The Two Admirals. Джеймс Фенимор Купер
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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