Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 ..

by Taylor, Winchcombe

  "Tell me what ye've done all these years. 'Twill pass the time most pleasantly."

  He forced himself to tell of India and of his adventures there, and she listened, entranced. "Now it's your turn to tell," he ended, crossing to the brandy bottle. His back to her, he dripped a little of the drug into her glass.

  Meg had died—of a pox in some German state—she said. For years she herself had wandered across Europe, following the only trade she knew. She, too, had become infected, she admitted, but was cured by an Italian doctor, who then made her his mistress. Chance came to travel to Britain. "Wasn't I Welsh Meg's brat? It was my home

  —besides I hoped to find you." She'd even gone afoot all the way to Dalesview. "But when I saw that great house and all the fine horses and cattle, I was afeared ye wouldn't want to see me." Returning to London, she had gradually sunk into the depths.

  "But I swore I'd stay clean. That's why I married. I'd never have looked at another man but Jack, if he hadn't drove me to it. All it got me was his blows and a month in Bridewell to 'correct my morals' —I still bear lash scars on my back. Love, give me more drink." Her speech was becoming slurred.

  This time he added a larger amount. Carla! Carla! Her name was throbbing in his brain. Even without the laudanum, the brandy was potent. Soon she'd sleep and he'd watch over her. A death watch!

  Wlien he brought the drink, her eyes brightened and she took his hand. "Do you remember how last we met? Ye saved me then, as a gallant knight should. Did I reward ye well? 'Twas all I could give."

  He dropped on his knees and put his arms around her waist. "Dear heart, I remember well."

  She hid her face against his shoulder. "Ram," she said in a small voice. "Will ye take me again? I'm sound, as God's my judge. Oh, lad, I love ye so!"

  If it was hard for her to undress with the fetters around her ankles, neither knew it. It was as if they were back in the cart, with Meg and Scotch Nan washing shirts outside and old Dobbin munching grass near by. Time for bed!

  She began to giggle as he undressed in turn. " 'Tis most immodest of me to wear iron abed to my lover. I trust 'twill not discommode ye?"

  She wore only the fetters and their connecting chain. No, something else. The strange stone on its thin silver chain around her neck.

  "You still have it!" he pointed, and she laughed.

  "Aye. Many's the time an empty belly's tempted me to sell it, but 'tis of small value. Besides, I loved it." Her arms went toward him. "Oh, Ram, it's so right to be with ye now!"

  During the night he gave her more drugged brandy, until he felt she was really no longer aware of anything. Yet later she rallied and sat up, fumbling with the silver chain.

  "Help me," she mumbled. "Wear it always f'r Carla."

  Gently he transferred the thin chain and its stone to his own neck.

  "rm glad," she whispered, her eyes glazed. "Now gi' me more brandy and love me once more. The night passes—fast."

  Once she began moaning and muttering of things long past, some of them terrible; yet constantly she reverted to Cart, Dobbin and Regiment. He himself had drunk so much that even without laudanum he could barely remain awake. We all must die, he kept reminding himself. She'll know little about it. But don't let her fear. God, if she'd awaken, I'd give her more of the stuff! He tried to pour a strong mixture of drug and brandy down her throat but her gagging lost most of it.

  Then his eyes closed and he seemed to have slept only a moment when he was being shaken. Dull light streamed through the window.

  It was Flint, leering down at their nudity and so obviously thinking the "Capting" was one of those strange coves.

  Tight-lipped, Ram dressed. There was movement in the doorway. Young Joe was peering in anxiously. Ram beckoned to him. Only his own people should touch her now.

  "Help me dress her." Together, they pulled her shift over her head, drew on her gown and laced her stays. Her head lolled and she muttered broken words.

  The ordinary ventured in, wearing his canonicals. He wanted to be officious, but the guineas Ram had given him—far more than he could have made by printing Carla's "Dying Confession"—made him nervously servile.

  "Others need you—go!" Ram bade him, and he obeyed.

  She was ready.

  "Joe, take her other side." Ram's voice had taken on a military harshness. "Precede us, gentlemen, we'll not delay."

  Slowly, her feet dragging, the chains clanking on the floor, they half carried her into the passage and down the stairway. They entered the Stone Hall, which was now crowded by officials and curious prisoners. The four condemned men had already gone.

  Kane came up, scrutinized her carefully, nodded and turned to Ram. "A mourning coach awaits. She'll not be aware of anything. Bring her to the stone."

  The Newgate bell was tolling, answered by St. Sepulchre's. At the stone, the Four Partners were waiting with tools.

  "This way," Flint beckoned, and Ram and Young Joe brought her to it. One of her feet was lifted upon it and a partner began hammer-

  ing out the gyve's rivets. Then the other was freed. Ram looked at her face. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing stertorously.

  "Stand away." Flint took one of her arms, while his fellow turnkey took the other. They half carried her toward the lodge.

  Ram gazed after her, willing himself to remain without thought.

  Her legs buckled. Flint's confrere grabbed her arm so roughly that she moaned.

  Something snapped in Ram's brain.

  "Carla!"

  "Escape! Escape!" voices yelled. "Watch him!"

  Red danced before his eyes.

  "CARLA!"

  His head burst and the red turned to black. Black . . . !

  There was no trial for Ram that day. Suffering from a brain concussion—for which the Partner who had flailed him with Carla's gyves was demoted back to being a mere felon—he lay for weeks near death; even his lucid moments tortured by imaginings of Carla's pitiful end. But at last, thanks to Joseph and Kane, he mended.

  Kelton came with mixed news. The trial would now come up in Trinity Sessions, late in May. The cutpurse Ram wounded had named four accomplices, but these were now all on their way to India.

  "An H.E.I.C. trick!" Ram groaned. "No news of the Morgans?"

  "None, though we found the half-built house in Wales. But don't fret over those kidnaped rogues. We've still the important one safe."

  "Where is there that's safe?"

  "Here in Newgate. 'Twas easy to have stolen goods 'found' on him. He'll make a good witness. If we win, his 'accuser' will fail to appear against him. If we lose—well, he's small loss to the world." Kelton added that he was keeping Sir Joel and Murray informed.

  A letter from Will made Ram hope the Dalesview folk had read of his peril and were offering sympathy, but Will merely wrote again of the fortune to be made in mining lead. So Ram sent him a draft for 2,000 guineas and said nothing of his danger. He had Kelton draw up his will. His uncle was his heir and—one never knew.

  During the next weeks he walked daily in the Press Yard, received friends and worried about Annie. Had Fred murdered her—or what?

  Trinity Term began. Two days before Ram was to appear, Murray

  came bleakly. Sir Joel, it seemed, was suddenly ill and couldn't plead. Further, every other leading barrister the Scot had approached was also ill, out of town or on another case.

  "You've a terrible enemy," he warned. "Mind, I'd welcome facing the Crown's counsel alone, but I've never before pleaded a murder case."

  "What can we do?" Ram felt his neck depended upon the answer.

  "Let Mr. Murray defend ye, he'll save ye!" Kelton insisted. "Nor have I been idle. Every news sheet speaks of ye. Too, I've a list of your friends and in your name I've invited 'em to attend."

  Ram had no knowledge of law, but he did know that missing witnesses, an unfledged counsel and the H.E.I.C.'s grudge made poor odds.

  On the morning of the trial, Pitt arrived with his minions. He apologi
zed that the accused must be fettered and that Ketch must go with him, carrying a fine cord to tie his thumbs should the senior judge put on the black cap.

  Ram shivered as the gyves were riveted on. Would they be knocked off in the Stone Hall, with the cart waiting? He stared loathingly at Ketch, who had put the noose around Carla's neck.

  His chain clanking, he was led out through the Press Yard. The street was crowded—Hilary's doing—and a ragged cheer went up.

  "They ain't agin ye. Captain." Flint gauged the mob with a practiced eye. "No dead cats ner nothink." He pointed ahead. Outside the Old Bailey sessions house, coaches and chairs were disgorging modish people. The cheering grew louder.

  After being held awhile in the bail dock, Ram was led into the court. On a high rostrum, under the Royal Arms and those of the City of London, sat the judges, presided over by His Worship the Lord Mayor. Many of the people jamming the galleries were known to Ram. The ground floor was packed with standees.

  Below the bench the Crown barristers sat around a document-littered table, each toying with a nosegay—protection against the foul odor whence the fatal "gaol fever" was supposed to spring. At the table's far end Murray sat alone. To one side were the jurymen.

  "Set Ramillies Anstruther to the bar."

  He was led to a small raised dock.

  "How sayest thou, Ramillies Anstruther, art thou guilty of the felony whereof thou standest indicted, or not guilty?"

  "Not guilty!"

  "Culprit, how wilt thou be tried?"

  "By God and my country," Ram said, prompted from below by Kelton.

  "God send thee a good deliverance."

  He seemed to have small chance of deliverance. Though charged only with murder, the Crown implied that previously he had broken the law by serving the H.E.I.C.'s rivals, by suborning that Company's servants and by waging war against its allies. The prosecutors then charged that when accused of these acts by a late Company officer, he had lain in wait and killed him with malice aforethought. Tliey called witnesses who had seen the Anstruther-Rale quarrel; they regretted that General Wade's duties precluded his giving testimony in person, but he had made a sworn statement. This last did Ram no great harm, since the general had tried to be fair.

  Murray rose to cross-examine. His elegance gave way to ruthless-ness as he questioned the witnesses. Under his prodding, all admitted Ram had not been the aggressor, that Ram had behaved only as a man of honor resenting an insult, that Rale had then backed down cravenly.

  The chairmen testified how they had set Ram down near Red Lion Square; watch members told of arresting him, sword in hand, bending over the body. He himself was examined and cross-examined.

  Murray's next witness was scarred from ear to nose. His name, curiously, was Heartease Deliver and he admitted a gentleman had hired him and some friends to punish a "scoundrel" who intended to force an entrance into a certain house in Red Lion Square. Under Murray's questioning, he admitted attacking the "scoundrel," who had given him a swordcut. His employer, having been killed by the "scoundrel," had not paid the witness or his friends for their services. These friends, he'd heard, had lately been sent as soldiers to India.

  His admissions caused such a stir that the Crown lawyers hastily cross-examined him, but elicited only that for some months he'd been confined in Newgate on what, he whined, was a trumped-up charge.

  Hilary testified how Ram was brought bleeding into the round-

  house, and of what he had said. Dressed gaudily, Hilary enjoyed himself; for the only occasion he had ever expected to attend the Old Bailey was as a prisoner about to be condemned.

  The day was half spent when a man and a woman forced their way through the crowd: he reluctantly, she urging him on.

  "D'ye know 'em?" Kelton whispered. "Who are they?"

  "The Morgans!" Ram felt lightheaded.

  The attorney joined them, spoke urgently, then took them to Murray,

  "Your Lordships," the future Earl of Mansfield and Chief Justice began ringingly, "here are two vital witnesses I desire to be sworn!"

  Standing beside him Annie, tight-lipped, waved at Ram. Strangely for this time of year, she carried a small muff. Fred looked ghastly.

  After a hurried colloquy, Murray put Annie on the stand.

  Yes, she had known the accused both in India and London. She and her husband, also a Hindustan friend of the accused, had received many visits from him at their Red Lion Square house. She admitted having asked him to call on a certain evening just after her husband had supposedly left for Wales. She had wished to consult him about closing the house. But while awaiting his arrival, her husband had returned and with him was a Major Rale.

  The lord mayor threatened to clear the court unless the hubbub ceased.

  No, she hadn't known Major Rale in India, but her husband had once served as ensign under him at Fort William, though he'd left to become a junior trader with the Ostend Company, of which her father was chief factor.

  What had happened when Major Rale arrived with her husband?

  "After he and Mr. Morgan had drunk several glasses and he had departed, my husband ordered me to leave with him in a coach."

  "Did ye so accompany him?"

  "Not at once. I had nothing packed. But he ordered my maid to prepare what I'd need for a journey. He'd dismissed my other servants."

  Murray glanced at the huddled King's counselors and smiled. "Madam, be so good as to describe what ensued."

  "There was knocking on the front door and I recognized Captain Anstruther's voice shouting, 'Open!'" She told of hearing fighting,

  and the accused calling for help. She ran toward the door, but her husband seized her, dragged her out through the back and into a waiting coach. "Mr. Morgan struck me and threatened me with death!"

  The lord mayor again warned he would clear the court.

  She told of how Fred had taken her to Dover and forced her to board a French-bound lugger with him. Since then they had traveled through France, Italy and the German states. Later he told her the captain had been killed in the fight. They had arrived back in London two days ago. By chance she had read in the Daily Post that the captain was to be tried today. She had suggested—she looked hard at Fred—that Mr. Morgan come with her to testify, and he had agreed.

  The Crown's cross-examination was shrewd, but already she's proved Fred had both known and connived in Rale's plot to assassinate Ram.

  Fred was sworn in. He kept glancing at Annie so nervously that Murray treated him scathingly. Ram watched in grateful bewilderment, became aware that the hand she kept in her muff pointed at Fred. Once, when he jibbed at admitting Rale had promised him immunity for having deserted the H.E.LC. in exchange for his help, he seemed about to scream a denial, but a slight click changed his mind and he answered affirmatively.

  Ram had to hold back mad laughter. Lud, it was rich—Annie had brought Fred here at pistol point!

  The Crown barristers now knew that they had no case. True, they cross-examined Fred, but he was so bemused he merely blurted further damaging facts.

  The summing up, and the jury retired. Ram was taken back to the bail dock, where Jack Ketch was waiting.

  He was returned to hear the jury's decision—Not Guilty! In their belief, he had killed Rale, but while being attacked by him and others, which was every Englishman's right to do when his life was in peril.

  The lord mayor gave his judgment: The accused was innocent of the charge, yet he had slain one of His Majesty's subjects. A penalty must be exacted. The prisoner at the bar, therefore, must be branded . . .

  Ram could hear no more, for the cheering was deafening. Branded!

  He didn't think they did such things these days. If he'd been proved innocent, why must he be disfigured?

  But Kelton was shouting and grabbing his hand. Even Murray had left the barristers' table to congratulate him. Annie tried to reach him, but the press was too great.

  "Clear the court!" the usher pleaded.

  "Come on.
Captain, best git it done." Ketch stood beside him. "We'll do it right and proper. Then we'll knock off the fetters."

  God! Ram thought, to be scarred with an "M!"

  Back in Newgate, the turnkeys and a mob of prisoners looking on, he waited in the Stone Hold for Ketch to do his duty. He was terribly aware that in yonder caldron the heads and limbs of executed traitors were boiled in tar before being hung upon the city's gates.

  Ketch took down a small iron. "Right thumb out, if you please."

  Solemnly Ketch pressed the end of the iron upon the ball of his thumb. "There ye are, sir—an' I hope ye won't forget I don't receive your fine clothes as me perquisites."

  "All done?" Ram stared at him.

  "Didn't ye hear what his lordship said? 'Branded on the thumb with an iron.' Didn't say hot or cold, so cold it is!"

  Ram laughed so hysterically that the Partners had difficulty holding him still while they knocked off his fetters.

  CHAPTER 13

  DALESVIEW AND LONDON,

  1731

  Ram walked into his bedchamber briskly and found Young Joe admiring himself before the long cheval mirror. The boy wore a suit Ram had recently discarded, a powdered wig and a gold-laced tricorn

  perched jauntily on one side. He was holding down a sword's hilt, so that its scabbard kept his coat's skirt out behind modishly.

  "I thought you'd turned that suit into ready money," Ram grinned.

  "Oh, God!" The boy hastily unbuckled and dropped the sword —Ram's second best—whipped off the hat and bowed confusedly.

  "You make a fine figure," Ram said dr'ly. "But are we packed? We sup tonight at St. Albans."

  "Oh, yes. Captain!" Joe pointed to the baggage. "Father and Peg-Leg'll help me stow it." He shot out.

  Ram slipped leisurely out of his own brocaded coat, selected one more conservative, made sure his purse was filled and his watch in his fob, examined the priming of his pistols.

  Soon he was being driven along the Great North Road. He hoped Annie wouldn't be late. She'd been both the town's heroine and its target, so it was best they go north till the scandal died. Also, though she'd bought off Fred, and he was supposed to stay in Wales, he might still be man enough to resent being made a known cuckold.