"So he did!—God bless him! A clever youth, and he did marry Dick's niece. God bless them both. Well, sir, you're a stranger, but the story will interest you. There we lay, almost smothered in the smoke, with one two-decker at work on our starboard beam, and another hammering away on the larboard bow, with our top-masts over the side, and the guns firing through the wreck."
"Ay, now you're getting it like a book!" exclaimed Galleygo exultingly, flourishing his stick, and strutting about the little chapel; "that's just the way things was, as I knows from seeing 'em!"
"I'm quite certain I'm right, Galleygo?"
"Right! your honour's righter than any log-book in the fleet. Give it to 'em, Sir Jarvy, larboard and starboard!"
"That we did—that we did"—continued the old man earnestly, becoming even grand in aspect, as he rose, always gentleman-like and graceful, but filled with native fire, "that did we! de Vervillin was on our right, and des Prez on our left—the smoke was choking us all—Bunting—no; young Wychecombe was at my side; he said a fresh Frenchman was shoving in between us and le Pluton, sir—God forbid! I thought; for we had enough of them, us it was. There she comes! See, here is her flying-jib-boom-end—and there—hey! Wychecombe?—That's the old Roman, shoving through the smoke!—Cæsar himself! and there stands Dick and young Geoffrey Cleveland—he was of your family, duke—there stands Dick Bluewater, between the knight-heads, waving his hat—HURRAH!—He's true, at last!—He's true, at last—HURRAH! HURRAH!"
The clarion tones rose like a trumpet's blast, and the cheering of the old sailor rang in the arches of the Abbey Church, causing all within hearing to start, as if a voice spoke from the tombs. Sir Gervaise, himself, seemed surprised; he looked up at the vaulted roof, with a gaze half-bewildered, half-delighted.
"Is this Bowldero, or Glamorgan House, my Lord Duke," he asked, in a whisper.
"It is neither, Admiral Oakes, but Westminster Abbey; and this is the tomb of your friend, rear-admiral Richard Bluewater."
"Galleygo, help me to kneel," the old man added in the manner of a corrected school-boy. "The stoutest of us all, should kneel to God, in his own temple. I beg pardon, gentlemen; I wish to pray."
The Duke of Glamorgan and Sir Wycherly Wychecombe helped the admiral to his knees, and Galleygo, as was his practice, knelt beside his master, who bowed his head on his man's shoulders. This touching spectacle brought all the others into the same humble attitude. Wycherly, Mildred, and their children, with the noble, kneeling and praying in company. One by one, the latter arose; still Galleygo and his master continued on the pavement. At length Geoffrey Cleveland stepped forward, and raised the old man, placing him, with Wycherly's assistance, in the chair. Here he sat, with a calm smile on his aged features, his open eyes riveted seemingly on the name of his friend, perfectly dead. There had been a reaction, which suddenly stopped the current of life, at the heart.