“What’s the matter, lass?” said Will, intensely content to have her there against his heart. “You seem very much on the jump to-night.”
“I were waiting for Joe,” murmured Mary.
“Well, you’ve got me instead,” said Will. “I’ve hurt my foot—I reckon I’ll stay here till Joe comes, then he can give me a hand down to Dean Head.”
Mary was content that it should be so, and so it was arranged. The mare was unsaddled, and a cloth thrown over her; Will, limping, led her round to the little shed at the back which had once harboured old weaver Bamforth’s donkey, to shelter till such time as Joe should appear. When he returned to the cottage he found Mary had lighted candles and stirred up the fire; she drew off his boot and bathed his swollen leg, and brought him, with regret that she had nothing else, oatcake and broth. With all this Will was very much content; he sat there at his ease, watching Mary’s gentle movements, and did not care how long Joe delayed. He said so. “But I do,” murmured Mary. She went to the door, opened it, and stood listening; a cold autumn breeze soughed about the house, stirred the cat’s fur and made the candle flames quiver; but there was no other sight or sound. Another hour passed and there was still no Joe; Mary became very restless, and wandered to the door so often that Will at last put on a petulant tone and bade her cease.
“Leave Joe alone,” he urged. “He’s a grown man; he can look after himself—not that he’s shown much sign of it lately, I must say,” he added, rather against his own intention. Mary fixed her dark eyes full on him in dumb enquiry. “He’s taken poor father’s death very much to heart,” explained Will.
“Aye,” said Mary on a deep breath. “He has that.”
There was a pause; Mary still stood in an attitude of suspense, her hands hanging at her side, her head turned as though waiting for a sound.
“Sit down and let’s be comfortable,” urged Will in the masterful loving tone he kept for her alone.
Mary turned her head. “Where does tha think Joe is?” she asked him. “Lizzie Mellor’s mester is still out too.”
“Then happen they’re both in the Red Lion, having a glass,” said Will with masculine cynicism.
Mary gave a sigh and sank down to her stool beside Will’s knee. “That’s not like our Joe,” she murmured. “But happen he is.” She seemed relieved.
By a natural transition the thought of Joe in the Red Lion reminded Will of a cloth-dresser whose recent bankruptcy was alleged to proceed from too frequent visits to his local inn; from what Will had heard in Annotsfield to-day the man’s packing-press might be worth his buying. “Give me the Mercury, Mary,” he said casually remembering that he had given the news-sheet to Joe the day before: “There’s a bankruptcy auction in I want to see.”
Mary looked at him with something like fear in her eyes, and coloured. “I haven’t it,” she said.
“Did Joe take it to the mill?” demanded Will, surprised and not too pleased—in his opinion newspapers in a mill meant wasted time and careless work.
“No—he burned it last night. He always burns them you give him, now,” said Mary.
“Burns them!” exclaimed Will, astonished. “But why?”
“I don’t know,” said Mary.
Her tone was piteous, and not at all convincing; it gave Will a feeling of discomfort and unease. But why on earth should Joe burn the newspapers which Will gave him? What sense was there in it? Another of Joe’s vagaries, thought Will crossly; really he was getting almost too tiresome to be borne. Will gave a sharp sigh, and Mary’s gentle face, upturned to him, took on an expression of distress. “Well, never mind,” said Will soothingly.
The hours went on. It became evident to Will that Joe was benighted somewhere and did not mean to return to Scape Scar that night. It also became evident to Will that he himself was not going to leave Scape Scar that night. Why should he? There was his ankle, he thought—and was grimly amused at himself for making that an excuse when his real reason for staying, as he knew perfectly well, was Mary. There had been silence between them for some time, as they sat gazing into the fire; the wind now dropped a moment and in the lull a faint sound of Marthwaite Church clock striking some latish hour drifted to their ears. Will roused himself.
“Well, Mary lass,” he said in his most kindly and loving tone: “That brother of yours doesn’t seem to be coming to Scape Scar to-night, so I reckon I’ll have to stay with you instead.” Mary averted her head, and an exquisite rosy blush mantled her neck and face. “What do you say, lass?” said Will teasingly, putting his face down to hers and slipping his arm about her waist. “Eh?”
Mary said nothing; her heart throbbed beneath his hand.
“It’s time we were getting wed, anyway,” concluded Will comfortably.
That night the wind rose, and howling across the moors behind Scape Scar, buffeted the cottages, throwing long spears of rain against them in furious blasts. But they were strongly built of good Ire Valley stone, so that their upper rooms did not tremble; and the turmoil without gave an added ecstasy to the joy of warmth and love within.
Towards morning the wind and rain died down, and the land lay still, nipped by the first autumn frost. Will, waking early as was his wont, saw from the long row of windows the coming of the dawn. A small patch above Emsley Brow grew quietly grey, then flushed through orange to a deep, hot rose; the rich colour spread all along the horizon, so that the hills stood in silhouette against it, very dark and fierce; the arch of the sky turned from the black of night to a mysterious blue; the rose flowed upwards, and became streaked with green and gold. It was a hectic, ‘lurid, passionate dawn; some quality in its beauty wrenched at Will’s heart-strings, tore them, left them bleeding; he felt desperately unhappy, guilty, apprehensive; surely so wild a sunrise could not bring a calmly happy day. Mary still drowsed against his breast; he touched her soft hair, her warm flushed cheek; his passion for her hurt him. The sun came up behind a cloud, and the sky paled; the rose faded to thin pink, the rich blue to grey. Will’s ardour passed, he felt rather cross and disillusioned, and wished Mary would wake and speak.
He must have drowsed for a while himself, for he suddenly started up to find Mary gone, and a great noise outside the window. There was a man’s rough voice, a woman wildly weeping, some children all a-howl, another woman mourning in a low plaintive wail. Surely that voice was Mary’s? Will sprang up and went to the window, but could see nobody save one child weeping very bitterly with its fists in its eyes; he recognised it as the one to whom he had given a sixpence for holding his mare. The other speakers were standing too near the house to be visible. Then a woman with the thick figure of early pregnancy stepped to the child and clutched it to her breast. Will turned away impatiently, threw on some clothes and was half way down the stairs before he remembered that Mary’s good name would suffer if he should be seen. Angry with himself for putting them both in such a situation and with Mary for not having the discretion to rid herself quickly of her untimely guests, he stayed where he was, pressed against the wall, for so many minutes as almost to exhaust his patience, until he heard the man’s steps recede; he then came down into the room. But Mary did not yet come to him; from the sounds, he judged that she accompanied the woman and the children to the cottage next door. Will, who felt ashamed of himself and therefore bad-tempered, had several more minutes to wait, fuming, before at last the door opened and his love came in.
All the beauty was drained from her face, which was white as snow; she looked bent and haggard as an old woman.
“Will,” she said in an awful tone of anguish: “They’re all taken.”
“Taken? Who? What for?” stammered Will.
“George Mellor and Tom Thorpe and our Joe,” said Mary with the resignation of despair. “Ben Walker’s sold them.”
Will felt the hair stir upon his scalp. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said hoarsely, shrinking.
“It seems there were a two thousand pound reward,” went on Mary in quiet, even tones. �
��I reckon that were why Joe burned the papers.”
“Good God!” cried Will, his whole body shaken with horror: “You don’t mean that Joe …”
“He burned them that t’others shouldn’t know about reward,” said Mary, “But it were no good. Ben Walker’s heard on it somehow, and he’s sold them. They were fetched from work last night, with warrants, all the three. That were George Mellor’s stepfather as came up to tell us.”
“Mary!” shouted Will in agony: “You don’t mean to tell me Joe was one of my father’s murderers?”
“He never shot!” cried Mary, shaken from her apathy. “I’ll swear he never shot, Will!”
“Then he was one of them,” gasped Will. “O God!”
“Aye, but he hadn’t a pistol!” cried Mary. “I know he hadn’t, Will, I know it.”
“You know! You know!” Will shouted at her. “You knew all about it, you knew your damned brother had helped to kill my father, and you’ve let me come here and——” His voice broke; an awful poisoned chill, a horror as though he had committed incest, ran through his every vein. “Murderess!” he shouted wildly.
“Don’t look at me like that, Will!” cried Mary, her lovely voice echoing round the room. “I didn’t know.” She clung to his arm.
“You said you did,” said Will, throwing her off.
“I only knew from bits that Lizzie Mellor said, and what I’ve heard Joe say in his sleep,” wailed Mary. “Will! Will!”
“Joe’s a murderer, and he’ll hang for it,” said Will in a thick, brutal voice he hardly knew for his own.
“No! No!” shrieked Mary. “No, Will!” She fell on the ground at his feet, threw her arms about his knees and clasped them to her breast. “No, Will! Hearken, Will! Tha were with me when thy father were killed, Will; tha knows tha were.”
“Aye, and it’ll be a lifelong shame to me,” cried Will, grinding his teeth in misery. “I was with you while your brother murdered him. I quarrelled with him to come to you. If I hadn’t left him for your sake he might have been alive to-day.” He laughed wildly. “Get off!” he said, trying to free his legs. “Get away! I want no more of you. Father was always against my wedding you, and, by God, he was right!”
He stepped back, but Mary clung to him with all her strength.
“But doesn’t tha see, Will,” she begged, turning up her white anguished face to his: “Doesn’t tha see tha can swear Joe were here too? Were here, here at Scape Scar, here wi’ us, wi’ thee and me. Doesn’t tha see? Tha can save him, lad! Tha can save him!”
“Save him!” shouted Will. “Do you think I want to save him? No, by God, I don’t! I’ll have his neck.”
“They’d take thy word against Ben Walker’s,” panted Mary, “I’m sure they would. Thee being a mester’s son. Will! Will! Say tha’ll save him, lad.”
Will suddenly became quite calm. “I neither can nor will save him,” he said coldly. “He must stand his trial, and I have little doubt he will suffer the utmost penalty of the law. Pray let me go.” To himself he said: “So that’s why he’s been so broken since father’s death. And I thought it was his grief! God curse him!”
“Will, he’s been thy friend sin’ tha were a little lad the size o’ Charley Mellor,” wept Mary, clinging to him feverishly.
“Aye! And my father were his friend,” said Will from between clenched teeth. Suddenly he felt choked, as though the air of this murderer’s house was foul; and soiled to the very bone by Mary’s touch. He seized her arms and threw her violently aside. “Get off!” he muttered furiously. “Get off!”
“He’s my brother, Will,” murmured Mary in a broken whisper.
“What’s that to me?” said Will. “Neither on you is owt to me any more. I wish I’d never set eyes on you.”
He went out and saddled the mare—slowly and clumsily, for he shook as though with an ague, and seemed to have no feeling in his fingers—and rode away to Ire Bridge House to see Mr. Stancliffe.
Chapter V
Trial
1
The murderers of Mr. Oldroyd were tried at York in January.
No sooner was the news of their capture spread over the West Riding than arrests were made far and wide. Those intimidated magistrates who, not wanting to suffer Mr. Oldroyd’s fate, had left the Luddites alone lately on the principle of letting sleeping dogs lie, now became very active again; moreover, there were men among the croppers who envied Ben Walker his two thousand pounds, and were not sorry, now the example of breaking the Luddite oath had been set, to get on the right side of the law by giving information. Accordingly men were arrested here for demanding arms by violence, there for breaking frames; some for personal assaults, some for attacking mills, some for taking or administering illegal oaths; in all sixty-four persons were in gaol at York by the end of the year, and the government decided to issue a special commission for their trial. For Will’s part, every arrest confirmed him in his animosity against the Luddites because it seemed to him to justify that animosity; obviously there had been a widespread disaffection, a serious sedition in the land; Luddism was an organised attempt to intimidate peaceable persons, and as such ‘deserved to be put down with the utmost rigour of the law. So Will felt, and so he often, with much of his father’s vehemence, said; and most of his hearers agreed with him heartily. Indeed, in Annotsfield the tide of public opinion set so strongly against the Luddites that when the three prisoners were carried off to York by coach from the Pack Horse Inn, though the street was crowded from end to end, not one man raised his voice to pity them. Will, who was in an upper room of the Pack Horse with Mr. Stancliffe, looking down upon the scene, thought that Joe looked better than he had done since Mr. Oldroyd’s death; he was pale, and so thin that his irons seemed as though they would slip off his emaciated wrists, but he looked calm and unafraid. A flood of bitterness surged over Will’s heart as he gazed at the three men; the shadow of death might hang visibly over them, but still there they were, breathing and moving, alive, while Mr. Oldroyd was dead and rotting. Will stepped forward to the middle of the window, hoping that in this their hour of bitterness the men would see him, would read in his stern, implacable face the justice they might expect from the outraged law of their land. As the coach drove away Mellor, shackled though he was, sprang up and tried to raise a cheer for the Luddites; but no cheer responded, only a hoarse uneasy murmur of men whispering. Will hoped Mellor knew that his wife and children had had to go on the Parish for relief; as to what had become of Mary Bamforth, Will neither knew nor cared.
Will was not called as a witness in the trial. It was true he had no connection with the actual murder, and he solemnly agreed when his acquaintance told him how fortunate it was that he could be spared an ordeal so trying to his filial feeling; but he really nursed a sense of grievance about the matter. What, not call him! The one who was injured most! He was vexed with the authorities for not realising his importance in the case, the more so when the egregious Brigg let fall that he had heard from somebody, who had heard from somebody else, who had had it hinted to him by Mr. Stancliffe—in a word, the prosecution feared the bad effect which Will’s vehemence against the Luddites might have on the jury. Will smiled contemptuously when he heard this, and said a good deal in condemnation of meek fools who were afraid to speak their minds—he thanked God he and his father had never erred in that way—but he was sore about it nevertheless.
The special assize to deal with the Luddites opened at York on the first Saturday in January, but the trial of Mr. Oldroyd’s murderers was not expected to get under way till the following Wednesday; and accordingly Will stayed at home over the week-end, and left for Leeds, where he had to change coaches, only on Tuesday morning at ten. Brigg, who was in a tremendous twitter over his evidence and the whole affair, and intended to take his wife and daughter with him to York on the Friday, was shocked by this apparent indifference on the part of the murdered man’s son, and tried to persuade him to come with them and see the opening of the assize, which,
he said, he had heard would be very grand. But Will was not to be persuaded, saying: “I know what I’m about, Mr. Brigg, thank you,” in that dry tone of his which always made Brigg sigh and give in. Nor would Will, when he at last arrived in York, stay at the same inn as the Briggs; he chose a more expensive one, and dined there—or rather pretended to dine, for he could eat nothing—alone. The talk was all of the ’size, however, and when it was discovered who Will was everyone made a great fuss of him. The interest taken in the trial, they said, was immense; they warned him that he must be at the Castle in good time, for the court would be crowded. There was little likelihood of his being late, thought Will grimly, for he expected but little sleep while his present impatience gnawed him.
Accordingly in the cold grey light of the January dawn Will, feeling sick and stupid with lack of food and sleep, made his way through the streets of York to the Castle. Many other people were already going the same way, all much wrapped up and flapping their arms to keep the cold out, for there was an iron frost. The sky was low, dark and still, the ground so hard that it rang to the tread; the cold seemed not only to freeze Will’s body but to numb his very soul. He reminded himself that the day of his vengeance was come at last, but could feel no elation until as he crossed a street he caught a distant glimpse of grim dark buttressed walls; then his heart leaped and his step quickened. Will had never seen a castle before, but from pictures he had noticed—one in Mr. Stancliffe’s drawing-room particularly—he had imagined that they always stood at the top of a very rocky hill and were small, turreted, picturesque affairs; and he was rather disconcerted to find this one rising straight out of the plain ground, so to speak, large in extent, and only a few feet above the level of the broad Ouse, which flowed nearby. The gateway, however, with its circular towers, was quite in accordance with his ideals, and grim enough this dreary morning for anything—grim enough even for his revenge, thought Will with fierce satisfaction; his heart began to pound as he passed beneath the heavy arch and up the long curving drive, climbed a flight of steps and stood on the terrace before the long grey County Hall. A stream of people flowed steadily past into the building; Will looked about for his attorney, and went in with him.
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