My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People by Caradoc Evans
page 28 of 135 (20%)
page 28 of 135 (20%)
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down his mustache over the blood-red swelling on his lip; and he cleaned
his teeth. Here are some of the sayings that he spoke that night: "Half an hour ago we were privileged to listen to the voice of a lovely lady--a voice as clear as a diamond ring. It inspired us one and all with a hireath for the dear old homeland--for dear Wales, for the land of our fathers and mothers too, for the land that is our heritage not by Act of Parliament but by the Act of God.... "Who ownss this land to-day? The squaire and the parshon. By what right? By the same right as the thief who steals your silk and your laces, and your milk and butter, and your reddy-made blousis. I know a farm of one hundred acres, each rod having been tamed from heatherland into a manna of abundance. Tamed by human bones and muscles--God's invested capital in His chosen children. Six months ago this land--this fertile and rich land--was wrestled away from the owners. The bones of the living and the dead were wrestled away. I saw it three months ago--a wylderness. The clod had been squeesed of its zweat. The land belonged to my father, and his father, and his father, back to countless generations.... "I am proud to be among my people to-night. How sorry I am for any one who are not Welsh. We have a language as ancient as the hills that shelter us, and the rivers that never weery of refreshing us.... "Only recently a few shop-assistants--a handful of counter-jumpers--tried to shake the integrity of our commerse. But their white cuffs held back their aarms, and the white collars choked their aambitions. When I was a small boy my mam used to tell me how the chief Satan was caught trying to put his hand over the sun so as to give other satans a chance of doing wrong on earth in the dark. That was the object |
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