Dewey Lambdin - King`s Captain

"Yes, and thank God for't," Sir Hugo hoorawed. "Else I'd have not gone a captain in a distinguished regiment like the Fourth. Been some tag-rag-and-bobtail ensign in a kutch pultan in the Fever Isles… or at John O' Groats! Well, no matter. Does Burgess not get a colonelcy from John Company, I'll have him back in England… on my staff…'fore he can turn his head to spit."

"Your staff?" Lewrie half-scoffed, swaying sidewise in his saddle to peer at his father, wondering who in his right mind would give him command of British troops again! "What bloody staff?"

"Why, I'm t'be military aide to the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey, Alan, me dear!" Sir Hugo hooted. "No matter the next-to-London counties are almost completely run by the Home Office; they still allow the token twits the office. And a dev'lish profitable office it is too! Yeomanry… militia forces… do I not make major-general by this time next year, I've either gone tits-up… or wasn't really tryin'!

"Another reason your Phineas Chiswick would sell me land, Alan," Sir Hugo confided, leaning a bit closer as they passed under some overhanging boughs at a sedate walk. "For the prestige o' havin' me for a neighbour! And for a word in his ear, now and again, as to profitable doin's… which I pick up from the gora-logs. Reason your Sir Romney is so affable, too… given the bile betwixt you and his son. Toad-eatin' ain't limited to the lower classes, Alan, me son. Oh, they're high and mighty men, Phineas and Sir Romney. Must confess, I care a power more for Sir Romney than ever I could for that… well. A decent, sporting gentleman he is. Dignified, of the old school. Now I'm a land-owner, and not a wealthy tenant, he's invited me to join the local hunt this winter. Committee decided I'm worthy."

"You!" Lewrie howled, feeling abused. Didn't they know what they were getting? he puzzled. Here he was, a long-time neighbour, affable as the day was long… well, to all but Harry. A bloody war hero, due to be a Post-Captain, equal rank to Harry, and he'd still be suckin' hoof-dust by the side of the road whilst his father would be garglin' claret stirrup-cups. This "fly" rogue, this…!

"Ride on, Sewallis. See what your brother's up to," Lewrie bade.

"But, Father…"

"Spur on now. He's out of sight and just like Goodyer's Pig, sure t'be in mischief."

"Oh, alright…" Sewallis grumbled.

"You'll blow it, you know," Lewrie told Sir Hugo, once Sewallis was out of earshot. "Sooner or later, that base nature of yours will…"

"Ours, me lad." Sir Hugo twinkled. "Ours."

"There'll be someone's unmarried daughter, a fit of temper, or something…" Lewrie stammered. "Grope yer host's maids, guesting…"

"Nothin' of the sort, lad." Sir Hugo dismissed him, waving a hand like shooing flies. Shooing horseflies for real, in point of fact. "For one, I ain't so spry these days that I can rantipole like a young buck-o'-the-first-head. I'm older and… pray God… wiser. Too wise t'be caught, do ye get my meanin'? For a second, I'll be off half the time to Guildford, London, or Glandon Park, where I may indulge those few penchants o' mine discreetly… with the better sort o' whores. I am a man o' simple tastes…," Sir Hugo modestly declaimed.

"Like I'm First Lord o' the Admiralty," Lewrie groused back.

"Import me a sportin' sort o' doxy, t'pose as my housekeeper," Sir Hugo speculated. "Done all the time and well you know it. Just the one woman, though… brrrr!" He shivered at the thought of anything close to "domestic bliss." Or a lack of variety. "Well, mayhap I'll just stick to the buffet assortment o' courtesans. I can hold my wine. There's never been anyone said I couldn't. I've drunk some ragin' sponges under the table in me time too; and that's sayin' something for a man who's spent his life at mess-night in royal regiments like the Fourth! Where d'ye think our good English peerage hide their drunks but in the Army, hey? Or… the clergy. Gad, do I slosh down a pint less than most vicars and bishops, I'm ready for beatification! Saint bloody Hugo… the Temperate, haw!"

"The Chaste," Lewrie offered, tongue most firmly planted in his cheek, laughing at the image. At the bloody statue! Or in going to a "Saint Hugo's" and kneeling for communion.

"Do I dissemble well enough, well… perhaps even that, me boy." Sir

Hugo nodded, as mischievous as ever. "Perhaps even that. There. There's the beginnings," he said, perking up like a gun dog on scent, as they topped a bald rise.

It was the tower, the broken-fanged, topless tower where he and Caroline had first kissed, declared their love. Atop a small, flat-top hill, with a view that went on for miles to the North and West. A rill ran South below it, almost lost in a thick stand of timber to its left. Another lay to the South, meandering the bottom of the last swale they had left, where they'd first dined alfresco. A long sweep and another rise, and there was the hill with the lone oak where he'd… and further beyond to the East, the sight of his own home farm, with Embleton estates beyond that. Just barely visible, sandwiched between, was the gloomy old red-brick pile which Phineas owned, off to the Nor'east.

The tower was being re-constructed, he could see. The rectangular, ancient stones had been gathered from where they'd fallen an age or more before and reset. New stones to match, from one of the nearby quarries, had been fetched in to raise it and provide the base of a new house which adjoined it. A basement had been dug out, lined with matching stones or brick.

"It's going to be huge!" Lewrie gasped at the expanse of the foundation, framed by the first courses of the outer, load-bearing walls.

"Not a bit of it," Sir Hugo replied. "It'll be one-level, so I don't gasp my way up and down stairs in my dotage. Like an old Roman-British villa… or an officer's bungalow out in India." His father kneed his horse into motion so they could ride over for a closer look. "Be in by August, they assure me… out from under Caroline's feet. I expect she'll appreciate that," he said, with a wry smirk.

"That quickly? Must cost a bundle, all that haste…?" Lewrie probed, to discover just how much pelf his father had absconded with.

"Five thousand pounds, the land… two thousand for the house, before furnishin's," Sir Hugo off-handedly admitted, as if those sums were mere pittances.

"Dear Lord." Lewrie felt the need to gawp; who had Sir Hugo robbed…?

"Be yours… when I'm gone," Sir Hugo informed him, "my son."

"Ah…?" Lewrie realised, of a sudden. Rather hopefully.

"Three-hundred-sixty acres, all told. Cheek-by-jowl, you note, with yer hundred sixty rented from Phineas. But this'll be a paid-for freehold, free and clear, time I'm passed over. So I expect Phineas'll be too. Then Gov-ernour's yer landlord for the smaller parcel, and you and he can work out the details. This for Sewallis, eventually. He's eldest. Specify in yer will that he's t'rent the smaller to Hugh, for less than market value. Don't expect Hugh'll be home much to enjoy it though. Down for the Navy, I s'pose?"

"That was our intention," Lewrie admitted, "where I have a bit of influence. Find him a good first ship and captain."

"Pity. He's a natural-born horseman. Exuberant child. Daring. And a leader, e'en now. That's magic with troops. Now I've paid off all my creditors, made my pile, I'm a lot more welcome at Horse Guards than ever I was previous. An Army commission is a possibility. In a bukshi regiment too. Needs a bit o' polish though. A good boarding school, 'round the better sort. We could fund that together, Son…"

"Which did you have in mind, Father?" Lewrie grimaced at the memories of how many of the good ones he'd been tossed out of. "We tried that with me, remember? I doubt they're forgotten me, so…"