"Ay, but that was a long time ago, and they have got bravely over it. I account for the deficiencies of both the French and Spanish marines something in this way, Greenly. Columbus, and the discovery of America, brought ships and sailors into fashion. But a ship without an officer fit to command her, is like a body without a soul. Fashion, however, brought your young nobles into their services, and men were given vessels because their fathers were dukes and counts, and not because they knew any thing about them."
"Is our own service entirely free from this sort of favouritism?" quietly demanded the captain.
"Far from it, Greenly; else would not Morganic have been made a captain at twenty, and old Parker, for instance, one only at fifty. But, somehow, our classes slide into each other, in a way that neutralizes, in a great degree, the effect of birth. Is it not so, Atwood?"
"Some of our classes, Sir Gervaise, manage to slide into all the best places, if the truth must be said."
"Well, that is pretty bold for a Scotchman!" rejoined the vice-admiral, good-humouredly. "Ever since the accession of the house of Stuart, we've built a bridge across the Tweed that lets people pass in only one direction. I make no doubt this Pretender's son will bring down half Scotland at his heels, to fill all the berths they may fancy suitable to their merits. It's an easy way of paying bounty—promises."
"This affair in the north, they tell me, seems a little serious," said Greenly. "I believe this is Mr. Atwood's opinion?"
"You'll find it serious enough, if Sir Gervaise's notion about the bounty be true," answered the immovable secretary. "Scotia is a small country, but it's well filled with 'braw sperits,' if there's an opening for them to prove it."
"Well, well, this war between England and Scotland is out of place, while we have the French and Spaniards on our hands. Most extraordinary scenes have we had ashore, yonder, Greenly, with an old Devonshire baronet, who slipped and is off for the other world, while we were in his house."
"Magrath has told me something of it, sir; and, he tells me the fill-us-null-us—hang me if I can make out his gibberish, five minutes after it was told to me."
"Filius nullius, you mean; nobody's baby—the son of nobody—have you forgotten your Latin, man?"