Читать книгу Kitty Alone - Baring-Gould Sabine - Страница 10

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Kate sat in her boat holding the string that was twisted round the rowlock and that held Roger Redmore’s hands bound behind his back. He was crouched in the bottom of the boat, sunken into a heap, hanging by his hands. Now and then he made a convulsive effort with his shoulders to release his arms, but was powerless. He could not scramble to his feet, held down as he was behind. He turned his face, and from over Coombe Cellars, where the sky was alight with fire, a glow came on his countenance.

“You be Kitty Alone?” said he.

Kate hardly answered. Her heart was fluttering; her head giddy with alarm and distress, coming after a night’s exposure in the open boat. As yet, no sign of dawn in the east; only the flames from the burning farm-produce lighted up the sky to the south-west, and were reflected in the in-flowing water.

The agricultural riots which had filled the south of England with terror at the close of 1830 were, indeed, a thing of the past, but the reminiscence of them lay deep in the hearts of the labourers; and for ten and fifteen years after, at intervals, there were fresh outbreaks of incendiarism. There was, indeed, no fresh organisation of bodies of men going about the country, destroying machinery and firing farms, but in many a district the threat of the firebrand was still employed, and the revenge of a fire among the stacks and barns was so easy, and so difficult to bring home to the incendiary, that it was long before the farmer could feel himself safe. Indeed, nothing but the insurance office prevented this method of obtaining revenge from being had recourse to very frequently. When every dismissed labourer or workman who had met with a sharp reprimand could punish the farmer by thrusting a match among his ricks, fires were common; but when it became well known that an incendiary fire hurt not the farmer, but an insurance company, the malevolent and resentful no longer had recourse to this method of injury.

In the “Swing” riots many men had been hung or transported for the crimes then committed, and the statute against arson passed in the reign of George IV., making such an offence felony, and to be punished capitally, was in force, and not modified till much later. When, therefore, Jan Pooke threatened Redmore with the gallows, he threatened him with what the unhappy man knew would be his fate if convicted.

Kate was acquainted with the story of Roger. He had been a labourer on Mr. Pooke’s farm. He was a morose man, with a sickly wife and delicate children, occupying a cottage on the farm. At Christmas the man had taken a drop too much, and had been insolent to his master. The intoxication might have been forgiven--not so the impertinence. He was at once discharged, and given notice to quit his cottage at Lady Day. For nearly three months the man had been out of work. In winter there is no demand for additional hands; no great undertakings are prosecuted. All the farmers were supplied with workmen, and had some difficulty in the frosty weather in finding occupation for them. None were inclined to take on Roger Redmore. Moreover, the farmers hung together like bees. A man who had offended one, incurred the displeasure of all.

Redmore wandered from one farm to another, seeking for employment, only to meet with refusal everywhere. In a day or two he would be cast forth from his cottage with wife and family. Whither to go he knew not. He had exhausted what little money he had saved, and had nowhere found work. Kate felt pity for the man. He had transgressed, and his transgression had fallen heavy upon him. He was not an intemperate man; he did not frequent the public-house. Others who drank, and drank hard, remained with their masters, who overlooked their weakness. In the forefront of Roger’s offence stood his insolence; and Pooke, the richest yeoman in the place, was proud, and would not forgive a wound to his pride.

As Kate held the string, she felt that the wretched man was shivering. He shook in his boat, and chattered its side against her boat.

“Are you very cold?” asked the girl.

“I’m hungry,” he answered sullenly.

“You are trembling.”

“I’ve had nor bite nor crumb for forty-eight hours. That’s enough to make a man shake.”

“Nothing to eat? Did you not ask for something?”

“I went to the Rectory. Passon Fielding gave me a loaf, but I took it home--wife and little ones were more starving than I, and I cut it up between ’em.”

“I think--I almost think I have a piece of bread with me,” said Kate. She had, in fact, taken some in her pocket the night before, when she crossed, and had forgotten to eat it, or had no appetite for it. Now she produced the slice.

“I cannot take it,” said the bound man. “My hands be tied fast behind me. You must please put it into my mouth; and the Lord bless you for it.”

Holding the cord with her right, Kate extended the bread with the other hand to the man, whose face was averted, and thrust it between his lips.

“You must hold your hand to my mouth while I eat,” said he. “I wouldn’t miss a crumb, and it will fall if you take your hand from me.”

Consequently, with her hand full of bread much broken, she fed the unfortunate man, and he ate it out of her palm. He ate greedily till he had consumed the last particle.

It moved Kate to the heart to feel the hungry wretch’s lips picking the crumbs out of her palm.

“Oh, Roger!” she said in a tone full of compassion and sorrow, rather than reproach, “why--why did you do it?”

“Do what, Kitty?”

“Oh, burn the stack!”

“I’ll tell you why. I couldn’t help it. Did you know my Joan? Her was the purtiest little maid in all Coombe. Her’s dead now.”

“Dead, Roger!”

“Ay, I reckon; died to-night in her mother’s lap; died o’ want, and cold, and nakedness. Us had no bread till Pass’n gave me that loaf--and no coals, and no blankets, and naught but rags. The little maid has been sick these three weeks. Us can’t have no doctor. I’ve been out o’ work three months, and now the parish must bury her. Joan, she wor my very darling, nigh my heart.”

He was silent. The boat he was in chattered more vigorously against that of Kate.

“I knowed,” he pursued, “I knowed what ha’ done it. It wor Farmer Pooke throwed me out of employ--took the bread out o’ our mouths. Us had a bit o’ candle-end, and I wor down on my knees beside my wife, and little Joan lyin’ on her lap; and wife and I neither could speak; us couldn’t pray; us just watched the poor little maid passin’ away.”

He was silent, but Kate heard that he was sobbing. Presently he said, “You’ve been kind. If you’ve got a bit o’ handkercher or what else, wipe my face with it, will’y. There’s something, the dew or the salt water from the oars, splashed over it.”

The girl passed her shawl over the man’s face.

“Thank’y kindly,” he said. Then he drew a long breath and continued his story. “Well, now, when wife and I saw as little Joan were gone home, then her rose up and never said a word, but laid her on our ragged bed; and I--I had the candle-end in my hand, and I put it into the lantern, and I went out. My heart were full o’ gall and bitterness, and my head were burning. I know’d well who’d killed our Joan; it were Farmer Pooke as turned me out o’ employ all about a bit o’ nonsense I said and never meant, and when I wor sober never remembered to ha’ said; so, mad wi’ sorrow and anger, I--I gone and done it with that there bit o’ candle-end.”

“Oh, Roger, Roger! you have made matters much worse for yourself, for all.”

“I might ha’ made it worser still.”

“You could not--now. Oh, what will become of you, and what of your poor wife and little ones?”

“For me, as Jan Tottle said, there’s the gallows; and I reckon for my Jane and the childer, there’s the grave.”

“If you had not fired the rick, Roger!”

“I tell you I might ha’ done worse than that, and now been a free man.”

“I cannot see that.”

“Put your hand down by my right thigh. Do you feel nothing there, hanging to the strap round my waist?”

Kate felt a string and a knife, a large knife, as she groped.

“Do you mean this, Roger?”

“Yes, I does. As Jan Tottle wor a-wrastlin’ wi’ me here in this boat, and trying to overmaster me, the thought came into my head as I might easy take my knife and run it in under his ribs and pierce his heart. Had I done that, he’d ha’ falled dead here, and I’d a’ gotten scot-free away.”

“Roger!”

Kate shrank away in horror.

“I didn’t do it, but I might. I’d no quarrel with young Jan. He’s good enough. It’s the old fayther be the hard and cruel one. I knowed what was afore me, as young Jan twisted and turned and threw me. I must be took to Exeter gaol, and there be hanged by the neck till dead--but I wouldn’t stain my hands wi’ an innocent lad’s blood. I wouldn’t have it said of my little childer they was come o’ a murderin’ villain.”

Kate shuddered. Still holding fast the cord that constrained the man, and kept him in his position of helplessness, she drew back from him as far as she could without surrendering her hold.

“I had but to put down my hand and slip open my clasp-knife--and I would have been free, and Jan lying here in his blood.”

She hardly breathed. A band as of iron seemed to be about her breast and tightening.

“Kitty,” said the man, “you have fed me with bread out of your hand, and with your hand you have wiped the salt tears from my eyes. With that hand will you give me over to the gallows? If you do, my death will lie on you, and those of my Jane and the little ones.”

“Roger, I am here in trust.”

“I spared Jan. Can you not spare me?”

Kate trembled. She hardly breathed.

“Let me go, and I swear to you--I swear by all those ten thousand eyes o’ heaven looking down on us--that I will do for you what you have done for me.”

“That is an idle promise,” said Kate; “you never can do that.”

“Who can say what is to be, or is not to be? Let me go, for my wife and poor children’s sake.”

She did not answer.

“Let me go because I spared Jan Pooke.”

She did not move.

“Let me go for the little dead Joan’s sake--that when she lies i’ the churchyard, they may not say of her, ‘Thickey there green mound, wi’ them daisies on it, covers a poor maid whose father were hanged.’”

Then Kate let go the string, it ran round the rowlock, and the man scrambled to his feet.

“Cut it with my knife,” he said.

She took the swinging knife, opened the blade, and with a stroke cut through the cord that held his wrists.

Then Roger Redmore shook the strings from his hands, and held up his freed arms to heaven, and cried, “The Lord, who sits enthroned above thickey shining stars, reward you and help me to do for you as you ha’ done for me. Amen.”

He leaped from the boat and was lost in the darkness.

A minute later, and John Pooke, with a party of men among whom was Pasco Pepperill, came up.

“John,” said Kate, “he is gone--escaped.”

She drew the young man aside. “I will not deceive you--I let him go. He begged hard. He might have killed you. His little Joan is dead.”

John Pooke was at first staggered, and inclined to be angry, but he speedily recovered himself. He was a good-natured lad, and he said in a low tone, “Tell no one else. After all, it is best. I shouldn’t ha’ liked to have appeared against him, and been the occasion of his death.”

Kate returned with her uncle to Coombe Cellars.

“I hope my new boat is no worse,” said he. “How is it you’ve been out all night?”

Kate told her story.

“The boat is all right, I suppose. She cost me six pounds.”

“Yes; no harm is done to it. I hope aunt has not been anxious about me.”

“What, Zerah? Oh, she’s in bed. I waited up, and when there was a cry of fire ran out.”

“You waited for me, uncle?”

“I had my accounts.”

“And father--was he anxious about me?”

“Your father? You come in, and you’ll hear his snore all over the house. He’s a terrible noisy sleeper.”