and involved, but that was no drawback in the minds of his Welsh auditory; though it made his son swear inwardly and reconciled him to the approaching return to Fig Tree Court.  The old Druid felt inspired to convince the hundred people present that the Church they had returned to was the Church of their fathers, not only back to Roman times, when Glamorganshire was basking in an Italian civilization, but further still.  He showed how the Druids were rather to be described as Ante-Christian than Anti—­with an i; and played ponderously on this quip.  In Druidism, he observed—­I am sure I cannot think why, but it was his hobby—­you had a remarkable foreshadowing of Christianity; the idea of the human sacrifice, the Atonement, the Communion of Saints, the mystic Vine, which he clumsily identified with the mistletoe, and what not else.  He read portions of his privately-published Tales of Taliessin.  In short such happiness radiated from his pink-cheeked face and recovered eyes that David regretted in no wise his own lapses into conventional, stereotyped religion.  The Church of Britain might be stiff and stomachered, as the offspring of Elizabeth, but it was stately, it was respectable—­as outwardly was the great virgin Queen—­and it was easy to live with.  Only he counselled his father to do two things:  never to preach for more than half-an-hour—­even if it meant keeping a small American clock going inside the pulpit-ledge; and to obtain a curate, so that the new enthusiasm might not cool and his father verging on seventy, might not overstrain himself.  He pointed out that by letting off most of the glebe land and pretermitting David’s “pocket-money” he might secure a young and energetic Welsh-speaking curate, the remainder of whose living-wage would—­he felt sure—­be found out of the diocesan funds of St. David’s bishopric.

The Revd.  Howel let him have his way (This was after David had returned to Fig Tree Court) and by the following June a stalwart young curate was lodged in the village and took over the bulk of the progressive church work from the fumbling hands of the dear old Vicar.  He was a thoroughly good sort, this curate, troubled by no possible doubts whatever, a fervent tee-totaller, a half-back or whole back—­I forget which—­at football, a good boxer, and an unwearied organizer.  Little Bethel was sold and eventually turned into a seed-merchant’s repository and drying-room.  The curate in course of time married the squire’s daughter and I dare say long afterwards succeeded the Revd.  Howel Vaughan Williams when the latter died—­but that date is still far ahead of my story.  At any rate—­isn’t it droll how these things come about?—­David’s action in this matter, undertaken he hardly knew why—­did much to fetter Mr. Lloyd George’s subsequent attempts to disestablish the British Church in Wales.