"Faith, Sir Gervaise, I never had any to forget. My father was a captain of a man-of-war before me, and he kept me afloat from the time I was five, down to the day of his death; Latin was no part of my spoon-meat."
"Ay—ay—my good fellow, I knew your father, and was in the third ship from him, in the action in which he fell," returned the vice-admiral, kindly. "Bluewater was just ahead of him, and we all loved him, as we did an elder brother. You were not promoted, then."
"No, sir, I was only a midshipman, and didn't happen to be in his own ship that day," answered Greenly, sensibly touched with this tribute to his parent's merit; "but I was old enough to remember how nobly you all behaved on the occasion. Well,"—slily brushing his eye with his hand,—"Latin may do a schoolmaster good, but it is of little use on board ship. I never had but one scholar among all my cronies and intimates."
"And who was he, Greenly? You shouldn't despise knowledge, because you don't understand it. I dare say your intimate was none the worse for a little Latin—enough to go through nullus, nulla, nullum, for instance. Who was this intimate, Greenly?"
"John Bluewater—handsome Jack, as he was called; the younger brother of the admiral. They sent him to sea, to keep him out of harm's way in some love affair; and you may remember that while he was with the admiral, or Captain Bluewater, as he was then, I was one of the lieutenants. Although poor Jack was a soldier and in the guards, and he was four or five years my senior, he took a fancy to me, and we became intimate. He understood Latin, better than he did his own interests."
"In what did he fail?—Bluewater was never very communicative to me about that brother."
"There was a private marriage, and cross guardians, and the usual difficulties. In the midst of it all, poor John fell in battle, as you know, and his widow followed him to the grave, within a month or two. 'Twas a sad story all round, and I try to think of it as little as possible."
"A private marriage!" repeated Sir Gervaise, slowly. "Are you quite sure of that? I don't think Bluewater is aware of that circumstance; at least, I never heard him allude to it. Could there have been any issue?"
"No one can know it better than myself, as I helped to get the lady off, and was present at the ceremony. That much I know. Of issue, I should think there was none; though the colonel lived a year after the marriage. How far the admiral is familiar with all these circumstances I cannot say, as one would not like to introduce the particulars of a private marriage of a deceased brother, to his commanding officer."
"I am glad there was no issue, Greenly—particular circumstances make me glad of that. But we will change the discourse, as these family disasters make one melancholy; and a melancholy dinner is like ingratitude to Him who bestows it."