Jack Frake

by Edward Cline

  “Yes, Mr. Ayre, that is precisely the import of the advertisement — which, I might add, was pressed upon Mr. Carveth, the publisher of the Mercury, over his strenuous objections, and did not, of course, require the usual one shilling stamp tax for advertisements.”

  “But we already knew that,” remarked another gang-member. “There’s only three of us here who wouldn’t be hanged: Jack, Elmo and Mr. Claxon.”

  “Oh, they’d be hanged,” said another. “Or they’d get such a sentence that they’d wish they was hanged.”

  “It is a somewhat redundant but nonetheless sinister proclamation,” explained Redmagne. “However, the Gazetting Act was passed by Parliament, and, while it circumscribes what few legal protections we may have in the law courts, it carries the full force of law. Trust Mr. Pannell and his magistrates to speedily employ it. If apprehended, we will be long dead before some brave lawyer champions the charge that this perfidious act is unconstitutional.” Redmagne paused. “A copy of this proclamation has been posted by the bailiff on the doors of St. Brea’s in Gwynnford. Skelly asked that you be advised of the development.” He paused. “We are damned men now, every one of us.”

  His statement was answered with silence. The men knew it.

  Skelly rose and addressed his men. “But — we will not grow desperate, will we? We will not stoop to the level of the Hawkhurst gang, and become brutes who taunt and torture the Revenue’s informers and lackeys. We will be moved by love of liberty, not by raw, insensible malice.”

  The men said nothing.

  “Well, gentlemen: will we? Or will we shame our likely captors with our dignity and the rightness of our cause?”

  “Not without a fight,” growled Charles Ambrose, the former sergeant. Other men at the table echoed his protest.

  “No,” agreed Skelly, “surely not without a fight! But neither with malice.” He laughed. “We are not common criminals,” he exclaimed. “It is the King and the Customs Board and Henoch Pannell who are the desperate men! They cannot bribe Britons to betray us, they cannot think hard enough to outwit us, and when the wind blows just a little foul and when the waves threaten to wet their woolens, they will not risk a bead of sweat to pursue us! So they prostitute the courts and the law to ensure our deaths. We shall not dignify these knaves with powerful hate, but spurn them with our contempt!”

  This time it was Redmagne’s turn to propose a toast. He asked the men to rise and take up their tankards. “We, the condemned, salute Skelly, ourselves and our liberties!”

  “Aye,” answered Charles Ambrose. “We should salute ourselves. No one else will.”

  * * *

  Two weeks later, in early November, Jack Frake came down from his watch on the hill above the caves to report the change. The soft evening rain had turned to snow and he beat his hat against his leg to shake off the drops. He went straight to Redmagne’s chamber to report the change in watch.

  Redmagne, seated at his own desk, smiled strangely at him. He did not reply to the boy’s report, but said, instead, “It is finished.”

  “What is?” asked Jack Frake.

  Redmagne picked up a pile of paper from his desk and dropped it again. “Hyperborea.”

  It was a novel based on the Greek myth of a race that worshipped Apollo and lived in a land of sunshine and plenty beyond the north wind, and related the adventures of Drury Trantham, the captain of a shipwrecked merchantman. It was Redmagne’s life’s work, begun after he joined the Skelly gang. It made him ashamed that he had ever written satires. In it he was trying something new in the novels of the period, a plot derived from the actions of the protagonists. He had often, in between smuggling runs, secluded himself in his chamber in the caves for days at a time to work on it, coming out only for meals.

  Jack Frake saw that Redmagne was oddly affected by elation, melancholy and despair. “May I read it?” he eagerly asked the man.

  “But, of course, Jack,” chuckled Redmagne. “It’s a wonderful story,” he said to the boy, “about a land much like our own, but where there are no kings, no customs men, and no caves — no need of them, you see. I will have this published someday, somehow, but under another name, of course. Under my own the Crown would arrest the publisher, and I, like Daniel Defoe, would be honor-bound to exonerate him by surrendering myself to the authorities. But my fate would not be as sweet as Defoe’s. No, Jack, not at all. No pillory for me, with the populace pelting me with flowers, as it did Defoe, instead of dead cats and stones and ordure. No, I would be hanged, and before that, forced to watch the hangman burn my book. So, I must use another name, and pay a printer to compose and bind it, and remain in these caves of anonymity.”

  “Why would they burn it?”

  “Because, Jack, in it is a message, and the message is this: We have no need of kings, no need of a king’s churchmen. And that, my boy, is a treasonable message.” Redmagne rose and paced excitedly. “No kings! Can you imagine it? No kings, and so no need for all the varieties of Danegeld! It’s an allegory, you see, because Hyperborea was once in thrall to another kingdom, the kingdom of Hypocrisia. But Hyperborea threw off its bondage, and became a happy land, a great land, a prosperous land. Suppose — Oh! Wild imagination! — suppose our colonies in America did such a thing? Can you imagine them nullifying their numbing bondage? Revoking their oath of loyalty to the King? Not petitioning him for protection from Parliament? What an outlandish miracle that would be! Perhaps too far-fetched! The parable of the loaves and fishes is much more credible a tale!” Redmagne grinned devilishly. “There are no gods in the story, Jack, except for Apollo, but he makes no actual appearance in the story, except as a statue in a temple. The book will be fortunate to be called pagan, and not atheistic. The name of God appears occasionally in some of the spicier dialogue, sometimes in jest, other times in mild profanity, but that will be up to the critics to sort out.” He sat down again and chuckled in amusement.

  Jack Frake asked, “Is it anything like Gulliver’s Travels?” He had read much of Jonathan Swift’s works, liking some parts of the stories, disliking others.

  “A little, but much better,” said Redmagne. “Swift was a bit of a crank. He did not much care for humankind. That’s why he created the Yahoos and the Lilliputians and the Houyhnhnms. You remember the Houyhnhnms from the Travels, don’t you? The race guided by nothing but reason, who knew no conflict, no war, no… stupidity. Well, my Hyperboreans are something like the Houyhnhnms, only much pleasanter to know, and Drury Trantham elects to stay with them — after some initial misunderstandings, of course — because he finds nothing impossible and everything wonderful about them. They live on an island in the frigid climes, but their greatness warms the earth and makes it habitable.”

  Jack Frake did not know the meaning of these remarks, and he smiled weakly. Redmagne did not seem happy about having finished his novel.

  Redmagne observed Jack’s reticence, and understood. “I am as you see me, because I am awash in melancholy, and also in this fine French wine.” He picked up a glass, took a sip, then rested an affectionate hand on the top page of the manuscript. “This is the legend of Hyperborea as related by Methuselah Redmagne! Do you see here? I have put my Frake-appointed name on it! The legend with contemporaneous modifications to it. A land of abundance without labor? Well, the Greeks had their gods provide all the comforts, but we must be more realistic than that! No loaves and fishes for the Hyperboreans! My Hyperboreans labor, they create, they invent, they improvise, they think — all the things we do, Jack, and reap the full benefits and so live in a man-made paradise! Oh, Jack! I began life as a man with a knack for ditties and limericks, then became skilled at mocking useless lives, and may end it yet on a higher estate with just this one fantastic league of ink!” Redmagne’s mouth became grim. “I am resolved, Jack, that while I must live in these caves, this book shall not! It shall see the light of day, forever. I have more than enough guineas for a sumptuous edition.” He paused. “You have a careful handwriting, Jack. Will y
ou help me copy it?”

  “Yes,” answered the boy.

  “Thank you.” Redmagne leaned forward in his chair. “We have no goods to run for a week. When would you like to begin?”

  “Tonight, if you wish.”

  “Tonight? No, Jack. Tonight, I wish to be alone with my mistress.” Redmagne patted the top page again. “Tomorrow would be a better time.”

  Jack Frake went over and looked at the page. It gave him a kind of satisfaction to see the manuscript, even though he had had nothing to do with producing it. “I have a suggestion, Redmagne.”

  “What?”

  “Your name here. I think you should choose another.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “Well, wasn’t your masque — Latitia: or, the New Gorgon Unveiled — wasn’t it popular?” He had read the satires, plays and masques Redmagne had managed to save from his theatrical years.

  “Popular?” laughed Redmagne. “It was our troupe’s salvation! We must have performed it six times a week in various houses and courts in London. We even were invited to perform it one evening in Vauxhall Gardens. One old earl thought it too critical of civility, and threatened to have our troupe’s license taken away.”

  “But… wasn’t Methuselah Redmagne the hero?”

  “Why, yes, he was.”

  “Someone might recognize that name and make trouble. The printer might be arrested for dealing with a wanted felon.”

  “Not after all these years.” But Redmagne looked worried for the first time. “Jack, you’ve got a point.” He looked at the boy. “What name would you suggest?”

  Jack Frake turned and grinned. “Romney Marsh!”

  Redmagne looked doubtful. Romney Marsh, in Kent, was the notorious stamping ground of some of the most violent smuggling gangs in the country. More Revenue officers had been assaulted and even killed by smugglers during skirmishes there than in any other county.

  “They’re real names,” urged Jack Frake, “and who would think you were the author? People might think of smugglers, but no one would think of you. It would be artful coincidence. I’ll wager it would sell a lot of copies!”

  Redmagne chuckled. He thought the matter over, then rose and bowed. “Jack, may I have the honor of introducing Mr. Romney Marsh, author of Hyperborea?” Then he laughed, as heartily as Jack Frake had ever heard him laugh, and slapped his forehead once. “My lord! Another name!”

  * * *

  Over the next two weeks, Jack Frake helped Redmagne make two copies of Hyperborea: or, the Adventures of Drury Trantham, Shipwrecked Merchant, in the Unexplored Northern Regions. These were for the printer — provided Redmagne could find one brave enough to accept them — while the original manuscript would remain in the author’s possession. Soon after the task was finished, Redmagne left for London. Jack Frake then had time to take in the novel, for the task of copying was not conducive to reading for appreciation.

  And Redmagne was right: The novel was unlike any work of fiction he had read in the man’s library. It was not a satire, it was not a chronology; it was not even a hybrid of the two genres. It was a story. The adventures of Drury Trantham — who he suspected was modeled in large part on Skelly — occupied his interest and free time. Drury Trantham became almost a separate person to him, an experience he had not had with any previous fictional character. The story left him happy; Drury Trantham left him confident. He was captivated by the novel, and he would turn the sheets back to his favorite episodes and read them again.

  He wondered at the depth of imagination in Redmagne, who had indeed created, in his story, a land much like England, but without any of its misery. It was recognizable, yet unrecognizable at the same time, but credible. He could not reconcile these reactions, but they left him with another feeling: hope.

  It was true, what Redmagne had said: There were no caves in Hyperborea, neither in fact, nor in men’s souls. His mind clutched at the passages in which Trantham grasped this fact himself, for in many respects he identified with the hero. He would lie awake at night on his pallet, watching the shadows cast by Richard Claxon’s candle dance on the cave ceiling, and know that Drury Trantham and other members of his shipwrecked crew were Skelly, Redmagne, and other members of the gang, released to live as they ought to have lived.

  He asked Skelly if he had ever read the novel. Skelly answered gruffly, “I’ll read it in its proper form — a printed book — and no sooner.” But Jack Frake suspected that Skelly knew more about it than he would let on.

  In a week, Redmagne returned.

  “Any problems?” asked Skelly.

  “None!” laughed Redmagne. He took a sheet of paper from his valise, a contract, and showed it to Skelly. “The novel will be published in May, in two duodecimo volumes, by A. Dawson and Sons, printers and booksellers, Pater-Noster Row, London.”

  Skelly handed back the contract. “And your ‘new’ name — Romney Marsh — did Mr. Dawson express any curiosity?”

  “In the beginning,” said Redmagne. “But it was snuffed out when I plunked a bag of guineas on his desk. He thought it was a good selling device, that name. Jack — bless his soul — was right. People will be intrigued by it, and purchase copies of the book by the gross.”

  “And he read the book?”

  “In two nights.”

  “And he did not find in it anything seditious?”

  “Yes — and no. He says it can be read one way or another. He will hire a Grub Street man to write an encomium proving that it is a delightful tale written by a man whose mind spins on Egyptian snuff. His very words.”

  “And he expressed no desire to know your actual name?”

  “None. Half of Dawson’s titles are authored by Anonymous.”

  Skelly sat down and studied his friend for a moment. “I don’t need to tell you that this may prove to be more dangerous for you than running French furniture at midday on a calm sea. If this work of yours is adjudged seditious or treasonable, you will have a proclamation published all your own.”

  “You’re forgetting the churchmen, Augustus, and charges of heresy.”

  Skelly rose and went to the wing table and brought back a bottle of claret and two glasses. He filled the glasses and handed one to Redmagne. “Here’s to the success of your novel, Mr. Marsh. You make my life seem so dull.”

  “Dull?” laughed Redmagne. “I would not have a life, were it not for you, my friend.”

  Chapter 14: The Laughing Lamb

  “FAIR WEATHER,” SIGHED SKELLY. “THE BANE OF SMUGGLERS. PRAY for a tempest.”

  “You pray for a tempest,” laughed Captain John Ramshaw. “I’ll hope for a gentle southwestern breeze.”

  The two men sat at a table by a window in the Laughing Lamb tavern in St. Peter Port, Guernsey. The cloudless, intense July sky was only a shade less blue than the surface of the water, and at times their only demarcation was a thin, indistinct line on the horizon that was the coast of Normandy, forty miles away. A whitecap would appear now and then, or the form of a bird diving into the water, or a white sail in the distance. From the window, they could see The Hasty Hart anchored next to the Sparrowhawk in the quay. Contraband had been loaded onto the sloop the day before, and the two vessels awaited a favorable wind.

  Skelly and Ramshaw were old patrons of the Laughing Lamb, whose owner, a retired “owler,” had made a small fortune running wool out of England to Flanders and France. Ramshaw was as tall as Skelly, but leaner. His broad face looked as though it had survived a scalding, but this was merely the complexion of a man who had spent most of his adult life at sea. His black hair was peppered with a gray that matched his eyes. “Where is the charming Mr. O’Such?” he asked. “I was looking forward to his bonhomie.”

  “London,” said Skelly, after a sip of his ale. “He wrote a book under an unusual alias and has gone there to see to some business. It’s a novel, published just this May. He rushed into my chamber last week and said ‘Augustus, my book is a success! It has driven the critics to a frenzy, gone
into a second edition, and, best news of all, it has been paid the supreme compliment — it has been pirated!’”

  Ramshaw laughed, as did Skelly.

  “He begged me for leave from this run to see the printer,” continued Skelly, “who thinks illustrations in a third edition will sell more copies and make the book more attractive than the pirated copies. The printer’s had an engraver do a few plates, and wants O’Such to approve them.”

  “Busy life, has your Mr. O’Such,” said Ramshaw. “Is it worth reading?”

  “Yes,” said Skelly. “And churchmen think so, too, at least enough that one or two of them have railed against it to their flocks.” He laughed. “Of course, that only prods their flocks from ignorance to curiosity. Unenviable profession,” he remarked. “The preacher must play the devil. To communicate the benefits of abstinence, he must dangle a delectable pippin before the eyes of a sin-starved congregation.”

  “Then I might get myself a copy of this book of his. Can’t say I read much in the way of novels, but the crossings are long, and, who knows?” Ramshaw paused to relight his pipe.

  Skelly nodded. “How soon will you sail back?”

  “In a month or so. In London I’ll load half my hold with the usual manufactures, then come round to Portsmouth or Falmouth for some meat and provisions. Then on up to Bristol. But that depends on how many bodies we pick up before then.”

  “Indentures?”

  Ramshaw nodded. “Mostly. I might buy some felons, too.” As a merchant captain, Ramshaw could purchase the indentures of felons and resell them in the colonies to anyone seeking cheap labor.

  “That’s a foul business, John,” remarked Skelly darkly.

  “Not so,” said Ramshaw. “England gets rid of her dross, and I make a pound on each felon I take off her hands.” It was an old argument between the two men, never resolved.

  Ramshaw worked his pipe again, studying Skelly between puffs on the clay stem. Then he raised another matter they had also discussed many times before. “You’ve been beating to windward for a long time, my friend. How much longer do you think you can keep it up?” he asked.