Hosts of Rebecca

a pipe. “It’s a rest I am needing and you have come the right time, for I have a few minutes to give praise to my Lord.” From a little box beside him he pulled out a Bible. “Do you know this little Book, now, me darlin’s?”
“We are Welsh,” I said.
“Eh, and I forgot. The harder they hit us the deeper we go, isn’t it, and there’s fine feathers up in London town who’d have difficulty spelling the great name Samuel, and you and me know it off by heart. Lucky you are, mind, best face in the county, this – best vein and easiest pickings since shamrock land, or I’m not Liam Muldooney, though me real name’s foreign, now! Settle you down the pair of you for a talk with Liam,” and he patted the rock. I looked at Morfydd and saw pity in her face.
And I looked at Muldooney; at the battered head bumped by coal, the red-rimmed eyes of the lifelong collier. Men like Muldooney were as thousands in the upland counties, most with the look of the mountain fighter, though many had not seen a fist closed in anger. Flattened noses; screwball ears, as little bits of brain battered out of their skulls, by falls and clouts, not fists, and their speech came slow.
“Have you heard of the man of Kabzeel who did the fine acts, now?”
“Kabzeel,” I said, searching Samuel.
“Make it short, Benaiah,” said Morfydd.
“Well, there’s a woman – got me right first time, for sure. Just giving a little test, I am, for your knowledge of the Scriptures – necessary for people like us working within three foot of the Devil. And no offence, little maiden. Benaiah is my name, speak now.”
Morfydd was smiling, ever a soft spot for the Irish.
“Samuel twenty-three,” said she, “but you’ve hit me for the verse. Book two.”
“Good enough. I am working with Christian brother and sister – I can see that a mile. Verse twenty, for your information. Jehoiada was me dad, you see; slaughtering up the men of Moab – hitting up the Philistines right and left in spare time as I do every Sunday from pulpits in the name of Jesus the Lord. And down into a pit comes Benaiah to slay a lion in time of snow. You see the connection?”
“No,” I said.
“And you in a pit a hundred feet down?”
“Go on,” said Morfydd, happy with him.
“And in the depth of winter, and all!” He flared his pipe and the flame lit the forest of props about us and the tram line shimmering down the tunnel. Strange place to find a man with a Bible, least of all a prowling lion.
“Ah, me, little lady,” said Liam, and took Morfydd’s hand and kissed it. “No offence, you understand, for being shamrock I always kiss me friends, and I will not ask more, alone or not. Fallen among thieves, the pair of you, taking work with that pig Job Gower, but you will work at peace with Liam Muldooney who is a slayer when it comes to women-snatching foremen. And now it is winter and a time of snow, so hip and bloody thigh I will strike him if he pesters my women, begging the pardon of the Lord for the language, for with Jehoiada for a dad I couldn’t do otherwise. You listening?”
“God bless you, Mr Muldooney,” said Morfydd.
“So you come hewing, little man, and you go towing, little woman, with never a backward look for Gower, and I prefer my women covered in the breast, you understand?”
“Yes,” said Morfydd.
“And my men with trews, you see.”
“Of course,” I said.
“Now then, you seen my little Meg Benyon go by just now?”
“We passed her coming in,” I said.
“Aye, well I sent her up the switch to see to my Bronwen, for the tears of a child is the grief of angels. Right now, do not sit around. Kneepads, handpads, pick – down and get towing, girl, or we will not enjoy the Sundays.”
Stripping to the waist I joined him in the props. Morfydd waited till Meg Benyon got back with her empty tram, and she harnessed up to the one I was filling. Down on all fours she went between the rails, heaving.
“Good little tower, though,” said Liam, eyeing her. “She done it before?”
“Yes,” I said.
“She conceived?”
“She is single,” I said.
“Safe she will be on Muldooney’s shift though, and she is safer on towing than them dirty old ladders, so shift you over and do not be fidgety. Would you hear again about my dad?”
So we started in coal, Morfydd and me, at Ponty.

CHAPTER 8
FOR A year me and Morfydd had laboured with Muldooney for the first summer had been drenching and most harvests failing, and Grandfer was not keen to have me in the farming, though he did precious little of it himself.
But this spring had been glorious, with the countryside melting early in the quickening sun, and even the weeping willows on the banks of the Tywi were laughing and the lanes from Cae White fluttering white with blossom. Hedgehog Grandfer, yawning and stretching from his hop-winter sleep, rose up in April, and belted and buckled he fair bounced round the place. Even Mam came from mourning, dainty with lace from the money coming in. Mari had grown new smiles again, singing and tickling her baby Jonathon, growing lovelier with every day’s passing, and I was fishing for kissing terms with Tessa Lloyd Parry.
Eh, were I a poet I would write a song to Tessa up at Squire’s Reach, telling of the beauty of the daughters of the gentry. Seeing quite a bit of her lately, though I kept it secret, and sharp after Sunday dinners I would go through Waldo’s preserves to Squire’s Reach and a once-a-week loving. Held her hand Sunday before last. Kissing this week if I plucked up the courage.
There is kissing and kissing, of course. You can have one for a penny from Sixpenny Jane, though I’d never tried it,