Ingenious pain, Andrew Miller [little red riding hood ebook .txt] 📗

sqare of the town. I had taken down some fine felow fiom off his whorse an thinking such a fine whorse would be a grand presant for my late wife could I but get it home when I saw James Dyur standing in the sqare loading a pistol quite an careful as if he had been in a room alown. One of there soldery, a lad about the same age as Dyur, was stood twenty feet away loading his musket like fury an when he has it done he snatches it to his sholder an fires an misses. Well he was not a cowardly cur this cuban like most of them are for he has a wicked bayonto long as his arm an he ran at Dyur yelling at the top of his voyce. Blow me if Dyur dont then rase his pistol an hold his aim until the cuban lad is all most upon him. I think that cuban thort he had done it for his bayoneto was

a hands bredth from Dyurs westcot. Well if so that thort was his last for Dyur put a ball threw the fellows brayn-pan and so made an end of him. It was the most complete thing of its kind I have ever seen. Yet what was stranger still an made me wander what manner of young man this Dyur was was that he did not look at the lad he had killed. In my experiance a man always looks at the man he has killed but James Dyur walked away as if the memory had erazed like chalk off a slayte.

We fort are way back to the boats and cast off. The Cubans turned some guns on us but then Aquilon came up and made it hot for them. We went on bord with only Parks dead and some wounded inclewding Leftenant Whitney who had lost a finger and a thumb. You wood have shaken your head Sir to have seen the men go up the side in their mantua an lace all bloody an unshaven. I still think of it sometimes an shake my own head. That was the rade at Baracoo.

I do not know what else I may tell you except I sometimes thort James Dyur encouraged Mr Munros love of hard licker. Mr Munro left the ship in 56 and Dyur was surgen an infareness a very safe one thow kept himself to himself. He left the ship in 58. I askt him where he was headed and he answered to finer things what you could dream of Mister Drake an made the money sine. He went very quite in the jolly boat one night. I think his old servant Gummer went with him for we never saw him more.

I hope this letter is what you expeckted and I hope you will forgive my ruff stile. I went to sea at nine years of age and a Man of War was my universaty. I am Your Obediant Servent

Sol Drake

Mrs Robert Munro to Reverend Lestrade

Bath, June 1774 Sir - No name is more repugnant to me than that of James Dyer. If you say he is deceased then I rejoice for he killed my husband sure as if he had murthered him with his own hands. My husband was a good man whose only folly was to be too fond and trusting of one who deserved neither. And though my husband took his own life I am sure he is in Heaven and I am sure James Dyer is in Hell. Pray never write to me of him again for I could never entertain a correspondence with one who called him friend. I am respectfully,

Agnes Munro. Widow.

The outside passengers slither down from the top of

the machine, their coats sodden with the rain that has

pummelled them since they came through the village of

Box. They stand in the yard while servants from the inn haul their

trunks from the basket at the back of the coach. The coachman

opens the door.

'Bath!'

The inside passengers descend, six in all, pulling on their hats, frowning at the sky. Most have been drowsing and have the pale,

crumpled faces of recent sleepers. Only one looks indifferent to the rain, unmolested by the long haul from London. He steps lightly over a puddle and speaks with an older man, one of the outside passengers. The man nods as if he has received his instructions.

The landlord, tenting a cloak over his head, bids the travellers enter, and they squelch behind him into the inn. There is a smell of roasting meat, of damp clothes and damp dogs. James orders a room. One, two nights, not longer. A girl show^s him up, holds open the door, holds herself against the door as he enters. He looks round at her. She raises her eyebrows; silently offers.

'How much?'

She says: Tive shillings. In advance. Nothing fancy or unchristian.'

He looks at her. The neck of her dress is absurdly low. On her right breast the half-moon of a cicatrix peeps from her tucker.

He touches it. 'What was this?'

'A hard bit, sir, that the surgeon cut out before Christmas.'

He presses her breast around the wound. The girl pulls his hand away. She looks rattled, as if his touch has disturbed an old nightmare.

'In advance, I said.'

He has found two more lumps. She pushes him away and steps back into the passageway. In the grey rainhght of the passage she is already half ghost, and in a ghost's voice she says: 'Five shillings.'

James shakes his head: 'I would not give sixpence for you. Have a fire made up. When a man called Gummer comes in, send him to me.'

It is long after dark when Gummer, peevish and half cut, returns.

James says: 'You found him?'

Gummer walks to the fire. 'I have always loathed this place,' he says. 'Founded by a swineherd, they say. I believe it.'

*I asked if you had found Munro. Be so civil as to answer.'

Gummer spins round from the fire. His look