The Rise Of An English Lawbreaker

Chapter 2

John Smith stepped inside the stable yard and lifted a hand to the man who was examining the wheel of a stagecoach.

“Good morning, William.”

“Good morning, Mr Smith.” William Foreman straightened up, wiping his hands on a piece of rag. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, William.” Smith extended his hand. “I was wondering if I could help you.”

“I’m doing all right, thank you, Mr Smith.” William shook Smith’s hand. “All I need is a modicum of luck and a surge of passengers.” His smile was slightly rueful. “A coach company can’t run without customers.”

Smith glanced over the coach. “You’re doing a good job with that carriage, William. It’s looking as good as new.”

“Thank you, Mr Smith.” William patted the coach’s door, where a delicate hand had painted the words Appleby Express: Kingsgate – Appleby – London. “It’s been a long road, but this vehicle is nearly ready to replace my old coach.”

Appleby Express: Kingsgate – Appleby – London“That was why I came to see you.” Smith leaned against a pile of sawn timber. “Business. You must have spent a lot of money renovating that carriage.”

William nodded. “A bit,” he agreed cautiously.

“I have decided to branch out from shipping into land transport,” Smith continued, eyeing the yard with its stabling for four horses, discarded paint pots, and pieces of equipment. William’s nearly completed coach stood proud beside the old-fashioned vehicle he had used for two years. “I have the capital but lack the knowledge.”

“What are you suggesting, Mr Smith?” William asked.

“A partnership, William,” Smith said. “I supply the capital, and you supply the expertise.”

William shook his head. “No, thank you, Mr Smith. I do not wish to enter into a partnership with anybody. I will own this business and rise or fall on its success or failure.”

Smith pushed himself upright and walked around the yard, with William watching everything he did. “I will not interfere with your business,” Smith said. “I have three carts taking my goods to various parts of Kent and London, and I wanted to branch out into the passenger trade.”

“I am sorry, Mr Smith,” William said, “but I must decline your offer. I have no intention of taking on a partner.”

“As you wish, William,” Smith said with a slight smile. “In that case, I will bid you a good day and wish you every success in your venture.”

“Thank you, Mr Smith.” William could not keep the relief from his voice as Smith left his stable yard. He watched Smith walk away and returned to his task, ensuring the spokes of each wheel were fit for their purpose.

Smith walked away, smiling. He could only admire William’s single-mindedness and wished him every success. Now he must think of another way of entering the coaching business.

Smith lifted his fowling-piece, c****d, aimed, and fired, with the shot catching the pigeon cleanly. The bird dropped at once to lie on the ground as a few detached feathers drifted slowly down to the scythe-cropped grass.

“Take that to the cook,” Smith ordered and watched as a servant hurried to obey. “And you, Borway, tell me that again.” He began to reload, pouring a measure of powder down the barrel of his piece with his ornate powder horn.

“Somebody stole your cart, Mr Smith,” Josh Borway said. “And all the contents.”

“Did they, now?” Smith put away his powder horn, fished a ball from his ammunition pouch and dropped it down the barrel. “Do we know who the somebody was?” He rammed the ball home and thumbed in a wad.

“He called himself the Reverend James Tyler,” Borway said.

Smith looked up with the ghost of a smile around his mouth. “A holy highwayman? That’s unusual. Was he gathering funds for his flock?”

“I don’t know, Mr Smith.”

“Which cart? Who was the driver?” Smith poised his fowling-piece, searching for another target.

“Walter Clegg, Mr Smith.”

“Was Walter much injured?” Smith saw a bird explode from a tree, aimed but did not fire.

“No, Mr Smith. The highwayman tied him to a birch tree, and a traveller found him a few hours later.” Borway hesitated. “I wondered if Clegg was in league with the highwayman.”

“No,” Smith shook his head. “I know Walter Clegg, and he’s an honest man. He would not work with a knight of the road. How did it happen?”

“The highwayman helped Clegg up the slope at the Birch Ford, then held him at pistol point on the Appleby side. Clegg was badly shaken.”

“Where is Walter now?”

“At home, Mr Smith.”

Smith nodded, shot at another pigeon, missed, cursed, and handed the fowling-piece to Borway. “Take that to the gun room, clean it and put it on the rack.” He passed over his powder horn and ammunition pouch. “Take these as well and tell Bess I will speak to Walter.”

“When Mr Smith?”

“Now,” Smith said. “Accompany me when you have disposed of the musket.” He stalked away, shouting to the stable boy to prepare Rodney, his favourite riding horse.

Walter lived in a cottage opposite the Dancing Horse Inn, with two small windows and a low door at the front and a long vegetable garden at the back. His wife Agnes answered the door and invited them in.

“How is Walter, Agnes?” Smith asked, taking off his tricorne hat and tapping it on his thigh.

“He’ll live,” Agnes was a short, plump woman with prematurely grey hair. She reached for a bottle. “Brandy, Mr Smith? I know that Josh will take some.”

“Not for me, thank you,” Smith said. “I’ve come to see Walter.”

“He’s in there,” Agnes indicated a door at the rear of the room.

Walter was slumped on a chair in the back room, staring out a small window at his garden. He looked up when Smith entered. “My potatoes are underwater this year, Mr Smith. I hope all that rain doesn’t rot them.”

Smith nodded, leaning against the wall. “We certainly need some sun, Walter. Tell me what happened with your cart.”

“A highwayman who called himself the Reverend James Tyler robbed me at the Birch Ford,” Walter said.

Smith nodded. “I knew that much,” he said. “Describe this reverend fellow.”

Walter screwed up his face with the effort to remember. “Tall and slim with a pleasant manner. At first, I thought him to be about thirty-five, but when he came close, he looked younger. Maybe about thirty, with a cultured voice and bright blue eyes.”

“Was he a genuine reverend?” Smith asked.

“I don’t know, Mr Smith. He quoted from the Bible, but many people can do that.” Walter gave a gentle smile. “I doubt he was ordained. Maybe unfrocked.”

Smith pushed himself away from the wall. “A tall, slim highwayman with a pleasant manner and bright eyes. You rest and recover, Walter. I’ll find this holy highwayman.” He nodded to Agnes on his way out and pressed a purse into her hand. “Here, Agnes. That will help you over this period.”

Agnes weighed the purse in her hand, with the worry shading her eyes. “Thank you, Mr Smith.”

Smith dismounted from Rodney at the Birch Ford. Crouching, he examined the tracks in the dried mud. It was unfortunate that the ford was well-used, for other traffic had passed this way, overlaying the marks Walter’s cart had made. However, Smith persevered, casting around for hoof prints and wheel tracks.

“Can you find anything?” Bess asked without dismounting from Starlight, her mare.

“I think so.” Smith pointed to a set of hoof prints, partly obscured by the passage of heavy wheels. “Do you see these prints?”

Bess nodded.

“See how deep they are in the mud? That horse either had a very heavy rider or was pulling something weighty. Here we have a second set, broader and equally deep, on the same line, as if two horses were pulling the same load.”

“That’s our wagon, then,” Bess said.

“That’s our wagon,” Smith agreed. “Now we have to follow the trail through all the others. I’ll walk if you lead the horses.” He stepped onto the deep ruts left by the cart and climbed the slope, keeping his eyes on the object.

The trail was obscure in places, yet distinct at the top of the slope, and then vanished amidst a melee of hoof prints and wheel marks in an area still muddy despite two days of dry weather. Smith cursed and cast about on the far side of the morass until he found a cart with two sets of hoof prints.

“Is that our man?” Bess asked, still astride Starlight.

Smith crouched in the mid and peered at the tracks. “I believe so. Can you see this hoof mark?” He pointed to one print. “One of the nails is askew. Something must have distracted the farrier. I noticed that same squint nail further back.”

They moved faster on the level, with Smith concentrating on the unique horseshoe print. He lost the trail a mile further on, swore again and cast around.

“John!” Bess pointed to the side of the road. “Look at that bush. It doesn’t belong. There are no roots, and the bottom leaves are without buds.”

Smith examined the bush. Somebody had cut it and expertly interlocked it with a live plant, so a casual glance would not notice the difference. Bess had seen the irregular line of buds and the dead leaves from the previous autumn.

“Well done, Bess.” Smith lifted the bush aside, revealing a carefully concealed side track, barely broad enough for a cart to pass.

“The tracks are clear here,” Smith said and strode along the track, with Bess following a few yards behind. They passed through a thicket of elm trees into open countryside with broad views of the Downs. A host of birds chattered around them: hedge sparrows, chaffinches, blue t**s, and great t**s calling to each other and competing for a mate.

“Where will this track lead, John?” Bess peered ahead. “I didn’t think to bring a spyglass.”

“Nor did I, but we’ll soon find out,” Smith said. “There’s a building ahead.”

A weather-battered sign proclaimed The Vicarage, and they moved slowly as they approached the house, with Smith loosening the pistol he carried inside his jacket. The Vicarage was square-built, with weather-tiling and tall chimneys. The upper storey boasted three front-facing windows and stood within a substantial, well-maintained garden. A blackbird watched them from its perch high up an elm tree, whistling.

The Vicarage“I like to hear a blackbird sing,” Bess said, reaching for her blunderbuss.

“Keep back a little in case they prove unfriendly,” Smith said, c*****g his pistol. He pushed open the garden gate, strode to the front door and hammered on the upper left panel with his left fist. The door opened after a few moments, and a young girl looked inquisitively at Smith.

“Yes, sir?”

Smith put his pistol hand behind his back and bowed politely. “My name is John Smith, and I am looking for the Reverend James Tyler.”

“Yes, sir.” The servant girl opened the door wider. “If you would care to step inside, Mr Smith, I’ll inform the master that you are here.” She looked at Bess, gasped and quickly averted her gaze. The broad scar on Bess’s face had that effect on people.

“Is he expecting you, sir?” the servant asked Smith.

“He is not,” Smith said.

The servant ushered Smith inside the house, refrained from looking at Bess’s face and showed them into a comfortable front room. She curtsied, glanced again at Bess, and looked away. “I won’t be long, Mr Smith,” she promised and departed in a flurry of skirts and petticoats.

“Highwayman or Holy man.” Smith uncocked his pistol and replaced it in his belt. “We’ll soon find out.”

The room was square and straightforward, with an unlit fire laid in the grate, a large table with four straight-backed chairs, and a couch against one wall. A sideboard occupied another wall, replete with decanters and glasses, while portraits of stern-faced men stared out above. Leather-bound books filled a glass-fronted bookcase, and a long-case clock ticked away the seconds in the far corner beside the window.

“Religious books,” Bess commented after a scan of the bookcase. “I doubt many highwaymen read such volumes.”

Smith nodded. “Perhaps the Reverend steals from the rich to give to the poor of his parish? Except that Walter Clegg is not rich. Here comes the Reverend.”

“Mr Smith?” The man who entered the room was elderly, with cropped grey hair above a benign smile. “And Mrs Smith?” He tried to hide his discomfort at the sight of Bess’s scar. “I am the Reverend James Tyler.”

Bess curtsied without replying.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Mr and Mrs Smith?”

“I am searching for a horse and wagon that somebody stole from me,” Smith said. “The robbery occurred at the Birch Ford, and the man who stole it claimed to be the Reverend James Tyler.” He held the reverend’s gaze.

“I am no highwayman,” Tyler denied with a gentle smile. “A few such rogues are infesting this parish, as they do many parishes in England.” He poured three glasses of port. “However, I have a cart that might belong to you.”

“Thank you.” Smith accepted the port. This Tyler did not fit Walter’s description of a tall, slender man in his thirties. “How did you acquire the cart, reverend?”

“Somebody abandoned it outside the vicarage,” Tyler explained. “Possibly the same fellow who stole it.”

“Where is the vehicle now?” Smith asked.

“It’s round the back of the house,” Tyler said. “It was empty when I found it, without any clue to whom it belonged, or I’d have sent a message to you.”

“I’ll send a man with a horse to take it away,” Smith sipped his port. “Highwaymen are a menace throughout Kent, it seems, robbing honest travellers on the roads.”

“Unfortunately, that is correct,” Tyler said. “They have been amazingly active this past two months or so, and I’ve been held at gunpoint on two occasions myself. Indeed, Mr Smith, I am surprised that you reached here unscathed.”

“We were fortunate,” Smith agreed. “What do they hold up, as well as carriers?”

“Most anything that travels along this road,” Tyler told him. “Except the mail coach,” he added with a smile. “The mail always gets through.”

“Why is that, pray?” Bess finished her port and waited hopefully for a refill.

Tyler did not respond to Bess’s empty glass. “There are two possible reasons, my dear. The first is that the mail coach is always heavily guarded, and any highwayman could be stirring a wasp’s nest.”

“And the second?”

“The gibbet,” Tyler said. “Highwaymen are not scared of a simple hanging, but anybody robbing the Royal Mail will end up on a gibbet, and that is another matter.”

Smith nodded. “Gibbetting is a terrible punishment. To hang in an iron cage while crows peck out your flesh, then slowly rot away.”

Tyler put down his empty glass. “That’s not the worst of it, Mr Smith. As you will be aware, on Resurrection Day, the Lord will call us out of our graves to appear for judgment and answer for our sins. A gibbetted man will not have a body in which to appear. He is condemned to death in this life and damned for eternity in the next.”

Bess realised that Tyler would not refill her glass. “Thank you, Reverend.”

“I have one last question, Reverend,” Smith said. “You said there has been an increase in highway robbery this last couple of months. Do you know why that should be?”

Tyler mused before he replied. “One reason is obvious, Mr Smith. With the end of the French War, we have thousands of discharged soldiers and sailors returning to the country with no occupation and no way of earning except to turn to robbery. The second reason is more local, for I believe that Lord Fitzwarren might have something to do with the situation.”

“Who?” Smith had heard the name but knew little of the man.

“Lord Fitzwarren. He’s the local landowner and the man to whom I owe this living,” Tyler explained. “He is building a turnpike- a toll road –through the edge of his lands to give access to his hunting, drinking and gambling companions.”

“I cannot see a connection,” Bess said.

“Toll roads cost money to build,” Tyler said. “It is normal for a group of merchants or landowners to form a Turnpike Trust to create one, but Lord Fitzwarren is making this road himself. The roads only raise money if people use them and pay the tolls.”

“Ah.” Smith nodded. “I think I understand. Are you suggesting that Lord Fitzwarren uses highwaymen to discourage travellers using the old road by the Birch Ford, so they use his toll road instead?”

“I am suggesting that,” Tyler agreed. “Travellers may find that it’s cheaper to pay a toll to Lord Fitzwarren than to lose everything to a highwayman.”

“Ah,” Smith smiled again. “Thank you for the information, Reverend, and for your hospitality. I shall send a man for the wagon.” He bowed as he stood. “Come, Bess, we shall not take up any more of this good gentleman’s time.”

A blackbird sang, sweet and harmonious.

“I do love the sound of blackbirds,” Bess said. When Smith did not reply, she looked sideways at him. “You’re planning something, John.”

“I am.” Smith checked behind him for highwaymen. “I don’t like having somebody steal my wagon. Even less do I like the idea of Lord Fitzwarren profiting from some rogue stealing my brandy.”

Bess nodded. “I agree, John. What do you intend to do about it?”

Smith considered for a moment before he replied. “First of all, I will replace the stolen brandy my customers expect. Then I will discover who the highwayman was and for whom he was working. It might be Lord Fitzwarren, and it may be somebody else. He may even have been working for himself.”

“And then?” Bess knew that Smith wanted more than mere information.

“If I find somebody is behind the robberies, I will destroy his organisation,” Smith said. “Being robbed is bad for my reputation.”

Bess hid her smile. “I hoped you would say something like that. What do you want me to do?”

“I’ll let you know,” Smith said.