MORNING SERIAL

YOU’LL be fully occupied, believe me.” *** The headmaster’s advice was fuel to the fire of Ieuan’s determination to study. The days found him in a quiet corner of the Town Hall grounds, or lying on his stomach on a grassy patch in the little park near the Royalty Theatre — the little park called “Loafer’s Rest,” where came men of the town too old to work, and the younger men who had no inclination for it.

His books beside him, notebook and pencil in hand, he wrote busily. The old men looked at him and envied him his youth and industry, while the others cursed him for being a fool to waste his energy reading and scribbling.

At home in the evenings he retired to the parlour and, if disturbed, took to the privacy of his bedroom. His preoccupation with books and writing had become almost an obsession. It seemed as though he had but a few months in which to accomplish all that he had set out to do. He had formulated his plan.

First, he would cram as much general knowledge as possible. Then in the winter he would arrange to attend the evening classes at the Higher Grade. Next summer, matriculation. At eighteen, he hoped to carry out the advice given him by Mr. Griffiths and strive to win a scholarship to the university.

What if he failed? The possibility was there. Well, he’d apply for a year’s course at Harlech, or find someone to sponsor his application for a stay at Ruskin. No doors were closed against him now. It was up to himself, as the headmaster had said. And he would see to it that nothing would prevent him reaching his goal.

Before long, however – sooner than he had ever anticipated – Ieuan tasted the bitterness of disillusionment once again. He had begun to write short pieces of fiction and essays, which he submitted to the local newspapers. They were speedily returned. This did not discourage him. He had never expected to see his efforts in print. To find any contribution of his published would have been so great a surprise that he would not have been able to acknowledge it. The source of his early despair of his writing was his father’s attitude towards it.