ile they were speaking Mr Bradshaw arrived--a stout, bald-headed,
middle-aged gentleman, with ruddy countenance, dressed in nankin
trousers, white jacket, and broad-brimmed straw hat, which he doffed as
he approached the strangers, glancing from one to the other; and then,
having settled in his mind that Jack Rogers was Alick Murray, shook his
hand, which he grasped with the greatest warmth.

"Happy to welcome you to Saint David's, my dear sir; only wish that our
expected friends were here also. A great disappointment to us, and to
you likewise, I feel sure, eh!" and he gave a facetious look at Jack, as
much as to say. "I know all about it."

"My dear, this gentleman is Lieutenant Rogers. Mr Murray has been
unable to come up," said Mrs Bradshaw; and she explained how matters
stood.

Jack thought that he ought to speak of going back. Mr Bradshaw laughed
at the notion.

"Utterly out of the question. Stay a week, or as long as you have
leave. Send your shanredan back to-morrow morning, and I'll drive you
down in my buggy when you have to go."

Thus pressed, Jack confessed that he and Adair had brought their
carpet-bags, not knowing where they might have to put up, and accepted
the invitation for the night; but said that, on Murray's account, they
must return the next day to see him before he sailed, and to tell him
what they had heard respecting Colonel and Miss O'Regan.

"You may assure your friend that he will ever be welcome here, and I
hope that we shall have the young lady with us when he returns,"
answered Mr Bradshaw. "I will not say the same with regard to her
impracticable father, for, between you and I, the farther he is away
from her the better. I am no admirer of his wild, harum-scarum schemes,
though he is individually a brave and honourable man; and had he not
foolishly quarrelled with the authorities at home, he would never have
lacked employment under the flag of England, instead of knocking his
head against stone walls in quarrels not his own."

These remarks of the worthy planter explained Colonel O'Regan's
character to Jack more clearly than anything he had before heard. He
had before entertained some unpleasant suspicions on the subject. They
were confirmed, and he now only hoped that Murray would not, should he
marry Stella, be induced to join any of her father's schemes. Of that,
however, if cautioned, he did not think there was much risk. Had
Terence been the favoured lover the ca