My mind relieved of a weighty load by the contents of this letter, I recovered my strength already so far that I sat up in bed to peruse the others. My next was from my father; it ran thus:—
'Dear Jack,—Your friend Major Mahon, to whom I write by this post, will deliver this letter to you when he deems fit. He has been most good-natured in conveying to me a narrative of your late doings; and I cannot express how grateful we all are to him for the truly friendly part he has taken towards you. After the strictest scrutiny, for I confess to you I feared lest the Major's might be too partial an account, I rejoice to say that your conduct meets with my entire approbation. An older and a wiser head might, it is possible, have avoided some of the difficulties you have met with; but this I will add, that once in trouble, no one could have shown better temper or a more befitting spirit than you did. While I say this, my dear Jack, understand me clearly that I speak of you as a young, inexperienced man, thrown, at his very outset of life, not only among strangers, but in a country where, as I remarked to you at first, everything was different from those in your own. You have now shown yourself equal to any circumstances in which you may be placed. I therefore not only expect that you will meet with fewer embarrassments in future, but that, should they arise, I shall have the satisfaction of finding your character and your habits will be as much your safeguard against insult as your readiness to resent any will be sure and certain.
'I have seen the duke several times, and he expresses himself as much pleased with you. From what he mentions, I can collect that you are well satisfied with Ireland, and therefore I do not wish to remove you from it. At the same time, bear in mind, that by active service alone can you ever attain to, or merit, rank in the army; and that hitherto you have only been a soldier by name.'
After some further words of advice respecting the future, and some few details of family matters, he concluded by entrusting to my mother the mention of what she herself professed to think lay more in her peculiar province.
As usual, her letter opened with some meteorological observations upon the climate of England for the preceding six weeks; then followed a journal of her own health, whose increasing delicacy, and the imperative necessity of being near Doctor Y———, rendered a journey to Ireland too dangerous to think of.
'Yes, my dearest boy,' wrote she, 'nothing but this would keep me from you a moment; however, I am much relieved at learning that you are now rapidly recovering, and hope soon to hear of your return to Dublin. It is a very dreadful thing to think of, but perhaps, upon the whole, it is better that you did kill this Mr. Burke. De Grammont tells me that a mauvaise tête like that must be shot sooner or later. It makes me nervous to dwell on this odious topic, so that I shall pass on to something else.
'The horrid little man that brought your letters, and who calls himself a servant of Captain O'Grady, insisted on seeing me yesterday. I never was more shocked in my life. From what he says, I gather that he may be looked on as rather a favourable specimen of the natives. They must indeed be a very frightful people; and although he assured me he would do me no injury, I made Thomas stay in the room the entire time, and told Chubbs to give the alarm to the police if he heard the slightest noise. The creature, however did nothing, and I have quite recovered from my fear already.
'What a picture, my dear boy, did he present to me of your conduct and habits! Your intimacy with that odious family I mentioned in my last seems the root of all your misfortunes. Why will such people thrust themselves forward? What do they mean by inviting you to their frightful parties? Have they not their own peculiar horrors?—not but I must confess that they are more excusable than you; and I cannot conceive how you could so soon have forgotten the lessons instilled into you from your earliest years. As your poor dear grandfather, the admiral, used to say, a vulgar acquaintance is a shifting sand; you can never tell where you won't meet it—always at the most inopportune moment; and then, if you remark, your underbred people are never content with a quiet recognition, but they must always indulge in a detestable cordiality there is no escaping from. Oh, John, John! when at ten years of age you made the banker's son at Northampton hold your stirrup as you mounted your pony, I never thought I should have this reproach to make you.
'The little fiend who calls himself Corny something, also mentions your continued familiarity with the young woman I spoke of before. What her intentions are is perfectly clear; and should she accomplish her object your position in society and future fortune might possibly procure her large damages; but pause, my dear boy, before you go any further. I do not speak of the moral features of the case, for you are of an age to judge of them yourself; but think, I beseech you, of the difficulties it will throw around your path in life, and the obstacles it will oppose to your success. There is poor Lord Henry Effingham; and since that foolish business with the clergyman's wife or daughter, where somebody went mad, and some one else drowned or shot himself, they have never given him any appointment whatever. The world is a frightful and unforgiving thing, as poor Lord Henry knows; therefore beware!
'The more I think of it, the more strongly do I feel the force of my first impressions respecting Ireland; and were it not that we so constantly hear of battles and bloodshed in the Peninsula, I should even prefer your being there. There would seem to be an unhappy destiny over everything belonging to me. My poor dear father, the admiral, had a life of hardship, almost unrewarded. For eleven years he commanded a guardship in the Nore; many a night have I seen him, when I was a little girl, come home dripping with wet, and perfectly insensible from the stimulants he was obliged to resort to, and be carried in that state to his bed; and after all this he didn't get his blue ribbon till he was near sixty.