Mr. Gruffydd had been watching, for quite a long time, but I knew nothing of it until I had finished and put the box in a clean place to look at it, and then looked at him and found him sitting on the bench and smiling.
“You are a carpenter, Huw,” he said.
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “Did you finish the window?”
“Well, indeed,” he said, “do you think I would let a boy beat me? Look by there.”
A fine job of the window Mr. Gruffydd had made, every bit as good as Clydach Howell the millwright could have done, with joins you could see only if you knew where to look, and the nails and screws gone to nowhere but still there.
“There is a carpenter you are, too, Mr. Gruffydd,” I said, and meant.
“You shall say that when I have made the furniture for my new house,” Mr. Gruffydd said.
“Shall I help you, sir?” I asked him, for always I had wanted to make good furniture for the house.
“No one if not you, my son,” he said. “Is your face hurting now?”
“I had forgotten,” I said, and indeed I had.
Then Angharad called me to open the door, and came in with tea, and laver bread, and butter and milk cheese, and lettuce and cresses.
“Mama said to eat while you are working,” she said, “but if you have finished please to come to the house. And if you will have beer instead of tea, there is plenty, and Dada says it is cold from the jar and good enough to drink to the Queen in.”
“I will drink to the Queen,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “and in the house. Give me the tray.”
Mr. Gruffydd lifted the load from Angharad, and she stood to put some plates in place that had slipped, and touched a cup to bring the handle to its proper place, and put a spoon here, and a fork there, and the salt pot over between the milk-jug and teapot, and all the time Mr. Gruffydd looked down at her head, because he knew, and I knew, there was no need for any of it.
“Now then,” she said, and looked up at Mr. Gruffydd, smiling.
She was going to say more but she stopped and her smile went, and she looked, and a dullness passed across her eyes, not a dullness of darkness, but a dullness of light, and all the time Mr. Gruffydd looked down at her straight, and then she blinked and pretended it was the lamp and put her hand to her eyes and turned away.
“There is strong that old lamp is,” she said. “Go you, Huw. It is late, boy.”
In the house I went, and Mr. Gruffydd behind, and my father coming to take the tray from him.
“What next?” he said, in surprise. “They will have you scrubbing a floor in a minute, wait you.”
“Many a floor I have scrubbed, too,” said Mr. Gruffydd. “Did I hear we were going to drink the health of the Queen.”
“Poured and waiting,” said my father. “Tea is good in its place, but a good swallow of beer is good, too. This my wife made, see, and you will never taste better in your life. Huw, a cup full.”
“Up high, then,” said Mr. Gruffydd. “I give you Her Britannic Majesty, our Royal mother, and may her crown rest lightly. Gentlemen, Victoria.”
“Victoria,” said we all, and the beer went down beautiful, indeed.
“Now, supper,” said my mother, coming from the fire with the pan, “and eat plenty. Huw, bed.”
“Yes, Mama,” I said, and gave good night to them all. Angharad came upstairs to put the last of the hot and cold water poultice on my face, and when she had finished, she put a little handful of sweets on the chair by the bed.
“For school,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Has Mr. Gruffydd ever said anything to you about me?” she asked me, but quickly, as though she had thought long before saying it, and anxious not to think she had said it, or even thought it.
“No,” I said. “Nothing. About what, then?”
“No matter,” she said, quickly again, and looking down at me but not seeing me, for there was a smile in her eyes and heat in her face and her breath was quick but quiet. “If he does, will you tell me, boy?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good,” she said. “Good night, now.”
I saw her face as she bent to blow out the candle with her mouth in the shape of a kiss, still the smile in the eyes, but now as a mother will look at her child that cries in the arms of another woman, softer, and with more of want.
Not one of the boys had a word to say to me on the second day at school, though they looked at me with their hands over their mouths not to laugh. I was a picture, indeed, yellow and blue with bruises, and swollen about the eyes and nose. But no matter, I made sure of the boys who laughed, and added them to the list of boys I had made sure to have at the end of my fists.
Mr. Motshill stopped me after prayers and the hymn and asked me where I had the injury.
“Fighting,” I said.
“You see what fighting brings you,” he said. “Far better to behave yourself. Am I to expect a visit from your parents?”
“No,” I said. “My father said it was my fight.”
“Oh,” he said, and took off his glasses to give them a polish, and winked his eyes over my head. “If you feel unwell during the day, go over to Mrs. Motshill at the school house and lie down.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said.
“Remember this, Morgan,” he said, and put his hand on my shoulder, “I am here to help you. I want you to win a scholarship to Oxford University. You have it within your power. But your fists will only hinder you. Be warned, and work hard.”
Why is it that kindness, even from a harsh man, brings tears to the eyes, I wonder. But there it is. When I went in Standard Six room, Mr. Jonas saw me trying to wipe my eyes and on went the smile, and down went my heart inside me again.
“Well, upon my soul,” he said, in his English that was too English, “it is crying.”
He came to stand near me, and look me up and down.
“Evidently its mother took my message to heart,” he said. “Let me see your nose-rag.”
I took out my handkerchief.
“Surprise on surprise,” he said, while I looked at him. “Perhaps that hammering will teach you that your ways are not ours. There is no wonder that civilized men look down upon Welshmen as savages. I shudder to think of your kind growing up. However, I shall endeavour to do my utmost with you, helped by a stick. Remember that. And keep your eyes off me, you insolent little blackguard.”
Then he started to teach history, and I sat.
I think he took a hatred for me because he felt that I distrusted him, and it hurt to think that a boy would not have him at his value of himself, for he liked to think he was much bigger than he was, so his self pride troubled him, and made him vicious.
But his greatest trouble was his Welsh blood, so ashamed he was of it, and so hard he tried to cover it.
Nothing that was of Wales or the Welsh was any good or had any goodness in his eyes. For him, even in his teachings, the science of history had a gap between the Acts of the Apostles and the Domesday Book. That Norman bastard, who skinned the snout on the good sands of the south, who sired an English aristocracy, was godfather to Mr. Elijah Jonas-Sessions.
If he remembered Rome, it was only as a place where Nero burnt Christians. He tried to forget that his fathers laboured with the sword through centuries to keep Roman feet off their roads, and he was willing to forget that Rome broke its back, and Vikings, Danes, and Goths broke their hearts, only trying to keep his fathers from fighting for what was their own, and if his fathers failed it was not because their fighting spirit had gone from them, but because the flower of them had fallen in battle, and their women could not bear males enough to fill the ranks.
Of such, Mr. Elijah Jonas-Sessions was ashamed.
And the day we had it out I remember well, for it was the day of my first fight, just after Dilys Pritchard died.
Chapter Seventeen
“I AM THE RESURRECTION and the Life,” said Mr. Gruffydd in his voice that was the voice of a man, nob
le of depth and beauty.
“Amen,” said we all.
Out on the mountain we were, with the cold winds of night about us, and the flames of torches to light us, listening to Mr. Gruffydd before we went through the village to clear dross and uselessness from the Valley.
That day a little girl had been savaged on the mountain, and when I came from school the people were out in the street on the Hill, and down in the village the shops were shut, and the Chapel bell was ringing. While I was having my tea, my father came in, for the colliery had closed early for the men to be home and start the search for the swine in the form of man.
“She is dead,” my father said, and quiet in the voice, “but we will have him if we have to move the mountain.”
“Go you,” said my mother, in tears. “Poor, pretty little thing she was.”
I went with the men to trim the torches and carry the oil with other boys. My father and my brothers were there in amongst the crowd of two or three hundred, and all of them quiet and not speaking. Mr. Gruffydd had them on the side of the mountain ready to go down into the village just after dark, after the men had just had time to bathe and eat. He told them that the time had come when their women were no longer safe to go their ways in peace.
“Beasts live among you,” he shouted, “working with you shoulder to shoulder, who will kill your children and go their ways unpunished. They will make of your community a morass of corruption. Will you laugh if I talk to you of the Evil One? Will you smile if I mention the name of Satan? Then let me show you the body of a child, torn by murderous claws. Perhaps I shall see your heads flung back in guffaws. This little soul met her death not at the hands of a man, but at the talons of a beast. A beast. And beasts of that sort are the sons of Satan. Such beasts you shall exorcise, as He did with the Gadarene swine. Are we decided? Are we in one mind?”
“Yes,” said the crowd.
“Then, come,” Mr. Gruffydd said, “let us cleanse ourselves.”
Down from the rock and out in front of the crowd, striking up a hymn as he went, down toward the village Mr. Gruffydd led us. The boots of the men beat time upon the ground, and their voices flung the anthem before them, and the blaze of torches lit their bearded faces and struck sparks from their eyes.
Into the village we went and everything quiet, doors shut, no lights, no people, and no sound but the march of men and the voice of justice.
Around each public house, and all round the three rows of houses where the half-breed Welsh, Irish, and English were living, the men took a stand, almost elbow to elbow, so that none could go in or out. Then Mr. Gruffydd and twenty men went into the first public house and warned the landlord to serve no spirits for a week, and to serve beer only to gangers in charge of five or more men, none to any woman. Then to the second and to the third. It was a bad night for the public houses, for nobody was in them, and indeed the landlords were not to blame. They were good men in themselves, but they had to make a living, too.
But they had to suffer, and they suffered with silence. They knew it would only take a match to put them in the street with nothing, and the flames of their property to warm them.
Up to the rows of houses where the dross of the collieries lives. These people did the jobs that colliers would never do, and they were allowed to live and breed because the owners would not spend money on plant when their services were to be had so much the cheaper. For a pittance, they carried slag and muck, they acted as scavengers, and as they worked, so they lived. Even their children were put to work at eight and nine years of age so that more money could come into the house. They lived, most of them, only to drink. Their houses were bestial sties, where even beasts would rebel if put there to live, for beasts have clean ways with them and they will show their disgust quick enough, but these people were long past such good feeling. They were a living disgust.
Up to those three rows of hovels went Mr. Gruffydd, and knocked upon the first door, but no answer.
The mountain went up black into the night on all sides of us, and the knocking flew about in an echo trying to find a place of rest. The torches made a ragged ring about the houses, and below each torch, that streamed flame like the blown hair of a running fury, men’s faces were pale, and shadowy pink, and their eyes deep holes, until they moved to show the flash of whites. Shadows of men leapt up the sides of the mountain, or were flung against the walls of the houses, whichever way the torch flames blew, and breath was grey about them, for the night was going to frost, and the slates of the roofs were showing something of silver, and finger-tips were happy only deep in the pocket.
Again and again Mr. Gruffydd knocked, and at last a window, only big enough to let out a head, and the only window in all the house, opened and let out a head.
“Who is it?” in a woman’s voice, and thin with fright.
“The Vigilants,” Mr. Gruffydd said, and his voice rolled into the night and about the mountain, and the torches moved as the men quickened all about, and their voices breathed a deep note.
“Not us, not us,” the woman screamed, “nothing to do with us.”
“Open your door,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “no harm shall come to the innocent. Open, and now.”
Back went the head, and in a moment the door was opened, and Mr. Gruffydd went inside with my father and Rhys Howells, and a couple of moments later they came out pushing three men before them.
“Get you over there,” Rhys Howells said to them, and pointed to the place where an old shaft had been sunk and closed up again. Into the hole they went, and men moved up to guard them.
Into house after house Mr. Gruffydd went, and now with no more trouble, for doors were opening before he had to knock. All the men were brought out, and the women told to keep inside with the children.
When the last was under guard, Mr. Gruffydd came to take his place upon the rock, with all of us about him in a ring.
“Now,” he said, “let the men be brought one by one for questioning.”
With them all it was the same. First, their names, their jobs, their wages, and which shift they were on that day. For if they were on the day shift they could not have been on the mountain to meet the little girl. It was the night-shifters, and the work-shys we were after. One by one they came and went, all of them quiet and in fear, and some Irish, some Scotch, some English, and some inter-breed Welsh.
So we came to Idris Atkinson.
Tall, and thin beyond his length, white in the face, and with sick spots, long in the hair and restless with his hands, with nails chewed to make you turn your eyes from him.
“Day or night shift?” Mr. Gruffydd asked him.
“Day,” he said, and looking from side to side without moving his head.
“Which level?” asked Mr. Gruffydd.
“No business of yours,” he said, to the ground.
“Which level?” asked Mr. Gruffydd, in the same voice, quiet and without edge.
“Third,” he shouted, after a wait.
“Third was closed to-day,” Rhys Howells said, and folded his arms, rocking on his heels, looking up at the mountain. Then he stood still, and his eyes went to Mr. Gruffydd.
Quiet, except for the whisper of the torches, and the tiny sounds that come from many men who wait with breath held tight.
Swine looked about him with his mouth open, and his nostrils wide, and his eyes gone red with fear, and his voice gone from him in the silence, with his blunt and twisted hands restless about his clothes that were polished stiff with grease and coal-dust, and fell about him, and showed his thinness through gapes at elbow and knee.
“Go down to his house,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “and bring the women here. Look well for his clothes and his cap.”
“Nothing there,” whispered swine. “Nobody in the house. Not me. I never done it.”
But men were on their way down at a run.
Quiet again, and nobody looking at swine crying on his knees, and looking round toward the house. Then a shout from down there, and men runnin
g back to us, and all talking and taking big breaths to ease themselves.
Evan Thomas, and Sion Prosser had an armful of clothes each.
Evan put a flannel shirt, black with dirt and dried hard with blood, on the rock in front of Mr. Gruffydd. All the other clothes, a coat, and a waistcoat, and a pair of trews, had blood on them, and on the cap it was yet damp.
“Did you have an injury to-day?” Mr. Gruffydd asked him.
“No,” said swine, standing now, and shaking. “A pony it was.”
“No pony was blooded to-day or yesterday,” said Llewelyn John, the ostler, from the back of the crowd.
“Days and days ago, it was,” said swine, in a woman’s voice.
“But the blood is fresh,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “and it smells. And you wore these clothes to-day. Open your clothes to show your chest.”
“No,” said swine, and put his hands about him, and fell to his knees.
“In her finger nails were pieces of flesh,” said Mr. Gruffydd, with quiet. “So her spirit left its mark. Open your clothes.”
“No,” screamed swine.
Rhys Howells and Tom Davies went to him and took a piece of the coat on his back each, and pulled it in halves from him. And as he screamed they tore away the rags which covered him under the coat.
Deep scratches covered his chest like thick ruled pencil lines, and when they pulled away his trews, blood was on him, and all the time he screamed. Naked, he clawed at the ground and the screams tired his throat, and he sobbed, and spittle fell from his mouth.
“Where is the father?” asked Mr. Gruffydd, looking down at swine.
“I am here,” said Cynlais Pritchard, and stood forward with his three sons, looking up at Mr. Gruffydd.
“Your daughter has gone from you,” said Mr. Gruffydd. “Instead to see her grow to womanhood and have joy in your grandchildren, you walk behind her to-morrow because a beast put his claws upon her as she walked the mountain. Your daughter was not of an age to be forward, and small blame we can put to her, for she left a message to you in the body of the beast itself.”