On the day after his interview with Tom Gatliffe Peace returned to Sheffield.
The first visit he paid was to his mother, who was overjoyed to see him. It has been alleged that he was her favourite child. Be this as it may she always demonstrated a great amount of affection for him.
The poor old lady was not much to boast of as far as education or social position is concerned, but she was not credited with either refinement or gentility. Nevertheless, it is likely enough that she had occasion to deeply deplore the evil course some of her progeny fell into, more especially the ways of her son Charles.
The matrimonial alliance which Peace had contemplated forming with the discreet and virtuous Miss James was rudely interrupted by the sentence passed by the judge upon Charles Peace for the Crooksemmoor House burglary. Miss James and his sister had to do their six months as accomplices of the greater villain.
When Peace returned after the expiration of the time he had passed in “durance vile” he found that Emma James had not been so constant as he had fondly hoped.
The fact is she was thoroughly disgusted with the course he had taken at the time of the trial. He had vainly striven to throw the onus upon the two women. Miss James therefore allied herself—matrimonially or otherwise, it would perhaps be hard to say—with a young man more congenial to her own disposition, and Peace was fairly jilted.
This did not trouble him much. He was vexed at the time, but that was all. He consoled himself by flirting with several of the opposite sex.
Upon his return to Sheffield he resumed his old practice of playing the violin at public-houses. Although this was not particularly remunerative it brought him in some little ready cash, and in the day time he hawked spectacles and other articles.
It was during his peregrinations that he first met Hannah Ward, whom he is said to have married in July, 1858. This, however, is a little doubtful, for according to the prison statistics he was not discharged from gaol till the October of that year.
This is a matter which we shall find it difficult to determine, and we therefore give Mrs. Thompson’s version.