A gleam of satisfaction shot over the sick man's countenance, as his nephew disappeared; and then his eye turned slowly towards the faces of those who remained.

"Bluewater," he said, the thickness of his speech, and the general difficulty of utterance, seeming to increase; "the rear-admiral--I want all--respectable--witnesses in the house."

"My friend has left us, I understand," returned Sir Gervaise, "insisting on his habit of never sleeping out of his ship; but Atwood must soon be back; I hope _he_ will answer!"

A sign of a.s.sent was given; and, then, there was the pause of a minute, or two, ere the secretary made his appearance. As soon, however, as he had returned, the three collected around the baronet's bed, not without some of the weakness which men are supposed to have inherited from their common mother Eve, in connection with the motive for this singular proceeding of the baronet.

"Sir Gervaise--Rotherham--Mr. Atwood," slowly repeated the patient, his eye pa.s.sing from the face of one to that of another, as he uttered the name of each; "three witnesses--that will do--Thomas said--must have _three_--three _good_ names."

"What can we do to serve you, Sir Wycherly?" inquired the admiral, with real interest. "You have only to name your requests, to have them faithfully attended to."

"Old Sir Michael Wychecombe, Kt.--two wives--Margery and Joan. Two wives--two sons--half-blood--Thomas, James, Charles, and Gregory, _whole_--Sir Reginald Wychecombe, _half_. Understand--hope--gentlemen?"

"This is not being very clear, certainly," whispered Sir Gervaise; "but, perhaps by getting hold of the other end of the rope, we may under-run it, as we sailors say, and come at the meaning--we will let the poor man proceed, therefore. Quite plain, my dear sir, and what have you next to tell us. You left off without saying only _half_ about Sir Reginald."

"Half-blood; only _half_--Tom and the rest, whole. Sir Reginald, no _nullius_--young Tom, a _nullius_."

"A _nullius_, Mr. Rotherham! You understand Latin, sir; what can a _nullius_, mean? No such rope in the ship, hey! Atwood?"

"_Nullius_, or _nullius_, as it ought sometimes to be p.r.o.nounced, is the genitive case, singular, of the p.r.o.noun _nullus; nullus, nulla, nullum_; which means, 'no man,' 'no woman,' 'no thing.' _Nullius_ means, 'of no man,' 'of no woman,' 'of no thing.'"

The vicar gave this explanation, much in the way a pedagogue would have explained the matter to a cla.s.s.

"Ay-ay--any school-boy could have told that, which is the first form learning. But what the devil can 'Nom. _nullus, nulla, nullum_; Gen.

_nullius, nullius, nullius_,' have to do with Mr. Thomas Wychecombe, the nephew and heir of the present baronet?"

"That is more than I can inform you, Sir Gervaise," answered the vicar, stiffly; "but, for the Latin, I will take upon myself to answer, that it is good."

Sir Gervaise was too-well bred to laugh, but he found it difficult to suppress a smile.

"Well, Sir Wycherly," resumed the vice-admiral, "this is quite plain--Sir Reginald is only _half_, while your nephew Tom, and the rest, are _whole_--Margery and Joan, and all that. Any thing more to tell us, my dear sir?"

"Tom _not_ whole--_nullus_, I wish to say. Sir Reginald _half_--no _nullus_."

"This is like being at sea a week, without getting a sight of the sun! I am all adrift, now, gentlemen."

"Sir Wycherly does not attend to his cases," put in Atwood, drily. "At one time, he is in the _genitive_, and then he gets back to the _nominative_; which is leaving us in the _vocative_"

"Come--come--Atwood, none of your gun-room wit, on an occasion so solemn as this. My dear Sir Wycherly, have you any thing more to tell us? I believe we perfectly understand you, now. Tom is not _whole_--you wish to say _nullus_, and not to say _nullius_. Sir Reginald is only _half_, but he is no _nullus_."

"Yes, sir--that is it," returned the old man, smiling. "_Half_, but no _nullus_. Change my mind--seen too much of the other, lately--Tom, my nephew--want to make _him_ my heir."

"This is getting clearer, out of all question. You wish to make your nephew, Tom, your heir. But the law does that already, does it not my dear sir? Mr. Baron Wychecombe was the next brother of the baronet; was he not, Mr. Rotherham?"

"So I have always understood, sir; and Mr. Thomas Wychecombe must be the heir at law."

"No--no--_nullus_--_nullus_," repeated Sir Wycherly, with so much eagerness as to make his voice nearly indistinct; "Sir Reginald--Sir Reginald--Sir Reginald."

"And pray, Mr. Rotherham, who may this Sir Reginald be? Some old baronet of the family, I presume."

"Not at all, sir; it is Sir Reginald Wychecombe of Wychecombe-Regis, Herts; a baronet of Queen Anne's time, and a descendant from a cadet of this family, I am told."

"This is getting on soundings--I had taken it into my head this Sir Reginald was some old fellow of the reign of one of the Plantagenets.

Well, Sir Wycherly, do you wish us to send an express into Hertfordshire, in quest of Sir Reginald Wychecombe, who is quite likely your executor? Do not give yourself the pain to speak; a sign will answer."

Sir Wycherly seemed struck with the suggestion, which, the reader will readily understand, was far from being his real meaning; and then he smiled, and nodded his head in approbation.

Sir Gervaise, with the prompitude of a man of business, turned to the table where the vicar had written notes to the medical men, and dictated a short letter to his secretary. This letter he signed, and in five minutes Atwood left the room, to order it to be immediately forwarded by express. When this was done, the admiral rubbed his hands, in satisfaction, like a man who felt he had got himself cleverly out of a knotty difficulty.

"I don't see, after all, Mr. Rotherham," he observed to the vicar, as they stood together, in a corner of the room, waiting the return of the secretary; "what he lugged in that school-boy Latin for--_nullus, nulla, nullum_! Can you possibly explain _that_?"

"Not unless it was Sir Wycherly's desire to say, that Sir Reginald, being descended from a younger son, was n.o.body--as yet, had no woman--and I believe he is not married--and was poor, or had 'no _thing_.'"

"And is Sir Wycherly such a desperate scholar, that he would express himself in this hieroglyphical manner, on what I fear will prove to be his death-bed?"

"Why, Sir Gervaise, Sir Wycherly was educated like all other young gentlemen, but has forgotten most of his cla.s.sics, in the course of a long life of ease and affluence. Is it not probable, now, that his recollection has returned to him suddenly, in consequence of this affection of the head? I think I have read of some curious instances of these reviving memories, on a death-bed, or after a fit of sickness."

"Ay, that you may have done!" exclaimed Sir Gervaise, smiling; "and poor, good Sir Wycherly, must have begun afresh, at the very place where he left off. But here is Atwood, again."

After a short consultation, the three chosen witnesses returned to the bed-side, the admiral being spokesman.

"The express will be off in ten minutes. Sir Wycherly," he said; "and you may hope to see your relative, in the course of the next two or three days."

"Too late--too late," murmured the patient, who had an inward consciousness of his true situation; "too late--turn the will round--Sir Reginald, Tom;--Tom, Sir Reginald. Turn the will round."

"Turn the will round!--this is very explicit, gentlemen, to those who can understand it. Sir Reginald, Tom;--Tom, Sir Reginald. At all events, it is clear that his mind is dwelling on the disposition of his property, since he speaks of wills. Atwood, make a note of these words, that there need be no mistake. I wonder he has said nothing of our brave young lieutenant, his namesake. There can be no harm, Mr. Rotherham, in just mentioning that fine fellow to him, in a moment like this?"

"I see none, sir. It is _our_ duty to remind the sick of _their_ duties."

"Do you not wish to see your young namesake, Lieutenant _Wycherly_ Wychecombe, Sir Wycherly?" asked the admiral; sufficiently emphasizing the Christian name. "He must be in the house, and I dare say would be happy to obey your wishes."

"I hope he is well, sir--fine young gentleman--honour to the name, sir."

"Quite true, Sir Wycherly; and an honour to the _nation_, too."

"Didn't know Virginia was a _nation_--so much the better--fine young _Virginian_, sir."

"Of your _family_, no doubt, Sir Wycherly, as well as of your name,"

added the admiral, who secretly suspected the young sailor of being a son of the baronet, notwithstanding all he had heard to the contrary.

"An exceedingly fine young man, and an honour to any house in England!"

"I suppose they _have_ houses in Virginia--bad climate; houses necessary. No relative, sir;--probably a _nullus_. Many Wychecombes, _nulluses_. Tom, a _nullus_--this young gentleman, a _nullus_--Wychecombes of Surrey, all _nulluses_--Sir Reginald no _nullus_; but a _half_--Thomas, James, Charles, and Gregory, all _whole_. My brother, Baron Wychecombe, told me--before died."

"_Whole what_, Sir Wycherly?" asked the admiral, a little vexed at the obscurity of the other's language.

"Blood--_whole blood_, sir. Capital law, Sir Gervaise; had it from the baron--first hand."

Now, one of the peculiarities of England is, that, in the division of labour, few know any thing material about the law, except the professional men. Even their knowledge is divided and sub-divided, in a way that makes a very fair division of profit. Thus the conveyancer is not a barrister; the barrister is not an attorney; and the chancery pract.i.tioner would be an unsafe adviser for one of the purely law courts. That particular provision of the common law, which Baron Wychecombe had mentioned to his brother, as the rule of the _half-blood_, has been set aside, or modified, by statute, within the last ten years; but few English laymen would be at all likely to know of such a law of descent even when it existed; for while it did violence to every natural sentiment of right, it lay hidden in the secrets of the profession. Were a case stated to a thousand intelligent Englishmen, who had not read law, in which it was laid down that brothers, by different mothers, though equally sons of the founder of the estate, could not take from each other, unless by devise or entail, the probability is that quite nine in ten would deny the existence of any rule so absurd; and this, too, under the influence of feelings that were creditable to their sense of natural justice. Nevertheless, such was one of the important provisions of the "perfection of reason," until the recent reforms in English law; and it has struck us as surprising, that an ingenious writer of fiction, who has recently charmed his readers with a tale, the interest of which turns princ.i.p.ally on the vicissitudes of practice, did not bethink him of this peculiar feature of his country's laws; inasmuch as it would have supplied mystery sufficient for a dozen ordinary romances, and improbabilities enough for a hundred. That Sir Gervaise and his companions should be ignorant of the "law of the half-blood," is, consequently, very much a matter of course; and no one ought to be surprised that the worthy baronet's repeated allusions to the "whole," and the "half," were absolutely enigmas, which neither had the knowledge necessary to explain.