First Love. Mrs. Loudon
waiting for something; and then, with an air of disappointment, sat down, and resumed his newspaper.
Ormond entering, and joining Edmund, the young people conversed with animation, but apart, that they might not interrupt the admiral’s reading. Edmund, however, saw that the newspaper was little regarded, and that Lord Fitz-Ullin’s eyes were generally turned on his countenance. He felt rather embarrassed by so strict a scrutiny, but contrived to maintain the appearance of not noticing it, except that he coloured a little.
Lord Fitz-Ullin rose, came forward, and joining them, asked Edmund if he thought Ormond like him.
“I have scarcely ever seen a likeness so strong as that of Lord Ormond to your lordship,” answered Edmund.
“Such is the general opinion,” said Lord Fitz-Ullin; “but it is a stationary likeness, consisting in feature. What a fascination there is about that gleam of resemblance, found only in expression, which comes and goes with a smile, particularly when the likeness is to one who has been dear to us, and who no longer exists! We wait for it, we watch for it! and, when it comes, it brings momentary sunshine to the heart, and is gone again, with all the freshness of its charm entire, the eye not having had time to satisfy itself with a full examination into its nature or degree.”
Letters were at this moment brought in, and the admiral opened one, which he excused himself for reading, saying, it was from Lady Fitz-Ullin. The entrance of the rest of the company now diversified the scene, and dinner soon followed.
During the remainder of the day and evening, the intimacy between our hero and his young friend, Oscar Ormond, such was Lord Ormond’s name, made rapid progress; and both the lads looked forward, with equal pleasure, to the prospect of Edmund’s being appointed to the Erina.
There was an innocent openness about the manners of Oscar Ormond, proceeding from perfectly harmless intentions, which, to one so young as Edmund, and, himself of a disposition peculiarly frank, was very attractive. In Oscar, however, this winning quality, never having been cultivated into a virtue, had remained a mere instinct, and was even in danger of degenerating into a weakness—we mean that of idle egotism. While Edmund’s native candour, equally, in the first instance, springing from an honest consciousness of having no motive to conceal a thought, had, during that earliest period of education, so vitally important, been trained and sustained by the skilful hand of Mr. Jackson; and, therefore, already was accompanied by undeviating veracity on principle, and a consequent firmness of mind, worthy of riper years. This gave our hero an ascendancy over his young friend, which might be said to have commenced at their very first interview; and which, in their after lives, frequently influenced the conduct of both, though neither, perhaps, was conscious of its existence.
CHAPTER XXV.
“Pleasant to the ear is the praise of kings;
But, Carril, forget not the lowly.”
At this time there was no passing in any sea-port, but before three captains. Oscar and Edmund, therefore, proceeded to town. The anxious hour, big with the fate of many a middy, arrived. The friends, accordingly, having already got through their first examination with success, now wended their way to the great centre of naval hopes and fears, to answer such final queries as it might be judged necessary to put to them. Entering an ante-room, they approached a standing group of youngsters, who, probably, had not much interest to smooth their path, for their conversation chiefly turned on subjects of discontent. One, whose name was Bullen, and who had once been a messmate of Ormond’s, seemed to be chief spokesman. He was growling at the additional difficulty which, he asserted, there was now every day in passing. “A young man might know it all well enough aboard,” he said, “but to have a parcel of old-wigs staring a fellow in the face, and asking him puzzlers, why, it was enough to scatter the brains of any one of common modesty!”
“If that is all,” said one of his companions, for middies are not ceremonious, “there is no fear of you, Bullen: your modesty will never stand in your way!”
“I hope not,” answered Bullen, “nor any thing else, if I can help it. At any rate, I should be sorry to be quite so soft a one as Armstrong! Only think,” he continued, turning to Ormond, “only think of that foolish fellow Armstrong! One of the old-wigs asked him (saw he was soft, I suppose) the simplest question in the world, just to try him. Well, old-wig stares him in the face, and looking devilish knowing, says, ‘Suppose yourself, Sir, in a gale of wind on a lee shore, the ship in great danger of going on the rocks, when, the wind suddenly shifting, you are taken all aback, what, Sir, would you do in this critical juncture?’ Instead of answering, ‘Clap on sail, and put out to sea,’ poor Armstrong took it for granted he should not have been asked the question if it were not a puzzler, and was so confounded, that he looked like a fool, and had not a word to say, till the old-wigs themselves were all obliged to laugh out.”
At this moment Bullen was sent for to attend the said old-wigs, as he called them; and though he still tried to bluster, he coloured to the very roots of his hair at the awful summons. On his return, however, he came laughing and swaggering, and bolting into the midst of the still standing group, he seized a button of Ormond’s coat with one hand, and of Edmund’s with the other, and began to tell his story.
“Have you passed? have you passed?” cried many voices.
“Have I passed!” repeated Bullen. “There is no difficulty in passing.”
“I thought it was very difficult, a short time since,” observed Ormond.
“Well, well—so it may be to some: I found no difficulty, however. But listen till I tell you the fun. They thought they had got another Armstrong to deal with, I suppose; for one of the old fellows, looking as wise as Solomon, and as pompous as the grand Mogul, turned his eyes full on me, and began. I felt mine inclined to take a peep at my shoe-buckles; but, mustering all my courage, I raised them, stared straight in his face, clenched my teeth, drew my heels together, thus, and stood firm.
“ ‘Well, Sir!’ said old-wig, ‘hitherto you have answered well.’—This was encouraging. ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘suppose yourself on a lee shore, under a heavy press of sail, the wind blowing such a gale that, in short, it is impossible to save the ship, what, Sir, would you do?’
“ ‘Why, let her go ashore and be d——d!’ I replied. Then, thinking I had been too rough, I added, with a bow, that I should never take the liberty of saving a ship which his lordship judged it impossible to save. He smiled, and said I had a fine bold spirit, just fit for a brave British tar! So I sailed out of port with flying colours, but no pennant, faith: I heard nothing of my commission.
“After all,” he continued, “what is the use of passing, when, if a man has not the devil and all of Scotch interest, and all that stuff, he don’t know when he’ll get made; but may, in all probability, be a youngster at forty! a middy in the cockpit, when he is as grey as a badger! There’s a fellow aboard of us now, who jumped over three times—no less—to save boys who fell over the ship’s side, and couldn’t swim; (he swims like a fish himself;) but he’s not Scotch! Well, the captain wrote word to the Admiralty; and what reward do you think they gave him? Why, employed one of their sneaking under scratchatories to write an official line and a half, importing, that ‘their lordships were pleased to approve of his conduct.’ ”
“You may depend upon it,” replied Ormond, to whom Bullen chiefly addressed himself, “that his name is marked for promotion, as soon as a convenient opportunity offers.”
“Convenient!” interrupted Bullen: “it would be devilish convenient to me, I know, to be made just now.”
“And in the meantime,” continued Ormond, “what can be more gratifying than the approbation of the respectable heads of the department, under which he serves his country?”
“I think,” said our hero, whose opinions, like himself, were young, and therefore unsophisticated, “the lords