Ben o' Bill's, the Luddite: A Yorkshire Tale

by D. F. E. Sykes; George Henry Walker

“Aye, that’s him sure enough.”

“What! the great Brougham, our Brougham?”

“Yes, yes,” said my father testily. “He’s not much to look at; but yo’ should hear him talk.”

But soon there was a hush in Court. The prisoners were being brought into the dock, and the Cryer was calling his quaint “Oyez.”

George Mellor, William Thorpe and William Smith stood there, heavily ironed and guarded by armed warders, confronting the judges and the jury, arraigned for that they did feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice aforethought kill and murder William Horsfall, against the peace of our lord the king, his crown and dignity. The jurors were sworn, the challenges allowed, the indictment read by the Clerk of Arraigns, and the prisoners given in charge to the jury, the clerk gabbling the words as I have heard a curate in a hurry read the lessons in Church. “How say you, George Mellor—guilty or not guilty,” and George with a voice that did not falter and a look upon judges and the jury that did not flinch, cried “Not Guilty.” I had eyes and ears only for him, neither then nor to the end. Thorpe and Smith might not have been there, for me. I kept my eyes fixed on him throughout, nor missed one single movement of his nervous fingers that clutched the rails of the dock, nor one glance of his eye. Nay, even now, right through the years, I can see the curl of his lips when Benjamin Walker with craven look and uncertain step, his eyes shifting, his voice whining, stumbled into the witness–box. All through, I had eyes, I say, only for George. When Mr. Park, the counsel for the Crown, addressed the jury, I scarce listened; I watched only George’s face, and judged rather what was said by the play of his pale features than by ought I gathered from the long speech to the jury. And right through that weary trial, that lasted from nine o’clock of the morning till near the same hour of the night, never was there a moment that George bore himself save as those who loved him would have him. He almost looked at times as tho’ he did not hear what passed around him, his eyes being fixed, not upon the judge but beyond him, with a far away gaze as tho’ scenes were acting in a theatre none but he could see, and which concerned him more than what passed around. Once when his eyes ranged the faces that thronged the Court, and he saw our little group, a look of recognition passed upon his face, and he smiled faintly, with quivering lips; but presently turned away his head and glanced our way no more. Only when Ben Walker stood in the box did he rouse himself to the full, and he looked the slinking wretch straight in the face with curling lip: and Walker blanched and tottered and half raised his hand as tho’ to ward off a blow. My God! rather would I raise my naked face to meet ten thousand blows from an iron hand than meet such a look as George cast upon that perjured miscreant. A low hiss went through the Court, a sibilation of hatred and contempt; and even the counsellor that examined the man did not conceal his loathing. We looked for Mr. Brougham to cross–examine Walker, but that was done by Mr. Hullock, whether that Mr. Hullock was the senior counsel and took this part as of right, or that, as some had it afterwards, Mr. Brougham knew from the first that the case was hopeless and did not care to be prominent, where defeat was certain. Tho’ this surely must be of malice. But it mattered not: the end was certain even before Mr. Justice le Blanc summed up, and in a few words, not without their truth even we felt, brushed away the flimsy edifice of an alibi that had cost Soldier Jack so much scheming and ferreting out of witnesses. “Even supposing the witnesses to come under no improper bias or influence in what they are saying, they are speaking,” commented the judge, “of a transaction which not only took place a long time ago, but was not imputed to the prisoners at the bar till a considerable time after it had taken place, and nothing happened immediately after the transaction to lead persons who have spoken as to the prisoners’ movements at the time of the murder, particularly to watch, so as to be accurate in the hour or time on that particular evening, when they saw these persons at a particular place, and we know how apt persons are to be mistaken, even when care is taken, in point of time.”

That was all we got from judge or counsel for our money, my Aunt Matty’s hundred pounds, and many a good guinea to that which my father paid Mr. Blackburn, and I question whether it was worth the brass. But I would not have had George undefended for all that, even if it were all to do over again; for to have him spoken for was the only way now left us to show our care for him.

I never saw sentence of death passed but that once, and it will do me my life–time. “That you, the three prisoners at the bar, be taken from hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence, on Friday next, to the place of execution; that you be there severally hanged by the neck until you are dead; and your bodies afterwards delivered to the surgeons to be dissected and anatomized, according to the directions of the statute. And may God have mercy on your souls.”

“Amen!” said many a hushed and awe struck voice, and I heard a moan and a hasty cry from Mr. Webster. A piercing shriek rent the stillness, and Faith fell fainting into my arms.

But one day intervened between the trial of Mellor, Thorpe and Smith and their execution. Mr. Webster was allowed to see the three condemned men the night before the Friday on which they were to make their piteous end. He shrank from that last interview in the cells with the sensitiveness of a woman; but he had a great soul in a little body and nerved himself to the painful ordeal. He told us something of what passed. Thorpe was stolid as ever, and simply asked to be let alone, and not pestered with questions. George declared that he would rather be in the situation he was then placed, dreadful as it was, than have, to answer for the crime of his accuser; and that he would not change situations with him, even for his liberty and two thousand pounds.

“Well said,” cried my father, when Mr. Webster, with many a sigh, brought his tale to an end: “well said, there spoke our George. There spoke the lad we used to be proud on, and he’s in the right on it, and so folk will say for all time to come.”