by G. P. Taylor
It was the last word that especially caught his attention. As a young child he had been taken to Whitby to see the hanging of Charles Mayhew. He had been a highwayman, caught by the militia after robbing a coach from York. The whole town had turned out by the pier to see the makeshift gallows and the condemned man. He remembered that it had been a bright June morning, the sun had been warm and the smell of fish and drying nets had filled the air.
Mayhew was dragged screaming from the Customs House with his hands firmly tied behind his back. He was pulled out on to the gallows where the noose was forced over his head. From his screams and the way he fought it was obvious how desperate he was not to die. Thomas had been pushed to the front of the crowd. A young drummer boy began to beat out a solitary beat on his drum. The crowd went silent. Mayhew screamed and sobbed, shouting curses at the hangman and the magistrate. Thomas had tried to press himself back into the crowd but found it was like pushing against a human wall. With every beat of the drum Thomas had waited in expectation for the highwayman to be pushed from the platform of the gibbet and crash to his death. The moment lasted for a lifetime. The drumbeat pounded away like a sea cannon. Mayhew screamed at the crowd.
‘You won’t see the last of me, I’ll be back to haunt every one of yer.’ He had glared at the magistrate. ‘As for you … before the cock crows … you will be dead.’
The priest had shouted for him to repent before he died, but before Mayhew had been given the chance to speak he was pushed from the gallows. The rush of his falling body and the crack of the knot had sent a chilling gasp through the crowd. It was like a wave crashing on the sea wall sending spray into the air as the crowd, hit by the gasp, jumped back, fell silent, and then moments later began to roar savagely.
His body had twitched and jumped at the end of the rope as the last ounce of life was squeezed from him. Some women beat at his hanging legs with long sticks and children threw stones at the dangling warm corpse. Thomas stood silently. He looked at the body of the man and wondered where the life had gone. What kind of a world was this that in one moment all the energy, all the substance of life itself, could be snuffed out like a candle? Thomas thought it was a cruel God who could give him life, no matter how hard, and then in the twinkling of an eye take it from him and condemn him to nothingness.
It was Kate getting up from the bed that roused him from his thoughts. She kicked at him with her foot, scrunched up her eyebrows and made a face. Thomas placed a finger over his mouth and whispered ‘Shhh.’
He looked to the floor and signalled that he was trying to listen to the conversation downstairs. Kate got down beside him, pressing her ear to the crack in the floorboards. The conversation carried on below. Even Bealda and Ephrig joined in. Kate heard her name mentioned by Rueben, his deep liquorice voice easily carrying above the rest. It was then that Thomas heard the sound of footsteps crashing up the stairs. The bedroom door was flung open and Bealda crashed into the room, falling over the two bodies on the floor between the beds.
Bealda began to laugh in the only way he knew how. It was the kind of laughter that started in the belly and welled up like the eruption of a large volcano, spilling out of his mouth in torrents of deep belly grunts. He was a large child for his age with hands the size of a man’s. He got to his feet and, still laughing, took hold of Kate and Thomas, lifting them both from the floor.
‘My father wants to talk to you downstairs,’ he said. ‘We have a visitor. He wants to see you. He has news of your friend.’
They knew that Bealda was speaking about Raphah. In their sleep they had forgotten about their friend. Now the memories of the night before came flooding back. Thomas looked to the window. The painted tree framed a scene of complete blackness. It was now night. He felt as if the time of peace and safety was drawing to a close, like the tide rising on a man stranded on the rocks. He knew that they would both have to leave the sanctuary of Boggle Mill to challenge Demurral.
Reluctantly, they followed Bealda downstairs.
The kitchen was bathed in a beautiful amber light from several large candlesticks that adorned the mantelpiece and window ledge. Thomas looked around the room anxiously. There was Rueben, Isabella, the twins and … Jacob Crane.
Crane was sitting closest to the fire, dressed in the deepest black from head to mud-stained boots. He leant forward and looked at Thomas and Kate through his narrow, piercing eyes. Thomas could feel a lump growing in his throat, a goitre of fear making it hard to swallow. He knew that Crane was not a man to be spoken to without good cause. Now, Crane was right there in front of him, perched on the oak chair eyeing him like a large, black, menacing raven waiting to jump down and tear at a dead carcass.
Thomas nodded to Crane as Kate tried to stand behind him in his shadow. Crane was the first to speak.
‘Sit down, you two. I have news of a friend of yours who is in very deep trouble.’ Crane emphasized each word as he spoke. Isabella got up and pulled two chairs from the table for Thomas and Kate to sit on. They faced Crane and the glowing embers of the fire, Thomas stared into the red-hot depths, his eyes soaking up every drop of light.
‘You two have bitten off more than you can chew and your friend is as good as dead.’ He clapped his hands together, rubbing his dry palms. ‘What you did last night could have made me a very poor man.’ He looked at Thomas.
‘All we did was try to get into …’ He was quickly interrupted by Crane.
‘All you did was run around in the tunnels where I had fifty casks of brandy and twenty-four cases of tea, all fresh off the boat and awaiting a good price.’ His voice grew louder and louder. ‘Demurral didn’t know it was there until he went looking for you and your friend. You have cost me a fortune. All for storing tea and brandy overnight. Two hundred pounds is a very expensive lodging.’ He glared at Thomas. Kate could feel the tears welling up in her eyes and her heart beat faster as she wondered what Crane would do to them.
Crane’s thin face twitched with anger. It was as if every muscle moved by itself. He rubbed his hands together harder and harder, and they scraped like sandstone against wood. ‘So, what is it going to be then, Thomas? How are you going to pay me back?’
‘What about our friend? Is he alive?’ Thomas gulped down the lump in his throat as he spoke.
‘Your friend is as good as dead. Demurral told me himself this morning. He’s had him branded as a slave with a letter D burnt into his shoulder. He’ll be digging alum shale until he drops, and that’ll be either from exhaustion or from the gallows.’
Thomas opened his mouth to reply, but Rueben butted in. It was a voice that brought a sense of peace.
‘Mr Crane has a plan. We have told him all that we know of you and he would like to help.’ He paused and looked at them both. ‘It may save Raphah’s life and your own.’
‘Who told you about Raphah? We never mentioned his name.’ Thomas looked at Kate.
‘I told Isabella,’ she said. ‘I had to tell someone. It was the creatures. They frightened me.’ Kate began to cry and she wiped the tears on the sleeve of her dress. Isabella put her arm around her and held her close.
‘I’m not frightened by Demurral’s witchcraft.’ Crane spoke in a scornful voice. ‘He can have all the hordes of hell and I will not let it stand in the way of my brandy. He can have Old Nick himself trying to stop me, but we’ll see how he takes a ball of lead and the swipe of a cutlass.’ Crane laughed. ‘I have twenty men and a fast ship anchored off in the bay. All I want from you is to be my bait for Demurral, then I’ll get your friend and whatever he’s after. I want the brandy, tax free, and some of the money I have paid the old dog over the last ten years.’
‘Don’t trust him, Thomas. My father said he’s a thief and a murderer.’ Kate leapt towards Crane like a cat about to lash out with her claws. Isabella held her back as she kicked out and struggled. Crane didn’t move or even flinch.
He spoke calmly. ‘Your father, Kate Coglan, is as twisted as I am. He has helped me smuggle enough bran
dy and tea to fill Whitby harbour. He’s had more money out of my pocket than you will ever know, and it’s kept you fed and clothed since your mother died.’
‘Liar. Liar! My father’s an Excise man, he works for the King. He catches smugglers.’ She shouted the words at Crane. ‘He would never work for a thief and murderer like you. He’s an honest man and that is a word you will never understand.’
Crane sat impassively as she screamed at him. He looked at Rueben and nodded towards the front door of the cottage. Rueben got up from the chair and walked across the kitchen to the door. He opened it wide. The cold night air rolled in, bringing a chill to the room. The light from the candles appeared to dim as they fluttered in the draught; it was as if the darkness outside was sucking away the light from the cottage into the ever-increasing blackness.
Rueben spoke quietly to someone in the shadows. Kate could see the shape of a man illuminated by the escaping light. The man stepped closer to the door. She could see he was dressed in a dirty brown oilskin and a whale-oiled hat that shone in the amber light. He bent down to get through the small entrance and stepped into the cottage. He stood by the door with rainwater dripping from his coat. He began to look up, taking off the oilskin hat. Kate shuddered with surprise as she stared into the eyes of her father.
‘I think you two don’t need an introduction, do you? Kate Coglan, I hope you can recognize your father even in this light. Come in, Mr Coglan, and sit down … Doubtless she’ll want to slap you around the face or kick you in the shins for letting her down all these years. I think she’s old enough now to know the whole truth about you and me.’
Kate stared at her father in disbelief. She gulped down mouthfuls of air, trying to stop herself from crying as she squeezed her nails into the palms of her hands.
‘He knows you, he knows your name,’ she shouted at her father. ‘You told me he was a thief and that you wanted to see him dead.’
‘Who do you think has kept you fed all these years? It wasn’t the money from the Customs House. If it weren’t for working with Jacob we would have been out on the streets long ago.’
‘If it weren’t for your drinking we’d have had plenty to eat without you having to lie, cheat, and steal, Father.’
‘If it weren’t for your brother dying, and then your mother, I would never have turned to drinking or smuggling. But neither of us can change the things of the past, Kate. And from what I hear, you have got yourself in all sorts of bother. It won’t be long before Demurral beats it out of your friend as to who was with him, and then both of you will be fitted for the rope. I don’t want to see a child of mine dangling from the gallows on Beacon Hill.’
He stepped towards Kate and held out both hands. It was something he had never done before in his life. She noticed that they trembled as he held them towards her. He tried to smile at her. His face felt so awkward; he was not a man to whom smiling came naturally. It had been so many years since he had even wanted to smile at anyone. A frown and a sharp word had been the only expression of love that he could muster. That and the tears he had wrung out of his gin-soaked soul every time he had fallen into the drunken melancholy of weeping for his lost wife.
He spoke out the soft words. ‘I love you, Kate.’
‘If you’d loved me you would never have lied to me.’ Her harsh voice covered her true feelings. She wanted to run to him, to put her arms around him and make all things well again. She felt she was rooted to the floor by her anger. She bit her lip, hoping the pain would make all this hurt go away.
‘Everyone lies, Kate. It’s a part of life. The truth would have been too much for you to cope with. To share a secret with a child and to ask them to keep it is like trying to keep a butterfly alive in winter.’
‘But you didn’t have to lie to me, I am your daughter, I could have helped you. All you wanted to do was soak up the gin, and when you were out working you were really helping Jacob Crane.’
Crane stood up and walked towards her. It was the first time she had seen him close to. He was tall and thin. A white collar poked from beneath his silver-buttoned black jacket. His blond hair fell over his forehead. On his right cheek was a long cut that had been freshly salted.
‘Tonight is not the time for fighting each other or dragging up the past.’ He looked at Kate and Thomas and put a strong hand on both their shoulders. ‘You two have a lot to answer for; and before the dawn you may have a chance to make it right.’ He paused and stared at them both. ‘Or by the dawn we may all be dead.’
The Dunamez
RAPHAH could not believe his eyes. He had fallen asleep in a dark, almost empty room with Mrs Landas and the boy scurrying about lighting the lamps. Now he woke up to a bright, smoke-filled workhouse, a great hubbub rising from the gathering at the table.
He looked down from the top bunk bed and felt like a spectator to some grand opera staring down from the highest balcony. Gathered below him was an assembly of the world’s most ragged people. Packed into the room were men, women and children, all dirty and covered in the red dust and mud that overlaid the whole mine.
The noise of their chatter echoed against the stone walls. Empty plates littered the table. Everyone spoke excitedly to each other. This was well-fed conversation, while children played in front of a large fire that had been lit in the fireplace. It was a feast of the shabby and tattered, who ate a banquet of potatoes and turnip with a flavouring bone from an old sheep. The remnants of the meal stuck to the bottom of a large stew pan that hovered over the flames steaming and spluttering like the mouth of some large black volcano.
He could see that there was an order to the table, with the older and less bedraggled men sitting near to the fire at the far end. Mrs Landas sat in state at the head of the table, smoking a fresh pipe and drinking gin and third-brew beer from a large mug. Raphah thought she looked like some queen holding court, surrounded by courtiers.
To her right was a large, thickset man in a torn jacket and frayed shirt with a piece of red cloth tied loosely around his neck beneath a strong, bold jaw and deep-set eyes. He never smiled and sat back in his chair with a scowl on his face listening to those around him.
He spoke to Mrs Landas through clenched brown teeth. ‘Can we have the cards tonight, Mary? It would be good to see what will be for the future.’
Mrs Landas nodded to the young woman seated to her left, who pulled out a drawer in the table and brought out a bundle of blue silk cloth. Mrs Landas unwrapped it and took out a large pack of picture cards.
The whole room went quiet as she slowly and deliberately shuffled the pack. She looked around the room and smiled at each person sitting at the long table.
‘Who shall it be tonight?’ she asked as she looked into their faces, trying to speak in a solemn and serious voice. ‘What will the cards tell us about our lives?’
Several of the older children called out, trying to grab her attention. Mrs Landas shook her head at them as if to say it would not be their turn. Each one turned away with a look of disappointment on their face.
‘Do it for Demurral – let’s see what the cards say for him. After all, his future is our future,’ replied one of the men sitting close by as he tapped his pipe on the sole of his leather boot.
A woman butted in. ‘I can’t get out of here until I pay back all that I owe him. Tell us, Mary. What happens to him today will haunt us tomorrow. If his future’s good then maybe he’ll set me free without me having to pay seven years’ rent and the interest on the loan he gave me to pay him back.’
Each person in the room owed Demurral money. When they could no longer pay the debt they came to the mine to work long hours for little wages. With each year of work they would sink deeper in debt to him. He would charge them for their food, children, board and lodgings and even for the tools they used to dig the shale from his mine.
‘All right, all right. Demurral it is then!’ Mrs Landas spoke in a loud voice as she hit the cards against the table. This was the cue for the deaf boy to begin
to blow out the candles on the window ledge and fireplace. He turned down the lamps and the room dropped into a dim light, Mrs Landas outlined by an orange aura from the glow of the fire.
‘You must all concentrate on the Parson, picture his face in your mind and I will ask the spirit of the cards to speak to us all.’
In the shadow cast by the fire those facing her could hardly see her features. The light from a small candle flickered across her face giving the impression that it was changing in appearance. She placed the cards on the table and pulled the shawl over the back of her head. When the evening meal was over and after several glasses of gut-rot gin, Mrs Landas would often perform her magic. She would turn the divining cards, piecing together fact and fiction, telling people what they wanted to hear and surprising them with secrets of their lives that she had surreptitiously gleaned from other people’s conversations. Tonight, she thought to herself, might be her finest performance.
‘You’re not thinking hard enough, there’s nothing coming through. How do you expect me to come into spirit if you don’t think hard enough? We have to concentrate to open the door into the afterlife.’ She spoke quickly, closing her eyes and screwing and contorting her face. ‘Spirit … speeeeak …toooo … meeee …’
She gave a squeak as she spoke, trying to make her voice sound as if it belonged to someone else. Three loud, strong knocks came from somewhere in the darkness. A shudder went through everyone seated at the table. One woman supped from a glass of gin, whilst another clutched the arm of the man next to her. The children huddled together in the light of the fire, hoping to be saved from the darkness.
Mrs Landas, shocked at the sudden reply from the spirit world, opened one eye and stared around the room. ‘Who is it? Do you want to speak to us?’ she said timidly, pretending to speak in the voice of a little girl.
