"Thousands 'pon thousands of 'em," Lewrie told him. "The comin' thing in the North Downs, since before the American Revolution. We've about two hundred, last time I got an accounting."
"Nothin' like good roast lamb, sor, sure there ain't," Desmond said with a chuckle. Liam Desmond no longer was garbed in a sailor's "short clothing" but wore dark brown "ditto," his coat and trousers of the same coloured broadcloth. He sported a buff-coloured waist-coat, a white linen shirt, even a white neck-stock, and, with triple-caped overcoat and a grey farmer's hat, could almost be mistaken for a man of the squirearchy… one who rented his acres, not owned them, at least.
"You'll founder on lamb and mutton by Easter," Lewrie said with a wry laugh, for by previous experience, in the country, he'd seen that particular dish on his table rather more than thrice a week. In spite of the risk to his complexion, Lewrie let down the window glass and took a quick peek "astern" to see how Patrick Furfy was doing with the dray waggon. Furfy and the waggoner, swathed to their eyebrows with upturned overcoat collars, wool scarves, and tugged-down hats, seemed to be having a grand natter, and he caught the tail-end of a joke that Furfy was telling, and his deep, hearty roar of laughter at its successful completion. Patrick Furfy loved a good joke or yarn but had a hard time relating them onwards, leaving out details that he had to jab in in the middle, and overall had but a limited stash of jokes he could reliably tell.
"… loight th' candle, help me foind me bliddy equipage, an' we'll coach outta this bitch's quim, har har!"
"That'd be Number Twenty-One, sor," Desmond said with a grin, "and I thought he'd nivver git it right." He tugged uncomfortably at his neck-stock and the enveloping folds of his overcoat, not used to such perhaps in his whole life in Ireland, then the Navy.
"Where the Hell did that come from?" Lewrie gravelled as their coach came even with a field that Lewrie recalled as a thinned-out wood lot, bounded by a low hand-laid stone wall. Now, the wood lot was taken over by several new buildings, a brick-works, and a wide gate open in the wall. About an eighth of a mile later, past a stretch of woods, and there was a tannery, thankfully down-stream from Anglesgreen. "My eyes, the town's gone… industrious! All that's the local squire's land, or it was… Sir Romney Emberton's. He'd not abide that. Did he pass over, and his son Harry set them up?"
"They good people, sor, the Embletons?" Desmond asked, peering out the windows himself.
"Sir Romney is," Lewrie commented, not sure whether he liked the changes round Anglesgreen; it was a bucolic, boresome place, full of predictable and sometimes tiresome folk, but he'd hoped to find it as reassuring as an old shoe… just long enough to get tired of it before Napoleon Bonaparte, and Admiralty, snatched him back to active sea service. "Harry delights in killin' horses at fox-huntin', and at steeplechasin', they're no matter t'him. Last I was home, he was the Leftenant-Colonel of the local Yeoman Cavalry. Ye can't miss him… He's the chin of an otter, talks louder'n an angry Bosun, and laughs like a daft donkey."
"Faith, sor, but one'd think ye had a down on him!" his Cox'n wryly commented.
"Of long standing, hah!" Lewrie told him with a barking laugh. He took the risk to his hat and hair and stuck his head out the coach window once more, looking back at the brick-works and tannery, grimacing with displeasure to see the steam and stinks rising from them like a pall of spent gunpowder from a two-decker's broadside, hazing off to a flat-topped cloud that slowly drifted eastward.
God help us, does the wind change, he thought, just as a glob of muddy slush plopped against his cheek from the front wheel, eliciting a snarl that had more to do with the new-come industries. He swabbed the muck off with his wool scarf and sat back as he noted several new brick cottages on the left of the road that hadn't been there before, where once there had been a common-shared pasture before the Enclosure Acts that had taken away poor cottagers' grazing and vegetable plot rights, and turned so many from hand-to-mouth self-sufficient to common day labourers on others' farms, or driven them to the cities, where the new manufacturies might employ them. At least the dozen or so cottages were on decent plots of land, picket-fenced, with wee truck gardens and decorative flower beds. They were substantial-looking, well-painted, with flower boxes at each window sill, and in the Spring might appear quite pleasant, he decided.
To the right, at last, and there was mossy old St. George's parish church, as stout and impressive as a feudal manor or Norman conqueror's keep, with its low stone walls marking the bounds, now topped by new iron fencing. The expansive graveyard was further bound with iron fencing, too, though the oldest headstones were still lime-green with moss, and tilted any-which-way, as if braced "a-cock-bill" in eternal mourning.
St. George's had marked the eastern boundary of the village the last time Lewrie had been home-Christ, my last time here was back in '97? Lewrie realised with a start-but it seemed that that had changed, too, for, hard by the church's fenced boundary there was a lane running north, then a row of two- and three-storey brick and slate-roofed, bow-windowed shops that hadn't been there before, either.
"Milliner's… a tailor's… a tea shop?" Lewrie muttered half under his breath. "And what's this?" There had been four row-houses just east of the Olde Ploughman public house, but someone had re-done the fronts, closing off half the entrances, and turned two of them to double doors, all to allow entry to a dry goods! "A dry goods?"
Before, anyone wishing to do serious shopping would have had to coach, ride, or hike to Petersfield, the closest substantial town, or go all-in and stay over at Southampton, Portsmouth, or Guildford, but now…! Why, in the dry goods store's windows Lewrie could espy ready-made clothing, china sets, and-
"This th' public house ye told us of, sor?" Desmond asked as the coach drew level with the Olde Ploughman. It had been touched up with whitewash recently, sported a new, swaying signboard over the entrance, and new shutters.
"Aye, Desmond," Lewrie told him. "The side yard's a grand place in warm weather, tables outside and… coachee! Draw up here, I say!" Lewrie cried, thumping his walking-stick on the coach roof. "As long as we're here, we'll try their ale, the coachee and waggoner, too."
At that welcome news, Liam Desmond sprang from the front bench seat and opened the door, jumping down to lower the folding metal steps for Lewrie, who was out not two seconds behind him, and walking round the head of the coach's team of four to take it all in, bare-headed.
"Ale, Pat!" Desmond cried. "The coachee and yer friend, too!"
"Ale, arrah!" Furfy chortled.
The Olde Ploughman fronted on the large village green that ran along the stream that bisected Anglesgreen, spanned just a bit west of the public house by a stout stone-arch bridge. Across the stream sat a second street, fairly new from the 1780s, once mostly earthen, mud and now and then gravelled. Now the street was cobbled, several row-houses had been turned into even more shops, and there were even more streets south of them, lined with even more of those handsome cottages, situated on spacious acre lots, with room enough for coach-houses and stables, chicken coops and runs, truck gardens, and walled-off lawns. Lewrie gawped in awe, slowly turning to look upstream towards the Red Swan Inn (where the squirearchy and landed gentry did their swilling, and Lewrie was most unwelcome) and found that the village had grown in that direction, too, though the smaller green of the Red Swan was yet untouched, and the groves of giant oaks still stood.
"Neat li'l place, an't it, Pat?" Desmond asked his mate.