How Green Was My Valley (7 page)

Sure enough, as we climbed the hedge by Meredith the Shop’s field, there we could
see the heads of a big crowd of men two fields away higher up. We were getting higher
here, and the wind was blowing away from us, so that we could hear nothing of their
voices.

My father stopped at once.

“Is this where you came?” he asked me.

“Yes, Dada,” I said.

“Oh,” he said, looking down at me. “So this is why you wanted to go to the other valley,
eh? I will give you credit, my son.”

The look-outs must have seen my father because one of them came running over, jumping
the hedge as though it was only a foot high.

“Mr. Morgan,” he shouted, “Davy wants you to come over if you will be so kind.”

“What does Davy want with me?” my father asked back.

“The men are over from all the other valleys,” Mog said, walking up, “and a lot of
places. There are big things going on, sir.”

“Big things, indeed,” my father said, “and empty as drums. Not even fit to put a cap
on. Where is Davy?”

“Over by there, Mr. Morgan,” Mog pointed. “He is going to address the meeting in a
minute.”

“There is lucky the meeting is,” my father said. “Very well, Mog, I will go. Take
care of Huw for me, will you?”

I knew it was no good to say anything, so I stood by Mog as my father went through
the other gate into the pasture land where the men were crowded.

But when he had gone, I told Mog I wanted to go to the back, so he told me to run
over to a pile of stones behind some blackberry bushes, and be sure to come back to
him in case my father would have his ears for supper.

Good. So off I went, but as soon as I was behind those blackberries and out of sight,
I ran off again through the sheep-gap and into the crowd of men, working my way through
carefully up toward the front. As soon as I could see my father through a little space
in the men, I stopped where I was.

There was a lot of talking in whispers going on round about me, as though they had
all decided on something serious. Up in front, on a sloping slab of rock, Davy, Dai
Griffiths, and a lot of men I had never seen before, were all talking to my father.
He was listening to them with his hands folded in front and his eyes shut, so I knew
they were talking for the wind to make fun with, and it did make me laugh indeed.

One by one they set on him, and one by one they gave up. At last Dai came forward
to the edge of the rock and held up his hands.

Everyone became still.

Only the wind moved the ferns above us, saying shish to everything except itself.

“Boys,” Dai shouted, “before you make up your minds properly to do what we think is
right and best, it is certain you should have a word from Gwilym Morgan. Fair play,
now.”

The men moved about and a deep murmur started, which became a big cheer as my father
stepped out and stood on the edge, looking all round, and down at the village, and
up at the sky. I knew he was praying, and the others must have known, for there was
a low rustle and then every cap was off, and every head was bent.

“Boys,” my father said, “if you were clear in your conscience about what you want
to do, you would not be up here out of the way, but down in the village for everybody
to be listening. Wait. I am here by some happening which I will call the Will of God.
I did not want to come, but now I am here I will give you what has been in my mind
these months. You are right in what you want, but you are wrong in your ways of getting
it. Force is no good to you until you have tried reason. And reason wants patience.
And if patience wants a tight belt, then tight belt it should have. You cannot ask
the help of God with hate in your hearts, and without that help you will get nothing.
It is no use to say you will all go together in a Union if you have no notion what
that Union is to do. Get better wages? You will have better wages or as good as can
be got without a Union. The owners are not all savages, but they will not give you
whatever you want just because there are a lot of you and you use threats. Reason
and civilised dealing are your best weapons. And if your cause is just, and your consciences
are clear, God is always with you. And no man will go far without Him.”

But the men were becoming restless, and I could hear shouts from all round, though
I was so low in the crowd I could hear nothing of the words. I saw my father try to
go on, but then a man standing behind me took me by the shoulders and pulled me round.

“You are Huw Morgan,” he said, bending down to me, “the youngest of them. Can you
hear your old man?”

“My father is not an old man,” I said, “and if he heard you, you would have it.”

“Oh,” said another man, laughing, “the old man is in him for sure. Morgan, him, indeed.”

Before I could run, the man who had me had picked me up and was holding me above his
head.

“Morgan,” he shouted, “here is one who will go without when you tighten your belt.
And there are five of mine.”

A roar cut my father’s voice in half. All round me I could see men shouting before
I was put down and forgotten. As quick as I could, I wound in and out of the crowd
until I reached the sheep-gap and looked back.

My father was talking to Dai Griffiths up on the rock, and Davy was trying to get
the crowd to settle down again. I saw my father shake his head and start to walk down
the rock, so I ran back to Mog.

“Deuce,” he said, “I did think you had taken lodgings, boy. Here is your father, now.”

One look at my father was enough for me, and Mog was going to say something, but he
stopped and began whistling under his breath instead.

My father was so white there were blue patches under his eyes, and the whites of his
eyes were pink, so that his eyes scalded you to look at them.

And yet he was smiling.

“Come on, my son,” he said. “Thank you, Mog.”

“You are welcome, sir,” said Mog, and pulled off his cap.

Nothing was said until we got to the top of the mountain, though all the way up the
men were plain to be heard, and if we had looked back we could have seen them every
step of the way. Over hedges and through gates, across fields and pasture, climbing
rock outcrop, brushing through gorse and bramble, every second I tried to keep my
eyes on my father, watching for some change in him, but even after all that climbing,
he had not altered.

He sat up on the rock at the top of the mountain facing into the other valley, and
leaned back on his elbow.

“Come and sit over here, my son,” he called, for I had gone off a little way to leave
him be. “Not afraid of your father, are you?”

“No, Dada,” I said, “but I thought you would want to think.”

“I have finished thinking, Huw,” my father said. “My sort of thinking has no place
now. Awful, indeed it is.”

We sat in quiet for a time, looking down into the valley. The wind blew up here as
though he had wet his lips to bring them smaller to whistle with more pointed music,
but his tune was cold, and before long I was shaking. My father stared down at the
Valley, but I did not put my eyes on him for long because I was afraid of waking him.

I remember how cold was the green down there, and how like a patchwork counterpane
with all the browns of the ploughing and the squares of the curving hedges. The farms
were small as white matchboxes and sheep were little kittens. Indeed, if they kept
still they would look like little rocks.

Only in our Valley was there a colliery to poke its skinny black fingers out of the
bright green. Over in here was all peace and quiet content, and even the wind sounded
happier to be working down there, coming up from our Valley with a joyful rush and
pouring down here, passing us sharp and bitter cold, eager to lie along the warm fields
and tease the manes of the horses browsing in the sun.

“Sad it is, Huw, my son,” my father said, after a long while. “Sad, indeed. Here is
everything beautiful by here, nothing out of place, all in order. And over with us
nothing but ugliness and hate and foolishness.”

“How is that, then, Dada?” I asked him.

“Bad thoughts and greediness, Huw,” my father said. “Want all, take all, and give
nothing. The world was made on a different notion. You will have everything from the
ground if you will ask the right way. But you will have nothing if not. Those poor
men down there are all after something they will never get. They will never get it
because their way of asking is wrong. All things come from God, my son. All things
are given by God, and to God you must look for what you will have. God gave us time
to get His work done, and patience to support us while it is being done. There is
your rod and staff. No matter what others may say to you, my son, look to God in your
troubles. And I am afraid what is starting down by there, now this moment, is going
to give you plenty of troubles in times to come.”

My father spoke with his eyes in the sky, and I was glad he was looking so much better.
He had a terrible temper indeed, but none of us ever saw it except me, and that only
once and outside the house.

“Let us go home,” he said. “Say nothing to Mama unless she asks. She has had enough
for one day without more to weigh her down.”

Back down the pasture we went, but not toward where the men were still standing. Perhaps
it was through looking at the other valley so long that I got such a worrying shock
when I looked again at ours.

All along the river, banks were showing scum from the colliery sump, and the buildings,
all black and flat, were ugly to make a hurt in your chest. The two lines of cottages
creeping up the mountainside like a couple of mournful stone snakes looked as though
they might rise up and spit rocks grey as themselves. You would never think that warm
fires and good food would come from them, so dead and unhappy they were looking.

Our valley was going black, and the slag heap had grown so much it was half-way along
to our house. Young I was and small I was, but young or small I knew it was wrong,
and I said so to my father.

“Yes, Huw,” he said, and stopped to look. “I told them years ago to start underground,
but nobody would listen. Now, there are more important things to think about. That
is something that will have to be done when you are grown up. There will be plenty
for you to do, indeed.”

When we passed through the village nearly all the women were outside waiting to hear
what the men were doing up on the mountain. My father took his cap off to wish the
time of day down by the Chapel to old Mrs. Rhys the Mill, and he held it in his hand
all the way up to the house, because all that way he was wished by everybody.

My mother was sitting alone when we came in, and she seemed to have got over her distress,
but the house was quiet, with that sort of stillness that a cat will have when it
is waiting to jump with its back in a curl.

My father looked at my mother and said nothing, knowing her, but he made a sign to
me to be silent before he went to change his boots. I went to the cupboard to get
my slate, and while I was rubbing it clean my father came in.

Then my mother moved, and my father faced her.

“Gwilym,” she said, “Angharad has gone.”

“Oh,” my father said. “Where is she?”

“Down with the Beynons, I think,” my mother said.

“Wait you,” said my father. “I will have a word with her.”

When he had gone, my mother asked me to fill the kettle and give the fire a couple
of shovels of coal, and when I had done, she called me.

“Huw,” she said, “how are you going to grow up, I wonder?”

“Well,” I said, “however it is, I will never leave this house for one, unless you
send me from here, Mama.”

“I hope that will be the truth, Huw,” my mother said, looking right through me. “If
any more of my family go from me, I will be sorry I ever had babies.”

“Well,” I said, “why did you have them, Mama?”

“Gracious goodness me, boy,” my mother laughed. “Go from here, now. Why, indeed. To
keep my hands in water and my face to the fire, perhaps.”

But that question started me asking questions about babies, and nobody seemed to know,
and if they did, they kept it to themselves. There is strange that a man will act
as though money was being lost to tell the truth in such a matter. But that came after.

You should have seen my mother when my father came back with Angharad. There is pleased
she was, and so gentle to put her in the corner chair and take her coat from her.
Angharad was quiet and still full of thought, but she was clear in her mind and it
was certain she had not been forced to come back. My father went straight out to the
back to wash, and came in to shut the door of the next room to do his writing. During
that time nothing was said, but I had toasted four rounds of bread which my mother
put on the end of the fork as piece after piece was browned.

There is good dripping toast is by the fire in the evening. Good jelly dripping and
crusty, home-baked bread, with the mealy savour of ripe wheat roundly in your mouth
and under your teeth, roasted sweet and crisp and deep brown, and covered with little
pockets where the dripping will hide and melt and shine in the light, deep down inside,
ready to run when your teeth bite in. Butter is good, too, mind. But I will have my
butter with plain bread and butter, cut in the long slice, and I will say of its kind,
there is nothing you will have better, especially if the butter is an hour out of
the churn and spread tidy.

“Angharad,” my mother said, “what did Dada say?”

“He said he was sorry if he had done anything wrong, Mama,” Angharad said, “and to
tell him why I wanted to leave him.”

“Well?” my mother asked, and very surprised she was.

“I said I wanted to look after the boys because Mrs. Beynon is too fond of her bottle,”
said Angharad.

“Angharad,” my mother said, holding up her hands. “What next then?”

“It is true, Mama,” Angharad said, and tears coming to sparkle in the fire-light.
“Did you see our Davy with a big hole in his stocking here to-day?”