“I will take some of your fish, my friend, and pay you well for them.”

“Long life to yees!”

“I was about to say, I will pay you much better if you can show me any lee, hereabouts, which has good holding-ground, where a ship might ride out the gale that is coming.”

“Shure yer honour!—­will I not?  Shure, there’s nivver the lad on the coost, that knows betther what it is yer honour wants, or who’ll supply yees, with half the good will.”

“Of course you know the coast; probably were born hereabouts?”

“Of coorse, is it?  Whereabouts should Terence O’ something, be born, if it’s not hereabouts?  Is it know the coost, too?  Ah, we’re ould acquaintances.”

“And where do you intend to take the ship, Terence?”

“It’s houlding ground, yer honour asked for?”

“Certainly.—­A bottom on which an anchor will not drag.”

“Och! is it that?  Well, all the bottom in this counthry is of that same natur’.  None of it will drag, without pulling mighty hard.  I’ll swear to any part of it.”

“You surely would not think of anchoring a ship out here, a league from the land, with nothing to break either wind or sea, and a gale commencing?”

“I anchor!  Divil the bit did I ever anchor a ship, or a brig, or even a cutther.  I’ve not got so high up as that, yer honour:  but yon’s ould Michael Sweeny, now; many’s the anchor he’s cast out, miles at a time, sayin’ he’s been a sayman, and knows the says from top to bottom.  It’s Michael ye’ll want, and Michael ye shall have.”

Michael was spoken to, and he clambered up out of the boat, as well as he could; the task not being very easy, since the fishermen with difficulty kept their dull, heavy boat out of our mizen chains.  In the mean time, Marble and I found time to compare notes.  We agreed that Mr. Terence McScale, or O’ something,—­for I forget the fellow’s surname,—­would probably turn out a more useful man in hauling in mackerel and John Dorys, than in helping us to take care of the Dawn.  Nor did Michael, at the first glance promise anything much better.  He was very old,—­eighty.  I should think,—­and appeared to have nullified all the brains he ever had, by the constant use of whiskey; the scent of which accompanied him with a sort of parasitical odour, as that of tannin attends the leather-dresser.  He was not drunk just then, however, but seemed cool and collected.  I explained my wishes to this man; and was glad to find he had a tolerable notion of nautical terms, and that he would not be likely to get us into difficulty, like Terence, through any ignorance on this score.

“Is it anchor ye would, yer honour?” answered Michael, when I had concluded.  “Sure, that’s aisy enough, and the saison is good for that same; for the wind is getting up like a giant.  As for the guineas yer honour mintions, it’s of no avail atween fri’nds.  I’ll take ’em, to obleege ye, if yer honour so wills:  but the ship should be anchored if there niver was a grain of goold in the wur-r-r-ld.  Would ye like a berth pratty well out, or would yer honour choose to go in among the rocks, and lie like a babby in its cradhle?”