King`s Captain

'Well then, let us be on our way,' Caroline decided, 'shooing' the children towards their own coach. 'Easter dinner will be at… Uncle Phi-neas's in his role as paterfamilias'-she sighed at the necessity-'where we may break our fast with the bounty of the season and celebrate our Lord's ascension.'

'Oh, joy,' Lewrie had snickered, 'fresh-grown bounty… all those ground nuts, tree bark, and mud. Nothing but the best for his kin, hey?'

That set the children to tittering wildly.

'Bark and mud!' Hugh contemplated rather loudly. 'Ugghh!'

'Mud pies, with caramel sauce,' Lewrie abetted.

'Pig slop soup!' Hugh dreamt up. 'With cracklings!'

'Mud pie an' caramel!' Charlotte all but shrieked. 'Yahahaha!'

'Children!' Caroline snapped, 'do consider where you are, making such a row on God's ground! And of who you are… and comport yourselves according. Alan, really…!' she cautioned, swiveling her gaze upon him, nostrils pinched and like to breathe fire.

'Slip o' th' tongue, mizzuz,' he replied, a'grovel, tugging at his forelock like a day labourer and crouching from the waist. ' 'Twas drink an' bad companions, ma'am… won't 'appen agin, ma'am, beggin' yer pardon. Oh, don't flog me, ma'am…!'

'Hhmmph!' was her nose-high comment for that, on public view… though there was a forgiving, amused sparkle to her eyes; and her vertical exclamation point of vexation between her brows wasn't that deep, now was it?

CHAPTER SIX

It was a splendid morning for a ride. The faint mists had gone away, the sun was well up, and the dew was barely dried. Birds chirped and fluttered over their newly hatched, young rabbits bounded ahead of them as they flushed them out, not so much a fearful scurrying as it was a playful, cat-like clearing of the ground in exaggerated and exuberant high-heeled hops. The aromas of new shoots, budding fruit-tree blossoms, of virginal, fresh-washed tree leaves commingled with the loamy scents of recently turned, slightly damp earth from planted fields… and the green-sap sweetness of hay, barley, wheat, hops, and rye sprouting in them; turned earth and a faint hint of manure turned in with it, came from the fallow fields which had been left for live-stock to graze over the past autumn, now broken for spring planting.

Skies of pale blue, brush-stroked and wisped with clouds, vivid greens of leaves, and even weeds, the paler greens of acres where crops had begun to venture forth, like a thin water-colour wash over a deep umber. Shin-high grasses waved as breezes took them on every cut-over hill, and the valleys between the woodlots, stark-stippled white with new lambs; and the darker, almost smoky blue-green of forests, copses, and woodlots, with here and there the faint skein of blue-white haze from brush-fires burning off piles of winter deadfall on such a safe, cool, moist day. And, as they topped one of the tumbling, sea-wave hills for a wider miles-long vista, even the faint sour reek from the fires seemed more the shades of living things than the spirits of the greyed, dessicated dead of winter.

Hugh, ever the adventurer, was further on ahead, urging his pony up another swelling hillock. Sewallis, now mounted on a proper horse (though a gentle runt of a twelve-hander), stayed closer to them, with his ears as a'cock as his mount's to an adult conversation, listening with sober interest. Or perhaps rueing that they hadn't taken any of his dogs along this morning-for fear of spooking Hugh's quest.

Or, Lewrie thought, giving him a glance; sulking that it's Hugh we're indulging, not him. Thought, bein' so priggish, Sewallis would be more tolerant of Hugh, his watchdog, not his rival. When did this rivalry start? he wondered, regretting being gone as they grew up.

'Won't you have the Devil's own time constructing yer lane?' Lewrie asked. 'Up an' down, up an' down, all the way from our place to yours.'

'Not if you come up Governour's lane first, Alan, me dear.' His father smiled softly.

'Whatever possessed Uncle Phineas to sell you one square yard, I still have yet to fathom,' Lewrie confessed, getting used to swaying and adjusting to Anson's gait over the hills.

'Money, my dear boy,' Sir Hugo replied, smiling again. But it looked like a cadaverous leer of a practiced 'Captain Sharp.' 'Oodles of money. Oh, I must admit he was loath, in the beginning, hoping it would confer to Governour entire after he was gone. Didn't wish to split it up. Not in his lifetime at least.'

'Not after he spent most of his life scheming to shove it together.' Lewrie snickered.

'Point taken, Alan,' Sir Hugo grumphed. 'Tolerate you as one of his tenants perhaps. Expect Governour to treat his brother, Burgess, the same when he returns from India. Pray God he does. Damned good soldier, is your younger brother-in-law. Would have got the regiment had I had anything to say about it, but… he was not the senior major. And money again… the new fool who got the colonelcy is a third son to one of the nabobs of 'John Company's' Governing Board.'

'Ah… the same old story.' Lewrie sighed philosophically. He had never prospered from family 'interest'-or money, either-with this caddish old rakehell at his side to thank for both. At least in the Royal Navy, connexions could only advance the idiots just so far. Talent and seamanship counted in the long run. Though there were the admirals on foreign stations who'd made Post-Captains out of their sixteen-year-old sons, and…!

'Yes, and thank God for't,' Sir Hugo hoorawed. 'Else I'd have not gone a captain in a distinguished regiment like the Fourth. Been some tag-rag-and-bobtail ensign in a kutch pultan in the Fever Isles… or at John O' Groats! Well, no matter. Does Burgess not get a colonelcy from John Company, I'll have him back in England… on my staff…'fore he can turn his head to spit.'

'Your staff?' Lewrie half-scoffed, swaying sidewise in his saddle to peer at his father, wondering who in his right mind would give him command of British troops again! 'What bloody staff?'

'Why, I'm t'be military aide to the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey, Alan, me dear!' Sir Hugo hooted. 'No matter the next-to-London counties are almost completely run by the Home Office; they still allow the token twits the office. And a dev'lish profitable office it is too! Yeomanry… militia forces… do I not make major-general by this time next year, I've either gone tits-up… or wasn't really tryin'!

'Another reason your Phineas Chiswick would sell me land, Alan,' Sir Hugo confided, leaning a bit closer as they passed under some overhanging boughs at a sedate walk. 'For the prestige o' havin' me for a neighbour! And for a word in his ear, now and again, as to profitable doin's… which I pick up from the gora-logs. Reason your Sir Romney is so affable, too… given the bile betwixt you and his son. Toad-eatin' ain't limited to the lower classes, Alan, me son. Oh, they're high and mighty men, Phineas and Sir Romney. Must confess, I care a power more for Sir Romney than ever I could for that… well. A decent, sporting gentleman he is. Dignified, of the old school. Now I'm a land-owner, and not a wealthy tenant, he's invited me to join the local hunt this winter. Committee decided I'm worthy.'

'You!' Lewrie howled, feeling abused. Didn't they know what they were getting? he puzzled. Here he was, a long-time neighbour, affable as the day was long… well, to all but Harry. A bloody war hero, due to be a Post-Captain, equal rank to Harry, and he'd still be suckin' hoof-dust by the side of the road whilst his father would be garglin' claret stirrup-cups. This 'fly' rogue, this…!

'Ride on, Sewallis. See what your brother's up to,' Lewrie bade.

'But, Father…'

'Spur on now. He's out of sight and just like Goodyer's Pig, sure t'be in mischief.'

'Oh, alright…' Sewallis grumbled.

'You'll blow it, you know,' Lewrie told Sir Hugo, once Sewallis was out of earshot. 'Sooner or later, that base nature of yours will…'

'Ours, me lad.' Sir Hugo twinkled. 'Ours.'

'There'll be someone's unmarried daughter, a fit of temper, or something…' Lewrie stammered. 'Grope yer host's maids, guesting…'