Crown, for it was plain to see that Major Mornay was indeed drunk. Which at least explained why he had taken so long a time recognising me.
“Put up your sword,” I told him. “Or I shall be obliged to wound you, sir.”
With some ferocity he redoubled his attack, so that Iwas obliged to fence with him in earnest. And still not troubled by any of these attacks, I allowed him to meet me, hilt upon hilt, where, so close to me that I could smell the smoke that still lay upon his breath, he asked his question a second time.
“Why are you following me, Mister Ellis?”
Thus I did almost not notice how he had armed his free hand with a dagger, and I barely had time enough to step back before he lunged at me with his second blade, only to be caught in the flesh of his left upper arm with the tip of my rapier. The dagger clattered to the ground and Mornay dropped his guard so that, bating my own sobriety, I might easily have run him through. Indeed I almost wanted to kill him, for I dislike a man who brings a knife to a sword fight. Instead I retreated several paces, which allowed Mornay to turn and flee into the darkness of Lambeth Marshes.
After a moment or two I collected his dagger off the ground, glanced at its curious shape, and then slid the blade into the neck of my boot. I hardly knew if I should feel pleased with myself. I had not killed him, he had not killed me, and there was surely some cause for rejoicing. But would Newton find much to learn from the way the Major had been “refracted,” if that was how his vile and intemperate behaviour might be described? It seemed more likely that Mornay would inform Lord Lucas, who would use the news and bruit of our quarrel to make another complaint to the Lords Justices about the conduct of the Mint. This hardly grieved my heart, for I was suddenly very tired, and thought myself very fortunate not to have been murdered. In view of my own licentious behaviour that might have been just, for I had clearly dealt sacrilegiously with Miss Barton in my heart, and I resolved never to do the like again.
The next morning Newton examined Mornay’s dagger with interest, polishing it up like some back-street bravo, while I related a purgated version of my evening’s adventures in pursuit of the Major. I left out the fact that we had fought with swords; while my explanation of how I had struggled with my own lust drew the following advisement from Newton’s ascetic lips, for I doubt he ever kissed anything other than Miss Barton’s forehead, or a book he had particularly enjoyed.
“By being forcibly restrained lust is always inflamed,” he observed gravely. “The best way to be chaste is not to struggle with unchaste thoughts, but to decline them, and to keep the mind employed about other things. That has always been my own experience. He that’s always thinking of chastity will nearly always be thinking of women, and every contest waged with unclean thoughts will leave impressions on the mind as shall make those thoughts apt to return more frequently. But pray continue with your story. I am all fascination.”
“It is finished, more or less,” I replied. “Outside the house in Lambeth Marshes he ran away and dropped that dagger behind him.”
“But you have left out the story of your sword fight,” protested Newton. “I am keen to hear that most of all. Tell me, is the Major badly wounded?”
“He drew on me,” I stammered. “And I was obliged to defend myself. I only pricked him in the arm and I daresay he’ll recover soon enough. But how did you know, master? Did he inform Lord Lucas? Is it bruited about the Tower? Has His Lordship already complained?”
“I am quite certain that Major Mornay will not inform Lord Lucas,” said Newton. “What? A Major in the Ordnance bested by a mere clerk of the Mint? His reputation could not bear the ignominy.”
“Then,” I said with no small exasperation, “how did you know that we fought?”
“Simple. You have cleaned your sword. The cup upon its hilt now gleams like a communion chalice when yesterday it was as dull as pewter. I recollect that the last time you cleaned that rapier was when you drew it in Mrs. Berningham’s defence. I daresay that when you had bettered the Major with your sword, he drew this dagger and attempted to prick your ribs with it.”
“The fight happened just as you say,” I admitted. “I don’t know why I thought to hide it from you. You seem to know everything without the need to be told of it first. It’s quite a trick.”
“It’s no trick. Merely observation.
“Well then, I should like to be as observant as you.”
“But there is nothing to it, as I am often telling you. But it will come in time. If you live that long. For I believe you have had a fortunate escape. It’s clear from what you have told me, and from what is written on this blade, that Major Mornay and, very likely, several others besides are religious fanatics.”
“I saw no engraving on the blade,” I said.
“You would have done better to have polished up this dagger than your own sword,” said Newton, and handed me back the dagger, the blade of which now shone like firelight.
“‘Remember Religion,’” I said, reading one side of the blade. “‘Remember the murder of Edmund Berry Godfrey,’” I continued, reading the other.
“This is a Godfrey dagger,” explained Newton. “Many of these were forged following Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey’s murder, in 1678.” My master searched my face for some sign that I recognised the name. “Surely you must have heard of him?”
“Why, yes,” I said. “I was but a child at the time. But he was the magistrate who was murdered by Roman Catholics during the Popish plot to kill King Charles II, was he not?”
“I abhor Roman Catholicism in all its aspects,” said Newton. “It is a religion full of monstrous superstitions, false miracles, heathen superstitions and foul lies. But there was nomore wicked lie perpetrated against the safety of the realm than that Popish Plot. It was given out by Titus Oates and Israel Tonge that Jesuit priests conspired to murder the King at Newmarket races. I don’t doubt that there were Jesuits who conspired to do much to restore the Roman Catholic faith to this country. But murdering the King was not one of their designs. Nevertheless, many Catholics were hanged for it before Oates was found to be a vile perjurer. He ought to have been hanged himself but for the fact that the law does not prescribe the penalty of death for perjury. Instead, Oates was whipped, pilloried and sent to prison for life.”
“Did Oates murder Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, then?”
“Who killed him is a more abiding mystery,” said Newton. “Some have thought that he was killed by a villain whom he had sentenced to prison as a magistrate, and who bore him a grudge. We are no strangers to such situations ourselves. I have even heard talk that Godfrey was one of those Green Ribboners that did seek to make the country once more a Republic; and that he was murdered when he threatened to betray them. But I myself favour another, simpler opinion.
“It is my belief that Godfrey strangled himself by leaning upon a ligature; he was by all accounts a most melancholy man, and feared being discovered a traitor and punished accordingly. Finding his body, Godfrey’s two brothers feared the shame and the loss of Godfrey’s money, for he was a rich man, and a suicide’s estate is forfeit to the state, being
“What is certain is that no one will ever know the truth now. But there are many who still persist in the belief that he was murdered by Catholics. Major Mornay’s opinion seems clear enough. His possession of this dagger and his conduct in the stews would seem to indicate that his detestation of Catholics knows no bounds.”
“What then shall we do?”
Newton’s brow gathered in a knot above his eyes and one slender finger stroked his long nose as if it had been a small shock dog, so that he did look most shrewd.
“We shall return this dagger to him,” he said quietly. “And in doing so we shall further provoke him. It is a simple matter of motion, as are many other things to which proof, one day I shall find a pencil of black lead and sum it up for you on a page of paper, so that you might understand the world. For every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it be compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it. That’s as true of Major Mornay as it is of the planets and the comets. But we must also be prepared. We must be vigilant. For to every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.”
“But, sir, this is your great theory, is it not?”
“Well done, Ellis. But it is no theory. It’s as much codified fact as the laws of England. More so, for I have the mathematical proofs that do render these laws immutable.”
“I would understand what they mean for the world,” I said. “If I could.”
