Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) by Marilyn Harris

Author:Marilyn Harris [Harris, Marilyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-01-11T06:00:00+00:00

London November 12, 1874

A lesser man than Charley Spade would have turned back at New London Bridge and the worst traffic jam in the history of the world. But if Charley Spade resembled an ox, he had the tenacity of a bull terrier, and besides, he knew how much Mr. Eden was counting on him and he couldn't let the man down.

So it was he arrived in London town on Saturday, Market Day, the day the creatures were brought in from the surrounding farms to Smithfield's for sale and ultimate consumption, the day Covent Garden spread wide its stalls and filled them with fruits, vegetables, and homemade sauces and jams and jellies, the day when London decided to “go to the stalls” all at once.

“You can't make it that way, guv,” Charley shouted at a fast-moving brougham which cut through the line of wagons and climbed up onto the bridge to add to the clogged congestion.

But the driver never even acknowledged the warning, brought the whip down over his horses, and eased through between a large milk wagon and a straw wagon, then turned sharply, unexpectedly to the right and disappeared down a narrowing cobblestone alley that appeared to lead nowhere except back to the Thames.

Curious, Charley — more mobile than most with just a horse to manage — eased up with no difficulty between the congestion of wagons and looked down the steep, narrow alleyway and saw the brougham moving along a narrow ledge of embankment that ran parallel to the river.

So, with only a fleeting thought to the moot question was it the wrong or right thing to do, he brought the whip down lightly over the horse's back and guided him carefully between the wagons down the embankment, not having one idea where it was leading him but hoping it was away from this awful place of screaming, shouting voices.

“Gawd!” Charley muttered only a few moments later, and wondered what he'd gone and gotten himself into now, for suddenly he looked up to discover he was the only rider in sight. Everyone else was walking, trying to keep dry in the slow drizzle which had just commenced. For a moment he tried to steady his horse, which was growing nervous with so many people passing at such close quarters. And still they came, all the people of London town — or so it seemed.

“Hey, don't!” he shouted as he felt hands pull on his stirrups. “What do you-?”

But he never had a chance to complete the question, for suddenly something was brought down across the back of his head. At the moment of impact he thought of walnuts, of when he was a child how his father would go up the coast near to Bristol and gather baskets of walnuts, and all year long they would crack and eat them.

The last sensation was of falling from the height of his horse, the horse itself spinning and rearing, as scared as Charley.

Gawd! North Devon seemed like paradise after this hell.

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