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local constabulary, a surveillance was kept over all suspected individuals, and no lights were permitted in any dwelling after nine o'clock in the evening. It was naturally anticipated Woodbottom mill and its proprietors would be the next objects of vengeance, and preparations were made to meet the danger. For months past

Enoch and James Taylor, who first made the obnoxious machines as narrated in a former chapter, had slept in the mill in consequence of their lives being threatened, and their own dwellings being unsafe, and they formed part of the mill garrison at night. Their future partner, Arthur Hirst, was the woollen engineer at the mill, and he laboured very vigorously to convert the factory into a fortified place, becoming for the time quite a military engineer. The windows of the first story were barricaded, and the doors coated inside with sheet iron. All communication between the first and upper stories could be cut off, and the defenders inside were able, as at Cartwright's mill, to fire upon an attacking force from the upper stories while sheltered themselves. A trap door on a floor over the water wheel was so ingeniously planned by Arthur Hirst that if the rioters had gained an entrance, they would, on touching the flooring, have dropped through it into the wheel race below.

The murder of Mr. Horsfall produced, as might be expected, great sensation and alarm, and the immediate effect of that dastardly crime was to rouse in the spirits of most a determined resolution to put down the disgraceful outbreaks of the Luddites. Foremost in these exertions was Mr. Ratcliffe, the owner of the plantation from which the fatal shot was fired, who was afterwards made a baronet for his bold and fearless conduct at this critical period. Under his supervision and arrangement a vigorous body of police was formed, and the Luddites soon began to discover that they could not carry on their destructive plans with impunity. So closely were they watched indeed that they found it dangerous to meet as before, and their meetings being thus interfered with, their organisation, once so dreaded and so formidable, seemed to lose all its power of cohesion, and the members found themselves as it were scattered and unable to act together as formerly. The cold blooded murder of Mr. Horsfall appeared in fact to destroy all the public sympathy which existed for them at the beginning of the movement, and everybody seemed anxious now to root out the society which had planned and executed the foul crime. The public admiration of Mr. Cartwright now rapidly revived and extended, and a subscription was entered into for him amounting to three thousand pounds, which was presented to him and his family The committee of the associated masters and manufacturers also passed a cordial vote of thanks to Mr. Cartwright for his intrepid defence, and presented fifty guineas to the men who had so nobly assisted him.

The members of the firm of Messrs. Abraham and John Horsfall took the death of their son and nephew greatly to heart, and they appeared from that time to imbibe a dislike to Marsden. Singu

larly enough though Luddism, as we have pointed out, fell rapidly after that sad event into disrepute, the use of the obnoxious machinery was discontinued at Ottiwells, and cropping by hand resumed. In a few years afterwards their mill property in Marsden was disposed of, Bankbottom mills passing into the hands of Messrs. Norris, Sykes, and Priestley, and Ottiwells to Messrs. Abraham and William Kinder. It is related that after his son's death Mr. Abraham Horsfall never again entered the mill at Ottiwell's, and when riding past on his way to Bankbottom he invariably averted his face from the mill as if the very sight was hateful or painful to him.

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In perusing the account of the assassination of Mr. Horsfall the reader will doubtless be impressed by the singular daring and the disregard of the commonest precautions which characterised throughout the proceedings of the four murderers. That the foul deed should be discussed in the open shop might be deemed sufficiently dangerous even if all the men had been sworn members of the brotherhood, but it is well known that some, of those who were present when the hot-blooded Mellor avowed his determination to shoot Horsfall had not joined the Luddites, though there is no doubt they sympathised strongly with the movement. When George Mellor came into the room where Benjamin Walker was working, and after bluntly avowing his murderous intention, asked him to accompany them, Walker's father was present, and yet, strange to say, he does not appear to have offered a single word of objection to the proposal that his son should participate in the murder. Doubtless the knowledge they all possessed of the desperate character of the Luddite leaders would make Walker and the others afraid of calling down upon their heads the swift vengeance they were well aware would await the traitor who should betray any of their secrets, but even this is scarcely sufficient to account for the strange silence on the part of Walker. One would have thought that, seeing he was afraid to imperil his own safety by joining the lawless band, he would have felt sufficient solicitude respecting his son's welfare to have taken advantage of the time when the latter was absent from the workshop at his 'drinking" to warn him of the tremendous danger which must

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attend the execution of the foul plot laid before him by Mellor. The father does not, however, appear to have offered a word of warning to his son, and though he was present afterwards when the latter consented to take the heavily loaded pistol from the impetuous leader's hands, he is not reported to have offered a single word of remonstrance. The fact seems to be that the chief characteristic of the elder Walker was great cowardice, which was also indeed, as we have already stated, the leading point in his son's character. They were both quite capable of doing villainous deeds, but were afraid to put themselves into positions of danger. We have shown how this craven fear for the safety of his own neck was overpowered in the case of the younger Walker by a dread of the vengeance of the desperate villain, Mellor, in the plantation from which the deadly shot was fired, but if the strangely callous father had only risked consequences and advised his son to reject the foul proposal, Mellor, disgusted with his want of spirit, might have passed him by contemptuously, as he did William Hall.

When Walker returned home from Honley on that fatal night he told his mother what had transpired at the little plantation in Crossland Moor a few hours previously, and though she would be somewhat comforted to learn that her son had not actually committed the deed of blood, her feelings, we are sure, would be sufficiently distressing.

The news of the murder reached John Wood's workshop about an hour after it had been committed, Mrs. Hartley, a widow who lived near, running in with the startling intelligence. Mellor and Smith appear to have returned to their work that evening though not at the time stated by John Bower, one of Wood's apprentices. It was a very busy day, and George Mellor, Thomas Smith, Benjamin Walker, and others, he states, were working till late. This lad Bower, Thomas Smith, George Mellor, and William Hall lived in Mr. Wood's house; Mellor and Hall sleeping in one bed, and Bower and Smith in the other. Mellor told Hall as they were going to bed that the heavily loaded pistol had jumped as the latter warned him it would and had hurt his finger. The conversation was carried on in whispers, the presence of the youth who shared Smith's bed preventing them from speaking out.

The great theme of conversation next morning both within and without the workshop was the tragic deed of the previous evening. The Warren House Inn was only a short distance above, and a constant succession of callers kept Wood's men informed respecting the condition of Horsfall until, to the scarcely disguised joy of the croppers, word came at last that he was dead. The authorities, spurred on to renewed exertions by this startling atrocity, were everywhere making enquiries and causing supicious persons to be apprehended. It was rumoured too that a large reward was offered to any one not actually the perpetrator of the deed who would give such information as would lead to the conviction of the assassins. When Thorpe heard this talked of at Fisher's, he grew very uneasy, and went to the neighbouring workshop to consult with his friend Mellor.

"George," said he, "hast thou heard the news?"

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I have heard more news lately than I have wanted to hear," replied Mellor, gloomily, "what is there fresh now?"

They say that a heavy reward is offered-thousands of pounds our chaps report-for the conviction of the men that shot Horsfall. Now I've just been wondering this morning if all the men in your shop that know or suspect anything are to be trusted."

Mellor's brow darkened and his face grew livid with passion,

If I thought there was one man who would whisper a single word he either knows or suspects, this day would be his last," he cried.

"Come, George," said the phlegmatic Thorpe, looking upon his companion with an expression of disgust on his stolid face, "I did'nt come to hear thy tantrums; I came to make sure there were no traitors to fear. What does young Bower know?"

"Nothing, I think," answered Mellor, sullenly.

"He might overhear something, however, if the men are not cautious. What about Ben Walker?"

"Walker's a sneak," replied Mellor,

but he's in at it, so we're

safe there. I hardly like his wanting to creep out of the job at the last moment, but he'd never much pluck. It was a mistake to ask him?"

"But he did not fire, thou sees, so he might save his neck by splitting on us perhaps."

"The first word of that sort from him would be the last he would ever utter in this world," replied Mellor in loud tones, his feeling again getting the mastery of him. Checking himself he asked in calm tones-" But what makes thee talk like this, Bill? Thou'rt the last man I should ever expect to show the white feather."

"

'I'm no white feather chap, George," replied Thorpe, but I've thought since the affair happened that we might have gone a better way about it. If we two had just quietly laid our heads together we could have done for Horsfall, and then all the shop would not have known about it. When thou came storming into the room on the day the job was done I was taken unawares; but then thou blabbed out all the business before anybody could speak."

"Well, I had been stung beyond endurance by Horsfall's taunts, which were told me by the men, and I am not such a cold blooded animal as thee," retorted Mellor.

Thorpe's dark brow grew darker, his heavy jaws were clenched savagely, and his eyes flashed with fury, when fortunately Mellor's fellow workman, Smith, who was returning from his morning meal entered the room. He had heard the taunt of the fiery Mellor as he entered and seeing the effect it had upon Thorpe he realised the fact at once that the two confederates in many a dark deed were quarelling seriously. As he, like the rest, was always afraid of what Mellor might do or say when he was carried away by his fearful outbursts of temper, he hastened to throw oil upon the troubled waters.

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