Chapter VIII

 
“Look to’t, think on’t, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise;
An’ you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend;
An’ you be not, hang, beg, starve, die i’ the streets.”
 

Romeo and Juliet.

Wychecombe Hall, had most of the peculiarities of a bachelor’s dwelling, in its internal government; nor was it, in any manner, behind, or, it might be better to say, before, the age, in its modes and customs connected with jollifications. When its master relaxed a little, the servants quite uniformly imitated his example. Sir Wycherly kept a plentiful table, and the servants’ hall fared nearly as well as the dining-room; the single article of wine excepted. In lieu of the latter, however, was an unlimited allowance of double-brewed ale; and the difference in the potations was far more in the name, than in the quality of the beverages. The master drank port; for, in the middle of the last century, few Englishmen had better wine – and port, too, that was by no means of a very remarkable delicacy, but which, like those who used it, was rough, honest, and strong; while the servant had his malt liquor of the very highest stamp and flavour. Between indifferent wine and excellent ale, the distance is not interminable; and Sir Wycherly’s household, was well aware of the fact, having frequently instituted intelligent practical comparisons, by means of which, all but the butler and Mrs. Larder had come to the conclusion to stand by the home-brewed.

On the present occasion, not a soul in the house was ignorant of the reason why the baronet was making a night of it. Every man, woman, and child, in or about the Hall, was a devoted partisan of the house of Hanover; and as soon as it was understood that this feeling was to be manifested by drinking “success to King George, and God bless him,” on the one side; and “confusion to the Pretender, and his mad son,” on the other; all under the roof entered into the duty, with a zeal that might have seated a usurper on a throne, if potations could do it.

When Admiral Bluewater, therefore, left the chamber of his friend, the signs of mirth and of a regular debauch were so very obvious, that a little curiosity to watch the result, and a disinclination to go off to his ship so soon, united to induce him to descend into the rooms below, with a view to get a more accurate knowledge of the condition of the household. In crossing the great hall, to enter the drawing-room, he encountered Galleygo, when the following discourse took place.

“I should think the master-at-arms has not done his duty, and dowsed the glim below, Master Steward,” said the rear-admiral, in his quiet way, as they met; “the laughing, and singing, and hiccupping, are all upon a very liberal scale for a respectable country-house.”

Galleygo touched the lock of hair on his forehead, with one hand, and gave his trowsers a slue with the other, before he answered; which he soon did, however, though with a voice a little thicker than was usual with him, on account of his having added a draught or two to those he had taken previously to visiting Sir Gervaise’s dressing-room; and which said additional draught or two, had produced some such effect on his system, as the fresh drop produces on the cup that is already full.

“That’s just it, Admiral Blue,” returned the steward, in passing good-humour, though still sober enough to maintain the decencies, after his own fashion; “that’s just it, your honour. They’ve passed the word below to let the lights stand for further orders, and have turned the hands up for a frolic. Such ale as they has, stowed in the lower hold of this house, like leaguers in the ground-tier, it does a body’s heart good to conter’plate. All hands is bowsing out their jibs on it, sir, and the old Hall will soon be carrying as much sail as she can stagger under. It’s nothing but loose-away and sheet-home.”

“Ay, ay, Galleygo, this may be well enough for the people of the household, if Sir Wycherly allows it; but it ill becomes the servants of guests to fall into this disorder. If I find Tom has done any thing amiss, he will hear more of it; and as your own master is not here to admonish you, I’ll just take the liberty of doing it for him, since I know it would mortify him exceedingly to learn that his steward had done any thing to disgrace himself.”

“Lord bless your dear soul, Admiral Blue, take just as many liberties as you think fit, and I’ll never pocket one on ‘em. I know’d you, when you was only a young gentleman, and now you’re a rear. You’re close on our heels; and by the time we are a full admiral, you’ll be something like a vice. I looks upon you as bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, – Pillardees and Arrestees – and I no more minds a setting-down from your honour, than I does from Sir Jarvy, hisself.”

“I believe that is true enough, Galleygo; but take my advice, and knock off with the ale for to-night. Can you tell me how the land lies, with the rest of the company?”

“You couldn’t have asked a better person, your honour, as I’ve just been passing through all the rooms, from a sort of habit I has, sir; for, d’ye see, I thought I was in the old Planter, and that it was my duty to overlook every thing, as usual. The last pull at the ale, put that notion in my head; but it’s gone now, and I see how matters is. Yes, sir, the mainmast of a church isn’t stiffer and more correct-like, than my judgment is, at this blessed moment. Sir Wycherly guv’ me a glass of his black-strap, as I ran through the dining-room, and told me to drink ‘Confusion to the Pretender,’ which I did, with hearty good-will; but his liquor will no more lay alongside of the ale they’ve down on the orlop, than a Frenchman will compare with an Englishman. What’s your opinion, Admiral Blue, consarning this cruise of the Pretender’s son, up in the Highlands of Scotland?”

Bluewater gave a quick, distrustful glance at the steward, for he knew that the fellow was half his time in the outer cabin and pantries of the Plantagenet, and he could not tell how much of his many private dialogues with Sir Gervaise, might have been overheard. Meeting with nothing but the unmeaning expression of one half-seas-over, his uneasiness instantly subsided.

“I think it a gallant enterprise, Galleygo,” he answered; too manly even to feign what he did not believe; “but I fear as a cruise, it will not bring much prize-money. You have forgotten you were about to tell me how the land lies. Sir Wycherly, Mr. Dutton, Mr. Rotherham, are still at the table, I fancy – are these all? What have become of the two young gentlemen?”

“There’s none ashore, sir,” said Galleygo, promptly, accustomed to give that appellation only to midshipmen.

“I mean the two Mr. Wychecombes; one of whom, I had forgot, is actually an officer.”

“Yes, sir, and a most partic’lar fine officer he is, as every body says. Well, sir, he’s with the ladies; while his namesake has gone back to the table, and has put luff upon luff, to fetch up leeway.”

“And the ladies – what have they done with themselves, in this scene of noisy revelry?”

“They’se in yonder state-room, your honour. As soon as they found how the ship was heading, like all women-craft, they both makes for the best harbour they could run into. Yes, they’se yonder.”

As Galleygo pointed to the door of the room he meant, Bluewater proceeded towards it, parting with the steward after a few more words of customary, but very useless caution. The tap of the admiral was answered by Wycherly in person, who opened the door, and made way for his superior to enter, with a respectful obeisance. There was but a single candle in the little parlour, in which the two females had taken refuge from the increasing noise of the debauch; and this was due to a pious expedient of Mildred’s, in extinguishing the others, with a view to conceal the traces of tears that were still visible on her own and her mother’s cheeks. The rear-admiral was, at first, struck with this comparative obscurity; but it soon appeared to him appropriate to the feelings of the party assembled in the room. Mrs. Dutton received him with the ease she had acquired in her early life, and the meeting passed as a matter of course, with persons temporarily residing under the same roof.

“Our friends appear to be enjoying themselves,” said Blue-water, when a shout from the dining-room forced itself on the ears of all present. “The loyalty of Sir Wycherly seems to be of proof.”

“Oh! Admiral Bluewater,” exclaimed the distressed wife, feeling, momentarily, getting the better of discretion; “do you – can you call such a desecration of God’s image enjoyment?”

“Not justly, perhaps, Mrs. Dutton; and yet it is what millions mistake for it. This mode of celebrating any great event, and even of illustrating what we think our principles, is, I fear, a vice not only of our age, but of our country.”

“And yet, neither you, nor Sir Gervaise Oakes, I see, find it necessary to give such a proof of your attachment to the house of Hanover, or of your readiness to serve it with your time and persons.”

“You will remember, my good, lady, that both Oakes and myself are flag-officers in command, and it would never do for us to fall into a debauch in sight of our own ships. I am glad to see, however, that Mr. Wychecombe, here, prefers such society as I find him in, to the pleasures of the table.”

Wycherly bowed, and Mildred cast an expressive, not to say grateful, glance towards the speaker; but her mother pursued the discourse, in which she found a little relief to her suppressed emotion.

“God be thanked for that!” she exclaimed, half-unconscious of the interpretation that might be put on her words; “All that we have seen of Mr. Wychecombe would lead us to believe that this is not an unusual, or an accidental forbearance.”

“So much the more fortunate for him. I congratulate you, young sir, on this triumph of principle, or of temperament, or of both. We belong to a profession, in which the bottle is an enemy more to be feared, than any that the king can give us. A sailor can call in no ally as efficient in subduing this mortal foe, as an intelligent and cultivated mind. The man who really thinks much, seldom drinks much; but there are hours – nay, weeks and months of idleness in a ship, in which the temptation to resort to unnatural excitement in quest of pleasure, is too strong for minds, that are not well fortified, to resist. This is particularly the case with commanders, who find themselves isolated by their rank, and oppressed with responsibility, in the privacy of their own cabins, and get to make a companion of the bottle, by way of seeking relief from uncomfortable thoughts, and of creating a society of their own. I deem the critical period of a sailor’s life, to be the first few years of solitary command.”

“How true! – how true!” murmured Mrs. Dutton. “Oh! that cutter – that cruel cutter!”

The truth flashed upon the recollection of Bluewater, at this unguarded, and instantly regretted exclamation. Many years before, when only a captain himself, he had been a member of a court-martial which cashiered a lieutenant of the name of Dutton, for grievous misconduct, while in command of a cutter; the fruits of the bottle. From the first, he thought the name familiar to him; but so many similar things had happened in the course of forty years’ service, that this particular incident had been partially lost in the obscurity of time. It was now completely recalled, however; and that, too, with all its attendant circumstances. The recollection served to give the rear-admiral renewed interest in the unhappy wife, and lovely daughter, of the miserable delinquent. He had been applied to, at the time, for his interest in effecting the restoration of the guilty officer, or even to procure for him, the hopeless station he now actually occupied; but he had sternly refused to be a party in placing any man in authority, who was the victim of a propensity that not only disgraced himself, but which, in the peculiar position of a sailor, equally jeoparded the honour of the country, and risked the lives of all around him. He was aware that the last application had been successful, by means of a court influence it was very unusual to exert in cases so insignificant; and, then, he had, for years, lost sight of the criminal and his fortunes. This unexpected revival of his old impressions, caused him to feel like an ancient friend of the wife and daughter; for well could he recall a scene he had with both, in which the struggle between his humanity and his principles had been so violent as actually to reduce him to tears. Mildred had forgotten the name of this particular officer, having been merely a child; but well did Mrs. Dutton remember it, and with fear and trembling had she come that day, to meet him at the Hall. The first look satisfied her that she was forgotten, and she had struggled herself, to bury in oblivion, a scene which was one of the most painful of her life. The unguarded expression, mentioned, entirely changed the state of affairs.