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