, and only wanted us to
leave off work and go along with them. I was a young fellow then,
up to any lark, and didn't make much fuss about it. So off we
went to Dowlais, freed the men there, and we all had a good drink
together.

"Next day the soldiers came in earnest: Scotchmen with petticoats
on, and nasty-looking guns on their shoulders. I stood in a passage
whilst they marched down High Street from Cyfarthfa way, and didn't
like the look of things at all. But close upon their heels came all
our fellows, with bludgeons in their hands, and one of them, a man
from Dowlais, had tied a red pocket-handkerchief on a stick and waved
it over his head like a flag. The soldiers tramped steadily along till
they got just above the Castle Inn, and there they halted, our men
pressing on till they filled the open place below the Castle, as well
as crowding the street behind the soldiers, who looked to me, as I
hung on by the hands and legs to a lamp-post, just like a patch of red
in the centre of a great mass of black. The soldiers had some bread
and cheese and beer served out to them, but they were a long time
getting it; for as soon as any one came out of the Castle with a loaf
of bread and a piece of cheese some of our men snatched it out of
their hands and eat it, jeering at the soldiers and offering them bits.

"The soldiers never said a word or budged an inch till the Sheriff
looked out of the window and asked the little fellow who was their
commander-in-chief to draw them up on the pavement close before the
hotel. The little fellow said something to them; and they turned round
their guns so as the butt ends were presented, and marched straight
forward, as if our fellows were not on the pavement as thick as ants.
There was a little stoppage owing to the men not being able to clear
off because of the crowd on the right and left. But the thick ends of
the guns went steadily on with the bare-legged silent soldiers after
them, and in a few strides the pavement was clear, and the soldiers
were eating their bread and cheese with their faces to the crowd, and
a tight right-handed grip on their muskets.

"The Sheriff got on a chair in the doorway of the Castle, with the
soldiers well placed between him and us, and made a rigmaroling
speech about law and order, and the King; but he said nothing about
giving us more wages. Our master, Mr. Crawshay, was in the hotel too,
and so was Mr. Guest, of Dowlais. Evan Jones, a man who had come