For an instant not a word dropped from either side, and it was clear that he who spoke first had gained the victory. This was the lady.
“Go, sir”—and she wiped her eyes with that calm dignity by which a scolding wife seems to call up all Christian forgiveness of herself, and stand acquitted before her own conscience—“go, sir, and find out what these people that Cashel has invited mean to do; and if it be their intention to repair to Tubbermore, let us lose no time in setting out; and if we are to go, Mr. Kennyfeck, let as do so as becomes us.”
Mr. Kennyfeck stifled a rising sigh—for he knew what the words denoted—and departed; while Mrs. Kennyfeck, with her heart lightened of a heavy load, rose to join her daughters, and discuss dress and “toilette,” the great commissariat of the approaching campaign.
CHAPTER XXIX. STORM AND WRECK.
Tut, never mind the swell, love,
The sails may sweep the brine;
But the craft will steer as well, love,
With your soft hand in mine.
The Cruise.
It was upon a delicious evening, a little before sunset, that a yacht worked out of the harbor of Kingstown, all her canvas spread to catch the light air of wind, which scarcely ruffled the glassy surface of the Bay. The craft, with her snow-white sails, her tall and taper spars, her gay bunting from gaff and peak, was all that the scene wanted to render it a perfect picture; and so, to all seeming, thought the many spectators who crowded the pier and the shore, and gazed with admiration at the graceful vessel, as she glided silently above her own image in the water.
Various were the comments and criticisms from those who surveyed her course; some, in wondering conjecture whither she was bound; others, not a whit better informed, boldly affecting some secret knowledge of her destination, and even, by such pretty pretension, assuming airs of superiority.
“She belongs to that rich young fellow, Roland Cashel,” said one of these, “who, by the way, is getting through his fortune tolerably fast. The story goes, that he has spent two hundred thousand already, and is borrowing at immense interest.”
“Was n't he a smuggler, or a privateer's-man, or something of the kind?”