Kitty Alone. Baring-Gould Sabine

      CHAPTER VII

       A RELEASE

       Table of Contents

      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