Ward. I'm your father's youngest brother. I'm on my
way to your father's house now, or I would be if you two young men would
take to your oars again. If you don't I guess the first land we'll touch
will be Greenland. We'd fetch Runkerry quicker if you'd pass forward the
two thole pins I see at your feet and let me get an oar out in the bow.
The young lady in the stern can keep us straight with the helm."

"Give him the thole pins, Neal," said Maurice, "and then pull away."

"Just let me speak a word with you, Mr. St. Clair," said Donald Ward, as
he hammered the thole pins into their holes. "You're angry with Captain
Hercules Getty, and I don't altogether blame you. The captain's too fond
of brag, and that's a fact. He can't hold himself in when he meets a
Britisher. He's so almighty proud of the whipping his people gave the
scum. But there's no need for you to be angry with me. I'm an Irishman
myself, and not a Yankee. I fought in North Carolina, under General
Nathaniel Greene, but I fought with Irishmen beside me, men from County
Antrim and County Down, and they weren't the worst men in the army
either. When I fight again it'll be in Ireland, and not in America. If I
riled you I'm sorry for it, for you're an Irishman as well as myself."

Maurice's anger was shortlived.

"That's all right," he said. "Here, I say, you needn't pull that oar.
Neal and I will put you ashore. We'll show that much hospitality to a
County Antrim man from over the sea."

"Thank you," said Donald Ward. "Thank you. You mean well, and I take
your words in the spirit you speak them; but when I sit in a boat I like
to pull my own weight in her."

He shoved out his oar as he spoke, and fell into time with the long,
steady stroke which Neal set.

Una leaned forward and spoke in a low voice to Neal, timing her words
so that they reached him as he bent forward at the beginning of each
stroke.

"Is'nt it curious, Neal, that Maurice and I are going back to welcome an
aunt whom we have never seen, and that you are taking an unknown uncle
home with you?"

Then, after a pause, she spoke again.

"It's like a kind of fate, Neal, one of the things which happen to
people, and alter all their lives, and they can't do anything to help
themselves. I wonder will we ever have good times together again, now
that this aunt of mine and this uncle of yours have come?"

"Why shouldn't we?" said Neal.

"Oh, I don't know. But your uncle seems to be one of the