The Casual Cruelty Of Cops: Inventory Search Edition

Let me explain. There’s an exception to the Fourth Amendment known as “inevitable discovery.” That theory says the evidence obtained by possibly unlawful means would still have been discovered by lawful means. That means the evidence is still usable.

The most common source of “inevitable discovery” is the “inventory search.” If a stopped vehicle needs to be towed, it will be inventoried. This is a good thing… theoretically. This prevents cops from being accused of stealing stuff from a towed vehicle.

Much like bike-sharing programs and Communism (why not both), it’s a great idea in theory. The reality is cops can come up with nearly any excuse to tow a vehicle they’ve stopped, even if the passenger offers to drive it home or the arrested person assures them someone is on the way to collect the car. Once it’s decided the vehicle must be towed (often for nebulous “public safety” reasons), officers are free to search the car. And since it was previously declared the car must be towed, any criminal evidence is usable in court because it would have been “inevitably discovered” during the course of a “routine” vehicle inventory.

And that’s what drew me to this case served up by FourthAmendment.com. Very rarely do courts call out cops for abusing vehicle inventories and/or the “inevitable discovery” exception to the Fourth Amendment. But it happened here.

That’s the first thing.

The second — and far more striking thing — is how these officers approached this matter. This was captured on their body cameras, indicating cops will still be bullies and thugs even if they’re at least partially aware they’re being recorded.

So, while I was first interested in what may have caused the court to dismiss these normally impenetrable defenses to rights violation accusations, I was soon drawn to the casual conversation of the officers, which showed they’re exactly who we think they are: violent people whose casual cruelty borders on cartoonish. It would be absurd if it wasn’t actually frightening.

But here’s how it all starts: a car parked in a parking lot and a bit of strange activity. From the opening of the Idaho Supreme Court ruling [PDF]:

On October 21, 2019, Brock Katseanes, a deputy sheriff employed by the Bingham County Sheriff’s Office, drove his patrol car into the parking lot of the Tilden Boat Ramp. He then noticed a car parked next to the public restroom. Katseanes later testified that the driver of the car looked as if she was “about to leave, decided not to, [then] backed up into [the parking] spot.” It appears from the body cam footage included in the record on appeal that Katseanes was parked with his windshield facing the front of the car.

As Katseanes observed the scene, “[t]he trunk opened up[,]” and it appeared that someone “was fiddling around with something in the back” of the car, reaching far into the back of the trunk. Katseanes saw the person’s feet under the car and then they “kind of disappear[ed], like they were going up into the trunk.” The feet then reappeared and “went out the backside of the car to the driver’s side, [it] looked like they were crouched down by the tire.”

Thinking that the driver possibly needed help with a flat tire, Katseanes approached the car. The car was unlocked, the trunk was still open, and the two front side windows were rolled down, but no one was there. Katseanes then relayed the car’s license plate number to police dispatch, which informed him the vehicle was registered to April Ramos. Katseanes was acquainted with Ramos and knew that she had an outstanding felony warrant. Katseanes requested back-up, including a canine to track Ramos.

All testimony is self-serving. Testimony given by cops is no less so. Note that Katseanes insisted his first concern was that someone might need some help with a flat tire. Note that his next move was to radio in the license plate number, which would do little to solve the alleged flat tire problem. Note also that he was “acquainted” with Ramos, which means he had probably arrested her in the past. Note also that Katseanes testified to an “outstanding felony warrant” but (as the court notes) never bothered to introduce that into evidence in this case.

While waiting for other officers and the K-9 unit to arrive, Katseanes searched the trunk of the car “several times.” He also opened the back door of the car and searched the back seat. While not performing the warrantless search of the car’s interior, Katseanes periodically called out to Ramos, who he assumed had been driving the vehicle.

The K-9 and other officers arrived. Katseanes opened the front passenger door and discovered an empty Ziploc bag. From this he inferred drug trafficking or possession. He spoke to another officer who helpfully stated the car had a “I got drugs smell.” Detective Dalley, the guy who decided a car had the odor of (unspecified) drugs also remarked to Katseanes that he knew April Ramos as well.

That was followed by this conversation, all duly recorded by Katseanes’ body camera:

Katseanes explained that he had not searched too far into the sagebrush area next to the car for fear he would interfere with [K-9] Duko’s tracking ability. “Don’t wanna [sic] do too much,” Katseanes explained.

I do wanna [sic] see Duko bite her f*cking face off though,” Dalley replied.

Katseanes laughed and gestured to his body-camera, which was recording. Dalley responded, “Oh yeah. Yeah, I realized that after I said that. My bad.” Once again, Katseanes laughed.

Hilarity. Someone suspected of nothing but leaving her trunk open (and the subject of warrants not on the record) was considered only worthy of having “her fucking face” bitten off by the incoming cop dog. Just lovely.

And that’s not even the end of it. More officers arrived and more officers expressed their hopes their K-9 would physically harm someone they could not locate, nor could articulately state (at least not in front of their cameras) they definitely needed to arrest.

As the officers discussed the possible routes Ramos could have taken away from the car, Croxford again asked if they wanted to use a drone. Katseanes explained that he thought the dog could get a scent to track Ramos because the officers had tried not to disturb the sagebrush.

“If he sniffs her, he’s gonna [sic] bite her,” Croxford replied. He grinned and continued: “That last one ended up in surgery, but it is what it is.”

All caught on tape. That was the prevalent attitude during this… well, not even a traffic stop, really. The car was already parked. Katseanes thought he saw someone accessing the trunk of the car but that person was gone by the time he approached the vehicle. The only thing his relay to dispatch confirmed was that the car was registered to Ramos, a criminal convict he had a history with. At no point did any officer really have any proof Ramos had driven the car to where it was parked, much less hidden herself in the surrounding bushes. Nonetheless, multiple officers expressed their hope that the dog they had brought to scene would physically harm Ramos.

The search of the area with the dog turned up nothing. Running out of options, the other officers asked Katseanes what he intended to do. And that’s when Katseanes told them he intended to violate the Constitution:

Miller, Duko, and Katseanes returned to the parking lot. While Miller went to his vehicle to get a “tracking collar” for Duko, Dalley asked Katseanes what he wanted to do with Ramos’s car. Katseanes answered, “Well, I’m gonna [sic] say we’re probably gonna [sic] tow it because I’m sure we’re probably gonna [sic] find narcotics in there. So once we do that, then we’ll tow it.”

Ah. But that’s putting the searched cart ahead of the absconded horse, so to speak. The inventory search is there to establish a factual record about a car’s contents. If those contents include contraband, so be it. What an inventory search isn’t is a permission slip to search a vehicle for contraband and then have it towed because it contains illegal substances.

And that’s as backward as their attitude towards Ramos. A dog can be brought in to search for people or contraband. It may also be deployed to subdue violent subjects. What it’s not there to do is harm someone simply for existing and being the (supposed) subject of an ongoing investigation — one that had yet to turn up any contraband, despite several warrantless searches of the parked car.

And it sure as shit isn’t allowed to perform searches these officers couldn’t perform legally, like multiple intrusions into people’s private property:

As later explained by the district court, “Duko . . . tracked into the dense sage, underbrush, and trees toward and along the Snake River. Duko explored the steps leading down to the river and the private back yards of neighboringproperties before being brought back to the parking area some fifteen (15) to twenty (20) minutes later.“

If you want to treat a K-9 like an actual cop (and they definitely do when it comes to assaulting an officer charges), then it is subject to the same restraints human cops are subject to. But this dog was being handled by officers who openly expressed their desire that Duko would not only find Ramos, but subject her to intense physical violence (bite her face off, deliver wounds “requiring surgery”).

Having exhausted their options, the officers decided the best course of action might be one last Hail Mary rights violation.

During the sniff search, the other officers gathered next to the car to discuss next steps.
Croxford asked Katseanes what he wanted to do with the car, having been unsuccessful in their search for Ramos.

“Probably tow it,” answered Katseanes. Katseanes then asked Miller if Duko “got a hit on the inside,” to which Miller answered in the negative. “Oh, okay,” Katseanes responded, as he again looked through the open window at the front seats of the car.

“Well, she’s a trickster, she wins this one,” Yancey commented.

“She got lucky,” Katseanes agreed. “Still wanna [sic] know what’s in that glove though.”

One of the officers responded, “I’ll tell you when we do a tow inventory.”

“There you go,” said Katseanes.

During this conversation, Miller continued to have Duko sniff around the car. One of the officers remarked, “She coulda [sic] at least parked away from the bushes a little bit.”

“Yeah, I think it’s in, uh, handicap parking too,” Katseanes responded.

“It is,” the officer agreed. The other officers agreed as well. “Well, we’re obligated now,”
the officer stated.

This convenient declaration of the car being illegally parked was all Katseanes and the officers needed. A tow truck was called. A so-called “inventory search” was performed. During this more invasive search of the car, drugs were discovered.

But all of that was a lie. Testimony from the officer shows he didn’t actually know whether or the not the car was illegally parked.

During cross-examination, Katseanes explained why he believed the car to be in a no-parking zone: The tires on the passenger side of the car were parked outside of the parking spot on yellow, diagonal lines. However, Katseanes did not testify during the motion to suppress hearing whether the parking spot was reserved for accessible parking, nor did the State argue that the car was parked in an accessible parking space.

Ramos testified that she had seen a sign that led her to believe she could park the car there for up to 48 hours. She submitted two photos of the parking area into evidence, which included a sign warning drivers that any car parked for more than 48 hours would be towed.

The trial said both assertions were inconclusive. The judge visited the parking lot in person and determined the space Ramos’s car was indeed an “accessible” parking space and that Ramos possessed no permit allowing her to park in handicapped spots. Despite finding that such a minor infraction would not normally permit a warrantless search of a car, it sided with the officers’ inventory search because cars illegally parked in handicapped spots can be towed.

Not so fast, says this court. If the government wants to abandon its futile claims the vehicle might impede traffic or otherwise cause a public safety issue, it can’t fall back on arguments the state has never raised, much less codified. If the state wants to argue it’s obliged to tow any car that doesn’t currently have a driver behind the wheel just because it wants to prevent theft or vandalism, it’s opening itself up to a whole new level of litigation solely because it wants to preserve its evidence in one case where its inventory search exception argument failed to pay off.

The Idaho Supreme Court isn’t having any of this. This is short-sighted stupidity. The state should just take the loss and try to do better next time.

Allowing officers the discretion to impound a vehicle based on a concern for potential theft and property damage to the vehicle is the first step in creating a duty where one did not previously exist—or, at the very least, it is the first step in opening the floodgates of litigation. Officers who considered but decided against impounding a car could face a lawsuit contending they were negligent. The threat of a lawsuit, even one without merit, would unnecessarily cloud the officer’s judgment as to whether impounding a vehicle was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. We cannot countenance unnecessarily subjecting officers to that sort of liability, particularly where Opperman does not demand it. Accordingly, an officer’s concern that the car will be subject to theft or property damage if it is not impounded—no matter how well-founded the concern may be—is irrelevant to the analysis as to whether the decision to impound the car is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

This is the court saving the cops from themselves. They’re likely going to lose the evidence discovered during this illegal search of Ramos’ car. But, in doing so, they won’t face a future filled with property claims from aggrieved citizens simply because they refused to tow a car that didn’t seem to need towing.

All of this is insanity. It begins with the stop — a stop predicated on helping someone with a flat tire that somehow ended with officers hoping their dog would seriously injure Ramos while writing themselves a blank check for Fourth Amendment violations by claiming their main concern was either illegal parking (the first argument) or fear for the vehicle’s safety (the argument thoroughly dismissed by this court).

It’s opportunism, bullying, and a perverse inability to recognize the end result of their self-serving flailing all rolled into one. These are not normal people. But we’re expected to treat them as our betters and forced to subject ourselves to their whims when we encounter these aberrations in person. All of it is ugly. But, for now, it’s slightly less ugly, even it’s only because this court won’t allow the government to engage in self-harm simply because it wants to salvage a small-ball drug bust.

Book 2 Chapter 12

“And how do you find the people about you, Marney?” said Lord de Mowbray seating himself on a sofa by his guest.

“All very well, my lord,” replied the earl, who ever treated Lord de Mowbray with a certain degree of ceremony, especially when the descendant of the crusaders affected the familiar. There was something of a Puck-like malignity in the temperament of Lord Marney, which exhibited itself in a remarkable talent for mortifying persons in a small way; by a gesture, an expression, a look, cloaked too very often with all the character of profound deference. The old nobility of Spain delighted to address each other only by their names, when in the presence of a spick-and-span grandee; calling each other, “Infantado,” “Sidonia,” “Ossuna,” and then turning round with the most distinguished consideration, and appealing to the Most Noble Marquis of Ensenada.

“They begin to get a little uneasy here,” said Lord de Mowbray.

“We have nothing to complain of,” said Lord Marney. “We continue reducing the rates, and as long as we do that the country must improve. The workhouse test tells. We had the other day a case of incendiarism, which frightened some people: but I inquired into it, and am quite satisfied it originated in purely accidental circumstances; at least nothing to do with wages. I ought to be a judge, for it was on my own property.”

“And what is the rate of wages, in your part of the world, Lord Marney?” inquired Mr St Lys who was standing by.

“Oh! good enough: not like your manufacturing districts; but people who work in the open air, instead of a furnace, can’t expect, and don’t require such. They get their eight shillings a week; at least generally.”

“Eight shillings a week!” said Mr St Lys. “Can a labouring man with a family, perhaps of eight children, live on eight shillings a week!”

“Oh! as for that,” said Lord Marney; “they get more than that, because there is beer-money allowed, at least to a great extent among us, though I for one do not approve of the practice, and that makes nearly a shilling per week additional; and then some of them have potatoe grounds, though I am entirely opposed to that system.

“And yet,” said Mr St Lys, “how they contrive to live is to me marvellous.”

“Oh! as for that,” said Lord Marney, “I have generally found the higher the wages the worse the workman. They only spend their money in the beer-shops. They are the curse of this country.”

“But what is a poor man to do,” said Mr St Lys; “after his day’s work if he returns to his own roof and finds no home: his fire extinguished, his food unprepared; the partner of his life, wearied with labour in the field or the factory, still absent, or perhaps in bed from exhaustion, or because she has returned wet to the skin, and has no change of raiment for her relief. We have removed woman from her sphere; we may have reduced wages by her introduction into the market of labour; but under these circumstances what we call domestic life is a condition impossible to be realized for the people of this country; and we must not therefore be surprised that they seek solace or rather refuge in the beer-shop.”

Lord Marney looked up at Mr St Lys, with a stare of high-bred impertinence, and then carelessly observed, without directing his words to him, “They may say what they like, but it is all an affair of population.”

“I would rather believe that it is an affair of resources,” said Mr St Lys; “not what is the amount of our population, but what is the amount of our resources for their maintenance.

“It comes to the same thing,” said Lord Marney. “Nothing can put this country right but emigration on a great scale; and as the government do not choose to undertake it, I have commenced it for my own defence on a small scale. I will take care that the population of my parishes is not increased. I build no cottages and I destroy all I can; and I am not ashamed or afraid to say so.”

“You have declared war to the cottage, then,” said Mr St Lys, smiling. “It is not at the first sound so startling a cry as war to the castle.”

“But you think it may lead to it?” said Lord Mowbray.

“I love not to be a prophet of evil,” said Mr St Lys.

Lord Marney rose from his seat and addressed Lady Firebrace, whose husband in another part of the room had caught Mr Jermyn, and was opening his mind on “the question of the day;” Lady Maud, followed by Egremont, approached Mr St Lys, and said, “Mr Egremont has a great feeling for Christian architecture, Mr St Lys, and wishes particularly to visit our church of which we are so proud.” And in a few moments they were seated together and engaged in conversation.

Lord Mowbray placed himself by the side of Lady Marney, who was seated by his countess.

“Oh! how I envy you at Marney,” he exclaimed. “No manufactures, no smoke; living in the midst of a beautiful park and surrounded by a contented peasantry!”

“It is very delightful,” said Lady Marney, “but then we are so very dull; we have really no neighbourhood.”

“I think that such a great advantage,” said Lady Mowbray: “I must say I like my friends from London. I never know what to say to the people here. Excellent people, the very best people in the world; the way they behaved to poor dear Fitz-Warene, when they wanted him to stand for the county, I never can forget; but then they do not know the people we know, or do the things we do; and when you have gone through the routine of county questions, and exhausted the weather and all the winds, I am positively, my dear Lady Marney, aux abois, and then they think you are proud, when really one is only stupid.”

“I am very fond of work,” said Lady Marney, “and I talk to them always about it.”

“Ah! you are fortunate, I never could work; and Joan and Maud, they neither of them work. Maud did embroider a banner once for her brother; it is in the hall. I think it beautiful; but somehow or other she never cultivated her talent.”

“For all that has occurred or may occur,” said Mr St Lys to Egremont, “I blame only the Church. The church deserted the people; and from that moment the church has been in danger and the people degraded. Formerly religion undertook to satisfy the noble wants of human nature, and by its festivals relieved the painful weariness of toil. The day of rest was consecrated, if not always to elevated thought, at least to sweet and noble sentiments. The church convened to its solemnities under its splendid and almost celestial roofs amid the finest monuments of art that human hands have raised, the whole Christian population; for there, in the presence of God, all were brethren. It shared equally among all its prayer, its incense, and its music; its sacred instructions, and the highest enjoyments that the arts could afford.”

“You believe then in the efficacy of forms and ceremonies?”

“What you call forms and ceremonies represent the divinest instincts of our nature. Push your aversion to forms and ceremonies to a legitimate conclusion, and you would prefer kneeling in a barn rather than in a cathedral. Your tenets would strike at the very existence of all art, which is essentially spiritual.”

“I am not speaking abstractedly,” said Egremont, “but rather with reference to the indirect connection of these forms and ceremonies with another church. The people of this country associate them with an enthralling superstition and a foreign dominion.”

“With Rome,” said Mr St Lys; “yet forms and ceremonies existed before Rome.”

“But practically,” said Egremont, “has not their revival in our service at the present day a tendency to restore the Romish system in this country?”

“It is difficult to ascertain what may be the practical effect of certain circumstances among the uninformed,” said Mr St Lys. “The church of Rome is to be respected as the only Hebraeo-christian church extant; all other churches established by the Hebrew apostles have disappeared, but Rome remains; and we must never permit the exaggerated position which it assumed in the middle centuries to make us forget its early and apostolical character, when it was fresh from Palestine and as it were fragrant from Paradise. The church of Rome is sustained by apostolical succession; but apostolical succession is not an institution complete in itself; it is a part of a whole; if it be not part of a whole it has no foundation. The apostles succeeded the prophets. Our Master announced himself as the last of the prophets. They in their turn were the heirs of the patriarchs: men who were in direct communication with the Most High. To men not less favoured than the apostles, the revelation of the priestly character was made, and those forms and ceremonies ordained, which the church of Rome has never relinquished. But Rome did not invent them: upon their practice, the duty of all congregations, we cannot consent to her founding a claim to supremacy. For would you maintain then that the church did not exist in the time of the prophets? Was Moses then not a churchman? And Aaron, was he not a high priest? Ay! greater than any pope or prelate, whether he be at Rome or at Lambeth.

“In all these church discussions, we are apt to forget that the second Testament is avowedly only a supplement. Jehovah-Jesus came to complete the ‘law and the prophets.’ Christianity is completed Judaism, or it is nothing. Christianity is incomprehensible without Judaism, as Judaism is incomplete; without Christianity. What has Rome to do with its completion; what with its commencement? The law was not thundered forth from the Capitolian mount; the divine atonement was not fulfilled upon Mons Sacer. No; the order of our priesthood comes directly from Jehovah; and the forms and ceremonies of His church are the regulations of His supreme intelligence. Rome indeed boasts that the authenticity of the second Testament depends upon the recognition of her infallibility. The authenticity of the second Testament depends upon its congruity with the first. Did Rome preserve that? I recognize in the church an institution thoroughly, sincerely, catholic: adapted to all climes and to all ages. I do not bow to the necessity of a visible head in a defined locality; but were I to seek for such, it would not be at Rome. I cannot discover in its history however memorable any testimony of a mission so sublime. When Omnipotence deigned to be incarnate, the Ineffable Word did not select a Roman frame. The prophets were not Romans; the apostles were not Romans; she, who was blessed above all women, I never heard she was a Roman maiden. No, I should look to a land more distant than Italy, to a city more sacred even than Rome.”

Book 2 Chapter 13

It was a cloudy, glimmering dawn. A cold withering east wind blew through the silent streets of Mowbray. The sounds of the night had died away, the voices of the day had not commenced. There reigned a stillness complete and absorbing.

Suddenly there is a voice, there is movement. The first footstep of the new week of toil is heard. A man muffled up in a thick coat, and bearing in his hand what would seem at the first glance to be a shepherd’s crook, only its handle is much longer, appears upon the pavement. He touches a number of windows with great quickness as he moves rapidly along. A rattling noise sounds upon each pane. The use of the long handle of his instrument becomes apparent as he proceeds, enabling him as it does to reach the upper windows of the dwellings whose inmates he has to rouse. Those inmates are the factory girls, who subscribe in districts to engage these heralds of the dawn; and by a strict observance of whose citation they can alone escape the dreaded fine that awaits those who have not arrived at the door of the factory before the bell ceases to sound.

The sentry in question, quitting the streets, and stooping through one of the small archways that we have before noticed, entered a court. Here lodged a multitude of his employers; and the long crook as it were by some sleight of hand seemed sounding on both sides and at many windows at the same moment. Arrived at the end of the court, he was about to touch the window of the upper story of the last tenement, when that window opened, and a man, pale and care-worn and in a melancholy voice spoke to him.

“Simmons,” said the man, “you need not rouse this story any more; my daughter has left us.”

“Has she left Webster’s?”

“No; but she has left us. She has long murmured at her hard lot; working like a slave and not for herself. And she has gone, as they all go, to keep house for herself.”

“That’s a bad business,” said the watchman, in a tone not devoid of sympathy.

“Almost as bad as for parents to live on their childrens’ wages,” replied the man mournfully.

“And how is your good woman?”

“As poorly as needs be. Harriet has never been home since Friday night. She owes you nothing?”

“Not a halfpenny. She was as regular as a little bee and always paid every Monday morning. I am sorry she has left you, neighbour.”

“The Lord’s will be done. It’s hard times for such as us,” said the man; and leaving the window open, he retired into his room.

It was a single chamber of which he was the tenant. In the centre, placed so as to gain the best light which the gloomy situation could afford, was a loom. In two corners of the room were mattresses placed on the floor, a check curtain hung upon a string if necessary concealing them. In one was his sick wife; in the other, three young children: two girls, the eldest about eight years of age; between them their baby brother. An iron kettle was by the hearth, and on the mantel-piece, some candles, a few lucifer matches, two tin mugs, a paper of salt, and an iron spoon. In a farther part, close to the wall, was a heavy table or dresser; this was a fixture, as well as the form which was fastened by it.

The man seated himself at his loom; he commenced his daily task.

“Twelve hours of daily labour at the rate of one penny each hour; and even this labour is mortgaged! How is this to end? Is it rather not ended?” And he looked around him at his chamber without resources: no food, no fuel, no furniture, and four human beings dependent on him, and lying in their wretched beds because they had no clothes. “I cannot sell my loom,” he continued, “at the price of old firewood, and it cost me gold. It is not vice that has brought me to this, nor indolence, nor imprudence. I was born to labour, and I was ready to labour. I loved my loom and my loom loved me. It gave me a cottage in my native village, surrounded by a garden of whose claims on my solicitude it was not jealous. There was time for both. It gave me for a wife the maiden that I had ever loved; and it gathered my children round my hearth with plenteousness and peace. I was content: I sought no other lot. It is not adversity that makes me look back upon the past with tenderness.

“Then why am I here? Why am I, and six hundred thousand subjects of the Queen, honest, loyal, and industrious, why are we, after manfully struggling for years, and each year sinking lower in the scale, why are we driven from our innocent and happy homes, our country cottages that we loved, first to bide in close towns without comforts, and gradually to crouch into cellars, or find a squalid lair like this, without even the common necessaries of existence; first the ordinary conveniences of life, then raiment, and, at length, food, vanishing from us.

“It is that the Capitalist has found a slave that has supplanted the labour and ingenuity of man. Once he was an artizan: at the best, he now only watches machines; and even that occupation slips from his grasp, to the woman and the child. The capitalist flourishes, he amasses immense wealth; we sink, lower and lower; lower than the beasts of burthen; for they are fed better than we are, cared for more. And it is just, for according to the present system they are more precious. And yet they tell us that the interests of Capital and of Labour are identical.

“If a society that has been created by labour suddenly becomes independent of it, that society is bound to maintain the race whose only property is labour, from the proceeds of that property, which has not ceased to be productive.

“When the class of the Nobility were supplanted in France, they did not amount in number to one-third of us Hand-Loom weavers; yet all Europe went to war to avenge their wrongs, every state subscribed to maintain them in their adversity, and when they were restored to their own country, their own land supplied them with an immense indemnity. Who cares for us? Yet we have lost our estates. Who raises a voice for us? Yet we are at least as innocent as the nobility of France. We sink among no sighs except our own. And if they give us sympathy—what then? Sympathy is the solace of the Poor; but for the Rich, there is Compensation.”

“Is that Harriet?” said his wife moving in her bed.

The Hand-Loom weaver was recalled from his reverie to the urgent misery that surrounded him.

“No!” he replied in a quick hoarse voice, “it is not Harriet.”

“Why does not Harriet come?”

“She will come no more!” replied the weaver; “I told you so last night: she can bear this place no longer; and I am not surprised.”

“How are we to get food then?” rejoined his wife; “you ought not to have let her leave us. You do nothing, Warner. You get no wages yourself; and you have let the girl escape.”

“I will escape myself if you say that again,” said the weaver: “I have been up these three hours finishing this piece which ought to have been taken home on Saturday night.”

“But you have been paid for it beforehand. You get nothing for your work. A penny an hour! What sort of work is it, that brings a penny an hour?”

“Work that you have often admired, Mary; and has before this gained a prize. But if you don’t like the work,” said the man quitting his loom, “let it alone. There was enough yet owing on this piece to have allowed us to break our fast. However, no matter; we must starve sooner or later. Let us begin at once.”

“No, no, Philip! work. Let us break our fast come what may.”

“Twit me no more then,” said the weaver resuming his seat, “or I throw the shuttle for the last time.”

“I will not taunt you,” said his wife in a kinder tone. “I was wrong; I am sorry; but I am very ill. It is not for myself I speak; I want not to eat; I have no appetite; my lips are so very parched. But the children, the children went supperless to bed, and they will wake soon.”

“Mother, we ayn’t asleep,” said the elder girl.

“No, we aynt asleep, mother,” said her sister; “we heard all that you said to father.”

“And baby?”

“He sleeps still.”

“I shiver very much!” said the mother. “It’s a cold day. Pray shut the window Warner. I see the drops upon the pane; it is raining. I wonder if the persons below would lend us one block of coal.”

“We have borrowed too often,” said Warner.

“I wish there were no such thing as coal in the land,” said his wife, “and then the engines would not be able to work; and we should have our rights again.”

“Amen!” said Warner.

“Don’t you think Warner,” said his wife, “that you could sell that piece to some other person, and owe Barber for the money he advanced?”

“No!” said her husband shaking his head. “I’ll go straight.”

“And let your children starve,” said his wife, “when you could get five or six shillings at once. But so it always was with you! Why did not you go to the machines years ago like other men and so get used to them?”

“I should have been supplanted by this time,” said Warner, “by a girl or a woman! It would have been just as bad!”

“Why there was your friend Walter Gerard; he was the same as you, and yet now he gets two pound a-week; at least I have often heard you say so.”

“Walter Gerard is a man of great parts,” said Warner, “and might have been a master himself by this time had he cared.”

“And why did he not?”

“He had no wife and children,” said Warner; “he was not so blessed.”

The baby woke and began to cry.

“Ah! my child!” exclaimed the mother. “That wicked Harriet! Here Amelia, I have a morsel of crust here. I saved it yesterday for baby; moisten it in water, and tie it up in this piece of calico: he will suck it; it will keep him quiet; I can bear anything but his cry.”

“I shall have finished my job by noon,” said Warner; “and then, please God, we shall break our fast.”

“It is yet two hours to noon,” said his wife. “And Barber always keeps you so long! I cannot bear that Barber: I dare say he will not advance you money again as you did not bring the job home on Saturday night. If I were you, Philip, I would go and sell the piece unfinished at once to one of the cheap shops.”

“I have gone straight all my life,” said Warner.

“And much good it has done you,” said his wife.

“My poor Amelia! How she shivers! I think the sun never touches this house. It is indeed a most wretched place!”

“It will not annoy you long, Mary,” said her husband: “I can pay no more rent; and I only wonder they have not been here already to take the week.”

“And where are we to go?” said the wife.

“To a place which certainly the sun never touches,” said her husband, with a kind of malice in his misery,—“to a cellar!”

“Oh! why was I ever born!” exclaimed his wife. “And yet I was so happy once! And it is not our fault. I cannot make it out Warner, why you should not get two pounds a-week like Walter Gerard?”

“Bah!” said the husband.

“You said he had no family,” continued his wife. “I thought he had a daughter.”

“But she is no burthen to him. The sister of Mr Trafford is the Superior of the convent here, and she took Sybil when her mother died, and brought her up.”

“Oh! then she is a nun?”

“Not yet; but I dare say it will end in it.”

“Well, I think I would even sooner starve,” said his wife, “than my children should be nuns.”

At this moment there was a knocking at the door. Warner descended from his loom and opened it.

“Lives Philip Warner here?” enquired a clear voice of peculiar sweetness.

“My name is Warner.”

“I come from Walter Gerard,” continued the voice. “Your letter reached him only last night. The girl at whose house your daughter left it has quitted this week past Mr Trafford’s factory.”

“Pray enter.”

And there entered SYBIL.

Book 2 Chapter 14

“Your wife is ill?” said Sybil.

“Very!” replied Warner’s wife. “Our daughter has behaved infamously to us. She has quitted us without saying by your leave or with your leave. And her wages were almost the only thing left to us; for Philip is not like Walter Gerard you see: he cannot earn two pounds a-week, though why he cannot I never could understand.”

“Hush, hush, wife!” said Warner. “I speak I apprehend to Gerard’s daughter?”

“Just so.”

“Ah! this is good and kind; this is like old times, for Walter Gerard was my friend, when I was not exactly as I am now.”

“He tells me so: he sent a messenger to me last night to visit you this morning. Your letter reached him only yesterday.”

“Harriet was to give it to Caroline,” said the wife. “That’s the girl who has done all the mischief and inveigled her away. And she has left Trafford’s works, has she? Then I will be bound she and Harriet are keeping house together.”

“You suffer?” said Sybil, moving to the bed-side of the woman; “give me your hand,” she added in a soft sweet tone. “‘Tis hot.”

“I feel very cold,” said the woman. “Warner would have the window open, till the rain came in.”

“And you, I fear, are wet,” said Warner, addressing Sybil, and interrupting his wife.

“Very slightly. And you have no fire. Ah! I have brought some things for you, but not fuel.”

“If he would only ask the person down stairs,” said his wife, “for a block of coal; I tell him, neighbours could hardly refuse; but he never will do anything; he says he has asked too often.”

“I will ask,” said Sybil. “But first, I have a companion without,” she added, “who bears a basket for you. Come in, Harold.”

The baby began to cry the moment a large dog entered the room; a young bloodhound of the ancient breed, such as are now found but in a few old halls and granges in the north of England. Sybil untied the basket, and gave a piece of sugar to the screaming infant. Her glance was sweeter even than her remedy; the infant stared at her with his large blue eyes; for an instant astonished, and then he smiled.

“Oh! beautiful child!” exclaimed Sybil; and she took the babe up from the mattress and embraced it.

“You are an angel from heaven,” exclaimed the mother, “and you may well say beautiful. And only to think of that infamous girl, Harriet, to desert us all in this way.”

Sybil drew forth the contents of the convent basket, and called Warner’s attention to them. “Now,” she said, “arrange all this as I tell you, and I will go down stairs and speak to them below as you wish, Harold rest there;” and the dog laid himself down in the remotest corner.

“And is that Gerard’s daughter?” said the weaver’s wife. “Only think what it is to gain two pounds a-week, and bring up your daughters in that way—instead of such shameless husseys as our Harriet! But with such wages one can do anything. What have you there, Warner? Is that tea? Oh! I should like some tea. I do think tea would do me some good. I have quite a longing for it. Run down, Warner, and ask them to let us have a kettle of hot water. It is better than all the fire in the world. Amelia, my dear, do you see what they have sent us. Plenty to eat. Tell Maria all about it. You are good girls; you will never be like that infamous Harriet. When you earn wages you will give them to your poor mother and baby, won’t you?”

“Yes, mother,” said Amelia.

“And father, too,” said Maria.

“And father, too,” said the wife. “He has been a very good father to you all; and I never can understand why one who works so hard should earn so little; but I believe it is the fault of those machines. The police ought to put them down, and then every body would be comfortable.”

Sybil and Warner re-entered; the fire was lit, the tea made, the meal partaken. An air of comfort, even of enjoyment, was diffused over this chamber, but a few minutes back so desolate and unhappy.

“Well,” said the wife, raising herself a little up in her bed, “I feel as if that dish of tea had saved my life. Amelia, have you had any tea? And Maria? You see what it is to be good girls; the Lord will never desert you. The day is fast coming when that Harriet will know what the want of a dish of tea is, with all her fine wages. And I am sure,” she added, addressing Sybil, “what we all owe to you is not to be told. Your father well deserves his good fortune, with such a daughter.”

“My father’s fortunes are not much better than his neighbours,” said Sybil, “but his wants are few; and who should sympathise with the poor, but the poor? Alas! none else can. Besides, it is the Superior of our convent that has sent you this meal. What my father can do for you, I have told your husband. ‘Tis little; but with the favour of heaven, it may avail. When the people support the people, the divine blessing will not be wanting.”

“I am sure the divine blessing will never be wanting to you,” said Warner in a voice of great emotion.

There was silence; the querulous spirit of the wife was subdued by the tone of Sybil; she revolved in her mind the present and the past; the children pursued their ungrudged and unusual meal; the daughter of Gerard, that she might not interfere with their occupation, walked to the window and surveyed the chink of troubled sky, which was visible in the court. The wind blew in gusts; the rain beat against the glass. Soon after this, there was another knock at the door. Harold started from his repose, and growled. Warner rose, and saying, “they have come for the rent. Thank God, I am ready,” advanced and opened the door. Two men offered with courtesy to enter.

“We are strangers,” said he who took the lead, “but would not be such. I speak to Warner?”

“My name.”

“And I am your spiritual pastor, if to be the vicar of Mowbray entitles me to that description.”

“Mr St Lys.”

“The same. One of the most valued of my flock, and the most influential person in this district, has been speaking much of you to me this morning. You are working for him. He did not hear of you on Saturday night; he feared you were ill. Mr Barber spoke to me of your distress, as well as of your good character. I came to express to you my respect and my sympathy, and to offer you my assistance.”

“You are most good, sir, and Mr Barber too, and indeed, an hour ago, we were in as great straits—.”

“And are now, sir,” exclaimed his wife interrupting him. “I have been in this bed a-week, and may never rise from it again; the children have no clothes; they are pawned; everything is pawned; this morning we had neither fuel, nor food. And we thought you had come for the rent which we cannot pay. If it had not been for a dish of tea which was charitably given me this morning by a person almost as poor as ourselves that is to say, they live by labour, though their wages are much higher, as high as two pounds a-week, though how that can be I never shall understand, when my husband is working twelve hours a day, and gaining only a penny an hour—if it had not been for this I should have been a corpse; and yet he says we were in straits, merely because Walter Gerard’s daughter, who I willingly grant is an angel from heaven for all the good she has done us, has stepped into our aid. But the poor supporting the poor, as she well says, what good can come from that!”

During this ebullition, Mr St Lys had surveyed the apartment and recognised Sybil.

“Sister,” he said when the wife of Warner had ceased, “this is not the first time we have met under the roof of sorrow.”

Sybil bent in silence, and moved as if she were about to retire: the wind and rain came dashing against the window. The companion of Mr St Lys, who was clad in a rough great coat, and was shaking the wet off an oilskin hat known by the name of a ‘south-wester,’ advanced and said to her, “It is but a squall, but a very severe one; I would recommend you to stay for a few minutes.”

She received this remark with courtesy but did not reply.

“I think,” continued the companion of Mr St Lys, “that this is not the first time also that we have met?”

“I cannot recall our meeting before,” said Sybil.

“And yet it was not many days past; though the sky was so very different, that it would almost make one believe it was in another land and another clime.”

Sybil looked at him as if for explanation.

“It was at Marney Abbey,” said the companion of Mr St Lys.

“I was there; and I remember, when about to rejoin my companions, they were not alone.”

“And you disappeared; very suddenly I thought: for I left the ruins almost at the same moment as your friends, yet I never saw any of you again.”

“We took our course; a very rugged one; you perhaps pursued a more even way.”

“Was it your first visit to Marney?”

“My first and my last. There was no place I more desired to see; no place of which the vision made me so sad.”

“The glory has departed,” said Egremont mournfully.

“It is not that,” said Sybil: “I was prepared for decay, but not for such absolute desecration. The Abbey seems a quarry for materials to repair farm-houses; and the nave a cattle gate. What people they must be—that family of sacrilege who hold these lands!”

“Hem!” said Egremont. “They certainly do not appear to have much feeling for ecclesiastical art.”

“And for little else, as we were told,” said Sybil. “There was a fire at the Abbey farm the day we were there, and from all that reached us, it would appear the people were as little tendered as the Abbey walls.”

“They have some difficulty perhaps in employing their population in those parts.”

“You know the country?”

“Not at all: I was travelling in the neighbourhood, and made a diversion for the sake of seeing an abbey of which I had heard so much.”

“Yes; it was the greatest of the Northern Houses. But they told me the people were most wretched round the Abbey; nor do I think there is any other cause for their misery, than the hard hearts of the family that have got the lands.”

“You feel deeply for the people!” said Egremont looking at her earnestly.

Sybil returned him a glance expressive of some astonishment, and then said, “And do not you? Your presence here assures me of it.”

“I humbly follow one who would comfort the unhappy.”

“The charity of Mr St Lys is known to all.”

“And you—you too are a ministering angel.”

“There is no merit in my conduct, for there is no sacrifice. When I remember what this English people once was; the truest, the freest, and the bravest, the best-natured and the best-looking, the happiest and most religious race upon the surface of this globe; and think of them now, with all their crimes and all their slavish sufferings, their soured spirits and their stunted forms; their lives without enjoyment and their deaths without hope; I may well feel for them, even if I were not the daughter of their blood.”

And that blood mantled to her cheek as she ceased to speak, and her dark eye gleamed with emotion, and an expression of pride and courage hovered on her brow. Egremont caught her glance and withdrew his own; his heart was troubled.

St Lys. who had been in conference with the weaver, left him and went to the bedside of his wife. Warner advanced to Sybil, and expressed his feelings for her father, his sense of her goodness. She, observing that the squall seemed to have ceased, bade him farewell, and calling Harold, quitted the chamber.