The King - Dewey Lambdin


Dewey Lambdin The King's Privateer (Lewrie – 04)

I


Chapter 1

"Shortest damned commission in naval history, I'll be bound," Alan Lewrie commented to his dining companions at Gloster's Hotel and Chop-House in Piccadilly.

"Oh, God, is he on about that one again?" The Honorable Peter Rushton, one of his old friends from his brief terra at Harrow, almost gagged. "Give it a rest, will you, Alan? There's a good fellow. It is a wonder you don't still wear blue exclusively."

"Can't dine out on yer little bit o' fame forever, ye know, Alan," Clotworthy Chute, Rushton's constant companion, agreed round a bite of steak, and sloshed a sip of wine into his mouth to clear his palate to go further. "Bloody war's been over nigh on a year, don't ye know. You're home, well set up, got oceans o' chink to spend. Oceans o' mutton to bull. What man has need of anything more?"

"Well, it's not exactly oceans of guineas, Clotworthy," Alan pointed out. "More like a trickle of 'yellowboys' than a proper shower."

"But didn't Granny Lewrie just finish visiting?" Peter Rushton asked. "I'd have thought she'd have refilled your coffers to overflowing."

"So that's why you two bade me dine with you this evening," Alan said with a leery expression. From the first time he'd met them, neither Rushton nor Chute had had two pence to rub together. Chute's parents had gone smash and only provided him a miserly hundred pounds a year. Rushton's poppa, Lord George Rushton Baron of Staughton, had scads of loot and rents, but limited The Honorable Peter to a mere thousand guineas a year-it should have been enough for anyone, but young Peter had always spread himself a bit wider than most, and loved the gaming tables a bit too much. Both of them could be downright abstemious with their own funds, but could happily spend some other young fool's money in the twinkling of an eye.

"You use me ill as so many bears, sir!" Peter shot back ' as if he had been stung to the uttermost limits of his personal honor, but then gave a sardonic bark of amusement. "The thought had crossed my mind, damme if it hadn't, Alan, but we'll go equal shares on the reckoning tonight, so there. I believe we're flush, hey, Clotworthy?"

"Flush up to the deck-heads, as our Alan would say," Clotworthy agreed, smacking like a contented porker over some recent change in his fortunes. "And how was old granny? Still prosperin'?"

"Nigh onto seventy, and spry as a hound," Alan marveled. "And none too fond of my living arrangements, let me tell you. Spent most of my time over at their lodgings getting preached at."

"Glad my father's off in the country most of the time, too," Rushton commiserated. "Leastwise, there's my younger brother should I have a bad end. Title's safe. Lord, parents do have such vaunting expectations, don't they, though? Wasn't enough I got through Harrow and Cambridge, now he wants me to amount to something! I ask you, me amount to anything? Just let me inherit."

"And who were those rustics I saw you with on the Strand, Alan?" Clotworthy teased. "New companions?"

'The cousins, damn 'em." Alan winced. "I'd hoped no one would know me. Had to take them everywhere, see and do everything. Except anywhere near a good tailor or dressmaker. Following fashion is sinful extravagance to their lights. Just about everything back in old Wheddon Cross is perfection, to hear them tell it, and everything in London is like a German wood-cut engraved Hell."

"Wheddon Cross. Wherever the devil's that?" Clotworthy asked.

"Devon, near Exeter."

"Ah, damn dreary, I should think." Peter Rushton shivered.

"You'd think right," Alan agreed. His post-war visit had been the most boresome two weeks of his life. The Nuttbush cove his granny had married to transfer the Lewrie estate to his coverture, so his father Sir Hugo couldn't lay hands on it, was a dour old squire, not much taken with him from the first, no matter his repute as a sailor-hero, and had made it perfectly clear than Alan should harbor no hopes of getting his sinful little paws on a farthing of the new Nuttbush estate. He'd also made it pretty clear that the farther such a rake-hell was from his own kith and kin the better, no matter what his grandmother wished.

"Old granny still dotes on you, don't she?" Clotworthy asked further. "He hasn't turned her off you, has he?"

Clotworthy was one person Alan would never discuss money with. He'd started out school days a living sponge, just borrowing at first, but had graduated to a higher calling of criminal endeavor lately.

"Aye, she slipped me a little on the sly. Not much, mind." Alan lied. Actually, his grandmother had done him rather proud: a purse of bank notes worth an hundred extra pounds above his two hundred a year remittance. And she'd gone shopping and had outfitted his suite of rooms with a new Turkey carpet, a handsome wine cabinet and desk, and a new set of chairs for his second-hand dining table. She'd also provided a new lock-box for his chocolate, tea, sugar and coffee, and, while strolling with him through one of the Academy exhibits at Ranelagh Gardens, had purchased a nautical painting he'd taken a fancy to which now hung over his sitting room fireplace mantel.

"Ah, well," Clotworthy sighed in slight disappointment, knowing he couldn't hit Alan up for a loan, not right then, at any rate. Alan was surprised Clotworthy Chute had even agreed to go shares on their supper. Usually he lived on someone else's dole like a Roman client, when he wasn't bamboozling some idiot out of some ready pelf.

Must have found a new fool to bilk, Alan decided.

"They were the most peculiar lot, Peter," Clotworthy said, laughing.

"So tha'ss t'Strand, coozin Alan?" Alan mimicked. "Go' blessus, hi'ss wide, ahn't eet? However ye geet 'cross t'street 'ere in Loonun, me dear?" Which caricature set his dining companions off in mirth. "I tried to take 'em to my usual haunts, but they weren't having any of it. Coffee houses were nests of idleness. They'd be happier in a counting house, where people do productive work. Covent Garden, Drury Lane, I do believe shocked 'em to their prim souls. Got an hour's rant about sin, fornication, the low morals of theatre people…"

"They're right on that score, thank the Lord," Peter said, giggling.

"Lord's Cricquet Grounds… that was acceptable to 'em. The banks, the palace; the 'Change you'd have thought was Westminster Abbey," Alan went on. "Couldn't even get 'em enthused about a raree-show. Suggested watching a hanging; thought that'd buck 'em up, but it was no go."

"Speaking of actresses and such," Peter Rushton sighed. "How does a run over to Will's Coffee House in Covent Garden sound? I feel like putting the leg over some nubile young thing."

'Topping idea, Peter," Clotworthy said in his best toadying style. Evidently, Chute had gulled some other young wastrel earlier, and for once had his own cash to go on a high ramble.

"And just who was it this time, Clotworthy?" Rushton asked him, much amused by his schoolmate's new trade as a "Hoo-Ray Harry," one of those "Captain Sharps" who could decy-pher to the penny how much someone's inheritance was worth at first sight, and could also discern to the shilling just how much of it he could abscond with in his role of guide-amanuensis to the pleasures of London life.

"The Right Honorable Mathew Jermyn, Viscount Mickle-ton," Clotworthy boasted. "Poor little shit. Twenty years old, just down from the country. Rich as Croesus now he's inherited. Must have led a damned dull life up to now. Like Alan's cousins, he wants to go everywhere, and do everything. So far, I've shewn him a decent tailor… you can't believe how 'Chaw-Bacon' he looked when he got down out of his coach. Had suiting I'd not give a starving Irishman. With a tricorne on his head, don't ye know, haw haw haw!"

"That wouldn't be your own tailor, would it, Clotworthy?" Alan asked, pouring mem all another glass of burgundy and waving for the wine steward to fetch another bottle.

"Made the man an easy three hundred pounds in an afternoon, with enough overage to pay my bills off. And finagle a new suit for meself out o' the bargain!" Clotworthy tittered. "Oh, we've had some fine times, I tell you. The old family equipage just wouldn't do, so I steered him to a carriage maker of my acquaintance. Over to Newmarket for four fine horses. New hats at Lock's, and a brace for me as well. I've got him ensconced in a town-house of his own in Old Compton Street, close to all the action. There was an extra two hundred for me on the deal. Introduced him to all the people who matter, don't ye know. Got him invitations to just about everything."

"What's he worth, do you reckon?" Alan asked, grinning in spite of himself. Clotworthy could sell roast pork to Muslims, and convince them to eat it with avidity.

"There must be fifty thousand pounds a year due the young clown. And if I don't end up with ten percent, I'm a bare-arsed Hindoo."

"He'll tumble to you sooner or later, you know," Alan said.

"Aye, but by then I'll have got mine, so what care I?" Clotworthy boasted. "Ah, another bottle, just in time, too. Peter, you must meet him. He knows nothin' about cards. You could skin him for a few hundred to tide you over, I should think. And you, as well, Alan. You cut a dashing figure about town."

Lewrie preened a little at that remark. Poor as his purse was, he had his stolen guineas from the French War Commissary ship Ephegenie to call upon, plus his two hundred pounds a year, and what the Navy laughingly called half-pay, which with the various deductions came to a miserly eleven pence a day. But he could still afford to wear the outer attributes of a stylish young gentleman about town with the best of them.

Styles had changed drastically since he'd been dragooned into the Navy in 1780. Cocked hats and tricornes were out; wide-brimmed, low-crowned farmer's styles or narrow, upwardly rolled brimmed hats with truncated, tapering crowns were in. Long waist-coats were horribly passe; short, double-breasted styles were all "the go" now. Sensible shoes with sturdy heels and soles had been replaced by either two-toned high boots or thin-soled slippers little more solid than a ladies' dancing shoe. No one carried a sword anymore unless out after dark in the worst neighborhoods. Now one had to sport a cane or walking stick with an intricately carved handle.

And suits: the finery of a long, full-skirted coat had been out for some time and those of Society with the proper ton now favored those coats drastically cut away from the legs in front

Alan was sure he looked as acceptable as any other follower of popular fashion. It was dangerous in London to look too odd; the Mob had been known to throw dung at people who looked foreign or too out of style. Following fashion was cheaper than the cleaning bills!

"Think there's a penny in your cully for me as well, Clotworthy?" Alan smirked. "You know I don't gamble deep anymore."

"Might be some wine and entertainment, anyway," Clotworthy promised, his round, cherubic face aglow. Damme, Alan thought, but he looks so innocent butter'd not melt in his mouth. "Like Peter here, you know everyone of note. An invitation or two'd not go amiss to bedazzle our calf-headed innocent while I skin him."

"Damme, who'd a thought you'd end up a swindler, Clotworthy?" Alan marveled. "I'd have put you down for nothing higher than amuser back when we were caterwauling in '79."

"Might as well be a pickpocket or a handkerchief snatcher," Clotworthy sniffed. "Never steal out of need. Amusers blow snuff in some cully's eyes, beat him up into the bargain, and elope with what they can get. Now a true artist, such as I, only accept payment for my services. That's not true stealing. I mean, damme, Alan! What good's an education if you can't use it fer yer own improvement?"

"And since you did so poorly in school…" Rushton supplied, waiting for the expected tag line that was almost Chute's cri de coeur.

"A man's got to be good at something, don't ye know?" Chute bellowed, and shook with amusement at his own well-tried jape.

"Well, the last of the last bottle," Rushton said, sharing the last of the wine into their glasses. "Port, cheese, the house's specialty sherry trifle? Or should we just pay up and head for the nearest bagnio and get ourselves stuck into some bareback riders?"

"I must confess I'm most pleasantly stuffed," Alan replied, with not an inch more room for dessert or cheese and biscuit.

'Too much food stifles the blood's humors," Clotworthy added, burping gently. "Let's pass on dessert and stroll supper off. Time enough for a cold collation after the whores."

"Afraid you'll have to roister without me tonight, gentlemen," Alan said, waving for the waiter and digging for his purse.

"Ah, an assignation, is it?" Rushton teased, digging him in the ribs. "Who is it tonight, then? Lady Cantner, or the lovely and so-edible Dolly Fenton?"

"Now that would be telling." Alan grinned with an air of • mystery. Besides half-pay and prize money from his naval service, he could always count on the generosity of women whose husbands or keepers were too busy about their public affairs to pay proper suit to their private amours.

Tonight it was to be Dolly Fenton, who had been his mistress at Antigua for a few delicious weeks after he'd gone into the Shrike brig. She'd gone back to England on the packet once his ship had been transferred to the Jamaica Squadron, but she was still half in love with him, even if she had gained herself a wealthy City magistrate as a patron and lover. The man had to spend time with his wife and family, which left Dolly bored and lonely. She was to come to his lodgings for a few hours of bliss, and he was going to be a trifle late if he didn't stir his young arse up and hurry home.

Dolly was a few years older than he, but that hadn't been a detriment so far. Alan had solved her financial difficulties after her husband left her a penniless widow on Antigua, by the simple expedient of pointing out to her that instead of whoring of even the most genteel sort, she could sell the late Captain Fenton's commission in the Army to a richer junior officer of his unit who wished to buy his way up in rank.

Tomorrow, though, he would have to devote all his time to Lady Delia Cantner. When Alan had been a midshipman aboard the small dispatch schooner Parrot in 1781, she and her husband had been their passengers. In the midst of an outbreak of Yellow Fever among the crew, Alan's insubordinate actions had burned a French privateer to the waterline, a ship that had appeared like the last act of a capricious God to torment them in their already dire peril.

Lady Delia was years younger than her husband, the ancient squint-a-pipes Lord Cantner, who was most conveniently crossing over to Holland to transact some business, and would be gone for some time.

Where Dolly Fenton was green-eyed and blessed with hair the color of polished mahoghany, with a slim young body, Lady Delia was dark, like a Spanish countess. Black hair, smoky brown eyes with a lazy, sensuous cast and a bountifully soft and round form with the biggest bouncers Alan had ever doted upon. He would be hard put to choose exactly which of the pair he'd prefer, if he had to give one of them up.

And with two such lovelies in his life, both so eager to be rogered to panting ruin as often as possible, the idea of going on a rut among the drabs was less than appetizing. At least with Dolly and Lady Delia, he didn't have to worry (much, anyway) about catching the pox and suffering the dubious, and painful, mercury cure.

They paid their reckoning, gathered up their hats and cloaks, and headed out into a bitter night. Sleet was falling. The streets and walks were already glazed with a rime of slush half-frozen into ice, and a brisk nor'westerly wind would harden that into a proper snowfall before dawn.

"Nasty bloody weather," Clotworthy grumbled from the depths of his three-tiered cape-collared overcoat.

"Who'd be a sailor on such a night," Alan sighed, wishing just once more for the sort of balmy warmth he'd experienced in the West Indies, and shrugging deeper into his dark blue grogram watchcoat, part of his uniform he'd never expected to use.

"Damn your invigorating stroll, Clotworthy," Rushton said. "Let's whistle up a coach. Here comes one now."

A coach and four was indeed trotting up to the doorway of Gloster's, the horse's hooves splashing and skidding a little in the muddy slush of the roadway. A postillion boy muffled to the eyebrows in yards of scarves jumped down and opened the door to hand out the occupants, as Clotworthy arranged a fare for Drury Lane.

There was something familiar about the bleak, almost harsh-faced young man who was alighting from the equipage. Snapping hazel eyes, ash-blonde hair and a certain, stiff, almost military manner in which he carried himself. Alan's face split in a grin of recognition. And when the second young man with the same features alit, he stepped forward and extended his mittened hand in greetings.

"Governour Chiswick, is that you?" Alan demanded.

"What the devil… Alan Lewrie!" the elder Chiswick brother boomed out loud enough to startle the horses. "Give ye joy, sir! Caroline… Mother! See who's come to meet us!"

Chapter 2

"I declare, Mister Lewrie, London must be the world's largest little city," Mrs. Chiswick stated over supper. "Once we left Charleston and sailed for home, we lost all track of you, and then, up you pop like a jack-in-the-box!"

Alan had debated whether to beg off and run home to his set of rooms to Dolly, or stay and catch up on old times with the Chiswicks, whom he hadn't seen since Yorktown and the evacuation of Wilmington, North Carolina. It was Caroline Chiswick who decided the matter for him. She had blossomed from a gawky and almost painfully thin young girl of eighteen to a lovely young lady of twenty-one, his own age. She was still slimmer than fashion dictated, and was taller (or gawkier) than most men preferred, at a bare two inches less than Alan's five foot nine. But the hazel eyes of the Chiswicks were like amber flames into which he was drawn with the certainty of a besotted moth. Her light brown hair glittered in the candlelight as though scattered with diamonds. And her delectable mouth beamed the fondest of smiles at him from the moment he had helped hand her out of the coach. The cheekbones were high, still, the face slim and tapering to a fine chin. Her eyes still crinkled at the corners, and formed little folds of flesh below the sockets of a most merry, and approving, cast, as they had that last day on deck when she and her parents had been sent ashore at Charleston.

The way she laid her gloved hand on his coat sleeve and gave it a squeeze, and the pleading, wistful, way she had gazed at him as she had said, "Oh, please sup with us, do, Alan!" had knocked all thoughts of Dolly Fenton from his head.

Alan had had to introduce Peter Rushton and Clotworthy Chute to them. And when Clotworthy had learned they were in London to seek out some position for the younger brother, Burgess, it was all Alan could do to drive Chute away from the possibility of a few hundred pounds. Thankfully, the weather had driven his friends into the relative warmth of the carriage, and the Chiswicks into Gloster's, before cFotworthy could offer his "good offices" and connections with the influential of the town on their behalf.

"You can't imagine what a pleasant surprise it was for me, as well, Mistress Chiswick," Alan replied in turn. "Last I heard of your family, you were considering taking passage for Eleu-thera in the Bahamas to try your hand at fanning there."

"Land's too dear in the Bahamas," Governour stated. "For cotton or sugar, you need slaves, and slaves cost too much, so we didn't have the wherewithal to start over out there. There's been some talk of a compensation treaty, so the Rebels may someday make restitution to all the Loyalists who had to flee. But I'd not hold my breath waiting for a penny on the pound of all that we lost."

"We're in Surrey, near Guildford, with our uncle Phineas, now," Burgess Chiswick, the younger brother stated. "Cattle, sheep and oats. Some barley and hops, too. You must try our beer and ale! It'll never be like the Carolinas. Never be like our own place, not really, but…" He shared a glance with his mother, shrugged and shut up.

"Govemour manages the estate for Uncle Phineas," Caroline said to fill the awkward gap. "He was most kind to help us with our passage, and to give us a place to live. And although it is nowhere near as grand as our former home and acres, it is a solid enough croft."

"Aye, it is," the mother agreed firmly. "We've a roof over our heads, a tenancy with enough acreage for a good home-farm. Rent-free, may I remind you, Burge. 'Tis more than we could have hoped for, and a deal greater than most could ever dream of in these unsettled times."

"And Mister Chiswick?" Alan inquired. "He is well?" The last time Alan had seen their father in Wilmington, he'd been daft as bats.

"Improved most remarkably, sir!" Burgess was happy to relate. "He does for our acres wonderfully well. 'Twas amazing what a piece of land and herds did to inspirit him after all those trying months."

"Indeed, you would not know him now, Alan," Caroline chorused. His feebleness had been embarrassing to her. "Now, he's ruddy and hale, out in all weathers with the flocks and herds like a man half his rightful age! Dealing with the crofters and the lesser tenants."

And a tenant himself after all these years, Alan thought glumly. No matter they've food in their bellies and a dry hearth, it must still be a mortifying come-down from being Tidewater planters along the Lower Cape Fear.

"I'd think there'd be work enough, Burgess. Or do sheep put you off your dinner?" Alan teased.

"God, I hate the bloody things!" Burgess burst out, which set them all laughing. "And… well, I don't know if you have any interest in things agricultural, Alan, but what with Enclosure Acts being passed every session, and with the changeover of crops, there's little to do. The poorer crofters have been run off the common lands, and gone to the cities and mills for work, and there's no need for a large tenantry, no permanent laborers anymore. Which leaves little for me to do, either," he concluded with a wry shrug.

"We were hopeful of an Army career for Burgess here," Governour said as their food arrived. "Uncle Phineas can't extend his generosity so far as to buy Burgess a set of colors, but we both know he's an experienced officer. He made lieutenant with our regiment of volunteers before the war ended."

From the tone of Governour's voice when speaking of generosity from their blood relation, it was a slim sort of beneficence, and most like as cold as charity. It would cost this uncle Phineas nigh on four hundred pounds to settle Burgess as an ensign in even a poor regiment, and that with no support to maintain himself in the mess later, either, if the man was as miserly as Governour hinted. He didn't sound like the sort who'd spend money just to get young Burgess out from under foot, not unless there was a satisfactory return on his investment.

"If not a regiment, Burgess had a decent education, Alan," Caroline told him, drawing his attention most willingly back to her. "There must be something clerical for him to do. He knows lumber from our mill before the war. Horses. Trade. I've come to learn it's not socially acceptable to admit to a career in trade here in London, but there surely is something he could do to earn his way in life."

Law, Parliament, the Church, military service, banking or such careers were for the upper crust, Alan knew. Burgess was too old at twenty-one to be 'prenticed out to learn a trade, and it sounded as if farming was out, too. What little was left for him? That this spectacular specimen of mankind would grub away his days in some counting house, clerking and writing for a bank or mill owner? It was a ghastly thought. And, with the country inundated with veterans returned from the war, jobs were scarce as hen's teeth already, with a hundred queuing for every opening, and a thousand more tramping the roads from one rumor of employment to the next.

" Bow Street Runners!" Alan spoke up with sudden inspiration. "You know, that Fielding fellow's watch service. Replacing the parish Charlies with a police force. It's a bloo… a devilish un-English idea if you ask me, having a police force like the Frogs over in Paris do. Might as well declare martial law and have done, but they'd look kindly on a well set-up young fellow with military experience. I've read he hires ex-servicemen, sergeants and corporals, mostly. Good men handy with a staff, who can take care of themselves. Surely, they'd need someone like you, Burgess. You could show 'em what Red Indians fight like."

"It's a good idea, Burge," Governour opined heartily. "Not too much different from the Army, I suppose. Get in on the ground floor, so to speak. And with your education, and your skills, you'd move right up quickly."

"Aye, it's a thought," Burgess piped back, but Alan could see, even if the others didn't, that his heart wasn't exactly in it. From their time at Yorktown, besieged by the Rebels and the French, and in their daring escape after being blown downriver in those damned barges the night before the surrender, Alan was pretty sure being a constable of the watch was not the career Burgess Chiswick would care for.

He was a strange young fellow. So woods-crafty, so in control of his troops by an almost natural sense of superiority. Yet down in his depths, Alan had always caught an inkling of fear, of uncertainty. God knew, Alan had seen enough war to make his own knees knock every time he heard a cannon go off, and he still couldn't quite credit the Navy with making him a Commission Officer and giving him command of a ship of war, even one so small as Shrike in the closing weeks of the war-he of all people by God knew uncertainty like a close relation! But with Burgess, he felt a… softness. A nature too soft for the slings and arrows of life, like setting foxes to outfight hounds. And yet the ember of ambition burned within his breast, the wish to do great things perhaps beyond his measure.

"Who knows?" Burgess went on between bites of his fish course. 'There's always the sea, like you. Or the East Indies. I've heard officers with 'John Company' come home at least a chicken-nabob. Fifty thousand pounds in diamonds and rubies'd suit me right down to my toes."

"I pray not, Burge," Caroline said, frowning. "So far away, so harsh and hot. Why, they die like flies among the Hindoos, do they not, Alan?"

"So I've read, Caroline," Alan replied, and was rewarded with another of those deep gazes, and a slight touch of her hand on his in thankfulness for backing her words. A touch that struck a spark between them as remarkable as their first timid kiss on the Desperate frigate's midnight quarterdeck two years and more before.

Why'd I act so miss-ish with her before? Alan wondered. I even entertained a thought of marrying her, even if she was poor as a church-mouse. 'Course, that was back when I still had hopes of Lucy Beauman and her daddy's guineas. Any other girl, I'd have bulled her aft by the taffrail and damned anyone in the watch who'd interfere. Governour or Burgess would have called me out and skewered me for it, though. Maybe that's why I didn't. Maybe that's why.

"It would be a capital way to renew the family fortunes," Burgess insisted. "To get on with 'John Company.' Even as a clerk to some trading house out there would put me in the way of money beyond measure. And it wouldn't be but for a few years."

"Your friend Mister Chute intimated he had influence, Alan," Governour said. "Perhaps he could suggest something."

"I'd not trust him any farther than I could spit, Governour," Alan replied. "I knew him at Harrow, before I was expelled. He still owes me half a crown for tatties and gravy after all these years, and devil a hope I have of ever being repaid. He makes a career of making efforts on people's behalf. But he charges a pretty penny for it."

"Ah, that kind." Governour scowled again.

"And I thought after Mister Richardson's novels about such doings, they'd be a law to stop such as he," Mrs. Chiswick all but cried in alarm. "Harrow, though. A good school, for all I've heard tell. And what did you do to get yourself expelled, Alan?"

"Tried to blow up the governor's coach-house. And his privy," Alan was forced to admit. "Come to think on it, Clotworthy Chute and Peter Rushton were both in on it with me, and left me holding the bag. Or the wick, in this case." The food had been swill, the new governor of the school had strict ideas about discipline, and most schools were run by terror, anyway, with the students ready to riot at any provocation. Just before term ended, when parents came to fetch their children and saw the one instance of decent victuals (put on for their benefit and not to be seen again), they had decided to do something grand. A small keg of gunpowder had been procured, with a length of slow-match. It had been only extreme bad luck that the governor had been on his way to the privy behind the stables when the charge went off.

The intent had been to destroy the man's splendid coach and let him know how reviled he was among the students. But the measure of powder was a lot more than it ought to have been. Alan had lit the slow-match and run back away from the stables and coach-house what he thought was a safe distance to watch the show, and Clotworthy, Peter Rushton and a couple of other young scamps had hidden in the box hedges, tittering with anticipation.

The roof had been blown off. The doors and windows disappeared in a whoof of flame and smoke, and the carriages inside had certainly been turned into heat and light. But the horses had panicked and broke free from the stalls, and ran all over the county as the barn caught fire. Everyone had run for his life, and Alan had had the misfortune to choose the wrong direction, had not thought to put down his port-fire and had collided headlong with the governor, ramming his head right into the man's stout stomach and nightshirt, which abrupt collision had addled both of them, and Alan was last to his feet, with the incriminating evidence by his side.

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