Despite the fact that we have gotten off, as it were, on the wrong foot with one another, I hope you will consider this a new beginning and will consider my request to purchase a piece of your land as outlined in the previous letter with sincerity.
I am,
Humbly yours,
Lord Coleraine Litchfield
By now, however, having stewed on the matter for another week and having carried out further research, Westbrooke’s suspicions had nowise been alleviated. Indeed, they were greater than ever.
As a result, Litchfield received a second and more pointed communication from Lord Snowdon:
Lord Coleraine Litchfield,
My Lord,
I am deeply appreciative of the straightforward manner in which you have explained the letter from Mr. Sutcliffe. While I can assure you that I am not on principle opposed to selling a small portion of acreage from my estate and would happily entertain an offer, I would have to know more details regarding your purpose in such a proposed transaction. The image of a cozy retirement cottage nestled in the mountains is appealing. My instincts, however, tell me that there must be more to it than that and that the candor you spoke of has probably not yet been entirely forthcoming.
I remain,
Sincerely yours,
Viscount Roderick Westbrooke
Litchfield swore lightly as he read; then his fist slammed down on his desk. This was not going to be as easy as he had hoped. He would have to consider his next move with care. To tell this provincial Westbrooke everything could spell doom to his whole scheme.
27
Shoes, Horses, and Friends
While Percy was riding along the headland, Lord Snowdon sat in his study perusing the telegram that had finally arrived from London the previous afternoon. He had been stewing over it ever since.
Not only had Heygate learned that Palmer Sutcliffe was business manager for mining magnate Lord Coleraine Litchfield, but he was a forty-two-year-old business manager at that. He was a young man in the prime of his career. The fellow was a Londoner, born and bred, had probably never been to North Wales in his life … and was certainly not on the verge of retiring so that he could spend his leisure time in some cozy little cottage nestled in the Snowdonian mountains!
The letter from Sutcliffe had been a ruse, a fabrication of lies from beginning to end!
Litchfield’s interests, for such the fellow Sutcliffe was certainly representing, were in mining. Neither was Sutcliffe’s boss anticipating retirement anytime soon. Whatever he was up to had profit at the bottom of it, not nostalgia for the bygone happiness of childhood.
What did they take him for—a fool whom they could scam into selling off a piece of property for a few shillings? Whatever it was they thought lay beneath his property—and the logical assumption was coal—he wasn’t about to let some greedy Englishman waltz in and help himself!
It was time for a response. The viscount wrote:
Dear Mr. Sutcliffe,
It has come to my attention that you represent Lord Coleraine Litchfield in his business dealings and mining interests. I have only to assume, therefore, as you do not appear near retirement age yourself, that your recent letter expressing the desire to purchase a small portion of my land was sent on behalf of Lord Litchfield.
Is his motive personal, or do business pursuits make my land of interest to him?
I am,
Sincerely yours,
Viscount Roderick Westbrooke
A week later he received the following reply:
The Right Honorable, the Viscount Roderick Westbrooke,
Lord Snowdon.
My Lord,
Please forgive the subterfuge of our previous correspondence. I asked my manager and assistant Mr. Sutcliffe to draft the letter you received, expressing sentiments that are dear to my heart. Knowing the speculation my name invariably raises because of my extensive business interests throughout Britain, I told him to make the request in his own name. It was foolish of me. I see now that I was wrong not to be entirely candid with a man of your experience and good reputation. I apologize. Rest assured, however, that my motives are as stated, and my interest genuine.
Despite the fact that we have gotten off, as it were, on the wrong foot with one another, I hope you will consider this a new beginning and will consider my request to purchase a piece of your land as outlined in the previous letter with sincerity.
I am,
Humbly yours,
Lord Coleraine Litchfield
By now, however, having stewed on the matter for another week and having carried out further research, Westbrooke’s suspicions had nowise been alleviated. Indeed, they were greater than ever.
As a result, Litchfield received a second and more pointed communication from Lord Snowdon:
Lord Coleraine Litchfield,
My Lord,
I am deeply appreciative of the straightforward manner in which you have explained the letter from Mr. Sutcliffe. While I can assure you that I am not on principle opposed to selling a small portion of acreage from my estate and would happily entertain an offer, I would have to know more details regarding your purpose in such a proposed transaction. The image of a cozy retirement cottage nestled in the mountains is appealing. My instincts, however, tell me that there must be more to it than that and that the candor you spoke of has probably not yet been entirely forthcoming.
I remain,
Sincerely yours,
Viscount Roderick Westbrooke
Litchfield swore lightly as he read; then his fist slammed down on his desk. This was not going to be as easy as he had hoped. He would have to consider his next move with care. To tell this provincial Westbrooke everything could spell doom to his whole scheme.
28
Sabbath
The day happened to be a Sunday, the Calvinist “Sabbath” for those attending the worship service at the Methodist chapel at the north end of town, and in the two houses of worship to the south, “Holy Day” for the Anglicans and “High Mass” for the Catholics.
Percy Drummond had been in North Wales three weeks. After declining two previous invitations, he had at last decided to accompany his aunt and uncle and cousins to church. Being of the aristocracy, they were staid and respectable members of the Church of England.
All the shops of the village were of course closed. But Kyvwlch Gwarthegydd, blacksmith and village atheist, made certain that he was vigorously and noisily at work in his blacksmith’s shop every Sunday between the hours of ten o’clock and noon. Any home or farm for probably three miles north, south, or east, might set their clocks weekly to the 10:00 a.m. hour. At the very moment Big Ben began to strike in Westminster, the rhythmic clank, clank, clank of hammer on anvil likewise began to toll loudly from Gwarthegydd’s shop. His choice of this hour was chosen because it was at ten o’clock that the first of the three church bells pealed out from the Methodist chapel, and he did his best every Sunday to drown them out. He was mostly successful, too, as he was at 11:00 a.m., when the two dissonant knells from opposing sides of the street at the opposite end of town announced the commencement of their services.
The clanking continued, on and off, for the duration of all three services, to the supreme annoyance of the more spiritually minded of the clergy and laity of Llanfryniog. They considered the sound to be the very drumbeat of the devil from hell itself standing in brazen opposition to the truth of almighty God, whose existence the heathen blacksmith so flagrantly denied. Not a few sermons through the years had used the background discord as a fitting object lesson to rail against those who openly mocked God and the fiery retribution of judgment that awaited them.
Neither did Hollin Radnor often spend his Sundays in church. He did not as a rule find God’s presence much in evidence in any of Llanfryniog’s three houses of worship. He visited them all from time to time, not so much looking for God, for the groom knew where He was to be found, but looking for kindred hearts that might know Him after the same manner in wh
ich he had himself grown to know Him. It was not an enterprise that had been crowned with much success through the years, but he remained hopeful of occasionally discovering such a one. No doubt that he was doctrinally fluid and nonsectarian in his acceptance of the men and women from all three congregations contributed in large measure to the fact that none of them accepted him as one of them. In such assemblies, it was always who was “one of us,” not who was “one of God’s.”
In fact, there was no man to be found in all Snowdonia who knew God on the intimate footing of daily obedience more than did Lord Snowdon’s humble groom. As is often the case in such instances of godliness, however, few recognized that fact. As he left Grannie’s cottage and made his way back up the street and out of town on the back of the newly shod bay mare, he was surprised to see the manor’s three cousins walking along toward him.
“Good day to you, Master Courtenay, Miss Florilyn, and Master Percy,” he said, tipping his hat as he passed.
Percy greeted him warmly. A patronizing nod was all that came his way from the other two.
The appearance of the three youths a few minutes after noon on the main street of Llanfryniog was not difficult to explain. It being a warm day, as they were approaching the buggy at the conclusion of the morning’s service, Percy announced that he was going to walk home. Having nothing better to do, and vaguely thinking that perhaps it might present her an opportunity to get back at Percy somehow for the grudge she was still nursing against him, Florilyn said she would join him. Inwardly chagrined at the thought, Percy could hardly object.
Instead of following the direct route home, it was Percy’s intent to take the long way round along the beach and, if the tide was low enough to permit passage through the rocks near the cave, to continue on and up the bluff path. It only took a moment’s reflection to cause him to relish the thought of Florilyn trying to keep pace with him over the rocks and through the tide pools in her Sunday shoes. He and Florilyn, therefore, set off toward town.
They were surprised a few seconds later to hear Courtenay’s steps running to catch them. Upon reflection, he thought the day might present an admirable opportunity to visit the Lorimer home, without Percy in tow, and soothe whatever ruffled feathers might remain between himself and the magistrate’s daughter.
Roderick and Katherine Westbrooke found themselves in consequence riding home in the buggy alone.
29
Homegoing
On this same day in Glasgow, a faithful minister who had given his life in service to the Church of Scotland was struggling mightily to reach the end of the morning’s service.
The day’s reading had been taken from the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke. He had managed, with more than one throaty hesitation, to get through the poignant passage of scripture. But the sermon had progressed with increasing difficulty.
He had, of course, anticipated for some time that this Sunday was coming and known what would be the morning’s text. He had agonized over it all week. More than once he had all but decided on the coward’s way out of his intensely personal difficulty. He would have one of the church elders give the New Testament reading. That would keep him from having to utter the words in public that stabbed his heart with pain: “I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned. …”
Avoiding the text itself, he would then dust off one of the stale sermons from his seminary days, written with the intent of impressing professors rather than moving hearts. Or perhaps he would follow the script in one of a half dozen volumes on his shelf of sermon outlines and notes. He would gloss over the powerful passage with a few dusty truisms. His words would thus be guaranteed to keep his own tears at bay and, at the same time, to put his listeners to sleep. One thing they would certainly never do was rouse so much as a flutter of homegoing, right-making conscience-movement in the heart of whatever unrepentant prodigals might be listening in his congregation.
He knew as well as any man who had asked God for insight into the human condition that prodigals of all ages were alive and well in his parish. He knew that thirty-, forty-, and fifty-year-old prodigals needed to repent no less than their younger counterparts, before the matter of their prodigality became of internal import. Some, it was true, delayed their homecoming until it was too late to say the healing words. How deep must be their grief and how bitter their tears before God to realize their fathers were no longer alive to receive them into a loving embrace.
Still … such must repent and arise … they must repent and go to their fathers.
Homegoing is imperative, whether in this life or the next. Homegoing is the eternal imperative, the overarching must of the universe.
How fortunate for those thirty-, forty-, fifty-, and even sixty-year-old prodigals, perhaps who have grown comfortable in their prodigality, who awake, alas, late in life, but not too late, thank God, with their fathers still alive. For they could go to their aging parents, hearts of young and old breaking together, and whisper the eternal words, “I have sinned.” However late it comes, they have the opportunity to hear the father’s long-awaited, “I love you, my child. You have always been forgiven. Welcome home.”
Yet for most of his listening prodigals, those who bury the rebellion of youth in the deep recesses of consciousness as a blurry dream from long ago, it was easy to allow life simply to “go on” and not look back. These never face the heart-probing reality of what their words and actions inflicted into the hearts of those who sacrificed themselves on the altar of parenthood. Many indeed drift back into relationship with their elders on such a superficial foundation. In the presumed maturity of their own adulthood, the hostility of early years fading, they assume it enough to be on “speaking terms.” But as long as the underlying schism remains unhealed, it is not enough. Relational drift cannot eradicate the roots of rebellion. Only repentance can accomplish that. Outwardly respectable, these never take account before God for the hubris of their early years with the words, “Father, Mother … I sinned against you. I am sorry. I want to be a true son, a true daughter to you for the years I have left.”
The vicar knew there were such comfortable prodigals in his church, because they existed everywhere. As the consequences of this unseen prodigality swirled through his mind, the question rose in the heart of Edward Drummond: Could he, in good conscience, deny them the opportunity of being challenged to “arise and go” because of the frail tenderness of his own suffering father’s heart? In the end, he had realized that the answer was no. He had to issue the challenge of Luke 15, whatever it might cost him personally.
And surely it would cost him. The image of father and repentant son was too personal, too close to his own breaking heart. Yes, it would cost him! But he could not shirk his duty. He could not shirk the truth. Thus he would not shirk the challenge.
With that decision came an even greater realization. He had to confront the reality of Luke 15 for himself. With his own son adrift in prodigality, did he, Edward Drummond … did he still believe in God’s goodness, in God’s infinite fatherhood, in the welcoming embrace of the Eternal Heart of Forgiveness?
He could only answer that question by confronting the Fatherhood of Luke 15 in all the anguish it might cause his own heart and in all the glory of its eternal resolution.
Truly no man nor woman can apprehend the full pathos of the prodigal story who has not stood as the waiting, praying, seeking, hurting, eager, long-suffering, grief-stricken, shattered yet patient parent of Luke 15—who has not stood on the road day after day, wept night after night, and gone out again morning after morning to stand on the road … waiting for the return of son or daughter.
30
Grannie
After leaving church and passing Hollin Radnor on his way out of town, the three cousins from Westbrooke Manor made their way casually through Llanfryniog’s streets. A few others were out, mostly young boys with nothing on their minds other than that favorite pursuit of the weak-minded—seeing what amusement mi
ght chance their way now that they had been released from the prison of Sunday morning.
Still not having seen much of the town, Percy struck off the main street with Florilyn trailing after him. Courtenay followed as well since they were moving in a general direction that would take him where he was bound. Soon they were lost in a maze of twisting and turning lanes and streets.
Percy paused to stare down a side street where an oddly shaped purplish building caught his eye. Brother and sister continued sauntering along. They came to an open door through which they heard the whirrrrrr of a spinning wheel.
“Look, Florilyn,” said Courtenay. “The old witch is spinning.”
A girl walked out the door. When she saw who was standing in front of her, she turned and hurried back inside. But it was too late.
“Hey, th–th–there, funny-looking little Gw–Gw–Gwy–neth!” taunted Courtenay. “Visiting the old w–w–w–witch today?”
Florilyn laughed at what she supposed her brother’s wit.
Gwyneth turned and planted her feet firmly. “G–G–Grannie’s not a w–w–witch!” she said. “Y–y–you should be ashamed of yourself, M–M–Master C–C–Courtenay!”
“Did you hear th–th–that, Florilyn?” laughed Courtenay. “This little brat thinks I ought to be ashamed of myself! You know what I think?” he added, turning back toward Gwyneth and glaring down at her. “I think it’s you who’s the w–w–w–witch! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
From Across the Ancient Waters- Wales Page 15