H.M.S. COCKEREL

no matter it was the fondest wish of every successful man to make his pile, get acres and aspire to the squirearchy. It was… shit! Of the most unabidable sort! And fast as he strove to shovel it away, here came more.

His sheep, for instance. He squirmed on the cold saddle as he contemplated them. The farm (the rented farm, he reminded himself) was awash in the smelly things-most of Surrey was these days-unutterably stupid, messy, foolish… and shit-bedaubed. Even a goat could manage to keep a reasonably clean nether end, though they did stink like badgers.

Swine-there's chapter and verse for you, too, he thought. And chickens! Lord, what a foetid reek the henyard bore. It was a wonder a self-respecting fox would have to go at 'em, 'thout holding his nose! And cattle, I ask you, he grunted, his neck burning with revulsion. Fat, shambling, lanky-hipped, floppy beasts, capable of veritable broadsides of loose, flat, disordered ordure, shot off by the barrico, whenever and wherever they wished. Stinky his city of London might be, brassy and corrupt a warship might become, but it was never a tenth as bad as a working farm. Sweet as hay and clover were in the spring, the gardens' romantic aromas, soon as one inhaled a restoring lungful of bucolic bliss, here came some reek from things best hung in the curing house as meat, revolting one! Or plopped all over one's best pair of top boots.

It was tempting to think that now his Granny Lewrie had passed to Her Great Reward and had left him quite well-off in her will, he and Caroline could move to London, and use the farm as a spring and summer retreat; hire an estate agent to look aiter it for them. It did, in spite of his ignorance, turn a pretty penny or two, enough to qualify him as a voter. Then he could nod and smile on his rare visits, chortle over the books when they showed profit and call out 'Carry on!' to some experienced and knowledgeable underling, leaving him leisure time for horses, for amusements. For a real life!

Lewrie hitched his heavy wool cloak closer about his neck as he rode near the Red Swan Inn. Late as it was, as close to suppertime for the revelers inside, whom he could espy through the cheery diamond-paned windows, there was quite a merry crowd gathered there. A fair number of horses were hitched outside, blanketed against the cold, under the now bare but towering oaks. The richer patrons had theirs temporarily stabled in the warmer barn behind. He thought he spotted Gov-ernour's tall gray gelding, and beside it, two hunters he knew as belonging to Sir Romney Embleton, Bt, and his whey-faced son Harry.

Now there's shit for you, Lewrie thought with a rueful grin. For a mad fleeting moment he thought of going in the Red Swan for a stirrup cup of hot gin punch, or a mug of mulled wine to warm his journey home. Just on a lark, to see the looks on their phizes for daring to show his own in the more refined, high-gentry squire-ish Red Swan!

For just a moment, he envied his brother-in-law Governour, too. He was married to Sir Romney's daughter Millicent, long before Lewrie had come to Anglesgreen and wed Caroline, upsetting all the plans of seven years before. Governour and Millicent could socialize when and where they might. Bad as blood was between Lewries and Embletons, and because of them between Chiswicks and Embletons, Governour had welcome still at Embleton Hall, and at all the parish and county's doings. Though it was sometimes a trifle thin. His and Caroline's, however, was nonexistent. And looked fair to being nonexistent far past the advent of the coming new century.

Truth, even further, be told, since they'd returned from the Bahamas in '89 when his last ship Alacrity had paid off in Portsmouth, they'd been treated bad as leprous Gypsies by those locals who walked in dread of Embleton disapproval, or fawned on Embleton largesse. Considering Embleton influence over the area, it was a wonder the Lewries even had benefit of clergy at mossy old St. George's. And with rural social life revolving 'round the local fox hunt-and that hunt's Master of Hounds none other than Sir Romney- they might as well have been turbaned Turk horse thieves for all their welcome.

Well, not by all, Alan qualified, as he drew his horse to a halt at the turn-in gate. The hot rum punches he'd downed through an afternoon of war talk and genteel arguing at the Olde Ploughman were working on him something hellish, and the idea of riding in to 'front the bastards direct was rake-hell, damme-boy appealing. No, not all treat us shabby, he snorted. There were a few of the minor gentry, the younger folk, and most of the common sort who thought the Lewrie saga romantic beyond words, and sympathized with them in their banishment.

Lovely and sweet Caroline Chiswick, the poor Loyalist emi-gree home after the Revolution, being 'buttock-brokered' by her Uncle Phineas to wed rich, so he could get even more acres by her, her parents almost helpless in their penury to help her. Four suitors: two very old widowers and a sheeper-tenant-all vile beyond belief-and the Hon. Harry Embleton, an MP and heir to untold wealth and power, and next-door acres, the most favoured.

Then, along came Lieutenant Alan Lewrie, RN, and swept her away. Not only rescued her, but came within a hair of dueling Harry for her!

Well, it never came to that, Alan gloated, warmed against the cold as he savoured that long-ago triumph. Harry learned we'd posted banns, and went lunatick at a fox hunt. Took a whip to my treed cat, took his whip to me-'bout as public as it gets! And I flattened his nose and made his bung sport claret. Make matters worse, he goes and whines to Caroline 'bout her choice, goes off again, calls her every vile thing he had in his little mind, and damned if she don't whip him 'cross the field with her reins, too! Bang on his busted nose in front of damn near everyone in Surrey that matters! Lord!

Ah, well, he shrugged, that was a bloody good day. Just didn't think I'd end up paying for it the rest of my natural life. Going on now a full seven years, and time hadn't mellowed any of the participants. He had to give the Embletons credit- they could hold a snit as good as he could.

And there was no sense in stirring the pot up further. Or in being seen as he was at that moment, sitting slumped and indecisive, like a beggar too fearful to knock for pittance at the back entrance of a rich man's manor.

Devil with 'em, he sneered as he turned the reins and clucked his tongue once more, urging the horse with his heels to an easy canter. The gelding knew the way as well as he; on past the Red Swan and a new bank of row houses, onto the Chiddingfold Road, west along the stream, thence over the wooden bridge to Chiswick lands, his rented corner of them, and home.

Where there's a better sort of welcome waiting, he grinned.

Chapter 2

'Ave 'at owf in a tick, sir,' his groom told him as he alit in his stable yard. Bodkins took the reins and tied the horse, then knelt with a rag so Lewrie could prop his boot on a wooden bucket. ' 'Ere ye be, sir… good'z noo.'

'Thankee, Bodkins,' Lewrie replied, free at last of rank goo. 'Be sure he gets a good, warm rubdown. 'Tis a fearsome cold night.'

' 'At I will, sir, never ye fear,' the groom said. ' 'Ere, Thomas, me lad. Untack 'e master's horse.'

It was a fine new stone stable, attached to the older thatched-roof house that now served as the carriage house for two coaches; one light and open for good weather, and an older, boxy enclosed coach. Lewrie petted and fussed over the gelding before the stableboy led him away for his well-ieserved oats and rubdown. Lewrie crossed the stable yard, sure that his workers had shoveled before dark, sure he would;ncounter no more messy surprises lying in wait, on past the lulking older 'wattle and daub' original barn where the prod-icts of the farm were stored to tide him, his kith and kin, and lis beasts, through the rest of the winter.

Uncle Phineas had leased them, and that quite grudgingly, 160 acres, a corner of his vast holdings at the foot of his lane, like a gatehouse to the manor proper. But it was close to the village and the Chiddingfold Road, and quite handy. A sheeper had been renting when they left in '86, but it was vacant upon their return. Acreage enough to run a middling flock of sheep, a few beef cattle and dairy animals, swine, goats, turkeys and chickens, with orchards and grape arbors enough for the home-farm to feed quite well. There was enough cleared land for a decently profitable crop of wheat and hay in addition to the sheep, with wood lots, kitchen gardens, access to three creeks and several sweet wells. Hops and barley gave them homebrew beer, and they were awash in preserved fruits.

The new house, though! The old thatched-roof cottage had been a two-story, smoky, bug-infested horror, and,