"That will be all right—I know my son," said the Speaker.
"And I know my step-daughter," said Dan. "These things go on. A rolling snowball doesn't get much smaller. Maybe that Captain out of Ireland isn't gone from the island yet—his spirit, I mane. Keep your lad away from Baldromma. It will be best, I promise you."
Then the peacocks in the courtyard screamed again and the jolting of a springless cart was heard going over the gravel. The two in the drawing-room listened until the sound of the wheels had died away in the lane to the high road, and then the Speaker said:
"That's what comes of having children! We thought it bad for the Deemster to be in the pocket of a man like Cæsar Qualtrough, but to be under the harrow of Dan Baldromma!"
"Aw, dear! Aw, dear!" said Mrs. Gell.
"He was right about Alick going to sea, though," said the Speaker, and, touching the bell for the parlour-maid, he told her to tell his son to come back to him.
Alick was in the dining-room by this time, washed and brushed and doing his best to drink a pot of tea and eat a plate of bread-and-butter, amid the remonstrances of his three sisters, who, seeing events from their own point of view, were rating him roundly on associating with a servant.
"I wonder you hadn't more respect for your sisters?" said Isabella.
"What are people to think of us—Fenella Stanley, for instance?" said Adelaide.
"I declare I shall be ashamed to show my face in Government House again," said Verbena.