‘By Castle Inn gathered in grey light of dawn,
Mob seething and restless, festering sore,
Come violence and murder, terrible strife,
Sixteen men killed, soldier stabbed with a knife,
“Black” the man’s name was,
Though, no one quite saw it,
Lewis Lewis was arrested and Dic from Penderyn.’
Rhys had been too young to understand the court cases that followed. But all knew those eighty trained soldiers had fired on the unarmed crowd. He remembered the pall of horror spreading from valley to valley, Tad’s fist pounding the table top.
‘One soldier! Only one soldier stabbed, him not even dead! Whereas sixteen Welshmen—sixteen innocent Welshmen are, even now, being laid to rest!’
Petitions had been circulated. Men of reason and power protested Dic’s arrest. But in London, Lord Melbourne wa
