href="#u25aa8ac6-daf2-5e69-8e0f-663c70ac1604">CHAPTER XXI
ANNE ADALISA
PUDDICOMBE
By Daniel Lleufer Thomas
Mrs. Anne Adalisa Beynon Puddicombe, writing under the pseudonym of Allen Raine (1836-1908), novelist, born on 6 Oct. 1836 in Bridge Street, Newcastle-Emlyn, was the eldest child in the family of two sons and two daughters of Benjamin Evans, solicitor of that town, by his wife Letitia Grace, daughter of Thomas Morgan, surgeon of the same place.
The father was a grandson of the Rev. David Davis (1745–1827) of Castell Howel, and the mother a granddaughter of Daniel Rowlands (1713–1790)
After attending a school at Carmarthen for a short time she was educated first (1849–51) at Cheltenham with the family of Henry Solly, unitarian minister, and from 1851 till 1856 (with her sister) at Southfields, near Wimbledon. She learnt French and Italian and excelled in music, though she was past forty when she learned the violin.
At Cheltenham and Southfields she saw many literary people, including Dickens and George Eliot. The next sixteen years she spent mainly at home in Wales, where her colloquial knowledge of Welsh was sufficient to gain her the intimacy of the inhabitants, and she acquired a minute knowledge of botany.
On 10 April 1872 she was married at Penbryn church, Cardiganshire, to Beynon Puddicombe, foreign correspondent at Smith Payne's Bank, London. For eight years they lived at Elgin Villas, Addiscombe, near Croydon, where Mrs. Puddicombe suffered almost continuous ill-health. They next resided at Winchmore Hill, Middlesex. Her husband became mentally afflicted in February 1900, and she removed with him to Bronmor, Traethsaith, in the parish of Penbryn, which had previously been their summer residence. Here he died on 29 May 1906, and here also she succumbed to cancer on 21 June 1908, being buried by the side of her husband in Penbryn churchyard. There was no issue of the marriage.
From youth Miss Evans showed a faculty for story-telling, and the influence of the Sollys and their circle helped to develop her literary instincts. At home a few sympathetic friends of like tastes joined her in bringing out a short-lived local periodical, Home Sunshine (printed at Newcastle-Emlyn). It was not however till 1894 that she took seriously to writing fiction. At the National Eisteddfod held that year at Carnarvon she divided with another the prize for a serial story descriptive of Welsh life. Her story, Ynysoer, dealing with the life of the fishing population of an imaginary island off the Cardiganshire coast, was published serially in the North Wales Observer but was not issued in book form. By June 1896 she completed a more ambitious work, which after being rejected (under the title of Mifanwy) by six publishing houses (see letter of Mr. A. M. Burghbs in Daily News, 24 July 1908) was published in August 1897, under the title A Welsh Singer. By Allen Raine.
Her pseudonym was suggested to her in a dream. Like most of her subsequent works A Welsh Singer is a simple love-story; the chief characters are peasants and sea-faring folk of the primitive district around the fishing village of Traethsaith. Despite its crudities it caught the public ear. She dramatised the novel, but it was only acted for copyright purposes. Thenceforth Mrs. Puddicombe turned out book after book in rapid succession. Her haste left her no opportunity of improving her style or strengthening her power of characterisation, but she fully sustained her first popularity mainly owing to her idealisation of Welsh life, to the prim, simple and even child-like dialogue of characters in such faulty English as the uncritical might assume Cardiganshire fishermen to speak, and also to the imaginative or romantic element which she introduces into nearly all her stories.
All her works have been re-issued and their total sales (outside America), it is stated, exceed two million copies. An Allen Raine Birthday Book appeared in 1907.
A Biography from
Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement
BY BERWEN BANKS
CHAPTER I
BERWEN BANKS
Caer Madoc is a sleepy little Welsh town, lying two miles from the sea coast. Far removed from the busy centres of civilisation, where the battle of life breeds keen wits and deep interests, it is still, in the opinion of its inhabitants, next to London, the most important place in the United Kingdom. It has its church and three chapels, its mayor and corporation, jail, town hall, and market-place; but, more especially, it has its fairs, and awakes to spasmodic jollity on such occasions, which come pretty often—quite ten times in the year. In the interims it resigns itself contentedly to its normal state of lethargy.
The day on which my story opens had seen the busiest and merriest fair of the year, and the evening found the little town looking jaded and disreputable after its few hours of dissipation, the dusty High Street being littered with scraps of paper, orange-peel, and such like débris. The merry-go-rounds and the "shows" had departed, the last donkey-cart had rattled out of the town, laden with empty gingerbread boxes.
In the stable of the Red Dragon three men stooped in conclave over the hind foot of a horse. Deio, the ostler, and Roberts, the farrier, agreed in their verdict for a wonder; and Caradoc Wynne, the owner of the horse, straightened himself from his stooping posture with a nod of decision.
"Yes, it's quite plain I mustn't ride him to-night," he said. "Well, I'll leave him under your care, Roberts, and will either come or send for him to-morrow."
"Needn't do that, sir," said Roberts, "for I am going myself to Abersethin on Friday; that will give him one day's complete rest, and I'll bring him up gently with my nag."
"That will do better," said the young man. "Take care of him, Deio," he added, in good, broad Welsh, "and I will pay you well for your trouble," and, with a pat on Captain's flank and a douceur in Deio's ready palm, he turned to leave the yard. Looking back from under the archway which opened into the street, with a parting injunction to Roberts to "take care of him," he turned up the dusty High Street.
"Pagh!" he said, "it has been a jolly fair, but it hasn't sweetened the air. However, I shall soon have left it behind me," and he stepped out briskly towards the straggling end of the street, which merged into a wild moorland country.
"There's a difference between him and his father," said Deio to his companion, as they led Captain back to his stall. "See the old 'Vicare du' hunting between his coppers for a threepenny bit! Jâr i man! you would think it was a sovereign he was looking for."
"Yes," said Roberts, "the old Vicare is a keen man enough, but just; always pays his bills regularly; he is not as black as they make him out to be."
"No, I daresay! They say the devil isn't, either," said Deio.
It was very evident the person in question was no favourite of his.
Meanwhile Caradoc, or Cardo as he was called all over the country side, the "Vicare du's" only son, had begun his tramp homewards with a light heart and a brisk step. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with health and youthful energy expressed in every limb and feature, with jet black hair and sparkling eyes to match. His dark, almost swarthy face, was lighted up by a pleasant smile, which seemed ever hovering about the corners of his mouth, and which would make itself evident in spite of the moustache which threatened to hide it.
The band of the local militia was practising in the open market hall as he passed, and an old Welsh air struck familiarly on his ear.
"They'll wonder what's become of me at home," he thought, "or rather Betto will. I don't suppose my father would notice my absence, so long as I was home to supper. Poor old dad!" he added, and a grave look came over his face.
In truth it was not a very cheerful home to which he was returning, but it was home, and had been his from childhood. It had been the home also of his ancestors for generations, which, to a Welshman, means a great deal,