Her loyalty sustained him wherever he went and remained untarnished when even Hamlet himself was beginning to entertain secret doubts about their future. He would have doubted long before had he not mastered a trick of convincing strangers, for at least a month, that he was a man of ideas and even Adam Swann, reckoned an excellent judge of character, had been deceived at the first interview. Now, with the Western Wedge lagging far behind newer territories, he became reluctantly convinced that, so long as the area was managed by Hamlet Ratcliffe, it would be restricted to short hauls in and around Exeter, and in the spring of 1862 he made a decision. Unless Ratcliffe could land a few contracts necessitating the use of two-horse frigates he would have to go and his territory be joined to the Southern Square, booming along under the hand of a Bristolian called Abbot, reckoned a slave driver by his teamsters.
The decision, conveyed to Hamlet by letter, was the worst jolt in a lifetime of disappointments and for once the level of his mercury failed to respond to Augusta's boost. When she said, “Dorn ’ee mind, midear, twadden gude enuff for ’ee,” he exposed in sudden flash of temper, a Hamlet she had not encountered in getting on for thirty years of marriage, for he said, rounding on her, “Dorn ’ee talk so daft, Mother! This is the best billet I ever had an’ a bliddy zight better than I’ll ever have, now we’m both over the hill. You know it an’ I know it, zo us’d best make up our minds to do something!” and when she said, meekly, “Do what midear?” he roared, “How do I know? But something! Something as’ll make ’em all zit up an’ take notice! I’ll keep this billet if I…if I ’ave to ketch the Bamfylde Lion zingle ’anded!”
She accepted this, of course, as a figure of speech.
Indeed, that was what it was at the time, for Hamlet had used the phenomenon to give vent to his exasperation and sense of personal inadequacy. It was, to both of them, the ultimate in derring-do, and yet, no sooner had he uttered the words, than they translated themselves into the kind of resolve that must have been slumbering in Hamlet since he was a child under his brothers’ blundering feet. In a single phrase, it summed up everything he thought himself capable of achieving, and from here, to a man drugged on Augusta's faith and his own optimism, it was but a short step to believing such a feat to be entirely possible.
To catch the Bamfylde Lion singlehanded. That would rattle them. That would have everybody out in the street cheering and would not only make him world-famous but would provide Swann-on-Wheels with a magnificent advertisement. For who, in his senses, could neglect an opportunity of doing business with a man who attracted publicity wherever he went? And here, as it transpired, he was not deceived, for in a way, and without being aware of it, the imagination of Hamlet Ratcliffe had leaped a century, straight into a world where a single bizarre feat was enough to fix a man so firmly in the public eye that he remained linked to that feat for all time. Perhaps, after all, he was half-aware of this and of the importance of what he had said, for presently, adjusting to his mood, Augusta set the seal upon his declaration, saying, “Well, ’Amlet, if you zay you’ll do it you will, and there tiz, midear. How will ’ee go about it?”
With a stir of inner excitement that acted upon him like a quart of cider on an empty stomach he knew how he would go about it. The properties, and a means of employing them, came tumbling into his brain. Recognition, adulation, public acknowledgement of Hamlet Ratcliffe as a superman that had capriciously evaded him for half-a-century, were out there awaiting him, and he even knew where—in the thickets and river bottoms north-west of the farm where he had been born. He marched out of the house and set about the business of mounting his safari.
Visitors to Devon during the last month had heard of the Bamfylde Lion, but most of them dismissed it as a local hoax, a reference to a mythical beast approximating the unicorn or the dodo, but this was an error on their part. The Bamfylde Lion was real enough, a circus animal that had gone astray when the horse-box that had been conveying it from Barnstaple to Exeter had overturned a mile or so west of South Molton. At the time of Hamlet's boast the Bamfylde Lion was a twenty-seven-day wonder, for that was the period it had been at liberty.
Hamlet had taken a keen interest in the incident, partly because he came from the area where it was at large, but also because, to his great satisfaction, the Two Rivers Carrier Service, his principal rival in the eastern half of the territory, had been held responsible for the escape, the lion having been left behind by a travelling circus after a breakdown at Barnstaple and later sent on under private charter.
The story of its escape, stripped of local embellishments, was simple. The driver had been drunk and had neglected to fix the brake shoes before descending a steep hill. The van had then run away and overturned in the ditch, where the doors had burst open and the lion had walked out, disappearing into the rough country north of the road before the concussed carter had been rescued.
In the period that followed there had been numerous sightings and local hue and cry, with parties of armed farmers and constables beating the area day by day but so far without success. Then claims for slaughtered livestock began to be filed but in this kind of country they were difficult to check, and everyone accepted the fact that isolated farmers would make the most of such a unique opportunity. Half-devoured carcases were said to be found as far north as Lynton, and as far west as Swimbridge, and Hamlet had followed all these reports with great thoroughness. Now, taking out his map, he marked down the most reliable sightings and drew a square enclosing an area of about twenty square miles, centred on the village of Filleigh. In his way, and at least in theory, he was an exceptionally painstaking man. He took the trouble to read about lions in an encyclopaedia and discovered that they were not, as a rule, in the habit of wandering vast distances but usually stayed within a comparatively small area, providing food could be found and food would be plentiful up there, with any number of sheep, heifers, and ponies grazing on unfenced hillsides. He knew the country well. It consisted of a succession of steep, scrub-covered hills watered by innumerable streams seeking the river Bray. There were woods in all the river bottoms and to the north, where the pastures fell away to join the Exmoor plateau, there were no real roads and very few inhabitants.
Having satisfied himself as to the approximate position of the fugitive he put the next stage of his plan into operation, posting down to the Exe water-meadows to interview the lion's owner, Mr. Begbie, of Begbie's Menageries, who was detained in Exeter by the Lord Lieutenant's warrant forbidding the outfit to move on to its next booking.
Mr. Begbie was a very worried man. He had long since exhausted the local potential and, apart from a shower of claims, had already been obliged to cancel a string of Somerset dates so that his employees, a rough lot as Hamlet noted, were now verging on mutiny. Hamlet went straight to the point. Buttonholing Mr. Begbie in his tent he said, unequivocally, “I’m Sou’-Molton born and bred, and I reckon I know just where that lion o’ yours be. With help from you I could nail ’un. Do us do business, or dorn us?”
The trick of impressing people on first acquaintance worked on Mr. Begbie as effectively as it had worked on a succession of astute businessmen to whom Hamlet had made imaginative proposals. He said, sourly, “What's at back of it? The reward?” but Hamlet dismissed this sordid suggestion with a grandiloquent gesture. “No it baint,” he said, “Tis what you might call an adver-tise-ment for my waggon service, Swann-on-Wheels. Mebbe you’ve heard of it?” Mr. Begbie had not but this did not check his mounting interest in this apple-cheeked Tom Thumb. He said, “Well, it's worth twenty pound to me to lay ahold o’ Dante. For one thing, I’m stuck here an’ losing all my bookings. For another I’ll lose some o’ my best acts if I don’t stir myself soon. And in the meantime Beetriss is pining.”
Hamlet knew all about Beatrice, the pining lioness, and it crossed his mind how Augusta might react in similar circumstances. Beatrice was, in fact, the mainspring of his plan, and now it occurred to him that Mr. Begbie, the Lord Lieutenant, the police, and a
ll the farmers like his heavy-footed brothers, must have been extremely stupid not to have thought up a similar plan within an hour of Dante's escape. Authoritatively he spread out his map. “Lookit here,” he said, briskly, “the Bamfylde Clump is within a mile or two o’ where that beast o’ yours first ran loose. He's still around make no mistake, for here's fower places where he's been spotted, an’ none of ’em more’n two mile apart. Tis rough country thereabouts, full o’ gullies and suchlike. He could bide there a twelvemonth without anyone comin’ within a hundred yards of him. To my mind he's in one o’ two places. High Bray, north o’ Charles Bottom, where the woods run right down to the river; or higher up in they thickets below Heasley Mill. You lend me that mate of his for a day or two and I’ll undertake to vetch un back and I won’t charge ’ee neither. I won’t even claim that there reward. What's more I’ll use me own transport!”
It seemed to Mr. Begbie an extraordinarily generous offer and his heart wanned towards the little man. He was cautious, however, for the use of the lioness could conceivably make a bad situation worse. He said, carefully, “You’ll have to take Dan’l with you. Dan’l's their trainer, and if he can get within range o’ Dante that lion’ll come to him like a dog to a whistle.” He lowered his voice and glanced at the tent flap. “Truth is, Mr. Whatsisname, Dante's getting on, and all these stories concerning his rampaging are libels. Dante never bit no one, not even when he was a cub. He wouldn’t know how.”
“I’m very glad to hear that,” said Hamlet, and he was, although, by now, he would have persisted if Mr. Begbie had told him Dante was accustomed to a diet of Christians.
It astonished everyone but Hamlet how speedily and smoothly the operation was mounted. Within two hours he was jogging along the road from Cowley Bridge to Crediton, with the morose Dan’l seated on the box beside him. His vehicle, the largest in the yard, was a two-horse cattle van, high boarded and roofed with a thick wire mesh, and for the purpose of the decoy the box had been divided into two equal parts by the erection of another strip of wire mesh, fastened to the sides by enormous staples and lengths of rope. Beatrice seemed snug enough in her straw and slept most of the journey. Either Mr. Begbie was correct, and she was low in spirit on account of Dante's absence, or she was as tame as a marmalade cat. From his perch above Hamlet could both smell her and listen to her soft, fluttering snores, but she gave them no kind of trouble. By dusk they had reached Eggesford, where Hamlet obtained a change of horses for a down payment of three pounds, half of which was to be refunded on the return journey.
They kept moving through the mild spring night and about sunrise were entering South Molton. They ate a frugal breakfast at an inn and within an hour were turning off the main Barnstaple turnpike at Castle Hill, taking a winding road through a forest of wild rhododendrons until they came to a crossroads that marked the descent into the Bray valley at Charles Bottom.
Hamlet had long abandoned attempts to get his companion to talk but now that they were approaching the first sphere of operations it was necessary to make a plan so he said, “We’ll try the river bank first. The track's rough but it’ll serve, for the weather's been dry for a month. When us get to that slope go up an’ whistle, and if us dorn have no luck we’ll move east towards Heasley.” He wetted his finger and raised it, adding, “Us is lucky. The wind's in the west, and if that bliddy lion is in the woods he’ll scent her, worn he?”
Daniel conceded that this was possible but his long face and lugubrious expression proclaimed that he did not share Hamlet's confidence in the operation. They stopped in a flat water-meadow between the edge of the wood and the tumbling Bray, and here Hamlet turned the waggon so that its rear faced the trees. Then, while Daniel moved up towards the trees, uttering a series of piercing whistles he lowered the platform and took a leg of mutton from the tool box.
For the first time since Daniel had led her into the van the lioness showed a flicker of interest in proceedings. She yawned, stretched herself, and sniffed the mesh but Daniel had already fed her and she soon relapsed into somnolence. Hamlet said, gently, “Dornee worry, midear, us’ll zoon have un back to ’ee.” He had decided that he not only liked lions but had a way with them.
By now Daniel had disappeared although, from time to time, Hamlet could hear his whistles coming from somewhere near the crest of the wood. He climbed back on the box and composed himself to wait, luxuriating in the mild sunshine, strong for this time of year, and watching an otter run across the meadow and disappear in a patch of wild iris growing beside the stream.
It was very quiet and peaceful. Odd moments of his childhood returned to him like shy, kindly guests and presently, having been awake and abroad for something like twenty-four hours, he dozed.
It was the soft rush of heron's wings that awakened him and he started up as the bird crossed the river from the woods. Then, from the far side of the meadow, other birds shot up and he supposed they must have been alarmed by Daniel returning through the undergrowth. But when he rubbed his eyes and looked that way it was not Daniel. It was Dante, creeping out of the brushwood, like an exhausted St. Bernard returning from an unsuccessful search for a missing mountaineer, and the impression was heightened by the fact that the lion still wore his broad leather collar. He moved with great uncertainty, as if tipsy, and when he was clear of the bushes he actually staggered to the left, recovering himself with an effort. It was impossible to be afraid of him. He looked as if he would be grateful for a small lamb chop, to say nothing of the great leg of mutton awaiting him, and suddenly Hamlet found himself trembling from head to foot, but certainly not from fear of being trapped in a water-meadow with two lions, one of them at large. What was occurring before his eyes was suddenly clear to him for here, in the guise of an exhausted half-starved circus lion, was the consummation of everything he had believed about himself for fifty years, and everything Augusta had believed with him. Here, less than fifty yards away, was self-justification on a scale that even he had never anticipated, and the certainty of this brought tears to his eyes and a stammer to his tongue. He said, hoarsely, “Cccome on, Dante. Come on home, midear, us worn hurt ’ee,” and then, when Dante stopped a few yards short of the waggon, “Why you poor ole toad! You’m not on’y starved, you’m in tatters!”
Then he noticed Beatrice, a few feet below him. She was standing poised like an alerted whippet, her wrinkled nose pointing towards her mate. For perhaps half a minute she stood thus and then, without the slightest warning, she threw up her head and uttered a roar that sent every bird within half-a-mile soaring and startled Hamlet so much that he all but fell from the box. He had a horrid fear then, not of being devoured by a lion but of seeing yet another splendid opportunity escape him, this time on account of the horses. For they too had been badly startled by Beatrice's sudden roar, and backed clumsily against the crossbar of the span, preparatory to bolting headlong into the river. Their caracole gave him about two seconds in which to act. Leaping down from the box he ran around and threw his entire weight on the bridles, hanging on as the team plunged and reared, and Beatrice roared again, and Daniel came running out of the woods adding his high-pitched whistle to the uproar. Hamlet was so involved now that he was unable to see precisely what happened, but Daniel must have known his business for when, having been flung this way and that with his feet clear of the ground, Hamlet was able to look again, Dante was already in the outer section of the waggon, with his teeth buried in the meat, and the trainer had upended the heavy platform and was slamming home the bolts. Between them, and with considerable difficulty, they managed to quieten the horses and walk the waggon across the soft ground to the track, and here began, for Hamlet, a triumphant progress down the valleys of the Bray, the Taw, and the Exe.
At every village and town people behaved precisely as he had expected them to behave. They came out of their doors shouting and gesticulating and soon word of the waggon's approach ran far ahead, so that little deputations awaited them at every crossroads. Throughout it all he cond
ucted himself modestly, saying, in response to the plaudits, “All it needed was a bit o’ thinking on,” but nobody believed him, and he would not have expected them to, so that he was not much surprised when, on entering the parish of St. David's north of the city, the Mayor was there to greet him and beside him clutching a nosegay, was Augusta, her eyes glittering with half-shed tears.
Soon all the Westcountry newspapers were printing the story and he was able to read of himself in the most extravagant terms. One called him, “Hamlet Ratcliffe. Lion Tamer Extraordinary,” and another, “The Man Who Brought Devon's Reign of Terror to an End.” He thought this extravagant, for surely anyone could see that Dante was as harmless (when caged, of course) as a jack rabbit, but when they made him a presentation a day or so later, and when the Mayor, in the course of a windy speech, spoke of him as “a true son of Devon,” he went out of his way to ensure that Swann-on-Wheels received a share of the credit, saying, in response, “It weren’t nothing but a job for my boss in London. He reckons to haul anything and deliver on time, and that's more than you can say for others, baint it? Two Rivers to name no names.” His rivals could have sued him for saying that in public but they did not. The newspapers had already printed the story of Fred Slater, the carter who had originally mislaid Dante, and there were rumours that he was to be prosecuted when he came out of the infirmary. However it was, the incident turned the tide in Hamlet's favour, and he was astonished by the now of inquiries and commissions that resulted from this one burst of publicity. Within a month he was using two-horse frigates, and a month after that, on long runs across the Tamar, he was hauling loads of hides and fleeces and sandstone building blocks on men-o’-war, harnessed unicorn. Adam Swann wrote him a congratulatory letter and the only person who made no kind of fuss was Augusta, for it did not seem to her at all remarkable that Hamlet should have done precisely what he said he would do. After all, he had rescued her from a lifetime of shroud-stitching, and it was time somebody else acknowledged his qualifications as a knight-errant.
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