Wilder Perkins: Hoare and the missing Mids

Knowing and respecting your prominence as a leader of your nation (although not of ours), and your reputation as a man of honor, we demand that you bring your influence to bear, indirectly as well as directly, to accomplish not only the passage of the Home Rule Bill but the Royal Assent to its being declared law, and the autonomous Commonwealth of Ireland brought into its long-awaited being.

Upon proclamation of this new state of affairs on the steps of Dublin Castle (or another venue of equal or greater prominence), your son will be returned, unharmed, to the arms of his loving family. Failing such proclamation within the next forty-five days, you will never again see your son alive.

We anticipate an early and mutually satisfactory resolution of this affair, and wish you well.

For the Committee for Home Rule in Erin,

Brian Boru

Erin go Bragh!!

Unlike the other demand, this document rang true. How had it reached its recipients so quickly? The nearest relative must have been in Bath, the others in London or on their estates. The Committee for Home Rule in Erin must have had a member waiting near every one of them ready to deliver the messages, all of them at once.

Hoare was now ready to stake his career-such as it was-that the earlier demand was spurious. It might be the product of a conspirator in search of a few pounds on the side; Hoare would not put such a step past the kind of two-faced Paddy who would be a companion of "Brian Boru" on the Committee for Home Rule in Erin.

He was tempted to appeal to Admiral Hardcastle for a full-dress search party. He resisted the temptation. Where would he have them look? "Somewhere within a two-day journey by guarded coach or wagon" left an area of suspicion that was far too large to manage.

Moreover, as likely as not, someone on the admiral's staff would be working secretly for the Irishmen and blow the gaff. Finally, and selfishly, another man would lead the rescue expedition, were it to be formed under Admiral Hardcastle's auspices. The admiral might have some respect for Hoare but not enough respect to put him, a voiceless man, in command of what would have to be a regiment. The credit would not accrue to Bartholomew Hoare.

No, he must find a way of narrowing the area of search before he unleashed the resources at the admiral's disposal-or devised another, less cumbersome means of rescuing the missing mids. Which reminded him; the earlier ransom note still existed, and there was a chance-however faint-that its writer could be found. If so, he might be a lead to the Committee.

He must settle that matter once and for all. As soon as he had appeased the band of notables who would be awaiting him, teeth gnashing, at The Three Suns, he must call on Jom York.

Jom York generally occupied an upper room of The Bunch of Grapes, the favorite haunt in Portsmouth of the more successful folk who lived on the other side of the law. In its peaceful, more or less tidy pub-he bar, one might find a middleaged highwayman, an upstairs man of standing, and an experienced bawd gathered round the same table doing business, or simply exchanging priceless gossip. Mr. Greenleaf, the proprietor, welcomed very few members of the "bowmon cheat"-the honest citizens of this world; Hoare was one of them.

York was king of the mudlarks, those myriad children of both sexes who gained a precarious though slimy living by screening likely parts of Portsmouth harbor's tidal mud. Their findings ranged from beef bones (which were sold for soup) to dead dogs and rats (which, rumor claimed, went to the same destination) to bits of ironmongery, an occasional coin or other valuable, and, once in a while, human corpses in various states of disrepair.

York was also an old friend of Hoare's and an occasional ally, the same as the more upright members of the smuggling community on England's southern coast. As long as such gentry did not imperil the safety of the realm, Hoare reasoned, they had a right to earn a more or less respectable living without his interference.

Hoare's purpose tonight was to find out which of Jom York's minions had delivered the note to Millar, the coxswain. York would know, he was sure, but what he, Hoare, could expect from the knowledge remained uncertain.

York promised to grill his minions-in-chief and assured Hoare that he would have the mudlark in question brought before Hoare within twenty-four hours.

"Now, Mr. 'Oare," he said ingratiatingly, "I 'ave summat I fink will be of int'rest to ye. Wait a bit, if ye will, an' 'ave a spot of Blue Ruin while ye waits."

He wiped off the glass Hoare had been using, filled it brim full with a dreadful gin, and waddled back in to the dank darkness of his den. Before Hoare had summoned the courage to take more than another ceremonial sip of the biting stuff, York returned, breathing heavily and bearing an object wrapped in a reeking piece of filthy cloth.

" 'Ere ye be, yer worship," he said. He unwrapped the thing and let it drop on the rough deal table between them.

"Wot d'ye fink of that, now?" he wheezed proudly.

Hoare recognized it instantly. Encased in stinking mud it might be, but it was unmistakably a midshipman's dirk.

"A brush, if you should happen to have one by," he whispered.

Brush in hand, Hoare began to scrub, scratch, and wrench until at last the dirk came free of its scabbard. The engraving on the blade was sharp as the knife itself, and clear: "To G.L.P.T.H. FROM FATHER. BEAR IT HONORABLY." The knobbed hilt bore an escutcheon: three broken hearts (Hoare could not bring to mind the correct heraldic term; something "courant, argent, erminy," perhaps) and the motto

"SUCH IS MY LOVE."

"Where did your little friend find this, Mr. York?"

Jom York said not a word but stuck out a black-nailed paw. Hoare was accustomed to this; he crossed the palm with silver as if York were a gypsy fortuneteller. The silver disappeared into one of York's dingy pockets.

"Not in Portsmouth 'arbor, yer honor," York said.

"Where, then?"

Out came the palm again and would not withdraw until it held five pieces of silver.

"The 'Amble," yer honor," York said. The Hamble, Hoare knew, was an estuary leading into Southampton Water, some miles to the west of Portsmouth. He had already explored it in Devastation, found it unremarkable except for mud, some hungry-looking fishing smacks, and the derelict hulk of a long-outdated fifty-gun battleship, and left it alone thereafter.

"I hadn't realized your reach extended that far, Mr. York," Hoare whispered.

"It's a broad reach I'm on, yer worship," the other chuckled. "Mi-key Pollock, 'e's the one as found it. Mikey's a fisherman's orphing and went into the trade on 'is own, like. Now I coulden 'ave that, could I now, so I takes 'im under me wing, like. Promisin' tyke, Mikey is. 'E'll go far, if 'e lives long enough."

The life of a mudlark, Hoare had been told, was nasty, brutish, and short.

"And where in the Hamble did young Mikey find the item?"

Out came the black hand. Into it went the coins-clink, clink, clink.

"H.M.S. Devastation, yer honor, that's where."

"What! You're gammoning me, York. You know perfectly well that's what I'm calling my own little yacht these days. You've got your thirty pieces of silver; now be on the square with me."

"I am bein' on the square wif ye, yer honor," York said with an aggrieved look. "Never been nuffin' else wif ye. Devastation I said, and be 'er, a-layin' derelict 'alfway up the 'Amble. She lays 'igh an' dry of a spring tide, she do, an' Mikey, 'e said 'e found that there shiv under 'er counter t'other night."

"I'll be damned to breakfast," Hoare breathed. "Get me this Mikey. Now."

What with Hoare's gentle grilling, a whole sovereign, and the promise of more to follow, Mikey the mudlark furnished far more information than he had given even Jom York. Had the latter Known All, in fact, he would have demanded at least double his thirty pieces of silver.