“Bad luck, in other words, and not a soul to blame”

The expression “Bad luck, in other words, and not a soul to blame” recasts human actions and unsettling events as accidents beyond anyone’s responsibility. Repeated by Walter Thirsk’s narration in two different moments of village crisis, it shifts from a hoped-for excuse for arson to a way of framing suspicion toward newcomers. Its calm insistence on having no one to blame becomes pointedly ironic: the words appear where blame is already being managed and displaced.

Formula and Repetition

The phrase first appears as the interpretation that Christopher and Thomas Derby and Brooker Higgs hope others will give the stable fire: an act of God rather than a crime with identifiable perpetrators. Its second appearance comes as the villagers wonder whether the newcomers’ arrival at harvest time is another act of God. In both settings, the same verbal formula makes coincidence and providence available as explanations, but the surrounding narration shows how readily such explanations serve human interests.

Arson and Evasion

After the stable and dovecote burn, the men’s safest hope is that the blaze will be treated as blameless misfortune. The stakes are specific: although the estate is remote and lacks a magistrate or constable, Charles Kent would not take their lives, but they could be beaten, sent beyond the village boundaries, and made to repay some of the loss with livestock. Calling the fire bad luck would therefore conceal not just its cause but the practical consequences the perpetrators fear. Their conspicuous efforts to help extinguish the blaze further unsettle the appearance of innocence: they are too eager to display loyalty for the performance to be convincing.

Newcomers and Displaced Blame

The later recurrence widens the phrase’s reach. The villagers have dwindled in number, lost friends, endured poor harvests, and sometimes feed their cattle when they have too little for themselves. Against that scarcity, rumors of thieves and wandering families make newcomers seem threatening before their intentions are known. The narrator admits that blaming them for the fire set by Christopher and Thomas Derby and Brooker Higgs might be a blessing in disguise. In this context, “not a soul to blame” sits beside a readiness to blame outsiders: the expression does not settle responsibility so much as reveal how fear and self-interest can redirect it.