16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
rudder that hook into rings or braces as we
say at the back of the stern-post so that the
rudder can swing like a door on its hinges.'
And when they had finished their piece, a
gentle, meditative anonymous manuscript duet
bought at an auction, he said, 'Lord, Stephen,
when you remember how hot we were after
those China ships so short a while ago, and
how simple we should have looked if we had
taken them, with that devilish great eighteenpounder
frigate and the brig coming down on
us with the weather-gage; and when you consider
how happy we are now, to have come
off with the loss of no more than our mizen,
why, it makes you think.'
'I do not know that I should go quite so far as
that,' said Stephen.
'Oh, very well, very well. You may be as satirical
as you please; but I think we have come