“The wooden horse,” Morfydd whispered. “O, God!”
Hustle, bustle now, with white gowns dashing demented, tripping in leaves, scrambling, and where the hell is the pole of shame and who had it last, for God’s sake. This, the miming, part of the punishment. Couldn’t find it. Up came a wraith and bowed low to the leader.
“A little pole or a big pole, Mother?”
“Was it a big pole or a little pole he used on the maid?”
“A little stick or a big stick to quieten her?”
“He is not being judged for thrashings,” cried Rebecca. “Hasten! The dawn is up and the dragoons are out from St Clears – do you think we have all day?”
Comedy now, the sentence given. They jostled each other, measuring poles for length, testing them for strength while Luke Talog on his knees stared at them in terror.
“What will his poor wife say when we carry him through the parish?”
“What will the neighbours say when Luke goes through on the pole?”
“With his backside turned to the sky and the wind taking a whistle at his poor little troubles.”
“Chair him,” said Rebecca. “He can put on his coat. Up on the wooden horse. Up, up!”
And I could not drag away my eyes.
To business now, the fun over. Up with him, down with him flat in leaves; squirming, screaming, mudstained – bloodstained when they hit him quiet. Pitiless these men of Rebecca, as their own oppressors. And they roped Luke Talog across two poles and hoisted him up, with the ends of the poles resting on two horses. Head lolling, he drooped, pot-bellied, obscene, cradled.
“Pretty brisky for spring, mind. The poor soul will catch his death. O, Mother, have pity – it is a four mile march to his parish.”
Rebecca wheeled his horse, bridle chinking, white shroud streaming.
“Down to his parish with him,” he cried. “Spare your pity. From magistrates to adulterers we will carry them on poles – clergy, even, if the crime deserves it, and show them the fury of the people. For the bars of Hell are crammed with Luke Talogs and the gates of Heaven are thronged with the helpless. Time it was changed and by God we will change it, and cleanse the fair name of our beloved county. Away!”
In single file they went, Rebecca leading, the wooden horse next, and then the Daughters, as ghosts of silence till the clearing was empty.
CHAPTER 7
WE SPOKE little the rest of the way, shocked into silence by the punishment of Luke Talog. The wooden horse was everywhere these days, although only one tollgate had so far been burned. Rebecca, more powerful every minute, was now fighting to put right the social wrongs, setting herself up as judge of social morals. Horsewhipping for the minor crimes, burning in effigy most nights now, threatening letters to magistrates for unfair sentences, rumours of attacks on the workhouses which were springing up like mushrooms under the new Poor Law. Rebecca was everywhere, especially in Pembrokeshire, but our county was getting its share. Daren’t kiss your girl without a glance over your shoulder, and thinking of girls brought me back to Mari. Sweet, sad Mari.
Strange it was Mari who was sending me back to coal. …
The lights of Gower’s mine winked through the mist as we climbed the last hillock to Ponty. This, a green land ten years back, was now outraged. For the new industry of coal was treading on the skirts of iron and the black diamond wealth of my country was making fortunes for men who had never set foot in Wales. When a shaft struck a black seam the merchants were killed in the rush for profit. Ironmasters, greedy for better investment, came running, and their capital was doubled by our cheap Welsh labour, for taxes and tithes and tolls were lowering our power of bargaining. Slave-owners, fresh from their auctions of the Black Trash of Africa, came surging in shoulder to shoulder with the new Welsh gentry who hated their brothers for the sin of their poverty. These, our great benefactors, came flying – from the slave buying of Bristol to the counting houses of Mother London – to negotiate and quarrel on the body of my country, and the scars of their greed will stand for everlasting.
Across the blackened tips went Morfydd and me to the ragtailed, heaving labourers staggering under their baskets of coal and mine – women and children, mostly, cheaper labour than men. Little ones bent under loads, their stoops a perpetual deformity that jackknifed them over the eating tables and doubled them in their beds; black-faced, white-teethed; spewed from the womb of a deeper world, chanting to the labour of the stamping trot; a tuneless breath of a song that kept them to the rhythm, this, the night shift ending in exhaustion. Eyes peeped at the strangers, heads turned under baskets, but the labour never faltered, and the shale trembled to hobnail stamping. And we stood in the misted air, me and Morfydd, and watched the ants; watched them building the anthill; chanting, scurrying, one eye wide for Foreman – building up the monuments that future generations will despise, sweating and dying for their ninepence a day.
“Worse than bloody Nanty this,” I said, and fisted Foreman’s door.
Never seen the like of this Job Gower for size. Ducking under the frame he grinned at Morfydd, ham-hands on hips, stripped to the waist in frost. Deep-chested, hairy, the bull of his family; out of a Welsh womb by a Donegal slaughterer, according to Grandfer; tore his mam to pieces, sixteen pounds.
“You wanting labour?” asked Morfydd, hands on hips, too.
“Well, now!” Double bass, flat as that.
“Good labour. Skilled,” I said, but he never even heard; just strolling around Morfydd inspecting fresh cattle.
“Brecon coal, Top Town iron,” said she at nothing, “and we work on
