ledge has he of iligance! I'll go bail
he never was half as far a navigatin' as we,--he wint the short cut, I
go bail, and never dar'd for to vinture the round, as I did."

"By dad, we wor a great dale longer anyhow than he towld me he was."

"To be sure we wor," said Barny; "he wint skulkin' in by the short cut,
I tell you, and was afeard to keep a bowld offin' like me. But come,
boys, let uz take a dhrop o' the bottle o' sper'ts we got out o' the
brig. By gor, it's well we got some bottles iv it; for I wouldn't much
like to meddle wid that darlint little kag iv it antil we get home." The
rum was put on its trial by Barny and his companions, and in their
critical judgment was pronounced quite as good as the captain of the
ship had bestowed upon them, but that neither of those specimens of
spirit was to be compared to whiskey. "By dad," says Barny, "they may
rack their brains a long time before they'll make out a purtier
invintion than _potteen_,--that rum may do very well for thim that has
the misforthin' not to know betther; but the whiskey is a more nathral
sper't accordin' to my idays." In this, as in most other of Barny's
opinions, Peter and Jemmy coincided.

Nothing particular occurred for the two succeeding days, during which
time Barny most religiously pursued his _nor-aist coorse_, but the third
day produced a new and important event. A sail was discovered on the
horizon, and in the direction Barny was steering, and a couple of hours
made him tolerably certain that the vessel in sight was an American, for
though it is needless to say that he was not very conversant in such
matters, yet from the frequency of his seeing Americans trading to
Ireland, his eye had become sufficiently accustomed to their lofty and
tapering spars, and peculiar smartness of rig, to satisfy him that the
ship before him was of transatlantic build; nor was he wrong in his
conjecture.

Barny now determined on a manoeuvre, classing him among the first
tacticians at securing a good retreat.

Moreau's highest fame rests upon his celebrated retrograde movement
through the Black Forest.

Xenophon's greatest glory is derived from the deliverance of his ten
thousand Greeks from impending ruin by his renowned retreat.

Let the ancient and the modern hero "repose under the shadow of their
laurels," as the French have it, while Barny O'Reirdon's historian, with
a pardonable jealousy for the honor of his country, cuts down a goodly
bough of t