“Yes, don’t be provoking, Ralph,” added Rory.
“Well, then,” said Ralph, speaking very slowly, just a word at a time, “father—has—been—down—to Cowes—and—bought—”
“The yacht!” cried Allan, interrupting him. “Hurrah!”
“Just one moment, my boys,” cried Rory. “I must blow off steam or I’ll burst.” So saying, he seized his violin and commenced playing one of the wildest, maddest Irish melodies ever they had listened to. You might have called the air a jig, but there was a certain sadness in it, as there is in even the merriest of Ireland’s melodies; tenderness breathed through every bar of it. You might have imagined while Rory played that you saw his countrymen dancing at a wake, and heard even their wild “Hooch!” but at the same time you could not help fancying you saw the mourners crooning over the coffin, and heard the broken-hearted wail of the coronach.
Both Allan and Ralph were pretty well used to all Rory’s queer, passionate, and impulsive ways, and so they always gave him what sailors call “plenty of rope,” and landsmen call “latitude.”
When he had finished and quieted down, then did Ralph explain to his friends all about the purchase of the yacht.
“Not a toy, mind you,” he said, “a really first-rate seagoing schooner-yacht, A1 at Lloyd’s, and all that sort of thing. New only three years ago, copper fastenings, wire rigging, and everything complete.”
“And what is her size?” said Allan.
“Oh?” said Ralph, “there is plenty of room to swing a cat in her, I can assure you; she is nearly two hundred tons.”
“Two hundred tons! why she’ll take some managing, won’t she?”