A Killing Too Far

by Andrew Wareham

  Abe was inclined to agree – the takings would be small.

  “You would be hard-pressed to sell much more than two half-ankers a month in these parts, Sam. Brandy is a rich man’s drink, and the men with money around here are not in the habit of drinking in any quantity. A man who owns a manufactury needs be wide awake, not half-sozzled with brandy.”

  “A drink for the gentry, in fact, Uncle Abe. Is it worth our while to bring in more to keep them sweet?”

  “Not really, Sam… Not unless we wish to extend our activities and need to be friendly to those who are located a little distant from us.”

  Sam thought they could ignore that possibility for the while.

  “What about tea and lace and silks, Uncle Abe? The runners do not confine themselves to brandy.”

  “Tea, yes – there is always a call for tea. A surprising amount of East Indies tea is imported into France and the Low Countries and ends up across our beaches. The East India Company must be aware of the trade – tea must be transported in their bottoms for the greatest part of the journey from China. They say nothing and the government will take no action against them, for being too powerful and rich and able to buy political men with their small change. From what we hear, I doubt that half the tea drunk in this country pays duty to the government. More towards the coast than inland, of course. Difficult to get hold of undutied tea around this location.”

  “Not something I know much about, tea, Uncle Abe. A journey to the East Coast might be a good idea, do you think? The carrier man could give us a name to talk to in, where is it?”

  “The port of Lynn Regis – or King’s Lynn, more commonly nowadays. On the Wash, the beaches for miles being favourable to the trade, I am told, and the port itself is within reason open to enterprise. There is a large Customs House there, and men who are surprisingly well off inside it!”

  “Not for a week or two, Uncle Abe – the weather ain’t favourable for travel the while. I shall spend a day or two considering the coal, I think, and wondering whether we might not extend the trackway a little further.”

  Abe had his own suggestion.

  “It might be wise to be seen in Stoke, Sam. Just to pay a visit to some of your customers and perhaps to eat a meal in one of the inns. People might find it convenient to talk to you, and perhaps ask for assistance, it being cold winter.”

  Sam suspected that there was something behind the bland words; he rode into Stoke next morning, putting up his horse in the livery stable and exchanging a few words with its owner.

  “A quiet time of year for the trade, Matthew?”

  “Just that, Mr Sam. Little call for journeyin’ just now, sir. Give the old nags a rest, what ain’t bad for ‘em, when all’s said and done. Very quiet in town, just now, Mr Sam. The streets all peaceful, what they should be.”

  “Good. I am glad to hear that. The town had become unruly, Matthew. It needed to be calmed.”

  The horseman, short and bandy-legged, as expected of his trade, showed a little worried.

  “Too good, Mr Sam. No beggars; no street arabs; not a dipper to be seen – there’s allus been pickpockets, sir, even if not many. There’s got to be men and boys what ain’t got no way of makin’ a living, Mr Sam, so where are they?”

  Sam could not conjecture – the feckless must still exist, somewhere. He wandered quietly down the main streets and discovered them to be empty of vagabonds, and that was wrong, uncanny even. There might be a new charitable endeavour that was doing good in the town – the vicar would know. He made his way to the church and the parsonage next door.

  “My name is Heythorne. I would wish to speak to the vicar.”

  The maidservant at the door did not know what to do. She had no authority to let Sam in, but knew who he was and was frightened to leave him standing on the doorstep.

  “Beg pardon, sir, but I’ll discover whether master is at home.”

  She scurried off, leaving the door open, unable to close it in Sam’s face.

  The vicar knew who Sam was as well, came quickly to the door and half-bowed and led Sam into the parlour. The room was warm and well furnished, suggesting a very comfortable income for the clerical gentleman.

  “A pleasure to see you in my humble abode, Mr Heythorne. Do, please, be seated – here, sir, next to the fire.”

  “Thank you, Reverend…”

  “Smart, sir. I have the living, sir.”

  A rector, possessing the income from the glebe and tithe; not a curate, and thus a man who could be promoted in the Church and probably with relations in the County or even the aristocracy. A man to be treated with some courtesy and care.

  “A pleasure, Mr Smart. Can you tell me what the provisions are for the destitute hereabouts? Are there alms houses or such? Perhaps a hospital for foundlings to take them off the streets?”

  “Neither, in fact, Mr Heythorne… No doubt you have noticed the recent and remarkable good order of our streets, sir, and wonder how it may have come about.”

  Sam smiled, said that he had.

  “The Bench, sir. The town Jurat discovered that the wicked criminals of the Tapper family had been removed from our midst – though how, they could not imagine. They decided a few weeks later to remove their followers who had become rowdy and had some few taken up and held in custody pending their trial. Then the man Rufus died and the bulk of the criminals became less obnoxious and it became possible to sweep up all of the pauper elements from the streets.”

  It sounded as if the Tappers had protected the vagabond population, at the expense of the virtuous. On the Tappers’ demise the townsfolk had taken their revenge.

  “Beggars, waifs, crossing sweepers and their like, I presume?”

  “Exactly, Mr Heythorne. Possibly unfortunately, they also included the scavengers who collected the horse droppings and sold them to gardeners – the streets might not be quite as hygienic and sweet smelling as they was used to be!”

  Sam kept a grave face, implied that was unfortunate indeed.

  “However, some of them can take up that pursuit when they are released again, no doubt.”

  “Not easily, sir. In fact, not at all, sir. Those who were incapable have been sent away to the Infirmary, where they are to be housed and fed in exchange for their labour at rag-picking and bone crushing and other such wholesome and necessary occupations. The remainder, within reason whole of mind and body, have been sent overseas on indenture. Most have gone to Virginia, though a proportion were sent to the Sugar Islands.”

  “What, enslaved?”

  “No, not at all, sir. They are bound to their masters for seven years of service – to repay the cost of bringing them across the Ocean – and then are free men, hopefully with a trade.”

  “So, they will return in seven years?”

  “Not quite, sir. They would need pay their passage back to England, and will have no money. No doubt they will find work overseas, sir.”

  Sam had thought that he was ruthless, in his way. The reverend and the magistrates made him seem the mildest of men by comparisons.

  “So we have no foundlings, no orphans to care for?”

  “Not one, sir! And the streets are clear of vulgar and lewd boys who were previously such an offence to the decent.”

  Sam was aware of the existence of small boys who made a living at the oldest profession – it was impossible to walk through the streets of any town without being solicited, more or less clandestinely.

  “Very good.”

  “We were sure you would approve, Mr Heythorne.”

  “I wish I was equally certain… Thank you for explaining the surprising good order I have observed, sir. Your initiative can only be commended. The Infirmary, now – who pays for that?”

  “The ratepayers, sir – it is no great burden on them, particularly now that the numbers inside have been reduced.”

  Sam thought this was all very well, but something was astray, he had not been told the whole story. If in doubt, look for the money, he reminde
d himself.

  “Tell me, Reverend, did the Bench receive any payment for shipping these people overseas?”

  “Well, sir, not a payment as such. More, one might say, as a contribution to the expense they had gone to in removing these undesirables from their midst.”

  ‘Who and how much’, Sam wondered.

  “Has this action ever been taken before, do you know, Reverend?”

  “Not to such an extent, perhaps, Mr Heythorne… It has long been the case that various forms of transportation were available as a punishment to the vicious. I believe, in fact, that many of the followers of the Pretender were sent to labour in the cane fields, barely two years ago. Sweeping the streets clean has not been a habit, perhaps, but it is a logical extension of previous practice.”

  Sam took his leave of the vicar, still shocked by his actions. There was nothing to be done, he suspected, other than to pass the message that it should not be repeated. He was more than half-way home before he began to wonder why – was it so heinous a practice? Was it not the case that the bulk of the folk in town had benefitted from the removal of perhaps ten score of awful villains, and of those who would have grown up to join the criminal ranks?

  It was not a policy that could be repeated in every town of the land – the Sugar Islands and the American colonies would be swamped by the sheer number of those dumped on their shores. While it took place only in a few boroughs, then the gain would not be small. But he would like to have known just what the money side was – there was a distinct whiff of slavery about the business, and that could bring the government in London down upon them, slavery being frowned upon in England.

  “Uncle Abe, I’ve been thinking. Maybe it ain’t such a bad thing, what they’ve been doing in Stoke. Getting rid of the beggars and the street urchins does keep the town cleaner, you know. Fewer criminals means less crime of the uncontrolled sort. When you think of it, sending them overseas to work ain’t so bad a thing. They’ll get a place to sleep and food in their bellies every day. You know what happens to most of the strays on the streets. Few of them grow up, they die in the winters or whenever any disease hits the town. I doubt that one in four of them lives to manhood if they stay on the streets. And those who do live, what will become of them? No work, because they have learned no skills. Mostly, they just grow big enough to be hanged.”

  “So, you would send them to seven years of slavery in a foreign land, Sam?”

  “It’s not so bad a choice for them, Uncle Abe. What else can be done about them? Ordinary people don’t want them infesting the streets, begging and stealing and selling their parts. The streets must be cleared, somehow. We don’t want them, they’re no more than a nuisance.”

  “Put them into an orphanage, Sam?”

  “Paid for by who, Uncle Abe?”

  “Not me. I ain’t dipping my hand in pocket for other folks’ bastards, what they mostly are, Sam.”

  “Nor me, Uncle Abe.”

  They retired to the back room and called for a pot of tea, neither wishing to drink alcohol of an afternoon.

  “I hoped you might have an idea or two, Sam. I can’t think of anything to do about them.”

  “Nor me. They are an unmitigated nuisance, Uncle Abe. This smacks of slavery and I don’t like it but at least we have clean streets now, Uncle.”

  “So we have, and that is something. Not for long, I expect – they will come in from outside to take up the vacant space left behind. There will be beggars before a month has passed, so I will wager.”

  “Me too, Uncle. Let us hope that the Bench will continue to perform their duty. How old are they, the magistrates, that is? How do they replace them when they die?”

  Abe had no idea – he rarely talked to magistrates, they were not his sort of people.

  “The Lord Lieutenant appoints them. Local gentry of the right sort – I expect he has a list of all of the estates of the county and takes them, richest first, for each area. When Josh dies and leaves you master of his lands, then you might become a magistrate, Sam. I can’t, for not having acres of my own.”

  They thought for a few moments, wondering whether it might make sense for Abe to purchase an acreage.

  “Maybe not, Sam. Cost more than it’s worth. Take years before they would accept me as a gentleman.”

  “You may well be right, Uncle Abe. How did they go about sending their convicts to transportation?”

  “Don’t know… you think we should find out, maybe?”

  “Couldn’t hurt. Lots of third and fourth sons hereabouts with no work. They might do well in Virginia. Seven years working and learning the ways of the land there… It would be for their own benefit, you know, Uncle Abe.”

  “Your goodfather was in Liverpool just a few weeks ago, Sam. Might be he would know.”

  “Could be. Might be a profit in helping local lads to settle in the New World, Uncle Abe. There was money in this affair, I am sure of that.”

  Josh Banford was convinced that they had come up with a fine idea.

  “Sending indentured servants across the seas to work for up to seven years before setting up in their own right. An excellent suggestion, Sam. There is a great shortage of labour in the Southern colonies, Sam. Not on the plantations, but in the towns where there are fewer slaves to be found, for the inconvenience of holding them and the ease of escape to sea in the ports. Young men to work on the quays and wharves, to learn the trade with carpenters and masons, possibly to become carters and carriers – all are hard to come across. Placed on apprentice’s papers, paid pocket money and their keep, there would be many a master begging for their services.”

  “How might it be arranged, Mr Banford? Are there ship owners who might be able to organise the process at the American end?”

  There would be, of a certainty. The men who worked the slave ships would have the contacts to dispose of indentured servants as well.

  “Not merely the menfolk, Sam – their sisters as well could be found places sewing or perhaps working as domestics. Was you to go up to Liverpool, Sam, I am sure you could find men to talk to.”

  They decided to make the journey to the big port as soon as the weather would permit; neither wished to spend three or four days splashing through mud.

  “Sam, Mrs Wenbury wants to talk to you.”

  “Who is she, Josie?”

  “A widow lady who lives in Leek. Three daughters and a son, the girls of an age, more or less grown, but the boy no more than twelve years. She has a little money, I think. Her husband was owner of a pottery that was sold on his death. The money would have been invested for her by the attorney who read the Will. She might have been left as much as two hundred a year to live on – ample for her needs, possessing a house in freehold.”

  “What does she want, do you know?”

  “She would not say, but I suspect she has a daughter who is in trouble and needs help to bring the young man into line. If it was legal, a breach of promise, she would go to her attorney; otherwise, she might talk to the vicar; but she wants your help, so it is something out of the ordinary.”

  Sam had no idea what he might be expected to do, but he could not refuse her out of hand.

  “Where is she? Here?”

  “She is in the front parlour room, Sam. She is too respectable to wait in the kitchen.”

  Sam left the room that was now his ‘library’ and office for the distilleries, with a desk and chair for Josie who kept the few account books and all of the records of the customers of his business.

  “Mrs Wenbury?”

  A faded lady, in her forties, at a guess, dressed respectably, high at the neck, low at the ankle, in widow’s greys, her clothes not new but clean and tidy and good for wear as best.

  “Beg your pardon, Mr Heythorne, but I need some advice and maybe some ‘elp.”

  Her voice was a step up from the labouring classes, showed a little of refinement.

  “Do sit down, ma’am, and tell me what the problem is.”

  “My
Jemima, Mr Heythorne, the oldest of my girls and close to nineteen years now. Courting, so she is, with the second son of Squire Rowlands, over back of the moor, you know.”

  Sam did know. Mr Rowlands had been a guest at his wedding and was a prosperous farmer with interests in the pottery trade. He was on his way to making a bit of money, was Mr Rowlands, but Sam doubted whether he would have called him a squire.

  “His Richard, Mr Heythorne, be more than eager to set up house with Jemima, but he ain’t so interested in wedding with her. He says his father wants him to wed elsewhere, into a bit of money like, but he has offered to put her into her own cottage at the back of his father’s lands. She says no, but he’s a-pushing and pressing of her, and I’m not so sure that she hasn’t let him have his way with her already. Was my departed husband to have been here, then he would have sent young Mr Rowlands to the rightabout, but there ain’t no man in the house and he won’t listen to me.”

  “I shall speak to his father, Mrs Wenbury, and see what can be worked out. I do not know if I can bring him to the altar, but we shall work something out, some way. Not wishing to be intrusive and rude, ma’am, but do you suspect your daughter to be in the family way?”

  She nodded gloomily – she had her fears, she said.

  Sam found his greatcoat and called for his horse; the garden boy who now doubled as his groom ran to obey while Sam conferred with Josie.

  “Would you look after the lady, Josie? A cup of tea or whatever? I must go to speak with Rowlands and try to arrange something – even if it be no more than the freehold of a little cottage and five shillings a week for the silly girl.”

  “Little Jemmy? They have always said in the village that she has a roaming eye and will come to no good. She won’t get young Rowlands to the altar, Sam. Much too hard-headed, his father is.”

  Sam rode the three miles and dismounted in the yard outside the ‘squire’s’ house. He glanced quickly around him.

  Three large barns and a cowshed – a dairy in fact, and serving probably forty cows in milk. The house was on two floors and showed half a dozen windows on each. Allowing for the back that he could not see, as many as eight bedrooms, which was not small. There was a shining brass knocker on the big front door, which said maids with time enough to polish it regularly. There was comfortable money here, a good thousand a year, possibly more; not a squire yet, but coming close. He had been seen and the back door opened and Rowlands himself walked out into the yard. He was well into his forties, was dressed in breeches, shirt and a leather waistcoat, all tailor bought at a glance.