Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000176 EndHTML:0000010305 StartFragment:0000002264 EndFragment:0000010269 SourceURL:file:///Users/davidpage/Desktop/%D4Convicted%20Felon%D5.doc ‘Convicted Felon’

by Harry Riley

(this story is fiction based on real events that happened a long time ago)

“Are you sure you want to do this Tom? You’ve made a good life for yourself out here. You’re respected. Why throw it all up and go back to England just because the Crown has granted you a free pardon. Things back there won’t have changed much with that po-faced lot, even in these last ten years.”

“Thanks, I appreciate all you say Herb, but it’s just something I have to do; unfinished business for all my mates who didn’t make it…you understand?’

“Okay, if that’s the way it has to be then good luck to you sport; though we’ll all miss you like blazes, you know that.”

Tom Pearce duly arrived back in England on a dull and cloudy day, which reminded him of that fateful day of the ‘Pentrich March’ in 1817, when he had joined the rioters set on wrecking and ruining local property in protest at the chronic shortage of food.

Bread, or rather the lack of it, had been the motive then, but it was to be revenge now against the Judas who had betrayed so many.

He determined to seek out Arthur Connelly and make him suffer for his treachery.

Arthur had walked from the court a free man and over the years had prospered. He had changed his lifestyle and left the pits to become a carpenter.

This had been his father’s trade and he had inherited his business and tools. Moving house, he had taken his wife and family and gone to live in the nearby Derbyshire village of South Normanton.

After a tiring journey Tom Pearce arrived back in Eastwood and it was a simple matter to call on his old friends and to establish the present whereabouts of his one-time mining pal.

He himself had changed quite a lot since his forced absence in the colonies and it was hard for folk to recognise him.

The tall, slim miner had now filled out and wore a thick dark beard that covered the whole of his face and gave him a menacing appearance.

He looked like a man you would not like to quarrel with. Much later it was remarked that with his mad staring eyes he seemed like the devil incarnate.