Page 37 of By Marsh and By Moor
“Not as such.Even if I do have the ill luck to run into the gang, I’m a carter, not a man who uses the sea.They’ll see that clear enough.Odds are they won’t bother me, unless they be in desperate great need of men that day.”He gave Jed a sympathetic look.“Of course, I’m not an old seaman like you.”
Jed fumbled the parcel he was holding and almost dropped it.He put it down carefully.“What makes you think that?”
“Well, something in the way you walk, maybe.That seaman’s gait.”At Jed’s look of dismay, he added quickly, “Or maybe I’m just imagining that.I mean, I already had a good idea you were a seaman.Mrs Drake’s clerk said you’d been away for years and just come back, and you’re always perking up your ears at any mention of the press gang.”
Did he really still walk like a seaman?Surely not.Jed shifted his weight uneasily from foot to foot.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t set out to worrit you,” Norris said.“Don’t you fret your head about Ilfracombe.We en’t even going anywhere near the seafront.”
Frowning, Jed stooped to pick up the parcel he’d set down.“Let’s not dawdle here, making ourselves late.”
In the end, the trip to Ilfracombe proved as uneventful as Norris had promised, to Jed’s enormous relief.By the time they returned to Barnstaple, Solomon had left for Taunton.Jed only saw him briefly over the next few days, Solomon driving into the yard as Jed drove out.
But on Thursday morning, Jed arrived at dawn to find Solomon standing outside the office with Mrs Drake and the head yardman.Mrs Drake waved to Jed to come and join them.
“—should heal soon enough, he thinks,” she was saying as Jed reached them.“But he won’t be able to drive for another week at least, I reckon.”She turned to Jed.“Trevithick, I’m sending you and Dyer to Exeter, leaving right away.”
Jed met Solomon’s gaze.Exeter was more than a day’s journey away by the large, ponderous carrier’s waggon used on that route.They’d be overnight on the road together.The glint in Solomon’s eye said that he was thinking the same thing.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jed said, eyes still on Solomon.
Chapter Ten
“…and for the labouring man, of course, there is nothing better for the soul than good, healthy work in the fields, as I always tell my parishioners,” the parson finished.“Don’t you think so, good sir?”
This was addressed not to Jed but to the middle-aged travelling salesman who was the only other passenger in the covered waggon making its ponderous way along the Exeter road.The salesman did not respond, but only shifted to get more comfortable on the bench where he was crammed in between a sack of wool and a parcel of newspapers.
Solomon was on the driving box, and Jed was in the waggon with the passengers, lost in his own thoughts.What were the odds that he and Solomon would have the waggon to themselves when they stopped for the night?The parson, surely, would take a room at the White Swan Inn, but the middle-aged salesman looked like the class of man that might want to save his pennies and sleep in the waggon with the waggoners.
“Bishop Stafford reminds us that the working man’s long day of toil is his best protection from life’s temptations,” the clergyman went on.“From drink, idleness, loose women… As a matter of fact, I have a copy of the good bishop’s sermons with me.Perhaps I may—”
“I’m liable to be ill if people talk at me when I’m travelling,” the salesman said.“It’s the rocking of the waggon, you see.”He put a handkerchief over his face.
The parson glanced at Jed, who quickly turned his head to look at the road ahead.“Hill’s coming up,” he said.
The salesman groaned, but they all got out to lighten the load as the six sturdy horses dragged the heavily laden waggon up the hill.
They reached Copplestone Cross just as the sun was setting.The White Swan was one of the busiest inns on the Exeter road.When they pulled into the yard, the ostler who came out to greet them was a grizzled little man known to Jed of old.“Lord above, it’s been years since I’ve seen you on this road, friend.I thought you must surely be dead.Weren’t you the Ledcombe carrier, before?”
“I’m working out of Barnstaple now.”
“So I see, so I see.”He turned to bellow through the taproom’s open window.“Carrier from Barnstaple’s here.”
The clergyman had climbed down from the waggon, and now he addressed himself to the ostler.“Is there a bed free, my good fellow?”
“There is indeed.”
“Excellent,” the salesman said.“I’ll come with you to find the landlord, parson.”
The two passengers disappeared into the inn.Jed met Solomon’s eye.They didn’t have time to speak—the first people were already hurrying from the inn, clamouring for their goods and parcels.But anticipation shivered down Jed’s spine.
An hour later, he and Solomon were in the taproom.They’d fed, stabled, and brushed the horses, and washed the mud of the journey from their own bodies.Now they were sitting down to a hot meal.
Solomon raised his tankard with an ironic tilt of the head.“Here’s to a healthy day’s labour.I hear it’s good for the soul.”
Jed let out something that was halfway between a huff of laughter and a groan.“To think we’ll have that parson fellow in the waggon again tomorrow.”
“So, did your day of toil divert your thoughts from the paths of temptation?”
