 | CHAPTER VI. The two admirals |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
Like figures drawn upon a dial-plate;
Yes ma'am, and no ma'am, uttered softly show,
Every five minutes, how the minutes go.”
Cowper.
It is scarcely necessary to tell the reader that England,
as regarded material civilization, was a very different country
a hundred years since, from what it is to-day. We are writing
of an age of heavy wagons, coaches and six, post-chaises
and four; and not of an era of MacAdam-roads, or of cars
flying along by steam. A man may now post down to a
country-house, some sixty or eighty miles, to dinner; and
this, too, by the aid of only a pair of horses; but, in 1745
such an engagement would have required at least a start on
the previous day; and, in many parts of the island, it would
have been safer to have taken two days' grace. Scotland
was then farther from Devonshire, in effect, than Geneva is
now; and news travelled slowly, and with the usual exaggerations
and uncertainties of delay. It was no wonder,
then, that a Jacobite who was posting off to his country-house—the
focus of an English landlord's influence and
authority—filled with intelligence that had reached him
through the activity of zealous political partisans, preceded
the more regular tidings of the mail, by several hours.
The little that had escaped this individual, or his servants
rather, for the gentleman was tolerably discreet himself, confiding
in only one or two particular friends at each relay,
had not got out to the world, either very fully, or very
inquiries, and he had observed an officer's prudence in keeping
his news for the ears of his superior alone. When Sir
Gervaise joined the party in the drawing-room, therefore, he
saw that Sir Wycherly knew nothing of what had occurred
at the north; and he intended the glance which he directed
at the lieutenant to convey a hearty approval of his discretion.
This forbearance did more to raise the young officer
in the opinion of the practised and thoughtful admiral, than
the gallantry with which the youth had so recently purchased
his commission; for while many were brave, few
had the self-command, and prudence, under circumstances
like the present, that alone can make a man safe in the
management of important public interests. The approbation
that Sir Gervaise felt, and which he desired to manifest, for
Wycherly's prudence, was altogether a principle, however;
since there existed no sufficient reason for keeping the secret
from as confirmed a whig as his host. On the contrary,
the sooner those opinions, which both of them would be apt to
term sound, were promulgated in the neighbourhood, the better
it might prove for the good cause. The vice-admiral, therefore,
determined to communicate himself, as soon as the
party was seated at table, the very secret which he so much
commended the youth for keeping. Admiral Bluewater
joining the company, at this instant, Sir Wycherly led Mrs.
Dutton to the table. No alteration had taken place among
the guests, except that Sir Gervaise wore the red riband;
a change in his dress that his friend considered to be openly
hoisting the standard of the house of Hanover.
“One would not think, Sir Wycherly,” commenced the
vice-admiral, glancing his eyes around him, as soon as all
were seated; “that this good company has taken its place
at your hospitable table, in the midst of a threatened civil
war, if not of an actual revolution.”
Every hand was arrested, and every eye turned towards
the speaker; even Admiral Bluewater earnestly regarding
his friend, anxious to know what would come next.
“I believe my household is in due subjection,” answered
Sir Wycherly, gazing to the right and left, as if he expected
to see his butler heading a revolt; “and I fancy the only
courses, and the appearance of their successors.”
“Ay, so says the hearty, comfortable Devonshire baronet,
while seated at his own board, favoured by abundance
and warm friends. But it would seem the snake was only
scotched; not killed.”
“Sir Gervaise Oakes has grown figurative; with his
snakes and scotchings,” observed the rear-admiral, a little
drily.
“It is Scotch-ing, as you say with so much emphasis,
Bluewater. I suppose, Sir Wycherly—I suppose, Mr. Dutton,
and you, my pretty young lady—I presume all of you
have heard of such a person as the Pretender;—some of you
may possibly have seen him.”
Sir Wycherly now dropt his knife and fork, and sat gazing
at the speaker in amazement. To him the Christian religion,
the liberties of the subject — more especially of the
baronet and lord of the manor, who had four thousand a
year—and the protestant succession, all seemed to be in sudden
danger.
“I always told my brother, the judge—Mr. Baron Wychecombe,
who is dead and gone — that what between the
French, that rogue the Pope, and the spurious offspring of
King James II., we should yet see troublesome times in
England! And now, sir, my predictions are verified!”
“Not as to England, yet, my good sir. Of Scotland I
have not quite so good news to tell you; as your namesake,
here, brings us the tidings that the son of the Pretender has
landed in that kingdom, and is rallying the clans. He has
come unattended by any Frenchmen, it would seem, and has
thrown himself altogether on the misguided nobles and followers
of his house.”
“'T is, at least, a chivalrous and princely act!” exclaimed
Admiral Bluewater.
“Yes—inasmuch as it is a heedless and mad one. England
is not to be conquered by a rabble of half-dressed
Scotchmen.”
“True; but England may be conquered by England, notwithstanding.”
Sir Gervaise now chose to remain silent, for never before
had Bluewater come so near betraying his political bias, in
to find his voice.
“Let me see, Tom,” said the baronet, “fifteen and ten
are twenty-five, and ten are thirty, and ten are forty-five—
it is just thirty years since the Jacobites were up before! It
would seem that half a human life is not sufficient to fill the
cravings of a Scotchman's maw, for English gold.”
“Twice thirty years would hardly quell the promptings
of a noble spirit, when his notions of justice showed him the
way to the English throne,” observed Bluewater, coolly.
“For my part, I like the spirit of this young prince, for he
who nobly dares, nobly deserves. What say you, my beautiful
neighbour?”
“If you mean to address me, sir, by that compliment,”
answered Mildred, modestly, but with the emphasis that the
gentlest of her sex are apt to use when they feel strongly;
“I must be suffered to say that I hope every Englishman
will dare as nobly, and deserve as well in defence of his
liberties.”
“Come—come, Bluewater,” interrupted Sir Gervaise, with
a gravity that almost amounted to reproof; “I cannot permit
such innuendoes before one so young and unpractised.
The young lady might really suppose that His Majesty's
fleet was entrusted to men unworthy to enjoy his confidence,
by the cool way in which you carry on the joke. I propose,
now, Sir Wycherly, that we eat our dinner in peace, and
say no more about this mad expedition, until the cloth is
drawn, at least. It's a long road to Scotland, and there is
little danger that this adventurer will find his way into Devonshire
before the nuts are placed before us.”
“It would be nuts to us, if he did, Sir Gervaise,” put in
Tom Wycherly, laughing heartily at his own wit. “My
uncle would enjoy nothing more than to see the spurious
sovereign on his own estate, here, and in the hands of his
own tenants. I think, sir, that Wychecombe and one or
two of the adjoining manors, would dispose of him.”
“That might depend on circumstances,” the admiral
answered, a little drily. “These Scots have such a thing as
a claymore, and are desperate fellows, they tell me, at a
charge. The very fact of arming a soldier with a short
sword, shows a most bloody-minded disposition.”
“You forget, Sir Gervaise, that we have our Cornish hug,
here in the west of England; and I will put our fellows
against any Scotch regiment that ever charged an enemy.”
Tom laughed again at his own allusion to a proverbial mode
of grappling, familiar to the adjoining county.
“This is all very well, Mr. Thomas Wychecombe, so
long as Devonshire is in the west of England, and Scotland
lies north of the Tweed. Sir Wycherly might as well leave
the matter in the hands of the Duke and his regulars, if it
were only in the way of letting every man follow his own
trade.”
“It strikes me as so singularly insolent in a base-born
boy like this, pretending to the English crown, that I can
barely speak of him with patience! We all know that his
father was a changeling, and the son of a changeling can
have no more right than the father himself. I do not remember
what the law terms such pretenders; but I dare say
it is something sufficiently odious.”
“Filius nullius, Thomas,” said Sir Wycherly, with a
little eagerness to show his learning. “That 's the very
phrase. I have it from the first authority; my late brother,
Baron Wychecombe, giving it to me with his own mouth, on
an occasion that called for an understanding of such matters.
The judge was a most accurate lawyer, particularly
in all that related to names; and I 'll engage, if he were living
at this moment, he would tell you the legal appellation
of a changeling ought to be filius nullius.”
In spite of his native impudence, and an innate determination
to make his way in the world, without much regard to
truth, Tom Wychecombe felt his cheek burn so much, at
this innocent allusion of his reputed uncle, that he was actually
obliged to turn away his face, in order to conceal his
confusion. Had any moral delinquency of his own been
implicated in the remark, he might have found means to
steel himself against its consequences; but, as is only too
often the case, he was far more ashamed of a misfortune over
which he had no possible control, than he would have been
of a crime for which he was strictly responsible in morals.
Sir Gervaise smiled at Sir Wycherly's knowledge of law
terms, not to say of Latin; and turning good-humouredly
relations with him, he said with well-concealed irony—
“Sir Wycherly must be right, Bluewater. A changeling
is nobody—that is to say, he is not the body he pretends to
be, which is substantially being nobody — and the son of
nobody, is clearly a filius nullius. And now having settled
what may be called the law of the case, I demand a truce,
until we get our nuts—for as to Mr. Thomas Wychecombe's
having his nut to crack, at least to-day, I take it there are
too many loyal subjects in the north.”
When men know each other as well as was the case with
our two admirals, there are a thousand secret means of annoyance,
as well as of establishing amity. Admiral Bluewater
was well aware that Sir Gervaise was greatly superior
to the vulgar whig notion of the day, which believed in the
fabricated tale of the Pretender's spurious birth; and the secret
and ironical allusion he had made to his impression on
that subject, acted as oil to his own chafed spirit, disposing
him to moderation. This had been the intention of the
other; and the smiles they exchanged, sufficiently proved
that their usual mental intercourse was temporarily restored
at least.
Deference to his guests made Sir Wycherly consent to
change the subject, though he was a little mystified with the
obvious reluctance of the two admirals to speak of an enterprise
that ought to be uppermost, according to his notion of
the matter, in every Englishman's mind. Tom had received
a rebuke that kept him silent during the rest of the
dinner; while the others were content to eat and drink, as if
nothing had happened.
It is seldom that a party takes its seat at table without
some secret manœuvring, as to the neighbourhood, when
the claims of rank and character do not interfere with personal
wishes. Sir Wycherly had placed Sir Gervaise on his right
and Mrs. Dutton on his left. But Admiral Bluewater had
escaped from his control, and taken his seat next to Mildred,
who had been placed by Tom Wychecombe close to
himself, at the foot of the table. Wycherly occupied the seat
opposite, and this compolled Dutton, and Mr. Rotherham,
the vicar, to fill the other two chairs. The good baronet
had made a wry face, at seeing a rear-admiral so unworthily
friend was never so happy as when in the service of beauty,
he was fain to submit to the arrangement.
That Admiral Bluewater was struck with Mildred's beauty,
and pleased with her natural and feminine manner, one altogether
superior to what might have been expected from
her station in life, was very apparent to all at table; though
it was quite impossible to mistake his parental and frank air
for any other admiration than that which was suitable to
the difference in years, and in unison with their respective
conditions and experience. Mrs. Dutton, so far from taking
the alarm at the rear-admiral's attentions, felt gratification
in observing them; and perhaps she experienced a secret
pride in the consciousness of their being so well merited. It
has been said, already, that she was, herself, the daughter
of a land-steward of a nobleman, in an adjoining county;
but it may be well to add, here, that she had been so great
a favourite with the daughters of her father's employer, as
to have been admitted, in a measure, to their society; and
to have enjoyed some of the advantages of their education.
Lady Wilmeter, the mother of the young ladies, to whom
she was admitted as a sort of humble companion, had formed
the opinion it might be an advantage to the girl to educate
her for a governess; little conceiving, in her own situation,
that she was preparing a course of life for Martha Ray, for
such was Mrs. Dutton's maiden name, that was perhaps the
least enviable of all the careers that a virtuous and intelligent
female can run. This was, as education and governesses
were appreciated a century ago; the world, with all
its faults and sophisms, having unquestionably made a vast
stride towards real civilization, and moral truths, in a thousand
important interests, since that time. Nevertheless, the
education was received, together with a good many tastes, and
sentiments, and opinions, which it may well be questioned,
whether they contributed most to the happiness or unhappiness
of the pupil, in her future life. Frank Dutton, then a
handsome, though far from polished young sea-lieutenant,
interfered with the arrangement, by making Martha Ray
his wife, when she was two-and-twenty. This match was
suitable, in all respects, with the important exception of the
educations and characters of the parties. Still, as a woman
than her husband; and as sailors, in the commencement
of the eighteenth century, formed a class of society much
more distinct than they do to-day, there would have been
nothing absolutely incompatible with the future well-being
of the young couple, had each pursued his, or her own
career, in a manner suitable to their respective duties.
Young Dutton had taken away his bride, with the two thousand
pounds she had received from her father, and for a long
time he was seen no more in his native county. After an
absence of some twenty years, however, he returned, broken
in constitution, and degraded in rank, to occupy the station
he filled at the opening of this tale. Mrs. Dutton brought
with her one child, the beautiful girl introduced to the reader,
and to whom she was studiously imparting all she had herself
acquired, in the adventitious manner mentioned. Such
were the means, by which Mildred, like her mother, had
been educated above her condition in life; and it had been
remarked that, though Mrs. Dutton had probably no cause
to felicitate herself on the possession of manners and sentiments
that met with so little sympathy, or appreciation, in
her actual situation, she assiduously cultivated the same
manners and opinions in her daughter; frequently manifesting
a sort of sickly fastidiousness on the subject of
Mildred's deportment and tastes. It is probable the girl
owed her improvement in both, however, more to the circumstance
of her being left so much alone with her mother,
than to any positive lessons she received; the influence of
example, for years, producing its usual effects.
No one in Wychecombe positively knew the history of
Dutton's professional degradation. He had never risen
higher than to be a lieutenant; and from this station he had
fallen by the sentence of a court-martial. His restoration
to the service, in the humbler and almost hopeless rank of
a master, was believed to have been brought about by Mrs.
Dutton's influence with the present Lord Wilmeter, who was
the brother of her youthful companions. That the husband
had wasted his means, was as certain as that his habits, on
the score of temperance at least, were bad, and that his
wife, if not positively broken-hearted, was an unhappy woman;
one to be pitied, and admired. Sir Wycherly was
the superiority of the wife and daughter, over the husband
and father; and it is due to his young namesake to add,
that his obvious admiration of Mildred was quite as much
owing to her mind, deportment, character, and tastes, as to
her exceeding personal charms.
This little digression may perhaps, in the reader's eyes,
excuse the interest Admiral Bluewater took in our heroine.
With the indulgence of years and station, and the tact of a
man of the world, he succeeded in drawing Mildred out,
without alarming her timidity; and he was surprised at discovering
the delicacy of her sentiments, and the accuracy
of her knowledge. He was too conversant with society, and
had too much good taste, to make any deliberate parade of
opinions; but in the quiet manner that is so easy to those
who are accustomed to deal with truths and tastes as familiar
things, he succeeded in inducing her to answer his own remarks,
to sympathize with his feelings, to laugh when he
laughed, and to assume a look of disapproval, when he felt
that disapprobation was just. To all this Wycherly was a
delighted witness, and in some respects he participated in
the conversation; for there was evidently no wish on the
part of the rear-admiral to monopolize his beautiful companion
to himself. Perhaps the position of the young man,
directly opposite to her, aided in inducing Mildred to bestow
so many grateful looks and sweet smiles, on the older
officer; for she could not glance across the table, without
meeting the admiring gaze of Wycherly, fastened on her
own blushing face.
It is certain, if our heroine did not, during this repast,
make a conquest of Admiral Bluewater, in the ordinary
meaning of the term, that she made him a friend. Sir Gervaise,
even, was struck with the singular and devoted manner
in which his old messmate gave all his attention to the
beautiful girl at his side; and, once or twice, he caught
himself conjecturing whether it were possible, that one as
practised, as sensible, and as much accustomed to the beauties
of the court, as Bluewater, had actually been caught, by
the pretty face of a country girl, when so well turned of
fifty, himself! Then discarding the notion as preposterous,
he gave his attention to the discourse of Sir Wycherly; a
the dinner passed away.
Mrs. Dutton asked her host's permission to retire, with her
daughter, at the earliest moment permitted by propriety. In
quitting the room she cast an anxious glance at the face of
her husband, which was already becoming flushed with his
frequent applications of port; and spite of an effort to look
smiling and cheerful, her lips quivered, and by the time she
and Mildred reached the drawing-room, tears were fast falling
down her cheeks. No explanation was asked, or needed,
by the daughter, who threw herself into her mother's arms,
and for several minutes they wept together, in silence.
Never had Mrs. Dutton spoken, even to Mildred, of the besetting
and degrading vice of her husband; but it had been
impossible to conceal its painful consequences from the
world; much less from one who lived in the bosom of her
family. On that failing which the wife treated so tenderly,
the daughter of course could not touch; but the silent communion
of tears had got to be so sweet to both, that, within
the last year, it was of very frequent occurrence.
“Really, Mildred,” said the mother, at length, after having
succeeded in suppressing her emotion, and in drying her
eyes, while she smiled fondly in the face of the lovely and
affectionate girl; “this Admiral Bluewater is getting to be
so particular, I hardly know how to treat the matter.”
“Oh! mother, he is a delightful old gentleman! and he is
so gentle, while he is so frank, that he wins your confidence
almost before you know it. I wonder if he could have been
serious in what he said about the noble daring and noble
deserving of Prince Edward!”
“That must pass for trifling, of course; the ministry
would scarcely employ any but a true whig, in command
of a fleet. I saw several of his family, when a girl, and
have always heard them spoken of with esteem and respect.
Lord Bluewater, this gentleman's cousin, was very intimate
with the present Lord Wilmeter, and was often at the castle.
I remember to have heard that he had a disappointment in
love, when quite a young man, and that he has ever since
been considered a confirmed bachelor. So you will take
heed, my love.”
“The warning was unnecessary, dear mother,” returned
but must be excused from considering him young enough
for a nearer tie.”
“And yet he has the much-admired profession, Mildred,”
said the mother, smiling fondly, and yet a little archly. “I
have often heard you speak of your passion for the sea.”
“That was formerly, mother, when I spoke as a sailor's
daughter, and as girls are apt to speak, without much reflection.
I do not know that I think better of a seaman's
profession, now, than I do of any other. I fear there is
often much misery in store for soldiers' and sailors' wives.”
Mrs. Dutton's lip quivered again; but hearing a foot at
the door, she made an effort to be composed, just as Admiral
Bluewater entered.
“I have run away from the bottle, Mrs. Dutton, to join
you and your fair daughter, as I would run from an enemy
of twice my force,” he said, giving each lady a hand, in a
manner so friendly, as to render the act more than gracious;
for it was kind. “Oakes is bowsing up his jib with his
brother baronet, as we sailors say, and I have hauled out
of the line, without a signal.”
“I hope Sir Gervaise Oakes does not consider it necessary
to drink more wine than is good for the mind and
body,” observed Mrs. Dutton, with a haste that she immediately
regretted.
“Not he. Gervaise Oakes is as discreet a man, in all
that relates to the table, as an anchorite; and yet he has a
faculty of seeming to drink, that makes him a boon companion
for a four-bottle man. How the deuce he does it, is
more than I can tell you; but he does it so well, that he
does not more thoroughly get the better of the king's enemies,
on the high seas, than he floors his friends under the
table. Sir Wycherly has begun his libations in honour of
the house of Hanover, and they will be likely to make a
long sitting.”
Mrs. Dutton sighed, and walked away to a window, to
conceal the paleness of her cheeks. Admiral Bluewater,
though perfectly abstemious himself, regarded license with
the bottle after dinner, like most men of that age, as a very
venial weakness, and he quietly took a seat by the side of
Mildred, and began to converse.
“I hope, young lady, as a sailor's child, you feel an hereditary
indulgence for a seaman's gossip,” he said. “We,
who are so much shut up in our ships, have a poverty of
ideas on most subjects; and as to always talking of the
winds and waves, that would fatigue even a poet.”
“As a sailor's daughter, I honour my father's calling,
sir; and as an English girl, I venerate the brave defenders
of the island. Nor do I know that seamen have less to say,
than other men.”
“I am glad to hear you confess this, for—shall I be frank
with you, and take a liberty that would better become a
friend of a dozen years, than an acquaintance of a day;—
and, yet, I know not why it is so, my dear child, but I feel
as if I had long known you, though I am certain we never
met before.”
“Perhaps, sir, it is an omen that we are long to know
each other, in future,” said Mildred, with the winning confidence
of unsuspecting and innocent girlhood. “I hope you
will use no reserve.”
“Well, then, at the risk of making a sad blunder, I will
just say, that `my nephew Tom' is anything but a prepossessing
youth; and that I hope all eyes regard him exactly
as he appears to a sailor of fifty-five.”
“I cannot answer for more than those of a girl of nineteen,
Admiral Bluewater,” said Mildred, laughing; “but,
for her, I think I may say that she does not look on him as
either an Adonis, or a Crichton.”
“Upon my soul! I am right glad to hear this, for the
fellow has accidental advantages enough to render him formidable.
He is the heir to the baronetcy, and this estate, I
believe?”
“I presume he is. Sir Wycherly has no other nephew
—or at least this is the eldest of three brothers, I am told—
and, being childless himself, it must be so. My father tells
me Sir Wycherly speaks of Mr. Thomas Wychecombe as
his future-heir.”
“Your father!—Ay, fathers look on these matters with
eyes very different from their daughters!”
“There is one thing about seamen that renders them at
least safe acquaintances,” said Mildred, smiling; “I mean
their frankness.”
“That is a failing of mine, as I have heard. But you
will pardon an indiscretion that arises in the interest I feel
in yourself. The eldest of three brothers—is the lieutenant,
then, a younger son?”
“He does not belong to the family at all, I believe,” Mildred
answered, colouring slightly, in spite of a resolute determination
to appear unconcerned. “Mr. Wycherly Wychecombe
is no relative of our host, I hear; though he bears
both of his names. He is from the colonies; born in Virginia.”
“He is a noble, and a noble-looking fellow! Were I the
baronet, I would break the entail, rather than the acres
should go to that sinister-looking nephew, and bestow them
on the namesake. From Virginia, and not even a relative,
at all?”
“That is what Mr. Thomas Wychecombe says; and even
Sir Wycherly confirms it. I have never heard Mr. Wycherly
Wychecombe speak on the subject, himself.”
“A weakness of poor human nature! The lad finds an
honourable, ancient, and affluent family here, and has not
the courage to declare his want of affinity to it; happening
to bear the same name.”
Mildred hesitated about replying; but a generous feeling
got the better of her diffidence. “I have never seen anything
in the conduct of Mr. Wycherly Wychecombe to
induce me to think that he feels any such weakness,” she
said, earnestly. “He seems rather to take pride in, than
to feel ashamed of, his being a colonial; and you know, we,
in England, hardly look on the people of the colonies as
our equals.”
“And have you, young lady, any of that overweening
prejudice in favour of your own island?”
“I hope not; but I think most persons have. Mr.
Wycherly Wychecombe admits that Virginia is inferior to
England, in a thousand things; and yet he seems to take
pride in his birth-place.”
“Every sentiment of this nature is to be traced to self.
We know that the fact is irretrievable, and struggle to be
proud of what we cannot help. The Turk will tell you he
has the honour to be a native of Stamboul; the Parisian
will boast of his Faubourg; and the cockney exults in Wapping.
fancy that places to which we belong, are not places to be
ashamed of.”
“And yet I do not think Mr. Wycherly at all remarkable
for conceit. On the contrary, he is rather diffident and
unassuming.”
This was said simply, but so sincerely, as to induce the
listener to fasten his penetrating blue eye on the speaker,
who now first took the alarm, and felt that she might have said
too much. At this moment the two young men entered, and
a servant appeared to request that Admiral Bluewater would
do Sir Gervaise Oakes the favour to join him, in the dressing-room
of the latter.
Tom Wychecombe reported the condition of the dinner-table
to be such, as to render it desirable for all but three
and four-bottle men to retire. Hanoverian toasts and sentiments
were in the ascendant, and there was every appearance
that those who remained intended to make a night of
it. This was sad intelligence for Mrs. Dutton, who had
come forward eagerly to hear the report, but who now returned
to the window, apparently irresolute as to the course
she ought to take. As both the young men remained near
Mildred to converse, she had sufficient opportunity to come
to her decision, without interruption, or hindrance.
| CHAPTER VI. The two admirals | |