rgo, chiefly of salt provisions, and other produce
of the fertile south of Ireland, hauled out into the stream. Her old
captain, with Norah and Mrs Massey, went on board to bid farewell to
Owen, and proceeded down the river till she had crossed the bar, when
Captain Tracy took Owen by the hand.

"Heaven speed you, my boy!" he said. "May He who guarded me through the
many dangers of the ocean take care of you, and bring you back in safety
to those who will ever give you a loving welcome! And now, the shorter
you cut the parting with those two the better."

Mrs Massey saw that the time had come; she threw her amis round the
young captain's neck, and asked God again and again to protect him.
Then she let Norah take her place, while Captain Tracy helped her down
into the boat alongside, in which Owen soon afterwards placed Norah.
They had said their last words of farewell; Norah's had been whispered,
for her heart was too full to allow her to utter them aloud. Captain
Tracy took his seat in the stern-sheets. "Cast off!" he cried to the
bowman. The boat dropped astern; Owen was seen standing aft and looking
over the taffrail; the pilot, who had still the command, ordered the
courses to be let fall, and the _Ouzel Galley_ glided onward. As long
as the boat was in sight, there stood Owen gazing at Norah and his
mother, as again and again they waved. More than once the old captain
turned round to take another look at the ship whose keel he had seen
laid, each timber and plank of which he had carefully watched as the
shipwrights had fixed them in their destined positions--that ship on the
deck of which he had stood when she glided into the water for the first
time, and which he had since navigated with watchful care on every
voyage she had made, amid rocks and shoals, and over many a league of
ocean.

Mrs Massey had consented to spend a few days with Norah. Though her
own heart was heavy, she knew that she could console that of the young
girl, so unused to the trials of life; while the old captain himself,
she saw, required cheering, and thus in benefiting others she forgot her
own anxieties. The captain had out his chart: he had marked the way the
wind blew, and knew to a nicety the rate at which the ship was sailing,
and could thus calculate from hour to hour the exact spot on which she
floated--always provided, as he observed, if the wind holds as it did
when she quitted port.

At length Mrs Massey returned home