Riding (The Rise Of An English Lawbreaker Book 2)

Book summary

"Riding" thrusts readers into the tumultuous world of John Smith, a cunning smuggler turned highwayman, known as the Yellowhammer. Navigating 18th century England's treacherous roads, Smith strikes a balance between robbery and relationships, making allies and adversaries alike. Danger escalates when his old friend, Bess, becomes a target, and a ruthless killer is dispatched to end Smith's escapades. This historical adventure, second in Malcolm Archibald's 'The Rise Of An English Lawbreaker' series, weaves a tale of survival, loyalty, and cunning amidst a backdrop of deceit and intrigue.

Excerpt from Riding (The Rise Of An English Lawbreaker Book 2)

The servant answered the door of Bengal Hall and looked at the man who stood three steps away. “Yes, sir?”

The tall man held the servant’s gaze. “Good morning! Is this the residence of Mr Peter Gibbins?”

“It is, sir,” the servant confirmed.

“Good.” The visitor was slender, with the scar from the corner of his mouth down his chin seeming only to enhance the smooth handsomeness of his face. “Tell him there is somebody to see him, please?”

“Certainly, sir. Who shall I say is calling?”

“Captain Otway,” the visitor said, tapping his silver-topped cane on the step.

“Come inside, sir, and I shall see if the master is at home.”

“Thank you.” Captain Otway stepped inside the house, where a longcase clock ticked softly in one corner of the modest hall, and a bench ran along the wall beneath a hunting print. “I’ll wait here.”

“As you wish, sir.” The servant bowed and withdrew.

Captain Otway waited for a few seconds, then moved soft-footed through the house. When the servant ascended the stairs, Captain Otway followed to see him tap on the door of a room.

Without hesitation, Captain Otway pushed past the servant. “You are dismissed. If you return here, I’ll blow out your brains.” The servant recoiled, and Otway turned the door handle and strode inside the room.

Two people lay side by side in the four-poster bed that occupied half the room.

“What the devil? The speaker was a man in his early forties, with short blond hair and a plump face. His companion was a young woman of less than half his age. Both looked up in alarm, with the woman diving beneath the covers and the man staring at the intruder.

“Peter Gibbins?” Captain Otway asked. “Do I have the honour of addressing Mr Peter Gibbins, the Hindustan merchant?”

“What? Get out of my bedroom! You have no right in here! Simpkins! Throw this impudent fellow out!”

“If Simpkins is your servant, sir, he will not help. Are you Peter Gibbins, sir?” Captain Otway asked again.

“Who the devil else would I be?” the man in the bed replied.

“And the young lady,” Captain Otway hauled back the covers to reveal the cowering woman to be naked. “Are you Miss Lucy Hetherington?”

The woman screamed and attempted to cover herself. “Yes!” She said, trying to drag back the sheets.

“In that case, miss, I have a message from your father.” Producing a pistol, Captain Otway pressed it against Gibbins’ groin. “Your father orders you to return home at once, Miss Hetherington. Get up and get dressed.”

Lucy Hetherington looked at Gibbins, who lay paralysed with fear.

“You will not see Mr Gibbins again,” Captain Otway said. With his left hand, he dragged Lucy Hetherington from the bed. “Dress, please, Miss, and wait for me outside the room. I have a chaise to carry you home.” He watched as the woman obeyed, then shifted his pistol to Gibbins’ forehead and fired. The shot was loud, echoing from the walls, and Captain Otway waited for a second to ensure Gibbins was dead before leaving the room.

“Come, Miss Hetherington. Your parents are anxious for your wellbeing.”

The toll keeper stepped from his toll house when the cart trundled up. He sighed and held up his hand. “Stop at the turnpike barrier! You have to pay to pass here.”

“How much?” the driver asked as his three passengers jumped off the cart, stretched their legs and ducked under the toll bar. One pulled his hat over his missing ear and stamped his broken boots, and then all three walked casually to the toll house.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the toll keeper shouted. “You can’t go in there!”

“How much for the toll?” The driver held the keeper’s attention while his passengers kicked open the toll house door.

“A shilling.” The toll keeper glanced at the driver and stepped back. “What’s this?”

“It’s a pistol,” the driver said, pointing the double-barrelled pistol at the keeper’s face. “And if you don’t walk back to the toll house, I’ll let daylight through your skull.”

When the toll keeper hesitated, the driver pushed the pistol barrel against his chest. “Move.” Both men heard the raised voices from the toll house, but the driver was not surprised.

The toll keeper backed away, glancing over his shoulder in case he tripped on the uneven ground. When he reached the toll house, he found his colleagues tied hand and foot and glaring from above dirty gags.

“Join your friends,” the driver ordered. He held his pistol steady while his passengers tied the toll keeper with tarred cords. “Now, you sit tight while we run your toll house for the next few hours.” The driver grinned and landed a hefty kick on the keeper’s ribs. “If you behave, you’ll live to tell your children.” He kicked again. “Maybe.” He raised his voice. “See where these people keep the money, lads, and the drink.”

Smith laid his pistols in front of him. He had six, two large double-barrelled and four smaller, pocket-sized, and single-barrelled. Smith checked that each flint was sharp, and the barrels were clean. He ensured the locks were oiled and worked smoothly and then replaced the weapons in front of him, aware that Bess watched everything he did.

Smith placed twenty pistol balls of each calibre in front of him, examined them to check their roundness and chose the most perfect. Measuring a charge of gunpowder from his powder horn, Smith rolled a lead ball down each pistol barrel, rammed home a wad to keep each in place and slid the pistols into their holsters.

“Are you ready, Bess?”

As Smith prepared his pistols, Bess had tried on her mourning dress. She stood a few feet away, dressed in black from neck to toes and surveying herself in the looking glass. Beth lifted the two small pistols that remained on the table. Sliding one up her left sleeve, she slotted the other in the hollow at the back of her Bible.

“I am ready.” She placed a black hat on her head, pulled down the veil, and stood up. “You do look lovely, John. Very colourful.”

Smith looked down at his bright yellow waistcoat, yellow breeches, and the yellow scarf around his throat. “I want to be instantly recognisable,” he said. “I don’t have time to build a reputation as a highwayman, so I must do something dramatic to catch people’s attention immediately.”

“Holding up England’s only mail coach is also very dangerous,” Bess said. “If the authorities catch you, they won’t just hang you, John. They’ll gibbet you – food for the crows. They might even gibbet you alive.”

“They’ll have to catch me first,” Smith said, changing his clothes for those of a darker hue. “And they won’t find that so easy.”

“They’ll hunt you down,” Bess warned, sounding worried. “Very few highwaymen live to old age.”

Smith laughed. “Fleet Bob did,” he reminded. “I’ll be gone long before they get organised. Come on.”

“You’re a seaman, not a highwayman,” Bess said as she removed her mourning hat and veil and walked out the door. “You haven’t got Bob’s riding skills. If they catch you, John, I won’t cry at the gallows foot.”

Sitting astride Rodney, Smith extended his spyglass and studied the road on the opposite side of the Birch Ford. He saw young James Mason sitting on the branch of a tree, idly swinging his legs while his bare feet twinkled in the sun. The boy contemplated the fallen trees that blocked the road and whittled a piece of wood as he waited, using an old, worn knife with as much skill as a man four times his age.

Smith heard the brassy blare of a coaching horn and the drumbeat of hooves on the spring-hard road. He held the spyglass steady as the mail coach rolled up and halted at the trees that blocked the road. The driver sawed at the reins, looked ahead at the impassable barrier, and Smith saw his mouth work as he unleashed a mouthful of obscenities. The guard, burly, broad-shouldered, and carrying a blunderbuss, dismounted and walked past the six matching black horses to the first tree.

Smith watched as the guard spoke to the whittling boy. He wished he could hear the conversation but saw James point to the north, the direction of Lord Fitzwarren’s turnpike. When the guard tossed him a coin, Smith smiled.

That young ragamuffin is doing well out of a blocked road.

When the guard returned to the coach, he spoke to the driver, and they began the laborious business of turning the coach around in the confined space. Smith nodded, for he had deliberately chosen the felling site to allow room for just such a manoeuvre.

“Come on, Rodney.” Smith tugged at the reins. “We have a bit of a ride and not much time.”

Smith pushed through the wooded belt and around the fringes of the ploughed fields, some planted and already showing a sheen of new growth. He avoided the occasional cottage and slowed when he arrived at the boundary of Lord Fitzwarren’s land.

At a covert known to harbour a family of foxes, Smith pulled Rodney to a halt and dismounted. A grey horse stood there, tethered to a low branch, grazing contentedly. A leather bag lay under a blackthorn hedge nearby.

Quickly tying up Rodney, Smith stripped off his outer clothes and replaced them with the bright yellow waistcoat and breeches that the leather bag had held. Fitting a full yellow mask over his face, he mounted the grey horse.

“Right, Anson,” Smith whispered in the horse’s ear. “We have work to do.”

Anson whinnied as if he understood what Smith expected of him and moved off to Smith’s gentle urging.

Let’s see if Fleet Bob’s teaching has made me into a horseman.

A high stone wall enclosed most of Lord Fitzwarren’s estate, with thick hedges filling the gaps where the wall ended. Only field gates allowed access to the farmed land, with six gamekeepers patrolling the woodland and boundaries to deter poachers.

Lord Fitzwarren has made his estate into a fortress.

A lodge house guarded each of the four entrances to Lord Fitzwarren’s land, with loyal servants ensconced in each. Smith had considered bribery but decided the risk was too great. Instead, he skirted the lodges and rode to the toll house at the turnpike.

“Halloa there!” Smith shouted.

The barrier rose to Smith’s hail, and he rode Anson past the toll house to the exact midway point of the turnpike road and waited. He checked his watch and nodded. He had taken forty-five minutes since he saw young James divert the mail from the Birch Ford, and the coach should be along presently.

The blare of a coach horn interrupted the bird call. The birds quietened, temporarily scared, and then restarted as if a sergeant bird had sounded an order. During the pause, Smith heard the drum of hooves and crunch of wheels on the smoothly surfaced road and knew the mail coach was approaching.

Seaman, smuggler, merchant and now highwayman, Smith told himself. What a varied career I’ve had.

The coach horn blared again, with sunlight reflecting from the coach windows and shadows from the trees flickering on the scarlet paintwork. Smith pulled the first of his pistols from its holster and guided Anson forward.

The mail coach driver saw Smith standing in the centre of the road with his yellow waistcoat and breeches, his yellow mask under a tricorne hat and a pistol in his hand.

“Highwayman!” The driver roared, and the guard reached for his blunderbuss. Rather than slow the coach, he cracked his whip and yelled to encourage his team.

“Hold!” Smith aimed his pistol directly at the guard. “Or I’ll let daylight into your skull.”

“Damn your yellow hide!” the driver yelled, and the guard levelled his blunderbuss. If he fired, the contents could blow a man’s head clean off his shoulders. Smith watched the guard’s reaction and saw his eyes narrow as he balanced on the racing, swaying coach.

At the last second, Smith pulled Anson to the left, crossing the line of the horses. The guard fired, with the charge of lead shot passing wide, except for one stray pellet that nicked Smith’s right shoulder. The sudden sting made him gasp, and he instinctively pressed the trigger of his pistol. The ball missed its mark and creased the bodywork of the coach, leaving a raw scar on the brightly painted wood.

Discarding his blunderbuss, the guard drew a large calibre pistol from its holster on the seat, cocked, aimed, and fired in a single movement.

Smith ducked as the ball passed over his injured shoulder, lifted his pistol and fired the second barrel. The ball ripped past the driver and smacked into the guard’s arm, with the force of the shot spinning the burly man around and knocking him from his seat. He landed with a thump and a curse, rolled on the ground, and lay still.

Replacing the now empty pistol in its holster, Smith drew his second, turned Anson and kicked in his spurs. The horse quickly caught the racing coach as the driver glared sideways at the highwayman. Ignoring the stranded guard, the driver had performed his duty by concentrating on saving the mail.

“You dirty scoundrel!” the driver shouted. “They’ll hang you for this!”