On Saturday, April 18th, the day appointed for the trial of the disobedient soldier, Mr. Cartwright arrived at the Plough Inn, Huddersfield, a little before two o'clock, and leaving his horse in the care of the ostler, walked to the building where the court martial was to be held. He was warmly welcomed by the officers, who had conceived a great admiration for him on account of his brilliant defence of his mill. The military had been much harrassed for some time back by the rapid movements of the Luddites, and also by the cowardly conduct of the masters. The very name of Luddites seemed to strike terror into the hearts of the master cloth finishers, and instead of attempting a defence, their only plan seemed to be to summon the military. As the Luddites had generally completed their work of destruction before the military could get to the spot, the poor soldiers had often to wince under the jeers and laughter which followed them as they trotted back to their quarters. Here at last however was a millowner who was resolved to hold his own and who had taught the rioters a lesson they were not likely to forget, and the officers naturally received him with great demonstrations of respect. Dead The trial of the soldier occupied but a very short time. His offence was so grave that no defence could be offered, and when Mr. Cartwright had given his evidence the case was complete, as the soldier neither denied, nor attempted to defend, his breach of discipline. The officers had been put to great trouble and inconvenience by the persistent attempts of the Luddites to corrupt their men, and now they had at last caught an unmistakable traitor, and his punishment they determined should be heavy. silence pervaded the court as the presiding officer rose and after enlarging on the enormity of the crime committed, concluded by announcing that the court adjudged the traitor 300 lashes. An involuntary exclamation burst from the lips of the man at the fearful sentence, and even Mr. Cartwright craved the merciful consideration of the court on behalf of the prisoner. The only reply of the president to Mr. Cartwright was a courteous bow, and the proceedings were closed. Within two hours of his arrival at the "Plough Inn" Mr. Cartwright was again on horse-back cantering through the streets towards home. The horse ambled gently along until the outskirts of the town were reached and the houses grew fewer and fewer, and then the gentle trot became a rapid gallop. He had only proceeded about a mile from Huddersfield when the clatter of the horse's hoofs were heard by the two " avengers" who were lying in wait in a thick coppice. On he came at a great speed, when suddenly a pistol was discharged and a ball went whizzing over the horse's hind quarters. The dash of the rider had spoiled the intended assassin's aim. Cartwright struck his spurs deep into his good horse, which wheeled suddenly and again started at a famous speed. Just as the horse swerved another pistol was discharged from the opposite side of the road but this too missed its aim, and the startled horse bearing its rider madly onward was speedily out of sight. more The "avengers were thwarted; their prey had once escaped, and hiding their pistols among the tree roots, they ran off in different directions towards Huddersfield. Cartwright's bravery was beyond all question, but he felt sick at heart as he drew the rein at his own door. If he were thus to be made a target in open day within a few miles of his own house, life would not be worth having. G CHAPTER XIII. THE SOLDIER WHO WAS FLOGGED. "A universal horror Struck through my eyes and chilled my very heart."-ROWE. "I do defy him, and I spit at him; Call him a slanderous coward and a villain; On the Tuesday following the events recorded in the last chapter, a procession of a striking character passed along the road which had been the scene of the audacious attempt on the life of Cartwright. On the morning of that day a troop of cavalry escorted to Rawfolds the miserable delinquent who had been condemned by the court martial to receive his punishment at the scene of his crime. The decision of the court with respect to the place where the sentence was to be carried out was not made known to Mr. Cartwright, and he was much pained when he found out that the soldier was to be whipped near his mill. The appearance of the military with the prisoner in their midst attracted hundreds of people, who formed in a ring when the place was reached, to witness the novel spectacle. As the man appointed to inflict the punishment produced the instrument of torture, and the soldier was bound and his back laid bare, the onlookers watched the preparations with evident concern. And now all is ready for the infliction of the fearful chastisement. Stepping forward and measuring the distance for an instant the man raises the whip, it whistles swiftly through the air and descends on the white back of the soldier on which a broad red line appears, and beneath the muscles quiver visibly. Again and again the whip is raised and descends, and bye and bye the onlookers are shocked to observe that the skin is broken, the blood begins to trickle slowly down, and the sight soon becomes sickening. The women in the crowd, for there are many present, turn their eyes from the sight, and even stout-hearted men cannot forbear to express their pity for the poor wretch, who, with pale face and firmly compressed lips, suffers the dreadful torture. There is a movement at the outskirts of the crowd and a lane is formed, down which Cartwright passes, closely guarded by soldiers who clear a road for him. Many make way sullenly, gazing upon the stern man with dark and threatening brows and muttering fiercely. Their thought plainly is that "the bloodhound," as they now almost invariably call him, has come to gloat on the sufferings of the victim, but to their astonishment, when he reaches the place where the officer is standing, he asks that the bloody scourge may now rest and that the remainder of the sentence may not be carried out. The officer in command listens to him respectfully and then, without answering, signals after a brief pause to the man who wields the "cat" to go on. Again the whip descends, and at every stroke the skin seems to be striped from the shoulders to the loins. Only twenty lashes have been given as yet; two hundred and eighty more are required to complete the sentence. It is plain that the man will never live to receive them. The cries of the women wax louder; the ominous muttering of the men grows fiercer. The doctor examines the sufferer and feels his pulse. The surging crowd gather nearer to hear his report, but the stolid functionary simply steps back to his place saying nothing, and the signal to proceed again is given. Five strokes more are inflicted and the crowd surges wildly, angry exclamations filling the air. Again Cartwright stands before the officer and pleads, passionately this time, for the remission of the remainder of the sentence. He is listened to as before respectfully, and is this time answered. He urges his request with greater vehemence, and at last he prevails. The signal to stay the punishment is given, and the sufferer, who seems dazed and almost unconscious of what is passing around him, is unbound. Cartwright's successful pleading on behalf of the soldier restored him a little to popular favour, which he had almost wholly lost by his unnecessarily harsh behaviour towards the two men who were shot down at the recent attack on his mill, but the current of feeling still ran strongly against him, and he was obliged to take great precautions to shield himself from the vengeance of the Luddites. Only a short time after this, thirteen pairs of shears belonging to him which he had sent to Huddersfield to grind were, to his intense mortification, broken to pieces, and he was given to see repeatedly that it would be dangerous to relax any of the precautions he was taking. As we have repeatedly shown there were many, amongst the middle and trading classes even, who sympathised with the class below them, knowing well their half-starved condition. Although they did not defend the lawless proceedings of the mobs, they looked upon their rash deeds as the acts of desperate men, who, finding themselves unable to obtain employment, or in danger, if the introduction of machinery was not stopped, of losing the little work they might have, were ready to embark in any enterprise however wild that promised an alleviation of their cheerless lot. The feeling of the crowd in favour of the soldier who would not fire on those he called "his brothers" was unmistakable. Men driven mad by starvation ought not, they thought, to be shot down like dogs, and it was no doubt a feeling of this kind that induced Mr. Abraham Jackson, of Hightown, a man remarkable for kind heartedness, to slip dexterously into the suffering soldier's hand a guinea as he stood near him when his punishment was over. A little later in the day the feeling we have just referred to was again manifested as one of the soldiers who had formed the little garrison was fighting the battle o'er again, and telling to a little group amongst whom was Mrs. Nanny Leadbeater, how he had fired through the hole in the mill door and killed the swarming Luddites. The notable door was of course removed when the mil! was restored and lay in the mill yard a long time. Eventually it was taken to the graveyard of the old Whitechapel at Cleckheaton, where it was used to protect the coffin of one of the Blakelock family from the desecrating hands of the Resurrectionists," or Body snatchers," who were then in the habit of robbing the graves to supply the doctors with subjects for dissection. The horror which was felt throughout the country at the practices of these men will be remembered by the elder portion of our readers, who will doubtless be familiar with many a frightful tale of their proceedings. The money made by these degraded men was fabulous. A leading Resurrectionist once received £144 for one evening's work, and at his death left £6,000 to his family. The door that had withstood the attacks of Enoch may, however, be trusted for the protection of the body which now lies beneath it. Next to Mr. Cartwright the most hearty opponent of the Luddites was Mr. William Horsfall, of Marsden, brother to Mr. Abraham Horsfall, of the Wells, Huddersfield,—a well known family of the period. This Mr. Horsfall was an excitable, impetuous man, violent in manner, but kind and forgiving to his own workpeople, by whom he was respected and beloved. He was well known to be an implacable enemy to the Luddites, who, as may well be imagined, returned his hatred with interest. Mr. Horsfall never talked of the dreaded fraternity with bated breath, like most of his neighhours, but spoke defiantly about them at all times and in all places. He had been heard, indeed, in one of his fits of passion to express his desire to ride up to the saddle girths in Luddite blood! Exasperated by the successes of the rioters in demolishing frames, he grew so violent in his hatred of the Ludds that it culminated in a positive craze, and the children to teaze him would run out in front of his horse and cry "I'm General Ludd!" "I'm General Ludd!" on which he would immediately fall into a violent passion and pursue the frightened urchins hotly with his horse-whip. Such being the character of Mr. Horsfall it can scarcely be wondered at that his mill should be marked out for destruction at the meeting held at the Crispin Inn, Halifax, as narrated in a former chapter, at the same time that it was agreed upon to attack Cartwright's; it is said, indeed, that it was only decided to attack Cartwright's first by the tossing of a shilling. At Horsfall's mill at |