that
almost amounted to reproof; "I cannot permit such innuendoes before one
so young and unpractised. The young lady might really suppose that His
Majesty's fleet was entrusted to men unworthy to enjoy his confidence,
by the cool way in which you carry on the joke. I propose, now, Sir
Wycherly, that we eat our dinner in peace, and say no more about this
mad expedition, until the cloth is drawn, at least. It's a long road to
Scotland, and there is little danger that this adventurer will find his
way into Devonshire before the nuts are placed before us."

"It would be nuts to us, if he did, Sir Gervaise," put in Tom Wycherly,
laughing heartily at his own wit. "My uncle would enjoy nothing more
than to see the spurious sovereign on his own estate, here, and in the
hands of his own tenants. I think, sir, that Wychecombe and one or two
of the adjoining manors, would dispose of him."

"That might depend on circumstances," the admiral answered, a little
drily. "These Scots have such a thing as a claymore, and are desperate
fellows, they tell me, at a charge. The very fact of arming a soldier
with a short sword, shows a most bloody-minded disposition."

"You forget, Sir Gervaise, that we have our Cornish hug, here in the
west of England; and I will put our fellows against any Scotch regiment
that ever charged an enemy."

Tom laughed again at his own allusion to a proverbial mode of grappling,
familiar to the adjoining county.

"This is all very well, Mr. Thomas Wychecombe, so long as Devonshire is
in the west of England, and Scotland lies north of the Tweed. Sir
Wycherly might as well leave the matter in the hands of the Duke and his
regulars, if it were only in the way of letting every man follow his own
trade."

"It strikes me as so singularly insolent in a base-born boy like this,
pretending to the English crown, that I can barely speak of him with
patience! We all know that his father was a changeling, and the son of a
changeling can have no more right than the father himself. I do not
remember what the law terms such pretenders; but I dare say it is
something sufficiently odious."

"_Filius nullius_, Thomas," said Sir Wycherly, with a little eagerness
to show his learning. "That's the very phrase. I have it from the first
authority; my late brother, Baron Wychecombe, giving it to me with his
own mouth, on an occasion that called for an understanding of such
matters. The judge was a most accurate lawyer, particular