The Forest (82 page)

Why, for nearly a century, did the entire population of England’s southern counties cheerfully connive at breaking the law? Because they did not like paying taxes? Nobody does. Were they all criminals?

Even the wisest legislators sometimes forget that, for the most part, government is just a business like any other. The entire population down to the humblest cottager now drank tea. The tax imposed on tea was so high that ordinary folk could not afford to pay it. Therefore they must either do without or find contraband. As much for this reason, probably, as any other, the smuggling business was not perceived as anything more than technically illegal. No one actually thought it was wrong. The law, in this instance, had no repute. Why, it was not even called smuggling. Free Trade was the name by which the enterprise was known; Free Traders were smugglers.

The case with brandy, and the many other goods
shipped, was similar; but here a related factor came into play. The high level of duty actually created a potential profit margin: there was an inducement for a smuggling business to develop.

The obvious solution, one might have thought, would be to reduce the level of Customs duty. Ordinary folk might have had their tea and the smuggling trade become unprofitable. The Customs receipts would very likely have gone up. But this, it seems, never occurred to anyone – unless, of course, it had, and not every legislator wished to end the business.

The structure of the Free Trade was conventional. Profits on different commodities varied but on best brandy, the most favoured line, they ran roughly as follows.

A keg of brandy retailed in London, tax included, at about thirty-two shillings. Its cost price in France was half that. Selling at a discount of about thirty per cent off full retail price therefore left the Free Trader with a gross margin of around thirty per cent and the certainty that all his stock would be sold instantly for cash. After paying for the carriage of goods and other expenses, his profit would have been around ten per cent of his sales; so by making several runs a year he could earn a healthy return on capital employed.

Thanks to Isaac Seagull the lander, the distribution network was excellent. No cargo he had run had ever been intercepted.

Why then, as he gazed out over the marshes should he betray by a twitch in his mouth that he was worried?

The venturer had some big plans for the coming year – very big. Nothing must go wrong. His job, as lander, was to make sure that nothing did.

So what could go wrong? Some time next year, if the reports were correct, there would be detachments of dragoons arriving at the new barracks at Christchurch. What would that mean? It was too early to know how many
were coming, but it would be wise to get the biggest shipments through before they arrived.

Then there were events in France to consider. So far, the Revolution, the execution of the king, the reign of the Terror had all come to Paris. War had even been declared. But that had not stopped the big wine merchants of France concluding ambitious deals with the venturer. That was the venturer’s problem, of course, not his. It exercised his agile mind, though, all the same.

Assuming the shipments could all be made before the new dragoons arrived, what else was there to consider?

Grockleton. Some Customs officers could be paid off, but they let you know soon enough if that was their game, and Grockleton hadn’t. Isaac’s feelings were mixed. Letting yourself be paid off was probably the most rational course, he supposed, but he quite respected a man who was prepared to fight. If he had a chance, that is. But could Grockleton really believe he had a chance?

Seagull could think of only one instance of the Lymington Customs men scoring a success and that had been five years ago, just before Grockleton came. A breakaway group of Free Traders had started operating out of a cave known as Ambrose Hole, in the river valley just north of Lymington. He’d known who they were, of course, and stopped using them for the smuggling run because they wouldn’t obey orders. They’d taken to robbing people on the turnpike roads; then they’d killed several people. Everyone had had enough by then. The Free Traders were armed, but they scarcely ever used violence unless a convoy was attacked. Killing wasn’t their style. The magistrate, the mayor, even he himself had all agreed it had to stop. So Seagull had told the Customs officer where they were, troops called in, the gang raided. They’d found a lot of stolen goods in the cave. And thirty bodies too; buried in a shaft. He had been shocked by that.

The Customs officers and the troops had claimed that as
a success. Seagull hadn’t minded; it did no harm.

But Grockleton was still there. He had a determined look about him. He might be watched every hour, but he clearly could not be discounted. Isaac Seagull never discounted danger: that was why he was good at his job.

And now, as he considered the problem of Grockleton and what to do about him, another thought came into his mind.

What if Grockleton had a spy? A good one. Someone in the Free Traders. That was a further possibility. It might seem unlikely, but it had to be considered. An informer would be killed if caught of course. That was something the Free Traders would do. But still …

Isaac Seagull’s mouth twitched. He was thinking.

Nathaniel Furzey liked living with the Prides in Oakley. They were a pleasant, lively family. He and Andrew Pride were fast friends. Andrew’s father, besides keeping a small herd of cows, had a timber business, buying timber at a good price from the woodward and selling it on. Piles of his timber were stacked by the edge of Oakley green.

The first few weeks he had lived there he had been on his best behaviour. But before long, his natural high spirits had come out, and he had been getting into cheerful mischief ever since.

The fact was that curly-haired young Nathaniel Furzey was quickly bored. The schoolwork at Mr Gilpin’s came so easily to him that he had usually finished when the rest of the children were only halfway through. Sometimes Mr Gilpin himself would come by and read with him. The vicar had even been tempted, once, to teach him a little Latin, but realized that Nathaniel was picking it up so fast that he had stopped the exercise quickly before it went too far.

‘What do you think I should do?’ Gilpin had asked a fellow cleric. ‘I’m not talking of natural intelligence. Young Andrew Pride has quite as much of that as any of the boys
you’d find at the schools in Salisbury or Winchester. I’m speaking of a rare bird, a natural scholar, a fellow who could spend a life at Oxford or Cambridge.’ He sighed. ‘I dare say Sir Harry Burrard or the Albions would pay for it if I asked them to send him away to school – if the parents agreed of course. But …’

‘You’d take him away from his family, his friends, the Forest,’ his friend had answered. ‘And if it didn’t work …’

‘Stranded like a boat on a sandbank.’

‘I think so.’

‘It’s easier in towns. If he lived in Winchester, or London …’ Gilpin mused. ‘I suppose the whole nation’s like that, though. Trees growing deep in the forests. Wonderful trees dropping thousands of acorns. One in a million is carved into a piece of fine furniture. Nature’s waste.’

‘True, Gilpin. But also England’s stock. Always plenty of it.’

So the vicar had left young Nathaniel in the little village school, after which he would doubtless grow up to enjoy a quiet Forest life. In the meantime he was mischievous.

One of the chief delights that occupied his active mind was that of playing practical jokes. Andrew liked these too, but even he was awestruck sometimes by the ingenuity of some of the jokes that Nathaniel devised. His most recent had concerned the Furzeys.

Although he had the same name as the Oakley Furzeys, Nathaniel soon came to share the Prides’ view of their neighbours. Even setting aside the dark memory of their betrayal of Alice Lisle, it seemed to the Prides that Caleb Furzey was a bit slow in the head. What intrigued Nathaniel, however, was Caleb’s imagination. For it was full of fear and superstition.

‘I always carries some salt with me,’ he assured the boy, ‘to throw over my shoulder.’ Burley he was afraid to enter, ‘on account of the witches’. He wouldn’t go up to Minstead
church because he said it was haunted; and once, by mistake, he had gone round Brockenhurst church widdershins – though few Forest folk would have cared to do that – and had lived in fear for weeks. But any evil sign would set him off. If he saw a solitary magpie, he spoke to it at once; he walked carefully round ladders; and if he saw a jet-black cat with no white marking he’d be off as fast as he could. ‘Black cat: witch’s cat,’ he’d declare.

So Nathaniel had found a black cat. It was dead when he found it and it wasn’t really black, because it had some white hair under its chin. But when he’d discovered a man who knew how to stuff animals, and when he’d applied some black dye to the white patch, he reckoned the cat looked pretty good. Then he and Andrew Pride went to work.

There was nowhere that black cat didn’t appear. Walking along a forest path, Caleb would suddenly see it confronting him, turn away in horror and never see the string that jerked it quickly into the bushes. With luck he’d take another path and the boys would be able to set up an ambush there too. Next day, he’d see it at his window. Nathaniel was an artist, though. Days would pass and Caleb would think himself safe before, suddenly, the cat would appear in some new and improbable place to terrify him. Soon the whole of Oakley was out looking for the mysterious feline. It was Andrew’s father who guessed the truth, cuffed the two boys and gave the stuffed cat a discreet and decent burial. Nothing more was said about it after that and the two boys certainly never knew that when the timber merchant had told his wife about it privately the two adults had laughed until they cried.

There were other things to interest Nathaniel at Oakley, however. He had seen the Free Traders’ packhorses up at Minstead from time to time; but you couldn’t help noticing a lot more activity down at the coast near Oakley. Several times he had been aware that Andrew’s father had disappeared for the night, returning at dawn looking cheerful,
leading his pony and dumping a little sack of tea on the kitchen table without a word.

One morning three riding officers had arrived at Oakley and started inspecting Pride’s pile of timber by the green. Pride had watched them with mild interest as they started dismantling it. They found this hard work; they took all morning. At noon Grockleton rode up and saw they had found nothing.

‘I hope your officers are going to put my timber back the way it was, Mr Grockleton,’ Pride remarked.

‘I don’t believe they will, Mr Pride,’ the other replied with equal coolness.

Pride and the family had restacked the timber after they had gone. No word was spoken. That was the game.

Nathaniel encountered Grockleton himself one day, however. It was about two weeks after he had been given the smallpox vaccination. He and Andrew Pride had just come out of school and, instead of turning, as they usually would, to go past Mr Gilpin’s house back to Oakley, they were walking the other way, towards Boldre church.

Their destination that day was Albion House, where Pride’s aunt was the housekeeper. Andrew had been told to pay this formidable lady a visit after school and Nathaniel had been delighted to go with him. This was the house where the young lady lived, who had persuaded him to have the vaccination. It was a big house, too, Andrew had told him: a manor house. He had never been in such a house before.

They were just going along the lane to the church when they heard the horse behind them and turned to see the tall Customs Officer riding up. As he came abreast he looked down and asked them politely where they were going.

Apart from his claw-like hands, Grockleton could make himself pleasant enough when he wasn’t looking for contraband. Hearing their destination was Albion House, he pulled a sealed letter from his coat and asked with a smile: ‘Would you boys like to earn tuppence?’

‘We each would, Sir,’ said Nathaniel, quick as a flash.

Grockleton hesitated a second, then chuckled. ‘Very well, then. This is a letter from my wife to old Mr Albion. Will you deliver it?’

‘Oh, yes, Sir,’ they both cried eagerly.

‘Then you will save me the journey.’ He reached for the money, and as he did so casually remarked: ‘Now you must see it’s delivered at once. You know how to deliver letters, I suppose?’

‘I will deliver a letter anywhere in the Forest, Sir,’ said Nathaniel firmly, ‘for tuppence.’

‘Good. Here you are then.’

He gave them the money and watched them go off. But for some reason, as if a thought had just struck him, Grockleton did not move at once but remained where he was for fully a minute, staring after them. And when Nathaniel glanced back, he saw that Grockleton was staring at him, particularly, in deep thought.

Now why, he wondered, should Mr Grockleton be doing that?

Oxford! Oxford at last. There it was, ahead of them, its spires and domes rising out of a faint morning mist that hung over the broad green meadows and the gentle river that wound past the colleges. Oxford on the River Isis, as the Thames is called on this stretch of its long journey. It was useless to pretend they were not excited.

‘And to think, Fanny, my sweetest, dearest friend,’ cried her cousin Louisa. ‘To think that we nearly did not set out at all!’

How very pretty Louisa looked today, Fanny thought with pleasure. She had always admired Louisa’s dark hair and lustrous brown eyes, and this morning her cousin was looking particularly animated. How pleasant it was, she considered, that her closest cousin should also be her best friend.