Mercy's Debt by Sloan Archer

Author:Sloan Archer [Archer, Sloan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

“As I stated before,” Robert began, “I was born a human in 1820.”

“My birth name was Robert Joseph Campbell. I was raised and educated on a farm in Bracknoll, a rural settlement located a few miles east of London. When I was ten, my parents passed away of smallpox, which, amazingly, I failed to contract.

“I was a young boy with no siblings or other family, thus I lost the farm. I was shipped off to the city, where I was given a place to rest my head on a single-sized mattress that I shared with two other boys inside a community house for orphaned children.

“I was put to work the same day I arrived in London. The Industrial Revolution was in full force by this point, and so was the need for factory workers. Things were very different back then, and it was not uncommon for children as young as five to become laborers.

“As an adolescent, I would frequently work eighteen hour days in the factories, toiling away behind equipment that could easily rip a boy in two. Needless to state, the wages were terrible. If a person made enough coin to put food in their belly every day, they were considered lucky. The manufacturing plants were oppressively hot during the summer, bitterly cold in the winter, and the conditions were unsanitary. There were few windows, no sanctioned toilets, and the ventilation was inadequate. As a result, disease was rampant. And so was death.

“One night in 1849- I was a twenty-nine year old man at this point- I witnessed something which changed my life.

“I was one of the few men skilled enough to maneuver some of the more complicated machinery located by the manager’s top level office; thus I would frequently work on the floor completely alone. It was very late on this particular evening, about midnight. I was just finishing up for the night when an elegant man entered the building and went into the office.

“He was an aristocrat, wearing the finest clothing that I had ever seen. But he was also as white as a sheet, so I believed him ill. I immediately recognized this man for being what he was: the factory owner. They would come by from time to time late at night in order to remove money from the safe after the cash bundles grew too large to store.

“The man was unaware of my presence as he left the office and crossed the room carrying a tall sack of money in his arms. Knowing my place as a filthy underling, I deemed it in my best interest to just stay out of his way until he left.

“As the factory owner neared the exit, two men entered the building and rushed towards him. One of the men was carrying a wrench; it was apparent that they had it in their sights to steal the cash. Without hesitation, the robber with the wrench hit the owner in the skull.

“The owner did not flinch away from the weapon because of the tall sack obstructing his view, thus he absorbed the full impact of the blow.

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