The Two Admirals | Page 5

soul for heaven, by these prayers and admissions of your sins, a word may be prudently said, concerning the affairs of this world. You know I am childless--that is to say,--"
"I understand you, Wycherly," interrupted the dying man, "you're a bachelor."
"That's it, Thomas; and bachelors ought not to have children. Had our poor brother James escaped that mishap, he might have been sitting at your bed-side at this moment, and he could have told us all about it. St. James I used to call him; and well did he deserve the name!"
"St. James the Least, then, it must have been, Wycherly."
"It's a dreadful thing to have no heir, Thomas! Did you ever know a case in your practice, in which another estate was left so completely without an heir, as this of ours?"
"It does not often happen, brother; heirs are usually more abundant than estates."
"So I thought. Will the king get the title as well as the estate, brother, if it should escheat, as you call it?"
"Being the fountain of honour, he will be rather indifferent about the baronetcy."
"I should care less if it went to the next sovereign, who is English born. Wychecombe has always belonged to Englishmen."
"That it has; and ever will, I trust. You have only to select an heir, when I am gone, and by making a will, with proper devises, the property will not escheat. Be careful to use the full terms of perpetuity."
"Every thing was so comfortable, brother, while you were in health," said Sir Wycherly, fidgeting; "you were my natural heir--"
"Heir of entail," interrupted the judge.
"Well, well, heir, at all events; and that was a prodigious comfort to a man like myself, who has a sort of religious scruples about making a will. I have heard it whispered that you were actually married to Martha; in which case, Tom might drop into our shoes, so readily, without any more signing and sealing."
"A filius nullius," returned the other, too conscientious to lend himself to a deception of that nature.
"Why, brother, Tom often seems to me to favour such an idea, himself."
"No wonder, Wycherly, for the idea would greatly favour him. Tom and his brothers are all filii nullorum, God forgive me for that same wrong."
"I wonder neither Charles nor Gregory thought of marrying before they lost their lives for their king and country," put in Sir Wycherly, in an upbraiding tone, as if he thought his penniless brethren had done him an injury in neglecting to supply him with an heir, though he had been so forgetful himself of the same great duty. "I did think of bringing in a bill for providing heirs for unmarried persons, without the trouble and responsibility of making wills."
"That would have been a great improvement on the law of descents--I hope you wouldn't have overlooked the ancestors."
"Not I--everybody would have got his rights. They tell me poor Charles never spoke after he was shot; but I dare say, did we know the truth, he regretted sincerely that he never married."
"There, for once, Wycherly, I think you are likely to be wrong. A femme sole without food, is rather a helpless sort of a person."
"Well, well, I wish he had married. What would it have been to me, had he left a dozen widows?"
"It might have raised some awkward questions as to dowry; and if each left a son, the title and estates would have been worse off than they are at present, without widows or legitimate children."
"Any thing would be better than having no heir. I believe I'm the first baronet of Wychecombe who has been obliged to make a will!"
"Quite likely," returned the brother, drily; "I remember to have got nothing from the last one, in that way. Charles and Gregory fared no better. Never mind, Wycherly, you behaved like a father to us all."
"I don't mind signing cheques, in the least; but wills have an irreligious appearance, in my eyes. There are a good many Wychecombes, in England; I wonder some of them are not of our family! They tell me a hundredth cousin is just as good an heir, as a first-born son."
"Failing nearer of kin. But we have no hundredth cousins of the whole blood."
"There are the Wychecombes of Surrey, brother Thomas--?"
"Descended from a bastard of the second baronet, and out of the line of descent, altogether."
"But the Wychecombes of Hertfordshire, I have always heard were of our family, and legitimate."
"True, as regards matrimony--rather too much of it, by the way. They branched off in 1487, long before the creation, and have nothing to do with the entail; the first of their line coming from old Sir Michael Wychecombe, Kt. and Sheriff of Devonshire, by his second wife Margery; while we are derived from the same male ancestor, through Wycherly, the only son by