yes, there’s the Wager – she’s the fifth. Centurion, Gloucester, Severn, Pearl and Wager, that makes five. But the Wager don’t count. She’s only an old Indiaman, bought into the service as a storeship, because there is some ridiculous plan of trading with the Indians, and they need a ship for their bolts of cloth and beads and so on. In my opinion it is a vile job – a mere trick to get a vast deal of money into the pocket of a pack of merchants and politicians. Politics are monstrous dirty, you know, and everything is done by backstairs influence. Anyhow, it is quite absurd to call the Wager a man-of-war; and she only mounts twenty guns. Then there is a sloop, the Tryall, and that is all the King’s ships; though there will probably be a victualler or two to carry things some of the way – some little merchantman or other,’ he said with kindly patronage. ‘Now the Severn and the Gloucester have their full complement of officers, because they were already in commission, you see; but the Centurion has not, and that is what we must aim for. I know some of her people -excellent creatures – and my friend Keppel is very anxious that I should join him there. I told you about him, did I not? We were shipmates in the Royal Sovereign.’
‘The one who set fire to you, and thrust you into the North Sea?’
‘Yes. Augustus Keppel: he is only quite a young fellow, but he can be amazingly good company.’
The white gate of a turnpike appeared as they turned a corner and Jack observed, ‘This is the Clapham pike already.’ He looked at his watch and said, ‘We are doing very well.’
‘Jack,’ said Tobias, when the gate was far behind them, ‘when you paid the man at the turnpike before this, he gave you some money. He said, “Here’s your change, your honour.” This one not.’
‘Why, no,’ replied Jack. ‘I hadn’t any change at the first one, so I gave him half a crown; but then of course for this one I already had a pocketful of change.’
Tobias was pondering upon this, when very suddenly he whipped his leg over the saddle, passed the cob’s reins into Jack’s hand and slipped to the ground. He tripped from the speed, but recovered himself and vanished into the tall reeds that stood about a marsh on the low side of the road. The horses saw fit to indulge in a good deal of capering, and Jack dropped his hat and his whip before he brought them to a sense of their duty.
He was waiting with them by the side of the road when Tobias reappeared, and he exclaimed, with something less than his usual good humour, ‘Why, damn your blood, Toby, what do you mean by plunging off in that wild manner? How can you be so strange? You have been in the water,’ he added, seeing that Tobias’ lower half was soaked and his stockings and slippers were masked with greenish mud. ‘You look as pleased as if you had found a guinea.’
Tobias rarely showed any emotion, but now his face displayed a private gleam; and when he was mounted he showed Jack a brown, speckled feather, saying, ‘Do you know what that is?’
‘A phoenix?’
‘No,’ said Tobias, with inward triumph. ‘A bittern. I never saw a bittern before.’ He munched silently and nodded, remembering the bittern in vivid detail: but recollecting himself he cried, ‘I beg your pardon, Jack! I do indeed. You were telling me …’ He hesitated.
Jack was never one to take umbrage; he laughed, and said, ‘I was telling you about Keppel, before we passed the toll-house.’
‘Yes, yes, Keppel; your excellent good friend Mr Keppel,’ said Tobias, with the most concentrated attention, but secretly fondling his bittern’s feather.
‘Well, Keppel, you know, has a prodigious great deal of interest, and seeing that there are two vacancies in the Centurion – two midshipmen unprovided – he has already started stirring up his relatives on my behalf. That is one of the reasons why I am in such a hurry to be in London, because I have appointed to meet him tomorrow.’ They were coming into Bedford at this time, under a threatening sky, and when they had baited their horses and set off again, the first drops were falling.
‘There is another short cut of Charles’s between Cotton End and Deadman’s Green,’ said Jack doubtfully. ‘But seeing that we are in a hurry, perhaps we had better keep to the high road. It looks quite dirty,’ he said, looking up at the towering light-grey clouds. Behind the clouds the sky showed black, and as he spoke a flash of lightning ripped across: the thunder followed close behind, and so loud as to drown his words. He grinned as he calmed the nervous chestnut, and told Tobias, in a nautical bellow, that it looked as though it might come on something prodigious. He dearly loved a storm; rain alone satisfied him, provided there was enough of it, but if it were accompanied by a very great deal of wind, then it raised his spirits to a very high pitch.
‘Have you brought your greatcoat?’ he asked Tobias. Tobias shook his head. ‘What’s in that valise?’ asked Jack, shouting over the double peal.
‘Nothing,’ said Tobias, and as far as he knew this was true – he had put nothing in the valise: it had been there, strapped behind the saddle, as much part of the harness as the big horse-pistols in front, when he had mounted, and he had paid no attention to it. But in point of fact it was filled with necessaries. ‘The poor boy cannot go out into the world without so much as a clean shirt,’ had been Mrs Chaworth’s instant reply on hearing that Tobias was on the wing. She might disapprove of Tobias in some ways, but she had a real affection for him, and she anxiously rummaged the house for things of a suitable size – Jack’s were all far too big – and Georgiana, guided by who knows what unhappy chance, crowned the whole valise-full with another pair of strong list slippers, all bedewed with tears. But Tobias was unaware of this, and the excellent greatcoat behind him remained untouched: Jack therefore left his alone, and very soon both of them were so exceedingly wet that the water ran down inside their clothes, filled their shoes, and poured from them in a stream that contended with the water and mud flung up from the road. The extreme fury of the storm was soon over: the thunder and the lightning moved away to terrify Huntingdon, Rutland and Nottingham, but the rain had set in for the day and it fell without the least respite from that moment onwards. However, Tobias was wonderfully indifferent to foul weather, and Jack, though he preferred a dry back, could put up with a wet one as well as anybody, so they rode steadily through the downpour, conversing as soon as the thunder would let them.
‘You have often mentioned interest,’ said Tobias. ‘What is this interest, I beg?’
‘Well,’ said Jack, considering, ‘it is interest, you know. That is to say, influence, if you understand me – very much the same thing as influence. Everything goes by interest, more or less. It is really a matter of doing favours: I mean, suppose you are in Parliament, and there is a fellow, a minister or a private member, who wants a bill to be passed – if he comes to you and says, “You would oblige me extremely by voting for my bill,” and you do vote for his bill, why then the fellow is bound to do as much for you, if he is a man of honour. And if you do not happen to want to do anything in the parliamentary line, but prefer to get a place under Government for one of your friends, then the fellow with the bill must do what he can to gratify you. Besides, if he don’t, he will never have your vote again, ha, ha. That is, he must do what he can within reason: if you want a thundering good place, like being the Warden of the Stannaries with a thousand a year and all the work done by the deputy-warden, you must do a great deal more for it than just vote once or twice; but if it is just a matter of having someone let into a place where he will have to work very hard every day and get precious little pay for it, which is the case in the Navy, why then there is no great difficulty.’
‘I do not understand how a private member can help you to a place.’
‘Why, don’t you see? You have two
