When Winnie Davies was let out of prison, shame pressed heavily on her
feelings; and though her mother Martha and her father Tim prayed almost
without ceasing, she did not come home. It was so that one night Martha
watched for her at a window and Tim prayed for her at the door of the
Tabernacle, and a bomb fell upon the ground that was between them, and
they were both destroyed.
All the days of their life, Tim and Martha were poor and meek and
religious; they were cheaper than the value set on them by their
cheapeners. As a reward for their pious humility, they were appointed
keepers of the Welsh Tabernacle, which is at Kingsend. At that they took
their belongings into the three rooms that are below the chapel; and
their spirits were lifted up marvelously that the Reverend Eylwin Jones
and the deacons of the Tabernacle had given to them the way of life.
In this fashion did Tim declare his blessedness: "Charitable are Welsh
to Welsh. Little Big Man, boys tidy are boys Capel Tabernacle."
"What if we were old atheists?" cried Martha.
"Wife fach, don't you send me in a fright," Tim said.
They two applied themselves to their tasks: the woman washed the linen
and cleaned the doorsteps and the houses of her neighbors, the man put
posters on hoardings, trimmed gardens, stood at the doors of Welsh
gatherings. By night they mustered, sweeping the floor of the chapel,
polishing the wood and brass that were therein, and beating the cushions
and hassocks which were in the pews of the most honored of the
congregation. Sunday mornings Tim put a white india-rubber collar under
the Adam's apple in his throat, and Martha covered her long, thin body
in black garments, and drew her few hairs tightly from her forehead.
Though they clad and comported themselves soberly Enoch Harries, who, at
this day, was the treasurer and head deacon of the chapel, spoke up
against them to Eylwin Jones. This is his complaint: "Careless was Tim
in the dispatch department, delivering the parcel always to the wrong
customers and for why he was sacked. Good was I to get him the capel.
Careless he is now also. By twilight, dark, and thick blackness, light
electric burns in Tabernacle. Waste that is. Sound will I my think. Why
cannot the work be done in the day I don't know."
"You cannot say less," said Eylwin Jones. "Pay they ought for this, the
irreligious couple. As the English proverb--'There's no gratitude in the
poor.'"
"Another serious piece of picking have I," continued Harries. "I saw
Tim sticking on hoarding. 'What, dear me,' I mumbled between the
teeth--I don't speech to myself, man, as usual. The Apostles did, now.
They wrote their minds. Benefit for many if I put down my religious
thinks for a second New Testament. What say you, Eylwin Jones? Lots of
says very clever I can give you--'is he sticking?' A biggish paper was
the black pasting about Walham Green Music Hall. What do you mean for
that? And the posters for my between season's sale were waiting to go
out."
Rebuked, Tim and Martha left over sinning: and Tim put Enoch Harries'
posters in places where they should not have been put, wherefore Enoch
smiled upon him.
"Try will I some further," said Tim by and by.
"Don't you crave too much," advised Martha. "The Bad Man craved the
pulpit of the Big Man."
"Shut your backhead. Out of school will Winnie be very near now."
"Speak clear."
"Ask Enoch Harries will I to make her his servant."
"Be modest in your manner," Martha warned her husband. "Man grand is
Enoch."
"Needing servants hap he does."
"Perhaps, iss; perhaps, no."
"Cute is Winnie," said Tim; "and quick. Sense she has."
Tim addressed Enoch, and Enoch answered: "Blabber you do to me, why for?
Send your old female to Mishtress Harries. Order you her to go quite
respectable."