The Iron Master

by Jean Stubbs

  They hurried forward, each inwardly confounding himself for being a fool, neither able to control that tightening of the throat, that increased throb of the pulse, which the sight of the coach occasioned. They were among the first to try this new mode of transport. They were pioneers.

  In the gentle beam of its lamps, the Royal Mail coach glistened with fresh paint: a rich maroon below, a richer black above, and the sparkling wheels bright red. A small and compact vehicle, austere in comparison with the present sprawling monsters of the road, and proudly bearing the royal coat of arms upon its door, the royal cipher upon its side panels. Inside, there was room for four passengers, and four leather straps hung ready to be grasped on the tight turns. A little dark lined cavern, at once claustrophobic and comforting.

  ‘I have taken the opportunity of providing myself with a portable lantern and tinder-box,’ said William Howarth. ‘So if you should need a light at any time, sir, I beg you to say the word.’

  ‘Most opportune. Most kind,’ said Parson Peplow.

  They settled in their seats, and put their provisions by them.

  Outside, Mr Sorrowcole was being hoisted onto his box by the guard and an ostler. He ran the reins lovingly through his fingers and looked along the line of his team’s ears. The guard handed up the iron mail-box, a truss of straw and a skin rug. Upon’ this box, protected only by the straw, his feet would freeze for twenty-seven hours. He pulled himself up beside the coachman and consulted his watch by the wan light of the lamps.

  ‘Get ready, boys!’ he warned the ostlers.

  They stood by the horses’ heads in the pouring rain, a half-grin on their faces, as though they comprehended the immensity of the occasion, and were yet embarrassed by it. Then Harry Walters lifted the chill brass horn to his lips and startled every sleeper in earshot, once, twice, thrice. The ostlers whipped off the cloths, Jacob Sorrowcole flicked the leading horses, the coach moved, the wheels spun, they gathered momentum, they were off. The Royal Mail had started at two o’clock precisely. As they passed the parish church a chime pursued them as if to say, ‘On time. On time.’

  The first lurch had sent Parson Peplow’s basket to the floor. The second lurch sent William Howarth’s basket to join it, and flung both men together as they strove to save their refreshments. By the time they had sorted themselves out the coach had settled into a swaying motion, much like an oceangoing ship in a rough swell, interrupted only by a bounce or a drop as they struck stones and splashed through pot-holes.

  ‘We are certainly going at a fair pace,’ said Parson Peplow, when he had recovered his breath. ‘Shall you sleep, Mr Howarth?’

  ‘I doubt it, sir, but I shall try.’

  But the clergyman wanted company in this adventure.

  ‘So the Post Office are seeking to turn us into a punctual nation?’ he observed. ‘That is ambitious of them! And what matter, sir, if we or our letters reach their destination a day or so sooner? It is not time that counts but how we use it.’

  ‘Why, sir, you are no worldly timekeeper, and that is the answer!’ said William pleasantly. ‘Your life and works are of a philosophical nature, and so deal with the eternal rather than the temporal. But I was apprenticed to a Quaker businessman, Bartholomew Scholes of Birmingham. A week to send a business letter — sometimes a fortnight — means the difference between profit and loss, labour and idleness. They say now that we shall have letters “by return of Post”, meaning that we write today and receive a reply (if our correspondent has been as speedy) the day after tomorrow. Change is misliked, and there will be much prejudice against the higher postage and these new ideas. But I am for them, sir, simply from a practical viewpoint. This is a new age, sir, and we must progress.’

  Now the clergyman was roused in truth, and his pebble glasses gleamed, his forefinger pointed protest.

  ‘Festina lente, Mr Howarth. Make haste slowly. I fear, like all young men of ardent spirit, that you confuse progress with speed!’

  ‘Forgive me, sir, but are you not being merely a praiser of times past? Laudator temporis acti?’

  ‘What would you, sir? That I fall in with the crowd and say that everything unknown must be marvellous? Onme ignotum pro magnifico?’ cried Parson Peplow, delighted to cross scholastic swords. ‘No, my friend, I look into the future with hope but with misgivings also. If we save time so that we can do more business, then what shall become of us when all the world is busy in the same fashion? Shall we not be eaten up by business, slaves to business, slaves to time? Then the clock will be our master, and the need to make more money our taskmaster. The worship of Baal is an old sin, and raises its golden image in every generation; but once we begin to conquer distance and time, Mr Howarth, that image may be multiplied exceedingly. And the people will cast God out, my dear sir, whereas only He can stand between us and our destruction! But there, as my good wife says, I give sermons on weekdays as well as Sundays. And we are basing our surmises upon the Post Office’s desire for speed and punctual delivery, now in its infancy!’

  ‘But, sir,’ cried William, captivated by surmise of another sort, ‘why should we stop there? I am fascinated by the new steam-engines. My friend Caleb Scholes is the son of the ironmaster who has but recently purchased a rotative engine. Now he can work the mechanical hammers, blow the blast furnaces and drive the rolling mills by steam power. Let us go a step further, my dear sir. Suppose it were possible to power this mail-coach by means of steam? What speeds could we accomplish then?’

  ‘Oho, oho, my friend, let us not be fantastical in our speculations. Ten mile an hour is fast enough for our purpose … ’

  The coach stopped as suddenly as it could, and both men raised their blinds simultaneously and peered through their windows to see what was afoot.

  ‘A highwayman perhaps?’ ventured Parson Peplow, losing a little of his colour. ‘Well, he will find me but a poor crow for the picking!’

  ‘No highwayman,’ said William, ‘For I heard no word of command, and see no one but — ah! — Mr Walters.’

  ‘Naught wrong, sirs,’ cried the guard, sticking a wet hat round the opened door of the carriage. ‘I’m just putting the brake on, ready for Hartshead Brow, else the horses’ll run away with theirselves down here.’

  ‘Should I hold the lantern for you, Mr Walters?’ asked William.

  ‘It’s a regular downpour, sir. You’ll get wet through.’

  ‘No matter. I shall dry again. Come, give me the lantern.’

  Neatly the guard unhooked an iron shoe-skid, and applied it to one of the back wheels. They both returned to their places while the coach lurched and slithered downhill. Once on the straight, he and William repeated the process in reverse, and Mr Sorrowcole prepared to make up for those few lost minutes.

  ‘We thought you were a highwayman, Mr Walters,’ cried Parson Peplow pleasantly, as the guard closed the door.

  ‘We shan’t see hair nor hide of them this weather,’ said the guard. ‘They’ll be sitting with their feet up the chimbley corner, mark my words, sir! They’ve got more sense than come robbing in the rain.’

  ‘True. Very true,’ said Peplow, comforted.

  The coach resumed its jounce and sway.

  ‘We were held up by a highwayman on the road to Birmingham once, when I was a lad,’ said William Howarth. ‘The fellow was most courteous, and returned my pocket-money to me, saying he was a boy himself once! Whether he would have accorded the same respect to my silver watch, I know not. To save him from temptation I had thrust it into a pie I was eating at the time, and it took no hurt though covered in meat and potato! I was glad, for I set great store by it, since it belonged to my great-grandfather.’

  Aha, thought Peplow, the genteel side of the family.

  ‘And how shall you protect your property in a similar emergency, may I ask, Mr Howarth?’

  ‘Possibly in the same way. For my mother has packed one of our best pork pies in my basket. Or perhaps I should rely upon Mr Walters shooting the fellow’s head off
with his blunderbuss!’

  ‘Your mother is a fine cook, I dare say, sir?’

  ‘My mother does not cook at all, sir, but has a gift for finding and supervising those who do.’

  ‘Unusual,’ murmured the interested clergyman, ‘in a farmer’s wife.’

  ‘Well, sir, I see you will have my small history out,’ said William, somewhat exasperated. ‘My father is a fairly prosperous yeoman, of honest stock. My mother comes of a genteel family, with high churchmen on one side and good businessmen on the other. And I am the product of that most strange and most happy partnership.’

  ‘I did not mean to pry, Mr Howarth.’ Conscience-stricken.

  So the parson was silent for a few moments, and then began again.

  ‘How much do they pay the excellent Mr Walters for his responsibilities, I wonder?’

  ‘Half a guinea a week, I believe. In addition to which he should pocket more than a half-guinea in tips, and be well paid for carrying an illicit parcel or so of game or fish in the boot! It is not bad, sir.’

  ‘Better than I, in my small parish, Mr Howarth!’

  ‘Better than I in my small forge, sir!’

  ‘Forge? You are a farrier? But, of course,’ cried Peplow triumphantly, ‘the hands, the stature and the strength. Forgive me, sir, I am insatiable in my curiosity, and you have set me a riddle such as I do not solve every day. An elegantly dressed gentleman, with the hands of a craftsman, who lives on a farm and runs a forge, yet discourses with all the art and fire of an educated person, and wears his great-grandfather’s silver watch — the which I should be delighted to examine more closely, for I take great pleasure in horology — admit, Mr Howarth, you are a mighty puzzle!’

  Then William laughed aloud at the clergyman’s innocent enthusiasm, and could no longer be annoyed with him.

  ‘Sir, I am a puzzle even to myself. Know then thyself? Nosce teipsum? I fear it may take me a lifetime to decipher William Howarth!’

  ‘Where did you learn your Latin, my young friend?’

  ‘My mother taught the three of us: my sister Charlotte, my brother Richard and me. Though I fear young Dick was given up in some disgust before he was twelve. He takes after my father, and will farm Kit’s Hill and make a love of labour. Later I studied at Millbridge Grammar School under Mr Tucker, but I do not keep up my Latin and Greek as my mother and sister do. I have enough to serve my purpose, but am no scholar, sir.’

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Parson Peplow, rubbing his knees in satisfaction. ‘May I trouble you with a final impertinence, for my guesses so far have been mainly correct … ?’

  But before he could put his question they were startled by the winding of Mr Walter’s horn, closely followed by another, and some note of urgency or apprehension in the sounding brass made William let down the middle window and peer into the night. They were approaching a fork in the road, and rumbling towards them at an angle to the left of the main highway was a huge stage-coach. Both guards were blowing their horns in a frenzy. Both coachmen were lashing their horses on, determined to take the lead. Most powerfully did the stage lumber forward: a mighty pachyderm which could crush the little black and red coach like a beetle. Nimbly spun the vermilion wheels of the Mail, briskly did it rattle through puddles and stones. Neither vehicle gave way, though the distance between them was narrowing rapidly.

  ‘Great heaven!’ cried Parson Peplow. ‘We shall overturn!’ And he sank back in his seat, trembling.

  But William put his head and shoulders out of the middle window entirely, regardless of the mire splashing up the sides of the carriage, while Mr Walters shouted into the night, ‘Make way for the Royal Mail!’

  ‘Get out of the bloody road!’ yelled the other guard, unimpressed. ‘We’re the Macclesfield Dreadnought, we are!’

  Mr Sorrowcole jammed his hat hard down over his eyes, which were pinpoints of battle. He arched over his team, vast and formidable, wheezing, ‘Hold on to your seat, Harry, and keep a-winding of that there horn. That old Dreadnought can’t take a fast turn, and we’re on the crown of the road. But we shall cut it very fine. Hooroar!’ and he laid his whip upon the galloping team. They were almost flying now, ears laid back, eyes starting, coats lathered.

  ‘You bloody fools!’ yelled the Macclesfield Dreadnought. ‘We’ll have you in t’ditch!’

  ‘Hooroarr’ cried Mr Sorrowcole raucously. ‘Hooroar, my beauties!’

  The leather flourished and cracked.

  ‘Make way for the Mail!’ bawled Mr Walters.

  His scarlet uniform endowed him with more than mortal courage. He wound his horn fit to wake the dead. While William roared, ‘Make way! Make way!’ through the funnel of his hands, and Parson Peplow prayed in the corner of the carriage.

  Now the two teams were galloping almost neck and neck, and for a flashing moment William feared both gladiators might irrevocably crash. Just for a second he could have touched the leading horse of the stage-coach, then with inches to spare the little Mail was drawing away and the Dreadnought was heeling, wavering, swerving.

  ‘I said,’ Mr Sorrowcole growled, ‘as it couldn’t take a fast corner.’

  There was a splintering of wood, a shattering of glass. The coachman hauled on his reins, the lathered team tossed up their heads and whinnied with terror. Too late, too late. With a final lurch, roll and crash, the Dreadnought sank into a ditch and halted: one wheel spinning silently.

  Then William whipped off his hat and cried, ‘Hurrah! Well done, Mr Walters! Well driven, Mr Sorrowcole! Hurrah for King George and the Mail!’

  The stranded pachyderm, its lamps gleaming like reproachful eyes, was already fading into the dark. Night closed about them once more. The Great North Road was their own again. As the Mail bowled along, and Mr Sorrowcole allowed the horses to move back into a steady canter, the guard wound his horn in victory. It was not a crow of delight, or the rude blare of the conqueror, rather was there something elegiac, something poignant in that music of the highway. A victory had been gained, in the name of the King. William drew up the window and sat down, breathless, muddy, and smiling.

  He must have fallen asleep, for when he woke it was daylight; and the sound of cobbles under the wheels, and the winding horn, informed him and the drowsy clergyman that Ashbourne was reached. The guard was at their door in a trice, crying, ‘Five minutes, sirs, while we change the horses!’

  In the courtyard of the inn two ostlers were waiting with a fresh team ready-harnessed, and they set to with a will. The rain had stopped, a wintry sunlight illumined the landscape, and smells of coffee, hot toast and fried chops stole from the kitchen of The Wagon and Horses. While a gentleman and his wife were ushered aboard the Mail, William and Parson Peplow relieved themselves behind a hedge.

  ‘I think I shall partake of a first breakfast,’ joked the clergyman, ‘and welcome a second one at Derby!’

  ‘I shall join you, sir,’ cried William, sniffing the fresh air and the smell of frying.

  ‘If only one could wash and shave,’ mourned the parson, ‘but there is no time. I shall not care to greet my sister with unshaven cheeks.’

  ‘I dare say I shall breakfast and shave in London tomorrow morning, before I greet my sister,’ said William, ‘for we shall arrive well before they wake.’

  ‘That is Charlotte, is it not?’ enquired Parson Peplow comfortably as they walked briskly back. ‘She is young, of course?’ Wistfully.

  ‘Nineteen at Lammastide, and expecting her first child shortly, sir.’

  The mail-guard was propelling Mr Sorrowcole back on to the box.

  ‘I’ve got to pass water, haven’t I?’ the coachman grumbled. ‘I’m not a bleeding camel, am I?’

  ‘It ain’t what you lets out as bothers me,’ said the harassed guard, ‘it’s what you imbibes, Jacob. We’re two minutes late already. Put your mind to Derby, Jacob. Think of the ale at The Cat and Bells! You can wet your whistle there as much as you like, and I’ll not gainsay you.’

  Introductions
once made inside the coach, and the man and his wife busy settling some private matter, Simon Peplow leaned forward confidentially.

  ‘I shall pray that your sister comes through her ordeal safely, and bears a healthy infant, Mr Howarth.’

  ‘I thank you, sir. We are all praying for that happy outcome.’

  ‘Her mother will be distressed, so far away from her daughter at such a time. Louisa and I were not blessed with children, but have had many at secondhand. Nephews, nieces and cousins. All were fruitful, save ourselves.’ And he was silent for a few moments, then brightened again. ‘Ah, Mr Howarth, I was about to ask a question when we encountered the Dreadnought. Poor souls, I do hope that none of them suffered injury, and were soon relieved! I was about to ask you whether you were six-and-twenty, which was my estimate of your age when we met at The Royal Oak. But, sir, you need not reply to that, for your youthful exuberance at the triumph of the Mail betrayed you. I struck off a few years instantly, sir. Am I correct?’

  ‘Sir, I am but recently one-and-twenty,’ said William, smiling. ‘I came home at the end of the summer, as journeyman and man, and celebrated both events royally. This splendid suit’ — indicating the tailored broadcloth — ‘was my mother’s gift, made up for me in Millbridge. This waistcoat she sewed with her own hands, and lined with silk from her wedding gown. And at Kit’s Hill, in the stables, is a stallion my father gave me and I wish I were riding him now, in my own stages, to London. But time was pressing, on both sides, and I yielded to my mother’s wishes and took the fastest mode of travelling.’

  ‘There I was wrong,’ mused Parson Peplow, ‘For I believed your journey — forgive an elderly man’s sentiments! — I believed it to be an affair of the heart.’

  ‘It is certainly a journey of strong affection and grave concern,’ said William, ‘For I am the family emissary. My sister married early this year, indeed she eloped, and we know nothing of her circumstances and little more of her husband. I seek to build a bridge between both sides, for my parents are inclined to be hasty in judging the fellow, whereas I shall love her well enough to attempt to love him, and so perhaps heal the hurt he has done.’