The Stranger From The Sea Read Online Free PDF Page A

minute in any weather. It was a great success ... But he was killed - killed just after I got there. I used one. Splendid gun. But after he was killed nobody followed it up. Nobody seemed interested.'
    'It's what one comes to expect of the army’ said the young man. He bore the rifle away and soon came back with it. "That is attended to. Breakfast in ten minutes. Then I'll introduce you to my friends.'
    'By the way ...'
    'Yes?'
    'Regarding your stepfather. You said he had not married again.' ‘ True. Has he?'
    'No. But I received a letter from Demelza shortly before I left. In it she says that there is a rumour in the county that George is now - at last - taking an interest in another woman.'
    'Mon dieu! Who is she?'
    'Unfortunately I can't remember the name. It's no one I know. Harriet something. Lady Harriet something.'
    'Ah,' said Geoffrey Char les significantl y. 'That may explain a little.' He scuffed the ground with his boot. 'Well ... I suppose I should wish him no ill. He was my mother's choice. Though they lived a somewhat uneasy life together — undulating between extremes - I believe she was fond of him in her way. So if he marries now at this late age - what is he? fifty-one? - if he marries again now I can only say I hope he is as lucky a second time.'
    *He won't ever be that,' said Ross.
    A few minutes later they were called to breakfast: a piece of salt beef each, a dozen crumbly biscuits - perhaps with weevils but one could not see - and a tot of rum. Ross met the other men who were Geoffrey Charles's friends. They were light-hearted, joking, laughing quietly, all eager and ready for the mutual slaughter that lay ahead. They greeted Ross with deference, and a friendliness that deepened when they learned he was not content to be a spectator of the battle.
    While they were eating a spare, dour figure on a white horse, followed by a group of officers, rode through them. There was a clicking to attention, a casual, dry word here and there, and then the figure rode on. It was Viscount Wellington making his final tour of the front. He had nine miles of hillside to defend, and his troops were spread thin. But they had the confidence that only a good leader can impart to them.
    Ten minutes after Wellington had passed, the drums and pipes of the French army began to roll more ominously, and, as the very first light glimmered through the drifting mists forty-five battalions of the finest seasoned veterans in Europe, with another twenty-two thousand men in reserve, began to move forward in black enormous masses up the escarpment towards the British positions.

Chapter Three
    i
    The second courtship of George Warleggan was of a very different nature from the first. A cold young man to whom material possessions, material power and business acumen meant everything, he had coveted his beautiful first wife while she was still only affianced to Francis Poldark. He had known her to be unattainable on all accounts, not merely because of her marriage but because he knew he meant less than nothing in her eyes. Through the years he had striven to mean something to her - and had succeeded on a material level; then, less than a year after Francis's death, he had seized a sudden opportunity to put his fortunes to the test; and with a sense of incredulity he had heard her say yes.
    Of course it was not as straightforward as that, and he knew it at the time. Long before Francis's death the Trenwith Poldarks had been poverty-stricken; but after his death everything had worsened, and Elizabeth had been left alone to try to keep a home together, with no money, little help, and four people, including her ailing parents, dependent on her. He did not pretend she had married him out of love: her love, however much she might protest to the contrary, had always been directed towards Francis's cousin, Ross. But it was him she had married and no other: she had become Mrs George Warleggan in name and in more than name, and the birth of a son to