"I had noticed that, Mr Hartley."
"And, sir, the soldiers and sailors must soon be coming home. A few, mostly soldiers from English garrisons have already arrived. There is no work for them, sir, and no way of making new jobs, or none that I can see. The Poor Law will soon be showing the strain. Poaching will rise, again. There will be disorder. Add to that, Sir Frederick, there is the special case of those local youths who were pressed into naval service as a group..."
"Ah, yes..."
They pondered the special case in silence for a minute or two.
"That could become difficult. I wonder where Ajax was stationed at the war's end."
"Brest blockade, sir. I have made enquiries and believe she is to be laid up in ordinary at Portsmouth - and has already made port. Those of her crew who are to return will soon be doing so. They may well be on the way at the moment, sir."
"Forty of them, less however many may have died. A few may continue in service or find a berth on a merchantman, having come to love the sea. Not fewer than twenty to come back over the next little while. I must speak to the tenants, I think."
Martin was hopeful that he might see his son again, grown to manhood perhaps. He feared it to be more likely that he would receive word of his death - he had never been robust.
"Either way, Sir Frederick 'twill be to put my mind at rest. Though, if we should be so lucky as to see 'im again, then there will be another set of problems."
"He will be welcome on the estate, Martin. The past is just that, as far as I am concerned. If he returns to settle down to a working life, then not a word will be said by me or mine. If, on the other hand, he wishes to indulge in a political career, then he might be very wise to watch his tongue, for I will have none of sedition in the valley!"
"Told, 'e will be, Sir Frederick, and told plain! This is 'is place, so long as 'e behaves 'imself in it. I am master 'ere, and that's all there will be to it. Brother Jonas is to walk in after I go, if so be you permits, that is, and there will be nothing for 'im, except my blessing, so 'e must make a living for 'imself, but there bain't bugger-all new in that, when all's said and done, if you'll pardon my plain speaking, sir. What there is for 'im to do be a different matter, and one to be worked out by 'im, not me, for I can't."
"The tenancy is yours, as you know, Martin, renewing at the seven years except for waste or bad farming - which do not apply to you, sir! Your Jonas may expect to follow in your footsteps, and his boy after him as well, on the same conditions. No matter how your John behaves, you are safe, sir. But, I must say, he will not be if he makes trouble, for I will not have it."
Martin shook his head - the boy had always had a mind of his own. Polite, good to his parents, but with ideas beyond his station of what was right and wrong.
"I will pay his passage to America, and that of any other man in the village, and their wives and families, if they want. I would be obliged if you would pass that word around again, Martin. It might be helpful."
Mrs Martin, hovering in the background, thought it would attract a number of takers. The men coming home from the wars would stretch purses that extra bit too far in the village. Something would have to be done and people who had been debating going would have to finally make up their minds.
"Wheat will be coming in again from the German lands, Sir Frederick. Prices ain't goin' to stay up like they are now."
"Don't be too sure of that, Martin. The Germanies have been fought over for years, and their farms will not recover in a twelvemonth, and this peace has not got long legs, or so I am told. I would not fear for the future, not if I were you."
"Best news in a long time, Sir Frederick. Nothing like a war for farmers, sir."
"What of your chickens, Martin? Are the eggs selling in town?"
"Clearing the better part of twenty shilling a week, sir, every week! Buckshee, you might say, sir, over and above any costs to me. Ten acres of barley and as much again of maize, for winter feed for the birds, and that's taken out of the land for peas and beans, not from the wheat sowing. Works out a treat, it do, sir. Keeps the girls busy, too, and that's good for them, for they earns a crown apiece what buys them their dresses and bits and bobs and puts a bit aside as well. I'd 'ave to be givin' 'em damn near as much in pocket money, girls of that age, so it don't cost me nowt, you might say, sir!"
Martin had always been a man to look on the better side of everything, Frederick reflected, but his farmhouse smacked of prosperity - warm and well-furnished and with a smell of fresh baking.
Kent's house was equally well off, but the man himself was as gloom-filled as ever.
"I trust my boy served you well, Sir Frederick. He has not come home with you?"
"I have a letter from him, Kent. My First, Mr Backham, was made into the sloop Active and he has taken your John with him, in respect for his ability. He has done well, and will be made just as soon as is possible. I would expect him to stay overseas, for this peace cannot last, and he will then have every chance of becoming a lieutenant before his six years are up. In England he would be bound by the laws, but foreign postings are different. He is a brave boy - he has already stood to his post in more than one fight - and he is learning very quickly. You will see him rise in the service, of that I am certain."
"That is good news indeed, Sir Frederick. Though he must survive to do so, and a man without connections can only rise by means of a bloody sword."
"That, I fear, is true. He will need to risk his neck, and more than once. He is a fighting lad and will do so by choice, I doubt not. The chances are always there, but he has a good head on his shoulders."
"Let us hope it stays there, sir."
Frederick had no patience with such conceits. Luck was all that counted, and one either possessed that, and lived, or did not, with an opposite effect.
"Mr Hartley tells me that your new venture is doing well, Kent. Hams, bacon, cheeses and cream all selling in town and for good prices."
"Early days yet, sir. Provided nowt unforeseen comes up, then I shall have nowt to complain about. But it would need only swine fever, or for the cattle to go off their milk, and it could all go to the bad, sir."
"But it is starting to turn in a profit, I hope?"
"Small enough as yet, Sir Frederick, I doubt I shall put fifty pounds in the bank from it this year, sir. But it makes work for the younger boys, sir, and keeps the girls busy in the dairy, which takes their minds off other things at their age - always a worry, unwed girls about the house, sir!"
"The younger boys bring another problem to mind, Kent."
"No problem there, begging your pardon, Sir Frederick! If that damned scoundrel dares show himself hereabouts then he will very soon discover his mistake, sir! I hope and trust he will have more sense than come back here, but if he does he will find that his rick-burning capers have not been forgotten, or forgiven. There's no place for prodigal sons in this house, sir!"
Kent had changed in his speech, Frederick noticed. He spotted a thick book open on the table, a dictionary next to it. Kent followed his eye.
"I never did get my schooling as I should have, Sir Frederick. My son Nathaniel is by way of being a scholar, sir, and wishes to find something in the clerking way when he leaves his school. He won a place at the Grammar School, sir!"
"That was well done - the Scholarships are not easily gained, I am told. He will work for a merchant house in Bridport, I presume?"
"He had hoped for one of them Exhibitions, sir, at Oxford, but even with that to help I could not manage the fees and his living as well. It would cost more than I fork out for young John, and I cannot do it for sure, sir. As it is, weekends he sits down with me and the girls and we work our way through the 'Compendium of the English Language for those who Wish to Better Themselves', which you see on the table, sir."
"'Exhibition' - I had not heard of the term, Kent?"
"A sum of money for poor but clever students, sir. Like the Scholarship, but at Oxford University. Many an estate has made
a bequest to the University for such, or so I am told, sir."
The hint was not especially subtle, Frederick thought.
"Elizabeth, what do you know of Exhibitions at Oxford?"
She explained that they were an excellent thing in themselves, enabling young, virtuous and able students of worthy but impoverished birth to gain a proper education.
"What of tenant farmers' sons?"
"Not normally for them, no, sir. One would expect the recipient to have a widowed mother, left almost destitute by unfortunate circumstance, but of proper background."
"A young man of ability but coming from the lesser orders of society would find difficulties, I presume?"
"He would, I fear, find the undergraduates unwelcoming, sir. His life might in fact be made intolerable, unless he were a man of stern character."
"Cambridge would be the same, one presumes?"
"Unquestionably, probably worse, in fact. You might wish to discuss the matter with George, who is at home for the while."
"Not visiting in Yorkshire at the moment?"
"Not for the while - he must be content with correspondence, her Papa having consented to such."
"No, Frederick, not a wise act, to send a peasant, a mere pleb, to Oxford. He would find it hard indeed to survive there. Edinburgh, that is the place for his sort. Oxford is to a great extent a social club for gentlemen, rather like the House of Commons, you know. There are a few of us who work at our books - but we were tolerated for being of the right sort. The Scots have a different view of the place of the educated in everyday life, you know. Many and many a farmer's boy is to be found in Edinburgh, or so I am told, for I have never been there myself, of course."
"Do you know how I could discover more of the institution, George, and of how to obtain entrance there for an English youth?"
"A lawyer must be your best friend there, I believe."
Frederick wrote a letter to Mr Stainer at Bishop's Waltham, placed the question in his capable hands.
He told Elizabeth of all he had done, found she did not entirely approve. The lower orders were all very well in their places and should be cherished in them, but not necessarily encouraged to encroach upon their betters.
"What of the brother, Frederick?"
"Kent will show him the door if he returns, so he assures me, though I rather wish he would not. I would prefer that the young man was not further embittered, but there is no reasoning with Kent on such matters."
"Will there be rick-burning in the valley, Frederick?"
"I do not know. I hope not. It depends on how many return. Ajax was on blockade duty and, I believe, has not fired her guns in anger since the boys were pressed, so the bulk of them will have survived, which is in some ways a pity."
That was too harsh a comment for Elizabeth to stomach. She turned to less controversial topics.
"We must give a dinner for the neighbourhood, husband. Could we send out cards for next week? Will you be here?"
"I have no knowledge that I shall be called elsewhere - though anything is possible."
A dozen Ajaxes came home in a group two days before the dinner. The young men had walked from Portsmouth and had kept together in caution, not wishing to appear singly and vulnerable in their home village.
"Sensible of them, Sir Frederick. These are boys who have become men at sea, I believe, and will be of little threat to local peace."
"I hope so, Mr Hartley. They will have a little money in their pockets, seaman's pay for a year and more. Provided they use it sensibly rather than just drink it away, then they have a small chance to settle down. Their parents are tenants and labourers to Mr Robinson and to Lord Partington, are they not?"
"Almost all of them, sir. Not our problem."
They became a problem almost immediately, Mr Robinson threatening to evict any parent who welcomed a troublemaker back to one of his cottages. He demanded that my lord should do the same, to show a strong, united front against the Reds.
"The man is a fool, my lord!"
Partington, seeking to discover the best in every man, could not agree with Frederick; misguided perhaps, but trying to protect his land and his people as best he could.
"These young men have spent two years and more on the Brest blockade - a hard school, keeping the sea in all weathers, poorly fed, tired, storm-wracked. To have survived they have had to become the hardest of individuals, strong in mind as well as body, and much inclined to bridle at threats rather than meekly knuckle down and tug their forelocks. Mr Robinson would be well-advised not to walk out alone while these men are still here - he could find himself tarred-and-feathered very easily."
My lord was appalled at the prospect, much hoped that the young men would not so demean themselves.
"The sea is no place for the weak-stomached, my lord - they will have learned the ways of violence. The village does not breed the most delicate-minded of hinds, I have observed, and the lower-deck will have coarsened them further. These are men who have a short way with bullies."
Robinson came to them next day, demanding that the militia be called to their aid. He had driven out that morning, alone in his carriage, luckily, his lady wife safe at home, and he had been shouted at, grossly abused, stones and mud thrown at him. It was an outrage.
"They must be taken up, imprisoned, flogged and transported - that will teach them to respect their betters!"
They tried to calm him, little helped by the circumstances of the affray - Robinson had been abused in public, in the main street of the village. None of the residents had come to his aid but a crowd, a great mob he said, of children had watched and laughed and would undoubtedly have told the tale far and wide. He had been wantonly humiliated. Action must be taken.
"The local Militia are all sent to the north-country, Mr Robinson, to keep order in the cotton towns where there is unrest amongst the weavers. A battalion is never employed in its own county, as you know. There is a battalion of Welshmen, some two hundred and forty of militia from the county about Chepstow, I am told. The people there are few in number, so their militia are not many at two in the hundred of grown men of the proper sort."
"A disgrace, Sir Frederick! So few men to pacify the whole of Dorsetshire?"
"And Poole, sir."
The whaling town of Poole was outrageous in its disorder - drunken riot was the habit of every Saturday night. When the smugglers were laid up in port due to storms in the Channel and lent their crews to the shambles, then riot turned to little short of bloody battle. On those days the militia stayed safe in camp until the violence had died down, venturing out in the small hours to take crapulous drunks into custody and to pick up the disabled and the dead and make the streets tidy for the Sabbath. Two hundred and forty men, less the sick and the cooks and the orderlies - from a God-Fearing, chapel-going area at that - could do little other than regret the excesses of the heathen seamen; they certainly had no spare bodies to send out to unruly villages.
"No militia."
"No, Mr Robinson. All that I can suggest is that we swear in extra constables, paying for them ourselves, so as to keep the peace as well as we may. There are a number of idle young men who would, no doubt, be pleased to earn ten shillings a week."
Robinson was not stupid - he had been a rarely successful merchant - and very soon realised just who these young men must be. He was not amused.
"I am to pay a stipend to these wicked, disrespectful brute beasts, you say, Sir Frederick? Never, sir!"
"Then, with all respect, Mr Robinson, tell me what else we can do, for I am at a loss."
Partington could see the prospect of outright disagreement between his neighbours, tried to keep the peace.
"Perhaps we could make some useful work, gentlemen?"
"A good idea, my lord. What do you suggest?"
Lord Partington had nothing to offer, not knowing what might be in any way useful.
"Hard paving to the roads, perhaps? The tracks become mere mud baths every winter."
That was perfectly true, but it would cost money - a quarry; carts and horses; the road men and their tools. There could easily be a call for a thousand a year, to be split between the proprietors in the valley in proportion to the size of their holdings. Frederick could afford his share; Robinson would begrudge his; Sir Geoffrey would pay up unquestioningly; Lord Partington would find actual hardship in coughing up an unbudgeted two hundreds.
Frederick demurred on the grounds of cost - he was heavily committed, he said. His father-in-law was suspicious of his motives, but thankful.
The dinner found them no further forward in their search for a solution.
"We must, I think, go to the Lord Lieutenant with our problem. I can see no other solution, gentlemen."
The Lord Lieutenant could order the Sheriff to take action - quite probably would do so. What he could not provide was the means to make such action useful. The Sheriff lacked both funds and people to carry out his functions, relied wholly on the local gentry to cooperate with his polite requests. The result would inevitably simply be a circular process of passing responsibility from one party to the next.
The only possibility lay in the power of the Lord Lieutenant to request Horse Guards to locate troops in garrisons in disturbed areas. The Dorsets, as they were locally known despite merely being a numbered battalion of the line to the Army, would be returning to their home depot, to take up a peacetime life. A little of persuasion and the battalion, or half of it at least, might be put into the old barracks at Bridport rather than the newer place at Dorchester. The presence of regulars would do some good, especially if they might take training route-marches through the valley.
Mr Robinson had the Lord Lieutenant's ear - he had long been in the habit of dropping a hundred or two into Party funds in the County. He could make a strong case locally while Frederick begged Lord Alton to show an interest in Westminster. The wrong party was in government temporarily, but they would be anxious to make allies in the provinces, might well be willing to offer their assistance.
Fortune And Glory (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 5) Page 15