“And the bulk of them on the move, Mr Heythorne. I wonder why.”
“How do you mean, Nick?”
“Many show the signs of walking the roads, Mr Heythorne. Packs on their backs and mud on their stockings or trousers. Whole families, some of them, the children tired from long walking. These are people with the sound of the South Country in their mouths, heading up north to foreign lands. I do not know why that may be.”
The landlord had an answer when they returned to their inn.
“There are jobs up north, in Lancashire, in the new towns there. Not many – far fewer than would suffice for the great mass of folk passing through. There are too many of them on the road. Displaced from the land in the south and hoping to make a new life in the north. Few of them have any money left by the time they have walked this far. They beg meals of the Poor Law – and they must be fed and then pushed out of the parish next day, sent back on the road.”
Samuel could not understand what would happen to them when they reached the ‘North Country’ if there were only a few jobs there.
“The parishes will have none of them, sir. They will be marched off to Liverpool and sent off aboard ship to the Americas. Some will sign indentures; others will be transported as vagabonds who have made themselves homeless and will not support their families. The effect is much the same. They will be set to work in the Americas and there most of them, I am told, will make a living of some sort.”
It seemed hard to Samuel.
“Less hard than starvation, sir. The local folk cannot be expected to pay vast Poor Rates to keep vagabond foreigners in idleness. They will find the work they have been seeking, if not in the place they expected.”
It was sad for those unfortunates who were driven out of their own country by hunger. Samuel turned discuss his dinner with the landlord and decide on fresh Welsh lamb as his main meat and to be accompanied by haddock and a chicken and such vegetables as were in season. There were strawberry tarts as well.
On his return, Samuel talked over all he had seen with his mother. He found it strange that families should have been forced out of their villages; it had not happened in previous ages, he believed.
“There are more people in the country, Samuel. Why, I know not, but the number dying very young seems to be falling and more people are marrying and producing children. There is still the same acreage of land to feed them, and the same number of workers needed in the fields. The extra bodies must go somewhere – if not to the grave, then to the Americas. It is most peculiar, but very handy to us. When we seek workers for our bottle-making, there will be no shortage of men to step forward and beg us for a job, and without having to offer any great wage to encourage them to move to us.”
“What a very good thing, Mother! Just when there are new ideas for business, there are extra hands to turn them into reality. Divine Providence, one suspects, ma’am.”
Josie suspected no such thing but saw no gain to arguing the topic. She smiled briefly.
“When is this race meeting, Samuel?”
“In three days. I shall go, I think… I am not entirely sure that I should, but if I do not, I will never know whether I might have been welcome. It could be useful to us, Mother, if I were to make connections with the County.”
“It might indeed be so. Be careful and do not take offence at slights that may come your way. There are those who might enjoy cutting you and offering insult and then refusing to fight you for not being a gentleman born. It would appeal to the more cowardly sort who might wish to strut safely in front of the young ladies.”
Chapter Eight
Killing’s Reward
Section Two - AD 1765
The racecourse was no more than an expanse of rough pasture land between the highway and the river. The soil was poor and probably in need of drainage and boggy in winter and whenever the river was running high. It was good enough to function as a gallops for much of the year, flat and un-colonised by rabbits, probably due to a high water table. On three or four occasions each year it was used for a race meeting – a local affair attracting entries from no great distance. It was not nationally known and there was no influx of the idle rich to watch on the day. It was a County affair, attended by no more than two score of coaches and as many horsemen and some hundreds of the local farmers and their hands making holiday and perhaps a thousand of spectators who walked out from Stone and Stoke and Stafford.
One young man rode in from Leek.
There was a small encampment of gypsies, set up as a fairground, and a few stalls belonging to itinerant peddlers, just sufficient to attract pennies from the locals. The biggest single attraction was a canvas tent containing a bar set up on trestles with a couple of dozen barrels and a crate or two of bottles.
Samuel had never seen a country fair before – there was none in Leek and his mother had never taken him the miles into Stoke when the fair came to town. He took a cursory glance at the tents and decided he had no interest in the goods or the little games of chance and skill on offer. He saw a paddock of saddled horses to one side and led his gelding across.
“Six pence, sir, keeps thy horse and trappings safe. Bucket of water and a truss of hay to lip over, sir.”
Samuel fished a sixpenny piece from his pocket and passed it across.
“Mr Samuel Heythorne, of Leek.”
The lad would remember his face and name; he was illiterate and relied on his memory.
“Yes, sir. Last race is off at four o’clock, sir. Be a bit of a rush soon after.”
“I may be away before then.”
Samuel kept his greatcoat. It was a grey day and the wind was chilly.
He wandered across to the saddling ring, watched as the amateur jockeys mounted up and were led down to the start, a quarter of a mile away.
A placard nailed to a post informed him that the first race was of ten furlongs on the flat.
He looked around and decided the track was more or less oval, perhaps eight furlongs - a mile - in circumference. There were jumps as well, he saw. Presumably some of the other races would be over the sticks.
He could see the bright colours of the waistcoats worn by the jockeys, watched as they formed a line in the distance and then started to race. They passed by in a bunch and turned out on the oval, the field slowly straggling into a column. The horses sped up as they turned into the last stretch and then onto the straight leading to the finish. Some of the jockeys were beating their horses, he saw, using short riding quirts vigorously. One of them surged to the front and held on to win by a good three lengths. The crowd shouted and cheered as the winner came home.
Samuel found himself wholly unmoved by the performance. He stood back at a distance as men and a few women crowded around the winner and led him to a small platform where the jockey stood to be congratulated and given a sash of some sort which he garlanded around his horse’s neck.
The crowd dispersed, most heading to the beer tent. There was a delay of a quarter of an hour or so in which very little happened and then another dozen of horses, greater in size than those which had raced on the flat, were brought down to the ring to be saddled in public view. Samuel supposed the horses were hunters, about to race over the jumps.
One of the spectators approached him.
“Mr Heythorne, is it not?”
“It is, sir. How do you do, Mr Rowlands?”
Squire Rowlands was very well, he was happy to say. He asked if Samuel was enjoying the races.
“I was a little surprised to see you here, Mr Heythorne. Not your sort of thing, I would have thought.”
“Curiosity brought me, sir. I have never seen a race meeting, of course, sir.”
Samuel had noticed the implicit sneer – ‘not his sort of thing’ indeed! He made no reference to the comment.
“We do not have races in our part of the countryside. Our life around Leek is very quiet. I hear you are considering a move into glass, Mr Heythorne.”
Another sneer – he was of a
mere trade family, could not be expected to hold a genteel conversation about sport.
“Why, yes, Mr Rowlands. It seems a logical step. There are sands in the river valley, or so we believe, and there is a need for many thousands of bottles. I have a man coming up from London who will set up a glass cone for me. I spent a few weeks in the metropolis recently, improving my education, and was able to discover several interesting acquaintances.”
Mr Rowlands had rarely ventured as far south as London, was a little upset that young Heythorne should have trespassed on the arena of gentility there.
“Will you take a look at the horses in the ring, Mr Heythorne? Sport your blunt, perhaps?”
Samuel did not understand the Cant expression.
“Place a bet with one of the bookmakers, Mr Heythorne.”
Mr Rowlands waved across at half a dozen men stood in a line, each with a chalk board at his side with odds scrawled on. They carried large leather satchels slung around their necks on straps. A number of well-built men loitered close to them, obvious bodyguards.
“Lay down your money on the horse of your choice, Mr Heythorne and if it wins they will pay you on the odds they have offered. Some of the outsiders are at twenty-to-one, do you see.”
Samuel glanced at the figures, saw that they ranged from three-to-two to, as Mr Rowlands had said, twenty-to-one.
“How do they decide which is which, sir?”
“The favourites are known horses who have won before or have good jockeys who would not choose to ride bad horses. Many of the horses and riders are complete unknowns and they will be at odds of three or four or five to one, to reduce the risk to the bookmakers. Ten guineas on an outsider that won would produce a very good sum, I believe, Mr Heythorne.”
So it would, Samuel thought. He was also sensible enough to think it very unlikely that a horse at long odds would come home first.
“I think I shall be content simply to watch, Mr Rowlands, but please do not think you ought to stay at my side if you wish to wager, sir.”
Rowlands took the invitation and walked off to the ring. Samuel stood back and watched the performance, amused by the little byplays that could be observed.
The riders were not all young men, he saw.
One at least must have been fifty and anxious still to be in his prime, strutting boldly as he came to his mount’s side. A lady of similar age – his wife presumably – seemed less than proud of his boldness. Samuel could almost hear her thoughts, ‘silly old fool’ written all over her face. He was inclined to agree.
Of the dozen jockeys, eight were little older than Samuel, all of them knowing what fine fellows they were in their bright silks and polished boots. They posed and caught the girls’ eyes and swaggered in front of their mothers, brave boys all.
Samuel was amused. He wondered how many were trying to hide their trepidation – the jumps were not small and the first two at least must be dangerous, with all of the field clustered together still and insufficient space to take them abreast.
‘A fool’s game’, he concluded. If they wished to play the hero, they could join the army and go to war and take risks in a useful occupation.
There were three men in their twenties, Samuel saw, one with his wife and parents and obviously there to enjoy and indulge himself. Two, however, were listening seriously to older men giving them instructions; they looked like nothing so much as employees taking their final orders. He wondered if they were in fact paid to ride, professionals rather than gentlemen amateurs. It occurred to Samuel that a horse-breeder might wish to have a number of wins for his stables, to attract purchasers of fast horses, and that an experienced man as a jockey might be a way of achieving this.
Perhaps he had a suspicious mind, he chided himself, one that could see the potential for gain in everything.
He stood back and watched the horses go down to the start. It would be a longer race, twice around the track and a dozen and more of jumps.
A flag was waved and fell and the horses set off, more slowly than in the previous flat race, and came to the first fence all in a mass. Two horses went down, one of the riders rolling and tumbling to the side and stumbling to his feet, the other in the midst of the flying hooves and remaining flat as the field passed into the distance. Both jockeys were inexperienced boys.
There were men at each fence whose job was to clear the track before the field returned on the second circuit. He heard a pistol crack as a screaming horse was killed on the spot. The second had regained its feet and run off behind the pack of racing horses, staying with its herd. The walking jockey was helped to cross the track while a hurdle was uprooted from the side of the fence and carried by four men, the prone rider sprawled across it.
The boy’s family and a surgeon with a bag clustered around the hurdle as it was placed on flat ground at the side of the ring. Samuel could not see what happened after that. The bulk of the crowd were watching the horses on the far side, uninterested in the fallen man.
The horses passed the finish line for the first time, eight riders up and three loose mounts tagging along in the rear. Samuel saw that the old man was still there in the middle of the pack, the two he had categorised as professionals side by side and just behind the leader. He was certain they would be one and two when next he saw them.
He waited until the race ended, his expectation borne out as the two coaxed every last ounce from their horses and came in almost neck and neck. He noticed that they were not flogging their beasts – their horses too valuable, perhaps, to be casually beaten. He wandered across to the beer tent and took a pint of not especially good bitter and stood to one side, watching the crowd and finding them more amusing than the horses. He was not used to the agricultural world and found it, and its fashions, entertaining, the red-faced farmers in their breeches and frieze coats especially so.
The next race was called to the ring and the bulk of the men in the tent surged out again, many of them making directly towards the bookmakers. Samuel returned his jack to the bar, as seemed etiquette there, and eased his way out of the tent, watching as a pair of youths, boys of thirteen or fourteen, appeared to casually veer towards him, very carefully not making eye contact. They seemed wrong, out of place and Nick had warned him that pickpockets were almost always to be found at the races, normally in pairs. The man behind the bar who knew what might happen, advised Samuel to keep his purse in the pocket of his frockcoat.
“If you use it, then replace it deep in your breeches. They will watch where you have taken your purse from and then will turn away, so as not to be seen taking an interest in you. Then one will cross in front of you and ‘accidentally’ bump into you. While the one is apologising, the other’s hand will be in your pocket. Be ready, half turn, and pull a pistol, for they may have knives.”
It was interesting to watch the little play unfold, Samuel found. The pair were taking pains to be casual, unseen, but were obviously making towards him. Had he not been forewarned, he probably would have seen nothing, but, knowing what was to happen, it was amusingly overt.
The older of the two – still no more than a boy, fuzz on his chin rather than whiskers – stumbled to his front and brushed against his shoulder.
“Sorry, yer honour! Didn’t mean to!”
Samuel shifted around and trapped the smaller boy’s hand still in his empty pocket. He pulled out a pistol, cocking it and thrusting forward towards the speaker.
“Stand still! Both of you!”
“I warn’t doin’ nothin’!”
“Be still. Mr Malone will have much to say to you, stupid boy! Would you dip Sam Heythorne’s son?”
The older boy knew the names and froze.
The younger knew less and eased a hand under his ragged coat, whining that he hadn’t done nothing.
“Stubble it, Jack! Leave the blade! Stiff us both ‘e will if so be you tries it.”
Other race-goers had seen the little fracas and a constable, sworn in by the magistrates for the day, came lumberin
g across.
“What’s goin’ on, then?”
“These two tried to dip me. The small one’s hand is still trapped in my pocket, look.”
The constable peered and turned and shouted for his master to come to his aid. The situation required thought and action, both qualities he was ill-supplied with.
Six more men came running across, comprising the whole of those hired for the day. Their leader suggested that Samuel might wish to at least put his pistol to half-cock.
“The smaller one has a knife in his waistband. Secure that, if you please, sir.”
Two of the constables grabbed the boy while a third pulled his coat down behind him trapping his arms. He had a cutthroat razor tucked into his belt.
“Got it, mister.”
They turned to the larger of the pair.
“What about you, you little bastard? You got anything?”
“Got a blade, ain’t I. Got to, ain’t you. Be‘ind me back.”
They treated him in the same way, searching him once immobilised. They came up with a sheath carrying a long-bladed carving knife that had been sharpened on both edges.
The leader back-handed the youth across the face, knocking him to the ground.
“Killing knife, ain’t it? You’re for it, you little shit! Grab ‘im!”
The constables produced manacles and shackles, clasped them on wrists and ankles and then linked the pair together with a yard of chain.
“Ain’t bloody running nowhere, them two, mister. Begging your pardon, but would you give us your name, mister, and write what ‘appened down for us?”
They used the trestle in the beer tent as a writing table while Samuel made his deposition using a thick pencil and a notebook produced from the leader’s pocket.
“Mr Heythorne, is that sir? Heythornes as is? What got the place at Leek and the gin and the pits, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Sam Heythorne’s son, you must be, sir.”
“I am.”
“Worked for your old dad, so I did, in me time, sir. Make sure the magistrate knows what you are, sir. Assizes next week, sir, in Stafford. Remand these little bastards there, sir. See them swinging, both of ‘em.”
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