running up the steps to the fight in the loft. But it was all over. There were half a dozen men on the floor, bleeding in varying degrees, one of them Corporal Troughton, who had covered Hervey well but painfully. Corporal Perrot was already binding up his shoulder. He’d live; as would four of the Luddites — for the time being at least. Another was stone dead, and four more were holding their hands so high they were touching the beams.

‘Right, you bastards, let’s have you all in the yard,’ growled Armstrong.

When they were gone, Bartle climbed down from the eaves. He dusted off his shoulders, then held up his pocketbook. ‘I have it all, sir.’

Hervey sighed, with no little relief. ‘You’ll both be very glad to get back to London, I’m sure!’

Wilks blew out the residue from his pistol pan. ‘Sir, I can’t tell you how fine it was to smell powder smoke once again!’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. TO THE VICTOR

Mansfield, mid-November

Three weeks passed in which there was not only a cessation of Luddite violence in the shire, but also a remarkable disinclination for the age-old activities of the night such as poaching and housebreaking, for the belief throughout the county was that the authorities now had the ear to all unlawful activity. The magistrates and solid citizens of the borough were fulsome in their praise of Hervey’s troop for the affair of the Crow’s Nest, and sent them at once a quantity of beer and ham.

The Nottingham Mercury was no less appreciative, and lauded the regiment in several editions. ‘We may safely say,’ it proclaimed with lofty certainty, ‘that there can not be a regiment in the Service more efficient, nor more just in its doings… than His Majesty’s Sixth Light Dragoons. Lieutenant-Colonel the Earl of Towcester has demonstrated himself to be an officer of very singular abilities.’

The report was taken up by The Times, too, so that Lord Towcester became, in the space of only two months, a name on the lips of London tattlers, and, some said, in Whitehall itself. Ezra Barrow even made a wager with his subalterns that his lordship would be promoted major general within the year. Hervey half hoped that it would be so, for they would then be rid of a commanding officer in whom there was not the slightest confidence outside the pages of the newspapers, and with others equally illinformed. And yet he could scarcely wish the man to be placed in a position where there would be greater opportunity for him to make mischief. In truth, he wished that Sir Francis Evans would exercise some influence at the Horse Guards and hasten Lord Towcester’s advance to the half-pay list.

Predictably, Lord Towcester had raged when he had heard of the business at the Crow’s Nest, and had only been pacified when he learned of Sir Francis Evans’s hand in matters (although as the earl told Hervey pointedly, it was he who would make a report on his fitness for promotion, not the GOC). A few days after The Times’s report, Hervey was summoned to Nottingham to hear the results of the inquiry by the Excise commissioners into the events surrounding the French landing, which, in broad terms, exonerated him from all blame, but he was dismayed to learn later that the document had been with the lieutenant colonel for over a month.

Throughout this time, however, it was Henrietta who gave Hervey most cause for anxiety. In herself she appeared well, but the news of Princess Charlotte’s condition, which came by one means or another almost daily from London (once by letter in the princess’s own hand), had put her in low spirits. On the third of November she had received word that the Queen herself had expressed anxiety, for the birth of the royal infant was then a fortnight overdue, and there was yet no sign. Dr Croft was steadfastly refusing any intervention and the princess was becoming hourly more melancholy. Then, on the seventh, there was intelligence that Princess Charlotte was at last in labour; Henrietta’s spirits rallied. But on the tenth came the terrible news that Charlotte and her child were dead.

Hervey spent a despondent breakfast with Henrietta that morning. He had the greatest difficulty condoling with her to any appreciable effect, for a part of her sorrow was at the loss of an association which, though by no means ever close, was none the less true. Yet he also knew that there was an element of foreboding in her sorrow, and this he felt wholly powerless to ease. But he had to leave her temporarily, nevertheless, since Sir Abraham Cole had sent him a note the evening before, saying that there was business of which he would speak, and in seclusion, and that he would come with his chaise at ten.

The melancholy news from London was dampening Sir Abraham’s spirits too as he and Hervey set off towards Welbeck next morning. Sir Abraham was of the decided opinion that it boded ill for the peace of the country, for with no infant heir to the throne on which the populace might dote, there was all too much opportunity for the Whigs — and even republicans — to exploit the ample shortcomings of the Prince Regent. He was sure that there would be trouble when it came to a coronation: the Princess Caroline was not going to be excluded easily, and might well become a figurehead for forces opposed to the Regent. Hervey questioned whether the princess would take such a course, but Sir Abraham pronounced himself sure that she lacked the sense to realize, let alone resist, such exploitation. Hervey felt some need to speak for his erstwhile royal colonel, but then thought better, for her reputation was now such that any reasonable man could not but share Sir Abraham’s opinion — albeit with the greatest sadness.

Sir Abraham said he was pleased beyond measure that the Luddite troubles seemed abated — finished, even — for throughout the North and Midlands the forces of the law were making inroads on the secretive organization. But he was unhappily of a mind that Luddite violence would soon be replaced by Reform violence — perhaps a more damaging thing than the sledgehammers of the machine-breakers, for its objective was less material than political.

The day was sunny, a fine autumn morning for all that the news and prospects were grim. After a little way further they stopped to drop the barouche’s half-hood, to continue with the senses open fully to the sights, the sounds and the scents of the season in this, said Sir Abraham proudly, ‘the finest of the shires’. In another half an hour they turned through the gates of Manvers Priory, a house about the same size as Sir Abraham’s own, but with a larger park and a small lake within its grounds. Hervey had seen it before only at a distance, for it had neither suffered attack nor threat of it, its occupant being an elderly dowager of the Dukeries. He was intrigued, therefore, as they pulled up to the front, and Sir Abraham bid him step down.

The house bore signs that the occupant was not at home, however: the windows were shuttered, the chimneys idle, and there was no footman to attend them.

‘Lady Anne died three weeks ago, I’m sorry to say,’ Sir Abraham told him. ‘She was a good sort — knew her neighbours and village folk alike.’

‘It’s a fair prospect, the lake especially. Do I suppose that you bring me here because you intend taking the lease?’ Since Hervey had never met Lady Anne, there seemed no reason to express any particular regret at her passing.

Sir Abraham smiled. ‘You’re ever sharp, Captain Hervey. Yes, I had a mind to negotiate for the lease.’

‘Then you’ll not rebuild Clipstone? I thought that surveyors were already at work.’

‘Oh, yes. Indeed I shall rebuild Clipstone!’

‘Then why should you want the lease on this house?’

Sir Abraham smiled again, took a flask from the door pocket and offered it him. ‘Captain Hervey, command of the Sherwood Yeomanry falls vacant soon. The bench and the association are of one mind — that you should have it. And with command shall go the lease of Manvers Priory!’

Hervey had never been more astounded than by this proposition — not even by the appointment to the duke’s staff, nor the brevet and its promise of regimental promotion. He could scarcely make a sound, even of astonishment.

‘And, Captain Hervey — how may I put this? — you would be handsomely remunerated.’

‘Sir Abraham, I…’

‘And there are other inducements, indeed. The living of Manvers Parva is vacant — a very presentable one,

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