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The Whale Bone Archers – preview

The Flutter-filch Stones

In late November 1783, fresh from a successful venture that had earned each of them a small fortune from the sale of whale parts – bones for corset stays and umbrella rods, and blubber oil for lamps and candles – Messrs Nathaniel Wilde and George Sutcliffe met in the White Horse and Griffin on Church Street for an evening of gambling and carousing.

Both men arrived with heavy money pouches; each secretly determined to teach the other a damn good lesson in what they called the ‘noble art of flutter- filching’ (or cheating as the rest of us call it).

Wilde’s normal weapon of choice was Whist, while Sutcliffe had previously declared himself enamoured of Faro, a card game he played at the guinea tables in Mayfair, but, in keeping with the occasion, they had agreed to play Hazard, a game requiring not cards but dice.

Upon seating himself at the bar, Mr Sutcliffe produced a unique set of dice carved and whittled from Icelandic walrus tusks. He claimed that the dice had arrived earlier that year on a whaler called the Misanthrope that had sailed from Reykjavik laden with pilot whales and puffins. Since the good folk of Whitby had shown scant interest in eating either pilot whales or puffins, the crew of the Misanthrope had been reduced to selling their possessions in order to raise the funds to buy vitals and rum for their journey home. And so it was that the Icelandic walrus dice had ended in Mr Sutcliffe’s ownership.

Mr Wilde was not to be outdone. He too had brought a set of dice. These were slightly larger than Mr Sutcliffe’s and were yellower in hue, with cream-coloured dots upon their surfaces. Mr Wilde averred that his dice were fashioned from polar bear bone inlaid with elephant ivory. When challenged as to how the maker of such dice could have had access to exotic materials that originated on two different continents, Wilde explained that the items had been fashioned for King Henry III in 1256 following the death of the elephant given to him by the King of France the previous year. Both polar bear and elephant had been installed at the Tower of London for the king’s pleasure but had died in an unfortunate incident involving a yeoman and a halibut.

There being much at stake Mr Wilde asked that the landlord of the White Horse and Griffin, a Jonathan Pannett, be prevailed upon to assess all the dice and confirm that neither set had been tampered with. The landlord was happy to oblige; as a publican he had seen more than his share of fights and brawls resulting from flutter- filching, and the nefarious use of loaded dice known as spot loaders, floppers, cappers and missouts.

Mr Pannett having declared himself satisfied with both sets of dice, the toss of a coin, called byMr Pannett, determined that Mr Wilde’s dice would be used for the contest.

Phineas Stephenson, chief actuary at the prestigious Whitby firm of Cook, Stephenson and Stew was entrusted with tabulating the contest and handling the monies using his own proven and excruciatingly dull method of quintuple entry book-keeping.

The game of Hazard continued into the small hours as the money changed hands, back and forth, this way and that. A crowd gathered at the windows to watch the proceedings, drinking copiously and shouting and cheering each change of fortune. By midnight the publican declared the cellars dry as every last barrel on the premises had been emptied. Denied further liquid refreshment, the vast majority of the onlookers staggered home, but still Sutcliffe and Wilde tossed the dice, each trying to bankrupt the other.

The first whisper of the rising sun was caressing the waves when finally Mr Wilde had the better of Mr Sutcliffe, leaving him out of pocket and pouch to the tune of some two hundred and fourteen guineas.A triumphant Mr Wilde promptly commissioned the local hatter, who had stayed to the very end of the contest, to make him a special top hat one yard in height to celebrate his success.

In his haste, his pouch heaving with his winnings, Mr Wilde left the White Horse & Griffin in such astate of elation that he left his dice at the bar. Meanwhile the disconsolate Mr Sutcliffe tramped to his lodgings having squandered a small fortune.

And so events might have drawn to a close had not Phineas Stephenson, the actuary, noticed the discarded dice and taken advantage of the opportunity to verify their honesty for himself. This he did by floating the dice in the last of his ale whereupon he observed that the dice kept turning to leave the four spot or one spot sides facing upwards. His suspicions aroused, he looked about and spotted a third dice on the floor beneath the chair upon which Mr Wilde had been sitting. This third dice, which looked identical to the two that had been used in the game, was dropped into a second glass and repeatedly turned until the two spot faced upwards.

The following morning Phineas Stephenson found a barmaid willing to testify that Mr Wilde had met with the publican, Jonathan Pannett, over luncheon the previous day, hours before the contest, though she could not say what the two men had discussed. She also averred that Pannett had in his possession various double-headed coins.

As everyone knows, in Hazard a two spot will cost the caster his turn. Mr Stephenson therefore surmised that Mr Wilde had been switching dice, keeping the dice loaded toward the four spot for himself and giving the dice loaded towards the two spot to his opponent.

Accompanied by a constable and the town’s watchman, Mr Stephenson confronted Mr Wilde who, fearing imprisonment, confessed to his crime. To avoid disgrace Mr Wilde not only returned Mr Sutcliffe his money but also agreed to donate one hundred and fifty guineas to Nathaniel Cholmley as a contribution towards the construction of the town hall about to be erected on Church Street. It was further agreed that three stones on the corner of the northern elevation of the old town hall, seven stone rows up, would be marked with the loaded spots that had given the despicable Mr Wilde his unfair advantage. A humiliated Mr Wilde left the town the following day, never to return.

The three Flutter-filch stones – four spots, two spots, and one spot – have sat side by side on the old town hall ever since.


Grand Day Out

‘Good Lord, Phoebe, what on earth is the matter?’ says Tobias Lightfoot.

Phoebe Lightfoot is distraught and quite unable to speak. Instead, she clutches her handkerchief to her bosom and sniffs.

‘I am at a loss for words, I really am,’ continues her husband, who clearly isn’t. ‘I have made every effort to make you happy, have I not? On this day of all days. In front of the whole town.’

Phoebe glances briefly up at her husband then glances to her right and is once again overwhelmed by sobs.

Just five minutes ago, Phoebe was all smiles, excited, animated, and exchanging pleasantries with Mr and Mrs Pickersgill, interrupting them while they whispered sweet-nothings in each other’s ears. She beamed happily at the Bradshawes, even though she finds Mrs Bradshawe a dreadful snob. She even found the courage to introduce herself to the short gentleman in white breeches, navy frock coat, a silk scarf cravat and a gibus collapsible top hat standing behind her in the queue. Fergus O’Connor is on a mission. He left Newcastle yesterday evening destined for Dublin and, should he get there in record time, will trouser twenty-three golden guineas.

Right along the length of the queue everyone was abuzz with anticipation of the adventure ahead. Townsfolk gathered across the street, gawping.

And then the long curtain that was to be officially opened as part of the ceremony rippled in the breeze and Phoebe saw beyond it and her excitement deflated like a punctured balloon.

Phoebe’s family are from Newcastle. For the past eight years, ever since she married Toby and moved with him to Whitby, she has endured her brother Molesworth’s awful and almost monthly letters in which he gloats incessantly that Newcastle is the epicentre of the world and Whitby but a sleepy backwater. That letter where he boasted that Stephenson’s Rocket, built in Newcastle’s Forth Street Works if you please, was to be entered in the Rainhill Trials of October 1829 organised by Liverpool and Manchester Railways. That horrid little card from her mother, her own mother, crowing in the most indecent terms that the Rocket had won the competition.

Phoebe has been so looking forward to today; the perfect opportunity to turn the tables and prove to her wretched family that Whitby, and not Newcastle, is the very hub of modernity.

‘What is the matter with your wife?’ enquires Mr Bradshawe, leaning round Mrs Bradshawe’s ample frame to identify the source of the sobbing.

‘I have no idea, Sir,’ Tobias insists. ‘Please accept my apologies.’

‘Must be nerves at the thought of the speed at which we will be travelling,’ Mr Bradshawe suggests. ‘Ten miles an hour! Womenfolk are fragile gentle souls.’

Mrs Bradshawe pulls her husband abruptly back into line.

‘Can I implore you to think of others?’ Tobias tells Phoebe in a low but aggressive hiss. ‘This is an auspicious day for the entire town. Whitby has waited so long for this. Mr Bradshawe and the bank will take a very dim view of the scene you are making. It might even disadvantage my prospects.’ 

‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ says a voice to their right.

All heads turn. The mayor is standing on a raised platform in his best suit, his top hat gleaming in the morning sunshine.

‘I am proud, nay, inordinately honoured to welcome you on this most historic occasion. People will look back with pride and say that 1836 marked the dawn of a new era for our town. A day of glory and unparalleled achievement as Whitby joins the age of the railway!

Railway?’ Phoebe mutters sarcastically underher breath.

‘Yes, railway,’ Tobias hisses. ‘And if you cannot have regard of the impression you are making on others then at least have the courtesy to think about me for a moment.’

The mayor is still talking. ‘And so, without further ado, it gives me immense, nay, immeasurable pleasure to invite you all to come forward and step aboard the first Whitby to Pickering railway service!’

He grabs the ceremonial cord and pulls it sharply downwards and the crimson curtains part.

‘I officially declare this new and most auspicious adventure open for business!’

The air fills with applause and cries of hurrah, hurrah! Church bells peal. Hats are tossed into the air and the queue of dignitaries files forwards towards the train.

Phoebe shuffles forwards past the curtain then stops.

‘For heaven’s sake, Phoebe!’ Tobias expostulates ‘What now?’

But Phoebe has had enough of the whole charade. She holds her ground and turns towards her husband, arms akimbo, her voice thick with emotion. ‘Where is Stephenson’s glorious Rocket?’

‘What?’

‘Where is his rocket? The train. Where is the train? This isn’t a railway. You promised me.’

‘For goodness’ sake, Phoebe, the railway is right in front of you. I must protest. This really is most obtuse.’

‘That is not a train, Toby. In case you haven’t noticed, it does not go puff puff, there is no chimney, no bright yellow paint, no pistons, nothing. Your train has four ears and one half of it has just pooped on the track.’

‘Oh, is that all?’ Tobias says, relieved to have at last got to the bottom of his wife’s anguish. ‘This is a horse-drawn railway, my love.’

‘If I want to be pulled about by horses I can climb into a stagecoach, Toby, as people have done for hundreds of years. This isn’t a special occasion, it’s a travesty.’

‘Please keep your voice down,’ Tobias hisses.

‘And look at the carriages. They’re just the bodies of dismantled stagecoaches glued together and stuck up on funny wheels.’

‘Are you coming aboard?’ asks the newly appointed stationmaster in his equally new uniform, as he steps between the arguing couple and smiles encouragingly. ‘We are due to leave in a couple of minutes.’

Tobias Lightfoot nods his thanks. Mr Bradshawe, staring pointedly at his fob watch, is seated beside his wife. Opposite them Mr and Mrs Pickersgill whisper happy nothings. Mr O’Connor stares towards the horizon and pictures his twenty-three guineas. Tobias stares pathetically at his wife.

Phoebe sighs, looks to the heavens and rolls her eyes.

‘Oh, all right. But I’m warning you, Toby, I have a bellyful of disappointment. If afternoon tea at the Black Swan in Pickering turns outs to be nothing more than pot of gruel or an apple I shall scream.’