‘Officer,’ he said with a sigh, and indicated Boillot. ‘This fellow is clearly deranged. I have allowed you to board my vessel; I have allowed you to make a search. It is ludicrous to suppose that three women are on board. So, you have a choice: either allow us to proceed or return us to St Nazaire, where undoubtedly your superior will wish to know why you have risked precipitating an international incident on the whim of a lunatic.’
He stopped, folding his arms and looking directly at the officer while he thanked heaven that, in Boillot’s impetuosity, the student had failed to collect his evidence properly before demanding that chase be given. The expression on the officer’s face wavered, clearly judging the effect on his career should Boillot’s claim prove false.
‘I demand they be taken in!’ Boillot declared suddenly. ‘Do your duty!’
‘Well –’ the officer began, looking between the furious student and the grim Englishman.
‘Do you take orders from every half-grown Jack who gives them?’ Henry enquired gently.
The expression on the officer’s face changed slowly and Henry knew that he had won.
Henry watched until the brigantine was well clear, only then returning to the hold. He walked to a barrel, freed his cock into his hand and rolled the foreskin quickly back and forth until the blood began to harden him. Taking hold of the barrel bung, and smiling as his finger touched the deep trough he had cut on the underside, he pulled it out and poked his erection into the hole. The fleshy bodies of smoked oysters parted on either side of his penis head, feeling strangely like a quim, yet cold. Then something else touched the sensitive skin at the very tip of his cock, something of similar texture to the oysters but warm. For a moment he sensed reluctance, only for the divide to open and a moist and muscular mouth to engulf his erection. He gave a sigh of contentment as Eloise began to suck his penis.
Epilogue
Henry Truscott relaxed back into the armchair, allowing his body to go slowly limp, all except his right arm, which was reserved for lifting the nipperkin of ancient port at his elbow. He exhaled a sigh of absolute contentment and slumped another inch down into the armchair. For him, conditions were at the ideal balance of excitement and contentment. Two attractive, hot-blooded women were devoted to him, grateful, only slightly jealous of one another and accommodating – both of his personal foibles and of his penis. Peggy was perfect – sweet, kind, attentive, yet uninhibited and boisterous when the occasion demanded. Eloise continued to show the occasional flash of temper, but knew that the upshot of her tantrums would invariably be a brisk spanking across his knee. Following such spankings, she would be both contrite and submissive, eager to atone for her bad behaviour. Both girls gave willingly and often, sometimes separately, sometimes together.
Putting the nipperkin to his lips, he took a sip of the rich, cherry-sweet liquid, allowing it to flow over his tongue and bathe his senses in a warm symphony of opulent flavours. Life, he decided, was as near perfect as it was going to get, considering that his most pressing problem was the soreness of his cock following its intrusion into more moist, willing female openings than was perhaps advisable. Still, he reflected, it was churlish to grumble.
For most of the day he and a large company of others had been making merry in honour of the wedding that morning between Todd Gurney and Natalie Moreau. It had not been among the most fashionable of the weddings Henry had attended, but it was certainly among the most enjoyable. The ale and cider had flowed freely, and the port almost as much so, until Peggy now lay with her head in his lap, absently nuzzling his cock through his breeches and too drunk to care who was looking on. Eloise had retired to be sick, much to Henry’s amusement, and was now being ministered to by old Mrs Catchpole.
As Henry took another sip of port and wondered if he could summon the energy to find somewhere quiet to take Peggy for sex, Mrs Catchpole appeared, her face flushed with excitement.
‘Master Henry!’ she cried in agitation.
‘What’s wrong?’ Henry demanded.
‘It’s Miss Eloise,’ the old woman announced. ‘She’s going to have a baby!’
A silence followed, to be broken as suddenly by the crash of the nipperkin on the floor as it fell from Henry’s nerveless fingers.
GLOSSARY
Aldermen – roast geese or turkeys hung with strings of sausages.
A parcel of old crams – nonsense or bombast, literally information that is as much use as rotten crab apples.
Bell swagger – a noisy, coarse bully.
Bene darkmans – good night, in the sense of enquiring after, or wishing for, the success of a nocturnal venture.
Biter – in full ‘a wench whose cunt is ready to bite her arse’, meaning a rampantly lascivious girl.
Bob-tail – any willing girl, but especially one who wiggles her bottom to excite male admiration, also a girl much given to playing with herself.
Breeches bewrayed – breeches soiled through excessive drink or fear.
Bull – one crown.
Buttered bun – a recently used vagina, similar to the modern expression ‘sloppy seconds’.
Clean – skilled, particularly at a manual activity.
Cockish wench and a puppy’s mamma – roughly equivalent to the modern expression ‘hot bitch’.
Crew – a criminal or disreputable gang.
Dell – a young, but ripe girl, in some contexts a virgin.
Dog’s portion – a sniff and a lick, said of men who hanker unsuccessfully after women.
Dowsers – powerful fists capable of knocking an opponent senseless.
Dubber – a professional picklock, also the actual tool.
Dust – money, especially in the form of winnings.
Frog’s wine – gin.
Gambling hells – fashionable gaming houses.
Hog – one shilling.
Miss Laycock and Robby Douglas – the vagina and anus respectively.
Mobility – the mob, as opposed to nobility.
Nipperkin – a vessel containing half a pint, designed for especially strong ale.
Parting my beard – penetrating a woman’s vagina.
Partridge eye – pale red or dark pink wine from the Loire valley.
Rum piece – a physically attractive woman, ‘rum’ meaning good and not odd.
Touranjoul Tourangelle – male and female inhabitants of the Touraine respectively.
Traps – watchmen and thief takers in general.
Upright man – the leader of a criminal gang.
For a more detailed study of period slang see A Classical Dictionary Of The Vulgar Tongue (Captain Francis Grose, 1785; 2nd ed. 1788) and 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (various inc. ‘Hell Fire Dick’, 1811; unabridged reprint 1984, Bibliophile Books).
Notes
1 – Banknotes were originally produced as notes of promise from specific banks. At the end of the eighteenth century, the first official British banknotes were produced in denominations of one and two pounds. In the first year of banknote production, there were nearly 400 convictions for forgery.
2 – In theory, neither the Declaration of the Rights of Man nor the abolition of feudalism endangered either the property or lives of the French nobility. Nevertheless, from July 1789, mob violence had become commonplace and agitators were finding fertile ground among the disaffected peasantry. Among an estimated 80,000 nobles, roughly half fled France, while some 12,000 were either executed or died at the hands of the mob.
Even in the August of 1789, it was clear to the revolutionaries that an invasion of France was to be expected and army recruiting was vigorous.
3 – Towards the end of the eighteenth century, duelling was illegal in that the law regarded a death in a duel as common murder. Nevertheless, public opinion was firmly on the side of duelling as a means of settling disputes of honour and no gentleman could refuse a challenge. Not only were many eminent people involved in duels, even including the Duke of Wellington at a later date, but no jury allowed a co
nviction for murder as a result of a duel until 1808.
4 – The latter half of 1789 was by no means the most violent part of the French revolution, but it was perhaps the most confusing. The collapse of the ancien régime had left a vacuum of authority that was not to be filled until the Assembly had gained full control of the country. Support for the revolution varied greatly from region to region, as did the antagonism of the populace towards its erstwhile rulers. The Church retained control of its land until December of that year.
5 – The guillotine was first used on 25 April 1792 to execute a highwayman named Pelletier. Nevertheless, Dr Guillotine had been attempting to promote it as a method of humane execution for some years. Beheading was adopted as the standard method of capital punishment by the Assembly on 6 October 1791, as it had previously been reserved for those of noble birth and it was felt that all persons sentenced to death should be treated equally. Such executions were originally intended to be by sword stroke, but when this proved both slow and expensive Dr Guillotine’s original proposal of 1 December 1789 was reconsidered.
6 – Burgundy was first auctioned at Christie’s in the 1780s and remained a rare wine in Britain until well into the nineteenth century.
7 – Tyburn had been London’s principal place of execution since the twelfth century, but after 1783 the facility was transferred to Newgate prison. Executions remained public until well into the nineteenth century.
8 – Charles James Fox (1749-1806), British statesman and orator. Not only was Fox among the most noted liberals of his day, but he had managed to earn a reputation as a dissipated rake by the age of fourteen. He incurred massive gambling debts, fought a famous duel in 1779 and in general remained a model of dissipation of which Henry Truscott would undoubtedly have approved.
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