“I think I could guess which of the two would best suit the age we live in,” said Tom, gayly. “Are we to have another bottle of that Madeira, for I suspect I see the doctor putting up the corkscrew?”
“You are to have no more wine than what's before you till you land me at the quay of Killaloe. When temperance means safety as well as forbearance, it's one of the first of virtues.”
The vicar, indeed, soon grew impatient to depart. Fine as the evening was then, it might change. There was a feeling, too, not of damp, but chilliness; at all events, he was averse to being on the water late; and as he was the great promoter of these little convivial gatherings, his word was law.
It is not easy to explain how it happened that Trafford sat beside Lucy. Perhaps the trim of the boat required it; certainly, however, nothing required that the vicar, who sat next Lucy on the other side, should fall fast asleep almost as soon as he set foot on board. Meanwhile Sir Brook and Tom had engaged in an animated discussion as to the possibility of settling in Ireland as a man settles in some lone island in the Pacific, teaching the natives a few of the needs of civilization and picking up a few convenient ways of theirs in turn, Sir Brook warming with the theme so far as to exclaim at last, “If I only had a few of those thousands left me which I lost, squandered, or gave away, I 'd try the scheme, and you should be my lieutenant, Tom.”
It was one of those projects, very pleasant in their way, where men can mingle the serious with the ludicrous, where actual wisdom may go hand in hand with downright absurdity; and so did they both understand it, mingling, the very sagest reflections with projects the wildest and most eccentric. Their life, as they sketched it, was to be almost savage in freedom, untrammelled by all the tiresome conventionalities of the outer world, and at the same time offering such an example of contentedness and comfort as to shame the condition of all without the Pale.
They agreed that the vicar must join them; he should be their Bishop. He might grumble a little at first about the want of hot plates or finger-glasses, but he would soon fall into their ways, and some native squaw would console him for the loss of Mrs. Brennan's housekeeping gifts.
And Trafford and Lucy all this time,—what did they talk of? Did they, too, imagine a future and plan out a life-road in company? Far too timid for that,—they lingered over the past, each asking some trait of the other's childhood, eager to hear any little incident which might mark character or indicate temper. And at last they came down to the present,—to the very hour they lived in, and laughingly wondered at the intimacy that had grown up between them. “Only twelve days to-morrow since we first met,” said Lucy, and her color rose as she said it, “and here we are talking away as if—as if—”
“As if what?” cried he, only by an effort suppressing her name as it rose to his lips.
“As if we knew each other for years. To me it seems the strangest thing in the world,—I who have never had friendships or companionships. To you, I have no doubt, it is common enough.”