And he flew up the stairs with my mother behind him with the shovel, and us laughing the paint from the ceiling.
Chapter Twenty-One
I WENT FROM THE HOUSE next morning before the men went to work, for with the snow it took longer to get to school, and I had missed two days, so I had to be early.
Wide, white, and beautiful was the Valley from the mountain-top, so clean and smooth and crisp, and my bootmarks going like little shadows all the way down. Even the slag was covered in snow, and only the pithead gear and winding wheel stuck out black, down there. All the village, except in a couple of places where the snow had fallen off the roofs, was inches under snow, and I could see all the marks Ellis and Mari had made going right along the street. The river was frozen, and grey in places, where the ice showed through the snow, but birds were still busy about it, though what for I could never tell.
School was cold as cold, and we kept all our clothes on inside and out, but even so we were cold, and we had clapping for minutes on end during the day to have our hands warm enough to hold the pens.
Mr. Motshill sent for me in the afternoon, and I went in his study and found him in his greatcoat before the little fire.
“Morgan,” he said, with a cold in his head, “I have been looking through your homework and comparing it with your school books. There is a difference which I shall merely hint at if I allude to it as startling. Why?”
His eyes were kind, and his nose was red, and even his side-whiskers looked cold and flat to his head.
“Answer me, Morgan,” he said, still very kind. “To look in your school books is to find a dolt, and worse, a lazy dolt. I find that three of your brothers had brilliant records in local schools. What is the matter with yours? Or should I say, half of yours? For your homework is the work of quite another fellow. Why?”
There are some times in your life when you are asked a question and you know the answer well, but you cannot find the words to fit. They do sound so dull and silly, you feel shame.
“I had great hope of entering you for a University College Scholarship, Morgan,” said Mr. Motshill, and still, for all the trying of his patience, kind in the eyes and voice. “There is nothing I would like better than to see your name in gold out on a special board in the hall. Think how proud your school-fellows would be, and what an example you would be to future scholars here. Think, too, of your father and mother. I am sure they would be most pleased?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, glad to have the words to agree.
“Then let us start from that point,” said Mr. Motshill, and put a hand on my shoulder. “Why is your school work so immeasurably inferior to the work you do at home? Are you unhappy here?”
“I would like to learn with Mr. Tyser, sir,” I said.
“Oh,” said Mr. Motshill, and a smile, yet not a smile, just behind his glasses that made his eyes small. “I thought so. Yes, I feared so. Thank you, Morgan. You Welshmen are a funny crew. Back to your classroom, please.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Remember this, Morgan,” said Mr. Motshill, when I got as far as the door, “the man who goes to the top is the man who has something to say and says it when circumstances warrant. Men who keep silent under duress are moral cowards. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Take it to heart,” he said.
Back I went to the classroom, certain sure to work with the best for Mr. Motshill and no matter about Mr. Jonas or anybody else. I went to my desk with my teeth tight shut in firmness. I looked through my writing books and I was filled with bitterness to see the rubbish I had written, and the untidiness, and blots, and scratchings, and the geometry that was a disgrace to man and beast, and no need for any of it.
I had a feeling that something was wrong in the air about me, and though I still looked through the book, my mind was not in it, but outside. Mr. Jonas had stopped talking. He was not in front of the class. Then I felt his smile just behind me. His hand came over my shoulder to take the book away, and as he turned the pages I heard him laughing to himself.
“Come outside, Master Morgan,” he said. “I shall have the pleasure to introduce an emeritus professor.”
“I shall sit here,” I said.
He took me by the ear and pulled me to my feet.
Ceinwen turned and I saw the animals leaping in her eyes. Her mouth stretched and her hands went to grip the front of her dress, and with a nod of the head she told me to fight.
But that was in my mind long before, for I was cold with rage that he should put his hands on me. I was waiting till we got to the front of the class where there was room. Out we went, and I pushing him, and as soon as we reached the space I hit from the waist and caught him in the wind and tore my knuckles on his chain.
Down he went to shake the school, with the blackboard falling and chalk flying. Then the girls started to scream again.
“Run, Huw,” Ceinwen was shouting, “run, boy.”
But Mr. Jonas was getting up, and as he came his fingers flew at me. I waited till he was on his feet. There is a feeling that comes to you when you long to see blood, and it was strong inside me, now. Not for nothing I had been going up the mountain with Dai and Cyfartha.
A left to the chin, and O, the joy to feel your fist bounce solidly on flesh you hate, and the look of startled pain in hated eyes, a right to the wind, and a left and right to the head put him down again, just as Mr. Motshill came through the door. Strange how in one minute you will be hot to fight and certain of the justness of your wrong, and the next, sick, and ready to fall in the dust with shame.
So I felt as Mr. Motshill came in, and stood looking.
“Morgan,” he said, in a voice with a knotted lash, “your hat, and your books, and go home immediately. Do not attend any more this week. I shall see you on Monday next. Mr. Jonas, my study, be so good.”
So off I went, and Ceinwen laughing at the ceiling with her hands together.
How to go home and tell my mother I had been sent from school for hitting a master was a problem to me. The more I thought of it the worse looked my part of it. I ran in snowdrifts, and went down the mountain the hardest way to take longer and have more difficulty, as though that might be a bit of salve for sore conscience, but instead of better I felt worse nearer home.
I went in Bron’s, but she was busy upstairs, and though she called down, I went out without answering. I was afraid then that my mother would come out and find me, and I threw my books through the window of our back and ran down to Mr. Gruffydd. He was moving from old Mrs. Rowlands for she was going to live with her daughter, and he was having the little house by the Chapel, a dear little house with big windows, and a door with little pillars and a sea-shell porch outside.
I went in the front door to the darkness of the passage and picked my way across boxes, and planks of wood, and paint-pots, to the door of his study, and stopped there. Mr. Gruffydd was in shirt sleeves and very hot, even though it was cold outside and ice was on the windows. A teapot from our house was on a table, and our plates with bread and meat and green stuff beside it. And beside it again, Angharad, standing against a tallboy, with her arms on the top shelf, and facing it, with her head leaning on her arms, looking sideways at Mr. Gruffydd, with her hair hanging down across her cloak. Mr. Gruffydd had been making too much noise dragging a box to hear me come in, and before I could say anything he looked at Angharad and took out a handkerchief to wipe his head.
“I have thought and thought,” he said, “but still it seems wrong.”
“Not wrong,” said Angharad, but not angry, only gently impatient. “I am not tied to Iestyn. Only a friend he is.”
“But courting you for months,” Mr. Gruffydd said. “Your mother is always saying how happy she is to know you will have plenty all your days.”
“Not plenty I want,” Angharad said, and there was my mother in her so plain I could have laughed. “There is more than plenty to be had.”
“Still it seems
wrong for your sake,” Mr. Gruffydd said, with weariness.
“Care a little more for your own business,” said Angharad, “and less for my sake. If I wanted him I could have him. I would rather have you.”
“Angharad,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “you are shameless.”
“Good,” said Angharad, “but only to shame the devil with the truth.”
“No,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “I am sure it is wrong.”
“You are afraid what people will say,” Angharad said, standing now, and collecting the pots. “Afraid of people’s tongues.”
“Nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Gruffydd. “I am afraid that you will go threadbare all your life. That you and me will have to depend upon the charity of others for most of our good meals, and on my living for enough to exist. Do you think I want to see the white come into your hair twenty years before its time? Shall we see our children growing up in the cast-off clothing of others? Shall we thank God for parenthood in a house full of bits, and presents that had outlived their use to the givers? No, Angharad. I am a man. I can bear with such a life for the sake of my work. But I think I would start to kill if I saw it having an effect on you.”
“Why?” Angharad said, going to him, and beautiful in the eyes, with her fingers spread wide but held soft, to look helpless.
“Because there is no need for it,” Mr. Gruffydd said, and very sad. “Poverty is not a virtue, any more than poverty of the spirit. Life is good, and full of goodness. Let them be enjoyed by all men.”
“But why would you kill if you saw an effect in me?” asked Angharad.
“Because,” said Mr. Gruffydd, and looking for words, and looking everywhere except down at Angharad, “well, only because. Let me go to work now, again.”
And he turned from her to pull the cords of a box and drag it away from her. She looked at her hands for a moment and I saw the frown and hopeless shake of her head, and while she turned her back to put the pots in the basket I tiptoed down the passage and went up to Bron’s.
“Bron,” I said, “I have been sent from school for hitting old Jonas.”
“Did you hit hard, boy?” Bron said, and wiping the flour from her hands.
“Yes,” I said, “him and the blackboard.”
“Only once?” Bron asked, and coming near.
“Five times in all,” I said. “And twice he was on the floor.”
“Five kisses you shall have,” Bron said, and caught hold of me and put five smacks of kisses all over my face. “Now go in and tell Mama.”
“I am afraid,” I said.
“Afraid, boy?” Bron said, high up. “Your Mama has done everything to him except put onions and grill with cheese. Go you, and come back for fresh strawberry tart.”
“Right,” I said, “but I am still afraid.”
So out I went in the back, and walked along, kicking the ice from the cobbles and taking as long about it as I could. When you are afraid, there seems to be a centre in the mind that requires time before it gives the orders for you to go, and it will have you doing the most senseless things for minutes on end before your courage comes to you and takes you to do the thing you fear. It took me minutes to reach our back door, and more minutes while I went to extremes in cleaning my boots, and when I looked up, there was my mother looking at me and smiling through the back window.
“Come you,” she said, and her voice dull behind the window, and down went the curtain.
In I went and stood. It is another strange thing that if you have something on your conscience and you expect punishment you will stand in the most uncomfortable way, as though that, too, would help you out of your trouble.
“Well?” said my mother.
“I have been sent from school, Mama,” I said, in no voice at all.
“Bron told me,” my mother said. “I have wanted somebody to take those book-shelves down to Mr. Gruffydd these weeks. Go you.”
“But I had Mr. Jonas on the floor, Mama,” I said, to know whether I was in or out.
“Did you give him a good kick?” Mama asked me, and tapping her thimble on the stone in the sock.
“No, Mama,” I said.
“I should have been there,” Mama said. “Shelves, Mr. Gruffydd.”
I could have carried fifty shelves on my little fingers, so good I did feel.
But Mr. Gruffydd had other notions about it.
“You hit your master?” he said, when I told him, and every hair in his beard seemed to rise. “Think shame to yourself, Huw Morgan. Never have I heard such a shameful thing. Hit your master? A mere boy lifting his hand against a man set over him in authority?”
“I lost my temper,” I said.
“You lost your temper,” Mr. Gruffydd said, with enough contempt to cover the slag. “You lost your temper, did you? Temper, indeed. Well, well. So when we are put upon, or made to feel our places, we must lose our tempers and hit, eh? Did you ever hear of Jesus Christ? Did He lose His temper?”
“With the money-changers,” I said.
“Because they desecrated a holy place,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “but never against the law or constituted authority. Not even when they were going to kill Him. But Master Morgan must lose his temper and hit his teacher to the floor. Oh, yes. Did Master Morgan ever hear of Socrates?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Then kindly read the argument concerning the laws of the land between himself, that shining great one, and Crito,” said Mr. Gruffydd, and pointed to the book. “Master Plato shall instruct you.”
I went to Plato and found the place.
“Two thousand and more years ago that was written,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “and shame to us that with all our fine educational schemes we still find a young bully putting his silly fists into the face of one set in authority over him. Go on, you. We shall find you on the gallows tree yet.”
“I am sorry, sir,” I said, and feeling I had a grievance sore as a wound in the chest.
“Sorry?” Mr. Gruffydd said. “Eh, dear, dear. He has the grace to be sorry. But he must spill blood first, to satisfy his precious temper, and he must feel sorry. Did you think, first? No. But Socrates was a man, made in the image of God, and noble because of it. Even did he take his own life rather than offend the laws of the state, or gainsay the word of those placed in authority over him. Did Master Morgan? Go from me, boy. I am ashamed down to my very shadow.”
Slink from the little house I did, and up the hill, and slunk round our back, and in, to sit in the darkness on the covered engine, and see Mr. Gruffydd again, and hear his voice, and with every word to writhe.
And when I had had enough of that, I climbed the shed and through the window to bed, for there are times when bed is the only place on earth where peace is to be had, and that was one of them.
“The fault is on both sides,” my father said, next morning. “But I might have done just the same, so I will say nothing. We will see what is said when you go back there on Monday.”
“Mr. Motshill said he wanted to put me in the examination for university,” I said.
“Your brothers could have had it,” my father said, “but the stubborn mules would go to work instead. You win the first examination, my son, and you shall have ten sovereigns. We will see what next after that. Is it?”
“Yes, Dada,” I said.
“Eat,” said my mother. “Eat plenty, and grow brains, now.”
That week went past me as though carried on the shoulders by a couple of slugs. I cleaned the fowl houses and put in pieces of wood where the foxes had been nosing, and did as much to the garden as I could, and whitewashed the front of the house, and Bron’s, and cleaned the old engine till it shone gold and silver and I was sick of the sight of it. Only for Monday to come, and make a fresh start.
Angharad came to me toward the end of the week and said Mr. Gruffydd wanted some help at the little house. I was off down there at a run, and when I went in he smiled as he had used to, and held out his hand.
“Come, Huw,” he said.
br /> “Thank you, sir,” I said, and that was all.
“I am going to start my furniture, Huw,” he said. “Here are the drawings.”
Well, indeed, the drawings would have made you almost cry with pleasure. Lines that started at the top and finished at the floor in a long, elegant curve, no bumps or knobs or silly bits, and roundnesses and squarenesses, with simplicity, but with craft, for it was plain that a knowing eye had observed that just proportion, which not merely balances design but gives to it that dignity which announces, as with a sound of trumpets, that the craftsman has set his hand and raised his monument.
“There is beautiful,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “Bring in the wood, and we will measure off.”
The saw had not rasped an inch in the wood when Isaac Wynn came to knock on the front and run in straight from the pit.
“Mr. Evans slipped beneath a tram on the low level,” he said, and reaching for breath. “Can you come, Mr. Gruffydd?”
Mr. Gruffydd was out of the house and running long before Isaac Wynn had started, but he left hat and overcoat, so I picked them up, and a muffler, and off after him. I might have saved myself trouble, for when I got to the pit they had brought Old Evans up and put him in the winding-house, so I gave the things to the lamp-man, and came back, and while I was coming back I heard the hymn.
All the way down the street, as far as the sound would reach, men were taking off their caps, and standing still. Women came from their doors and quietly called in their children, and stood. The village was full of people standing still while the hymn rose sternly from the pithead and the wind sighed miserably.
Old Evans had passed away among his own men, in the winding-house that he had helped to build, whose wheel had turned night and day through the years to enrich him, and now, at the last, had turned once more to carry him up to die.
I went back to cutting wood till Mr. Gruffydd came in, and when he did, I was sorry to see his face. He looked ill, and near to dead in the eyes.
“Home, Huw,” he said, and sat on the plank. “Ask your good mother to excuse me from dinner to-day.”