Read Online The Yellow Admiral by Patrick O’Brian - Free Book Online

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.'
    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