The Two Admirals

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Sir Gervaise laughed as he concluded, though he seemed vexed and
embarrassed. Admiral Bluewater betrayed neither chagrin, nor
disappointment; but strong, nearly ungovernable curiosity, a feeling
from which he was singularly exempt in general, glowed in his eyes, and
lighted his whole countenance. Still, habitual submission to his
superior, and the self-command of discipline, enabled him to wait for
any thing more that his friend might communicate. At this moment, the
door opened, and Wycherly entered the room, in the state in which he had
just dismounted. It was necessary to throw but a single glance at his
hurried manner, and general appearance, to know that he had something of
importance to communicate, and Sir Gervaise made a sign for him not to
speak.

"This is public service, Sir Wycherly," said the vice-admiral, "and I
hope you will excuse us for a few minutes. I beg this good company will
be seated at table, as soon as dinner is served, and that you will treat
us as old friends--as I should treat you, if we were on board the
Plantagenet. Admiral Bluewater, will you be of our conference?"

Nothing more was said until the two admirals and the young lieutenant
were in the dressing-room of Sir Gervaise Oakes. Then the latter turned,
and addressed Wycherly, with the manner of a superior.

"I should have met you with a reproof, for this delay, young gentleman,"
he commenced, "did I not suspect, from your appearance, that something
of moment has occurred to produce it. Had the mail passed the
market-town, before you reached it, sir?"

"It had not, Admiral Oakes; and I have the satisfaction of knowing that
your despatches are now several hours on their way to London. I reached
the office just in season to see them mailed."

"Humph! On board the Plantagenet, it is the custom for an officer to
report any important duty done, as soon as it is in a condition to be
thus laid before the superior!"

"I presume that is the usage in all His Majesty's ships, Sir Gervaise
Oakes: but I have been taught that a proper discretion, when it does not
interfere with positive orders, and sometimes when it does, is a surer
sign of a useful officer, than even the most slavish attention to
rules."

"That is a just distinction, young gentleman, though safer in the hands
of a captain, perhaps, than in those of a lieutenant," returned the
vice-admiral, glancing at his friend, though he secretly admired the
youth's spirit. "Discretion is a comparative term; meaning different
things with different persons. May I presume to ask what Mr. Wycherly
Wychecombe calls discretion, in the present instance?"

"You have every right, sir, to know, and I only wanted your permission
to tell my whole story. While waiting to see the London mail start with
your despatches, and to rest my horse, a post-chaise arrived that was
carrying a gentleman, who is suspected of being a Jacobite, to his
country-seat, some thirty miles further west. This gentleman held a
secret conference with another person of the same way of thinking as
himself; and there was so much running and sending of messages, that I
could not avoid suspecting something was in the wind. Going to the
stable to look after Sir Wycherly's hunter, for I knew how much he
values the animal, I found one of the stranger's servants in discourse
with the ostler. The latter told me, when the chaise had gone, that
great tidings had reached Exeter, before the travellers quitted the
town. These tidings he described as news that 'Charley was no longer
over the water.' It was useless, Sir Gervaise, to question one so
stupid; and, at the inn, though all observed the manner of the traveller
and his visiter, no one could tell me any thing positive. Under the
circumstances, therefore, I threw myself into the return chaise, and
went as far as Fowey, where I met the important intelligence that Prince
Charles has actually landed, and is at this moment up, in Scotland!"

"The Pretender is then really once more among us!" exclaimed Sir
Gervaise, like one who had half suspected the truth.

"Not the Pretender, Sir Gervaise, as I understand the news; but his
young son, Prince Charles Edward, one much more likely to give the
kingdom trouble. The fact is certain, I believe; and as it struck me
that it might be important to the commander of so fine a fleet as this
which lies under Wychecombe Head, to know it, I lost no time in getting
back with the intelligence."

"You have done well, young gentleman, and have proved that discretion
_is_ quite as useful and respectable in a lieutenant, as it can possibly
prove to be in a full admiral of the white. Go, now, and make yourself
fit to take a seat by the side of one of the sweetest girls in England,
where I shall expect to see you, in fifteen minutes. Well, Bluewater,"
he continued, as soon as the door closed on Wycherly; "this _is_ news,
of a certainty!"

"It is, indeed; and I take it to be the news, or connected with the
news, that you have sent to the First Lord, in the late despatches. It
has not taken you altogether by surprise, if the truth were said?"

"It has not, I confess. You know what excellent intelligence we have
had, the past season, from the Bordeaux agent; he sent me off such
proofs of this intended expedition, that I thought it advisable to bring
the fleet north on the strength of it, that the ships might be used as
the exigency should require."

"Thank God, it is a long way to Scotland, and it is not probable we can
reach the coast of that country until all is over! I wish we had
inquired of this young man with what sort of, and how large a naval
force the prince was accompanied with. Shall I send for him, that we may
put the question?"

"It is better that you remain passive, Admiral Bluewater. I now promise
you that you shall learn all I hear; and that, under the circumstances,
I think ought to content you."

The two admirals now separated, though neither returned to the company
for some little time. The intelligence they had just learned was too
important to be lightly received, and each of these veteran seamen paced
his room, for near a quarter of an hour, reflecting on what might be the
probable consequences to the country and to himself. Sir Gervaise Oakes
expected some event of this nature, and was less taken by surprise than
his friend; still he viewed the crisis as exceedingly serious, and as
one likely to destroy the prosperity of the nation, as well as the peace
of families. There was then in England, as there is to-day, and as there
probably will be throughout all time, two parties; one of which clung to
the past with its hereditary and exclusive privileges, while the other
looked more towards change for anticipated advantages, and created
honours. Religion, in that age, was made the stalking-horse of
politicians; as is liberty on one side, and order on the other, in our
own times; and men just as blindly, as vehemently, and as regardlessly
of principle, submitted to party in the middle of the eighteenth
century, as we know they do in the middle of the nineteenth. The mode of
acting was a little changed, and the watchwords and rallying points were
not exactly the same, it is true; but, in all that relates to ignorant
confidence, ferocious denunciation, and selfishness but half concealed
under the cloak of patriotism, the England of the original whigs and
tories, was the England of conservatism and reform, and the America of
1776, the America of 1841.

Still thousands always act, in political struggles, with the fairest
intentions, though they act in bitter opposition to each other. When
prejudice becomes the stimulant of ignorance, no other result may be
hoped for; and the experience of the world, in the management of human
affairs, has left the upright and intelligent, but one conclusion as the
reward of all the pains and penalties with which political revolutions
have been effected--the conviction that no institutions can be invented,
which a short working does not show will be perverted from their
original intention, by the ingenuity of those entrusted with power. In a
word, the physical constitution of man does not more infallibly tend to
decrepitude and imbecility, imperiously requiring a new being, and a new
existence, to fulfil the objects of his creation, than the moral
constitutions which are the fruits of his wisdom, contain the seeds of
abuses and decay, that human selfishness will be as certain to
cultivate, as human indulgence is to aid the course of nature, in
hastening the approaches of death. Thus, while on the one hand, there
exists the constant incentive of abuses and hopes to induce us to wish
for modifications of the social structure, on the other there stands the
experience of ages to demonstrate their insufficiency to produce the
happiness we aim at. If the world advances in civilization and humanity,
it is because knowledge will produce its fruits in every soil, and under
every condition of cultivation and improvement.

Both Sir Gervaise Oakes and Admiral Bluewater believed themselves to be
purely governed by principles, in submitting to the bias that each felt
towards the conflicting claims of the houses of Brunswick and Stuart.
Perhaps no two men in England were in fact less influenced by motives
that they ought to feel ashamed to own; and yet, as has been seen, while
they thought so much alike on most other things, on this they were
diametrically opposed to each other. During the many years of arduous
and delicate duties that they had served together, jealousy, distrust,
and discontent had been equally strangers to their bosoms; for each had
ever felt the assurance that his own honour, happiness, and interests
were as much ruling motives with his friend, as they could well be with
himself Their lives had been constant scenes of mutual but unpretending
kindnesses; and this under circumstances that naturally awakened all the
most generous and manly sentiments of their natures. When young men,
their laughing messmates had nick-named them Pylades and Orestes; and
later in life, on account of their cruising so much in company, they
were generally known in the navy as the "twin captains." On several
occasions had they fought enemies' frigates, and captured them; on these
occasions, as a matter of course, the senior of the two became most
known to the nation; but Sir Gervaise had made the most generous efforts
to give his junior a full share of the credit, while Captain Bluewater
never spoke of the affairs without mentioning them as victories of the
commodore. In a word, on all occasions, and under all circumstances, it
appeared to be the aim of these generous-minded and gallant seamen, to
serve each other; nor was this attempted with any effort, or striving
for effect; all that was said, or done, coming naturally and
spontaneously from the heart. But, for the first time in their lives,
events had now occurred which threatened a jarring of the feelings
between them, if they did not lead to acts which must inevitably place
them in open and declared hostility to each other. No wonder, then, that
both looked at the future with gloomy forebodings, and a distrust,
which, if it did not render them unhappy, at least produced uneasiness.

CHAPTER VI.

"The circle form'd, we sit in silent state,
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 clearly. Wycherly had used
intelligence in making his 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 sealed; "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 change we shall see to-day, will
be the removal of the 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 Oaken has grown figurative; with his _snakes_ and
_scotch_ings," 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."

"'Tis, 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 the presence of third
persons. This pause enabled Sir Wycherly 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 to his friend the
rear-admiral, anxious to re-establish friendly 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
man[oe]uvring, 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
compelled 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 bestowed; but Sir Gervaise assuring him that his 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 may well be more refined, and in some things, even
more intelligent 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 took 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. 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.

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