shmen will stay at home instead of carrying their
manhood to foreign climes. Nay, we shall stand with our heel on the
neck of England, and she who for centuries has ground the spirit out of
us will sue to us for quarter."

"How will you manage all this?" said I.

"The people are armed, only waiting the signal to rise and throw off the
yoke. England is not ready, she is beset on all sides, her fleet is
discontented, her armies are scattered over Europe, her garrison in
Ireland is half asleep. Our leaders are only waiting their time, and
meanwhile Irishmen are flocking to the banner daily. And more than
that, Barry," added he, with a thump on the bulwark, "at the first blow
from us, France will be ready to strike for our liberty too. I know
that for certain, my boy."

"France!" said I. "If there are innocents to be slaughtered, and blood
to flow, and fiends to be let loose, you may depend on her."

"She at least is more our friend than men like Gorman, who one day, when
they are poor, with nothing to lose, are for the people, and the next,
when they are rich, are for the crown and the magistrates and the
Protestant ascendency. It will be a sorry look-out for such as these
when we come into our own.--There comes a breeze surely!"

"South-easterly," said I; "that will suit us."

It was a moderate breeze only, but it brought us on our way opportunely,
until one day, as we looked out, there was land on our weather-beam.

Then fell another calm, longer and more dead than the last. The sea was
like glass, the horizon hazy, and the heat oppressive. The carpenter,
as now and again he looked up at the lifeless sails, muttered between
his teeth.

"I hear," said Tim, "our timbers above the water-line have sprung here
and there. The old tub is quite rotten, and every day we lie idle like
this she grows worse."

"This time to-morrow, by all signs, we shall not be lying idle," said I,
glancing up at the metallic sky, and following the line of a school of
porpoises as they wheeled across our stern.

"So much the better. We must run before the wind wherever it comes
from. We could not live through a cross-sea for an hour."

The storm came sooner than I expected. The metallic sky grew overcast,
and a warning shudder fell over the still surface of the water. Then a
sudden squall took us amidships, and sent us careening over on our beam,
before we even knew that the calm was at an end.

We had no more than time t