And now there seems nothing on earth
before him better than Holy-Orders."
"Admiral Darling is kind enough to think," said Scudamore, in his mild,
hesitative way, blushing outwardly, but smiling inwardly, "that I am too
good to be a clergyman."
"And so you are, and Heaven knows it, Blyth, unless there was a chance
of getting on by goodness, which there is in the Navy, but not in the
Church. Twemlow, what is your opinion?"
"It would not be modest in me," said the Rector, "to stand up too much
for my own order. We do our duty, and we don't get on."
"Exactly. You could not have put it better. You get no vacancies by shot
and shell, and being fit for another world, you keep out of it. Have you
ever heard me tell the story about Gunner MacCrab, of the Bellerophon?"
"Fifty times, and more than that," replied the sturdy parson, who liked
to make a little cut at the Church sometimes, but would not allow any
other hand to do it. "But now about our young friend here. Surely, with
all that we know by this time of the character of that Bony, we can see
that this peace is a mere trick of his to bamboozle us while he gets
ready. In six months we shall be at war again, hammer and tongs, as sure
as my name is Twemlow."
"So be it!" cried the Admiral, with a stamp on his oak floor, while
Scudamore's gentle eyes flashed and fell; "if it is the will of God, so
be it. But if it once begins again, God alone knows where France will be
before you and I are in our graves.
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