Parliament of Rooks

by Karen Perkins

  Sarah managed a slight smile, then looked up at her lifelong friend, expecting her to have more words of wisdom. She was unprepared for the look of horror on Martha’s white face.

  Slowly, Sarah turned to see what had frightened Martha so.

  A figure, a woman, hanged from the rafters in the middle of the room, little more than a foot away. She slowly rotated on the rope that encircled her neck, creating deep purple welts, her tongue protruding from her swollen face, cocked to one side. Inch by inch, the head straightened, and Sarah later swore she saw that grotesque mouth stretch in a smile.

  She would see no more though; with a piercing shriek, she bolted from the room.

  Sarah’s scream broke Martha’s paralysis, and she limped around the room, as far away from the apparition as she could manage, and followed her friend.

  As she approached the top of the stairs, Sarah had reached the bottom, flung the door open, and charged into the street.

  Straight into the path of a heavily laden wool cart.

  The horse’s shriek matched Sarah’s and the drayman’s for intensity, and the animal reared up as Sarah floundered beneath its pawing hoofs.

  Robert Butterworth, returning from his meeting with Tobias Webster, was quick enough in mind to grab hold of her, and he hauled her away from the descending horseflesh.

  ‘What the Devil do you think you’re doing, woman? Scaring the horse like that! Get back inside with you. All this carry on and our son lying dead upstairs!’ He shoved her back into the house.

  ‘I’ll take care of him, Robert, you look after Sarah,’ Martha said with a gulp. ‘It’s too much for her.’

  She glared at Sarah, warning her not to mention the phantom they had both seen. Robert would not appreciate such tales. She made her slow way back to the room, pushed open the door, and sighed in relief. The only occupant was Edward.

  8.

  ‘Good morn to you, Harry Sutcliffe.’

  Emily received no response bar the rhythmic clanging of Harry’s mallet upon his chisel.

  ‘How do, Harry?’ she shouted, then laughed as the master stonemason jumped and dropped his tools.

  He glared at Emily then inspected the stone he was working on. ‘Lucky for thee, there’s no damage done,’ he said. ‘Good morning to thee.’

  Emily grinned at him. ‘You’re in a world of your own when you’re carving.’

  ‘This is the last impact the dead have on this world,’ Harry said, indicating the stones. ‘Each name and date should be my best work. Though it were almost my own name that needed carving today. I wish thee’d take more care when thee discharges thy father’s pistol of a morning, Emily.’

  She shrugged. ‘I can’t point it at the moors, I might hit a hare or lapwing. Papa jests he’d almost be safer firing it himself, even with his sight failing the way it is.’

  ‘At least he’s never pointed the damned thing towards village, and I were never scared of morning’s shot afore!’

  Another of Emily’s rare smiles graced him. ‘I’d never hit you, Harry Sutcliffe.’

  ‘I’m surprised he still keeps it by his bedside at night, it’s been many years now. Branwell must take more care on his way home from Black Bull on his visits home too; any noisier and he’ll have his father mistaking him for a rioter.’

  ‘Aye, Charlotte’s said the same thing. Papa will never lose his fear of the Luddites, though, and the riots he bore witness to in Hartshead.’

  ‘But he’s safe now surely? It’s only mills and their owners that are being targeted.’

  ‘True, but feeling still runs high. So many children are maimed or worse, and so many families starving now their work can be done faster by machine. ’Tis not only spinners now, there are new contraptions for carding, gilling and winding. If they devise a loom that runs on steam instead of manpower, many more will starve.’

  ‘People have it tough round here, and no mistake,’ Harry said. ‘Thank the Lord for thy father, if he hadn’t had old Mr Barraclough take me on as apprentice all them years back, Lord only knows where I’d be now; and family an’all.’ He shuddered at the thought of little Edna and Thomas going to the mill every day to slave over spinning mules from dawn until dusk and beyond.

  ‘Aye, Haworth’s nowt but one large rookery as it is,’ Emily said, staring downhill at the village spewing coal smoke from every chimney. ‘Reduced to a slum, nowt more.’

  ‘Surely ’tis not so bad as that,’ Harry protested.

  ‘Oh it is. I’ve seen more places than you, Harry Sutcliffe, and Haworth does not measure well. The water stinks, effluent soaks the streets, and sickness thrives. Papa conducts so many funerals, he’s exhausted with it, they each take a toll. ’Tis not right, Harry. Folk should live better.’

  ‘Aye, that they should.’ Harry struggled to order his thoughts. ‘But who shall make it so? The men are so knackered by their work, they have neither time nor heart to fight for better, and ’tis not in the interests of those who are idle to fight.’

  Emily dropped a copy of The Fleet Papers on to the stone on which Harry had been working. She said naught, trusting Harry to know they were the work of the anti-Yorkshire-slavery activist, Richard Oastler, who continued to campaign, despite his ongoing incarceration in The Fleet prison for his debts.

  It took Harry a moment, but then he understood. Emily had talked of him before. He picked up the publication.

  The Fleet Papers; being Letters to Thomas Thornhill Esquire of Riddlesworth from Richard Oastler his prisoner in the Fleet With occasional Communications from Friends.

  ‘Read it,’ she said. ‘Tell people about it. He speaks true.’

  ‘Aye, I’ll spread the word,’ Harry said after scanning the article, his head spinning in dismay with details of corn laws, poor laws and diatribe against the long working days of the mills. ‘I’ll need time to take this in, but I’ll help Oaster’s cause if I can, small as my part may be, if it helps the poor sods who still have to send their nippers to mill instead of school.’

  Emily nodded and opened her mouth to say something more, but the ringing of a bell forestalled her.

  ‘It’s mill,’ Harry said. ‘Summat’s up, come on, lass, there’s summat wrong at mill!’

  He took off running down Church Lane, then up West Lane and on to Lord Lane to Rook’s Mill. Emily’s mastiff, Keeper, kept pace with him, so he knew Emily was not far behind. And, apart from a few souls ahead, he knew the rest of the village not already working in the mills would be there too. All fretting over who was hurt, and praying it was no one of their kin.

  The bell continued its toll.

  9.

  ‘What’s gone on?’ Harry asked Bartholomew Grange, who stood at the mill door, blocking the way.

  Everyone stopped for a moment as the constant rumble of spinning jennies and mules faded into silence. Even Big Bart looked uneasy.

  ‘One of little ’uns got trapped in mule,’ he said, his voice like thunder in the unaccustomed silence.

  ‘Who? Let us in, man! What’s happening?’ A chorus of voices at Harry’s back echoed his own words.

  ‘Let us in, man!’ Harry shouted at Bart, and reached for his lapels. Bart was big, and he was hard, but Harry worked with rock every day, and was likely the only one in the village who could take him on, and Big Bart knew it.

  He stared at him in silence a moment, then flicked his gaze to Harry’s feet. ‘No hobnails on mill floor, Harry.’

  ‘What? Someone’s hurt, and you want me to take me boots off afore I come in? This ain’t the big house thee knows, Bart!’

  ‘No hobnails on mill floor,’ Bart repeated, no expression on his face. ‘Place is full of wool fluff; any spark from nails could have whole place going up in flames.’

  ‘Come off it, Bart,’ Harry said and tried to push past him. ‘They need our help. Someone could be dying in there.’

  Bart lifted Dasher, his alley strap, and Harry stared at him in shock. Bart was a big
man, yes, and a hard man, but he’d never been a cruel man.

  He met Harry’s stare. ‘Only takes a second,’ he said. ‘Me brother were killt that way over at Beckhead Mill. One pair of hobnailed boots, one spark, and whole mill floor were engulfed with flame afore any bugger could get out. Happened in a second and three hundred dead. No hobnails on mill floor.’

  Harry nodded. Bart was right. He bent to free his feet of his boots while Bart repeated his words to the rest of the villagers. ‘Boots off. No hobnails on mill floor.’ He had no need to shout; he was used to making his words heard over machines, no one had any trouble hearing him when the machines were quiet.

  Finally in stockinged feet, he let Harry pass, the others following as quickly as they could.

  The stonemason ran down the main gangway, coughing on the wool fibres in the air, so thick it gave the impression of a snowstorm. He pushed his way through the gaggle of women and children, then stopped short at the sight of his sister, Lizzie. She had a little ’un in her arms.

  Harry couldn’t see who it was and part of him didn’t want to know. By the amount of blood streaked over them both and the floor, there was no helping the child.

  He looked the machine over. One of the new mules; the low horizontal carriage would normally be unrelenting, pulling and spinning the wool fibres through rollers until it reached the end of its traverse, clanging against the support stanchion before travelling back to the main body of the machine to wrap the yarn on to spindles.

  He gulped as he saw white flecks of bone amidst the blood on the second stanchion.

  Harry knelt by his sister. ‘Give her to me, lass.’

  Lizzie slowly turned her head to him and he gasped. Her normally rosy cheeks were stark white, her eyes dark and wide, looking like caves in her normally pretty face.

  ‘Lizzie?’

  ‘She’s hurt too. Her hand. Getting Betty out. Ain’t spoken since.’ Harry didn’t see who had spoken, his full attention was on the two before him.

  ‘Betty?’

  ‘Aye, Betty Butterworth.’

  Harry recognised the dress then, the poor lass was Martha’s friend, Sarah’s girl. Eight years old.

  ‘Lizzie,’ Harry said again and this time thought he saw a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. ‘Lizzie, it’s me, Harry. Give Betty to me, I’ll look after her.’

  ‘It’s all right, Lizzie,’ Emily said from beside him, and Harry looked at her in relief. She’d know what to do.

  He bent to take Betty from Lizzie, and gasped at the state of Lizzie’s hand. The mule had crushed it as she’d tried to get Betty out. He couldn’t look at Betty, or what was left of her. Even her mother won’t recognise her, he thought with dismay. Only the dress, the one she’d made herself and were so proud of, told of her identity now.

  ‘I’ll take care of Lizzie, Harry,’ Emily said.

  Harry nodded, stood, and turned to see Martha and Sarah at the front of the crowd of bootless men and women. Sarah stared at Harry. She must have heard, but hadn’t taken note yet.

  ‘Sarah,’ Harry said. ‘Best thee don’t look, love.’

  ‘No.’ The word was quiet, desperate, and she collapsed against Martha. Harry met Martha’s eyes and knew she was thinking the exact same thing he was.

  Thank God Edna don’t have to do this work.

  ‘Give her to me.’ Robert Butterworth ignored his wife as he pushed past her, making both Sarah and Martha stumble in his wake.

  He glared at Harry, who stared back. He saw no compassion in Butterworth’s face and wondered how deep it was buried. Too many in this village had simply lost too much.

  He took his daughter, and Harry noticed his hands shook. But he showed no other sign of his distress. The villagers parted to let him through, and Sarah and Martha followed, Martha’s stick thumping a funereal tattoo as they went.

  Harry turned back to Lizzie and Emily, and knelt back down beside them.

  ‘How bad is it?’

  Emily didn’t look up at him, but carried on her work. She’d torn strips from her petticoat, but didn’t even blush as she did so. ‘Don’t tell Papa, he can’t afford another, and I don’t need it, not really.’

  Harry smiled at her, then flinched at a particularly loud thump from Martha’s stick at the other end of the mill floor. ‘How bad?’ he asked again.

  ‘It ain’t going to be much use no more,’ Lizzie said, staring at the misshapen clump on the end of her wrist. She screamed as Emily wrapped one of the lengths of cotton around it.

  ‘Sorry Lizzie, we’ve got to stem the bleeding. Doctor Ingram’s on his way, he’ll set the bones and do what he can for thee. He’ll give thee summat for the pain too.’

  ‘It’ll have to be downstairs,’ Bart said. ‘Need to clear the floor; get machines up and running again.’

  ‘You can’t be serious!’ Harry looked up at him, then noticed a child even younger than Betty scrubbing the blood away from the spinning mule.

  ‘Make sure thee gets into all them cracks and crannies,’ Bart directed the boy. ‘We don’t want no blood on new yarn.’

  He looked back at Harry and shrugged. ‘Mill got to run, Harry. Mill got to run.’

  Harry nodded. He had to look after Lizzie now, and Bart weren’t the problem here, the Rooks were. If anyone were going to take them on, they’d need to think it through first.

  ***

  Harry opened the door to the Black Bull and a riotous fug of shouts and odours assaulted him. He smiled ruefully; after tending to Lizzie all day, and quieting Martha’s fears about Emily once more, he had hoped for a quiet drink. That was clearly not to be.

  A slap on his shoulder sent him reeling towards the bar and he ordered ale, then tried to make sense of the arguments. Big Bart seemed to be taking the brunt of the men’s tempers, and Harry made his way through the throng of his neighbours, all of whom seemed to hold the overlooker responsible for today’s disaster.

  ‘There were nowt I could do,’ Big Bart said, his roar easily heard over the din. ‘It all happened in a second. Everything were well, and then, then ...’

  Harry stood before him and placed his hand on Bart’s shaking shoulder.

  ‘And then what?’ A new voice was raised. A strident voice, full of grief and anger, which silenced the pub. ‘Then your mule crushed the head of my little girl. My little Betty. We’ve none left now. No more Butterworths. All gone. Taken. By your damnable machinery!’

  Bart looked Robert Butterworth in the eye and calmed. ‘Thee sent her to work there.’

  ‘What did thee say?’

  ‘Thee heard. I do me best for them lasses, whatever age they are when they’re sent out to work. She were too young to be on mill floor, and thee knew it, but thee’d had her working there ower a year already.’

  Men stepped back, leaving the way clear for the two men squaring up to each other.

  Harry moved between them. Robert Butterworth wasn’t soft, but he was no match for Bart; and no amount of fury would give him enough strength to hurt the overlooker. If he tried, Bart would fight. He needed to hit out. And Bart would beat the living daylights out of the man, grieving father or no.

  ‘Move aside, Harry.’

  ‘No. This is not the answer. This does not honour any of the mill youngsters.’

  ‘Too right,’ Will Sugden, the innkeeper of the Black Bull, put in. ‘Take it outside or drown it in ale, them’s thy choices.’

  ‘They’ll drown it in ale, on my tab, Will.’

  As one, the men of Haworth turned to the man who had walked into the middle of this. Zemeraim Rook, his father and brother at his shoulders.

  ‘I mean it. Tonight’s ale is on the Rooks. Tonight we commiserate, we remember, and we talk. Tomorrow we take steps to stop this happening again.’

  ‘And how does thee intend to do that?’ Butterworth sneered.

  ‘We’ll enforce the twelve-hour rule, there’ll be no more exceptions, no matter how much you plead fo
r more hours for pay. No woman or child will work more than that per day. And they’ll take an hour and a half of rest during the day.’

  ‘It’s still twelve hours though! What about the ten-hour rule?

  ‘Aye, it is, but only nine on Sundays. There’s a new act going through Parliament as we speak, which means machinery will soon have to be fenced in, and we’ve already started on that. As for the ten-hour rule, we’ll have to see what Parliament says about that in time.’

  ‘Too late for my Betty,’ Butterworth snarled as he stepped up to Zem Rook. ‘Eight year old and her life crushed out of her.’

  To his credit, Zem did not flinch, even when the spittle from Butterworth’s words hit his cheek. ‘Eight, Mr Butterworth? You insisted she was nine when she started with us last year. You know full well children under nine should not be on our workforce.’

  ‘Thee knew damn well she were seven when she started, just like most of others crawling under thy machinery.’

  ‘I distinctly remembering asking you to swear to her age of nine. I have your thumbprint on her record of work to prove it.’

  Men shuffled away, eager to drown the truth in free ale. They all knew the law that forbade anyone eight or younger from working. But they also knew that births had only been registered since the queen came to the throne. No one over the age of six had a birth certificate, and when it came to feeding too many mouths on not enough coin, the Butterworths were not the only family in Haworth who had claimed their daughter to be ‘small for her age’. Most of the men now guzzling their ale had done the same thing, and their shame was beginning to overcome their sympathy.

  Butterworth looked around at them, recognising he would get no further. He looked back at Bart who stepped up to him, placed his brawny hands on the smaller man’s shoulders, and said, ‘I did all I could. Thee did all thee could. We can do no more. Come, drink with me.’

  Friends once more, the two men turned to the bar, where a space was cleared for them. They sat on a couple of upturned casks and were handed tankards of best porter. Those tankards would not be empty until both men were passed out on the filthy floor; sorrows well and truly drowned. At least for the night.