They Hanged My Saintly Billy

by Robert Graves

  Sunday Evening

  My ever adored Annie:

  I feel certain that you will forgive me for not writing to you last night, when I tell you that since I last saw you I have not had two hours' sleep. I do assure you, I never felt so tired in my life—I am almost sick of my profession. Sorry I am to say, my Mother has had another attack and one of my late sister's children I think will be dead before morning. It is now half past ten, and I have just come home from Haywood to write you: for I do assure you, my dearest, I should have been very unhappy had I not done so.

  My dearest Annie, I propose, all being well, to be with you tomorrow about three, and depend upon it, nothing but ill health will ever keep me away from you—forgive me, my duck, for not sending you the paper last night, I really could not help it. I will explain fully tomorrow. My dear, remember I must say something about needlework—you will be amused. My sweetest and loveliest Annie, I never was more pleased with you in my life than on Friday afternoon last— it was a combination of things. God bless you! I hope we may live together and love each other for sixty years to come.

  Excuse me now, for I must go. Till tomorrow at 3. Accept my everlasting love and believe me,

  Ever your most affectionate Wm Palmer

  On the advice of a sporting friend, George Myatt the Rugeley saddler, Dr Palmer now resolved to supplement his earnings by an altogether different means: namely, the breeding of racehorses. In Rugeley, where horses are almost the sole subject of serious conversation among the mass of the people, there was nothing surprising or improper in such a resolve. On the contrary, should he succeed in his new trade, a great number of men would offer themselves as patients who judged a physician or surgeon by his ability to judge a horse. He must be able to pronounce on its good and bad points; accurately diagnose its diseases, if any; reckon its speed and staying-power; and, at the finish, by an abstruse but rapid calculation, tell to within a couple of guineas what it should fetch in the ring. If by virtue of his critical faculty, Dr Palmer could buy cheap and sell dear; and if he could lay his hands on three or four useful mares, engage famous stallions to cover them, and so breed foals which sporting men would come many miles to look at—why, his fortune was made! So Dr Palmer laid out most of his remaining capital on horseflesh, and leased from Lord Litchfield a large paddock at the back of the house, with stabling for twelve horses and several fields adjacent—altogether some twenty-one acres enclosed by hawthorn hedges. He had the property in order shortly before the birth of his first child, whom he christened William after himself, and who is today a healthy seven-year-old, showing promise of great intelligence.

  'Harry Hockey', the withered old groom until recently employed by Dr Palmer at Rugeley—his real name seems to be Henry Cockayne—discoursed to us, straw in mouth. Since Dr Palmer's arrest, the fields have reverted to Lord Litchfield, and Harry keeps an eye on the hunters and carriage horses put out to grass there.

  HARRY HOCKEY

  No, Sir, I could never complain that Dr Palmer treated me badly, nor could any of the boys employed. But ours was a rum concern. What I mean is that the Doctor's chief passion was racing, yet he never bred any colts to run, barring Rip van Winkle, whom Nat Flaxman coaxed into second place at the Brighton T.Y.O. Sweepstakes last year. He bought a good many for that purpose, that's certain, at very large prices, too, and sent them to train at Saunders', in Hednesford. I reckon he began his racing career four years ago—the Spring of 1852—and his colours were registered as all-yellow.

  This place was a nursery only; with no training done, except for the ringing we gave the colts. He kept, on an average, three or four broodmares at a time, and there always used to be a good many young things about. He was proud of his stables, and often brought parties of friends to view them, and talked big about the mares. However, he seldom kept up an interest in any particular animal for more than a week or two after he bought it. They say, Sir, that he was the same with his fancy women. For a short while they entranced him, but because of some slight fault, real or fancied, he would suddenly wish himself rid of them. He used to sell them—the mares, I mean—for most curious prices. Once, I remember, he priced a couple at ten pounds. Perhaps he needed the money, but I'd have offered three times that sum for either of them, had I known he was selling, and pledged my cottage to raise it. He bred some good horses, I can assure you, but all to what purpose? The money he made can't have paid the expenses, not one quarter! He always seemed to buy at the highest price, and sell at the lowest; all Rugeley called him a mug. Yet even Tom Masters allowed he had a wonderful eye for a horse, and most people were glad to get his free opinion on their own purchases. It s my view that he had a great contempt of money, which was matched only by his need of it. He paid mc well, not regular, but well enough: a guinea a week, sometimes two.

  The races were meat and drink to him. There's many racing gentlemen I know who find time for shooting and fishing, or else they hunt foxes. The Doctor wasn't one of them. He had a good, clumsy seat on a horse, and used to ride beside Saunders to watch colts of his being tried out; but I never saw him going over the sticks, or jogging off to a meet, though there's three packs of hounds that meet regularly hereabouts.

  No, bless you, Sir, a good eye for a horse and a close attention to the studbook don't suffice to win a man money at racing, which is a dirty business, and best kept out of by honest folk, among whom I hope to reckon myself. Come, Sir, sit down on this bench with me. I understand that you're green to the game. What's that you want to know? About the ringing?

  Well, now, a colt begins with a dumb-jockey, which is a log we strap on his back when he's old enough to take the weight, and winch he flings off again and again until he gets tired of the sport, and doesn't kick and plunge quite so often. Presently we start the ringing: which is to bridle him, and then I stand with a whip in my hand and keep him a-going around me in a circle, the dumb-jockey on his back; and I don't care whether he runs, trots, plunges, gallops, or dances, so long as he keeps a-moving. When he's got the notion, we put ur> a lad instead of the log, and carry the game on. Before long he s ready for the trainer's, and we're done with him here.

  It's like sending a young lord up from dame's school to Eton College. He takes his groom with him, as a footman, and the fees asked ain't any too low, I assure you! But there's this difference between Saunders' training establishment and Eton College: that the colt don't lead so irregular a life. There's no drinking rather too much claret on the sly, nor smoking more cigars than is good for the growing creature. At Saunders', they calculate his feed to the very grain of corn and thread of hay that will hold him in the pink of condition. And his drink is just as sharply watched, being calculated to the go-down—or gulp, if you please. When he's been in training for some weeks, Mr Will Saunders, he puts his own groom up for a trial run, and the colt is then placed with several others in what's called a 'string'. Then he's taken off at a gentle gallop, known as 'the pipe o' peace', and Saunders rides on one side, about the middle, and watches the action of each and every beast.

  After the pipe o' peace, Saunders gives them all a clever going-over, to look out for injured legs or hoofs. Then they are bathed in warm water and bandaged, and perhaps they get gruel to drink, and bran mash instead of corn. I've heard Dr Palmer say: 'I'd a thousand times rather be a colt at Saunders', than a pauper in Stafford Infirmary!' Often the horses gain too much flesh—which never, by the way, happens to an Infirmary pauper, unless he suffers from the dropsy—and have to be sweated, which is done with extra cloths and cutting down of their feed . . . Believe me, it's a severe training, as much for the lads as for the horses.

  Now, even at Rugeley, which is famed for its Horse Fair, and has its own race-course yonder, there's still many folk as green as you, Sir, who think that all the trouble and expense which an owner incurs in getting a beast into prime condition will invariably make him wish it to win races. They are also innocent enough to suppose that the best horse always wins, barring natural accidents. But
let me put you right, Sir. You should bear in mind that, large though the Derby Stakes are, and many others, such as the St Leger and the Oaks, an owner's interest may not always require that his horse passes the post first; I mean, that it may frequently pay him better to lose . . .

  Then why should one go to such trouble with the training, you ask? Why, to make the horse look as much like a winner as possible, don't you see?—and persuade those who think he's running on the square to back him heavily. Such bets are taken up by the owner's friends—though they're mighty careful not to show themselves as such, you may be bound—to a far greater amount than the value of the stakes.

  Many's the time I've been given a last-minute stable tip-off, as we say, that such-and-such a horse ain't going to win a race, though the favourite; and to bet against him, however short the odds. And I've been present at the starting-post, and seen the admiring glance the owner casts at the beast. If I hadn't heard it muttered from the corner of the jockey's own mouth, I wouldn't in my heart but have believed that the owner was running the horse to win, and had staked his entire fortune on him. Yet the jockey has been ordered to 'rope him in', and so make him fall back out of the riinning while in full career. There's a double advantage to that little game: at the next Meeting the odds will be longer, and at the one after that, if the horse is roped again, longer still. When it's profitable for the owner to run the horse on the square, then he'll do so.

  Another trick used to be played to prevent the best horse from winning, called the 'false start'. An owner entered two horses for the same race. One was meant to win, and the other to make the pace. When all the runners were stationed at the starting point, and the word 'Go!' rang out, the horse meant to win stood stock still, the others rushing off at a good gallop. That was a false start, the whole line not having started at the same time. So they were called back, and then sent off again, and after a couple of such false starts the horses were fatigued and irritated by these constant pullings-up; all except the horse kept back. He was fresh as paint, and at the third ' Go!' started boldly forward with every advantage in his favour; and very often won at long odds. But they've put a stop to that game now.

  There's still the 'painted bit' game, however. The horse which the owner's laid against comes on the course in full vigour, and the jockey rides him to win. But there's poison smeared on the bit. Halfway along the course, the poor animal foams at the mouth, staggers, turns sick, and falls behind.

  Now, to the best of my knowledge, Dr Palmer never played tricks of that sort on his own horses: he always gave his jockeys orders to win. But he certainly was accused of'nobbling', if you understand my meaning. Nobbling is to dose a rival horse, to prevent him from winning. Scarcely a race is run at which some case or other don't occur, despite the vigilance of the stablemen. The fact is that stable-boys are not highly paid and, for fifty pounds, will sometimes agree to 'make a horse safe' by giving him a drug. Strychnia is a favourite these days, and easy for a surgeon to obtain—as Dr Palmer was. Half a grain will stiffen the muscles, but won't kill.

  It may interest you to know, Sir, that a valuable horse was destroyed here at Rugeley, during the October Meeting of 1853, a favourite for the Marquess of Anglesey's Stakes. I can't recall his name, which was one of them tongue-twisters; howsomever, I know that the noble owner had stabled him at The Crown. Very early in the morning of the race, someone scoops a hole in the stable wall and pushes through it a carrot hollowed out and filled with arsenic. The poor beast must have died at once; the offender was never caught. Dr Palmer's Doubt won that race at useful odds. Mind, I'm saying nothing, not having been in Rugeley at the time; but those are the facts, I believe.

  Dr Palmer plunged in his betting, and I thought it very rum that he never changed countenance whatever happened. He wasn't the man to thrust a walking-stick through a pierglass in celebration of a victory, as I have seen done. We all used to notice him when he came back from the races and looked in at the stables. None of us could tell whether he had won or lost. Only once did

  I see him out of temper, and that was nearly at the end of his run. A fellow named George Bate, formerly a farmer, was put in charge of us then, and took a sudden dislike to the Doctor. Maybe he had his reasons. Maybe also they'll appear at the trial, for he's been summoned to London as a witness, and so has yours obediently . . .

  At any rate, one day George Bate comes to me, and says:' Harry, what's passed in the eight-acre field?' 'How should I know?' I asks.

  'Come and take a morris down there!' says he. So we stroll through the home-paddock, and into the eight-acre, and he says to me: 'The turf's mighty cut about. It's as if the mares have been galloping about in the night. Did you hear aught?'

  I says: 'No, I didn't.' Then I pointed and said: 'Lookee, Mr Bate, here's the mark of a hound's paw on this moleheap, and it's made fresh! However did a hound happen in?'

  So I went to see whether the mares had come to harm, and we found that the Duchess of Kent had slipped her foal, as Goldfinder had one night a week before; nor did we discover any signs of it nowhere. The hounds must have ate it. Mr Bate, he tried to tie the blame on me, but I told him that I wouldn't be made a scapegoat. It was none of my business to see that the gaps were stopped. He argued a bit, but I held my ground, and presently we heard the sound of wheels, and along came Dr Palmer in a fly. He asks after the Duchess.

  I says:' Sorry to tell you, Sir, she's had an accident—slipped her foal’

  He turned a trifle" pale and says: 'You rascal, how did that occur?'

  'Ask Mr Bate’ I said, 'it's his affair, not mine.'

  'George,' cries Dr Palmer, 'what in the Lord's name happened to the poor creature?'

  George looks steadily at him and says:' She was run by hounds, last night. It will be some enemy of yours, Sir, popped them in through the hedge/

  'You'll pay for this, George, as I live!' shouts the Doctor.

  Then George answers quietly: 'You should have taken an insurance policy for a few thousand pounds on the foal's life; the same as you tried to do with mine.'

  At once the Doctor's manner changes. He put a hand on George's shoulder. 'Why, George/ he says sorrowfully. 'You didn't owe me that smack in the face. Surely you knew we were gammoning?'

  But George didn't change his tone, not he. He says: ' You and your precious friends Cook and Jerry Smith—I owed you something for that trick you played on me. And now I think we're quits.'

  He turns his back and walks away.

  Dr Palmer looks at me, and an unhappier face I seldom saw. But then he shrugs and twiddles a forefinger at his temples: 'George's daft,' says he to me, 'don't pay any attention to him! It was all on account of a practical joke concocted by Mr Cook and Mr Smith, and others of my friends, which he took in earnest. But it's a bore about that foal. I had great hopes from it. Maybe Tom Masters set those hounds at the mares. If so, I'll be even with him, you'll see. I'll poison the lot of them!' I made no answer, thinking silence to be the safer course.

  The Doctor goes away, and an hour later comes back with a gun, which he shows me how to load and fire, and gives me cartridges. 'Keep this by you in the cornstore, Harry,' says he. 'And if you sec anyone around here behaving in a suspicious manner, don't hesitate to shoot. I won't have my valuable foals murdered. That's the second in ten days.'

  'Very good, Sir,' I says, but I resolved never to touch the weapon, whatever might come to pass.

  I told George Bate about the gun, and he gave me a wise look. 'You had better lose them cartridges, Harry,' says he, 'because now that the insurance company have refused to insure my life for Palmer, he won't benefit nothing by my accidental death, the same as he's benefited from others. That Inspector Field who came down the other day told me the whole story; but I was to keep my mouth shut, which I do.'

  'Here are the cartridges, Master Bate,' says I, and he takes and puts them in his pocket and goes away, whistling. That happened not long before Dr Palmer's arrest—the first week in November, it must have been.
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  Chapter IX

  AN UNFORTUNATE SERIES OF DEATHS

  AT his wife's entreaty, Dr Palmer invited her mother, Mrs Thornton, to come and live with them. Copious draughts of gin, scarcely supported by any food, had now reduced her to a pitiable state. The swarm of cats that surrounded her must starve or fend for themselves, and her fine' residence had deteriorated sadly: in another couple of years it would be almost valueless. Dr Palmer therefore persuaded Mrs Thornton to write him three cheques, in the amount of twenty or thirty pounds each, which would enable him to pay for the necessary repairs on her behalf. But he found it hard to wean the poor woman away from the house, even under colour of making it more comfortable for her, because, as she told a neighbour: 'I'll not live long, once I'm away!'

  On January 6th, 1849, Mrs Thornton was found stretched dead-drunk on the dining-room floor, a victim of acute delirium tremens; and that evening Dr Palmer brought her, under restraint, to his own house, where Annie, though still weak from childbirth, prepared to tend her with loving care.

  Soon, however, Annie wished that accommodation might have been found elsewhere for her mother, who used to shriek and scream in the night, arousing the whole household, and swear terribly, especially at 'that awful devil Palmer', who was accused of robbing her and murdering the faithful cats. The swarm of cats had, indeed, been mercifully destroyed by him, being so thin and mangy that no neighbour would offer them a home. She demanded gin all day long, but Dr Palmer refused to allow her a drop, which made the case worse. When she began to complain of violent headaches and sickness, and desired to see 'a real doctor, not a robber and murderer', he obligingly called in old Dr Bamford. Dr Bamford shook his head dolefully as he remarked: 'Gin is her poison, but it's also her sole medicine; I'd let her take a little now and then, if I were you, Billy, my boy. But make it a condition that she eats at the same time. And an effervescent mixture might be helpful.'

  Dr Palmer therefore conceded her a little gin, but still she would not eat, and raised such a hubbub when he pressed thinly sliced bread and butter on her, that for his wife's sake he added an opiate to the next noggin. Since Annie no longer ventured into the sickroom, lest the distress it occasioned might dry up or sour her milk, and hazard the life of their infant son, Dr Palmer took charge of the nursing himself, with the help of Mrs Bradshaw, the