Chapter 27

HE GETS A PEEP AT IRELAND, AND AT LAST ARRIVES AT LIVERPOOL

The Highlander was not a grayhound, not a very fast sailer; and so, the
passage, which some of the packet ships make in fifteen or sixteen days,
employed us about thirty.

At last, one morning I came on deck, and they told me that Ireland was
in sight.

Ireland in sight! A foreign country actually visible! I peered hard, but
could see nothing but a bluish, cloud-like spot to the northeast. Was
that Ireland? Why, there was nothing remarkable about that; nothing
startling. If that's the way a foreign country looks, I might as well
have staid at home.

Now what, exactly, I had fancied the shore would look like, I can not
say; but I had a vague idea that it would be something strange and
wonderful. However, there it was; and as the light increased and the
ship sailed nearer and nearer, the land began to magnify, and I gazed at
it with increasing interest.

Ireland! I thought of Robert Emmet, and that last speech of his before
Lord Norbury; I thought of Tommy Moore, and his amatory verses: I
thought of Curran, Grattan, Plunket, and O'Connell; I thought of my
uncle's ostler, Patrick Flinnigan; and I thought of the shipwreck of the
gallant Albion, tost to pieces on the very shore now in sight; and I
thought I should very much like to leave the ship and visit Dublin and
the Giant's Causeway.

Presently a fishing-boat drew near, and I rushed to get a view of it;
but it was a very ordinary looking boat, bobbing up and down, as any
other boat would have done; yet, when I considered that the solitary man
in it was actually a born native of the land in sight; that in all
probability he had never been in America, and knew nothing about my
friends at home, I began to think that he looked somewhat strange.

He was a very fluent fellow, and as soon as we were within hailing
distance, cried out--"Ah, my fine sailors, from Ameriky, ain't ye, my
beautiful sailors?" And concluded by calling upon; us to stop and heave
a rope. Thinking he might have something important to communicate, the
mate accordingly backed I the main yard, and a rope being thrown, the
stranger kept hauling in upon it, and coiling it down, crying, "pay out!
pay out, my honeys; ah! but you're noble fellows!" Till at last the mate
asked him why he did not come alongside, adding, "Haven't you enough
rope yet?"

"Sure and I have," replied the fisherman, "and it's time for Pat to cut
and run!" and so saying, his knife severed the rope, and with a Kilkenny
grin, he sprang to his tiller, put his little craft before the wind, and
bowled away from us, with some fifteen fathoms of our tow-line.

"And may the