'Tiresias represents no more than the warm imaginings of Homer: decent women take no pleasure in the act, but only seek to-'
'Nonsense.'
'I quite agree with you in your dislike of interruptions, Maturin,' said Martin.
'I beg your pardon.' Stephen cocked his ear to the mouth of the wind-sail and said, 'What is all that huzzaying on deck?'
'No doubt they have taken the pahi and now you will be able to carry your charitable theories into practice,' said Martin, but without any real ill-humour.
They both listened attentively, and while they were listening feet came running aft. Padeen opened the door and stood there making inarticulate sounds, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. 'Himself, is it?' asked Stephen. Padeen smiled and nodded and passed Stephen his coat. Stephen put it on, buttoned it, and stood up as the Captain and the first lieutenant came in.
'Good morning, Doctor,' said Jack. 'How are your patients?'
'Good morning, sir,' said Stephen. 'Some are a little contradictory and fractious, but a comfortable slime- draught at noon will deal with that. The others do tolerably well, and are looking forward to their Sunday duff.'
'I am heartily glad to hear it. And I believe you will be glad to hear that we have picked up another of the Norfolk's barrels. A pork-barrel this time, fresh and floating high, marked Boston in December of last year.'
'Does that mean we are close to her?'
'There is no telling within a week or so, but it does mean that we are probably in the same ocean.'
After some more remarks about barrels, their drifting and signs of wear, Martin said, 'I believe, sir, that you mean to read one of Dean Donne's sermons this morning. I have told Killick just where to find it.'
'Yes, sir, I thank you, and he did find it. But now that I have looked it over I feel that it would come better from a learned man, from a real parson. I shall confine myself to the Articles of War, which I do understand and which in any case are obliged to be read once a month.'
This he did: in the pause that followed the singing of the Old Hundredth, Ward, who on these occasions acted as parish clerk as well as captain's clerk, stepped forward, took the slim folio of the Articles from beneath the Bible and passed it to Jack, who began in a strong, minatory voice (though not without a certain relish), 'For the regulating and better government of his Majesty's navies, ships of war, and forces by sea, whereon, under the good providence of God, the wealth, safety, and strength of this kingdom chiefly depend, be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled...
His words came down the wind-sail in snatches as the breeze strengthened on the top of the swell and diminished when the Surprise sank into the trough, and fragments of the Articles mingled with Stephen's and Martin's conversation, which now moved off, by way of the phalarope, to the less dangerous ground of birds.
'Did you ever see a phalarope, at all?' asked Stephen.
'Never a live one, alas; only in the pages of a book, and that a most indifferent cut.'
'Will I describe him to you?'
'If you please.'
'All flag officers, and all persons in or belonging to his Majesty's ships or vessels of war, being guilty of profane oaths, cursings, execrations, drunkenness, uncleanness, or other scandalous actions in derogation of God's honour, and corruption of good manners. .
'But the hen bird is much larger and much brighter; and she is a creature that does not believe that a hen's duty is merely to tend her nest, brood her eggs, and nourish her chicks. I once had the happiness of watching a pair from a fisherman's cabin on the far far tip of the County Mayo; there was a group of them in the neighbourhood, but it was this particular pair I watched, so close to the cabin they were.'
'If any ship or vessel shall be taken as prize, none of the officers, mariners, or other persons on board her, shall be stripped of their clothes, or in any sort pillaged, beaten, or evil-treated...
'The evening she had laid the last of her clutch -'
'Forgive me,' said Martin, laying his hand upon Stephen's knee, 'but how many?'
'Four: snipe-shaped and much the same colours. That same evening, then, she was away and the poor cock had to look after them himself. I was afraid some harm had come to her, but not at all, there she was - and I knew her well from her face and the odd white streak on the side of her bosom - swimming about on the sea and the little lough this side of it and playing with the other hens and the unattached cocks. And all the while the poor fellow brooded the eggs there not fifteen yards from me under a turf-stack, covering them as well as he could from the rain and never eating but five minutes or so in the day. It was worse when they hatched, because clearly they had to be fed single-handed, the four of them bawling and screeching all the day long; and he was not very handy at cleaning up after them either. He grew anxious and thin and partially bald, and there she was on the lough, chasing the other phalaropes and being chased by them, crying pleep, pleep, pleep and never doing a beak's turn by way of labour or toil. There was a fowl that knew how to live a life of her own, I believe.'
'But surely, Maturin, as a married man you cannot approve the phalarope hen?'
'Why, as to that,' said Stephen, with a sudden vivid image of Diana dancing a quadrille, 'perhaps she may carry things a little far; but it does go some way towards redressing a balance that is so shamefully down on the one side alone.'
'Any person in the fleet who shall unlawfully burn or set fire to any magazine or store of powder, or ship, boat, ketch, hoy, or vessel, tackle or furniture thereunto belonging, not then appertaining to an enemy, pirate, or rebel... shall suffer death.'
These words came down the ventilator with unusual force, and after a rather solemn pause Martin asked, 'Just how does one define a hoy, Maturin?'
'As this is a Sunday, I will tell you candidly that I do not know,' said Stephen. 'But I have heard it used by way
