The Miller's Dance (2 page)

There had been a good deal of discussion beforehand about how best to transport the beam, and this way had been chosen as the least likely to run into serious trouble; as Ross approached the straining teams it looked as if there would be no hitch at all. It was slow, exhausting but satisfactory progress, the horses hock deep in sand and difficult to control, with Cobbledick leading one team and Jeremy the other.

Then while still about thirty yards from the cliff, a patch of treacherous sand let them down. It often happened on this beach; there was no such thing as quicksands, but here and there a soft patch would be left, created by a current of the retreating sea and not hardening as it dried like the rest. Here the track dipped a little, and as soon as the weight of the trolley came upon it the sleepers sank too deep for the rollers to have anything solid under them. The horses were halted by the sudden immovability of their load, and a total confusion immediately reigned; the horses backed and reared, Jeremy and Cobbledick dinging on to but not quite controlling the leaders; the trolley slewed and nearly came off the track altogether.

It was Ross's instinct
to take charge, but he checked
himself. Ben Carter was already making the necessary moves. With eight men behind him armed with pinch bars, he ran forward and they levered the great load on course again while the horses resumed their orderly tugging Slowly the whole thing began to move, while watchers standing nearby cheered; but the rhythm had gone and the forward progression. Now each step was a violent lurch from one slithering roller and one sinking prop to the next. So it went on, with the cliffs getting slowly but agonizingly nearer. Foot by foot, levered and dragged,
the
beam was drawn towards the towering cliff, while the wooden sleepers dipped and twisted all ways.

In the ebb and flow of people on the beach Stephen Carrington had caught Clowance's hand.

'Where were you yesterday?'

'In church. I do go now and then. And where were you?' 'Looking for you.'. 'Not too hard, I'm sure.' 'Why not?
’

'Else you might have guessed.'

'What would've been the good if I'd come there? All your family around you.'

'You speak as if they're a plague.'

'So they are when I want you to meself.'

'Well, now you've got me,' she said, looking at her captive hand.

'To little use, I reckon. With half a hundred folk crowdin' around us!'

'And all observing the claim you are putting upon me
.' 'Should I not? Must I not?' ‘
Not in public. Not just yet.'

'Clowance, I'm tired of waiting. We see
little
or naught of each other-'

'Oh, Friday you came to sup with us. Thursday we talked for time enough at the mine. Tuesday -' 'But that's among
people.
It is not among people that I wish to meet you, as you well know. 'Why, last year, afore ever I went away, we was more alone than this!' .

She wriggled her hand out of his grasp. 'Yes, I suppose.'

'You know well. When can we meet in Trenwith again?'

'Ah. I don't know
...'

A portly gentleman in a white stock and a black tail-coat but with leather boots over his stockings and knee-breeches came up to Ross. They had spoken earlier in the day when Ross had boarded the
Henry
from
Nampara Girl.
Mr Harvey. Mr Henry Harvey, after whom the brig was named. At 37, chief partner in the firm of Blewett, Harvey, Vivian & Co. of Hayle, where the mine engine had been built. He was the driving power behind the foundry's rapid expansion. Indeed, soon to be the sole owner, if litigation went well.

He did not personally superintend the delivery of all such engines built by his firm, but this commission had special areas of interest. Firstly Captain Poldark was not just an ordinary mining venturer. Secondly his son, Jeremy, had dented the social traditions of the time by becoming more than half way to practical engineer and-by being responsible for the final design of the engine they had built.

'I think all is well now, Captain Poldark. Safely gathered in, if one might say so without irreverence.'

'Yes. We'll get it up the cliff tomorrow.' At the very last the trolley had slid off the track at one side and was quite immovable. But it had done its work. For the last few yards the beam could be levered forward on its own.

'So
...
If I should now take my leave
...'
'You'd be welcome to sup with us, Mr Harvey. We have all been oh a starvation diet today. Indeed, stay the night, if you wish. It would be a pleasure.'

'It would be a pleasure to me, sir. And an honour. But I should neither eat nor sleep peaceable with my three vessels off this dangerous shore. Perhaps another time.'

'Indeed. Your brother Francis stayed with us once before his-his accident.'

'He would have been forty-four this year. I have lost two other brothers and a sister since then. Natural causes with them, of course, natural causes
...
Yes, but strong steam
has
to come in spite of the risks, as your talented son recognizes. I shall watch the performance and duty of this
-.
engine with most particular interest.'

Ross looked at the darkening sky. It was like a mourning card.

'I think you're wise to go. There'll be no trouble tonight. But one can't be sure of tomorrow.'

They shook hands. A part of the purchase price of the engine had already been paid over; the balance was due on delivery, but it was not between
gentlemen
that this should be discussed. As the swearing horses were relieved of their harness, men at the sea's edge were already beginning to lift the sleeper track. Ross walked with Mr Harvey down to the sea as far as his dinghy, where two men waited to push him out through the frothy little surf to join his brig and return to
Hayle.

'... Tomorrow?' asked Stephen Carrington. 'What?' said Clowance. 'ForTrenwith.'

'It is dangerous. People will see us.'

'Let
'em.'

'No.
You have not lived here long, Stephen. I would
hate
the whispering, the dirty rumours. It would - contaminate what
...
what I don't wish to have contaminated.'

'Where, then? Where, then?'

'Trenwith maybe. But it would be better about dusk.'

'That suits me.'

'Yes, well
...
But it means
...
more deceit
...
more lying.’

'Not my choice. I would
shout
it out in the open for all to hear.'

Clowance gave a little irritable shrug. It was impossible to explain to him her own mixed feelings, the overwhelming lure of his physical attraction warring with all her loyalties to upbringing, family and friends-with the added weight of little doubts about his attitude towards other women that could not altogether be set aside.

She said:'Perhaps next week.'

'Too far o
ff. I want to see you tomorrow.’

'No.'

'Then
Wednesday.'

'No
...
Friday I might, perhaps. I could go and see the Paynters, come on from there.' 'What time would it be?' 'About five.'

'I'll be waiting. Don't fail me, will you.' 'I'll try to be there,' said Clowance, knowing well that she would.

II

The winter had been a draughty comfortless one but without severe cold. Its relative mildness had prevented some of the worst privations in the stricken English north; and even in the Iberian peninsula, where each side had gone into winter quarters exhausted after the bloody fights and sieges of the last year, the weather was not so icy as usual.

Throughout a long campaign of desperate battles for hills and bridges and towns in Spain and Portugal one theme had predominated. Wherever Wellington was there victory was. Each of Napoleon's great marshals had taken him on in turn
and each in turn had given way, having got the worst of it.

Not yet had the ennobled general come into direct conflict with the greatest soldier of them all, but that might occur
any time in the next campaign. Although Napoleon still ruled Europe, Englishmen everywhere held their heads
higher. Splendid news had come in from the Far East too, where an expeditionary force of 3,500 men under General
Auchmuchty had defeated 10,000 Dutch, French a
nd
Javanese troops and conquered Java - almost the last and certainly the richest French possession overseas. The picture was changing, for the Czar Alexander was at his most
enigmatic and unyielding and Bonaparte was threatening
I
that dire punishments should fall upon the Russians.

At home the King was sunk in his senility and the Prince Regent persisted in his folly of reposing his confidence in his old enemies the Tories and the government of the inefficient
and ineffectual Spencer Perceval. Or so the Whigs felt. A year ago when he first became Regent the Prince had abruptly stated that he did not wish to risk making the change of government because his father might recover his sanity any day and be infinitely distressed and wrathful to find his own ministers dismissed. But as time wore on this showed up more an
d more for the miserable excuse
most of his thwarted friends had all along supposed it to be. Having supported the opposition Whigs against his father's Tories all his adult life, the Prince, on the very brink of his accession, had had second thoughts, had held back, trembled on
the
brink of seeing Grey and Grenville and Whit-bread and Brougham in office with the prospect of much-needed reform in England but a patched-up peace with France to go with it. Many straws in the wind
might have
swayed him at the last moment - even, however minimally, an interview with a certain Cornish soldier—only he knew how far one consideration and another had weighed.

Of course the Opposition, being patriots at heart, had changed their tune about the prospects of Wellington in the Peninsula, and most of them took a more optimistic attitude towards the war than they had done twelve months a
go. Yet mere were many among men
still who pointed out that Bonaparte's set-backs were pinpricks when one observed me extent of his empire. In all Europe only Russia, sulkily obstinate, and Portugal, newly liberated, were not under Napoleon's heel. Half the countries of Europe were at war with England, and none of her manufactured products was allowed to be landed at any port. Ten thousand customs officers existed to see the law observed. Discovered contraband was seized, and often the ships that brought it burned as a lesson to all that the Emperor's edicts must be obeyed.

To make matters worse England was now in trouble with the United States as well. Because of her naval blockade of Europe - preventing the raw materials of war reaching Napoleon—England had claimed
the
right to intercept and search any ship she found on the high seas. This the Americans both resented and rejected; so, in retaliation, and smarting under old grievances, the Government of the
United States had issued a decree forbidding any commercial trade with England at all. This was a killing blow to what was left of Lancashire's trade, for it deprived the mills of their raw cotton; and George Warleggan was glad he had liquidated his unwise investments in the North, even at so cruel a sacrifice. With food double the price it had been twenty years ago, the wages of the weavers of Glasgow was now a quarter of what they had been then.

So would not the Whigs, if allowed to take over now, still see the only realistic way of ending the war in a compromise peace? There had been feelers from Paris not so long ago. Now with a little more with which to bargain
...
France. might have Java back in return for guaranteeing the independence of Spain and Portugal. England would recognize France's inalienable rights in the Mediterranean in return for a reopening of the Baltic ports. And so on. It was Ross's recurring nightmare. And not only Ross's
...
In the letter received recently from George Canning:
We miss you [it had said], and need you, Ross. Not just for your vote - though that also - but for some Starch you provide. And military knowledge. You would think the Government inundated with military Information - and so it is. But you speak and argue from a kind of experience - and you have no Axe to grind. You are listened to - if not in the House then outside it , in private meetings where decisions of Policy are made. And that is where it is most Important.

Do you read the News sheets? How long do you suppose we may be able to sustain the War, with Revolution pending in .
the
North? Only six of Manchester's thirty-eight mills are left working. The situation is similar throughout urban Lancashire; and these riots in Nottinghamshire where they call themselves Luddites - where will it lead? They gather together openly, these rioters,
in towns and villages and ignorantl
y proceed to destroy the machines they believe have robbed them of work. Of course they must be stopped; but there are already over twelve thousand frame—
workers on Poor relief in
Nottinghamshire alone; how can we truly blame them? From what I gather, Perceval and his ministers are bent only on Repression. They are sending a whole brigade
of Dragoons up there to bring
the county to book, out how shall we fight Napoleon if our troops are needed to fight at home? We
must
give some sort of Help to these starving men and women while yet maintaining a respect for the Law and punishment for those who break it.
I
intend to press for this, and have my usual support in the House; but an added vote, an added voice, is of the greatest importance.' We need you, Ross.