“Said you, farmer, that the Scotchman beheld the vessels with his own eyes?”
The answer was a simple negative.
“Well, well,” continued the colonel, “you can withdraw.”
The man made a rude attempt at a bow, which being returned by the old soldier with formal grace, he left the room. The host turning to his companions, resumed the subject.
“If those rash boys have really persuaded the silly dotard who commands the frigate, to trust himself within the shoals on the eve of such a gale as this, their case must have been hopeless indeed! Thus may rebellion and disaffection ever meet with the just indignation of Providence! It would not surprise me, gentleman, to hear that my native land had been engulfed by earthquakes, or swallowed by the ocean, so awful and inexcusable has been the weight of her transgressions! And yet it was a proud and daring boy who held the second station in that ship! I knew his father well, and a gallant gentleman he was, who, like my own brother, the parent of Cecilia, preferred to serve his master on the ocean rather than on the land. His son inherited the bravery of his high spirit, without its loyalty. One would not wish to have such a youth drowned, either.”
This speech, which partook much of the nature of a soliloquy, especially toward its close, called for no immediate reply; but the soldier, having held his glass to the candle, to admire the rosy hue of its contents, and then sipped of the fluid so often that nothing but a clear light remained to gaze at, quietly replaced the empty vessel on the table, and, as he extended an arm toward the blushing bottle, he spoke, in the careless tones of one whose thoughts were dwelling on another theme:
“Ay, true enough, sir; good men are scarce, and, as you say, one cannot but mourn his fate, though his death be glorious; quite a loss to his majesty's service, I dare say, it will prove.”
“A loss to the service of his majesty!” echoed the host—“his death glorious! no, Captain Borroughcliffe, the death of no rebel can be glorious; and how he can be a loss to his majesty's service, I myself am quite at a loss to understand.”
The soldier, whose ideas were in that happy state of confusion that renders it difficult to command the one most needed, but who still, from long discipline, had them under a wonderful control for the disorder of his brain, answered, with great promptitude:
“I mean the loss of his example, sir. It would have been so appalling to others to have seen the young man executed instead of shot in battle.”