| Scene: Living-room of the PRICES' cottage on the Twmp, Aberpandy. The walls are covered with paper, bold in design, but now rather faded. On the left, looking from stage to audience, there is, in the back corner, a door leading to the road, and, in the middle of the wall, a window with simple curtains and a plain holland blind. Through the window is seen a rough wall. On the right, in the middle of the wall, is an old-fashioned fireplace. The fire has not been lit, and there is a cheap paper screen before the bars. On the mantelpiece above are brass candlesticks, clock, flat-trons, tin tea-canisters, etc. In the corner, up stage from fireplace, is a door leading to the back-kitchen, and thence to the little garden. On the same side, down stage on the other side of the fireplace, is another door, leading to the parlor. The furniture is humbly serviceable, and has seen long usage. At the back, in a central position, stands an old dresser hung with jugs and set with plates. A simple vase filled with sweet peas is on the second shelf. On the lowest shelf stands a row of well-worn books, and two small book-shelves, well stocked, hang one on each side of the dresser. There are five ordinary kitchen chairs, usually arranged in the following way ─ one a little down stage from the window, one near the parlor door, one near the kitchen door, and one on each side of the dresser. There is also a high-backed wooden armchair. In the middle of the room stands an old-fashioned round table, covered with a faded red cloth. At the back, one on each side of the dresser, are pictures of Gladstone and C. H. Spurgeon. In other places are pictures of Henry Richard and some of the well-known preachers. When the curtain rises, JOHN PRICE is seated to the right of table in the armchair; GWEN, to the left, in the chair drawn up from the window. PRICE is a rugged, hard-visaged man about sixty years old. He has the collier's usual pallor, and there is a blue mark, caused by coal dust, prominent on his cheek-bone. A ragged rim of gray-white beard runs, below his chin, from ear to ear. He is dressed in an old suit, and wears a muffler over a shirt of gray flannel. His movements are slow and heavy, suggesting the power of endurance, patient but somewhat grim, that is the basis of his nature. Alone with his wife at the opening of the play, he shows, as in his attitude to GWILYM throughout, a certain rough tenderness, which is not seen in his relations with the other characters in the play. GWEN, his wife, is of a different type ─ a gentle, softvoiced woman, whose face is very kind and a little sad. Even in her smile there is a certain touch of wistfulness, suggesting some under-life in which memory and emotion have greatest power. She as a well-preserved little woman of sixty, with white hair. Her dress is simple but very neat. When the play begins, she is busily mending stockings, of which there is a stock in a basket which lies on the table near at hand. PRICE with glasses on the end of his nose and his face screwed into an expression of fierce concentration, is addressing an envelope into which he puts a letter. He closes the envelope with a hearty bang. |
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| Price |
(With a sigh of relief.) Well, thank goodness, that's done. I've just written to Lizzie Ann. You'll have her back here on Monday. |
| Gwen |
I didn't think, when I let her go down to Llantrisant, that I was going to miss her like this. Of course it would not be right to stop her, and them expecting a baby in the house in seven or eight weeks. |
| Price |
Well, anyhow, back she'll be on Monday. |
| Gwen |
It isn't so much the extra work on me I'm thinking of, but I miss her about the place here. She hasn't got too much sense, and you couldn't say she's such a great deal to look at ─ but, somehow, I miss her old face about the house. |
| Price |
(Stretching himself.) I'm glad I've done those two letters. It's a job I can't abide ─ writing letters. Comes of having so little schooling, I suppose. |
| Gwen |
Have you finished the letter to Myfanw', John? |
| Price |
(Taking up two or three written sheets.) Aay, my gel. Finished at last! |
| Gwen |
(Dropping the stocking to her lap.) And you've put in that Gwilym is to go in five weeks' time? |
| Price |
(With a little sigh.) Aay, my gel, I've put it in. |
| Gwen |
I don't know how I'm going to part with him, John. I don't know how I'm going to do it. It's an awful thing to part like this, and me his mother! I can't understand, John, why God puts people together, if they've got to part after all. |
| Price |
Don't you get low-hearted, Gwen fach. It's all for the best. You know yourself that Doctor Willie Jenkins was saying only the other day that part of Australia is the very place for a man in consumption. It's lucky for us Myfanw' asked us to send him out, and her knowing that he's ill, too. |
| Gwen |
Well, Myfanw'll be lucky to get him. Who could she get better to keep the accounts on the farm, and him writing such pretty bits of poetry ─in English as well as Welsh? I suppose you put in the letter about him winning the prize at the Eisteddfod in Mountain Ash? |
| Price |
Of course, Gwen Of course! |
| Gwen |
And only five weeks now before he'll be going! I don't want to stand in his light, John. But, oh, it's awful soon to lose him! |
| Price |
(With rough tenderness.) Think, Gwen, think what it means! A few years, and then, after all the praying and heart-breaking we've had for him, we'll have him back again ─ a fine, strong man! |
| Gwen |
Aay, John, I know, I know! That's what I am trying to tell myself all the time. That's all I'm asking of the Almighty ─ to let me live to see our Gwilym have his health again. There's Lewis and John Henry ─ they can fight their way for themselves; but for our Gwilym, poor boy, it's different. If only I am spared for that ─ to see him fine and strong and his face all brown with health ─ once, only just once before I die, and then I think I will go singing from the world! |
| Price |
(Looking over the letter to MYFANWY.) How d'you spell "endeavoring," Gwen? |
| Gwen |
(Very thoughtful.) "Endeavoring?" Let me see now! Christian Endeavor Society. E-n-d ─ I don't know! Better for you, John bach, if you'd written in Welsh! |
| Price |
Oh, indeed! And let her husband think I haven't got any English, and him and me not speaking when they left Aberpandy? No fear! (Looking over the letter again.) Aay! If I'd only had a bit of schooling! The chances they get to-day ─ board-school, intermediate, college! (He sighs regretfully.) |
| Gwen |
(After a pause.) I wonder what he'll look like! |
| Price |
Look like? Who? |
| Gwen |
Our Gwilym ─ when he comes back strong and well. (In a musing tone.) It's a fine thing, John, for a woman to look at her children and see them all strong men, so strong that they could crush her with their hands, and those hands never lifted but in kindness. Still there's something, too ─ I can't explain ─ in the child that's weak and suffering keeps him very near your heart. It's like having one who didn't grow up like the rest, one that you must be always taking care of. |
| Price |
(With a friendly rebuke.) Gwen fach, you're always thinking of the boys! |
| GWen |
(With a touch of surprise.) Well, 'ent I their mother? D'you know, John, I can't help thinking Gwilym doesn't fancy his food as he ought to these last few days. That's the worst of this old hot weather! I was saying this morning at breakfast if I could only get a chicken I'd make a drop of broth nice and tasty. But it would cost a good bit would a chicken, and it's getting rather tight on us now, what with the strike and saving up enough to send him away ─ |
| Price |
(Bitterly.) Aay, the strike! One after another ─ strike, strike, strike! Couldn't you get one on old account from Parry the Fish Shop? |
| Gwen |
They aren't giving old account to anybody now. They lost so much bad debts in the last strike. |
| Price |
(Angrily.) Aay, there you are! (He gets up and takes a few steps about the room.) And that's the lot our Lewis is in with! And a respectable man like me, that's paid his way all his life, has got to suffer for a gang of rodneys willing to shout with any fool that lifts his finger. (Looking out through the window.) They're down there now in the Drill Hall picking their new candidate for Parliament ─ and a fine beauty they will pick, too! |
| Gwen |
(Who has been pursuing a course of private reflection.) But there's one thing, John ─ I daresay I could get a bit of the best end of the neck and make him a bit of something tempting. (JOHN's anger collapses.) We shall have to watch the money pretty close these next few weeks in order to get him some more things. I wouldn't like Myfanw' to see him without everything decent and respectable ─ three of each, say, and p'raps a dozen collars. (She goes on with her mending.) |
| Price |
(Somewhat grimly.) Oh, he'll be respectable enough for my sister Myfanw', don't you fear! I don't see that she's got grounds to be over particular. |
| Gwen |
You mean, John, about her running away with the barman? |
| Price |
Aay, I do! |
| Gwen |
Well, she married him; that's something, anyhow. |
| Price |
She was a disgrace to the family was our Vanw'. There was her father had been a deacon all those years, and me just made superintendent of the Sunday-school! |
| Gwen |
Well, John, it isn't for me to say anything against your father, and him in his grave today. But he was a hard man ─ too hard and too cold for a girl like Vanw'. |
| Price |
(In an injured tone.) He was a respectable, God-fearing man and died without any one being able to say he owed so much as a ha'penny. And he lived in his own house for twenty years ─ freehold, mind you, too! |
| Gwen |
All the same, John, I don't agree with bringing up children as if there was always a corpse in the house. And she was a strange girl was Myfanw' ─ all life and fire and feeling. And the way she used to sing! I can't help thinking our John Henry is growing up to look the living image of his Aunt Myfanw'. |
| Price |
There is a bit of likeness, it's true. And there's no denying he's got a grand voice. |
| Gwen |
And there's something about his nose and chin, too. Have you put anything about him in the letter? |
| Price |
Oh, yes! (Resuming his seat and reading.) "We are expecting our John Henry back from college ─" |
| Gwen |
University, John, University! |
| Price |
(Making an alteration.) "From the University in Cardiff to-morrow or the day after. I think I told you before that he is preparing for the ministry. He is now in his second year, and next year he will be trying for the B.A." |
| Gwen |
(To herself with great gusto.) The Rev. John Henry Price B.A. |
| Price |
"Perhaps he will study for the B.D. afterward, but that isn't quite settled yet. Fortunately ─ (Gwen looks up at the long word) ─ fortunately he won a County Exhibition, so that we don't have to keep him altogether." |
| Gwen |
We couldn't have done it, John, not with poor Gwilym bad as he is. It's been hard enough, even with Sam lodging here. |
| Price |
(Letting the letter drop to the table.) That was a grand sermon he gave us last Christmas, Gwen ─ a grand sermon! There aren't many not yet out of college would venture on a text like that ─ "In the beginning was the Word" ─ "Yn y dechreuad yr oedd y Gair." I can't understand him sending Isaac Pugh's William Ewart up to Treherbert the other Sunday. Must have been a great disappointment to them up there. |
| Gwen |
Working hard for the exams he is, no doubt, because he hasn't written home these last few weeks ─ nothing beyond a couple of picture postcards. |
| Price |
I can't say Isaac Pugh was very enthusiastic about the sermon last Christmas, though the other deacons praised it beyond. |
| Gwen |
Well, you see, John, Isaac Pugh's William Ewart is studying for a preacher, too, so p'raps we oughtn't to expect it. |
| Price |
No. He couldn't stomach it was our John Henry won the County Exhibition, and not his William Ewart. And then he's so set on giving the call to Jones of Dowlais. He's getting that polite, is Isaac Pugh, I can hardly abide talking to him. |
| Gwen |
I suppose you've told Myfanw' about the call to Horeb? She'll sure to be interested, and her sitting in the corner by the harmonium from the time she was baptised. |
| Price |
(Taking up the letter again.) "You'll be glad to hear that, after being without a regular pastor since Roberts and his gang started the split at Bethania, we're going to give a call in Horeb at last." (He pauses a moment and reflects.) I don't know, Gwen, if you've been thinking what I've been thinking about this call. |
| Gwen |
(Calmly.) Yes, John, I have. |
| Price |
(With enthusiasm.) Well, it would be a grand thing if John Henry had finished college and could have it, wouldn't it now? Of course, it's only seven pound a month, but he'd be able to work it up. |
| Gwen |
(Laying down her mending.) And he'd be able to live at home with us, and I could look after his clothes. What we'd have to do would be to turn Lewis's bedroom into a study, and Lewis could have Gwilym's room in the back. Anyhow, John Henry will be here till October. That's one comfort; for it's a strange house it will be to me with Gwilym going across the water. (She sighs.) Five weeks! Only five more weeks! |
| Price |
Dewch nawr, Gwen! Dewch! It's no use looking at it like that. |
| Gwen |
I can't help it, John bach. I'm as God made me. Somehow, I feel afraid ─ afraid of the waiting and the waiting, thinking of him day and night, and him away in foreign parts. I'll be seeing his face every hour of the day, if I only shut my eyes, and his voice will keep on coming back to me as I go about the house and out in the garden by his bank of flowers. |
| Saying this, she gets up slowly and puts the basket of stockings on the dresser. Then turning a litile, she happens to look through the window. She starts, and begins to talk more briskly. |
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| Gwen |
Tan i marw! Here's Gwilym and Sam coming up from the crossing, and I haven't so much as laid the tea! (She takes the white cloth from the dresser drawer.) There's talk you do, John! (Spreading cloth on table.) I don't like the boys to come home, and things not ready. A woman can't expect to keep much of a hold on her children if she doesn't look after their comfort. (She bustles into the backkitchen, and a rattle of crockery is heard.) Pity Lizzie Ann isn't here, too! She may be dull; I'm always telling her she's not quite sixteen ounces ─ (bustling in with a basket containing cups and saucers) ─ but she's handy, and it's nice to see her old face about the house. And I'll get that drop of broth ready for his supper. |
| She takes vase of flowers from the dresser and puts it on table. Steps are heard without. Enter GWILYM and SAM THATCHER. SAM is a man of forty-two, but looks older, his hair being thin and grizzled, his face tanned by exposure and adorned with a ragged gray moustache. He has lost his left arm, and the empty sleeve is fixed into the pocket of his rough blue coat. His trousers, strapped up under the knee, are of old moleskin with "cross" pockets, to the edge of which he hooks his thumb in an easy attitude. Under his arm he carries a red flag, rolled up. His accent proclaims him a Cockney, and his general air of suffering superiority to Aberpandy and all its works indicates a haughty metropolitan outlook. GWILYM is a young man of twenty-three or twenty-four, simply and neatly dressed. His thin, pale face tells of disease. His expression suggests thoughtfulness and a fund of sympathy, purified of humbug by quiet humor. He speaks in reflective manner, often searching the listener's face as if given to probing through the surface of things for the causes beneath. In his bearing toward others there is the natural courtesy of one born with fine instincts. He is treated by all with the greatest kindness, concern for his welfare being the common element that keeps the household together. |
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| Price |
(With great sympathy.) Wel, Gwilym, ffor' ma'i nawr, machan-i? |
| Gwen |
Where you've been all the time, boy bach? And the weather so hot like this. |
| Price |
I was telling your mother after dinner you ought to lie down a bit in the afternoons. |
| Gwilym |
That's all right, 'nhad! |
| Gwen |
Sit you down, 'nghariad-i. You shall have your tea in a minute. |
| GWEN hurries into the back-kitchen. GWILYM moves toward the chair to the right of the dresser, but the old man, murmuring, "All right, my boy, all right," anticipates him and brings up the chair, placing it on the left of his own chair, which remains as before. SAM, having placed flag on the dresser, takes the chair on which GWEN formerly sat. This is his usual place at table. The three men seat themselves. GWILYM takes vase and examines the blossoms with the eye of a good judge. |
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| Sam |
(Mopping his forehead.) It's a scorcher, boss ─ a fair scorcher; that's wot it is! If this 'ere weather goes on on top of orl the bloomin' eloquence we're 'avin' ─ there'll be trouble 'ere in Aberpandy. Mawk my words, boss, I'm tellin' yer nah. |
| GWEN comes in with the teapot and a large plate of bread and butter and a plate of small round cakes. She takes the chair from left of dresser and sits on SAM's right. LEWIS's place ─ between Gwitym and Gwen ─ is thus left vacant. GWEN pours out the tea. |
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| Gwen |
Where have you been, Gwilym? |
| Gwilym |
Well, I went for a stroll as far as the Institute, and then I thought I'd wait to hear whom they had selected as candidate. |
| Price |
That feller Pinkerton, I suppose. |
| Sam |
Got it, boss, got it fust taime! |
| PRICE shakes his head in disgust. |
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| Gwen |
Bread and butter, Sam? Sam. Skooliki da, as yer say dahn 'ere missis. Skooliki da! |
| Knock at door. |
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| Gwen |
Come in. |
| ISAAC PUGH appears in the doorway ─ an old man in a shabby suit. Relations between him and PRICE having been strained by the affairs of Horeb, his attitude is rather formal, but, at the same time, touched with a suggestion of meek apology. |
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| Gwen |
(Coldly polite.) Ah! Shwt ŷch-chi, Isaac Pugh? Dewch miwn. |
| Pugh |
Shwt ŷch-chi 'ma heddy'? (Hesitating in doorway.) Have tea you are? |
| Gwen |
Yes, yes. Come in you. (Pointing to the chair by the parlor door.) Will you take a cup with us? |
| Pugh |
(Advancing across the room.) No, indeed! No, indeed! Dim, diolch. Just had my tea, I have. (He sits down.) |
| Gwen |
There's plenty of welcome, mind you now. |
| Pugh |
Oh, yes! I know, I know! (To PRICE) I suppose you've heard the news? |
| Price |
Aay, I've heard. |
| Pugh |
Well, I never thought I'd live to see a man like that Pinkerton being Member of Parliament for the valley ─ never! |
| Gwilym |
They say he's a very able man, Mr. Pugh. |
| Price |
It's men like him are the curse of South Wales to-day. Who is he, I'd like to know, that he should be made a proper "god" of? I've been in the valley here now for sixty years. I remember Aberpandy before ever the Powell-Griffiths sank the first pit, and the sheep of Pandy Farm were grazing quiet where the Bryndu Pit is now. And I never so much as heard talk of this fellow Pinkerton till two or three years ago. |
| Pugh |
Well, I thought it was understood, long enough ago, too, that Evan Davies would get it when George Llewelyn went. |
| Gwilym |
He'd have had it ten years ago, Mr. Pugh. He might have had it five years ago. But there's a change come over the valley. |
| Price |
Aay, Gwilym, a change, a sad change, and a bad one. A good, steady man is Evan Davies ─ a tidy, respectable man, and been a deacon for twenty years I know of. I remember the time when we went down the valley together to see Gladstone. (He looks up at Gladstone's portrait on the wall.) Aay ─ yr hên Gladstone! There was a man for you! And look at this feller Pinkerton. D'you ever hear of him so much as darkening the door of a chapel ─ or even of the Church for a matter of that? Why can't he hold his old meetings on some other day than Sunday? Isn't it hard enough to keep the congregation together without him and his meetings? "Six days shalt thou labor" ─ "Chwe diwrnod y gweithi" ─ isn't it written? But, of course, that don't count to-day. |
| Gwen |
(Pouring out a cup of tea.) Ah, yes! It isn't like it was, when we'd have to bring the benches out of the vestry on a Sunday night. (Giving the cup of tea to her husband that he may pass it on.) Take you this in your hand by there now, Isaac Pugh. |
| Pugh |
Well, indeed now, I didn't want it. But since you're so kind ─ |
| He takes the tea and stirs it with vigor. Then drinks it. |
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| Gwen |
(Holding out the plate of bread and butter.) Sure now you won't have a bit of bread and butter? There's a nice thin piece for you. |
| Pugh |
Well, indeed, Mrs. Price fach, since you're so pressing ─ (He gets up and takes the piece of bread and butter.) |
| Gwen |
I suppose, Isaac Pugh, like us, you're looking forward to them coming home from college. |
| Price |
(Lying hospitably.) I heard your William Ewart did very well up in Treherbert the other Sunday. |
| Pugh |
I had a letter from William Ewart this morning. (He hesitates a moment, looking furtively from PRICE to GWEN.) Have you heard from John Henry lately? |
| Gwen |
Only a few picture postcards these last few weeks, but we haven't worried him about it, and him studying for the examination. Awful things, those old examinations! I hope his landlady is looking after him; though I must say she seemed a tidy little woman, if she was Church of England. |
| Pugh |
(More or less to himself.) I wonder he hasn't written! (Changing the subject.) I suppose your Lewis has been working for Pinkerton, Price? |
| Sam |
Workin'? Workin'? Not'arf! There's one thing abaht Lewis, any'ah ─ 'e can tork. I've 'eard 'em in Trafalgar Square; I've 'eard 'em in 'Yde Pawk; I've 'eard 'em on Tahr rill (Tower Hill). But I've never 'eard one as could better "im. Where 'e gits it from, I don't know. Arter electin' the candidite this arternewn, they 'ad a public meetin' over the quest'n of the blacklegs they say the mawsters are torkin' of bringin' in. And yer orter've 'eard 'im! Sich shahtin,' sich waivin' of 'is awms, and 'is eyes burnin' laike fire in 'is 'ead, and the people risin' to 'im laike as if 'e'd mesmerised 'em. Arter it was over, 'e was clean done and shaikin' laike a leaf. 'E's nothin' but a bundle of red-'ot feelin's is Lewis. But 'e's a smawt chap, if only 'e could keep 'is 'ead a bit ─ a smawt chap! |
| Gwen |
(With great pleasure.) There you are, John! Didn't I always tell you? And him left school when he was only fourteen, too! But there was no keeping him back. Off he went to the nightschool every winter. And the books he was always buying ─ him only a collier, too! |
| Gwilym |
There's one thing about Lewis, whether you agree with him or not, you can't help feeling proud of him. |
[More text to be added] |