The Mauritius Command Read Online Free PDF Page A

stars in less. Sixty at least. Yet it is all one. Whenever I come home from a night with Miss Herschel there are wry looks, a tolerably frigid welcome."
    "Since it has physical effects, the sorrow and woe that is in marriage no doubt belongs to the province of the physician," said Stephen. "But I am as little acquainted with it as I am with gardening, or domestic economy."
    He was brought nearer acquainted the next morning, when he walked up to breakfast at the cottage. He was far too early, and the first sight that met his eye was the twins flinging their pap about and shrieking as they did so, while their grandmother, protected by a coarse canvas bib and apron, endeavoured to feed them with a spoon and little Cecilia wallowed in the bowl itself; he recoiled into the arms of the servant-girl carrying a basket of malodorous cloths, and worse might have happened if Sophie, suddenly appearing from above, had not whipped him away into the garden.
    After a little general conversation from which it appeared that Jack had enjoyed his dinner, had come home singing, and was now grinding the coffee himself, she said, "Oh, Stephen, how I wish you could help him to a ship. He is so unhappy here. He spends hours up on the hill, looking at the sea through his telescope, and it breaks my heart. Even if it were only for a short cruise -the winter is coming on, and the damp is so bad for his wound--any sort of ship at all, even if it were only a transport, like dear Mr. Pullings."
    "How I wish I could, my dear; but what is the voice of a ship's surgeon in the councils of the great said Stephen, with a veiled though piercing glance to see whether any of her husband's knowledge of his double character had been sacrificed to marital confidence. Her next words and her totally unconscious air reassured him: she said, "We saw in the paper that you were called in when the Duke of Clarence was ill, and I thought that perhaps a word from you... ,
    He said, "Honey, the duke knows Jack very well, by reputation--we spoke of his action with the Cacafuego--but he also knows that recommending Jack for a command would be the worst service he could do him. His Highness is in bad odour with the Admiralty."
    "But surely they could not refuse the King's own son?"
    "They are terrible men at the Admiralty, my dear."
    Before she could reply the church clock of Chilton Admiral told the hour, and on the third stroke Jack's hall of "Coffee's up" followed by his manly form and some remarks about the wind having backed two points in the night- heavy rain for sure--broke up their conference.
    Breakfast was spread in the parlour, and they walked into a fine smell of coffee, toast and wood-smoke: the ham stood on the table, flanked by Jack's own radishes, each the size of a moderate pippin, and a solitary egg. "There is the great advantage of living in the country," he said. "You get your vegetables really fresh. And that is our own egg, Stephen! Do help yourself. Sophie's crab-apple jelly is by your side. Damn that chimney; it will not draw when the air is anything south of west. Stephen, let me pass you an egg.
    Mrs Williams brought Cecilia in, so starched that she held her arms from her sides, like an imperfectly-articulated doll. She came and stood by Stephen's chair, and while the others were busily wondering why there was no news from the rectory, where the birth of a child had been hourly expected these many days past, she told him loud and clear that they never had coffee except on birthdays and when there had been a victory, and that her uncle Aubrey usually drank small beer, whereas her " aunt and grandmama drank milk: if he liked, she would butter his toast for him. She had buttered a good deal of his coat too before Mrs Williams, with a delighted shriek, plucked her away, remarking that there never was such a forward child for her years; Cecilia, her mother, could never have buttered a piece of toast so prettily at that age.
    Jack's attention was elsewhere; his