Part 61 (2/2)

Needham heaved a deep sigh as he heard the report of her destined fate.

It was too true, he found. She was to become a target for the guns of the _Excellent_.

”Well, well,” he said, ”she has done good service in her day. It is better to be of use to the last than to be broken up, as is the lot of many a once stout s.h.i.+p, for firewood.”

Through the interest of Admiral Triton, Needham got charge of a s.h.i.+p in ordinary, where he hoped to remain till he should get appointed to one on active service.

Jack immediately on his arrival wrote to Terence, who had gone to Ballymacree; he had invited Desmond to accompany Tom to Halliburton. In reply, Terence begged him to come over to Ireland as soon as he could tear himself away from home. ”Nora is of course anxious to see her boy,” he added, ”so I beg you will bring him over, and Tom also, if his mother and sisters can spare him.” Jack, however, was very doubtful about going to Ballymacree at all; he had been greatly attracted by the person and manners of f.a.n.n.y Bradshaw, though, to be sure, she had not said anything to make him suppose that she regarded him in any other light than that of a friend, who had rendered her and her father an essential service.

”Well, I will try it, however,” thought Jack. ”Perhaps at Murray's wedding, I shall be able to judge better how she feels towards me.”

Admiral Triton accompanied his young friends up to London, where they remained a couple of days, he taking them to see every sight that could by any possibility be inspected during the time, while Jack spent most of his time with Murray at the Bradshaws'. When he bade farewell, after having promised Alick to return in a couple of weeks, he felt quite as uncertain as at first as to f.a.n.n.y's feelings towards him.

Of course every one was delighted to see him at Halliburton. Tom and Desmond were as happy as the day was long, they only wished that Archy Gordon, who had gone back to his friends in Scotland, could have been with them. Gerald Desmond behaved with wonderful discretion and propriety.

”Really, Jack, if Lieutenant Adair is as quiet and steady as his nephew appears to be, we need no longer fear, should he come here, that he will play the tricks we once supposed he would,” observed Lucy.

”I always told you that Terence is as well conducted a young Irishman as one can wish to meet with,” answered Jack. ”I will ask him to come over and pay us his long-promised visit before I go to Ballymacree, and he then can attend Murray's wedding with me.”

Jack wrote, and Terence accepted the invitation and came. Lucy confessed that she thought Lieutenant Adair was the most pleasing, right-minded gentleman she had ever met.

”Of course he is,” said Jack. ”But then, remember that he is a half-pay navy lieutenant, and that his paternal estate is in the Enc.u.mbered Estate Court.”

The day before Murray's wedding, Jack and Terence went up to London, and at once called at his lodgings. They found a gentlemanly-looking man, with the cut of a lawyer, seated with him. He significantly introduced his friend as Mr Stapleton, ”who is to undergo the same fate for which I am destined tomorrow.”

After some lively conversation, Mr Stapleton took his departure.

”Who is he?” asked Jack. ”He seems a very happy fellow.”

”He is the destined husband of f.a.n.n.y Bradshaw,” answered Alick.

”Matters, for certain reasons, were not settled till after you left town, and therefore Mr Bradshaw did not inform you of the cause of his coming to England. It has been a long engagement; and as Stapleton could not go out to the West Indies, f.a.n.n.y wisely consented to come to England, and she and Stella arranged, if possible, to marry the same day.”

Jack said nothing, he was suddenly awakened from his dream, and he very soon began to doubt whether he had been as desperately in love with f.a.n.n.y as he had supposed after all. At all events he could earnestly wish her and her husband every happiness.

The wedding took place, and he appeared with as serene a countenance as Terence, who, at the breakfast made a capital speech, and was the life of the party.

The same evening Jack, with Terence and the two mids.h.i.+pmen, set off by the Holyhead mail bound for Ballymacree. Jack did not lose his heart at first sight, but he, at all events, thought Kathleen Adair more charming than her West Indian cousins, or any of the young ladies he had met in the neighbourhood of Halliburton, or, indeed than f.a.n.n.y Bradshaw herself. He could not help it, whether wisely or not, telling her so one day, and as she forthwith accepted him, he had to write home and inform his father of the fact.

Sir John, in reply, promised his sanction and blessing, provided the young lady would wait till he was a commander. Kathleen said that she would wait till he was an admiral, if he wished, but observed that, for her part, she could not see why a lieutenant should not make as good a husband as a captain. It was a wonder that the two mids.h.i.+pmen did not break their necks out hunting, or finish themselves off in some other way, but happily, while still sound in limb, both they, Jack, and Terence received orders to join a s.h.i.+p fitting out for the East Indies, the arrangement having been made, at Sir John's instigation, by their old friend Admiral Triton.

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