Welsh Journals

The Green Canary By TREVOR HUGHES The road to Clummerey, sir ? As the landlord hesitated, a man at the bar said, Going that way myself." He had the moor's solemnity in face and voice, but we were soon old friends, knowing each other's knowing and raising laughter to the winds. Rain beat against us and the wind was edged. He said "The landlord's speech confounds him. He wanted to say, 'Go over the moors to Tumble-Down Bridge and you'll see forked roads. One is well built and roofed with trees. It steps aside for a cottage, not expecting its own way at every bend. You take the other road. You'll see the name Caesar's Pass if the barn door is shut. The dykes are choked with stones from the Roman Wall, and the road's all pools, but still you'll be too soon in Clummerey.' He isn't fond of the place ? You haven't seen the fat ale-wife he found there. Talking of Shakespeare, the woman at the Ann Hathaway has read her marriage lines four times and kept her licence it lies in the Milky Way, and if the parish-pumpheads tried her brew they'd drive a metal road to it." Modernise it. Oak beams and neon lights." Oak beams and cocktails." What a background for Governments." They'd govern rain or a woman's thought." Or the distance to Clummerey. How far is it now ? Far as a crow glides down wind. You see those spires ? I was admiring them." So might I to-day, but they stab a sunset as if its beauty were a sin." They mark our way ? Our way to The Green Canary that lies beneath them. Did you notice the inn sign where we met ? It's The World Turned Upside Down.' Odd, even for an inn." Yes, but inns have their spires they are inverted, running down into the ground and anchoring them to earth as their spires anchor churches to the sky. And they contain a holy water."