Read Online The Other Cathy by Nancy Buckingham - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nancy Buckingham
Ads: Link
Land I was chained, starved and flogged un mercifully for the smallest offence. And once I was incarcer ated for weeks on end in a dark underground cell without even sufficient room to lie down; without the least glimmer of light, and never the sound of another human voice.’
Emma shuddered, and felt the swift sting of nausea in her throat. ‘You – you had to expect such punishments if you broke the rules.’
‘Do you find fault with me for clinging to the last shreds of my manhood?’ he asked with a harsh, discordant laugh that made Emma wince. ‘Should I have shown cringing respect to guards who deserved nothing but contempt? Should I have stood by and watched atrocities without protest, such as the time a fellow prisoner – an old man crippled by rheumatism -was kicked nearly to death because he couldn’t keep up with the other men in the chain gang? For intervening in that incident I was awarded two hundred lashes. Or you might gain even more exquisite delight, my dear Miss Hardaker, to hear of another occasion when I was guilty of no offence at all. A visiting official’s lady wife had expressed the whimsical desire to witness a flogging. I had the honour to be selected for the display and was given fifty lashes, greatly to her delectation.’
Emma closed her eyes, but even the tight-pressed lids could not restrain tears from escaping. After a moment, he went on in the same unyielding tone, ‘Perhaps you are unable to visualise a flogging, so allow me to depict the scene for you. The victim is first stripped of his shirt and bound fast by hands and feet to a huge iron triangle, specially designed for the purpose. The lashes are administered with expert precision, and spaced out slowly to extend the agony. If he should faint from the pain, pails of cold water are thrown over him until he recovers consciousness and the flogging can recommence. In the end, the poor wretch’s back is a bloody pulp of lacerated flesh — ’
Overcome by revulsion, Emma felt herself swaying in the saddle and feared that she was about to faint herself. Matthew Sutcliffe sprang forward and, gripping her by the waist with his broad, strong hands, lowered her gently to the ground.
‘Forgive me!’ he said remorsefully. ‘Please believe that when I contrived to meet you up here on the moor I had no intention of distressing you by giving vent to my bitterness and anger. It is not you whom I blame for my sufferings as a transported convict, not you I hold responsible for being wrongfully condemned for a crime I did not commit.’
The feeling of giddiness had passed now and Emma took a step back, freeing herself from his hold.
‘Are you going to continue the pretence even now?’ she asked in a scathing voice. ‘I have heard about the way you kept protesting your innocence at the Assize Court, right up to the very last. But you were given a fair trial and found guilty. The weight of evidence against you was overwhelm ing.’
‘It was all circumstantial evidence.’
‘How could it be otherwise? You were too cunning to allow an actual witness to the deed. But you cannot deny that for weeks beforehand you were heard to utter threats against my father.’
‘Never a threat to use violence,’ he insisted. ‘Please try to understand. I was little more than a youth then, barely eigh teen years old. My mother had died many years before, so my father and I were particularly close. He was a good man who’d worked hard all his life at the Hardaker Mill, raising himself until he achieved the position of overlooker. He was fascinated by machinery but, sadly, he didn’t live to see the success of the condensing engine he developed. Can it be wondered at that I became hotheaded and uttered wild threats on learning that your father was taking the credit for the invention? In stead of being known as the Sutcliffe Engine, it was called the Hardaker Engine. My poor father’s one claim to fame – to posthumous fame – had been stolen
Emma shuddered, and felt the swift sting of nausea in her throat. ‘You – you had to expect such punishments if you broke the rules.’
‘Do you find fault with me for clinging to the last shreds of my manhood?’ he asked with a harsh, discordant laugh that made Emma wince. ‘Should I have shown cringing respect to guards who deserved nothing but contempt? Should I have stood by and watched atrocities without protest, such as the time a fellow prisoner – an old man crippled by rheumatism -was kicked nearly to death because he couldn’t keep up with the other men in the chain gang? For intervening in that incident I was awarded two hundred lashes. Or you might gain even more exquisite delight, my dear Miss Hardaker, to hear of another occasion when I was guilty of no offence at all. A visiting official’s lady wife had expressed the whimsical desire to witness a flogging. I had the honour to be selected for the display and was given fifty lashes, greatly to her delectation.’
Emma closed her eyes, but even the tight-pressed lids could not restrain tears from escaping. After a moment, he went on in the same unyielding tone, ‘Perhaps you are unable to visualise a flogging, so allow me to depict the scene for you. The victim is first stripped of his shirt and bound fast by hands and feet to a huge iron triangle, specially designed for the purpose. The lashes are administered with expert precision, and spaced out slowly to extend the agony. If he should faint from the pain, pails of cold water are thrown over him until he recovers consciousness and the flogging can recommence. In the end, the poor wretch’s back is a bloody pulp of lacerated flesh — ’
Overcome by revulsion, Emma felt herself swaying in the saddle and feared that she was about to faint herself. Matthew Sutcliffe sprang forward and, gripping her by the waist with his broad, strong hands, lowered her gently to the ground.
‘Forgive me!’ he said remorsefully. ‘Please believe that when I contrived to meet you up here on the moor I had no intention of distressing you by giving vent to my bitterness and anger. It is not you whom I blame for my sufferings as a transported convict, not you I hold responsible for being wrongfully condemned for a crime I did not commit.’
The feeling of giddiness had passed now and Emma took a step back, freeing herself from his hold.
‘Are you going to continue the pretence even now?’ she asked in a scathing voice. ‘I have heard about the way you kept protesting your innocence at the Assize Court, right up to the very last. But you were given a fair trial and found guilty. The weight of evidence against you was overwhelm ing.’
‘It was all circumstantial evidence.’
‘How could it be otherwise? You were too cunning to allow an actual witness to the deed. But you cannot deny that for weeks beforehand you were heard to utter threats against my father.’
‘Never a threat to use violence,’ he insisted. ‘Please try to understand. I was little more than a youth then, barely eigh teen years old. My mother had died many years before, so my father and I were particularly close. He was a good man who’d worked hard all his life at the Hardaker Mill, raising himself until he achieved the position of overlooker. He was fascinated by machinery but, sadly, he didn’t live to see the success of the condensing engine he developed. Can it be wondered at that I became hotheaded and uttered wild threats on learning that your father was taking the credit for the invention? In stead of being known as the Sutcliffe Engine, it was called the Hardaker Engine. My poor father’s one claim to fame – to posthumous fame – had been stolen
Similar Books
