How Green Was My Valley

by Richard Llewellyn

  But the great Dr. Johnson was one in a century, and I count myself honoured to have tasted the wine of his speech, even though put to my mouth through the goodness of his friend. For that Englishman is not to be read with the eyes alone, but read out, as with the Word, with a good voice, and a rolling of the tongue, so that the rich taste of magnificent English may come to the ears and go to the head, like the perfumes of the Magi, or like the best of beer, home brewed and long in the cask.

  Never will I forget the night my father read out the great man’s letter to the Earl of Chesterfield.

  We sat still when he put down the book, and the room was still, as though in fear, and the very air seemed filled again with the stinging silence there might have been in that house off Fleet Street, on the night when a quill scratched, and eyes looked down at the writing with that calmness and distant cold that comes of prodigious fury long pent and gone to freeze in a dark corner of the mind, yet always kept alive by prodding memory in the volatile spirits of dignity, and now loosed as from the topmost heights of Olympus, each word a laden fire-boat, each sentence a joy of craft, the whole a glory of art, this mere rebuke of a lordling, written by the hand that through long, hungry years, had wielded its golden sickle in the chartless wilderness of Words.

  “If Ellis the Post brought me a letter like that with my name on it,” my father said, with his eyes in slits, “I would go down from the house and come back feet first and blue as the drowned.”

  “There is a temper that old Earl was in,” Gwilym said, with a long face, and far away. “I will bet he smashed every pot and stick in the house. And so would I. And send out for more, too.”

  So with Dr. Johnson and John Stuart Mill, and Spencer, and William Shakespeare, and Chaucer, and Milton, and John Bunyan, and others of that royal company of bards, thanks to my father and Mr. Gruffydd, I was acquainted, more than plenty of other boys, and thus had a lasting benefit in school.

  English grammar and composition is difficult even for the English, but worse and worse for a Welsh boy. He speaks, reads, writes, and he thinks in Welsh, at home, in the street, and in Chapel, and when he reads English he will understand it in Welsh, and when he speaks English, he will pronounce the words with pain and using crutches. So stupid are the English, who build schools for the Welsh, and insist, on pain of punishment, that English is to be spoken, and yet, for all their insistence, never give one lesson in the pronouncing and enunciation of the spoken word.

  And Good God in Heaven, if you cannot read English aloud and in the English of the King, half the beauty is taken from you. O, and what pity, to hear a noble tongue chewed, and besmirched, and belittled by such monkeys in the form of men as our Mr. Jonas-Sessions. Poor Elijah. Even of you I can think with pity now, for you are in dust these years, and thank God.

  I will remember that morning, even in the vineyards of Paradise, when Mr. Motshill sent me from the school for the last time, and so left a blank on the wall where the board should have gone with my name upon it in gold.

  I was walking in the playground with James Dafydd, and we were quoting from King Lear to have it strong in our minds for the examination.

  The lilac tree in the garden next door was lighting its lamps with blue coming to purple, and primroses, with faces of the innocent, were still fresh in the moss on top of the wall.

  I heard crying in the infants’ school, as though a child had fallen, and the voice came nearer and fell flat upon the air as a small girl came through the door and walked a couple of steps toward us, and stopped, with her hands, that were dimpled in the knuckles, and with bracelets of fatness about the wrists, spread before her face for shame.

  In a pinafore starched to stiffness and shining with the weight of her mother’s iron, with red socks fallen to nothing in the smallest clogs you ever saw, bright with polish, and gay as poetry with little studs of brass all round the soles, and a bit of ribbon in her hair, and with sobs to rend the heavens and shake her little bit of ribbon off.

  About her neck a piece of new cord, and from the cord, a board that hung to her shins and cut her as she walked. Chalked on the board, in the fist of Mr. Elijah Jonas-Sessions, “I must not speak Welsh in school.”

  And Mr. Jonas coming to stand in the porch with Miss Cash and smile, with his hands in his pockets.

  And the board dragged her down, for she was small, an infant, and the cord rasped the flesh of her neck, and there were marks upon her shins where the edge of the board had cut. Loud she cried, with a rise and fall in the tone, holding her breath until you wanted to breathe for her, with her tongue between her teeth and spit falling helpless, and in her eyes the big tears of a child who is in hurt, and has shame, and is frightened.

  But as I went to her, and she looked up at me as though fearing something more to hurt her, I saw her eyes, that were the eyes of one not long from the cot and the tears that ran and shone in the sunlight swelled to crystal in mine, and in my blindness I saw, as through the mist of a morning, the grass upon a field torn, and a spewing forth of earth and stones, and men coming to stand before me who wore their steel as I wear tweed, in ease and comfort, and their swords were bright. And I heard a note in the infant voice as of trumpets sounding for battle, and drums beat, and men were shouting, chariots raced and dragon banners streamed, and bowmen plucked strings while steel spoke in the ranks and lance heads glittered in the sun.

  And battle lust was in me, with blood running red about my feet and my hands red with it, and slippery, and the smell of it hot near me.

  Then the mist went thin, and I saw Mr. Motshill looking at me, white, with his tie out, and pulling his side-whiskers, and Mrs. Motshill behind him holding a jug. I found that I was dripping wet and my throat raw with shouting. And a policeman looking at me, sitting beside me, with his helmet on the floor, one side of his moustache bent down and his hair untidy with him. Blood on my fists, not much, drying, it was.

  “Having his sense, he is, now,” the policeman said. I often saw him in town.

  “Morgan,” said Mr. Motshill, kind, but doubtful. “Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, and sat.

  “I suppose you know what you did?” Mr. Motshill asked me.

  “No, sir,” I said, and fright coming grey about me. “What, then?”

  “You have nearly killed Mr. Jonas-Sessions, you wicked boy,” Mrs. Motshill said.

  “Not as bad as that,” said the policeman, “but tidy, I will admit.”

  “Am I going to jail, sir?” I asked Mr. Motshill.

  “That will depend on Mr. Jonas,” Mr. Motshill said. “Do you feel well enough to go home?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Then go,” said Mr. Motshill, tired, and making a move with his hand to Mrs. Motshill, “I shall write to your father when I have seen Mr. Jonas.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said.

  “Come you, my son,” said the policeman, and put on his helmet, and saw his moustache in the glass of the picture, and pulled a face in shock, giving the dying end a good pull to put all straight again.

  Down the street I went with the policeman, with crowds about the gate to see me go, but I saw only their feet.

  “What did I do to him?” I asked the policeman when we had got almost to the bridge.

  “Tidy,” the policeman said. “If I never move another step from by here. A couple of fat eyes, I will be bound and still picking up his teeth. When I pulled you off, you were at him on the floor.”

  “What do you think I will have for it?” I asked him, and in fear for his answer.

  “Nothing,” he said, and smiled. “And when Mrs. Stephens tells her old man what his little daughter have had round her neck, I will be wanted again.”

  “Will he die?” I asked him.

  “Die, man?” he said, and a good laugh. “Good God, you have got to put poison down to kill rats, boy. No, no. A warning that is all. But I thought they had stopped to use the cribban. I had my knuckles hit bloody for talking Welsh in sch
ool, but no matter.”

  “So did my father,” I said. “It was the cribban, round her little neck. I went mad, I think.”

  “No worry, and no matter,” said the policeman. “Off home, and mind that temper and those fists. They are ripe to have you in trouble. Good-bye, now.”

  “Good-bye,” I said.

  That night all the family were round the table, and Mr. Motshill’s letter in front of my father, brought by Ellis the Post after tea.

  “It is my fault in the first place,” my father said, and very sad. “I told him to fight, so there is it. But it is still disgrace.”

  “No disgrace to leave the old place,” my mother said, “I have had my mind against it from the start.”

  “Expelled from school is disgrace,” my father said. “Right or wrong, disgrace. And I had thought to have him a solicitor at the least.”

  “He can still take the examinations,” Ivor said. “It says there is nothing to stop him.”

  “Send him to school in Town,” Davy said. “He can find good lodgings.”

  “There are no good lodgings to be had on the earth,” my mother said, “except only at home. So now then.”

  “Let him take the examinations,” Owen said, “and see how he comes out. Then decide.”

  “The decision is to be made to-night,” my father said, “and then kept. No use to go from month to month. I want him to go in the law or doctoring or something good. He has got a brain, so nothing is to stop him, there.”

  “Ask him what he would like,” Bron said, looking at me.

  “Well,” said my father.

  “I will go down the colliery with you,” I said to him. “No examination and no doctoring and no law.”

  “Now then, for you,” said my mother.

  “Better for you to be silent,” said my father. “Be guided, Huw.”

  “The colliery,” I said, feeling the weight and points of all their eyes, and a window opening inside me, “I will cut coal.”

  “Just like the others,” said my father, “obstinate and stupid. You will take the examination, boy, and pass it. University, then, and a good try for some respectable job, not coal cutting.”

  “What is not respectable about coal cutting?” my mother said, and her glasses coming off in a sign of trouble. “Are you and his brothers a lot of old jail-birds, then?”

  “O, Beth,” said my father, with tiredness closing his eyes, “leave it, now. I want the boy to have the best. I want him to have a life that is free of the foolishness we are having. Where he can be his own master in decency and quiet, and not pull one, pull the other, master and men, all the time.”

  “If he will grow to be a man as good as you and his good brothers,” my mother said, “I will rest happy in the grave. Since when have you fallen out of love with the colliery?”

  “Beth, Beth,” my father said, and anger coming, “I am thinking of the boy. It was different in our time. There was good money and fairness and fair play for all. Not like now. And I was never a scholar. He is. And he should put good gifts to good use. What use to take brain down a coal mine?”

  “O,” said my mother, sweet with ice, “so you are all a lot of old monkeys going from the house, then? No brains at all. Well, well. And I am keeping a madhouse here. And I am mad, too, I do suppose. And only one with sense in the family, and him sent from a school I would think twice to keep pigs in.”

  “Beth,” my father said, “it is his future I am worried for. Why should he be a miner if he can be something else?”

  “Why not?” my mother said. “There are men as good underground as on top, and perhaps a bit better. If he wants to be a doctor, good. If he wants to be a solicitor, good. If he wants to be something else, good. And if he wants to go to the collieries with his Dada, I will kiss him, and say good.”

  “He shall have himself to blame,” said my father, and looking at me. “And if I will hear a word of complaining from him, I will hit him to the ground.”

  “The colliery, Dada,” I said, “I will work.”

  “Good, my little one,” my mother said.

  “That is the settler, then,” my father said, and opened his hands wide. “He shall wait till there is an opening. Then work.”

  “Good,” said my mother.

  “Good,” said my father, “I am going to get drunk.”

  And while my mother cried, he went.

  Mr. Gruffydd said nothing to me, for a wonder, about being expelled. Not a single word. He only nodded his head, and looked up at the mountain.

  “Have you said you were sorry to Mr. Jonas?” he asked me.

  “No, sir,” I said, and surprised, for it was the last thing in the world I would do.

  “Then go and say so,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “and then come down to the house, is it?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Good,” he said.

  So back over the mountain I went, into the other valley and found Mr. Jonas’ address from the caretaker.

  “Are you going over there to finish off the job?” he said.

  “No,” I said, “only to say I am sorry.”

  “Useless,” he said, and shaking his head, and scratching his leg. “You will never get back in his good books by saying you are sorry.”

  “Not for the sake of good books,” I said, and ready to go home straight and say nothing.

  “Then what use to say sorry?” he asked, smiling with no laugh in it. “A waste of time, good shoe leather, and no sense. To him, anyhow.”

  “I will say I am sorry,” I said, “without advice.”

  “You will end with a rope,” he shouted after me, all down the street, and I could hear him telling people who I was.

  There was a heaviness upon me as I thought of Time To Come, and I wondered if Mr. Gruffydd had been a prophet when he said I would end on the gallows, for here was another of the same opinion. Strange it is to think of Time To Come. I thought then, as I walked through the streets of red brick houses to find Mrs. Jonas, of Time To Come. I tried to think what I would be, and what I would be doing in ten, and twenty, and thirty and forty years. But here I am, sitting on a bed, and still thinking of Time To Come, and still as wise.

  You never saw a house fit anybody as his house fitted Mr. Jonas. Of smooth red brick, it was, built solid, and new, the colour of raw beef, without a blemish. A front door with splendid bit of graining with brown and yellow paints, six little windows of stained glass in the top half, a letter-box that was a yawn of brass, and in Church Script on the fanlight, with the letters pushed up a bit to have room, Briercliffe. A window that swole out of the house on the ground floor, with lace curtains, and a flat window, then, over the door.

  And for the first time I noticed that the front doors were all shut, right down the street, even though it was a hot day.

  I knocked, and the door opened with a noise to make you hold your teeth, and Mrs. Jonas looked at me with her eyebrows up.

  “Good afternoon,” I said, “I am Huw Morgan from the school.”

  “Come to ask after Mr. Jonas-Sessions, is it?” she said, and very kind, but serious. “Please to tell them he is still bad and very sore with him, but soon well again, I hope.”

  “I have come to say I am sorry,” I said, and watched a year of different feelings come into her face and pass. Her hair was in a small knot on top of her head and curving up from her face. A white blouse with a high neck and a brooch, and a black skirt that pushed the hall mats out of place when she walked.

  She looked, and I looked.

  Then she took a good breath, and let it go.

  “Come in,” she said, and held the door wider.

  In I went, and again the noise from the door, and a push, and another good push, till it was shut.

  The smell inside, with curtains drawn and doors shut, was a bit like Chapel with helpings of cabbage, Irish stew, yellow soap, and the breathings of many hangings of cloth and pots of growing leaves, well soaked.

  “Wait here,” she sai
d, and went upstairs like the wind among grass, and opened a door on the landing. I heard Mr. Jonas sharp in the voice, then quieter. She spoke for minutes, and waited, and I waited, and the house waited, and the door made noises in its sleep.

  Then she came out and leaned over the stairs.

  “Come you,” she said, “only for a minute, and a privilege, mind.”

  So up I went, with seas running wild in my belly and hitting the breath out of me. Inside the small room, dark with pulled curtains, and warm on the face, a fan of crinkled paper in the fire-place, window shut, smells of carbolic and used bedclothes and hot breath gone cool, and vinegar.

  Mr. Jonas was sitting up with a bandage about his eyes and a muffler round his mouth, a nightcap on his head and a sticking-plaster on his right-hand knuckles, that he lifted for Mrs. Jonas to close the door.

  “Well,” he said, “I suppose you want a pardon, do you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I am sorry for what I did, Mr. Jonas.”

  “Not a bit of use to me,” he said. “You deserved expulsion, and I insisted on it or I would have prosecuted you. Lick my boots and you shall have no pardon from me or word to Mr. Motshill, either.”

  “Not a pardon I want,” I said, “only to say I am sorry.”

  “Look here,” he said, “I know your sort too well. Humbugs. A vice with all of you. You humbug yourselves and you humbug others. But I know you. And I am sick of you. Damned lot of cant.”

  “I am sorry,” I said, for there was shaking in his voice not good to hear, and the voice not strong as usual.

  “Sorry, my God,” he said. “A hundred yards from the house and everybody in town will hear you neighing. I had you brought up here just to tell you what I thought of you, you gutter-bred rat. Now get out.”

  He could have said anything to me and I would have said nothing back. I was so filled with surprise to be called a humbug.