“Come, come, my dear lady,” said he, “you speak vastly beyond my merits;” upon which encouragement she started again in a theatrical apostrophe to Britain’s darling and Neptune’s eldest son, which he endured with the same signs of gratitude and pleasure.  That a man of the world, five-and-forty years of age, shrewd, honest, and acquainted with Courts, should be beguiled by such crude and coarse homage, amazed me, as it did all who knew him; but you who have seen much of life do not need to be told how often the strongest and noblest nature has its one inexplicable weakness, showing up the more obviously in contrast to the rest, as the dark stain looks the fouler upon the whitest sheet.

“You are a sea-officer of my own heart, Stone,” said he, when her ladyship had exhausted her panegyric.  “You are one of the old breed!” He walked up and down the room with little, impatient steps as he talked, turning with a whisk upon his heel every now and then, as if some invisible rail had brought him up.  “We are getting too fine for our work with these new-fangled epaulettes and quarter-deck trimmings.  When I joined the Service, you would find a lieutenant gammoning and rigging his own bowsprit, or aloft, maybe, with a marlinspike slung round his neck, showing an example to his men.  Now, it’s as much as he’ll do to carry his own sextant up the companion.  When could you join?”

“To-night, my lord.”

“Right, Stone, right!  That is the true spirit.  They are working double tides in the yards, but I do not know when the ships will be ready.  I hoist my flag on the Victory on Wednesday, and we sail at once.”

“No, no; not so soon!  She cannot be ready for sea,” said Lady Hamilton, in a wailing voice, clasping her hands and turning up her eyes as she spoke.

“She must and she shall be ready,” cried Nelson, with extraordinary vehemence.  “By Heaven! if the devil stands at the door, I sail on Wednesday.  Who knows what these rascals may be doing in my absence?  It maddens me to think of the deviltries which they may be devising.  At this very instant, dear lady, the Queen, our Queen, may be straining her eyes for the topsails of Nelson’s ships.”

Thinking, as I did, that he was speaking of our own old Queen Charlotte, I could make no meaning out of this; but my father told me afterwards that both Nelson and Lady Hamilton had conceived an extraordinary affection for the Queen of Naples, and that it was the interests of her little kingdom which he had so strenuously at heart.  It may have been my expression of bewilderment which attracted Nelson’s attention to me, for he suddenly stopped in his quick quarter-deck walk, and looked me up and down with a severe eye.

“Well, young gentleman!” said he, sharply.

“This is my only son, sir,” said my father.  “It is my wish that he should join the Service, if a berth can be found for him; for we have all been King’s officers for many generations.”