Friends said Mary B's eyes were her best feature. And her hair. Her eyes were gray and frank and friendly and seemed to light up her face when she smiled. Her hair was the color of rough-burnished copper, gorgeous in sunlight. But as she stood in the docket on that fateful day in 1786, she watched the unsmiling faces around her through tear-filled eyes. In the chill, high-ceilinged chamber of Rougemont Castle she heard the drone of the clerk's nasal monotone: "...and of violently taking from her one silk bonnet valuing twelve pence and other goods valuing one pound, eleven shillings…."

Mary B wiped her tears with a sleeve and glanced at her friend Katie, who clutched the rail with white knuckles, her pout-face fixed vacantly on the scarred floorboards. Katie rocked forward and back, forward and back, bubbling spit out, sucking it in, bubbling it out, sucking it in. On the other side of Katie stood Seedy, slack-jawed, her expression vacant.

Mary B felt another wave of outrage. I shouldn't be here!

A dozen heads in the courtroom swiveled toward the docket. Peering over his half-glasses, Sir James Eyre raised a warning eyebrow. Mary B realized she’d uttered an involuntary cry of distress. But how could the soldier swear he’d seen her attack Agnes Lakeman? How could the constable say she’d tried to hide Agnes Lakeman's bonnet in her bodice? It wasn't true! Mary B felt another wave of outrage at Katie, the churlish soldier, the ogling turnkeys, the bailiffs, and stupid judges.

After reading the indictment, Sir James Eyre fixed the three women in the docket with a stern glare. Perched on a prominent nose, his spectacles did little to gentle his pinched demeanor, and although she knew his words were coming Mary B's vision dimmed and the sound of a rushing river filled her head when the judge addressed them each by name and said, "...You have pled guilty to felonious assault and felonious robbery on the King's Highway of one Agnes Lakeman...."

How long ago that seemed! For months the three women were held in a single unheated room in the Plymouth jail not ten feet square, surviving on two penny-worth of bread a day, sleeping on the floor atop dirty straw, having to beg for water. During that time Mary B had seen only one family face, her brother, Little Bill.

"… and having pled guilty in full knowledge of the penalties for your felonious crimes and having placed your several persons at the mercy of this Court, without benefit of clergy, what have you to say why a judgment of death and execution should not be awarded against you?"

Death and execution! Mary B swayed and nearly fell. She grasped the rail and struggled to keep her composure. Expecting no comment from the three young women, Sir James Eyre scarcely paused before he continued the formula he'd recited a thousand times. "Therefore be it recorded: By the authority of His Most Gracious and Compassionate Majesty, King George III, this Court hereby sentences you Mary Broad, and you Katherine Prior, and you Cedelia Haydon, each and several, to be hanged by the neck until dead, dead, dead, at a date to be determined...."

Her eyelids fluttering wildly, Seedy voiced a little moan and crumpled to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut, her cheek hitting the rail with a sickening crunch.

At the pronouncement of her sentence Mary B felt a wave of panic. They're going to hang me! I'll be dead! She trembled. She could scarcely see. She broke into a clammy sweat.

The three women knew their sentences would be death by hanging. They knew the sentences would be commuted to Transportation, an expression meaning exile from England, usually for a period of seven years. But what if their sentences weren’t commuted? For years there had been no Transportation because of the American War, and now the jails and hulks were filled to over-flowing with convicted felons awaiting exile. Maybe they'd have to hang her!

Prodded by the bailiffs, Mary B knelt with Katie to help Seedy to her feet and back to their bench. After the last of the prisoners were sentenced that morning the three women were returned to the jail. Mary B withdrew to the farthest corner of the large room that served as the women's prison. She hunkered with her fists clenched, her jaws tight, her eyes locked on the door through which men might come to take her to the gallows. She heard none of the usual clamor. When Seedy approached holding a hand to her swollen cheek and seemed about to speak, Mary B turned away. Katie stayed clear, knowing full well it was her doing that had made the three of them criminals.

As night came on, Mary B remained crouched in the corner like a frightened animal. The jail grew still. Time dragged, and once again she found herself reliving the strange turn of events that had plucked her from an ordinary life and plunged her into a living nightmare.

~~~~~~~~~~

It all began with Katie.

Before dawn on that fateful July day a year earlier, a violent thunderstorm ripped the roof from the cobbled-up workshop in Dock where Katie and Seedy sewed Navy sails. Not being able to work, they spent the morning sipping gin in Seedy's room before wandering out to see Mary B, who ferried them for free across the wide expanse of Stonehouse Creek and then joined them on the spur of the moment to walk into Plymouth, a distance of only two miles.

In the old walled city they made their way to the commons behind the Guildhall, where a daily market of a dozen stalls sold the stuff of life. For a penny apiece they ate bread, drank small beer, and scratched between the eyes of a little black bull. Born with one minikin foreleg, the little bull's useless hoof dangled several inches above the ground. Katie and Seedy had heard of the little black bull - how its deformed leg was the Devil's work and would bring bad luck, how crops would fail, and storms drive in the fishing boats. But when the beribboned calf pranced in awkward play and then found Mary B's thumb and began to suck, the fun-loving young woman threw back her head and laughed. Such talk!

From the Guildhall they wandered down to the quay along Sutton Pool, where they drank rum with loafing sailors until Seedy began feeling queasy. Although Katie wanted to stay and drink with the sailors, sunshine and greenery beckoned Mary B, so they made their tipsy way to Hoegate Lane to sprawl on the grass by the cart track that meandered past the Citadel.

Katie's speech was punctuated with hiccups when she announced, "Look who's coming! The little bitch herself! Wants to make cow eyes at her soldier-boy, I suppose!" Mary B roused herself to look, but in the brightness saw only the green blur of an approaching figure with a parasol. She lay back again to Katie's prattle. "Never did a day's work in her life, that one! but

Click to Order