16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
prosperity seemed to have made him rather
selfish. Although he was sailing as Stephen's
assistant he was in fact a clergyman and Jack
had recently given him a couple of livings in
his gift with the promise of a valuable third
when it should fall in; Martin had all the particulars
of these parishes and he discussed
them over and over again, considering the
possibility of different modes of gathering
tithes or their equivalent and improvement of
the glebes. But worse than the dullness of this
conversation was a self-complacency that
Stephen had never known in the penniless
Martin of some years ago, who was incapable
of being a bore. West he was not sure of.
Here again there had been change: the
moody, snappish, nail-biting West of their present
longitude was quite unlike the cheerful
young man who had so kindly and patiently
rowed him about Botany Bay, looking for