He pointed over the boat's side to the black piled precipices of the shore, as they stood like an iron wall looming along the weather-beam.--"Look there, sir; look at the Bloody Gobbins, and hear me--When a setting moon shall cease to fling the mourning of their shadows over the graves of _my_ butchered ancestors, and when a rising sun shall cease to bare before abhorring Christendom"---- "Luff, sir, luff," cried Ingram, from the forecastle. "Come aft yourself, Paul," I replied in despair and disgust. O'More retired to the cabin bulkhead, and leaned against the door, without completing his broken vow. Ingram took the helm, and I sat down in silence. Paul saw our unpleasant situation, and ceasing to remember his own cause for ill-humour, strove to make us forget ours. He talked with a good deal of tact, but with little success, for the next half hour. O'More remained stern and black as the Gobbins themselves, now rapidly sinking astern, while the coast of Island Magee receded into the broad Lough of Belfast upon our quarter. The moon was still shining with unabated lustre, and we could plainly discern the bold outline of the hills beyond; while the coast of Down and the two Copelands lay glistening in grey obscure over our starboard bow. No sail was within sight; we had a stiff breeze with a swinging swell from the open bay; and as the cutter lay down and showed the glimmer of the water's edge above her gunnel, the glee of the glorying sailor burst out in song:-- Haul away, haul away, down helm, I say; Slacken sheets, let the good boat go.-- Give her room, give her room for a spanking boom; For the wind comes on to blow-- (Haul away!) For the wind comes on to blow, And the weather-beam is gathering gloom, And the scud flies high and low. Lay her out, lay her out, till her timbers stout, Like a wrestler's ribs, reply To the glee, to the glee of the bending tree, And the crowded canvass high-- (Lay her out!) And the crowded canvass high; Contending, to the water's shout, With the champion of the sky. Carry on, carry on; reef none, boy, none; Hang her out on a stretching sail: Gunnel in, gunnel in! for the race we'll win, While the land-lubbers so pale-- (Carry on!) While the land-lubbers so pale Are fumbling at their points, my son, For fear of the coming gale! All but O'More joined in the chorus of the last stanza, and the bold burst of harmony was swept across the water like a defiance to the eastern gale. Our challenge was accepted. "Howsomever," said Ingram, after a pause, and running his glistening eye along the horizon, "as we are not running a race, there will be no harm in taking in a handful or two of our cloth this morning; for the wind is chopping round to the north, and I wouldn't wonder to hear Sculmarten's breakers under our lee before sunrise."