get up and lock my door, or else
she may come in with hot water or something in the morning and take
me by surprise.
"The original David is evidently dead and well out of the way. There
can be no harm in my taking his place, at any rate for a few years:
it may give the old man new life and genuine happiness, for I shall
play my part as a good son, and certainly shall cost him nothing.
I'll begin by taking him to an oculist and finding out what is wrong
with his eyes.... Probably only cataract. It may be possible to
effect a cure and he can then finish his book on the history of
Glamorganshire from earliest times. Must remember, by the bye, that
the Welsh change most of the old _m's_ into _f's_ and that this
country is called Forganwg, with the _w_ pronounced like _oo_, and
the _f_ like _v_. Must learn some Welsh. What a nuisance. But
nothing is worth doing if it isn't done well. If I can keep this
deception up this would be a jolly place to come to for occasional
holidays, and I simply couldn't have a better reference to
respectability, sex and station with the benchers of Lincoln's Inn
than 'my father,' the Revd. Howel Williams, Vicar of Pontystrad.
They'll probably want a second or a third reference. Can I rely on
Praddy? Is it possible I might work up my acquaintance with that
professor whom I met in the train? I'll see. Perhaps I could attend
classes of his if he lectures in London."
Then the plotting David fell asleep at last and woke to hear the
loud tapping on his door at eight o'clock, of Bridget, rather
surprised to find the door locked, but entering (when he had garbed
himself in his Norfolk jacket and opened the door), with hot water
for shaving and a cup of tea.
It was a hot July morning, and while he dressed, the southern breeze
came in through the open window scented by the roses and the lemon
verbena growing against the wall. His father was pacing up and down
the hall and the verandah restlessly awaiting him, fearing lest the
whole episode of the day before might not have been one of his
waking dreams. His failing sight made reading almost a torture and
writing more a matter of feeling than visual perception. Time
therefore hung wearisomely on his hands; Bridget was not a good
reader, besides being too busy a housekeeper to have time for it.
Had David really returned to him? Would he sometimes read aloud and
sometimes write his letters, or even the finish of his History? Too
good to be true!
But there was David coming down the stairs, greeting him with tender
affection. "Read and write for you, father? Of course! But before I
go back to London--and unfortunately I _must_ go back early in
August--I'm going to take you to see an oculist--Bristol or Clifton
perhaps--and get your sight restored."
After breakfast, however, the father decided he must take David
round the village, to see and be seen. David was not very anxious to
go, but as the Revd. Howel looked disappointed he gave in.
It had to be got over some time or other. So they first visited the
church, a building in the form of a cross, with an imposing
battlemented tower. Here David asked to inspect the registers and
found therein (while the old gentleman silently prayed or sat in
mute thankfulness in a sunny corner)--the record of his father's
marriage to Mary Vavasour twenty-six years before (Mary was
twenty-three and the Revd. Howel forty at the time) and of his own
baptism two years afterwards.
Then issuing from the church, father and son walked through the
village, the father pointing out the changes for better or worse
that had taken place in four years, and not noticing the vagueness
of his son's memories of either persons or features in the
landscape. The village, like most Welsh villages, was of
white-washed cottages, slate-roofed, but it was embowered with that
luxuriance of foliage and flowers which makes Glamorganshire--out of
sight of the coal-mining--seem an earthly paradise. Every now and
then the Revd. Howel would nudge his son and say: "That man who
spoke was old Goronwy, as big a scoundrel now as he was five years
ago," or he would introduce David to a villager of whom he thought
more favourably. If she were a young woman she generally smirked and
looked sideways; if a man he grunted out a Welsh greeting or only
gave a nod of surly recognition. Several professed fluent
recognition but some said in Welsh "he wasn't a bit like the Mr.
David _they_ had known." Whereupon the Revd. Howel laughed and said:
"Wait till you have been out to South Africa fighting for your king
and country and see if _that_ doesn't change _you_!"
The visit to the Clifton oculist resulted in a great success. The
oculist after two or three days' preparation in a nursing home
performed the operation and advised David then to leave his father
for a few days (promising if any unfavourable symptoms supervened he
would telegraph) so that he might pass the time in sleep as much as
possible, and with no mental stimulation. During this interval David
transferred himself and his bicycle to Swansea, and thence visited
the Gower caves where he ran up against Rossiter once more and
spent delightful hours being inducted into palæontology by Rossiter
and his companions. Then back to--by contrast--boresome Clifton
(except for its Zoological Gardens). After another week his father
was well enough to be escorted home. In another fortnight he might
be able to use his eyes, and soon after that would be able to read
and write--in moderation.
But David could not wait to see his intervention crowned with
complete success. He must keep faith with Honoria who would be
wanting a long holiday in Switzerland; and their joint business must
not suffer by his absence from London. There were, indeed, times
when the peace and comfort and beauty of Pontystrad got hold of him
and he asked himself: "Why not settle down here for the rest of his
life, put aside other ambitions, attempt no more than this initial
fraud, leave the hateful world wherein women had only three chances
to men's seven." Then there would arise once more fierce ambition,
the resolve to avenge Vivien Warren for her handicaps, the desire to
keep tryst with Honoria and to enjoy more of Rossiter's society.
Besides, he ran a constant risk of discovery under the affectionate
but puzzled inspection of the old nurse. In her mind, residence
amongst the "Wild Boars," service in an army, travel and adventure
generally during an absence of five years, as well as emergence from
adolescence into manhood, accounted for much change in physical
appearance, but not sufficiently for the extraordinary change in
_morale_: the contrast between the vicious, untidy, selfish,
insolent boy that had gone off to London with ill-concealed glee in
1896 and this grave-mannered, polite, considerate, pleasant-voiced
young man who had already managed to find good employment in London
before he revealed himself anew to his delighted father.
These doubts David read in Nannie's mind. But he would not give
them time and chance to become more precise and formulated.
Gradually she would become used to the seeming miracle. In the
meantime he would return to London, and if his father's recovery was
complete he would not revisit "home" till Christmas. As soon as he
was able to write, his father would forward him the copy of his
birth-certificate, and he would likewise answer in the sense agreed
upon any letters of reference or enquiry: would state the
apprenticeship to architecture with Praed A.R.A., and then the
impulse to go out to South Africa, the slight wound--David insisted
it was slight, a fuss about nothing, because he had enquired about
necrosis of the jaw and realized that even if he had recovered it
would have left indisputable marks on face and throat. In fact there
were so many complications involved in an escape from the Boers,
only to be justified under the code of honour prevailing in war
time, that he would rather his father said little or nothing about
South Africa but left him to explain all that. A point of view
readily grasped by the Revd. Howel, who to get such a son back would
even have not thought too badly of desertion--and the negative
letters of the War Office said nothing of that.
So early in September, after the most varied, anxious, successful
six weeks in his life--so far--David Vavasour Williams returned to
Fig Tree Court, Inner Temple.