Talleyman: Thrilling historical naval fiction (The Victorian Maritime Adventure Series Book 1) by John James

Author:John James [James, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2021-09-08T20:00:00+00:00

9

So it was a fair way then they were on the journey and the lad with half a crown and nothing else to keep him warm under his sodden rags against the spring rain and the beating wind that drove it horizontal into them. Talleyman had undone his paletot in the hotel, and had not buttoned it up again. He lay almost flat on his back with the rain soaking into his frock and velvet waistcoat. His hat rolled on the boards of the cart. Sometimes he opened his eyes, but mostly, the boy noticed, he kept them screwed up shut. Now and then he had his dreadful fits of coughing, from deep down in his chest.

There was nothing for Michael Hurley to do to keep the donkey on the road, for wasn’t it the only road there was and didn’t the beast know it as well as anyone? So he could spend some time on listening to what Talleyman said as he lay there. Some of it was unintelligible. There were strange names like Pentstemon and Napier, and nonsense words like Owerri, and he seemed very concerned about a partridge, and where was it now. It must be the drink that was talking, he was rambling in the drink, and not in the fever, for Mr Clancy had said it was the drink and didn’t Mr Clancy sell the stuff? And it was only the Irish got the fever and never the English with their fine clothes and their strange food and their money. Oh, it would be a fine thing to have money, to have sovereigns in your pocket to throw carelessly on the bar counter.

Yet it never occurred to the boy, any more than it had occurred to Clancy, that this petty filching of a coin here and there, and the hard brainwork that went into making a stray pound, were hardly worth the labour when he could easily roll this sailor over and take the purse and everything that was in it, and nobody to stop him or take any notice at all. That would have been wicked: but neither Clancy nor the boy thought in terms of real evil. What worried the boy was how to get this vast piece of silver, half a crown, changed into sixty halfpence, that could be hidden here and there and explained away after. He was already finding out that the planning and execution of a swindle was far easier than the problem of fencing the swag.

But there were other things that Talleyman said, and the lad could follow and knew now what this was all about. There was talk of this O’Connor, now, and how he was going to bring out all the people against the English and burn London with a charter, whatever that might be, although sure wasn’t a charter something like part of a ship? And it was all going to happen on the tenth of April, and wasn’t it April by now, though which day of April Michael couldn’t think.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.