Welsh Journals

work. Then a bat flew in at the doorway and an owl cried sadly down in the woods. But I looked up only to see those deep-sunken eyes still fixed on me. "What do you want?" I asked, gazing on a level with his white, shiny hands. He did not answer. I thought I would try Welsh. Still no answer. I was getting angry now and beginning to think ugly thoughts about old people. Slowly he began in Welsh. "I know that Jesus spoke Welsh, I was with him." I shivered. His deep, dark eyes flamed, the white of his cheeks grew whiter as I asked again- "What do you want?" "I am a trimmer of lamps," he said, as though answering me from the depths of a mighty cavern and looking at the big lamp on the table, "Shall I trim yours," "No, Grannie wouldn't like it. It is danger ous, she always does it herself. "But her lamp is not filled with oil and she will be a foolish maiden. The thought of Grannie being a foolish maiden struck me as being funny and I laughed aloud, but, looking at the stranger's solemn look of pain, I stopped. "I 'm sorry I said, wishing Gran- nie would return every minute. "Shall I trim this lamp, Pearl?" I wondered how he knew my name, and with- out waiting for me to say yes, he drew the lamp to pieces, and was soon manipulating it with a deftness that puzzled me. For his fingers were long and bony. Soon he had set the light burning again and there was a beautiful dull, red glow all over the room. The pewter and brass shone almost religi- ously and the great painted dogs on the mantle- piece looked so happy. I couldn't see anything beyond the stranger but the dark background of an eastern town where there were streets of strangely-built houses all huddled together. It was deep night, all lit up by the glare of torches COLOUR IN THE COALFIELD Sir, — Mr. Alwyn Lloyd's article on "The Pre- servation of the Beauty of Wales" and his account of the proceedings of the Council for the Preser- vation of Rural Wales, leads one to suggest that it may not be a counsel of despair to attempt to beautify even colliery villages in South Wales. The slowly apprehended powers of the Town Planning Acts and the example of the better kinds and lanterns. There were sounds of hurrying and patterings of many feet and the noise of laughter and tears all mingled together. Then ten maidens fled down the street and by their side was the stranger bearing his old iron lantern "Five of them were foolish," he said, "I told them and warned them, but they were young." "You were old then I asked, not letting my eyelids flicker for fear of shutting out the wonder- ful scene. "Oh, yes, older than Jerusalem." "Than Methusaleh?" I was tempted to ask. "Yes," he said. "Listen too, I sang this hymn with Paul in Galatia." And he sang mournfully- "Art thou weary, art thou languid, Art thou sore distressed? 'Come to me,' saith one, 'and coming Be at rest' My wonder returned, when I heard footsteps. It was Grannie. Suddenly the stranger's lantern flashed a blinding light and the stranger had gone "What have you been doing to the lamp, child?" asked Grannie. "Nothing, the stranger did it," I said. "I saw no stranger." "He just went out, an old, old man, with deep sunken eyes, and a face, oh, so white, Grannie." I could see Grannie frowning and I felt sorry for the stranger. I looked beyond her to the wall where there was a large oblong picture of the "Last Supper." Somehow the stranger re- minded me of the figure on the far right of the picture-it might have been Saint Peter. "Did you ever see such a thing?" I heard Grannie say. It must have been that old Shon y Ffigys (John of the house of the fig tree), who is cracked these many years since the Revival and thinks he can trim lamps "He said "Oh," interrupted Grannie, "he says a lot of nonsense, child." But I could not but think that the lamp and lantern were not all nonsense CORRESPONDENCE of Garden Village housing throw into deeper shadow and more appalling contrast the disorder, drabness, and disgusting ugliness of so much of the older housing and village planning of South Wales. The psychological effect of architectural discord upon the unfortunate inhabitants of this appalling wilderness is not the least that they have to bear. To emerge from the Rhondda into the pleasant open greenness below Trefforest gives almost a new outlook on life.