As Eliza grew older, the village folk often came to her with questions that only she, as the learned one, could answer for them. Farm labourers would ask her to reckon how many pounds of corn they might need to sow a certain field, or the number of rails required to fence it. Tradesmen brought their complaints about payment to her, wanting to know if they had been treated fairly.
It was a time of change in the county, indeed in the whole of England. Traditional agreements between labourers and masters, unspoken for hundreds of years and hallowed by usage, were being called into question. The rural workforce depended utterly on the landowners for their subsistence. The ancient cottages they lived in, the small plots where they cultivated vegetables for their tables, the food they bought with their wages, all flowed from the enterprise of the landowner. Labourers expected subsistence, no more, no less. In bad seasons, they followed the wisdom handed down by their forebears. The burden fell first on those closest to the soil. In their turn, the landowners poured a finely judged portion into the cup of benevolence. To exceed or to diminish this quantum would be to invite unrest among their tenants and disapprobation from their peers.
One Sunday Eliza noticed that conversation after church was infected with unease. Four farm labourers from Tolpuddle, a village not ten miles away, had been sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay. Their crime had been to plot against the King and their master, it was said. One of Marley’s parishioners was related to two of the luckless men.
‘And right God fearing men they be too,’ he told his peers. ‘A body cannot see it that they was plotting — not those men. I hear tell it was them as asked for their pay to be made up to nine shillings again.’
‘Nine shillings? But that’s barely enough to keep body and soul together.’
‘I knows it. But the poor men of Tolpuddle was cut to eight shillings, then to seven shillings.’
‘Seven shillings?’
‘Aye. Little wonder they said they would rather starve than work for seven shillings. So they formed a society. The Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers, they called it. And the men of that society vowed to keep together and support one another, like soldiers in battle. Then, when they said they would down their tools and starve, their master accused them of plotting against the King.’
‘Aye. These be sorry times. I hear tell the men in the North are put out of work by steam engines. And the lacemakers, they be starving on the streets. All without work since their jobs were taken over by the flying shuttle. Where it will end, I do not know.’
There was also disquiet in the gentry’s smoking rooms.
‘Dammit! The village folk are stepping beyond themselves. Did you hear tell of those rogues from Tolpuddle? Downed tools and told their master they’d rather starve than work for seven shillings. And they did too. Poor fellow must have been frantic. Couldn’t get his harvest in while the good weather lasted. There’s been little enough dry weather this summer in any event.’
‘Indeed. That would have made for three bad harvests in a row. Deuced weather. As if we need yet another pestilence.’
‘Damned rogues! If any man of mine tried that, I’d horsewhip him to within an inch of his life. We have to take a stand, by God!’
Then the Tolpuddle landowners had used their influence to have members of the society arrested and charged with administering unlawful oaths. The Tolpuddle Four were held up as an example. It became well known that soon after their appearance in court they were put in irons and transported to Botany Bay never to set eyes on England again, for all they knew.
In the days that followed the news of the troubles at Tolpuddle, Eliza was sought out by several of her fellows, perhaps after church, or as she walked from the kitchen of the Great House to her parents’ cottage. One night just before bed, she heard a tapping on the cottage wall. Alarmed, she stepped outside to see what was happening. Rufus Hunter, a labourer from the village, was hitting the stone wall gently with a stick.
‘Ah. Thank ’ee, lass,’ the man said, touching his cap. ‘I needs to talk to ’ee, quiet like.’ Silently, she escorted him inside. ‘This talk of shorting our wages,’ the man began nervously. ‘Is it the King as gets the shilling we’ve lost? How can us keep body and soul together on eight shillings? Must I put my Jane into service, and her but seven years old, and sickly? Else how can I feed my other children?’
Eliza thought before she spoke. She did not know the details of this latest move by the local aristocracy, and poor Rufus in his anguish and fear could not be relied upon to talk objectively. She must not give him cause to think that she was a militant sympathiser with the labourers’ plight. If Rufus’s neighbours were to call on her, someone at the Great House must eventually see one or more of them in discussion with her. And like as not they would put the wrong complexion on it.
‘Those men came from another parish, Rufus,’ she said. ‘And our master is a kindly gentleman at heart. And certainly, the King cannot take your money.’ The man looked at her with reverence in his lowered eyes. She saw that even for her eighteen years against his forty, he looked up to her. It was strange that her knowledge had earned her such awe in the little community.
‘Go back to your wife and children, Rufus. I can say only what I see, and I see no harm coming to you.’ She let him out. She would read for a few minutes before bed. The brightness of the stars told her it would be a frosty night. She changed into her nightdress and pulled the covers over herself, determined to put Rufus out of her mind. She was not to know that his visit had been observed. The eavesdropper behind the cottage’s garden wall waited till she blew out her candle, then stole towards the Great House.
Crash! Eliza was woken by a battering noise. In the dark, she sprang out of bed and ran to the door.
‘There she is, lads! Take her!’ A flash of light from a lantern dazzled her for a moment. Two big men pushed the door off its hinges so it fell flat on the floor, then burst inside. She felt herself seized, one arm by each man, and dragged outside. As the men bundled her into a cart and she drew her nightdress about her, she saw Hannah come to the door.
‘Eliza! What — ?’ Hannah screamed. Then her words were drowned by a whipcrack and the thudding hoofbeats of a pair of horses urged into a wild gallop. Eliza lurched onto the floor of the cart, terrified.