My People: Stories of the Peasantry of West Wales/The Talent Thou Gavest

by Caradoc Evans

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THE TALENT THOU GAVEST

IV

THE TALENT THOU GAVEST

Eben the son of Hannah held up his right arm and displayed the palm of his hand.

Mishtir Lloyd the Schoolin’ said: “Put your old hand down now,” and, gaping his mouth, proceeded to call out the register.

“Maggie Shones?”

“Here, iss.”

“Eben Tomos?”

“Here, iss,” answered three voices together.

“For what you do not shut your chins, you dirty cows!” said Mishtir Lloyd. “Why do you all act like old horses without any gumption! Now, then, Eben the son of Sarah the daughter of Silah?”

“Here, iss.”

“Eben, Mari’s child by Job of the Stallion?”

“Here, iss.”

“Eben the son of Hannah the widow of Will?”

“Here, iss.”

Mishtir Lloyd called by name each of the eighty-five scholars on his register; when he came to the end, he said:

“What for was your hand up just now, man, Eben the son of Hannah?”

“Did I not want to tell him, little Mishtir, that I am not coming to school any more then?” replied Eben.

“Dear me, dear me, now indeed you are not coming for why?”

“Mishtir bach, does he not know that I am going to the moor to mind the sheep of Shames?”

“Ho, and you say that?”

Mishtir Lloyd picked up his round ebony ruler and drew a straight line over Eben's name on the register.

The next morning at daybreak Eben, a crust of bread and a piece of cheese in his trousers pocket, was ready to take up his duties. Before he went Hannah addressed these words to him:

“Do you see now, little Eben, that none of Shames’s old sheep go astray, for Shames is quick to anger. Don’t you do any evil pranks against him, because it is not meet that Shames shall report us to the Big Man. Earn every mite of the shilling a week he gives you, Eben bach. Do we not need these pennies badly? Last year I sacrificed only three half-crowns to Sion. And for sure the Judge will inform the Great Male about me.”

Eben, having walked over the mile and a half of heather, and having come to the point from which you can on a clear day see the waters of Cardigan Bay, opened the gate of the enclosure in which Shames’s sheep spent the night.

This Eben did every day till he grew out of knee-breeches into long corduroy trousers. His life was lonely; books were closed against him, because he had not been taught to read; and the sense of the beautiful or the curious in Nature is slow to awake in the mind of the Welsh peasant. After a time Eben began to hold whispered conversations with himself.

Gradually he found consolation in his voice, the sound of which fell pleasingly upon his ears. He knew many hymns by heart, and these hymns he recited to the shivering heather and the grazing sheep.

One afternoon, his legs dangling over the edge of the stone quarry, he fell asleep, and in his dream the Big Man—a white-bearded, vigorous, stern, elderly giant, broad as the front of Capel Sion and taller than the roof—came to him, saying:

“Eben bach, why for now do you waste your days in sleep? Go you, little son, and dig a hole in the place where stood Old Shaci’s hut.”

“It’ll be a big hole, little Big Man,” answered Eben, “if I must make it the size of Old Shaci’s hut.”

The Big Man replied: “There’s a boy you are for pleading! Go you up and stand against the sour apple tree with your face to the sea. At a distance of three steps from the trunk of the tree dig an old hole after the fashion of a grave.”

“Do you tell me now for what?” Eben asked.

“For sure, is there not a talent buried there?”

Eben left Shames’s sheep and came to Penrhos.

“Little Simon,” he said, “lend you me an old pickaxe and a shovel.”

Returning, he numbered the sheep, and drove them to the summit of the moor, and when he came to the mound on which a hundred years ago Old Shaci built his hut, he took off his coat and waistcoat, and dug a hole as deep as a grave and of the shape of a coffin. But he did not find anything.

That night the God of Capel Sion came to Eben again.

“Now that you have got the talent, Eben bach, do you use it,” He said.

“Dear little Big Man,” answered Eben, “there’s foolish you talk. Did I not dig till my old hands were covered with blisters? Provokeful you are.”

The Big Man spoke: “Eben bach, here is the talent.”

Eben opened his eyes. He sat up in bed and held out his hands: the dawn showed grey in his mother’s face.

Weeks passed and months passed, and each night Eben said this prayer:

“In God's name to my bed I go,

God keep the hale and those in woe;

I’ll lay my body down to sleep,

I’ll give my soul to Christ to keep,

And in the name of God I‘ll sleep.”

Adding :

"God did promise me a talent:

Let Him show me what He meant."

Now in those days the ruler of Capel Sion was the Respected Bern-Davydd, famous throughout the land for his singing eloquence; thus oftentimes Eben sang the minister’s sayings while he kept guard over Shames’s sheep.

Understanding broke upon him suddenly.

“Dear, dear,” he said to himself, “this is the talent the Great Male gave me. I am to be a preacher bach.”

In the holiness of his joy he rose to his feet and sang:

“The dear Big Man has given His little servant a talent. Sheep bach that belong to Shames, what do you think the talent is now? He has called Eben the son of Hannah the widow woman of Will to preach the Fair Word. Wise indeed is the White Jesus to give His little servant the strength to sing the Gospel.”

Eben came home and said to his mother Hannah:

“Mam fach, the talent the Almighty gave me is for preaching.”

“Eben, why you are so vain?” Hannah said to him.

But Hannah published the news to the men who sat in the Big Seat in Capel Sion, so it came about that Old Bensha of the Road, in order to prove him, requested him to say a little prayer in the Seiet.

Beautiful and songlike was the supplication that Eben offered: he sang mournfully for those at sea, for sinners that worshipped in places other than Capel Sion; he sang joyously for the First Men who occupied the high places, for the many blessings poured upon the congregation, for the Big Man’s gift of His Son to judge over Sion.

Hannah clothed herself in her most respectful garments, which were black and decorated with ornaments of jet and flowers of crepe, for this is the wear of the women whose constant thoughts are of Death and the burial of the dead; and she came down to the Shepherd’s Abode, where dwelt the Respected Bern-Davydd.

“Eben bach,” she said, “is talking about being a preacher.”

“Religious hearing,” said the Judge. “Have I not had sound of the boy’s nice prayer?”

“Little holy respected,” said Hannah, “good will it be if in his saintliness he lets a concert religious be held in the Capel so that Eben bach can be sent to College Carmarthen.”

“Sure, indeed,” answered Bern-Davydd. “I will cry from the pulpit: ‘Buy each of you a ticket for Eben's concert. Two silver shillings is the price, people bach.’”

When Eben came away from College Carmarthen his holiness was voiced abroad the land and three Capels sent him word to come and rule over them. Of the three he distinguished the finger of God in the weakest—Capel Salem in Castellybryn. In the time of the respected Caleb Daviss it was said, “A fountain of light is Capel Salem”; but the godly Caleb ascended, whereof the glory departed and the tabernacle became as a withered roadside tree that harbours upon itself all the refuse the wind brings. Eben summoned the chief praying men into the Capel every night for thirty days, to entreat the Lord to restore the religious lustre of His tabernacle. Their prayers were answered: whereas at the beginning of Eben’s ministry the congregation could be counted by the dozen, in two years their numbers were above any in the shire. His fame spread, and the people called him “Eben bach the Singer.” People said of him: “He is exalted over all the judges.”

But in the high day of his spiritual prosperity Eben's powers decreased: his discourses got to be less songlike, he conversed with rather than preached to his congregation, and he wrote out his sermons. Men and women murmured: “There's pity, now, dear me, about Eben bach the Singer.”

The men of the Big Seat reproached him.

“Well-well, Eben bach, no one wept again the last Sunday,” said Ben Shop Draper.

“Indeed to goodness, not one ‘Halelujah’ or ‘Amen’ did I hear,” said Noah Shop Boots and Clogs.

“For what he say that life is more than religion?” asked Ben.

“Little Ben and Noah,” replied Eben, “the Palace must be here on earth.”

Ben rose from his chair and said: “Eben bach, an old atheist he is.”

“Were he not the ruler,” said Noah, “pray for him I would this one night.”

“Listen you to me now,” said Eben. “I have not preached to you at all the real religion. I offered you the White Palace or the Fiery Pool. Men, men, that is not right. If you don’t live in Heaven here you won’t live in Heaven when you perish. Look you at Roberts of the Shop Grocer. Did he not make his servant Mari very full barely a year after he stood up in the Seiet and said that he prayed each night to be taken to Mistress Roberts? Did he not cry ‘Halelujah!’ and ‘Amen’?”

“Man, man, wrong you are to speak so about Roberts of the Shop Grocer,” said Ben. “Poor Roberts bach was sorely tempted, and he is forgiven. And has he not sent the bad bitch about her business? Now think you over these things, and do you not be a blockhead to throw away your house and one hundred of sovereigns a year.”

So Eben bach the Singer—short, square, stooping, bushy, sandy hair falling over his forehead and shoulders like a sheaf of straw—gave up his house, his one hundred sovereigns a year, and his charge, and he returned to the house of his mother. His name became a proverb and a byword. The deacons of Capel Sion prayed for him in private and in public, but the voice of the singer was silent.

On a day Ben Shop Draper journeyed to Hannah’s cottage.

“Eben, Eben,” he cried, “woeful is the errand I have to speech to you. The new ruler cannot keep the flock together.”

“Ho, indeed.”

“You have sinned hardly against Capel Salem, Eben bach.”

“Don’t you say that now.”

“Iss, indeed. You took the temple in marriage. Now you have divorced her. The Big Man will count this serious against you, Eben. Dear me, one hundred sovereigns and a house, and eight Sabbaths off in the year.”

“How could I preach against my conscience?” asked Eben.

“Look you not at things in that light, dear man. Suppose now we give you ten more sovereigns? Awake and gather yourself together, and ask the Big Man bach to show you the way.”

People in the neighbourhood declared Eben was mad, that he had spewed on his own glory.

“Gird on your armour,” remarked Lloyd the Schoolin’ to him. “Pray to be rid of the Evil Spirit.”

Eben made no answer.

“Wicked you are,” proceeded Mishtir Lloyd. “Has not the Big Man given you a talent?”

“Iss, iss, for sure: He did give me a large talent.”

“Shame upon you, you old cow, for throwing it against the Big Man”s teeth.”

“But I want to use it,” retorted Eben. “The congregation won’t let me, Lloyd bach. So long as I employed half a talent all went well.”

If at this time you happened to be taking the cart-road which cuts across the moor, past the quarry and Old Shaci's hut, you would have seen Eben sitting on the fringe of the heather.

Folk who came that way were in the habit of remarking to him:

“Glad day to you, Eben the son of Hannah.”

Without lifting his eyes, Eben would reply:

“A glad day to you.”

“What you are waiting for, man ?”

“For the Angel of the Lord.”

“Indeed to goodness now, how will you know him when he comes?”

“Sure me, I won't miss him.”

The angel came towards the close of a day. Eben saw him, and greeting him with a wave of the hand, he hurried to Penrhos.

“Simon bach,” he said, “do you now lend me your old pickaxe and shovel.”

“Man, man,” replied Simon, “foolish you are to begin a job this time of the night.”

“He may not come this way again,” answered Eben.

Eben hastened over the heather to the place where Old Shaci’s hut was. Taking off his coat and his waistcoat, and loosening his braces, he dug a hole in the ground, a hole deep as a grave and of the shape of a coffin. In the darkness he stood over the open grave, his coat buttoned, india-rubber cuffs on his wrists, his hair, wet with perspiration, thrown back over his head.

“Big Lord,” he spoke, “the talent Thou gavest me brought a great deal of woe with it. Let Thy angel here, O Big Man, bear witness now that I return to Thee Thy talent. And do Thou let me depart in peace, to make the best use I can of the half-talent which is mine. …”

He opened his hands and spread his palms over the open grave, as though he dropped something into it; and having prayed he took off his coat, his waistcoat, and his india-rubber cuffs, and cast the earth back into the grave.

He returned to his mother’s cottage, and he shaved off his beard, and brought forth from his box the black coat he wore in the pulpit; and in the morning he clothed himself in his preacher’s raiment, and wrote this message:

“Beloved brothers in God of Capel Salem, which is in the Castellybryn:

“Your judge has found the way. Halelujah! Amen! Glory! Rejoice with me, my brothers. For I have found the true light. The light that shineth sinners to repentance! My brothers, God has told me to go forth into the vineyard. God has told me to resume my labours in Capel Salem. Pray, my beloved, that my labours will be very fruitful among you. Let not the matter of the little sovereigns engage your minds at this joyful time. Has not our dear brother Ben Shop Draper arranged all that?

“Your Ruler in the faith,

“Eben.”