A handful of gravel drove the plunderers away. In the garden of a Tunley farmstead, on the evening of November 2, 1832, the youngest of the Hancox daughters caught sight of a light in her sister’s bedchamber. She dared not step inside: armed men held the house, her father lay wounded, and her brother had just taken a blast full in the face. Believing, however, that her sister had returned upstairs, she flung a few pebbles against the glass. That signal sent the intruders flying. To escape them, the family had found salvation only in this mischance; mere minutes prior, they had attempted to defend themselves.
The farm belonged to Mr. Hancox, whose sons aided him in his labours and whose daughters attended to the domestic chores. The homestead lay far removed from the high road and from any other dwelling. This isolation explains why the elder son, upon observing three strangers draw near, did not pause to question them. He vaulted the garden pale to reach the kitchen and summon assistance. His foot caught; he fell just as the unknown men came upon him.
He scrambled into the house ahead of them and, perceiving their felonious intent, made for the hearth, where a fowling-piece was suspended. One of the men discharged his weapon before the lad could lay hands upon it. The charge, consisting of small shot and sand, struck him full in the face and eyes. His father, entering the kitchen at that very juncture, was wounded in turn. Mrs. Hancox and the younger son rushed in; the same assailant threw them to the floor, whilst another threatened them with a drawn sword. Thus was the family compelled to yield their home to those who had violently forced its threshold.
The two men charged with ransacking the rooms demanded the money first. Mr. Hancox surrendered sixty-five pounds to them in bank-notes and gold. The thieves then mounted the stairs in search of portable valuables. The terrified daughters had scattered into the garden and outbuildings. When the youngest saw a candle glimmering in her sister’s chamber, she fancied for an instant that the girl had slipped back inside; not daring to enter, she tossed a shower of gravel against the pane. That slight rattle sufficed to shatter the intruders’ composure. Fearing, by Pelham’s account, that help was at hand, they fled precipitately, carrying away a portion of the family plate.
Medical aid was rendered to the wounded father and son. For the latter, the surgeon’s verdict proved irrevocable: he was plunged into total and permanent blindness. The villagers scoured the parish in pursuit of the marauders, to no avail. On the morrow, intelligence was transmitted to London, accompanied by such descriptions as the witnesses had been able to furnish. The ruffians' features had been partly muffled in red kerchiefs and black crape; yet the Hancoxes felt confident they would know the men again should they be set before them.
The inquiry was entrusted to Ellis, an officer of Bow Street, who proceeded forthwith to the scene. A few discreet inquiries directed his suspicions toward three brothers named Berryman, natives of Gloucestershire who had established themselves in London. It would not do to lay hands upon one at random: were his suspicions bruited abroad, the others would take flight. He resolved, therefore, to keep them under observation without exciting their alarm. James worked as a hatter’s journeyman in Charlotte Street; William cried pastries about the streets; Thomas had no settled calling. Ellis, accompanied by a young runner named Goodison, dogged their footsteps for several weeks, shifting their attire from day to day to evade recognition.
On December 5, they discovered the three brothers together in Goswell Street and took them into custody. The younger Hancox lad, who had come up to London awaiting their apprehension, picked out James and Thomas as having taken part in the outrage. All three were conveyed down to Gloucestershire. In the course of the local examination, James was identified as the man who had fired the shot, and Thomas was sworn to as one of his confederates. William, against whom not a tittle of evidence could be produced, was set at liberty.
Ellis assembled further corroboration. He established that the men had been absent from London at the hour of the assault, having arrived at Cirencester on the afternoon of November 2, only to depart almost immediately toward the adjoining village. At noon the following day, they had been seen at the Bird-in-Hand, an inn upon the London road, jaded and footsore. Thence they had taken coach that evening for the capital. The depositions concerning this journey provided a distinct itinerary for the two figures whom the Hancoxes had identified, despite the cloths that had disguised their faces.
The officer pursued his inquiries to unearth the third man whom the witnesses maintained they had seen within the farmhouse. He suspected a kinsman of the Berrymans, known by the name of Desmond, alias Hunt. Following numerous inquiries, he took him into custody while the fellow was plying his trade as a cordwainer on the Goswell Street Road. This prisoner begged to make a statement and was admitted as King’s evidence. His part in the transaction could scarcely be disentangled from his own eagerness to save his neck; the court was thus left to weigh his testimony against the remaining proofs.
The trial of James and Thomas commenced on April 6, 1833. The evidence at the bar fastened the discharge of the weapon upon James, and established Thomas as one of the active participants in the robbery. The accomplice’s revelations dovetailed with the identifications sworn by the family and the movements traced between London and Gloucestershire. Both prisoners were found guilty. James received sentence of death; Thomas was condemned to transportation for life. William, who had been apprehended alongside his brethren but against whom no case stood, was not among the convicts. James suffered upon the scaffold at Gloucester on April 20.
The chronicle assigns to the elder Hancox son no other fate than that of his darkness. Yet his figure remains at the very heart of the tragedy: he had seen the strangers approach, had striven to defend the threshold, and had then to endure the lifelong injuries their violent entry had inflicted. James and Thomas were identified only through patient surveillance and the reconstruction of an itinerary that withstood scrutiny. None of these proceedings, however, could restore what gunpowder and sand had blasted away. The law secured the condemnation of James and Thomas, while William walked free and Desmond turned informant; it could not restore the light of day to the young man who had risen to defend his own.