n
its wooded and picturesque banks. On arriving at Cork, the captain
wished the major good-bye, saying that I must be on board again within
three days, which would allow me ample time to get a proper uniform
made.

I asked Tom Pim what he was going to do with himself, and proposed that,
after I had been measured by the tailor, we should take a stroll
together.

"Do you think the captain brought me up here for my pleasure?" he said.
"I have to stay by the boat while he's on shore, to see that the men
don't run away. Why, if I didn't keep my eye on them, they'd be off
like shots, and drunk as fiddlers by the time the captain came back."

"I'm sorry you can't come," I said. "By the bye, talking of fiddlers,
will you mind taking a fiddle on board to the boy who came with me,--
Larry Harrigan? I promised to send it to him, though I didn't expect so
soon to have the opportunity."

"With the greatest pleasure in the world," said Tom Pim. "Perhaps I may
take a scrape on it myself. When I was a little fellow, I learned to
play it."

"You must have been a very little fellow," I couldn't help remarking,
though Tom didn't mind it.

As our inn was not far off, I asked my uncle to let me run on and get
the fiddle, and take it down to the boat. As I carried it along, I
heard people making various remarks, evidently showing that they took me
for a musician or stage-player, which made me more than ever anxious to
get out of a costume which I had once been so proud of wearing. Having
delivered the violin in its case to Tom Pim, who promised to convey it
to Larry, I rejoined my uncle.

We proceeded at once to the tailor recommended by Captain Macnamara,
who, having a pattern, promised to finish my uniform in time, and to
supply all the other articles I required. We spent the few days we were
in Cork in visiting some old friends of the major's.

I was very anxious about the non-appearance of my chest, but the night
before I was to go on board, to my great satisfaction, it arrived.

"It's a good big one, at all events," I thought; "it will hold all the
things I want, and some curiosities I hope to bring back from foreign
parts."

It was capable of doing so, for although it might have been somewhat
smaller than the one in which the bride who never got out again hid
away, it was of magnificent proportions, solid as oak and iron clamps
could make it; it was big enough to hold half-a-dozen of my smaller
brothers and siste