The Three Lieutenants | Page 3

contents distributed. An official-looking letter, addressed to Jack, attracted universal attention.
"Who is it from?" asked Mary anxiously.
"About your prize-money, Jack?" inquired his mother. "You are not yet again appointed to a ship, I hope, my dear boy?"
"I am, though!" exclaimed Jack exultingly, for the moment not thinking of his mother's feeling, "and second of a fine new thirty-six gun frigate the Plantagenet, commanded by my old friend Hemming. Couldn't wish for anything better. Where there's work to be done he is sure to be sent."
"But you will not have to go away at once, dear Jack, I trust," cried Lucy, who loved her sailor brother dearly.
Tom said nothing, and it might have been difficult to decide whether he was about to cry or laugh. He evidently felt as much interested in the announcement as Jack himself.
"Faith, they do work you hard," observed his guardsman brother. "If the purchase-system was allowed in your service I suspect that buyers would be rare."
"I am very glad it doesn't; for now, if a hardworking fellow gets his foot on the ratlines he has a chance of climbing upwards," answered Jack. "However, as the Plantagenet has only just been commissioned, I shall be able to enjoy the civilising influences of home for a short time longer. In truth, I am almost ashamed at being pleased with the thoughts of going off again to sea; but after having knocked about all one's life as a midshipman it is satisfactory to feel that one is an officer in reality, with a cabin of one's own."
"Of course, my boy; much more natural than to wish to be dangling after your sisters, or any other of the petticoat tribe who might take it into their heads to patronise you," said Sir John, glancing with all a father's pride at his gallant son. "To what station are you to be sent?"
"As far as I can discover, that remains as yet in the mysterious depths of my Lords Commissioners' minds," answered Jack, glancing over some other letters. "Hemming has an idea that it may be to the West Indies; at least such is the opinion of the Portsmouth tailors, who have generally more correct information on these matters than any one else. Just now, when the world is so peaceably disposed, it is not of much consequence where we go; and as I have never been in those seas I would rather be sent there than anywhere else."
"I trust that it will not be to the West Indies, my dear boy," said Lady Rogers. "I have read such sad accounts of the dreadful yellow fever which kills so many people, and of those terrible hurricanes which send so many ships to the bottom, and devastate whole islands whenever they appear, that I tremble at the thoughts of your going there."
"Pray don't let such an idea trouble you, mother," answered Jack; "the yellow fever only comes once in a way, and hurricanes appear even less frequently; so that we may hope to escape both one and the other, even if we do go there. I have no wish, however, to leave home in a hurry, and should be glad to remain long enough to receive Murray and Adair, whom I invited to come here, but I am afraid when they hear of my appointment that they will write to put off their visit till another time, which may never arrive. It is not likely that we shall be at home together again. They are capital fellows. You remember them, Lucy, when we were all on shore after our first trip to sea, and they came to call on us in London, and afterwards Adair went down with us for a few days into the country."
"Yes, indeed. Mr Adair, I suppose I must now call him, was, I remember, a terrible pickle; while Mr Murray appeared to be a wonderfully sedate, taciturn young Scotchman, a pattern of correctness and propriety," said Lucy.
"Maybe, but as noble and brave a fellow as ever breathed!" exclaimed Jack warmly. "I should like to know what opinion you would form of him now. I must write by to-day's post, and beg him to put off other engagements if he can, and come to us at once."
"And that terrible pickle, as Lucy calls him, your Irish friend, Mr Adair, are we to have the honour of renewing our acquaintance with him before you go away?" asked Mary. "I must protest against having him here unless you are present to restrain his exuberant spirits, and the various eccentricities in which he may take it into his head to indulge."
"Oh, Paddy Adair is as gentle as a pet lamb if you only manage him properly," answered Jack, laughing. "Those various eccentricities are merely his little frolicsome ways, which can be restrained