I could hear Mr Treenail rumbling
and stumbling in his stateroom as he accoutred himself in a jacket similar
to those of the armed boat's crew whom I had passed, and presently he
stepped into the gunroom, armed also with cutlass and pistol.
"Mr Cringle, get ready to go in the boat with me, and bring your arms with
you."
I now knew whereabouts he was, and that my Cork friends were the quarry at
which we aimed. I did as I was ordered, and we immediately pulled on shore,
where, leaving two strong fellows in charge of the boat, with instructions
to fire their pistols and shove off a couple of boat--lengths, should any
suspicious circumstance indicating an attack take place, we separated, like
a pulk of Cossacks coming to the charge, but without the hourah, with
orders to meet before Pat Doolan's door, as speedily as our legs could
carry us. We had landed about a cable's length to the right of the high
precipitous bank--up which we stole in straggling parties--on which that
abominable congregation of the most filthy huts ever pig grunted in is
situated, called the Holy Ground. Pat Doolan's domicile was in a little
dirty lane, about the middle of the village. Presently ten strapping
fellows, including the lieutenant, were before the door, each man with his
stretcher in his hand. It was a very tempestuous, although moonlight
night, occasionally clear, with the moonbeams at one moment sparkling
brightly in the small ripples on the filthy puddles before the door, and
on the gem like water--drops that hung from the eaves of the thatched roof,
and lighting up the dark statue like figures of the men, and casting their
long shadows strongly against the mud wall of the house; at another, a
black cloud as it flew across her disk, cast every thing into deep shade,
while the only noise we heard was the hoarse dashing of the distant surf,
rising and falling on the fitful gusts of the breeze.
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