Free The Yellow Admiral by Patrick O’Brian Page A

Aubrey. 'Belay there. D'ye hear me, there? If you want a proper mill, have a proper mill, not a God-damned pothouse brawl.'
    The gamekeeper was in too scarlet a passion to answer coherently but his long thin neighbour, Griffiths' clerk, said, 'By all means, sir. Whenever you choose. Wednesday evening in the Dripping Pan, for a ten-pound purse, if your man will stand?'
    Bonden nodded contemptuously. 'Very well,' said Jack. 'Now get you home. Not another word, or I shall commit you for a breach of the peace.'
    Chapter Three
    The sun, distinctly later now, rose over Simmon's Lea, and penetrating into the lanes it lit up Ahab, the Woolcombe mule, with George on the double sack that served for a saddle, Harding on the left side, with the halter in his hand, and Brigid on the right, trotting along and uttering a very rapid series of observations that tumbled over one another like the babbling of a swallow. George was carrying not only the paper, as was his duty, but also the Woolcombe post-bag, as he explained when they came to the breakfast-room window.
    'Good morning, Mama,' he began, beaming through the window, 'Good morning, Cousin Diana, good morning, sir, good morning, sir, good morning sir,' to each of those within. 'We overtook Bonden and Killick just before Willet's rickyard. The gig had somehow run into Willet's slough, and they were puzzled to get it out.'
    'I told them that my Mama would have it on the road in a moment,' cried Brigid, on tip-toe.
    'So we have brought the letters too' - holding up the bag.
    'I carried them part of the way, but they happened to drop. Oh please may we come in? We are so hungry and cold.'
    'Certainly not,' said Stephen. 'Go round to the kitchen and beg Mrs Pearce to give you a piece of bread and a bowl of milk.'
    It was usual at Woolcombe to read one's letters at table, and Jack opened the bag with an anxious heart, dreading to see a lawyer's seal or an official mark of any sort. There was nothing of that kind for him or for any of the women, but he did notice the black Admiralty wax on one of the covers he handed to Dundas.
    'It is just a friendly note from my brother,' said Dundas after a moment, 'saying that if he had known I was to stay ashore so long he would have asked me over for a day or two with the partridges at Fenton, but he dares say that it would be too late now: the Admiral is sure to summon us the minute Berenice can swim, and you perhaps earlier still. I do wish he would give me a decent ship: the Berenice is so old and frail she crumples like a paper nautilus. What is the point of having a brother First Lord, without he gives you a decent ship?'
    No one could discover the answer to this, but Sophie said it was a shame, Diana thought downright shabby, and Clarissa, coming in rather late, made a generally sympathizing murmur.
    After a while Jack said, 'So long as the Admiral don't summon me before Friday, when the committee sits, he may do as he damn well pleases: and give me a duck-punt for a tender, too.' This was an oblique reference to the Bellona's true tender, the Ringle, an American schooner of the kind called a Baltimore clipper, Jack's private property, much coveted by the Admiral for her fast sailing and her outstanding weatherly qualities.
    After breakfast Stephen went to see Bonden in his quarters over the coach-house. He was sitting with his hands in a basin and he explained that he was pickling his fists against Wednesday's fight. 'Not that I can ever get them real hornyleathery by then,' he said, 'but it is better than going in raw-handed, like a fine lady, or a dairy-maid, soft with the butter and cream.'
    'What is your liquor?' asked Stephen.
    'Well, sir, vinegar, very strong tea and spirits of wine, but we put in a little tar-bark and dragon's blood as well. And barber's styptic, of course.'
    'Little do I know of prize-fighting, though I have always had a curiosity to see a right match; but I had supposed that nowadays gloves were used.'
    'Why, so they are,