‘No future in the service for that kind of officer, above all with St Vincent at the Admiralty. And then I fear he may not attend to the fifth commandment quite as he should.’ The girls’ faces took on an inward look as they privately ran over the Decalogue: in order of intelligence a little frown appeared on each as its owner reached the part about Sunday travelling, and then cleared as they carried on to the commandment the Admiral had certainly intended.
Post Captain – Patrick O’Brian
She spoke little, in company or out, but she was capable of a sudden dart of sharpness, of a remark that showed much more intelligence and reflection than would have been expected from her rudimentary education and her very quiet provincial life. These remarks had a much greater force, coming from an amiable, pliant, and as it were sleepy reserve, and before now they had startled men who did not know her well — men who had been praying away happily with the conscious superiority of their sex. They dimly grasped an underlying strength, and they connected it with her occasional expression of secret amusement, the relish of something that she did not choose to share.
Post Captain – Patrick O’Brian
‘Get over, you bastard,’ said the girl, in her pure clear young voice. Jack had never heard a girl say bastard before, and he turned to look at her with particular interest. She was busy coping with the mare’s excitement, but after a moment she caught his eye and frowned. He looked away, smiling, for she was the prettiest thing — indeed beautiful with her heightened colour and her fine straight back, sitting her horse with the unconscious grace of a midshipman at the tiller in a lively sea. She had black hair and blue eyes; a certain ram-you-damn-you air that was slightly comic and more than a little touching in so slim a creature. She was wearing a shabby blue habit with white cuffs and lapels, like a naval lieutenant’s coat, and on top of it all a dashing tricorne with a tight curl of ostrich-feather. In some ingenious way, probably by the use of combs, she had drawn up her hair under this hat so as to leave one ear exposed; and this perfect ear, as Jack observed when the mare came crabwise towards him, was as pink as . . .
Post Captain – Patrick O’Brian
Now and then Jack’s big hunter brought his ears to bear; this was a recent purchase, a strongly-built bay, quite up to Jack’s sixteen stone. But it did not much care for hunting, and then like so many geldings it spent much of its time mourning for its lost stones: a discontented horse. If the moods that succeeded one another in its head had taken the form of words they would have run, ‘Too heavy — sits too far forward when we go over a fence — have carried him far enough for one day — shall have him off presently, see if I don’t. I smell a mare! A mare! Oh!’ Its flaring nostrils quivered, and it stamped.
Post Captain – Patrick O’Brian
‘Looking for a fox, are they?’ said Stephen Maturin, as though hippogriffs were the more usual quarry in England, and he relapsed into a brown study, munching slowly upon his bread.
Post Captain – Patrick O’Brian
The president cleared his throat again in the dead silence, and speaking in a clear, seamanlike voice that combined gravity, formality and cheerfulness, he said, ‘Captain Aubrey: it is no small pleasure to me to receive the commands of the court I have the honour to preside at, that in delivering you your sword, I should congratulate you upon its being restored by both friend and foe alike; hoping ere long you will be called upon to draw it once more in the honourable defence of your country.
Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian
They had each received an official notification the day before, and for some reason each had brought it with him, folded or rolled. After a while Babbington and Ricketts took to changing all the words they could into obscenities, secretly in a corner, while Mowett wrote and scratched out on the back of his, counting syllables on his fingers and silently mouthing. Lucock stared straight ahead of him into vacancy. Stephen intently watched the busy unsatisfied questing of a shining dark-red rat-flea on the chequered sailcloth floor.
Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian
‘Oh, I shall plead guilty at once,’ said Stephen. ‘And I shall add that I was sitting in the powder-magazine with a naked light at the time, imagining the death of the King, wasting my medical stores, smoking tobacco and making a fraudulent return of the portable soup. What solemn nonsense it is’ — laughing heartily — ‘I am surprised so sensible a man as you should attribute any importance to the matter.’
‘Oh, I do not mind it,’ cried Jack. ‘How you lie,’ said Stephen affectionately, but within his own bosom.
Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian
‘She’s the Superb; she does so to keep her station and not over-run the Admiral, for she is a superb sailer, you know, the best in the fleet. Did you hear that?’
‘Yes.’
‘It was rather clever, I thought — witty.’
Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian
‘Has she got out of the mole?’ cried Stephen, at a considerable distance. ‘Has the battle begun?’ Reassured, he said, ‘I would not have missed it for a hundred pounds: that damned fellow in Ward B and his untimely fancies — a fine time to cut one’s throat, good lack a-day.’
Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian
The Love Pirate 