Michael JECKS: A Moorland Hanging

For all that, the moors had given him a good life. His cattle thrived, his life was unaffected by the miseries of warfare or disease which all spoke of in the towns when he went to buy goods, and he lived in peace, far from others. Only the miners occasionally disrupted his life, digging holes on the land he needed for pasture, and stirring up the streams where he watered his animals.

To a moorman like Adam Coyt, the world was formed of two groups of men: those, like him, who were of Dartmoor, and others – foreigners – who came from other parts of Devon or the world. Now, as night fell, their fires could be seen as glittering points of light, some far off, others closer. These were the places where the tin miners lived. He sighed at the sight, but patted his dog’s head and continued up to his house. There was nothing he could do about the invading metal hunters.

Henry Smalhobbe yawned and sat back in front of his fire, keen to see what the dark ore would yield up to him. Last week he had dug a new leat from the River Dart to his little plot so that he could have running water to help him sort the valuable tinstone from the lighter soil around it; this was his first fire since finishing the leat, and his first attempt at tinning in this area.

It was hard work compared to what he was used to, and his hands still blistered too easily. Many days of labor were needed to generate enough ore to make a fire worthwhile, but at least this parcel of scrubby ground appeared to have more potential than the last area he had tried. For the best part of a year he had covered a few hundred yards of the little river bed, separating the good ore from the useless spoil, and piling up the waste at the edge until he noticed tinstone in a hole dug for a fire. Interested, he had begun to investigate the ground nearby. At first there had been little, but then he located a rich-looking deposit. Parallel to the old river bed there seemed to be a thick layer of tinstone only a foot or so under the ground, and now he had given up the search in the stream and was concentrating on the store lying just under the ancient banks.

Stretching, he relaxed and leaned back on his elbows, a slight man in his late twenties with roughly cut, mousy hair. He looked overtired, with strained features and bright brown eyes which held a feverish glitter. No matter how many hours he spent in the sun and rain, his skin never tanned, just went an unhealthy red.

On hearing a noise he glanced over his shoulder. Sarah, his wife, was approaching carrying a bowl of beans and soup on a platter with bread and a pot of ale. A dark, plump woman in her early twenties, she watched while he ate. Seeing him look up, she smiled, her cheeks dimpling. It made her look fifteen again, the same as when they had first met. She chatted, and he was pleased that she did not mention her fears. They had talked about the threats and dangers often enough. It was pointless going over the same sterile ground day after day. She nodded toward the fire as he gulped his ale. “Is there much tin in that lot, do you think?”

Placing the pot carefully on the ground, he glanced at the smoking charcoal. This was the easiest way to obtain the metal from the ore. You dug a hole and started a fire with layers of charcoal and ore over it. Once the fire had died, the tin could be pulled free from the ashes in jagged, black chunks. He broke off a crust of bread and chewed. “I don’t know. It was dark, and felt heavy, but it’s hard to tell. Sometimes the best metal comes from the worst-looking scraps, and the best-looking tinstone sometimes yields little…”

He could see her thoughts were not on his words. Her gaze had risen to the flickering glow to the north, where their neighbor had his hut. “There’s no point in worrying, Sarah,” he said gently.

“No,” she agreed, but went on staring. “Still, I wish he would come here and stay with us at night. It would be safer, for us as well as him. While we stay apart…”

“Sarah, he won’t come. Anyway,” he shot a quick glance at the distant fire, “he’ll be all right.”

“Smyth’s men have threatened us too often. If he wants us gone, he can attack us easily, and Peter’s too far from everyone else, out there on the moors. There’s no one to help him.”

Her husband stood and shrugged. “I know. But he’s convinced he’s safe. Anyway, I see no reason for us to fear. We’re tinners no less than Smyth, and we have the same rights as him. He can’t make us leave.”

Sarah nodded, but her eyes avoided his. She knew he was right under the law, but that did not dispel her fear. Three times now the men had come – twice when Henry was away at his works. The first time they had only made lewd comments, surrounding her and barring her escape while they amused themselves by insulting her, speculating why she had no children yet: was it her or her husband? Was he not good enough? Maybe another man, a real miner, would be better? And all she could do was stand silently, her face reddening in shy embarrassment at their talk. That time they had soon gone.

The second time Henry had been with her. One moment they had been alone, the next they were encircled by four men who stood with cudgels ready and told them to go, to leave this land. She recalled her husband’s courage with a flush of pride. He had shoved her to safety behind him, facing the men and cursing them, stubbornly stating his right to the tin within his bounds, ignoring their threats and hissed warnings. The men had left as suddenly as they had appeared, but their menacing words seemed to hang on the still evening air for hours afterward.

But it was the third visit which had scared her the most. While she was inside their hut, a man had entered without knocking. She recognized him immediately: it was Thomas Smyth. Uninvited, he crossed to a stool and seated himself, and in a calm, soft voice he had begun to talk, resting his elbows on his knees and staring at her with his unsettling dark eyes. At first she had thought he was rambling: he had spoken of his life, of his marriage, then of his love for his daughter – and it was only then that she realized he was trying to intimidate her. “I wouldn’t like to think of my daughter being so far from anyone. I wouldn’t want to think she could be widowed so easily, could be left to fend for herself, as you could be if your husband was to die out here on the moors.”

This time her fury had been sparked. That this man should dare to enter her house and threaten her, in defiance of all laws of hospitality, was obscene. It was so shocking that she had forgotten her fear, and, raising her wooden spoon, she had shrieked at him to go. He did, with a cynical, half-amused glance at her weapon, as though measuring it against the swords, knives and arrows of his men. But at the door he had paused, looking back at her and saying slowly and deliberately, “Think about what I have said, Mrs. Smalhobbe. After all, even now your husband might be dead. You might already be a widow. Think on that!”

The terror of that visit was still heavy on her soul. That strange, dark little man with the gentle voice, comparing her to his own daughter, had given her an impression of cruelty which had not faded with time. She knew that her husband had been anxious for her when he returned home that night. Her terror was all too plain, and as soon as he arrived she had launched herself into the protection of his arms. It was some time before he could persuade her that he was perfectly safe – indeed, he had seen no one all day.

“Do you want to leave the moors?”

His words, unexpected, and so soft she was not at first sure she had heard him correctly, made her spin, eyes wide in astonishment. “What?”

Her obvious amazement made his mouth curl into a dry grin. “I said, ‘Do you want to leave here?’ I don’t, but if you’re not going to be able to find peace here, maybe we should move on to another place.”