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“Now, those of you who have seen the apparatus of Mr. Savery may hold a low opinion of engines for raising water by fire; but that of Mr. Newcomen, though it comes under the same patent as Mr. Savery’s, works on altogether different principles-as is evidenced by the fact that it works. Dr. Waterhouse is plucking at my sleeve, I can keep him quiet no longer.”
This came as a surprise to Daniel, but he did in fact find something to say. “During the Plague Year I tutored this man’s father, the young Charles Comstock, in Natural Philosophy, and we spent many hours studying the compression and rarefaction of gases in the engines conceived by Mr. Boyle, and perfected by Mr. Hooke; the lesson was not lost on young Charles; two score years later he passed it on to young Will at their farm in Co
From this, most of the gentlemen understood that they were about to be du
The Saracen’s Head
THAT EVENING
“NOW YOU WILL BE a Tory, in the eyes of certain Whigs,” Will warned him, “and a butt for all the envenomed Darts of Party Malice.”
“It is merely a repetition of when I departed my father’s house on Holborn during the Plague, and went to seek refuge at Epsom,” Daniel said wearily. “Or when I became part of King James’s court-in part, at the urging of your father. It is ever thus, when I have dealings with a Comstock…”
“With a Silver Comstock,” Will corrected him. “Or a Tin one, as they have taken to calling me in Parliament.”
“Being a Tory has its perquisites, though,” Daniel allowed. “Mr. Threader has very courteously offered to convey me to London, departing tomorrow. He is going thither on business.”
The Earl looked a bit queasy. “And you have gratefully accepted?”
“I saw no reason not to.”
“Then know that Tories have their factions too, and parties within the party-”
“And Party Malice?”
“And party malice. Though within a party-as within a family-the malice is more strange, and frequently worse. Dr. Waterhouse, as you know, I am my father’s third son. I spent a good deal of time getting beaten up by my elders, and quite lost my savour for it. I was reluctant to be made a Tory lord, because I knew it would lead to more of the same-” Here his gaze broke free of Daniel’s, and wandered round the I
Will continued, “But I said yes to the Queen, because she was-is-my Queen. Many blows have landed on me since, from Whigs and from Jacobite Tories alike, but the two hundred miles of bad road between here and London act as a sort of padding to lessen their severity. You enjoy the same benefit here; but the moment you climb into Mr. Threader’s coach, and begin to put miles behind you-”
“I understand,” Daniel said. “But those blows do not hurt me, because I am followed around-some would say, haunted-by a long train of angels and miracles that account for my having survived to such a great age. I think that this explains why I was chosen for this work: either I am living a charmed life, or else I have overstayed my welcome on this Planet; either way, my destiny’s in London.”
Southern England
LATE JANUARY 1714
TRUE TO HIS WORD, Mr. Threader-or, to be precise, Mr. Threader’s train of carts, coaches, spare horses, and blokes on horseback-collected Daniel from the Saracen’s Head on the morning of 16 January 1714, hours before even the most optimistic rooster would be moved to crow. Daniel was proffered with a courtly bow, and accepted with sincere reluctance, the distinction of riding with Mr. Threader himself in his personal coach.
As Daniel’s person had been deemed so worthy, his baggage (three sea-trunks, two of which sported bullet-holes) merited placement on the cart that followed right behind the coach. Getting it there was not to be achieved without a few minutes’ unpacking and rearranging.
Daniel stayed outside to observe this, not because he was worried (the luggage had survived worse) but because it gave him a last opportunity to stretch his legs, which was something he had to do frequently, to prevent his knees from congealing. He doddered round the I
The three wooden cases put Daniel in mind of the ones commissioned by the more well-heeled Fellows of the Royal Society for storage and transportation of scientific prodigies. When Hooke had made the Rarefying Engine for Boyle, Boyle caused such a box to be made to carry it round in, to emphasize its great significance.
In his laboratory in the cupola of Bedlam, Hooke had used Comstock gunpowder to drive the piston of such an engine, and had shown it could do work-or in Hooke-language, that it could give service as an artificial muscle. That was because Hooke the cripple had wanted to fly, and knew that neither his muscles nor anyone else’s were strong enough. Hooke knew that there were certain vapors, issuing e.g. from mines, that would burn with great violence, and hoped to learn the art of generating them and of conducting them into a cylinder to drive a piston-which would be an improvement on the gunpowder. But Hooke had other concerns to distract him, and Daniel had distractions of his own that led him apart from Hooke, and if Hooke’s artificial muscles had ever been perfected, Daniel had never seen them, nor heard about them. Now Newcomen was finally doing it; but his machines were great brutish contraptions, reflecting the fact that Newcomen was a blacksmith to miners where Hooke had been a watchmaker to Kings.