Patrick O'Brian - The Yellow Admiral

By the smell it was clear that the goat had joined them. 'May I break off for a moment and tell you an anecdote of an Austrian medical man I knew in Catalonia?'

'I should be happy to hear it,' said Jack.

'There was an English soldier, a Captain Smith, with me, and we were walking to the village to drink horchata when we met Dr von Liebig. I asked him to join us. Ordinarily he and I spoke Latin, his English being as indifferent as my German, but now Liebig had to use Smith's language, and as he drank his horchata he told us that coming down the hill he met a ghost, a ghost with a beard. "A ghost in broad daylight?" cried Smith. "Yes. He was quite pale in the sun. A man was leading him with a string." I wish I could convey something of the very beautiful contrast between Smith's amazed solemnity, merging into deep suspicion, and Liebig's cheerful face, casual tone and evident pleasure in his ice-cold drink.'

'Ghost. Pale, bearded ghost: it must have been very rich indeed,' said Jack with relish. 'Did your soldier smoke it, in time?'

'Never. Not until I told him, afterwards; and then he was angry. Jack, I beg pardon. This is the end of my parenthesis. Pray go back to your inclosure; a sad subject, I am afraid.'

'Upon the whole, I think it is. There may be some good conscientious landowners who inclose, paying real attention to the commoners and making sure they are no worse off than they were - as far as that is possible. Men who appoint commissioners who have instructions not to take advantage of the cottagers' ignorance, their lack of papers justifying their ancestors' encroachments on the waste and the building of a cottage: men who do not put clauses in the bill insisting upon fencing, hedging, draining, paying part of the expense of the whole operation and that of fencing the tithe-owner's piece. There may be some such men, but Griffiths and his friends are not of that nature. They want all they can get and be damned to the means; and what they and the bigger farmers hate is the possibility of the labourers growing saucy, as they call it, asking for higher wages - for a wage that keeps up with the price of corn - refusing to work if they do not get it, and falling back on what they can wring from the common. No common, no sauciness.'

Here the lane grew so narrow that they were obliged to walk in file, Jack, Stephen, Lalla and the goat, and conversation languished. When at length they reached plough on the right hand and open pasture on the left Stephen said, 'One of the advantages of life at sea, for men of our condition, is freedom of speech. In the cabin or on the balcony behind, we can say what we wish, when we wish. And if you come to reflect, this is a very rare state of affairs in ordinary circumstances, by land. There are almost always reasons for discretion - servants, loved ones, visitors, innocent but receptive ears or the possibility of their presence. In much the same way good sullen reading is rare in a house, unless one is blessed with an impregnable and sound-proof room of one's own: interruptions, restless unnecessary movements, doors opening and closing, apologies, even whisperings, God forbid, and meal-times. For the right deep swimming in a book, give me the sea: I read Josephus through between Freetown and the Fastnet rock last voyage: the howling of the mariners, the motion of the sea and the elements (except perhaps in their utmost extremity) are nothing, compared with domestic incursions. Since then, mere newspapers, gazettes, periodical publications, all light frothy fare apart from the Proceedings, have imperceptibly drunk the whole of my time and energy. Now, Jack, pray tell me about this Admiral Lord Stranraer, whom you have mentioned so often.'

'Well, as you know, he commands the squadron on the Brest blockade, our squadron. He is an agricultural sailor, like his nephew Griffiths: there are a good many of them, stuffed with high-farming theory, and sometimes owning large estates: but unlike Griffiths he is a pretty good seaman. A taut commander, with a rough side to his tongue. He is a little man, apt to bark and indeed to bite on occasion.'

'A Scotch title, would it be?'

'No, English; from Dutch William's time. The family name is Koop. He is a Whig, but a moderate Whig, voting sometimes against the ministry, but sometimes - and on important divisions with - which means that he is much courted. Yet he is still enough of a Whig to dislike me for my father's sake. You may remember that before he took to Radical ways, my father was a passionate Tory, and at one election he flogged the man who stood for Hinton in the Whig interest. It made a great noise at the time. Yet on the other hand he does not object to Griffiths' way of always voting with Government on those rare occasions he attends the House: he is member for Carton, a pocket-borough like mine, though with even fewer electors. The Admiral also dislikes me for taking parliamentary leave, which means a jobbing captain has to take my place; and he will dislike me even more, when he learns that I mean to upset this inclosure scheme, which he very strongly advised in the first place, coming down quite often and predicting vast capabilities for the common. He is very much in favour of throwing farms together, doing away with the fifty or a hundred acre men entirely and having huge great places with good roads, modern buildings and prodigious yields - God knows how many bushels to the acre.'

'There seem to be many of these as it were clans in the service, quite apart from the obvious political divisions. There are men like you, who are devoted to celestial navigation and who favour others of their kind; and those who delight in surveying anything that can be surveyed however wet, remote and uncomfortable; but I believe this is the first time I have encountered a band of sea-going farmers. I look forward to meeting the Admiral.'

'Yes, and there are chains of kindness and connection. Lord Keith was very good to me, for example, when I was young, and I will do anything I can for his mids or his officers' sons. It runs clean through the service, particularly with the old naval families, like the Herveys. The same applies to particular regions. You find ships where the whole quarterdeck is Scotch, and many of the people. I knew one sioop whose captain hailed from the Isle of Man, and close on every hand had three legs. But as for the Admiral, you will see him soon enough: we must be aboard within the fortnight. I shall just have time to run up to the House for the committee meeting, deliver my thunderbolt, and then post down to Torbay, where Heneage Dundas will touch before the change of the moon, landing Jenkins -,

'Who him?'

'My jobbing captain, my temporary replacement,' said Jack, and from his tone and the set of his face Stephen gathered that he did not think highly of the man. 'With the wind in the south and even south-south-east I have been expecting a signal these last three days.'

Once again Lalla brought her ears to bear on the bushes to the left, within sight of the house but well this side of the park. From them burst a little boy, George, closely pursued by a little girl, Brigid.

'Oh sir,' cried George, 'there is an express from Plymouth. And Cousin Diana is coming.'

'Oh Papa,' cried Brigid, 'there is a man on a steaming horse, and he destroyed with the thirst, bearing a letter so he is, an express letter. Mama carries it in her hand itself, driving the great coach. We came through the shrubbery and then through the whins.' By this time she was with them, and moderating her voice a little, she held up her face to be kissed.

'We saw you through the spy-glass,' said George, 'and since Cousin Diana already had the horses to, she said she should come by the drift: it would save your poor legs.'

'I can hear them, I can hear them. Mother of God, I can hear them. Oh Papa dear, and may I go up on top with Padeen?' She plucked urgently at his coat, distracting him from a remote and broad-winged bird, conceivably an osprey, right in the sun's eye. 'If Mama agrees,' he said. 'She is the master and commander of the coach.'