And sixty years before, the landlord of the Harecastle public house, Kidsgrove, presented his latest customers, a heavily built bargee and a skinny youth, with a pint mug of ale each, and asked, in the way of professional men assaying their company, “So you onner been round ‘ere before then?” The bargee lit his pipe and shook his head. “Nay, I’ve not. I don’t use this branch, I go by Worcester, me.” “What’s matter?” asked another drinker, supping his ale and grinning. “Yow frit o’ our tunnel?” “Why should I be?” the bargee demanded evenly, “Roof going to fall in, is it?” “Dunner think so,” replied the landlord. “Yow goin’ through ternate or a’t goin wait fer mownin?” The bargee shrugged, and nudged the younger man who accompanied him. “Well, Joey, shall us wait ‘ere or what?” Mumbling, the young man answered “M-morning”. “Is it the legging this side?” the bargee asked the others. “No”, answered the landlord. “This is the easy side. Kidsgrove side you go dine the ‘oss tunnel. Chatt’ly side yer leg it an’ the ‘oss comes over. No tow path in the owd tunnel; in this new ‘un, there’s a tow path.” “Yow’d better goo if yer gooin”, said the other man, looking at the clock, “Keeper don’t wait beyond seven; he’ll be lockin’ up an’ comin’ in ‘ere.” He chuckled darkly. “So he’s frightened of it, is he?” scoffed the bargee. The landlord looked thoughtful, “He dunner like it no. Not since owd Charlie Bessons died.” Joey looked up wide-eyed, “What’d he die of, master?” “Charley was the owd keeper”, said the landlord, “This ‘n now’s Ben Snape, he used fer be understrapper ‘til Charley took a jar too many an’ fell in the cut.” “Lucky for Ben Snape”, said the Bargee bleakly. “Aye”, nodded the landlord, “but Charley mighter bin a man for the ale like they all said, but he’d worked the cut since he was a babby. If he fell in, ‘eed get out, drunk or sober.” “He didner used fer drink that hard”, said the other man, “It was only that wench as got killed in the tunnel set ‘im on. It made ‘im bad, that ‘appening. Blamed isself.” “It’s true”, said the landlord. “Charley shouldner ‘a let that barge in: It turned ‘im right funny what they did to ‘er. When they pulled ‘im out”, he leaned over to the bargee. “The look on ‘is face was terrible fer look at”, he sat back. “That’s why Ben Snape dunner like it. Would you?” “Well”, the bargee stood up, “I know why I dun’t use this branch now”. He put on his coat, “Must say, Kidsgrove’s got a funny way o’ treating visitors”. “Why’d you change your mind an’ come this way?” the other man asked. “Ice”, the bargee answered. “Staffs n’ Worcester’s frozen they say; can’t get through.” “It’s cowd enough”, the landlord answered. The bargee glanced at the window, “Us’d best be off an’ doin. Sup up, Joey”. “Sup up”, mumbled Joey and drained his mug. He grinned, open mouthed.
The bargee stepped out onto the already dark street, fingers of mist had crept up from the canal and now drifted like phantoms. Joey shivered in the chill air. “None of ‘em remembered, Mayster Bride”. The bargee leaned close and hissed angrily, “I said no ‘Bride’ ‘til we’re well away from ‘ere. I want to be in an’ out o’ that tunnel tonight”. He walked on toward the canal. No-one had recognised George Bride, still less recalled him from that dreadful night seven years before when that woman had begged passage – the wench that was dead – he remembered her well. Some things a man couldn’t forget. Joey had been different then, more an ordinary lad; quite in his ways, biddable, but ordinary; a good lad. They scrambled down to the bank, Bride hurried to untie the ropes, waiting for Joey to get the nosebag off the horse and get her moving. The woman had come to the barge as they came up through the lock at Hardings Wood; said she had a husband in Birmingham, and she was going to him, but Gorge Bride knew there had been no husband, not with that look in her eye; George Bride had known what kind of woman she was; she’d asked for a ride on the barge, and that meant the tunnel, so there really had never been any question of what she was offering – George Bride knew what kind of woman she was. Joey left off chafing the horse’s neck, and George Bride untied the line aft, and jumped aboard. Joey cast off fo’ward and led the beast on, and before them was only the tunnel. Sweet as pie she’d been as they’d come up this stretch of cut up to the tunnel. George Bride could fancy that it was the same night, seven years ago; she’d smiled so gaily in the lamplight as they drew close to the mouth. The grey-faced keeper raised his hand, and George Bride remembered old Charley Bossons grinning and winking as they had passed by the previous time, with the woman aboard, because he knew what kind of woman she was. He knew, what kind of woman, she was. Up ahead, Joey stilled the horse. “Room for a little ‘un?”, Bride shouted. “If thee dun’t maynd may lockin’ this chain after yer, and if thee’s got toll”, came the reply, “Arm off wom”. Bride, leaning on the tiller, sucked at his pipe and raked a coin from his waistcoat pocket. Almost as soon as they were inside the tunnel, she had asked for food, and down to the galley she’d gone to cook bacon. Bride had called Joey to take the tiller, knowing that the horse would walk well-enough alone. Bride had gone down to the galley, but she’d run from him, and he’d gone after her – because he knew what kind of woman she was. She’d run across the load – they’d been taking coals – and George Bride had gone after her across the tarpaulins. She’d denied him; said she was a married woman, said she’d never led him on, said she could pay. And she had; he’d made her pay, there on the load, with only Joey to see, and the bacon burning.
But it was after - she was screaming. She wouldn’t stop screaming. She would not stop screaming, and the way she was screeching, somebody outside was sure to hear, and that would have hanged George Bride and Joey, so Bride had made her stop screaming. He’d made her stop screaming. With the axe. They’d hauled the body off the barge and into the mouth of a coal landing-stage – Gilbert’s Hole – and Bride had trailed the axe head in the water to wash off the blood. To hide the head, Bride had emptied her travelling bag, taken what money there had been, and stuffed the head inside. It had all gone into the furnace of Shelton Bar Ironworks the next night. They’d got away with murder. And now George Bride could smell frying bacon, but Joey was sitting in the bows, mumbling away to the ever-plodding horse. No, it was the iron in the water he could smell; the memory of that terrible night was making him funny. He lit his pipe again. They should have stayed at Bostock Green. There was a light up ahead, bluish like moonlight – the Chatterley portal as likely as not – it was the moon shining off the water outside. Funny; they said it was a long tunnel, but time had flown by – if that was moonlight out there. He stared at it. That was not Chatterley. George Bride could see it was a ball of phosphorescence – mine gas – fire damp. “Joey!” he shouted. “Put that light out!” As he doused his pipe he realised how heavy his hands felt. Cold and leaden like a dead man’s. Without the yellow flame, the tunnel seemed much colder, the only light, the glowing blue ahead. But there was fire in the galley – he could smell bacon cooking, no doubt. “Joey –“ he wanted to tell the fool to come back and damp the stove down, but his jaw worked uselessly, making no sound. There was a face in the light; that woman’s face. She stood there in the dress she had worn that night, raising its hem to show an ankle, and with the other hand she reached out and beckoned to George Bride. She was still smiling at him and there could be no misunderstanding her meaning now. Bride found his voice. “Joey! Cut the rope! Let the horse go. We’ll leg the boat back!” Joey’s head appeared above the stern house in the shadows, “Cayn’t Mayster; there’s a boat behind us”. George Bride tore his eyes away from the beckoning woman and stared behind. The same unearthly light gleamed there, and following along the tow path was another horse, white as ice, and it whinnied just once, the breath steaming from its nostrils, as if to say ‘Look forward, George Bride, for there’s your death’. And he did look; the woman was walking slowly across the load towards him, but her mocking eyes were gone; now she was but a walking headless cadaver, and in spite of his panic, George Bride had pause to wonder how a creature that had no eyes to see could possibly pick up the axe and swing it so true.
And a little girl awoke in the tunnel keeper’s house at Chatterley; early morning sunshine stained a milky blue by the low, stretched out clouds, and she heard her father’s voice shouting. “O’Brien! O’Brien! Get out yer bed, yer lazy Irish wastrel! Get up!” She pulled on her coat over her nightdress and ran out of the room and down the stairs, out of the house and down the stone steps to the canal, where the barge was moored. The young man crouched in the bows was little more than a boy, but to her he seemed as grown up as her father, but he was doing something she has never seen a grown man do before. “Dunner cry, Mister. Dunner Cry. Eh, you’ll be all right, Mister. ‘Ave you got ‘ankerchief? Blow yer nose? Dunner cry. Mam’ll make yer some tea, Mister. Y’like a cup o’ tea?” But her mother was suddenly there and angry, and the little girl, did not immediately recognise that beneath the anger was a terrible fear. “Come away from him! Come away from him! Now! Come on!” “What is it, Mam?” “He’s done a terrible thing. Now come away!” The little girl walked backward away from the sobbing figure. “What’s he done Mam?” “He’s killed master, now come in the ‘ouse” She was afraid now, but her eyes widened in wonder too. “What’ll they do with him, Mam?” “I dunner know, Agnes; I dunner know. Thee conner ‘ang a lunatic”.
[Note to publisher: The scene in the workhouse takes place around 1905, four years after the death of Queen Victoria, and the bulk of the narrative around 1845, implying that the murder of the mis-judged young woman took place in 1838. The implication is that Joey was judged Guilty but Insane under the M’Naghten Rules, which were established in 1843, without which he would certainly have hanged. The workhouses were not abolished until 1930, but some continued in only slightly altered form until the early 50s.]