How Green Was My Valley

by Richard Llewellyn

  “Scissors,” said Hwfa, and Old Twm had them in his hand as by magic.

  Every man to his business, but indeed the craft of a tailor is beyond all doubt as noble and as secret as any in the world. To take a bolt of cloth and work with such simple tools as chalk, needle and thread, scissors and hot iron, and bring from them a suit to fit every little bump and crevice of the body, without ugliness, is a royal mystery indeed, and ancient beyond the knowledge of man, for all mankind has had joy to deck himself, right from the Beginning, and none shall say when that was.

  “More in the shoulder,” said Hwfa, making little marks with the chalk. “Up with the back.”

  Old Twm pulled up the cloth at the back only the smallest bit.

  “Wait, wait,” Hwfa shouted. “Will he have his collar over his ears, with you, you old fool, you? Down a bit. Down more. Wait. Wait.”

  “What, now, in the name of God?” asked Old Twm, with impatience, and fast losing sweetness.

  “A coat I am making,” Hwfa said, with froth, over my shoulder. “When it is trews I will let you know. Will you have the collar round his waist?”

  “Nothing will surprise me in this place,” Old Twm said. “There will be buttonholes in the bottoms of his trews before long. Collar a bit high in the back.”

  “I know, I know,” said Hwfa. “Please to close the head.”

  “Close head, close sense,” Old Twm said, “perhaps that is why.”

  Hwfa looked long at me as though he would cry, then he bit his lips, and still looking ready to cry, went to mark the front for buttons, but savage, and with quick side looks at the big shears on the table, as though ready to use them for a killing at the wink of an eye.

  “Right sleeve short,” said Old Twm, as though it were no business of anybody.

  Hwfa took a big breath, and went to work on the left cuff.

  “Right sleeve,” said Old Twm, with a suck of a tooth.

  Hwfa dropped his arms and closed his eyes. Then he opened them, looking as though the worries of the world were in his keeping, and went to work on my trews.

  “Tighter at the waist,” said Hwfa, “and higher, if it is no trouble to anybody in the shop.”

  “Shortness in the right sleeve,” said Old Twm.

  Hwfa started humming some tune of his own, and making little marks all over my trews with the chalk.

  “There is pretty,” said Old Twm, very serious.

  “A journey of six months of Sundays and a good pair of feet,” said Hwfa, almost in whispers, “would have to be had to find anything so pretty as you.”

  “So my mother said,” Old Twm said, “and that sleeve of his is just below the bone of his elbow with him.”

  “Take off the coat, Huw, my little one,” said Hwfa, with grandness. “A master tailor has no need to give a second look to anything. Come you Friday night and have it hot from the goose.”

  “O? He will give it to you himself, then,” said Old Twm, going to sit. “And if you will find a leg of your trews hanging from your necks, and cuffs instead of flaps on your pockets, raise your eyes from my face, will you, please?”

  “Yes,” said Hwfa, flat, “in suffering and in pity, for he is the last of the Gadarene swine, and no more to come, thank God. Good night, now.”

  “Good night, Hwfa and Twm,” I said, and off, with Hwfa hitting the goose in the iron holder to cover what Old Twm was saying to him.

  There is a day and a night we had when Davy and Wyn and Ceridwen and Blethyn were married, and no sleep the night before, either.

  We were down at the Chapel, giving the hall next to it a bit of paint and a good scrub, and putting tables for the tea and cakes, and polishing chairs ready for the people on Saturday. My father, Ianto, Davy, Ceridwen, and Bron and me, and Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Jones, our next-doors, and their boys and girls had been at it for hours and just getting the place to look in shape. Ivor was over the mountain conducting the big choir, and Mr. Gruffydd was up at a cottage where there was sickness, for I had chased a chicken in our back for him to take up, and nothing I hated more than killing one of our chickens, for I knew them and they knew me, and we were friends.

  James Rowlands, one of the deacons, came in the hall from polishing the pulpit in Chapel, and held up a finger at my father.

  “Visitors to see you,” he said, “in the Chapel.”

  “Thank you, Jim, my little one,” said my father. “Somebody about the weddings, I suppose?”

  “Yes, I think,” said James Rowlands. “But special. Come quick.”

  “Bring them in by here,” said my father, on top of a ladder, with hammer and tacks for candle holders.

  “Come in the Chapel, man,” James said.

  “No,” said my father. “Ask them to have the goodness to come to me. I am at work.”

  “Right, you,” said James, and out he went, leaving behind him the sharp smell of bees-wax and turpentine.

  I was holding up the candles for my father to fit in when he was done with hammering. He finished nailing the last one in, and took the candles from me, but standing up on the top step again, he looked over at the door and almost fell from the ladder. A look as though witches had come to dance came to his face and the candles dropped from his hand, missing Bron by a hair, plump into the bucket to make a splash and puddle the floor, and Owen and Gwil were running to us, laughing, with their arms wide.

  “Owen,” my father shouted. “Gwilym, my little one. O, my sons.”

  Down the ladder he came with such a run that it fell from under him, but he jumped and landed and ran forward to meet them.

  “Dada,” Owen said, “there is good.”

  “How is Mama?” Gwilym said. “Bron, there is good you are looking, girl.”

  “Huw,” said Owen, with smiles, “you have grown a good four inches.”

  “Long trews I am having,” I said. “To-morrow.”

  “We have finished here,” said my father. “Come, my sons. Home to your mother. She has waited long for this moment. Huw, see you all is well before to leave.”

  “Yes, Dada,” I said.

  So I helped Bron to do all that was wanted, and lock up, and went up the Hill to have a cup of tea with her, for we had missed tea to work, and half-way up we met Mr. Gruffydd coming down, walking slowly, with his hat tipped over his eyes, and his hands deep in the pockets of his short coat.

  “Owen and Gwil are back, excuse me, sir,” I said, when we came together.

  “Back?” said Mr. Gruffydd. “Who?”

  “Owen and Gwil,” I said. “Now just.”

  “Good,” he said. “A happy night for your good mother. I will be glad to meet them to-morrow. Good night, Mrs. Morgan. Good night, my son.”

  “Come to the house, Mr. Gruffydd,” Bron said, and looking up at him, “I have got shoulder of lamb.”

  “I have got work,” said Mr. Gruffydd and smiling. “I must finish the furniture, eh, Huw? So excuse me. Good night, now.”

  “Eh, dear, dear,” Bronwen said, when we had gone up a little way. “Poor Mr. Gruffydd, indeed.”

  “Why, then?” I asked her.

  “O,” Bronwen said, and took the stone from the door and pushed it shut, for the night was cold. By the time I had lit the lamps the kettle was jumping, but Bron was still quiet.

  “Why ‘O,’ Bron?” I asked her. “Is something the matter with Mr. Gruffydd?”

  “If I was single again,” Bron said, “I think I would try to marry him, shame to me or not.”

  “Why?” I asked her.

  “Why, why, why,” Bron said, and laughing. “Always why, from the old man. Because of the look of him, boy.”

  “Well,” I said, stupid as a brush, “I see nothing wrong with him, Bron. He is the same, to-day as yesterday.”

  “Empty he is, boy,” Bron said. “Empty as a split pea pod, and it will come back on us, you shall see.

  I remembered the afternoons, the wood, the tools, the foot-rule, the teas, and the smell of hot glue.

  “Angh
arad, then,” I said, “is it?”

  “Tea,” said Bronwen, “and no stains on the cloth if you please. O, Huw, think. To-morrow I will wear my new costume. There is good. I would go to sleep now and wake in time to put it on.”

  “And my long trews, too,” I said.

  “Yes,” Bron said. “A man you are now.”

  She was looking at me, and smiling the old smile. And yet, while she smiled, and I smiled back, her mouth trembled and her smile began to go and in its going she came to blush, and her eyes changed, and her eyelids flickered shut. She was going redder and redder.

  And I began to blush, though for what, I cannot say, and the cup and saucer shook in my fist, and the cup rattled, so I put it down, but still Bronwen was red, and still she sat, not moving, looking down into the sugar basin, and the silence grew so thick that perhaps a man might rest his weight against it and not make it break.

  “Go now, then, Huw,” she said, in a little voice that cracked to a whisper, in the throat.

  So I went, and shut the back door quietly, and stood to look up at the mountain that was blacker than the darkness, but no blacker than the misery of questions in my mind. Nothing had been said, nothing done, to cause such a happening. Yet there I stood, looking up at the mountain to borrow some of his peace, with the wind lively about me, and coldness blowing through me to take the place of the heat I had just left.

  But another heat was in me that now I felt, and putting my mind to this fresh burden, I found a risen newness pillared in my middle, yet, for all its newness, so much a part of me that no surprise I had, but only a quick, sharp, clear glorying that rose to a shouting might of song in every part of me, and I raised my arms and drew tight the muscles of my body, and as the blood within me thudded through my singing veins, a goldness opened wide before me, and I knew I had become of Men, a Man.

  Then the goldness passed, the cold pierced through, and doubt came down blacker than before, and misery with it, for quickly, as the vision came, so it went, and I was cold, shamed, and afraid, watching the sounding darkness and wondering how men could go about their daily works, happy, having no care, thinking nothing of this mightiness within, mindful only of their bellies, their comforts, and their pockets.

  And I wanted to be as I had been yesterday, a boy again, without the heaviness of doubt, this pressing fear, this new treachery that lifted to realms of singing gold, and in a little space, flung to pits of night.

  Courage come to me from the height of the mountain, and with it came the dignity of manhood, and knowledge of the Tree of Life, for now I was a branch, running with the vital blood, waiting in the darkness of the Garden for some unknown Eve to tempt me with the apple of her beauty, that we might know our nakedness, and bring forth sons and daughters to magnify the Lord our God.

  I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me, those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front, to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond.

  And their eyes were my eyes.

  As I felt, so they had felt, and were to feel, as then, so now, as to-morrow and for ever. Then I was not afraid, for I was in a long line that had no beginning, and no end, and the hand of his father grasped my father’s hand, and his hand was in mine, and my unborn son took my right hand, and all, up and down the line that stretched from Time That Was, to Time That Is, and is not yet, raised their hands to show the link, and we found that we were one, born of Woman, Son of Man, had in the Image, fashioned in the Womb by the Will of God, the eternal Father.

  I was of them, they were of me, and in me, and I in all of them.

  “Huw,” Ianto said, “why are you standing there, boy? Are you cracked?”

  “No,” I said. “Watching the mountain, I was.”

  “Well, come in and watch a couple of pots, will you?” he said. “The girls have gone from the house so we will have to do it or go starving.”

  “Where is Ceridwen, then?” I asked him.

  “Getting married to-morrow,” Ianto said, “and doing a bit of queening in the front room. Mama is in there, too, with the boys. And Bron has gone to meet Ivor.”

  “She was in the house, now just,” I said.

  “No,” Ianto said. “I saw her go. All cloak and heels, she was, as though Ivor was king of Babylon. So we have got a tidy bit of work in the kitchen as an extra blessing, boy. To hell with the women. Never where you want them, or when.”

  So into the kitchen to do some washing up, and put big potatoes in the hot coals with cheese and butter to roast, and make hot a couple of pans for the small fry, and the saucepans for the potch. Then to lay the tables, a job I have never liked. I do like to sit at a table properly laid, for I think the sight of knives and forks in their places, with glasses and the good furniture of eating, gives something more to the appetite, for your fingers have an itch to be using them. And nothing more I hate than a table laid without care. Stains on a cloth, or wrinkles, or a knife not in the straight, a fork turned aside, a spoon put the wrong way up, will have my thoughts in a knot until they are put right. But I would rather scrub a floor than lay a table, with the fetch and carry of handfuls of cutlery, and piles of plates, and glasses, and cruets, and laying a cloth so that too much is not on one side and too little on the other, and the pulling this way and that until you are ready to roll it into a ball and push it in the fire, for my mother starched her cloths, and polished her tables, and laying a cloth became an exercise in patience almost coming to a waste of time, though worth the trouble when done.

  Out to the back to mix the potch, then. All the vegetables were boiled slowly in their jackets, never allowed to bubble in boiling, for then the goodness is from them, and they are full of water, and a squash, tasteless to the mouth, without good smell, an offence to the eye, and an insult to the belly. Firm in the hand, skin them clean, and put them in a dish and mash with a heavy fork, with melted butter and the bruisings of mint, potatoes, swedes, carrots, parsnips, turnips and their tops, then chop small purple onions very fine, with a little head of parsley, and pick the leaves of small watercress from the stems, and mix together. The potch will be a creamy colour with something of pink, having a smell to tempt you to eat there and then, but wait until it has been in the hot oven for five minutes with a cover, so that the vegetables can mix in warm comfort together and become friendly, and the mint can go about his work, and for the cress to show his cunning, and for the goodness all about to soften the raw, ungentle nature of the onion.

  By that time the small fry are bouncing together in the hot butter drips, and coming browner every moment like children in the sun, and shining with joy to smell so good. As soon as they are the right, deep colour of brown, and still without cracks of heat, when the small sausages are the same colour all round, give them a turn of the fingers of thyme and sage, just a turn of the fingers, mix the panful well, and put all on a big, blue willow pattern dish.

  Bring the roast potatoes from the coals, and you will find the butter and cheese gone into them with as much pleasure as they will soon go into you, and rest them among green leaves of lettuce, and new radishes.

  Now call everybody quickly to the table, and eat plenty.

  There is good to see happy faces round a table full of good food. Indeed, for good sounds, I will put the song of knives and forks next to the song of man.

  My mother was the last to sit, as usual, and the first to notice an empty plate or an idle knife and fork. Her eyes were all over, seeing all, missing nothing, and on her plate the smallest meal of any, yet quick to scold if a morsel was left, or a third helping refused by one of us.

  “Did you have good dinners in London?” my mother asked Owen.

  “No, Mama,” Owen said. “We went to cook shops most of the days.”

  “Roast beef and mashed,” Gwilym said, “with cabbage and Yorkshire, and jam pudding, cup of tea, sevenpence.”

  “Sevenpence?” my mother said, in a whisper. “Goodness me, boy, we
re you rolling in money?”

  “No,” Owen said, “but it is dear in London.”

  “Are you going back, Owen?” Ianto asked him.

  “No, indeed,” Owen said. “If Mama and Dada will have me back.”

  “This is home to you,” my father said.

  “Glad to have a good sleep, I will be,” Gwilym said. “Nothing but night work the last month and no sleep last night or the night before.”

  “So what will you do, my sons?” my father asked.

  “Down the pit,” said Owen.

  “Yes, yes,” Gwilym said. “And happy to be back after that old tunnel.”

  “Working in a tunnel, Owen?” Ianto asked him. “Which one then?”

  “They are making an underground railway for London,” Owen said. “But no planning to it. They will make fools of themselves in time to come.”

  “I suppose you told a foreman that,” my father said, loading his pipe and smiling.

  “Owen was the foreman,” Gwilym said, “and he told the surveyor.”

  “Eh, dear,” my father said. “So you had the sack?”

  “Not for that,” Owen said. “He was rude to me, so I had to instruct him in courtesy.”

  “Ah,” said my father, “then, it was, you had the sack, is it?”

  “No,” Gwilym said, “the surveyor had the sack. Owen had a rise in his wages and a bigger gang. I had the sack.”

  “O,” said my father, “you had the sack, did you? Why?”

  “Wages and conditions for the men,” said Gwilym, very hang-dog and talking to his plate. “I started a Union. They found out when we joined the Dockers parade, but I told them to go to hell. But one night I called a meeting after work, and the boss came in and I was sacked on the spot. So Owen left, too. No need. Then we saw Iestyn’s notice about the wedding, and the bit in the paper about Davy and Wyn, and we said Home.”

  “John Burns and Cunninghame Graham are getting things done, then?” Davy asked.

  “The best Union of the lot, now,” Owen said. “And there is a man is John Burns. What is going on down here?”