Hiraeth A Poldark Fanfic Chapter 17: The Wakes, a poldark fanfic

Chapter 17 The Wakes

Last Monday in September 1790, links to S2E2-4

Jemima's father did come: many people did. One person she met on the way to Boskednan was George Warleggan, riding on his black charger beside his uncle, who declined not to ogle Jemima as Cary Warleggan's nephew slowed and curved beside the friends, calling a greeting to her.

"Mr. Warleggan, good morning!" Jemima called. "I guessed you would be here tomorrow."

He ran an eye over each of the six young men beside her and then looked back to Jemima, and she introduced them to him, noticing his eyebrow flicker when he mentioned Gregory Watt and Thomas Wedgwood."

"And Master Trevithick," George added, touching his hat. "Let me tell you, I plan to steal Miss Withering back to work at Leisure again!". There was a microsecond of awkward silence, Dick silent beside Jemima.

"The machine will be working tomorrow," Warleggan murmured, backtracking to the last time the conversation was moving. "Yes, of course, I would not wish to miss you demonstrate what I am assured to be a magnificent steam engine."

His horse's hooves clattered on the thin grass, and he continued, "Sir Francis has invited some of the mine owners to stay at Tehidy House with him, many of the miners here will be your miners."

"Why will they be your miners, Jemima?" asked Humphry. Jemima sighed inwardly - there was no keeping it hidden now.

"Because Mr Warleggan has offered me a place as his mine captain at Wheal Leisure, is that not right, sir?" George Warleggan nodded, and gave Jemima a small smile.

"Indeed. And should circumstances be favourable, mine captain. Why not?" He tipped his head towards Jemima and then to the six men, standing as they were close to the young woman, as if protecting her. Good. He liked a challenge.

"Good to meet you young people, goodday.". And with that, Warleggan rapped his horse's neck with the reins and he was off.

"Miss Witherin'," acknowledged George's uncle, and nodded, then followed.

"What an extraordinary man!" exclaimed Gregory Watt.

"Largest banker in Cornwall," Edward put in. "Sir Francis works hard to keep his own financial interests separate."

"He reminds me of Mr. Boulton," Thomas told Gregory. He laughed.

"A little perhaps."

Dick Trevithick said nothing, just watched in Warleggan's wake.

"You know, I do know him," Davies, "Or I think I do. He would come when his father came to my father's dinners…I was rather young at the time…he…" Davies shook his head.

"He wants you for his mine, Jemima?" Thomas Wedgwood looked amazed. "I thought you wanted a coal mine?"

"Yes," she told him. "I worked in that mine; Mr. Warleggan trusted in my work, and is endeavouring to win me back. It was owned by someone else once, who did not." Those who knew, Humphry, Davies, Edward and Dick, all nodded, knowing what she meant. "One day, I want to own a coal mine, or manage one, anyway."

"But you want to stay with us, won't you?" Edward asked her, as they trod the grass over the higher ground - ahead would be the north coast of Cornwall with the sun reflecting off it, and the Ting Tong mines decked out in whatever a wakes fair looked like in the Tehidy district. Jemima looked from the sea to her friend's face.

"We have made the engine now; I cannot see that Wild will want me much longer," Jemima told him.

"But no! We will need you, Jemima! We can make the engine even more efficient, more high pressure, we can pump more water and we'll do that quicker with you!".

Jemima sighed. It was what she hoped. But she also knew it was difficult to get a trusted place, a woman mine engineer. George Warleggan believed in her, for one.

"It will all depend on the Statute Fair," she told them as they walked on. "If you get orders, you simply have to make more of what you have. Your mines - Mr. Wild's mines - could not be improved by stratification.". Beside her, Thomas Wedgwood's eyes widened.

"Stratification?" he repeated. "Why, Jemima, you spoke to that man, Mr Smith about just that when you were with us! Do you know, he has written a book about it? He has submitted it to the Royal Institution."

"Ha!" exclaimed Humphry, looking across to Thomas. "I may be meeting him then!" And told them all about Thomas Young procuring him for the soft metal extraction demonstration, and Bristol, deferring to Davies Giddy every so often, until they caught sight of eight pit head winding gear, the chasm in which the Cornish engine that she, Edward and Dick had modelled and many, many people.

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The first thing Jemima noticed about the wakes was the smell of cooking goose. Every house thereabouts had brought their stubbly goose to Tehidy for dispatching and cooking, as was the custom, and the smell was indeed encompassing.

Other smells rose too, coal - but of course there was always the smell of that, horse and the particular smell of cooking. Already, pedlars and traders of nuts, oranges and spiced cake - foods from overseas, having landed at the first tide - were making their wares ready sell for the day, all close to Tehidy house where the quarterly rents were paid.

As they approached, a sign was written as to what would be on. They paused and read it aloud, but by bit, like children in school.

"Jack Ass Race for a Purse of Gold, to be rode in true Jockey Style – no crossing nor jostling allowed!" Thomas began. "There are donkeys over there." He pointed. By a food stand a group of about a dozen were tethered, eating from a straw bale.

"Listen," continued Humphry, ""A Foot Race of a mile carrying a tonne of tin ore, for a GOOD HAT" That's the prize?" He looked on. ""Lots of ribbons to be danced for by Old Maids and Young Men"".

"I want all six of my friends to be the young men!" declared Jemima.

"You are the old maid then?" asked Thomas, grinning. His face fell almost immediately when Gregory kicked his leg. "Out of order, Thomas," he told him.

"Sorry, Jemima," Thomas apologised, and did look sorry.

"Get me a cap and out of this dress and I'll be the seventh young man," Jemima quipped, and pulled aside her skirt to show her work clothes.

"Clever thing," Edward teased, then looked back to the sign, ""and other events included chasing a greased pig, grinning through a horse collar, thick porridge eating, and a race for "Wooden Legged Men"."

"That's nothing" grinned Gregory Watt, "At the Prestwich wakes, the competitions included 'an eating match of 3lb of treacle and bread' and a smoking match for ten old women!"

Another notice made Jemima's heart sink, and she made a mental note to find a way of keeping them all away.

"Notice", it said. "On Monday morning at eleven o'clock, the sports will commence with the most ancient, loyal, national, constitutional and lawful diversion, BULL BAITING, in all its primitive excellence for which this place has long been noted."

"The tithes are already being given," Edward pointed to a long line of men outside Tehidy house. "There'll be the goose after."

"For everyone?"

"Yes!" Agreed Davies and Humphry together. "I suggest," Davies went on, we look at the steam engine before it all gets started. Then we can take some goose and see what else is happening. My mother sent eighteen geese - that's more than enough contribution for us to have a bite!"

They walked across to Dolcoath, and Edward, Dick and Jemima enjoyed showing Thomas, Gregory, Davies and Humphry what they had made.

"Ingenious adaptation!" Gregory agreed. "My father will not be happy, though."

"Surely it doesn't matter what happens to the engines once the customer has it?" Davies asked, looking at the crossbeam, smaller than the ones he was used to seeing. "From what I understand legally, once you possess a thing, whatever you do, even if you use it to make money, this cannot be reclaimed by the seller."

"True," Gregory conceded. "But if a patent is taken out or any form of copyright, then the seller is within their rights to pursue it. Providing it is different enough.". He looked over it again. "I know my father, he is tenacious with the law. Let's not speak of it, but if he changes his mind, all will be better off for it."

"I for one can't wait to see it working," Humphry told Jemima.

"Nor I," agreed Davies.

"And if she tells you anything different, don't believe Miss Withering, for she suggested we remodel the condenser, she fixed the plate housing, and added no end of joint pieces."

"It's upside down, isn't it?" Gregory said aloud. He had been staring at it for some time. "I wondered what was different.". He shot a quick look over to Edward Bull. "Don't worry, I won't say a word to my father. It's up to him to spot, though he will."

"It would have helped if the engine had come to us as it should have been. Even with Murdoch's help, we couldn't get it to give more than twenty feet. We all tried."

The sun has risen higher now. More people were about and the refectory where the workers' meals were served had both doors open and the tables arranged. The tenants who had just paid their rents and their families had just sat down to their traditional morning goose feast and Dick nudged Edward and pointed as a group of miners joined the line.

"We can go in, all of us," Dick told them. "My father is mine captain here at Fortune."

Thinking that no-one would dare turn Dick Trevithick away, they added themselves to the line and had a hearty breakfast. Considering how much they ate between them Jemima wondered if all Mrs. Giddy's geese had been accounted for.

"No, thank you," Non-comformists Edward and Dick told one of the servants as alcohol was passed round.

"Hey, yes please!" Davies called as the servant made to go, and he, Gregory, Humphry and Thomas all had a watered down canary. "But that will be all, for a little while at least. We don't want to get fighting drunk and abandon Jemima."

More alcoholic beverages were being offered as prizes for strength and running competitions and cattle were being brought closer to the food and foods stalls, being perused by potential customers, promises being made to keep hold of a cow here or a pair of chickens there.

"Will you be wrestling this year?" Edward asked Dick. He turned to the rest of them. "Unbeaten champion is Master Trevithick."

Dick looked at the field where two men had each other in a death grip.

"Yes," he replied. "Later. When the competition thins out.".

They watched the wrestling for a while, as a man from Redruth defeated one from Hayle and Jemima watched Dick's face, which was wholly fixed on the winner.

"Miss Withering!" came a voice from behind them, before she could ask him anything. The man looked across and added, Master Trevithick! Mr. Bull!". It was Drake Carne, the blacksmith, and he smiled across to Jemima.

"You helped my sister with the cakes yesterday," he explained, looking behind. "She is that pleased, Miss Withering," he added, as the young men went with interest to where she was sitting and Jemima noticed all the baked goods were there. Including -

" - Oatcakes!". It was Thomas Wedgwood who shouted with excitement at finding a familiar delicacy at a country fair in Cornwall.

He bought three, and the others one each and shared out Portuguese spiced sausage that Davies had bought from one of the sea merchant traders.

"They really do go with everything," Gregory agreed. "Did you make them, Miss - "

"Mistress," Demelza corrected him. " No I did not. Nor the Eccles cakes and dully cake either. But I did the saffron cakes."

"It was Jemima!" Humphry told them.

"Thanks to your mother's cook," Jemima replied modestly, addressing Thomas.

"They are delicious, Jemima," Edward told her. "I've had them from Hanley, Burslem, Trentham, none as good as this."

Even Drake Carne had been encouraged to partake and took some sausage slices to eat within the oatcakes. Around them, other stalls were selling treats such as pies, plum-cakes, gingerbread, fresh fruits and nuts. They did look good.

A loud voice dissipated from a place just beyond the tables. Jemima looked. A man in black clothing and holding a bible aloft was addressing, very loudly, a small group who had gathered in front of him.

"That's my father," Drake told her, as Mr. Carne shouted the bible verses to his select audience. Jemima looked behind her or Demelza, who gave her a sorry look.

Was Cornwall unused to Methodism preached to the four winds? It was common, in the Midlands, especially near where the Wedgwoods lived. "Fire and damnation" was common enough, and "Sin and debauchery" and the insistence to turn from it.

Davies, an Anglican, saw the opportunity to tease the man and called, "Turn to it, did you say, preacher?"

They had gone before the man had worked out where the heckle had come from.

"I am sorry," Drake continued, who had gone with them. "It is how God calls him."

"It reminds me of the preachers in the Midlands, where were we, Thomas?" Thomas Wedgwood turned his head to Jemima. "Near home, I believe."

"We listened to them outside, the sky was the chapel roof, the wind it's walls."

"And if it might rain, shelters were built, like near the Marquis of Anglesey's mines," Jemima added.

"Do you have wakes up-country?" asked Drake.

"Well dressing, beating the bounds, cheese rolling, but it's all similar," Gregory Watt replied. "Do you Cornish not push sacrifices off the cliff?"

"Oh that was done at sunrise, Edward told them, caustically, "The druids got up and pulled a virgin from his bed, but you weren't there, Gregory!" The other man thumped him hard on the arm and they laughed.

Drake drifted away from them, tempted by a forging competition, and they saw more events about.

Now fed, people were interested in competitons and Jemima saw men's blindfolded wheelbarrow races, smock races for women, hot hasty-pudding eating contests, pigeon-flying, chasing a greased pig and cow milking. There were sack races and even a grinning competiton where the competitor had to grin through a horse collar, the grinner considered the funniest won.

A flock of girls chattered by, attracted by the ribbons and laces stalls, of which there were many. They looked across to them and chattered and giggled like hens.

"My sisters," Dick told them as they all watched the girls pass by, "Emma, Penelope, Kitty, Hebe and Matilda." He picked them out, all looked like him, broad faced dark eyed, but one, who was fair haired like the other five girls just behind them. "And they are my cousins, my mother and their mother are sisters in law."

"And your uncle?" asked Davies.

"He died, shortly after Ruth was born."

"I know them," Humphry said, suddenly, "My sisters had the same governess as Ruth Teague. So your cousin's are: Faith, Hope, Joan, Patience, Ruth." Dick nodded, and then nodded to his cousins. The youngest was pointing over to Jemima and whispering something to the sister next to her.

"Would you wish to be introduced?" Dick asked, suddenly.

"Only if you wish it," Jemima told him. "Or we could go to look at Murdoch's steam carriage."

They all turned at that and, beside the head hear of Ishmaels mine, the steam carriage that Jemima had driven a few nights before. In the autumn sunlight it looked magnificent, wooden carriage top with brass and iron cogs, like a big clock.

At the back, the coal tender eating shovel-fuls of the black diamonds. The steam valve was attached to an overhead leaver, which in turn was attached to another that was attacked to the cogs. These were attached by further axles that powered the wheels.

Murdoch was offering rides at the front, where a bench had been placed, and they were about to go over when Thomas hissed, "Gregory! Your father!"

And it was. James Watt had stopped the carriage and was speaking sharply to William Murdoch, his frame moving sharply as he spoke.

"Hold up, Murdoch!" called another man and, beside Watt, Josiah Wedgwood stood beside him. Thomas's father looked as if he were trying to stop Gregory's father killing William Murdoch - he had the man by the lapels now and was shouting something at him, though what, none could hear because of the direction of the wind.

Behind them, another group of young men stood, both miners from Illogan, both not quite sober, having indulged in ale and cider already and it wasn't even eleven o'clock. One, the taller of the two and skinnier with greasy brown hair pointed to Jemima, standing between Davies and Dick.

"You know that girl?" he hissed. The other, shorter, round of face and fair hair shook his head.

"I bet I can get her on her own. Hey," he hissed. "Hey! Lady!"

Jemima turned, glad to not be looking at the conflict between the two engineers.

"Come here, I have something you would like to see."

Jemima took a few steps from Trevithick, then gasped as the other took her arm.

"Hey! I said I would get her!" the first man protested and Jemima tried to wrestle from the man's grip.

She kicked out, but the second man locked her foot and tried to force her hand inside his breeches. Jemima pulled away and shouted for them to let go.

Trevithick and Gregory got there first, as the man, still holding her arm leered at them.

"She is with us," Gregory warned.

"I bet she is!" the fair haired man retorted. Dick kicked his wrist and he let Jemima go.

"You all right, Jemima?" Thomas Wedgwood was beside her now, putting out a hand to help her up.

"All right," she nodded, as Davies put a hand on her back. They looked at them. Gregory had the dark haired man in a headlock and the fair haired man who had attacked Jemima had been taken by the shoulder.

He gripped the man tightly. "I do say - he began, and punched him in the face to the rhythm of his words ,- she - is - with - us !"

The man tumbled to the ground and backed away. The other man helped him up. Dick Trevithick made to go after them.

"'s not wrestling time yet, Dick," Edward told him with a laugh in his voice, hoping to lighten the mood a hand firmly on his arm.

"They're from Illogan," a voice came from beside them. It was Drake Carne again, and he watched the men leave and break into a bawdy song, gesturing in time with it so that Jemima could hear. "I come from there," Drake added. "Why do you think I like to live here!"

"You fought them, Jemima! You were fighting them!" Thomas Wedgwood's eyes were wide.

"Yes," Jemima replied. "There was no talking to them, was there?"

"Oh, I say!" Davies told them, as they left the still ongoing argument between Murdoch and Watt and went across to where many chapmen and itinerant pedlars were selling things made of twisted iron, and earthenware bowls, plates and cups and bowls of blackberries. He slipped his arm in Jemima's for a moment and leaned to her ear, "Everything well?"

"Yes," nodded Jemima. "Please don't tell my father," she added. Davies squeezed her arm and smiled. "Do you think we don't all want you out in our company again, Jemima?" he asked, before squeezing her arm again, then letting go and examining the blackberries.

"Were they picked before Sunday?" asked a woman, dark blue hat and dress to match. The little woman selling the berries nodded.

"Good, because they would be spur otherwise - don't you know of the legend, brother? Of the devil?"

"Pissing on all them you mean?"

"They're sour because of the acid levels in them changing because of the season," Humphry hissed to Jemima.

"They don't seem to know that, do they?" she laughed, but then curtailed it because Davies gave a cry of welcome.

"This is Mr. Henry Harvey," he introduced. The tall, fair-haired man nodded. Jemima had heard of Mr. Harvey - something to do with boat building, and Henry was looking to follow. "Miss Jane, his sister," The snooty girl who had questioned the blackberries also nodded,"Henry Blewett you know," Davies told Humphry.

"My guardian knows your brother; he was co-investor at Wheal Leisure." And both Henrys began to talk to Dick about the engine, and Humphry about mining.

"You told me to avoid Dick Trevithick at all costs in your letter," Jemima whispered to Davies, partly because she'd been meaning to ask him, but partly because she didn't want the woman to talk to her. After the scuffle her brain wasn't in the right place to remember to be a lady.

"Oh, I did think so," Davies told her, "From his time at school, lazy, opinionated, spoiled." He glanced to Dick as he pointed out the engine, "But I am delighted to say I am completely disabused of that opinion, having been writing to him for the last eighteen months about the engine - he never told me his name, he wanted my advice, as a lawyer and a Cornishman about the engine. I came down here yesterday morning before the service St Erth's and looked over the engine with him, not knowing that he was the same man who, as a boy would gaze at a piece of paper and write nothing, or had brought in something crawly from the gardens and let it go in the classroom."

The rest of them were listening to Dick now, except for the young lady, not much older than Jemima, she surmised, who had been waiting to put into the conversation and who had been getting rather annoyed about waiting.

As soon as Davies had stopped speaking, Jane Harvey looked to Jemima.

"Are you enjoying visiting Cornwall, Miss Withering?" Her voice was soft, tinged with sourness.

"I am a native of Cornwall, Mistress…"

"Miss!" She corrected Jemima, then looked about her. "All these people, I do wonder, they must save up all year for this."

"They do,"'Jemima told her. "The wakes are all over the country, and it is not seemly for anyone not to be generous, not to be hospitable. Even now, my friend Davies's family is hosting the renowned James Watt - is that not right, Gregory?". Gregory Watt turned from the detailed conversation about pressure vessels.

"Indeed, Miss Withering," Gregory smiled.

"…and Mr Wedgwood - " she nodded across to them. "Queensware is your father's new line, is it not, Thomas?"

"Yes, Jemima," Thomas Wedgwood agreed, enthusiastically. "And the prohibition of slavery!"

"I still wonder why Sir Francis don't stop these wakes," Miss Harvey added, moodily.

"Stop them? Does he want a riot in his hands?" Jemima replied, then added in her head, "And just why are you here if you disapprove so, Miss Harvey?

"Oh yes, Sir Francis," Edward joined in, half listening to the conversation "Sir Francis has ten Wassail cups that were used this morning with his tenants. Since the pruritans decided such cups were Popery, he changed when they to be used."

By now, others girls had floated over, relatives of Dick Trevithick.

"Introduce us, Dick," begged the younger sister, Matilda, who looked at Jemima and added, "Would you come with us, Miss, we are to look at ten silks and satins?"

"I do thank you," Jemima replied, "But I am not that particular in fabrics and dresses."

"The hatters, then?" Matilda Trevithick pressed. "All the way from London?"

"Will you go away," Dick told them in a bored voice. Miss Withering is with me, and we are looking at the machinery.". He glanced past his younger sister and they lit on the face of Jane Harvey.

"Will perhaps Miss Harvey go with you? She saw Dick move his head.

"Doesn't she talk strangely! Doesn't like dresses and silks?" Matilda said to one of her sisters.

"You don't, really, do you?" Davies chipped in. He was next to Humphry, who was examining herbs and spikes on a stall beside them. Jemima thought she must thank Enys for those he had brought for her: after the one day, which Dick had helped her with, it had stemmed off. Jemima was looking forward to seeing what happened next month.

"I thank your mother for trying to teach me cooking," she told Thomas, "I can just about manage that."

"What will you do when you marry? She turned to look at the face of Henry Harvey's sister. She was still there having not, apparently, gone off with Dick's sister to inspect ribbons.

"Miss Harvey?". Jemima was too impatient for this gaggling of sisters to finish.

"Well you need some skill."

"Why would I?" Jemima replied. "I work, I earn my own living."

"A gentlewoman, who works?" Jane Harvey asked, aghast.

"It would seem so," Jemima replied. "But when you marry, your husband will work and you will have a house to keep. And, you will be wholly dependent on him.". Jemima shook her head. "I have no plans to marry, Miss Harvey, so I will have no need to worry about fine dressing. Especially in my work."

"Which is mining?" Heaven help her, why wouldn't this woman go away? Jemima thought.

"Mining, engineering, manufacturing. I can read, write, carry out arithmetic, calculus…I am as able as any man."

"She is," Dick told her. "We could not have made the engine without her."

"And you spoke so wonderfully, so persuasive," Blewett said, "I was waiting for my brother, you were…spellbinding, Had Captain Poldark not arrived then, I swear Wheal Leisure would be pulling out its copper by now."

That did it. Her friends had extolled her skills, and they were equal in their eyes to ribbons and lace, their opinion was all that mattered to Jemima.

"Charmed to meet you, Miss - "

"Withering," Jemima told her. She was swept up by the ribbon-hunting flock of girls and young ladies, who bid noisy parting greetings to their brother.

A noise a little way off, of animals in torment sounded like the bull baiting had started and was grateful when Gregory told her, "We are going to watch the wrestling, will you come?"

"Yes," agreed Jemima. Already, Dick Trevithick had begun to walk to the field where he had watched some of the wrestlers that morning.

"Time to join in yet?" Edward asked, as Dick surveyed the men in the field.

"Who will join in?" he asked.

"I will," Gregory told him.

"I will," said Humphry.

"You won't!" Davies laughed. "You're too young yet - " but broke off as Dick Trevithick marched onto the field.

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One of the organisers, who evidently had not seen him, followed Dick to the centre of the field. Dick ignored him and bellowed, "I am undefeated: who will challenge me?"

When no-one came forward, Trevithick began to stalk about, looking for a competitor

Jemima thought she had found one in Tom Harry. His face was bruised and to Jemima it looked like the damage had been caused by a left handed man hitting him in the face. She looked across to Dick, who was stalking around with his left hand higher than his right, his leading hand.

Did he know? He had been insistent in being protective of her the day after, and that day, and several other times, now she thought of it.

Beside them, Richard Dunkin had arrived, and was greeting Humphry heartily. He nodded to Jemima before striding away, a woman beside him.

He would have benefited from the copper, Jemima knew, for he had been imprisoned for debt.

"Who was the lady?"

"Back from London for a few days, his sister, Mary, Mistress Opie now.". Jemima's face looked blank.

"Opie? John Opie?" Davies asked Jemima. "The artist? He was just there, drawing the scene."

And while Dick pushed a lubberly man into the ground, Davies acquainted Jemima of other names from Cornwall.

"...Samuel Footes, the playwright, who knows David Garrick, who knows Dr. Darwin…Henry Bone is also his friend…he is in London, miniatures, we have several of his if the family…"

"Miss Withering!"

Through a crowd that was building up around the field where Dick Trevithick was laying flat challenger after challenger, Drake Carne pushed his way through. Davies nodded when he got closer, the memory of earlier still in his mind.

So he told them of the plan that he had heard, that the Illogan miners were planning to break the steam engine, put it beyond repair, destroy it.

"Our thanks for telling us this," Edward Bull told him. "It must have been difficult."

"Only I work for Lord Bassett, and it is his engine."

They watched a little more, and waiting until Drake had drifted away, Edward whispered to Davies, "When Dick has finished we will tell him we will guard the engine throughout the night. That will make the wakes live up to their name!"

"All of us?" Davies asked, as a cheer went up from the spectators - another competitor must have arrived.

"We can take it in turns to sleep," he told them.

They moved forward to see who it was who had challenged Dick and at once saw it was the squat, blonde haired man who had grabbed Jemima. Beside them, Drake Carne had found them again.

"Oh no," Drake told them. "His name is Ludd; he is a terroriser in Illogan."

But it was this man was who Dick had been waiting for. His eyes narrowed and he became more hunched backed, more determined to fight as Ludd raised his fists.

They clashed hands, as it was clear that Ludd wanted to fight too, and after a call of "No boxing"! they began trying to grab one another.

After a few slip grips, where the competitors lost their hand holds, Dick managed to get Ludd gripepd around the waist.

But Ludd was cunning and was going into the wrestle, hands pulling at Dick's clothes, and managed to topple him a little. When he turned, it was clear he was hanging onto Dick by the calves. A whistle blew and the organiser made them come apart.

They flew at one another again, Dick was close to his head, and he bit something. Ludd screamed, but held on longer. Dick launched his forehead at Ludd, who toppled back, unconscious to calls of outrage from other Illogan miners at the contravention of rules.

To give him his due, Dick Trevithick had won, but the organiser got Ludd to sit up before calling Dick the undisputed champion, who not only did not have to pay to compete, being champion last year, but won a few coins and, more importantly, the title.

The Illogan miners were still not happy, but there were plenty of people buffering Dick's way back to the group.

"I am leaving daughter," came an unexpected but familiar voice by Jemima's ear. She turned, and there was her father, smiling at her.

"Father!" she exclaimed, guilt lying in her stomach having not thought to look for him the whole day, "I am sorry I did not see you!"

"I saw you, enjoying yourself," John Withering replied. "And now it's time to go home - say goodbye to your friends."

And they were all looking back Dick, the champion, her oldest friend Davies, and Humphry, who was staying with them. Gregory Watt nodded, as did Edward, and little Thomas Wedgwood parted her arm.

"Dr. Withering," Davies began, when he saw Jemima's face. "We are staying for the night - "

" - we can bring Jemima back in the morning when I come back" interrupted Humphry.

"She will be safe with us, sir, there are six of us," Davies told his father's friend. "We promise to bring Jemima home and keep her from harm."

"Besides, I want to be awake with our engine," she told her father. "It's what the wakes are for."

And with the love of heart, though not necessarily the sense of mind, John Withering conceded.

" - with such fine young men, on a day such as this," he concluded. Then he looked to Jemima. "You will come home before the morning sunrise, daughter," he told her. And Jemima agreed, and hugged her father, watching him move off to Rev. Giddy's coach.

Around them, the atmosphere had taken a turn. Entertainment and food stalls were pacing away, but the alcohol was flowing, so too were the stories and even the songs that were littering the night air. Jemima beamed at her friends.

"Come on," Dick told them, "I want to spend my one, two, three, four, five…guineas on some supper for us all. Looks like I'll have plenty of change after that!"

"You fought magnificently!" Davies told him. Dick nodded, but didn't reply. They strode over to the refectory where pasties as big as one of Dick's fists were being sold and they sat and ate them with boiled milk and weak ale.

Edward told Dick and the others about what Drake had told them, and the Boskednan champion nodded, slowly.

"They plan to do that, then?" He asked. "Well, they'll be in for a surprise when they find us!" And it was decided that they would sleep in shifts, and guard the Cornish engine until the morning.

Around them, stories and laughter filled the air singing. The singers were not holding back.

"A sol-, a sol-, a soldier I will be
Two pis-, two pis-, two pistols on my knee - "

"Too pissed!" Shouted someone. Jemima was hiding her face in her hands, trying not to laugh.

"For cu-, for cu-, for curiosity
I'll fight for my count-, fight for the count-,
Fight for my count-er-ee!"

They crossed from the refectory to Dolcoath, the light just fading now. It was getting colder, so Edward brought out some of their precious coal and lit the back boiler. They sat round it and talked of the next day, and of the engine and of the potential Illogan attack.

Jemima was feeling sleepy, and she rested her head on Davies' shoulder as the rest told stories that became more and more ghostly, the evening light on the metal glowing as if to make the engine's cross beams to appear to be wings and the firebox a mouth of breathing fire.

Until -

A snap! A crack! Above them, something was moving. In a second, Dick was on his feet, Edward beside him.

Davies looked up and prised Jemima from his shoulder. She blinked and stood beside him.

"The miners?" she asked. Dick had got up the steps and was looking, head over the edge of the engine pit.

"Edward, go around," she heard Dick whisper. More crackling as Gregory Watt, the oldest of the group, followed Edward and Dick.

"What do we do if it is the miners?" Thomas, who had been awed at Jemima's willingness to defend herself earlier that day, now felt frightened.

"Don't be scared, Thomas," Humphry told him. "We have the undefeated Cornish wrestling champion with us, what could we fear?"

"Here." Davies handed Thomas a piece of cake that he had saved from earlier. "Eat this."

Around them there were voices, this time chattering and laughing. Some singing.

Edward dropped down into the pit beside the engine, making them jump.

"Heaven! Edward!" Davies exclaimed, and asked what was above.

"If there were someone causing trouble, it wasn't them."

More singing diffused down to them under the engine: "Harass, harass, harass him in the dark
Each hit, EACH HIT, each hit will find its mark!"

"Wasn't the Illogan miners?" Thomas asked, glancing to Humphry and then to Jemima.

"It was," Edward told them. "That dirty sneak of a one who Dick fought was there…

"…A hor-, a hor-, a horse will carry me
I'll fight for my count-, fight for the count-,
Fight for my count-er-ee!"

The singing drifted away. Feet came towards them, Dick and Gregory.

"They're going to the Kiddley, the alehouse," Gregory told them. "But I heard them agree they would come back.

"Then I'm going after them!" Dick told them, but Gregory grabbed his shoulder.

"Too hasty!" he told him, then looked around at the group. "Not devious enough!". They gathered closer, as the most unlikely supporter of Dick's and Edward's Cornish engine, the son of the man who was protesting about its existence.

"Some of need to guard the engine, that leaves some of us free to follow them to the alehouse. Davies, Edward," he turned to look at them, "Stay here with me, so we can guard the machine.". He looked to Humphry and Dick.

"Go to the alehouse, surprise them, trap them somehow."

"If they're going I'm going!" Jemima insisted.

"Not out there at night, I promised your father to keep you safe, and you won't be on the most promiscuous night of the year.". Jemima felt herself blush.

There was silence for a moment, then Edward whispered something to Dick.

"Yes, yes we can!" Dick Trevithick replied. "I'll take Humphry, I have a little trick he can play."

"I'm coming with you, Dick" Jemima insisted, and he nodded, telling them the plan.

The steam engine's pump had an outlet channel that let the water pumped from the mines go straight out to sea. That channel for the engine as it was in Dolcoath took in the office hut and led to the alehouse, all under the rock.

"It'll be just like being in the mine, but we won't be seen outside," Humphry summarised.

"If Jemima's going, so am I," Thomas told them.

"Right," said Gregory, "Where's the channel, Trevithick?"

Dick crossed to a point about ten feet behind the steam engine. At chest height a passage began in the granite. Jemima felt her heart sink.

"I can't go in there," Jemima stopped. They stared at her. They really didn't see her dress, which was what Jemima meant was stopping her - she was not a woman to them, but a miner, an engineer, a colleague. A friend.

"Nor I." said Thomas. He was a little younger than Humphry, and the age difference was showing.

"Come on," Edward winked at Trevithick. "Ever been in a mine at night?"

He helped up Jemima, who gathered up her dress and clambered down, into a tunnel that was no different to the ones all over the mines, before handing her a candle and holder from the stack behind the engine. She took the other three so that the young men could have one each when they got up.

Above her, the lip of a tube that would lead back to the pumping chamber, each stroke of the pump would push gallon after gallon over the edge and down this way, and she wasn't surprised to find that the channel sloped gently downwards, the surface smooth for it had been used for many years by the Newcomen that had been there and the water had scoured the rockface.

A scuffling behind her made her stop, and Dick was behind her followed then by Humphry and followed by Gregory.

"Where's Thomas?" Jemima asked. Gregory nodded his head back towards the engine.

"He's cold I think," Gregory told them. "Davies has him, he's by the fire."

They climbed on, and could hear more singing as they went.

"It's the Kiddley, come on!" Gregory insisted. Bawdy songs were filtering down.

"Someone's father once dug a way up to the drinking establishment," Dick told them in an uncharacteristic moment as they inched along the smooth passageway,

"Don't look for trouble, Dick," Jemima warned. "Just, stop them getting back to the engine somehow."

"Trouble?" asked Gregory

"The Illogan miners who took a liking to Miss Withering." Trevithick grumbled. Gregory, of course, didn't know now that. "They'll be sorry they saw you."

"No, Dick, don't," Jemima told him, turning to Gregory for an ally, "Don't do anything!"

"Oh we won't," said Gregory, winking at Dick, "We won't think about the Uttoxeter manoeuvre."

"The Uttoxeter manoeuvre?"

"Let's just say," Gregory laughed, "They didn't see the horses coming!"

A hatch above them told Jemima that the mine's office hut was above them. She turned to Dick and Gregory, shaking the skirt of her dress.

"The mine office is up there," she told them, by way of explanation. Both men knew what she meant - she couldn't go into the alehouse dressed as she was.

Gregory pushed open the hatch. Light spilled through as the moon illuminated the room. Jemima jumped, trying to get her elbows over the sill, but it was a bit too high. She handed her candle to Humphry.

"Jemima," Edward said to her, mock-admonishingly, "Get in there and come out as miner for all that is precious in this world!"

"Poetry and fishing?" asked Humphry. They laughed.

One big jump, and a boost up by Gregory and she was there. She had not been into this one before but, as with all mine offices, a row of hats were across one wall with candles set in the brim.

Breeches and shirts set underneath them, all as musty as each other, but a bit of digging about and Jemima found a freshly laundered set. She had got the front lacing off, but had forgotten about the buttons at the back.

"I need some help! She called. Gregory had his hand up on the door but Trevithick pushed past him. He closed the ceiling door behind him, which was, to them, the floor.

"Dick?" Jemima turned and then turned back. She'd managed the over trousers and found a pair of boots. But the lacings were beyond her.

"Can you…?" She gestured to her back and turned away from her friend.

It was the work of a moment, hands smoothing down her body to find the start of the lacing, Dick's fingers light at her waist so Jemima could wriggle out of it. Dick handed her the overshirt and was folding the dress when she turned around.

On her flight down to Bristol, some time in the future, Jemima would have vivid memories of that night, that moment - it must have started then, her piece of heart, given. And never recalled.

The little party of troublemakers continued to climb through the water outlet pipe, which would eventually drain overland into the sea. A slow cycle of water displacement.

And within moments they had got to a door on the other side of the alehouse, a shack built of driftwood with a bar across the back. Jugs of ale stood across it, a large man with long, grey-black hair guarding them.

The Kiddley was rather full, but there seemed to be no partitioning of miners as usually happened in drinking establishments. Here, all were mingled together.

"How will we know which are from Illogan?" Humphry asked. Jemima looked, and after a moment located both the brown haired man, drinking and laughing with another man, the fair haired man the other side of him, his face swollen and bruised from his encounter with Dick.

"There," Jemima told Gregory. Dick had spotted them too, his face one of menace.

"Now for the horse trick," Gregory Watt told them, and pulled Humphry aside.

"What's the - " Jemima began, as Humphry dropped into her corner of the alehouse. He curled his hand around something, and then walked, if a little unsteadily, towards the men.

"Is someone waiting for a horse? Free? To get back to Sawle?". His words were light, and those further away couldn't possibly have heard him.

"Aye!" It wasn't an Illogan miner, it was Jago Martin, her former worker. Beside him, Ted Carkeek got to his feet.

"I'll show you, sir!" Humphry told him, leading Jago outside.

"You know which the Ting Tong miners are, and now we know which are the Sawle miners. Those left are Illogan." Jemima looked across to Gregory.

"And Humphry?"

"I've told him to go back to Edward and Davies," he told her.

More singing began as Humphry spoke to them, and put something in Jago's hand.

"...Her slender neck, her handsome waist, Her hair well buckl'd, her stays well lad'd, Her taper white leg with an et, and a, c, For her a,b,e,d, and her - "

" - Right!" interrupted Gregory. "My turn!" He slid down into the alehouse. It was too full for him to be noticed and Jemima relaxed a little.

"Aaasnnnd…My little sister Millie is a pro in Piccadilly
My mother is another in the Strand
My father sells his arsehole
in the Elephant and Castle
We're the biggest load of bastards in the land.

My uncle's a vicar - "

"…Oh let down your drawbridge, I'll enter your keep
Enter your keep nonie nonie, enter your keep nonie nonie
Let down your drawbridge, I'll enter your keep…"

The bawdy singing continued, even in Spanish: "...Tengo un pequeño problema, Tengo la picha muy grande, Y cuando estoy con mi novia, La cosa se pone que arde."

"I know this one," a voice piped up. Jemima turned from her place beside Dick, just inside the passage.

"Thomas!".

"I wanted to come to you!"

"What do you know…?"

But the singing had begun again, and Thomas was joining in: "...can't find the secret to your combination for your chastity oblation…
For the cunning old bastard has fitted a Yale
Fitted a Yale nonie nonie, fitted a Yale nonie none
The cunning old bastard has fitted a Yale!"

"Thomas!" Jemima scolded, noticing the mirth on Dick's face, "You're thirteen!"

"And you're a girl, Jemima! You shouldn't know these things!"

"I know what a Yale is," , keeping an eye on Gregory. "You think I haven't been to see the locks being made in Willenhall?"

And Gregory had got close to the Illogan men, and said, as to the room in general, "Gentlemen, George Warleggan's horse awaits outside, who is in charge of taking it to him? I have your money here!"

To their surprise it was Ludd who got to his feet. Gregory handed him a sixpence.

"Sixpence?" scoffed Ludd, pushing it back to Gregory in disgust.

"You will get the five pounds when you get to Tehidy, but you must give the horse directly to Mr. Warleggan!".

"Gregory, no!". Jemima hissed, as Gregory Watt smiled, and gave a brief nod in their direction. Ludd smirked, drained his tankard and strode through the door.

Gregory left too, and would be heading back to the engine.

"What now?" Jemima wondered, but within minutes, Gregory was back beside them.

"Nothing at the steam engine," he told them. "Now for part three." He bent his head to Thomas, "Want to have some fun, Master Wedgwood?"

Despite Jemima's protest, Thomas Wedgwood was brilliant. He got his way to the door, and nodded a few times at the people coming in.

He went out, standing by the door, shouting outside. " Quick, quick, Mr Warleggan's horse is being stolen! He will offer five pounds to anyone who will stop his horse from being stolen!"

"Gregory - " Jemima turned to her friend.

"Just wait," Gregory replied, looking out into the Kiddley. The bar emptied and outside a crowd grew. Jemima could hear voices being raised, disagreeable voices, which grew to shouting outside: they were fighting one another.

"Now…tell me that wasn't fun?"

All three of them dropped into the alehouse, Jemima waiting as Gregory and Dick poured themselves a jar of ale, Gregory leaving sixpence under the bar, for the barkeeper had also gone outside, presumably to recover his customers.

Two more drinks poured, for Edward and Davies, and the three of them walked past the throng of miners, convinced that both George Warleggan's horse was being delivered to him and, at the same time, being stolen.

"You stopped them then?" Edward asked, as they climbed down to the steam engine, Gregory passing the beer to him and Davies, and told them of what they had done.

"Thanks to Mr. Watt junior," Dick told them. Gregory smiled broadly.

"Too drunk and incapacitated to damage steam engine now," he told them. One of them, the brown haired man who had attracted her attention earlier, had been staggering around with a broken nose. Dick had smirked as they passed, perhaps wishing it had been him who had meted it out.

Jemima, who had picked up a jar of milk and had left the tuppence she had found in the over trousers next to Gregory's sixpence, called for.
Humphry to take it off her.

They sat together drinking milk and ale, cheering the horse trick's success. The moon was setting when someone suggested climbing up to the upper platform of the engine, and they continued, laughing and singing.

Until someone noticed the sunrise.