On Saturday, the 10th of February, 1821, at Charwel House in Northamptonshire, Anthony Marriott was at work in his master’s barn. He was on the point of thrashing grain when a gunshot rang out in the yard. Stepping forth, he perceived John Clarke leaning against the stable door near the hay-rick, his left hand cradled in his right, blood coursing down his arm. Smoke drifted from the westward, between the barn and the rick. Marriott assisted the wounded man toward the house and ran to peer over the wall; he saw no one.
Mary Clarke, John’s wife, awaited them in the court. To hear her tell it, she showed no surprise at the mischance: she is reported to have remarked that she had long expected as much, owing to the stopping up of the path. The phrase, recorded at the trial, threw no clearer light upon the dispute. It struck the witnesses nonetheless, for the woman who reportedly assisted in tending the wounded master was soon to stand accused of having compassed his death in concert with Philip Haynes, a laborer who worked in the neighborhood.
Marriott stripped Clarke of his greatcoat. Mary assisted in binding the shattered arm, then sent for the surgeon from Badby, some three miles distant. Later, when Marriott asked whether he ought to keep watch for the night, she answered that it was needless: there were hands enough in the house. The wounded man was examined and kept to his bed. On the Monday, John Plomer Clarke, a magistrate, found him exceedingly feeble though clear of mind. Apprehending that Clarke might not survive, he took his deposition without first informing him that Haynes had been apprehended. Once the paper was subscribed, the magistrate disclosed the arrest. John Clarke desired to look upon the man he accused.
Haynes entered the chamber and stepped to the foot of the bed. According to the magistrate’s testimony, he inquired after Clarke’s health with an unruffled composure that astonished the room. The dying man gazed upon him, extended his remaining hand, and reproached him for having dealt him so cruel a wrong. Haynes replied that he had done nothing and knew nothing. The following morning, Tuesday, Clarke succumbed to his wound.
The arrest had already assumed a singular aspect. On Monday morning, Marriott was raking barley upon the barn floor when he perceived the mow begin to move. As he parted the grain with his pitchfork, a voice called out, bidding him be civil, for the man beneath pledged to surrender. It was Haynes. The farm servants pinioned his hands and secured him. A previous search had laid bare, within an excavation in the barn mow, a gun with its pan blackened as though recently discharged, together with ammunition, a powder horn, bread, cheese, bacon, and a wooden bottle; in his pocketbook lay a five-pound note adjudged to be counterfeit. A phial of laudanum and a packet of letters were seized at his lodging.
Robert Canning related how he had explored the barley mow. Scrambling to the summit of the heap, he had discovered a pit some seven feet in depth and near six feet across, hollowed out against the wall. It was there the articles had been retrieved. On Sunday night, Canning had stationed four men about the barn and outbuildings, dispatched others to Haynes’s lodging, and kept watch in person until near midnight. On Monday, his men turned the grain and unearthed the fugitive. To ascertain the line of fire, Canning knelt upon the hay-rick as though cutting fodder, close by a newly cut face stained with blood. He caused a piece to be leveled from beneath the barn rafters: it bore straight upon the spot. The prosecution joined these particulars to the shot heard by Marriott: the lingering smoke, the burrow fashioned within the barley mow, and the fowling piece buried in the grain.
The shadow of Mary Clarke took shape after another fashion, through domestic trifles and her correspondence. She had directed Marriott to fetch a surgeon and had assisted in bandaging her husband’s arm; Robert Smith, who aided the surgeon, related that he asked for linens because Clarke was vomiting. Mary replied that there were plenty to be had and they might take them, but she did not ascend the stairs; the men, finding none in the chamber, were forced to strip the sheet from another bed. On the Monday, Canning inquired after her husband’s condition. She replied that she could not say, having not seen him. Viewed in isolation, such details proved nothing; at the assizes, they were set alongside the letters seized from Haynes.
The record sets forth copious extracts from these epistles. Their author, identified at trial as Mary, addressed Haynes as “my dear friend,” urging him to make away with the “old man,” to lie in wait for him when he should be alone, and to strike quickly without detection. Certain letters plead for a reply; others betray an impatience grown intolerable. In one, Mary warns that John intends henceforth to go accompanied, urging another plan; in another, she chides Haynes for his sluggishness. She threatens to take her own life should he fail to act, then solicits laudanum, declaring she will see what she can do for her husband. The husband’s precautions, the miscarried opportunities, and the woman’s pressing entreaties answered one another from sheet to sheet. In these the prosecution saw a long-standing and concerted design. Yet one passage affords a glimpse of the daily life that framed this correspondence: the writer speaks of the calves, the lambs, and the butter awaiting her care, before reverting in the next breath to her dark impatience. The business of husbandry and the design of murder shared the very same paper.
The articles recovered near Haynes bore unevenly upon the case. The forged bank note and the phial of laudanum were entered upon the record, though Borrow’s narrative does not establish that either had served in the assault. The gun, its charges, the cavity in the barn, and the letters formed the principal arch of the indictment. The intimacy uniting the correspondents struck the court with unsparing force when the letters were read aloud to the jury. Haynes’s defense was brief: he protested his innocence, swearing he had never possessed a firearm. Mary committed her defense entirely to her counsel.
After brief deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty against both prisoners. Borrow relates that prior to their execution they confessed their crime, acknowledging an intrigue of near two years’ standing and several earlier designs against John Clarke’s life. Mary is said to have admitted her unceasing entreaties. The compilation notes these confessions without setting down their text; at the bar, Haynes had persisted in total denial, disclaiming even the ownership of a weapon.
There remain the two appearances of this man in the depositions. In the barn, a voice issues from the barley, beseeching the laborers to deal gently with the fugitive they are about to seize. In the bedchamber, Haynes stands at the foot of the bed; the dying master reaches forth his hand, asking why he had done him this foul wrong. He answers that he has done nothing. Between the hollow where the gun lay buried and that cold denial before a dying man, Mary’s letters encompass months of watchful waiting: dogging John’s steps, seizing an occasion, hesitating no longer. The shot took but an instant. The papers laid before the jury recorded how long and how ardently it had been desired.