How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn

Author:Richard Llewellyn
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2013-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

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.

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