King, Ship, and Sword

drawn back in a sailor's queue.

'Will Cony! My man! Damme, but ye look hellish-prosperous in a blue apron!' Lewrie told him, stepping forward to shake his hand. 'When did ye-'

'Last year, sir,' Cony told him, pumping away at his 'paw' like a well-handle. 'After I'd healed up an' got my Discharge.' He stomped his right foot on the clean new floorboards, making a loud sound. 'Th' Dons went an' shot me foot clean off, sir, but after a spell in Greenwich Hospital, they fitted me with a knee-boot an' an oak foot, and I 'peg' round as good as ever. Ya come for th' good old winter ale, I'd wager, Cap'm? Yer first taste o' 'ome, not a minute back, and ya come t'th' Olde Ploughman, an' bless ya for it.'

'Ale for all my party, Will, and right-welcome it'll be, aye,' Lewrie agreed, introducing Cony to Desmond and Furfy, explaining how they'd been with him all through HMS Proteus's commission, then Savage, and lastly Thermopylae.

'Beakman's daughter, ehm…?' Lewrie had to ask, for before Will had wed Maggie, he'd spooned round the mort (not all that bad-looking a Wench, really) and though no promises were made, no gifts exchanged to plight a throth-'I give my love a paper of pins, and in this way our love begins'-wasn't this new arrangement prickly?

Happily, Spinster Beakman had found herself a husband at last, a widower with two children, a fellow of middle years hired on by the squire, Sir Romney Embleton, as both a surgeon for the inevitable accidental injuries on his estate, and as a dispensing apothecary in his off-hours. Both the brick-works and the tannery used this new-come Mr. Archer's services, sending their sick and hurt to him with coloured paper chits which required him to treat or dose them for free, though both establishments paid him an annual retainer, as did Sir Romney.

'They've one o' them new cottages, east near the brick-works,' Will Cony told them, 'an' ol' Beakman's set up proper by their fire in his old age, thank th' Lord… though he does tramp in 'ere when th' weather's good, fer th' newspapers, th' ale, an' th' ploughman's dinner.' That would have been an apple, a slab of cheese, a pint of beer, and perhaps a hunk of bread; a fixture on every rural tavern's chalked menu board the whole nation over. 'Fall off yer 'orse, Cap'm Lewrie, an' Mister Archer'll fix ye right up, no matter 'ow many bones that ye break!'

After the better part of an hour spent in pleasant nattering, it was time to get on. The day was drawing to a close, the sun was lowering, the temperature was dropping, and damned if it didn't smell like there might be more snow in the offing. The hired coach-and-four could put themselves up at the livery stables for the night (at Lewrie's expense), but it would take longer to unload the dray waggon of all of his goods, and most-like the waggoner and his beasts would have to put up in Lewrie's barns for the night… and he'd have to feed the man, to boot.

The little convoy clattered on westwards, past the much finer Red Swan Inn, then took the turning for the Chiddingfold road. A half mile onwards, in the vale 'tween two rolling ridges, and there was the drive that led to both Chiswick and Lewrie properties; over a wooden bridge that spanned a narrow, shallow creek rippling over rocks, half covered with skims of ice and now filled with fallen limbs and twigs. Just past the bridge there was a fork; the muddy, unkempt track to the left was Uncle Phineas Chiswick's-a man so miserly that gravel and proper up-keep was too dear. Lewrie's drive lay to the right. There was a muddy patch at its beginning, but beyond that, as the drive ascended the low ridge, it was properly gravelled, almost two coaches in width (quite unlike Phineas Chiswick's, which was barely wide enough for one!) and lined by trees; trees that had grown in height and thickness since Lewrie had last seen them. At present they were bare, but in Spring, they'd be delightful, and provide both shade and a sense that the drive would lead to a welcoming establishment, with nesting birds twittering and flitting about their hatchlings.

And there was Lewrie's house, at last. It was of grey brick and stone, with a Palladian entrance faзade, set back from a circular gravel drive and large, round formal flower bed, now bedraggled and not much to look at, unless one appreciated bare brown stalks and weeds. Lanthorns either side of the entrance and stoop and a single lanthorn by the edge of the flower bed gleamed off the shiny royal blue paint of the door and the large brass Venetian lion door-knocker that Lewrie had fetched back from the Adriatic in '96. Despite the cold, drapes were pulled back in the first-storey windows to display candles, and Christmas wreaths of red-berried holly, ivy, and pine. All three of the fireplaces, and the kitchen chimney at the rear of the house, were fuming as chearly as convivial pipe smokers in a very friendly tavern or coffee-house. Everything said 'come in, be welcome,' yet…

Agamemnon thought Clytemnestra'd be glad t'see him, too, Lewrie sourly told himself as he alit on his own land for the first time in years; wonder if I should tell Cassandra t'wait in the carriage, like he did. And it came to him, a most apt snatch of classical Greek play that he'd stumbled over in his school-days, from Agamemnon, in point of fact:

It is evil and a thing of terror when a wife

sits in the house forlorn with no man by, and hears

rumours that like a fever die to break again.

CHAPTER NINE

He thought it good policy to knock, not just barge in. It took a long two minutes, though, before anyone responded to the rapping of his doorknocker. A sour-looking older woman in a sack gown and mob cap opened the door, looked him up and down as she might inspect a drunken, reeling house-breaker, and in a pinched-nostriled and pursed-lipped impatient way, haughtily enquired, 'Yes? And what is it that you want of this house, sir?'

'I live here…… It's mine' Lewrie snarled back. 'Step lively and tell Mistress Lewrie that Captain Lewrie's home,' he said, walking past the mort, swirling off his boat-cloak, and sailing his gilt-laced cocked hat at the hall tree. 'Now?' Lewrie prompted the woman who was balking in prim outrage. 'Devil take it… hulloa, the house!' Lewrie bellowed in his best quarterdeck voice. 'Anyone to home?' He barely had time to take in the black-and-white chequered marble of his foyer, the family portraits on the walls, the twin Venetian bombй chests at either side of the staircase, before chaos befell him.

First, bugling in alarm, came a setter belonging to his elder son, Sewal-lis, closely escorted by a fluffy, yapping ball of fur he thought was a Pomeranian, with his younger son, Hugh, galloping down the stairs and squealing in eleven-year-old glee, whooping like a Red Indian!

'You're home, oh, you're home!' Hugh cried, all but tackling his papa. 'Home for Christmas, huzzah!'

With Sewallis, ever a much more staid lad, now fourteen, came a second setter, sniffing arseholes with the first and circling about the reunion in a quandary whether to defend the house or go into paroxysms of delight. The fluff-ball, the Pomeranian, had no doubts about the matter; he would continue to yap, growl, and go for the boots of the intruder… once he'd worked up the nerve.

'Sewallis, give us a kiss, lad,' Lewrie bade, arms outstretched to give his eldest a warm hug. 'Best Christmas ever, ain't it? All of us home, for once? Damme, but ye've grown! You, too, Hugh. Two fine young gentlemen, ye've turned out t'be.'

'What did you bring us for Christmas, father?' Hugh asked with an impish look.

'Me… peace… and a waggon-load o' presents,' Lewrie assured him. 'Where's Charlotte? Where's my little Charlotte, hey? And, can someone shut this wee hair-ball up?' he added as the Pomeranian at last worked up enough nerve to nip at his left boot, and get shoved by a swift leg thrust.

Just in time for his daughter to appear on the landing and let out an outraged squeal of alarm to see her beloved lap-yapper be assailed. She came dashing downstairs to scoop the little dog up in her arms, quickly step back a few paces, and glare accusingly.

'Charlotte, there ye are, darlin',' Lewrie said. 'Won't ya come and give your papa a welcomin' kiss?'

'You hurt my dog!' she cried, cradling it like a baby; a madly barking, squirming, bloodthirsty little baby yearning for his throat.

'I never, dearest, he was…,' Lewrie objected, then quieted as his wife descended the stairs, seemingly in no great hurry to welcome her husband back from the wars, and the sea. 'Caroline,' he said in a much soberer taking.