Virtue’s Reward (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 11)

by Andrew Wareham

  Unusually, there was a barrister acting for the defence, though the source of his brief was unknown. He rose and ponderously enquired who was ‘Nellie Parkin’; he saw no person of that name in court. A few minutes placed the lady under her correct name of Mrs Jeremy Tonks; a whisper ran round the court as her husband was identified and his relationship with the Star family was clarified. The newspaper correspondents brightened to a man – there was all the makings of a good scandal here!

  There seemed to be a chance of a not guilty verdict on the murder charge for the men as the prosecution stumbled in its attempts to identify Mrs Tonks as a Blackface rather than an opportunist with a grudge against the family. Johnny Moonlight’s wife solved the prosecution’s problem for them; she could not testify in court against her husband but she mentioned to the prosecutor the source of the gold sovereign found in the Blackface’s funds and told him that her husband had met the woman on a previous occasion when they had laid their plans. Private enquiry disclosed that they had no children and Mrs Moonlight had it in mind to remedy that lack; a live husband in Botany Bay would not suit her plans for a new existence. The prosecution laid bare the connection between Mrs Tonks and the leader of the Blackfaces and the defence crumbled.

  The cases closed and the judge explained to the jury that accessories to murder were equally murderers in the eyes of the law. There had been contact between the Blackfaces and the woman Tonks before the murderous affray; she had been supplied with a torch and access to a barrel of tar by the Blackfaces; they had made no attempt to prevent her committing her part in the crime – if one was guilty, then the jury must find that so were all.

  The jury was sent out to consider its verdict and returned with a clean sweep of ‘guilty as charged’ for all of the defendants, taking very few minutes to achieve the desired result. The judge thanked the jury for their performance of their harrowing duty before turning to the business of sentencing, which offered, he said, some difficulties.

  The two who had turned Evidence were dealt with first, as was normal procedure; they were standing separately from the bulk of the convicts in the box, for their own survival. The judge was unhappy that the practice was to release those who turned King’s Evidence, but saw little alternative to conformity; he refused to condone any reward for the pair, however. Prices had been put on the heads of the Blackfaces in the days before all were arrested and the judge forbade the payment of the rewards in this case – they should not profit from their wickedness, he proclaimed.

  The Sheriff almost protested – the offer of rewards was the sole method of investigation of criminal cases, and refusal to pay would mean no witnesses coming forward next time. The Prosecutor quietly pointed out that while he might not pay out rewards there was no possible way of preventing him from exercising Christian charity – he might hand out the same amounts as a gift to two men who were now facing destitution, being unemployed and certain never to work again in the area.

  Eighteen Blackfaces remained, all guilty of the capital offence of Arson as well as murder and all but one sentenced to the rope. The exception was the youth known as ‘Three’ who had shown repentance by presenting himself to the Sheriff’s officers; the judge could see grounds for mercy and sentenced him to Transportation for life.

  The judge turned then to Mrs Jeremy Tonks and spent ten minutes of eloquent condemnation of her as that most wicked of persons, a woman, a mother, who killed a babe-in-arms. He spoke slowly so that the newspaper people could write all down, then asked her if she had anything to say before receiving her just sentence.

  “Go to hell,” was her sole reply, but she had not expected mercy; she regretted her genteel upbringing, sure that there was much worse to say but not knowing what.

  The judge passed sentence of death, adding the rider that a gallows must be erected inside the prison walls. Execution would otherwise have been carried out in public and judges were expected to protect decency.

  There could be no possibility of reprieve, as all accepted; the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was, possibly fortuitously, resident in the city rather than in London that week and was able to confirm that there would be no exercise of mercy.

  The Blackfaces hanged in front of market-day crowds while a written notice was posted on the prison door to state that Mrs Tonks had suffered the due penalty for her crimes. There was a small debate in the columns of the local press on the issue – some of the readers feeling that a crime so evil should have led to public punishment, irrespective of the sex of the offender. As was pointed out, she could hardly claim to any delicacy of feeling or treatment.

  Jerry Tonks spent the week in seclusion in his house, unwilling to show his face in public, as he had been advised was correct behaviour. He kept a pair of young ladies with him, however; for fear of loneliness, no doubt. He returned to business on the Monday following, looking much refreshed many thought. There was much private comment, but none of the mill hands or miners thought it wise to make their opinions public and he became a respected widower of the community. George Star thought he might consider marrying again, but Tonks suggested that he would find his own wife next time.

  The case was reported in every newspaper in the country, those serving rural areas especially making much of the wickedness of arsonists who murdered infants. In every parish the vicar preached his sermon, at the urging of the bishops, calling his flock to eschew such wickedness, to turn away from the evils of Captain Swing. Most ministers of the low churches did the same, possibly more often actually reaching the ears of their intended targets. In the towns there was less outrage, perhaps because children’s lives came cheaper there, but the idea of General Ludd finding a common interest with Captain Swing died, as did the possibility of revolution. The generally more peaceful proponents of trades unions were listened to again and unrest took a more legalised form. A few were heard to say that the price of one dead baby was quite cheap in the circumstances.

  “Who paid for their barrister, Thomas?”

  “I did, Bob. They had a fair trial, with legal representation. No man will ever be able to say that this was a wrongful conviction – the law was followed to the letter. And the bastards swung, right and tight!”

  Bob thought a while, then agreed he had been right. These men would never become martyrs and there would be no whispers that an errant wife had been done away with.

  “Being Lord Star has a few drawbacks, Bob. Not many, don’t get me wrong! But in this sort of case there’s always people who will say ‘one law for the rich…’”

  “But not now. What happens next, Thomas? I don’t think I can go back, not to a new house built on the little one’s pyre. The wife says the same, and I don’t think the children want to see the place again.”

  “There is no urgency, Bob, and we can work something out. Farming in England is on its last legs, so they tell me, because the Corn Laws must go within a few years. America is the place to be, or Canada if you prefer. But if you want to stay in England then we need to work something new out. You know what the Andrews are doing at James’ place at Lutterworth?”

  Bob did not. He had buried himself happily in his growing farm, breeding his sheep and cultivating his lowland acres. Money had not mattered to him because he had enough for his needs and had few ambitions besides.

  They talked for a little while and then decided that the best thing might be for Bob to go south to Leicestershire and actually see what was being done there. If he found it interesting then they could talk again in the New Year.

  “Mr Quillerson, Sir Matthew!”

  Matthew Star stood from his office desk, surprised by the visitor. He knew who it must be, the name being sufficiently uncommon, but had never, he believed, met the gentleman.

  He assessed the man quickly – early thirties; strongly built; bright-eyed; prosperously dressed as a businessman; medium height; a thatch of dark hair that needed the services of a barber. He could remember Quillerson’s father, could see something of him in the
man.

  A few minutes established that Quillerson was working for Commodore Vanderbilt of New York, a name that was vaguely familiar to Matthew because of their shared interest in shipping. The Commodore was to involve himself in the railroad business and would be very interested to purchase English knowhow – drawings of steam locomotives, for example, and comments on the nature of the permanent way would be very useful. There was also a wish to buy a first locomotive and wagons to make a start on their construction work.

  “You will wish to speak with Mr Joseph Andrews, Mr Quillerson. No doubt you will take the opportunity to meet your brother when you do so. He is working in Lancashire for the Andrews interests.”

  This was news to Quillerson, he having exchanged few letters over the past years. He showed interested, however.

  “I intend as well to travel back to Finedon for a week or two to see my mother and sisters, Sir Matthew.”

  “Of course, Mr Quillerson. On that topic, brothers particularly, can you tell me anything of my brothers in America? Mr Henry Star and Mr Luke Star that is, of course.”

  Quillerson knew very little, other than the common currency of the newspapers. He believed that both were somewhere in the wild lands of Texas, but little was known of events there.

  The events in the distant North Country were reported in Dorset, and attracted some slight interest as Captain Swing had been riding the nights there and unrest was very high. Many haystacks had burned that season and it was feared that actual violence might soon flare.

  Captain Burley took pains to spread the news, to inform every farmer of the events and to let the affair be known in every labourer’s cottage. The men might be saddened to hear of the death of the poor little girl, but their wives could be expected to be outraged, and to make their opinions heard.

  A few miles away Gervase Drew heard the same story and reacted with horror, and then fear. It was obvious to Mr Drew that it would be his turn next, in common with every other landowner – he was marked for destruction. He took the only logical course, as he saw it.

  He called for his agent and demanded names – he must have a list of every murdering Red within ten miles.

  “Every last one of them, Barker, do you hear me? Enough of this shilly-shallying, of this damned tom-foolery about evidence and law! I want them taken up before this week is out, and that means you must and shall give me the names by tomorrow’s close, sir – or I shall be forced to conclude that you are one of them!”

  Barker had a wife and children and very little by way of savings – Mr Drew was not the most open-handed of employers. He acquiesced.

  The Militia and the Yeomanry descended at week’s end, raiding cottages from the outskirts of Poole to the edge of Yeovil, from Bridport to Dorchester, and calling at a few more prosperous houses where dwelt the most dangerous of felons, educated men who had thrown in with the revolutionists.

  The members of the Corresponding Society were taken up to a man – schoolteachers, tailors and a single attorney-at-law, all thrown into the common cells at Dorchester prison.

  The active followers of Captain Swing, who had almost without exception kept their heads down and their mouths closed and were unknown to Mr Drew’s informants, trod very carefully for a few days until they realised that they were safe. They met and decided to stay at home for the next months – it was too dangerous. Some of them got together and wondered if they might not form a Trades Union including farm labourers; they would take advice, very discreetly.

  The cases came to court and met up with a judge who believed in the rules of evidence. He dismissed all hearsay and demanded identification by time, date and place of each defendant. The prosecution case collapsed time after time as he demanded proof rather than insinuation. The members of the Corresponding Society were released on the first day of the trials, and proceeded to institute a summons for malicious prosecution against Mr Drew; that case was also thrown out as untenable, but he was bitterly offended by the whole business.

  “I stood up in the damned court and stated on my honour as a gentleman that I knew the case to be true, and the bewigged buffoon asked me for my evidence!”

  His father kept a straight face while he offered his sympathy.

  Of more than a hundred men arrested only one was discovered to be guilty of any crime, his back room discovered to be full of goods recently stolen from a warehouse in Poole. He denied most bitterly that he was or ever had been a Red – he was a businessman, he said. They transported him, for not wishing to hold a public hanging with only the one candidate for the noose.

  The discharged men made their way back to their cottages, finding often that they had been evicted and no longer had a job to return to. Many of them reacted by trying to locate the real Captain Swing and offer their services.

  Book Eleven: A Poor Man

  at the Gate Series

  Chapter Eight

  Texas was a peculiar place, Luke mused as he sat his horse for the fifth day of unbroken travel along an imitation of a trail. Vast expanses of plains – prairie, they seemed to call it – suited for little other than the grazing of herds of cattle on the great rancherios of the Spanish land grants, with just sufficient in the way of creeks and water holes for the beasts to survive. Having survived, though, what did one do with them? There was no population to eat their beef or possibly drink milk, and the price of hides was not quite high enough to justify their slaughter for the leather trade. It was clear that Texas could, one day, be rich – but not quite yet.

  He rode towards the front of a group of one hundred or so armed men. Not a cavalry squadron, certainly – mounted infantry, perhaps – and barely constrained by discipline, yet some of the most dangerous fighting men he had ever met. With this company about him he could have carved his way through half of the Turkish army.

  Each man carried a rifle across his saddle and up to a dozen of pistols in belt and bandoleer; most had a skinning knife, apart from a few traditionalists who carried a short cutlass or sabre; every man had a bucket with a scattergun loaded with buckshot dangling at his horse’s flank.

  A waterproof on his back was full of powder and ball, in made cartridges or in powder horns, depending on his habit.

  Apart from weapons they carried a blanket and a pouch containing a few days’ supply of dried beef and biscuit or flour or oats and a bag of coffee or tea and a single pan for cooking or boiling water. A few of the fastidious carried a change of clothing, but most would wear the same garments until they fell to bits, when they would be forced either to patch them or buy new.

  They were bearded and tangle-haired and they stank, but they could fight anything on Earth.

  Luke grinned back at Stavros, riding at his shoulder as always, the habitual frown on his face.

  “Two hours, so they say, brother!”

  Stavros nodded – he rarely spoke.

  According to information there was a detachment of the Mexican army sat down in a fort controlling a ford crossing a major river leading down to the Rio Grande. Few of the features or places were named, Luke had found, which was occasionally confusing. The word was that a convoy was due north to reinforce and resupply the Mexicans, which would allow them to send out patrols over the southern part of the Presidency. Luke and his band were to intercept the convoy, kill or make prisoners of the escort and then lay a loose siege to the fort while waiting for the slow-moving artillery to catch up.

  The Mexicans were not taking the Texican insurgency very seriously yet, were deploying companies here, half battalions there, but there was word that they were thinking about sending an army north. If they had lost their forts first they would have a much more difficult job.

  Stavros watched Luke’s back – nearly a year now in proximity to the butcher of his children and still he had found no safe opportunity to deal with him. Always there had been people near, close enough that he might have been spotted with knife or pistol, would certainly not have been able to run unseen. He had thought about giving
up, of simply saying he had had enough and going back to New Orleans to make a new life for himself. He had money in the bank waiting for him. But he could not leave the bloody man’s company – not yet. Besides, there was the chance of picking up thousands of acres of good land, of making his fortune. As well, he was respected in the company – they knew he could fight, that he would risk his life casually to rescue one of them in trouble, and it was pleasant to be liked. The Turks had always looked down on him as a convert to Islam; the Greeks had regarded him as a turncoat, a renegade; he had never known a friend, a man who valued him for himself.

  The fort was placed badly, low down in the shallow valley, within musket shot of the river and the ford it was expected to control, but also within range of the tree-covered hillside behind it. Attackers could sit behind the trees, higher than the ramparts of the fort and quickly make it untenable. They would not need cannon to batter down the timber walls.

  It was an old construction, the makers concerned to keep out Comanches or Apaches armed with bows; they had given no thought to the possibility of Americans with rifles.

  They hobbled their horses back in the cottonwoods and made their way carefully forward to the crest of the low hill. Luke turned to three other leaders, none of them possessing rank as such but all men who the rest would listen to, suggested they should take the fort then and there without waiting for the guns.

  “Make a line along the trees here and knock the sentries off the wall, then fire through the windows of the barrack rooms where we can see them. A few minutes to let them know they’re in trouble and then shout them to surrender?”

  “What about the convoy?”

  “Let it come… We can open the gates for them, real polite!”

  They chuckled and passed the word to their men, spread them along the trees and gave them the word to wait for their shout. Four men were placed in sight of the gates with instructions to knock down any rider who tried to make a run south with a message.