More Sport for our Neighbours

by Ronald McGowan

  As it is he has bought himself some time. It will take at least another day for someone to ride to Durham and return with an order from the court there, and if I know anything about the legal profession it will take a great deal longer than that. Meanwhile they may string their Frenchman up any time they please, and bang goes my mission and my prospects.

  It must be tried, however, but I am sorely puzzled how. I cannot leave my command here, and there is no-one among my men I can trust on such an errand. A mere sergeant would not be attended to in any case. I must consult with Mr Mayor, I fear. He may have an agent he can send.”

  The mention of the great cathedral city, however, had brought back memories of its great cathedral library, and the ancient texts mentioned by Mr Potts so long ago now, it seemed.

  “I should be prepared to go to Durham for you,” I volunteered, trying not to show too much obvious eagerness in my voice.

  Wickham stopped in his tracks.

  “My dear Mr Bennet!” he exclaimed. “My dear Mr Bennet, you quite put me to shame. I did not dare to ask, but, really, I can think of no-one else more suitable.

  Mr Bennet, I know quite well that I am not the son-in-law that you would have desired, and that Mr Darcy’s version of our dealings together is the one that has gained credence throughout your family, with the exception of my own dear Lydia, the mother of my son, whom I avow that I do truly love and honour and ever shall, whatever may have been my past feelings. There are two sides to every coin, however, and to every story too. That you should offer to do me this further kindness when you have already done so much affects me deeply. I….”

  “No more, no more, sir!” I interrupted. “Let me remind you that my family is your family, and your credit my credit, and we all wish to emerge from this business with as much of that as may be found. I beg you to spare me any more such effusions. You are the father of my grandchild, and my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Let that be enough between us.”

  He continued to favour an expression of bewildered amazement, but said no more, for which I give thanks. Whatever should I do for amusement in this wilderness if I were to find myself actually beginning to like Wickham, or even respect him?

  “I should be quite prepared to go to Durham for you,” I continued, “but I do not know the way, although I assume Hartlepool possesses a coach service with a coachman who does, or at least a chaise with a postilion who is familiar with the route?”

  Thus safely discussing practicalities of actually getting to and from Durham, of which, to be frank, Wickham had no more real idea than I, we returned to the inn, to find our egregious friend the mayor awaiting us.

  “I have it!” he cried, waving a sheaf of papers at us. The minutes of the council meeting resolving to request military aid. See, all in order. Now you can set about these troublemakers as they deserve.”

  Before either of us could say a word, he thrust the papers into Wickham’s hands.

  He glanced at them briefly, passed them to me, and began to explain to our host what had transpired on our outing.

  I found myself obliged to interrupt him, however.

  “These minutes are dated as of yesterday,” I pointed out, indicating the appropriate line on the document, “ yet when we spoke to you earlier today, you said that such a meeting had not yet been held.”

  “Well, perhaps I did,” he admitted, grudgingly, “it must have slipped my mind.”

  “Yet it was but yesterday, and, if we are to credit these minutes, you played a prominent, nay, essential part in it. It surprises me to find you so forgetful, sir.”

  “I have had many things occupying my mind, sir, and much distress from all this trouble. Those who have not themselves held the mayoral office can have no notion of the cares an stresses it imposes.”

  “It is true that I have not myself held the mayoral office, sir, but I have been asked to do so, several times, and could have been Sir Francis from it, like my friend Sir William Lucas, had I cared for such things. Perhaps, then, I do have some faint notion of the cares you describe, sir and their danger to the peace of both the mind and the digestion. But I had other things to do sir, and always declined.”

  “Let us not discuss local politics just now,” interposed Wickham, “but how we are to enforce this writ of mine, for I tell you plainly, Mr Mayor, I will not enforce martial law on a peaceful population for the sake of a monkey.”

  “I have means of delivering a message to Durham within the half hour, sir, if that will assist,” offered Weddle

  “It must be a prodigious fast horse will do that,” said Wickham.

  “No horse, sir, but a bird. In my cree out the back I have pigeons will fly straight to any town in the three counties, and bring you an answer the same day.”

  “You amaze me, sir,” said I. “I had thought such things to be gone with the monasteries and the Spanish Inquisition.”

  “Not here,” he replied, “not in the North East. You will find pigeon-fanciers in every town, in every village, have birds will fly to every other, and associates who will send them back again, and all will carry messages.”

  “Remarkable. But will such birds also obtain an injunction from a high court judge and convey it back? Will your associates in Durham be capable of such a feat?”

  “Perhaps not, sir. I fear almost certainly not. My associate in Durham city is not one who would dare to risk losing the episcopal favour, and in any case the messages the birds carry must of necessity be short, and written on very thin paper of a small size, for the weight. I doubt a bird would carry a great sheet of parchment with heavy seals attached if one were to be obtained.”

  “Then there is nothing else for it,” I said, trying hard to keep my tones measured and calm and anything but delighted. “I must engage your chaise to take me to Durham tomorrow morning.”

  That night I lulled myself to sleep with thoughts of scholarship once more.

  Chapter Twenty-seven : Reading the Riot Act

  It was not to be, alas!

  I woke next day, when dawn had scarce touched the sky, to shouts of “Fire! Fire!”

  I was still gathering my wits when there was a knocking at my door, and the chambermaid poked her head around it.

  “Get up, sir, get up, do! There’s a fire in the stables, and we’re all to shift afore it spreads across the yard.”

  “The stables?” I cried. “But, the soldiers…”

  “Captain’s rousting them out now, sir, but come along do, afore we’re all of us roasted like singin’ hinnies.”

  I needed no more encouragement, I may tell you, to rise and dress with as much haste as I could muster.

  In the courtyard I found Wickham organizing a chain of his men with buckets from the well in the yard to the stable door, whence flames could be seen issuing.

  “All present and accounted for,” he replied to my enquiries about his men, “ and getting the better of the blaze as we speak. The sergeant had set a watch, who reported that three men with torches came running round the corner and flung them onto the hayrick before he could challenge them. It went up immediately, as you may imagine, and they were gone before he could shoot. It all sounds too pat, but I believe it to be true. In peace, at home and not on foreign service, your private soldier is not inclined to put himself forward towards civilians, and it was still dark at the time, so the torches would not have seemed too untoward. Sergeant Porteous had the sense to get the horses out first, or we should have had a much harder job of it, but I am afraid the carriages are gone. There will be no hotel chaise to Durham for you this morning, I fear. But in any case, things have now progressed too far for that.”

  It took me but a moment to gather what he meant. The noise of the flames was already slackening, and I could hear confused shouts from the surrounding streets, and crashes, as of windows breaking, and shrieks both male and female. It would appear that the long-feared riot had at last broken out.

  Another half hour saw the fire extinguished, and the last
remnants of its flames snuffed out. It was not until then that Mr Weddle first put in an appearance.

  “I told you there would be a riot if the agitators had their way,” he cried, “and you would do nothing about it. Now it has started and my property has been damaged. And not only mine, by the sound of it. When are you going to do your duty, sir?”

  “When you do yours, sir,” replied Wickham, with, I thought, admirable spirit. “Get yourself properly dressed, sir, while I make my preparations, and we will escort you to the Town Hall.”

  Mine host having departed to replace the nightshirt stuffed into his breeches with a proper shirt and respectable coat, Wickham addressed his men.

  “Well done with the fire,” he said. “I will leave the sergeant to tell you how proper soldiers would never have let it happen in the first place. Now, get yourselves kitted out, and fall in in half an hour with loaded firelocks and fixed bayonets. I shall have some breakfast sent out to you meanwhile.

  See to it, sergeant.”

  “Sah!” was the inevitable response, while we went back into the inn, I to complete my toilette, Wickham to make his preparations.

  “Be ready if you can in half an hour,” he said to me, “and bring your stick, and full pockets. I must make ready. ‘Never lead your men into battle on empty stomachs’ is about all that I can remember of tactics at the moment, and in any event what I may do with twenty men if the town is really in revolt I cannot think, but we must try our confusions.”

  I need hardly write – indeed, I hardly know the words to write – how I felt at this juncture. Neither do I know whether to be ashamed at or gratified by the conflicting feelings that arose in my breast. I must admit, however, that fear, strange both to tell and to credit, was not for one moment among them. Rather I felt a strange excitement and curiosity as to how events might turn out, and a sense of wonder that a part should be played in them by that most civil and peaceable of citizens, F. Bennet, Esquire.

  There was tumult enough on the streets as we made our way to the Town Hall, though as yet it was made up mostly of solid citizens demanding to know what was going forth. When we got to our destination, however, we found our way blocked by a determined throng of evidently nautical origin, with various shouts of -“Death to the French!” “Down with Boney!” “Hang the spy!” and other such endearments.

  The sight of the red coats of the soldiers cleared our way as far as the Town Hall steps, but the crowd closed in again when they saw how few we were.

  As yet, all had been, relatively, peaceful in this quarter, but on the crowd catching sight of Mr Weddle, the brickbats began flying.

  The first, indeed, was a dead cat, that traditional missile of election crowds, and thrown rather half-heartedly at our feet, but it was soon followed by more solid objects, and a broken window.

  “We shall have to take a hand,” muttered Wickham, “before they start aiming at us.”

  “Mr. Mayor,” he addressed the trembling dignitary, “I took the precaution of copying this out last night. At my signal you must read it out, as loud as you can. Omit not one word, change not one word or its order, or you put all our lives in peril.”

  Then, with a “Make ready, sergeant,” he stepped forward.

  “Good people of Hartlepool,” he cried, “I am come with orders to take your prisoner to Newcastle for judgment. Will you surrender him to me?”

  I doubt if more than a few dozen heard him at best, and in any case, his only response was more cries of “Hang the Frog!” “Death to the French!” and so forth.

  He turned to me, saying,

  “Mr Bennet, I ask you, as an independent witness, are there more than twelve persons gathered here?”

  I saw what he was about, of course, but who else was there to fill the need?

  “There are certainly many more than twelve persons gathered here,” I replied, “and they seem to me to be in riotous assembly.”

  “Then there is nothing else for it,” replied Wickham. “Mr Mayor, I request that you read the Riot Act to this assembly.”

  Mr Weddle looked very much as though he would rather be anywhere else in the world than where he was, but he stepped forward, and, in a voice at first halting but gradually gathering in confidence as he proceeded, pronounced the awful words –

  “Our sovereign lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King.”

  The mob’s tumult had gradually subsided while he read, as the more responsible among them realized what was a-doing. It was to near silence that Wickham now stepped forward again.

  “I wish to make it quite clear to you all what has just taken place,” he announced. “Your Mayor has now publicly read the Riot Act to you. As the senior military officer on the spot, I am now legally authorized to open fire upon this crowd, and to disperse it by any means I think fit, and if you do not all go home within the hour, I shall do so.”

  “You would not dare!” came a voice from within the crowd, and its owner stepped forth.

  It was Raikes, of course.

  “We know your name, Captain Wickham,” he said, “and that of your associate there, and we shall have the law upon you if any of us is so much as scratched.”

  This was too much, and I fear I must confess to succumbing to a touch of heroism at this point. My only excuse and that a poor one, I own, was that my vanity was touched that this miserable clerk should dare to threaten me.

  “And we know yours, Mr Raikes,” I proclaimed, “And we also know what you apparently do not, or what you do not credit us with knowing. We know section three of the Riot Act, as you must, with your vast legal experience, and with it we know that ‘if the persons so unlawfully, riotously and tumultuously assembled, or any of them, shall happen to be killed, maimed or hurt, in the dispersing, seizing or apprehending, or endeavouring to disperse, seize or apprehend them, that then every such justice of the peace, sheriff, under-sheriff, mayor, bailiff, head-officer, high or petty constable, or other peace-officer, and all and singular persons, being aiding and assisting to them, or any of them, shall be free, discharged and indemnified, as well against the King's majesty, his heirs and successors, as against all and every other person or persons so unlawfully, riotously and tumultuously assembled, that shall happen to be so killed, maimed or hurt, as aforesaid.’ Or had you forgotten, Mr Raikes?”

  Wickham had not been the only one burning the midnight oil, and I still have something of a memory left me in my dotage, though what can have possessed me to make such a display of it I find myself now at a loss to say.

  “Thank you for that, Mr Bennet,” whispered Wickham, as he stepped forward again, making a show of consulting his watch.

  “You now have but fifty-five minutes,” he announced. “I suggest you make good use of it.”

  He stepping back, saying, almost casually to Sergeant Millburn,

  “Form line and present, Sergeant.”

  There followed more indecipherable barks from the sergeant, at which the redcoats spread out and shouldered their muskets. I fear this only accentuated how pitifully few they were, but I could see that a show of confidence was needed.

  The crowd muttered and murmured and milled, but showed no real signs of dispersing. No more missiles were thrown, however.

  “Would you really open fire?” I asked Wickham, in a voice I hoped could not be overheard.

  “I had rather not,” he replied. “Especially within the first hour. The lawyers are still arguing about that, about whether the military must wait that time before taking action. If attacked, my men will defend themselves, otherwise, we yet have fifty minutes before we need make our minds up.”

  We were not to have that long, however.

  Chapter Twenty-eight : Due Process of Law

  Hardly had Wickh
am finished speaking than a rumbling could be heard, amid louder cries of “Death to the French”, “Down with Boney” “Britons, strike home” etc.

  A cart came creaking into the square, to fusillades of assorted filth. On it, tied securely to a bale of timber, was the French, or, rather, Simian prisoner.

  A second cart followed, bearing a long bench, and a third, with a stout baulk of wood mounted at its rear, with a protruding crosspiece at its top. It hardly needed the noose dangling from a ring at the end of the crosspiece to mark it out for what it was – an improvised gallows.

  “What are they up to?” muttered Wickham.

  Raikes leapt up onto the middle cart, and held up his hands. Silence fell upon the watching crowds.

  “Good people!” he cried, “labourers and fisherfolk of Hartlepool. You have all seen this officer who has come to our town from who knows where, with his posh, southern airs and his crowd of licentious soldiery at his back. You have all seen him threaten to shoot you all down, and unleash his men to burn down your homes and molest your wives and daughters unless we surrender our French Spy to him, so that he can take him to Newcastle for a fair trial. A fair trial! Ha!”

  The tones in which he repeated those three words were almost as scornful and derisory as words could well be, almost as scornful and derisory as those in which he had intoned the words ‘officer’ and ‘southern’, than which, of course, there could be no worse imprecation.

  “I ask you, good people of Hartlepool,” he continued, “you who caught this villain sneaking around our town, those who captured him, at great risk to your own lives and property, you who do all the real work in this town while others reap the rewards, do you think he will get a fair trial in Newcastle, of all places? Do you think those overweight persons of doubtful legitimacy on the corporation there will give him a fair trial?”

  The actual words he used were somewhat more down to earth, but I am aware that this journal may some day be read by my daughters when I am gone, and think it fit to moderate the expressions employed.