A Place Called Freedom (1995)

“Yes, but he doesn’t need us next week,” Charlie replied.

“Nor do I,” said the landlord.

As they went out Charlie said: “We’ll try Buck Delaney at the Swan. He runs two or three gangs at a time.”

The Swan was a busy tavern with stables, a coffee room, a coal yard and several bars. They found the Irish landlord in his private room overlooking the courtyard. Delaney had been a coal heaver himself in his youth, though now he wore a wig and a lace cravat to take his breakfast of coffee and cold beef. “Let me give you a tip, me boys,” he said. “Every undertaker in London has heard what happened at the Sun last night. There’s not one will employ you, Sidney Lennox has made sure of that.”

Mack’s heart sank. He had been afraid of something like this.

“If I were you,” Delaney went on, “I’d take ship and get out of town for a year or two. When you come back it will all be forgotten.”

Dermot said angrily: “Are the coal heavers always to be robbed by you undertakers, then?”

If Delaney was offended he did not show it. “Look around you, me boy,” he said mildly, indicating with a vague wave the silver coffee service, the carpeted room, and the bustling business that paid for it all. “I didn’t get this by being fair to people.”

Mack said: “What’s to stop us going to the captains ourselves, and undertaking to unload ships?”

“Everything,” said Delaney. “Now and again there comes along a coal heaver like you, McAsh, with a bit more gumption than the rest, and he wants to run his own gang, and cut out the undertaker and do away with liquor payments and all, and all. But there’s too many people making too much money out of the present arrangement.” He shook his head. “You’re not the first to protest against the system, McAsh, and you won’t be the last.”

Mack was disgusted by Delaney’s cynicism, but he felt the man was telling the truth. He could not think of anything else to say or do. Feeling defeated, he went to the door, and Dermot and Charlie followed.

“Take my advice, McAsh,” Delaney said. “Be like me. Get yourself a little tavern and sell liquor to coal heavers. Stop trying to help them and start helping yourself. You could do well. You’ve got it in you, I can tell.”

“Be like you?” Mack said. “You’ve made yourself rich by cheating your fellow men. By Christ, I wouldn’t be like you for a kingdom.”

As he went out he was gratified to see Delaney’s face darken in anger at last.

But his satisfaction lasted no longer than it took to close the door. He had won an argument and lost everything else. If only he had swallowed his pride and accepted the undertakers’ system, he would at least have work to do tomorrow morning. Now he had nothing—and he had put fifteen other men, and their families, in the same hopeless position. The prospect of bringing Esther to London was farther away than ever. He had handled everything wrong. He was a damn fool.

The three men sat in one of the bars and ordered beer and bread for their breakfast. Mack reflected that he had been arrogant to look down on the coal heavers for accepting their lot dumbly. In his mind he had called them oxen, but he was the ox.

He thought of Caspar Gordonson, the radical lawyer who had started all this by telling Mack his legal rights. If I could get hold of Gordonson, Mack thought, I’d let him know what legal rights are worth.

The law was useful only to those who had the power to enforce it, it seemed. Coal miners and coal heavers had no advocate at court. They were fools to talk of their rights. The smart people ignored right and wrong and took care of themselves, like Cora and Peg and Buck Delaney.

He picked up his tankard then froze with it halfway to his mouth. Caspar Gordonson lived in London, of course. Mack could get hold of him. He could let him know what legal rights were worth—but perhaps he could do better than that. Perhaps Gordonson would be the coal heavers’ advocate. He was a lawyer, and he wrote constantly about English liberty: he ought to help.

It was worth a try.

The fatal letter Mack received from Caspar Gordonson had come from an address in Fleet Street. The Fleet was a filthy stream running into the Thames at the foot of the hill upon which St. Paul’s Cathedral stood. Gordonson lived in a three-story brick row house next to a large tavern.

“He must be a bachelor,” said Dermot

“How do you know?” Charlie Smith asked.

“Dirty windows, doorstep not polished—there’s no lady in this house.”

A manservant let them in, showing no surprise when they asked for Mr. Gordonson. As they entered, two well-dressed men were leaving, continuing as they went a heated discussion that involved William Pitt, the Lord Privy Seal, and Viscount Weymouth, a secretary of State. They did not pause in their argument but one nodded to Mack with absentminded politeness, which surprised him greatìy, since gentlemen normally ignored low-class people.