Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Man of the Cloth

And indeed, Captain Fielding could not have spoken with greater justice. The waving golden-green of the high downs in early September was a spectacle to behold; even so late in the day, with shafts of sunlight stretching warm and long towards the sea, haymakers were abroad in the fields, and the picturesque was completed by the introduction in the distance of the occasional hay-wain and stout horse, blowing at the chaff and the flies. To our left, as we progressed northwest, was the grey-blue edge of the cliffs, dropping precipitately to the sea; and then the sea itself, curling and re-forming ceaselessly against the rocks.

“Look!” Miss Armstrong cried. “A cutter! And a fast one indeed! It might almost be racing the ship behind.”

“I fear that it is.” Captain Fielding spoke grimly. “Jarvis! Pull up!”

The barouche rolled to a gentle stop with the coachman's “Whoa, there, Jezebel. Whoa, Shadrach,” and we four turned, as if possessed of one head, to gaze at the horizon.

The cutter was, as its name suggests, a fast little ship of light build and sleek lines; it clove through the waves like a knife through warm butter, making the most of a stiff breeze. Behind it came a heavier brig, flying the ensign of the Royal Navy — and that the one pursued the other, we little doubted.

“They would apprehend it,” Lucy Armstrong said, with all the wonder of nineteen. “Whatever for?”

“Wait but a moment,” Fielding replied, “and you shall see something curious.”

The cutter was nearing the distant end of the Cobb, and the Navy brig was well back; it looked as though the lead vessel should triumph. And then it came round, and almost to a halt in the waters west of the Cobb, and a frenzy of activity on the main deck could be observed. [44] The cutter Jane describes probably came about near Charton Bay, two miles west of Lyme proper; this was a lonely stretch of shoreline favored by smugglers. — Editor's note.

“They are jettisoning the cargo,” Cassandra said qui-edy. “It must be contraband.”

“Exactly.” Captain Fielding's voice held only satisfaction.

“Smugglers!” Miss Armstrong cried, her face alight. So even she was prey to the romance of the age. Her aunt could not approve it; but happily, we were spared Miss Crawford's strictures.

“What a fearful loss this must be, for the captain of that cutter,” I observed.

“Loss? That is very unlikely,” Captain Fielding replied. “They will have marked the place in Poker's Pool where the casks went down — indeed, they may even have buoyed them just below the surface — and will in due course retrieve them in the dead of night, in smaller boats. Provided, of course, the captain is not impressed.” [45] Captain Fielding is referring to the Royal Navy practice of pressing smuggling captains into active service when apprehended. Such seamen were known to be remarkably skilled, from long experience of landing on difficult coasts in bad weather and under cover of darkness; exactly the sort of captains the Royal Navy needed in time of war. — Editor's note.

“Why even attempt a landing in broad daylight?” my sister enquired. “It seems the worst sort of folly.”

“Lyme has been known as an hospitable port,” Captain Fielding said drily. “The local Revenue men and dragoons are so well-supplied with French brandy — of the sort that is very hard to come by — that more often than not, they are elsewhere engaged when the contraband arrives. Only one of your Revenue men is worth his salt— Mr. Roy Cavendish, the local Customs man — but his duties are too numerous, and his territory too broad, for the effective policing of Lyme. I cannot tell you how many afternoons I have watched waggons come in a long line to the shingle below the Cobb, their horses standing in surf up to their flanks, on purpose to fetch the smugglers’ shameful cargoes and bear them into the deep recesses of the Pinny [46] The Pinny, in Austen's time, was a heavily wooded wilderness a short walking distance from town. She describes it in Persuasion as possessed of chasms between romantic rocks, where the scattered forest trees and orchards of luxuriant growth declare that many a generation must have passed away since the first partial falling of the cliff prepared the ground for such a state….” There were to be additional land-tails in subsequent years, the most spectacular of which took place in 1839. It was the ideal place for a smugglers’ band to meet. — Editor's note. , and thence to the Dorchester road, and Bath, and London beyond. But of late Cavendish has been quite pressing in his charge to apprehend such cheats of the Crown's revenues. What you see before you, ladies, is a miscalculation on the part of our Gentlemen of the Night. They did not hear of the Royal Navy's sudden interest in their trade. The brig looks to be the Renegade. I imagine she has been chasing that cutter all the way from Boulogne.”

“Jane!” Cassandra cried. “Our brother is even now engaged in blockading that very port Is it credible a smuggling ship could penetrate where so much active vigilance holds sway?”

“There are many methods for winning blindness from one's countrymen,” Captain Fielding broke in. “I regret to say it — my years of service in the Blue would urge me to prevaricate — but the truth of the matter is that many who were once in the service of the Crown form the chief part of the smugglers’ bands. Who better than a sailor, accustomed to privation and endurance in the worst of seas, to pilot a ship into enemy territory? Who better than a soldier, accustomed to long marches, to carry a barrel of brandy slung from each shoulder several miles through the Pinny to safety? And who better than either, to suborn old friends in strategic places, with the gift of a length of silk or a bottle of rarest cognac?”

“I am all amazement,” Cassandra said, with averted eyes. “It is my custom to believe those who serve in the Royal Navy to be among the most honourable of men.”

“And in the main, they are, I grant you,” Captain Fielding said gently. “Certainly I could not suggest that your own brothers would be so easily corrupted, Miss Austen. I speak but in the general way, and of the common lot— the ordinary man-at-arms, who cannot look to rise to an officer's rank, and achieve great fortune. One night's despicable work on behalf of such a one as the Reverend could suffice to feed a family for a week.”

“The Reverend?” Cassandra looked her puzzlement.

“I am forgetting,” Captain Fielding exclaimed. “We were deprived of your loveliness last evening, and you of our conversation.”

“The Reverend is a smuggling chief,” Lucy Armstrong supplied. “His identity remains one of Lyme's greatest secrets. The very cutter below us may well be one of his boats.”

We gazed once more at the sea, and observed the Navy vessel come alongside the cutter, which, having abandoned its cargo, now stood off Lyme some little distance with an affectation of innocence; in an instant, the little boat was boarded; and a search of her holds no doubt begun. To my surprise, I found myself wishing her good fortune and Godspeed, and that the officers of His Majesty's ship Renegade might find nothing to her detriment. Then abruptly I shook off such fancies, appalled at my want of moral sense. How should it be, that our hearts leap at the sight of anything graceful, fast, and daring, and turn away from the stolid predictability of the tried and narrow way? Only Eve, clutching at her apple, might have the answer.

WE DROVE ON IN A MOMENT, THOUGH MORE THAN ONE OF US craned a neck backwards to observe the progress of events on the cutter's deck; but though we espied the boat itself, the actions of its men were veiled from our sight, and the conclusion of such a story must await another day. Cassandra's eyes were closed, and her pallor such as gave rise to concern in my breast; but believing her to be resting, I chose not to disturb her with unnecessary enquiries. Turning instead to Captain Fielding, I thought to pursue a nearer interest, by probing his dislike of Mr. Sidmouth.