fixed, three others firing over their heads, and
others behind handing up loaded guns as fast as they fired. There was a
lane speedily made amongst us in front of the doorway; but we had won
the fight for all that, and cheered like mad when the soldiers turned
tail.

"In a few minutes we shouted on the other side of our mouths. Without
any notice the windows of every room in the hotel suddenly flew up, and
out came from each the muzzles of a pair of muskets which flashed death
down upon us at the rate of two men a minute; for as soon as the first
couple of soldiers fired they retired and reloaded whilst two others
took their places and blazed away. A rush was made to the back of the
hotel, and we had got into the passage, when the bearded faces of the
Scotchmen showed through the smoke with which the house was filled, and
the leaders of our lot were shoved back at the point of the bayonet. At
the same time the windows at the back of the house flew up as they had
done in the front, and the muzzles of the muskets peeped out as they
had done before.

"This was getting rather hot for me. Men dead or dying were lying about
everywhere around the Castle Inn. If I had been asked that night how
many were killed, I think I should have said two hundred; but when the
accounts came to be made up, it was found that not more than sixty or
seventy were shot dead, though many more were wounded. I was neither
hurt nor dead as yet, and I thought I had better go home if I wanted to
keep so. I was below the Castle Inn at the time, and not caring to pass
the windows with those deadly barrels peeping out I turned down High
Street, and walked through the town. It was raining in torrents, and I
never saw Merthyr look so wretched. Every shop was closed, and
barricades placed across some of the windows of the private houses; and
as I walked along, trying to look as if I hadn't been up at the Castle,
I saw white faces peeping over window blinds.

"Merthyr was trembling in its shoes that day, I can tell you; and it
came out afterwards that every tradesman in the place had got together
all the bread, cheese, meat, pies, and beer he could put his hands on,
ready to throw out to the mob if they came knocking at his door.

"It was late at night when I got home, having gone a long way round, and
I saw nothing more of our fellows; but I heard that the wounded soldiers
had been taken up to Penydarren House, which was fortified by their
comrades, and h