How Green Was My Valley (34 page)

“So you had your marks on your back, then, this time, my son,” my father said.

“Yes, Dada,” I said.

“Good,” said my father. “Five shillings in the box for you.”

“But Gwilym,” my mother said, and ready to burst with anger and surprise. “Will you
let him be beaten like that? Will you let a brute of a man treat your son like that
and let him free?”

“If I will go down there to him, Beth,” my father said, “I will have the bones hot
from his body.”

“Let me go, Dada,” Ivor said. “Bron have cried all night.”

“Nobody shall go, if not me,” my father said. “The boy was beaten for fighting. I
told him to fight and I tell him to fight again, even for such a beating. If it is
against the laws of the school, then a beating he must have. But go on fighting, my
son. Is it hurting with you?”

“Not much, now, Dada,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Five shillings in the box, Mama, and he shall go with the boys and
me to see Ireland playing us, is it?”

I went to school that morning three feet from the ground with joy, and the nightingale
egg making a hard lump in the corner of my cap.

There was a different spirit among the boys, so different that I could have laughed
in their faces. Instead of the whispered jokes and laughing that I had had ever since
going there, now they looked at me with a look almost of appeal, as though anxious
to show friendship. A couple of those on the list even smiled at me and said a good
morning.

There is silly are people. You must suffer, or cause others to suffer, before you
will have respect of one kind or the other from them. I was having both kinds that
morning, and not liking it, either. I will not stand to be looked at by anybody, especially
when the looking is done with wrong thinking.

And a man is a man, suffering or not, and entitled to just as much respect as he is,
as he might be after suffering, or with the sufferings of others on his conscience.
So I passed them all by, and went to look for Shani Hughes.

Not a word or a look from Mr. Jonas after he had just put his eyes on me for a moment
when we went in to prayers. All through the day I sat, and sometimes Shani turned
to smile at me, and sometimes Ceinwen looked round.

But there was a look there that made me draw back from giving her a good smile. Her
eyes were bright blue, with the white nearly all round and very white, and yet, for
all their brightness and white, there appeared in them not a darkness, but an inner
fogginess, as though she saw me, not as me, but as part of her thoughts.

I was ready to run from that look, indeed.

We had been back from dinner about half an hour when there was a knock in the middle
of religious instruction and please would Mr. Jonas kindly step into Mr. Motshill’s
room, from a little girl from Standard Three, who just put the top of her head round
the door like a little mouse, and ran. Mr. Jonas gave his catechism to our monitor
and went out.

As soon as he was gone Ceinwen came to sit by me. I took no notice for a little while,
but then she slid an ivory ruler toward me, with calibrations on it, a lovely piece
of craft and a delight to hold, with its age golden in it.

“That is for the one I broke,” she said. “I was always sorry about your box.”

“Where did you have it?” I asked her.

“From my father,” she said. “I asked him first. Have it. I have put my name on the
back with a pin.”

“Thank you,” I said. “But perhaps your father will want it.”

“No, no,” she said. “I told him I wanted it for you. Will you give me a nightingale’s
egg, now?”

“Who told you?” I asked her.

“Shani Hughes,” she said. “She has got it in a little box with a piece of glass, and
I want one. O, Huw. Give me a nightingale’s little egg, is it? I would do anything
for you, back. I kissed you, see.”

“You shall have an egg,” I said, “and I will make the little box. But not because
you kissed me. Not one for one. Only because treat one, treat the other.”

I looked down at Shani and found her looking at me straight, but darkly and for some
reason I was sorry for her, and I wanted to go to her to put my arm about her and
shield her, though from what it would be hard to say.

Then shouting came from the hall, and got louder, Mr. Motshill’s voice, and Mr. Jonas’,
and furniture being broken, somebody screaming, heavy steps running in the hall and
more shouts and screams, and all the girls in school started screaming, but nobody
knew why. Everybody in class ran out of their desks to the door, but then the door
burst open and Mr. Jonas ran in, with Dai Bando and Mr. Motshill, three of the masters
behind, and Cyfartha Lewis just leading Mr. Tyser, who stood in the doorway clapping
hands with one side of his collar loose.

Mr. Jonas was torn and in pieces, collarless, with a piece of his tie hanging like
a rag, his coat ripped, his trousers torn all the way down, and his face white, and
watery in the eyes, and purple in the cheeks from flat-handers that Dai gave him whenever
his head came up, slap, slap, one, two, almost as quick as you can count, not with
the knuckles, but with the palm.

Mr. Motshill was trying to stop Dai hitting, but Dai was taking no notice, not a bit,
and Mr. Motshill was dancing with anger and shouting, and hitting Dai’s broad back
with his fists, but nothing could be heard in the screaming of the girls. Cyfartha
put one of the masters on the floor with a hook, and the other two dropped their hands
and stood watching Dai. As soon as he was sure there was no danger of the other masters
joining in, Dai off with his belt and gripped Mr. Jonas about the neck and bent him
over his knee, and with his foot on the step of the desk platform. The way that belt
slashed and cracked, and the way Mr. Jonas shouted was a marvel, although he could
barely be heard, for the screaming from the girls when Dai took him by the neck could
not have been bettered beyond the bounds of purgatory.

Dai was finished and Mr. Jonas crying limp, then he winked to Cyfartha, and they gripped
him, shoulders and feet, and swung him right through the open trap of the coal locker
and shut the lid.

Dai took papers and tobacco from his bowler hat and rolled a cigarette, and with Mr.
Motshill and the others watching them, helpless, Cyfartha lit a fusee for him, and
he puffed blue clouds while the screaming went down and down like the end notes of
the hooter. Dai wiped his forehead with a pull down of his sleeve, and put his bowler
hat on straight, and turned to look all round the class. Although he saw me, nothing
was in his eye, and I will swear nothing was in mine.

“You bully,” Mr. Motshill was shouting. “You cowardly brute. You dare come in here
to this school and assault a master. You shall be dealt with by the law. If I were
younger you would carry my mark with you.”

“I am paying a call,” Dai said, soft, and almost as though he was saying he was sorry.
“I had thought to have him up on the mountain, and not in here. I asked him to come,
see? Eh, Cyfartha?”

“Invited he was,” Cyfartha said, “and not polite to say no, either.”

“He ran from me,” Dai said, “so I had to run after him. I came a long way to find
him, but I was willing to go through hell to China to have him. And I had him in by
here. So what is the odds? Eh, Cyfartha?”

“Yes, yes,” Cyfartha said. “Nice and comfortable, he is, now, see? Nothing more he
could want in the world. So home for a pint, is it, Dai, my little one?”

“A good pint,” said Dai, “would do me a blessing of good, indeed to God. A dusty old
place you have got in here, sir, dusty indeed. Dry on the throat, and useless for
a song, eh, Cyfartha?”

“A frog would have it hard to get a note,” said Cyfartha.

“Good afternoon to you, sir,” said Dai, and touching his bowler hat very civil to
Mr. Motshill. “And good afternoon, everybody else, and to hell with him in by there.”

And out they went and their boots knocking on the board floor, and the door outside
bump, bump, bump behind them. Not until the last swing did Mr. Motshill move, and
then he sat tiredly on the edge of the desk.

“Be good enough to bring Mr. Jonas to light,” he said, almost in a sigh.

Two masters pulled open the lid, and Mr. Jonas came to light with his hair in a mop
and his face streaked with coal, with the swellings of Dai’s finger marks purple on
his cheeks, eyes cold with rage, and shivering all over when they helped him from
the room, wordless but with little sounds that might have been laughable, but made
feelings of pity. It is strange how you shall hate a man, and yet pity him from the
depths.

Chapter Twenty

G
OING HOME
that night with Shani, we found the streets and the square full of people, men and
women, the men black from work, the women dressed for the house and bareheaded, all
talking in groups and looking serious.

“What is wrong here, Ellis?” I asked him, while he was putting Mari in the shafts.

“On strike,” Ellis said, and in sorrow, and with anxiousness. “I expect ours will
be out by the time we are home. Your father and Ianto and Davy and a couple more have
gone over to see the owners. God knows what will happen, indeed.”

All along the road round the mountain by the river men came running from their houses
to have the news from Ellis, who never stopped, but shouted as he slapped the reins
on Mari’s back, and at his words the men seemed to go dead, and the women were still,
or wrung their hands or held their babies tighter.

Round in our village the people were out in the street, and all up the Hill they were
out, not talking much for there was nothing to talk about, but waiting for the men
to come back. I jumped off as the people crowded about Ellis, and I heard the low
murmur as his words were passed back.

In our home my mother was peeling apples, and Angharad was chopping the peel for jam.
Bron was ironing, and Olwen was playing with Gareth in front of the fire.

“Well,” said my mother.

“The men are out in Three Valleys, Mama,” I said.

Nobody stopped working, but Bron was crying as I passed her, but so quietly you would
never know. All that night I was cleaning Owen’s engine, for I had learned to take
it to pieces and fit it all back again, and I was taking the grease off my hands when
I heard my father’s step in the back, and he came in quietly, cap and coat on, and
sat down, looking at the candles, wordlessly and with grief, with his moustache like
silver.

He cleared his throat as though pain had been his only meal for hours.

“Huw,” he said, and still looking at the candles.

“Yes, Dada,” I said, and went to him with my hands dripping with grease.

“I am shamed to go in and face your Mama,” he said, and still not looking at me.

“Why?” I said.

“O, boy, boy,” he said, and if he had had the tears they would surely have come then.
“How you and your sons will live, I cannot tell. Come you here, my son.”

I went closer, and he put his arms about me, and rested his whiskery cheek against
mine.

“I could see you all day to-day,” he said, “while they were talking and arguing. You
and your sons. What is to happen to you I cannot tell. The ground is cut from under
our feet. Nothing to be done. Nothing.”

His voice was close to my ear, and heavy with sorrow.

“It is your mother and the other women who will suffer,” he said. “They will have
the burden. I am shamed to go in and tell her.”

“She is waiting for you, Dada,” I said.

He was quiet for a little, and then he put me from him, and got up.

“God bless her,” he said, “she always has. Stay you in here for a bit, Huw, my little
one.”

“Yes, Dada,” I said, “there is grease on your coat.”

“No matter,” he said, and went into the house.

Ianto came in just after he had gone, white and brilliant in the eyes, as a man will
look after a fight only half finished.

“Has Dada gone in?” he asked me.

“Yes,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “I thought we would never get him home.”

“Why, then?” I asked him.

“Never mind, boy,” he said, with impatience. “How was he?”

“In pain,” I said.

Ianto hit his fists softly on the bench.

“Yes,” he said, “we are all in pain. And we will stop there, too.”

“Are we coming out?” I asked him.

“We are out, now,” said Ianto, “since half-past three we have been out.”

“Will we win, Ianto?” I asked him.

“As much chance of that as flies in a beer-trap,” Ianto said. “No chance. No hopes.
Good night, now.”

He went out and listened at the kitchen window for a moment and then went down to
Bron’s. There seemed nothing that I could do so I climbed up the shed and went through
the window to bed.

Next morning I was allowed only two slices of bread, with butter on only one, and
no jam. For school, I had a pie and bread and cheese with lettuce, but no tea.

“It will have to be water, Huw, my little one,” my mother said. “Your Dada cannot
tell when the strike will end, so we must start to have the least of less.”

It was strange to go out in the street and find the men out there, on chairs, or sitting
on window sills, or just standing in the gutters. There was a feeling of fright in
it, too, for the street was always empty at other times. The wind was full of the
low rising and falling of their voices, but nobody talking loudly, or laughing.

I looked back at the top of the mountain and saw the Hill, and the street down in
the village full with specks of people, and even in the farms, men and women were
out in their gardens, standing at the walls, looking down into the Valley, as though
they were expecting to see tongues of fire.

That was July, and a hot month, when the grass went brown and the river dried, and
the rocks so hot that they would almost burn your feet as you crossed them. Meeting
after meeting the men held on the mountain side, and it was strange to see them every
day going browner and browner with the sun, and it was then I saw how pale they had
always been, even my father and brothers, with lack of it.