I thought you were a brawler, said Isaac Hartley. But it seems you’re not so solid.
I’ll fight any man, me.
I licked you in two punches, turncoat – and you’ll get the same twice daily if you don’t get yourself to York Castle and beg forgiveness from your king. You’re lucky you have someone speaking up for you.
James Broadbent said nothing.
Soon it will be Samhain. Two weeks hence.
James Broadbent shrugged.
The beginning of the darker half, said Isaac Hartley. And them stone holes are no place to be in winter.
Especially for a king, nodded James Stansfield.
The one true king of the north, nodded Isaac Hartley.
James Broadbent looked sullen. He said nothing.
Death awaits you should you fail, turncoat.
I said I would help and I will.
By Samhain eve my brother and James Jagger will be at their fire-sides, giving their wives a tickle. The bastard Deighton’s case will have collapsed and you might yet still be alive to see another Calderdale day. That is what will happen.
Perhaps, said James Broadbent.
Isaac Hartley moved closer.
No, not perhaps. That is what will happen. Otherwise every day you will get a beating like this. Mob-handed the Coiners will seek their revenge. Every day a new broken bone.
James Broadbent grunted.
Tomorrow I will travel to Halifax and do this business you ask of me he said.
Halifax?
That is where the black devil Deighton resides.
At this Isaac Hartley exploded. His face was suddenly animated and his spittle flecked the face of James Broadbent
Fuck the black devil bastard cuntsucking Deighton, he cussed. It’s the king’s forgiveness you first must find, because without that you’re as good as dead and buried.
Fine. Tomorrow I will go—
Isaac Hartley stood as close to James Broadbent as he could. Stared him down. His nose nearly touched the other man’s chin.
Tomorrow? My brother rots in the dungeons of York in another county and you talk about tomorrow. Tonight. Tonight you go to York and you get down on your knees and you beg for forgiveness. You beg for your life and that of your family.
James Broadbent did not flinch. A small, slight trickle of blood ran from one nostril and settled in the stubble of his upper lip. His tongue darted out to taste it.
And I will go with you, said Isaac Hartley.
You?
Only an imbecile would let you out of their sight when my brother’s liberty hangs in the balance. No. I’ll fetch us horses.
And what of my father?
What of that mangy dog?
Can he come too?
He is an old man with one foot on death’s doorstep – and a fool with it too said Isaac Hartley. No. He will only slow us down.
Not by horse he won’t.
He does not need to come.
I would prefer that he was kept within sight.
Do you think I’ll have him killed in your absence?
James Broadbent did not reply. Isaac Hartley gave a knife-wound smile and nodded.
Then you’re finally learning how this works, turncoat.
Beneath the shadows of the stone edifice that had darkened under the sheets of rain that fell in the night, David Hartley and James Jagger walked the iron palisade between the right wing that held the debtors and the governor’s chamber, and the left which housed the inmates.
Above them loomed the clock turret, the large ticking hands a form of torture to those held without conviction. Below, they paced the quadrangle whose bars looked out directly onto the street. City life was out there, just inches away, as people passed by going about their morning business.
York gaol may have been admired for its architecture and close proximity to the neighbouring court by those visiting dignitaries, writers and clergymen who received tours of the gaol, yet its inmates knew little of this. A fever had killed a quarter of its felons in one cruel month the previous winter and the noise that echoed around the stone dungeon chambers now robbed the inmates of any chance of unbroken sleep. Only in the infirmary did men have the luxury of reclining on rudimentary mattresses – and only ever in their last dying days.
Minor ailments went untreated. Fights were a daily occurrence as old grievances found a new home and inmates included some as young as eight or nine years old, easy prey for the many predators awaiting trial for a litany of transgressions.
The two valley men walked the length of the gaol and then back again as the sky darkened and the fine morning rain danced around them.
As they passed by cells they saw their fellow inmates. Some sleeping, others slumped in their straw. Faces looked out blankly from between their bars, others attempted conversation with acquaintances further along the wing.
They saw one felon crouched over the drain runnel with his trousers around his boots, another huddled naked and covered in drying brown streaks of his own effluence. His eyes wide and white, watching like a cornered animal.
The rain drew down and David Hartley tilted his head to it; he tasted it, let it wash his face. He opened his mouth and tried to catch the elongated droplets. While James Jagger cursed, David Harley let the drizzle mat his hair and soak his shirt until it was so wet that he took it off and draped it around his neck, letting the cold October air tighten his white flesh and bring it out in tiny bumps.
He felt Yorkshire on his skin. Then they were called back in.
The three men rode through the night.
James Broadbent felt his ribs and his nose and his head ache, and his sick stomach moil sour from a lack of food and the hangover that had set in, while alongside him his father coughed and quietly moaned about having to undertake another nocturnal journey. Isaac Hartley, the second of the Hartley brothers, rode with quiet determination, saying little.
At the Kings Arms in Leeds they took drink and food and had the horses fed and watered and then proceeded on to York. For fifty miles they rode through darkness. Twice there were violent downpours that soaked them through and once a badger flashed before them to send the horses skittish.
They entered York in the middle of the night and found a place to tie up the horses, then they climbed a bank of dirt to take shelter in a dark triangle of shadow cast by the old wall that ran around the city. From here they could rest and watch the animals.
James Broadbent and Joseph Broadbent and Isaac Hartley arrived at York Castle in time for the daybreak turn-out of those inmates allowed to slop out their basins and water jugs and stretch themselves with a half hour’s exercise in the yard. From the street side they could shout through the bars. Isaac Hartley called to the nearest man. He slowly sauntered over.
I’m looking for the one they call King David.
The prisoner stared at him a moment.
The only king I know is the one that sits on the throne down that London he said. George I believe they call him. No kings in here though.
I’m talking about the true king of the north – David Hartley the king of the Cragg Vale Coiners of Calderdale. My brother.
Now them I have heard of. The Coiners is the ones that do the clipping.
So they say, said Isaac Hartley.
Clever idea, is that. Is he one of that lot then, your brother?
He is.
In here, is he?
He is.
Well then. He’ll not be long for the gallows I expect. They say it’s a capital crime is that.
Isaac Hartley reached through the bars and yanked the man towards him. He cracked his forehead on them once and then a second time. The inmate howled in pain. Other men in the yard looked over but no turnkey appeared. They did not care what happened in the yard; whatever went on in the outside air was prisoners’
business.
Go and find him.
The man stepped back and scowled, touching his fingers to his brow.
Now, said Isaac Hartley.
Or what?
Or I’ll have someone in here slit you from cock-end to bottom lip in your sleep this very night.
A few minutes later David Hartley and James Jagger crossed the yard and greeted Isaac Hartley. They shook hands and grabbed at each other’s forearms between the bars. Isaac Hartley pressed a sackcloth parcel through.
There’s good food in there brother, he said. A cooked chicken and apples and boiled eggs and plenty of your Grace’s biscuits. Enough for a few days. A jar of stingo too.
And coins for the turnkey?
Of course, brother. Of course. A Coiner without coins is no man at all.
Jagger took the sack and rifled through it. He pulled out an apple and bit into it.
Seeing James Broadbent and his father lurking behind him David Hartley raised a finger and said what’s that rat-cunt doing here?
He has some explaining to do.
About what?
You’re not going to like it.
To imajun I went back in my sell full of hope that day thinken on that perhaps Jaymes Broadbean cud stop us having to do the Tyburn Frisk and that mebbe he had sumhow been dubble cerossed by the bastid Dyeton which is not summat I woud put past the eggsize man becors remember the bastid Willyam Dieton dus this type of thing for a liven Yes he is payde by the crowne to trick and snare his prey just as the poacher tricks and snares the fesants from the trees at night or russels the stag from under the nose of the growndsmen Not that I wud ever kill a stag haven seen what Ive seen becors I know a stag is more than a meer deer of the wuds and hill and moors No a stag is summat else Aye but hees a crafty bastid all the sayme is Willyam Dieton As crafty as they cum.
But what I didunt reeleyes was that it was Broadbent that was pullen the strokes on us by tellen us he cud get us owt the York hole and if weed have been smart weed have kilt that man stone ded in his bed the very day he confessed in his cups to our Isaak what it was he done That is him becoming turncoat for the tacksman an all that Yes for that we shud have fed him his own borls and the old mans too for by orl accownts the old charcole burner Josuff Belch Broadbent was in on it as well and my own father did say Belch was a yellow belly rat breeder Thems two go back way back to when they was just sprats Spynluss fucks the pear.
Greed it was that oiled there tungs to the man Greed and cowerdyse and a streek of beetrayul.
No I never did truss Broadbent for he was big and stoopit and of cors the mayne thing is he didunt like King Dayvid Hartley His respect I did not have for one reesun or another.
Still it makes me mornful to think that that man walks the vally freely while I sit here lonelee with me pensil stub and paper and not even a tallow candul to lite us as I rite these memwars By jingo I think I woud even tolerate that gobby stinkpot Jaymes Jagga for a half hour or so.
After taking food at an inn by the York fortifications where a mildew pattern had formed on the wall in the shape of cat poised as if ready to launch itself, Isaac Hartley took James Broadbent and Joseph Broadbent on to an attorney called Wickham who held an office up a flight of stairs off Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate, and whose windows looked over the whipping posts and old stocks that stood in the street below.
Here they sat and stated their case.
Wickham listened impassive and close-faced as James Broadbent lied to the attorney about lying in his statement, and as he did he secretly took pleasure in the fact that no-one but he and his father knew the full truth of the situation, not even Isaac Hartley – especially Isaac Hartley – whose punches from the previous day had turned his nose crooked and blackened both his eyes and caused his breathing to be short. It would, if he got his way, which he fully intended to, come at a very high price to the Hartley brother that they called Duke Of York but who in fact was anything but that, for when they walked down the cobbled streets of the old city no-one gave them a double glance, suggesting to James Broadbent that Isaac Hartley was nothing but a braggart like the rest of that clan.
Isaac Hartley didn’t even know his way around the city of the nickname bestowed upon him and the humiliation of the beating sat heavy in James Broadbent’s sour, empty stomach.
Wickham listened and quietly catalogued what he saw: men of the hills of ill education. He saw black eyes and swollen knuckles. He saw a broken old man who looked set to expire right there in his front office. And he saw through the litany of lies with which James Broadbent was furnishing him. He saw bandits, vagabonds, and forgers out to cut each other’s throats at the first opportunity. He saw the jostling throng of Tyburn and the snap of the hangman’s trapdoor. He saw a lot of trouble for no money, for hanged men rarely pay their debts.
Isaac Hartley asked Wickham if bail could be secured for the two imprisoned men, to which he sighed and then patiently replied that this would first require William Deighton being called before a magistrate, which was unlikely, and that Broadbent would have to admit perjury before the same magistrate, and even then it would almost certainly be judged that Broadbent had done this of his own volition without solicitation from the exciseman who, these three ragged men from the hills should be aware, had an impeccable record. Not only that, he urged, but they should also note that Deighton was on crown business and, if that week’s newspaper reports were to believed, was on the very cusp of ending the biggest financial fraud on English soil that there had ever been. At this the men smirked. A smile even played about the corners of the stone-set mouth of Isaac Hartley
So how do we get my brother, King David Hartley, freed? asked the latter.
You go to trial at the assizes and prove his innocence, said Wickham.
How do we do that?
The same way any man would. You hire an attorney. You refute the evidence. You find others to vouch for your brother’s good character and standing. And you have an alibi.
This feckless fucker’s statement is all lies, said Isaac Hartley.
Then with God’s will the court will recognise this and your brother’s liberty will be assured said the attorney. If he is guilty then it is up to the court to mete out an appropriate punishment; though of course you’re no doubt aware such an offence as forging coins brings with it the highest penalty.
Our David is a man of notoriety now, said Isaac Hartley.
Wickham replied.
Yes. I believe I have heard of him.
And this exciseman has it in for us.
For all of you?
Yes.
Now why would that be?
Because.
Wickham frowned.
I find it difficult to believe that one single man in the employment of the crown’s own office would persecute dozens of lowly hill farmers and weavers – if that is what you say you are – purely for his own entertainment.
He does not work alone, said Joseph Broadbent. There is a lawman called Parker behind him. A young lad, but wealthy already.
That’s as maybe, said Wickham. But William Deighton clearly believes he has a case against both David Hartley and –
Here he paused to thumb through the papers before him.
James Jagger of Turvin, Calderdale, West Yorkshire. And of course a case against the others that he has named as forgers in the newspaper also.
What newspaper?
Wickham reached into a drawer and handed Isaac Hartley a folded copy of the London Gazette.
Our David is the book learner, he said quietly, and gave it to James Broadbent, who shrugged and then passed the paper to his father who held it an inch from his face for a moment and then passed it back to the attorney.
Even if I could my eyes is shot, he rasped. All is mist now.
Wickham considered the men.
Well it names at least a dozen men as go
od as guilty of this foul practice he said. And I do not believe that all of them are innocent, though they will no doubt protest it just as you protest the charges laid against your brother, Mr. Hartley. Nor do I know this William Deighton in person, though it seems to me he is a true hero of England, a man doing God’s work in a valley blighted. Now if you will gentleman.
Wickham stood. He did not offer his hand.
Does this mean Hartley’s not getting out, said James Broadbent as he slowly stood, pressing a hand to his broken ribs.
It means it is time for you to leave.
Fog filled the valley holes and pockets. It appeared as if it were living thing – a chimera that stalked the hollows, rising up from a river that was running thin after a mere three dry days in succession. It draped itself over the trees so that only the tips of the tallest branches reached out from this dense vapour like the fingers of a drowning man.
The swirling fog softened everything. It dampened all noise to a muted hush; the frantic chatter of the last roosting birds became restrained and the expansive sky which seemed so often to roar with the last scratches of dying light was now silent, an unseen ceiling.
Through this the men came down from their isolated homes. Again they gathered. Again in Barbary’s by night, where secrets could be better shared and strangers sent away, less they overhear something they’d have to be silenced over.
Yet still amongst friends, the eyes of the men would not settle. Restless, they flitted about in case they revealed their suspicion of one another – or worse, a suggestion of their own guilt.
The room too was thick with smoke as if the fog had seeped through the key-hole to bear witness to the conversations that were taking place.
Here were Coiners. Coiners subdued and shaken. Coiners concerned and fearful.
But still Coiners one and all.
They gathered in tight groups of two or three and drank slowly, for this was no celebration time.
There was Abraham Lumb and Absolom Butts.
John Wilcox and Joseph Hanson and Jonathan Bolton.
William Harpur and William Hailey and William Folds
Jonas Eastwood and Joseph Gelder and James Crabtree.
The Gallows Pole Page 21