At any rate, all that he had was theirs. They were fed on simple fare—more oats and barley, as Mr. Lloyd George has since told us, than wheat—but they were well fed. Eggs were cheap in the village, and the garden was full of vegetables. There were doubtless hard times. There was little meat—perhaps they were none the worse for that. But these children were nevertheless always held up in school as models of neatness and cleanliness. There was little to spare for pleasure. There was no easy flow of “pocket-money” for these boys. But they possessed the heart of the whole matter. They loved one another, and they were happy. “It was a little paradise,” says one who stayed there often,[8] and when asked to explain she adds: “there was such high talk.” “Plain living and high thinking,” was the note of that little home. Here, indeed, was— “Fearful innocence, And pure religion, breathing household laws.” There was also much kindness and humanity. Richard Lloyd could not for long be a stern uncle. The pictures handed down to us are Goldsmithian in their quaint and simple charm—the little David sitting on one of his uncle’s knees and punctuating his infant periods by beating his fist on the other; or, in later years, wheedling his uncle with some clever boyish defence of an indefensible prank; or listening for long hours, with open mouth and eyes, to the “deep sighing of the poor,” as the farmers and labourers from all the district round poured their tales of woe into the ears of the gentle village seer. I saw much of Richard Lloyd at a later time. He was a man who always lived on the heights of thought and feeling; he was one of nature’s great men to whom goodness was a delight: he was one of God’s crusaders. Tall and bearded, but with a clean-shaven mouth and dark eyebrows, he was a man of singular dignity and strength both in bearing and expression. It is difficult to describe the impression of mingled strength and tenderness which he gave. His face had some of the vigour of the eagle; and yet with it all his voice had some of the softness of the dove. He loved children with all the strength of his large, warm heart; and yet he was never weak with them, but sometimes very stern, with the strength of those who can be “cruel only to be kind.” “He was the most selfless man I ever knew,” is the deliberate verdict of one of his foster children to-day. “Even in illness he never spoke of himself. It was painful to him even to think of himself.” Such was the high influence that filled that little cottage and made it a fit nursery for a ruler of men. From the moment that Richard Lloyd took over the guardianship of his sister’s bereaved family he gave to the task all his resources of money, love, and wisdom. He was not one of those who know limits to giving— “Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more.”