all the bitterness of failure there. On one side festivities, rejoicings, and public demonstrations; on the other, confinement, banishment, or the scaffold.
The excitement was almost madness. The passion for pleasure, restrained by the terrible contingencies of the time, now broke forth with redoubled force, and the capital was thronged with all its rank, riches, and fashion, when its jails were crowded, and the heaviest sentences of the law were in daily execution. The state trials were crowded by all the fashion of the metropolis; and the heart-moving eloquence of Curran was succeeded by the strains of a merry concert. It was just then, too, that the great lyric poet of Ireland began to appear in society, and those songs which were to be known afterwards as "The Melodies," par excellence, were first heard in all the witching enchantment which his own taste and voice could lend them. To such as were indifferent to or could forget the past, it was a brilliant period. It was the last flickering blaze of Irish nationality, before the lamp was extinguished for ever.
Of this society I myself saw nothing. But even in the retirement of my humble life the sounds of its mirth and pleasure penetrated, and I often wished to witness the scenes which even in vague description were fascinating. It was then in a kind of discontent at my exclusion, that I grew from day to day more disposed to solitude, and fonder of those excursions which led me out of all reach of companionship or acquaintance. In this spirit I planned a long cruise down channel, resolving to visit the Island of Valencia, or, if the wind and weather favored, to creep around the southwest coast as far as Bantry or Kenmare. A man and his son, a boy of about sixteen, formed all my crew, and were quite sufficient for the light tackle and easy rig of my craft. Uncle Pat was already mounted on his pony, and ready to set out for market, as we prepared to start. It was a bright spring morning – such a one as now and then the changeful climate of Ireland brings forth, in a brilliancy of color and softness of atmosphere that are rare in even more favored lands.
"You have a fine day of it, Maurice, and just enough wind," said he, looking at the point from whence it came. "I almost wish I was going with you."
"And why not come, then?" asked I. "You never will give yourself a holiday. Do so for once, now."
"Not to-day, any how," said he, half sighing at his self-denial. "I have a great deal of business on my hands to-day; but the next time – the very next you're up to a long cruise, I'll go with you."
"That's a bargain, then?"
"A bargain. Here's my hand on it."
We shook hands cordially on the compact. Little knew I it was to be for the last time, and that we were never to meet again.
I was soon aboard, and with a free mainsail skimming rapidly over the bright waters of the bay. The wind freshened as the day wore on, and we quickly passed the Kish light-ship, and held our course boldly down channel. The height of my enjoyment in these excursions consisted in the unbroken quietude of mind I felt, when removed from all chance of interruption, and left free to follow out my own fancies, and indulge my dreamy conceptions to my heart's content. It was then I used to revel in imaginings which sometimes soared into the boldest realms of ambition, and at other strayed contemplatively in the humblest walks of obscure fortune. My crew never broke in upon these musings; indeed old Tom Finnerty's low crooning song rather aided than interrupted them. He was not much given to talking, and a chance allusion to some vessel afar off, or some head-land we were passing, were about the extent of his communicativeness, and even these often fell on my ear unnoticed.
It was thus, at night, we made the Hook Tower; and on the next day passed, in a spanking breeze, under the bold cliffs of Tramore, just catching, as the sun was sinking, the sight of Youghal Bay, and the tall headlands beyond it.
"The wind is drawing more to the nor'ard," said old Tom, as night closed in, "and the clouds look dirty."
"Bear her up a point or two," said I, "and let us stand in for Cork harbor, if it comes on to blow."
He muttered something in reply, but I did not catch the words, nor, indeed, cared I to hear them, for I had just wrapped myself in my boat-cloak, and stretched at full length on the shingle ballast of the yawl, was gazing in rapture at the brilliancy of the starry sky above me. Light skiffs of feathery cloud would now and then flit past, and a peculiar hissing sound of the sea told, at the same time, that the breeze was freshening. But old Tom had done his duty in mentioning this once; and thus having disburdened his conscience, he closehauled his mainsail, shifted the ballast a little to midships, and, putting up the collar of his pilot-coat, screwed himself tighter into the corner beside the tiller, and chewed his quid in quietness. The boy slept soundly in the bow, and I, lulled by the motion and the plashing waves, fell into a dreamy stupor, like a pleasant sleep. The pitching of the boat continued to increase, and twice or thrice, struck by a heavy sea, she lay over, till the white waves came tumbling in over her gunwale. I heard Tom call to his boy, something about the head-sail, but for the life of me I could not or would not arouse myself from a train of thought that I was following.
"She's a stout boat to stand this," said Tom, as he rounded her off, at a coming wave, which, even thus escaped, splashed over her like a cataract. "I know many a bigger craft wouldn't hold up her canvas under such a gale."
"Here it comes, father. Here's a squall," cried the boy, and with a crash like thunder, the wind struck the sail, and laid the boy half-under.
"She'd float if she was full of water," said the old man, as the craft "righted."
"But maybe the spars wouldn't stand," said the boy, anxiously.
"'Tis what I'm thinking," rejoined the father. "There's a shake in the mast, below the caps."
"Tell him it's better to bear up, and go before it," whispered the lad, with a gesture toward where I was lying.
"Troth it's little he'd care," said the other; "besides, he's never plazed to be woke up."
"Here it comes again," cried the boy. But this time the squall swept past ahead of us, and the craft only reeled to the swollen waves, as they tore by.
"We'd better go about, sir," said Tom to me; "there's a heavy sea outside, and it's blowing hard now."
"And there's a split in the mast as long as my arm," cried the boy.
"I thought she'd live through any sea, Tom!" said I, laughing; for it was his constant boast that no weather could harm her.
"There goes the spar," shouted he, while with a loud snap the mast gave way, and fell with a crash over the side. The boat immediately came head to wind, and sea after sea broke upon her bow, and fell in great floods over us.
"Cut away the stays – clear the wreck," cried Tom, "before the squall catches her."
And although we now labored like men whose lives depended on the exertion, the trailing sail and heavy rigging, shifting the ballast as they fell, laid her completely over; and when the first sea struck her, over she went. The violence of the gale sent me a considerable distance out, and for several seconds I felt as though I should never reach the surface again. Wave after wave rolled over me, and seemed bearing me downward with their weight. At last I grasped something; it was a rope – a broken halyard – but by its means I gained the mast, which floated alongside of the yawl as she now lay keel uppermost. With what energy did I struggle to reach her. The space was scarcely a dozen feet, and yet it cost me what seemed an age to traverse. Through all the roaring of the breakers, and the crashing sounds of storm, I thought I could hear my comrades' voices shouting and screaming, but this was in all likelihood a mere deception, for I never saw them more.
Grasping with a death-grip the slippery keel, I hung on the boat through all the night. The gale continued to increase, and by day-break it blew a perfect hurricane. With
