re beginning to have an idea
that this fourteen-year-old boy was by way of becoming a prig they may
be relieved by the knowledge that when the youngster was not taking a
hand in polemics in the smithy or the cobbler's cottage he was often
enough leading the boys of the village into some kind of mischief. One
old inhabitant came to have the fixed belief that David was the origin
of pretty well all the mishaps in Llanystumdwy. Let a gate be found
lifted from its hinges, a fence or hedge broken down, or windows
smashed, and the old man had the one explanation, "It's that David
Lloyd at it again."

It is important to know that Richard Lloyd, the shoemaker, was not only
studious and intelligent, but was independent beyond his class. A kind
of benevolent feudalism still existed in the district, and villagers at
election time fell naturally into the groove required by the rich
landowners and gentlefolk of the neighborhood. Once at an election
three or four of the cottagers voted Liberal instead of Conservative.
They were promptly turned out of their dwellings. The time came when
the shoemaker was the only Liberal voter in the place. He remained
quite unshaken by persuasion, influence, or material considerations.
Lloyd George even as a young boy gloried in his stalwart uncle. He was
rebellious that it should be possible to cow other people, and the
knowledge of the prevalent thraldom poured deep into young Lloyd
George's soul. This simple religious village folk lived hard, with but
a week's wages between them and want, lived, so to speak, on sufferance
under the vicar and squire and land-owner, who, while often kindly
enough and even generous in their way, expected obedience, and who
exacted servitude in all matters of opinion. The big people and the
cottage folk were two entirely different sets of beings. What a
precipice there was between them can hardly be understood by those who
have not passed some time in the village life of Britain. A man who
took a rabbit or hare from the preserved coverts of game extending for
miles in all directions was rigorously prosecuted as a criminal. A man
who took fish from prohibited waters was often a good deal more harshly
adjudged than the drunken brute who beat his wife or the assailant in
some desperate fight. And let it be noted that these superior people
had veritable power of government, for from them were drawn the benches
of magistrates--amateur local judges, who sat wee