11 The Reverse of the Medal by Patrick O'Brian

Author:Patrick O'Brian [O'Brian, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Retail
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

The Portsmouth night coach was an almost entirely naval concern, apart from the horses and one of the inside passengers, an elderly lady; the coachman had been in Lord Rodney’s household, the guard was a former Marine, and all the passengers belonged to the present Navy in one way or another.

When the stars were beginning to fade in the east, the machine ran past some dim houses and a church on the right-hand side of the road and the elderly lady said, ‘It will be Petersfield in a few minutes: how I hope I have forgot nothing.’ She counted her parcels over again and then said to Stephen, ‘So I am not to buy, sir? That is your firm opinion?’

‘Madam,’ replied Stephen, ‘I repeat that I know nothing of the Stock Exchange: I could not readily distinguish between a bull and a bear. I only say that if your friends’ advice is based upon their persuasion that peace is to be concluded within the next few days, then you should perhaps reflect that they may be mistaken.’

‘And yet they are very knowing, well-informed gentlemen: and then you too, sir, you may be mistaken, may you not?’

‘To be sure, ma’am. I am as fallible as my neighbour – perhaps even more so, indeed.’

The guard blew a fine blast, imitated by most of the younger outside passengers, for whom an English spring night on the top of a coach was nothing in comparison with a night on the billows off Brest.

‘Then that is settled,’ said the lady. ‘I shall certainly not buy. How glad I am that I asked your opinion. Thank you, sir.’

The coach wheeled into the yard of the Crown to change horses, and when the passengers who had been stretching their legs during the operation came aboard again Stephen said to the coachman, ‘You will never forget to set me down at Buriton, I am sure; and if you could do so at the little small ale-house rather than the cross-roads it would save me the weary walk. Here is a three-shilling piece.’

‘Thank you, my lord,’ said the coachman. ‘The ale-house it is.’

‘I am convinced you were right, sir, in advising the gentlewoman not to buy,’ said one of the insides, an accountant at the Dockyard, when Petersfield was behind them. ‘It does not appear to me that there is any real likelihood of peace at present.’

‘I should think not,’ said a tall awkward midshipman, who had spent much of the night kicking the other passengers, not from vice or wantonness but because every time he went to sleep his long legs gave convulsive jerks, entirely of their own accord. ‘I should think not. I passed for lieutenant only last week, and a peace now would be monstrous unjust. It would mean...’ At this point he became aware that he was prating to his elders, a practice discouraged in the service; he fell silent, and pretended to be absorbed in the first red streaks of sunrise far ahead.

‘Two

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