Now, a wagon had been working its way across the torrent of Hanging-watchers. It was laden with barrels of the type used to transport ale. It seemed to be coming from the general direction of east London, and executing a movement around the northern frontier of the city to strike at Tyburn Cross around mid-morning: an excellent plan. Progress was impeded by a throng of would-be revelers who followed the wagon like sea-gulls swarming a herring-boat. But the brewer had a formidable van-guard of cudgel-men and a rear-guard of dogs, so he kept firm control of his inventory and made respectable speed. His route happened to bring him past the elbow in the road where the coach, and the five riders, were unaccountably loitering. There he stopped the wagon. Several Vagabonds rushed it. They were driven back, not only by the brewer’s dogs and club-men, but also by the four younger riders, who had wordlessly joined forces with them.

The brewer and an assistant-by looks, his son-deployed a plank from the back of the wagon, making of it a ramp extending to the ground. Down this they rolled a large barrel. It seemed unusually light-loaded, for they did not much exert themselves. But the contents must have been delicate, for they took their time. While his boy stowed the plank, the brewer set the barrel upright on the ground and gave it an affectionate triple thump. When he returned to his bench at the head of the wagon, he was startled to discover a single golden guinea resting in the place where he was about to sit.

“Thank you, guv’nor,” the brewer said to the old man on the gray horse. “But I couldn’t possibly.” And he tossed the coin back. The target was too blind to see it coming through the fog, but stopped it with his chest. It tumbled down into his lap. He trapped it under his hand.

“If it was some other bloke in there,” the brewer explained, “I’d take your money, guv. But this one’s on the house.”

“You are a credit to your profession, sir,” returned the old man, “as if it needed any. When next I visit the Liberty of the Tower, I shall buy a round for the house-nay, for the whole garrison.”

Even large objects vanished soon in this miasma, and that was true of the beer-wagon. The four riders now devoted a minute or two to cantering back and forth driving away inquisitive Vagabonds. Then all converged on the barrel. The two Mohawks stood guard while the two common blokes dismounted and went to work on the barrel-carefully-with hatchets. Presently they tipped it over on the grass. One held the barrel. The other bent down, reached into the open end, got a grip on the payload, and dragged it out. It was a human form. From his general looks, no one would have been surprised to learn that he was dead. If so, he had expired recently, for he was still floppy. After a minute, though, he began to stir. In three minutes he was sitting on the barrel, drinking brandy, glaring at the two Mohawks, and conversing with his two rescuers. He called these by their Christian names and they called him Sergeant.

“Sergeant Shaftoe,” said the old man, “I do pity the Grim Reaper on the day that he shall finally come for you in earnest. I fear you’ll use him so roughly that he shall have to go on holiday for a fortnight.”

“And what would be the harm in that?” croaked Sergeant Shaftoe. His voice was very raw, as if he had been shouting or screaming quite a bit in recent days. His wrists were adorned with bracelets of festering scabs.

“Oh, think of the havoc it would play with Her Majesty’s annuities! Think of the carnage at Lloyd’s Coffee-house!”

Sergeant Shaftoe let it be seen that he did not think much of the other’s wit. “You’d be Comstock,” he said, after a suitably uncomfortable silence had passed.

“I would draw nigh and shake your hand-”

“ ’Tis all right, my hand does not work just now.”

“-but I do not trust myself on this animal.”

Shaftoe shook off a brief urge to smile. “Not to your liking, is he?”

“Oh, as an arse-warmer, he has done splendid service. But God help us all if I should essay to ride him.”

“I s’pose it’s you I have to thank for my liberty, then,” Shaftoe remarked.

“From the fact that you are here, and alive, I collect that all went off as planned?”

“En route from the dungeon to the cooperage were some misadventures. Without those, it would have been as routine as removal of horse-dung. The Regiment is under new, not very competent direction.”

“What of the Queen’s Messengers?”

“All they do is stand in a Mobb around the Pyx day and night.”

Comstock permitted himself a dry chuckle. “You are a man of many words but few specifics. You’d do well in Parliament.”

Shaftoe shrugged. “I’m old. Your hirelings, who broke me out of the Tower, they are young lads, and were moved greatly by each little happening. Ask them to relate the story to you, and you shall hear a yarn far longer and more diverting than any I would tell.”

“And less strictly true, I suspect,” said Comstock.

“What’s it to be now, guv’nor?” Shaftoe asked, and decided to try standing up. This he accomplished with a rolling tocsin of cracks and pops.

“Sergeant Shaftoe, ’twere absurd for me to go to the trouble of making you a free man, only to take away your liberty in the next instant by telling you what to do.”

“My mistake, guv’nor. I am accustomed by long habit to being in a chain of command.”

“Then, if it would be of any comfort to you, know that your longtime superior, Colonel Barnes, is now my guest. Oh, not here in London! He is at my seat, Ravenscar, on the North York Moors, above the sea.”

Shaftoe looked to the two dragoons who had pulled him out of the barrel. They confirmed it with nods.

“Am I to gather that Colonel Barnes is not alone there?” Shaftoe asked.

“I daresay the best part of your regiment is drinking up my wine-cellar.”

One of the dragoons could be heard supplementing Comstock’s account, muttering about “three companies.” Sergeant Shaftoe was not the sort who would admit to being startled or impressed by anything; but at least he did not look bored or contemptuous-a signal achievement for Roger Comstock.

“I know all about your Whig Association,” Shaftoe said. He had advanced now to walking, and tottered a few steps in Comstock’s direction. “I have heard the rumors about all the money you have raised from the merchants of the City. And as to your efforts to recruit soldiers away from Her Majesty’s regiments, and sign them up in your private army: I recruited them first, and trained them, so do not think that a single one has escaped my attention.”

“I shouldn’t dare to, Sergeant Shaftoe.”

“I am too young to’ve witnessed the Civil War with these eyes, but as a lad I heard tales of it from ones who managed to survive. And I have seen all of the improvements that War made in Ireland and Belgium and other places. I could not be less inclined to take part in such an action on English soil.”

“Then don’t.”

“Pardon?”

“Don’t take part, Sergeant Shaftoe. Oh, by all means go to Ravenscar-” and here Comstock launched into the procedure of dismounting from his horse-so evidently fraught with perils for man and beast alike that the sergeant stepped forward to intervene. “Take this steed-yes-there-oh, no! I beg your pardon-thank you-that was most painful-I am in your debt-may I please have my teeth back-there! Whew! I say, take this steed, Sergeant Shaftoe, which is as glad to be rid of me, as ridden by you-ha-these two fine dragoons who, as I believe, are known to you, shall accompany you all the way to Ravenscar. Go there, drink Colonel Barnes’s health, recuperate, trout-fish, as you like. There is not going to be another Civil War, Sergeant Shaftoe, if I have aught to say about it-which, as it happens, I do.”

“What if you are wrong?”

“Then you are welcome, nay, encouraged to retire from military service.”