om ascertaining the unexpected honour that had been
done them, until the reports of the two guns reached their ears, when
the important intelligence spread with due rapidity over the entire
adjacent country. Although Wychecombe did not lie in actual view of the
sea, by the time the party of Sir Wycherly entered the hamlet, its
little street was already crowded with visiters from the fleet; every
vessel having sent at least one boat ashore, and many of them some three
or four. Captain's and gun-room stewards, midshipmen's foragers,
loblolly boys, and other similar harpies, were out in scores; for this
was a part of the world in which bum-boats were unknown; and if the
mountain would not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must fain go to the
mountain. Half an hour had sufficed to exhaust all the unsophisticated
simplicity of the hamlet; and milk, eggs, fresh butter, soft-tommy,
vegetables, and such fruits as were ripe, had already risen quite one
hundred per cent. in the market.

Sir Gervaise had called his force the southern squadron, from the
circumstance of its having been cruising in the Bay of Biscay, for the
last six months. This was a wild winter-station, the danger from the
elements greatly surpassing any that could well be anticipated from the
enemy. The duty notwithstanding had been well and closely performed;
several West India, and one valuable East India convoy having been
effectually protected, as well as a few straggling frigates of the enemy
picked up; but the service had been excessively laborious to all engaged
in it, and replete with privations. Most of those who now landed, had
not trod terra firma for half a year, and it was not wonderful that all
the officers whose duties did not confine them to the vessels, gladly
seized the occasion to feast their senses with the verdure and odours of
their native island. Quite a hundred guests of this character were also
pouring into the street of Wychecombe, or spreading themselves among the
surrounding farm-houses; flirting with the awkward and blushing girls,
and keeping an eye at the same time to the main chance of the
mess-table.

"Our boys have already found out your village, Sir Wycherly, in spite of
the fog," the vice-admiral remarked, good-humouredly, as he cast his
eyes around at the movement of the street; "and the locusts of Egypt
will not come nearer to breeding a famine. One would think there was a
great dinner _in petto_, in every cabin of the fleet, by the