"Chico Kidd - The printer's devil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kidd Chico)

AUTHOR’S NOTE


The Fabian Stedman who appears in these pages may or may not be the deviser of the bellringing method
called Stedman’s Principle - since reports of his early life conflict. I have followed John Eisel, rather than
Ernest Morris, in locating the young Stedman in London; but as Morris (quoting William Shipway) mentions
“his peculiar production on five bells” being presented to the College Youths in the summer of 1657, we may
suppose the Stedman Papers to commence a little before that time. The date of his apprenticeship is given as
July 7, 1656, when Stedman was aged around twenty-five. If this seems too old for an apprentice to begin
learning his trade, it is after all only tradition which puts the date of his birth as 1631; he was baptised in
December of 1640.
Of course, the people who have life in these pages exist in a world which, although it has this sun and these
stars, is very slightly other than ours, and follows different rules.
I also acknowledge my debt to the real Fabian Stedman, and to John Evelyn, to Victor Hugo and Verdi, to
M R James, and to all the other people who have influenced the story.
C.K.




The Printer’s Devil was first published in June 1995 by Baen Books

© 1995 by Chico Kidd

Cover art by Newell Convers & Courtney Skinner
 1 : A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS


‘“As you are aware, E is the most common letter in the English alphabet and it predominates
to so marked an extent that even in a short sentence one would expect to find it most often...
‘‘“But now came the real difficulty of the inquiry. The order of the English letters after E is
by no means well-marked, and any preponderance which may be shown in an average of a print-
ed sheet may be reversed in a single short sentence. Speaking roughly, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R, D, and
L are the numerical order in which letters occur; but T, A, O, and I are very nearly abreast of each
other, and it would be an endless task to try each combination until a meaning was arrived at.”’
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Dancing Men


Grey as a flag, the church tower shouldered above trees: trees of so many shades of green that they caught
the eye unawares. They rattled suddenly as a flock of black birds shot skywards, a cloud which broke as soon
as seen.
Four people encased in the hot confines of an elderly Volkswagen Beetle stared at the tower with varying
degrees of frustration.
‘Well, it’s there,’ observed the driver of the car for the tenth time.
‘So why can’t we get to it?’ asked one of his passengers. ‘We’ve been down Church Lane and All Saints
Close, and neither of them were any use at all.’
‘We’re going to miss it if we don’t get there,’ complained the youngest, who was fourteen and inclined to
be impatient.
‘Nobody else’s found it,’ the driver pointed out. “Nothing’s going ding.’
A car full of bellringers on an outing is not a lovesome thing, especially if all fails to go smoothly. Perfectly