Post Captain by Patrick O’Brian Page A

road.'
    'Killick,' said Stephen, 'put the ham and a pot of beer in the Captain's room. He may come home late. I am going out.'
    He walked slowly at first, his heart and breathing quite undisturbed, but when the familiar miles had passed under him and he started to climb Polcary, the stronger rhythm had returned, increasing as all his resolution fell away, and by the time he reached the top of the hill his heart was keeping time with his brisk busy watch. 'Thump, thump, thump, you fool,' he said smiling as he timed it. 'It is true, of course, that I have never climbed the hill so fast - my legs are in training, ha, ha, ha. A pretty sight I should look. Kind night that covers me.'
    More slowly now, his senses keen for the least movement in the wood, in Gole's Hanger or the lane beyond: far on his right hand the barking of a roe-buck in search of a doe, and on his left the distant screaming of a rabbit with a stoat at work upon it. An owl. Dim, fast asleep among its trees, the vague shape of the house, and at its far end the one square eye in the tower, shining out.
    Down to the elms, silent and thick-leaved now: the house full-view. And under the elms his own cob tethered to a hazel-bush. He recognized the animal before it whinnied, and he stood stock-still. Creeping forward at its second neigh he stroked its velvet muzzle and its neck, patted it for a while, still staring over its withers at the light, and then turned. After perhaps a hundred yards, with the tower sunk in the trees behind him, he stopped dead and put his hand to his heart. Walked on: a heavy, lumpish pace, stumbling in the ruts, driving himself forward by brute force.
    'Jack,' he said at breakfast next morning, 'I think I must leave you: I shall see whether I can find a place on the mail.'
    'Leave me!' cried Jack, perfectly aghast. 'Oh, surely not?'
    'I am not entirely well, and conceive that my native air might set me up.'
    'You do look miserably hipped,' said Jack, gazing at him now with attention and deep concern. 'I have been so wrapped up in my own damned unhappy business -and now this - that I have not been watching you. I am so sorry, Stephen. You must be damned uncomfortable here, with only Killick, and no company. How I hope you are not really ill. Now I recollect, you have been low, out of spirits, these last weeks - no heart for a jig. Should you like to advise with Dr Vining? He might see your case from the outside, if you understand me. I am sure he is not so clever as you, but he might see it from the outside. Pray let me call him in. I shall step over at once, before he starts on his rounds.'
    It took Stephen the interval between breakfast and the coming of the post to quiet his friend - -he knew his disease perfectly - had suffered from it before - it was nothing a man could die of - he knew the cure -the malady was called solis deprivatio.'
    'The taking away of the sun?' cried Jack. 'Are you making game of me, Stephen? You cannot be thinking of going to Ireland for the sun.'
    'It was a kind of dismal little joke,' said Stephen. 'But I had meant Spain rather than Ireland. You know I have a house in the mountains behind Figueras: part of its roof has fallen in, the part where the sheep live - I must attend to it. Bats there are, free-tailed bats, that I have watched for generations. Here is the post,' he said, going to the window and reaching out. 'You have one letter. I have none.'
    'A bill,' said Jack, putting it aside. 'Oh yes you have, though. I quite forgot. Here in my pocket. I happened to see Diana Villiers yesterday and she gave me this note to deliver - said such handsome things about you, Stephen. We said what a capital shipmate you were, and what a hand with a 'cello and a knife. She thinks the world of you...'
    Perhaps: the note was kind, in its way.
    My dear Stephen,
    How shabbily you treat your friends - all these days without a sign of life. It is true I was horribly disagreeable when last you did me the pleasure of calling. Please