coxswain, and of Killick, his steward. He said, 'How in God's - how on earth did Bonden and Killick come here?'
'Captain Kerr sent them with a very polite note. He said since he was to have Acasta instead of you, it was but fair you should have your own people for your next command.'
'That was handsome in Robert Kerr, upon my word, very handsome indeed. My next command ...ha, ha, Sophie. I tell you what - before I go to sea again, I shall fill the house with clocks. There is no life in a room, without there is a clock ticking away in it. There are some that go a twelve-month without winding.'
'Your next command,' began Sophie: but she knew she must not go on to wish that he might never have a next command, that he might never, never go away from home again, nor be exposed to storms, battles, shipwrecks or imprisonment; she knew that an implied condition of their marriage was that she should sit there waiting while he was exposed to all these things; so she ended, 'but I hope, dear Jack, that the clocks will not have to go a year, not a whole year. I am so sorry about the regulator: Charlotte's dormouse got into it, and is having babies.'
'Oh, as for a ship,' said Jack, 'I am in no great hurry unless they offer me Belvidera or Egyptienne on the North American station. What I hope for is one of the new twenty-four pounder frigates now building; and I do not think it would be asking too much - after all, it is not every day a fourth-rate sinks a seventy-four. That would give me some months ashore, seeing that she is ordered just to my liking and dealing with things at home.' A cloud came over their happiness, for things at home must necessarily include the wretched Mr Kimber: they understood one another perfectly, however; Kimber might mean endless complications and perhaps very heavy financial loss, but for the present Charlotte's dormouse was more important by far. He went on, 'Yet my time in frigates is pretty well over. A ship of the line is much more likely, and I shall be in no hurry for that.'
There was so much to say, so many crossed letters to disentangle, such news of the jasmin and the wonderful success of the espaliered apricot-tree, that after a while they lapsed into a delighted silence, holding hands over the kitchen-table like a pair of simpletons, looking at one another with infinite pleasure. Through this silence came the sound of Wilkes and liberty, often repeated and coming nearer. 'That is the children,' said Sophia.
'Yes,' said Jack, 'I saw them marching about like thrones and dominions. But what are they at?'
'They are playing Westminster elections. Your father is standing.' She hesitated for a moment and added apologetically, 'In the Radical interest.'
'Good God!' cried Jack. General Aubrey's snipe-like political career, now seeking to expose corruption, now to participate in it, had often carried him into opposition to Government, but never so far as this. Ever since the General had first been returned for the rotten borough of Gripe, the property of a friend, he had contrived to be a Tory when the First Lord of the Admiralty was a Whig, and some one of the many varieties of Whig when the First Lord was a Tory. The General, a man of demoniac energy that increased with age, with an unquenchable flow of soldierly, unpolished eloquence in the House, had been a thorn in the ministry's side as an opponent and a cruel embarrassment as a supporter. His occasional efforts at helping his son by political influence had always been ill- judged and sometimes nearly disastrous; it is true that the General rarely thought of him, but even so Jack would have reached post rank far earlier if it had not been for his father.
'Shall I call them in?' asked Sophie.
'Yes, do, my dear,' said Jack. 'I should like to make George's acquaintance.'
'Children,' called Sophie, dreading a want of recognition, 'come in and bid your father welcome home. He is come back from America.'
For all her precautions, they stared at him without the least knowledge and looked about the room for some other, more recognizable man: for a moment it was exquisitely painful, but then they remembered their manners, advanced gravely side by side, curtsied, and said 'Good afternoon, sir. Welcome home,' with a quick glance at their mother to see if that were adequate.
'George,' she murmured, 'where is your leg?'
The little boy blushed and hung his head, but gathering his courage he came forward from the door, made a jerky bow, and holding out his hand said, 'I hope I see you well, sir.'
'Welcome home,' whispered his sisters.
'Welcome home,' said George, staring with all his might, and then, with no transition, 'They will be here directly. I heard the cart in the lane. If the news is true, Bonden has promised to bring me an iron hoop. An iron hoop, sir!'
'I dare say you will get it, George,' said his father, smiling.
Charlotte, feeling that the silence which followed might be painful, said politely, 'Grandpapa was here the other day with Sir Francis Burdett, and he explained to us about the Westminster election and Wilkes and liberty. We have been voting for him ever since. Don't you wish he may get in?'
'Children, children,' said Sophie, 'you must change your shoes and wash your hands and faces. Fanny and Charlotte, put on clean pinafores. We are going to sit in the drawing-room.'
'Yes, Mama,' they cried, but at this moment the cart could be heard coming into the stable-yard and they rushed out in a body. A few seconds later they rushed back, cried 'It's true! There has been a famous victory! Shannon has taken Chesapeake! Huzzay, huzzay!' and vanished. They could be heard shouting barbarously, their piercing voices high above the men's deep rumble; and Jack noticed that in the yard they used the broad accent and the broader expressions of the lower deck. Fanny referred to Bonden as 'a goddam swab', but cheerfully, without the least injurious intent; and Charlotte was heard to say that 'although Worlidge was as drunk as Davy's sow, any crew of grass-combing b-s could have harnessed the pony better than that.' True enough: of the four men that made up the household at Ashgrove Cottage, three had been bred to the sea from childhood - they knew nothing of horses; and although the fourth, the weak-headed Worlidge, had been a farmer's boy before the press-gang caught him twenty years ago, he was lying speechless in the bottom of the cart, incapable of moving a finger since before they started back. The others, faced with the mute, immobile, paralytic Worlidge and the loss of the collar had seized the pony to the shafts in a most seamanlike manner; there was not the least possibility of its coming adrift; but since the running bowline round the creature's neck choked it every time it advanced, they had been obliged to push the cart all the way from the Hand and Racquet, where they had celebrated the victory.
However, the exercise had sweated them sober, or at least sober enough to meet the not very exacting naval standards; and when Bonden (the strongest head of all) reported to the drawing-room for orders, his happiness owed little to dog's nose, flip, or raspberry shrub. He gave his captain joy of his return and joy of the victory, and listened with keen attention to Jack's account of the battle, following every move with total understanding. 'If it had
