centuries before King James
established the rank of baronet. When our great-grandfather, Sir
Wycherly, accepted the patent of 1611, he scarcely did himself honour;
for, by aspiring higher, he might have got a peerage. However, a baronet
he became, and for the first time since Wychecombe was Wychecombe, the
estate was entailed, to do credit to the new rank. Now, the first Sir
Wycherly had three sons, and no daughter. Each of these sons succeeded;
the two eldest as bachelors, and the youngest was our grandfather. Sir
Thomas, the fourth baronet, left an only child, Wycherly, our father.
Sir Wycherly, our father, had five sons, Wycherly his successor,
yourself, and the sixth baronet; myself; James; Charles; and Gregory.
James broke his neck at your side. The two last lost their lives in the
king's service, unmarried; and neither you, nor I, have entered into the
holy state of matrimony. I cannot survive a month, and the hopes of
perpetuating the direct line of the family, rests with yourself. This
accounts for all the descendants of Sir Wycherly, the first baronet; and
it also settles the question of heirs of entail, of whom there are none
after myself. To go back beyond the time of King James I.: Twice did the
elder lines of the Wychecombes fail, between the reign of King Richard
II. and King Henry VII., when Sir Michael succeeded. Now, in each of
these cases, the law disposed of the succession; the youngest branches
of the family, in both instances, getting the estate. It follows that
agreeably to legal decisions had at the time, when the facts must have
been known, that the Wychecombes were reduced to these younger lines.
Sir Michael had two wives. From the first _we_ are derived--from the
last, the Wychecombes of Hertfordshire--since known as baronets of that
county, by the style and title of Sir Reginald Wychecombe of
Wychecombe-Regis, Herts."

"The present Sir Reginald can have no claim, being of the half-blood,"
put in Sir Wycherly, with a brevity of manner that denoted feeling. "The
half-blood is as bad as a _nullius_, as you call Tom."

"Not quite. A person of the half-blood may be as legitimate as the
king's majesty; whereas, a nullius is of _no_ blood. Now, suppose for a
moment, Sir Wycherly, that you had been a son by a first wife, and I had
been a son by a second--would there have been no relationship between
us?"

"What a question, Tom, to put to your own brother!"

"But I should not be your _own_ brother,