Her grandfather had gone already. Emrys, though he had a good voice, never went since the practices took place in the chapel and both the mixed choir and the male voice choir were conducted by the Reverend Llewellyn. Emrys had no use for the preacher though he had admitted years ago that the words spoken at his wife’s funeral had been meant to comfort rather than chastise him. “Llewellyn is a fool,” he was fond of saying. “He preaches acceptance of our lot when we should be fighting to change it.” Even the fact that the Reverend Llewellyn had attended the Chartist meeting and led it in prayer and signed the Charter did not mollify Siân’s uncle. The preacher had not joined the Association and had spoken out against it. It was right to ask for changes, he had said, but it was not right to insist. “Bloody idiot,” Emrys had said before being commanded by his father to apologize to the women for using such language in the house.
