“You don’t want to fall over yourself,” said his uncle by marriage. “You’re not a bull at a gate.”
“Let a man have his own road,” said Tom Brangwen testily. “Don’t be so free of your advice-it’s his wedding this time, not yours.”
“’E don’t want many sign-posts,” said his father. “There’s some roads a man has to be led, an’ there’s some roads a boss-eyed man can only follow wi’ one eye shut. But this road can’t be lost by a blind man nor a boss-eyed man nor a cripple-and he’s neither, thank God.”
“Don’t you be so sure o’ your walkin’ powers,” cried Frank’s wife. “There’s many a man gets no further than half-way, nor can’t to save his life, let him live for ever.”
“Why, how do you know?” said Alfred.
“It’s plain enough in th’ looks o’ some,” retorted Lizzie, his sister-in-law.
The youth stood with a faint, half-hearing smile on his face. He was tense and abstracted. These things, or anything, scarcely touched him.
Anna came down, in her day dress, very elusive. She kissed everybody, men and women, Will Brangwen shook hands with everybody, kissed his mother, who began to cry, and the whole party went surging out to the cab.
The young couple were shut up, last injunctions shouted at them.
“Drive on,” shouted Tom Brangwen.
The cab rolled off. They saw the light diminish under the ash trees. Then the whole party, quietened, went indoors.
“They’ll have three good fires burning,” said Tom Brangwen, looking at his watch. “I told Emma to make ’em up at nine, an’ then leave the door on th’ latch. It’s only half-past. They’ll have three fires burning, an’ lamps lighted, an’ Emma will ha’ warmed th’ bed wi’ th’ warmin’ pan. So I s’d think they’ll be all right.”
The party was much quieter. They talked of the young couple.
“She said she didn’t want a servant in,” said Tom Brangwen. “The house isn’t big enough, she’d always have the creature under her nose. Emma’ll do what is wanted of her, an’ they’ll be to themselves.”
“It’s best,” said Lizzie, “you’re more free.”
The party talked on slowly. Brangwen looked at his watch.
“Let’s go an’ give ’em a carol,” he said. “We s’ll find th’ fiddles at the ‘Cock an’ Robin’.”
“Ay, come on,” said Frank.
Alfred rose in silence. The brother-in-law and one of Will’s brothers rose also.
The five men went out. The night was flashing with stars. Sirius blazed like a signal at the side of the hill, Orion, stately and magnificent, was sloping along.
Tom walked with his brother, Alfred. The men’s heels rang on the ground.
“It’s a fine night,” said Tom.
“Ay,” said Alfred.
“Nice to get out.”
“Ay.”
The brothers walked close together, the bond of blood strong between them. Tom always felt very much the junior to Alfred.
“It’s a long while since you left home,” he said.
“Ay,” said Alfred. “I thought I was getting a bit oldish-but I’m not. It’s the things you’ve got as gets worn out, it’s not you yourself.”
“Why, what’s worn out?”
“Most folks as I’ve anything to do with-as has anything to do with me. They all break down. You’ve got to go on by yourself, if it’s only to perdition. There’s nobody going alongside even there.”
Tom Brangwen meditated this.
“Maybe you was never broken in,” he said.
“No, I never was,” said Alfred proudly.
And Tom felt his elder brother despised him a little. He winced under it.
“Everybody’s got a way of their own,” he said, stubbornly. “It’s only a dog as hasn’t. An’ them as can’t take what they give an’ give what they take, they must go by themselves, or get a dog as’ll follow ’em.”
“They can do without the dog,” said his brother. And again Tom Brangwen was humble, thinking his brother was bigger than himself. But if he was, he was. And if it were finer to go alone, it was: he did not want to go for all that.
They went over the field, where a thin, keen wind blew round the ball of the hill, in the starlight. They came to the stile, and to the side of Anna’s house. The lights were out, only on the blinds of the rooms downstairs, and of a bedroom upstairs, firelight flickered.
“We’d better leave ’em alone,” said Alfred Brangwen.
“Nay, nay,” said Tom. “We’ll carol ’em, for th’ last time.”
And in a quarter of an hour’s time, eleven silent, rather tipsy men scrambled over the wall, and into the garden by the yew trees, outside the windows where faint firelight glowered on the blinds. There came a shrill sound, two violins and a piccolo shrilling on the frosty air.
“In the fields with their flocks abiding.” A commotion of men’s voices broke out singing in ragged unison.
Anna Brangwen had started up, listening, when the music began. She was afraid.
“It’s the wake,” he whispered.
She remained tense, her heart beating heavily, possessed with strange, strong fear. Then there came the burst of men’s singing, rather uneven. She strained still, listening.
“It’s Dad,” she said, in a low voice. They were silent, listening.
“And my father,” he said.
She listened still. But she was sure. She sank down again into bed, into his arms. He held her very close, kissing her. The hymn rambled on outside, all the men singing their best, having forgotten everything else under the spell of the fiddles and the tune. The firelight glowed against the darkness in the room. Anna could hear her father singing with gusto.
“Aren’t they silly,” she whispered.
And they crept closer, closer together, hearts beating to one another. And even as the hymn rolled on, they ceased to hear it.
Chapter 6
Anna Victrix
Will Brangwen had some weeks of holiday after his marriage, so the two took their honeymoon in full hands, alone in their cottage together.
And to him, as the days went by, it was as if the heavens had fallen, and he were sitting with her among the ruins, in a new world, everybody else buried, themselves two blissful survivors, with everything to squander as they would. At first, he could not get rid of a culpable sense of licence on his part. Wasn’t there some duty outside, calling him and he did not come?
It was all very well at night, when the doors were locked and the darkness drawn round the two of them. Then they were the only inhabitants of the visible earth, the rest were under the flood. And being alone in the world, they were a law unto themselves, they could enjoy and squander and waste like conscienceless gods.
But in the morning, as the carts clanked by, and children shouted down the lane; as the hucksters came calling their