The Rainbow

As they drove home from town, the farmers of the land met the

blackened colliers trooping from the pit-mouth. As they gathered

the harvest, the west wind brought a faint, sulphurous smell of

pit-refuse burning. As they pulled the turnips in November, the

sharp clink-clink-clink-clink-clink of empty trucks shunting on

the line, vibrated in their hearts with the fact of other

activity going on beyond them.

The Alfred Brangwen of this period had married a woman from

Heanor, a daughter of the "Black Horse". She was a slim, pretty,

dark woman, quaint in her speech, whimsical, so that the sharp

things she said did not hurt. She was oddly a thing to herself,

rather querulous in her manner, but intrinsically separate and

indifferent, so that her long lamentable complaints, when she

raised her voice against her husband in particular and against

everybody else after him, only made those who heard her wonder

and feel affectionately towards her, even while they were

irritated and impatient with her. She railed long and loud about

her husband, but always with a balanced, easy-flying voice and a

quaint manner of speech that warmed his belly with pride and

male triumph while he scowled with mortification at the things

she said.

Consequently Brangwen himself had a humorous puckering at the

eyes, a sort of fat laugh, very quiet and full, and he was

spoilt like a lord of creation. He calmly did as he liked,

laughed at their railing, excused himself in a teasing tone that

she loved, followed his natural inclinations, and sometimes,

pricked too near the quick, frightened and broke her by a deep,

tense fury which seemed to fix on him and hold him for days, and

which she would give anything to placate in him. They were two

very separate beings, vitally connected, knowing nothing of each

other, yet living in their separate ways from one root.

There were four sons and two daughters. The eldest boy ran

away early to sea, and did not come back. After this the mother

was more the node and centre of attraction in the home. The

second boy, Alfred, whom the mother admired most, was the most

reserved. He was sent to school in Ilkeston and made some

progress. But in spite of his dogged, yearning effort, he could

not get beyond the rudiments of anything, save of drawing. At

this, in which he had some power, he worked, as if it were his

hope. After much grumbling and savage rebellion against

everything, after much trying and shifting about, when his

father was incensed against him and his mother almost

despairing, he became a draughtsman in a lace-factory in

Nottingham.