CHAPTER XXVIII
TWO PLEADERS
THE tidings that the dragoons were on their way to Littleport had hardly spread sufficiently in the forenoon to draw together great quantities of spectators, but after they had gone by it was otherwise. The news flew like wildfire over the Fens, and the inhabitants of the district came in troops and lined the road, so that they might have the satisfaction of seeing the military, and taking account of the number of prisoners they had taken.
The fen-folk are all more or less closely connected by marriage, forming a people to themselves, separate in interests, customs, and character from those who live on the high grounds. They have been wont for generations to seek their mates among themselves, with the result that a close family connection binds the whole population together. The number of cases in the Fens in which a woman, on marriage, retains her maiden name is quite unequalled elsewhere. Whoever might be taken up by the military was certain to be akin to some of the lookers-on, and therefore the spectacle anticipated on the return of the dragoons was calculated to engage their interest and excite their sympathies.
Among the yeomen there is intermarriage with cousins for the sake of adding acre to acre and barn to barn, but among the labouring population no such inducement prevails. They choose their wives from among their blood relatives, because the idea never crosses their minds to go elsewhere to find mates. They must marry cousins or not marry at all, and the question resolves itself in one of degrees of consanguinity.
As nearly, if not all, the wealthy landowners are grandsons or great-grandsons of half-wild fen-slodgers, it follows that they are knitted by blood ties to the labourers they employ. This does not necessarily increase good fellowship, nor promote forbearance. The purse-proud yeoman is the harshest master. He draws the line of sympathy at the mark of the class to which he belongs, a class of recent creation. He holds fast to his brother yeoman, and both together grind down their brother labourer.
This condition of affairs was of course more noticeable formerly than at present. Each generation separates the well-to-do a step farther from their poor relations. Our story refers to events and conditions some decades ago.
On account of the tyranny exercised by the masters, little consideration was felt for them by the men when they broke out in revolt, although allied to them by blood; and the stacks that had been fired were in several instances set in flames by the blood relatives of the owners of the stacks.
As the dragoons trotted along the road towards Ely, exclamations and lamentations broke out as the men they had taken were recognised by those who lined the highway.
'There is Robert Cheesewright! Oh dear! what will the old Robert do without him?'