The Wages Of Virtue (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 8)

by Andrew Wareham

  Robert commented that it was sad that a good harvest was to be feared more than a bad, but Barney could not follow his logic - a country on the edge of starvation was the best thing the farmer could hope for.

  "The Isebrook would benefit from some work, my lord. It is a muddy stream and has silted up to an extent, enough to create a few boggy patches again, or so Briggs tells me. A gang of five or six men for two months would solve the problem."

  "Thirty or forty pounds in wages?"

  "Six days a week at two shillings a day, my lord, and we would normally spend a penny or two apiece on a slab of bread and cheese at midday - they work better for being fed."

  "Let us examine the problem."

  Briggs' pigs were wallowing in more than an ordinary quantity of mud - it seemed wise to give them drainage.

  "Let it be done, Captain Thame. Can we find the men easily?"

  "Too easily, my lord. The iron trade in Kettering is slowly decreasing and there are more men without work every year. Some of the Finedon men was used to work in the foundries and now are hand to mouth as a result."

  "Could we use the men elsewhere when the Isebrook is dealt with? Are there cart tracks or a roadway that would benefit from a new surface?"

  "Always, my lord! With the cost of a cart to bring roadstone we would be looking at seventeen or eighteen pounds a month; for that we keep six families in work and make our tenants happy. Well... happier, I should say, nothing can make a farmer 'happy' as such."

  "Then do it, Captain Thame - it is worth spending a few pounds at the outset to show that I am interested in the estate and very willing to keep it up to the knocker. What of the other tenants? We have consulted Barney and are running drainage for Briggs - can we do anything for the rest?"

  "The road and the farm tracks will suffice for them, my lord. When should I go across to Norfolk, my lord?"

  "As soon as you can, Captain Thame, as much as anything to show the neighbourhood that we are committed and will be resident. The new fields must be brought into use as the beginnings of a Home Farm, and that will be difficult initially because forty acres is neither here nor there. One of the tenants has a dairy so a small herd might be sensible - paying him for his services; a field of various vegetables for the house, or perhaps plant the beginnings of an orchard to use the rest. I suspect you will have to hire a man to work the land for us - more than a labourer, less than a tenant - not an easy position to fill."

  "Possibly we could take on a farmer's daughter, my lord, to run poultry for eggs and meat and work what would be in effect a large kitchen garden."

  Robert was not at all sure that hiring a woman was a good idea - it smacked of unconventionality, and, if it could be done there, who was to say that Thame might not suggest the same on the estate? He gave grudging assent, made it clear that a female was a last option.

  Book Eight: A Poor Man

  at the Gate Series

  Chapter Two

  Sir William looked down on the puppy that had just been brought into the house and which was thoughtfully making a puddle on the floor, a surprisingly large pool for an eight week old - but it was not a small dog.

  "Best it should live in the kitchens for the while, Mary. A good thing that the hall has a wooden floor rather than carpet."

  The kitchen was stone flagged, far easier to keep clean; the maid, who knew she was the one who would be down on her knees scrubbing, smiled dutifully.

  "Yes, Sir William. What be the beast's name, sir?"

  "Lord Tom, I should imagine."

  He turned back to the carter at the door, slipped him a shilling as he touched his hat.

  "Have you come all the way from the Hall just to deliver the dog?"

  "Nay, Sir William, I do come down thisaway every two weeks as is, at this time of year, but not so much in winter, wi' vegetables and hams and sides of beef and cheeses for the big house in Mount Street, all sorts of good grub what you can't be sure of layin' hands upon in London Town but what the estate do 'ave in plenty."

  "If so be you could get hold of more of the same sort of thing, and deliver to me here, as an extra, then be sure I would pay a very fair price for it. As you say, it is less easy every year to buy good food in London. What is your name?"

  "Jarge, sir, Jarge Cooper, I be."

  "Do you work for my lord, or for yourself?"

  "For the estate, Sir William. Captain Thame do 'ave the givin' of orders to I. Some days I just goes up to Kettering or down as far as Higham - once or twice a month, that be - an' a couple of times a year I do go to Northampton, or mostly I potters about from one part of the estate to another, just carrying firewood or the like. But fortnightly, like, I goes down to London Town early one morning and sleeps in the cart and gets there midway through the next, and then comes back wi' anything what been bought to be brought back to the Hall. Takes from Tuesday to Friday, that do."

  It was obviously an exciting life for a countryman.

  "Good, the Captain must think well of you to give you so important a job."

  That had not occurred to Cooper; he would have to think about it.

  "I will see you in a fortnight then, George."

  Cooper saluted and climbed up onto his cart, drove slowly away, the pair well in hand on the busy urban streets. A mile from the house he stopped and tied the horses to the railing in front of a provision shop and enquired at the counter of the amount charged in London for whole hams and sacks of potatoes and cabbages. He was horrified at the outrageous prices he was given - but he could see the chance to make a good few shillings for himself while providing Sir William with the food he wanted.

  "Ar, my good sir, you be goin' to see I next fortnight - bloody right you will!"

  Sir William called little William and Milly to join him in the kitchen.

  "Your dog, William! His name is Lord Tom and he is a mastiff. They are very big dogs and he will grow quickly, so you must train him properly to be obedient. You must talk to him and tell him he is good when he does what he should. Cook will give you little scraps of meat to reward him when he is obedient. You must never beat him, that is a very wrong thing to do."

  William scowled in concentration, memorising all he was told, as a good boy must.

  "My doggie?"

  "Yours, my son."

  "Thank you."

  He had been taught his manners from the first weeks of speech, had proved a quick learner. He sat down next to the big brindle puppy; missing its litter-mates it curled up, head on his lap, instantly bonding.

  "Good, Tom!"

  They left the two youngsters in the kitchen - not necessarily to the delight of the cook.

  "That is a very big dog, William!"

  "Every gentleman should have a dog, Milly-love. And nobody seeing that one will doubt that he's a gentleman's hound. I ain't never going to be more than a jumped-up navvy, Milly, but the boy can be something else. Say I leave him a good bit of money, then he can maybe get elected as Member of Parliament and make a name for himself, and marry a bit further up in the world, and then his boy can be a lot more. It's worth trying for, so we get him to talk properly and dress right and do the proper things, from when he's a little boy, and he will do well. We can't send him to one of them nobby schools, because they wouldn't take my son, so the idea I've got is to hire in a good tutor and then maybe put him up for Oxford when he's the right age. Best thing to do is to ask Mr Howard for his advice."

  Their own language tutor would certainly know what could or could not be done; he had never learned how to earn a living of his own, but he was very clever in other ways. He was settled now, acting as clerk to the Board and still grateful to them for having a full belly and warm clothes on his back.

  "I can find a suitable tutor for young William, Sir William, in a year or two from now. He should learn his letters from his mother and then he will be ready for proper education. English first, then Latin - he must have his Classical knowledge, even if he does not like it. Then, when he is ten or s
o, the decision must be taken, Sir William. He can learn his Greek and be prepared for the Universities, or he can be taught the mathematics and military skills so that he could become a soldier; there are several books to learn from - Dundas' Eighteen Manoeuvres and Le Marchant's New Drill Book are much recommended to the aspiring young man. Buy him a commission at sixteen in a Regiment of the Line, one that is soon to go overseas, and he will, if he lives, return as a captain at about age twenty-five. He can take his half-pay then as an officer and a gentleman; Captain Rumpage can become a Member of Parliament - from all you say it would be possible for my lord's family to find him a seat - and be very respectable, making a good marriage and bringing up his children as country gentlemen, perhaps."

  Sir William had not considered the Army for his son - a commission had never occurred to him. It was a risk, as active service must be involved as well as the fevers that struck down so many in foreign parts. He would almost certainly go out to India, a seven year posting with six months of travel on either end, but there could be great gains if he survived. He would talk it over with my lord and with Milly before any plans were made.

  For the while, there was work; his own fortune to be made.

  The organisation of the sea-coals trade was well in hand. He had purchased thirty acres outside of London, on the north of the River and well to the east of the existing town, towards a little place called Barking. The Thames was deep there and the wharves he was building should be free from silting. There would be steam engines to power derricks and trackways along the waterfront and a hundred yards or so to the coal heaps. If Mr Joseph produced his small steam locomotive engines he would put one or two of them to work - there would be coal in plenty, after all. There was to be space for five one thousand ton colliers to tie up at the same time - it was a pity that they could not build larger ships, but Sir Matthew would not countenance them.

  The more he thought of it, the greater the advantage he could see to launching a fleet of two, or even three, thousand tonners. A two thousand ton ship would have the same number of masts and need exactly the same number of seamen as a one thousand tonner; four more stokers for the second boiler, and a junior engineer to assist the two existing men; better to have two juniors in fact, to work the watches and always have a pair of engineers available. The cost in steam coals and wages per ton carried would certainly not double. The gains were massive and certain, while the losses were theoretical, would only occur if the larger ship showed less seaworthy, and that was by no means certain, or so he believed.

  He needed a set of designs for a bigger ship - an engineer must specify the details. The hull would have to be longer and broader, and that meant the timber ribs would have to be bigger, and more of them, perhaps spaced closer together. He had no idea of what the dimensions should be, and had no means of making the calculations - he was not trained or experienced in any of the theory. If he sent a letter to Mr Joseph then it was odds on that Alec Fraser would hear about it and that Sir Matthew would be told within the next day - and he had forbidden the bigger ships. Perhaps he should go down to the Southampton yard - they were forever running out new designs down there - ferries and tenders for the navy and whatever; they might do the building as well, out of sight and mind.

  That would have to wait a couple of weeks, he was needed in the locality for the while, could not simply call for a post-chaise or jump on the next ship along the coast.

  Sir William had been invited to become an alderman of the old borough, with responsibilities and money to be spent; not a lot of money as taxes were very low, but he had oversight of the roads and bridges and shared the burden of the distribution of outdoor relief and was on the committee of the orphanage. As well, and potentially the most controversial, he had to watch over the draw for the Militia. Every adult male over the age of eighteen and not an apprentice could be balloted into the county battalion, provided they were healthy and not essential in some way to a family or business. In time of peace the authorities were inclined to be relaxed in their conscriptions - during the war years they had been forced to make up their numbers irrespective of hardship.

  The militia numbered about one man in every two hundred, so the chances of being conscripted were very slight and any man whose name was drawn could provide a substitute, thus allowing for volunteers, a process that could be quite profitable as the price had risen as high as two hundred pounds in some years, though lower now. In the nature of things, substitutes were called on after the ballot, and after the medical inspections, such as they were, and there had been many examples of the one legged or ancient hobbling into the barracks on the appointed day, leading to outraged demands on the local authorities.

  It was very tempting to manipulate the ballot - the tickets were drawn in public but it was not difficult to bring out the names of able-bodied paupers and suspected petty criminals to fill the ranks of the amateur army. The militia was almost always posted away from its home area, the Londoners commonly to be found on the streets of the mill towns preventing insurrection and putting down riot, though generally accused of creating most of the trouble themselves. At any given time some forty of the borough's men would be serving in the ranks, out of sight and harm's way for three years; some of them would come to like the life and would transfer to the regular army at the end of their enlistment and more would be willing to sell themselves as substitutes, getting them off the streets and out of the tax-payers' pockets.

  Problems arose occasionally when a son of the middle order of people was carelessly drawn from the box, and there was no willing substitute to hand. A medical certificate of incapacity could be purchased cheaply - most doctors would supply them as a matter of course - but the alderman in charge of proceedings then had to decide whether to accept it, in public. The claim that a beefy eighteen year old was consumptive and wasting away could arouse a degree of derision, yet a son of the privileged could not be permitted to waste years of his life carrying a musket in the company of drunken wastrels.

  The most common solution was to turn to the local Clink, to pick out a minor felon awaiting trial for theft or drunken affray. Given a choice between a flogging followed by transportation or patriotically volunteering to join the local force, most would cooperate, take the money as a substitute and desert within the sennight. The magistrates, aware of the transaction, would normally wink at it but were occasionally irritated when the convict they had sent down in a previous month appeared in front of them again, having been caught on the local streets.

  Sir William had also been made a magistrate and took his turn on the Bench, junior man of three, about every eight weeks.

  The habit in London was to remand capital cases to the High Court, to be heard before judge and jury, but it was still possible to deal with the most flagrant cases summarily. Where, for example, a murder was committed in public before a crowd of witnesses, as occasionally happened, then it would have been a waste of money to take up a judge's valuable time on a trial. Sir William had been unfortunate enough to have such a case brought before him recently and had not enjoyed playing a part in it - an ineffectual young attorney's clerk who had been cuckolded repeatedly and had met his wife and her latest lover in the street next to a knife-cutler's stall and had put a carving knife to surprisingly good use, both very dead in front of a market-day crowd. He had to hang, and the magistrates had to watch him dangle, having ordered the execution - but Sir William had found he had no stomach for cold-blooded butchery; over his years as a navvy he had played his part in any number of brawls, quite unmoved, but he had found it hard to keep his breakfast in its proper place as the judicial parade had taken place and the weeping murderer had been ceremoniously killed.

  He debated stepping down from the Bench, but he needed the local prestige if he was to continue to be one of the great and if his son was to climb up in the world.

  It was a nuisance and took valuable time, which had to be made up in evenings and on Saturdays - Sunday being publicly given to chur
ch-going.

  He performed his tasks, smiling benignly, watched by the crowds who valued him as one of their own come up in the world but still remembering his roots - 'no side to Sir William', was the general opinion, or to my lady who still visited her mum and dad two and three times a week and proud of them. Too often a shopkeeper who found himself with two pennies to rub together discovered he was far too important a man to have parents from a street corner - but the Rumpages knew just who they were, and the ordinary folk liked them for it.

  Three weeks and he took ship, two quiet days to fill in, not expecting to reach Southampton till the following evening. Knowles knew he was coming and would have arranged a room for him so all he had to do was relax - and he did not really know how to do that, not any more. As a navvy relaxation had been a boisterous, roistering sort of business, but he had progressed beyond that, no longer found the prospect of helpless drunkenness attractive, and, as for chasing the local whores - no thank you! He had brought a book with him and sat down on a bench in the sunshine, and very rapidly dropped off to sleep.

  "So, Mr Knowles, as you will have heard, Mr Joseph Andrews has recently suffered bereavement beyond the ordinary measure, and is in no way to produce the drawings for a larger collier such as we require. Have you an engineer who can do so?"

  "I can do the job myself, Sir William. I spent much of last winter, when business was slack - fewer orders always in the cold months, for some reason - drawing out the lines of a coal carrier to work the East Coast. We bought the old sail loft what was used to be next door to us, as you know, sir, and I have had the floor cleared and we chalk out hulls to size in there before we lays the keel, everything measured to the inch exact - and it takes time and saves a damn sight more than it uses, sir! No surprises when everything is laid out in front of your eyes, sir! The thing we have found, Sir William, is that two boilers side by side, right and left, makes for a ship surprisingly broad in the beam for her length, which will do nothing for her speed through the water. It do, however, lead to a stability that means we can put steam powered derricks aboard for to do her own off-loading in the smaller places what don't have their own cranes wharfside."