 | CHAPTER I. The two admirals |  |
1. CHAPTER I.
My brother might not claim him; nor your father,
Being none of his, refuse him: This concludes—
My mother's son did get your father's heir;
Your father's heir must have your father's land.”
King John.
The events we are about to relate, occurred near the
middle of the last century, previously even to that struggle,
which it is the fashion of America to call “the old
French War.” The opening scene of our tale, however,
must be sought in the other hemisphere, and on the coast of
the mother country. In the middle of the eighteenth century,
the American colonies were models of loyalty; the very
war, to which there has just been allusion, causing the great
expenditure that induced the ministry to have recourse to
the system of taxation, which terminated in the revolution.
The family quarrel had not yet commenced. Intensely occupied
with the conflict, which terminated not more gloriously
for the British arms, than advantageously for the
British American possessions, the inhabitants of the provinces
were perhaps never better disposed to the metropolitan
state, than at the very period of which we are about to
write. All their early predilections seemed to be gaining
strength, instead of becoming weaker; and, as in nature,
the calm is known to succeed the tempest, the blind attachment
of the colony to the parent country, was but a precursor
of the alienation and violent disunion that were so soon to
follow.
Although the superiority of the English seaman was well
1740, and that of 1763, the naval warfare of the period by
no means possessed the very decided character with which
it became stamped, a quarter of a century later. In our
own times, the British marine appears to have improved in
quality, as its enemies' deteriorated. In the year 1812, however,
“Greek met Greek,” when, of a verity, came “the
tug of war.” The great change that came over the other
navies of Europe, was merely a consequence of the revolutions,
which drove experienced men into exile, and which, by rendering
armies all-important even to the existence of the different
states, threw nautical enterprises into the shade, and
gave an engrossing direction to courage and talent, in another
quarter. While France was struggling, first for independence,
and next for the mastery of the continent, a
marine was a secondary object; for Vienna, Berlin, and
Moscow, were as easily entered without, as with its aid.
To these, and other similar causes, must be referred the explanation
of the seeming invincibility of the English arms at
sea, during the late great conflicts of Europe; an invincibility
that was more apparent than real, however, as many well
established defeats were, even then, intermingled with her
thousand victories.
From the time when her numbers could furnish succour
of this nature, down to the day of separation, America had
her full share in the exploits of the English marine. The
gentry of the colonies willingly placed their sons in the
royal navy, and many a bit of square bunting has been
flying at the royal-mast-heads of King's ships, in the nineteenth
century, as the distinguishing symbols of flag-officers,
who had to look for their birth-places among ourselves. In
the course of a chequered life, in which we have been brought
in collision with as great a diversity of rank, professions, and
characters, as often falls to the lot of any one individual, we
have been thrown into contact with no less than eight English
admirals, of American birth; while, it has never yet
been our good fortune to meet with a countryman, who has
had this rank bestowed on him by his own government. On
one occasion, an Englishman, who had filled the highest
civil office connected with the marine of his nation, observed
to us, that the only man he then knew, in the British navy, in
important command, was one of these translated admirals;
and the thought unavoidably passed through our mind, that
this favourite commander had done well in adhering to the
conventional, instead of clinging to his natural allegiance, inasmuch
as he might have toiled for half-a-century, in the
service of his native land, and been rewarded with a rank
that would merely put him on a level with a colonel in the
army! How much longer this short-sighted policy, and
grievous injustice, are to continue, no man can say; but it
is safe to believe, that it is to last until some legislator of
influence learn the simple truth, that the fancied reluctance
of popular constituencies to do right, oftener exists in the apprehensions
of their representatives, than in reality.—But to
our tale.
England enjoys a wide-spread reputation for her fogs;
but little do they know how much a fog may add to natural
scenery, who never witnessed its magical effects, as it has
caused a beautiful landscape to coquette with the eye, in playful
and capricious changes. Our opening scene is in one of
these much derided fogs; though, let it always be remembered,
it was a fog of June, and not of November. On a high head-land
of the coast of Devonshire, stood a little station-house,
which had been erected with a view to communicate, by signals,
with the shipping, that sometimes lay at anchor in an adjacent
roadstead. A little inland, was a village, or hamlet,
that it suits our purposes to call Wychecombe; and at no
great distance from the hamlet, itself, surrounded by a small
park, stood a house of the age of Henry VII., which was
the abode of Sir Wycherly Wychecombe, a baronet of the
creation of King James I., and the possessor of an improveable
estate of some three or four thousand a year, which
had been transmitted to him, through a line of ancestors,
that ascended as far back as the time of the Plantagenets.
Neither Wychecombe, nor the head-land, nor the anchorage,
was a place of note; for much larger and more favoured
hamlets, villages, and towns, lay scattered about that fine
portion of England; much better roadsteads and bays could
generally be used by the coming or the parting vessel; and
far more important signal-stations were to be met with, all
along that coast. Nevertheless, the roadstead was entered,
hamlet had its conveniences, and, like most English hamlets,
its beauties; and the Hall and park were not without
their claims to state and rural magnificence. A century
since, whatever the table of precedency, or Blackstone may
say, an English baronet, particularly one of the date of
1611, was a much greater personage than he is to-day; and
an estate of £4000 a year, more especially if not rackrented,
was of an extent, and necessarily of a local consequence,
equal to one of near, or quite three times the same
amount, in our own day. Sir Wycherly, however, enjoyed
an advantage that was of still greater importance, and which
was more common in 1745, than at the present moment.
He had no rival within fifteen miles of him, and the nearest
potentate was a nobleman of a rank and fortune that put
all competition out of the question; one who dwelt in courts,
the favourite of kings; leaving the baronet, as it might be,
in undisturbed enjoyment of all the local homage. Sir
Wycherly had once been a member of Parliament, and only
once. In his youth, he had been a fox-hunter; and a small
property in Yorkshire had long been in the family, as a
sort of foot-hold on such enjoyments; but having broken a
leg, in one of his leaps, he had taken refuge against ennui,
by sitting a single session in the House of Commons, as the
member of a borough that lay adjacent to his hunting-box.
This session sufficed for his whole life; the good baronet
having taken the matter so literally, as to make it a point to
be present at all the sittings; a sort of tax on his time, which,
as it came wholly unaccompanied by profit, was very likely
soon to tire out the patience of an old fox-hunter. After
resigning his seat, he retired altogether to Wychecombe,
where he had passed the last fifty years, extolling England,
and most especially that part of it in which his own estates
lay; in abusing the French, with occasional innuendoes
against Spain and Holland; and in eating and drinking.
He had never travelled; for, though Englishmen of his station
often did visit the continent, a century ago, they oftener
did not. It was the courtly and the noble, who then chiefly
took this means of improving their minds and manners; a
class, to which a baronet by no means belonged, ex officio.
To conclude, Sir Wycherly was now eighty-four; hale,
five brothers; the cadets taking refuge, as usual, in the
Inns of court, the church, the army, and the navy; and precisely
in the order named. The lawyer had actually risen
to be a judge, by the style and appellation of Baron Wychecombe;
had three illegitimate children by his housekeeper,
and died, leaving to the eldest thereof, all his professional
earnings, after buying commissions for the two younger in
the army. The divine broke his neck, while yet a curate,
in a fox-hunt; dying unmarried, and, so far as is generally
known, childless. This was Sir Wycherly's favourite brother;
who, he was accustomed to say, “lost his life, in setting
an example of field sports, to his parishioners.” The
soldier was fairly killed in battle, before he was twenty; and
the name of the sailor suddenly disappeared from the list of
His Majesty's lieutenants, about half-a-century before the
time when our tale opens, by shipwreck. Between the
sailor and the head of the family, however, there had been
no great sympathy; in consequence, as it was rumoured, of
a certain beauty's preference for the latter, though this preference
produced no suites, inasmuch as the lady died a
maid. Mr. Gregory Wychecombe, the lieutenant in question,
was what is termed a “wild boy;” and it was the
general impression, when his parents sent him to sea, that
the ocean would now meet with its match. The hopes of
the family centred in the judge, after the death of the curate;
and it was a great cause of regret, to those who took an interest
in its perpetuity and renown, that this dignitary did
not marry; since the premature death of all the other sons
had left the hall, park, and goodly farms, without any known
legal heir. In a word, this branch of the family of Wychecombe
would be extinct, when Sir Wycherly died, and the
entail become useless. Not a female inheritor, even, or a
male inheritor through females, could be traced; and it had
become imperative on Sir Wycherly to make a will, lest the
property should go off, the Lord knew where; or, what was
worse, it should escheat. It is true, Tom Wychecombe, the
judge's eldest son, often gave dark hints about a secret, and
a timely marriage between his parents, a fact that would
have superseded the necessity for all devises, as the property
was strictly tied up, so far as the lineal descendants of a certain
Wycherly had seen his brother, in his last illness, on which
occasion, the following conversation had taken place.
“And now, brother Thomas,” said the baronet, in a
friendly and consoling manner; “having, as one may say,
prepared your soul for heaven, by these prayers and admissions
of your sins, a word may be prudently said, concerning
the affairs of this world. You know I am childless
—that is to say,—”
“I understand you, Wycherly,” interrupted the dying
man, “you 're a bachelor.”
“That 's it, Thomas; and bachelors ought not to have
children. Had our poor brother James escaped that mishap,
he might have been sitting at your bed-side, at this moment,
and he could told us all about it. St. James, I used to
call him; and well did he deserve the name!”
“St. James the least, then, it must have been, Wycherly.”
“It 's a dreadful thing to have no heir, Thomas! Did you
ever know a case in your practice, in which another estate
was left so completely without an heir, as this of ours?”
“It does not often happen, brother; heirs are usually
more abundant than estates.”
“So I thought. Will the king get the title, as well as the
estate, brother, if it should escheat, as you call it?”
“Being the fountain of honour, he will be rather indifferent
about the baronetcy.”
“I should care less, if it went to the next sovereign, who
is English born. Wychecombe has always belonged to
Englishmen!”
“That it has; and ever will, I trust. You have only to
select an heir, when I am gone, and by making a will, with
proper devises, the property will not escheat. Be careful to
use the full terms of perpetuity.”
“Every thing was so comfortable, brother, while you
were in health,” said Sir Wycherly, fidgeting; “you were
my natural heir—”
“Heir of entail,” interrupted the judge.
“Well, well, heir, at all events; and that was a prodigious
comfort to a man like myself, who has a sort of religious
scruples about making a will. I have heard it whispered,
that you were actually married to Martha; in which
any more signing and sealing.”
“A filius nullius,” returned the other, too conscientious to
lend himself to a deception of that nature.
“Why, brother, Tom often seems to me to favour such
an idea, himself.”
“No wonder, Wycherly, for the idea would greatly favour
him. Tom, and his brothers, are all filii nullorum,
God forgive me, for that same wrong.”
“I wonder neither Charles, nor Gregory, thought of marrying,
before they lost their lives for their king and country,”
put in Sir Wycherly, in an upbraiding tone, as if he thought
his penniless brethren had done him an injury, in neglecting
to supply him with an heir, though he had been so forgetful
himself, of the same great duty. “I did think of bringing
in a bill, for providing heirs for unmarried persons, without
the trouble and responsibility of making wills.”
“That would have been a great improvement on the law
of descents—I hope you wouldn't have overlooked the ancestors.”
“Not I—everybody would have got his rights. They
tell me poor Charles never spoke after he was shot; but I
dare say, did we know the truth, he regretted sincerely that
he never married.”
“There, for once, Wycherly, I think you are likely to be
wrong. A femme sole without food, is rather a helpless sort
of a person.”
“Well, well, I wish he had married. What would it
have been to me, had he left a dozen widows.”
“It might have raised some awkward questions as to
dowry; and if each left a son, the title and estates would
have been worse off than they are at present, without
widows, or legitimate children.”
“Any thing would be better than having no heir. I believe
I 'm the first baronet of Wychecombe, who has been
obliged to make a will!”
“Quite likely,” returned the brother, drily; “I remember
to have got nothing from the last one, in that way.
Charles and Gregory fared no better. Never mind, Wycherly,
you behaved like a father to us all.”
“I don't mind signing cheques, in the least; but the wills
good many Wychecombes, in England; I wonder some of
them are not of our family! They tell me a hundredth
cousin is just as good an heir, as a first-born son.”
“Failing nearer of kin. But we have no hundredth
cousins of the whole blood.”
“There are the Wychecombes of Surrey, brother Thomas—?”
“Descended from a bastard of the second baronet, and
out of the line of descent, altogether.”
“But the Wychecombes of Hertfordshire, I have always
heard were of our family, and legitimate.”
“True, as regards matrimony—rather too much of it, by
the way. They branched off in 1487, long before the creation,
and have nothing to do with the entail; the first of
their line coming from old Sir Michael Wychecombe, Kt.
and Sheriff of Devonshire, by his second wife Margery;
while we are derived from the same male ancestor, through
Wycherly, the only son by Joan, the first wife. Wycherly,
and Michael, the son of Michael and Margery, were of the
half-blood, as respects each other, and could not be heirs of
blood. What was true of the ancestors, is true of the descendants.”
“But we came of the same ancestor, and the estate is
far older than 1487.”
“Quite true, brother; nevertheless, the half-blood can't
take; so says the perfection of human reason.”
“I never could understand these niceties of the law,” said
Sir Wycherly, sighing; “but I suppose they are all right.
There are so many Wychecombes scattered about England,
that I should think some one among them all, might be my
heir!”
“Every man of them bears a bar in his arms, or is of the
half-blood.”
“You are quite sure, brother, that Tom is a filius nullus?”
for the baronet had forgotten most of the little Latin
he ever knew, and translated this legal phrase into “no
son.”
“Filius nullius, Sir Wycherly, the son of nobody; your
reading would literally make Tom, nobody; whereas, he is
only the son of nobody.”
“But, brother, he is your son, and as like you, as two
hounds of the same litter.”
“I am nullus, in the eye of the law, as regards poor
Tom; who, until he marries, and has children of his own,
is altogether without legal kindred. Nor do I know that
legitimacy would make Tom any better; for he is presuming
and confident enough for the heir apparent to the throne, as
it is.”
“Well, there's this young sailor, who has been so much
at the station lately, since he was left ashore for the cure of
his wounds. 'T is a most gallant lad; and the First Lord
has sent him a commission, as a reward for his good conduct,
in cutting out the Frenchman. I look upon him as a
credit to the name; and I make no question he is, some way
or other, of our family.”
“Does he claim to be so?” asked the judge, a little quickly,
for he distrusted men in general, and thought, from all he
had heard, that some attempt might have been made to practise
on his brother's simplicity. “I thought you told me
that he came from the American colonies?”
“So he does; he's a native of Virginia, as was his father
before him.”
“A convict, perhaps; or a servant, quite likely, who has
found the name of his former master, more to his liking
than his own. Such things are common, they tell me, beyond
seas.”
“Yes, if he were anything but an American, I might wish
he were my heir,” returned Sir Wycherly, in a melancholy
tone; “but it would be worse than to let the lands escheat,
as you call it, to place an American in possession of Wychecombe.
The manors have always had English owners,
down to the present moment, thank God!”
“Should they have any other, it will be your own fault,
Wycherly. When I am dead, and that will happen ere
many weeks, the human being will not be living, who can
take that property, after your demise, in any other manner
than by escheat, or by devise. There will then be neither
heir of entail, nor heir at law; and you may make whom
you please, master of Wychecombe, provided he be not an
alien.”
“Not an American, I suppose, brother; an American is
an alien, of course.”
“Humph!—why, not in law, whatever he may be according
to our English notions. Harkee, brother Wycherly;
I've never asked you, or wished you to leave the estate to
Tom, or his younger brothers; for one, and all, are filii
nullorum—as I term 'em, though my brother Record will
have it, it ought to be filii nullius, as well as filius nullius.
Let that be as it may; no bastard should lord it at Wychecombe;
and rather than the king should get the lands, to bestow
on some favourite, I would give it to the half-blood.”
“Can that be done without making a will, brother Thomas?”
“It cannot, Sir Wycherly; nor with a will, so long as an
heir of entail can be found.”
“Is there no way of making Tom a filius somebody, so
that he can succeed?”
“Not under our laws. By the civil law, such a thing
might have been done, and by the Scotch law; but not under
the perfection of reason.”
“I wish you knew this young Virginian! The lad bears
both of my names, Wycherly Wychecombe.”
“He is not a filius Wycherly—is he, baronet?”
“Fie upon thee, brother Thomas! Do you think I have
less candour than thyself, that I would not acknowledge my
own flesh and blood. I never saw the youngster, until
within the last six months, when he was landed from the
roadstead, and brought to Wychecombe, to be cured of his
wounds; nor ever heard of him before. When they told
me his name was Wycherly Wychecombe, I could do no
less than call and see him. The poor fellow lay at death's
door for a fortnight; and it was while we had little or no
hope of saving him, that I got the few family anecdotes from
him. Now, that would be good evidence in law, I believe,
Thomas.”
“For certain things, had the lad really died. Surviving,
he must be heard on his voire dire, and under oath. But
what was his tale?”
“A very short one. He told me his father was a Wycherly
Wychecombe, and that his grandfather had been a
ancestry.”
“And probably all there was of them. My Tom is not
the only filius nullius that has been among us, and this
grandfather, if he has not actually stolen the name, has got
it by these doubtful means. As for the Wycherly, it should
pass for nothing. Learning that there is a line of baronets
of this name, every pretender to the family would be apt to
call a son Wycherly.”
“The line will shortly be ended, brother,” returned Sir
Wycherly, sighing. “I wish you might be mistaken; and,
after all, Tom shouldn't prove to be that filius you call
him.”
Mr. Baron Wychecombe, as much from esprit de corps
as from moral principle, was a man of strict integrity, in
all things that related to meum and tuum. He was particuarly
rigid in his notions concerning the transmission of
real estate, and the rights of primogeniture. The world had
taken little interest in the private history of a lawyer, and
his sons having been born before his elevation to the bench,
he passed with the public for a widower, with a family of
promising boys. Not one in a hundred of his acquaintances
even, suspected the fact; and nothing would have been easier
for him, than to have imposed on his brother, by inducing
him to make a will under some legal mystification or other,
and to have caused Tom Wychecombe to succeed to the
property in question, by an indisputable title. There would
have been no great difficulty even, in his son's assuming
and maintaining his right to the baronetcy, inasmuch as
there would be no competitor, and the crown officers were
not particularly rigid in inquiring into the claims of those
who assumed a title that brought with it no political privileges.
Still, he was far from indulging in any such project.
To him it appeared that the Wychecombe estate ought to go
with the principles that usually governed such matters; and,
although he submitted to the dictum of the common law, as
regarded the provision which excluded the half-blood from
inheriting, with the deference of an English common-law
lawyer, he saw and felt, that, failing the direct line, Wychecombe
ought to revert to the descendants of Sir Michael by
his second son, for the plain reason that they were just as
as his brother Wycherly and himself. Had there been descendants
of females, even, to interfere, no such opinion
would have existed; but, as between an escheat, or a devise
in favour of a filius nullius, or of the descendant of a filius
nullius, the half-blood possessed every possible advantage.
In his legal eyes, legitimacy was everything, although he
had not hesitated to be the means of bringing into the world
seven illegitimate children, that being the precise number
Martha had the credit of having borne him, though three
only survived. After reflecting a moment, therefore, he
turned to the baronet, and addressed him more seriously
than he had yet done, in the present dialogue; first taking a
draught of cordial to give him strength for the occasion.
“Listen to me, brother Wycherly,” said the judge, with
a gravity that at once caught the attention of the other.
“You know something of the family history, and I need do
no more than allude to it. Our ancestors were the knightly
possessors of Wychecombe, centuries before King James
established the rank of baronet. When our great-grandfather,
Sir Wycherly, accepted the patent of 1611, he
scarcely did himself honour; for, by aspiring higher, he
might have got a peerage. However, a baronet he became,
and for the first time since Wychecombe was Wychecombe,
the estate was entailed, to do credit to the new rank. Now,
the first Sir Wycherly had three sons, and no daughter.
Each of these sons succeeded; the two eldest as bachelors,
and the youngest was our grandfather. Sir Thomas, the
fourth baronet, left an only child, Wycherly, our father.
Sir Wycherly, our father, had five sons, Wycherly his successor,
yourself, and the sixth baronet; myself; James;
Charles; and Gregory. James broke his neck at your side.
The two last lost their lives in the king's service, unmarried;
and neither you, nor I, have entered into the holy state of
matrimony. I cannot survive a month, and the hopes of
perpetuating the direct line of the family, rest with yourself.
This accounts for all the descendants of Sir Wycherly,
the first baronet; and it also settles the question of
heirs of entail, of whom there are none after myself. To
go back beyond the time of King James I.: Twice did the
elder lines of the Wychecombes fail, between the reign of
succeeded. Now, in each of these cases, the law disposed
of the succession; the youngest branches of the family, in
both instances, getting the estate. It follows that agreeably
to legal decisions had at the time, when the facts must have
been known, that the Wychecombes were reduced to these
younger lines. Sir Michael had two wives. From the
first we are derived — from the last, the Wychecombes of
Hertfordshire—since known as baronets of that county, by
the style and title of Sir Reginald Wychecome of Wychecombe-Regis,
Herts.”
“The present Sir Reginald can have no claim, being of
the half-blood,” put in Sir Wycherly, with a brevity of manner
that denoted feeling. “The half-blood is as bad as a
nullius, as you call Tom.”
“Not quite. A person of the half-blood is as legitimate
as the king's majesty; whereas, a nullius is of no blood.
Now, suppose for a moment, Sir Wycherly, that you had
been a son by a first wife, and I had been a son by a second
—would there have been no relationship between us?”
“What a question, Tom, to put to your own brother!”
“But I should not be your own brother, my good sir;
only your half brother; of the half, and not of the whole
blood.”
“What of that—what of that?—your father would have
been my father—we would have had the same name—the
same family history—the same family feelings—poh! poh!
—we should have been both Wychecombes, exactly as we
are to-day.”
“Quite true, and yet I could not have been your heir, nor
you mine. The estate would escheat to the king, Hanoverian
or Scotchman, before it came to me. Indeed, to me it
could never come.”
“Thomas, you are trifling with my ignorance, and making
matters worse than they really are. Certainly, as long as
you lived, you would be my heir!”
“Very true, as to the £20,000 in the funds, but not as to
the baronetcy and Wychecombe. So far as the two last
are concerned, I am heir of blood, and of entail, of the body
of Sir Wycherly Wychecombe, the first baronet, and the
maker of the entail.”
“Had there been no entail, and had I died a child, who
would have succeeded our father, supposing there had been
two mothers?”
“I, as the next surviving son.”
“There! — I knew it must be so!” exclaimed Sir Wycherly,
in triumph; “and all this time you have been joking
with me!”
“Not so fast, brother of mine—not so fast. I should be
of the whole blood, as respected our father, and all the
Wychecombes that have gone before him; but of the half-blood,
as respected you. From our father I might have
taken, as his heir-at-law: but from you, never, having been
of the half-blood.”
“I would have made a will, in that case, Thomas, and
left you every farthing,” said Sir Wycherly, with feeling.
“That is just what I wish you to do with Sir Reginald
Wychecombe. You must take him; a filius nullius, in the
person of my son Tom; a stranger; or let the property escheat;
for, we are so peculiarly placed as not to have a
known relative, by either the male or female lines; the maternal
ancestors being just as barren of heirs as the paternal.
Our good mother was the natural daughter of the third
Earl of Prolific; our grandmother was the last of her race,
so far as human ken can discover; our great-grandmother
is said to have had semi-royal blood in her veins, without
the aid of the church, and beyond that it would be hopeless
to attempt tracing consanguinity on that side of the house.
No, Wycherly; it is Sir Reginald who has the best right to
the land; Tom, or one of his brothers, an utter stranger, or
His Majesty, follow. Remember that estates of £4000 a
year, don't often escheat, now-a-days.”
“If you 'll draw up a will, brother, I 'll leave it all to
Tom,” cried the baronet, with sudden energy. “Nothing
need be said about the nullius; and when I 'm gone, he 'll
step quietly into my place.”
Nature triumphed a moment in the bosom of the father;
but habit, and the stern sense of right, soon overcame the
feeling. Perhaps certain doubts, and a knowledge of his
son's real character, contributed their share towards the
reply.
“It ought not to be, Sir Wycherly,” returned the judge,
Reginald has the best moral right possible, though the law
cuts him off. Had Sir Michael made the entail, instead of
our great-grandfather, he would have come in, as a matter
of course.”
“I never liked Sir Reginald Wychecombe,” said the
baronet, stubbornly.
“What of that? — He will not trouble you while living,
and when dead it will be all the same. Come—come—I
will draw the will myself, leaving blanks for the name; and
when it is once done, you will sign it, cheerfully. It is the last
legal act I shall ever perform, and it will be a suitable one,
death being constantly before me.”
This ended the dialogue. The will was drawn according
to promise; Sir Wycherly took it to his room to read,
carefully inserted the name of Tom Wychecombe in all the
blank spaces, brought it back, duly executed the instrument
in his brother's presence, and then gave the paper to
his nephew to preserve, with a strong injunction on him to
keep the secret, until the instrument should have force by
his own death. Mr. Baron Wychecombe died in six weeks,
and the baronet returned to his residence, a sincere mourner
for the loss of an only brother. A more unfortunate selection
of an heir could not have been made, as Tom Wychecombe
was, in reality, the son of a barrister in the Temple;
the fancied likeness to the reputed father existing only in
the imagination of his credulous uncle.
| CHAPTER I. The two admirals | |