“The Fair Rosamond, yer honour, homeward-bound from Port Royal. We met with misfortunes from the time of sailing. We had Yellow Jack aboard us; then a course of foul wind, and when about a hundred leagues from the chops of the Channel, we were dismasted in a heavy gale; and at last, after driving about for many a day till we ran short of water and provisions, we were cast on the coast of Connemara, and only I and three others got to shore—the captain and the rest of the hands who were left alive, for Heaven hadn’t spared many of them, were washed away and drowned. I was like to have died too, but some country people took care of me, and I pulled through; and then, remembering my vow, I set off without a shiner in my pocket to give the message to yer honour.”
“Come in, my friend,” said the captain, by this time convinced that the man was speaking the truth, and becoming anxious to hear what he had got to say. The stranger looked at his ragged garments and hesitated when the captain invited him into the parlour, where Norah was seated, and bade him take a chair; however, plucking up courage, he did as he was desired. Captain Tracy having briefly told Norah what he had just heard, turned to the seaman.
“You have not yet given me your name,” he said.
“It’s Larry Cregan, yer honour. You may trust to what I say, for I wouldn’t desave yer honour, that I wouldn’t,” answered the man.
“Well, Larry, let me hear all about this message,” said the captain, “for you haven’t given me a hint yet what it is.”
“Well, thin, yer honour, it’s nothing but the truth I’ll spake,” began Larry. “We had well-nigh half our crew pressed out of the Fair Rosamond, and had to make up our number with such hands as the captain could get without being over particular. Among them was a countryman of mine—Tim Reardon, he called himself. He looked mighty sickly when he came aboard, and we hadn’t been many days at sea before he grew worse. He wasn’t fit for work; but we were short-handed, and he had to stick to his duty. And says I to myself, ‘Tim Reardon isn’t long for this life, and so I’ll do my best to help him;’ and when he was aloft or whatever he had to do, I always kept near him, and helped him many a time when he hadn’t strength to pull and haul by himself. This won his heart and made him wish, as he said, to do me a good turn; but that wasn’t ever likely to be in his power. He grew worse and worse, and at last could no longer crawl upon deck. I used to sit by him when it was my watch below, and spake such words to comfort him as I could think of. One day, howsomdever, he says to me, ‘Larry, I’ve got something on my conscience, and something else in my pocket which I want you to take charge of.’
“‘Anything to serve ye, Tim,’ says I.
“‘I’ve been an outrageous wicked fellow all my life, and have done all sorts of bad things,’ says Tim. ‘I’ve consorted with pirates, and have seen many a robbery and cruel murther committed—but I won’t talk of that now. I can’t do much good, I’m afraid, but what I can I wish to do, what I’d made up my mind some time ago, when I was well-nigh dying and should have slipped my cable if it hadn’t been for the care I received from a countryman, who took pity on me and nursed me as if I’d been his brother. As I got better he told me to cheer up, as he felt sure I should live. “Now, Tim,” says he, “if you ever get to Old Ireland, I want you to find out Captain Tracy, who lives near to Waterford, and tell him that I am alive, and, please Heaven, will one day get back to see him and his daughter. I can’t tell him whereabouts to look for me, for the best of reasons, that I don’t know where I am—nor have I any chance of making my escape; but you, Tim, may some day get free, and promise me, if you do, that you will take this message to Captain Tracy, and say that hope keeps me alive.”’
“‘But maybe Captain Tracy won’t believe me?’ says I. ‘If he doesn’t, his daughter will; and to make sure, take this bit of paper and show it them,’ he replied. He wrote two letters on it; it was but a scrap, but it was the only piece he had. I put it in my ’baccy-box to keep it safe. Not two days after that I managed to make my escape, and, getting back to Jamaica, looked out for a homeward-bound vessel. As luck would have it, I shipped aboard the Fair Rosamond; and now, as death is hauling away at the tow-line, and I have no chance of fulfilling my promise, if you wish to do me a service and keep my soul quiet, you’ll promise to take the message to Captain Tracy and the bit of paper in my ’baccy-box; I’ll leave that to you, and everything else I’ve got on board.
“I promised Tim that I’d do as he wished, and that if I failed he might haunt me, if he’d a mind to do so, till my dying day. Tim has come more than once in my dhrames to remind me, and I’ve been aiger ever since to do his bidding.”