Death of a Radical Read Free Page A

was given to me by my mother’s master. A reverend gentleman who’s shown me great kindness.”
    â€œWell,” she tossed the book back to him. “It is but an odd volume of a broken set.”
    â€œSo it is, mistress. But to me it’s also a precious companion.”
    A faint longing softened Miss Lippett’s expression. She reached out and tapped the book lightly.
    â€œIndeed, some books are precious companions.” She stepped back abruptly, her back ramrod straight. “Some fool is forever telling me that a woman’s wit is too paltry to benefit from book learning. Who am I, then, to say a shoe-maker may not improve himself so?”
    â€œIt was my own mother who first taught me to read, mistress. She’s a great reader and a fine woman.”
    It may have been the wind chapping her cheeks, but Miss Lippett looked quite pink in the lantern light.
    â€œWell. You mind that lantern. If you suit me, I may have a day or two’s work for you here. I happen to be short a man and do not find it convenient to search me out a new hireling this week.”
    It was just before ten o’clock on the night of the twenty-seventh of February when Mrs. Watson heard the dog barking in Powcher’s Lane. She unlatched her window and smelt smoke. She glimpsed a glow through the stripped winter branches of the Bedfords’ orchard and raised the alarm. By good fortune, Robert Mouncey, the saddler at the top of the lane, and a couple of his neighbors, weavers laying by stock for the upcoming fairs, were also up late. The response was swift. The Bedfords’ home was the one house of substance in the working quarter of Woolbridge. (Mr. Bedford—despite his wife’sobjections—insisted that he reside within sight of his mill.) Had the fire jumped the stable wall it might have ripped through the crowded lanes and caught the better part of the neighborhood sleeping. As it was, the fire was put out before the stable block was properly alight.
    Amid the remnants of a straw mattress the fire fighters found the scorched remains of Michael White, the Bedfords’ coachman. He lay stretched out, a brandy bottle by him and an overturned lamp. He had been a solitary drinker and a foreigner, not known in the Dale. Mr. Bedford had hired him in Leeds. It was said that White had taken the brandy from his employer’s cellar. It had not been the first such transgression. The sinner, it seemed, had suffered the consequences of his sins. Neighbors remarked on the charity of Mr. Bedford who, despite the damage and the inconvenience caused by the careless manner of his servant’s demise, nonetheless paid for the burial and a stone marker in the churchyard.
    Michael White had no family. No one claimed him as a friend. His few belongings were fire damaged and disposed of. Saul, Mrs. Watson’s youngest, a sturdy, useful lad of eight, was the one person who retained a memento of his passing. While assisting the carpenter summoned to repair the loft, the boy discovered a sooty button with a curious raised cable border. He rubbed it on his sleeve, thinking it silver. He showed it to his master, who advised he throw it away, for what use was a scorched button?Saul, however, kept it. He called it the Burned Man’s button and on occasion he would display it to other boys, his particular friends, and thereby gained considerable credit among his circle.

CHAPTER TWO
    Frederick Raif Jarrett strode across the marketplace toward the Queen’s Head. There was anticipation in the air beneath the steely skies. The first herd had arrived at Woolbridge. A group of drovers with their broad-brimmed hats, heavy coats and long staffs were gathered around a brazier. The Easter Fairs were approaching, marking the end of winter and bringing trade and diversion to the town.
    Jarrett had always considered himself an even-tempered man but he had been cross for days. A few months previously he had assumed