For comfort he wore a loose collar and band instead of his usual cut ruff.

He stretched out his hand to the table at his elbow where lay the Latin version of his Discovery of Guiana, of which he had been turning the pages, and beside it a glass of whisky, almost the last of the thirty-two gallon cask which Lord Boyle had given him in Cork on his way out.

He replenished his glass with water from a silver carafe, and sipped it, for it checked his cold rigours.

As he set it down he looked up to greet a man who had just entered.
The new-comer was not more than forty years old, like the Admiral, but he was lame of his left leg, and held himself with a stoop.

His left arm, too hung limp and withered by his side.