A Regimental Affair (33 page)

Who were they, Hervey wondered, and who were the ringleaders? The bench, it seemed, had no idea, and the constable seemed afraid to ask. Hervey soon discovered that his troop was not so much assisting the civil power as obliged to
be
the power. No sooner had they arrived but Mansfield’s most prominent citizens besieged him in the moot hall to enquire how he intended to pacify the neighbourhood. Hervey was at a loss, and could only assure his audience that he stood ready to answer – and promptly – calls for assistance from the magistrates. The predicament of a number of those living in isolated houses outside the town was brought to his notice, and he had to agree that passivity would save neither life nor property in their case. He asked what measures they themselves had taken, and was surprised by the degree of fortification which some of the houses had undergone, and the extent to which firearms were kept at hand for their domestic staff. But the steam-loom factory had been barricaded and defended, too, they pointed out, and that had not stopped its destruction. Hervey promised he would consult with the senior magistrates at once. And so, Lieutenant Seton Canning having taken the troop out to the grange on the Southwell road, just beyond the town, which was to be their quarters, Hervey rode with just his trumpeter and coverman to Clipstone Hall to meet the chairman of the Mansfield bench.

After the major general’s dire warnings of the inadequacy of the magistracy, Hervey was very pleasantly surprised by whom he found at Clipstone. Sir Abraham Cole seemed neither a scheming Whig nor a baying Tory. He was instead a rather bookish man in his late fifties, with a ready, if slightly anxious smile, and a civilized way with his words. His father had bought the baronetcy half a
century before with his stocking-making wealth, afterwards buying and extending the hall, and Sir Abraham had since combined the running of the family business with his other passions – astronomy, collecting Chinese porcelain, and making a new translation of the Old Testament. Hervey sat in the library, admiring the shelves and sipping a fine Montilla sherry.

‘Would you tell me, please, Captain Hervey, if you are permitted to do so, what are your orders?’

Hervey smiled. There was something most engaging in Sir Abraham Cole’s courtesy. ‘Of course, Sir Abraham. Put very simply, I am to answer any call for assistance from a properly constituted authority – the bench, the constables – and to act on my own cognizance as may be lawful for the maintenance of the King’s peace.’

Sir Abraham nodded. ‘And this means that you may take an active part?’

‘It does,’ replied Hervey. ‘But the general officer commanding the district is anxious to avoid prolonged engagement or any appearance of martial law.’

‘That is understood,’ said Sir Abraham equably. ‘Have you heard of posse comitatus? It is the means, in common law, by which a sheriff – or now, indeed, the lord lieutenant – may call upon all male members of the county above the age of fifteen years to assist in preventing riot or enforcing process.’

‘I do remember now,’ said Hervey, recollecting his Shrewsbury history. ‘And I seem to recall, too, my father’s being amused that the clergy were exempt.’

Sir Abraham smiled again. ‘Indeed, yes. And peers, too – I shall return to them. Well then, now that we have a force of regular cavalry to fortify the weaker spirits, I intend applying to the lord lieutenant under those powers to raise a body locally for the preservation of the peace. My desire these many years past has been that we should have a stipendiary constabulary. But that will be a long time in the coming yet, and so we must rely on the posse to provide us with special constables.’

That was as well, thought Hervey, for the GOC had said that he was considering withholding assistance if a town or village had not taken its own measures to preserve the peace. ‘You were going to say something of peers, Sir Abraham?’

Sir Abraham Cole paused for a moment. ‘You are no doubt aware that we are on the edge of the Dukeries. I am sorry to say that their graces and Lord Manvers take a contrary opinion in respect of law enforcement. They are not troubled in their parks, you understand, and news of any outrage reaches them late, so that the sting is too far drawn. I truly believe they are of the view that broken machinery is a price willingly to be paid to avoid a greater insurrection.’

‘And does this make keeping the peace more difficult?’

Sir Abraham shook his head. ‘Well, it certainly doesn’t make it easier. Their support would greatly assist us raising a special constabulary, for instance.’

Hervey waited for him to say more, but it was some time before Sir Abraham seemed ready to confide in him.

‘I have it on good authority that the Dukeries at night are something of a haven for drilling men. The keepers turn a blind eye.’

‘I am astonished,’ said Hervey, frowning deeply. ‘I find it hard to credit that peers of the realm could connive at . . .
treason
in this way.’

Sir Abraham nodded. ‘Looked at like that, you are in the right. But what if they did not believe it all amounted to a real threat of insurrection? I’ve heard it related that the Duke of Portland says the business of the Blanketeers proves that fears are too exaggerated.’

Hervey sighed. ‘Let us pray they are right.’

Sir Abraham asked if he would take luncheon with him, and although Hervey regretfully declined, he accepted a second glass of sherry, for he wanted to be clear on the bench’s view of the situation, and he still had questions. ‘There are two distinct threats, are there not, Sir Abraham? There is that to the government – the crown, indeed – and there is that to the peace hereabouts, in the form of machine-breaking and food riots.’

Sir Abraham agreed.

‘The one might well sustain the other, however, and we have to proceed on that surmise. Their graces might well be in the right about the real threat to the crown, but if general lawlessness goes unchecked it may generate a greater malevolence. That, indeed, is what some of the political speakers are hoping, is it not?’

Sir Abraham seemed delighted. ‘Captain Hervey, I very much
approve of all that you have said! I confess to having been in two minds about the arrival of the military, for my experience of military officers is solely that of the militia and the yeomanry, and I am afraid that it has not always been felicitous.’

Hervey’s own experience of both had been limited but equally infelicitous. ‘I thank you, sir. I trust you will find us handy.’ He finished his glass. ‘I believe we should meet later this week to speak of the employment of your special constables.’

‘Yes, yes indeed. But before you go, Captain Hervey, allow me to show you – briefly, of course – my collection of Chinese porcelain, and my observatory.’

Sir Abraham’s invitation was so unaffected in its enthusiasm that Hervey could not but accept. And glad he was, too, for when they went to the observatory on the roof he was put in mind of a simple scheme which had long served the nation well in its darkest times, and which would do the same for the manufacturers.

The telescope, turned terrestrial, commanded a great tract of country. ‘Sir Abraham, do you think it likely that the machineowners can see each other’s houses – from the roofs I mean?’

Sir Abraham thought a while, going through the names in his mind. ‘You wouldn’t be able to see Barlow’s place; it’s past the Worksop road. It was his factory that was burned to the ground the day after mine. But the rest? Ay, you might see them.’

‘You would see a beacon, then?’

‘On the roof? Ay, you should be able to see a beacon, especially at night.’

‘There have been no attacks in broad daylight, have there?’

‘That is true.’

‘So if you were to arrange a chain of beacons, with a watch, then we could send assistance very promptly. I don’t imagine, frankly, that Mr Barlow’s house is in danger any longer.’

‘Captain Hervey, that is a capital idea! I am full of regard for your address. I shall begin on it at once.’ Sir Abraham had his fist clenched as if determined to do something disagreeable.

Hervey hoped his resolution would spread to his fellow owners. ‘Then I shall send my lieutenant here tomorrow, and he can make the finer arrangements.’ He thought for a second, and then judged the moment right. ‘You know, Sir Abraham, it might be worth while setting new hounds on the scent of Barlow’s
ruiners – terriers, indeed, since they appear to have gone deep to earth. I have had occasion to see investigators from Bow Street in a case of murder, and from a most unpromising cold trail they were able to dig out the murderers. The outlay would not be small, but—’

‘Hang the outlay, Captain Hervey. I have such a strong presentiment of your succeeding in something here, that I shall foot the bill myself for the time being!’

‘How is Harkaway?’ asked Hervey as soon as he reached Ransom Grange from Clipstone.

Johnson took Gilbert’s reins and shook his head. ‘ ’E was forging badly on t’way from Mansfield.’

‘Was it just tiredness?’

‘There’s summat up wi’ ’im. Some o’ t’others were knocked up when we got to Nottingham, but they were right by morning.’

Hervey ducked under the bar of Harkaway’s stall. ‘Did you see any blood at his nostrils at any stage?’

‘No, sir, not once.’

Hervey had no doubt that Johnson would have noticed the slightest bleeding. ‘What did the veterinary officer say?’

‘Just to physic ’im, which I’d done anyway.’

‘Well, let’s give him another mash tonight, with some nitre.’

Johnson pulled the bar back across the stall as Hervey stepped out. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I just didn’t see anything. ’E’s been in as good a fettle as any o’ t’others up to now.’

Hervey smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘We’ll have him to rights soon enough.’

They left the stable and began walking to the officers’ house. A dozen or so jackdaws were picking at the droppings in the yard. ‘
They’re
pleased we’ve come, at least,’ said Johnson.

Hervey smiled again as he watched them carefully selecting the uncrushed grains. ‘Oh, there are others, too. I had rather a nice meeting with the chairman of the bench earlier on.’

‘What d’ye reckon, then, sir? It’s a lot quieter than I thought it’d be. We’d all thought we’d be on riot duty t’first night.’

Hervey confided that he’d expected the same, though he was grateful to have been wrong. ‘Maybe it’s just our numbers. Or maybe the ringleaders are biding their time. There’s more
machinery being brought from Birmingham in the next week or two, and that might be a cause for trouble.’

Johnson nodded. ‘We were wondering if we’d be allowed into Mansfield.’

Armstrong would be asking him that too, no doubt. It would be safer not to let his men associate with the citizenry, for besides the usual fights, it did not do to have the very force sent to coerce the populace drinking with them the day before. But Mansfield was hardly seething, and it was not the populace as a whole that was to be coerced. Hervey imagined there would be more peace caught from the dragoons than sedition caught from the townspeople.

‘I’ll have a word with Serjeant Armstrong. In any event, it should help the posse the magistrates are getting up.’

‘A pussy?’

‘Oh for heaven’s sake, man!’

‘You just said—’

‘I said posse.’

Johnson looked genuinely baffled, and then began to smirk, a thing he did infrequently enough to induce a similar reaction in Hervey. ‘And what are they going to do with the pussy?’

Dragoons about the yard were now glancing their way. ‘They’re organizing a watch,’ said Hervey, managing to regain a reasonable composure. He told him about the Bow Street men too, not that he expected to see them inside of five days. The letter to London would go express, by Sir Abraham’s pocket, together with a letter of credit so that the detectors might post to Nottingham with all speed. But they would have other business in the capital, no doubt, and he couldn’t expect them to abandon those duties at once.

Meanwhile, he concluded that his best course was a vigorous show of force throughout the district, by day and by night.

Hervey was fast asleep when Johnson banged on his door two nights later.

‘It’s ’Arkaway, sir. ’E’s down.’

Hervey sprang out of bed, pulled on his overalls and boots and snatched up his field coat. They ran to the stables, where the picket corporal was lighting oil lamps as fast as he could. ‘How long has he been down?’

‘I don’t know for sure, sir,’ said Corporal Sykes. ‘But he was up at midnight when I did the rounds.’

As a rule, no one patrolled the lines themselves during the silent hours, for horses needed their peace as much as dragoons, but some of the barley feed that day had been fusty, and there were fears for the odd case of colic. But Harkaway had not had the barley. He lay quite still, his breathing shallow, with no sweating. The veterinary officer was twenty miles away, and Hervey was at a loss to know what to try.

Serjeant Armstrong arrived. He watched, silent, until Hervey pressed him for an opinion. ‘I just don’t know, sir. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a horse down and as still as this.’

‘He can’t have picked up any poison. He’s been all but in tandem with Gilbert the past two weeks. Mr Gascoyne thought he was just off his form, tired after the march.’