stoutly on the bars with us.
"Heave, now! He's got no frin's!"

"O! Th' times wos 'ard, an' th' wages low,
(_Leave 'r, John-ny, leave 'r!_)
Th' w'yage wos long, an' th' gales did blow,
(_An' it's time--for us--t' leave 'r!"_)

Check--and rally; check--a mad rush round--the anchor dripping at the
bows, and we move on across the eddies of the Bar in wake of the
panting tug.

A short tow, for all the bargaining, and at Rosses Point we bring up to
moorings--the voyage at an end.

"That'll do, you men," said the Mate, when the last warp was turned.
"Pay off at th' Custom House at twelve to-morrow!"

"That'll do!" Few words and simple; but the meaning! Free at last!
No man's servant! With a hurricane whoop the crew rush to quarters to
sling their bags for the road.

Then the trafficking with the shore, the boatmen reaping a harvest. "A
bob th' trip, yer 'anner, on a day like this." The doors of the
village inn swinging constantly, and the white-aproned landlord
(mopping a heated brow at royal orders), sending messengers to ransack
the village cupboards for a reserve of glasses. And when at last the
boats are ready for the long pull up to Sligo town, and the impatient
boatmen shouting, "Coom on now, byes! Before th' toide tarns; byes,
now!" The free men embark, and we, the afterguard (who draw no pay),
are left to watch them set off, and wish that our day were quickly come.

For a time we hear their happy voices, and answer cheer for cheer, then
the dark comes, and the last is a steady _clack_ of rowlocks, and the
men singing "_Leave 'r, John-ny ... like a man!_"

* * * * *

Two days later, on deck of the Glasgow boat, I gazed on my old ship for
the last time. At the narrow bend we steamed slow, to steer cautiously
past her. The harbour watch were there to give me a parting cheer, and
Old Jock, from the poop, waved a cheery response to my salute. Past
her, we turned water again, and sped on to sea.

It was a day of mist and low clouds, and a weakly sun breaking through
in long slanting shafts of light. Over the Point a beam was fleeting,
playing on the house-tops, shimmering in window glasses, lighting on
the water, on the tracery of spar and rigging, and showing golden on
the red-rusty hull of the old barque--my home for so long in fair
weather and foul.

A turn of the steering shut her from my sight, and I turned to go below.

"Fine ships! Fine ships--t' lo