Fortunately for Robert Thomas his bellows were heard by a widowed herdsman who grazed cows on the thick lush grasses of the plain and he and his sons came running from their home with lanterns and blankets and a rope that the eldest son used to lasso him as he clung to a semi-submerged log. Only then did Robert Thomas realise that he could in fact stand in the river, yet was too frozen by the shock of the waters to manage even that, so was instead pulled flailing and gasping by the herdsman and his two sons up onto the very same rock from which he had slipped. Here he was swaddled in blankets and led to the house where, in front of a stoked fire, he was stripped naked and given a cup of something strong and clear from an unmarked bottle, the likes of which he had never tasted before but which managed to bring him around.
The alcohol also served to loosen his tongue once more, and Robert Thomas started singing again, this time through chattering teeth that gave his song a new staccato rhythm with percussive enamel accompaniment. The herdsman and his sons looked on and shook their heads and one of them remarked that it seemed like they should have left this cracked cuckoo in yon river.
Only when Robert Thomas managed to rhyme the words frighten and Deighton though did the herdsman raise a hand and say: wait one tick, stranger, is this the exciseman William Deighton you sing of?
At this Robert Thomas raised his head from his chest and lifted the blankets further around his shoulders and said aye, the very same black devil himself, slayed by my own hand not but two nights since so that you good men might be free to carry on with your coining and your clipping and the valley will flow with gold once more. You can thank me in any which way you choose, starting perhaps with another nip of that fiery stingo you’ve got in that there bottle, friends, and very fine it is too.
In the clearing in the wood, where his blackened metal burner stood, Joseph ‘Belch’ Broadbent coughed through his pipe and watched as his eldest son lumbered through the frosted trees towards him.
He was speaking before he had stopped walking. His words were flat and breathless. They were devoid of shape or air; forged and flat like the coins he coveted.
The taxman William Deighton is done for father, he said. All the Royd is full of talk about it. Deighton is dead and with him goes our last chance of one hundred guineas.
What happened?
They say he was shot and stamped and then shot again. In the street it was.
By who?
Make a list father. Make a list of names and any one of them might have done it. One thing is certain though: the Hartleys are behind it.
Joseph Broadbent sat on one of the tree stump seats and removed his pipe from between his teeth. It had gone out so he upturned it and tapped out the black flecks of spent tobacco, then he coughed for a long time. He tapped and coughed.
Well, that’s that then, he finally said.
James Broadbent walked to the charcoal burner and pressed his palms to it. He flinched and then pressed them once more.
We have been robbed by ill fortune.
It was a roll of the dice, said the elder Broadbent. Getting involved with the taxman was always a risk and as with any cock fight or badger scrap it was a gamble, a decision for us to make as free men of sound mind. This time it has not paid off. Just be glad it was him that was shot and stamped and not you; be thankful your heart still beats. A man has died but you still walk the valley, my son.
But for how long? And anyway, this was all your stupid idea.
Joseph Broadbent coughed again.
I am old he said. It’s not a time for regrets. I doubt that I’ll see this winter though.
James Broadbent dismissed his father.
Don’t talk daft.
It’s true. Death is in my cage of ribs now. It has moved in. Taken root. Can’t you hear it?
It’s all this wood burning – that’s all, said James Broadbent. You’ve always suffered for your charcoal.
No, James. No. These days are numbered for me now.
You’ll be alright once spring comes around. You always get like this. Just wait for the first sign of snowdrops.
Joseph Broadbent spoke quietly.
When the snowdrops come I’ll be under them.
James Broadbent turned from the burner and paced.
Never mind your moaning, he said. It’s what’s occurring now that concerns me.
His father wheezed and spat.
You just keep your beak out of it all son.
My beak is already in. What if they think that it’s me that has done Deighton?
But you didn’t, said his father.
I know that. But folk know that Deighton had me over a barrel.
You’d not kill that man – not least because he’d not yet given you the money he promised.
But that’s exactly the same reason a man might want to murder him.
There’s no proof.
James Broadbent laughed incredulously at this.
Proof? Deighton works for the crown. The crown doesn’t need proof, you silly old cunt. When the man decides it’s you, then it’s you that will be swinging. There’s no arguing otherwise. Robert Parker is already gathering men of power, you can be sure of that, and these men from London won’t need telling twice. If enough people say my name then it’s me they’ll collar.
Joseph Broadbent re-packed his pipe.
Then you should find out who has done it in case you’re asked about it, he said in a quiet voice. Information is the only thing on your side.
Our side.
This is your business, son. I’ll be dead already by the time this is resolved. Mark my words. I’m down to darkening days now. The candle is at its stump and the wick is flickering. My shadow is growing long.
James Broadbent turned and snapped.
Then what are you doing out here mithering in the cold and tending to your stupid burner when you should be at home in bed?
I’ll go on doing what I’ve always done – that which folk know me for. Hard work on the land. My charcoal sacks sits in scores of houses. Folk will be kept warm all this winter because of a full calendar of toiling. I’m thanked for it.
You’re a silly old cunt, James Broadbent said again.
That’s as maybe, but it’s too late to change now.
James Broadbent kicked at the stiff frozen sod.
They say they is offering a reward for any man who has information. Parker has put up bills.
His father looked up.
How much?
Forty pounds.
That’s a lot of money, son.
It’s not safe for me here.
Forty pounds is worth some thought, said Joseph Broadbent.
The coining shall continue now that the taxman is gone, and I’m no longer to be trusted. I’ll be no part of it. There’ll never be any place for me here.
Pity will get you nowhere. And you could burn like your old father burns.
James Broadbent scowled.
I’d rather die than live your life.
Then talk to these lawmen who’ll soon fill this valley.
I cannot speak against the clipping gang again.
Take that forty pounds for it will surely get you to where you need to be going.
And where is that father?
Anywhere.
Here is all I know.
Then you’ll not know if for much longer. You’ll join me in the hearafter pushing up the snowdrops if you don’t use that head of yours for something other than butting and filling with beer.
The labourer had been paid for one month’s work breaking stones and clearing trees and burning out roots and stumps to make way for the new bridge in the woods down from Colden. The bridge would bring the goods to build the mill that would straddle the waterway. The water would turn the wheels and some men would die and a few others – one or
two perhaps – would get wealthy. Here too a chimney would rise above the trees, and a cluster of workers’ cottages were already marked out with stakes and ropes on frozen ground. At the first thaw the cellars would be dug in and the foundations laid.
His thirst was great after thirty days of sawing and splitting and smashing and digging, and the walk up from the woods to Heptonstall only made him crave the ale more. He went to the Cross Inn and took the first drink down in three gulps and then put coins on the bar.
Abraham Ingham was his name and Abraham Ingham had made a commitment that day to drinking ale until his head rested on the stone pillow. He had thought of it much during these cold weeks living under crisp canvas and drinking nothing but nettle tea and stream water. He had dreamed of that first taste; the way it would slip down and spread a malty warmness throughout his body.
The second one went down easily and the third he held in his hand as he turned to survey the room.
He saw that the fire was banked and snapping and the inn was quietly busy.
High up on the hill Heptonstall was an isolated place, a rarefied village of houses huddled like black sheep in a moor-top whiteout, all looking inwards as if to form a stone phalanx against invaders – in this case the elements and particularly the wind that whipped around its sharp corners at all times of the year.
The half mile walk down steep slopes to Hebden Bridge might as well have been a thousand times that; Heptonstall was its own world, a cloud land of scratching rain and whirlpool skies.
Abraham Ingham took more ale and by his fifth tankard he was buying drinks for new friends. Men like him, of blood blisters and dirty necks. He had come from Cumbria to work here and everything he had been told about this Pennine valley had so far proven to be true: that it rained constantly. That there was little sun and the moors were a strange and unending place like a dream you never wake from, a landlocked sea to be feared.
But in ale none of that mattered; only the moment. Only this Friday night. And his new friends too, these men of toil and soil and dirty jokes. Their acceptance mattered.
By drink number six he was singing Cumbrian shepherd’s songs accompanied by a small dark man with a drum and by drink number seven he was confiding his plans and hopes and secrets, one arm slung around a fellow drinker.
There were Greenwoods and Jaggers drinking in the Cross that night. Sutcliffes and Smiths. There were women too. Wives and sisters and cousins. Wildes and Butts and Barkers.
They listened and they watched as the labourer sang and swore and sloshed his drink. They listened too as he told anyone who cared to listen that he had heard tell of who it was that had filled the Halifax exciseman full of lead shot, and how he had a mind to turn those names over to the men that mattered. It was only right, was that. They heard him slur as he said he would see them men done for, because murder is murder and that man had a wife and children left wanting now.
And besides, he grinned, was there not a generous reward being offered?
They listened and they watched a little longer and then they rose. Not as one, but slowly over a minute or two. Drinks were downed and cups settled. Eyes checked the door. Glances passed between them. No words were exchanged – just a look here and there. A look was all it took. The twitch of an eyebrow across the room. A dipping of a head. The contents of a pipe tapped out onto a table. A cough. Conversations reduced to murmurs.
There were Butts and Barkers and Bentleys in there.
Tathams and Tillotsons. Harpurs and Hills.
The Wilcox boy.
And a Hartley too. The son of the brothers’ cousin, with a girl he was courting by his side. Here were the tangled roots of valley families who had lost good men to the cells because of the turncoat rat James Broadbent and the devil bastard William Deighton and some snotnose young town cunt called Robert Parker.
Men stood and Abraham Ingham didn’t even notice the tightening of the room; didn’t register the movement or the hush that settled or the bar-girl who put down her towel and left. The fire was snapping with the crack and hiss of a pyramid of split logs collapsing in on itself. A man bent to prod and rake it and then he left the tongs there in the white heart of it.
Another gently dropped the latch on the door.
Abraham Ingham, labourer, stone breaker and beer-drinker, was deep into his drink now and like a man swimming in ale he was repeating what he had said already, but speaking it as if for the first time, and louder still: and is there not a reward being offered?
Shadows lengthened then and boots scuffed the floorboards and hands were upon him. Two, three, four pairs. For a moment he thought it was a prank, a local ritual or the initiation of an outsider into the inn. He even laughed but then his feet were kicked away with force and he fell forward. Hands held him at collar and cuff and belt.
The fire popped and blue flames danced as Abraham Ingham was lifted and thrust towards it like a ram for battering. No words were spoken. Not one. The fire grew large and he was held there. He felt the wall of its heat. He saw as a hand reached for the tongs that were glowing incandescent orange and smoking as they were lifted from the florid grate.
Still no words were spoken as he was pushed and shoved and kicked and booted into the fireplace and the heat screamed at him then, and he screamed with it, and as hockle bubbled at his mouth it felt like the end of the world as an inferno raged around him and his legs thrashed, and his hair was gone in seconds, the smell of it acrid and bitter in the nostrils of all around him, and then the tongs closed around his neck like a noose of pure white heat and someone squeezed them tight as if he were a piece of metal being forged. And he was held there as his flesh blistered and burned and all was fire and everything was flame and he became the fire.
And even then no words were spoken as glowing coals were shovelled from the grate and dropped down his loosened trousers, his legs twitching and his burnt blackened head slumping into the raging chaos of wood and coal and the ash that fell gently like snowflakes down into the ass-hoil pan below, and the hot coals burnt and melted the flesh of his buttocks and back and genitals and thighs. They singed through his clothes and fell smoking to the inn floor. His skull was stripped in the blaze and left as a charred shape in the fire, as if placed there like a peat hag or a sawn green willow stump that was only good for slow-burning. The labourer Abraham Ingham was dead.
And then Sutcliffes and Smiths and Butts and Barkers and Bentleys and Harpurs and Hills and the young Hartley boy too turned back to their tables and their drinks and their talk and their troubles, and Abraham Ingham was left smouldering, a spent match in human form, his head and neck a scorched mess of bone and sizzling sinew and stubborn fat, of burnt blood and bubbling meat.
Turncoat ratts get what is cummen to them but just imajun what a burnded head popping must have sounded like Madd fucken thort that The sent of it All that bubblinmeet Chryst.
Rats is everwhere and jussed like the stagmen and the scaringcrows of the moors rats are following your King David Heartlee Yes now jussed yesterday the piss runnel of this prisson did get backed up and blocked up and the sells were fludded with piss and our straw beds did get soppen with the stink of it and what it was rite it was the drayne beneath our dunjan homes did get blocked up somthen rotten.
So the man came jangling and lets a couple of the lads out King David incloodid and says Rite then one of you barbrus vermin can get down them steps and get the drayne unblocked and he pointed down a deep dark well that was sploshing knee deep with the shyte and piss of menny men and the lads says No fucken way cleen your own fucken scat and dribble and the man says Theres meat and ale and coyne and a brass from the hoor house to give a gobbil to any man what will do it so we all think on it for a minnut and neebody says owt and then I goes Go on then Aye ayell do it Thurs naught but death awaiting us anyway Deth and eaturnetty Becors king Dayvids a gayme cock never lerrut be sed Oh yass gayme as fuck this wan.
So I took off my britches and shirt sleyves and I climbed down into the stink of it and it wassunt so bad I poked around in the murky worter until it mite be that my fingus did touch upon some thynge down there Something soffed and slimey to the touch And big aswell as big as a bread baskit but it weren’t no bred baskit it was like a big borl all wet and soft in the middule but harder and hairy further owt and whatever it was it had blockt the drayne like a bastid.
I dug in deep then becors the lads were going Wor is it King David Becors they all corl us King since the black devil Dighton got filled with led Wor is it they says and I was in up to me elbows and I bent I lifted this wet soft stinking mass of slyme and fur with both me arms and I cradled it there like a baybee and only then could I see there in the drayne that it was a grayte big borl of rats A duzzen of them if not more and all their tayles were tangulled and like notted together and they must have drownit that way and I swear it was the most horribullest thing a man ever did see so horribull it did give me the fear but I cuddent show that to the lads becors sum of them silly sods wership the ground the King warks on so I grunted and I lifted and I heaved the hole lot up and out the drayne with the most oarful skwelchen noise and it flopped there in front of them all and I goes.
I goes Narthen looker it’s King Rat himself it’s Jaymes fucking Brordbent And that’s when they started yellen an pewking an runnen backwards like a wifee thats seen a field mouse in the pantryee the big fucken cunny thummed arse fuckers.
Now lissen now though Lissen the point here is in lyfe there are sines everywhere Sumtimes they appear in diffren forms and as diffren creachurs but they are sines orl the same and you got to watch out forum at all times This one said the rat Broadbent had gorrus gud and proper Guddan proper I saye and that’s ther true laingth offit.
The Gallows Pole Page 25