The young stranger was called Evan Jones of Tynybraich, and his heroic feats as farmer, hunter and mischief-maker were part of local lore.
Evan was a man of the land and of the open air, with none of his forebears’ love of books. He was a good farmer—everyone said so—and he knew every sheep in his flock by name. As a poacher he was even better.
He could catch moles like nobody else. He’d hear the mole pass beneath his feet and reach into his waistcoat pocket. Placing a drop of poison onto a worm, he’d push the deadly morsel into the mole’s path.
They said that Evan could catch trout by tickling their bellies. Standing still in the river, he’d stoop toward the water and wait until the fish was motionless. He’d lower his hands and encircle the fish. Tenderly he tickled the trout, transfixing it. Then—in a sudden sublime movement—he’d cast the trout out of the living, breathing water into deadly air.
Above all else, Evan was a hunter, though he never followed the pack, preferring to make his way alone to Bwlch y Siglen at Maesglasau. There he would stand and wait. It might be all day. For Evan Jones understood the fox. He knew with certainty that it would come sooner or later, crossing Bwlch y Siglen on the way to its lair.
Evan stood, listened, waited, and got his reward.
My mother fell in love with this handsome, skillful and plain-spoken man, with his large mustache and with mischief in his eyes. Three months later they were married.
The year 1905 was a year of death in the annals of the world. Czar Nicholas II slaughtered five thousand in the city of St. Petersburg. Ten thousand were killed in an Indian earthquake. Two hundred thousand Russians were killed by Togo’s Japanese navy. Sailors on the Russian ship Potemkin killed their own officers. Jews were killed by the Russians of Odessa. And in Wales, nearly a hundred-and-twenty miners died in a pit explosion in Rhondda Fach.
But for Rebecca and Evan Jones, Tynybraich, the birth of their first child was enough to counter all that death: an armful of flesh and a thatch of black hair. I was named Rebecca after my mother and grandmother. Tradition had a hold on me from the moment I was born.
Catrin Jones, my grandmother, never came for the birth, nor for some weeks later. She eventually came to bestow her curt blessing and declared me “bonny like my father.” These were hard times for Mother. But Aunt Sarah lent her support, both at my birth and afterward, Father only too glad to make his excuses and escape to the fields. Sarah continued to help with the housework and with bringing up “little Beca.” And when my brother, Robert, was born in August 1906 she came to us every day, despite her mother’s reproaches.
I have only a child’s memory of Aunt Sarah. I remember her as a tall and handsome woman, serious and quiet, unlike her more mischievous brother. I remember how my mother’s face would light up with a smile as she greeted her every morning; a smile of thankfulness; a sister’s smile.
Sarah died in 1910, a young woman of thirty-four years, a year after the death of her own mother. What has stayed with me most is an impression of quiet gravity. Or maybe that impression comes from the short poem—an englyn—composed in her memory, which is carved into her gravestone on the hillside at Dinas Mawddwy:
Early was Sara silenced—tranquil, serious,
She fell quiet ere the crowd’s applause;
But the spell cast by her life’s goodness
Radiates over her cold resting place.
Without her sister-in-law, my mother would have had to bring up two children on her own, as well as run the household and fulfill the many duties of a farmer’s wife in a remote valley.
She’d rise at daybreak to rekindle the fire and polish the hearthstone with black lead and two brushes, after which she’d put whiting under the grate. She’d polish the fender with Brasso and use dock leaves to clean the stone floor, sweeping it thoroughly before we awoke. Then she’d cook breakfast and prepare lunch for midday.
After feeding and clothing her children she’d complete the rest of the housework. Monday was washing day. Mother would scrub the clothes and push them through the mangle, spreading them on the hedges to dry in the sun. On Tuesday she’d smoothe the clothes with the box iron, each iron being lifted white-hot off the fire. Wednesday was baking day, when enough bread was baked for the week (seven loaves), not counting two loaves of bara brith (fruit bread), and unleavened cakes. Thursday was butter-making day, which involved rotating the churn and patting the butter in the kneading-dish, before finally scrubbing the dairy clean. And Friday was the day for housecleaning; seldom could she go to market at Dolgellau.
In addition to all this Mother had her tasks on the farm. Carrying water from the well to the house. Feeding the hens and collecting eggs from the carthouse. Feeding the pigs and mucking out the sheds. She had to milk the three black cows in the cowshed and ensure that there was enough food for them in the mangers. And when Aunt Sarah was unavailable, it was Mother who’d walk all the way to Llidiart-y-Dŵr where she’d leave a pitcher of milk for her mother-in-law.
In the midst of all this she was expected to care for us children, to prepare meals and lay on tea punctually for my father when he came in from the mountain. He would arrive on the hour. It was no small matter to prepare meals with the little we had. For breakfast there was porridge. We’d have salted bacon and potatoes, or broth, for lunch, and then bread and butter with jam and buttermilk for supper. We ate fruit according to the season: rhubarb, plums, gooseberries, apples and blackberries (fondly known as “the poor man’s fruit”). There would be a tart, and it was I who adorned its pastry lid with the salamander, a hot flatiron which produced a patterned golden crust.
Were it not for my father’s hunting and fishing our supply of fresh meat would have been limited to the slaughter of a pig. Each farm would kill a pig in turn, with everyone sharing the fresh meat between them; anything left over was preserved with a mixture of salt and saltpeter. We could expect a steady supply of fresh meat for some five months of the year.
At important times, such as shearing or harvest, Mother was expected to do her share of the tasks, in addition to preparing food and drink for a horde of men twice in a day. After clearing the table she’d go out again to work until sunset. Then she’d need to prepare supper for everyone and put us children to bed, after which she’d clean the tens of plates and dishes that had accumulated during the day.
My father never offered to help. It wasn’t expected.
When she did manage to snatch some rest in the evening her hands were still busy, knitting socks. It was my privilege, when I was old enough, to help her wind the wool in skeins around my upraised hands. The wool was bought from two brothers at Cwm Llinau.
When Mother wasn’t knitting she would read. The Bible was the only book. She had decided at the age of fourteen to dedicate her life to Jesus.
Some time ago I discovered among Mother’s old papers a short essay she wrote on the subject of Time. It reveals her dedication to her inner life, despite her outward industry.
This is part of what she wrote in that essay:
At times it is inquired how man can cultivate his mind. This can be answered easily, that many carve out time through proper use of their idle moments. He who follows his work with a provident spirit will pursue the moment while caring for his duties at the same time.
My mother made the most of the few “idle moments” that came her way. Throughout her life she accepted life’s cruel blows, incorporating them into her rich spiritual life, which glowed like a pearl within her and shone through the skin of her face. Her motto was “believe in God and do your work.”
Robert soon became “Bob”: my friend and playmate. We never stopped. We played with passion, and in harmony.
A large oak had been blasted onto its side by a lightning bolt. This was our home. The tree’s enormous roots formed a solid gable, its many nooks and crannies our shelves and cupboards. Our domestic arrangements worked perfectly. Bob went hunting with his bow and arrow, returning a few minutes later with a piece of wo
od in his hand and a look of victory on his face. The wood had put up “a hell of a fight,” said the little hunter. I laid out tea for my brother’s homecoming; leaves and rain water in an old can. I had prepared mud cakes for him, with a topping of moss for green icing. They were baked to perfection in a crevice between two roots. Bob ate them to please me.
A rich aunt had given us an old cart. My father tied a box to its front, so that we could carry goods to Maesglasau or to Ffridd: eggs, or a jar of treacle, or a bottle of cold tea for my father. The greatest fun was to carry farm animals in the box. Bobby-Joe, the lamb, sat majestically on his four-wheeled throne, whereas Blodwen, the hen, clasped her talons onto the fore beam, her red wings flapping like an unruly windmill as she tried to keep her balance when we speeded downhill. We would laugh so much. Even Father, crossing a field, would stifle a smile.
Our stagecoach was the peat-sledge, the wooden contraption used to drag sods of peat from the uplands. We would delight in Father’s return from the mountain, watching patiently and making sure we didn’t get “under his feet” as he unloaded the peat with care: this was fuel for our fire. If Father was in a good mood, he’d invite us to step on the empty peat-sledge and ride around the yard, every cat and dog exhorted to come aboard, until the sledge was a traveling circus moving noisily through the farm.
At other times—fearful for our safety—he could be quite severe, and we were careful to keep out of his way. Our play was sweetest when out of sight, and Father’s prohibitions were a great inducement. Thus we ventured to the ravine, to spy on the “den of foxes”; or climbed the steep side of Tynybraich mountain to hunt “the gang of bandits.”
But despite his severity, Evan Jones was a fine story-teller, and his comic accounts of his own feats, and the unfortunate events which befell others, mesmerized us. His tales trumped the scriptural stories we heard from Mother at bedtime, each with some lesson we could always foresee.
I see her now still in her work clothes—an apron made from sacking and a tape clasping the waist—as she folded back the bedclothes and insisted we pray. We’d go on our knees and recite the words she had taught us:
When rising at morn to the life that is due,
Put your face into water to freshen your hue,
And utter a prayer before tasting your fare,
In case you get captured in Bel Ffego’s snare.
Much to her consternation there would be quiet laughter, and we’d badger her as to the exact nature of “Bel Ffego.” She would reproach us for our childish blasphemy. When she left we concocted sham prayers.
On Sabbath there was to be no playing nor drawing nor knitting nor sewing, nor indeed any other activity. Nothing but the weekly trip to chapel and Sunday school. But Bob and I became cunning. In an innocent voice we’d beg Mother’s permission to go out and “stretch our legs.” We would run to our hiding places, gaining a few minutes of freedom to play, to shout and to laugh. The forbidden play of the Sabbath was sweetest.
Our other escape was books. Bob and I had learned to read at school in Dinas Mawddwy and were now fervent readers. On the Sabbath we escaped to imaginary lands, and boredom was kept at bay. Mother subscribed to Y Dysgedydd (The Instructor), and we little ones received Dysgedydd y Plant (The Children’s Instructor), and from this we learned simple poems on Biblical history such as this rhyme about Jesus Christ greeting his disciples:
To find the best advantage,
Aboard a boat he’d go,
So everyone could hear him
Quite clearly from the shore.
Father was no reader. I cannot remember him ever lifting a book or a pen. Mother dealt with what little paperwork the farm generated. She’d have to sit in the kitchen at the end of a long working day because Father insisted on some letter being written now. She’d phrase the letter with care, but Father scorned her sedate turn of phrase:
“They won’t understand that, Beca. Just write: ‘The sheep have arrived.’ That’s all that’s needed.”
“But Evan …”
“No more nonsense. Just what’s needed, no more.”
Father seldom showed any interest in the family’s old books. In a way it was understandable. He’d had to work hard on the farm following the negligence of his own father who’d been more interested in books than sheep. I never saw Father undoing the iron clasps on the oxblood chest in which the old books were kept, nor reaching for the treasures within: a sixteenth-century book by William Salesbury; William Morgan’s 1588 Bible; John Davies of Mallwyd’s “Little” Bible of the seventeenth century; our copy of the 1742 Book of Common Prayer, not to mention the many early English books bought in London by our forefathers. It is this chest which is alluded to in the memorial englyn composed for our grandfather, Robert Jones:
He was laden with literature—his chests
Were castles of knowledge;
While in search of the whole truth
Learning’s hot sun enlightened him.
Away from our parents’ gaze, what a secret pleasure it was for us children to take those old, old books from the chest and wonder at the fragile pages.
The most exciting for us was the Book of Common Prayer, for in faded yellow writing on a blank page someone had documented the family tree. It claimed that our family had lived at Tynybraich since 1012. We believed it, and committed to memory every name in the lineage, a catechism of males (except for the proverbial exception): “Gethin, Gruffydd, Llywelyn, Evan, Llywelyn, Elis, William, John Evan, Robert, Robert, Mary Evan, Evan, Robert and Evan Jones. Christ’s Year 1012. These are they who owned Tynybraich.”
The smallest book in the chest, Kynniver Llith a Ban by William Salesbury, was also a favorite, though the antiquated Welsh was sometimes hard to understand. We would stare in wonder at the Greek letters at the beginning of the book, the decorated capitals, the pattern of words on the page, and the two decorative hands at the end. There were notes in brown ink in the margin written by some old, old man.
Its opening words are imprinted on my memory, despite their strangeness:
Kynniver llith a ban or yscrythur lan ac a ðarlleir yr Eccleis pryd Commun / y Sulieu a’r Gwilieu trwy’r vlwydyn: o Cambereiciat W.S.
At the close of the Blessings at the end there was a reference to Jesus Christ sighting the multitude and ascending atop a mountain to speak unto them:
Pan welað Ieshu y minteioeð / e ðaeth i vyny i’r mynyth.
And we would imagine the son of God climbing the mountain at Maesglasau and standing there, amid the sheep, to address the people of Dinas Mawddwy.
We did not know that this was one of the first books to be printed in Welsh, published in London in 1551, and containing the first scriptural translations into Welsh from the original languages. Kynniver Llith a Ban was a very rare book. Only five copies remained.
We worked hard at school, both of us thirsty for knowledge. Much to Bob’s annoyance, I was good at arithmetic, answering such questions as “How many pounds in 29 shillings?” or “1 yard of cloth will cost the purchaser 3 shillings. Find the value of 24 yards.” But Bob excelled at logic, and coupled with the obstinacy of the Tynybraich family, it made him a first rate debater, even then. He would have made a fine barrister. But Bob wanted to become a doctor, I a nurse.
I still have some of my school books to this day, filled with the even handwriting that I envy today when I see the crabby, wavering scrawl of an old woman.
It was in these B. L. Exercise Books that I wrote my first compositions! We received most of our early education in English at Dinas Mawddwy; but at Sunday School all reading and writing was in Welsh. I see today a neat list (in English, of course) of the countries belonging to the British Empire, under the heading “British Possessions.” I wonder if Cwm Maesglasau belonged there?
In English, too, I recorded the history of the “Cambrian Railway” and “King Alfred,” together with a poem entitled “Pro nobis,” and the following passage which describes the comings and goings during “My Christmas
Holidays”:
The school closed on December 23rd, 1915 and opened on January 11th, 1916, we had a fortnight’s holidays. It was very wet throughout our holidays, but I enjoyed myself during them. The shops were full of toys and other things, they were trimmed with holly in the holidays. Christmas was on Saturday last year. I went to chapel in the morning and afternoon. Some people went away during the holidays and others came home.
Strangely enough, this is the only “memory” I have of Christmas as a child. And I no longer remember if this description was fact or fiction: to be sure, there weren’t many “shops” at Dinas, though the reference to chapelgoing rings true.
There are rare examples of writing in Welsh in these books too, such as a page on “The Cow,” and an essay on “The Blind Harpist.” And a poem by Elfed, explaining to the little children of Dinas Mawddwy the difference between black and white:
“BLACK AND WHITE” (ELFED)
At the foot of the Alps in summertime
Two little brooks do flow,
One is called the white brook,
And the other is called the black.
From a sea of ice the white brook flows,
Its flood as white as milk;
Nor does it start its journey down
At any time but this.
The black brook starts another way,
With a blacker, blacker ice.
When winter makes this torrent freeze
The color of the ice is black.
How vexing, every day on earth
To expose a truth like this—
It’s easier changing white to black
Than turning black to white.
All poetry had to be learned off by heart, not to mention countless hymns and verses from the Bible. They remain in my memory to this day, echoes of a Welsh chapel childhood.
Our Sunday School teacher, John Baldwyn Jones, insisted we learn a poem by rote every week, not always Christian. He loved poetry (both Welsh and English), was a poet himself and the son of a poet: my grandfather’s brother, a solid man with a long white beard who was known in bardic circles as J. J. Tynybraich.
The Life of Rebecca Jones Page 2
