Smuggler's Moon by Bruce Alexander Read Free Book Online

perhaps I had overstepped myself, I told Mr. Curtin not to presume upon Sir John’s generosity; and thinking I had told him all, I ended it there. But then I did add that Clarissa had said I had done wrong, and as I thought about it through the day, I saw that she was right.
    “Indeed she was,” said Sir John. ”But you realize it, too, and we may be grateful for that.”
    Was I to be let off so easily?
    “You see what you have done, don’t you?”
    “I … believe I do.”
    “Perhaps not. Let me lay it before you. What you have done is to blacken my name. You have suggested to this Henry Curtin that I would sell myself so cheap as to give leniency to him in court simply for doing what he is paid to do—look after one of his passengers. Who knows? Perhaps he will spread the word. I may wind up with a reputation so sullied that it may never be clean again.”
    I hung my head, unable to look him square in the face.
    He continued: ”But that is not likely.”
    “Sir?”
    “No, the chances are good that we shall not hear of Mr. Henry Curtin ever again. I hope that is so. I expect it will be so. Let us leave it at that, shall we?”
    There was but one more matter, quite unrelated: ”I wonder, Jeremy, if you could go to the apothecary shop early tomorrow and get from him some preparation to bind my bowels. I’ve been troubled ever since dinner.”

TWO
    In which Sir John
arrives and is given
a warm welcome

    I t took over a day of hard driving to bring us to Deal. Lord Mansfield’s coach-and-four awaited us, as previously arranged, at the end of Sir John’s court session. Constable Perkins and I handed up our bags and portmanteaus to the coachman, who stowed them, secured, atop the vehicle, just as might be done upon any stagecoach. That gave us far more room inside in which to bounce about. Though I’m sure that the driver provided exemplary service going about London, he apparently could not resist running the horses once we were out on the open road. As a result, after hours of having our backsides brutalized, we were happy to put up at an inn somewhere beyond Chatham which had been recommended by Lord Mansfield.
    Next day, however, was a bit different. It may have been that we had grown used to being battered about, or perhaps our backsides had hardened, or again (though less likely),
    perhaps the driver had taken pity upon us and slowed the pace appreciably—whatever the reason, we traveled so much more comfortably that we actually found it possible to talk amongst ourselves. It must have begun as we slowed to drive through Canterbury. Clarissa remarked that it was the first walled city she had seen. Always trying to best her, I countered that London itself was a walled city—or had been such. When Clarissa leapt in to challenge my assertion, Sir John settled it by declaring that it was indeed so, but that so many centuries had passed that so far as he knew nearly all trace of it had disappeared.
    Then, perhaps to keep us two from wrangling further, Sir John called upon the fourth passenger, rousing him from a bouncing doze.
    “Mr. Perkins,” said he, ”what can you tell us of this territory to which we’re headed? So far as I am concerned, east Kent is naught but
terra incognita
.”
    “
Terra
which?”
    “Oh, ‘tis a phrase meaning ‘unknown land.’ Do please forgive me for resorting to Latin, won’t you?”
    “Certainly I shall, sir.” Then, having come full awake at last, he glanced round at the rest of us, and said, ”So you’d like to hear a bit about east Kent, would you? First of all, you know what they call it, don’t you?”
    “I believe I have heard,” said Sir John. ” ‘The garden of England,’ isn’t that right?”
    “It is indeed. That’s for all the farming that’s done here. Most of what’s sold in Covent Garden, all them fruits and vegetables, they come from right here in Kent. The hops they make the ale from—that’s grown here, too.”
    I could well believe it,