onnolly helped them carry it
round the Nose, and they launched her there. There they are. Sure you can
see them for yourself."

The party rushed out from the shelter, and there, a quarter of a mile
along on the right, a small boat was seen, making its way over the waves.

"Be jabers, yer honour, and they have done it," the boatmen said, as Mr.
Davenant gave a cry of alarm.

"I didn't think of the curragh, and if I had, she could not have been
launched here. Mr. Walter has hit on the only place where there was a
chance. Under the shelter of the Nose it might be done, but nowhere
else."

The Nose was a formidable reef of rocks, running off from a point and
trending to the south. Many a ship had gone ashore on its jagged edge,
but, with the wind from the northeast, it formed somewhat of a shelter,
and it was under its lee that Walter and Larry had launched the curragh.

The curragh is still found on the Irish coast. It is a boat whose
greatest width is at the stern, so much so that it looks like a boat cut
in two. The floor is almost flat, and rises so much to the bow that three
or four feet are entirely out of water. They are roughly built, and by no
means fast, but they are wonderfully good sea boats, for their size, and
can live in seas which would swamp a boat of ordinary build.

Walter had, with the assistance of Larry Doolan, built this boat for
going out fishing. It was extremely light, being a mere framework covered
with tarred canvas. As soon as Walter had reached the village, and found
that the fishermen considered that no boat could possibly be put out, he
had found and held a consultation with Larry.

"Do you think the curragh could go out, Larry?"

"Not she, yer honour. She would just be broke up like an eggshell with
them breakers."

"But she might float, if we got beyond them, Larry."

"She might that," Larry agreed, "seeing how light she is."

"Well, will you go with me, Larry?"

"Sure and I would go anywhere with yer honour, but she could never get
out."

"I am thinking, Larry, that if we carry her along beyond the Nose, we
might find it calmer there."

"Well, we might," Larry agreed. "At any rate, we can try."

So, calling together two or three other boys, they had lifted the light
boat and carried it with its oars along the shore, until they got beyond
the Nose; but even here, it was a formidable business to launch her, for,
although the rocks broke the full force of the seas, throwing