by Lynch, R J
Astounded at her own courage, she turned and walked on. Still the horse was beside her. ‘And you, Kate Greener. Do you like me? What on earth are you laughing at?’
‘Oh, sir. You sound like our Ned when he wants something he knows he can’t have.’
‘But do you?’ he insisted. ‘Like me?’
She stopped once more. ‘Sir, you are the best farm agent we have ever had.’
She could not tell what was in his mind. ‘I shall bid you good day, Kate Greener,’ he said.
She curtseyed. ‘Good day, sir.’
Chapter 30
In the days before Jemmy’s return from Carlisle, Tom was to find out how much hostility the enclosure bill had earned him. The two men who came to work on the hedging would neither look him in the eye nor speak to him, but he saw them muttering together. At last he could stand it no longer.
He threw down his mattock, stepped out of his section of ditch and marched to where the hired men were working. Ned followed a few feet behind. Tom gestured to the men. ‘Lay down your tools. I wish to speak to you.’
‘Nay, master,’ said one of the men. ‘The ground is troublesome and we are not yet far on.’
‘I am paying you four pence a rod, Ezekiah Trumble,’ snapped Tom. ‘Lay down your tools and I shall pay you for half a rod more than you plant. That is two pence for the pleasure of your conversation.’
Ezekiah and his companion climbed from their trench. Each took a clay pipe from his pocket and sucked at it, unlit.
‘You have things on your mind,’ said Tom. ‘I wish to hear them.’
‘Nay, master…’
‘I say yes, Zeke. You mutter to each other. Now mutter to me. Out with it. You, too, John Robinson.’
‘We are afraid, master,’ said Robinson.
‘Afraid? You fear I will report you for sedition?’
‘Not of that. Not only of that.’
‘Then of what?’
‘The fault is great in man or woman, who steals a goose from off a common. But what can be the man’s excuse, who steals the common from the goose?’
‘Speak plainly, man.’
‘We are poor men, master. The wife and me have three bairns still at home. You know how it is with us, for you were one of us not so long ago. Meal is dear and meat near impossible. Without the chickens and the pig and potatoes from the garden, and milk from the cow, we would starve. Now I must kill the cow because their lordships will take the common I feed it on. That land belonged to all of us and soon it will be theirs alone.’
‘It is hard, I grant. You will still have the chickens and the pig and the garden.’
‘Aye,’ said Zeke. ‘But for how long?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘What do you know of enclosures?’ asked John.
‘Nothing. I was never part of one. And neither were you.’
‘No. But my cousin in Barton, James Savile, he was in one. After the Act was passed the commissioners came to divvy up the land. James was to get a little piece to make up for everything they took away from him. So he didn’t have his grazing or his turbary but he would have some land. What they call his allotment. Not the best land, mind, the squire would get that, but land.’
‘Yes. That’s fair.’
‘Of course it is. But they had to pay for the fencing, see, man.’
‘Well, if you’ve got some land of your own, of course you have to fence it. You’ll be feeding someone else’s pig instead of your own, else.’
‘No, man. James didn’t just have to pay for his own little bit fence. He had to pay for the squire’s and the rector’s an’ all.’
‘No, John. No, that can’t be right.’
‘Right? We’re not talking about right, man. We’re talking about what’s in the Act, and who wrote the Act, and that wasn’t the cottagers and the squatters. It’s the squire and the rector and their pals in Parliament who wrote the Act. And that’s what it said. The squire and the rector and all them that were getting big bits of land out of it, they didn’t have to pay one penny for fencing. But all the poor little buggers that were getting enough land to raise a pig and grow cabbages, they’re the ones who had to pay for all the fencing. Their own and everybody else’s.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘You can believe it or not, man. It’s true. And that’s what’ll happen here an’ all. Mebbes Lord Ravenshead might be ready to pay for his own fences but yon greedy bugger in Durham Cathedral, he’ll not, the miserable Welshman that he is. And as for the thieving Blacketts, who believe we are nothing...we’ll get no mercy there.’
‘So what happened to your cousin James?’
‘Exactly what they meant to happen when they wrote their bliddy Act. “Oh, James, man, can you not pay your bit fence money? Well, divven’t ye worry, man. We’ll help you out. We’ll buy your bit land off you for five pound and you can have yourself a nice drink and we’ll have all the land for ever. And you can forget about your bliddy pig.” And that’s what’ll happen to me and me pig and me cabbages and me chickens.’
‘I knew nothing of this,’ stammered Tom.
‘You know it now,’ said John Robinson. ‘We were wrong to talk behind your back. You are not our enemy.’
‘Mebbe not,’ said Zeke. ‘But I warn you, Tom Laws. Watch out for Isaac Henderson.’
‘Zeke’s right,’ said John. ‘Isaac hates you. If he can bring you down, he will.’ He stepped closer to Tom. ‘You are a fool to let him take your rabbits. It brings him onto your farm. He has big eyes, that one. He sees things he should not.’
Alarm clutched at Tom’s heart. ‘What things?’
‘Aye, well, Master. You’ll either know or you’ll not know. I’ve said all I’m saying. Let’s get to the hedging. There’s a good hour till dinner.’
But they were not surprised when Tom called the dinner break early. They knew he would have things to discuss at the farmhouse.
‘I’m sorry, Tom Laws,’ said Joe. ‘I’ve brought this on you. I must leave as soon as it gets dark.’
‘You can’t leave,’ cried Lizzie. ‘Where would you go? You’d be taken and tried. And hanged,’ she added in a low voice.
‘If Isaac Henderson has sold me to the militia I’ll be taken if I stay here. I need to get a message to Winlaton.’
‘I’ll take it,’ said Miles.
‘You will not,’ Tom answered.
‘Who better, man?’ asked Joe. ‘It can’t be more than two miles across the fields. The boy will be there in under an hour. And what more natural than a lad of his age going exploring?’
‘What would you want him to do?’
‘Listen, Miles,’ said Joe. ‘When you get to Winlaton, go to Crowley’s Ironworks. You’ll not can miss it, but anyone’ll tell you where it is. Don’t say my name. And don’t tell anyone who you are. If you’re asked, say you’re Tommy Robson from Tantobie.’
‘What if the person knows the real Tommy Robson?’
‘They’ll have a job. When you get to the ironworks, say you’ve got a message for your uncle, Andrew Robson. Andrew knows better than most he hasn’t got a nephew called Tommy. So he’ll know you come from me.’
‘This is coming a bit easy,’ said Lizzie.
‘Aye, well. We’ve had cause to use Tommy Robson before. Don’t give the message to anyone but Andrew. He has a scar, a blue line, from here to here.’ Joe traced a line with his finger from Miles’s eyebrow to his mouth. ‘A flying piece of molten iron cut him right open.’
‘He’s lucky he wasn’t blinded,’ said Florrie.
‘We’re all lucky, man. An ironworks isn’t a spa. Them as aren’t lucky are dead.’
‘What will I tell him?’ asked Miles.
‘Say the militia’s after Joe
Greener and he needs a place to hide for a few days. Say I’ll be at the elm tree at the far end of Winlaton Green at seven o’clock tonight.’
‘Shouldn’t you make it later?’ said Lizzie. ‘There’ll still be a lot of people about.’
‘I can’t risk it. Neither can Andrew Robson. You work eighty hours a week at Crowley’s. There’s a curfew an hour after work finishes every night. I don’t want any blabbermouth reporting me. It’s one thing when you’ve just been a walk to the Royal Oak for ale. Blacksmithing’s thirsty work. But I have a price on my head.’
‘Why do you put up with a curfew?’ asked Tom. ‘You’re a freeborn Englishman.’
‘I haven’t time to debate the freeborn with you, Tom Laws. Though there’s plenty among Crowley’s Crew would be happy to. Englishmen are free, aye. Free to starve. Free to be hanged or transported if they argue with them as think they’re our betters. We put up with the curfew because Crowley’s looks after us. They teach our children to read and write, which might make them more free than we are one day. They provide us with doctoring. And when we die they look after them we leave behind. You’d best go now, young Miles.’
Chapter 31
It was the twenty-fourth of May, nearly five months since the murder of Reuben Cooper, before Blakiston was able to find time for the journey to Wall. He knew the little hamlet to be no more than twenty-five miles away, but he had no business to take him to another parish in another county on the far side of the River Tyne. Once there, though, it did not take long to locate William Oliver and almost no longer for Blakiston to find himself face to face with Nicholas Cooper, who limped across the yard at Oliver’s command.
The farmer insisted on being present during the conversation. ‘No offence, Mister Blakiston, and I’m sure you are who you say you are, but you have to admit you don’t sound like someone from hereabouts.’
‘I make no objection,’ said Blakiston, ‘so long as Cooper does not. There are things I have to ask him that he will find personal.’
Cooper looked from one to the other, and Blakiston wondered whether he had ever felt free to make his own decisions. ‘Whatever you gentlemen think is best.’
‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ said Blakiston. ‘You have been heard to say that you stood ready to kill your father. Now he is dead, and you did not come to the funeral. Did you kill him?’
Oliver’s head turned from one man to the other. Blakiston could see that this was quality entertainment for the farmer.
Cooper shook his head. ‘I’m glad he’s dead and I doubt not that he roasts in hell, but I did not kill him. I was nowhere near when he died.’
‘Where were you?’
Oliver’s eyes glistened in excitement. ‘When was it the old man passed away?’
Blakiston told him. ‘Though passed away scarce does his going justice. He was battered over the head until he was dead and then his body burned in a fire that the killer must have started with the intention of covering the evidence.’
‘Then ‘twas not Nicholas Cooper, for he was with me in Hexham that day. We had business at the smithy.’
‘It was late at night that the fire was started.’
‘We did not leave Hexham till six of the evening. It was gone seven when we got home. He has no horse and I can promise you he did not use mine. If he set out right away and ran every foot without stopping it would have been close to midnight when he reached his father’s house.’
‘The fire was not observed until two hours later.’
Oliver turned to look at his labourer as though expecting him to admit his guilt. ‘Run to Ryton?’ said the man. ‘See this leg? It was crushed when the old ox rolled on it in his death throes. I could not walk from here to Chollerford in a day, let alone run to Ryton.’
Oliver’s expression as he turned back to Blakiston was almost apologetic. ‘It is true, Mister Blakiston. Poor Nicholas is little better than a cripple. I would end his employment, for to tell the truth he is of little use to me, but my wife says his accident was my fault and forbids it.’
‘Your charity is an example to us all, Oliver. You were how long at the smithy?’
‘We reached Hexham at noon. We ate our dinner in the Fox and then we went to see to the work.’
‘So by two o’clock? No later?’
Oliver nodded.
‘And you were at the smithy yourself, with Nicholas Cooper, from then until six?’
‘Not all of the time. I had business to attend to at the Fox. But I am sure he did not drive the cart to Ryton while I was there. Perhaps you should ask the smith.’
‘Perhaps I shall. Where was your first settlement, Cooper?’
‘Why, Staithes, Master, for my father was settled there and I was born there. It is my settlement still.’
‘You were never settled at Ryton?’
Cooper shook his head. ‘I never lived there. I am here in Wall because Staithes gave me a certificate. If I ever fall on the parish, Wall will call on Staithes to take me back there, and Staithes will have to do so.’
‘Staithes gave your whole family certificates?’
‘Aye, those who left. I have brothers and sisters still there. But the rest, yes, they were certificated.’
‘Is it not unusual for a parish to certificate so many from one family?’
‘They wanted no more Coopers than they were forced to have. And you may lay that at the door of my father, may he rot in hell.’
‘From all I hear, I think that likely. Do you know where your brother Samuel is?’
‘I...no, sir.’
‘Your face gives the lie to your words, Cooper. But tell me about Fanny Blenkinsopp.’
Cooper’s face went deathly pale and he stared at Blakiston, unspeaking.
‘Come, man. Fanny Blenkinsopp. You cannot have forgotten her, surely?’
‘Who told you about Fanny, sir?’
‘That is of no consequence. Be sure I know the whole story, and I shall know if you lie. But I wish to hear it from your own lips.’
Cooper stared at the ground. ‘It was my father’s idea, sir. I wanted nowt to do with it.’
‘I expected you to say nothing else. What happened?’
‘Old man Heslop was confined to his bed. He had no family. Some of the women round about would make his meals and clean his house. Wash his linen when he soiled it. Which he did.’
‘Yes?’
‘Fanny Blenkinsopp would come twice a week, Wednesdays and Sundays, with money for the women, so they were not out of pocket. She would bring the Courant and read bits of news to the old man.’
‘Yes?’
‘It made my father angry. He said she was an interfering besom. He said, if she wanted to be kind to old men, why could she not be kind to him? He said he needed charity more than old George Heslop, and he was still enough of a man to receive a woman’s kindness in...in other ways..’
‘Cooper, I do not intend to stand here all day saying “Yes”.’
‘No, sir. Sir, could we continue with just the two of us? This is a story Master Oliver has never heard.’
‘You agreed to his presence, Cooper. And I believe I should like there to be a witness to what you have to say.’
‘Sir, you do not know what you do to me.’
‘Get on with the story, man.’
Oliver’s eyes glistened with excitement. ‘Perhaps, Mister Blakiston, we should call my wife? Two witnesses may be more helpful than one.’
‘That will not be necessary. Get on with your tale, Cooper. And pray do not look as though you were about to burst into tears. The time for crying is past.’
‘Well, sir, to get to Heslop’s place from Fanny’s meant passing ours.’
‘Speak up, man. I can scarce hear you.’
‘She was as regular as clockwork. Ten of the morning, without fail, she would pass by on her pony. You could set your watch by her, if so be you had a watch. And my father knew that, see. So one morning he waited for her and pulled her out of the saddle.’
‘He? You took no part?’
‘I may have helped, sir. Unwillingly, you understand.’
‘So you both waited for her, and you both pulled her from the saddle. What happened to the pony?’
‘We let it make its way home. My father said Blenkinsopp would see it and know something had happened to his precious daughter and that would be good for our plan. His plan, that is, sir. We tied a cloth around Fanny’s mouth and bound her hands behind her and put her into the cart. We tied her down so she could not move and put some sacks over her. There is an old shepherd’s hut no-one uses any more about twelve miles north of Staithes. I drove the cart up there.’
‘No-one saw you?’
‘We had picked our place with care, sir.’
‘And when you reached the hut you took her out of the cart and carried her inside.’
‘I did, sir. By that time, my father had gone out to meet her father, who was on the road looking for her. He told him he would never find Fanny before she and I were married.’
’But you had already taken stock of your captive and decided to anticipate a little in the matter of marital relations.’
Cooper stared at the ground. ‘She was a lovely looking girl.’
‘Much lovelier than your usual conquests, I make no doubt. Did she resist?’
‘She could not, sir. I had not untied her wrists. She may have kicked out a little.’
‘So you slapped her a time or two.’
‘How could you possibly know that, sir?’
‘I know the kind of man you are, Cooper. A bully and a wanton. And after you had terrified the poor girl with your fists, you put her on her back and raised her petticoats.’