Never seen her in this mood before. Leaning against the wall, I listened.
“And people write books – wish I could write. For I would write a book that would stand for a century – a book telling of my people and how they fought to live; telling of their music, their courage, their forbearance, their love of things beautiful, their fire, their God. And I would write of the money-beggars who suck them, the magistrates, squireens, the gentry who live on them, the gaols, the transportations, the unfair trials, and of those who spit on our language.” Her voice rose. “And what the hell am I talking English for now? With centuries of Welsh behind me I am speaking in a foreign tongue, which shows the job we are making of it.” Empty, she looked, fingers spread. “And if my book was printed they would call it fairy tales, revolutionary, a pack of damned lies, for people believe only what they are told to believe, and anything contrary to the preachings of Church and State is rejected. People are strange – no intelligence, no compassion. Aye, muckraking they would call it in a hundred years time, because they did not know my generation that died for the things they will enjoy.” She sighed, and the blaze in her died with her sad, sweet smile. “Well, fight if you must, but fight for Wales, nothing else, remember, for the land of your fathers. Your blood is of Wales, every drop – your heart is of Wales, for she created you – the breath you draw is of the mountains of my country. O, God, to be part of this country, to love her as I do! And listen. Make it vicious – no half measures – for the people who oppose you are clever and vicious. Hit the big man, easy with the small man, do not take advantage. Burn your gates not singly but in hundreds, and when they go up again burn them down again. Fire your hayricks, massacre your salmon, walk with the ceffyl pren against the moral injustices – put the wrongs right! ‘Woe of the bloody city! it is full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not; the noise of the whip … the horseman lifteth up the bright sword and the glittering spear … and there is none end of their corpses … Nineveh is laid waste!’” She put her hands over her face, whispering now. “Fight to the death if needs be, for the land is despoiled. Better to destroy the Wales we love than stand to see her degraded.”
I nodded, commanded by her, unable to reply. She rose, trembling.
“Got to be up early tomorrow,” she said. “Dawn; deep shift with Liam Muldooney, bless him. God, there is Welsh Irish, good little man. Agitators, is it? Crawling round on all fours harnessed like a bloody donkey, fine job we’ve made of it.” She came and kissed me. “Fight, but be careful – remember Iestyn. I will not stand idle if I lose you, too.”
“I am not afraid,” I said.
“Aye, of course not.” She shrugged, looking helpless. “Do not mind old Morfydd – an old frump she is getting. All embers now, no fire. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” I said.
CHAPTER 15
AS A MOTH on a pin Tom the Faith fluttered, and a month went by and my mother made no move to stem the bleeding heart. Then Waldo Rees Bailiff tried her, and Morfydd slipped with a bucket of water, half drowning him, though what she was doing with a bucket on a window sill was anyone’s guess. Terrible to see poor Tom, though – mooning around the lanes, hand-wringing on the doorstep, never within yards of Black Boar tavern, hangdog, drooping with lovelight in December.
These were the mornings of the frozen water butt; of ice-cold water freezing teeth in their sockets when you washed every morning in the grip of the frosted land. The snows came in beauty and the flaring bare arms of winter were all over dripping with icicles. The rivers were shouting again after the drought of summer, their music a thunder that bellowed at Cae White, and with Christmas upon us I thought of Him Who was born for us. I am not much one for religion but I believe in the Man, though I could never accept Him from the brushes of painters; soft-faced, doe-eyed, gentle as a baby. For great are His works, and wonderful. So the God I see is a man of strength, with a chest as a ship’s prow and ten feet tall. Seaweed for hair has He, seven fathoms deep are His eyes as green as the waves in anger, with a voice as the thunder.
I gave Him more thought as I went up to Tom Rhayader’s place that night for my third proper Rebecca meeting. The sky was lanterned over the crest of the hill where Toby Maudlin lived. Not very bright, was little Toby, but a good man with a vixen of a wife from Cardie, sharp as a needle and a tongue as a razor, and she raised lumps on Toby every Monday night regular when he went to Black Boar for his weekly pint. Light kissed the snow from his door as
