Read The Yellow Admiral for Free Online

were to go.
    They went in fact through those back regions where Jack had been so happy as a boy - stables, tack-room, double coach-house, the fine red-brick wall against which he had played single-handed fives for so many hours, the grapehouse, the kitchen garden - where they sat in the grotto for a while and Stephen examined his gun. 'Sure, this is the elegant fowling-piece of the world,' he said, 'and beautifully balanced.'
    'Joe Manton was thoroughly pleased with it. He said the stock had the prettiest grain he had ever seen. And Stephen, take notice of the touch-hole, will you? It is platina, which never corrodes or chokes - no others shoot so sharply.'
    'Upon my soul, Jack, you do yourself proud. I have never had a Manton gun at all, let alone one with a platina touchhole, rich as Beelzebub though I was.'
    'Ain't you rich now, Stephen?' he asked with never a hint of vulgar curiosity; only with a very deep concern.
    'I am not. I carried my fortune to Spain, as you know; and there it has been seized. They had wind of my doings in Peru. But I am in no way desperate, Jack. I have my pay much in arrears, I may observe - as a naval surgeon; and we mean to get rid of that ill-omened place at Barham and take a little small cottage somewhere in these parts. No. I am not desperate at all: it is just that I am in no way to indulge in a platina touch-hole to my gun.'
    'Then we are in the same boat, brother. I had scarcely been home a month before writs started coming in - actions for wrongful seizure, forcible detainer and the like, based on my taking slavers who by one damned quibble or another could claim protection. Most were dismissed out of hand, but two or three were argued before the court and although that dear good man Lawrence did all he could, I was cast in damages. Stephen, you would never believe the amount of damages when it comes to shipping and cargo. I have been refused leave to appeal on the most recent, and there are at least two more pending. Lawrence spoke to the Admiralty counsel, a member of the same inn, who told him that my instructions had been perfectly clear: they forbade me to interfere with any protected vessel, and if in spite of that I did so, I must bear the consequences. For my own part, I spoke to the First Sea Lord - I had always regarded him as a friend - but he was pretty cold and distant, as high as Pontius Pilate, and he gave exactly the same answer, except that he said I must pay the consequences. Well, I can not pay them, if any of the other cases goes against me. Even as things are, we can only just scrape by if Sophie sells Ashgrove: this place and the whole Woolcombe estate are entailed.' Stephen shook his head, looking so wretchedly low that Jack went on, 'But like you, I am not at all desperate. I too have my service pay, and so long as I am a member they can't arrest me. Lord, Stephen, we have been very much worse off. Shall we see if we can find any rabbits?'
    The moment that he stirred from his damp seat the spaniel sprang up and whimpered with eagerness, cast to and fro among the seedling asters, and vanished behind a row of myrtle: here she could be heard marking, at a stand, but she was a silent bitch and uttered nothing but an urgent whine.
    'That will be the gate leading to the common,' said Jack. 'I wanted you to see it in any event, a lovely piece of country.' They walked quickly through, and there on the path some thirty yards beyond there was a white scut bobbing along. Jack whipped up his gun; the rabbit made a somersault; the spaniel raced out and brought it back, breathing deep with satisfaction.
    'So this is the common,' said Stephen, looking over a broad expanse of rough pasture, fern-brake, scattered trees, with here and there a pool; the whole agreeably undulating, autumn-coloured, with a fine great sky over it, adorned with the whitest sailing clouds. 'An elegant common too, so it is; but my ideas are all confused. I had supposed your father and his friends had