another four years in each other's company, I'm sure it would be
the same."

Tom merely wrung my hand; his heart was too full to speak.

"Good-bye, Mr Pim," said Larry, as the schooner's boat was waiting for
us at the quay. "Your honour saved my life, and I would have been after
saving yours, if I had had the chance, a dozen times over."

"You saved it once, at least, Larry, when you helped to get me out of
the water as the boat was leaving the _Cerberus_ and I hope that we may
be again together, to give you another chance."

"There's nothing I'd like better. May Heaven's blessing go with your
honour," said Larry, as Tom held out his hand and shook his warmly.

Our friends stood on the shore as we pulled across the Catwater to the
schooner, which lay at the entrance. Directly we were on board she got
under weigh, and with a fair breeze we stood down Plymouth Sound. She
was a terribly slow sailer, and we had a much longer passage to Cork
than I had expected. We had no longer any fear of being snapped up by a
privateer, but, seeing her style of sailing, I hoped that we should not
be caught in a gale on a lee shore, or we should have run a great chance
of being wrecked.

Larry made friends with all on board, keeping them alive with his
fiddle, which he was excessively proud of having saved through so many
and various dangers.

"Shure, I wouldn't change it for all the gold in the _Ville de Paris_,
if it could be fished up from the bottom of the say," he exclaimed, "for
that couldn't cheer up the hearts of my shipmates as my old fiddle can
be doing. Won't I be after setting them toeing and heeling it when we
get back to Ballinahone!"

At length our eyes were rejoiced by a sight of the entrance to Cork
Harbour, and the wind being fair, we at once ran up to Passage, where I
engaged a boat to take us to Cork. As we had no luggage except what
Larry could carry, and he wouldn't let me lift an article, we proceeded
at once to the inn at which my uncle and I had put up.

I was just about to enter through the doorway, when I saw a tall figure
standing before me, not older by a wrinkle than when I, a stripling, had
last seen him, standing on the quay waving me a farewell; his hat and
coat, the curl of his wig, every article of dress, was the same. For a
moment he looked at me as if I were a stranger; then, recognising my
features, though in height and breadth I was so changed, he stretched
out his arms, exclaiming--