The Last Days of Newgate - Andrew Pepper [118]
Townsend had arranged for them to be accompanied by James Canning, a shoemaker, and Jack Saville, a straw-plait merchant from Bedfordshire. Both men had made a name for themselves in radical circles and both were known, or known of, by at least someone in the different village inns. In each place, they heard a variation of the same story: Edmonton was a corrupt landlord who charged his tenant farmers an exorbitant rent, which meant that the farmers had no choice but to squeeze as much work as possible from their labourers, for an insulting wage that did not even cover their basic subsistence.
Townsend had informed Canning and Saville that Pyke was an acquaintance of Hunt and was exploring the possibilities of forming links between metropolitan and rural political activists.
The villagers were hostile to outsiders, and spoke to them only because they knew, or had heard of, Canning and Saville. Ale lubricated their tongues, though, and most willingly and bitterly complained of Edmonton’s high-handed manner and greedy ways. Once they had finished with him, they started in on other targets: the combination of low wages and a reduction in their Poor Law allowances, which meant that most could not afford to feed their children; the increased use of threshing machines rather than their own labour to break corn in the quiet winter months; the terrible harvest and the bleak prospect for the upcoming winter; the poor weather; and the business of tithing, which meant that a tenth of their meagre income went directly to the Anglican Church.
In one village, Pyke listened while an elderly cabinetmaker told him about the untimely death of the local Member of Parliament.
‘Means Lord Edm’nton will ’ave to choose himself a new man.’ He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. ‘This is the rottenest borough of the lot. Folk ’ere can only vote what got a chimney and an ’arth, and Lord Edm’nton owns all of the cottages with chimneys and ’arths. ’Less you vote the way he says, he throws you out.’
Another said, ‘He’ll sell the seat to the ’ighest bidder.’
Still another said, ‘I ’eard he’s already found his man. I also ’eard the other chap’s death may not have been an accident.’
‘Poppycock,’ the cabinetmaker said. ‘I ’eard he died of an ’eart attack.’
‘Drowned, he did.’
They talked this way for a further half-hour without openly condemning Edmonton, and Pyke found his patience beginning to wane.
It was only in the last place they called into that something happened to elicit Pyke’s attention.
Pyke thought himself to be immune to stories of other people’s suffering, but there was something about the old man’s broken-down manner, his hobbling gait, weather-beaten hands and watery eyes, which he could not dismiss.
The old man had, until very recently, lived with his heavily pregnant daughter and son-in-law in a small thatched cottage built on common land which had subsequently been appropriated by Edmonton. His family had lived in the cottage for two hundred years, or so the old man reckoned, but since they did not own the land, they weren’t entitled to any compensation when Edmonton decided that he needed the cottage for other purposes. At the previous election, the old man hadn’t bothered to vote, in spite of the fact that, since he resided in a property that boasted a hearth, he was one of the few who was entitled to do so. With another election looming, Edmonton’s emissary had informed the old man that his master required someone more reliable in the property. The old man and his family had been evicted a month before his daughter was due to give birth. Two days later, the daughter had gone into premature labour. Both mother and child had perished. A week later, the son-in-law had taken his own life.
With each sentence,