“I confess, however, that the sooner I am away and afloat again, the better for the rest of the family. How they all manage to exist is to me a puzzle. To be sure there are fish in the streams and neighbouring lakes, and game in abundance, which we retain the right of shooting; and sheep on the hills, which, as my father does not attempt any new-fangled plans for improving the condition of the people, are allowed to exist; and there are praties in the fields, and fruit and vegetables in the garden; but there is a scarcity of flour and groceries, and instead of the claret which, in the good old days, flowed freely at table, we are reduced to drink whisky, of which the excise has not always had an opportunity of taking due cognisance. My father does not quite see the matter in the light I do, and was inclined to be offended when I ordered down a cask of the cratur from Dublin, as a salve to my conscience, and a few dozen of claret, as a remembrance of days gone by; but as the latter went in about as many evenings, we shall have to stick to the whisky in future. However, if the house holds together till the Plantagenet is paid off, I can promise you plenty of amusement of one sort or another, and the enjoyment of magnificent scenery, if you, my dear Jack, will pay a visit to Ballymacree. You may depend, too, on as hearty a welcome as I am sure I should have received by your family had I been able to avail myself of your invitation. To be sure we muster somewhat stronger than you do, I suspect, and, might possibly exhibit, what with your sedate English ideas you would consider an exuberance of spirits, and I am almost afraid that you would think my five fair young sisters rather hoydenish young ladies, compared to your own. One of them, Kathleen, is looking over my shoulder and exclaims, ‘Arrah, now Terence, don’t be after saying that same, or Leeftenant Rogers will be thinking us a set of wild Irish girls, with no more civilisation than a family of gipsies;’ but I tell her I won’t scratch out what I have written, but I’ll add that she’s not the ugliest of the lot; so, dear Jack, when you do come, you can form your own opinion; I only wish that I had the chance of making some prize-money for their sakes. By-the-bye, the eldest of them, Nora, who, at sixteen, married Gerald Desmond, has got a son called after his father, who has taken it into his head to go to sea, and as nothing I can say will make him alter his mind, I suppose he must have his way. I have written to our cousin, Lord Derrynane, and asked him to try and get Gerald appointed to the Plantagenet, as I should like him to be under Hemming and you. He is a ‘broth of a boy,’ as we say here, and I know for my sake, Jack, that you will look after him. They say that he is very like me, which won’t be in his disfavour in your eyes—though I don’t think I ever was such a wild youngster as he is; not that there’s a grain of harm in him. Mind that, and he’ll soon get tamed down in the navy. I don’t think I ever wrote so long a letter in my life, and so as it’s high time to bring it to an end, farewell, Jack, till we meet, and may that be soon, is the sincere wish of,
“Yours ever faithful and true,
“Terence Adair.”
“Of course I will look after his nephew, as I would my own brother. I’ll write and tell him so, though he knows it,” exclaimed Jack; “and now, Lucy, what do you think of my old shipmate?”
“I cannot exactly say that I admire the style of his epistle, but I have no doubt that he is as kind-hearted and brave as you describe him,” answered Lucy.
“I don’t mean to say that he is much of a letter-writer,” said Jack; “but at all events he writes as he feels and speaks, in the belief that no eye but mine would read what he had written. His mind is like a glass—it can be seen through at a glance; and he has no idea of concealing a single thought from those he trusts, though he is close enough with the world in general; and I can tell you that he is as true as steel, and as brave and high-spirited as he is kind-hearted and generous.”
“A perfect hero of romance,” observed Lucy, laughing; “I am really sorry that he is not coming here to enable us to judge of him fairly.”
Possibly Lucy thought more about Lieutenant Adair than she chose to acknowledge. She could not, however, help reflecting that her mamma would look upon an Irish half-pay naval lieutenant, with a host of penniless brothers and sisters, in no very favourable light, should he come in the character of a suitor, so that after all it was just as well he could not accept Jack’s invitation.
Jack made the most of his time while he remained at Halliburton Hall, winning the good-will of everybody in the neighbourhood. He laughed and talked and danced with the fairer portion in the most impartial manner; young and old, pretty and plain, all came in for a due share of his attentions. His sisters were quite vexed with him for not falling in love with one of three or four of their especial friends. They had a preference for a Julia Giffard; but should Jack fail to lose his heart to Julia, or Julia decline bestowing hers on him, there were at least three others of almost equal attractions and perfections, either of whom they could love as a sister-in-law; and it would be so delightful, while Jack was away, to have some one to whom they might talk about him, and to whom he would write such delightful letters which they, of course, would have the privilege of reading.
Then, some day, when he was a commander or post-captain, he would come home, and marry, and settle down in a pretty little cottage near them, and take to gardening, as many naval officers do, and be so happy. One day they delicately broached the subject to Jack. He burst into a hearty laugh.
“I fall in love with Julia Giffard!” he exclaimed. “My dear girls, what a miserable fate you are suggesting for your friend. Suppose she were to engage herself to me! Away I go for three or four years; back for two months, and off again for a cruise of like duration as the first. In the mean time she meets half-a-dozen more likely fellows than I am, as far as money is concerned at all events, but cannot encourage them on account of her fatal engagement to me; and perhaps, after all, I get knocked on the head and never come home at all, while the best years of her youth have gone by. No, no, girls; young naval officers who intend to follow up their profession have no business to marry; that’s my opinion, and I intend to act on it.”
Jack’s sisters were disappointed, for they saw that he was in earnest, and had sound sense on his side, still they were not inclined to give in.