And the world, for once, was at peace. Ninety percent of the Fleet was laid up in-ordinary and there would be no round-shot round his ears for a change. He did, good as he felt, admittedly suffer a tiny twinge of feyness from past experience whenever life tasted so succulently sweet. But it was a very tiny twinge, and it passed.

He had been far to the west country, to Wheddon Cross in Devonshire to visit his grandmother Lewrie, now a Nuttbush, which stratagem by the old lady had saved the estate from his father's clutches, though to his cost. She had faded since his last visit in 1784, but was still among the living; though that, mercifully, could not be said of the dour old squint-a-pipes she' d wed to transfer coverture, and the inheritance, out of Sir Hugo's reach.

And now he was due at the Chiswick estate, there to languish in a lotus-eater's paradise of sleeping late, riding to hounds, and splendid country dinners and dances, until he was due to report to Portsmouth to take command of a vessel named Alacrity. And on that Chiswick estate would be the lovely and charming Caroline Chiswick, who, by the evident fondness in her letters to him, was positively pawing the ground to see him once more.

"What could be more perfect, Cony!" Alan laughed out loud as he turned to look over his shoulder at his "man" Will Cony, who had shared his adventures (and his misadventures) since Yorktown.

" 'Deed i'tis a fair mornin', sir!" Cony enthused back, beaming a farm lad's pleasure to be in such fair country on such a fine morning. "An' there's the squire's house, round the bend, sir. Not a league from the public house at Anglesgreen."