The Life Of Thomas Wanless, Peasant Part 3

By this time it was very dark, and the fog thicker than ever, so that they had never a thought of danger. Yet they had not been un.o.bserved.

Tom Pemberton, as ill-luck would have it, had been pa.s.sing the coppice while the two labourers were after the rabbits, and had either heard their voices or the whistling, made more audible by the fog. Suspecting that poachers were at work, and always eager to do his fellow man an ill turn, Pemberton stopped his walk, and stole along the edge of the field till he reached the gate, where he crouched for his prey. In a few minutes the voices of the approaching labourers reached his ears, and being a coward he crawled along the ground, and lay down in the frozen ditch lest he should be seen, but still kept well within earshot. To his intense satisfaction he recognised one at least of the men by his voice, as they pa.s.sed him, unconscious of his presence. Robins he could not be sure of, but he had only too good cause to recollect the voice of Wanless. The two were talking of the pleasure their families would have in eating stewed rabbit, and doubtless Pemberton chuckled to himself as he heard. But he had the prudence to keep quite still until the labourers got well beyond hearing. Then he arose and went on his mission of evil. The unsuspecting labourers trudged home in peace. Thomas with even a flicker of gladness at his heart, a flicker that deepened to a glow of thankfulness, when he reached his cottage and learned that the doctor had p.r.o.nounced the child who had suffered most out of danger. She was the youngest but one, a little girl of four. Before her illness she had been a fair-haired, delicate-looking, but healthy child, with bright, engaging ways, and a sweet merry voice, a great favourite of her father's. Now she was thin and worn, and her lips had become dry and cracked with the fire that had burned and burned in her little body, till all its flesh was consumed. Night after night Thomas had come home, and, changing his wet clothes, had, after a hasty supper, gone up beside his little ones to watch and tend them in the early night, while the mother tried to s.n.a.t.c.h an hour or two's sleep. Through these weary weeks nothing had wrung his heart so keenly as the sore battle for life made by wee Sally. Hour after hour her little transparent feverish hands would clutch his nervously, as she lay panting in his arms, or wander pitifully about his weather-worn face, her burning touch causing him to shiver to the very marrow of his bones.

"I'se so ill, daddy; I'se so ill," she would keep moaning, and sometimes she would start screaming from an uneasy slumber that gave no rest.

Then she grew too ill to speak, and lay gasping and delirious in the close, ill-ventilated attic beside her two sisters, who were themselves part of the time too ill to raise their heads. Thomas thought that death had come for his little girl the night before he brought the rabbits home, and the nearer death seemed to come the more agonising grew the pain at his heart. His wife and he together had watched by Sally's cot till towards morning, fearing that each moment she would choke. But about half-past two the breath began to be more free; she swallowed a little weak tea, and gradually fell into the quietest sleep she had had for more than ten days.

When Thomas left for his day's work she was asleep still, and he had held the hope that she would yet get better to his heart all day. So mixed are the motives that sway men that this very hope made him the more ready to go after the rabbits. The savoury broth might help his little ones--and Sally.

So they were glad that night in the little Ashbrook Cottage. Sally had slept till daylight, and woke quiet, cooler-skinned and hungry. The doctor said she would live yet. Thomas went up as usual beside his little ones, and told them about the rabbits that Robins and he had caught, making them laugh at the thought of to-morrow's treat. He had not waited for supper, and his wife brought it up stairs, spreading it out at the foot of the bed where "baby" and "bludder" Jack lay, and then the whole family enjoyed the luxury of a cup of tea in honour of Sally's improvement. How little the labourer suspected then that the hand of vengeance was already stretched forth to blast him and his joys, it might be, for ever. Yet so it was, and thus does life ever mock us, especially if we be poor. And had not Thomas sinned against the English Baal. The sacred laws of property had been violated by him; he had entered its holy of holies--a game preserve--and must bear the penalty.

The thought did not quite thus shape itself in Tom Pemberton's mind as he crept from his lair and made off as fast as the thick gloom would permit him, to Squire Greenaway's gamekeeper's cottage; but his heart exulted at the thought of the vengeance it was now in his power to wreak. That very night he hoped to see the hated Wanless locked up. In this hope, however, he was disappointed. The gamekeeper was not at home, nor could his wife say exactly where he was. Probably she knew well enough; and certain gamedealers in Leamington also were likely to know, for, like most of his cla.s.s, this fellow was only a licensed poacher; but Pemberton had to be content with his answer. He told the keeper's wife that he wanted some poachers apprehended, and that he would return to-morrow.

Sure enough he came, and came early, but the keeper was again out, setting his gins probably, and had left word that he would not be back till dinner-time. Ultimately, Pemberton met his man, and the two decided to go and seize Wanless at night in his own cottage. Accordingly, that same evening as Thomas and his family were enjoying their supper together in the attic, they were disturbed by a rude thumping at the door and before Thomas himself could get down to see who was there, the latch was lifted, and in walked Tom Pemberton with the gamekeeper at his heels. The latter was a squat, ill-favoured, heavy man, with small piercing eyes that were never at rest. He sniffed noisily as he entered, and gave vent to a gleeful chuckle as he caught sight of Wanless. Dull Pemberton had grown fat and bloated-looking since the days of the allotment agitation, but his usually stolid, sodden-looking features, were to-night almost animated by the leer of triumph which had displaced the customary sullen vacuity. Yet he was not at his ease; and when Thomas, divining the men's purpose, drew himself up, and holding up his rushlight the better to see the faces of his visitors, flashed a look of scornful defiance at the farmer, that worthy drew back involuntarily.

But the keeper had no feelings, and at once struck in with--

"Sorry to hinterrup' yer feast, my man; but we want ye, d'ye see. G.o.d!

what a prime smell! Kerruberatin' evidence, eh, farmer? Ye've been poachin', Wanless, that's evident; an' the Squire'll be glad to speak wi' ye about it. Ha! ha!"

For a moment Thomas felt disposed to fight. A thrill of fury swept through him, and he wished he could tear keeper and farmer in pieces with his hands. But that soon pa.s.sed, and he stood dumbfounded. Hearing the strange voices, his wife stole down the stair, followed by the three children who were able to be about the house, and two of these latter, catching a vague fear of danger, began to cry. Young Tom did not weep, but stole softly up to his father's side. But a minute before all had been happiness, such happiness as a family of miserable groundlings might dare to feel, and now----

Bah! Why give a thought to such wretches. They can have no feelings like my lord and the squire, or his scented and sanctified parsonship. And yet the cold night wind made these sick children shiver as you or I might; and the stricken wife, who had caught the purport of the keeper's speech, was just as ready to faint with grief and terror, as if she had had your feelings or mine. Her first act was to protect the children from harm by trying to shut the door; but Pemberton, with a growl, pushed her back, and she then gathered them in her arms, and sat down on an old box by the fire, weeping silently.

Still Thomas stood, silent but not cowed, and the keeper's wrath began to blaze up.

"Come along, man," he growled, "none of yer hobstinincy, now. We don't want no scenes here; none o' yer blubberin' wife and family kick-ups.

Come along."

Then Pemberton plucked up heart to laugh. With a mocking hee! hee! hee!

he said--

"We've got you now, Wanless, and no mistake, you d----d old blackguard, an' we'll tame that devilish spirit of yours afore we're done wi' ye.

Roast me if we don't."

His voice roused the spirit of Wanless once more. Clenching his hands he stepped forward, moving the keeper aside, and putting his fist in Pemberton's face, said, in a voice that quivered with concentrated pa.s.sion--

"Hold your tongue, you black-hearted scoundrel, and leave my house this instant, or I'll throw you out at the door. What right have you to enter my door? Be off!"

Pemberton shrank back and looked as if he thought it might be best for him to obey; but the keeper grasped Thomas by the collar from behind and swung him round, at the same time saying--

"Come, come, none o' this nonsense now, Wanless. I'll have no fightin'

here, or, by G.o.d, if you do I'll transport you, sure's my name's Crabb.

You must go with us quietly."

At the threat of transporting him, Thomas's wife uttered a shrill cry of horror, and Thomas himself grew pale, but he was now too much stirred to yield at once. Instead, he shook off the keeper's hand; and demanded fiercely what right he had to arrest him.

The keeper laughed mockingly.

"Well now, that is a good un'. Why, damme, you've been poaching."

"How do you know that? And what is it to you if I have?"

"How do I know? Why, bless my life, I can smell it, you fool. But I beant here to hargify the p'int. I harrest ye on a criminal charge, Wanless, that's all; and I've brought the bracelets, my boy. Just the correct horneyments for chaps like you, he, he," croaked the keeper, with malign glee.

"But where's your warrant?" urged Thomas. "You have no right to enter a man's own house in this way, and haul him wherever you like when it suits you to put out your spites on him. Poachers, faith; who's a poacher, I'd like to know, if you ain't? Leave my house, both of you, or, by G.o.d, I'll rouse the village. Tom, Tom," he added, turning to his son, who had again crept to his side, "go and find Sutchwell, and Pease, and----"

"Hold hard there, you ---- fool," roared the keeper. "Curse you, d'ye suppose we came here to stand your insolence."

Pemberton closed the door and put his back to it.

"Look ye here, my fine haristocrat," continued the keeper in the boundless wrath of fear, "look ye here, if you don't go quietly, devil take me if I don't get ye a trip to Botany Bay for this job. I'm a sworn constable, and I've got the justices' warrant, surely that's 'nuff for thieves like you. Come, farmer Pemberton," he added more quietly, "help me to hornament this gent," and in a very brief s.p.a.ce the two mastered and handcuffed the labourer.

He, indeed, made little resistance, for he began to see that he was at the mercy of these scoundrels. His wife clung to him, but they tore her roughly away. The children wailed in chorus, and "bludder Jack" crept downstairs in his thin nightgown to see what was causing the hubbub, howling like the rest without knowing why. But it was soon all over.

Thomas barely got time to kiss his wife, and to whisper to her to tell Hawthorn, ere he was out of the cottage and away with his captors. All down the little village street the shrieks of his family rung in his ears, and his heart within him was like to burst with grief, humiliation, and impotent wrath.

That night he was formally committed by Squire Greenaway himself to be tried for poaching, before the justices at Leamington Priors, on Tuesday next. This was Friday.

In due course Thomas Wanless appeared before the "Justices"--G.o.d save them! and, after a very brief trial, was "let off," as one phrased it, with six months' hard labour in Warwick Jail. The only evidence against him was that of Tom Pemberton, but he made no attempt to deny the charge, and as the squires already considered him a "dangerous" fellow, they thought their sentence a model of clemency. So did Pemberton and Keeper Crabb. His judges were Wiseman, Greenaway, the man whose vermin he had helped to thin by just three rabbits, Parson Codling, of Ashbrook, and a bibulous old creature who lived in Leamington Priors, a retired Birmingham merchant, who had been made J.P. for his subservience to the Tories. Greenaway was violent, and rather disposed to give an "exemplary" sentence; Wiseman was contemptuously indifferent, as became a big acred man and the husband of a woman with a handle to her name; and Parson Codling was unctuously severe.

An attempt was made to get Wanless to tell the name of his co-offender, but that he refused, so he was told that his obstinacy had prevented a more lenient sentence, which was false. But something is due to appearances at times, and even from such divine personages as justices of the peace. So careful was the "bench" of proprieties on this occasion, that Codling, on a hint from the chairman, gave Wanless the benefit of a short exhortation before consigning him to the salutary and eminently Christian discipline of the jailer. In the course of this homily, Codling took occasion to observe that he had once hoped better things of the prisoner, but had long ago been forced to give him up.

"With grief and sorrow," said the parson, "I have again and again watched his obduracy, and his tendency to consort with agitators, or worse. His fate will, I trust, be a warning to others."

This Parson Codling you will perceive had become tame. Once on a time he had been almost given over to agitation himself; but that danger soon pa.s.sed, and he was now a proper ornament to and supporter of the British hierarchy. Its morals were his morals. He knew no G.o.d but the G.o.d of the landed gentry. In his youth the functions of the priestly office had been misunderstood by him; but he had married soon after we last met him a gentlewoman of Worcestershire with 2,000 a year, and that cured him of many weaknesses--amongst others of the foolish craze he once had that the religion of Christ was a religion to be practised. He now knew that it was nothing of the kind. Certain tenets of it had been made up into a creed "to be said or sung," and a singularly complex inst.i.tution called the Church had been elaborated for the good of public morals, and the support of the English aristocracy--that was all. Therefore could he now wag his head pompously at poor Tom Wanless standing dumb before him; therefore could he now raise his fat soft hands, and thrust from his sight with sanctimonious horror that criminal guilty of rabbit murder.

A stranger, unfamiliar with the usages of rural England--that country whose liberties, we are told, all nations admire and envy--might have supposed that Wanless was some foul manslayer, some midnight a.s.sa.s.sin meeting his just doom. Unhappy stranger, woe on thy ignorance. Know thou that in England no crime is so heinous as the least approach to rebellion against the sacred rights of the Have-alls? "Touch not the land nor anything that is thereon," is to the English landholder all the law and the prophets. So Codling cursed Wanless for his crime, and the doom-stricken labourer pa.s.sed from his sight.

CHAPTER V.

MAKES KNOWN THE EXCELLENT QUALITIES OF JAIL LIFE.

Captain Hawthorn had been duly apprised of Thomas's misfortune, but was unable to do anything directly to help him. Because of his obnoxious opinions Hawthorn was not a justice of the peace; and he felt that any attempt on his part to appear as the labourer's champion might only end in making the poor fellow's sentence all the heavier. Since the Reform Bill and the Chartist agitations had alarmed the landholders, they had shown less disposition than ever to admit such a nondescript radical as Hawthorn into their society; and his interference in local affairs was so prominently resented on several occasions that he had almost ceased to attempt any. He had even some difficulty in obtaining access to Wanless in jail; but ultimately succeeded, by the help of a little judicious bribery, and the friendly a.s.sistance of a mountebank drunken parson, who was in jail for debt during six days of the week, but got bailed out on Sundays, so that he might edify his flock and keep down expenses.

The old man's first greeting to Wanless was in his customary rough form.

"Well, Tom, a nice a.s.s you have made of yourself. Why the devil hadn't you more sense, man? Eh? D--n it, you might have taken some of my rabbits, my boy, and never a keeper would have said you nay."

This was true enough, for Hawthorn had now no keeper, and, for that matter, little game. He allowed his tenants to do as they pleased, and one of the deepest grievances his neighbours had against him, was that these tenants thinned their game wherever their lands marched with his.

To this sally Thomas, however, made no answer beyond a smothered groan.

The man's spirit was too much broken to bear rough comfort of this kind, as his visitor instantly perceived. Changing his tone at once, the Captain bent over the bench where the prisoner sat hanging his head, and laying his hand on Thomas's shoulder, added--

"Come, come, Tom, my boy; bless my life! don't lose heart because you've been a fool. I'll see that the chicks don't starve, and you'll soon be out of this, and a man again."

The kind tones of Hawthorn's voice affected Tom more even than the promise. He tried to speak, but his voice broke in sobs.

"Tut, tut. 'Pon my life, don't, Tom, d--n it, man, don't," spluttered the Captain; but, as Tom did not stop, he grasped his hand suddenly and gave it a hearty grip. Then he turned and fled, afraid probably of himself betraying his feelings.