How Green Was My Valley

by Richard Llewellyn

  “Go on, boy,” she said, and giving me a push. “There is an old liar you are.”

  “The water is boiling,” I said, and pulling off the pots from the grids, and glad of plenty to do. “Go and tell Bron to have the tea ready.”

  “Are we sweethearts, Huw?” she asked me, in a high little voice, and her hands busy with ribbons on the front of her dress.

  “No,” I said. “Go from here.”

  “I will come for you again,” she said, and meant, and went.

  All through the evening and into the late of night, the singing went on, with children first, then boys and girls, then the men and women, and after the choirs. And all the time we were working to make tea and serve food, until it seemed that all the world had come to eat, and drink, and sing.

  Only when the candles began to go, and the lamps had to be trimmed, did people begin to put on coats, and nod to one another, and look for children, and send somebody to harness the horse, and start to shake hands with everybody.

  Of course, my mother and father were in the middle of a crowd, then, and another hour for saying good-bye, even though everybody knew they would see them in Chapel next morning. But thanks had to be said, though they might wait till morning, with still twenty miles to go behind the horse.

  I went up to the field for Mr. Phillips’ mare, breathing deep of the cold darkness, glad to be free of the noise, and closeness, and heat, of people. But when I undid the shackle and started to lead her away, I heard Ceinwen calling me from the bottom of the field, and stopped, hoping she would miss me in the darkness and go away. But she came slowly toward me, not calling now, but singing, softly, David of the White Rock, in contralto, deep, clear, and the wind bringing it to me as though he liked it and wanted me to hear.

  “Huw,” she said, only a little way off, and stopping, with no more of the song.

  “Your father is waiting,” I said, and went on down. She came on my other side and put an arm about my neck, leaning upon me, and pulling me to walk slower.

  “Put your arm about me, Huw,” she said, into my ear.

  “Go on, girl,” I said. “There is soft you are. Put my arm, indeed. Like a couple of fools.”

  I wonder what is it, that makes us speak so foolishly, and with so much hurt to those who would confer an honour or do us a pleasure if, perhaps, we think such honour or pleasure will cause the censure of others, or disturb that shifty creature called Conscience.

  Yet Conscience is a nobleman, the best in us, and a friend.

  I knew I wanted to put an arm about Ceinwen, and I knew that I was in heats to kiss her again, but the stupid spirit was in me to deny both, and in the denial, to hurt her, as though that hurt would do some good to me, and precious Conscience.

  I was kept from telling the truth, and putting my arm about her with pleasure and a smile, and kissing her with willingness to enjoy, even though we were on a mountain side, in darkness, and as good as from by there to the moon away with all created tongues and eyes, and the acid of one, and the pricks of the other, and the malice and ignorance of both.

  But the knowledge of them and their hurts made for fear and made me a liar, in truth, in spirit, and in feeling, and I was dumb as a lout.

  “O, Huw,” Ceinwen said, and pulled me to stop, and stamped her foot, “I like to kiss. I want to kiss.”

  “Shut up, girl,” I said, in discomfort, knowing well how I felt, and envious of her truthfulness, and shamed because of it, but still unwilling to come to the front in case she poked fun, and in case we were late and my father asked questions, but mostly because I wanted to feel better, with less on the conscience, than she.

  We looked at one another for a minute, both of us in black shadow, able to see nothing only a black shape. Then she put an arm about me and held tight, and pulled me to her and kissed me, but this time her teeth bit through both my lips, and the pain made me struggle, trying to shout, but only a sound from the throat, and blood running warm and smooth and salt into my mouth.

  “Now,” she said, breathless, and putting me away, “next time, kiss. And no nonsense. Good night, now.”

  So I watched her run, and sucked at my lips, and climbed on the mare’s back and rode down, laughing all the way, though for what, I cannot tell.

  Funny it was to see her coolness when she said good night to us in the Square, and her straight back, and empty eyes, and the smile, and the folded hands, and the bend of head when her father cracked the whip and they started for home. She even made a little frown to Mervyn because he shouted to me.

  Eh, dear, women.

  But we help. Yes, indeed, we help. We only say we cannot understand them when we cannot understand our craven selves, cannot release ourselves from fear that ours is the first blame, cannot assume and hold our position as men, and must for shame, load them with the onus of the prime move in order that we may partake of the sin, and to hell with that word, too, and to assuage our delicate moral sense with nonsense about temptation, and Eve, and the frailness of mortal man. The truth is not in us, neither do we look for it, and we are cowards and not men. In the day of King Arthur, a man would fight to the death in honour of a woman, but in these days, those who will call themselves men will cower, even in their thoughts, at the prospect of having to reckon with the eyes and tongues of those warty bawds and pussy sluts who peddle oral filth.

  Gossip.

  Hear it all.

  Gossip. Hear the sound of it.

  Many a better noise has come from the back.

  May all such end their days soonest, with cancers of the misused tongue and all the vitals, and perish with the special torments of the damned, and pass without hurry into Hell, and lie upon the hottest grid through all eternity, with water only an inch beyond reach and the green pastures of Paradise always clear in their sight.

  I have no love for gossips.

  It was gossip that sent Mr. Gruffydd from us, and gave me his gold watch, though I have never been able to look at it without thinking of the nagging evil that piles lies on lies with every second it marks.

  Davy had shouldered his son, and Ceridwen had taught her twins to walk before Angharad came home again.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  THERE HAD BEEN TROUBLE down at the Evans Colliery for months on end, but it was always settled by the manager and a man from Town, and then breaking out again, until everybody in the village was tired of it, and nobody would listen.

  At first, Mr. Gruffydd did most of the talking for the men, for they trusted him. But sometimes they would doubt even him, and then they got worse in their doubts, and started employing a lawyer to put their case. Then another lawyer was called in, with the men having the hat round to pay the expenses and then more lawyers. But all of them together never did as much as Mr. Gruffydd did for nothing, but only the men’s wives had the sense to see it, and one night they all went to Mr. Gruffydd after Chapel and asked him to see what he could do.

  “What, then?” Mr. Gruffydd asked my father. “They want so much for the stone they are cutting to come at the coal, so much for water on the levels, so much for putting props, and a ballot for the best places. What am I to say?”

  “We are having the same fight,” my father said. “That is why the Union is growing and sliding scale going from favour.”

  “What are you doing?” Mr. Gruffydd asked. “Then I shall know how to talk to the manager.”

  “I am in favour of a man from each colliery in all the valleys meeting the managers of all the collieries, and their owners,” said my father. “Table the complaints, listen to the difficulties on the other side, and giving a bit and taking a bit, with fairness and fair play to all.”

  “Good,” said Mr. Gruffydd. “I will try that.”

  But it was no good. The meeting was refused, the terms were refused, and the men struck work. Then they went back again. Then out again. Then nobody cared if they were in or out, and most of the best men got jobs in other collieries, and strangers came to the Valley and worked for t
he money that our men refused to take.

  And Iestyn had his life threatened, and my mother wrote to Angharad, in London, to stop him from coming down. Even we got a bit of blame from some of the men just because Iestyn had married into our family.

  Then Iestyn sold out to the owners of my father’s colliery, and they said they would work it only when their levels went through underground and joined it, and so closed it, putting four hundred men from work.

  Strikes we had had, and funerals, to keep men from work, but that was the first time we had ever had men standing in the street without work waiting for them.

  “This is the beginning, Dada,” Owen said. “You will see, now. Plenty of labour, fall in wages. Scarcity of labour, rise in wages. Watch, now.”

  “There is an agreement,” my father said. “There is a minimum.”

  “The minimum,” Owen said, “will be the minimum when these men are working. Four hundred men extra in this Valley, and others to join them in the other valleys. When all those men are back at work, there will be a new minimum.”

  “We shall see,” said my father.

  And a new minimum there was, too, for when a man complained, or spoke too loudly near the manager, he was put from work, and another taken in his place from the idle crowd at the pit head.

  For less wages, always.

  Some of the men went to work in other valleys, some went to Sheffield, to Birmingham, or Middlebrough, some went even to the United States of America. And some stayed in the village.

  And so we knew, for the first time, men without work, who kept from the workhouse only because it was too far away, or because their sons were earning, their relatives were kind, or their friends were charitable.

  But even so, other men and their families were coming into the Valley and starting in the collieries for less money, or helping builders, or setting up little businesses in grocery, and tobacco, and newspapers, and cook shops, until the village had houses on both sides of the road round the mountain, on one side, and climbing up the mountain on the other. Two new streets of small houses were built behind the Square, and two more chapels, one for the Methodists, and one for the Calvinists, and the Roman Catholics put a church for the Irish over on the other side of the river.

  Even with the trouble coming flying to meet us, we grew, and we were happy.

  Ivor ran in one night with his face lit like a summer dawn, and so happy it was pleasure to see.

  “Well,” my mother said, and put down her needle and stretched her back.

  “Read it, Dada,” Ivor said, and gave a letter to my father.

  “Well, Gracious Goodness, boy,” my father said, and looked from the letter to my mother, staring wide, and with open mouth, and then back at the letter and up and again at the letter, until my mother was shifting as though sitting up in bed with crumbs under her.

  “Will you drive me silly, then?” she said, with ice.

  Even the kettle looked as though it were listening.

  “It is a command,” my father said, as though reading the Word. “A Royal Command. Good God!”

  “A Royal Command?” said my mother, and her eyes going big, and her shoulders falling loose. “What, now?”

  “Mr. Ivor Morgan,” my father said, and sitting up, clearing his throat, “is commanded to appear before Her Majesty at Windsor Castle with chosen members of his choir.”

  “O,” said my mother, long drawn and high, and almost ready to faint.

  “Her Britannic Majesty,” said my father, with tears ready, and standing. “To sing before the Queen. My son. I never thought to see the beautiful day. Let us give thanks.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said my mother, and down we all went on the knees.

  “O Heavenly Father,” my father said, with his hand in my mother’s, and both clasped together, and looking up, “I give thanks from the heart to live this day.”

  “Yes,” said my mother.

  “I give thanks for my good son,” said my father.

  “Yes,” my mother said, and rested her face against his shoulder.

  “And for his good mother,” my father said, “my blessing for thirty years. I give thanks for all I have, and I do give thanks for this new blessing. For you are Our Father, but we look to our Queen as our mother. Comfort her in her troubles, O God, and let her mighty worries trouble not more than she shall bear in her age. And let, I beseech you, power to soothe, and sweetness to lull, and spirit to encourage, be given to the voices that sing at her command that night. And may Ivor have strength to acquit himself with us with honour. Amen.”

  “Amen,” said we all.

  “Beth,” my father said, eyes shining and red in the face, “bring out the beer. Huw, go for Mr. Gruffydd, and ‘no’ will not do for an answer. Open house, to-night.”

  Down I went for Mr. Gruffydd, and found him cooking supper, with a fork in one hand and a book in the other.

  “The choir is going to sing for the Queen, Mr. Gruffydd,” I said. “And Dada says please to come up. Open house.”

  “At last, then, Huw, my little one,” he said, and smiled, and took off the dish. “I wondered how long it would be.”

  So up the Hill we went, and people leaving their houses, and men running up the mountain with paper and wood to light beacons to call the choir from their houses, and women gathered in groups to decide who should cut the food and who should prepare the drink, with windows opening and people shouting the news in the street, and children in night dress running about with nobody to tell them to go back to bed, and cheers for Mr. Gruffydd, and a couple for Ivor, and even a few for me.

  No orders to anybody, no notices in print, no trumpets, no cannon to throw fire and give headaches to old ladies, yet everybody was going about with a job to do, and willingness to do it well, and if you had asked any of them why, they would have looked at you once, with their eyebrows up, and clicked their tongues and pushed you from the light.

  The night shift were in their working clothes ready to go down and the afternoon shift were coming up the Hill, when the men of the choir began coming in from the other valleys, over the mountain, and round by the river. By wain and brake and cart and gig and dog-trap, and even in goat cars, they were coming, in anything that would move faster than they could run they came, and groups of them were walking over the mountain all round us, with lanterns and torches to light them, little flowers of light making a rolling dance all the way down, with song from all of them, and the wind going mad to choose which to carry, which to drop.

  Now the Hill was packed full of people, with no spaces among the hats and faces all the way down, from top to bottom, and here and there a torch, a lamp, with candles along the window sills, and even some of the men sitting on the roofs and hanging down their legs. Loudly and happily rose their voices, with laughter as the people above swayed back on the people below, and women gave little screams when they thought they would be crushed, and men pushed out their elbows to take the weight from about them, with jokes and more laughing, and there, a quartet singing, and women joining in the harmony, and here, a man singing a verse, and about him people’s faces set intent to pick up the first note of the chorus, and come in, then, like lions.

  Then they saw Mr. Gruffydd in our front bedroom window, and instantly a roar, that hit across the ears, and kept on, even though he waved to them to be silent, for minute on minute, the roar, going quiet and coming bigger again, roar, roar, roar, with open mouths and wild happiness in the eyes, and then a big hush from hundreds, as though the wind had met his master, and then stillness.

  Stillness.

  Mr. Gruffydd turned to my father, and he blew the note on the reed pipe.

  Ivor raised his finger, and from top of the Hill down to bottom men and women hummed softly to have the proper key, with sopranos going up to find the octave, and altos climbing, and tenors making silver and contraltos and baritones resting in comfort and basso down on the octave below, and the sound they all made was a life-time of loveliness, so solid,
so warm, so deep, and yet so delicate. It will be no surprise to me if the flowers of the gardens of heaven are made from such sound. And O, to smell a smell as good to the nose as that sound sounds to the ear.

  But even heaven could not be so beautiful, or we would all be drunk with beauty day and night, and no work done anywhere, and nobody to blame.

  Drunk with beauty. There is lovely.

  “God save the Queen,” said Mr. Gruffydd, and made way in the window for Ivor.

  Ivor held out his arms wide to us, with his first fingers up, and his mouth making an O, and his eyes nearly shut, to tell us to sing soft, and the crowd made little moves all the way from top to bottom, not in restlessness, but to find room for arms to have ease, for feet to be firm, for chests to give good breath, for chins to point, and for room to sing.

  Down came Ivor’s right arm, once, twice, and at its lowest point, “God Save Our Noble Queen,” sang tenor, with stern quiet, “Long Live Our Noble Queen,” sang tenor and soprano, “God Save Our Queen,” sang tenor, soprano, and alto.

  Now Ivor gathered himself, and took all our voices into his fingers and drew them tight, and the clarion note was struck in the slow, strong, marching tempo, and grandeur came to frighten as the voices mounted in mighty majesty.

  “Send Her Victorious,” said we all. “Happy And Glorious.”

  Now gather yourselves, O Men of the Valleys, now open the throat, higher with the chin, loud, loud as the trumpets of the Host, sound out, that even at Windsor it may be heard to rock the very stones.

  “Long To Reign Over Us,” we sang, and leaned on the last note, while tenor and soprano loosed their wings to fly up to the octave, and hold.

  Now.

  Up goes Ivor’s right arm, fist clenched, and his left hand held out to us to implore. More power, greater volume, more mightiness, spread the chest, bring in the air with a savage pull and send the voice to hit the sky with force to smash the clouds.

  “God Save Our Queen,” we sang, and ended with a cheering they could hear over in the other valleys, and those down in the village who were out of sight of Ivor, went on singing, like an echo that fell asleep on the job and runs now with sleep in his eyes to catch up.