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But they were no ordinary fellows no chaff, to drift with the wind: they were men toughened by exposure to the breath of the north, men winnowed out from many thousands of their kind. Nor were they driven: they were led. Mellen was among them constantly; so was the soft-voiced smiling Parker, not to mention O'Neil with his cheery laugh and his words of praise.
Yes, yes; every one them imagined that I had dreamt of "the ghost-ship" as they called my vision, and that I had not seen it at all! But this statement from the colonel absolutely staggered the skipper, and he looked from me to the American and back again at me in the most bewildering manner possible; the old chief, Mr Stokes, and Garry O'Neil staring at the pair of us with equal amazement.
But Neale O'Neil pulled his cap down to his ears and followed behind the Kenway girls to school. He was too proud and too sensitive to walk with them. He knew that he was bound to be teased by the boys at school, when once they saw his head. Even the old cobbler had said to him: "'Tis a foine lookin' noddle ye have now. Ye look like a tinder grane onion sproutin' out of the garden in the spring.
The man behind the desk measured the stranger with a suspicious eye before answering. He saw a ragged, loose-hung, fat person of melancholy countenance, who was booted to the knee and chewing gum. "Mr. O'Neil keeps a room here by the year," he replied, guardedly. "Show me up!" said the new-comer as if advancing a challenge.
The boat crews were waiting when they had finished, and they were soon under way. A mile of comparatively slack water brought them out into one of the larger estuaries of the river, and there the long, uphill pull began. O'Neil had equipped his two companions with high rubber boots, which they were only too eager to try.
In like manner the detached towns, built by foreigners, of Welsh, Flemish, Saxon, or Scottish origin, were now taken "under the protection" of the neighbouring chief, or Prince, and paid to him or to his bailiff an annual tax for such protection. In this manner Wexford purchased protection of McMurrogh, Limerick from O'Brien, and Dundalk from O'Neil.
The haughty indifference with which the Prince of Ulster treated every one about the Court, except the Queen, gave a keener edge to the satirical comments which were so freely indulged in at the expense of his style of dress. The wits proclaimed him "O'Neil the Great, cousin to Saint Patrick, friend to the Queen of England, and enemy to all the world besides!"
In return he gave them good places at Washington, and now they enjoyed dropping in at the White House to take a smoke with the grizzly hero and help him curse the opposition as foes of "the people." Major Eaton, Old Hickory's first Secretary of War, had married a beautiful widow, maiden name Peggy O'Neil, of common birth, and much gossipped about.
"Not my son not my son," ejaculated the widow, gazing at him, and putting back his hair, and again looking at his countenance. "Oh, how have I been deceived, and do you again say that your name is not Dermot O'Neil?" exclaimed the widow, wringing her hands, "and I thought I had brought my boy safe on shore, and that he was to be folded once more in his mother's arms.
Where's my unfortunate comrade who was in the boat with me poor Captain Alphonse? Alas, I had forgotten him!" "We have not forgotten him, though, colonel," said the skipper smiling. "He has been carried below to the saloon on the maindeck, where my second mate, Mr O'Neil, who is a qualified surgeon, is now attending to his injuries. He has been terribly mauled, poor fellow; we could see that!"
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