"So I have always understood it, sir. He has never been known in this part of England, until he was landed from a frigate in the roads, to be cured of a serious wound. I think none of Sir Wycherly's allusions have the least reference to him."
Sir Gervaise Oakes now joined his hands behind his back, and walked several times, quarter-deck fashion, to and fro, in the room. At each turn, his eyes glanced towards the bed, and he ever found the gaze of the sick man anxiously fastened on himself. This satisfied him that religion had nothing to do with his host's manifest desire to make himself understood; and his own trouble was greatly increased. It seemed to him, as if the dying man was making incessant appeals to his aid, without its being in his power to afford it. It was not possible for a generous man, like Sir Gervaise, to submit to such a feeling without an effort; and he soon went to the side of the bed, again, determined to bring the affair to some intelligible issue.
"Do you think, Sir Wycherly, you could write a few lines, if we put pen, ink, and paper before you?" he asked, as a sort of desperate remedy.
"Impossible—can hardly see; have got no strength—stop—will try—if you please."
Sir Gervaise was delighted with this, and he immediately directed his companions to lend their assistance. Atwood and the vicar bolstered the old man up, and the admiral put the writing materials before him, substituting a large quarto bible for a desk. Sir Wycherly, after several abortive attempts, finally got the pen in his hand, and with great difficulty traced six or seven nearly illegible words, running the line diagonally across the paper. By this time his powers failed him altogether, and he sunk back, dropping the pen, and closing his eyes in a partial insensibility. At this critical instant, the surgeon entered, and at once put an end to the interview, by taking charge of the patient, and directing all but one or two necessary attendants, to quit the room.
The three chosen witnesses of what had just past, repaired together to a parlour; Atwood, by a sort of mechanical habit, taking with him the paper on which the baronet had scrawled the words just mentioned. This, by a sort of mechanical use, also, he put into the hands of Sir Gervaise, as soon as they entered the room; much as he would have laid before his superior, an order to sign, or a copy of a letter to the secretary of the Navy Board.
"This is as bad as the 'nullus!'" exclaimed Sir Gervaise, after endeavouring to decipher the scrawl in vain. "What is this first word, Mr. Rotherham—'Irish,' is it not,—hey! Atwood?"
"I believe it is no move than 'I-n,' stretched over much more paper than is necessary."
"You are right enough, vicar; and the next word is 'the,' though it looks like a chevaux de frise—what follows? It looks like 'man-of-war.' Atwood?"
"I beg your pardon, Sir Gervaise; this first letter is what I should call an elongated n—the next is certainly an a—the third looks like the waves of a river—ah! it is an m—and the last is an e—n-a-m-e—that makes 'name,' gentlemen."