“So let us pray that we are together tonight,” went on Rhayader, “for this is a meeting of war. The time has come for this village, too, to take its part in the fight against oppression and we are the better equipped because we are men of God. Yes, we will burn the tollgates, we will smash tollhouses, and carry the fight to the very seat of authority, but have this clear in your minds. Do not encompass your minds with mere bars and chains, for the barred road that exacts the unfair toll is only the symbol of the resentment we suffer. The mud-walled cottages must be razed to the ground, the rat-infested hovels of the starving poor swept away and new dwellings built to house a fair people. Our men and women must be fed well, not on rye bread and potato soup; be clothed in wool, not in rags. Our women must come from the fields and carry their children with dignity, not labour as oxen at the plough from dawn to darkness, barefooted, ill-fed, treated as animals. Skeleton children must be fattened and taken from straw when in fever. North and west of us the gentry are merging their farms into holdings, their rents going higher to turn small farmers out. From Llandovery to Pembroke the workhouses are crowded by people who have lived in dread of the workhouses which are leaping up under the new Poor Law, dividing whole families, making it a sin for a man to honour his wife.” Rhayader paused, his dark eyes drifting over us. Powerful in oratory, this one, with the hwyl of the good minister. No need to raise his voice.
“With the gates flying up and the tolls going higher the price of producing is rocketing. The Corn Law levy is ruining us. Wheat at sixty-two shillings, is dropping; barley at six shillings a bushel, is plunging lower. Butter, which we cannot afford for our hungry children is at sevenpence a pound, half its price. The upland farmers like me are throwing away their stock, too dear to feed them, for we must raise corn to live. But worse lies ahead, for the country is being invaded by the colliers and ironworkers of Monmouthshire, where pits are being closed and furnaces blown out since the fall of the Chartists. And where are the authorities who guide our destinies? I will tell you – roystering in the London taverns!” His voice rose to a shout of sudden anger. “The squireen landlords are bleeding the counties to death – drawing incomes of thousands in rents for farms they see once a year, if that. But they depute their responsibilities, mind, O, yes, they depute – to the crooked little Napoleons you find in every corner of Wales – and not only English, remember – Welsh, too – by God, we’ve got them, for easy pickings bring up the dregs of a country. So we are dominated by the little landowners who have the power of life and death over us – the crooked little magistrates. Heaven help you speaking Welsh at the hands of their interpreters – pleading guilty before you go in. God help you more if you have deducted a single penny from their profits. And some are Church clergy! Is it the function of men of God to send their neighbours to prison or transportation, even death?” His fist came down on the box and he glared around us. Pretty worked up now. He stopped for breath.
“Listen,” he ended. “We cannot burn investments or bonds or tithes or Corn Laws or Poor Laws, but we can burn the things that stand as other injustices – the gates! We cannot feed the starving in their thousands or succour our poor, but we can fight the moral wrongs, break down the workhouses that shame our country and carry the transgressors on the wooden horse – from squireen to clergy we will carry them and bring them to ridicule, because they dishonour us and the law of God. ‘And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.’ Amen.”
“Amen,” came the grumble of voices.
He spoke again.
“Flannigan – the first gate?”
“Two, sir – the bar and gate, Kidwelly to Carmarthen. And while we are in that district I know a couple of ricks for tinder – the Reverend John Jenkins, for unfair gathering of tithes.”
“His crime?” asked Rhayader.
“Sold a labourer’s Bible, being a shilling short of his tithe.”
“Good God, forgive him,” said Rhayader. “We will not. Have his ricks, then, every one in sight. Give the labourer a Bible, present from Rebecca.”
“I will see to that, sir,” came a voice from the back. “My old Gran’s got two and she’s pretty well blind.”
“Good. Enough for one night,” said Rhayader. “Back here in half an hour, every man. Bring horses those who have them, for the way is long – hooves covered with grain sacks, reins tied against chinking. The dragoons are out near Kidwelly, remember.”
“Dragoons moved to St Clears, maister – night ’fore last.”
“Good.”
“What about snow, Tom Rhayader? Making fair tracks, mind!”
“God will smooth us out.”
“Isn’t the dragoons scaring me, mind. Case my old woman do follow us!”
Roars at this, with Flannigan hushing at us for silence. Rhayader said;
“Those who have powder-guns, carry them, but God help the man I find with shot. Bring hatchets, axes, pikes and levers – saws and scythes. And hearken. We do not fight unless cornered. We drift back into the night where we came from. If we become divided then make your way home separately, not in parties. The man who returns to this barn gets my gun – with shot.” Laughter at this. “If you are taken tie up your tongue – you cannot even spell Rebecca – or Justin Slaughterer
