‘Are you hurt bad?’ I asked.
She was standing quite still, staring at me impassively.
‘I’ve had worse,’ she said.
‘Why were those men whipping you?’
‘They said I’m a witch.’
‘Why?’
‘They just did.’
‘They must have reasons?’
‘People talk through me.’
‘What people?’
‘Dead people.’
‘Then you are a witch.’
I took the flask of water from inside my coat and handed it to her.
‘Here, drink this.’
She pulled out the cork and supped from it.
‘Why did you stop them?’
‘I don’t like whips.’
She handed the flask back.
‘We can’t stay here,’ she said. ‘They’ll come back. With more. What you did – it will not go unpunished.’
‘Come,’ I said. ‘I know a place we can hide till dawn. Then we can head over the moors, away from this town.’
I cleaned the blade of the axe, wrapped it in a coarse rag, and tucked it down the back of my breeches. I found the knife further on and stashed that in my surtout.
‘Where are you heading?’
‘West.’
‘Can I come?’
‘You can come as far as you need to get away from those men. But no further.’
The last thing I needed was a travelling companion to slow me down.
I took her hand and we walked out of the barn. I could hear some commotion in the distance. Then I heard voices.
‘It’s this way!’ someone shouted.
They were coming for us already. I held onto the girl’s hand harder and together we ran up the lane and into the wood. I led us through a thicket and over brambles until we came to a tree that we could easily climb. It was close to the elm where I stashed my pennies. I reached for the nearest branch and used it to steady me as I wedged my foot into a nook. I levered myself up into the tree, then pulled the girl close to where I was crouched. I held her tight and told her to shush. I heard voices and the snapping of twigs. We were being followed by a mob armed with torches, pitchforks, scythes, knives and pickaxe handles. I could see their silhouettes and the orange flames. The men searched the wood.
‘Must be here somewhere,’ someone said. ‘Can’t have got far.’
‘I’ll lynch the pair of them.’
‘Watch out. He’s got an axe.’
Three men approached our tree. I could make out the tops of their heads from where I was crouched. One was the man with yellow hair. He leaned against the trunk immediately below us. I held my breath and put my hand over the girl’s mouth. She was rigid with fear. I could feel her heart beat against my belly. I clung onto her. The men were panting.
‘Stop a minute, I need to get my breath.’
‘Which way?’ the yellow-haired man said.
‘They must be here somewhere.’
‘Is Dick all right?’
‘I don’t know,’ the yellow-haired man said. ‘He’s lost a hand.’
‘They’ll lose more than a hand when I get hold of them,’ another said. I recognised the voice: it was the farmer, Dan Taylor. ‘No one does that to my son and lives to tell the tale.’
‘Might have climbed a tree.’
‘Lift that torch up.’
A man came over to where we stood, torch in hand. My surtout was a dark brown colour and the girl was tucked inside. I ducked my head behind a branch as the light from the torch came closer. As they raised it I held my breath again.
‘I can’t see anything.’
‘Lift it higher.’
I could feel the girl’s heartbeat quicken. I could feel beads of sweat trickle down my back.
‘What’s that?’
‘Where?’
‘Those are eyes.’
I clenched my eyes closed. I stayed as still as a statue.
‘There. See?’
‘It’s only an owl, you fool.’
‘I thought for a moment . . .’
‘Ha!’
‘You’ve got to admit, the girl’s eyes are a bit like that.’
‘Come on, they must be further in.’
The men went deeper into the forest. I waited until the lights from their torches diminished and the night was black again, and took a deep breath. Thank God for my friend the owl, who had returned to the wood at just the right time. I whispered to the girl, ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’
We climbed down. I’d been tensing every muscle of my body and only now was I aware of it. I retrieved the sack of coins from the hollow in the tree and I took the girl to the makeshift cave. There was just a sliver of moon to guide us, obscured by mist. I put the bag of coins in my pocket.
As my heartbeat slowed, the reality of the situation struck me, and I kicked myself. I was still nine shillings short of my target. Why had I acted so rashly? For a girl I barely knew? Now I had an angry mob baying for my blood.
‘What’s your name?’ I said in the dark.
‘Emily. What’s yours?’
‘I told you the other night: William Lee.’
‘What do we do now?’
‘Get the fuck out of here.’
The moon was cloaked by cloud and the sky was black. Further protection, I thought. Their torches would burn out soon, and they wouldn’t be able to see anything without them. We managed to find our way to the cave, stumbling here and there as we did. I reckoned that we were safe here until dawn. It was far enough from the farm, and they’d never find us in the dark, even with torches, as they wouldn’t think to look around these parts. The cave was in a steep dip and well hidden. I got a fire going, knowing that it couldn’t be seen from any angle. Even so, I burned the flaights rather than the woodpile, as they burned with a lower flame. I passed her the flask again.
‘Here, drink.’
‘Have you got anything to eat?’
‘You’ll have to wait till morning.’
‘I’m starving.’
‘You’ll last. Let me have a look at the wound.’
She turned her back to me and I examined it in the light of the fire. It had ripped deep into her flesh. The wound would heal but it might get infected. I wondered if it needed stitching. It was too dark for me to make a poultice but I knew where there were some soothing herbs and I’d fix her a remedy in the morning. She was shivering. I gave her the shirt off my back. One of Hindley’s hand-me-downs.
‘Here, put this on.’
She took hold of it as though it were something dead and festering.
‘It fucking stinks.’
‘Put it on.’
She did. It drowned her but I figured it would keep her warm. Her chest was as flat as an oatcake. I thought about your chest at her age, already budding with womanhood. I put my rough surtout on, itching from the coarse stitching. I felt it scratch at my shoulders.
‘You could show some gratitude,’ I said.
‘Eh?’
‘You know, such as, thanks, William.’
‘What for? A stinking shirt?’
‘I saved you from a braying back there. Perhaps worse.’
I waited for a response but there was none. I watched the flaights glow in the fire, giving off hardly any flame.
‘We’ll be safe here for now, but we’ll have to be on our way first thing. Get your head down. You need to sleep.’
‘Do you think that man will die?’ she said.
‘Which man?’
I don’t know why I asked because I knew full well which man she was talking about.
‘The man whose hand you cut off. The farmer’s son. Dick.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘I hope he bleeds to death. My only regret is that I won’t be there to watch.’
I hoped so too, Cathy. I took the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders.
‘Go to sleep.’
‘Where you h
eading?’
‘I told you: west.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘I’ve never been west. Been east lots of times. York mostly. And south. Went to London with my dad. They had a big fire there, you know, a hundred years ago. Burned most of it down. My dad told me all about it. Said it was started when a baker forgot to put out his oven. Took them forty years to build it back again.’
She chattered away for some time. She reminded me of you at that age. Full of mischief and as nosey as the devil.
‘What did you say to Dick to make him snap?’
‘He’s heard rumours, that’s all.’
‘I meant in the field, when you were cutting hay.’
‘I can’t recollect exactly. He was having a dig. Fucking cunt.’
‘Who taught you to curse?’ I said.
‘No one taught me nothing. I’ll say what I fucking well like.’
I was surprised to hear such flaysome speech from one so young, but not at all offended. In fact, it amused me. It had always been me with the filthy tongue. I remembered Nelly saying she’d never heard such blaspheming and Joseph saying that he’d scrub my mouth with lye. Now I had some competition.
Eventually she lay back and closed her eyes. I watched the light from the fire flicker across her face. Less than a minute later I could hear her breathing deepen with sleep. How innocent she looked in slumber. I remembered watching your sleeping face, for hours, mesmerised. How innocent your face had looked as well, a long time before Edgar changed you for the worse. The fire was nearly out and I stared into the red embers. As I did I saw the girl’s blood. I saw the glinting bit of the axe spotted with gouts of red. I felt the bite of the axe through Dick’s thick wrist. Clean steel. Wet red blood. I saw Dick’s arm without its hand. I saw the blood pump from the wound. Had I killed a man? I wondered. It was only what he deserved. I wouldn’t be losing any sleep over it. I took the remaining blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. I lay back and listened to Emily snore. Whether I’d killed the man or not, the act of violence had felt pure, and in the moment of it something had released itself within me, the way the wind blows the stones clean.
Throttling a Dog
I woke twice in the night, the first time from a dream in which I was being chased by the villagers. The second time I was being flogged by Hindley. I felt the sting of the whip and turned to see his malignant glare. I was shivering. The wind had picked up and was blowing rain into the cave. I looked over to the girl but she was sleeping soundly. I wrapped the blanket tightly around me. The cloth was damp. I hugged the damp blanket but sleep would not come. Emily tossed and turned. She cried out, ‘No, no, fuck off.’ But she didn’t wake up. I must have drifted off because the next thing it was almost morning. It seems she woke first because when I opened my eyes she was standing over me. It gave me a shock. The sun was behind her, peeking over the horizon.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Wondering when you’d wake up,’ she said.
I stood up, stiff all over. It felt as if the rain had crept into my joints. I walked around in an effort to cast off the stiffness. Last night’s fire was a pile of ash. I heard a lark high above our heads. I looked up, but the sky was still dim and even with my head stretched fully back, it was too high in the heavens to observe. How easy it is for birds to escape. How effortlessly they find freedom. While we remain manacled to the earth.
‘We’d better make a move,’ I said. ‘Let me have a look at your wound first.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘Let me look.’
I pulled the shirt up so that I could examine the cut. It had healed some overnight and didn’t look as though it would need any further treatment. I’d seen Mr Earnshaw stitch up one of the hogs when it had cut itself on a jagged piece of metal, but I’d never done it myself, so I was glad it didn’t need stitches. I collected together my few possessions, but I left the bible where it was. I’d got what I wanted from it and was not interested in its moral lessons. I made sure I had the flask, the axe, the knife and the bag of coins. I rolled up the blankets and tied them separately with some string.
‘Come on. We need to get moving.’
‘I’m hungry,’ she said.
‘If you want to eat, you’ll have to wait till we get to the next town.’
‘How far is that?’
‘I don’t know. I know one thing: we can’t go back to the village. There will be a witch-hunt for you and when word gets round there will be a manhunt for me.’
‘Obviously.’ She looked at me with contempt.
‘Here, carry one of these,’ I said.
I handed her the smaller of the two blankets.
‘Let’s get moving.’
We headed west with the sun still a golden line behind us. As we walked it rose but was obscured by clouds. The ground was damp with dew and last night’s rain, and a lingering mist carpeted the moor. The view opened up to a green-and-grey patchwork quilt. Below us, field after field, fence after fence, wall after wall, hedge after hedge, land that was once open and free, according to Sticks. A few years ago this had been common land. Now it was all sectioned and marked like a slab of mutton ready to be butchered. Sticks had told me how it had been stolen from its people. How they’d been kicked off the land of their birth, evicted from their cottages, which were razed to the ground. The wind was strong and blowing against us, and the cold crept under our skin.
‘Walk quicker.’
We traipsed along rabbit paths and beside becks. Through fields of mud. The sky was clearing but there were still lots of grey dark clouds and the grass was sodden from the rain. But the wind was blowing eastwards and the clouds were moving away and things were brightening. The rooks and crows above us called out across the moor. In the distance, on a bare branch, a raven preened its glossy wings.
We trekked for some time, walking on paths made by farmers, labourers, dogs and cattle, all churned up by boot and hoof. Sometimes paths made by rabbit and hare. Sometimes no path at all. We did not choose the easy route; instead we walked as the crow flew, keeping to the tops so that we had a vantage point.
‘Can we stop now?’ Emily said, after a while.
‘No, we’ve only just got going.’
‘We’ve been walking for hours.’
In fact, I didn’t think it was more than an hour, but without a timepiece it was hard to say.
‘We’ll stop at the next town.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We should nick a couple of horses,’ she said.
‘One lot of trouble is enough.’
‘What difference does it make? Trouble is trouble. And the quicker we get away from it the better. That’s what I say. If my dad was here now, he would have found a stable, nicked a couple of decent nags and had them saddled. You wouldn’t see us for dust.’
‘He’s not here. And we’re doing things my way, not your dad’s.’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Well, don’t.’
‘Smart fellow, my dad. Knew a thing or two. Not a bit like you.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m not saying anything.’
‘I know what you’re getting at, so button it.’
‘We rode from London to Leeds in three days one time. You need to keep your strength up when you’re on the run. No sense in wasting energy. My dad used to say that there are two ways of doing things: the easy way and the right way. No sense in doing it the right way when there’s the easy way.’
‘When we get to the next town we can stop for something to eat and drink. We can sit down and rest for an hour.’
In fact, my plan was to ditch her once we got there. I was responsible for me and no one else, and that was the way I wanted it. No hangers-on and no freeloaders. We dropped down off the moor and followed a stream until we approached a hamlet. We walked through a small graveyard. Even in a remote spot like this
, the dead linger. It was good to see the rabbits making burrows beneath the graves. Flowers sprouted from between the stones. Harebells, lupins, foxtail and forget-me-nots. Daisies, milkweed and love-in-the-mist. A dog rose clung to the wings of an angel. The stones were marked as they always had been, but now I could read their inscriptions: ‘here lyeth a good Christian’, ‘sacred to the memory of’, ‘a good wife’, ‘a dear husband’, ‘a cherished son’. But I had no one. No one to love and no one to mourn me when I was gone. I was no one’s son or brother, and no one’s husband. And it suited me fine.
We passed the backs of people’s houses, washing pegged and drying on the line, heaps of sticks and wood ready for chopping. I thought maybe we could stop here, but aside from a few houses and outbuildings, there was nothing. Our path narrowed, the clouds thickened. I could hear the braying of cows in the distance. As we got closer I could see the farmer with a stick counting them in ready for milking. The lowing of cattle was soothing. Hooves, bracken, cow parsley, the verdant hawthorn, twisted and prickly. Thick peat smoke billowed from the chimney of a farmhouse. Tentacles of ivy grasped the trunk of a wych elm. A dead grouse in a draining ditch. And still the flaysome wind blew in our faces. I felt a wet drop on my cheek. I looked up at the clouds that were darkening again. Another wet drop on the back of my hand. On the nape of my neck. Then the rain poured down.
‘I’m getting wet,’ Emily said.
‘Keep walking. When the sun comes out you’ll dry soon enough.’
‘This farm stinks of shit,’ Emily said.
There were heaps of horse manure and swine ordure. The air was thick with the rich stench.
‘How do you think farmers go on all the time when it stinks of shit?’
‘You get used to it.’
‘I wouldn’t want to get used to it. Shit should stink of shit, it shouldn’t ever stop stinking of shit just ’cause you get used to it. It stinks of shit for a reason. You’re meant to stay away from it.’
‘Put a peg over your nose.’
‘I haven’t got a peg. Why would I have a peg? You don’t half talk bollocks sometimes.’
Fences, walls, hedges. We climbed over a stile and across another mud-clad field.
‘My knee’s giving me gyp,’ Emily said.
Ill Will Page 6
