Excerpt from Morgan's Run by Colleen McCullough, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Mr. Thistlethwaite was not there. He came at eleven in the morning and stayed until five, sitting at "his" table under the window, which bore an inkwell and several quills (but he could buy his own paper, said Dick Morgan tersely), composing his lampoons. These were printed up by Sendall's bookshop in Wine Street and sold there, though Mr. Thistlethwaite also had outlets on a few stalls in Pie Powder Court and Horse Fair, far enough from Sendall's not to affect its market. They sold extremely well, for Mr. Thistlethwaite owned a rare ripeness of epithet and was apt into the bargain. His targets were usually Corporation officials from the Mayor through the Commander of Customs to the Sheriff, or religious entities addicted to pluralism, or those who presided over the courts. Though quite why he had it in for Henry Burgum the pewterer was a mystery -- oh, Burgum was a dyed-in-the-wool villain, but what precisely had he done to Mr. James Thistlethwaite?

And so the supper hour wore down amid a general feeling of repletion and well-being, until promptly at eight o'clock by the old timepiece on the wall next to the slate, Dick Morgan rapped: "Settle up accounts, gentlemen!" After which, his tin cash box satisfyingly heavy, he shepherded the last toddler out the door and bolted it securely. The cash box went upstairs with him and was deposited beneath his own bed with a string tied from its handle to his big toe. Bristol had more than its share of thieves, some of them most artful. In the morning he transferred the mass of coins to a canvas bag and took it to the Bristol Bank in Small Street, a concern headed by, among others, a Harford, an Ames and a Deane. Though no matter which one of Bristol's three banks a man patronized, it would be Quakers looking after his money.


William Henry was sleeping soundly on his right side; Richard lifted the cot closer to the bed, took off his apron, his voluminous white cotton shirt, his linen breeches, his shoes and thick white cotton stockings, and his flannel underdrawers. Then he donned the linen nightshirt Peg had draped across his pillow, untied the ribbon confining his long locks and fitted a nightcap securely over them. All this done, he slipped into bed with a sigh.

Two very different snores emanated through the gaps in the partition between this room and the front one where Dick and Mag slept, but not like the dead. Snores were the epitome of life. Dick produced a resonant rumble, whereas Mag wheezed and whistled. Smiling to himself, Richard rolled onto his side and found Peg, who snuggled up to him despite the warmth of the night and began to kiss his cheek. Very carefully Richard pleated up his nightshirt and hers, then fitted himself against her and cupped a hand around one high, firm breast.

"Oh, Peg, I do love you!" he whispered. "No man was ever gifted with a better wife."

"Nor woman with a better husband, Richard."

In complete agreement, they kissed down to the velvet of their tongues while she nudged her mound against his growing member and purred her pleasure.

"Perhaps," he mumbled afterward, his eyes unwilling to stay open, "we have made a brother or sister for William Henry." He had barely uttered the words before he was asleep.

Though as tired as he, Peg yanked at his nightshirt until it shielded his body from the bottom sheet, then adjusted her own with a dab of its tail to blot the moisture from her crotch. Oh, she thought, I wish Dad and Mum did not snore! Richard does not, and nor, he tells me, do I. Still, snores mean that they sleep and do not hear us. And thank you, dearest Lord, for being kind to my little boy. I know that he is so good You must want him to adorn Heaven, but he adorns this earth too, and he should have his chance. Yet why, dearest Lord, do I feel that I will have no other children?

For she did feel this, and it was a torment. Three years she had waited to fall the first time, then another three years before she fell the second time. Not that she had carried either child poorly, or been unduly sick, or suffered cramps and spasms. Just that somewhere inside her soul she sensed a womb leached of its fertility. The fault did not lie with Richard. Did she so much as look sideways at him with an invitation, he would have her, and never failed (save when a child was ill) to have her when they went to bed. Such a kind and considerate lover! Such a kind and considerate man. His own appetites and pleasures were less important to him than those of the folk who mattered to him. Especially hers and William Henry's. And Mary's. A tear fell into the down pillow and more followed, faster and faster. Why do our children have to go before us? It is not fair, it is not just. I am twoscore and five, Richard is twoscore and seven. Yet we have lost our firstborn, and I miss her so! Oh, how much I miss her!

Excerpted from Morgan's Run, copyright (c)2000 Colleen McCullough. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.