The Mauritius Command by Patrick O’Brian Read Free Book Online

roll, tied with tape. "There. I had confused it with my lancet-case. It was Mrs Broad of the Grapes that did it up, finding it in a Bank of England wrapper that I had--that I had neglected. A most ingenious way of carrying money, calculated to deceive the pick-pocket. I hope it will suffice."
    "How much is it?" asked Jack.
    "Sixty or seventy pound, I dare say."
    "But, Stephen, the top note is a fifty, and so is the next. I do not believe you ever counted them."
    "Well, never mind, never mind," said Stephen testily. "I meant a hundred and sixty. Indeed, I said as much, only you did not attend."
    They both straightened, cocking their ears. Through the beating of the rain came Sophie's voice calling, "Jack! Jack!" and rising to a squeak as she darted into the observatory, breathless and wet. "There is a Marine from the port admiral," she said between her gasps, "and he will not give his message except into your own hands. Oh, Jack, might it be a ship?"
    A ship it was. Captain Aubrey was required and directed to repair aboard HMS Boadicea and to take upon himself the command of the said vessel, for which the enclosed order was to be the warrant: he was to touch at Plymouth, there to receive on board R.T. Farquhar, Esquire, at the Commissioner's office, and any further orders that might be transmitted to him at that place. These stately, somewhat inimical documents (as usual, Captain Aubrey was to fail not, at his peril), were accompanied by a friendly note from the Admiral, asking Jack to dine with him the next day, before going aboard.
    Now that direct action was legitimate, it burst forth with such force that Ashgrove Cottage was turned upside-down in a moment. At first Mrs Williams clung tenaciously to her scheme for changing the parlour curtains, clamouring that it must be done--what would Lady Clonfert think?--and protesting that she should not be overborne; but her strength was as nothing compared with that of a newly appointed frigate-captain burning to join his ship before the evening gun, and in a few minutes she joined her daughter and the distracted maid in brushing uniforms, madly darning stockings and ironing neck-cloths, while Jack trundled his sea-chest in the attic and roared down to know where was his neat's-foot oil, and who had been at his pistols? adjuring them "to bear a hand," "to look alive', "to lose not a minute below there', "to light along the sextant-case'.
    Lady Clonfert's arrival, so much in the forefront of Mrs Williams's mind not an hour before, passed almost unnoticed in the turmoil, a turmoil increased by the howling of. neglected children, which reached its paroxysm as her coachman thundered on the door. A full two minutes of strenuous battering passed by before the door was opened and she was able to walk into the naked parlour, whose old curtains lay on one end of the settle and the new on the other.
    Poor lady, she had but a sad time of it. She had dressed with particular care in garments designed not to offend Mrs Aubrey by being too fashionable or becoming yet at the same time to beguile Captain Aubrey, and she had prepared an artless speech about sailors" wives, Clonfert's respect and affection for his old shipmate, and her perfect familiarity with life aboard a man-of-war, together with some slight hints as to her acquaintance with General Mulgrave, the First Lord, and with Mrs Bertie, the wife of the Admiral at the Cape. This she delivered to Stephen, wedged into a dim corner by the clock under a drip, with some charming asides to Sophie; and she was obliged to repeat it when Jack appeared, trailing cobwebs from the attic and bearing his chest. It is difficult to sound artless twice in quick succession, but she did her best, for she was sincerely devoted to the prospect of escaping an English winter, and the idea of seeing her husband again filled her with a pleasurable excitement. Her confusion caused her bosom to rise and fall, a blush to overspread her pretty face, and from his corner