“Good evening, Toby Maudlin.”
“Good evening, Jethro Mortymer. Where you bound for?”
“Same place as you by the look of it. You joining?”
“Got a gate,” said Toby, lacing his boots.
“Damned lucky. I’ve got three and more every week.”
“Same up at Tom Rhayader’s place – you heard? Four if he works to St Clears. But he can still work to Carmarthen if he adds six miles though he’ll be paying out more for boots. Eh, these Trusts! The county’s gone mad.”
“Not as mad as you think, Toby. Speculation is the same whatever road it takes. They know what they’re doing.”
“There’s a queer old word. Speculation, is it? New words cropping up every minute. Is the toll money likely to go on road repairs, for instance – I’ve got Moses’ tablets on mine.”
“That is the excuse,” I answered. “But most of the money is for paying out the investors and we don’t get a pothole filled till the rich get their cut, and there isn’t much left after Bullin takes his share and we build new bridges near the houses of the gentry.”
“Good God,” said he, “there’s education for you. Speculation and investors, is it, bridges and Bullins and gentry. Explain it, please.”
“The money is being stolen, or just about.”
“Good enough for me,” said Toby. “Thieves and vagabonds, is it. Count me in, man – you know the password?”
“Genesis for us. You brought a petticoat, and soot?”
“The soot I have here,” replied Toby. “Got me old girl’s nightshirt under me waistcoat. Hunted high and low for it, she did, then hopped in naked. Hope she bloody freezes. You know what she hit me with a week last Monday?”
“Hush, you,” I said. “Rhayader don’t like bellowing.”
“Better get garmented, lad. We’re here.”
Ghostly he looked in the moonlight with his little round face blackened and shrouded in white, nightdress trailing, for his wife was a head the taller. I raised my fist to hit the barn door.
“Wait, you,” said Toby. “Somebody’s coming.”
A lanky wraith now, mooching against the snow.
Tramping Boy Joey.
I had not seen Joey for months. Last time I heard of him he was cowman over at Kidwelly with a Cardie farmer and I’d heard he had done a stretch in Carmarthen workhouse in between. Now he was poaching Waldo again, sleeping at the lime kilns where we went for our lime. Not much time for me, Joey – couldn’t forget his ferret, though he must have had fifty through the passage of the years. Strange, I thought, that Joey should stand for Rebecca when a labourer, for the movement was backed mostly by farmers.
“There’s a stranger,” I said.
“That makes two of us,” said Joey, looking evil.
Abel Flannigan opened the door.
Fifty or so Rebecca’s daughters were squatting in Rhayader’s barn, mostly smocked, but some dressed normal like me. Powder-guns, I noticed, were stacked near the door; axes, hatchets, scythes were piled in a corner. Looked like business. The place reeked with smoke, pipes glowed in the darkness.
“Right, Jethro,” said Flannigan, and I was in. “Who’s this?”
“I’ve got a gate, mind,” chirped Toby.
“Through,” said Flannigan. “And watch that tongue. Who’s this one?”
“Joey Scarlet,” said Joey, eyes shining in Flannigan’s lamp.
“You a farmer?”
“Workhouse boy, mind,” said a voice. Got a shock when I saw the speaker – Tom the Faith. “He’s entitled.”
“To what?” grunted Flannigan.
“More to it than gates,” said another. “The first thing Rebecca did, damned near, was to burn Narberth workhouse. What workhouse, son?”
“Carmarthen,” said Joey.
“In,” said Flannigan. “And get here on time – midnight. The Sunday school’s next door, not here.” He turned and hung the lamp. “Two new members, eh? Let me make something clear. Rebecca has a knife and a fancy for tongues, so we brought in Justin Slaughterer to oblige. You can take the oath afterwards. Right, Rhayader.”
And Tom Rhayader rose from his box in the corner; small, lithe, nothing like a leader save for his eyes. On fire were those eyes, bright in his strong, square face. He had kept to himself till now, coming down from the north with his wife and daughter a year or so back, and Mam had delivered his second. He had never seen the counter of Black Boar tavern; was a bit of a lay preacher and three times to Chapel every Sunday, Baptist. Easy was Rhayader, fists on hips, an inch higher than Flannigan’s shoulder, but he had the thin scars of fighting over his eyes. I would have backed him against Flannigan there on the spot.
“First,” he began, “I have a message from Rebecca who governs West Wales, our leader. Listen,” and he read from a paper, “‘The masses to a man throughout the three counties of Carmarthen, Cardigan and Pembroke are with me. O, yes, they are all my children. When I meet the lime-men on the road covered with sweat and dust, I know they are Rebeccaites. When I see the coalmen coming to town clothed in rags, hard worked and hard fed, I know they are mine, these are Rebecca’s children. When I see the farmers’ wives carrying loaded baskets to market, bending under the weight, I know well that these are my daughters. If I turn into a farmer’s house and see them eating barley bread and drinking whey, surely, say I, these are the members of my family, these are the oppressed sons and daughters of Rebecca.’”
Rhayader lowered the letter. “The message is unsigned,” said he. “And if the message were signed it would rock the magistrates of the county, for we are led by a man of high birth and responsibility. May his name never be mentioned lest someone die for it. May he be respected and shown honour by all the daughters of Rebecca, this man who works for justice and against the oppressions that bring us together this night.”
Very cool, very calm, and the men nudged each other and murmured. I glanced at Joey. Mushrooms for eyes had Joey, staring hypnotized, and
