THE ** JANE '* RUNS A CARGO. 299 



I was much struck with the appearance of the stranger. 

 His voice and bearing told that he was not indigenous 

 to the soil : low in stature, delicate in form, with a timid 

 and suspicious bearing, I was greatly puzzled to account 

 for his being a passenger in a Connemara fishing-boat. 

 Although nervous as a woman before we reached the pier, 

 I had tranquillized him so far as to find out generally that 

 he had left the Gal way coast, in the expectation of being 

 landed on the shores of Sligo ; but that the crew, having 

 boarded the smuggler, managed to get gloriously drunk, 

 and, diverging totally from their course, ran the hooker 

 on a reef, from which they should have been several 

 leagues distant. 



The stranger was an Englishman. He met from my 

 kinsman a hospitable reception — and the Colonel and 

 I united our attentions, and in a great degree restored 

 his confidence. Nothing, however, could persuade him 

 that the hooker had not been run designedly upon the 

 rock, and that he and his travelling-bag would have been 

 victimized by what he termed " desperate pirates," 

 but for our seasonable rescue. My cousin smiled. 

 " The conduct of the drunken scoundrels," he said, 

 " was unpardonable ; but he doubted whether they 

 harboured those nefarious designs. Strangers were 

 frequently led away by appearances, and it was no 

 uncommon thing for travellers to suffer unnecessary 

 alarm from groundless causes." And he related an 

 anecdote of a gentleman being put in fear and terror, in 

 a neighbouring county, by mistaking a fish for a 

 weapon. 



" Soon after the rebellion of Ninety-eight, an English 

 merchant was necessitated, by urgent business, to 

 visit the kingdom of Connaught. Having provided 



