'Lo, Greenwich, where many a shrew is in,' said Stephen, unthinking.
'Greenwich is bad enough, bad enough; there are some very disagreeable females in Greenwich. But it is nothing at all,' said Mould, his voice rising passionately as he caused the stout tiller to tremble under his hand, 'nothing at all, set against Shelmerston, for shrews. Take Mrs Mould, for instance...' He took Mrs Mould and handled her most severely, not only for her ignorant, illiberal, worldly rejection of the plurality of wives - 'Think of Abraham, sir: think of Solomon: remember Gideon - threescore and ten sons, and many wives!' - but also for a variety of shortcomings that it would scarcely be decent to name, all denounced with such vehemence that it would have been necessary to check him if a lighter more or less guided by an idiot boy with a single enormous oar had not drifted across the Ringle's bows, so that her topsail was obliged to be backed at once, to take the way off her, and all sheets let fly, while every soul that could seize a spar fended off in an uproar of reprobation.
It was as though the din stunned both tide and breeze, for when at length the wretched lighter slanted off towards the farther shore, the Ringle no longer answered her helm, but slowly turned upon herself, facing the way she had come: for this was now slack-water, and presently the ebb would begin. Happily the calm was only the respite caused by the setting of the sun, and the reviving breeze carried them well up into the Pool before the downward current had gathered any real strength. Here, to the relief of all hands, they dropped anchor: Reade looked at his watch, laughed aloud, and gave the formal order 'Pipe to supper.'
There was a fair amount of traffic on the river - ship-visiting among the scores of merchantmen, citizens going about their business, parties of pleasure dropping down to Greenwich - and when he and the jubilant Reade had eaten their meal, a capon and a bottle of claret brought from the King's Head to celebrate their wonderful passage, Stephen hailed a passing wherry, which carried him to the Temple stairs.
But at Mr Lawrence's chambers he was confronted by a startled clerk who. said that Mr Lawrence was not in the way- nobody had looked to see the Doctor for at least two days and Mr Lawrence had gone out of town - would not be back until tomorrow - late tomorrow. He would be so sorry to have missed the Doctor.
'He will not miss me at all,' said Stephen. 'I shall sleep at an inn called the Grapes in the Liberties of the Savoy, and I shall spend the early part of tomorrow buying various things and seeing friends. I shall dine at my club, which Mr Lawrence knows. I shall leave a message at the Grapes and at Black's to say where I can be found, if by any chance he should come back sooner than he expects. Otherwise I shall come here at the same time in the evening.'
'Very well, sir. And may I add, sir,' said the clerk in an undertone, 'that the goods have been looked after.'
Stephen was too late to find Sarah and Emily still up, but Mrs Broad gave him a most satisfactory account of their happiness, and they breakfasted with him in the morning, grinding the coffee themselves, bringing toast, kippers, marmalade, describing the wonders of London, perpetually interrupting one another, perpetually breaking off to ask whether he remembered Lima and the splendid organ there, the Street lined with silver, the mountains and the snow, the green ice off Cape Horn.
'Mrs Broad,' he said on leaving the Grapes, 'if anyone should call from Mr Lawrence's chambers, be so good as to say that I shall be at Clementi's pianoforte warehouse until about three, and after that at my club.'
No message did in fact appear, but the time passed agreeably with Mr Hinksey, whom he met at Clementi's and who, after they had dined together at Black's, walked back with Stephen as far as the Temple Bar.
Lawrence was touchingly pleased to see him, obviously feeling very much more concern than his mere duty as Stephen's legal adviser required. 'I am so very glad you have taken our advice,' he said. 'Come in, come in. This is as disagreeable and potentially dangerous a situation as ever I have known. In here, if you please - forgive these papers and the cake. How happy I am that you are here. I had scarcely looked for you until tomorrow. You posted up, I presume?'
'I came by boat,' said Stephen. 'By sea,' he added, observing that his words had no effect whatsoever.
'Ah, indeed?' said Lawrence, for whom this astonishing fact was clearly much the same as a trip from Richmond or Hampton Court. 'A packet, no doubt?'
'No, sir. A private tender, belonging to Mr Aubrey, a vessel of astonishing powers of sailing. No other could have brought us to the Pool of London itself in a number of hours that escapes me for the moment but that filled my shipmates with admiration and astonishment.'
'So you have it yet, this boat. And in the Pool? So much the better. Pray sit down. How very glad I am to see you: I have been growing anxious. Allow me to cut you a piece of cake.' They sat at the crumb-covered table, and Lawrence fetched another glass. 'This is the madeira you sent me a couple of years ago,' he said.
They settled, drinking their wine and eating their cake, collecting themselves and as it were breathing.
'Sir Joseph brought me the documents signed,' said Lawrence. 'I am most obliged to you for your confidence.'
'I am infinitely more obliged to you for your advice and your help,' said Stephen.
Lawrence bowed and went on, 'I gave the bank formal warning within the hour, and then I sent for Pratt. Physical transfers of treasure call for a certain discretion at all times: even more so now, and in this case. I have been growing more anxious, as I say, and Pratt shared my anxiety: we neither of us have heard anything definite, but we have both heard of fresh consultations on the part of Habachtsthal's main lawyers, and of violent, indeed murderous disagreements among those criminals he has so imprudently employed as his agents.' He poured more wine, and said 'I have taken it upon myself to spend some hundreds of your guineas.'
'Of course, of course. You could not oblige me more.'
'Pratt, who understands these things better than any man I know, caused your chests to be repacked in large cases marked Double-Refined Platina and removed to a lead, brass and copper warehouse on the river, by Irongate Stairs, where they can lie until you make arrangements to carry them away elsewhere. Or perhaps to ship them - I do not know your plans, of course. Is the tender of which you speak a ship, or a little pleasure- boat?'
'It is scarcely what the mariners would describe as a ship, but it is a commodious little vessel capable of a circumnavigation; and the Dear knows, I have carried more in less.'
It was no new thing for Dr Maturin's shipmates to load singular cargoes aboard the vessels he sailed in: giant squids on occasion, or little iron-bound chests of extraordinary
weight. He was and always had been a singular gent; but they were used to his little ways - it was known that he carried out learned scientific and political tasks for Government - and although they were a little puzzled by the
