Patrick O'Brian - The Yellow Admiral

Lalla was a somewhat nervous, touchy creature, but now she offered an example of that wonderful patience that even the most unpromising animals will often show to the young. George, whom she knew perfectly well, had heaved himself on to her back by halter and mane, with a hand from his father, and now Brigid, who had only met her yesterday, did much the same, but less skilfully. Lalla gazed at her, standing firm until she was more or less seated, and then paced gently along.

The lane marking the edge of the pasture came out on a much broader affair called the drift, along which all Woolhampton's cattle travelled to be marked and registered on the second Wednesday after Michaelmas: here stood the elegant coach with its four matching bays, the leader's head held by Padeen, Diana on the box.

'I have a letter for you, Jack,' she cried, waving it. 'An express from Plymouth.'

'Thank you, Diana,' he replied. 'Should you like me to help you wheel the coach?'

'Lord, no,' said Diana. 'But take care of Lalla. She is apt to lose her head with horses about, even geldings.' Then to Brigid, 'Child, come and take this letter to your cousin.'

'Are you my cousin, sir?' asked the child as Diana turned the horses in her usual brilliant manner. 'I am so glad.'

The coach spilled its cargo in the forecourt, and Jack called to Sophie, standing there on the steps, 'It is from Heneage, my dear. He has lost his bowsprit, foretopmast and I dare say a good many headrails. He is leaving Berenice at Dock and coaching up here with Philip and perhaps a couple of hands: they will reach us on Thursday, God willing. It was handsome to give so much notice.'

'Oh, very handsome indeed,' cried Sophie faintly.

'Do you know Heneage Dundas?' he asked Diana, as he handed her down.

'A sailor? Lord Melville's son? I have met him. Was not his father in charge of the Navy?'

'He was, and a very fine First Lord too. But now it is Heneage's elder brother who has succeeded and who is also First Lord.'

'Sophie, Clarissa,' called Diana, 'should you not like to take an airing? I am going to stretch the horses for a couple of hours: they are in great need of exercise. We might go as far as Lyme.'

'My dear,' cried Sophie with great conviction, 'I really cannot.'

'Are you taking Brigid?' asked Clarissa.

'Oh yes: of course. And George, if he would like it.'

'Then I will come too, if I may have five minutes.'

The Thursday that brought Captain Dundas and Philip and that was also expected to bring Mr Cholmondeley's coachman to deprive Diana of her supreme delight, in fact brought the owner himself with two friends, in a post-chaise. He arrived shortly after the others while the drawing-room was still in something of a turmoil with introductions, enquiries after the journey, the health of friends, the likelihood of a French sortie from Brest (most improbable), and Stephen noticed how well Sophie, a retiring provincial lady, coped with the situation - better, indeed, than Cholmondeley, a wealthy and obviously fashionable man. He apologized profusely for this intrusion and protested that he should not stay five minutes; his only errand was to beg Mrs Maturin to keep his coach and horses for a while, if she could bear it. He was on his way to Bristol, there to take ship for Ireland on an urgent piece of legal business that had been delayed too long and that could be delayed no longer lest it go by default; and he was most unwilling that the team should be left idle in their indifferent London stable- no air, no light. He then had the exceedingly awkward task of asking Jack whether he might see Woolcombe's head groom, to arrange for the feeding and the care of his cattle: this having been civilly but very firmly declined, he turned to his not inconsiderable social powers, cheerful, fairly amusing and not small enough to be mere prattle. He and his friends had many acquaintances in common with Captain Dundas and Diana and news of them filled the dangerous gaps that threatened to appear before he stood up and with eloquent gratitude took his leave of Sophie and all the company - a particularly civil farewell to Dr Maturin.

He had not in fact stayed long (though it seemed longer) and the men had little more than the impression of a wellbred man, a fairly agreeable rattle, something of a coxcomb; but it had been long enough for the ladies present to be convinced that he admired Diana extremely.

When he and his friends were gone the place seemed pleasantly empty and free. What small awkwardness there might have been with Heneage and Philip now vanished entirely- they belonged to the home side - and from dinner-time onwards the household settled down enjoying these last days ashore as much as ever they could. In this they were reasonably successful, in spite of the crises threatening Jack Aubrey's future. He and Dundas had a great deal of naval talk to exchange quite apart from the very highly-detailed account of how, in a dense fog off Prawle Point a lost and blundering East Indiaman had come smack across the Berenice's stem with her courses set and all the forces of the tide at three bells in the graveyard watch, shattering her head and bowsprit in the cruellest manner, so that Berenice's foretopmast came by the board and there was a butt sprung low beneath the starboard cathead - 'a perfect jet of water, like a God-damned Iceland geyser'.

Much of their talk, which was really not fit for mixed company because of its profoundly nautical character, was conducted as they walked over the common with guns or sat in hides either side of the mere, according to the direction of the wind; duck had grown more plentiful, mallard for the most part but also the occasional teal. They always invited Stephen for the dawn and evening fighting, but he rarely went: although he would eagerly shoot specimens and of course bring birds home for the pot when they were called for, he was not fond of killing; and since young Philip took care of Brigid and George entirely, he lapsed back into that contented solitude of an only child, going his own way, in silence, without reference to anyone at all. It was a natural way of life and it suited him very well. Sometimes he went driving with Diana, but although he greatly admired her skill - the four bays were likely to be the best-drilled, best behaved, best-paced team in the county quite soon - her concentration on speed distressed him. Natterjacks were common in no part of the world - he had seen comparatively few - and now in one drive he had been swept past four. Shrews were another of his present studies, and Diana could not be brought to like them very much, having learnt as a child that every time you touched or even saw a shrewmouse you aged a full year; and then, as everybody knew, they gave you the most excruciating rheumatism and made in-calf heifers abort.

He had hoped to interest Brigid if not in shrews then at least in what flowers were still abroad and the more usual birds; but in this he was disappointed, since both children were wholly taken up with admiring Philip, Jack Aubrey's half-brother, the just legitimized son of the late General Aubrey by a dairy-maid at Woolcombe House, at present a long-legged midshipman in Captain Dundas' ship. He was indeed a very likeable young fellow, fresh-full of youth and good-nature, and he was very kind to the little creatures, showing them how to lay aloft in the coach-house with haywain ropes for shrouds, made fast to the topmast beams, whirling them to extraordinary heights on swings, teaching them the rudiments of fives, and carrying them to all manner of curious places in the attics (bats by the hundred), cellars and elsewhere, for he had been born at Woolcombe and he knew the house and its even older buildings through and through.

Sometimes, if Philip would come too, they drove out with Diana, and on shopping days Sophie joined them, but only as far as the village, or Dorchester at the utmost. She was not a cowardly woman - fortitude and courage in plenty, on occasion - but she disliked driving fast; and childhood falls, hard-mouthed froward ponies and inept, sometimes cruel masters had made her reluctant to ride; and on the whole she disliked horses. Clarissa was Diana's most usual companion, apart from the necessary groom and boy.