by Rosie Harris
‘I take it that means you haven’t.’ He stroked his beard thoughtfully.
‘It was late July when I last saw him,’ admitted Kate.
‘And you haven’t spoken to him since?’
‘I didn’t expect to. I’d been given my orders…’
‘There’s danger in it,’ he warned, cutting her short. Their eyes locked. Each summing up the other. Kate bit her lips nervously, her blue eyes pleading, afraid he was going to refuse her offer.
‘When we decide to move, a cart will be following the marchers to Newport.’
‘Can I ride in it?’ she interrupted eagerly, smiling with relief when he nodded in agreement.
‘Now get about your business,’ growled Llew Lloyd, frowning. ‘Serve the ale and keep your mouth tight closed. Say nothing to Dai Roberts, mind, he’s in the employ of Crawshay Bailey.’
‘Promise you won’t go without me.’
‘I’ll give you the signal when we are ready to leave.’
Kate was conscious that his dark eyes followed her speculatively as she moved amongst the men and she felt overwhelmed by her own daring.
She knew Dai Roberts had seen her talking to Llew Lloyd, but she parried his questions. The Chartists might use the Bull as their meeting place but, as Llew Lloyd had pointed out, the landlord might well be an ear for Crawshay Bailey.
Two days later, as she placed a tankard of ale in front of him, Llew Lloyd murmured softly so that only she could hear, ‘Be round the back at midnight on Saturday.’
‘I’ll be there!’
‘Not a word to Dai Roberts or anyone else, understand?’
Kate thought the evening would never end. She served the customers mechanically, her mind ablaze with excitement, a jumble of what she had to do in readiness.
That night, when she went up to her attic bedroom, she packed everything into her canvas bag except the clothes she would be wearing and the money she’d secreted in the pocket tied round her waist. She’d come back when it was all over and collect her bag and the wages Dai Roberts owed her.
She had no idea how long she’d be gone, or what sort of conditions they would encounter, so she’d chosen her warmest clothes, and her cashmere shawl as well as her cloak. The weather had turned colder. High winds were scouring the mountainside, coating houses and people alike with brown ash from the ironworks.
The nearer the time came for their departure, the more churned up inside Kate felt. Llew Lloyd had not been near the Bull since he’d passed her the message, but Dai Roberts seemed to sense that something was being planned. Several times he’d tried to pump her for information, but her wits were sharper than his and she parried his questions with good humour, refusing to betray the trust placed in her.
By Saturday her nerves were on edge. She kept to her usual routine, cleaning the bar as soon as she came downstairs, then cooking Dai Roberts a breakfast of bacon and eggs.
The grey November day dragged by. The taproom was crowded, the men noisy and argumentative. As she wiped down the tables and washed the tankards at the end of the evening her hands were shaking.
‘I’m away to bed,’ she told Dai Roberts as she rinsed out the cloths and spread them over the barrels.
‘Why do you insist on sleeping up in that draughty old attic,’ he jibed. ‘What’s the matter with you, girl? Why don’t you move down to the room next to mine?’
‘I like it up there.’
‘You’d find it more pleasant to be looking out on to the street instead of the backside of Coity. And much warmer now winter’s in the air.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ she told him placatingly, anxious to get away.
‘You do that. And think about staying on here for good. I’m willing to marry you and give your child a name,’ he offered.
Kate felt the colour drain from her face. She stared at Dai Roberts wide-eyed, her hand over her mouth to hide her trembling lips. Whatever had made him say that, she thought aghast.
‘Think about it, cariad,’ he told her, clutching at her arm. ‘I’ll give you a name and a good home.’
She shook his hand away, panic-stricken at what his offer implied.
‘We don’t have to stay here,’ he added quickly. ‘We could live in Govilon, the place where I grew up.’ His eyes grew hazy. ‘You’d like it there. A cottage with fields and trees all round it,’ he promised as she made for the stairs.
Chapter 26
The anger of the Fforbrecon miners died almost as suddenly as it had flared.
Roddi Llewellyn’s exclamation of alarm brought the scuffling and fighting to an abrupt halt. Mouths agape, they stared in horror at the two entwined, mangled bodies lying beside the upturned cart where minutes before the fighting had been at its worst.
‘Poor dabs, they both look dead.’
‘Duw anwyl! That one’s head’s cracked open like an egg!’
‘The one on top looks like a bloody owner!’
‘Bugger would be on top. Die the same way as they live.’
‘He mightn’t be dead. Could be he’s just out cold.’
Having expressed their unease the men shuffled back. In groups of four or five, they muttered amongst themselves, shrugging their shoulders, turning up their collars against the keen wind as they moved away, unwilling to be involved.
‘We’d best see what we can do for them.’ Llewellyn grabbed the arm of the man nearest him.
‘Not me!’ Griff Rogers shook himself free. ‘My da’s lying in the bottom of that pit and no one wants to do sod all for him.’
‘You there, Garth Samuels, tell Prys Howell I want him. And you, Tomos Smart, fetch the doctor,’ Llewellyn ordered.
‘Bugger off.’
‘Fetch ’em yourself.’
‘I don’t give a damn which of you goes for Howell and the doctor as long as someone does,’ snapped Llewellyn as he dropped on his hunkers beside the two inert bodies.
‘Here’s Howell now,’ a voice called out.
‘There’s bad they look,’ Prys Howell grunted as he reached Llewellyn’s side.
‘There’ll be the devil to pay for this day’s work,’ Llewellyn told him gloomily.
‘What d’you suppose we should do?’
‘God knows!’ Llewellyn stood up, running a hand through his scant hair.
‘We can’t just leave them lying here.’
‘I tried to tell the owners that the men wouldn’t stand for that gallery being sealed off,’ muttered Llewellyn, ‘but you can’t talk to that bloody Pennington.’
‘Never mind about that now,’ interrupted Howell, ‘what are we going to do with these two? Have their families been told what’s happened?’
‘No,’ grimaced Llewellyn. ‘One of them is Owen Jones.’
‘Owen Jones! It can’t be.’ Prys Howell bent forward and gingerly pushed the mass of blood-soaked hair clear of the man’s face. ‘His shift was trapped by the cave-in. He’d changed over with his brother Ieuan.’
‘Duw! Why was that?’
‘Ieuan’s wife dropped their seventh the night before so he’d stayed home to give a hand, then he did Owen’s shift in return, like.’
‘So it’s Ieuan who’s down there. Duw anwyl! What will happen to his family now?’
‘God knows. Perhaps Owen Jones will take on his brother’s lot… that’s if he pulls through.’
‘Owen’s a man who likes his freedom, and that sounds like a life sentence to me,’ muttered Prys Howell.
‘Anyway, Ieuan’s wife’ll have enough on her plate with a new babba. She won’t want to be bothered with a sick man. Be a long time before he’s fit again, I reckon,’ Llewellyn said gloomily.
‘Who’s the other one, then?’
‘Not sure. From the way he’s dressed he could be one of the owners.’
‘God almighty! Don’t say that, mun. They’ll crucify us.’
‘They’re going to seal off that gallery, you know. Leave all the bodies down there,’ Llewellyn muttered. His dark eyes glittered with s
uppressed anger.
‘Nothing we can do about that at the moment,’ Prys Howell told him. ‘Anyway, it won’t help matters to leave this poor dab lying here to die, now will it?’ He dropped on one knee and, opening David’s jacket and shirt, slipped a hand inside.
‘Is he gone?’
‘No, he’s still alive. Come on, give me a hand to move him.’
‘You look after him if you want to,’ muttered Llewellyn shaking his head. ‘Me, I’m sick of the whole bloody pack of them.’
‘Don’t talk daft, mun. You’re the manager here, not me!’
‘If he dies then good riddance to him. It’ll be one less owner we have to fight,’ retorted Llewellyn dourly.
Howell looked hopefully at the men still clustered within earshot, trying to decide if any of them might be willing to help. As if guessing his intention they began to edge away.
A group of women, his wife amongst them, who’d come to see what all the commotion was about, stood their ground. Arms folded, they waited and watched.
‘Megan, girl,’ he called. ‘Come over here a minute.’
‘What for?’ Her neat figure stiffened.
‘I need a hand. There’s been a couple of fellows hurt.’
‘You’d better send for a doctor then, cariad.’
‘It may be an hour or more before he gets here. Come and see what you can do for them.’
There was a murmur of dissent from the other women as Megan moved to do her husband’s bidding, but no one tried to stop her.
‘Looks terrible!’ she gasped. On her knees she smoothed back the blood-matted hair from the men’s pulped faces. Untying David’s white stock she removed it and folded it into a pad to staunch the flow of blood from a deep cut on his temple.
‘This one’s Owen Jones, isn’t it?’ she asked, looking up at her husband, her brown eyes anxious. ‘He’s had a terrible crack on his head, enough to turn him dippy.’
‘They’re both in a bad way, girl.’
‘You say someone’s gone for the doctor?’
‘Yes, a while back. There’s no knowing how long he’ll be, mind.’
‘Proper state they’re both in,’ tutted Megan. ‘We’d better get them inside then and clean them up.’
‘Don’t talk so daft, woman! The others would never stand for it if we tried to move them.’
‘They won’t lift a finger to try and stop us,’ Megan said confidently. ‘The fight’s gone out of them.’
Howell looked at his wife in silence, wondering if she was right. Small and scrubbed, with her dark hair pulled back into a tight bun, Megan possessed wisdom that often surprised him even after ten years of marriage.
‘We’ll have to see what Roddi Llewellyn says. He might let us move Owen Jones, but I don’t know about the other chap.’
‘Why is that then?’ queried Megan.
‘Llewellyn’s so bloody mad with the owners that he can’t see sense at the moment.’
‘You mean this other fellow is one of the owners?’ Megan murmured as she reapplied the blood-soaked makeshift pad.
‘That’s what Llewellyn said.’
‘Has he thought of the consequences if he leaves the poor dab here on the ground? He’ll catch pneumonia for a start in this weather.’
‘One less owner to fight is what he says.’
‘They’ll crucify the lot of us if they find out that one of their lot’s been hurt,’ pointed out Megan.
‘It’s happened, so it’s too late to do anything about that now,’ grumbled Prys Howell. ‘I’m beginning to wish I’d done the same as the others and just walked away.’
‘Perhaps we should try and find out who this other man is, then we could send him home and let his family nurse him,’ mused Megan.
‘That’s one way out.’
‘But is it the right one, I wonder?’ she frowned.
‘Probably not. They’ll still want revenge because he’s been hurt.’
‘So what are we to do?’
‘Nothing at all, as I see it.’
‘We could nurse him back to health…’ She looked down at David’s inert body thoughtfully. ‘He’s quite young, he might be so grateful that he’d be reasonable about what’s happened.’
‘I doubt it! Owners are never reasonable, Llewellyn will tell you that,’ scowled her husband.
‘Well, instead of just standing around doing nothing, why don’t you ask Roddi Llewellyn what he thinks?’ remonstrated Megan.
‘Waste of time. You try talking to him. He might take some notice of a woman but I know he won’t listen to me.’
Megan was silent for a moment, her lips pursed as if deep in thought. Then she walked over to where Llewellyn was arguing with a group of miners. Howell waited. He saw Llewellyn shake his head angrily. Minutes passed, then, as Megan persisted, Llewellyn shrugged his shoulders as though capitulating.
‘What’s he say, then?’ demanded Prys Howell impatiently.
‘We can move them.’
‘Where?’
‘I told him I’d take them both back to our house.’
‘You did what!’ exploded her husband angrily.
‘What else can we do with them… Leave them lying here on the ground?’ she questioned, her eyes flashing angrily.
‘You’re daft, that’s what you are. Daro! It’s just asking for trouble, Megan.’
‘You were the one who called me over and said you wanted help,’ she reminded him tartly.
‘I know that, but I didn’t mean for you to take them home.’
‘No one else will.’
‘But if one of ’em is an owner…’
‘We don’t know that for certain. He might only be a clerk working for one of the owners. That might be the reason no one’s missed him yet, or bothered to come looking for him.’
She turned away as a group of men approached carrying an assortment of planks of wood.
‘Where d’ye want these, missus?’
‘Right here. We’re going to use them as stretchers so that we can move these men.’
‘Waste of time moving this one, missus. He looks dead already.’
‘Hang on a minute, it’s Owen Jones!’ exclaimed one of the others.
‘His head’s all bashed in! What bugger did that?’
‘He was fighting with the other chap,’ Prys Howell told them. ‘Looks as though they knocked each other out cold and then they’ve been trampled on in the general scuffle. Pretty bad they are.’
‘Who’s the other one then? Not one of our boyos.’
‘No one seems to know. He might have come with the owners.’
‘Dressed like a bloody toff an’ all. Must be one of the gentry.’
‘Bleeds and bruises like the rest of us.’
‘Daro! And it’s red not blue.’
‘That’ll do,’ scolded Megan primly as they laughed uproariously at the crude joke.
‘Can we go now, missus?’
‘Not until you’ve given a hand with these two,’ she told them sharply.
Under Megan’s directions they lifted the two inert bodies on to the makeshift stretchers.
‘You’d better use your belts and mufflers to strap them in place so that they don’t fall off when you’re carrying them,’ Megan warned.
‘We’ll take Owen Jones, but not the other chap,’ growled one of the men.
‘Yes, you will,’ insisted Megan. ‘You’ll carry both of them to my house. I’ll go on ahead and make some beds ready for them,’ Megan said, ignoring their grumbles.
‘Remember to tell Roddi Llewellyn where to send the doctor,’ she called back to her husband as she hitched up her ankle-length black skirt and began to run down the rough track.
Roddi Llewellyn glowered when Prys Howell told him what was happening.
‘Duw anwyl! You’re bloody mad. You’ll get us all in trouble,’ he stormed, his sallow face flushed with anger.
‘Couldn’t leave them lying where they were. Anyway, you were the one who gave my wife per
mission to move them.’
‘Nagged into doing so would be nearer the mark.’
‘Send the doctor over to my place then, will you?’
‘Wait a minute.’ As Prys Howell started to walk away Llewellyn called him back.
‘What is it now? My Megan will be needing a hand with those two.’
‘A word.’ Llewellyn took his arm and propelled him out of earshot of the other men. ‘Do you and your missus know what you’re doing… have you thought this thing through?’
‘What d’ye mean?’
‘If Owen Jones dies, that other bugger’ll be a murderer. They were fighting, remember!’
‘Hardly murder, mun. Just an accident. Owen Jones probably struck his head when he fell.’
‘And why did he fall?’
‘Well… as you said… they were fighting.’
‘More likely Owen Jones was attacked from behind.’
‘We don’t know that. The worst of their injuries are probably from being kicked and trampled on by the men when they were fighting.’
‘Before they fell to the ground, Owen Jones was attacked from behind by the other fellow. Plenty of the men saw it happen,’ Llewellyn’s dark eyes glittered.
‘In that case then, someone must know who he is.’
‘I’ve already told you, mun! He’s one of the bloody owners’ lot.’
‘You’re sure about that?’ Prys Howell felt uneasy.
‘Facts speak for themselves.’ Llewellyn’s face was impassive; ‘I saw him at the meeting and watched him climb up on to the cart with the rest of them.’
‘Duw anwyl! What’s to be done then?’ Prys Howell’s mouth dropped open in bewilderment. He broke into a cold sweat and wished he’d never got embroiled. If he hadn’t called Megan over and she hadn’t taken it upon herself to care for the two men none of this would have mattered as far as he was concerned.
‘It’s complicated.’ Llewellyn pushed his cap to the back of his head and scratched his head. ‘I know what I’d do.’
‘Go on then, tell me.’
‘I’d keep that owner bloke well away from Owen Jones and let him think he’d killed ’im.’
‘What good will that do?’
‘Give us power over him, see!’
‘I don’t follow you…’
‘If we protect this fellow from the law we’ll be able to ask whatever terms we like from the owners. By the time they find out Owen Jones is still alive it’ll be too late, they’ll have given in to our demands.’
