The Iron Master (2 page)

While this impressive pantomime was being performed, Mr Sorrowcole handed a large flask to the landlady, whispering, ‘Fill her up, Doll, with the usual!’ Which the landlady, being a woman and weak, did.

William Howarth observed all this with quiet amusement, Parson Peplow with a philosophical shake of the head. Both men then paid their separate reckonings, wrapped their cloaks about them, pulled down their hats, and picked up their wicker baskets.

‘The Reverend Simon Peplow for Leicester? Mr William Howarth for London?’ the guard asked formally. ‘This way, if you please, sirs!’

It was a wild night, and the drop of rain had become a torrent. In the wind and wet two ostlers were securing the wheel horses, before putting the leading horses to, while the coachman made an overall check with his portable lantern. Stout, formidable, unvanquished by forty years of hard work and harder weather, he was in command again.

‘Nice and fresh, are they?’ Mr Sorrowcole asked of the four bay geldings.

‘Fresh?’ cried the elder lad, rain running down his neck. ‘Why, they’d go to London and back if they was let!’

‘If they’ll take us as far as Ashbourne that’s as good as a bargain,’ replied Mr Sorrowcole drily. He lifted a congested face to the night sky. ‘It’s a deal too light for the time of morning,’ he said gloomily, ‘I shouldn’t wonder if it snowed.’

The guard sighed, for if it did snow it would be he who took the mail through on horseback.

‘Come along, if you please, sirs!’ he called to the two waiting figures at the door of The Royal Oak.

They hurried forward, each inwardly confounding himself for being a fool, neither able to control that tightening of the throat, that increased throb of the pulse, which the sight of the coach occasioned. They were among the first to try this new mode of transport. They were pioneers.

In the gentle beam of its lamps, the Royal Mail coach glistened with fresh paint: a rich maroon below, a richer black above, and the sparkling wheels bright red. A small and compact vehicle, austere in comparison with the present sprawling monsters of the road, and proudly bearing the royal coat of arms upon its door, the royal cipher upon its side panels. Inside, there was room for four passengers, and four leather straps hung ready to be grasped on the tight turns. A little dark lined cavern, at once claustrophobic and comforting.

‘I have taken the opportunity of providing myself with a portable lantern and tinder-box,’ said William Howarth. ‘So if you should need a light at any time, sir, I beg you to say the word.’

‘Most opportune. Most kind,’ said Parson Peplow.

They settled in their seats, and put their provisions by them.

Outside, Mr Sorrowcole was being hoisted onto his box by the guard and an ostler. He ran the reins lovingly through his fingers and looked along the line of his team’s ears. The guard handed up the iron mail-box, a truss of straw and a skin rug. Upon’ this box, protected only by the straw, his feet would freeze for twenty-seven hours. He pulled himself up beside the coachman and consulted his watch by the wan light of the lamps.

‘Get ready, boys!’ he warned the ostlers.

They stood by the horses’ heads in the pouring rain, a half-grin on their faces, as though they comprehended the immensity of the occasion, and were yet embarrassed by it. Then Harry Walters lifted the chill brass horn to his lips and startled every sleeper in earshot, once, twice, thrice. The ostlers whipped off the cloths, Jacob Sorrowcole flicked the leading horses, the coach moved, the wheels spun, they gathered momentum, they were off. The Royal Mail had started at two o’clock precisely. As they passed the parish church a chime pursued them as if to say, ‘On time. On time.’

The first lurch had sent Parson Peplow’s basket to the floor. The second lurch sent William Howarth’s basket to join it, and flung both men together as they strove to save their refreshments. By the time they had sorted themselves out the coach had settled into a swaying motion, much like an oceangoing ship in a rough swell, interrupted only by a bounce or a drop as they struck stones and splashed through pot-holes.

‘We are certainly going at a fair pace,’ said Parson Peplow, when he had recovered his breath. ‘Shall you sleep, Mr Howarth?’

‘I doubt it, sir, but I shall try.’

But the clergyman wanted company in this adventure.

‘So the Post Office are seeking to turn us into a punctual nation?’ he observed. ‘That is ambitious of them! And what matter, sir, if we or our letters reach their destination a day or so sooner? It is not time that counts but how we use it.’

‘Why, sir, you are no worldly timekeeper, and that is the answer!’ said William pleasantly. ‘Your life and works are of a philosophical nature, and so deal with the eternal rather than the temporal. But I was apprenticed to a Quaker businessman, Bartholomew Scholes of Birmingham. A week to send a business letter — sometimes a fortnight — means the difference between profit and loss, labour and idleness. They say now that we shall have letters “by return of Post”, meaning that we write today and receive a reply (if our correspondent has been as speedy) the day after tomorrow. Change is misliked, and there will be much prejudice against the higher postage and these new ideas. But I am for them, sir, simply from a practical viewpoint. This is a new age, sir, and we must progress.’

Now the clergyman was roused in truth, and his pebble glasses gleamed, his forefinger pointed protest.

‘
Festina
lente
, Mr Howarth. Make haste slowly. I fear, like all young men of ardent spirit, that you confuse progress with speed!’

‘Forgive me, sir, but are you not being merely a praiser of times past?
Laudator
temporis
acti?
’

‘What would you, sir? That I fall in with the crowd and say that everything unknown must be marvellous?
Onme
ignotum
pro
magnifico?
’ cried Parson Peplow, delighted to cross scholastic swords. ‘No, my friend, I look into the future with hope but with misgivings also. If we save time so that we can do more business, then what shall become of us when all the world is busy in the same fashion? Shall we not be eaten up by business, slaves to business, slaves to time? Then the clock will be our master, and the need to make more money our taskmaster. The worship of Baal is an old sin, and raises its golden image in every generation; but once we begin to conquer distance and time, Mr Howarth, that image may be multiplied exceedingly. And the people will cast God out, my dear sir, whereas only He can stand between us and our destruction! But there, as my good wife says, I give sermons on weekdays as well as Sundays. And we are basing our surmises upon the Post Office’s desire for speed and punctual delivery, now in its infancy!’

‘But, sir,’ cried William, captivated by surmise of another sort, ‘why should we stop there? I am fascinated by the new steam-engines. My friend Caleb Scholes is the son of the ironmaster who has but recently purchased a rotative engine. Now he can work the mechanical hammers, blow the blast furnaces and drive the rolling mills by steam power. Let us go a step further, my dear sir. Suppose it were possible to power this mail-coach by means of steam? What speeds could we accomplish then?’

‘Oho, oho, my friend, let us not be fantastical in our speculations. Ten mile an hour is fast enough for our purpose … ’

The coach stopped as suddenly as it could, and both men raised their blinds simultaneously and peered through their windows to see what was afoot.

‘A highwayman perhaps?’ ventured Parson Peplow, losing a little of his colour. ‘Well, he will find me but a poor crow for the picking!’

‘No highwayman,’ said William, ‘For I heard no word of command, and see no one but — ah! — Mr Walters.’

‘Naught wrong, sirs,’ cried the guard, sticking a wet hat round the opened door of the carriage. ‘I’m just putting the brake on, ready for Hartshead Brow, else the horses’ll run away with theirselves down here.’

‘Should I hold the lantern for you, Mr Walters?’ asked William.

‘It’s a regular downpour, sir. You’ll get wet through.’

‘No matter. I shall dry again. Come, give me the lantern.’

Neatly the guard unhooked an iron shoe-skid, and applied it to one of the back wheels. They both returned to their places while the coach lurched and slithered downhill. Once on the straight, he and William repeated the process in reverse, and Mr Sorrowcole prepared to make up for those few lost minutes.

‘We thought you were a highwayman, Mr Walters,’ cried Parson Peplow pleasantly, as the guard closed the door.

‘We shan’t see hair nor hide of them this weather,’ said the guard. ‘They’ll be sitting with their feet up the chimbley corner, mark my words, sir! They’ve got more sense than come robbing in the rain.’

‘True. Very true,’ said Peplow, comforted.

The coach resumed its jounce and sway.

‘We were held up by a highwayman on the road to Birmingham once, when I was a lad,’ said William Howarth. ‘The fellow was most courteous, and returned my pocket-money to me, saying he was a boy himself once! Whether he would have accorded the same respect to my silver watch, I know not. To save him from temptation I had thrust it into a pie I was eating at the time, and it took no hurt though covered in meat and potato! I was glad, for I set great store by it, since it belonged to my great-grandfather.’

Aha, thought Peplow, the genteel side of the family.

‘And how shall you protect your property in a similar emergency, may I ask, Mr Howarth?’

‘Possibly in the same way. For my mother has packed one of our best pork pies in my basket. Or perhaps I should rely upon Mr Walters shooting the fellow’s head off with his blunderbuss!’

‘Your mother is a fine cook, I dare say, sir?’

‘My mother does not cook at all, sir, but has a gift for finding and supervising those who do.’

‘Unusual,’ murmured the interested clergyman, ‘in a farmer’s wife.’

‘Well, sir, I see you will have my small history out,’ said William, somewhat exasperated. ‘My father is a fairly prosperous yeoman, of honest stock. My mother comes of a genteel family, with high churchmen on one side and good businessmen on the other. And I am the product of that most strange and most happy partnership.’

‘I did not mean to pry, Mr Howarth.’ Conscience-stricken.

So the parson was silent for a few moments, and then began again.

‘How much do they pay the excellent Mr Walters for his responsibilities, I wonder?’

‘Half a guinea a week, I believe. In addition to which he should pocket more than a half-guinea in tips, and be well paid for carrying an illicit parcel or so of game or fish in the boot! It is not bad, sir.’

‘Better than I, in my small parish, Mr Howarth!’

‘Better than I in my small forge, sir!’

‘Forge? You are a farrier? But, of course,’ cried Peplow triumphantly, ‘the hands, the stature and the strength. Forgive me, sir, I am insatiable in my curiosity, and you have set me a riddle such as I do not solve every day. An elegantly dressed gentleman, with the hands of a craftsman, who lives on a farm and runs a forge, yet discourses with all the art and fire of an educated person, and wears his great-grandfather’s silver watch — the which I should be delighted to examine more closely, for I take great pleasure in horology — admit, Mr Howarth, you are a mighty puzzle!’

Then William laughed aloud at the clergyman’s innocent enthusiasm, and could no longer be annoyed with him.

‘Sir, I am a puzzle even to myself. Know then thyself?
Nosce
teipsum
? I fear it may take me a lifetime to decipher William Howarth!’

‘Where did you learn your Latin, my young friend?’

‘My mother taught the three of us: my sister Charlotte, my brother Richard and me. Though I fear young Dick was given up in some disgust before he was twelve. He takes after my father, and will farm Kit’s Hill and make a love of labour. Later I studied at Millbridge Grammar School under Mr Tucker, but I do not keep up my Latin and Greek as my mother and sister do. I have enough to serve my purpose, but am no scholar, sir.’

‘Well, well, well,’ said Parson Peplow, rubbing his knees in satisfaction. ‘May I trouble you with a final impertinence, for my guesses so far have been mainly correct … ?’

But before he could put his question they were startled by the winding of Mr Walter’s horn, closely followed by another, and some note of urgency or apprehension in the sounding brass made William let down the middle window and peer into the night. They were approaching a fork in the road, and rumbling towards them at an angle to the left of the main highway was a huge stage-coach. Both guards were blowing their horns in a frenzy. Both coachmen were lashing their horses on, determined to take the lead. Most powerfully did the stage lumber forward: a mighty pachyderm which could crush the little black and red coach like a beetle. Nimbly spun the vermilion wheels of the Mail, briskly did it rattle through puddles and stones. Neither vehicle gave way, though the distance between them was narrowing rapidly.

‘Great heaven!’ cried Parson Peplow. ‘We shall overturn!’ And he sank back in his seat, trembling.

But William put his head and shoulders out of the middle window entirely, regardless of the mire splashing up the sides of the carriage, while Mr Walters shouted into the night, ‘Make way for the Royal Mail!’