The Life of Thomas Wanless, Peasant

by A. J. Wilson

The latter party was too late; Thomas was caught near a cross-road about a quarter of a mile from the farm. Two disguised men rushed upon him from opposite sides of the road with savage growls, their blackened faces half hid in mufflers. Brandishing clubs and knives, they demanded his name. Thomas gave one piercing yell of terror and dashed forward, but was seized and held fast. Gripping him by the collar of his smock till he was nearly choked, young Turner again demanded his name, and, on Thomas gasping it out, roared in his ear, "then you are the villain we want. You must take us to farmer Pemberton's rickyard and stables. We are rick-burners, and will kill you unless you obey." Whereat he flourished a knife, and drew the back of it across his own throat, with a significant gurgle. Thomas trembled in every limb, tried to speak, but his tongue failing him, burst into a wail of crying instead, and sank to the ground. The scoundrels laughed hoarsely, and, amid a volley of oaths, hauled him to his feet. Then forcing him on his knees, Turner ordered him to swear to lead them to the place, and keep faith with them. As the boy hesitated, they stood over him crying, "Swear, swear, you obstinate pig, or you die," and Turner held the knife to his heart. Thoroughly cowed and terror stricken, Thomas gasped out, "I swear." A man on each side then laid hold of him, hauled him to his feet and led him towards the farm, the other two ruffians acting guards, muttering foul oaths, and brandishing their cudgels within an inch of his face in a way that froze his very heart's blood with terror.

Arrived at the barn, they produced a tinderbox, and, lighting a match, ordered Thomas to set fire to a heap of loose straw that lay near the barn door. Thomas refused. A dim glimmer of the fact that he was being hoaxed had risen through his fears. He thought he knew the voices of at least two of his tormentors, and he grew bolder. Twice the order was repeated amid ominous handling of knives, but he sullenly bade them light the straw themselves, and thrust his hands into his pockets. After a third refusal one of the Pembertons struck him in the face a blow that loosened three of his teeth, and made his nose bleed profusely. Then once more he was asked to light the straw, but the only reply was a piercing cry for help. In a moment a gag was thrust into his bleeding mouth, and he was flung on the ground, where they proceeded to pinion his hands and his feet. Before completing the tying, Turner hissed into his ear, "Hold up your hand to say you yield, you little devil, or we will beat you to death." But Thomas lay still, so the whole four of them commenced to push him about with their feet, and to strike him with their sticks, amid growls and horrid oaths. Then Thomas lost consciousness. When he awoke again he was at home in his mother's bed. His mother was kneeling by his side weeping bitterly, and his father stood over him holding a feeble rushlight, watching for the return of life. The boy was in great pain, especially about the legs and abdomen, and could not move his left arm at all. His face was swollen, his lips and gums lacerated and sore, and he lay tossing in pain till the grey morning light, when he dropt off into a fitful sleep. A fortnight elapsed before he was able to resume work.

The rescuing party had reached the farm barely in time to prevent the brutal ruffians from carrying their sport to perhaps a fatal conclusion. Guided by the curses and laughter, Jacob and his friends had rushed upon the savages in the midst of the kicking, and Jacob himself in a frenzy of rage wrenched a cudgel from the nearest of them, felled him to the earth with it, and dragged his son from amongst the others' feet. The man he struck happened to be Turner; and, seeing him down, the cowardly young Pembertons took to their heels before the slower moving labourers could capture them. Turner, all bleeding as he was, they attempted to take with them in order to give him into custody, but on the way to the village he tripped up one of his guards, wrenched himself free, and bolted. An outrage like this surely could not go unpunished. Jacob Wanless determined that it should not, and went to a Warwick lawyer, a rival of old Turner's, with a view to get redress. This lawyer, Overend by name, was a sort of pettifogger, who laid himself out for poor men's work. In his way he was clever enough; but, unfortunately, he often got drunk; and, even when sober, was hardly a match for old Turner. When Thomas's case came before the justices, Jacob, therefore, fared badly. Overend had just enough drink to make him violent and abusive, and the result was that his witnesses were so bamboozled and browbeaten by both Turner and the bench that they became confused, and gave incoherent answers; so it was not very difficult, false swearing being easy, for Turner and his clients to make Thomas the criminal. His attack on old Pemberton's person was raked up in proof of his bad disposition, and his presence in the farmyard was attributed to motives of revenge. As a result, instead of obtaining redress, Jacob's case was dismissed by the magistrates, and he and his son admonished. The chairman of the day, Squire Polewhele, of Middlebury, told Jacob he might be thankful that they did not put his son in jail for assault. There could be no doubt in his opinion that the young scamp had gone to farmer Pemberton's rickyard with malicious intent, for it was clear that he was an ill-conditioned rascal, and if his father did not take better care of his upbringing he might live to see him come to a bad end.

Such was Jacob's consolation. It took him and his son six months to pay Overend's bill of 30s. The unlucky labourer who had brought the news of the plot fared perhaps worse than anybody, for old Pemberton, at the instigation of his sons, turned him off at a moment's notice. It was nearly four months before the poor fellow could get another steady job, and he and his family were all winter chargeable on the rates.

As for the boy Thomas, his nervous system had received such a shock that it became a positive agony to him to have to trudge home from his work in the dark winter nights, and when his father was unable to go to meet him he always ran at the top of his speed past Whitbury farm, his heart within him palpitating like to burst. All his life long, so deep was the impression that fright made on him, a certain nervous tremor seized him whenever he found himself alone on a strange road on a moonless night.

The rest of the boyhood of Thomas Wanless was uneventful. He grew in mind and in stature, and suffered less withal from hunger than many of his order. At the age of twenty he took a wife, following in that respect the habits of those around him. 'Tis the fashion nowadays to inveigh against early marriages, and especially against the poor who marry early. By such a practice it is declared miseries are heaped upon them, and our pauper roll is augmented. This is an easy way to push aside one of the most perplexing social problems that this country has ever had to face. With the growth of wealth marriage has become a luxury even to the rich, and for the comparatively poor a forbidden indulgence. As a consequence of this the youth of the present day avoid marriage with all its hampering ties. A code of morals has thus grown up which may be said to be paving the way for a coming negation of all morality.

A young man may commit almost any crime against a young woman with impunity so long as he steers clear of all hints of marriage. The relations of the sexes are under this modern code utterly unnatural and fruitful of corruption. Nor can it be otherwise while a man is forbidden under penalty of social ostracism to take a wife. To marry is almost as sure a way to renounce the world, with all its hopes and advantages, as of old was the taking of a monastic vow. What the next generation will be, what licenses it will give itself under the modern restrictions which outrage all that is best in humanity, I must not venture to predict. But that corruption is spreading on all hands, that flippancy, folly, and worse, dominate the relationships of the young of both sexes is even now too apparent.

But I am travelling far from Thomas Wanless's history. He at all events felt no social restraint save that of poverty, which he did not fear, and so he married young. The lad had, indeed, little choice.

His mother died when he was 19, and one of his sisters, the youngest of the family, was also dead. The other had married and gone to a village five miles beyond Warwick. Of his three brothers, one only remained at home, a boy of 14. William, the next in age to himself, had been kidnapped at Gloucester, and carried off to sea in a Government ship; and the other boy, Jacob, had a place as stable-boy at Melton Priory, Lord Raven's place, near which his married sister lived. There was no woman, therefore, at home to cook food for the three that were left. His father was too broken down to dream of marrying again, there were no houses in the miserable overcrowded village where the three could be taken in to lodge together, and so, unless they separated, what could Thomas do but marry? He was willing enough, of course, being, like all country lads of his years, honestly in love; and so at twenty he brought home his wife to take his mother's place in the old freehold cottage, soon to be his own. Sarah Leigh was a year or two older than her husband, and had been an under-housemaid at the Grange, the family seat of Squire Wiseman, who was the greatest man of the parish, and lord of the manor. Her experiences there were not, perhaps, such as best fitted her to be a labourer's wife, and at first she was inclined to commiserate herself. But at bottom Sarah was a woman of sense, and by the time her second child arrived had grown into a staid, affectionate housewife, ever cheerfully busy in making her home comfortable.

Prudent or not, Thomas thus found himself in a humble and modest way happy. He was now acting as under-waggoner at a farm called Grimscote, near Warwick, and had as much as 9s. 6d. a week in summer, besides beer and extra money in harvest. In winter his work was also regular, though his wages were then only 8s. a week. His duties often took him considerable distances away from home. He was frequently at Coventry and Stratford-on-Avon, and he had once been as far as Worcester, and as his observant faculties were keen, he took mental notes of what he saw. Full of pity for the misery that he everywhere met, the feelings of his boyhood became keener, and his independence of spirit more out-spoken. Already this had attracted in a passing way the attention of the authorities, and some even went so far as to shake their wiseacre heads over him, and dubiously hint that he might be dangerous.