what was called ‘the Oregon question.’ The dispute was concerning the right of ownership of the mouth of the Columbia river, and of Vancouver’s Island. The President as well as the American people took the matter up very warmly; and much discretion was needed to avert the outbreak of hostilities.
In Sir Edward’s letter, which he read out and gave to me open, he requested Admiral Thomas to put me into any ship ‘that was likely to see service’; and quoted a word or two from my dear old captain Sir Thomas, which would probably have given me a lift.
The prospect before me was brilliant. What could be more delectable than the chance of a war? My fancy pictured all sorts of opportunities, turned to the best account—my seniors disposed of, and myself, with a pair of epaulets, commanding the smartest brig in the service.
Alack-a-day! what a climb down from such high flights my life has been. The ship in which I was to have sailed to the west was suddenly countermanded to the east. She was to leave for China the following week, and I was already appointed to her, not even as a ‘super.’
My courage and my ambition were wrecked at a blow. The notion of returning for another three years to China, where all was now peaceful and stale to me, the excitement of the war at an end, every port reminding me of my old comrades, visions of renewed fevers and horrible food—were more than I could stand.
I instantly made up my mind to leave the Navy. It was a wilful, and perhaps a too hasty, impulse. But I am impulsive by nature; and now that my father was dead, I fancied myself to a certain extent my own master. I knew moreover, by my father’s will, that I should not be dependent upon a profession. Knowledge of such a fact has been the ruin of many a better man than I. I have no virtuous superstitions in favour of poverty—quite the reverse—but I am convinced that the rich man, who has never had to earn his position or his living, is more to be pitied and less respected than the poor man whose comforts certainly, if not his bread, have depended on his own exertions.
My mother had a strong will of her own, and I could not guess what line she might take. I also apprehended the opposition of my guardians. On the whole, I opined a woman’s heart would be the most suitable for an appeal ad misericordiam. So I pulled out the agony stop, and worked the pedals of despair with all the anguish at my command.
‘It was easy enough for her to revel in luxury and consign me to a life worse than a convict’s. But how would she like to live on salt junk, to keep night watches, to have to cut up her blankets for ponchos (I knew she had never heard the word, and that it would tell accordingly), to save her from being frozen to death? How would she like to be mast-headed when a ship was rolling gunwale under? As to the wishes of my guardians, were their feelings to be considered before mine? I should like to see Lord Rosebery or Lord Spencer in my place! They’d very soon wish they had a mother who &c. &c.’
When my letter was finished I got leave to go ashore to post it. Feeling utterly miserable, I had my hair cut; and, rendered perfectly reckless by my appearance, I consented to have what was left of it tightly curled with a pair of tongs. I cannot say that I shared in any sensible degree the pleasure which this operation seemed to give to the artist. But when I got back to the ship the sight of my adornment kept my messmates in an uproar for the rest of the afternoon.
Whether the touching appeal to my mother produced tears, or of what kind, matters little; it effectually determined my career. Before my new ship sailed for China, I was home again, and in full possession of my coveted freedom as a civilian.
CHAPTER VIII
It was settled that after a course of three years at a private tutor’s I was to go to Cambridge. The life I had led for the past three years was not the best training for the fellow-pupil of lads of fifteen or sixteen who had just left school. They were much more ready to follow my lead than I theirs, especially as mine was always in the pursuit of pleasure.
I was first sent to Mr. B.’s, about a couple of miles from Alnwick. Before my time, Alnwick itself was considered out of bounds. But as nearly half the sin in this world consists in being found out, my companions and I managed never to commit any in this direction.
We generally returned from the town with a bottle of some noxious compound called ‘port’ in our pockets, which was served out in our ‘study’ at night, while I read aloud the instructive adventures of Mr. Thomas Jones. We were, of course, supposed to employ these late hours in preparing our work for the morrow. One boy only protested that, under the combined seductions of the port and Miss Molly Seagrim, he could never make his verses scan.
Another of our recreations was poaching. From my earliest days I was taught to shoot, myself and my brothers being each provided with his little single-barrelled flint and steel ‘Joe Manton.’ At—we were surrounded by grouse moors on one side, and by well-preserved coverts on the other. The grouse I used to shoot in the evening while they fed amongst the corn stooks; for pheasants and hares, I used to get the other pupils to walk through the woods, while I with a gun walked outside. Scouts were posted to look out for keepers.
Did our tutor know? Of course he knew. But think of the saving in the butcher’s bill! Besides which, Mr. B. was otherwise preoccupied; he was in love with Mrs. B. I say ‘in love,’ for although I could not be sure of it then, (having no direct experience of the amantium iræ,) subsequent observation has persuaded me that their perpetual quarrels could mean nothing else. This was exceedingly favourable to the independence of Mr. B.’s pupils. But when asked by Mr. Ellice how I was getting on, I was forced in candour to admit that I was in a fair way to forget all I ever knew.
By the advice of Lord Spencer I was next placed under the tuition of one of the minor canons of Ely. The Bishop of Ely—Dr. Allen—had been Lord Spencer’s tutor, hence his elevation to the see. The Dean—Dr. Peacock, of algebraic and Trinity College fame—was good enough to promise ‘to keep an eye’ on me. Lord Spencer himself took me to Ely; and there I remained for two years. They were two very important years of my life. Having no fellow pupil to beguile me, I was the more industrious. But it was not from the better acquaintance with ancient literature that I mainly benefited—it was from my initiation to modern thought. I was a constant guest at the Deanery; where I frequently met such men as Sedgwick, Airey the Astronomer-Royal, Selwyn, Phelps the Master of Sydney, Canon Heaviside the master of Haileybury, and many other friends of the Dean’s, distinguished in science, literature, and art. Here I heard discussed opinions on these subjects by some of their leading representatives. Naturally, as many of them were Churchmen, conversation often turned on the bearing of modern science, of geology especially if Sedgwick were of the party, upon Mosaic cosmogony, or Biblical exegesis generally.
The knowledge of these learned men, the lucidity with which they expressed their views, and the earnestness with which they defended them, captivated my attention, and opened to me a new world of surpassing interest and gravity.
What startled me most was the spirit in which a man of Sedgwick’s intellectual power protested against the possible encroachments of his own branch of science upon the orthodox tenets of the Church. Just about this time an anonymous book appeared, which, though long since forgotten, caused no slight disturbance amongst dogmatic theologians. The tendency of this book, ‘Vestiges of the Creation,’ was, or was then held to be, antagonistic to the arguments from design. Familiar as we now are with the theory of evolution, such a work as the ‘Vestiges’ would no more stir the odium theologicum than Franklin’s kite. Sedgwick, however, attacked it with a vehemence and a rancour that would certainly have roasted its author had the professor held the office of Grand Inquisitor.
Though
