“Bravo! esprit de corps. Well, I like it. But I’ve news for you, Jack. Why, your old father, you young dog you, is going to take command again. Ha, ha! sword arm all right, and head-piece in glorious form.”
“O father, I’m so delighted!”
“Yes, boy, and there is one thing I look forward to—ay, and pray for—and that is for you and me, Jack, to be in the same field of battle, and drubbing the French as only British sailors and soldiers can.”
“Father, you’ve made me happy.—Why, Tom, this all but reconciles me to the loss of the love—”
Jack stopped, looking a little confused.
“Love—love? Why, Jack, my lad, what is this? Love of whom, boy?”
“Oh, only a pet spaniel, father. No, not dead. Lost though; enticed away—with a bone, I suppose.”
“Just the way with spaniels, Jack. Glad it’s no worse. But ’pon honour, Jack, though you’re not old enough to know it, womankind are precious little better. I know ’em well, Jack; I know ’em. A bone will entice them too, particularly a bone with a bit of meat on it.”
Jack Mackenzie was not a young man who cared for much nursing. Had Gerty been his nurse it would doubtless have been all so different. However, it was very pleasant for Jack to while away the next month or two down at Grantley Hall, and to be treated like an interesting invalid and made a hero of by old maids and young ones too. The curate of the parish had not a chance now.