There was a long pause, during which Wycherly thought he heard the hard but suppressed breathing of Mildred. To remain quiet any longer, he felt was as impossible as, indeed, his conscience told him was dishonourable, and he sprang along the path to ascend to the summer-house. At the first sound of his footstep, a faint cry escaped Mildred; but when Wycherly entered the pavilion, he found her face buried in her hands, and Dutton tottering forward, equally in surprise and alarm. As the circumstances would not admit of evasion, the young man threw aside all reserve, and spoke plainly.

"I have been an unwilling listener to a part of your discourse with Mildred, Mr. Dutton," he said, "and can answer your last question for myself. I have offered my hand to your daughter, sir; an offer that I now renew, and the acceptance of which would make me the happiest man in England. If your influence could aid me—for she has refused my hand."

"Refused!" exclaimed Dutton, in a surprise that overcame the calculated amenity of manner he had assumed the instant Wycherly appeared—"Refused Sir Wycherly Wychecombe! but it was before your rights had been as well established as they are now. Mildred, answer to this—how could you—nay, how dare you refuse such an offer as this?"

Human nature could not well endure more. Mildred suffered her hands to fall helplessly into her lap, and exposed a face that was lovely as that of an angel's, though pale nearly to the hue of death. Feeling extorted the answer she made, though the words had hardly escaped her, ere she repented having uttered them, and had again buried her face in her hands—

"Father"—she said—"could I—dare I to encourage Sir Wycherly Wychecombe to unite himself to a family like ours!"

Conscience smote Dutton with a force that nearly sobered him, and what explanation might have followed it is hard to say; Wycherly, in an under-tone, however, requested to be left alone with the daughter. Dutton had sense enough to understand he was de trop, and shame enough to wish to escape. In half a minute, he had hobbled up to the summit of the cliff and disappeared.

"Mildred!—Dearest Mildred"—said Wycherly, tenderly, gently endeavouring to draw her attention to himself, "we are alone now; surely—surely—you will not refuse to look at me!"

"Is he gone?" asked Mildred, dropping her hands, and looking wildly around. "Thank God! It is over, for this time, at least! Now, let us go to the house; Admiral Bluewater may miss me."

"No, Mildred, not yet. You surely can spare me—me, who have suffered so much of late on your account—nay, by your means—you can, in mercy, spare me a few short minutes. Was this the reason—the only reason, dearest girl, why you so pertinaciously refused my hand?"

"Was it not sufficient, Wycherly?" answered Mildred, afraid the chartered air might hear her secret. "Remember who you are, and what I am! Could I suffer you to become the husband of one to whom such cruel, cruel propositions had been made by her own father!"

"I shall not affect to conceal my horror of such principles, Mildred, but your virtues shine all the brighter by having flourished in their company. Answer me but one question frankly, and every other difficulty can be gotten over. Do you love me well enough to be my wife, were you an orphan?"

Mildred's countenance was full of anguish, but this question changed its expression entirely. The moment was extraordinary as were the feelings it engendered, and, almost unconsciously to herself, she raised the hand that held her own to her lips, in a sort of reverence. In the next instant she was encircled in the young man's arms, and pressed with fervour to his heart.

"Let us go"—said Mildred, extricating herself from an embrace that was too involuntarily bestowed, and too heartfelt to alarm her delicacy. "I feel certain Admiral Bluewater will miss me!"

"No, Mildred, we cannot part thus. Give me, at least, the poor consolation of knowing, that if this difficulty did not exist—that if you were an orphan for instance—you would be mine."

"Oh! Wycherly, how gladly—how gladly!—But, say no more—nay—"

This time the embrace was longer, more fervent even than before, and Wycherly was too much of a sailor to let the sweet girl escape from his arms without imprinting on her lips a kiss. He had no sooner relinquished his hold of the slight person of Mildred, ere it vanished. With this characteristic leave-taking, we change the scene to the tent of Sir Gervaise Oakes.

"You have seen Admiral Bluewater?" demanded the commander-in-chief, as soon as the form of Magrath darkened the entrance, and speaking with the sudden earnestness of a man determined to know the worst. "If so, tell me at once what hopes there are for him."

"Of all the human passions, Sir Jairvis," answered Magrath, looking aside, to avoid the keen glance of the other, "hope is generally considered, by all rational men, as the most treacherous and delusive; I may add, of all denominations or divisions of hope, that which decides on life is the most unsairtain. We all hope to live, I'm thinking, to a good old age, and yet how many of us live just long enough to be disappointed!"

Sir Gervaise did not move until the surgeon ceased speaking; then he began to pace the tent in mournful silence. He understood Magrath's manner so well, that the last faint hope he had felt from seeking his opinion was gone; he now knew that his friend must die. It required all his fortitude to stand up against this blow; for, single, childless, and accustomed to each other almost from infancy, these two veteran sailors had got to regard themselves as merely isolated parts of the same being. Magrath was affected more than he chose to express, and he blew his nose several times in a way that an observer would have found suspicious.

"Will you confer on me the favour, Dr. Magrath," said Sir Gervaise, in a gentle, subdued manner, "to ask Captain Greenly to come hither, as you pass the flag-staff?"

"Most willingly, Sir Jairvis; and I know he'll be any thing but backward in complying."

It was not long ere the captain of the Plantagenet made his appearance. Like all around him, the recent victory appeared to bring no exultation.

"I suppose Magrath told you all," said the vice-admiral, squeezing the other's hand.

"He gives no hopes, Sir Gervaise, I sincerely regret to say."

"I knew as much! I knew as much! And yet he is easy, Greenly!—nay, even seems happy. I did feel a little hope that this absence from suffering might be a favourable omen."

"I am glad to hear that much, sir; for I have been thinking that it is my duty to speak to the rear-admiral on the subject of his brother's marriage. From his own silence on the subject, it is possible—nay, from all circumstances, it is probable he never knew of it, and there may be reasons why he ought to be informed of the affair. As you say he is so easy, would there be an impropriety in mentioning it to him?"

Greenly could not possibly have made a suggestion that was a greater favour to Sir Gervaise. The necessity of doing, his habits of decision, and having an object in view, contributed to relieve his mind by diverting his thoughts to some active duty; and he seized his hat, beckoned Greenly to follow, and moved across the hill with a rapid pace, taking the path to the cottage. It was necessary to pass the flag-staff. As this was done, every countenance met the vice-admiral's glance, with a look of sincere sympathy. The bows that were exchanged, had more in them than the naked courtesies of such salutations; they were eloquent of feeling on both sides.

Bluewater was awake, and retaining the hand of Mildred affectionately in his own, when his friend entered. Relinquishing his hold, however, he grasped the hand of the vice-admiral, and looked earnestly at him, as if he pitied the sorrow that he knew the survivor must feel.

"My dear Bluewater," commenced Sir Gervaise, who acted under a nervous excitement, as well as from constitutional decision, "here is Greenly with something to tell you that we both think you ought to know, at a moment like this."

The rear-admiral regarded his friend intently, as if inviting him to proceed.

"Why, it's about your brother Jack. I fancy you cannot have known that he was ever married, or I think I should have heard you speak of it."

"Married!" repeated Bluewater, with great interest, and speaking with very little difficulty. "I think that must be an error. Inconsiderate and warm-hearted he was, but there was only one woman he could, nay, would have married. She is long since dead, but not as his wife; for that her uncle, a man of great wealth, but of unbending will, would never have suffered. He survived her, though my poor brother did not."

This was said in a mild voice, for the wounded man spoke equally without effort, and without pain.

"You hear, Greenly?" observed Sir Gervaise. "And yet it is not probable that you should be mistaken."

"Certainly, I am not, gentlemen. I saw Colonel Bluewater married, as did another officer who is at this moment in this very fleet. Captain Blakely is the person I mean, and I know that the priest who performed the ceremony is still living, a beneficed clergyman."

"This is wonderful to me! He fervently loved Agnes Hedworth, but his poverty was an obstacle to the union; and both died so young, that there was little opportunity of conciliating the uncle."

"That, sir, is your mistake. Agnes Hedworth was the bride."

A noise in the room interrupted the dialogue, and the three gentlemen saw Wycherly and Mildred stooping to pick up the fragments of a bowl that Mrs. Dutton had let fall. The latter, apparently in alarm, at the little accident, had sunk back into a seat, pale and trembling.

"My dear Mrs. Dutton, take a glass of water," said Sir Gervaise, kindly approaching her; "your nerves have been sorely tried of late; else would not such a trifle affect you."

"It is not that!" exclaimed the matron, huskily. "It is not that! Oh! the fearful moment has come at last; and, from my inmost spirit I thank thee, my Lord and my God, that it has come free from shame and disgrace!"

The closing words were uttered on bended knees, and with uplifted hands.

"Mother!—dearest, dearest mother," cried Mildred, falling on her mother's neck. "What mean you? What new misery has happened to-day?"

"Mother! Yes, sweet one, thou art, thou ever shalt be my child! This is the pang I have most dreaded; but what is an unknown tie of blood, to use, and affection, and to a mother's care? If I did not bear thee, Mildred, no natural mother could have loved thee more, or would have died for thee, as willingly!"

"Distress has disturbed her, gentlemen," said Mildred, gently extricating herself from her mother's arms, and helping her to rise. "A few moments of rest will restore her."

"No, darling; it must come now—it ought to come now—after what I have just heard, it would be unpardonable not to tell it, now. Did I understand you to say, sir, that you were present at the marriage of Agnes Hedworth, and that, too, with the brother of Admiral Bluewater?"

"Of that fact, there can be no question, madam. I and others will testify to it. The marriage took place in London, in the summer of 1725, while Blakely and myself were up from Portsmouth, on leave. Colonel Bluewater asked us both to be present, under a pledge of secresy."

"And in the summer of 1726, Agnes Hedworth died in my house and my arms, an hour after giving birth to this dear, this precious child—Mildred Dutton, as she has ever since been called—Mildred Bluewater, as it would seem her name should be."

It is unnecessary to dwell on the surprise with which all present, or the delight with which Bluewater and Wycherly heard this extraordinary announcement. A cry escaped Mildred, who threw herself on Mrs. Dutton's neck, entwining it with her arms, convulsively, as if refusing to permit the tie that had so long bound them together, to be thus rudely torn asunder. But half an hour of weeping, and of the tenderest consolations, calmed the poor girl a little, and she was able to listen to the explanations. These were exceedingly simple, and so clear, as, in connection with the other evidence, to put the facts out of all doubt.

Miss Hedworth had become known to Mrs. Dutton, while the latter was an inmate of the house of her patron. A year or two after the marriage of the lieutenant, and while he was on a distant station, Agnes Hedworth threw herself on the protection of his wife, asking a refuge for a woman in the most critical circumstances. Like all who knew Agnes Hedworth, Mrs. Dutton both respected and loved her; but the distance created between them, by birth and station, was such as to prevent any confidence. The former, for the few days passed with her humble friend, had acted with the quiet dignity of a woman conscious of no wrong; and no questions could be asked that implied doubts. A succession of fainting fits prevented all communications in the hour of death, and Mrs. Dutton found herself left with a child on her hands, and the dead body of her friend. Miss Hedworth had come to her dwelling unattended and under a false name. These circumstances induced Mrs. Dutton to apprehend the worst, and she proceeded to make her arrangements with great tenderness for the reputation of the deceased. The body was removed to London, and letters were sent to the uncle to inform him where it was to be found, with a reference should he choose to inquire into the circumstances of his niece's death. Mrs. Dutton ascertained that the body was interred in the usual manner, but no inquiry was ever made, concerning the particulars. The young duchess, Miss Hedworth's sister, was then travelling in Italy, whence she did not return for more than a year; and we may add, though Mrs. Dutton was unable to make the explanation, that her inquiries after the fate of a beloved sister, were met by a simple statement that she had died suddenly, on a visit to a watering-place, whither she had gone with a female friend for her health. Whether Mr. Hedworth himself had any suspicions of his niece's condition, is uncertain; but the probabilities were against it, for she had offended him by refusing a match equal in all respects to that made by her elder sister, with the single exception that the latter had married a man she loved, whereas he exacted of Agnes a very different sacrifice. Owing to the alienation produced by this affair, there was little communication between the uncle and niece; the latter passing her time in retirement, and professedly with friends that the former neither knew nor cared to know. In short, such was the mode of life of the respective parties, that nothing was easier than for the unhappy young widow to conceal her state from her uncle. The motive was the fortune of the expected child; this uncle having it in his power to alienate from it, by will, if he saw fit, certain family property, that might otherwise descend to the issue of the two sisters, as his co-heiresses. What might have happened in the end, or what poor Agnes meditated doing, can never be known; death closing the secret with his irremovable seal.

Mrs. Dutton was the mother of a girl but three months old, at the time this little stranger was left on her hands. A few weeks later her own child died; and having waited several months in vain for tidings from the Hedworth family, she had the surviving infant christened by the same name as that borne by her own daughter, and soon came to love it, as much, perhaps, as if she had borne it. Three years passed in this manner, when the time drew near for the return of her husband from the East Indies. To be ready to meet him, she changed her abode to a naval port, and, in so doing, changed her domestics. This left her accidentally, but fortunately, as she afterwards thought, completely mistress of the secret of Mildreth's birth; the one or two others to whom it was known being in stations to render it improbable they should ever communicate any thing on the subject, unless it were asked of them. Her original intention, however, was to communicate the facts, without reserve, to her husband. But he came back an altered man; brutal in manners, cold in his affections, and the victim of drunkenness. By this time, the wife was too much attached to the child to think of exposing it to the wayward caprices of such a being; and Mildred was educated, and grew in stature and beauty as the real offspring of her reputed parents.

All this Mrs. Dutton related clearly and briefly, refraining, of course, from making any allusion to the conduct of her husband, and referring all her own benevolence to her attachment to the child. Bluewater had strength enough to receive Mildred in his arms, and he kissed her pale cheek, again and again, blessing her in the most fervent and solemn manner.

"My feelings were not treacherous or unfaithful," he said; "I loved thee, sweetest, from the first. Sir Gervaise Oakes has my will, made in thy favour, before we sailed on this last cruise, and every shilling I leave will be thine. Mr. Atwood, procure that will, and add a codicil explaining this recent discovery, and confirming the legacy; let not the last be touched, for it is spontaneous and comes from the heart."

"And, now," answered Mrs. Dutton, "enough has passed for once. The sick-bed should be more quiet. Give me my child, again:—I cannot yet consent to part with her for ever."

"Mother! mother!" exclaimed Mildred, throwing herself on Mrs. Dutton's bosom—"I am yours, and yours only."

"Not so, I fear. Mildred, if all I suspect be true, and this is as proper a moment as another to place that matter also before your honoured uncle. Come forward, Sir Wycherly—I have understood you to say, this minute, in my ear, that you hold the pledge of this wilful girl to become your wife, should she ever be an orphan. An orphan she is, and has been since the first hour of her birth."

"No—no—no," murmured Mildred, burying her face still deeper in her mother's bosom, "not while you live, can I be an orphan. Not now—another time—this is unseasonable—cruel—nay, it is not what I said."'

"Take her away, dearest Mrs. Dutton," said Bluewater, tears of joy forcing themselves from his eyes. "Take her away, lest too much happiness come upon me at once. My thoughts should be calmer at such a moment."

Wycherly removed Mildred from her mother's arms, and gently led her from the room. When in Mrs. Dutton's apartment, he whispered something in the ear of the agitated girl that caused her to turn on him a look of happiness, though it came dimmed with tears; then he had his turn of holding her, for another precious instant, to his heart.

"My dear Mrs. Dutton—nay, my dear mother," he said, "Mildred and myself have both need of parents. I am an orphan like herself, and we can never consent to part with you. Look forward, I entreat you, to making one of our family in all things, for never can either Mildred or myself cease to consider you as any thing but a parent entitled to more than common reverence and affection."

Wycherly had hardly uttered this proper speech, when he received what he fancied a ten-fold reward. Mildred, in a burst of natural feeling, without affectation or reserve, but yielding to her heart only, threw her arms around his neck, murmured the word "thanks" several times, and wept freely on his bosom. When Mrs. Dutton received the sobbing girl from him, Wycherly kissed the mother's cheek, and he left the room.

Admiral Bluewater would not consent to seek his repose until he had a private conference with his friend and Wycherly. The latter was frankness and liberality itself, but the former would not wait for settlements. These he trusted to the young man's honour. His own time was short, and he should die perfectly happy could he leave his niece in the care of one like our Virginian. He wished the marriage to take place in his presence. On this, he even insisted, and, of course, Wycherly make no objections, but went to state the case to Mrs. Dutton and Mildred.

"It is singular, Dick," said Sir Gervaise, wiping his eyes, as he looked from a window that commanded a view of the sea, "that I have left both our flags flying in the Caesar! I declare, the oddness of the circumstance never struck me till this minute."

"Let them float thus a little longer, Gervaise. They have faced many a gale and many a battle together, and may endure each other's company a few hours longer."



CHAPTER XXX.

"Compound or weakness and of strength, Mighty, yet ignorant of thy power! Loftier than earth, or air, or sea, Yet meaner than the lowliest flower!

MARGARET DAVIDSON.

Not a syllable of explanation, reproach, or self-accusation had passed between the commander-in-chief and the rear-admiral, since the latter received his wound. Each party appeared to blot out the events of the last few days, leaving the long vista of their past services and friendship, undisfigured by a single unsightly or unpleasant object. Sir Gervaise, while he retained an active superintendence of his fleet, and issued the necessary orders right and left, hovered around the bed of Bluewater with the assiduity and almost with the tenderness of a woman; still not the slightest allusion was made to the recent battles, or to any thing that had occurred in the short cruise. The speech recorded at the close of the last chapter, was the first words he had uttered which might, in any manner, carry the mind of either back to events that both might wish forgotten. The rear-admiral felt this forbearance deeply, and now that the subject was thus accidentally broached between them, he had a desire to say something in continuation. Still he waited until the baronet had left the window and taken a seat by his bed.

"Gervaise," Bluewater then commenced, speaking low from weakness, but speaking distinctly from feeling, "I cannot die without asking your forgiveness. There were several hours when I actually meditated treason—I will not say to my king; on that point my opinions are unchanged—but to you."

"Why speak of this, Dick? You did not know yourself when you believed it possible to desert me in the face of the enemy. How much better I judged of your character, is seen in the fact that I did not hesitate to engage double my force, well knowing that you could not fail to come to my rescue."

Bluewater looked intently at his friend, and a smile of serious satisfaction passed over his pallid countenance as he listened to Sir Gervaise's words, which were uttered with his usual warmth and sincerity of manner.

"I believe you know me better than I know myself," he answered, after a thoughtful pause; "yes, better than I know myself. What a glorious close to our professional career would it have been, Oakes, had I followed you into battle, as was our old practice, and fallen in your wake, imitating your own high example!"

"It is better as it is, Dick—if any thing that has so sad a termination can be well—yes, it is better as it is; you have fallen at my side, as it were. We will think or talk no more of this."

"We have been friends, and close friends too, for a long period, Gervaise," returned Bluewater, stretching his arm from the bed, with the long, thin fingers of the hand extended to meet the other's grasp; "yet, I cannot recall an act of yours which I can justly lay to heart, as unkind, or untrue."

"God forgive me, if you can—I hope not, Dick; most sincerely do I hope not. It would give me great pain to believe it."

"You have no cause for self-reproach. In no one act or thought can you justly accuse yourself with injuring me. I should die much happier could I say the same of myself, Oakes!"

"Thought!—Dick?—Thought! You never meditated aught against me in your whole life. The love you bear me, is the true reason why you lie there, at this blessed moment."

"It is grateful to find that I have been understood. I am deeply indebted to you, Oakes, for declining to signal me and my division down, when I foolishly requested that untimely forbearance. I was then suffering an anguish of mind, to which any pain of the body I may now endure, is an elysium; your self-denial gave time—"

"For the heart to prompt you to that which your feelings yearned to do from the first, Bluewater," interrupted Sir Gervaise. "And, now, as your commanding officer, I enjoin silence on this subject, for ever."

"I will endeavour to obey. It will not be long, Oakes, that I shall remain under your orders," added the rear-admiral, with a painful smile. "There should be no charge of mutiny against me in the last act of my life. You ought to forgive the one sin of omission, when you remember how much and how completely my will has been subject to yours, during the last five-and-thirty years,—how little my mind has matured a professional thought that yours has not originated!"

"Speak no more of 'forgive,' I charge you, Dick. That you have shown a girl-like docility in obeying all my orders, too, is a truth I will aver before God and man; but when it comes to mind, I am far from asserting that mine has had the mastery. I do believe, could the truth he ascertained, it would be found that I am, at this blessed moment, enjoying a professional reputation, which is more than half due to you."

"It matters little, now, Gervaise—it matters little, now. We were two light-hearted and gay lads, Oakes, when we first met as boys, fresh from school, and merry as health and spirits could make us."

"We were, indeed, Dick!—yes, we were; thoughtless as if this sad moment were never to arrive!"

"There were George Anson, and Peter Warren, little Charley Saunders, Jack Byng, and a set of us, that did, indeed, live as if we were never to die! We carried our lives, as it might be, in our hands, Oakes!"

"There is much of that, Dick, in boyhood and youth. But, he is happiest, after all, who can meet this moment as you do—calmly, and yet without any dependence on his own merits."

"I had an excellent mother, Oakes! Little do we think, in youth, how much we owe to the unextinguishable tenderness, and far-seeing lessons of our mothers! Ours both died while we were young, yet I do think we were their debtors for far more than we could ever repay."

Sir Gervaise simply assented, but making no immediate answer, otherwise, a long pause succeeded, during which the vice-admiral fancied that his friend was beginning to doze. He was mistaken.

"You will be made Viscount Bowldero, for these last affairs, Gervaise," the wounded man unexpectedly observed, showing how much his thoughts were still engrossed with the interests of his friend. "Nor do I see why you should again refuse a peerage. Those who remain in this world, may well yield to its usages and opinions, while they do not interfere with higher obligations."

"I!"—exclaimed Sir Gervaise, gloomily. "The thought of so commemorating what has happened, would be worse than defeat to me! No—I ask no change of name to remind me constantly of my loss!"

Bluewater looked grateful, rather than pleased; but he made no answer. Now, he fell into a light slumber, from which he did not awake until the time he had himself set for the marriage of Wycherly and Mildred. With one uncle dead and still unburied, and another about to quit the world for ever, a rite that is usually deemed as joyous as it is solemn, might seem unseasonable; but the dying man had made it a request that he might have the consolation of knowing ere he expired, that he left his niece under the legal protection of one as competent, as he was desirous of protecting her. The reader must imagine the arguments that were used for the occasion, but they were such as disposed all, in the end, to admit the propriety of yielding their ordinary prejudices to the exigencies of the moment. It may be well to add, also, to prevent useless cavilling, that the laws of England were not as rigid on the subject of the celebration of marriages in 1745, as they subsequently became; and that it was lawful then to perform the ceremony in a private house without a license, and without the publishing of banns, even; restrictions that were imposed a few years later. The penalty for dispensing with the publication of banns, was a fine of L100, imposed on the clergyman; and this fine Bluewater chose to pay, rather than leave the only great object of life that now remained before him unaccomplished. This penalty in no degree impaired the validity of the contract, though Mrs. Dutton, as a woman, felt averse to parting with her beloved, without a rigid observance of all the customary forms. The point had finally been disposed of, by recourse to arguments addressed to the reason of this respectable woman, and by urging the necessity of the case. Her consent, however, was not given without a proviso, that a license should be subsequently procured, and a second marriage be had at a more fitting moment, should the ecclesiastical authorities consent to the same; a most improbable thing in itself.

Mr. Rotherham availed himself of the statute inflicting the penalty, as an excuse for not officiating. His real motive, however, was understood, and the chaplain of the Plantagenet, a divine of character and piety, was substituted in his place. Bluewater had requested that as many of the captains of the fleet should be present as could be collected, and it was the assembling of these warriors of the deep, together with the arrival of the clergyman, that first gave notice of the approach of the appointed hour.

It is not our intention to dwell on the details of a ceremony that had so much that was painful in its solemnities. Neither Wycherly nor Mildred made any change in their attire, and the lovely bride wept from the time the service began, to the moment when she left the arms of her uncle, to be received in those of her husband, and was supported from the room. All seemed sad, indeed, but Bluewater; to him the scene was exciting, but it brought great relief to his mind.

"I am now ready to die, gentlemen," he said, as the door closed on the new-married couple. "My last worldly care is disposed of, and it were better for me to turn all my thoughts to another state of being. My niece, Lady Wychecombe, will inherit the little I have to leave; nor do I know that it is of much importance to substantiate her birth, as her uncle clearly bestowed what would have been her mother's property, on her aunt, the duchess. If my dying declaration can be of any use, however, you hear it, and can testify to it. Now, come and take leave of me, one by one, that I may bless you all, and thank you for much undeserved, and, I fear, unrequited love."

The scene that followed was solemn and sad. One by one, the captains drew near the bed, and to each the dying man had something kind and affectionate to say. Even the most cold-hearted looked grave, and O'Neil, a man remarkable for a gaite de c[oe]ur that rendered the excitement of battle some of the pleasantest moments of his life, literally shed tears on the hand he kissed.

"Ah! my old friend," said the rear-admiral, as Parker, of the Carnatic, drew near in his customary meek and subdued manner, "you perceive it is not years alone that bring us to our graves! They tell me you have behaved as usual in these late affairs; I trust that, after a long life of patient and arduous services, you are about to receive a proper reward."

"I will acknowledge, Admiral Bluewater," returned Parker, earnestly, "that it would be peculiarly grateful to receive some mark of the approbation of my sovereign; principally on account of my dear wife and children. We are not, like yourself, descended from a noble family; but must carve our rights to distinction, and they who have never known honours of this nature, prize them highly."

"Ay, my good Parker," interrupted the rear-admiral, "and they who have ever known them, know their emptiness; most especially as they approach that verge of existence whence the eye looks in a near and fearful glance, over the vast and unknown range of eternity."

"No doubt, sir; nor am I so vain as to suppose that hairs which have got to be grey as mine, can last for ever. But, what I was about to say is, that precious as honours are to the humble, I would cheerfully yield every hope of the sort I have, to see you on the poop of the Caesar again, with Mr. Cornet at your elbow, leading the fleet, or following the motions of the vice-admiral."

"Thank you, my good Parker; that can never be; nor can I say, now, that I wish it might. When we have cast off from the world, there is less pleasure in looking back, than in looking ahead. God bless you, Parker, and keep you, as you ever have been, an honest man."

Stowel was the last to approach the bed, nor did he do it until all had left the room but Sir Gervaise and himself.

The indomitable good-nature, and the professional nonchalance of Bluewater, by leaving every subordinate undisturbed in the enjoyment of his own personal caprices, had rendered the rear-admiral a greater favourite, in one sense at least, than the commander-in-chief. Stowel, by his near connection with Bluewater, had profited more by these peculiarities than any other officer under him, and the effect on his feelings had been in a very just proportion to the benefits. He could not refrain, it is true, from remembering the day when he himself had been a lieutenant in the ship in which the rear-admiral had been a midshipman, but he no longer recollected the circumstance with the bitterness that it sometimes drew after it. On the contrary, it was now brought to his mind merely as the most distant of the many land-marks in their long and joint services.

"Well, Stowel," observed Bluewater, smiling sadly, "even the old Caesar must be left behind. It is seldom a flag-captain has not some heart-burnings on account of his superior, and most sincerely do I beg you to forget and forgive any I may have occasioned yourself."

"Heaven help me, sir!—I was far, just then, from thinking of any such thing! I was fancying how little I should have thought it probable, when we were together in the Calypso, that I should ever be thus standing at your bed-side. Really, Admiral Bluewater, I would rejoice to share with you the remnant of life that is left me."

"I do believe you would, Stowel; but that can never be. I have just performed my last act in this world, in giving my niece to Sir Wycherly Wychecombe."

"Yes, sir;—yes, sir—marriage is no doubt honourable, as I often tell Mrs. Stowel, and therefore not to be despised; and yet it is singular, that a gentleman who has lived a bachelor himself, should fancy to see a marriage ceremony performed, and that, too, at the cost of L100, if any person choose to complain, just at the close of his own cruise! However, men are no more alike in such matters, than women in their domestic qualities; and I sincerely hope this young Sir Wycherly may find as much comfort, in the old house I understand he has a little inland here, as you and I have had together, sir, in the old Caesar. I suppose there'll be no co-equals in Wychecombe Hall."

"I trust not, Stowel. But you must now receive my last orders, as to the Caesar—"

"The commander-in-chief has his own flag flying aboard of us, sir!" interrupted the methodical captain, in a sort of admonitory way.

"Never mind that, Stowel;—I'll answer for his acquiescence. My body must be received on board, and carried round in the ship to Plymouth. Place it on the main-deck, where the people can see the coffin; I would pass my last hours above ground, in their midst."

"It shall be done, sir—yes, sir, to the letter, Sir Gervaise not countermanding. And I'll write this evening to Mrs. Stowel to say she needn't come down, as usual, as soon as she hears the ship is in, but that she must wait until your flag is fairly struck."

"I should be sorry, Stowel, to cause a moment's delay in the meeting of husband and wife!"

"Don't name it, Admiral Bluewater;—Mrs. Stowel will understand that it's duty; and when we married, I fully explained to her that duty, with a sailor, came before matrimony."

A little pause succeeded, then Bluewater took a final and affectionate leave of his captain. Some twenty minutes elapsed in a profound silence, during which Sir Gervaise did not stir, fancying that his friend again dozed. But it was ordered that Bluewater was never to sleep again, until he took the final rest of the dead. It was the mind, which had always blazed above the duller lethargy of his body, that buoyed him thus up, giving an unnatural impulse to his physical powers; an impulse, however, that was but momentary, and which, by means of the reaction, contributed, in the end, to his more speedy dissolution. Perceiving, at length, that his friend did not sleep, Sir Gervaise drew near his bed.

"Richard," he said, gently, "there is one without, who pines to be admitted. I have refused even his tears, under the impression that you felt disposed to sleep."

"Never less so. My mind appears to become brighter and clearer, instead of fading; I think I shall never sleep, in the sense you mean. Whoever the person is, let him be admitted."

Receiving this permission, Sir Gervaise opened the door, and Geoffrey Cleveland entered. At the same moment, Galleygo, who came and went at pleasure, thrust in his own ungainly form. The boy's face betrayed the nature and the extent of his grief. In his mind, Admiral Bluewater was associated with all the events of his own professional life; and, though the period had in truth been so short, in his brief existence, the vista through which he looked back, seemed quite as long as that which marked the friendship of the two admirals, themselves. Although he struggled manfully for self-control, feeling got the better of the lad, and he threw himself on his knees, at the side of his bed, sobbing as if his heart would break. Bluewater's eye glistened, and he laid a hand affectionately on the head of his young relative.

"Gervaise, you will take charge of this boy, when I'm gone," he said; "receive him in your own ship. I leave him to you, as a very near and dear professional legacy. Cheer up—cheer up—my brave boy; look upon all this as a sailor's fortune. Our lives are the—"

The word "king's," which should have succeeded, seemed to choke the speaker. Casting a glance of meaning at his friend, with a painful smile on his face, he continued silent.

"Ah! dear sir," answered the midshipman, ingenuously; "I knew that we might all be killed, but it never occurred to me that an admiral could lose his life in battle. I'm sure—I'm sure you are the very first that has met with this accident!"

"Not by many, my poor Geoffrey. As there are but few admirals, few fall; but we are as much exposed as others."

"If I had only run that Monsieur des Prez through the body, when we closed with him," returned the boy, grating his teeth, and looking all the vengeance for which, at the passing instant, he felt the desire; "it would have been something! I might have done it, too, for he was quite unguarded!"

"It would have been a very bad thing, boy, to have injured a brave man, uselessly."

"Of what use was it to shoot you, sir? We took their ship, just the same as if you had not been hurt."

"I rather think, Geoffrey, their ship was virtually taken before I was wounded," returned Bluewater, smiling. "But I was shot by a French marine, who did no more than his duty."

"Yes, sir," exclaimed the boy, impatiently; "and he escaped without a scratch. He, at least, ought to have been massacred."

"Thou art bloody-minded, child; I scarce know thee. Massacred is not a word for either a British nobleman or a British sailor. I saved the life of that marine; and, when you come to lie, like me, on your death-bed, Geoffrey, you will learn how sweet a consolation can be derived from the consciousness of such an act; we all need mercy, and none ought to expect it, for themselves, who do not yield it to others."

The boy was rebuked, and his feelings took a better, though scarcely a more natural direction. Bluewater now spoke to him of his newly-discovered cousin, and had a melancholy satisfaction in creating an interest in behalf of Mildred, in the breast of the noble-hearted and ingenuous boy. The latter listened with respectful attention, as had been his wont, until, deceived by the tranquil and benevolent manner of Bluewater, he permitted himself to fall into the natural delusion of believing the wound of the rear-admiral less serious than he had supposed, and to begin to entertain hopes that the wounded man might yet survive. Calmed by these feelings, he soon ceased to weep; and, promising discretion, was permitted by Sir Gervaise to remain in the room, where he busied himself in the offices of a nurse.

Another long pause succeeded this exciting little scene, during which Bluewater lay quietly communing with himself and his God. Sir Gervaise wrote orders, and read reports, though his eye was never off the countenance of his friend more than a minute or two at a time. At length, the rear-admiral aroused himself, again, and began to take an interest once more, in the persons and things around him.

"Galleygo, my old fellow-cruiser," he said, "I leave Sir Gervaise more particularly in your care. As we advance in life, our friends decrease in numbers; it is only those that have been well tried that we can rely on."

"Yes, Admiral Blue, I knows that, and so does Sir Jarvy. Yes, old shipmates afore young 'uns, any day, and old sailors, too, afore green hands. Sir Jarvy's Bowlderos are good plate-holders, and the likes of that; but when it comes to heavy weather, and a hard strain, I thinks but little on 'em, all put together."

"By the way, Oakes," said Bluewater, with a sudden interest in such a subject, that he never expected to feel again, "I have heard nothing of the first day's work, in which, through the little I have gleaned, by listening to those around me, I understand you took a two-decker, besides dismasting the French admiral?"

"Pardon me, Dick; you had better try and catch a little sleep; the subject of those two days' work is really painful to me."

"Well, then, Sir Jarvy, if you has an avarsion to telling the story to Admiral Blue, I can do it, your honour," put in Galleygo, who gloried in giving a graphic description of a sea-fight. "I thinks, now, a history of that day will comfort a flag-hofficer as has been so badly wounded himself."

Bluewater offering no opposition, Galleygo proceeded with his account of the evolutions of the ships, as we have already described them, succeeding surprisingly well in rendering the narrative interesting, and making himself perfectly intelligible and clear, by his thorough knowledge, and ready use, of the necessary nautical terms. When he came to the moment in which the English line separated, part passing to windward, and part to leeward of the two French ships, he related the incident in so clear and spirited a manner, that the commander-in-chief himself dropped his pen, and sat listening with pleasure.

"Who could imagine, Dick," Sir Gervaise observed, "that those fellows in the tops watch us so closely, and could give so accurate an account of what passes!"

"Ah! Gervaise, and what is the vigilance of Galleygo to that of the All-seeing eye! It is a terrible thought, at an hour like this, to remember that nothing can be forgotten. I have somewhere read that not an oath is uttered that does not continue to vibrate through all time, in the wide-spreading currents of sound—not a prayer lisped, that its record is not also to be found stamped on the laws of nature, by the indelible seal of the Almighty's will!"

There was little in common between the religious impressions of the two friends. They were both sailors, and though the word does not necessarily imply that they were sinners in an unusual degree, neither does it rigidly imply that they were saints. Each had received the usual elementary education, and then each had been turned adrift, as it might be on the ocean of life, to suffer the seed to take root, and the fruit to ripen as best they might. Few of those "who go down to the great deep in ships," and who escape the more brutalizing effects of lives so rude, are altogether without religious impressions. Living so much, as it were, in the immediate presence of the power of God, the sailor is much disposed to reverence his omnipotence, even while he transgresses his laws; but in nearly all those instances in which nature has implanted a temperament inclining to deep feeling, as was the case with Bluewater, not even the harsh examples, nor the loose or irresponsible lives of men thus separated from the customary ties of society, can wholly extinguish the reverence for God which is created by constantly dwelling in the presence of his earthly magnificence. This sentiment in Bluewater had not been altogether without fruits, for he both read and reflected much. Sometimes, though at isolated and distant intervals, he even prayed; and that fervently, and with a strong and full sense of his own demerits. As a consequence of this general disposition, and of the passing convictions, his mind was better attuned for the crisis before him, than would have been the case with most of his brethren in arms, who, when overtaken with the fate so common to the profession, are usually left to sustain their last moments with the lingering enthusiasm of strife and victory.

On the other hand, Sir Gervaise was as simple as a child in matters of this sort. He had a reverence for his Creator, and such general notions of his goodness and love, as the well-disposed are apt to feel; but all the dogmas concerning the lost condition of the human race, the mediation, and the power of faith, floated in his mind as opinions not to be controverted, and yet as scarcely to be felt. In short, the commander-in-chief admitted the practical heresy, which overshadows the faith of millions, while he deemed himself to be a stout advocate of church and king. Still, Sir Gervaise Oakes, on occasions, was more than usually disposed to seriousness, and was even inclined to be devout; but it was without much regard to theories or revelation. At such moments, while his opinions would not properly admit him within the pale of any Christian church, in particular, his feelings might have identified him with all. In a word, we apprehend he was a tolerably fair example of what vague generalities, when acting on a temperament not indisposed to moral impressions, render the great majority of men; who flit around the mysteries of a future state, without alighting either on the consolations of faith, or discovering any of those logical conclusions which, half the time unconsciously to themselves, they seem to expect. When Bluewater made his last remark, therefore, the vice-admiral looked anxiously at his friend; and religion for the first time since the other received his hurt, mingled with his reflections. He had devoutly, though mentally, returned thanks to God for his victory, but it had never occurred to him that Bluewater might need some preparation for death.

"Would you like to see the Plantagenet's chaplain, again, Dick?" he said, tenderly; "you are no Papist; of that I am certain."

"In that you are quite right, Gervaise. I consider all churches—the one holy Catholic church, if you will, as but a means furnished by divine benevolence to aid weak men in their pilgrimage; but I also believe that there is even a shorter way to his forgiveness than through these common avenues. How far I am right," he added, smiling, "none will probably know better than myself, a few hours hence."

"Friends must meet again, hereafter, Bluewater; it is irrational to suppose that they who have loved each other so well in this state of being, are to be for ever separated in the other."

"We will hope so, Oakes," taking the vice-admiral's hand; "we will hope so. Still, there will be no ships for us—no cruises—no victories—no triumphs! It is only at moments like this, at which I have arrived, that we come to view these things in their proper light. Of all the past, your constant, unwavering friendship, gives me the most pleasure!"

The vice-admiral could resist no longer. He turned aside and wept. This tribute to nature, in one so manly, was imposing even to the dying man, and Galleygo regarded it with awe. Familiar as the latter had become with his master, by use and indulgence, no living being, in his estimation, was as authoritative or as formidable as the commander-in-chief; and the effect of the present spectacle, was to induce him to hide his own face in self-abasement. Bluewater saw it all, but he neither spoke, nor gave any token of his observation. He merely prayed, and that right fervently, not only for his friend, but for his humble and uncouth follower.

A reaction took place in the system of the wounded man, about nine o'clock that night. At this time he believed himself near his end, and he sent for Wycherly and his niece, to take his leave of them. Mrs. Dutton was also present, as was Magrath, who remained on shore, in attendance. Mildred lay for half an hour, bathing her uncle's pillow with her tears, until she was removed at the surgeon's suggestion.

"Ye'll see, Sir Gervaise," he whispered—(or "Sir Jairvis," as he always pronounced the name,)—"ye'll see, Sir Jairvis, that it's a duty of the faculty to prolong life, even when there's no hope of saving it; and if ye'll be regairding the judgment of a professional man, Lady Wychecombe had better withdraw. It would really be a matter of honest exultation for us Plantagenets to get the rear-admiral through the night, seeing that the surgeon of the Caesar said he could no survive the setting sun."

At the moment of final separation, Bluewater had little to say to his niece. Ho kissed and blessed her again and again, and then signed that she should be taken away. Mrs. Dutton, also, came in for a full share of his notice, he having desired her to remain after Wycherly and Mildred had quitted the room.

"To your care and affection, excellent woman," he said, in a voice that had now sunk nearly to a whisper—"we owe it, that Mildred is not unfit for her station. Her recovery would have been even more painful than her loss, had she been restored to her proper family, uneducated, vulgar, and coarse."

"That could hardly have happened to Mildred, sir, in any circumstances," answered the weeping woman. "Nature has done too much for the dear child, to render her any thing but delicate and lovely, under any tolerable circumstances of depression."

"She is better as she is, and God be thanked that he raised up such a protector for her childhood. You have been all in all to her in her infancy, and she will strive to repay it to your age."

Of this Mrs. Dutton felt too confident to need assurances; and receiving the dying man's blessing, she knelt at his bed-side, prayed fervently for a few minutes, and withdrew. After this, nothing out of the ordinary track occurred until past midnight, and Magrath, more than once, whispered his joyful anticipations that the rear-admiral would survive until morning. An hour before day, however, the wounded man revived, in a way that the surgeon distrusted. He knew that no physical change of this sort could well happen that did not arise from the momentary ascendency of mind over matter, as the spirit is on the point of finally abandoning its earthly tenement; a circumstance of no unusual occurrence in patients of strong and active intellectual properties, whose faculties often brighten for an instant, in their last moments, as the lamp flashes and glares as it is about to become extinct. Going to the bed, he examined his patient attentively, and was satisfied that the final moment was near.

"You're a man and a soldier, Sir Jairvis," he said, in a low voice, "and it'll no be doing good to attempt misleading your judgment in a case of this sort. Our respectable friend, the rear-admiral, is articulo mortis, as one might almost say; he cannot possibly survive half an hour."

Sir Gervaise started. He looked around him a little wistfully; for, at that moment, he would have given much to be alone with his dying friend. But he hesitated to make a request, which, it struck him, might seem improper. From this embarrassment, however, he was relieved by Bluewater, himself, who had the same desire, without the same scruples about confessing it. He drew the surgeon to his side, and whispered a wish to be left alone with the commander-in-chief.

"Well, there will be no trespass on the rules of practice in indulging the poor man in his desire," muttered Magrath, as he looked about him to gather the last of his professional instruments, like the workman who is about to quit one place of toil to repair to another; "and I'll just be indulging him."

So saying, he pushed Galleygo and Geoffrey from the room before him, left it himself, and closed the door.

Finding himself alone, Sir Gervaise knelt at the side of the bed and prayed, holding the hand of his friend in both his own. The example of Mrs. Dutton, and the yearnings of his own heart, exacted this sacrifice; when it was over he felt a great relief from sensations that nearly choked him.

"Do you forgive me, Gervaise?" whispered Bluewater.

"Name it not—name it not, my best friend. We all have our moments of weakness, and our need of pardon. May God forget all my sins, as freely as I forget your errors!"

"God bless you, Oakes, and keep you the same simple-minded, true-hearted man, you have ever been."

Sir Gervaise buried his face in the bed-clothes, and groaned.

"Kiss me, Oakes," murmured the rear-admiral.

In order to do this, the commander-in-chief rose from his knees and bent over the body of his friend. As he raised himself from the cheek he had saluted, a benignant smile gleamed on the face of the dying man, and he ceased to breathe. Near half a minute followed, however, before the last and most significant breath that is ever drawn from man, was given. The remainder of that night Sir Gervaise Oakes passed in the chamber alone, pacing the floor, recalling the many scenes of pleasure, danger, pain, and triumph, through which he and the dead had passed in company. With the return of light, he summoned the attendants, and retired to his tent.



CHAPTER XXXI.

"And they came for the buried king that lay 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 Caesar. 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 exceeded the ordinary aspects of mere form. Many of the captains, and Greenly in particular, had viewed the man[oe]uvring of Bluewater with surprise, and the latter not altogether without displeasure; but his subsequent conduct completely 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 were 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 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 Caesar, 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, when 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 may be said here, that Sir Gervaise refused, for the third 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-Chapelle 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 be abandoned and set fire to, at sea. Her commander 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 any thing more of the legacies. In the end he received the L20,000 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 he 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 Sir Gervaise Oakes, as one of the principal mourners at the 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-etiquette, 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 to the agreeables of this new connection. I am impatient, 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 near relatives who dwelt there. Mrs. Dutton, by invitation, was of the party; but Dutton was left behind, 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' 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 eclat, that was grateful to one of the main weaknesses of 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 any thing 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 particularly settlements with his factor, compelled the baronet 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 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 the throne not less than three lustrums, and most of the important 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 not less than half-a-dozen equipages were in waiting, in 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 two lovely young Virginians cast wistful and curious eyes 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 ch[oe]ur, 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 imposing-looking 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! 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 steward; but the gentleman with him is a stranger. Let 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. 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 in 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 these 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?"