How Green Was My Valley (65 page)

“An outing for me, is it?” Bron asked me, in a voice to bring snow. “Come you, now
then. Let us find another bookshop and I will go to live in it. Books, good God, and
the shops will be shut in only another minute.”

But when we had drunk a cup of tea she felt better, and the world was good when we
went in the market, and Olwen was even humming.

Long, wide, and high, under an arch of glass, with the sun strong about us and stalls
very tidy and full of good things, and voices coming happily from hundreds in a deep
sighing sound that echoed in warmth, and a lovely smell made of many smells, of mint
and cabbage and celery, and cured bacon and hams, and toffee and flannels and leather
and cheeses, and paraffin oil, and flowers.

There is gladdening to see many kinds of flowers in long lines, standing brave in
buckets and boxes, with reds and yellows and blues and purples and whites with a slenderness
of green in among them, and coming closer, to put the nose into a bucket full of red
roses, cold with freshness to make the smell keener and so drive it deeper into the
head, as with nails of honey.

Out we went with arms full of flowers, and parcels of cheeses and a black ham, with
a couple of bolts of flannel, two pairs of solid boots for the boys and a hand-worked
apron for my mother, and both my pockets crammed with toffee, and our faces paining
with big lumps that tasted lovely.

Then we bought dolls for Ceridwen’s little girls and a boat and an engine for the
boys, and saucepans in copper for my mother, and a set of jelly moulds for Bron. I
waited outside a woman’s shop while Bron was fitting herself with a dress, and Olwen
was having a coat, but when they came out they were stiff with parcels, and short
in breath with buying, but if they had spent a million sovereigns, they could not
have had more happiness in their eyes, and my heart could not have known more lightness,
or I would have been off the earth and drinking the skies.

We were loaded like packmen ready for months in the mountains when we went to the
station, and we sang all the way back home, and when Thomas met us, he sang, too.

Down at the turn in the road, just before the rise that led into the Valley, we saw
hundreds of lamps, and Thomas clicked his tongue with impatience.

“Talking, still,” he said. “They have been grinding their tongues since this afternoon.
Wonder there is any left in the Valley.”

“What, now?” I asked him, and surprised.

“They are coming out,” he said.

“I will get down,” I said. “I will hear what is being said.”

“No trouble, now, Huw,” Bron said, and trying to pull me back. “Better for you to
come home, straight, with us.”

“Stop the trap, Thomas,” I said and I went down to the meeting.

A stranger was talking about capital and labour with the names of Marx and Hegel thrown
in as candied peel is put in a cake. Mr. Marx was made to sound like a newly risen
Christ and Mr. Hegel as a John the Baptist, with gold flowing easily between them,
endless as the waters of Jordan, ready for all to gather by the capful.

I listened to him for minutes, but there was too much noise about me to hear all he
said, for the men were arguing among themselves and in places there were fights. Red
revolution and anarchy was what the speaker wanted, with a red flag to fly over all,
and everybody equal.

If I had found in myself the voice of a bull I could not have made myself heard, and
I was sick in my heart, too, and without spirit to make the effort.

So I walked home in the darkness, leaving behind me the noise of them until the bulk
of the slag heap shut it out, and for only once in my life I was grateful to slag.

It was pain to me that men could be so blind, but it was greater pain to know that
my brothers and Mr. Gruffydd, and the brave ones of early days, had all been forgotten
in a crazyness of thought that made more of the notions of foreigners than the principles
of Our Fathers.

I was in a heat of worry to know what to do, whether to go back there and speak to
them, or let them go in the company of foreigners, to have a lesson.

Down by the dead river I was, with slag rising up behind me, and a roughness of stone
under foot where years ago the trout had come to wait for flies.

I stood still in the cool quiet, looking up at the blackness of the mountain, hearing
only the north-east wind busy with his comb in the grass, and my eyes came to be wide,
and sight was pinned to a place in the night, and waters returned to the river.

The sky became a sudden gold, and the mountain was of silver, and the river ran free
and wide as a sea in a brilliance of precious stones. All about the mountain-top was
a sparkling of unsheathed steel, and I saw, with a loftiness of fear, that a host
of men were standing there looking into the Valley, and armour was shining on head
and breast, and colours were gay on shields, and hands were clasped on the hilts of
swords that pointed into the ground.

I was dull with wonder and drowned in a dream, but fear soon went in a bright tiredness
of feeling, and I had strength and wit to wish that I could go closer to see their
faces, and hear their voices, and know the sound of their speech.

Somewhere beyond the steadfast ranks, a trumpet sang a rich male song, and a thousand
banners were raised as one, and swords went up in a burnish of flame, and steel heels
clashed together.

A drum spoke up in a single flourish and the banners began to move, and a golden dust
was rising from the marching ranks, shining about their helmets, reaching nearly to
the ribbons and flowers that hung from the banner tops.

Then all the winds of Heaven ran to join hands and bend a shoulder, to bring down
to me the sound of a noble hymn that was heavy with the perfume of Time That Has Gone.

The glittering multitudes were singing most mightily, and my heart was in blood to
hear a Voice that I knew.

The Men of the Valley were marching again.

My Fathers were singing up there.

Loud, triumphant, the anthem rose, and I knew, in some deep place within, that in
the royal music was a prayer to lift up my spirit, to be of good cheer, to keep the
faith, that Death is only an end to the things that are made of clay, and to fight,
without heed of wounds, all that brings death to the Spirit, with Glory to the Eternal
Father, for ever, Amen.

Trumpets sang again and drum-beats carried the marching feet across the golden sky,
and the banners were held in the arms of the winds to show the crimson dragons, and
at the head, a throng of steel was bright, about the Cross and Crown.

They passed from me and I was coming to stand in the darkness again, and my eyes were
heavy and filled with the sands of staring, and I thought I could still hear the Voice
behind the voice of the wind.

I went slowly up the road to the village, and lifted my cap to the house with the
sea-shell porch, and up, slower still, to our house.

“There is a time you have been, boy,” my mother said, and smiling more than I had
seen in months. “Did you have trouble?”

“No, Mama,” I said.

“Is there something the matter, my little one?” she asked me, with a hand on my arm.

“Only what I heard at the meeting, Mama,” I said.

“What, now?” my father asked me.

“Revolution,” I said. “I wonder what would the boys say if they could hear.”

“Leave it,” my father said, and blowing through the stem of his pipe, “they will be
tired of it. Revolution, indeed, and not enough sense among them all to turn a tap.”

“O,” my mother said, with impatience. “Let us have peace from them for one night,
will you? Come and look at the beautiful presents, and then supper.”

But I had seen too much that night, so the little things we had bought that made my
mother smile for pleasure were nothing to me, though I tried hard not to show it.

I gave Bron her present in a box when we were back home. A brooch, set with a garnet,
on a lover’s knot of gold.

“O,” she said, and her eyes were with light, and I saw that her mouth was soft for
me, but there was nothing in me to answer her, for the Voice seemed to have taken
my strength.

“I will put it on your best silk,” I said, and lines came swift to her face, and in
my mind I cursed myself, for her best silk had always been Ivor’s favourite, so I
had said the wrong, wrong thing again, and worse, as though on purpose, to knock that
light from her eyes and softness from her mouth.

“Thank you,” she said, and went quickly to light the candles.

I stood in the kitchen while she went upstairs with no good night for me, but I knew
she was quiet because of tears.

For minutes, I stood there, burning as in a fire, to go to her and kiss her, and beg
forgiveness for a thoughtless fool, but I still could hear the voices on the mountain,
and I sat in quiet to listen.

And again the key turned in the door.

Next morning men were running up the Hill to shout that they were out on strike in
the next valley.

My mother gave my father little looks all the time we were having breakfast, but he
said nothing, and looked nothing, but she knew.

Bronwen had gone early to Tyn-y-Coed with Olwen to give the house a polish, but before
she left I had made her a cup of tea, and pinned the brooch on the inside of her apron.

No words, only a cup of tea, and a pinning, and a kiss, and such a lovely smile, and
off, and I sawed a plank that was eight feet long without a single rest, so good I
felt.

That afternoon, Olwen came to me running, with tears dried on her face.

“Huw,” she said, “the strikers in the other valley are marching round the mountain.
They made fun of me and Bron because of Iestyn.”

“You will have to go over the mountain, then,” I said, and angry to think some lout
had made them unhappy, and wishing to have him close to my fist. “I will show you
a good way to-morrow.”

“They said we would be stopped going near Tyn-y-Coed again,” she said. “Nasty things,
they said. They were going to have the clothes off us.”

“About the first, we will see,” I said. “As to the second, I will pray to be near.”

My father came back that night, and on his face a blankness of spirit.

“Out, again,” he said. “Nothing to be done.”

“How are the men such fools?” I asked him. “They have had lesson after lesson.”

“A few words of the right sort,” my father said, “a bit of flattery, a couple of words
to have sympathy, and then some fighting talk, and most of them are like sheep for
the slaughter. Those who are not can be accused of cowardice, or of knuckling to the
owners. You know them.”

Yes, I knew them, and loved them, and was sorry to the heart for them.

“What now?” my mother said.

“Sit down and wait,” my father said. “No use to talk. Too many are at it with no notion
why. I will rest my tongue until I am asked, or till the time is ripe to do a bit
of good.”

“Well, Dada,” I said, “surely this is the time for us to go out and speak to them?”

My father put his hand steady on my shoulder, and looked at me greyly in the eye,
without a blink.

“My son,” he said, “your good brothers are from home only through speaking to them,
and for them. They warned them enough not to strike. They saw its uselessness, at
the last, as I have seen it these years past. Speaking to them now is a waste of breath.
They are drunk with unreason. Leave them.”

Chapter Forty-One

I
WENT DOWN TO THE VILLAGE
that night to the Three Bells, to fit shutters over the windows.

Dai was in bad spirits and so was Cyfartha, for a strike meant a stoppage of trade
and a piling of debt. Cyfartha had come out with his shift, and he had been having
both edges of Dai’s tongue since he put foot over the step.

“Red flags,” Dai said, with bubbles in his voice. “By God, I would give them red flags,
indeed. Only to have my bloody eyes right, and I would show a couple of them, indeed
to Christ. Eh, Cyfartha?”

“O, Dai,” Cyfartha said, and shameful to soak in the sawdust, “I am sorry, dear Jesus,
I am sorry. But could I stay on my own to cut coal and nobody to push the trams, and
the horses idle?”

“I have told you, yes,” Dai said. “I would see them in hell’s good blazing before
to take orders from them. Pounds and pounds we have lost through strikes. What gain,
please to tell me, now, where you are standing, what gain? Nothing, not one halfpenny,
eh, Cyfartha?”

“No, no,” Cyfartha said, and a swallow of beer as though to wash away his sins, and
then looking into the glass, “but damn me everlasting, Dai, they all came up, I tell
you. Only me and the boy down there if we had stayed.”

“Stay till you rot, then,” Dai said, “but think for yourself. Do any of them know
what they are out for? Some for a price on the five-foot seam, and some for ballots
on places, and some for a price on cutting stone. Instead to have it solid on the
table among them all. Everybody pull, pull, pull. And every pull a different one,
and the owners sitting fat to laugh at us all for fools. Eh, Cyfartha?”

“Too tired for talking, I am, Dai, my little one,” Cyfartha said. “Put my mouth to
a barrel I will, and sleep drunk for a couple of days. That is the best for me.”

“If they would listen to your good father, Huw,” Dai said, in sorrow, “instead of
these who think with heads of parsley. Shocking, to make the eyes run.”

“The sportsmen, these are,” I said. “The cattle.”

“I am ready to pole-axe a couple, then,” Dai said. “Are the shutters right, with you?”

“Solid as the house,” I said. “Are you afraid of trouble?”

Dai looked round the bar, first, and then put his head to my ear.

“They have sworn to flood the pits this time,” he said, with whispers. “If I will
catch one to open his mouth to say so, I will hit his teeth to mix with his brains.
But sly, they are, see. Nobody do know where the orders are coming from. I heard it
in the bar, here, but only in talk. Ears open, mouth shut, Huw, my little one, and
if you come to know, tell me. Only tell me, eh, Cyfartha?”