Half the county was out on the road; Biddy Flannigan to the front, as usual, wheezing and dabbing with a little lace handkerchief, for she loved my mam as a sister. Toby and Mrs Maudlin, the long and the short of it, the Parcybrains who were new neighbours down at Tarn; Tom the Faith, too, give him credit, though Waldo Bailiff was absent, and Polly Scandal knew why. I was out in the barn grooming Randy when Polly looked over the top of the door.
“There’s a fine big man that Mr Traherne, isn’t it?” said she, horse teeth shining. “Lucky, she is, mind, marrying the cloth, and Tom the Faith that miserable, you seen him, Jethro Mortymer?”
“Leave Tom be, Polly. At least he is here,” and I went on brushing.
“But not Waldo Bailiff, I’ll be bound.”
I grunted.
“You heard about Waldo?”
I had heard but I was not telling Polly.
“Bound to happen sooner or later, mind – couldn’t go on. And Tom the Faith standing up to his neck in the mere last night praying for his soul with the Lord slipping in ice-bags. Eh, it’s a scandal!”
“No proof about Waldo Bailiff,” I said. “You get on, Polly.”
“No proof, is it? One arm round Gipsy May and another round Betsi, and poor little Gipsy outraged.”
“Not before time.”
“Waldo’s child, nevertheless, and Waldo and Betsi have sent her on her way – back up to Cardie to her gipsy tribe, and crossed her palm with silver to shift her. Better things crawl from holes than that man Waldo Bailiff, says my mam.”
“Your mam’s right,” I said.
“Isn’t decent, mind. Isn’t proper, not in a religious county. Leave him to Rebecca, is it? Leave him to the women, my mam says, they will see to him – they will give him Waldo Bailiff.”
“Excuse me,” I said, wiping away sweat, and pushed her aside as Mari ran up.
“Jethro, for heaven’s sake!” she cried. “Tomos is ready for off.”
“I have said goodbye once, Mari.”
“And you will say it again. O, Jethro, you are not even dressed!” Pouting now, beautiful as summer, hands outspread as she eyed me. “Just come as you are, then, but come you must, for Mam is asking. Do not spoil her day.”
I dreaded it, not trusting myself. I had hoped to hide and not be missed.
The trap was out on the road now with the crowd standing about it and Mam and Tomos already up in front and the little brown pony itching to get going. Backslapping and laughter from some, tears from others, though Morfydd, I noticed, was dry-eyed and pale, preferring her weeping at night. Willie O’Hara was standing beside her, fair-haired and handsome. Knew how to pick her men, this one, though I did not trust him. Old Uncle Silas was other side of her, teetering on his ploughing corns, wizened face turned up at her, begging for a smile. Abel Flannigan was there; Elias the Shop come down from Kidwelly; even Justin Slaughterer – eying Mari, I noticed. Got the size of Justin now; take him with one hand if he got within a foot of her, and he knew it. Everybody chattering and making conversation in that dreaded moment before the parting, and a silence fell upon us as my mother looked down.
“Jethro,” she said.
Me, Jethro Mortymer, the last man left.
“Now, now,” whispered Morfydd as I went slowly past her. I mounted the trap and Mam opened her arms to me.
Is there a face as beautiful as a mother’s before her goodbye? The narrowing of the eyes before the kiss, the gasp before the miles divide. And the frail thing you hold in strength is the body from whence you sprung; the breast against you is the breast you fisted and suckled. No tongue will charm like this, or scold: she who gave life: one becoming two. I kissed her, screwing up my fist. Better this purity than two becoming one. …
“Watch for Morfydd, Jethro?”
I nodded against her.
“And Mari. Be a good boy, now. Decent, remember.”
I closed my eyes. She knew.
“Yes, Mam.”
And she, the stronger, pushed me off.
“Go now,” she said.
I pushed a path through their forest of arms and shouldered my way to the rail behind the shippon. Head bowed, I gripped it, listening to the hooves of the pony beating on the road to Carmarthen.
CHAPTER 24
WE DID the gates proud under the leadership of Flannigan; got two down and in flames and heading for the third. If Tom Rhayader had coolness Flannigan had dash and he led us headlong down the main street of the town, galloping wraiths with a thunder of hoofbeats – all sixty of us that night and mounted, more on foot. Caught a glimpse of wizened faces at windows, heard the screaming of a frightened child. Curtains were going over, doors being bolted, windows slamming to the galloping Rebeccas. Powder-guns raised we clattered down the cobbles past the Black Lion to the end of the town and wheeled, Randy sitting back on his haunches, pawing the air at the obstructing gate.
“Down with it, down with it!” roared Flannigan, dismounting, and men fell to the task with the hatchets going up and the powder-guns crashing. I saw Matthew Luke John again, well to the front, ramming his powder-gun, shouting with joy, and he swung it to the window of the tollhouse as I was spitting on my hands to swing an axe at the bar. A window came open and out popped a head, weeping, protesting, begging for life.
“Leave the house!” cried Flannigan. “No time for the house, get the gate – just heard the dragoons are two miles off. By God, we will finish the job we started.”
“Out sentries!” yelled a man, and the outriders wheeled and galloped up the road. Men
