Oh, it came in the mail! EARLIER than Amazon predicted, saints preserve us. Would you like some quotes?
"Hold hard, Stephen," he cried, catching Stephen as he fell again, this time from a standing position. "Where are your sea-legs?"
"It is not a question of sea-legs at all," said Stephen. "The ship is moving about in a very wild, unbridled manner. A crocodile would fall, in such circumstances, without it had wings." (73)
[Babbington] "What did [the Doctor, Stephen] do to you, sir?"
[Mr. X ;)] "Well, I am ashamed to say he took a pistol-ball out of the small of my back. It must have been when I turned to hail for more hands- thank God I did not. At the time I thought it was one of those vile [horses] that were capering about abaft the wheel."
"Oh, sir, surely a horse would never have fired off a pistol?"
"Yet fired it was: and the Doctor said it was lodged hard up against the sciatic nerve."
"What is the sciatic nerve?"
"I have no idea. But once it had recovered from being as I take it stunned, and once I had given the ball an unhandy twist, sending it closer still, the whole thing- I shall not attempt to describe how disagreeable it was, until the Doctor took it out." (231)
And a bit of a longer excerpt, in celebration?
[Stephen] walked up the slope to the rocky edge, and there spread before him and on either hand was the immeasurably vast calm sea. He was not very high above it, but high enough fro the busy puffins, hurrying out to sea or back with their catch, to seem quite small below him as he sat there among the sea-pink with his legs dangling over the void. For some time he contemplated the birds: a few razorbills and guillemots as well as the puffins- remarkably few gulls of any kind- the oyster-catchers' parents (he was confident of the chicks' well-being, having seen the neat shells from which they had hatched) - some rock-doves, and a small band of choughs. Then his eye wandered out over the sea and the lanes that showed upon its prodigious surface, apparently following no pattern and leading nowhere, and he felt rising in his heart that happiness he had quite often known as a boy, and even now at long intervals, particularly at dawn: the nacreous blue of the sea was not the source (though he rejoiced in it) nor the thousand other circumstances he could name, but something wholly gratuitous. A corner of his mind urged him to enquire into the nature of this feeling, but he was most unwilling to do so, partly from a dread of blasphemy (the words "state of grace" were worse than grotesque, applied to a man of his condition), but even more from a wish to do nothing to disturb it.
This importunity had hardly arisen before it was gone. A rock-dove, gliding placidly along before him, abruptly swerved, flying very fast northwards; a peregrine, stooping from high above with the sound of a rocket, struck a cloud of feathers from the dove and bore it off to the mainland cliff, beyond the Surprise. As he watched the falcon's heavier but still rapid flight he heard eight bells strike aboard, followed by the remote pipe of all hands to breakfast and the much more emphatic roar of the hungry seamen: a moment later he saw Jack Aubrey, mother-naked, plunge from the taffrail and swim out towards Old Scratch, his long yellow hair streaming behind him. When he was half way across two seals joined him, those intensely curious animals, sometimes diving and coming up ahead to gaze into his face almost within hand's reach.
"I give you joy of your seals, brother," said Stephen, as Jack waded ashore on the little golden strand, where the skiff now lay high, dry, and immovable. "It is the universal opinion of the good and the wise that there is nothing more fortunate than the company of seals."
"I have always liked them," said Jack, sitting on the gunwale and dripping all over. "If they could speak, I am sure they would say something amiable, but Stephen, have you forgot breakfast?"
"I have not. My mind has been toying with thoughts of coffee, stirabout, white pudding, bacon, toast, marmalade and more coffee, for some considerable time."
"Yet you would never have had it until well after dinner, you know, because your boat is stranded and I doubt you could swim so far."
"The sea has receded!" cried Stephen. "I am amazed."
"They tell me it does so twice a day in these parts," said Jack. "It is technically known as the tide."
"Why, your soul to the devil, Jack Aubrey," said Stephen, who had been brought up on the shores of the Mediterranean, that unebbing sea. He struck his hand to his forehead and exclaimed, "There must be some imbecility, some weakness here. But perhaps I shall grow used to the tide in time. Tell me, Jack, did you notice that the boat was as who should say marooned, and did you then leap into the sea?"
"I believe it was pretty generally observed aboard. Come, clap on to the gunwale and we will run her down. I can almost smell the coffee from here." (184-186)
Oh, and don't forget- Which it's Lobscouse and Figgy-Dowdy and Strasburg Pie!
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