by Sara Fraser
‘We’ll ha’ trouble here, Jethro,’ Turpin Wright whispered warningly.
Jethro by now felt he had stood enough harassment for one day. He nodded. ‘If there’s trouble coming, then I’m ready to meet it,’ he replied, his voice ringing out clearly.
His challenging words brought all eyes on him. The man still lying on his bench rolled over and sat up, and the one cowering on the floor peeped out from under his arms. The drover’s face was momentarily surprised, then he laughed mockingly.
‘God blast my eyes! We’se got a Methody bruiser come among us in these palace halls.’
He strutted to stand a yard from Jethro and made a great show of examining the newcomers from head to toe.
‘Well, they doon’t look like Jolly Boys to me,’ he told his friend, who now shook the straw from him and disclosed that he too wore a drover’s badge and, apart from his face, was the other’s twin.
‘What does you rackon they be?’ he asked.
The flat-nosed man appeared to be considering the question. ‘They might be fences,’ he mused aloud. ‘Or maybe workin’ the flimsies. Is that it, you coves? Be you in the banknote business?’
‘What we are is for ourselves only to know,’ Jethro answered evenly.
The drovers laughed uproariously.
‘God blast my eyes! Doon’t he talk proper,’ the flat-nosed one jeered. ‘He must be in the collecting way . . . On the road wi’ a loaded pop in each hand and a grey mare like Sixteen String Jack had under his arse.’
‘No, that ain’t possible,’ his friend protested. ‘They’ll be doing a little in the crack line, this pair o’ nancies ’ull. Abreakin’ into old women’s houses to rob ’um o’ their ha’ pence,’ he baited.
‘Ahr, you might be right at that, Billy Boy,’ Flatnose agreed, and held out his hand menacingly. ‘Come on, nancy, let’s be havin’ a divvy-up o’ your rhino.’
‘Why should we give you money?’ Jethro wanted to know.
‘Becos I’m the king o’ this bloddy palace, nancy. They calls me the Battlin’ Drover. I’se met some o’ the best pugs in the land I ’as . . . Tom Blake, Ikey Pig, Jack Carter, Young Powers . . . I’se met ’um all. So if you’m wise, nancy, you’ll bail up.’
Turpin Wright went to speak, but Jethro winked at him, then turned to the drover and shrugged.
‘Well, I don’t like the idea of fighting with a man of your calibre,’ he said, and told Turpin, ‘You’d best give me what money we’ve got friend. I’ve no wish to feel the weight of this man’s fists.’
The convict cursed under his breath and handed Jethro the few coins left to them.
‘Here,’ Jethro glumly proffered the money. The drover grinned.
‘Now that’s a good girl,’ he jeered. ‘I can see that you and me am going to be real sweethearts.’
As his hand closed on the coins, the toe of Jethro’s boot crunched hard and heavy against his kneecap. The drover bellowed out in shocked agony and his leg gave way beneath him. He fell sideways, but before his body reached the floor, Turpin Wright was on him like a wildcat. One strong hand digging into the shaggy mop of hair, the other spread across the flat nose, its rigid thumb pressing hard under the eyeball.
‘Make a move, cully, and you’m short one eye!’ Turpin hissed.
‘No!’ the drover gasped in terror. ‘No, doon’t blind me. Please doon’t blind me!’
Jethro jumped at the second drover, but after seeing the rapid overthrow of his friend, he had no stomach for a fight.
‘I wan’t no trouble cully!’ he shouted in alarm. ‘’Twas not me who told you to bail up . . . I want no trouble!’
‘Then sit down and keep your mouth shut,’ Jethro warned grimly. ‘Or by God! You’ll find out what trouble is.’
The man cowering beneath the bench sprang to his feet. ‘Bugger me, if I didn’t see you was a pair o’ flash coves all right,’ he chortled gleefully. ‘I knew the minute I saw you come through the door that that flat-snouted sod theer ’ud cross the wrong ’uns if he crossed you two . . . I knew it!’
He was a tiny, bald-headed, bright-eyed sparrow of a beggarman whose clothing was one mass of assorted rags and whose filthy feet poked through flapping, broken boots as he executed a grotesque dance up and down the cell.
Jethro smiled at his antics and spoke to Turpin. ‘Let that soft lump of dung go free, cully. He’ll do no more fighting while we’re here.’
Turpin obeyed and the drover scrambled to the far end of the cell and crouched by the side of the privy pot, nursing his damaged knee and moaning softly to himself.
The tiny beggar finished his jig and grinned up at Jethro. ‘Tell me, marster? I means no offence, but tell me how you come to be here? Fine gennulmen like you and your mate?’
Jethro softened to the cheeky, infectious grin of the tiny man, and after a moment he related what had occurred in the Bullring. The tiny man cocked his bald head to one side, increasing even further his resemblance to a bird, and tapped the side of his beaky nose with a long black fingernail.
‘So that’s what the buggers be up to, is it?’ he observed with satisfaction in his voice. ‘I knew it, so I did . . . I knew it all along. Specially when they fetched in old Flatsnout there and his mate, and that other cove what’s a sittin’ across from us.’
Jethro looked at the man referred to. He wore a decent suit of fustian with good plain linen, and appeared a respectable artisan.
‘What is it you know, little ’un?’ Turpin Wright questioned.
‘Why, it’s plain to them as con see, ain’t it sir?’ The beggarman grinned. ‘These buggers in this town ’ad the ballot drawed for the militia nigh on three week ago. The buggers as was drawed wants to send substitutes and con get none. That’s what they’ll do wi’ us lot, I’ll wager my life on it. They’ll send us to the army to be made sodgers on, so they ’ull.’
‘To the army? Us?’ Jethro was incredulous.
The tiny beggar nodded vigorously. ‘Well, they ain’t agoing to send fine men like us to Botany Bay, be they sir? Specially now they wants substitutes . . .’ he chortled and began his jig again, singing in a high-pitched voice as he hopped about,
‘Suppose the Duke be short o’ men . . .
What would Old England sayyyy?
They’d wish they’d got those lads agennnn . . .
They sent to Botany Bayyyy . . .’
‘Oh God help me!’ the artisan groaned, and buried his face in his hands. ‘I’ve got a wife and little ’uns. What’s to become o’ them if I’m sent to the army?’ He started to sob loudly.
‘They cannot do it, surely?’ Jethro remonstrated.
‘Oh yes they can, matey,’ Turpin Wright said bitterly. ‘It’s bin done to thousands o’ coves. I knows it from first hand. It ’appened to me once afore, down south theer in Berkshire, but I was a bit too sharp for ’um that time, and scarpered double quick once I’d done me drills and was sent to duty.’
‘But we can’t be made to substitute! We haven’t been drawn in any ballot, so we’ve no legal obligation to serve,’ Jethro insisted.
The beggarman halted by the sobbing artisan. ‘Damn you for a big soft Jessy, dry your eyes,’ he scolded. ‘It ain’t so bad. Them that wants the substitutes pays well. Anythin’ up to forty gold ’uns.’
‘What if we refuse to be press-ganged in this way?’ Jethro persisted.
Turpin smiled wryly. ‘We’em under arrest as rogues and vagabonds, matey. The bloody magistrates and the constables fix it all up between theirselves. If we refuses to ’list, the traps swears our lives away in the court, and the beaks sends us up for a laggin’. That’s unless you’se got friends or family wi’ influence to spake up for you . . . How long d’you reckon we’ud last in gaol, cully?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘And doon’t forget, it arn’t only the goal-fevers and suchlike that we’se got to worry about. If we refuses to do what they calls our patriotic duty, and ’list, they’ll start asking questions about us. And you knows what that ’ull mean, doon�
�t you?’
The younger man knew very well what it would mean. His mind whirling, he lay down on the bench and tried to collect his thoughts to meet this new development. The rest of the men in the cell arranged themselves as comfortably as they were able and eventually all was silence. Except for the mutterings and snorings of the sleepers, the soft moans of the injured drover and the rustle of straw as bodies stirred restlessly under the onslaught of the swarming vermin.
Jethro himself began to feel sleepy and drifted into a shallow doze. Later, when all was cold and dark, he awoke and lay staring into the unrelieved blackness. The sleep in the foul, over-used air of the cell had not refreshed his body, but it had resolved his mind. He remembered his father once telling him that all men should at some time or other experience the life of a soldier, if only to test their courage and learn the skills needed for successful armed rebellion.
The young man muttered inwardly, ‘Perhaps you’re guiding me in this matter, father. From wherever your soul now dwells.’ He smiled to himself. ‘Maybe I shall emulate Peter Stanton and gain the King’s commission on the battlefield as he did.’ Resigned to his fate, Jethro composed himself to sleep.
Lying awake in the straw Turpin Wright also pondered this sudden change in his fortunes. ‘Ah well! It wun’t be the first time I’ve followed the drum,’ he thought resignedly. ‘At least I can show young Jethro the ropes and save him a deal o’ grief as a ’cruity.’ He grinned in the darkness. ‘The young sod’s learnin’ fast what life is all about, I’ll be buggered if he arn’t. He’s a man now, that’s for sure . . . A real son of his father.’
Beside him in the straw, the beggarman broke wind loudly and foully. Turpin kicked him hard on the backside then turned away on his side and closed his eyes. ‘I hopes they doon’t gi’ me this little bastard for a bedmate in the barracks,’ was his last thought before he slept.
Chapter Thirteen
In Bishops Castle the days had passed so slowly for William Seymour, that at times he had feared his mind would give way in sheer frustration. His broken bones were knitting together and his body regaining its strength and vigour with remarkable speed, considering the severity of his injuries. But, burdened as he was with anxiety, the time dragged by with an awful slowness. As soon as he was able to hobble about, William Seymour began to exercise secretly; punishing his lean frame mercilessly and driving his muscles to the very limits of their endurance so that he might be ready the sooner to carry out the planned course of action he had decided upon during the (seemingly endless) tedious days spent helpless upon his sick bed.
The discovery of the old squire’s open grave had caused a sensation of horror in the small town; and the finding of some silver goblets that Sarah had overlooked in the broken coffin only added to the mystery for the vast majority of the local people. ‘For surely any grave robbers would not have left behind such valuable objects,’ they argued.
Two men, however, had a shrewd notion of what had occurred. George Jenkins and William Seymour. When the tools that Sarah had abandoned by the graveside were put on show in the old market hall, the ranter recognized them immediately, but kept his own counsel and swore to himself that some day he would find his harlot daughter and tear the life from her with his bare hands.
When William Seymour was able to move about on crutches, he spent hours in the local alehouses, sipping brandy and listening quietly to the talk and gossip around him. His agile mind also arrived at a conclusion, and that was that George Jenkins could, if he wished, make clear the mystery of the open grave. Grimly the cavalry officer set to the painful task of recovering his full strength. Orders came periodically from Major Hickey, via the post boy, for Seymour to report back to his regiment as soon as he was fit enough to move. Seymour’s eyes were cold as he scanned the messages and he cursed,
‘God blast your mealy mouth, Hickey! I’ll not report back for my own court martial, be damned if I will.’
Each time the orders came, he cunningly inveigled the local surgeon who was treating him, into writing to Major Hickey and informing him that, ‘William Seymour is not in my considered opinion as a medical doctor, yet fit enough to travel, and indeed it will be many weeks before he will be able to do so.’
So, in public, Seymour struggled painfully along on his crutches, his face a mask of pain as he gasped for breath. While in hidden places in the Forest of Qun, the cavalryman exercised his lean hard body and measured gladly the strength that came flooding back to it.
The rest of the month of November passed and Seymour began to feel he was now ready to put his plans into action. On the second Sunday in December he started to do so . . .
It was morning and at the smithy of George Jenkins a group of men, women, and children had gathered. They all wore sombre clothing and the women and girls had kerchiefs tied like turbans about their heads. Following the instructions Jenkins had given them, each person wore on their headgear a cockade of white feathers and on their left breasts they had pinned small stars fashioned from yellow ribbands.
The tiny ranter’s red-rimmed eyes were satisfied as he inspected his faithful followers in the smithy yard, and led them in the hymn-singing that always initiated their meetings. When he judged the mood of the group was sufficiently exalted, he fetched from his living quarters two flags of blue silk and a brass trumpet decorated with blue ribbons.
‘Edward! Thomas! You take these and wave them proudly.’
Jenkins handed a flag each to two of the boys with the party. Then he began to address the group in his booming voice.
‘Oh ye blessed children of the Lamb of God,’ he exhorted them, ‘the day of the revelation . . . has come!’
‘Blessed be the Lord our God!’ a fat smelly woman shouted.
‘HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH!’ her companions exulted.
The manic gleam came to Jenkins’ eyes and he blew a loud blast on the trumpet. ‘Last night I had a vision!’ he proclaimed. ‘The Holy Joanna Southcott, the Prophetess herself, came to me . . . and brethren! There came with her a vast multitude of the Lord God’s angels clad in bright raiments, and the light of glory shone down upon them and they cried out my name and it sounded to mine ears like the thunder of the storm . . . Ay! And the light of glory poured down upon me also . . . UPON ME! . . . GEORGE JENKINS!’
The listeners groaned ecstatically. ‘PRAISE BE! AMEN! AMEN!’
Some of the women and children started to weep, overcome by the emotive atmosphere.
‘Oh blessed Joanna, come to us! Come to us!’ ‘Hallelujah!’ ‘Hallelujah!’ ‘Honour the Prophetess!’ ‘Amen! Amen! Amen!’
‘Now hear my words, brethren.’ Jenkins held high the trumpet with both hands and closed his eyes, as if in pain.
‘The light of glory burns my sight even now, Brothers and Sisters! It burns deep into my soul! MY VERY SOUL!’
‘Hallelujah!’ ‘Amen!’ ‘Amen!’
‘You’m blessed, George Jenkins! You’m blessed o’ the Lord, so you be!’ a young gap-toothed woman shrieked, sweat streaming down her pockmarked cheeks.
The ranter raved on . . . ‘Joanna Southcott and the Legions of Heavenly Angels brought to me, George Jenkins . . . THE VERY WORDS AND COMMANDS OF THE LORD GOD MOST HIGH!’
The fat smelly woman screamed aloud and threw herself at the tiny ranter’s feet, wrapping her flabby arms about his ankles and slobbering with froth-flecked lips at his dung-caked boots. She crooned hysterical, unintelligible gibberish and pressed her mouth to the hard leather.
Jenkins ignored her, possessed as he was by his own maniacal fancies, and kept his arms raised and his tightly closed eyelids lifted to the cloud-covered sky.
‘Tell us, marster,’ a sharp-featured little man in the front of the group begged frantically. ‘Tell us the commands o’ the Lord.’ He slumped to his knees in the thick-layered mud and animal dung of the yard and, clasping his hands in front of his slack-mouthed face, wrung them beseechingly.
The others followed him and their chorused pleas
rang out louder and louder, until Jenkins opened his eyes and looked blankly down at them as if he did not know what they did there. The madness glared from his eyes and a trickle of saliva wriggled from the corner of his mouth and lost itself in his black beard.
‘Hush my children . . . hush!’ He spread his arms above their heads and his voice became muted and soft. ‘Hush, blessed army of martyrs . . . hush and be still.’
They obeyed as if mesmerized and soon only the choked sobs of the fat woman still clasping the feet of the ranter could be heard. The tiny man’s chest swelled out like a pouter pigeon, and he felt a giant among pygmies as he savoured the spectacle of these people slavishly obeying him.
‘The blessed Joanna Southcott told me that the Lord Most High has entrusted me to be his Prophet here on Earth!’ his voice boomed out suddenly, and he sawed his arms rapidly back and forth in the air and went on, his voice charged with hysteria. ‘The Lord Most High has commanded me, His Prophet! To proclaim to the world that the Shiloh comes once more! The Prince of Peace leaves his seat on the right hand of God and comes for the second time to earth . . . AND I, GEORGE JENKINS, AM TO PROCLAIM HIS COMING!’ he boomed.
His face suddenly suffused with blood and was almost purple in colour as he bellowed out again and again, ‘WOE! WOE! TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH BECAUSE OF THE COMING OF THE SHILOH! WOE! WOE!’
His followers scrambled to their feet and began to shout with him. He led them from the yard and down towards Bishops Castle. The flag-carrying boys flanked him on either side and every few paces he blew a great blast on the beribboned trumpet while the whole group chanted resoundingly, ‘WOE! WOE! TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH BECAUSE OF THE COMING OF THE SHILOH. WOE! WOE! TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH BECAUSE OF THE COMING OF THE SHILOH!’
*
William Seymour and Thomas Marston, both dressed in wide-brimmed hats and civilian greatcoats, were sat together in the bar-parlour of the Three Tuns inn haggling quietly and acrimoniously about money.