A RELEASE
Kate sat in her boat holding the string that was twisted round the
rowlock and that held Roger Redmore’s hands bound behind his back. He
was crouched in the bottom of the boat, sunken into a heap, hanging by
his hands. Now and then he made a convulsive effort with his shoulders
to release his arms, but was powerless. He could not scramble to his
feet, held down as he was behind. He turned his face, and from over
Coombe Cellars, where the sky was alight with fire, a glow came on his
countenance.
“You be Kitty Alone?” said he.
Kate hardly answered. Her heart was fluttering; her head giddy with
alarm and distress, coming after a night’s exposure in the open boat. As
yet, no sign of dawn in the east; only the flames from the burning
farm-produce lighted up the sky to the south-west, and were reflected in
the in-flowing water.
The agricultural riots which had filled the south of England with terror
at the close of 1830 were, indeed, a thing of the past, but the
reminiscence of them lay deep in the hearts of the labourers; and for
ten and fifteen years after, at intervals, there were fresh outbreaks of
incendiarism. There was, indeed, no fresh organisation of bodies of men
going about the country, destroying machinery and firing farms, but in
many a district the threat of the firebrand was still employed, and the
revenge of a fire among the stacks and barns was so easy, and so
difficult to bring home to the incendiary, that it was long before the
farmer could feel himself safe. Indeed, nothing but the insurance office
prevented this method of obtaining revenge from being had recourse to
very frequently. When every dismissed labourer or workman who had met
with a sharp reprimand could punish the farmer by thrusting a match
among his ricks, fires were common; but when it became well known that
an incendiary fire hurt not the farmer, but an insurance company, the
malevolent and resentful no longer had recourse to this method of
injury.
In the “Swing” riots many men had been hung or transported for the
crimes then committed, and the statute against arson passed in the reign
of George IV., making such an offence felony, and to be punished
capitally, was in force, and not modified till much later. When,
therefore, Jan Pooke threatened Redmore with the gallows, he threatened
him with what the unhappy man knew would be his fate if convicted.
Kate was acquainted with the story of Roger. He had been a labourer on
Mr. Pooke’s farm. He was a morose man, with a sickly wife and delicate
children, occupying a cottage on the farm. At Christmas the man had
taken a drop too much, and had been insolent to his master. The
intoxication might have been forgiven--not so the impertinence. He was
at once discharged, and given notice to quit his cottage at Lady Day.
For nearly three months the man had been out of work. In winter there is
no demand for additional hands; no great undertakings are prosecuted.
All the farmers were supplied with workmen, and had some difficulty in
the frosty weather in finding occupation for them. None were inclined to
take on Roger Redmore. Moreover, the farmers hung together like bees. A
man who had offended one, incurred the displeasure of all.
Redmore wandered from one farm to another, seeking for employment, only
to meet with refusal everywhere. In a day or two he would be cast forth
from his cottage with wife and family. Whither to go he knew not. He had
exhausted what little money he had saved, and had nowhere found work.
Kate felt pity for the man. He had transgressed, and his transgression
had fallen heavy upon him. He was not an intemperate man; he did not
frequent the public-house. Others who drank, and drank hard, remained
with their masters, who overlooked their weakness. In the forefront of
Roger’s offence stood his insolence; and Pooke, the richest yeoman in
the place, was proud, and would not forgive a wound to his pride.
As Kate held the string, she felt that the wretched man was shivering.
He shook in his boat, and chattered its side against her boat.
“Are you very cold?” asked the girl.
“I’m hungry,” he answered sullenly.
“You are trembling.”
“I’ve had nor bite nor crumb for forty-eight hours. That’s enough to
make a man shake.”
“Nothing to eat? Did you not ask for something?”
“I went to the Rectory. Passon Fielding gave me a loaf, but I took it
home--wife and little ones were more starving than I, and I cut it up
between ’em.”
“I think--I almost think I have a piece of bread with me,” said Kate.
She had, in fact, taken some in her pocket the night before, when she
crossed, and had forgotten to eat it, or had no appetite for it. Now she
produced the slice.
“I cannot take it,” said the bound man. “My hands be tied fast behind
me. You must please put it into my mouth; and the Lord bless you for
it.”
Holding the cord with her right, Kate extended the bread with the other
hand to the man, whose face was averted, and thrust it between his lips.
“You must hold your hand to my mouth while I eat,” said he. “I wouldn’t
miss a crumb, and it will fall if you take your hand from me.”
Consequently, with her hand full of bread much broken, she fed the
unfortunate man, and he ate it out of her palm. He ate greedily till he
had consumed the last particle.
It moved Kate to the heart to feel the hungry wretch’s lips picking the
crumbs out of her palm.
“Oh, Roger!” she said in a tone full of compassion and sorrow, rather
than reproach, “why--why did you do it?”
“Do what, Kitty?”
“Oh, burn the stack!”
“I’ll tell you why. I couldn’t help it. Did you know my Joan? Her was
the purtiest little maid in all Coombe. Her’s dead now.”
“Dead, Roger!”
“Ay, I reckon; died to-night in her mother’s lap; died o’ want, and
cold, and nakedness. Us had no bread till Pass’n gave me that loaf--and
no coals, and no blankets, and naught but rags. The little maid has been
sick these three weeks. Us can’t have no doctor. I’ve been out o’ work
three months, and now the parish must bury her. Joan, she wor my very
darling, nigh my heart.”
He was silent. The boat he was in chattered more vigorously against that
of Kate.
“I knowed,” he pursued, “I knowed what ha’ done it. It wor Farmer Pooke
throwed me out of employ--took the bread out o’ our mouths. Us had a bit
o’ candle-end, and I wor down on my knees beside my wife, and little
Joan lyin’ on her lap; and wife and I neither could speak; us couldn’t
pray; us just watched the poor little maid passin’ away.”
He was silent, but Kate heard that he was sobbing. Presently he said,
“You’ve been kind. If you’ve got a bit o’ handkercher or what else, wipe
my face with it, will’y. There’s something, the dew or the salt water
from the oars, splashed over it.”
The girl passed her shawl over the man’s face.
“Thank’y kindly,” he said. Then he drew a long breath and continued his
story. “Well, now, when wife and I saw as little Joan were gone home,
then her rose up and never said a word, but laid her on our ragged bed;
and I--I had the candle-end in my hand, and I put it into the lantern,
and I went out. My heart were full o’ gall and bitterness, and my head
were burning. I know’d well who’d killed our Joan; it were Farmer Pooke
as turned me out o’ employ all about a bit o’ nonsense I said and never
meant, and when I wor sober never remembered to ha’ said; so, mad wi’
sorrow and anger, I--I gone and done it with that there bit o’
candle-end.”
“Oh, Roger, Roger! you have made matters much worse for yourself, for
all.”
“I might ha’ made it worser still.”
“You could not--now. Oh, what will become of you, and what of your poor
wife and little ones?”
“For me, as Jan Tottle said, there’s the gallows; and I reckon for my
Jane and the childer, there’s the grave.”
“If you had not fired the rick, Roger!”
“I tell you I might ha’ done worse than that, and now been a free man.”
“I cannot see that.”
“Put your hand down by my right thigh. Do you feel nothing there,
hanging to the strap round my waist?”
Kate felt a string and a knife, a large knife, as she groped.
“Do you mean this, Roger?”
“Yes, I does. As Jan Tottle wor a-wrastlin’ wi’ me here in this boat,
and trying to overmaster me, the thought came into my head as I might
easy take my knife and run it in under his ribs and pierce his heart.
Had I done that, he’d ha’ falled dead here, and I’d a’ gotten scot-free
away.”
“Roger!”
Kate shrank away in horror.
“I didn’t do it, but I might. I’d no quarrel with young Jan. He’s good
enough. It’s the old fayther be the hard and cruel one. I knowed what
was afore me, as young Jan twisted and turned and threw me. I must be
took to Exeter gaol, and there be hanged by the neck till dead--but I
wouldn’t stain my hands wi’ an innocent lad’s blood. I wouldn’t have it
said of my little childer they was come o’ a murderin’ villain.”
Kate shuddered. Still holding fast the cord that constrained the man,
and kept him in his position of helplessness, she drew back from him as
far as she could without surrendering her hold.
“I had but to put down my hand and slip open my clasp-knife--and I would
have been free, and Jan lying here in his blood.”
She hardly breathed. A band as of iron seemed to be about her breast and
tightening.
“Kitty,” said the man, “you have fed me with bread out of your hand, and
with your hand you have wiped the salt tears from my eyes. With that
hand will you give me over to the gallows? If you do, my death will lie
on you, and those of my Jane and the little ones.”
“Roger, I am here in trust.”
“I spared Jan. Can you not spare me?”
Kate trembled. She hardly breathed.
“Let me go, and I swear to you--I swear by all those ten thousand eyes
o’ heaven looking down on us--that I will do for you what you have done
for me.”
“That is an idle promise,” said Kate; “you never can do that.”
“Who can say what is to be, or is not to be? Let me go, for my wife and
poor children’s sake.”
She did not answer.
“Let me go because I spared Jan Pooke.”
She did not move.
“Let me go for the little dead Joan’s sake--that when she lies i’ the
churchyard, they may not say of her, ‘Thickey there green mound, wi’
them daisies on it, covers a poor maid whose father were hanged.’”
Then Kate let go the string, it ran round the rowlock, and the man
scrambled to his feet.
“Cut it with my knife,” he said.
She took the swinging knife, opened the blade, and with a stroke cut
through the cord that held his wrists.
Then Roger Redmore shook the strings from his hands, and held up his
freed arms to heaven, and cried, “The Lord, who sits enthroned above
thickey shining stars, reward you and help me to do for you as you ha’
done for me. Amen.”
He leaped from the boat and was lost in the darkness.
A minute later, and John Pooke, with a party of men among whom was Pasco
Pepperill, came up.
“John,” said Kate, “he is gone--escaped.”
She drew the young man aside. “I will not deceive you--I let him go. He
begged hard. He might have killed you. His little Joan is dead.”
John Pooke was at first staggered, and inclined to be angry, but he
speedily recovered himself. He was a good-natured lad, and he said in a
low tone, “Tell no one else. After all, it is best. I shouldn’t ha’
liked to have appeared against him, and been the occasion of his death.”
Kate returned with her uncle to Coombe Cellars.
“I hope my new boat is no worse,” said he. “How is it you’ve been out
all night?”
Kate told her story.
“The boat is all right, I suppose. She cost me six pounds.”
“Yes; no harm is done to it. I hope aunt has not been anxious about me.”
“What, Zerah? Oh, she’s in bed. I waited up, and when there was a cry of
fire ran out.”
“You waited for me, uncle?”
“I had my accounts.”
“And father--was he anxious about me?”
“Your father? You come in, and you’ll hear his snore all over the house.
He’s a terrible noisy sleeper.”