Maggie Cony felt it her duty to fatten him up. As soon as he sat down at a table near the fireplace, out came a plate of scrambled eggs, crispy strips of bacon, potato hash, thick slices of toast, with a bowl of butter and a pot of red currant jelly close by, and a cup of scalding hot coffee, which would be refilled several times. Some days it would be pork chops, a smoke-cured ham steak, or a chunk of roast beef instead of bacon. At least Lewrie’s aches and pains got rewarded!
Will Cony did a tour of the large room to see that all of his other customers were being taken care of, then fetched himself a mug of hot tea from the kitchen in back, and came to join Lewrie.
“How’s he doin’, Mister Cony?” Abigail, the brunette waitress, asked as she came to refill Lewrie’s cup.
“Nigh a mile t’day, Abigail, nigh onta a mile,” Cony boasted.
“That’s grand, it is!” Abigail cheerily said. “By Christmas, I wager you’ll be runnin’ fast as your horses, Captain Lewrie. Do you wish more cream?”
“Aye, thankee,” Lewrie agreed.
“I always wondered,” the girl breezed on after fetching more cream, “why your father called his house Dun Roman.”
Lewrie chuckled, then explained the “Done Roaming” pun, which made Abigail groan. “The old tower, well … before the Romans came, ancient Britons built wooden hilltop forts, and they called ’em duns, and some folk think the tower was a Roman watchtower, but it’s too far from the Guildford, Chiddingfold, or Petersfield roads to do ’em any good. Most-like, it was some Norman lord who planned t’run him up a castle and tower, and went broke before he could finish it.”
“That, or our people ran th’ French bastard off,” Cony hooted.
“The church, Saint George’s, came later, maybe in the 1500s,” Lewrie speculated. “The tower? Maybe five hundred years before that.”
“That old? Lordy!” Abigail exclaimed in surprise.
“And, if ya’d seen th’ tavern afore me an’ Maggie re-did it, you’da known that the Old Ploughman’s nigh older than the church!” Will Cony said with a laugh. “It ain’t called th’ Old Ploughman fer nought.”
“As old as me coffee, Abigail!” an elderly follow cried out, raising a laugh, and the girl went to his table to begin joshing with him and his mates.
“Ya been doin’ th’ sword-play ev’ry day, too, Cap’m Lewrie?” Cony asked as he stirred some of the fresh cream into his tea.
“In the afternoons, after a good long rest,” Lewrie told him, scoffing his attempts. “Heavy Navy cutlasses, against Desmond or Furfy, for about a half-hour. All I can manage, yet,” he said with a shrug. “Yeovill, Pettus, and Jessop have taken up the drill, too. Bored, I expect. Since my father keeps such a large staff, even when he’s not here, there’s little for them t’do, and Yeovill can’t even get within smellin’ distance of the kitchens, ’less Mistress Furlough’ll take a meat chopper to him. It’s a damned pity, ’cause she’s only a passable cook. Roast, fry, boil, repeat if necessary, hah! Takin’ breakfast here’s the best meal I see.
“Then, I’ll have t’saddle up that fractious damned horse, and trot back uphill,” Lewrie gravelled between bites. “Like today, Anson has been ridden so little since I sent him up to Father’s stables that he just won’t go at a walk. Trot, lope, canter … ouch!”
“Speakin’ o’ ancient Britons, sir,” Cony slyly said, “ya ever hear of an ambler? They were very popular, back when yer tower and th’ church, and th’ village were young. Ya don’t see ’em much anymore … but, there’s a smallholder a few miles from here who still breeds ’em, an’ sells one, now an’ again.”
“What’s an ambler?” Lewrie asked, perplexed.
“Why, it’s a horse, sir!” Cony said with a grin. “They’re stout an’ cobby, sorta shaggy-lookin’, with big hooves like a Clydesdale, an’ just as plumy-hairy round th’ fetlocks, but they’re not over eleven or twelve hands at the withers, and as gentle as baa-lambs. Best of all, they’ve got a peculiar gait like no other horse. They pace at a fast walk … how they got their name … and can go for hours an’ hours, an’ th’ rider might as well be sittin’ in a rockin’ chair for all ya’d know, steady as a rock.
“Now, it may be ol’ Mister Doaks’d rent ya one for a few weeks, just ’til yer strong enough t’manage yer own horse,” Cony suggested. “What say I ride over this afternoon an’ speak with him, sir, and if I can strike a deal, I’ll bring one up t’th’ house t’morra mornin’ for you t’try.”
“We could try one out, aye,” Lewrie agreed after a ponder. “Do ye think a pound note’d suit him?”
“Bring ya change back, Cap’m Lewrie,” Cony promised.
* * *
“’Tis good I didn’t bet ya a shillin’, sir, for I’da lost,” Cony said as they stopped by a gnarled old oak tree. “That’s a full mile ya done this mornin’, an’ Maggie’s sureta throw in a beef steak t’reward ya! Want t’go a bit more?”
“A furlong more, maybe … to the stile yonder,” Lewrie decided.
“Yer on, sir!” Cony quickly agreed and they paced off once more, leading their mounts. They made that furlong to the stile, then drew to another stop, with Lewrie panting a little. He reached down to massage his right leg which still felt weak, but this morning, at least, it did not ache quite as loudly as the day before. He led “Peterkin” round alee and contemplated the brute.
The rented ambler was a shaggy thing, with hair almost as long as Scottish red cattle, its coat mottled grey with long white mane and tail. Its back was broader than an average saddle horse, so his usual saddle would not suit, and for two shillings more Cony had rented this older-style saddle with a prominent horn, a taller and wider cantle at the rear, and broader stirrup straps. He had tried out mounting up at the house’s stables, still using the mounting block, adjusting the length of the stirrups to fit him, but now …
“Ye goin’ t’cooperate, Peterkin?” Lewrie asked it.
The ambler swivelled its head round to look at him and gently whickered, but stood stolid and still, with no tittups.
“Right, then,” Lewrie said, steeling himself for sudden pain, and reaching up for the saddle horn. He lifted his left leg and got the toe of his boot in the stirrup and levered himself up and over, and winced … but not as badly as before. He clucked and kneed the horse into a walk, then a trot, then a lope, then … the ambler began its “amble”, as if cantering or galloping were lost arts. “My God!” Lewrie hooted, “it’s goin’ like a Cambridge coach!”
Cony had to set his horse at a lope to keep up with him, and the last three-quarters of a mile to Anglesgreen went by in a twinkling! Then, after his breakfast, though still using the mounting block, he set Peterkin to his mile-eating pace right off, and it really was a very smooth, jounceless ride up the rising lanes to home, the smoothest of his life.
“I think I love this thing!” Lewrie crowed as he drew rein at the house, and everyone, even Pettus, who was not much of a horseman, wanted to try the ambler out.
* * *
Will Cony couldn’t ride up to accompany him every morning, but Desmond, Furfy, or Sir Hugo’s hired groom, Fowlie, could go along with him on his morning hikes. Fowlie usually rode, leading the ambler as far as Lewrie could walk, then rode with him the rest of the way, but Desmond or Furfy usually led their own mounts to walk alongside him. Both were extremely fond of their own breakfasts at the Old Ploughman, and the chance to flirt with Abigail, Patrick Furfy got tongue-tied and blushed, but Desmond, with a true and merry gift of gab, did the best with her, making the girl’s eyes sparkle and laugh out loud.
“And that’s how Will and Maggie got together,” Lewrie cautioned, “flirtin’. Ye ready for marriage, Desmond?”