Through the Fray: A Tale of the Luddite Riots

“Oi asked what had becoom of the revenue men, and was told as a false letter had been writ saying a landing was to be made fifteen mile away. We went vorward to a place whar there war a break in the rocks, and a sort of valley ran down to the sea. There war a lot of men standing aboot, and just as we coom up thar war a movement and we hears as the loights had been shown and the vessel war running in close. Down we goes wi’ the others, and soon a boat cooms ashore. As soon as she gets close the men runs out to her; the sailors hands out barrels and each man shoulders one and trudges off. We does the same and takes the kegs up to t’ top, whar carts and horses was waiting for ‘em. Oi went oop and down three toimes and began to think as there war moor hard work nor fun aboot it. Oi war a-going to knock off when some one says as one more trip would finish the cargo, so down oi goes again: Just when oi gets to t’ bottom there war a great shouting oop at top.

“‘They’re just too late,’ a man says; ‘the kegs be all safe away except this lot,’ for the horses and carts had gone off the instant as they got their loads. ‘Now we must run for it, for the revenue men will be as savage as may be when they voinds as they be too late.’ ‘Where be us to run?’ says oi. ‘Keep close to me, oi knows the place,’ says he.

“So we runs down and voinds as they had tumbled the bar’ls into t’ boat again, and t’ men war just pushing her off when there war a shout close to us. ‘Shove, shove!’ shouted the men, and oi runs into t’ water loike t’ rest and shooved. Then a lot o’ men run up shouting, ‘Stop! in the king’s name!’ and began vor to fire pistols.

“Nateral oi wasn’t a-going to be fired at for nowt, so oi clutches moi stick and goes at ‘em wi’ the rest, keeping close to t’ chap as told me as he knew the coontry. There was a sharp foight vor a minute. Oi lays aboot me hearty and gets a crack on my ear wi’ a cootlas, as they calls theer swords, as made me pretty wild.

“We got the best o’t. ‘Coom on,’ says the man to me, ‘there’s a lot moor on ‘em a-cooming.’ So oi makes off as hard as oi could arter him. He keeps straight along at t’ edge o’ t’ water. It war soft rowing at first, vor t’ place war as flat as a table, but arter running vor a vew minutes he says, ‘Look owt!’ Oi didn’t know what to look owt vor, and down oi goes plump into t’ water. Vor all at once we had coomed upon a lot o’ rocks covered wi’ a sort of slimy stuff, and so slippery as you could scarce keep a footing on ‘em. Oi picks myself up and vollers him. By this toime, maister, oi war beginning vor to think as there warn’t so mooch vun as oi had expected in this koind o’ business. Oi had been working two hours loike a nigger a-carrying tubs. Oi had had moi ear pretty nigh cut off, and it smarted wi’ the salt water awful. Oi war wet from head to foot and had knocked the skin off moi hands and knees when oi went down. However there warn’t no toime vor to grumble. Oi vollers him till we gets to t’ foot o’ t’ rocks, and we keeps along ‘em vor aboot half a mile.

“The water here coombed close oop to t’ rocks, and presently we war a-walking through it. ‘Be’st a going vor to drown us all?’ says oi. ‘We are jest there,’ says he. ‘Ten minutes later we couldn’t ha’ got along.’ T’ water war a-getting deeper and deeper, and t’ loomps of water cooms along and well nigh took me off my feet. Oi was aboot to turn back, vor it war better, thinks oi, to be took by t’ king’s men than to be droonded, when he says, ‘Here we be.’ He climbs oop t’ rocks and oi follows him. Arter climbing a short way he cooms to a hole i’ rocks, joost big enough vor to squeeze through, but once inside it opened out into a big cave. A chap had struck a loight, and there war ten or twelve more on us thar. ‘We had better wait another five minutes,’ says one, ‘to see if any more cooms along. Arter that the tide ull be too high.’

“We waits, but no one else cooms; me and moi mate war t’ last. Then we goes to t’ back of the cave, whar t’ rock sloped down lower and lower till we had to crawl along one arter t’other pretty nigh on our stomachs, like raats going into a hole. Oi wonders whar on aarth we war agoing, till at last oi found sudden as oi could stand oopright. Then two or three more torches war lighted, and we begins to climb oop some steps cut i’ the face of t’ rock. A rope had been fastened alongside to hold on by, which war a good job for me, vor oi should never ha’ dared go oop wi’out it, vor if oi had missed my foot there warn’t no saying how far oi would ha’ fallen to t’ bottom. At last the man avore me says, ‘Here we be!’ and grateful oi was, vor what wi’ the crawling and the climbing, and the funk as oi was in o’ falling, the swaat was a-running down me loike water. The torches war put out, and in another minute we pushes through some bushes and then we war on t’ top of the cliff a hundred yards or so back from t’ edge, and doon in a sort of hollow all covered thickly over wi’ bushes. We stood and listened vor a moment, but no sound war to be heard. Then one on em says, ‘We ha’ done ‘em agin. Now the sooner as we gets off to our homes the better.’ Looky for me, Jack war one of the lot as had coom up through the cave. ‘Coom along, Luke,’ says he, ‘oi be glad thou hast got out of it all roight. We must put our best foot foremost to get in afore day breaks.’ So we sets off, and joost afore morning we gets back to village. As to t’other two from Varley, they never coom back agin. Oi heerd as how all as war caught war pressed for sea, and oi expect they war oot in a ship when a storm coom on, when in coorse they would be drownded. Oi started next day vor hoam, and from that day to this oi ha’ never been five mile away, and what’s more, oi ha’ never grudged the price as they asked for brandy. It ud be cheap if it cost voive toimes as much, seeing the trouble and danger as there be in getting it ashore, to say nothing o’ carrying it across the sea.”

“That was an adventure, Luke,” Ned said, “and you were well out of it. I had no idea you had ever been engaged in defrauding the king’s revenue. But now I must be off. I shall make straight across for the mill without going into Varley.”

One night Ned had as usual gone to the mill, and having carried down the twelve barrels from the office and placed them in a pile in the center of the principal room of the mill he retired to bed. He had been asleep for some hours when he was awoke by the faint tingle of a bell. The office was over the principal entrance to the mill, and leaping from his bed he threw up the window and looked out. The night was dark, but he could see a crowd of at least two hundred men gathered in the yard.

As the window was heard to open a sudden roar broke from the men, who had hitherto conducted their operations in silence.

“There he be, there’s the young fox; burn the mill over his head. Now to work, lads, burst in the door.”

And at once a man armed with a mighty sledgehammer began to batter at the door.

Ned tried to make himself heard, but his voice was lost in the roar without. Throwing on some clothes he ran rapidly downstairs and lighted several lamps in the machine room. Then he went to the door, which was already tottering under the heavy blows, shot back some of the bolts, and then took his place by the side of the pile of barrels with a pistol in his hand.

In another moment the door yielded and fell with a crash, and the crowd with exultant cheers poured in.

They paused surprised and irresolute at seeing Ned standing quiet and seemingly indifferent by the pile of barrels in the center of the room.

“Hold!” he said in a quiet, clear voice, which sounded distinctly over the tumult. “Do not come any nearer, or it will be the worse for you. Do you know what I have got here, lads? This is powder. If you doubt it, one of you can come forward and look at this barrel with the head out by my side. Now I have only got to fire my pistol into it to blow the mill, and you with it, into the air, and I mean to do it. Of course I shall go too; but some of you with black masks over your faces, who, I suppose, live near here, may know something about me, and may know that my life is not so pleasant a one that I value it in the slightest. As far as I am concerned you might burn the mill and me with it without my lifting a finger; but this mill is the property of my mother, brother, and sister. Their living depends upon it, and I am going to defend it. Let one of you stir a single step forward and I fire this pistol into this barrel beside me.”

And Ned held the pistol over the open barrel.

A dead silence of astonishment and terror had fallen upon the crowd. The light was sufficient for them to see Ned’s pale but determined face, and as his words came out cold and steady there was not one who doubted that he was in earnest, and that he was prepared to blow himself and them into the air if necessary.

A cry of terror burst from them as he lowered the pistol to the barrel of powder. Then in wild dismay every man threw down his arms and fled, jostling each other fiercely to make their escape through the doorway from the fate which threatened them. In a few seconds the place was cleared and the assailants in full flight across the country. Ned laughed contemptuously. Then with some difficulty he lifted the broken door into its place, put some props behind it, fetched a couple of blankets from his bed, and lay down near the powder, and there slept quietly till morning.

Luke and Bill Swinton were down at the factory an hour before the usual time. The assailants had for the most part come over from Huddersfield, but many of the men from Varley had been among them. The terror which Ned’s attitude had inspired had been so great that the secret was less well kept than usual, and as soon as people were astir the events of the night were known to most in the village. The moment the news reached the ears of Luke and Bill they hurried down to the mill without going in as usual for their mug of beer and bit of bread and cheese at the “Brown Cow.” The sight of the shattered door at once told them that the rumors they had heard were well founded. They knocked loudly upon it.

“Hullo!” Ned shouted, rousing himself from his slumbers; “who is there? What are you kicking up all this row about?”

“It’s oi, Maister Ned, oi and Bill, and glad oi am to hear your voice. It’s true, then, they haven’t hurt thee?”

“Not a bit of it,” Ned said as he moved the supports of the door. “I think they got the worst of it.”

“If so be as what oi ha’ heard be true you may well say that, Maister Ned. Oi hear as you ha’ gived ‘em such a fright as they won’t get over in a hurry. They say as you was a-sitting on the top of a heap of gunpowder up to the roof with a pistol in each hand.”

“Not quite so terrible as that, Luke; but the effect would have been the same. Those twelve barrels of powder you see there would have blown the mill and all in it into atoms.”

“Lord, Maister Ned,” Bill said, “where didst thou get that powder, and why didn’t ye say nowt about it? Oi ha’ seen it up in the office, now oi thinks on it. Oi wondered what them barrels piled up in a corner and covered over wi’ sacking could be; but it warn’t no business o’ mine to ax.”

“No, Bill, I did not want any of them to know about it, because these things get about, and half the effect is lost unless they come as a surprise; but I meant to do it if I had been driven to it, and if I had, King Lud would have had a lesson which he would not have forgotten in a hurry. Now, Luke, you and Bill had better help me carry them back to their usual place. I don’t think they are likely to be wanted again.”

“That they won’t be,” Luke said confidently; “the Luddites ull never come near this mill agin, not if thou hast twenty toimes as many machines. They ha’ got a froight they won’t get over. They told me as how some of the chaps at Varley was so freighted that they will be a long toime afore they gets round. Oi’ll go and ask tonight how that Methurdy chap, the blacksmith, be a feeling. Oi reckon he’s at the bottom on it. Dang un for a mischievous rogue! Varley would ha’ been quiet enough without him. Oi be wrong if oi shan’t see him dangling from a gibbet one of these days, and a good riddance too.”

The powder was stowed away before the hands began to arrive, all full of wonder and curiosity. They learned little at the mill, however. Ned went about the place as usual with an unchanged face, and the hands were soon at their work; but many during the day wondered how it was possible that their quiet and silent young employer should have been the hero of the desperate act of which every one had heard reports more or less exaggerated.

A lad had been sent over to Marsden the first thing for some carpenters, and by nightfall a rough but strong door had been hung in place of that which had been shattered. By the next day rumor had carried the tale all over Marsden, and Ned on his return home was greeted by Charlie with:

“Why, Ned, there is all sorts of talk in the place of an attack upon the mill the night before last. Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“Yes, Maister Ned,” Abijah put in, “and they say as you blew up about a thousand of them.”

“Yes, Abijah,” Ned said with a laugh, “and the pieces haven’t come down yet.”

“No! but really, Ned, what is it all about?”

“There is not much to tell you, Charlie. The Luddites came and broke open the door. I had got several barrels of powder there, and when they came in I told them if they came any further I should blow the place up. That put them in a funk, and they all bolted, and I went to sleep again. That’s the whole affair.”

“Oh!” Charlie said in a disappointed voice, for this seemed rather tame after the thrilling reports he had heard.

“Then you didn’t blow up any of ‘em, Maister Ned,” Abijah said doubtfully.

“Not a man jack, Abijah. You see I could not very well have blown them up without going up myself too, so I thought it better to put it off for another time.”

“They are very wicked, bad men,” Lucy said gravely.

“Not so very wicked and bad, Lucy. You see they are almost starving, and they consider that the new machines have taken the bread out of their mouths, which is true enough. Now you know when people are starving, and have not bread for their wives and children, they are apt to get desperate. If I were to see you starving, and thought that somebody or something was keeping the bread out of your mouth, I dare say I should do something desperate.”

“But it would be wrong all the same,” Lucy said doubtfully.

“Yes, my dear, but it would be natural; and when human nature pulls one way, and what is right pulls the other, the human nature generally gets the best of it.”

Lucy did not exactly understand, but she shook her head gravely in general dissent to Ned’s view.

“Why did you not tell us when you came home to breakfast yesterday?” Charlie asked.

“Because I thought you were sure to hear sooner or later. I saw all the hands in the mill had got to know about it somehow or other, and I was sure it would soon get over the place; and I would rather that I could say, if any one asked me, that I had not talked about it to any one, and was in no way responsible for the absurd stories which had got about. I have been talked about enough in Marsden, goodness knows, and it is disgusting that just as I should think they must be getting tired of the subject here is something fresh for them to begin upon again.”

As they were at tea the servant brought in a note which had just been left at the door. It was from Mr. Thompson, saying that in consequence of the rumors which were current in the town he should be glad to learn from Ned whether there was any foundation for them, and would therefore be obliged if he would call at eight o’clock that evening. His colleague, Mr. Simmonds, would be present.

Ned gave an exclamation of disgust as he threw down the note.

“Is there any answer, sir?” the servant asked. “The boy said he was to wait.”

“Tell him to say to Mr. Thompson that I will be there at eight o’clock; but that—no, that will do.

“It wouldn’t be civil,” he said to Charlie as the door closed behind the servant, “to say that I wish to goodness he would let my affairs alone and look to his own.”

When Ned reached the magistrates at the appointed hour he found that the inquiry was of a formal character. Besides the two justices, Major Browne, who commanded the troops at Marsden, was present; and the justices’ clerk was there to take notes.

Mr. Simmonds greeted Ned kindly, Mr. Thompson stiffly. He was one of those who had from the first been absolutely convinced that the lad had killed his stepfather. The officer, who was of course acquainted with the story, examined Ned with a close scrutiny.

“Will you take a seat, Ned?” Mr. Simmonds, who was the senior magistrate, said. “We have asked you here to explain to us the meaning of certain rumors which are current in the town of an attack upon your mill.”

“I will answer any questions that you may ask,” Ned said quietly, seating himself, while the magistrates’ clerk dipped his pen in the ink and prepared to take notes of his statement.

“Is it the case that the Luddites made an attack upon your mill the night before last?”

“It is true, sir.”

“Will you please state the exact circumstances.”

“There is not much to tell,” Ned said quietly. “I have for some time been expecting an attack, having received many threatening letters. I have, therefore, made a habit of sleeping in the mill, and a month ago I got in twelve barrels of powder from Huddersfield. Before going to bed of a night I always pile these in the middle of the room where the looms are, which is the first as you enter. I have bells attached to the shutters and doors to give me notice of any attempt to enter. The night before last I was awoke by hearing one of them ring, and looking out of the window made out a crowd of two or three hundred men outside. They began to batter the door, so, taking a brace of pistols which I keep in readiness by my bed, I went down and took my place by the powder. When they broke down the door and entered I just told them that if they came any further I should fire my pistol into one of the barrels, the head of which I had knocked out, and, as I suppose they saw that I meant to do it, they went off. That is all I have to tell, so far as I know.”

The clerk’s pen ran swiftly over the paper as Ned quietly made his statement. Then there was a silence for a minute or two.

“And did you really mean to carry out your threat, Mr. Sankey?”

“Certainly,” Ned said.

“But you would, of course, have been killed yourself.”

“Naturally,” Ned said dryly; “but that would have been of no great consequence to me or any one else. As the country was lately about to take my life at its own expense it would not greatly disapprove of my doing so at my own, especially as the lesson to the Luddites would have been so wholesale a one that the services of the troops in this part of the country might have been dispensed with for some time.”

“Did you recognize any of the men concerned?”

“I am glad to say I did not,” Ned replied. “Some of them were masked. The others were, so far as I could see among such a crowd of faces in a not very bright light, all strangers to me.”

“And you would not recognize any of them again were you to see them?”

“I should not,” Ned replied. “None of them stood out prominently among the others.”

“You speak, Mr. Sankey,” Mr. Thompson said, “as if your sympathies were rather on the side of these men, who would have burned your mill, and probably have murdered you, than against them.”

“I do not sympathize with the measures the men are taking to obtain redress for what they regard as a grievance; but I do sympathize very deeply with the amount of suffering which they are undergoing from the introduction of machinery and the high prices of provisions; and I am not surprised that, desperate as they are, and ignorant as they are, they should be led astray by bad advice. Is there any other question that you wish to ask me?”

“Nothing at present, I think,” Mr. Simmonds said after consulting his colleague by a look. “We shall, of course, forward a report of the affair to the proper authorities, and I may say that although you appear to take it in a very quiet and matter of fact way, you have evidently behaved with very great courage and coolness, and in a manner most creditable to yourself. I think, however, that you ought immediately to have made a report to us of the circumstances, in order that we might at once have determined what steps should be taken for the pursuit and apprehension of the rioters.”

Ned made no reply, but rising, bowed slightly to the three gentlemen and walked quietly from the room.

“A singular young fellow!” Major Browne remarked as the door closed behind him. “I don’t quite know what to make of him, but I don’t think he could have committed that murder. It was a cowardly business, and although I believe he might have a hand in any desperate affair, as indeed this story he has just told us shows, I would lay my life he would not do a cowardly one.”

“I agree with you,” Mr. Simmonds said, “though I own that I have never been quite able to rid myself of a vague suspicion that he was guilty.”

“And I believe he is so still,” Mr. Thompson said. “To me there is something almost devilish about that lad’s manner.”

“His manner was pleasant enough,” Mr. Simmonds said warmly, “before that affair of Mulready. He was as nice a lad as you would wish to see till his mother was fool enough to get engaged to that man, who, by the way, I never liked. No wonder his manner is queer now; so would yours be, or mine, if we were tried for murder and, though acquitted, knew there was still a general impression of our guilt.”

“Yes, by Jove,” the officer said, “I should be inclined to shoot myself. You are wrong, Mr. Thompson, take my word for it. That young fellow never committed a cowardly murder. I think you told me, Mr. Simmonds, that he had intended to go into the army had it not been for this affair? Well, his majesty has lost a good officer, for that is just the sort of fellow who would lead a forlorn hope though he knew the breach was mined in a dozen places. It is a pity, a terrible pity!”

CHAPTER XVIII: NED IS ATTACKED

As Ned had foreseen and resented, the affair at the mill again made him the chief topic of talk in the neighborhood, and the question of his guilt or innocence of the murder of his stepfather was again debated with as much earnestness as it had been when the murder was first committed. There was this difference, however, that whereas before he had found but few defenders, for the impression that he was guilty was almost universal, there were now many who took the other view.

The one side argued that a lad who was ready to blow himself and two or three hundred men into the air was so desperate a character that he would not have been likely to hesitate a moment in taking the life of a man whom he hated, and who had certainly ill treated him. The other side insisted that one with so much cool courage would not have committed a murder in so cowardly a way as by tying a rope across the road which his enemy had to traverse. One party characterized his conduct at the mill as that of the captain of a pirate ship, the other likened it to any of the great deeds of devotion told in history—the death of Leonidas and his three hundred, or the devotion of Mutius Scaevola.

Had Ned chosen now he might have gathered round himself a strong party of warm adherents, for there were many who, had they had the least encouragement, would have been glad to shake him by the hand and to show their partisanship openly and warmly; but Ned did not choose. The doctor and Mr. Porson strongly urged upon him that he should show some sort of willingness to meet the advances which many were anxious to make.

“These people are all willing to admit that they have been wrong, Ned, and really anxious to atone as far as they can for their mistake in assuming that you were guilty. Now is your time, my boy; what they believe today others will believe tomorrow; it is the first step toward living it down. I always said it would come, but I hardly ventured to hope that it would come so soon.”

“I can’t do it, Mr. Porson; I would if I could, if only for the sake of the others; but I can’t talk, and smile, and look pleasant. When a man knows that his mother lying at home thinks that he is a murderer how is he to go about like other people?”