The Golden Ocean

by Patrick O'Brian

  This changing was Liam’s idea, and he insisted upon it although Peter was boiling to be at the fair. ‘It may very well be that you will meet with Mr FitzGerald,’ he said, ‘and you would not wish us all to be shamed with your old frieze coat: besides, there are the lords and the gentry from all the country and their ladies like peacocks for glory—it will never do to show like a scrub.’

  As he spoke he unpacked, spreading Peter’s best coat and polishing the buttons on his sleeve, breathing heavily to make them shine: so Peter made the best of it and when it was over he was glad he had done it, for not only was Liam’s satisfaction plain on his face—and it is always pleasant to please your own people—but for his own part he felt more confident and worldly: and indeed he was a creditable figure to come from an isolated parsonage at the remotest edge of the poorest diocese in the western world. His long-skirted blue coat (handed down from Cousin Spencer), his embroidered waistcoat and his buff breeches (William’s by rights, but pressed into his Majesty’s service for the occasion) were all the product of devoted cutting-down and needling and threading at home, but they looked quite as if they had come from a tailor’s hands; and his gay waistcoat, which represented seven months of loving toil on the part of Laetitia, was finer than any tailor could have produced, particularly as her affectionate zeal had carried the pattern as far as his shoulder-blades, whereas embroidery usually stops at one’s ribs. And as for his linen, that had been grown and retted and spun and woven and tented and bleached entirely at home, and Solomon had no finer linen than that of Ballynasaggart, nor finer lace (if Solomon ever wore lace, which is doubtful indeed) than that which came from the bobbins and pins of Pegeen Ban to hang in a spidery web at Peter’s throat and his wrists.

  ‘Your mother would be proud,’ said Liam, tying Peter’s hair in the black ribbon behind.

  ‘But fine clothes are a vanity,’ said Peter, looking with furtive approval into the glass.

  ‘Sure it’s the coat that makes the man,’ replied Liam, holding his head on one side. ‘Why you might be the son of a bishop, or at least of a dean. I’m glad now that I did not take the buckles away, so I am.’

  ‘Ah, the buckles,’ said Peter, putting his hand to his throat. ‘I wish you may not be right about the thieves at the fair.’

  ‘Pooh,’ said Liam, ‘they’ll not take that thing, for sure. Why will you wear it at all, the green glass?’ He peered at the kind of a buckle in Peter’s stock: it was there more by way of an ornament in his jabot than a thing of utility, and Liam thought it looked incorrect.

  ‘Mother Connell gave it me for a luck-bringer,’ said Peter, with an obstinate look.

  ‘The old dark creature,’ cried Liam. ‘She should be burnt on a faggot.’

  ‘She should not,’ cried Peter.

  ‘Yes she should,’ said Liam. ‘The witch.’

  Peter made no reply for the moment, while he thought about the old strange yellow-faced woman who lived in a desolate cabin beyond the round tower by the sea: in a curious way they were friends; sometimes he brought her fish from the sea, and although she talked to nobody else—even hid when the Rector came by—she would tell him long tales of Cromwell’s time, when she was a girl, and of ancient kings.

  ‘She had it from her grandmother,’ he said, ‘and she thought it came from the Spanish ship. And I tell you what, Liam, she’ll hear what you say if you do not take care.’

  Made bold by the distance Liam snapped his finger and thumb. ‘Little I care for all she may do, the black witch,’ he said, ‘and that green gawd is only some fairing she stole as a girl if ever she was one and not born as old as a crow, which I doubt.’

  A distant roaring came through the low window. ‘They are beginning a race,’ cried Liam, on fire to be gone. ‘Will I wait by the door while you put on your shoes?’

  At the door he may have waited for a time that seemed long to him, but he was gone when Peter came down, though he had been upstairs only the time it took to ram his feet into his shoes, to rip the left one off in order to remove the shoe-horn, and to put the shoe on again: there was Sean still there however, hovering on the door-step and peering impatiently back into the hall and then out over the heads of the crowd.

  ‘There’s the Lord-Lieutenant’s own cousin has just gone by,’ he cried on seeing Peter arrive, ‘in a coach and six with outriders and footmen galore.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Peter, staring into the river of men and horses and asses and carts.

  ‘There,’ cried Sean, darting into the throng as a coach-horn brayed out loud and high, and Peter saw him no more.

  Peter hesitated for a moment, but the tide of people was setting strongly down towards the church and he joined in the wake of a party of butchers, who were marching down the middle of the street, clashing their marrow-bones and cleavers and from time to time uttering a concerted shriek.

  ‘They must know where they are going,’ observed Peter to himself, as he stepped over a blind-drunk soldier lying at peace in the gutter: and he was right, for in a few minutes they had traversed the little town and he was in the tight-packed jostling crowd that lined the green race-course. They were all waiting on the edge and staring away to the right, and Peter wriggled and thrust his way through until he could see the green grass from under the arm of a gigantic seller of tripe; he was half-deafened by the talk and the shouting, but above it all he heard a great roar that swelled, mounting and mounting until it was caught up by the people all about him, and in another moment he saw the horses all close together racing down like a wave of the sea. Then they were passing him with a thunder and pounding and the green turf flew from under their hoofs and Peter found that he was shouting at the top of his lungs and although he could not hear a sound of his voice he could feel the vibration. And they were gone, leaning in on the curve, the beautiful horses, and there was nothing but the brown earth where they had passed and the shouting died away.

  Peter began to recover his breath. ‘The roan won,’ he was crying to the world in general when the words were jerked back down his throat and his hat banged down over his ears as the tripe man brought down the arm that he had been waving these ten minutes past.

  ‘Did you see him?’ cried the tripe man, picking him up and abstractedly straightening his hat. ‘Did you see Pat in his glory a-riding the roan?’ He screeched out a kind of halloo and quietly observed, ‘He’s my own sister’s son, the joy, and I am a ten-pounder this minute, a propertied man. However, I am sorry I beat down your honour’s fine hat: and will you take a piece of the tripe—it was Foylan’s young bullock and one of the best—or a craubeen for love, with the service of Blue Edward, your honour, the propertied man?’

  Peter did not wish to seem proud, still less to offend the good man, so he accepted the pig’s foot, wrapped the end of it in his handkerchief to keep it from his flowered waistcoat and wandered away into the dispersing crowd. It was now that he found the stalls of fairings and gingerbread, the fire-eater and the sword-swallowing marvel from the County Fermanagh, for they were placed in irregular lanes on the outside of the great expanse of grass, all trodden now into a dun-coloured plain, smelling like all fairs in the open and resounding with the cries of the men with raree-shows, two-headed calves, the great hen of the Orient, admired by the Pope himself and the college of Cardinals, performing fleas and medicines for the moon-pall and the strong fives. He also saw the pea-and-thimble man against whom Liam had warned him, and a gentleman who promised a guinea for sixpence, if only you could pin a garter in a certain way, which seemed quite easy—so easy that Peter regretted his crown. ‘For,’ he thought, ‘there are ten sixpences in a crown, and with ten guineas I could buy such fairings for Sophy and Rachel and Dermot and Hugh and the rest.’

  However, nobody ever seemed to win the guinea, except for an old little wizened man, who was strongly suspected of being the garter’s father.

  ‘Sure the old thief is the garter’s own Da,’ said an indignant grazier from Limerick, who had lost three shil
lings clear, and in the momentary silence that followed these ominous words the gambling man cried, ‘Fair, fair, all fair; fair as the Pope’s election and the course of the stars: come, who’s for a nobleman’s chance at a guinea? Pin him through, pin him fair and the guinea is yours—will you watch how I do it and do the same, so?’ And catching Peter’s eye he said, ‘Let the young gentleman have a try for his craubeen alone—I’ll not ask a penny, but accept of the elegant foot, always providing he has not bitten it yet.’

  ‘Ha ha ha,’ went the crowd, forgetting its wrath, and Peter, with all eyes upon him, started back, feeling wonderfully and undeservedly foolish.

  ‘Why, young squire, never blush; come up and never show bashful,’ cried the showman, and Peter felt his face growing redder.

  ‘Down with the gambling,’ he thought to himself; and leaving the crowd he hurriedly veiled the trotter and thrust it down into his pocket.

  He walked quickly away past the fortune-tellers and the double-jointed prophetical Hungarian dwarf from Dublin, then more slowly through the real business of the fair, the long lines where grooms led and ran horses up and down before the gaze of knowing, horse-faced men; and so, forgetting his vexation, he drifted on to the blue booth where a shanachy was telling a story, accompanying himself with twangs on a harp, fierce or pathetic as the matter required.

  He had seen everything, and two races more, including the last, when it occurred to him that he might find Sean over where the dancing was, and the pipes. But though he scanned the rings of dancers in the ceilidhe, admiring their steps, he saw nothing of Sean; nor did he find him at the big enclosure for the wrestling; and now that the main events of the day were done the shebeens with their whiskey were beginning their trade and already there were men drunk on the ground. Yet it would have been strange if Peter had not been used to that; and tranquilly avoiding two fights and a small riot he made his way slowly back to the inn.

  It took him some time to find it, for there were more people than he had ever seen in the world quite filling the streets, and everywhere there was the confusing babble of voices, English and all the accents of Irish and even the dark speech of some horse-dealing strangers; but suddenly he was facing the open door of the courtyard, and right in front of him were his two missing followers.

  ‘Listen, Peter a gradh,’ said Sean, much agitated; ‘listen, you’ll not be angry now?’

  ‘Why would I be angry, Sean?’ asked Peter, frowning and staring after Liam’s hurrying back.

  ‘Sure my uncle’s the great judge of a horse,’ said Sean. ‘It is in his nature to judge them with skill.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Peter, doubting the worst.

  ‘And there was this grand spotted horse as tall as a church,’ said Sean, ‘and he, regarding its legs and considering their strength, said the horse could run faster than the others. And sure it ran like the wind.’

  ‘Did it, Sean?’ cried Peter, brightening. ‘But there was another ran faster, maybe?’

  ‘Not at all, not at all. My uncle Liam was right and the great spotted horse ran—it flew, never touching the earth. The other horses, you would have said it was assess they were, barely creeping along.’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘But—you’ll never be furious now, nor wicked?—they crept in the right direction, while the great spotted horse went away through the crowd to the river, for he scorned to compete with them, and the little jockey-boy sawing at the bridle in vain in vain. They are probably in the County Tyrone by now.’

  ‘Did he lose a great deal, Sean?’ asked Peter.

  ‘He did not,’ said Sean: but from something in his manner Peter took no comfort from his words, and after a second Sean went on, ‘He could not, indeed: at that time he lost nothing at all, the way he had—but you’ll not grow outrageous? Sure you’ll be kind to my uncle and he brokenhearted?’

  ‘Sean,’ said Peter, laying his hand on his arm, ‘you’ll not tell me that they had his pocket picked?’ In that moment Peter had divined the fact; and as if Sean had replied he went on, ‘And yet it was hung round his neck.’

  ‘He had brought it out to be flashing the gold,’ said Sean.

  ‘Well—’ said Peter; but instead of finishing his remark he took a turn up and down the yard.

  ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘there is only the one thing to do. On the eighteenth day of this month I must be in Cork: there is no time to go back, and besides my poor dear father—no, what we must do is to sell Liam’s horse; and I believe that if we find the right man and you ride with care to show him to his best advantage, the creature, we may get two guineas perhaps. It is a grave step to take—why, Sean, what’s the matter?’

  ‘Gone,’ whispered Sean. ‘Pawned.’

  ‘And Placidus too?’

  Sean nodded. ‘With the gombeen-man of Athy,’ he said. ‘But not sold.’

  Peter opened his mouth; but closed it again and paced up and down in the yard.

  ‘And the baggage too, I suppose?’ he asked after a dozen turns.

  Sean nodded. ‘It was his last stroke to win it all back,’ he said.

  Peter renewed his pacing. ‘Well,’ he said, pausing on a turn, ‘at least Placidus is not sold: that would have wounded my father’s heart.’

  Three turns later he said, ‘And with the luck of the world—thanks be to God—’

  ‘Thanks on high,’ said Sean.

  ‘I had shifted into my best clothes, so they are not lost, and I can face the Commodore.’

  And after another three turns he suddenly cried, ‘I have it, Sean: I have our salvation. This Mr FitzGerald I am to meet in the evening; he’s sure to be rich—I’ll ask him to lend me five guineas or six. That will bear our charges and unpawn Placidus. Ha ha, Sean—that’s the way of it,’ he exclaimed, clapping Sean on the shoulder.

  ‘Hoo hoo,’ cried Sean, with a hoot of triumph and relief, his spirits mounting directly. ‘Sure he’ll be delighted to oblige a companion and he the richest man’s son in the West, no doubt, if not close kin to the Deputy.’

  ‘You have not seen him come to the inn?’ asked Peter, reflecting.

  ‘I have not,’ replied Sean, ‘but will I ask of the grooms? He’ll surely have servants before and behind, and his horses may be filling the stables at this very minute, the valuable beasts.’

  ‘Do that thing,’ said Peter, ‘and if you have news of him come and whisper to me privately. I will sit in the great room of the inn.’

  Chapter Two

  HOPE HAD DIED BY SIX O’CLOCK; BUT STILL PETER SAT ON IN HIS corner seat, watching the continual coming and going through the wide-open door. There were farmers and graziers of the richer sort, gentlemen of all sizes and shapes and of every age but his own, red-coated officers, periwigged medical men, black lawyers, snuff-coloured merchants and the clergy in cassocks; footmen in liveries of every colour hurried on errands; parties of young men roared through the windows to their acquaintances within; indeed, half Ireland seemed to be in the great room of the Royal George and Harp. But alas it was the half that did not include the one person he really wanted to see; this person, Mr Peregrine FitzGerald, was unknown to Peter except by reputation and name, but he had a clear notion of what to expect and for hours and hours he had been looking for the arrival of a young fellow about his own age and size, a midshipman in the Royal Navy, who would, Peter supposed, come in and gaze about to find his travelling companion, and who, by his looking about and searching, would advertise his presence.

  It would have been easier, Peter reflected when first he took his seat, if they had both been in the land service, for a red coat would show up at once: but in the Navy the officers wore what they chose, and apart from the King’s cockade there was no way of recognising them at all. But that reflection had taken place a long while ago. The sad change from lively expectation to no hope at all had taken place by six in the afternoon, when the rain began: but when the tall clock coughed and said eight, Peter was still looking earnestly at the door; he was still sp
inning out his mug of tepid porter and making it last, and he was still assuring himself that clocks in public places were very often made to run fast on purpose.

  ‘Mr Palafox?’ asked a voice at his side, and the dregs of the porter splashed on the floor as Peter jumped up. ‘Your servant, sir,’ said the thin figure before him, with an elegant bow. ‘My name is FitzGerald.’

  ‘Servant,’ cried Peter, making a leg, and quite red with pleasure. ‘May I beg you to sit down and take—and take—’He had meant to add, ‘a glass of wine,’ but the sudden recollection that he was quite unable to pay for a small pot of ale, let alone a bottle of claret, pierced into his mind, and he finished with a wave of his hand to an empty chair.

  ‘You are very good, sir,’ said FitzGerald, sitting down. ‘But first I must make my excuses …’ And while he explained why he was so late—no idea the time had been running so fast—much taken up with seeing the races, the town, various friends—Peter gazed at him with the utmost attention that civility would permit. FitzGerald was nothing like what he had expected: for one thing he was wearing a bottle-green coat, and for another he was very much older. And yet on closer inspection he was not so ancient in fact: he wore his own hair (which was red), but it was powdered, and powdered hair, like a wig, made a man appear of an indeterminate age. On second thoughts Peter judged FitzGerald to be about his own age, though indeed his urbane and fashionable air, his very rich clothes and his general ease, made him appear five years older at least.

  FitzGerald talked on in the most agreeable way; but there were two things that prevented Peter from taking much share in the conversation, or indeed from absorbing much of what FitzGerald said. The first was extreme and raging hunger: Peter had had nothing since breakfast, and what with the excitement of the races, the disaster and the long-drawn-out waiting he was so hollow within that if he had been anywhere else he would have gnawed his craubeen with unspeakable joy. The second was the manner and form in which he should frame his request.