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general enumeration of houses, shops and inns unchanged; yet gradually the mood of exultation fell; a certain uneasiness became apparent - there was nobody going in and out of the Crown, which was against nature; all the inshore fishing-boats were drawn up; there was no one standing staring on the beach, though anybody with a glass, and there were glasses by the score in Shelmerston, could not only recognize the ship but also see the great silver-gilt candlestick taken from a pirate in the Great South Sea and now hoisted to her main topgallant masthead: what was amiss? The uneasiness spread slowly and many would have nothing whatsoever to do with it: but when a thick-witted oaf called Harris said that it reminded him of Sweeting Island in the Pacific, where all the people had died suddenly, leaving only Sarah and Emily, everyone turned upon him with surprising ferocity - he might stash that; he might stow his gob; or in the sea-going phrase, he 'might bugger off', taking his ugly black-poxed carcass with him, and his face like an ill-scrubbed hammock.
    'Man the capstan,' called Jack, as the first drops fell.
    They won the stream-anchor with no pain at all, the hands crowding to the bars and thrusting with enormous force; and as soon as it was catted the tide swung the ship's head inshore. They filled the foretopsails, gliding smoothly over the bar with a fathom to spare. And as they came in so an aged, aged man with his face in a bandage pushed off, a small boy sculling over the stern.
    'What ship is that?' he hailed in a high shrill creaking old voice, one hand to his ear.
    'Surprise,' replied Jack in the silence.
    'Where do you hail from?'
    'Shelmerston: last from Fayal.'
    'Surprise. That's right: Surprise,' said the very old man, nodding. 'Do you have a young fellow named John Somers aboard?'
    The silence continued for a moment. John Somers had been drowned off the Horn.
    'Speak up, young Somers,' said Jack in a low voice.
    'Grandad,' called John's brother. 'I am William. John was John was called to Heaven. I am his younger brother,Grandad.'
    'William? William? Yes. I know ee,' said the old man with little or no emotion;
    'How is Mum?' asked William.
    'Dead and buried this year and more.'
    'Let go the anchor,' called Jack Aubrey.
    While the ship was being made safe and the boats were getting over the side someone asked the boy who he was. 'Art Compton,' he said.
    'Then you are my nephew,' exclaimed Peter Wills. 'I have a poll parrot for Alice. How are they all at home, and where is everybody?'
    'They are well enough, I reckon, Uncle Peter. They are all gone off to see Jack Singleton and his mates hanged, over to Worsley. I was left behind to look after Cousin Somers here. Which we drew straws.'
    'Red cutter away,' cried Jack, and so on through the frigate's boats. They pulled ashore through the increasing drizzle, and Jack went straight to the Crown, leading the little girls by the hand and knocking until a decrepit caretaking ostler came to open the door.
    The rain cleared well before sunset, and with the return of the ordinary people and the Shelmerston whores from the hanging - seven men and a child on one gibbet, a sight that had drawn the whole county - the little town grew more cheerful by far, in spite of the news of more deaths, of some quite unlooked-for births and some frank desertions, more cheerful, with fiddles in most of the inns and ale-houses and visiting from cottage to cottage with presents in a truly wonderful abundance.
    But by the time the Crown and all the other houses along the strand were full of noise and light and tumbling anecdote, Jack, having left Sarah and Emily with Mrs Jemmy, a fat, gasping lady, was travelling as fast as a chaise and four could carry him over good roads towards Ashgrove Cottage.
    His massive sea-chest was lashed on behind, of course, but his most recent present for Sophie, a suit of the finest Madeira lace, could not bear crushing, and it travelled on his knee. This caused