Joseph Hocking - The Birthright

"Very well, Betsey. I will leave your house," I said after she had been talking to me in this fashion one day; "I can manage to live somewhere."

"Jasper mus'n't go 'way," said Eli; "Jasper stay with me. Ef Jasper go 'way, I go 'way. I help Jasper. I knaw! I knaw!" and then the poor gnome caught my hands and laughed in a strange way which was half a cry.

And so, because Betsey loved Eli with a strange love, and because Eli clung to me with a dog-like devotion, I made Betsey's cottage my home. Plan after plan did I make whereby I might be able to make Richard Tresidder and all his family suffer for their behaviour to me, but I saw no means. What could I do? I had no friends, for when I left Elmwater Barton William Dawe and his family left the parish. For a long time I could not make up my mind to ask for work as a common labourer in a parish where I had been regarded as the owner of a barton. It seemed beneath me, and my foolish pride, while it did not forbid me to idle away my days and live in anything but a manly way, forbade me to do honest manual work. But it would have made no difference even if I had been less foolish, for when I on one occasion became wiser, and sought work among the farmers, I was refused on every hand. The fact was, every one was afraid to offend Richard Tresidder, and as every tenant farmer in the parish was in his power, perhaps their conduct was reasonable.

And thus it came about that my manhood slipped away from me, and I became a loafing outcast. I would have left the parish but for a seemingly unreasonable desire to be near Richard Tresidder, who day by day I hated more and more. I know I was mad, and forgot what was due to my name in my madness.

When a year had gone, and I was nearly twenty-one years of age, there were few more degraded sights in the parish than I. My clothes had become worn out, and my whole appearance was more that of a savage than of anything else. People said, too, that the look of a devil shone from my eyes, and I saw that people avoided me. And as I brooded over this, and remembered that I owed it all to the Tresidders, I vowed again and again that I would be revenged, and that all the Tresidder brood should suffer a worse hell than that through which I passed.

Nothing cheered me but the strange love of Eli Fraddam, who would follow me just as a dog follows its master. When I could get a few pence I would go to the alehouse and try and forget my sorrow, but I nursed my anger all the time, and never once did I give up my dreams of harming the Tresidders. I write all this because I want to tell my story faithfully, and because I will give no man the chance to say that I tried to hide the truth about my feelings toward my enemies.

The day before my twenty-first birthday I was loafing around the lanes when I saw Richard Tresidder and his son Nick drive past me. They took the Falmouth road, and, divining their destination, I followed them in a blind, unreasoning sort of way. As I trudged along plans for injuring them formed themselves in my mind, one of which I presently determined I would carry into effect. It was the plan of a savage, and perhaps a natural one. My idea was to wait outside the town of Falmouth, to waylay them, and then to thrash them both within an inch of their lives. I remember that I argued with myself that this would be fair to them. They would be two to one, and I would use nothing but my fists.

When I got into Falmouth I spent the few pence I possessed in food, and then I made inquiries about the time they would return. I discovered that they intended to leave the George Inn about five o'clock in the evening, so I spent the time loafing around the town, and repeating to myself what I would do with them both that night.

About three o'clock in the afternoon, however, my plans became altered. As I stood at a street corner, I saw Richard Tresidder, with his son Nick, besides several other gentlemen, coming down the street. Scarcely realising what I did, for the very sight of him made me mad, I went toward them, and as Richard Tresidder came up I spat in his face.

"Who's a thief? Who's a cheat? Who got Pennington by cheatery and lying?" I shouted.

"Get out of the way, you blackguard," cried Nick Tressider, the lawyer.

"I'll not get out of the way," I cried; "I'll tell what's the truth. He killed my grandfather; he hocussed him into making a false will, and he and you have robbed me. Ah, you lying cowards, you know that what I say is true!"

Then Richard Tresidder lifted his heavy stick and struck me, and before the bystanders knew what had happened there was a street brawl; for I struck Richard Tresidder a heavy blow on the chin which sent him reeling backward, and when his son Nick sprang upon me I threw him from me with great force, so that he fell to the ground, and I saw the blood gush from his nose. After that I remember nothing distinctly. I have a dim recollection of fighting madly, and that I was presently overpowered and taken to the lock-up.

I remained in the lock-up till the next morning, when I was taken before the magistrates. I don't know what was said, and at the time I did not care. I was angry with myself for not biding my time and flogging the Tresidders in the way I had planned, and yet I was pleased because I had disgraced Tresidder – at least, I thought I had – before the whole town. I have an idea that questions were asked about me, and that one of the magistrates who knew my grandfather said it was a pity that a Pennington should come to such a pass. Richard Tresidder and his friends tried to get an extreme sentence passed upon me, but the end of it all was that I was sentenced to be pilloried for six hours, and then to be publicly flogged.

Soon after I was taken to the market-place, where the pillory was set up, and I, in face of the jeering crowd, was tied to a pole. Then on the top of this pole, about six feet from the platform on which I stood, a stout piece of board was placed, which had three hollow places cut out. My neck was pressed into one socket and my wrists in the two others. Then another stout piece of board, with hollow places cut out to correspond with the other, was placed on the top of it. This pressed my neck very hardly, and strained it so that I could hardly breathe; it also fastened my hands, and hurt my wrists badly. I know of nothing nearer crucifixion than to be pilloried, for the thing was made something like a cross, and my head and arms were crushed into the piece of board which corresponds with the arms of a cross in such a way that to live was agony.

And there I stood while the jeering crowd stood around me, some howling, some throwing rotten eggs at me, and others pelting me with cabbage stumps and turnips. After I had stood there about three hours some one came and made the thing easier, or I should not have lived through the six hours, and after that time, the mob having got tired of pelting me, I was left a little time in peace.

When the six hours were nearly up, I saw Nick Tresidder come to the market-place with two maidens. One I saw was his sister, the other was a stranger to me. I knew they had come to add to my shame, and the sight of them made me mad again. I tried to speak, but the socket was too small, and I could not get enough breath to utter a word. Still, anger, I am sure, glared from my eyes as I looked at Nick and his sister; but when I looked at the other maiden, a feeling which I cannot describe came over me. She was young – not, I should think, quite eighteen – and her face was more beautiful than anything I have ever seen. Her eyes were large and brown, while her hair was also brown, and hung in curls down her back. Her face, thank God! was not like that of the Tresidders; it was kind and gentle, and she looked at me in a pitying way.

"What has he done?" she asked, in a voice which, to me, was as sweet as the sound of a brook purling its way through a dell in a wood.