He said, “That claret will be warm by now. I’ll come down directly.”

Later as he sat at the big desk, writing several letters to be carried to the port officials and chandlers, he thought about all that had happened here in this house. What would become of it when he died? There was only his young nephew, Adam Pascoe, Hugh’s illegitimate son, left to claim the Bolitho inheritance. He was away serving with Captain Thomas Herrick at the moment, but Bolitho decided he would soon do something for the boy to make sure of his rightful ownership of this house. His mouth hardened. Much as he loved his sister Nancy, he would never allow her husband, a Falmouth magistrate and one of the biggest landowners in the county, to get his hands on it.

Ferguson appeared again, his face set in a frown.

“Beg pardon, sir, but there’s a man to see you. He is most insistent.”

“Who is he?”

“I have never laid eyes on him before. A seafaring fellow, there’s no doubt of that, but no officer or gentleman, I’m equally sure!”

Bolitho smiled. It was hard to recall Ferguson as the man who had once been brought aboard his ship Phalarope by the press-gang, he and Allday together, poles apart it had appeared at the time. Yet they had become firm friends, and even when Ferguson had lost an arm at the Saintes he had continued to serve Bolitho here as his steward. Like Allday, he seemed to have that same protective attitude when anything uncertain or unusual was about to occur.

He said, “Show him in. He’ll not be too dangerous, I think.”

Ferguson ushered the visitor through the doors and closed them with obvious reluctance. He would be waiting within a foot of the entrance, Bolitho guessed, just in case.

“What can I do for you?”

The man was thickset and muscular, well tanned and with hair fashioned into a pigtail. He was wearing a coat which was far too small for him, and Bolitho imagined it had been borrowed to cover up his true identity. For there was no mistaking his broad white trousers and buckled shoes. Even if he had been stark naked he would have known him to be a sailor.

“I begs yer pardon for the liberty, sir.” He knuckled his forehead while his eyes moved quickly round the room. “Me name’s Taylor, master’s mate o’ th’ Auriga, sir.”

Bolitho watched him calmly. He had a faint North Country burr, and was obviously nervous. A deserter hoping for mercy, or a place to hide in another ship? It was not unknown for such men to run back to the one and only world where they might be safe with any sort of luck. Yet there was something vaguely familiar about him.

Taylor added quickly, “I was with you in th’ Sparrow, sir. Back in seventy-nine in th’ West Indies.” He watched Bolitho anxiously. “I was maintopman then, sir.”

Bolitho nodded slowly. “Of course, I remember you now.” In the little sloop Sparrow, his first-ever command, when he had been just twenty-three, and the world had seemed a place for reckless enjoyment and unbounded ambition, “We ’eard you was back sir.” Taylor was speaking rapidly. “An’ because o’ me knowin’ you like, I was chosen to come.” He smiled bitterly. “I thought as I’d ’ave to borrow a boat or swim to yer ship. You comin’ ashore so soon made things easier like.” He dropped his eyes under Bolitho’s gaze.