16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
more cheerful: pigs at home, how best
dressed – pigs, wild, on a remote island in the
South China Sea, that had nourished Captain
Aubrey and his people for a great while – a little
tame black sow at Pullings' father's farm on
the edge of the New Forest that would find
you a basket of trubs, or truffles as some
called them, in a morning, winking and grinning
at you with each trub, never eating a single
one herself.
By the time they reached the port the conversation
was more cheerful still, the words
'homeward bound' recurring very often, with
conjectures about the delightful changes to be
seen in children, gardens, shrubberies and the
like.
'My grandfather,' said Grainger, 'was sailmaker's
mate in the Centurion when Commodore
Anson took the Acapulco galleon in
forty-three: he had his share of the one mil-