A Killing Too Far

by Andrew Wareham

  “The seam is massive, Mr Heythorne. I am told it is one of the thickest ever come across. It must be nine feet in places. It may well be an outcropping of the same bed that Mr Malone discovered some miles to the north of here. That is also uncommon thick.”

  Sam’s knowledge of geology, which was nil, did not permit him to comment on that possibility. He inspected the pit and saw that the overburden was only thin, easily dug away and carted off.

  “What are you doing with the waste, Mr Rowlands?”

  “Ah! A good question, sir! You will see that there is a layer of good topsoil, some six inches thick is all, but valuable enough. That is being dug up by the farm labourers and taken by the cart load into the Palethorpe acres, and spread upon them and ploughed in, much to their benefit.”

  Sam could see that to be sensible; good farming in fact because the existing topsoil on the Palethorpe land must be equally thin.

  “Beneath that there is a foot or so of subsoil, grey in colour and of little value at all. That is being dumped just a mile distant where there is an old quarry, now worked out and best infilled. It was for a building stone, they tell me, a sandstone of good colour, but that ran out fifty years since. It will be some months before we fill that, possibly more than a year. By that time, we shall probably be working underground. The farmer who owns the land is glad to see the quarry filled and will not charge us for the process. Our sole cost is to make up the track we use. For that purpose, there is a stratum of coarse sandstone below the subsoil and above the coal. We are tipping that to make up our tracks out to the roadway from the pit and across the fields to the quarry. If we still have a surplus to dispose of, then the vestry will raise no objection to our making up the road itself between the pit and Stone town. We will be seen as benefactors if we make good the road at no cost to the parish, sir.”

  “Clever indeed, Mr Rowlands! Always wise to placate the local bigwigs and it is to our gain as well, being able to run our own wagons into the town to sell our coals even in the wettest months. Will there be a sufficiency to make up the road towards Stafford as well?”

  Richard Rowlands could not guarantee that but allowed that it might be possible.

  “How much are you producing, Mr Rowlands?”

  “At the moment, four chaldrons to the hour, around the eleven tons mark, sir. That is, on a twelve-hour day, about one hundred and thirty-two tons. I expect to multiply that some four times over within the month, sir, as soon as we open up more of the hillside. That will give us an income of some one hundred and seventy pounds a day, six days a week, sir. We must pay wages and the cost of cartage, sir, but there is still a substantial profit, I believe.”

  “So there is, Mr Rowlands. Is there any reason why we might not work at night and on the Sabbath too?”

  “Night is always possible, sir. There will need be lanterns, but no more than will be the case when we go underground. The Sabbath is probably not practical, sir. That is when the engineer and his gang will work on the trackway, if there is one, and on the necessary roads in the pit and make good the props that hold up the roof when we are underground. While we remain open-cast then we may cut coal on a Sunday, but not otherwise, sir.”

  Sam was prepared to accept the young man’s statement – he had clearly examined what was necessary and practical.

  “What of water, Mr Rowlands? We hear all the time of pits being inundated, destroyed by the flow of waters.”

  “The hillside is about one hundred feet above the level of the river, and a quarter of a mile distant. I suspect, sir, that when we dig down to the level of the river, then water will begin to seep in. A chain pump will be needed then, lifting the water into a leet, just a few feet higher and flowing out in its own channel. That can be worked by a pair of boys until it grows too deep, and we can set up a capstan then, operated by a blindfolded ox, treading a circle and tugging the arms around. In a few more years, it might be better to install a steam pump, as has been used elsewhere for wet mines. The Cornish tin mines have them, I know, sir, though they are not very powerful as yet.”

  Sam did not know if that was so but was content that the young man did. He had discovered what was best needed and could be trusted to have got it right - until he was shown to be wrong.

  “The river itself, Mr Rowlands… Might it be possible to float barges upon it, to carry coals into town by water?”

  Richard shook his head, said he had examined that possibility but had been forced to reject it.

  “Too shallow, sir. Not everywhere, of course, but there are too many patches of shingle in the stream. I doubt that anything could be floated in summer, and very little when the flow is greater in winter. To use barges would demand a new cut, I believe, for the most of the distance into Stone and north to Stoke. Very costly, and not to be thought of, sir.”

  Sam was pleased that the young man had been alert to the possibility, though he much doubted the initiative had come from his brain.

  “Very good, Mr Rowlands! I can see that you have all in hand, sir! I am most impressed. I understand that you are to wed soon, Mr Rowlands. Where do you intend to live?”

  “My father is to build us a large cottage, Mr Heythorne, here on the Palethorpe grounds. In fact, sir, the builders have made a start already. It is to be his gift to us.”

  That would cost not less than one hundred pounds, Sam estimated. It was a generous gift to a younger son and probably comprised the total of his father’s commitment to him.

  “Good. What of furnishings, Mr Rowlands?”

  They were not so good, it seemed, as yet they had none, but they could lay hold of second-hand pieces and would make do with the bare minimum at first. Sam could not be outdone by Mr Rowlands – he must make a substantial gesture to his valued employee.

  “That will never do, Mr Rowlands. You must go to the makers and buy for kitchen, sitting room and bedroom, sending the accounts to me, sir. That will be my gift.”

  The young gentleman was almost overcome with delight, insisted that Sam should accompany him to the farmhouse and there meet his intended, so that she could make her thanks in person.

  The house was an ancient building, Sam thought, dating back before Oliver’s day and built from the sandstone Mr Richard had mentioned. Tiled rather than thatched, which said the farm was not unprosperous, and showing diamond glass panes in six or even eight upstairs rooms. A bigger place than many farms sported, possibly the tangible evidence of the good fortune of an ancestor who had done well in the wars. Equally possible was that the family had fallen into decline, had once had more land than was now the case. A spendthrift grandfather might well be found in their history.

  The farmer’s four daughters were busy in the dairy and chicken-yard and kitchen, as was only proper, just one standing from her labours to come across to smile at Mr Richard.

  The eldest Miss Palethorpe – ‘Hepzibah, I be, your honour’ – was a sturdy, red-cheeked and black-haired, business-like lass, as tall as her intended and possessed of fine agricultural hips and chest, well set-up in the breeding way of things, Sam assessed. There was a sparkle of cleverness in her blue eyes, probably surpassing that of her future husband. They would do well together, was his first reaction, the young miss supplying much that her man lacked.

  ‘I wonder which of those two will be on top on their first night’, Sam mused, while smiling his best and shaking hands with the lady and then her father, a condescension that was much appreciated.

  “I am pleased to meet you, Mr Palethorpe. I think we may do very well together in our little venture. Tell me, sir, do you know of deposits of good clay close to hand? Would it be possible, do you think, to set up kilns in the close vicinity, to further use our coals?”

  It seemed likely to Sam that a farmer would be acquainted with the local soils, his eye naturally observing what was so important to him.

  “There be waste no more than a mile distant, Mr Heythorne, sir. Not used for much as being too heavy and quaggy for the plough, and to
o wet underfoot for beasts to thrive. It ain’t Common land - belongs to Squire, in fact. I can’t think it would sell for a crown an acre, being so poor. I reckon he might be glad to get rid of it, if we tells him that we needs to get it drained so as not to have water laying over the coal. Do ye reckon it might be good for pottery?”

  “That’s something I know nothing of, Mr Palethorpe. Was I you I might drop a couple of guineas into the hand of a foreman at one of the places in Stoke and bring him to look the land over. If so be he gives you the nod, then you have a little of cash to hand just now and you might think of buying that waste and then talking to one of the pottery masters, to see if he might wish to rent it from you.”

  That seemed more than middling clever to Mr Palethorpe. He thought he might just improve on Sam’s idea.

  “If, Mr Heythorne, I has a foreman in me pocket, like you might say, then I could take ‘im on to set up a pottery for me, ‘im to be the master like, while I stays as owner. That way, the foreman as was makes a damned sight more money than ever he would where he was, like, and me too.”

  “If it works, Mr Palethorpe, then you will be richer than ever farming did for you. You will be setting up your carriage before too many years have gone by. Your farm will go, mind you, for you may have a hundred and more of men working for you and I will have at least as many down the pit. They will have to live somewhere close to hand. We would have to build cottages for them within a year or two, I suspect.”

  “So us would, Mr Heythorne, so us truly would! And not to sell ‘em, neither! They would pay us a proper rent each week on payday as ever is. Lines up at one table to take their pay, and at the next to ‘and across their rent… Maybe too, they goin’ to need a little shop to buy their bread and taters and maybe a cut of mutton or bacon, what was a bit cheaper, just a little, for them what works for us, Mr Heythorne. I heard of they in Stoke, so I ‘ave, when at the market there; tommy shops, they do call they. More money for you and me, Mr Heythorne! I reckon I might bless the day young Master Richard did ride up asking about the coal what we was burning in the bakehouse.”

  “An end to farming for the Palethorpes, you would say, sir?”

  “Bugger farming, Mr Heythorne! That’s what I say. Cold, wet and hard labour and precious little money in your pocket at the end of the year. If so be the waste do be sweet clay, and all goes as it ought, then maybe I shall buy a few hundred acres of good land in a few years time, and set on some poor bugger to do the work for me and ride over every so often and tell him to ‘get on with it’ like as if I was Lord Muck ‘imself. That’s the sort of farming I want to do!”

  Miss Hepzibah shook her head, possibly more at the ill-luck of expressing such ambition than in dismay at the possibility of achieving it.

  “Fine words, father, and baking no puddings! Where are we to find a foreman to do the first job for us? Do you know such a one?”

  Mr Palethorpe did not; he was somewhat deflated at this first obstacle. Sam stepped in.

  “I can put the word out in Stoke, Mr Palethorpe, to my people there. They will know a likely sort of man and will have him knocking on your door before too long. It will be a Sunday, of course, when he is not working.”

  Mr Palethorpe had no troubles with making money on the Sabbath.

  Sam came away from the Palethorpes with the certainty that they would prosper, for themselves and incidentally for him. It seemed likely that the two thousand he had paid Palethorpe would be barely adequate to set up a clay pit, with drainage, and a pair of kilns for a pottery, and pay wages and keep all in hand until they had found a set of customers. Mr Palethorpe would probably find himself needing to sell a share of his new business to a partner, such as Sam, who could provide the extra readies and take a cut of the eventual profits.

  ‘Not too big a cut, either, Samuel! Must not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. There may be many future ventures there – a wideawake man, that one, now that his eyes have been opened to the new world outside of farming.’

  Sam passed through Stoke on his way back home, nodding and accepting the salutes of he folk in the streets, aware that he was a well-known figure, one of the masters, and not the least of them by a long way.

  It was pleasant to be a great man, to see mothers pointing him out to their children. He did not ask himself just what the women might be saying, whether they were identifying a benefactor or warning their young ones of the bogeyman.

  Josie wanted to know of the Palethorpe girl, whether she was suitable for Mr Rowlands’ son.

  “What’s ‘suitable’, Josie? She will not give him access to the gentry, that’s for sure. A yeoman farmer’s daughter, and no more. A big lass, built on the heavy side – not fat, but a lot of her. She would have no trouble heaving a side of bacon onto the butcher’s block. Bright with it, though. Close to matching you for what’s between her ears. Useful to little Dicky Rowlands for providing the resolution that he lacks. Between them, they will make something of themselves, my dear.”

  He outlined the Palethorpes’ plans for their lands and the coal on it.

  “Twenty years from now, and he will be a gentleman farmer, not a yeoman. His grandson? Who knows what he might be. Matching ours, perhaps, Josie.”

  “Gentlemen in the making, Sam?”

  “I suspect so, my dear. It is perhaps time for us to distance ourselves a little from the Mob. Our grandson must tell of a forebear who was a lesser gentleman, not an upper peasant. When Abe goes to his long home then I believe I shall sell the White Horse. I am not to be remembered as an inn-keeper – it would do the family no good at all in future years.”

  She agreed, cautiously – it might be unwise to distance themselves too much from the ordinary folk. They might get a bad name, ‘too big for their boots’, the people might say.

  “They can say what they wish, my dear. Just as long as they do as they are told, what they say matters little to me.”

  She was not convinced, but had so little to do with the ordinary run of folk in the town that she could not really tell what they might do or think. She had other worries, in any case.

  “The curate, Sam, Summerhaye, is becoming a disgrace to the cloth. You should speak to Reverend Smart and see to dismissing the young man and replacing him with a more proper person.”

  “The booze?”

  “That, and other behaviour as well, Sam. He has a housekeeper now!”

  “Whoops! Young and buxom, I presume? Female, at least?”

  “Exactly so, Sam! Living in at the rectory. Where she comes from is unknown, or how he came to recruit her to his household, but there is small doubt in the villagers’ minds where she spends her nights. I am informed, Sam, that she was seen to have a bite mark upon her neck when shopping in the village!”

  That, Sam agreed, was too much of a good thing.

  “Definitely excessive, my dear. One does not expect such of the Church. I shall speak to the Reverend on an early day.”

  Reverend Smart was appalled, could not imagine what had come over his curate. Sam debated whether to make a suggestion or two, thought in the end that it might be wiser to refrain from humour. He remembered as well that Reverend Smart was less than wholly orthodox in his tastes – it might be well to seek to be tactful.

  “It were better that Summerhaye should go, Rector.”

  “That, Mr Heythorne, is undoubtedly true. Regrettably, he has an uncle…”

  “Quite a few men are so blessed, Rector. Any number of fathers have brothers.”

  “True, Mr Heythorne, but Mr Summerhaye’s uncle is an archdeacon, and one who has every expectation of a bishopric before too many years have passed. Was I to disgrace the nephew, then the uncle might be much distressed. And my hopes of preferment in the Church might be much impaired.”

  Sam could see that to be so – Reverend Smart must tread delicately to navigate such troubled waters.

  “Perhaps I would do better to swim than to tread, Mr Heythorne, but in essence, you are correct.”

/>   Sam thought that might be a witticism. He smiled in case it was so.

  “Perhaps I might pay a visit to the gentleman, Rector? Was I to lay a complaint, then the odium must rest with me rather than you.”

  That seemed a sensible way of doing things, they agreed.

  “Letter or personal visit, Rector?”

  “Best there should be nothing written, Mr Heythorne. Was I you, sir, then I would ride to Lichfield and beg audience of the gentleman in person.”

  It was a nuisance and would take up at least three days, longer if there were delays in obtaining an audience with the archdeacon. Sam was, however, obligated to take action – it was his responsibility to maintain good order among the communities that he tariffed.

  In the end he spent the whole of a week in riding to the cathedral town and then discovering how to make an appointment and finally actually meeting the Venerable gentleman. The archdeacon was an important figure in the Church, he believed – there were not many clerics of his rank. He did not believe that a mere country gentleman should be banging at his door and making demands of him.

  “My nephew, you say, sir?”

  “Yes, sir. He is curate in the small town of Leek, as you will know. His behaviour there is becoming something of a disgrace, sir. He is a friend to the gin bottle, which is bad enough, but is also more than a friend to a young female who occupies his dwelling as housekeeper.”

  The archdeacon considered that to be undesirable behaviour in the man – why could he not merely content himself with the choirboys? Far more normal among country parsons.

  “That is certainly unfortunate, Mr Heythorne. I must perhaps send him a letter of reproof.”

  “I might beg for more than that, sir. You might wish to translate him to a place here, under your immediate eye, perhaps. I doubt a letter will suffice to change his habits.”

  That was refused out of hand; the young man had been sent to a rural living in order to make his activities less visible. He was not wanted where he might be seen.