“O, aye, Mother,” said Flannigan. “Just remembered. It is one of them old tollgate things built by the Trusts. Hundreds and hundreds are going up in the county.” He turned to us. “That right, sisters?”
“Hundreds and hundreds,” we cried.
“But the gate must come down, my daughters,” said Rhayader. “We cannot have gates on the roads of Wales – for how will we get to the city of Carmarthen? How will I take my goods to market?” And he turned then and faced us. “This is the first, my daughters. Smash it to matchwood, burn it to ashes – the tollhouse, too. By God, we will give them tollgates – down with it, down with it! Hatchets! Tinder! Down, down!”
A roar of cheering now. The powder-guns were going, pinning the moonlight with shafts of fire. Tarred brushwood was lit for flares and flung through the windows, tossed on the thatch. Flames billowed and swept along the eaves. The thatch caught, spluttering, flashing. Flannigan and Justin, Joey and a dozen others were chopping at the gate, their axes rising and falling and glinting red in the flames. Guns were exploding, men cheering as demons, dancing against the fire, drunk with success. Kneeling beside the unconscious girl, I watched. Pretty little thing she looked with the redness on her face and her black hair down. Opened her eyes then and the fear sprang back.
“Easy,” I said. “It is only the old tollgate, easy,” and turned. “Mam Keeper,” I cried. “Your girl’s come round. Mam Keeper!”
“Here comes the cart,” someone bellowed. It came galloping, skidding, scattering the men. Bending, I raised the girl.
“Can you walk now?”
And she spat in my face.
“Get the family into it,” said Rhayader. “Eh, there’s a sight, boy,” and he grinned at me. “A cat you’ve got there, spitting and scratching – give her one on the backside if she doesn’t behave. Come on, come on! Pile them in – the children first, then the furniture – blankets, bedding, throw it all in, and watch this vixen of a girl by here if you fancy your eyes. Hurry, hurry!”
The bile was rising to my throat. I spat, turning away, wiping blood from my face. She had done me pretty well for her age; nails like cut-throat razors by the feel of my face. Felt sick as they flung the belongings into the cart and hustled the people in after them: thought of my mother and what she would say. The gate was flat now. Joey was flinging the smashed timbers on to the tollhouse blaze which was going like Hades and setting the night alight, with flames roaring up and ammunition exploding inside. I looked towards the cart again. It was ready for off, with the keeper’s family hunched among the furniture. The girl was sitting motionless in her blanket, watching me, I noticed, with her great brown eyes.
“Rhayader,” I said. “What happens to these people?”
And Justin Slaughterer shouldered his axe and turned from the fire.
“Aw, shut it, man! Rebecca, is it? Your petticoats suit you,” and he spat. “Dancing and dabbing at women and kids – get back to your gentry!”
Suddenly enraged, I leaped and hooked him but he ducked and brought up the axe and Rhayader was instantly between us, one fist for Justin and the other for me, like lightning, and I staggered against the cart, tripped and rolled between its wheels.
“Abel Flannigan, my hearty!” laughed Rhayader. “Come and settle these two slaughterers,” and he caught Abel by the shoulder as he lumbered over. “No, leave it, man – no time now. Private fights after. Come on, lads, do not look pitiful. Just the same as Efail-wen, we are bound to get tempers. It’s a dirty old business, mind, the boy is right.”
“But what about these people?” I was up now, gripping him.
He smacked my hands away. “All arranged,” and he turned, shouting:
“Down to Kidwelly, lads – down to the squire. He has a snug little barn he is going to hand over or risk a visit from Mother Rebecca – she will see people housed. Away now, the gate is down!”
The flames were dying as we mounted the horses. Randy took a belt at me as I caught his bridle but I did not fight back – too weary, too sickened by the violence and savagery of men.
“You give me a lift again?” Matthew Luke John, standing below me and I leaned and hooked him up. Jogging on the horses now, eyes drooping for sleep, we marched on Kidwelly itself and the house of the squire; smashing the bar at the village entrance, going right up his drive. He dared not come out but I saw him at a window, face parched in moonlight. Very tidy was his barn by the time we had finished with it, and we put the tollkeeper and his family in warm and snug with a notice on the door daring anyone to evict them. Off again under the eyes of the peak-faced servants to the farm of the Reverend John Jenkins two miles east. A tinder to his ricks and we left them blazing, worth at least a thousand Bibles, and a Bible was left on the doorstep of the labourer, not even waking him.
Home now came the wraiths, soot-stained, weary; little bands leaving us as we passed the villages, and we dispersed a mile or so short of Tom Rhayader’s place.
Strange that Matthew Luke John should kiss me goodbye, disappearing into the frozen woods without a wave.
The house was dead silent when I got in. I stabled Randy silently, stripped to the waist and washed myself clean. To bed now, watched every board for a creak, and I slipped into the blankets and laid there staring at the flush of dawn. Nearly daylight. With the nails of the vixen throbbing on my face, I dreamed. And the last thing I saw was the door coming open inches and Morfydd’s face peeping to see if I was in. Heard her
