A Drachm For What Ails You

 

We’ve all heard of the old medical procedure of bleeding a patient for…well, almost anything. Less well known are the remedies for various ailments and injuries. Many of them probably did no harm, though most probably required a strong stomach and no gag reflex. I haven't included any that used animal dung as an ingredient although various sorts, including that of peacocks, continued to be employed as medicaments in England until 1721. No, I don't know why they stopped in that year.

Don't try any of these. 

The Pharmacist by Pietro Longhi, 1752

From The English Physician, Enlarged with Three Hundred and Sixty-nine Medicines Made of English Herbs, Not in Any Former Impression of Culpeper's British Herbal ... to which is Added The Family Physician and A Present for the Ladies (1810, but reproduces almost unchanged Culpeper’s text of 1666, with the addition of The Family Physician and A Present for the Ladies):

Compound Tincture of Sena, commonly called Daffy's Elixir. Take of the best sena two ounces; jalan, coriander seeds and cream of tartar, of each one ounce; coarse sugar three quarters of a pound; of brandy three pints. Let then stand all thus mixed together for ten or twelve days, then strain off what is fine for use. This is an agreeable purge and nothing can be more useful than to always keep it ready made in your houses for family use.

My note: I’ll bet it was agreeable, all right: the sugar and brandy would take the curse off almost anything.

How to cure warts. Go into the field and take a black snail, and rub them with the same nine times one way, and then nine times another, and then stick that said snail upon a black thorn and the warts will waste. I have also known a black snail cure corns, being laid thereon as a plaister. If you have what is called blood or bleeding warts, then take a piece of raw beef that never had any salt, and rub them with the same just in the same manner as you used the snail above mentioned: after this operation is performed you must bury the piece of beef in the earth.

How to make Salve for all wounds. Take one pound of hog's lard, three ounces of white lead, three ounces of red lead, three ounces of bees wax, two ounces of black rosin, and four ounces of common turpentine; all these ingredients must be put together in a pan, and boil three quarters of an hour; the turpentine to be put in just before it is done enough, and give it a gentle boil afterwards. This is an excellent salve for burns, old sores or ulcers, as it first draws then heals afterwards; it is excellent for all wounds, and ought to be always kept in your house.

A remedy for a strain, &c. Take the oil of swallows, the oil of peter, and the oil of turpentine, of each an equal quantity, mix them well together, and anoint the part afflicted with the same.

From A Collection of Over 300 Receipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery, by Mary Kettilby, 1714:

A Powder to Stop a Hickock in Man, Woman, or Child. Put as much Dill-seed finely powder'd as will lie on a Shilling, into two spoonfuls of Syrop of Black Cherries, and take it presently.

The Ricketty Drink. Put an ounce of Rhubarb, three hundred live Wood-lice, Saſſafras, China, and Eringo-roots, of each three ounces; Roots of Osmond-royal, two onnces; Raisons of the Sun ston'd, two ounces; Hart's-Tongue, two hand fuls; Put these into six quarts of Small Ale, and Drink Spring and Fall no other Drink. 'Tis almost infallible for weak Children.

A very good Snail-Water, for a Consumption. TAKE half a peck of Shell Snails, wipe them and bruise them. Shells and all in a Mortar; put to them a gallon of New Milk; as also Balm, Mint, Carduus, unset Hyssop, and Burrage, of each one handful; Raisons of the Sun stoned, Figs, and Dates, of each a quarter of a pound; two large Nutmegs: Slice all these, and put them to the Milk, and distil it with a quick Fire in a cold Still; this will yield near four Wine-quarts of Water very good: You must put two ounces of White Sugar-candy into each Bottle, and let the Water drop on it; stir the Herbs sometimes while it distils, and keep it cover'd on the Head with wet Cloths. Take five spoonfuls at a time, first and last, and at Four in the Afternoon.

For a Strain, Put the Arm or Leg into a Pail of Cold Spring-water, and keep it there 'till the Water be warm; then take it out, and repeat it ’till it be well, which it will be without applying any other Remedy.

A Powder for Digestion. TAKE Gallingale and Setwal of each one ounce; Long-Pepper, Mace, and Nutmeg, of each two ounces; Annis-seeds, Carraway-seeds, Fennel-seeds, and Angelica-seeds, of each half an ounce: Put to these, all finely powder'd, the weight in fine powder'd Sugar ; take as much as will lie on a shilling after every Meal, and Drink a glass of Simple Carduus-Water after it: This has done mighty Cures to weak deprav'd Stomachs.

From The Elaboratory Laid Open, or, The Secrets of Modern Chemistry and Pharmacy Revealed, 1758:

Gascoigne’s Powder (in use in various formulations and by various names from the 16^th to the 19^th century; used for treating feverish conditions including smallpox, measles, plague and for consumption)

Take, of prepared pearls, crabs eyes, red coral, the whitest amber, calcined hartshorn, and oriental bezoar, each one ounce: of the tips of crabs claws powdered, the weight of all the others: make them into a fine powder; and afterwards form them in to balls, by means of a solution of gum arabic.

Note. This composition, which, from the caprice and folly of mankind, has been in very great vogue, differs materially from other testaceous powders in nothing, but the very great expensiveness of some of its ingredients. It has therefore, been seldom prepared with a strict conformity to the prescription here given…

Volatile tincture of bark. Take, of the Peruvian bark*, four ounces, volatile spirit of sal ammoniacum, two pints, digest them, without heat, in a vessel well closed; and strain off the tincture.

*My note: Also known as Jesuit’s bark, a term which was shunned in England because of its connection with the Roman Catholic religion. We would call it quinine.

The Romance of 18th Century Science: Smallpox!

 

"File:Portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montague
Wellcome M0006755.jpg" is licensed under
CC BY 4.0

Smallpox was a dread disease in the eighteenth century. The fatality rate is estimated to have been between 20% and 60%, and higher still in infants. Those who survived were often scarred; some were blind. 

Dr. Parkins pretty much sums up the value of the treatments available for smallpox (The English Physician, 1810): Alkanet root “…is as gallant a remedy to drive out the small pox and measles as any is…” The practice of medicine still relied largely on the writings of the ancients, and trusted in the four bodily humors and astrology. 

But almost a century earlier, a woman contributed the first means of prevention of smallpox in England. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is remembered for her letters and for pioneering smallpox inoculation. During a stay in Turkey with her husband, the British ambassador at Constantinople, Lady Mary learned of the Turkish folk medicine practice of inoculation for smallpox. Pus from a smallpox blister would be applied to a scratch on the arm or leg, resulting in a mild case of the disease. Lady Mary’s son was the first English person to undergo inoculation, Lady Mary having survived smallpox some years before. 

In 1721, she had her daughter inoculated during a smallpox outbreak in England, and Caroline, Princess of Wales, was persuaded to sponsor a test of the treatment. Seven condemned Newgate prisoners were offered the opportunity to accept inoculation to escape their sentence. All survived.

The same year, the Massachusetts Bay Colony city of Boston also suffered a smallpox epidemic. Cotton Mather, infamous for his role in the Salem witch trials, had read a journal article about inoculation, and had also heard about a slave’s boyhood inoculation. He convinced Dr. Zabdiel Boylston to perform an experiment in the practice, which was witnessed by Benjamin Franklin, who subsequently supported inoculation.

Jonathan Edwards, theologian and president of what would eventually be called Princeton University (best known for his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God), underwent inoculation during the Princeton smallpox epidemic in 1757-1758. He was one of the unlucky ones whose resulting illness was severe and it led to his death.

In 1777, George Washington had all his soldiers inoculated as a precaution against the disease, typically a greater danger than the enemy—especially since the British troops had all been inoculated. Low Continental losses to smallpox may have contributed to the Revolution’s success.

Edward Jenner, born in 1749, was inoculated at the age of eight. At thirteen, he was apprenticed to a country surgeon and apothecary. Sometime during his training, he heard a dairymaid say, “I shall never have smallpox for I have had cowpox. I shall never have an ugly pockmarked face.” 

Anecdotal reports among country folk had long held that dairymaids who had had cowpox did not get smallpox. Benjamin Jesty, a Dorset farmer, who vaccinated his wife and children during a smallpox epidemic in 1774 was only one of half a dozen amateur of science who had tested this idea. 

At the end of his apprenticeship, Jenner studied under a surgeon at St. George’s Hospital in London. John Hunter was interested in all forms of science and was an experimental scientist as well as being a respected surgeon. Jenner’s memory of the dairymaid’s words, and his training and friendship with Hunter very likely led to his experiment in May, 1796. He took matter from a dairymaid with fresh cowpox lesions and used it to inoculate a young boy, who contracted a mild case lasting for almost ten days. Two months later, the doctor inoculated the boy with fresh smallpox material. The child showed no effects, leading Dr. Jenner to conclude the cowpox inoculation was successful. 

In a letter of October 11, 1798, John Fewster, Surgeon, wrote to a fellow surgeon that during an attempt to inoculate for smallpox in his area thirty years earlier, he found a number of his patients could not be infected with even a mild case of the disease. After several attempts to inoculate him, a farmer who swore he had never had smallpox told Dr. Fewster, “I have had the Cow pox lately to a violent degree, if that' s any odds.” 

On further enquiry, Fewster found that those in whom inoculation had failed had all had cowpox, and he communicated this information to a medical society to which he belonged. An Inquiry Concerning the History of the Cowpox, Principally with a View to Supersede and Extinguish the Smallpox (London, England: J. Johnson, January, 1798).

In 1798, Jenner published An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a disease discovered in some of the western counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire and Known by the Name of Cow Pox. His large scale 1799 survey connecting infection with cowpox to immunity to smallpox proved the efficacy of “vaccination” as he called it (from the Latin word vaccinus, meaning “from cows”). 

"Scalpels" by Thomas Fisher
Rare Book Library, UofT is licensed under 
CC BY 2.0

This was a significant step forward in medicine. Vaccination spread quickly in England and soon reached Europe as well. Of course, some opposed it as unnecessary, unsafe, or government interference. But between 1838 and 1842, deaths from smallpox plummeted from 1,064 deaths per million inhabitants to 168 deaths per million (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107397/smallpox-death-rate-britain-historical/). Upticks and downticks in fatalities occurred throughout the rest of the nineteenth century, including a spike of 1,012 deaths per million in the epidemic of 1871. But with the exception of 1871, the trend was downward, until in 1900 there were only three deaths per million of population.

The Romance of 18th Century Science: The Grotto of the Dogs

Ranelagh Gardens (Rijksmuseum): "File:Gezicht op de Rotunda in Ranelagh Gardens te Londen A view of the Rotundo, House, & Gardens, &c. at Ranelagh (titel op object) Ranelagh Gardens en Vauxhall Gardens (serietitel), RP-P-1932-434.jpg" by Rijksmuseum is marked with CC0 1.0

Ah, the romance of the eighteenth century: beautiful clothing, formal manners, elegance. These are the characteristics we usually associate with that period[1]. All those things existed. We may also know of non-existent sewerage, disease, unspeakable poverty, and crime. We don’t tend to think of the Enlightenment’s lively interest in science (or natural philosophy, as it was called). Yet experiment and discovery were not limited to academics or even to the privileged classes. Anyone who could read could take part if they wished[2]. 

Originally I meant to write a short, zippy post about eighteenth century science in general. But the more I read about it, the more there was to write about. So instead I’m writing about one of the many amateurs of natural philosophy. Joseph Addison (1672-1719), co-founder of the The Spectator magazine, conducted a series of experiments while touring Italy and described them in his travel book, Remarks on several parts of Italy, &c., in the years 1701, 1702, 1703.

Visiting the Grotto del cani (sometimes spelled “Grotta del cane”) near Naples, he described the poisonous steams found within a foot of the water’s surface, and the common experiments conducted there. He wrote that a dog having its nose held in the vapors “loses all signs of life (i.e., lost consciousness) in a very short time” but would revive if taken into the open air or thrown into the nearby lake. A torch held in the vapors would be extinguished in a moment, and a pistol could not be fired. He found this fascinating and devised his own experiments. 

“I split a Reed, and laid in the Channel of it a Train of Ġun-powder, so that one End of the Reed was above the Vapour, and the other at the Bottom of it; and I found, tho’ the Steam was strong enough to hinder a Pistol from taking fire in it, and to quench a lighted Torch, that it could not intercept the Train of Fire when it had once begun flashing, nor hinder it from running to the very End.” He repeated this experiment several times and found that doing so reduced the vapor enough that it was possible to fire a pistol in it.

He made a number of other observations about the vapor’s actions and properties and discounted the theory of its being sulphurous based on its lack of odor. In fact, it was carbon dioxide gas, which is heavier than air, emitted from fumeroles. Naples is near the sites of both Herculaneum and Pompeii, both of which were destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius, so the  area was known for volcanic activity. Incidentally, excavation of the ruins began in 1739. 

The Grotta del cane was described in greater detail in the January, 1753 issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine. “The water of the lake near this grotto is wont to gurgle and boil up…” The author described masses of a glittering mineral called mundick by English miners (modern spelling: mundic) in the walls, which he says all chemists affirm is made up of vitriol and sulfur[3].

"File:The lake of Agnano. Etching, 16--. Wellcome L0038338.jpg" is licensed under CC BY 4.0
The grotto is right of center, with three men and a dog at the entrance.

Another half dozen scientific articles included “The path of the Moon, with cut”, “Of tillage with marle, &c”, and “Leech, how to use as a barometer”. Imagine The Atlantic Monthly, GQ Magazine, or Cosmopolitan running multiple scientific articles in addition to poetry, political reports, and art and entertainment features. No, I can’t, either. 

Next blog: Smallpox!

---

[1] Oh, and the American Revolution, of course.

[2] Women, not so much, with exceptions. This is a topic for a future blog.

[3] In fact, it is the mineral pyrite.

 

 

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An Agent of the Crown: a 3,200 word short story

Photography by Simon Berger, Unsplash

An Agent of the Crown

by 

Kathleen Buckley

©2020 Kathleen Gail Buckley

The Scottish Lowlands, late May, 1746

Swithin Fowler leaned against his tired horse as it drank from the stream, feeling the reassuring weight of gold in the flat canvas belt inside his shirt. Money for travel, bribes, whatever he needed. It had purchased the tough little galloway mare, now worn thin from eight months with too little rest. He himself was less exhausted than sickened. All he wanted was to reach the refuge of Andrew Cunningham’s house.

“That rabble of bare-legged Highlanders and damned Papists poses no threat. We’ll watch them, nevertheless,” the man at Somerset House had told him in August. “You will pose as a factor for a merchant in Newcastle upon Tyne. You’ll meet certain men and carry what they give you to Carlisle, Berwick-upon-Tweed, or to a schooner captain at a village on the east coast. Courier work.” He shrugged dismissively.

 His third day in Scotland, the intelligencer Fowler was to meet in Dundee did not come, the town having gone over to the Jacobites the previous day. He departed, sheltering in a spinney to avoid a Jacobite detachment; he did not want Brown Bess confiscated for the Young Pretender’s army. When he emerged, something white under a clump of brush caught his eye.

When he crouched to pull out the ribbon-bound sheaf of documents, he discovered the leather document box. Whoever had forced the lock in search of money had left the papers and a flat oil-cloth packet. The reports were useless now. The carefully wrapped package might be worth something. He dropped the memoranda back in the box and shoved it into thicker undergrowth.

The oil-cloth held a folded sheet of heavy, expensive paper, its red seal broken. He read it twice before he took in its meaning. There were a few lines of jibber-jabber, then:

The bearer, Alexander Gordon, is acting by my Order, and you are Instructed to give him Any aid he may request. He acts in the King’s name in support of the Crown and for the good of the Realm.

It was signed by the First Lord of the Treasury and countersigned—

Strike me dead. A license to do anything at all with the cooperation of the authorities would be worth a fortune to the right man. It had to be a forgery. But if it were not? A chill like the onset of an ague seeped through him. Fowler re-wrapped the folded sheet with care. The matter bore thinking on. 

Instead he’d put it out of mind. The document was so dangerous, his second-best suit was more valuable. He should have turned it in the first time he crossed into England. Too late now. He could not destroy something so potentially useful, though he did wonder if the mere possession of it might be a capital crime.

With Andrew Cunningham’s home and conversation to look forward to, he could forget for a time. Cunningham was educated, something the Scots seemed to value, and modestly prosperous by local standards. He possessed a shelf of books as well as the Bible, and could discuss them as intelligently as the tenets of his religion. Better, Fowler could enjoy the man’s company without any niggling feeling of guilt. A staunch Presbyterian should have no sympathy for the Jacobites. The same might be true of much of the Lowlands but the only Lowlander Swithin knew well was Andrew.

Fowler had met him soon after arriving in what was often called North Britain though any fool knew it was Scotland. You could tell it was still a different country because they had their own laws and money, and in parts, their own language. Even Cunningham’s Lowlands dialect, full of English words if only you could hear them through the accent, was hard to understand at first.

He made a point of stopping in when he was in the area, claiming to be on his way to or from arranging the purchase of linen and other Scottish goods for his employer. A thin story but his host accepted it. Swithin felt no guilt about lying until his fourth visit.

He arrived in snow blowing sideways, already fetlock deep on the galloway, and worried. Carlisle had fallen to the rebel army. They sat up late that night, drinking the fiery distilled spirit called whisky and talking. He found himself telling Cunningham about the smallpox that took all his family but his father, and left a scatter of pock marks on his own face. After Tom Fowler, sunk in misery and gin, lost his position as the viscount’s bailiff, Swithin was left to make his own way. It must have been the unaccustomed drink that called forth those confidences. With his father for an example, Fowler seldom took strong liquor.

Andrew sighed and stared into the lumps of peat glowing red in the hearth. Its familiar scent was near as soothing as the drink. “We never had but the one bairn, and she has been lost to me this fifteen year.”

“Dead?”

“Nay. Or mayhap she is. She went off wi’ a man I swore I could never approve, even had he joined our kirk. My wife greeted—wept, you would say—for months and I was little comfort to her. And yon loons in kirk praising me for turning my back on my wee Jean.”  He uttered a rusty laugh. “Not so wee, at that, for she was a well-grown lass.”

He did not say much more, leaving Swithin to guess his wife had died less of illness than of sorrow, and that Andrew had heard no word of his girl in all the years since she went off with her suitor. From a word or two, Swithin thought Cunningham had not uttered her name since his wife’s death. He held himself aloof from most of the members of his kirk. “They think it is shame for my dochter’s error, when it is anger they encouraged my sinful pride and rebuked my poor wife in her grieving. Now I would not condemn even a Mohammedan. Or a Catholic, either,” he added after a long pause. Small wonder the pair of them got on well, with neither having family or even friends. In London Fowler had had accomplices and a few acquaintances. In Scotland, he had Andrew.  

In the morning he was relieved to remember that despite their cup-shot admissions, he had not spoken of his real employment in Scotland. Not because he feared Cunningham might reveal his secret but because Swithin would have been ashamed for Andrew to know him for what he really was. At Berwick-upon-Tweed, concealing his work became still more imperative.

A sleek, be-wigged gentry-cove was waiting for him. Previous meetings had been with men much like himself or with tradesmen or clerks, or who passed as such. But he knew the recognition signs and casually let Fowler see his signet ring with a tiny design engraved around the band. The same one was on the bottom of Fowler’s tinderbox, as if it might be the maker’s mark. He handed over the message: an old copy of the Book of Common Prayer with certain passages marked, apparently by different hands at different times.

“Stay a moment,” the gentleman murmured. “You’re promoted to intelligencer.” Fowler reckoned he did not need to ask why. He was given a new list of dates, places and signals, and his wages were increased because of the greater responsibility. Danger, rather. Well, he’d turned his hand to worse things. The money, with a pardon thrown in, was worth it.

Until the English broke the Young Pretender’s army at the battle of Culloden, up by Inverness.

After Culloden, he was seconded to the army to spy out any who had supported the Young Pretender and survived the battle. His masters no longer needed intelligence gathered; now they were hunting down Jacobites. His task was to find them out and report to the nearest British detachment. Carrying messages or spying was one thing. This was different. He understood the thinking that required the ringleaders to be captured and tried for treason; he simply did not care to help them to the gallows. A man he knew and respected had hanged at Tyburn. Fowler had pulled on his legs so he died quickly of a broken neck rather than strangling slowly; the experience had given him a distaste for executions. Women and children and wounded men, bayoneted or worse, was nothing but murder.

With no schedule, it was easy to slack his work, reporting places Jacobites might have been but were no longer, or informing the army but also giving the Scots the office when he could do it without being found out. On Scotland’s bad roads, travel could be amazing slow. He knew one thing: taking a moral stand with his employers was not a possibility.

Uneasy about his cheat, he could no longer avoid thinking about what he had carried since September. A day or two in Cunningham’s thoroughly Protestant and Whig district would bring him some peace.

#

Andrew set out early to deliver a lamb to a neighbor. Apart from a woman who came once a week to clean and wash clothes and bedding, Cunningham kept house for himself so Swithin fetched water for cooking and washing, and added turves of peat to those still smoldering from the night before. Those tasks done, he went out to feed and water Brown Bess. She needed to regain her weight: he should buy more oats. Maybe add bran mash. He was near the outbuilding that housed the cow and sheep in bad weather, and his and Andrew’s mounts, before he noticed the open door. Altering his course, he went more stealthily. Anywhere but here, he would have been on the watch for trouble.

A man’s voice snapped an order.

“I am Jean Melluish, Andrew Cunningham’s daughter.” A woman’s voice rang out, a child’s whimpering and faint shiftings beneath it.

“You’re a stinking Jacobite whore and when Cunningham’s back—”

It was a soldier, young, nervous, and no officer by his voice. Fowler stepped into the doorway, roaring, “In the King’s name!” Four privates and a corporal, bayonets fixed, jerked to attention, used to shouted orders. After a moment’s hesitation, the corporal wheeled to face him, whipping off his tricorne in the gesture of respect he would use before an officer.

In the silence while the corporal tried to decide what to say to a man who sounded like an English officer and dressed like a gentleman, Fowler spoke. Thank God he was wearing the breeches and waistcoat to his better suit. Fortunate as well he had not forgotten the speech of his parents’ gentry origins.

“You are meddling in matters you do not understand and should not know of, Corporal.”  He did not raise his voice but the chill, knife-edge tone did its work.

“Sir! I was dispatched to investigate a reported Jacobite, the man Andrew Cunningham. Sir.”

“By whom?”

“By Captain Carr, sir.”

“I mean, who made such a foolish, malicious report?” A tall, thin woman stood stern and proud before the aisle between the animal pens. One arm extended to the side to restrain a lad of fourteen or fifteen who was glaring at the corporal. A small child clung to her petticoat skirt, and a girl of about eight years hovered half out of sight behind her. He did not take his attention from the corporal.

“An elder of the parish church. Kirk, as they call it, sir.”

“His name?” If someone had informed against Andrew, the woman and children being here was sheer coincidence, for they had not been present the previous evening.

 “Jock Stenhouse, sir. He owns the ale house and the shop.”

“Ah, Stenhouse, the fellow that covets Cunningham’s property.” Swithin forced a derisive laugh. Andrew and Stenhouse loathed each other, as he knew from certain of Cunningham’s comments. 

“Sir. We found these Highlanders here so it must be true about Cunningham being a supporter of the Pretender. Sir.”

“Appearances can be deceiving, Corporal. Does she sound like a Highlander? She is in fact Cunningham’s daughter, and Cunningham is a strict Presbyterian.  The greater part of the Lowlands Scots are Presbyterians and no fonder of Papists than we are. Less so, in my experience.” 

 “Stenhouse said she ran away with a Highlander, and she’s wearing one of them plaid things. Sir.”

“I dare say she regretted eloping. She’s come from the north on the king’s business as I am here on His Majesty’s business.” He met her eyes briefly, giving her a small, tight smile, hoping she read the message in his own and was not so proud she would gainsay him.

To give him his due credit, the corporal was not easily cowed. “Begging your pardon but if she’s Cunningham’s kin, why’s she hiding in the barn?”

Fowler raised his eyebrows. “I have been staying with Cunningham, awaiting Mistress Melluish. Clearly she has only recently arrived. As Cunningham is away this morning, she could not immediately report to me. She would not wish to leave her children unattended while she made her report, nor yet to have them present to hear what she had to say. Nor do I want the Crown’s business overheard by a pack of brats,” he added.

 “But—”

“This affair is closed and must not be spoken of again. You and your men found nothing here to indicate Jacobite sympathies. You did not see me. To speak of it would be a hanging offense.”

The soldier’s eyes narrowed. “Sir, what right have you to give any order to His Majesty’s forces?”

“By right of the warrant I was issued.” He unbuttoned the top several buttons of his waistcoat and reached inside without taking his gaze from the corporal. Drawing the wrapped document from the inside pocket, he held it out. “Read this.”

The corporal unfolded the oil-cloth and opened the sheet cautiously, fingering the remainder of the thick seal. His lips moved slightly as he studied the lines.

“Mr.—”

“Do not speak my name.”

“Yes, sir. But the information the elder laid, what shall I do about it?”

“ ’Tis no secret Stenhouse has tried to buy Andrew Cunningham’s land several times. You searched, you found nothing here, and you concluded it was a shift by Stenhouse to gain his wish and eliminate an old rival. You know what they say of Scots: they’re a grasping folk with a keen self-interest. As for Mistress Melluish, she’s come home to take care of her father. Do not mention she has served the Crown. If there is a Jacobite in this neighborhood, she might be in danger even here.” The private soldiers were younger than the corporal and even greener, suggesting the authorities did not put much faith in Stenhouse’s claim. Or else all the hardened troops were slaughtering in the Highlands. Either way, it worked in his favor.

“Jeannie!” The cry from the entrance startled them all.

The woman gasped and seemed to lean toward Cunningham. Instead of rushing to him, she stood rooted in place by the child clutching her skirt. Mayhap because of the lad, too. His expression was not as well schooled as hers, though it could pass as the anger of a boy old enough to want to defend his mother from insult.

Cunningham pushed past the redcoats to throw his arms around her. “My wee lass, what have they done to you?”

“Naething, faither.”

“I’ve been sair afeared for ye. Ye’ll not be going back to that dangersome wark ye have done for my guest.”

Andrew had overheard some of what passed before he made himself known. Swithin suppressed a grim smile.

“These are the childer, then,” he was saying. “Ye’ll be making them known to me. And yon fine callant?” He jerked his head at the lad behind her left shoulder.

“Aidan, my firstborn.”

“Yes, yes, very touching,” Fowler drawled. “However, I fear your family gathering must wait until I have received Mistress Melluish’s final report. Then I shall remove to the inn.”

The corporal stirred uneasily. Swithin took his time about turning back to him. He would be thinking the army’s rules did not apply to dealing with civilians, so he would fall back on what he had been taught as a child. Defer to your betters; do not speak unless spoken to; keep a humble bearing.

“Corporal, I commend your zeal. You have investigated pursuant to your duty, and discovered an agent of the Crown. Your instructions in that warrant are clear.” He held out his hand, and the corporal returned it to him with an awkward little bow. Lucky for them all, the way a child’s training held long after childhood. 

“You are dismissed.”

The soldiers gone, they walked slowly back to the cottage, Andrew and his Jeannie in the lead. The young ones followed their mother like ducklings. The stripling—Aidan, had the woman called him?—hung back, watchful of Fowler.

“It was the only way to save you, lad. Here in the Lowlands they might not have fired the barn and the four of you in it, but ’twas best to be safe.”

Like Swithin, the boy kept his voice low. “Why did you do it?”

“I count your grandfather a friend.” The only one he had, God help him. “I don’t much care for the killing of women and children, either.” Death came too easy by accident and disease.

Aidan made a sound in his throat and stared at the ground.

“Your father?”

“Dead. He got away from the fight up by Inverness but he was wounded, and…” 

He shrugged.

“I’m sorry.”

In the cottage, Swithin sat apart from the others while they talked and ate the porridge left over from yesterday, oatcakes and cheese. The woman and children were half famished. Fowler ate little and soon slipped away to pack his valise. When he came down, Andrew rose from his seat with a quiet word to his daughter, and came to the door.

“Ye’ll be going?”

“To the inn for a day or two, as I told the redcoat.”

“But you’ll come again?”

“If I can. I’d like to be sure your family is safe and well.”

“You would be welcome.” The old man grinned. Fowler had seen Jean Melluish give that same rakehelly grin a time or two that morning. “My dochter’s a widow now. The childer need a father and she’ll need a husband. I saw the way you looked at her and she looked at you as if you was Robert the Bruce and William Wallace in one. It will take a bit of time, but when you pass this way again in a month or two, we will be glad to see you.”

Saddling Brown Bess with an unexpectedly light heart, he calculated. How many months until the army would no longer require his services? Then he could go to Berwick-upon-Tweed to report and turn in the remaining expense money. He’d cap downright his superior would be surprised to see it! But he’d a tidy sum saved. No need to embezzle the government’s coin.

He rode toward the village whistling “The World Turned Upside Down”.

THE END

©2020 Kathleen Gail Buckley

For anyone who wonders how this story came to be, it all started with my second book, Most Secret. One of the plot twists involved a document giving the male protagonist carte blanche while on a mission to Scotland during the early days of the rebellion. Think of it as being similar to those “letters of transit” in the movie Casablanca. The document was lost. Afterwards, I kept thinking, somebody should find it. There’s a story there someplace. I didn’t think I could make a novel of it, however, and so it simply rattled around in my brain. 

In Captain Easterday’s Bargain, a minor character on the fringes of the criminal underworld seemed to need another story, but again, not a novel.

This spring I saw a short story contest advertised and took a look at one of my unpublished short stories. It was too long and there was no way of shortening it, drat.

Then I thought, if Swithin Fowler were drafted by British intelligence and found the warrant Alex Gordon lost—and the story almost wrote itself. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

    

Reviewed: The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne

Why have I not run into Joanna Bourne’s books until now? In the last three or four years I  have read well over two hundred historical romances, both because I enjoy the well-written ones and for market research. I came across this one by accident. 

This Georgian/Regency period novel of romance and suspense has a strong plot, more than the usual number of twists, good period detail, and well delineated characters.  In particular, Annique, the heroine, is so very French that at times I had to grin. Ms. Bourne does not stop the story every fifty pages or so to drop in explicit sex scenes that do not contribute to the plot. There’s some sex but it’s actually relevant.

The Spymaster’s Lady reminded me of Jo Beverley’s books, which are among my favorites. Most of all, this is a page turner. I stayed up well past my bedtime because I couldn't put it down. 

Reviewed: Katherine, When She Smiled by Joyce Harmon

For me, Georgette Heyer's novels (she invented the Regency/Georgian romance) is the gold standard. Joyce Harmon's delightful Regency romance, Katharine, When She Smiled, has all the elements of a Heyer novel: above average style, interesting characters, good plot, excellent dialog, and, well, an appropriately period "feel".

I'm not going to describe the plot, because if you're interested enough to shop for it, you'll end up reading the blurb either online or on the cover. For me, the essence of a review is why the reviewer liked it (because if Ruthie Reviewer writes something like, "I loved Goddess in Gucci: what's more fun than a narcissistic CEO whose hobbies are sex and shopping?" I know I won't like it).   

There's no sex, which is a plus for me. I don't object to explicit sex if it's actually integral to the story, but it so seldom is. I am now going to seek out Ms. Harmon's other novels; what with staying home, social distancing, and trying not to undermine my housemate's and my own diet by baking, I have even more time to binge read.