of Stuart, we've
built a bridge across the Tweed that lets people pass in only one
direction. I make no doubt this Pretender's son will bring down half
Scotland at his heels, to fill all the berths they may fancy suitable to
their merits. It's an easy way of paying bounty--promises."

"This affair in the north, they tell me, seems a little serious," said
Greenly. "I believe this is Mr. Atwood's opinion?"

"You'll find it serious enough, if Sir Gervaise's notion about the
bounty be true," answered the immovable secretary. "Scotia is a small
country, but it's well filled with 'braw sperits,' if there's an opening
for them to prove it."

"Well, well, this war between England and Scotland is out of place,
while we have the French and Spaniards on our hands. Most extraordinary
scenes have we had ashore, yonder, Greenly, with an old Devonshire
baronet, who slipped and is off for the other world, while we were in
his house."

"Magrath has told me something of it, sir; and, he tells me the
_fill-us-null-us_--hang me if I can make out his gibberish, five minutes
after it was told to me."

"_Filius nullius_, you mean; nobody's baby--the son of nobody--have you
forgotten your Latin, man?"

"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