Chapter 48

MOTHER SCUDAMORE

If we want to know how a tree or flower has borne the gale that flogged last night, or the frost that stung the morning, the only sure plan is to go and see. And the only way to understand how a friend has taken affliction is to go--if it may be done without intrusion--and let him tell you, if he likes.

Admiral Darling was so much vexed when he heard of Blyth Scudamore's capture by the French, and duty compelled him to inform the mother, that he would rather have ridden a thousand miles upon barley-bread than face her. He knew how the whole of her life was now bound up with the fortunes of her son, and he longed to send Faith with the bad news, as he had sent her with the good before; but he feared that it might seem unkind. So he went himself, with the hope of putting the best complexion upon it, yet fully expecting sad distress, and perhaps a burst of weeping. But the lady received his tidings in a manner that surprised him. At first she indulged in a tear or two, but they only introduced a smile.

"In some ways it is a sad thing," she said, "and will be a terrible blow to him, just when he was rising so fast in the service. But we must not rebel more than we can help, against the will of the Lord, Sir Charles."

"How philosophical, and how commonplace!" thought the Admiral; but he only bowed, and paid her some compliment upon her common-sense.

"Perhaps you scarcely understand my views, and perhaps I am wrong in having them," Lady Scudamore continued, quietly. "My son's advancement is very dear to me, and this will of course retard it. But I care most of all for his life, and now that will be safe for a long while. They never kill their prisoners, do they?"

"No, ma'am, no. They behave very well to them; better, I'm afraid, than we do to ours. They treat them quite as guests, when they fall into good hands. Though Napoleon himself is not too mild in that way."

"My son has fallen into very good hands, as you yourself assure me--that Captain Desportes, a gallant officer and kind gentleman, as I know from your daughter's description. Blyth is quite equal to Lord Nelson in personal daring, and possibly not behind him in abilities. Consider how shockingly poor Nelson has been injured, and he feels convinced himself that they will have his life at last. No officer can be a hero without getting very sad wounds, and perhaps losing his life. Every one who does his duty must at least be wounded."

The Admiral, who had never received a scratch, was not at all charmed with this view of naval duty; but he was too polite to enter protest, and only made one of his old-fashioned scrapes.

"I am sure every time I have heard a gun coming from the sea, and especially after dark," the lady resumed, without thinking of him, "it has made me miserable to know that probably