Northern Stars Page 5

  ‘Well, we’ve decided to do it,’ said Ruth.

  ‘An’ I reckon we will,’ finished Joshua.

  ‘Well, I’ve been told to join your march the whole way for my newspaper – so I’ll watch out for you. What do you call yourselves?’

  As the children gave their names, he wrote them down in a pocketbook. ‘I must get closer to the platform now, but you’ll see me again,’ he said, moving forward through the rows made by the Oldham column.

  ‘Well, I’ve never seen anyone dressed like that before,’ said Marion.

  ‘An’ I’ve never ’eard anyone talk like that,’ said Ruth.

  ‘And never want to again, I should ’ope,’ said Jim Knotts.

  ‘Well, tha’ may not like ’im, Jim, but what ’e said about soldiers and clearing t’field could be true. Look yonder,’ said Marion, pointing to a corner of the square.

  ‘By God, tha’s reet, Marion,’ said Jim.

  ‘I can’t see, I can’t see,’ said Joshua, who was not tall enough to see over the rows of Oldham marchers directly in front of him.

  ‘Well, look then, lad. Get on me shoulders,’ said Jim, crouching down so that Joshua could climb onto his shoulders. Once up, Joshua could see that at one corner of the field a unit of fusiliers were putting a big cannon into position. Looking to the nearest side of the field, he could see several hundred horsemen with their sabres rattling and their horses pawing the ground.

  ‘Look, Jethro,’ he cried, ‘there’s one of them big cannons what shot your leg off.’

  Jethro was already examining the cannon, and his fury knew no bounds.

  ‘’Ow can they do it, lad?’ he cried. ‘It’ll be nowt but full-blooded murder if they fire that thing. I’d never ’ave believed it could come to this. But stand your ground, lads, and they’ll be too scared to fire.’

  As he finished speaking, O’Connor’s strong voice rang out across the square.

  ‘Lads, liberty’s taken another knock today. Melbourne and Russell have outlawed torchlit marches and meetings. Colonel Braithwaite of the fusiliers over there has told me he has orders to fire that cannon unless we disperse.

  ‘Now what we want is the Charter – not marches, nor meetings, nor torches for themselves. We’ve got half a million signatures now – they’re over there,’ he said, pointing to the enormous scroll which Ruth and Joshua had first seen their father sign in Todmorden.

  ‘By the time we get to London, we should have half a million more, and then Parliament’ll not be able to stop us. If we have blood spilt here today, it’ll set us back another five years.’

  Ruth and Joshua heard shouts of agreement and disagreement around them. Eric Naylor was inclined to laugh off the danger: ‘Not afraid of a toy gun, Feargus, a’ye?’ he cried.

  Jim Knotts looked at Jethro’s one leg and said to Marion, ‘Maybe ’e’s right. I want to leave ’ere with two legs.’ Ralph Murphy kept his counsel watching for his comrades’ reactions. Ruth looked at her father, coming down the line towards them, suddenly aware of the danger his children were in.

  ‘Aye, O’Connor’s reet enough. This is a time for caution. It’s more important to get to London wi’t Charter than to make a stand ’ere.’

  O’Connor realised that he would have to use all his powers of persuasion to get the enormous crowd to disperse. His voice boomed out again.

  ‘Let’s be brave, lads. We’ve got to have the Charter, but we’ve got to ’ave the strength to fight for it. Shot to pieces, now, we’ll never recover. Now I want you to put your torches out line by line – Oldham first, then Rochdale, then Salford and then the rest of you.’

  It was a test of his ability to control the crowd. A few of the torches in the front row of the Oldham marchers were quenched; more were waved bravely in the air. O’Connor leaned down to speak to his close allies, Francis Place, a leading London Chartist, and John Fielden on the platform. They seemed to point in the direction of Ruth and Joshua. O’Connor rose again to his full height, saying:

  ‘There are children no more than twelve years old here today, lads. Do you want them shot down? Should they be legless or armless? Will they get to London wi’us that way?’

  More of the Oldham torches were extinguished, but still a good half were held high. Looking back to the cannon to his right, and the cavalry down the side of the field, O’Connor was increasingly worried.

  ‘Let’s have all the children twelve and under up here,’ he cried. ‘You mothers and fathers, release your young ones to us.’

  Ruth turned to her father. ‘Should we go, Dad?’ she cried.

  ‘Do we ’ave to?’ said Joshua.

  ‘Tha’d best go, the both of you,’ said Jess quickly. ‘Marion, will tha’ go wi’em?’

  ‘Come on, children, quickly,’ said Marion, sensing the danger of the moment.

  She moved forward round the Oldham line with Ruth and Joshua, walking the fifty yards up to the platform. As they climbed the few steps, another group of children were hard on their heels. Looking round, Joshua found himself staring right into the eyes of Jack, with Davey and the rest of his gang right behind him.

  ‘All right, our Joshua?’ said Jack, smiling mischievously as he climbed the steps.

  ‘You wait,’ said Joshua.

  ‘None o’that, lads. Now come and line up there,’ Marion said, pointing to the small space in front of O’Connor.

  Ruth was amazed how different the scene appeared from the platform. Looking out over the crowd, she could see the thousands of torches still burning, the grey figures of the marchers standing close under them, the line of soldiers down the side of the square. She could see that it would be easy for many lives to be lost before her eyes.

  O’Connor rose to his height, which seemed more imposing to Ruth as she stood a few feet away from him.

  ‘Will you risk these lives then?’ he cried back to the crowd.

  ‘Or do we want these young heroes to fight on for the Charter through thick and thin – not disabled but rising above themselves on behalf of their fellowmen and women?’ Davey grinned at Ruth and Joshua, delighted to be given the status of a hero. ‘No, I plead with you; put out the torches tonight, that the torch of freedom may burn more brightly tomorrow.’

  Slowly the torches in the front row of the Oldham column were put out. As the turn of later rows came, there was the same hesitation and uncertainty, but finally each of the torches was extinguished. O’Connor knew that he had control of the crowd now.

  ‘Lads, I thank you for your brave act. The fight for the Charter is as strong as ever. Your column leaders know where your people are to sleep tonight. Our supporters in Manchester have taken every Sunday School ’all that would have us, every school house, every mill warehouse where the masters are for us. But you’ve not got long for sleep. We want a hundred men from each column on the Stockport road at seven tomorrow morning. We’ll leave for London at eight.’

  ‘An’ will YOU be there?’ said Joshua, turning to Jack.

  ‘Not I,’ said Jack. ‘I’ll leave that to you ’eroes from th’ills.’

  ‘An’ where’ll you sleep tonight?’ said Davey.

  ‘They’ll sleep wi’t rest o’ Rochdale column, in Oxford Road Sunday School,’ said Marion.

  ‘You could sleep on me mam’s floor,’ said Davey, relenting of his theft, and impressed that Ruth and Joshua really intended to carry on.

  ‘Where’s yer ’ouse then?’ said Ruth.

  ‘By t’Lock 50 on t’Bridgewater Canal,’ replied Davey.

  ‘We’ll think on it another time. I like canals,’ replied Ruth.

  ‘Oh, so it’s floating on canals and not marching on roads that tha’ really like,’ said a voice in a familiar accent close by.

  Looking up, Ruth saw a face that looked both severe and kind, which she somehow felt she’d seen before but couldn’t remember w
here. Marion recognised John Fielden immediately, for she’d sometimes seen him at the Unitarian Sunday School in Todmorden.

  ‘Why, Mr Fielden, this ’as been a right close thing,’ she said, bobbing slightly.

  Fielden thought he recognised her face but couldn’t place it.

  ‘Yes, and you and t’children are brave to be ’ere,’ he said. ‘Where ’ave I seen you before?’

  ‘At the Quakers in Todmorden,’ Marion replied.

  ‘Oh, from Tod; well, that’s grand. And will you march tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Fielden, we’re going all the way to London and Parliament,’ said Joshua.

  ‘Well it’s just as well, because it’s me and my friend Thomas Attwood from Birmingham who’ll be presenting t’Charter to Parliament. But after that, you’d better come and see me. My ’ouse is in Panton Street and I fancy you’ll need feeding up by the time you’ve walked those two ’undred miles. See that they come,’ he said to Marion, and left the platform with O’Connor as the massive crowd dispersed in all directions, leaving the cannon and the cavalry presiding over the Field.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE DERBYSHIRE HILLS

  At seven o’clock the next morning, the marchers were assembling on the road that led out from Manchester to Stockport. As Ruth and Joshua, together with their father, Marion and the other Todmorden marchers approached the crowd, they could barely see through the cold mist of an autumn morning which had been turned into a thick fog by the smoke belching from hundreds of mill chimneys. Jim Knotts carried their banner furled round its two poles. The road they were walking down was packed with horse-drawn carts moving bales of cotton and woven cloth from one mill to another and down to the warehouses on the banks of the Ashton and Stockport Canals.

  ‘I think I can see t’march gathering now at bottom of this road. They look more like ghosts than men,’ said Joshua.

  ‘’Appen last night took flesh and blood off ‘em,’ joked Marion.

  ‘Aye, an’ this week may tak it off us too,’ said Jim Knotts.

  ‘Fancy arriving in London as a skeleton, Josh?’

  It was only when they were twenty yards away from the gathering marchers that Ruth and Joshua could see that hundreds of their comrades from last night had responded to O’Connor’s call and were ready to set off for the south and London. But in the cold, damp air, as they waited for the march to begin, they drew blankets round their shoulders or huddled over small fires – many made from the sticks of the torches quenched in the previous night’s meeting. Ruth wondered how this dishevelled crowd would ever regain yesterday’s strength.

  As they moved closer to one group huddled round a fire, Jess Midgeley was accosted by Frank Sykes, the organiser of the Oldham marchers:

  ‘Now, Jess, come on; we’ve got to get these lads organised. Same order of march as yesterday, so that puts you behind us. I reckon we’ve got about one ’undred lads from each of yesterday’s columns – so about two thousand all told. Can you get your lot up to t’front then?’

  ‘Where would that be?’ said Jess. ‘I can’t see nowt for this fog.’

  ‘About three ’undred yards down t’road. O’Connor’s already there an’ ’e wants to discuss t’route wi’you. There’s a new idea come up. Tha’d best get down there.’

  ‘Come on, children. Let’s get down t’road to t’front,’ said Marion, holding their hands.

  As they walked through the crowd of marchers, Ruth noticed that there were hardly any women, and no children. Her heart fell as she realised they would have only adults with them in this ordeal. Marion was a kind of friend, but she was, after all, also an adult. She might pass on whatever Ruth and Joshua said to their father. The other Todmorden marchers were a strange group: she liked Eric Naylor and Jim Knotts, was a bit scared of Judd with his hammer and Jethro with his crutch, and found Ralph Murphy, with his twisted walking stick and habit of asking questions, to be quite sinister. They were not the companions she would have chosen for a two hundred-mile walk, but at least her dad and Marion were with them.

  Moving down the road, they eventually saw the Oldham banner and about fifty of the Oldham contingent lining up behind it. O’Connor and Place were standing close by it, deep in conversation with the tall man in a grey top hat whom Marion recognised from the night before as the journalist William Steele. The bugler was standing close by them. Seeing them coming, and recognising Ruth and Joshua from the previous night, O’Connor broke off the discussion and stepped forward: ‘Now, here come the most valuable marchers of all. Having them with us is worth a thousand signatures on the Charter. Don’t you agree, Mr Steele?’

  ‘Why yes, I do. And how are you today, Ruth and Joshua?’

  ‘Oh, not so bad,’ said Joshua. ‘We ’ad a good sleep at t’Sunday School and they fed us wi’ some right nice porridge for us breakfast.’

  ‘Ready for a trip into the hills?’

  ‘Anytime,’ said Joshua. ‘That’s where we come from, y’know.’

  But at this, Jess Midgeley and the other Todmorden marchers looked worried. They had been ready to go through the textile towns south of Manchester, from Stockport to Buxton, but going over the moors was a very different matter. None of them knew the Derbyshire hills that lay to the south-east, but as men of the Pennines, they realised the dangers of an upland route.

  Seeing their uncertainty, O’Connor stepped in: ‘Lads, last night showed us how far the government’s prepared to go. If we give them a chance they’ll spill blood, and we don’t want a violent fight. General Napier has sent a message to say he’ll be ready to break up any march through Derbyshire. As many of our committee as could meet last night have decided we should split into two parties – one to go over the moors and the other to go through the towns to Buxton, and march on to Nottingham, where there’s plenty of support. We’ll ’ave most of the city with us there and should be safe enough.

  ‘But with two parties marching in the same direction by different routes, the army will be confused, and the cavalry won’t like it with peat bogs and cliffs. So we reckon Charter and Petition’ll be safer with the moorland group. Will you be on it?’

  Jess spoke for the Todmorden group.

  ‘Mr O’Connor, we don’t know them Derbyshire ’ills, but we know the moors round our way, and we know they can be treacherous. There’ll be peat bogs up there, and ’illsides wi’ loose rocks and stones, and a few cliffs, I shouldn’t wonder. Wi t’mists you get this time o’year owt could ‘appen. Just ‘ow many men do you want to go that way?’

  ‘Well, we reckon we should keep the biggest number in the towns to distract army and the police – so we want about five ’undred to go over the top. We’d like to keep marchers from your part of Lancashire together – with the lads from Oldham, Rochdale, Burnley and that area, we’ll ’ave a good strong crowd that should be able to stand up to whatever comes.’

  Here, he dropped his voice and looked straight at Jess. He had the air of someone used to persuading people to do something they didn’t really wish to do. ‘Mr Midgeley, I reckon your children’ll be safer on the top. I fear we may have terrible trouble in the towns.’

  Jess paused and thought a little. He realised O’Connor could be right; and besides, his children were used to the moors. He turned to discuss it with the other members of the Todmorden group, who were not likely to be persuaded by arguments about what was best for the Midgeley children. Judd, with his hammer still over his shoulder, was as usual ready for anything; Ralph looked impassive as if waiting to see which way the others would jump; Jim, ever ready for an adventure, looked happy at the prospect; Jethro, usually anxious to show that his one leg was no handicap, looked doubtful. ‘Peat bogs and this one leg’ll ’appen not go together,’ he said to Jess.

  Marion despaired at the thought of Ruth and Joshua struggling over the moors in weather which might rapidly get worse, but she could see it might be the saf
er course. Not wishing to give away her feelings, she looked at Ruth and Joshua.

  ‘Well, you two,’ she said, ‘what’ll it be then: more grimy towns or God’s open moorland?’

  In turn, Ruth and Joshua looked at each other: they loved the moors but knew their dangers too. For Joshua, moors meant not only space and freedom from the cramped life of the mill, but also the memory of having his ankle bitten by the farmers’ dogs on Langfield Common. He wondered if gamekeepers patrolled the route into Derbyshire. But gathering his courage and looking at Ruth, he replied: ‘Let’s go by t’moors. I’ve ’ad enough o’ towns.’

  Ruth could see the dangers even more clearly, as she felt her coat with its odd shape made by her mother from her one blanket. But she sensed that her father had been persuaded by O’Connor’s arguments that the moorland route would be safer for his children, and decided not to complicate the question.

  ‘Aye, a’m with you, Josh. Let’s get on wi’t, Marion.’

  ‘Well, Jess, you’ve got two troopers ’ere,’ said Marion.

  Jess Midgeley was not given the chance to take the discussion further, as O’Connor intervened:

  ‘Congratulations, Mr Midgeley. You’ve got a courageous group from Todmorden. We’ll count on you to be in the forefront of the moorland marchers.’ He moved down the line without giving Jess a chance to reply.

  O’Connor had an uncanny ability to look people straight in the eye and gauge how much they could be persuaded to do for him and the Chartist movement. By a combination of bluster, patience and determination, he had already mobilised the most effective peaceful protest movement Britain had ever seen. So far, there had been no major setbacks, and his confidence in his ability to get his way was overwhelming. Ruth had been shocked that he’d not given her father the chance to reply on behalf of the Todmorden group. As she now watched him move down the line, she could see him spend a few minutes with selected leaders, and guessed that he was imposing his will on them just as he had done on her group.

  Within half an hour, he was back level with Ruth and Joshua, pausing only to say to their father: