Every step he took back to where Mary was felt like climbing Everest. The hot chestnuts lay discarded on the ground as he pushed his way through the gathering crowd. Reaching the bottom of the last flight of stairs, he barged his way through the gasping people. There lay Mary, motionless and dead, with blood pouring from her head and the posy bag that she had fought the pickpocket for still attached to her wrist. Bending down, he picked up Mary’s body and nursed her head on his knee, rocking back and forth while tears and sobs erupted into an almighty declaration of grief. ‘No, no. Why, my Mary? Why didn’t you let him take it?’
The crowd was staring at the peeler who hadn’t been able to protect his wife from a common pickpocket. Adam would always remember the look on the crowd’s faces as they gazed down upon the sight. He woke up with the scream still on his lips. He wiped his eyes and brushed away the tear that had escaped in his unconsciousness. His body was shaking and a feeling of doom had overcome him. It had been bad enough that he’d lost his wife to a worthless pickpocket, but the reaction of some of the crowd to him had hurt as well. When he heard a voice call him a ‘peeler’ and asking what did he expect, if he was enforcing the unpopular Poor Law, he’d started questioning his role in society. ‘No wonder folk have turned to crime,’ he’d heard a second man jeer at the back of the crowd.
His pride had been the cause of their downfall that day, with his decision to wear his uniform in the struggling mill town of Halifax, where everybody had to fight for every slice of bread they placed on their kitchen table. Had the pickpocket chosen Mary on purpose, being able to spot Adam in his uniform and having a grudge against the newly formed police force? That he’d never know, but the day had set his life in a different direction and had made him turn his back upon his father and mother, who had told him right from the start not to leave the family farm for the sake of the money offered by the constabulary. Adam had scoffed at their concerns, but looking back now, they had been right; he’d learned that people and friendship were more important than anything money could buy. After burying Mary and her unborn child, he had left far behind him his family at Black Moss Farm and the life he knew, and had tried to bury the jeers and cries that haunted him. His parents had been correct, but he’d been too proud to admit it.
‘Damn, damn!’ Adam jumped up from his chair as the smell of burning alerted his nostrils to the fact that the oven worked too well. Smoke filled the room as a blackened mutton pie was rescued from the side-oven. He sighed; that just about summed up his day. He’d go to bed hungry. Tomorrow was another day; and hopefully, in the light of day, his old home would look more welcoming.
3
Adam woke to the sun shining through the bare window and squinted as he rubbed his eyes, before sitting on the edge of the bed on which, the night before, he’d hastily placed his feather mattress, pillows and blankets, before realizing that some of the springs were loose, causing it to squeak every time he moved. That was the first job of the day; he couldn’t endure another night of torture.
He sighed as his left leg started to give him pain. It had never been the same since his injury, and the damp weather of late had made it worse. He reached for his one dependency in life and looked at the near-empty bottle that usually kept the discomfort away and made life more bearable – another hour and the pain would have subsided and he could go about his business. He swallowed back the drop that was left, then ran his hands through his thick mop of dark hair, before going through the motions of his morning ablutions. Looking into his mirror, he stared back at the man fastening a garnet tie-stud into his high collar, and wondered what his Mary would have thought of him now. He had kept himself in good shape; standing six feet two and weighing no more than twelve stone, he looked fit. His hair had kept its colour, being still as jet-black as the day he was born, as were the sideburns and the moustache that adorned his face. It was his eyes that belied his state of mind. Their hazel colour told a story of sadness and regret, if they were gazed into deeply enough. The eyes truly were the windows of the soul, he thought, as he quickly stopped himself from feeling too sorry for himself.
He walked down the bare stairs and made his way into the kitchen, relighting the troublesome fire before placing the kettle over it to boil, and placing a pan of porridge oats and milk on the side of it for his breakfast. Stirring the pan occasionally, he looked round his new home. It wasn’t too bad, given that it had been empty for a number of years. Nothing that a lick of whitewash and a good scrub of the floorboards wouldn’t fix. A week of hard work, with a lass to help him, and he’d have got on top of it; and then
