e the sails are furled and
the yards squared.' 'Very true,' replied the captain; 'therefore, Mr
O'Brien, you must wait until the watch is called, and then, if you ask
the first lieutenant, I have no doubt but you will have leave granted to
you to go and see your friends.' 'Thank'e kindly, sir,' replied I; and I
hoped that the yards and sails would be finished off as soon as
possible, for my heart was in my mouth, and I felt that if I had been
kept much longer, it would have flown on shore before me.

"I thought myself very clever in this business, but I was never a
greater fool in my life; for there was no such hurry to have gone on
shore, and the first lieutenant never forgave me for appealing to the
captain--but of that by-and-by, and all in good time. At last I obtained
a grumbling assent to my going on shore, and off I went like a
sky-rocket. Being in a desperate hurry, I hired a jaunting-car to take
me to my father's house. 'Is it the O'Brien of Ballyhinch that you
mane?' inquired the spalpeen who drove the horse. 'Sure it is,' replied
I; 'and how is he, and all the noble family of the O'Briens?" 'All well
enough, bating the boy Tim, who caught a bit of confusion in his head
the other night at the fair, and now lies at home in bed quite
insensible to mate or drink; but the doctors give hopes of his recovery,
as all the O'Briens are known to have such thick heads.' 'What do you
mane by that, bad manners to you?' said I, 'but poor Tim--how did it
happen--was there a fight?' 'Not much of a fight--only a bit of a
skrummage--three crowners' inquests, no more.' 'But you are not going
the straight road, you thief,' said I, seeing that he had turned off to
the left. 'I've my reasons for that, your honour,' replied he; 'I always
turn away from the Castle out of principle--I lost a friend there, and
it makes me melancholy.' 'How came that for to happen?' 'All by
accident, your honour; they hung my poor brother Patrick there, because
he was a bad hand at arithmetic.' 'He should have gone to a better
school then,' said I. 'I've an idea that it was a bad school that he was
brought up in,' replied he, with a sigh. 'He was a cattle-dealer, your
honour, and one day, somehow or another, he'd a cow too much--all for
not knowing how to count, your honour,--bad luck to his school-master.'
'All that may be very true,' said I, 'and pace be to his soul; but I
don't see why you are to drag me, that's in such a hurry, two miles out
of my w