'Bread or Blood, 1830' by Christine Collinson

Hayricks burn up the night from our anger. Many such nights have passed but I’m here again, my stomach a hollow. “To the next!” a comrade calls out. His eyes reflect the leaping flames. The wheeled foe threatens to force us aside for good.

We set our torches to carts and barn-roofs, fuelled by defiance; without me, without us all, we’ve lost. I see our sparse larder, see Louisa’s efforts to fill the children’s bellies. “When will it be over, Jonas?” she asks, wringing her apron with wan hands.

An orange-glow pattern spreads against the darkness. Wary onlookers gather. Their eyes reflect the mob. “Join us for another night?” my friend asks. He has a wife, like me. Nippers, like me. Zeal scorching through his gut, like me.

The few coins that chink in my pocket, a daily sign. “Yes,” I say, heat searing my chest.

Threshing machines, the wheeled foe, in ever larger numbers. We see mechanical parts in place of muscles and flails, grain flowing from a chute like golden water. We are but the chaff, swept away. The land, our livelihood; the wheat harvests, our bounty.

This night, I’m more afraid. I watch the destruction with smoke-stung eyes. Rumours of men rounded up for jail or one-way passage to wild corners of the world. Letters, signed Captain Swing, pushed under doors in the quiet before dawn. ‘Bread or Blood’ we declare, but will the landlords yield as fires alight around. Empty pockets, empty trenchers, for them not ever known.



I return to Louisa. “Is it over now, Jonas?” Her eyes reflect my ash-flecked face. I kiss her in place of reply.

Exhaustion bites and I fall against my pillow. Forcing aside the burn of hunger, pray that I wake to an answer.