Through the Fray: A Tale of the Luddite Riots

by G. A. Henty

The defenders were not idle; all had their allotted places at the windows, and from these a steady return was kept up in answer to the scattering fire without. Ned had caught up the gun which Mr. Cartwright had laid down when he ran to the bell rope, and with it he kept up a steady fire at the dark figures below.

There was a shout of “Bring up Enoch!” This was a name given to the exceedingly heavy hammers at that time used in the Yorkshire smithies. They were manufactured by the firm of Enoch & James Taylor, of Marsden, and were popularly known among the men by the name of their maker. A powerful smith now advanced with one of these heavy weapons and began to pound at the door, which, heavy as it was, shook under his blows.

Ned, regardless of the fire of the Luddites, leaned far out of the window so as to be able to aim down at the group round the door, and fired. The gun was loaded with a heavy charge of buckshot. He heard a hoarse shout of pain and rage, and the hammer dropped to the ground. Another man caught up the hammer and the thundering din recommenced.

Mr. Cartwright had now joined Ned, leaving his workmen to continue to pull the bell rope.

“You had better come down, Sankey. The door must give way ere long; we must make a stand there. If they once break in, it will soon be all up with us.”

Calling together three or four of the soldiers the manufacturer hurried down to the door. They were none too soon. The panels had already been splintered to pieces and the iron plates driven from their bolts by the tremendous blows of the hammer, but the stout bar still stood. Through the yawning holes in the upper part of the door the hammermen could be seen at work without.

Five guns flashed out, and yells and heavy falls told that the discharge had taken serious effect. The hammering ceased, for the men could not face the fire. Leaving Ned and one of the soldiers there, Mr. Cartwright hurried round to the other doors, but the assault had been less determined there and they still resisted; then he went upstairs and renewed the firing from the upper windows. The fight had now continued for twenty minutes, and the fire of the Luddites was slackening; their supply of powder and ball was running short. The determined resistance, when they had hoped to have effected an easy entrance by surprise, had discouraged them; several had fallen and more were wounded, and at any time the soldiers might be upon them.

Those who had been forced by fear to join the association—and these formed no small part of the whole—had long since begun to slink away quietly in the darkness, and the others now began to follow them. The groans and cries of the wounded men added to their discomfiture, and many eagerly seized the excuse of carrying these away to withdraw from the fight.

Gradually the firing ceased, and a shout of triumph rose from the little party in the mill at the failure of the attack. The defenders gathered in the lower floor.

“I think they are all gone now,” Ned said. “Shall we go out, Mr. Cartwright, and see what we can do for the wounded? There are several of them lying round the door and near the windows. I can hear them groaning.”