She is there: the sweetness of a passing springtime
She is gone: the morning haze - no trace at all.'
Stephen listened gravely and applauded. He said, 'That may sum up the usual relationship between the sexes. Each tends to worship a being of its own creation. Women often expect oranges to grow on apple-trees, and men look for constancy to a purely imaginary ideal: how often a woman proves to be no more than the morning mist,' and slowly he edged Herapath along, sometimes as much as a hundred yards between the poems. In a decent interval he asked after Caroline, who was very well, apart from a slight rash, and after Mrs Wogan, who was somewhat out of sorts, mumpish, and off her food; but she would soon be cured by a sight of these proofs. Speaking as one medical
man to another, Herapath offered a physical explanation for this state of mind and body; and going on from this they fell to discussing the books he should read.
'But more than any book,' said Stephen, 'I do most earnestly recommend a private corpse. Your school cadaver, tossed about in wanton play, your odd heads and parts, indifferently pickled by the porter's wife, are well enough for the coarse processes; but for the fine work, give me a good fresh private corpse, preferably a pauper, to avoid the fat, lovingly preserved in the best spirits of wine, double-refined. Here are eloquent volumes - nocturna vet-sate manu, vet-sate diurna - worth a whole library of mere print: there is your father on the other side of the road. I am sure he will help you to a corpse: he is a worthy man. Do you not perceive your father, Mr Herapath?'
They were approaching the Asciepia, and from it came the old gentleman, carrying a basket; but Michael Herapath was in such a pleasurable flutter of spirits with his book that he did not make him out until, in reply to Stephen's salute, he returned a distant bow. At the same time he shot Stephen a significant look, raised his finger to his lips, and although he did not actually do so, gave the impression of walking on the tips of his toes - a general impression of knowing stealth.
'He is carrying a basket,' observed his son, 'I dare say he has been taking Aunt Putnam soft-shelled crabs.'
'Should you not relieve him of his burden?' said Stephen. 'Enlightened self-interest, no less than filial piety, demands such a course. Good day to you now, and I thank you for your company.'
'Jack,' he said, 'how do you do?'
'Prime, prime - but what's this, Stephen? Have you been in a mill?'
'Pontet-Canet tried to force me into a coach; Keyne and Abel came to my rescue. It amounted to nothing. Tell me, how did Mr Herapath respond to my request?'
'Are you really quite well, Stephen? No injury?'
'Quite well, I thank you. My coat is torn, but I have arranged it with a pin. What said friend Herapath?'
'He spoke up like a friend, like a good 'un; damned the French and all their works, stepped out directly, and came back with these in a basket.' Jack leaned over and brought up a case of pistols with their fittings. 'There. London-made, Joe Manton's best. As pretty a pair as you could wish; I have been playing with them this last half hour, getting the flints just so. Will you give me your coat?' he said, leaning over again for his hussif. 'It is only the sewing of the pocket.'
'I admire the way you sailors sew,' said Stephen, watching him.
'A pretty set of scarecrows we should look, if we were to wait for women to do it for us,' said Jack, stitching away. 'As a youngster I was in Goliath when she wore Admiral Harvey's flag, blue at the main, and we were expected to be uncommon trim: Hessian boots, white breeches, laced hats, black stocks; and anyone who did not pass the Admiral's inspection was put on watch and watch. Only four hours' sleep at a time comes very hard when you are a boy, so we plied our needles and our blacking-balls. But where I really learnt to sew was in Resolution, when Captain Douglas turned me before the mast, as I believe I told you.'
'I remember it. You were made a common sailor for a while, to cure you of lechery. A strange notion, from what you tell me of women on the lower deck; but perhaps it had an effect?'
'It had the effect of enabling me to make myself a suit of hot-weather slops. I will not say, to mend a friend's coat, for that might be ungenerous. We were given so many yards of duck, and we set to in our watch below; they were not your common purser's slops, neither, because we were a dressy ship - half the crew were dandy kiddies -and we topmen of the starboard watch sewed blue ribbons into our seams for church and divisions. And then I was sailmaker's crew as well, and that taught me a gallows sight more, including the use of my left hand, as you see. Tell me, Stephen,' he went on in quite a different tone, 'how do you see the situation at present, and what do you think we should do?'
'The situation, now? Well, I believe the French have smoked me. You know that in my line I have done them all the harm I could, and I think they will kill me for it if ever they can. On the other hand, I think Johnson can protect me.'
'Because of your friendship with Diana?'
'Not at all: I believe he knows nothing of its real nature: mere long acquaintance, no more, for him. And it would not answer if he did. They are not well together. She hates him as a man and as an enemy: Diana is very patriotic, Jack; she feels our reverses most bitterly.'
'Of course she does,' said Jack in a sombre voice. 'So must anyone who has a scrap of pride.'
'She wishes to leave him and to leave America. I have proposed that she should marry me, recover her nationality, and return with us when we are exchanged. If Johnson knew this, he would either provoke me, since he is a very jealous man and one who wishes to keep what I might describe as a harem - they are great duellers in the Southern states, and he has been out many times - or he would throw me to the French.'
Jack thought it better to make no remark on Stephen's offer of marriage, though his consternation was plain enough to a perceptive eye: he said, 'He would protect you, then, out of liking, and because it is the right and proper thing to do?'
'He would not. He is an important man in American intelligence, and his liking would not weigh a feather: no, he believes that he may get some information out of me; and if I do not mistake, he supposed that from a little I may be led, by various forms of pressure, to give more and then more until at last he has turned me entirely.
It is a common practice; I have often known it succeed. But I do not intend to be a party even to the first
