Pontardulais. Monday Evening.
It was pleasant to emerge from that dingy seat of fanaticism and fury, pseudo religion and moral violation of religion's broad principles. Its aspect almost recalled the description of one of Rome's imperial monsters, equally in physionomy and nature—"a mixture of dirt and blood." The day was superb, and the adjacent country, though rather tame for Wales, improved in rural beauty as we approached a crossway very near to this village, Pontardulais. Two cottages appeared in a green, quiet, dingle we were descending to, watered by a small river, and surrounded by sloping meadows, now yellowed by the evening sun, and well inhabited by their proper population, sheep and cows, now beginning their homeward course at the call of the milkmaid; the only other motion in this simply beautiful landscape, being a scattered gleaner or two, with her load, and the rather thick volume of blue smoke curling up from one of those cots, which, standing so close, without any other near, prompted the idea of some rustic old couple in conjugal quietude, smiling out life's evening, by themselves, apart from all the world. Such was the perfect calm of scene, and the day in which summer heat was joined to the golden serenity of autumn.
We were beginning to dismiss ugly Rebeccaism from our thoughts, meditating where we should find one of those Isaac Waltonian hostelries, with a sign swinging from an old tree, which we delight to make our evening quarters; for Pontardulais, we knew, was too lately a little battle-field to afford hope of this tranquil bliss, for here had occurred the first conflict, in which men had been wounded and prisoners made. The advance of evening, with its halcyon attributes of all kinds, had the effect of a lullaby on the mind, disturbed at every stage by some hurrying dragoon, some eager gossiping group, or fresh "news" of some farm "burned last night," or rumours of "martial law" being actually impending over us poor rebels of South Wales.
Reaching the little houses in their lonely crossway, we were startled by the appearance of a gutted house; the walls alone having remained to present to us, on the higher ground, the semblance of a white cottage. The old thatch, fallen in, and timber, were still smouldering visibly, though the house was fired about one A.M. yesterday morning.
Before the near adjoining cottage a quiet crowd of some twenty persons appeared, and a few rustic articles of furniture on the roadside. Where was their owner? Dismounting, we entered this cottage, that had looked all peaceful security so lately to our eyes. It had not been injured, but was all dismantled and in confusion; and stretched on some low sort of bench or seat, lay the murdered owner of that smoking ruin—the Hendy toll-house. Her coffin had been already made, (the coffin-plate giving her age, 75,) and stood leaning against the wall, but the body was preserved just as it fell, for the inspection of the jury. (The jury! a British jury! Is there a British man, incapable of perjury, of parricide, of bloody and blackest felony, himself, who will ever forget, who will ever cease to spurn, spit upon in thought, execrate in words, that degraded, wretched, most wicked knot of murder-screeners—the Hendy Gate jury?)
There was nothing in this dismal spectacle for a poet to find there food for fancy. All was naked, ugly horror. An old rug just veiled the corpse, which, being turned down, revealed the orifice, just by the nipple, of a shot or slug wound, and her linen was stiff and saturated with the blood which had flowed. Another wound on the temple had caused a torrent of blood, which remained glued over the whole cheek. The retracted lips of this poor suffering creature, gave a dreadful grin to the aged countenance, expressing the strong agony she must have endured, no doubt from the filling up of the breast with those three pints of blood found there by the surgeons. The details of this savage murder have been too fully given in all the papers to need repetition here. Suffice it to say, that to any one viewing the body as we thus happened to do, the atrocity of this heartless treason against society and the injured dead becomes yet more striking; it seeming wonderful that the piteousness of the sight—the mute pleading of that mouth full of cloated blood—the arousing ocular evidence of the unprovoked assassin's cruelty—the helplessness of the aged woman—her innocence—all should not have kindled humanity in their hearts, (if all principle was dead in their dark minds,) just enough to dare to call a foul murder "murder"—to turn those twelve Rebecca-ridden, crouching slaves into men! Some of them, probably, had old helpless mothers at home; did no flying vision of her white hairs all blooded, and the breast, where they had lain and fed, full of blood also, cross the conscience of one of them, when, by their conspiracy, protection for life was to be denied to her, to all, by their unheard-of abuse of the only known British protective power—trial by jury? It is almost an apology for them to imagine, that one or more of them were actually part of the gang. Self-preservation, under instant danger, (involved in a just verdict,) is less revolting than the less urgent degree of the same natural impulse, implied in the hypothesis of pure selfish and most dastardly dread of some remoter evil to self from the ill-will of those impugned by a righteous verdict.
The verdict, it will be remembered, was, that Sarah Williams died from effusion of blood, but from what cause is to this jury unknown!!! The designed trick—the sly juggle concocted by these men, sworn before Almighty God to tell truth respecting the cry of blood then rising to his throne, evidently was to leave a loop-hole for a doubt whereby justice might be defeated—a possibility, so they flattered themselves, that, just in the nick of time, a bloodvessel burst, or fright destroyed her, or any thing but the bloody hand of "Rebecca." Though, as the slugs were actually found in the lungs, the hope they "dressed themselves in" was as "drunk," as swinishly stupid, as their design was unmanly, inhuman, and devilish—to wink at this horror! to huddle up this murder, and hurry into the earth a murdered woman, as if she had lived out her term!
Whatever was the prompting feeling of this monster-jury, let us hope that the arm of the law will reach them yet, for this double crime against bleeding innocence and against their country. It would be a fitting punishment to them, to pronounce every individual an outlaw—to deny him all benefit of those laws he has done his best to defeat, and leave the craven traitor to his kind—to adopt his beloved "'Becca's" disguise for ever, skulk about the land that disowns him in petticoats, and blush out his life (if shame be left him;) and let his name be fixed up, as a scarecrow to deter such evil doers, on the wall of every court of justice:—"To the infamous memory of A. B., one of the perjured protectors of murder—The Hendy Gate Jury!"
Most revolting was the betrayed bias of almost all we spoke with, toward palliation of this dark act. "Didn't she die in a fit; or of fright; or something?" was a frequent question, even from those near the scene of this tragedy. "What did ail the old creture to go near 'em? Name of goodness! didn't they order her not?" Even from her own sex, a disgusting lack of warm-hearted pity and indignation was most palpable. Truly, morality and the meeting-house have a deep gulf between them, if these are the morals of the people. The regular church is really so little prized here, that we can only turn to the dissenting ministers of religious instruction, for the lower orders. And seeing these doings and sentiments in the flocks, one turns with astonishment to those professing teachers of the Welsh, and is ready to exclaim—"What is it that you do teach?" Only the mechanical part of religion, only the necessary outer mummery, I shall venture to say, which, perhaps, all revealed religions require, to maintain a hold on the reverence of the common people. It seems impossible that the voice of true religion can have reached hearts that a slight pecuniary interest, the abatement of a turnpike toll, or the like, can sear against the death-shriek of murdered woman; the cry of blood out of the earth; the fear of God's judgement against perjury, and connivance at murder!