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.