Paddy-The-Next-Best-Thing. Gertrude Page
How delightful it will be to have a man among us again. One gets so tired of boys!”
“You don’t mean to say you’re going to uphold Lawrence Blake!” he exclaimed, apparently too disgusted to parry her thrust.
“Why not?” stoutly. “I’m sure he’s a most superior young man.”
“A pity he’s such a conceited ass, then,” muttered Jack, at which the two little ladies looked pained, and while one said gently, “My dear Jack, you must remember he is always extremely nice to us,” the other echoed with like gentleness, “Yes, Jack, dear, remember he is always nice to us.”
“Then I’ll say he’s a thundering good chap,” was the ready response; “though that man or woman living could be other than nice to you passes my comprehension.”
“Of course they couldn’t,” put in Paddy; “why I want to hug both of you every ten minutes whenever I am with you.
“Fancy if every one else did!” she ran on, “and our feelings got the better of us! How should you like it, aunties, if every one wanted to keep hugging you every time they saw you, and couldn’t help themselves! You would never dare to wear your best bonnets at all, should you?—and I expect your caps would be everywhere but on your heads, or else would have a perpetually rakish tilt.”
The two little ladies smiled without the least resentment, for they had long known that the varying angle of their caps was a source of great amusement to their large army of nephews and nieces, who stoutly maintained that when Aunt Jane’s cap slipped awry, Aunt Mary’s quickly did the same of its own accord, and vice versa, and therefore, it was more often the cap’s fault than the owner’s.
Jack, however, stood up promptly, and pulling himself to his full height, said, with a whimsical recollection of childhood, “Shall I be a man, aunties, and spank her?” This highly amused both little ladies, as it reminded them of a little mischievous girl who had pushed over her sister on purpose, and a sturdy, blue-eyed boy, who had promptly asked with a fiery resoluteness of purpose, “Shall I be a man, aunties, and spank her?” It was memorable also how disappointed he had been when told that “being a man” never meant spanking little girls at all, even when they were mischievous.
He would, doubtless, not have waited for any verdict on the present occasion, only just then the hearty old General entered the room, and Paddy, the father’s darling, flew to him for protection. A general chattering and laughing ensued, and, presently seeing her opportunity, Eileen rose from her seat in the window, and with a curious subdued glow in her wonderful eyes glided silently from the room.
A few minutes later she was pulsing up the mountain with a free, eager step that not only proclaimed her an experienced climber, but bespoke a deep delight in thus climbing to the upland solitudes alone.
“I say, daddy,” Paddy was saying, “isn’t it ripping, we’re going to have a man-about-town here! The real, genuine thing, you know, eyeglass and all, and as blasé as they’re made. Won’t Jack look like a countrified Irish lout with bats in his belfry!”
The General said afterward, it was nearly as good as a bit of Tipperary’s extra-special, best Orangemen night.
Chapter Three.
Eileen the Dreamer.
There was one spot on the mountains near The Ghan House where, if you climbed high enough and were not afraid of an almost perpendicular path, you could get a glorious view, not only of the Loch and mountains, but of a wide stretch of sparkling silver, or dreaming turquoise, which was the sea.
It was here that Eileen Adair loved to sit and dream dreams and weave romances, such as only the true Celt knows how. What she put into them was known to none, and, indeed, probably never could be known, for they possessed that unfathomable, mysterious, yearning quality which is so present in Celtic blood, and were of those hidden thoughts and things which defy words to express them. Not that Eileen ever wanted to express them. She had not as yet met a kindred soul whom she felt could in any wise understand, and meanwhile, having the mountains, and the lake, and the sea, for companions, it did not seem that she needed a listener. She could talk to these in a rapturous silence as she could talk to no other, and feel that her spirit was one with their spirit, and that what men call “solitude” is in reality a wealth of deep companionship for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. There was a good deal of the pagan about Eileen, for, though she always went to church, and tried to be earnest and attentive, it seemed so much easier to her to worship out in the open air among the upland solitudes of the mountain. And so real and intense to her in these solitudes was the consciousness of an All-pervading God-presence, that fear of any kind was impossible, and she was less lonely than under any other conditions.
It was doubtless these solitary climbs and silent musings, when she either thought deep, mysterious thoughts, or sitting motionless, absorbed into all her being the spirit of beauty around, that had deepened in her face year by year its dream-like loveliness. Eileen was rarely gay, but her smile was indescribably beautiful and impressed everyone who saw it. Paddy was her father’s darling, and had been, in spite of his disappointment, ever since he learned that his second child was another girl and not the fondly longed-for boy. With a sense of vain regret he had looked dubiously at the small bundle with the cause of his regret somewhere inside it, and retired without further inspection. A few days later he got a full and uninterrupted view of an ugly little brown face, with a pair of particularly bright eyes, and a suggestion of roguishness that was entirely alluring. “Bedad!” he said, looking back into the bright eyes, “I badly wanted a boy, but you look as if you’d be the next best thing.” And that was how Paddy got her self-chosen nickname.
The General was, however, very proud of Eileen, though half-unconsciously a little afraid of her. But what she missed in her father Eileen found amply in her mother, whose only fear was that she might worship this sweet-eyed, fair-faced daughter too much. Mrs. Adair was a woman with whom few ever felt quite at home. Distinguished in bearing, and still with the remains of considerable beauty, she was in general an object of awe to her acquaintances. Those who once got to know her and were admitted into her friendship ever after loved her dearly—but these were few and far between. Foremost among them were the little ladies at the Parsonage, who had been waiting at The Ghan House to welcome their old friend’s bride the day he brought her home from India. She had been just the same white-faced, reserved woman then, and for a little while they had been non-plussed; but one day a letter from India had told them her story, and soon afterward the three women had cemented a lifelong friendship in tears of common sympathy.
“I hear General Adair has married Miss Brindley and is taking her to your neighbourhood,” the letter had run. “She was governess with a friend of ours in India, and we know her well and are very fond of her. Do all you can for her; she has had a very sad life, and lately, on the top of all the rest, saw her love killed before her eyes guarding her from a band of Afghans on the frontier. He was a cousin of General Adair’s, and they were very devoted to each other, and the latter nearly lost his life also going to their assistance. Afterward he fell in love with Miss Brindley himself, and we helped to persuade her to marry him, because she was so friendless, and poor, and broken-hearted.”
This, then, surely had something to do with the wistful expression in the little sad-eyed Eileen’s face, and in later years so deeply entwined her round her mother’s heart. Only Mrs. Adair rarely showed it, for she was eminently a just woman, and in the peaceful waters of her after-life she put her sad past resolutely aside, and tried to live only for the husband who was so good to her, and for her harum-scarum tom-boy daughter, as much as for the child who would always possess the largest share of her heart.
But Eileen’s eyes were not sad when she hurried up the mountain on the day the Misses O’Hara called with their piece of news. She carried a small packet of sandwiches and a flask which the cook had hastily prepared for