DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 211 



a\long pull. Within a mile of our starting-place three 

 seals were sighted that took such lively interest in our 

 proceedings as enabled the boat to approach well 

 within range, but the bullets went so wide as to cause 

 a rower to remark : 'Indade, it's a dhrop of the crathur 

 the pair of ye are needing.' M'Cabe, who had missed 

 an easy shot, evidently agreed, for, after helping the 

 sergeant, he helped himself, and then corked the 

 bottle and made pretence of putting it away; but this 

 brought so much Irish talk that it ended in each 

 thirsty throat getting what proved to be a thirst 

 provoker. There is some excuse, when a salmon is on 

 the grass, or a stag is killed, to take a nip, but to 

 drink each time a seal is missed was a new experience, 

 that soon made us wish seals were less plentiful or the 

 riflemen more expert. For some time I thought it 

 a wonderful bottle to have contained so much, but 

 later I knew that there were others which possibly 

 the men we left behind had seen; hence their sorrowing 

 faces. 



When we reached the point and faced the open, 

 we found the waves had each a notion of its own as 

 to the direction it would take, and to get their way, 

 they jostled one another in such angry fashion as 

 made a loppy sea. Now and then a huge wave would 

 override all obstacles and come at us threateningly, 

 but our boat would glide up with a lurch, to fall down 

 the other side with another lurch in the opposite 

 direction. In one of these descents John Grady's oar 

 failed to get a grip, and he lost his balance. He fell 

 upon his back, but when he got his seat again he was 

 pressing his Sunday waistcoat as if the pain was under 

 that ; and so it proved. Bow was the next to be 

 affected, and the boat with fewer oars made less 

 progress but danced the more. The sergeant proved 

 himself a resourceful man, and quickly saw the neces- 

 sity of fiUing bow's seat if we were to round the island, 

 and himself volunteered to take it; he rose to do so 



