George Star's agent ran them round a clothing store in the morning, equipping them cheaply but warm and putting stockings and boots on the children's unaccustomed feet.
Eddie was taken to one side and was given a purse containing one hundred sovereigns and three sheets of paper.
"You will be fed aboard ship, Mr Peterson. You will reach Baltimore in three weeks and there you will take yourself to the Agent whose name is written here. He has an office on the waterfront. He will purchase you tickets to New Orleans, putting you up in a lodging house to wait for a ship if necessary; give him this envelope with his instructions. Once in New Orleans you will take yourself to the offices of Mr Henry Star and you will give them this letter. You will then be transported to whatever place he thinks is best and there will be a house and work. You understand?"
"Aye, sir. Two letters, hand 'em over to the right folk. Thank'ee, sir."
"You have earned this by doing the right thing, Mr Peterson. Do not write any letters back to England, sir! Your address must never be known."
"Don't need tellin' that, master!"
The Sheriff's officers, each accompanied by a platoon of the Militia, broke down a dozen doors on Tuesday night, arrested the committee members found in each. They did not discover Nellie Parkin who was still on the road back to town, but they put the word out that there was ten pounds on her head.
The Weaving Operatives Union met and discovered that all those arrested were members, but only one of them in a position of authority. They enquired of the shop stewards and were told that they all knew of the men and that the Ludd Committee had been ordered to keep their heads down and not to appear to be interested in Union activity. Only the Treasurer of the Union had been a member of the Ludd Committee, and investigation soon showed that he had been funding the Reds from Union dues, which created a degree of panic among the Union officers.
"It's Union money that has been paying for the Luddites, even if us knew nowt about it! What the 'ell do us do now?"
"Run?"
It was a sensible suggestion but not practical for men with families.
"Go to bloody law, Jack! Take the books to attorney and tell un thou hast uncovered theft and fraud-like. The Treasurer being taken up, thou hast read all 'is books and knows now what 'as 'appened. Charge the daft bugger. Add that to what 'e's goin' to get in Court. They shall swing 'im by the neck any road, so it don't make bugger-all difference to 'im, but it might protect the Union."
They scurried to lay their complaint and succeeded in forestalling the Sheriff. Reluctantly, and fearing that they were being manipulated, the authorities let it be known that the Union had been the victims of unscrupulous Reds who had stolen the money put together by ordinary working men.
Nellie reached town and saw a headline in the local newssheet. She was tired and wanted nothing so much as to rest for a couple of days, and particularly to change her travelling clothes and have a good wash. If she went to any of the places where she had put up she could expect to be arrested - she had no illusions that she was loved for her own sake and would be protected by loyal followers. She walked the back streets to the canal basin and watched for an empty wagon going back to a mill in one of the smaller villages without its own waterway.
She stopped a driver, offered him a shilling for a lift; he refused.
"I knows thee, woman, and they would be 'anging I for givin' thee 'aid and comfort'. I ain't telling' they of thee, but I got a missus and bairns back 'ome and I ain't turnin' 'er into a widow. Now, bugger off before thee gets all of us into trouble!"
She turned away, down the towpath and into the unwelcoming countryside. Later in the morning she stopped at an inn that provided for the canal folk, was a provision store as well as a pub. The landlord allowed her to take a room for sixpence a night, as was normal, and a sovereign in his hand, which was not. She did not trust him wholly, but she was tired. He did not sell her to the Sheriff, but he did come knocking on her door that night; she had no choice other than to let him in. She bought bread and cheese for the road next morning, paying full price, and ate a breakfast, again not free, before setting out down the lane that led towards the hills. She was footsore, hungry and in the mood for the bloodiest of revolutions three days later when she spoke to Johnny Moonlight.
The leader of the agricultural labourers was sure in his own mind that the townies were out to use his people - they did not care what happened to the 'yokels', none of them did. He did not trust this Lady General Ludd, but she had money, which they could use for food with winter coming, and was willing to join them late at night.
"Our lads all puts their pennies into our Welfare, when they got any to spare, lady."
She recognised the ultimatum, stumped up her last sovereign.
"That is all I have on me, Johnny Moonlight. I am not rich."
He put the coin away in the almost empty purse at the back of the kitchen cupboard, nodded his acceptance that it was all she had.
"Tomorrow night, down on the flatland. Farmer's got some good fields as well as sheepwalks up on the moors. His barns are full with straw and barley and oats for winter fodder. He's got a hayrick as well. He'll burn for them all to see. There's a score of local lads meeting up at moonrise. It's four hours walking downhill. I shall go down on the carter's wagon and come back up the same way the day after with a load of provisions for the farm, all above board. You cannot be seen in my company."
The farmer's wife had made it silently clear that she was not wanted on her previous visit, and she might talk, discussing her with neighbours and the labourers' women. She picked up her almost empty bag and started down the lane. Moonlight did not offer her food for the journey, confining himself to directions to the meeting place and warnings to keep out of sight. It was coming on to rain and her travelling cloak was only barely waterproof. She slept rough that night, huddled over a fire in a stone sheep fold, empty while the flock remained up high on the moorland; she had been able to collect gorse stems and oddments of sticks to keep a little heat in the fire till morning, but it was an uncomfortable night.
The track took her through a pair of hamlets that morning, collections of a dozen or so cottages of small miners working seams of lead and zinc or copper, almost exhausted after centuries of digging and providing a very bare living. She was watched from their windows and identified - she was probably that wicked woman they had heard of from town, in which case she was worth ten pounds; if not then she was some vagrant and they did not want her sort hanging about. Two separate men went running off to the magistrate's house to whip up the hue and cry.
Horsemen set out on the road to town, but she had gone in the other direction, towards the rendezvous, and they were late finding report of her.
The skies had cleared, as much as ever they did close to the northwest coast and the moon gave enough light for the twenty men and boys who came walking into the patch of woodland at the foot of the hills. They came up to Johnny Moonlight, their faces blackened and dressed in dark colours, and gave him their numbers - they would not speak a name aloud, partly for safety, more for the excitement of the conspiracy, for the feeling of daring it gave.
Number Eight came carrying a small barrel of tar, stolen from a boatyard and brought inland a few days before. Most of the others had torches, no more than sticks tied round with rags and straw, to dip in the barrel. Two carried long bean poles and tied torches to the ends so as to thrust them up into thatch roofs. One man carried a poacher's gun, the sole armament they possessed and brought more as a symbol of zeal - it would do little good against a squadron of Yeomanry or a company of Militia.
Nellie unwrapped her butcher's cleaver, also a symbol in town where she was known, but no more than a curiosity out here.
Johnny Moonlight produced his tinder box, checked that there were others.
"Don't light up until I gives thee the word! No point letting them see us comin'!"
There was a mutter of assent.
"Number Three has l
ooked the place over and will tell us what to do."
Three, rather excited by his prominence, seemed in the half-light to be a skinny youth, little more than a boy.
"There do be a stables wi' the better part of a dozen 'osses in 'er. Doors front and back what we got to open acos we ain't burnin' they to death."
Nellie could not see why but there was general agreement and she did not want to cause trouble. Horses cost money and losing them would hurt a farmer, but these hayseeds weren't real Reds!
"Sheep's up on the moors still. The henhouses are out the back, the ducks and geese too, and the pigsties. They ain't goin' to catch alight when the barns go up."
"What of the house?" Nellie asked.
"Back thirty yards. That'll be safe."
She said nothing but decided he was wrong; dead wrong. These fools were playing a game, that was all. Well, it was a good thing for them that she was here and could show them how to do things properly.
The man closest to her had four torches; she took one from him and dipped it into the tar barrel, smearing her dress with drips. She did not care, she was not some little miss who needed to look pretty.
They waited in the cover of the woods until it was close to midnight at a guess, certainly much later than bedtime for a farmer with animals to feed in the morning. They walked out quietly, Number Three proudly at the front and showing the way down the narrow track to the back of the farm, used only by firewood collectors with hand carts.
The farm was built round a square, house on one side, barns on another, stables to the third and sties and hen runs almost closing it in. There was a single roadway leading in, wide enough for a dray. The house was large by local standards, the residence of a rich man, a gentleman farmer they called his sort; eight or ten bedrooms under thatch, a single-storey range of kitchens and still rooms at the back. The labourers' cottages were nearly a quarter of a mile distant up their own track but the end of the stables had been made into a pair of rooms for a groom, the cottages too far distant from the horses.
Two of the Blackfaces burst into the groom's quarters and grabbed and gagged him. Others opened the stable doors and led the horses out, the stockmen among them keeping them quiet. Number Three ran across to the pigsties and opened the gate at the rear. Five minutes and all was ready, barely in time as a light showed in the house, the noise of hooves just loud enough to wake the farmer or one of his children or a maidservant.
"Light the torches!"
Tinder flared and the first torches caught fire. A running man reached the haystack behind the stables and tossed his torch high into its side, delayed a second as the dry grasses exploded into flame, the gentle wind sufficient to spread the fire beyond any chance of water buckets putting it out.
The men with long poles thrust them up underneath the thatch of barns and stables. The dry underside of the eaves flared instantly. There were stooks of unthreshed wheat at the back of the barn; a thrown torch set them afire.
Nellie Parkin thrust her torch into the flames, whirled it around her head till it was well alight, then tossed it high up onto the roof of the farmhouse. A few moments while the dampish top surface smouldered and then a first tendril of flame penetrated to lower, dust-dry levels and the whole roof seemed to flash alight.
She laughed and shouted her triumph and pointed to her success. The Blackfaces stood aghast, staring at their death sentence.
If they were caught for burning a barn they would probably face transportation, but the local people would all keep their mouths shut and the jury might be unwilling to convict; they had a very good chance of never standing before a court or of an acquittal. Burning down an occupied house was attempted murder and the Militia would be out and there would be rewards, hundreds of pounds offered to men who earned ten shillings a week. The jury would be under threat, would not dare acquit, and there would be pressure on the weaker or more venal men to turn King's Evidence. There would be no mercy, and fewer of the local folk would support them - there would be no false alibis on this occasion.
"You mad bitch!"
A fist swung into her mouth and a pair of heavy boots landed as she went down. The Blackfaces scattered, left her sprawled in the mud, her tar-splattered dress additional evidence of her guilt.
Bob Star woke to screaming pandemonium, the roof alight above him. He shouted his wife to get out and ran to the children's bedrooms, dragging out the two girls and his little boy. He saw the nursery door was open, shouted to the maid to get out, quickly.
They ran out into the yard, into the darkness and the shouting and the panic and the running and screaming maids and the labourers charging down the track from their cottages. He found his wife tending a burn on the cookmaid's arm, burning thatch having dropped onto her.
The three children clung to her skirts, weeping, terrified.
"Where's the babe, husband?"
"Mary's got her, I told her to run. Where is she?"
There was light now from their flaming house; they peered round the yard, discovered the nursery maid screaming and wailing.
"Where's the baby?"
"I were frit, Master!"
Bob said nothing, started towards the front door, was grabbed by two of his men as the roof collapsed inward and flames billowed out of the windows.
The labourers organised a bucket chain and began to damp down the pigsties which had not caught light. There was nothing else to do.
There was a sudden new outburst of shouting as Nellie Parkin was spotted and grabbed, her blacked face and pitch-smelling clothing identification enough.
"Tie her! Don't let her get away!"
Bob came out of his first shock, began to give orders. Men went in search of the horses, wanting at least to calm them before they ran into fences in the night and injured themselves. There was no need to send for help - the flames against the night sky would raise the alarm.
The house burned for hours - thatch roof, wooden framing and old, well-waxed timber floors and furniture making a massive pyre. They found no trace of the baby, not so much as a bone or anything that could be identified as belonging to the nursery; she was gone.
The Militia and the Yeomanry combed the local villages and clubbed down and arrested more than forty men on suspicion of being Blackfaces. The villagers took the opportunity to denounce the unpopular as well as the probably guilty and half a dozen young men whose crime was to be suspected of filling another man's bed were sworn to be Reds of the worst sort. Innocent and guilty alike knew that their only hope was to talk and name the real culprits.
The boy Number Three was brought to the sheriff's officers by his mother, still with soot on his face; he talked for hours and identified Johnny Moonlight first and then six others from his village. He swore that there had been no intent to burn the house and that it had been the wicked woman from the town who had done that all on her own. They took his statement and chased down the men he had named before regretting that he was only sixteen years of age, and too young therefore to turn King's Evidence in court; he could not be put on oath as a prosecution witness. They charged him with murder and locked him away in the Roundhouse.
Before three days had passed they had taken up the score who had been present and had allowed two to turn Evidence. The others who had been arrested in the general round-up were examined individually; two were ploughmen and wanted on their farms, and another was a skilled groom from the Squire's stables. The remaining nineteen were probably guilty of something or they would not have been denounced, and they were charged with public disorder and quietly put before the magistrates and sent to transportation. They served as an example, assuming one to be needed.
The true Blackfaces were taken to Lancaster to stand before a judge at Assizes; they were joined by Nellie Parkin, broken-nosed and still half dazed.
The family took Bob in. He was brought to Freemans and settled into the wing with his mother, wife and children in their own rooms. Thomas Star sent his own agent across to oversee the first re
building of the barns and the day-to-day running of the farm then settled to the restoration of his brother.
“Why, Thomas? Why me? My labourers are the best paid in the county, and they get anything I can give on the side. I don’t make half the money most of the sheep-farmers do as a result!”
“It wasn’t your labourers, Bob. None of them had anything to do with it. This man who calls himself Johnny Moonlight has Sir Matthew’s Home Farm, and the woman who was there is the runaway wife of George Star’s manager, Tonks. These were people with a grievance against the family and choosing you as the easiest target to hit.”
“But they didn’t hit me! A three month babe, for the love of God!”
Thomas had no direct answer.
“They will hang for it, that is a cast-iron certainty!”
“That is small comfort, Thomas.”
A week and a High Court judge appeared in Lancaster; Mark Star had been due on circuit within the month but it was felt that justice demanded that he should not sit on the murderers of his infant niece. The judge who took his place could be relied upon to look after his legal brother’s interests; there would be no fear of undue leniency.
To the surprise of all involved, the Blackfaces pleaded guilty to the charges of arson and disorder but, apart from the two who turned King’s Evidence, not guilty to the count of murder. Nellie Parkin had recovered her wits and refused to plead at all, saying that it did not matter what she said in court, there was no justice for ordinary folk in England.
The prosecution had to think quickly because the bulk of its evidence had been to prove the identity and presence at the scene of each of the accused, and that was unnecessary given their pleas. The prosecuting silk, actively leading in a case that had attracted national outrage, took the witnesses through their part in the night’s activities and brought both to state that they saw Nellie Parkin throw her torch onto the farmhouse roof and that only the one flaming brand had landed on that thatch.
Virtue’s Reward (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 11) Page 18
