 | CHAPTER XVI. The two admirals |  |
16. CHAPTER XVI.
At rest in that ancient fane;
For he must be armed on the battle day,
With them to deliver Spain!
—Then the march went sounding on,
And the Moors, by noontide sun,
Were dust on Tolosa's plain.”
Mrs. Hemans.
It remains only to give a rapid sketch of the fortunes of
our principal characters, and of the few incidents that are
more immediately connected with what has gone before.
The death of Bluewater was announced to the fleet at sunrise,
by hauling down his flag from the mizzen of the Cæsar.
The vice-admiral's flag came down with it, and re-appeared
at the next minute at the fore of the Plantagenet. But the
little white emblem of rank never went aloft again in honour
of the deceased. At noon, it was spread over his coffin, on
the main-deck of the ship, agreeably to his own request;
and more than once that day, did some rough old tar use
it, to wipe the tear from his eyes.
In the afternoon of the day after the death of one of our
heroes, the wind came round to the westward, and all the
vessels lifted their anchors, and proceeded to Plymouth.
The crippled ships, by this time, were in a state to carry
more or less sail, and a stranger who had seen the melancholy-looking
line, as it rounded the Start, would have fancied
it a beaten fleet on its return to port. The only signs
of exultation that appeared, were the jacks that were flying
over the white flags of the prizes; and even when all had
anchored, the same air of sadness reigned among these victorious
mariners. The body was landed, with the usual
forms; but the procession of warriors of the deep that followed
it, was distinguished by a gravity that far exceeded
the ordinary aspects of mere form. Many of the captains,
and Greenly in particular, had viewed the manæuvring of
Bluewater with surprise, and the latter not altogether without
erased these impressions, leaving no other recollection connected
with his conduct that morning than the brilliant
courage, and admirable handling of his vessels, by which
the fortunes of a nearly desperate day had been retrieved.
Those who did reflect any longer on the subject, attributed
the singularity of the course pursued by the rear-admiral, to
some private orders communicated in the telegraphic signal,
as already mentioned.
It is unnecessary for us to dwell on the particular movements
of the fleet, after it reached Plymouth. The ships
were repaired, the prizes received into the service, and, in
due time, all took the sea again, ready and anxious to
encounter their country's enemies. They ran the careers
usual to English heavy cruisers in that age; and as ships
form our principal characters in this work, perhaps it may
not be amiss to take a general glance at their several fortunes,
together with those of their respective commanders.
Sir Gervaise fairly wore out the Plantagenet, which vessel
was broken up three years later, though not until she had
carried a blue flag at her main, more than two years.
Greenly lived to be a rear-admiral of the red, and died of
yellow-fever in the Island of Barbadoes. The Cæsar, with
Stowel still in command of her, foundered at sea in a winter's
cruise in the Baltic, every soul perishing. This calamity
occurred the winter succeeding the summer of our
legend, and the only relieving circumstance connected with
the disaster, was the fact that her commander got rid of
Mrs. Stowel altogether, from that day forward. The Thunderer
had her share in many a subsequent battle, and Foley,
her captain, died rear-admiral of England, and a vice-admiral
of the red, thirty years later. The Carnatic was commanded
by Parker, until the latter got a right to hoist a
blue flag at the mizzen; which was done for just one day,
to comply with form, and then both ship and admiral were
laid aside, as too old for further use. It should be added,
however, that Parker was knighted by the king on board
his own ship; a circumstance that cast a halo of sunshine
over the close of the life of one, who had commenced his
career so humbly, as to render this happy close more than
equal to his expectations. In direct opposition to this, it
time, to be made Viscount Bowldero, with a feeling just the
reverse of that of Parker's; for, secure of his social position,
and careless of politics, he viewed the elevation with an
indifference that was a natural consequence enough of his
own birth, fortune, and high character. On this occasion,
— it was after another victory, — George II. personally
alluded to the subject, remarking that the success we have
recorded had never met with its reward; when the old seaman
let out the true secret of his pertinaciously declining
an honour, about which he might otherwise have been supposed
to be as indifferent to the acceptance, as to the refusal.
“Sir,” he answered to the remark of the king, “I am duly
sensible of your majesty's favour; but, I can never consent to
receive a patent of nobility that, in my eyes, will always
seem to be sealed with the blood of my closest and best
friend.” This reply was remembered, and the subject was
never adverted to again.
The fate of the Blenheim was one of those impressive
blanks that dot the pages of nautical history. She sailed for
the Mediterranean alone, and after she had discharged her
pilot, was never heard of again. This did not occur, however,
until Captain Sterling had been killed on her decks, in
one of Sir Gervaise's subsequent actions. The Achilles was
suffered to drift in, too near to some heavy French batteries,
before the treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle was signed; and, after
every stick had been again cut out of her, she was compelled
to lower her flag. His earldom and his courage, saved Lord
Morganic from censure; but, being permitted to go up to
Paris, previously to his exchange, he contracted a matrimonial
engagement with a celebrated danseuse, a craft that gave
him so much future employment, that he virtually abandoned
his profession. Nevertheless, his name was on the list of
vice-admirals of the blue, when he departed this life. The
Warspite and Captain Goodfellow both died natural deaths;
one as a receiving-ship, and the other as a rear-admiral of
the white. The Dover, Captain Drinkwater, was lost in
attempting to weather Scilly in a gale, when her commander,
and quite half her crew, were drowned. The York did
many a hard day's duty, before her time arrived; but, in
the end, she was so much injured in a general action as to
was lost overboard, in the very first cruise she took,
after that related in this work. The Elizabeth rotted as a
guard-ship, in the Medway; and Captain Blakely retired
from the service with one arm, a yellow admiral. The
Dublin laid her bones in the cove of Cork, having been condemned
after a severe winter passed on the north coast.
Captain O'Neil was killed in a duel with a French officer,
after the peace; the latter having stated that his ship had
run away from two frigates commanded by the Chevalier.
The Chloe was taken by an enemy's fleet, in the next war;
but Captain Denham worked his way up to a white flag at
the main, and a peerage. The Druid was wrecked that
very summer, chasing inshore, near Bordeaux; and Blewet,
in a professional point of view, never regained the ground
he lost, on this occasion. As for the sloops and cutters, they
went the way of all small cruisers, while their nameless
commanders shared the usual fates of mariners.
Wycherly remained at Wychecombe until the interment
of his uncle took place; at which, aided by Sir Reginald's
influence and knowledge, and, in spite of Tom's intrigues,
he appeared as chief mourner. The affair of the succession
was also so managed as to give him very little trouble.
Tom, discovering that his own illegitimacy was known, and
seeing the hopelessness of a contest against such an antagonist
as Sir Reginald, who knew quite as much of the facts
as he did of the law of the case, was fain to retire from the
field. From that moment, no one heard anything more of
the legacies. In the end he received the £20,000, in the
five per cents. and the few chattels Sir Wycherly had a right
to give away; but his enjoyment of them was short, as he
contracted a severe cold that very autumn, and died of a
malignant fever, in a few weeks. Leaving no will, his property
escheated; but it was all restored to his two uterine
brothers, by the liberality of the ministry, and out of respect
to the long services of the baron, which two brothers, it will
be remembered, alone had any of the blood of Wychecombe
in their veins to boast of. This was disposing of the savings
of both the baronet and the judge, with a very suitable
regard to moral justice.
Wycherly also appeared, though it was in company with
funeral obsequies of Admiral Bluewater. These were of a
public character, and took place in Westminster Abbey.
The carriages of that portion of the royal personages who
were not restrained by the laws of court-entiquette, appeared
in the procession; and several members of that very family
that the deceased regarded as intruders, were present incog.
at his last rites. This, however, was but one of the many
illusions that the great masquerade of life is constantly offering
to the public gaze.
There was little difficulty in establishing the claims of
Mildred, to be considered the daughter of Colonel Bluewater
and Agnes Hedworth. Lord Bluewater was soon satisfied;
and, as he was quite indifferent to the possession of his kinsman's
money, an acquisition he neither wished nor expected,
the most perfect good-will existed between the parties.
There was more difficulty with the Duchess of Glamorgan,
who had acquired too many of the notions of very high
rank, to look with complacency on a niece that had been
educated as the daughter of a sailing-master in the navy.
She raised many objections, while she admitted that she
had been the confidant of her sister's attachment to John
Bluewater. Her second son, Geoffrey, did more to remove
her scruples than all the rest united; and when Sir Gervaise
Oakes, in person, condescended to make a journey to the
Park, to persuade her to examine the proofs, she could not
well decline. As soon as one of her really candid mind
entered into the inquiry, the evidence was found to be irresistible,
and she at once yielded to the feelings of nature.
Wycherly had been indefatigable in establishing his wife's
claims—more so, indeed, than in establishing his own; and,
at the suggestion of the vice-admiral — or, admiral of the
white, as he had become by a recent general promotion—
he consented to accompany the latter in this visit, waiting
at the nearest town, however, for a summons to the
Park, as soon as it could be ascertained that his presence
would be agreeable to its mistress.
“If my niece prove but half as acceptable in appearance,
as my nephew, Sir Gervaise,” observed the duchess, when
the young Virginian was introduced to her, and laying stress
on the word we have italicised—“nothing can be wanting
now, to see my niece; Sir Wycherly Wychecombe has prepared
me to expect a young woman of more than common
merit.”
“My life on it, duchess, he has not raised your expectations
too high. The poor girl is still dwelling in her cottage,
the companion of her reputed mother; but it is time,
Wychecombe, that you had claimed your bride.”
“I expect to find her and Mrs. Dutton at the Hall, on my
return, Sir Gervaise; it having been thus arranged between
us. The sad ceremonies through which we have lately
been, were unsuited to the introduction of the new mistress
to her abode, and the last had been deferred to a more fitting
occasion.”
“Let the first visit that Lady Wychecombe pays, be to
this place,” said the duchess. “I do not command it, Sir
Wycherly, as one who has some slight claims to her duty;
but I solicit it, as one who wishes to possess every hold upon
her love. Her mother was an only sister; and an only
sister's child must be very near to one.”
It would have been impossible for the Duchess of Glamorgan
to have said as much as this before she saw the
young Virginian; but, now he had turned out a person so
very different from what she expected, she had lively hopes
in behalf of her niece.
Wycherly returned to Wychecombe, after this short visit
to Mildred's aunt, and found his lovely bride in quiet possession,
accompanied by her mother. Dutton still remained
at the station, for he had the sagacity to see that he might
not be welcome, and modesty enough to act with a cautious
reserve. But Wycherly respected his excellent wife too
profoundly not to have a due regard to her feelings, in all
things; and the master was invited to join the party. Brutality
and meanness united, like those which belonged to the
character of Dutton, are not easily abashed, and he accepted
the invitation, in the hope that, after all, he was to reap
as many advantages by the marriage of Mildred with the
affluent baronet, as if she had actually been his daughter.
After passing a few weeks in sober happiness at home,
Wycherly felt it due to all parties, to carry his wife to the
Park, in order that she might make the acquaintance of the
was of the party; but Dutton was left behind, as having no
necessary connection with the scenes and the feelings that
were likely to occur. It would be painting the duchess too
much en beau, were we to say that she met Mildred without
certain misgivings and fears. But the first glimpse of her
lovely niece completely put natural feelings in the ascendency.
The resemblance to her sister was so strong as to
cause a piercing cry to escape her, and, bursting into tears,
she folded the trembling young woman to her heart, with a
fervour and sincerity that set at naught all conventional
manners. This was the commencement of a close intimacy;
which lasted but a short time, however, the duchess dying
two years later.
Wycherly continued in the service until the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle,
when he finally quitted the sea. His strong,
native attachments led him back to Virginia, where all his
own nearest relatives belonged, and where his whole heart
might be said to be, when he saw Mildred and his children
at his side. With him, early associations and habits had
more strength than traditions and memorials of the past.
He erected a spacious dwelling on the estate inherited from
his father, where he passed most of his time; consigning
Wychecombe to the care of a careful steward. With the
additions and improvements that he was now enabled to
make, his Virginian estate produced even a larger income
than his English, and his interests really pointed to the
choice he had made. But no pecuniary considerations lay
at the bottom of his selection. He really preferred the
graceful and courteous ease of the intercourse which characterized
the manners of James's river. In that age, they
were equally removed from the coarse and boisterous jollity
of the English country-squire, and the heartless conventionalities
of high life. In addition to this, his sensitive feelings
rightly enough detected that he was regarded in the mother-country
as a sort of intruder. He was spoken of, alluded
to in the journals, and viewed even by his tenants as the
American landlord; and he never felt truly at home in the
country for which he had fought and bled. In England, his
rank as a baronet was not sufficient to look down these little
peculiarities; whereas, in Virginia, it gave him a certain
human nature. “At home,” as the mother-country was then
affectionately termed, he had no hope of becoming a privy
councillor; while, in his native colony, his rank and fortune,
almost as a matter of course, placed him in the council
of the governor. In a word, while Wycherly found
most of those worldly considerations which influence men
in the choice of their places of residence, in favour of the
region in which he happened to be born, his election was
made more from feeling and taste than from anything else.
His mind had taken an early bias in favour of the usages
and opinions of the people among whom he had received his
first impressions, and this bias he retained to the hour of his
death.
Like a true woman, Mildred found her happiness with her
husband and children. Of the latter she had but three; a
boy and two girls. The care of the last was early committed
to Mrs. Dutton. This excellent woman had remained
at Wychecombe with her husband, until death put an end to
his vices, though the close of his career was exempt from
those scenes of brutal dictation and interference that had
rendered the earlier part of her life so miserable. Apprehension
of what might be the consequences to himself, acted
as a check, and he had sagacity enough to see that the
physical comforts he now possessed were all owing to the
influence of his wife. He lived but four years, however.
On his death, his widow immediately took her departure for
America.
It would be substituting pure images of the fancy for a
picture of sober realities, were we to say that Lady Wychecombe
and her adopted mother never regretted the land of
their birth. This negation of feeling, habits, and prejudices,
is not to be expected even in an Esquimaux. They both
had occasional strictures to make on the climate, (and this
to Wycherly's great surprise, for he conscientiously believed
that of England to be just the worst in the world,) on the
fruits, the servants, the roads, and the difficulty of procuring
various little comforts. But, as this was said good-naturedly
and in pleasantry, rather than in the way of complaint, it
led to no unpleasant scenes or feelings. As all three made
occasional voyages to England, where his estates, and more
to go once in about a lustrum, the fruits and the climate
were finally given up by the ladies. After many years,
even the slip-shod, careless, but hearty attendance of the
negroes, came to be preferred to the dogged mannerism of
the English domestics, perfect as were the latter in their
parts; and the whole subject got to be one of amusement,
instead of one of complaint. There is no greater mistake
than to suppose that the traveller who passes once through
a country, with his home-bred, and quite likely provincial
notions thick upon him, is competent to describe, with due
discrimination, even the usages of which he is actually a
witness. This truth all the family came, in time, to discover;
and while it rendered them more strictly critical in
their remarks, it also rendered them more tolerant. As it
was, few happier families were to be found in the British
empire, than that of Sir Wycherly Wychecombe; its head
retaining his manly and protecting affection for all dependent
on him, while his wife, beautiful as a matron as she had
been lovely as a girl, clung to him with the tenderness of a
woman, and the tenacity of the vine to its own oak.
Of the result of the rising in the north, it is unnecessary
to say much. The history of the Chevalier's successes in
the first year, and of his final overthrow at Culloden, is well
known. Sir Reginald Wychecombe, like hundreds of others,
played his cards so skilfully that he avoided committing
himself; and, although he lived and eventually died a suspected
man, he escaped forfeitures and attainder. With Sir
Wycherly, as the head of his house, he maintained a friendly
correspondence to the last, even taking charge of the paternal
estate in its owner's absence; manifesting to the hour of his
death, a scrupulous probity in matters of money, mingled with
an inherent love of management and intrigue, in things that
related to politics and the succession. Sir Reginald lived
long enough to see the hopes of the Jacobites completely
extinguished, and the throne filled by a native Englishman.
Many long years after the events which rendered the
week of its opening incidents so memorable among its actors,
must now be imagined. Time had advanced with its usual
unfaltering tread, and the greater part of a generation had
been gathered to their fathers. George III. had been on
actors of the period of '45, were dead;—many of
them, in a degree, forgotten. But each age has its own
events and its own changes. Those colonies, which in 1745
were so loyal, so devoted to the house of Hanover, in the
belief that political and religious liberty depended on the
issue, had revolted against the supremacy of the parliament
of the empire. America was already in arms against the
mother country, and the very day before the occurrence of
the little scene we are about to relate, the intelligence of the
battle of Bunker Hill had reached London. Although the
gazette and national pride had, in a degree, lessened the
characteristics of this most remarkable of all similar combats,
by exaggerating the numbers of the colonists engaged,
and lessening the loss of the royal troops, the impression
produced by the news is said to have been greater than any
known to that age. It had been the prevalent opinion of
England—an opinion that was then general in Europe, and
which descended even to our own times — that the animals
of the new continent, man included, had less courage and
physical force, than those of the old; and astonishment mingled
with the forebodings of the intelligent, when it was
found that a body of ill-armed countrymen had dared to
meet, in a singularly bloody combat, twice their number of
regular troops, and that, too, under the guns of the king's
shipping and batteries. Rumours, for the moment, were rife
in London, and the political world was filled with gloomy
anticipations of the future.
On the morning of the day alluded to, Westminster Abbey,
as usual, was open to the inspection of the curious and
interested. Several parties were scattered among its aisles
and chapels, some reading the inscriptions on the simple
tablets of the dead which illustrate a nation, in illustrating
themselves; others listening to the names of princes who
derived their consequence from their thrones and alliances;
and still other sets who were wandering among the more
elaborate memorials that have been raised equally to illustrate
insignificance, and to mark the final resting-places of
more modern heroes and statesmen. The beauty of the
weather had brought out more visiters than common, and
and about Palace Yard. Among others, one had a ducal
coronet. This carriage did not fail to attract the attention
that is more than usually bestowed on rank, in England.
All were empty, however, and more than one party of pedestrians
entered the venerable edifice, rejoicing that the
view of a duke or a duchess, was to be thrown in, among
the other sights, gratuitously. All who passed on foot,
however, were not influenced by this vulgar feeling; for,
one group went by, that did not even cast a glance at the
collection of carriages; the seniors of the party being too
much accustomed to such things to lend them a thought,
and the juniors too full of anticipations of what they were
about to see, to think of other matters. This party consisted
of a handsome man of fifty-odd, a lady some three or
four years his junior, well preserved and still exceedingly
attractive; a young man of twenty-six, and two lovely girls,
that looked like twins; though one was really twenty-one,
and the other but nineteen. These were Sir Wycherly and
Lady Wychecombe, Wycherly their only son, then just returned
from a five years' peregrination on the continent of
Europe, and Mildred and Agnes, their daughters. The rest
of the family had arrived in England about a fortnight before,
to greet the heir on his return from the grand tour, as
it was then termed. The meeting had been one of love,
though Lady Wychecombe had to reprove a few innocent
foreign affectations, as she fancied them to be, in her son;
and the baronet, himself, laughed at the scraps of French,
Italian and German, that quite naturally mingled in the
young man's discourse. All this, however, cast no cloud
over the party, for it had ever been a family of entire confidence
and unbroken love.
“This is a most solemn place to me,” observed Sir Wycherly,
as they entered at the Poets' corner, “and one in
which a common man unavoidably feels his own insignificance.
But, we will first make our pilgrimage, and look at
these remarkable inscriptions as we come out. The tomb
we seek is in a chapel on the other side of the church, near
to the great doors. When I last saw it, it was quite alone.”
On hearing this, the whole party moved on; though the
behind them, at the wonders by which they were surrounded.
“Is not this an extraordinary edifice, Wycherly?” half
whispered Agnes, the youngest of the sisters, as she clung
to one arm of her brother, Mildred occupying the other.
“Can the whole world furnish such another?”
“So much for hominy and James' river!” answered the
young man, laughing—“now could you but see the pile at
Rouen, or that at Rheims, or that at Antwerp, or even that
at York, in this good kingdom, old Westminster would have
to fall back upon its little tablets and big names. But Sir
Wycherly stops; he must see what he calls his land-fall.”
Sir Wycherly had indeed stopped. It was in consequence
of having reached the head of the chæur, whence
he could see the interior of the recess, or chapel, towards
which he had been moving. It still contained but a single
monument, and that was adorned with an anchor and other
nautical emblems. Even at that distance, the words “Richard
Bluewater, Rear-Admiral of the White,” might
be read. But the baronet had come to a sudden halt, in
consequence of seeing a party of three enter the chapel, in
which he wished to be alone with his own family. The
party consisted of an old man, who walked with tottering
steps, and this so much the more from the circumstance
that he leaned on a domestic nearly as old as himself,
though of a somewhat sturdier frame, and of a tall imposinglooking
person of middle age, who followed the two with
patient steps. Several attendants of the cathedral watched
this party from a distance with an air of curiosity and respect;
but they had been requested not to accompany it to
the chapel.
“They must be some old brother-officers of my poor
uncle's, visiting his tomb!” whispered Lady Wychecombe.
“The very venerable gentleman has naval emblems about
his attire.”
“Do you—can you forget him, love? 'Tis Sir Gervaise
Oakes, the pride of England! and yet how changed! It
is now five-and-twenty years since we last met; still I
knew him at a glance. The servant is old Galleygo, his
us advance; we cannot be intruders in such a place.”
Sir Gervaise paid no attention to the entrance of the
Wychecombes. It was evident, by the vacant look of his
countenance, that time and hard service had impaired his
faculties, though his body remained entire; an unusual
thing for one who had been so often engaged. Still there
were glimmerings of lively recollections, and even of strong
sensibilities about his eyes, as sudden fancies crossed his
mind. Once a year, the anniversary of his friend's interment,
he visited that chapel; and he had now been brought
here as much from habit, as by his own desire. A chair
was provided for him, and he sat facing the tomb, with the
large letters before his eyes. Still he regarded neither,
though he bowed courteously to the salute of the strangers.
His companion at first seemed a little surprised, if not offended
at the intrusion; but when Wycherly mentioned that
they were relatives of the deceased, he also bowed complacently,
and made way for the ladies.
“This it is as what you wants to see, Sir Jarvy,” observed
Galleygo, jogging his master's shoulder by way of
jogging his memory. “Them 'ere cables and hanchors,
and that 'ere mizzen-mast, with a rear-admiral's flag a-flying,
is rigged in this old church, in honour of our friend
Admiral Blue, as was; but as is now dead and gone this
many a long year.”
“Admiral of the Blue,” repeated Sir Gervaise coldly.
“You 're mistaken, Galleygo, I 'm an admiral of the white,
and admiral of the fleet into the bargain. I know my own
rank, sir.”
“I knows that as well as you does yourself, Sir Jarvy,”
answered Galleygo, whose grammar had rather become
confirmed than improved, by time, “or as well as the First
Lord himself. But Admiral Blue was once your best friend,
and I doesn't at all admire at your forgetting him—one of
these long nights you 'll be forgetting me.”
“I beg your pardon, Galleygo; I rather think not. I remember
you, when a very young man.”
“Well, and so you mought remember Admiral Blue, if
you 'd just try. I know'd ye both when young luffs, myself.”
“This is a painful scene,” observed the stranger to Sir
Wycherly, with a melancholy smile. “This gentleman is
now at the tomb of his dearest friend; and yet, as you see,
he appears to have lost all recollection that such a person
ever existed. For what do we live, if a few brief years are
to render our memories such vacant spots!”
“Has he been long in this way?” asked Lady Wychecombe,
with interest.
The stranger started at the sound of her voice. He looked
intently into the face of the still fair speaker, before he answered;
then he bowed, and replied—
“He has been failing for the last five years, though his
last visit here was much less painful than this. But are
our own memories perfect?—Surely, I have seen that face
before!—These young ladies, too—”
“Geoffrey — dear cousin Geoffrey!” exclaimed Lady
Wychecombe, holding out both her hands. “It is—it must
be the Duke of Glamorgan, Wycherly!”
No further explanations were needed. All the parties recognised
each other in an instant. They had not met for
many—many years, and each had passed the period of life
when the greatest change occurs in the physical appearance;
but, now that the ice was broken, a flood of recollections
poured in. The duke, or Geoffrey Cleveland, as we prefer
to call him, kissed his cousin and her daughters with frank
affection, for no change of condition had altered his simple
sea-habits, and he shook hands with the gentlemen, with a
cordiality like that of old times. All this, however, was
unheeded by Sir Gervaise, who sat looking at the monument,
in a dull apathy.
“Galleygo,” he said; but Galleygo had placed himself
before Sir Wycherly, and thrust out a hand that looked like
a bunch of knuckles.
“I knows ye!” exclaimed the steward, with a grin. “I
know'd ye in the offing yonder, but I couldn't make out
your number. Lord, sir, if this doesn't brighten Sir Jarvy
up, again, and put him in mind of old times, I shall begin to
think we have run out cable to the better end.”
“I will speak to him, duke, if you think it advisable?”
said Sir Wycherly, in an inquiring manner.
“Galleygo,” put in Sir Gervaise, “what lubber fitted that
cable?—he has turned in the clench the wrong way.”
“Ay—ay—sir, they is great lubbers, them stone-cutters,
Sir Jarvy; and they knows about as much of ships, as ships
knows of them. But here is young Sir Wycherly Wychecombe
come to see you—the old 'un's nevy.”
“Sir Wycherly, you are a very welcome guest. Bowldero
is a poor place for a gentleman of your merit; but such
as it is, it is entirely at your service. What did you say the
gentleman's name was, Galleygo?”
“Sir Wycherly Wychecombe, the young 'un—the old 'un
slipped the night as we moored in his house.”
“I hope, Sir Gervaise, I have not entirely passed from
your recollection; it would grieve me sadly to think so.
And my poor uncle, too; he who died of apoplexy in your
presence!”
“Nullus, nulla, nullum. That 's good Latin, hey! Duke?
Nullius, nullius, nullius. My memory is excellent, gentlemen;
nominative, penna; genitive, pennæ, and so on.”
“Now, Sir Jarvy, since you're veering out your Latin, I
should likes to know if you can tell a `clove-hitch' from a
`carrick-bend?”'
“That is an extraordinary question, Galleygo, to put to
an old seaman!”
“Well, if you remembers that, why can't you just as
reasonably remember your old friend, Admiral Blue?”
“Admiral of the blue! I do recollect many admirals of
the blue. They ought to make me an admiral of the blue,
duke; I've been a rear-admiral long enough.”
“You 've been an admiral of the blue once; and that 's
enough for any man,” interrupted Galleygo, again in his
positive manner; “and it isn't five minutes since you know'd
your own rank as well as the Secretary to the Admiralty
himself. He veers and hauls, in this fashion, on an
idee, gentlemen, until he doesn't know one end of it from
t'other.”
“This is not uncommon with men of great age,” observed
the duke. “They sometimes remember the things of their
youth, while the whole of later life is a blank. I have
remarked this with our venerable friend, in whose mind I
of Admiral Bluewater, and even of yourself, Sir
Wycherly. Let me make the effort, Galleygo.”
“Yes, Lord Geoffrey,” for so the steward always called
the quondam reefer, “you does handle him more like a
quick-working boat, than any on us; and so I 'll take an
hopportunity of just overhauling our old lieutenant's young
'uns, and of seeing what sort of craft he has set afloat for
the next generation.”
“Sir Gervaise,” said the Duke, leaning over the chair,
“here is Sir Wycherly Wychecombe, who once served a
short time with us as a lieutenant; it was when you were
in the Plantagenet. You remember the Plantagenet, I trust,
my dear sir?”
“The Plantagenets? Certainly, duke; I read all about
them when a boy. Edwards, and Henrys, and Richards—”
at the last name he stopped; the muscles of his face twitched,
for memory had touched a chord that was always sensitive.
But it was too faintly, to produce more than a pause.
“There, now,” growled Galleygo, in Agnes' face, he being
just then employed in surveying her through a pair of silver
spectacles that were a present from his master, “you
see, he has forgotten the old Planter; and the next thing,
he 'll forget to eat his dinner. It 's wicked, Sir Jarvy, to
forget such a ship.”
“I trust, at least, you have not forgotten Richard Bluewater?”
continued the Duke, “he who fell in our last action
with the Comte de Vervillin?”
A gleam of intelligence shot into the rigid and wrinkled
face; the eye lighted, and a painful smile struggled around
the lips.
“What, Dick!” he exclaimed, in a voice stronger than
that in which he had previously spoken. “Dick! hey!
duke? good, excellent Dick? We were midshipmen together,
my lord duke; and I loved him like a brother!”
“I knew you did! and I dare say now you can recollect
the melancholy occasion of his death?”
“Is Dick dead?” asked the admiral, with a vacant gaze.
“Lord—Lord, Sir Jarvy, you knows he is, and that 'ere
marvel constructure is his monerment—now you must remember
the threshing we guv'd him?”
“Pardon me, Galleygo; there is no occasion for warmth.
When I was a midshipman, warmth of expression was disapproved
of by all the elder officers.”
“You cause me to lose ground,” said the Duke, looking
at the steward by way of bidding him be silent: “is it not
extraordinary, Sir Wycherly, how his mind reverts to his
youth, overlooking the scenes of later life! Yes, Dick is
dead, Sir Gervaise. He fell in that battle in which you were
doubled on by the French—when you had le Foudroyant
on one side of you, and le Pluton on the other—”
“I remember it!” interrupted Sir Gervaise, in a clear
strong voice, his eye flashing with something like the fire
of youth—“I remember it! Le Foudroyant was on our
starboard beam; le Pluton a little on our larboard bow—
Bunting had gone aloft to look out for Bluewater—no—poor
Bunting was killed—”
“Sir Wycherly Wychecombe, who afterwards married
Mildred Bluewater, Dick's niece,” put in the baronet, himself,
almost as eager as the admiral had now become; “Sir
Wycherly Wychecombe had been aloft, but was returned
to report the Pluton coming down!”
“So he did!—God bless him! A clever youth, and he
did marry Dick's niece. God bless them both. Well, sir,
you 're a stranger, but the story will interest you. There
we lay, almost smothered in the smoke, with one two-decker
at work on our starboard beam, and another hammering
away on the larboard bow, with our top-masts over the side,
and the guns firing through the wreck.”
“Ay, now you 're getting it like a book!” exclaimed Galleygo
exultingly, flourishing his stick, and strutting about
the little chapel; “that 's just the way things was, as I
knows from seeing 'em!”
“I 'm quite certain I 'm right, Galleygo?”
“Right! your honour 's righter than any log-book in the
fleet. Give it to 'em, Sir Jarvy, larboard and starboard!”
“That we did—that we did” — continued the old man
earnestly, becoming even grand in aspect, as he rose, always
gentleman-like and graceful, but filled with all his
native fire, “that did we! de Vervillin was on our right,
Bunting—no; young Wychecombe was at my side; he said
a fresh Frenchman was shoving in between us and le Pluton,
sir—God forbid! I thought; for we had enough of them,
as it was. There she comes! See, here is her flying-jib-boom-end—and
there—hey! Wychecombe?—That's the
old Roman, shoving through the smoke!—Cæsar himself!
and there stands Dick and young Geoffrey Cleveland—he
was of your family, duke—There stands Dick Bluewater,
between the knight-heads, waving his hat—HURRAH!—
He 's true, at last! — He 's true, at last — HURRAH!
HURRAH!”
The clarion tones rose like a trumpet's blast, and the
cheering of the old sailor rang in the arches of the Abbey
Church, causing all within hearing to start, as if a voice
spoke from the tombs. Sir Gervaise, himself, seemed surprised;
he looked up at the vaulted roof, with a gaze half-bewildered,
half-delighted.
“Is this Bowldero, or Glamorgan House, my Lord Duke,”
he asked, in a whisper.
“It is neither, Admiral Oakes, but Westminster Abbey;
and this is the tomb of your friend, rear-Admiral Richard
Bluewater.”
“Galleygo, help me to kneel,” the old man added in the
manner of a corrected school-boy. “The stoutest of us all,
should kneel to God, in his own temple. I beg pardon,
gentlemen; I wish to pray.”
The Duke of Glarmorgan and Sir Wycherly Wychecombe
helped the admiral to his knees, and then Galleygo,
as was his practice, knelt beside his master, who bowed his
head on his man's shoulders. This touching spectacle
brought all the others into the same humble attitude, Wycherly,
Mildred and their children, with the noble, kneeling
and praying in company. One by one, the latter arose,
still Galleygo and his master continued on the pavement.
At length Geoffrey Cleveland stepped forward, and raised
the old man, placing him, with Wycherly's assistance, in
the chair. Here he sat, with a calm smile on his aged features,
his open eyes riveted seemingly on the name of his
friend, perfectly dead. There had been a reaction, which
suddenly stopped the current of life, at the heart.
Thus expired Sir Gervaise Oakes, full of years and of
honours; one of the bravest and most successful of England's
sea-captains. He had lived his time, and supplied an
instance of the insufficiency of worldly success to complete
the destiny of man; having, in a degree, survived his faculties,
and the consciousness of all he had done, and all he
merited. As a small offset to this failing of nature, he had
regained a glimmering view of one of the most striking scenes,
and of much the most enduring sentiment, of a long life,
which God, in mercy, permitted to be terminated in the act
of humble submission to his own greatness and glory.
| CHAPTER XVI. The two admirals | |