Hosts of Rebecca

their baskets at their feet. Waiting for Towey to get clear being the truth of it, for a six inch coal nut takes some heading.
“Good morning,” they said in chorus. “Who you after, man?”
“Liam Muldooney.”
“Down on Number Two, girl.”
“Eh, there’s lucky. Biblical, mind, but a dear little man, old Liam.”
“Hewing, then?” asks one, stumps of teeth champing – Towey’s mam by the look of this one.
“Hewing for him,” said Morfydd. “I am for towing.”
“You got the pads, girl? ’Tis terrible rocky. Plays the devil with your poor old knees.”
“I have pads,” says another, and Morfydd catches them.
“Strangers, is it?”
“Aye.”
“Brother and sister?”
“Don’t be daft, girl – look, spit and image.”
“Dear God, anna she pretty!”
“Church of England, is it?”
“Chapel,” I said.
“Eh, Chapel! Oi, Meg Benyon by there – strangers are Chapel, you heard? Nothing like Chapel, mind, real Christian, and a fine little minister we have in our Horeb, very good to the children, bless him, too.”
“We are Horeb,” I said to please her.
“Speak for yourself,” whispered Morfydd.
“Now, where’s that Meg Benyon? Anyone seen Meg Benyon?”
“Passed just now, Crid – gone back to Muldooney.”
“Well, there’s a pity, for she is with Muldooney. Horeb, eh? What a coincidence. Where you from, boyo?”
“Nantyglo.”
“Where the hell’s that, man?”
Morfydd told her.
“Other end of the earth, eh? O, well, got to get going.”
“Is that old Towey up?” She looked Towey’s grandmer till she bent to the basket and it flew up under her hands. Must have been forty, no more.
“Shake your legs, woman.”
“Up a dando, then – give a bunk on this old basket. Take care of the strangers, mind. Liam Muldooney they are after, see?”
On.
Hand in hand now, me and Morfydd; along the galleries where the trams are thundering, with the tallow lamps flaring in crevices of rock, on to the switch road where the nightshift lies hewing, naked as babies, these men, flat on their backs. And the tallow lamps flash on their postures of love-making, rolling, frowning up to the black seam, picking, chinking as they head the new gallery. A snake of women now, bending to their baskets, headed by a Welsh girl, broad as a man, stripped to the waist and shining with sweat.
“Right for Number Two, Liam Muldooney?” I asked her.
“Next gallery, boy. You just come down?”
“Aye,” said Morfydd.
“The props are going on Six – has Gower heard?”
“Never mentioned it,” said I.
“Give it an hour and the roof will be in.” She turned, cupping her hands, shouting above the picks. “Gower don’t know, Mark. Send Foreman down, is it?”
“Head first if you can, followed by the owner,” came a whisper from darkness.
The Welsh girl nudged me sideways.
“That your sister, man?”
“Aye.”
“Watch, then. A swine for a face as pretty as that, is Job Gower. Eh, hark at that Bronwen!”
Bronwen is howling by the draught door of the gallery that heads Number Six. Important is Bronwen, shilling a week; opening and closing the draught doors so men can breathe.
“Now, now,” said Morfydd, kneeling. “What you crying for, you pretty little thing?”
Cats.
“Cats, is it?” asks Morfydd, cooing.
“Took the bread from my fingers,” says Bron, and her arms went out, but Morfydd folded them back. Frowning up, she said, “Bait bag, Jethro,” and I gave it to her. “There now,” says Morfydd, “we will give you more bread. Damned old thievers, them cats. You have this, Bron.”
“Stand clear,” cries a voice, and Bron opens the draught door.
Meg Benyon, this time, the Meg we missed farther back. On all fours is Meg Benyon, shod as a donkey, kneepads, handpads, with a belt round her middle and a chain over her flanks, and up on her haunches she goes, smoothing her black hair from her face.
“Well now, good morning. Just come to see Bronwen I have, and bump into strangers. Welsh, is it?”
I gave her some and she slapped her thigh, joyful. “Well, there’s a pleasure – all in the family. Two in three are foreigners these days, undercutting wages. Chapel, too, is it?”
“Horeb,” I said, getting used to it.
“Well! And I called you strangers! O, hush your moaning, Bronwen, fach. You still weeping? Still the old cats, is it? Now you leave them to Benyon, I will give them a belting.” She looked as us, eyes flat. “A scandal, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“No child of mine would come down the pits. Die first. You towing, girl?”
“Over with Muldooney.”
“And I am hewing there,” I said.
“Same face as me. There’s fine. A caution is Liam, mind – good job you’re Chapel, though he’s Irish as the shamrock. Lay preacher spare time, too – very kind to my mam, Mrs Towey – taking her from ladders a week next Monday. Never been the same since she lost our dad. You see her coming down?”
“Saw her going up,” I said.
“Six at home she had, see? Me being eldest, and I am going up soon, says Muldooney, being in child. Three months more, have it in summer. You be gentry, says old Liam Muldooney, you have it in comfort up in daylight, leave the pit-births to donkeys though they carried our Lord. Eh, God bless our Liam – second saviour, I reckon, treats you respectful, not like that Gower. Ah, well, got to get going. Straight down, now, follow your noses.”
Mane flying in the draught, hooves scraping, harness chinking, Mrs Benyon goes through with the coal tram after her, ducking her head to the two foot roof – the tunnel that leads to the waiting carts.
Liam Muldooney is fetching out coal, trews on, thank heavens, lying in the pit props. Long and gaunt, with the face of a grandfather, was Liam, though I guessed him right at under fifty. Away with his pick and he scrambled out.
“Be damned,” said he. “There’s a neat little woman for me – Irish, is it?”
“Welsh,” I said. “Are you Liam Muldooney?”
“Sure as I’m Irish – you sent by Gower?”
We told him. “Trams and hewing, when do we start?”
“God be praised for a spirit, now,” said he, and down on a rock with him and out with