Post Captain by Patrick O’Brian Read Free Book Online Page B

presence of a strange dogcart in the courtyard to understand the word 'water', and she brought a dark-brown brimming tumbler that Mr Babbington drank off with great composure. Diana's alarm increased at the sight of the tall, dashing dogcart and the nervous horse, all white of eye and laid-back ears. 'Where is your groom, sir?' she asked. 'Is he in the kitchen?'
    'There ain't a groom in this crew, ma'am,' said Babbington, now looking at her with open admiration. 'I navigate myself. May I give you a leg up? Your foot on this little step and heave away. Now this rug - we make it fast aft, with these beckets. All a-tanto? Let go by the head,' he called to the gardener, and they dashed out of the forecourt, giving the white-painted post a shrewd knock as they passed. -
    Mr Babbington's handling of the whip and the reins raised Diana's dismay to a new pitch; she had been brought up among horse-soldiers, and she had never seen anything like this in her life. She wondered how he could possibly have come all the way from Arundel without a spill. She thought of her trunk behind and when they left the main road, winding along the lanes, sometimes mounting the bank and sometimes shaving the ditch's edge, she said, 'It will never do. This young man will have to be taken down.'
    The lane ran straight up hill, rising higher and higher, with God knows what breakneck descent the other side. The horse slowed to a walk - the bean-fed horse, as it proved by a thunderous, long, long fart.
    'I beg your pardon,' said the midshipman in the silence.
    'Oh, that's all right,' said Diana coldly. 'I thought it was the horse.' A sideways glance showed that this had settled Babbington's hash for the moment. 'Let me show you how we do it in India,' she said, gathering the reins and taking his whip away from him. But once she had established contact with the horse and had him going steadily along the path he should follow, Diana turned her mind to winning back Mr Babbington's kindness and good will. Would he explain the blue, the red, and the white squadrons to her? The weather-gage? Tell her about life at sea in general? Surely it must be a very dangerous, demanding service, though of course so highly and so rightly honoured - the country's safeguard. Could it be true that he had taken part in the famous action with the Cacafuego? Diana could not remember a more striking disparity of forces. Captain Aubrey must be very like Lord Nelson.
    'Oh yes, ma'am!' cried Babbington. 'Though I doubt even Nelson could have brought it off so handsome. He is a prodigious man. Though by land, you know, he is quite different. You would take him for an ordinary person -not the least coldness or distance. He came down to our place to help my uncle in the election, and he was as jolly as a grig - knocked down a couple of Whigs with his stick. They went down like ninepins - both of them poachers and Methodies, of course. Oh, it was such fun, and at Melbury he let me and old Pullings choose our horses and ride a race with him. Three times round the paddock and the horse to be ridden upstairs into the library for a guinea a side and a bottle of wine. Oh, we all love him, ma'am, although he's so taut at sea.'
    'Who won?'
    'Oh, well,' said Babbington, 'we all fell off, more or less, at different times. Though I dare say he did it on purpose, not to take our money.'
    They stopped to bait at an inn, and with a meal and a pint of ale inside him Babbington said, 'I think you are the prettiest girl I have ever seen. You are to change in my room, which I am very glad of, now; and if I had known it was you, I should have bought a pincushion and a large bottle of scent.'
    'You are a very fine figure of a man, too, sir,' said Diana. 'I am so happy to be travelling under your protection.'
    Babbington's spirits mounted to an alarming degree; he had been brought up in a service where enterprise counted for everything, and presently it became necessary to occupy his attention with the horse.