How Green Was My Valley

by Richard Llewellyn

  “Perhaps he is used to taking his time,” said Mr. Jonas, and smiling with his lips going back over his teeth to look as though he had nothing in his mouth but tongue. He spoke English with pain, making his words to sound more English than the English. Pity it is that a beautiful language should be at the mercy of such. Dr. Samuel Johnson would have had a word to say to him, and I told him so, but that was later.

  “Have you been crying, Morgan?” Mr. Tyser asked me.

  “Yes,” I said, “but no matter.”

  “What a dirty little sweep it is,” Mr. Jonas said, still smiling, and pulling from my pocket my handkerchief all ink and dust.

  “It was clean when I came from the house this morning,” I said, and pulled it from him. “The dirt is from that room in by there.”

  “You will address me as sir,” said Mr. Jonas with no smile, “or I will put a stick about you. Inside and sit down, on the instant.”

  And as I passed he made a slap at my head but I ducked and went to my place in the fourth row where a boy had moved up for me.

  Mr. Jonas closed the door and came to stand in front of me.

  “We have with us an intellectual giant,” he said, still looking at me and smiling as the boys and girls smiled with him, “so we must all bend the knee. We shall now presume to test his knowledge in algebra, and on the result we shall know whether we may live in the same room with him, or petition the Commons for a special building.”

  Plenty of the boys and some of the girls made no sign they had heard, but most of them tried to laugh more than the joke was worth to try and keep on the credit side of that tongue.

  Four quadratic equations he gave me, but Mr. Gruffydd and Davy had drilled me too well. They were simple to me. But Mr. Jonas never lost his smile.

  “A model scholar,” he said, and looking closely at the book. “But your books are in a dreadful state, and your hands are filthy. If you are thinking of becoming a scholar at this school you will have to adopt a more civilized way of living. You must tell your mother that if you arrive in such a state to-morrow morning you will be sent home. Your dirty coal mining ways are not wanted here.”

  From that moment I was the enemy of Mr. Elijah Jonas-Sessions. There was nothing he could teach me, for my mind was against him, and all he taught. I answered him nothing, but I looked.

  “Insolence will gain you nothing,” he said, and threw the book down to bend the corners. “Pay attention to what I say, and write ‘civilization is the highest aim of human kind’ one hundred times before you leave to-day.”

  And while he taught the others algebra, I sat.

  For nearly a year, I sat.

  His voice passed over me like the voice of the wind at a school-treat, there, but never noticed.

  I sat.

  There was a break at eleven o’clock, and we all went out to the playground to eat what we had brought with us. As soon as I came from the door, Mervyn Phillips pulled me by the arm.

  “Fight me, will you?” he said, and the others all round us. “Come you, then.”

  He was a head above me, and big, the son of a coal merchant in the town, used to lifting sacks, and strong because of it.

  But it was not a fight we had, for there were too many boys about us and no room. It was like a bad scrum, with the hookers missing. I had two good punches at him, and he had one at me on the side of the head, but then the weight of them pulled me down and there was nothing I could do in the press but guard my head from their boots. What would have happened I cannot tell, but I felt it all stop and the boys easing and standing away, and when I stood up against the wall, Mr. Motshill was looking at me from a side window.

  “Which boy started on you, Morgan?” he said. “I will make an example of him. There shall be no ruffians in this school.”

  “I said I would fight them,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said, “Mr. Jonas told me you were inclined to the rougher style of living. Understand me, then. If I catch you fighting anywhere near the boundaries of this school, I shall thrash you and expel you. As for you others,” he said to the boys, “kindly remember that you attend here to qualify for responsible positions in life. You are the self-respecting citizens of the future. Remember it, and revise your conduct accordingly.”

  It was a good job for me that Ellis the Post was in the Square when I came from school, outside the hotel where my mother had told me to wait for him, or I would have been rolled in the mud. He cracked his whip above them, and snapped the lash in rings on the ground while I climbed up on the driver’s seat, not another breath in me.

  “These town boys are like little rats,” said Ellis, coming up and taking the reins, “never one to one, but always a hundred and more to one. Why did they chase you?”

  “New boy,” I said.

  “We will see about it,” Ellis said. “They would have killed you, man.”

  “Say nothing,” I said, “or my mother will be worried and more trouble, then.”

  “Right,” he said, “but I will wait for you every night by there, is it?”

  So every night, except for a few times, I went with Ellis the Post round the long way home, on the road that ran round the mountain and followed the river. Lovely it was to sit behind Mari the mare, and breathe the smells of the mountain, and greet people in the road, and wave to people in the houses, sometimes stopping to give them a letter or a parcel, or a bit of news, for of course Ellis knew all that went on in and out of the Valley.

  When I got home that night I went in Bron’s first, to wash my face and hands, but nothing would take the bruises from cheeks and eyes, and a cut lip is a cut lip. Bron was out and so was Ivor so I was spared to tell a second tale.

  When I came in my mother put her hands to her face and looked at me with a scream in her eyes, but nothing came from her mouth.

  “What have you done, boy?” Angharad said, looking closer and trying to feel. “Are you hurting?”

  “I fell on the mountain,” I said. “No hurt, only stiff.”

  “Go to the doctor with him,” my mother said. “Fighting, not mountain, him. Wait till his father sees him.”

  “Shall I have tea first?” I asked her. “Not hurt I am, only touched.”

  “National School,” said my mother. “Wait till I see your father, only just you wait.”

  “I only want a poultice, Mama,” I said, “but I would like a cup of tea first.”

  “A cup of tea you shall have, my little one,” my mother said, and took my hot face in her hands, with her thumbs over my eyes, cool, and making plain the heat of blood under my skin. “How many fists made these marks? Your brothers were always in fights, but not one of them had a face like this. Go down to Bowen and ask him for a piece of steak with the blood in it, Angharad.”

  Then Bron came in and screamed, and ran to put her arms about me.

  “Huw, my little one,” she said, and crying, “who was it? Tell me and I will strangle him. I will go down now and strangle him.”

  “Wait till his father comes in,” my mother said, and nearly crying, too, “I will tell him. National Schools.”

  And down went the poker with a noise to send the cat from the house, belly to floor and the white tip of his tail like a shooting star.

  There is good a cup of tea is when you are feeling low. Thin, and plenty of milk, and brown sugar in the crystal, in a big cup so that when your mouth is used to the heat you can drink instead of sipping. Every part of you inside you that seems to have gone to sleep comes lively again. A good friend of mine is a cup of tea, indeed.

  When Angharad came back with the steak, Bron put it on and tied it in place with a cloth, and I went out in the back to give Owen’s engine a clean. So I was from the house when my father came back, but not so far that I missed my mother’s voice. Then the back door opened.

  “Huw,” my father said, “come you here, my son.”

  He was black from the colliery, so Angharad took off the cloth and he held the lamp to see my face.

&n
bsp; “One good black eye and half another,” he said, and wanting to touch but keeping his hands away. “A couple of fair ones on his cheeks, but no cuts except his lip. Good. But when I have bathed I will look at your nose. Go now, and finish what you are doing.”

  Then Davy and Ivor came out to see, and then Ianto, but none of them said anything, only asking if I hurt. But I had sixpence from all of them, and a couple of sweets from Angharad, so I was well off.

  In I went after my father had finished his supper, and he looked at my nose and tried to feel if it was broken, but there was nothing wrong except swelling.

  “Hot water every half-hour,” said my father, “and hot and cold one after another. In a couple of days there will be nothing there.”

  “That National School will be far from there if I will have a bit of gunpowder,” my mother said.

  “Hisht, girl,” my father said, “the boy will have worse than that before he will lie in his piece of ground. Are you willing to go back there to-morrow, my son?”

  “Yes, Dada,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “Now, look you here, Huw, my son. You are growing to be a man. It is a man’s place to take punishment and give back more than he takes if there is a head on him. But sometimes he will have to take a hiding in the first ten rounds to give a bigger hiding in the next ten. But if you must have a hiding, make up your mind to a hiding. Have your hiding and learn from it. It is one thing to have a hiding, but quite another to be beaten. Never be beaten, boy. A hiding, yes, but never beaten. Come for more. Come always for more. And come for more until you are giving the hiding. Is it?”

  “Yes, Dada,” I said.

  “Come you, then,” my father said, and got up, and went to the box, and brought it to the table. “From to-night you shall have a penny for every mark on your face, a shilling for a black eye, sixpence for a nose bleed, two shillings for a broken nose, and a penny for every mark on your knuckles or on your fore-arms and body. Your money-box is richer this night by three shillings and sixpence. Now come you out in the back.”

  “Gwilym,” my mother said, with tears on the move, “leave him, now. He has had enough for one day. Another fight and he will be dead.”

  “So long as he shall die with his blood in front of him,” my father said, “I will lift my head. A boy shall learn to fight, or let him put skirts about his knees. This boy has never been taught to fight, but he shall have his first lesson to-night. We will see if the National Schools can beat a Morgan.”

  Out in the back, my father took off his coat and rolled his sleeves while Ianto and Davy pulled the engine away and Ivor cleared the floor.

  “Now,” said my father, “a good straight left is the bully’s downfall. That is lesson one from the book. Like this.”

  My father stood straight, head and eyes turned to the left, with his left foot pointing the way he was looking in line with his half-bent left arm, and the thumb closed over the fingers of the fist, back of his hand down, and held nearly on a level with his chin, but always just below and between his eyes, with his right foot pointing right, and his right arm bent across his chest with the fist not touching, but almost over the heart.

  “Now,” he said, and up and down on tip-toe, and moving his arms in a spar, “stand like this, easy, ready and loose all over. Let me see it with you.”

  So I was taught to fight.

  That night I learnt how to stand, to give, and to slip, a punch.

  “The best fighter is that one who will slip under a punch and give two in return,” said my father. “When you can do that, you shall say you have started boxing. Too many call themselves boxers who are not even entitled to call themselves fighters. Look you, now.”

  He showed me by hitting at Ivor, and having one on the chin and one in the chest, and both so quick it puzzled the eye to see. Then Ivor and Davy showed a left, a left slipped, and a right cross.

  “That is to teach a lesson,” my father said. “When a man makes you take off your coat, make up your mind to teach him a lesson. A right cross, properly given, is a good lesson and very often the end of a fight. Every time he comes in, the left to teach him. When he goes back from the left, give him a couple more by following up. Then bring the right to the space between the breast bones to bring his head down, and as it comes down, your left to steady him, and your good right to his chin. And on with your coat, then, and off home.”

  Angharad put her head in the window and Davy pretended to punch, and she shouted because her head was fast in the small space and her hair falling about her, making it worse.

  “Mr. Gruffydd is in the house,” she shouted, and the boys trying to pull her head out. “Will you crack my skull, David Morgan?”

  “Too hard,” Davy said. “Only a girl would put her old head in such a little place. Is there a door or are you blind?”

  “I was looking through the window, fool,” Angharad said. “Would I see anything through a door?”

  “Your nose will have you in the toils, young woman,” my father said. “Break the window and take it from her pin money.”

  “O, Dada,” Angharad said, trying to look through her hair, and trying hard to cry, but laughing instead, “there is nasty you are to me. These old boys can do what they like but we shall have nothing only hard words and take it from her pin money. Huw has had more for his punches than I have had for six weeks. I wish I had been born an old boy. I would have punches all day, indeed.”

  “Leave her there,” my father said, “and let her think over what she has said.”

  So poor Angharad was left with her head in the window, trying to cry, but laughing instead, and Davy pinched her bottom as he passed, but he got such a kick that he was limping all night with him.

  “Well, Huw,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “some trouble with the Philistines, then?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “How did this pencil-box come home like this?” Mr. Gruffydd asked me. “I asked you to take care of it.”

  “From the way he came home,” my father said, “I wonder he had sense to bring it with him.”

  “Let Huw answer, Mr. Morgan,” said Mr. Gruffydd. “Property must not be broken like this without some action taken to stop it happening twice. Huw had it in his care. He was not to blame. Who was?”

  “Those who left their marks on him,” said my father.

  “I was out of the room when it was done, Mr. Gruffydd,” I said, “but I said I would fight all of them, and I will. So they shall have their payment for it, whoever they were.”

  “Kennel-sweepings,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “and only kennel-sweepings could smash a little box like this. I am in a mind to cut myself a handful of twigs and go down there to-morrow and take the skin off their backs.”

  “Good,” said my mother, “and burn the old place up.”

  “Hisht, girl,” said my father. “Better to let Huw fight his own way, Mr. Gruffydd. I am just as able to go down there, and God help them if I did. But it is Huw’s fight. Not ours.”

  “It is our fight, Mr. Morgan,” Mr. Gruffydd said, and putting the box on the table. “Huw can teach them he is better with his fists, but he will never teach them the sanctity of property. The vandal is taught physical fear by superior violence, but he cannot be taught to think.”

  “Will twigs do any better?” asked my father, and pulling on his pipe not to smile.

  “Far better than fists,” said Mr. Gruffydd, and starting to laugh, “for fists are between man and man. But twigs and reason are the universal law, good for all men. Fists will teach you to fight better if you have heart and head, and your fists will teach other men to let you have your share of the road in peace. But twigs and a talk will teach you to think and live better. And that is why I am in a mind to go down there to-morrow morning.”

  “I am going to mend the box, Mr. Gruffydd,” I said. “There will be no signs when I have done with it. Like new, indeed.”

  “Come you, then,” said Mr. Gruffydd. “It makes me sick in the heart to see i
t like this.”

  Outside in the back we went, with lamps, and poor Angharad still with her head stuck in the window.

  “Who is this?” Mr. Gruffydd asked, with the lamp high to see.

  “Angharad,” I said.

  Mr. Gruffydd smoothed the hair from her eyes and she looked up at him, with the light of the lamp throwing gold upon her.

  I knew she was laughing, but she looked as though she were crying, with golden tears unsteady in her eyes, and her eyes gone lovely blue to call for pity, big, and round, like a little girl wanting to be carried, and turning down her mouth, only a little not to be ugly, and a tremble in the chin, and with hair almost the colour of a new penny about her face and hanging down three feet, with stray ones shining like the strings of a harp across her eyes and down her cheeks.

  Mr. Gruffydd looked at her and I saw his face move, but how it moved there is no saying. He put down the lamp and took the bar above her neck in one hand.

  “Say if I hurt,” he said, but Angharad shook her head.

  He put his feet flat after making little moves to find the right hold, and then with one pull he tore the bar and the top of the frame clean out of its place, nails, screws, and all.

  “Now then,” he said to me, not looking at Angharad, “you mend the box and I will mend the window.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Gruffydd,” Angharad said, looking in where the window had been, and feeling her neck. “There is strong you are.”

  “Good,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “I will have the pincers after you, Huw, my son.”

  Sandpaper took the ink stains from the bare white wood on the inside of the box, and made it white as a sheet again, but only with hard rubbing and patience at the corners. A new screw for the pivot, and a splice for the second tray, and my box was together again, but still chipped on the outside and scratched on the lid. That was another job altogether. Small pieces of wood, so small they were hard to see, I put in all the chips, and the scratches I filled in with splinters of the same colour as the woods in the pattern. Indeed, when I had finished there was nothing to show that the little box had come to harm. But I knew, and Mr. Gruffydd knew, and so did his father and grandfather, for there were little marks all over it that had never been there, and should never have been there, the marks of little wounds that would never heal. For wood is jealous of its age, and quick to make a new-comer feel its place.