The Rainbow

"Home, why tha's nobbut this minute come."

"I want to go home."

"What for? What ails thee?"

"I want my mother."

"Thy mother! Thy mother none wants thee."

"I want to go home."

There would be tears in a moment.

"Can ter find t'road, then?"

And he watched her scudding, silent and intent, along the

hedge-bottom, at a steady, anxious pace, till she turned and was

gone through the gateway. Then he saw her two fields off, still

pressing forward, small and urgent. His face was clouded as he

turned to plough up the stubble.

The year drew on, in the hedges the berries shone red and

twinkling above bare twigs, robins were seen, great droves of

birds dashed like spray from the fallow, rooks appeared, black

and flapping down to earth, the ground was cold as he pulled the

turnips, the roads were churned deep in mud. Then the turnips

were pitted and work was slack.

Inside the house it was dark, and quiet. The child flitted

uneasily round, and now and again came her plaintive, startled

cry: "Mother!"

Mrs. Brangwen was heavy and unresponsive, tired, lapsed back.

Brangwen went on working out of doors.

At evening, when he came in to milk, the child would run

behind him. Then, in the cosy cow-sheds, with the doors shut and

the air looking warm by the light of the hanging lantern, above

the branching horns of the cows, she would stand watching his

hands squeezing rhythmically the teats of the placid beast,

watch the froth and the leaping squirt of milk, watch his hand

sometimes rubbing slowly, understandingly, upon a hanging udder.

So they kept each other company, but at a distance, rarely

speaking.

The darkest days of the year came on, the child was fretful,

sighing as if some oppression were on her, running hither and

thither without relief. And Brangwen went about at his work,

heavy, his heart heavy as the sodden earth.

The winter nights fell early, the lamp was lighted before

tea-time, the shutters were closed, they were all shut into the

room with the tension and stress. Mrs. Brangwen went early to

bed, Anna playing on the floor beside her. Brangwen sat in the

emptiness of the downstairs room, smoking, scarcely conscious

even of his own misery. And very often he went out to escape

it.

Christmas passed, the wet, drenched, cold days of January

recurred monotonously, with now and then a brilliance of blue

flashing in, when Brangwen went out into a morning like crystal,

when every sound rang again, and the birds were many and sudden

and brusque in the hedges. Then an elation came over him in

spite of everything, whether his wife were strange or sad, or

whether he craved for her to be with him, it did not matter, the

air rang with clear noises, the sky was like crystal, like a

bell, and the earth was hard. Then he worked and was happy, his

eyes shining, his cheeks flushed. And the zest of life was

strong in him.