“Indeed!” rejoined the baronet; “really, I always supposed the French to be a most accomplished people.”
“Throth, then, they’re not, sir,” interrupts Pat.
“Oh, by no means,” adds mine host, shaking his head emphatically.
“I believe, Pat, ’twas when you were crossing the Atlantic?” says the master, turning to Pat with a seductive air, and leading into the “full and true account” (for Pat had thought fit to visit North Amerikay, for “a raison he had,” in the autumn of the year ninety-eight).
“Yes, sir,” says Pat, “the broad Atlantic”—a favourite phrase of his, which he gave with a brogue as broad, almost, as the Atlantic itself.
“It was the time I was lost in crassin’ the broad Atlantic, a-comin’ home,” began Pat, decoyed into the recital; “whin the winds began to blow, and the saw to rowl, that you’d think the Colleen Dhas (that was her name) would not have a mast left but what would rowl out of her.
“Well, sure enough, the masts went by the hoard, at last, and the pumps were choked (divil choke them for that same), and av coorse the wather gained an us; and, throth, to be filled with wather is neither good for man or baste; and she was sinkin’ fast, settlin’ down, as the sailors call it; and, faith, I never was good at settlin’ down in my life, and I liked it then less nor ever. Accordingly we prepared for the worst, and put out the boot, and got a sack o’ bishkits and a cask o’ pork and a kag o’ wather and a thrifle o’ rum aboord, and any other little matthers we could think iv in the mortial hurry we wor in—and, faith, there was no time to be lost, for, my darlint, the Colleen Dhas went down like a lump o’ lead afore we wor many sthrokes o’ the oar away from her.
“Well, we dhrifted away all that night, and next mornin’ we put up a blanket an the end av a pole as well as we could, and then we sailed illegant; for we darn’t show a stitch o’ canvas the night before, bekase it was blowin’ like bloody murther, savin’ your presence, and sure it’s the wondher of the worid we worn’t swally’d alive by the ragin’ sae.
“Well, away we wint, for more nor a week, and nothin’ before our two good-lookin’ eyes but the canophy iv heaven and the wide ocean—the broad Atlantic; not a thing was to be seen but the sae and the sky; and though the sae and the sky is mighty purty things in themselves, throth, they’re no great things when you’ve nothin’ else to look at for a week together; and the barest rock in the world, so it was land, would be more welkim. And then, soon enough, throth, our provisions began to run low, the bishkits and the wather and the rum—throth, that was gone first of all—God help uz!—and oh! it was thin that starvation began to stare us in the face. ‘O murther, murther, Captain darlint,’ says I, ‘I wish we could land anywhere,’ says I.
“‘More power to your elbow, Paddy, my boy,’ says he, ‘for sitch a good wish, and, throth, it’s myself wishes the same.’