“Mervyn Phillips,” Mr. Jonas said, hitting the stick against his leg, “please be so good as to come to the front, and make a back.”
Mervyn Phillips came out, not looking at me, and blushing with the stains still on his face, and stood to one side, bending down. Ceinwen Phillips was smiling now, and she nudged the girl beside her. Smiles there were all round the class, but not good smiles, only moves of the mouth, as though they were thankful not to be in my place. I felt that dragging inside me, deep down, not of fear, but of expectance, waiting for the next to happen and not sure when, but hoping it to be soon, when you find your hands wet and the skin of your face pricking with heat.
“Please to bend across his back,” said Mr. Jonas, still behind me, still sweet, but sudden, to make me jump.
Across his back I climbed and locked my hands about his neck. The stick swished twice as though Mr. Jonas were getting his length. The sound screwed itself inside my brain and my will flew to my back that was naked with wonderment, and tender with nerves alive for a hurt.
The stick swished again, and I saw the swift shadow on the floor and heard in anguish the flat squash of it falling across me, and the sharp, shocking burning of its work. Swish again, and the shadow, and the grunt of Mr. Jonas, and the movement of Mervyn Phillips’ throat under my hands, and his sway forward, and the spread of his feet to be firmer and again the sharp wounding. And again and again and again without pause, as clocks work, and the sound changing as the strokes fell upon me and worked upward, and down again, until my back was a long hurt that seemed to be in flames, and a blindness in my eyes, and thunder filling my head, and the strokes coming to be only a hard, dull laying on, mattering nothing, and hurting no more than snowflakes.
And the stick broke. The top flew over me and bounced where I could see it.
“Now then,” said Mr. Jonas, in falsetto, and breathless, “fight again. Was just a taste. Back to your place. No more nonsense. Teach you manners.”
I looked at him as I slipped from Mervyn Phillips’ back, and found him pale, wet about the forehead, with a blueness about the mouth, and a shifting of muscles pulling one side of his face, and a pinkness in his eyes, and a trembling in the hands that he tried to have quiet by linking his fingers. His eyes stared hard at me, moving over my face, but I kept my eyes on his. His tongue put wet about his mouth, and his breath pulled him up short as though reins had been jerked, and then I turned away from him and got my legs to bring me to my seat. On my way I saw Ceinwen Phillips’ handkerchief, with the blood of her brother on it, ripped in strips on the desk before her, and her face hidden and her shoulders trembling.
“Now,” said Mr. Jonas, still in falsetto, but breaking more to his own voice, and forgetting his painful English, “we will have geography. Turn to your atlas and find India, be so good.”
And while he taught geography, I sat.
Many times that day I wished I was on my back with the ice on the grass cold against me. I was on fire, and in no haste to move even an arm. Dinner-time came, but I sat on, wanting nothing except to drink, but unwilling to move even for that. And I was saved to do it, for Shani came in a few minutes before the bell to settle her books, and found me.
“O,” she said, with the back of her hand quickly to her mouth, and her eyes going big, “are you here still?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And no dinner?” she asked me.
“No,” I said.
“Will I get it for you?” she said, and came closer with a look round at the door. “You can eat quick, see.”
“Only a drink I want,” I said.
“Drink, is it?” she said. “Wait you.”
She went running from the room, quick but quiet, from toe to toe, with a rush of skirts, blue, with yellow braid in three lines all round the bottom and some in lovers’ knots on the front, with her hair moving as a feather blown from the bed when a blanket shakes, gentle, and curving, and up and down. Back again, more careful, carrying a flower-pot with water running down and off her hands, and shining splashes dark on her dress.
“Drink now,” she said, and warmth in her eyes, “and put the pot under the desk for a drink again. Are you hurting with you?”
“Yes,” I said. “Sore it is.”
“They said you had pieces of carpet down your back,” she said, “and that is why you had a straight face.”
“Feel if there is carpet,” I said.
She came closer, and I smelt cloves and cinnamon about her as she put her hand to touch my back. Only a touch it was, but so heavy and sharp it felt, that she might have had hot iron in her hands.
“There is sorry I am,” she said, and her mouth making shapes and tears coming to fill her eyes, that were brown and deep and big. “No carpet.”
“It is nothing,” I said. “No matter.”
“Will you tell your mother?” she asked me.
“No, no,” I said.
“Do you like birds’ eggs?” she asked me, and a smile trying to come.
“Yes,” I said, “I have got plenty.”
“No,” she said, and a smile, properly, now.
“Yes,” I said. “Have you got a nightingale?”
“No,” she said, and sat, with her eyebrows high, and still a smile, “have you? I was going to give you a robin’s.”
“Why?” I asked her.
“Because you are hurting,” she said, and the smile was gone.
“I will have the robin’s if you will have the nightingale,” I said.
“Indeed I will,” she said, and here comes the smile again, bigger than before. “I do love a nightingale. So pretty in song. Have you got nightingales over with you?”
“Millions,” I said. “And pheasants, and partridges, and hawk, and kestrel, and chaffinches.”
“We have got thousands of them,” she said, “but I would like to see a hawk nesting and I would like to hear a nightingale. They used to sing to us, but not since the new ironworks opened. They burnt all the trees.”
The bell went and so did her smile, and up she got, and off.
“After school,” she said, and her hand was white in a wave at the door.
Long was the afternoon, and infinite my thanks to be up and going home at last. Out in the playground the air hit me as with a blow, and I had to lean against the wall to have strength. Then on, down the street, tired with ache, and ready to lie down anywhere.
Mervyn Phillips ran up beside me with Ceinwen coming on my other side.
“I am sorry you had all the stick, Huw Morgan,” he said, “but his knife is sharp for you, and there it is. Will I carry your books?”
“Thank you,” I said, “but no matter.”
“Shall we shake hands, then?” Mervyn asked me, and a bit shy, a bit red with it, and having a push from Ceinwen.
“Right,” I said, and we shook hands in shyness.
“Huw Morgan,” Ceinwen said, and bright red, her, and not with running, and her eyes blue as blue, and big, and with shine, “I will kiss you.”
And she did, and I felt her mouth on my cheek, warmer than my face, and her breath hotter and heavy with her life, and her hands hurting when she pulled me close. Then she went running, with her hair in lines behind her, across the road in front of a gig, and the driver turned to swear at her and she poked her tongue.
“See you to-morrow, Huw,” Mervyn said, and he ran to throw a stone at the driver of the gig.
I was down at the Square and walking slowly when Shani caught me up, but I knew from her step who she was, though she had to come in front of me to talk for I was past turning.
“How will you go home?” she asked me. “Will I ask Dada to let me take the trap?”
“No,” I said, “I am going with Ellis the Post, now just.”
“There is glad I am,” she said, and a shadow in her eyes, and putting her hands together in front with relief. “I am afraid you will drop every minute.”
“Drop?” I said, and anger spurted up inside me. “The d
ay I drop will be the day I die. Hurting, I am, only a bit. I will have the nightingale egg for you to-morrow.”
“And you shall have the robin,” she said, in a little voice. “Good-bye now.”
“Good-bye,” I said, and went to climb up beside Ellis, and O, there is sweet relief, for the cushion was soft, and the blanket behind was kind to my back.
Up at home I went into a quiet house, and pulled off my clothes. Nobody was in, so I was able to look at my back in the glass. It was striped with wide swollen marks that cast shadows, so bumpy they were. Then I heard Ianto whistling, coming from the pit, and made haste to dress, but he was in before I could get my shirt on.
“Hulloa,” he said, and threw his can at me to catch, but I dropped it. “There is a mark-down you would have, man. The ball would be down the other end before you would have your eyes open.”
He stopped still, with his eyes staring pink-rimmed in his face black with dust, and made to lift my shirt.
“What is that, boy?” he said, and whispering.
“School,” I said.
“Did you have that in school?” he said, and looking again. “He have cut you to the bone, man.”
“Say nothing,” I said, and on with my shirt. “You know what Mama will say.”
“I know well what I will say to him who did that,” Ianto said. “Wait you till I have bathed.”
I took my tea from the oven, and then Bron came in to take clothes off the line for Ianto and some for Ivor.
“How is the old man?” she said, and pulled my cheek.
“Good,” I said.
“Good,” she said, and picked up my can. “Did you like the apple pie I made for you?”
Then she felt the weight, and looked at me between a smile and a frown.
“Are you carrying stones in this, then?” she asked me, and took the staple from the catch to open it.
“Well, goodness gracious, boy,” she said, in wonder. “Not a bite you have had from it. Where is the use in cooking special for you, and tramping it home again?”
“Leave him alone, Bron,” Ianto shouted from outside, with the bucket going down hard on the stones. “Look at his back.”
“No,” I said, and ran from the house and up the mountain, with Bron calling after me.
Right up the top I went, and glad to sit down in the cold wind.
Pain is a good cleanser of the mind and therefore of the sight. Matters which seem to mean the world, in health, are found to be of no import when pain is hard upon you.
That evening while the cold froze the pain, while I saw again the faces of Mr. Jonas, and fought again with Mervyn Phillips, and saw Ianto’s face, and tried to find rest for my boiling mind, I fell upon a loud dream that had no start and no end, and I saw the Valley outside its skin and bone of grass and trees, with clearness and with immortal truth. As ants do burrow, I saw men working, far below me, to bring money to their houses. I saw fewer men paying out that money, and keeping most for themselves. I saw the riches of the earth crumble before picks and taken away by the shovel. It came to me that presently, as with all other things, those riches would have an end. The money would not be paid, for there would be none for master or man. The pick and shovel would rust. The collieries would be left to flood-water and rats. The men would go. The houses would empty. The Chapel would be dark. The grass would try to cover all, out of pity.
And I was afraid.
I looked up in the darkening sky and saw the big winding wheel chopping the light with its spokes as it slowed down, and swung to stop. I heard the clatter of the last lamps and the rattle of the last brass checks as the men handed them in, and their boots heavy in the dust going farther and farther from my hearing, and the voice of a myriad rats, having happiness in the black waters of the empty pit, rose up to sweep aside all other sounds, and terror found me.
I awoke too stiff to move, in darkness, and still held tight by fear, so tight that I dare not move my eyes. Little at a time I had my legs at work, and as the sounds of night came more and more to comfort me, I sat.
The wind was sharp about his business and whistling a little tune to let his friends on the mountain know he was up and about to clean house, and no nonsense with loose leaves or dead twigs, for he would have them, and quick. The more he whistled, the more the trees tried to hush him, and the bigger the tree, the bigger the hush, and beating at him with their arms to stop him tickling them, but no use, for he was in one side and out the other, and nothing they could do only wave at him, and hush more.
The sky was full of thin light from the stars, and down below me the village was a long criss-cross of small yellow lights, one bright one outside the Chapel, two outside the Three Bells, and a couple of small ones up on the other side of the mountain in the farmhouse, all else dark, with the dark, clear softness that tells of coming rain. The mountain on the other side had turned over to sleep and his black hipbone curved up and fell away to thigh in the darkness, and farther over, the other mountains slept too, with shadows in the colour of lavender going to deep blue.
The wind held up above his head the sound of the choir from the Chapel for me to hear, and gave it back, but in those few notes I heard the rich, male voice of the men of the Valley, golden, brave, and clean, with heart, and with loftiness of spirit, and I knew that their voice was my voice, for I was part of them as they were of me, and the Valley was part of us and we were part of the Valley, not one more than the other, never one without the other. Of me was the Valley and the Valley was of me, and every blade of grass, and every stone, and every leaf of every tree, and every knob of coal or drop of water, or stick or branch or flower or grain of pollen, or creature living, or dust in ground, all were of me as my blood, my bones, or the notions from my mind.
My Valley, O my Valley, within me, I will live in you, eternally. Let Death or worse strike this mind and blindness eat these eyes if thought or sight forget you. Valley of the Shadow of Death, now, for some, but not for me, for part of me is the memory of you in your greens and browns, with everything of life happy in your deeps and shades, when you gave sweet scents to us, and sent forth spices for the pot, and flowers, and birds sang out of pleasure to be with you.
It was my dream, and the vision, that carried me to Mr. Gruffydd that night, for I wanted to know if they were right or wrong. I felt them to be right, but I wanted them to be wrong. As I went down, the nightingales were singing near the blackberry bushes by the Glas Fryn field, and I thought of Shani Hughes.
When I got in the village I found nobody about, not even a cat, but there was a voice coming from the Chapel, stopping now and again for people to shout, and I remembered the big meeting called for that night by Mr. Gruffydd. I went closer and tried the door at the back, but it was locked, so round to the front I went, and found the porch crowded with people pressed close together, listening, with their faces pale in the light of the oil lamps, and on each face an openness, a peace, a smile of hope, as though great news had come for each one and they were having joy of it.
Through the open doors I saw the packed rows of people, and down the aisles all were kneeling, with even the big seat crowded with kneelers. Mr. Gruffydd’s eyes were closed and his fists were tight upon The Book.
“Beloved God,” he prayed, “give light. The darkness is in men’s minds, and in that darkness is Satan, ever ready, ever watchful, quick to find a way to harm, a deed to hurt, a thought to damage. Give light, O God.”
“Amen,” said the people.
“The evil that is in Man comes of sluggish minds,” prayed Mr. Gruffydd, “for sluggards cannot think, and will not. Rouse them with fire, O God. Send upon us thy flames that we may be burnt of dead thoughts, even as we burn dead grass. Send flames, O Lord God, to make us see.”
“Alleluia,” said the people, with one voice.
“All things are expedient, but all things edifieth not,” prayed Mr. Gruffydd, “but there are things needful which we lack, and which would edify. These things we know, and pray for,
Lord God, the same things that Thy dearly beloved Son asked for, and died for. And of those, our daily bread, that others, blind in sight and soul, would take from us. Let them be brought from their blindness, Lord God. Let them see.”
“Alleluia,” said the people.
“As once the Voice sang in Darkness when the Earth was born,” prayed Mr. Gruffydd, “so let again another voice sing through the darkness in men’s minds and let it say Let There Be Light, and Lord let there be light. For the lighted mind of man can bring to fruition all good things for himself and for his kind, if he choose. But too many skulk behind the golden bars of the mansion of Mammon, and are filled and replete, and forget their brethren, and deny them, and allow them to walk in hungry idleness, and their women to die of want, and their children to perish even before they are born. Lighten our darkness, Lord God. Let there be light.”
“Alleluia,” said the people.
“Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden,” sang Mr. Gruffydd.
“Hosanna, hosanna,” sang the people.
“Come, let us sing unto the Lord,” sang Mr. Gruffydd.
The people in the porch were going to their knees in tears, and as the congregation started to sing, they lifted their voices with them.
“Huw,” said Bronwen’s voice, and I turned, and saw her, watching me, with the hood of her cloak over her head, and the cloak close about her, with her hands outside and held toward me. She was smiling the old smile, with her eyes closed up and showing only diamonds of light, and her mouth wide, but soft, and showing the tips of her teeth.
“Come, you,” she said. “We have looked all night.”
“I went to sleep on the mountain,” I said, and she put her arms about me, and lavender was warm next to me, and the gentle soft of her firm bosom pressed against me, and the touch of her mouth on my forehead.
“You will have your death with cold,” she said, and a shake in her voice. “Your Mama is in Chapel, but dragged there, and only because I said I would look for you.”
“What is going on in there, Bron?” I asked her, under her cloak, with her arm about me, and hurting my back, but a good hurt and one to forget, as we went up the Hill.