ny, 'twas a desperate
cruel wrack altogether."

The old woman shot a keen glance at him; but he returned it without a
blink.

"Didn't ye find no more gold an' diamonds, then?" she asked.

"We found some gold. I give it all to the men."

"An' what was the cargo?"

"Sure, Granny, we didn't break into her cargo yet. There was a
rumpus--aye, ye may well call it a rumpus! Did ye say as she bes
sleepin', Granny?"

The old woman nodded her head, her black eyes fixed on the red draught
of the stove with a far-away, fateful, veiled glint in them which her
grandsons knew well. She had ceased to puff at her pipe for the moment,
and in the failing light from the window they could see a thin reek of
smoke trailing straight up from the bowl.

"Aye, sleepin'," she mumbled, at last. "Saints presarve us, Denny! There
bes fairy blood in her--aye, fairy blood. Sure, can't ye see it in her
eyes? I's afeard there bain't no luck in it, Denny. Worse nor wracked
diamonds, worse nor wracked gold they be--these humans wid fairy blood
in 'em! And don't I know? Sure, wasn't me own grandmother own cousin to
the darter o' a fairy-woman? Sure she was, back in old Tyoon. An' there
was no luck in the house wid her; an' she was a beauty, too, like the
darlint body yonder."

The skipper smiled and lit his pipe. The winter twilight had deepened to
gloom. The front of the stove glowed like a long, half-closed red eye,
and young Cormick peered fearfully at the black corners of the room.
The skipper left his chair, fetched a candle from the dresser and lit it
at the door of the stove.

"We bes a long way off from old Tyoon, Granny," he said; "an' maybe
there bain't no fairies now, even in Tyoon. I never seen no fairy in
Chance Along, anyhow; nor witch, mermaid, pixie, bogey, ghost,
sprite--no, nor even a corpus-light. Herself in yonder bes no
fairy-child, Granny, but a fine young lady, more beautiful nor an angel
in heaven--maybe a marchant's darter an' maybe a king's darter, but nary
the child o' any vanishin' sprite. Sure, didn't I hold her in me two
arms all the way from the fore-top o' the wrack to the cliff?--an'
didn't she weigh agin' me arms till they was nigh broke wid it?"

"Denny, ye poor fool," returned Mother Nolan, "ye bes simple as a squid
t'rowed up on the land-wash. What do ye know o' fairies an' the like?
Wasn't I born on a Easter Sunday, wid the power to see the good people,
an' the little people, an' all the tricksy tribes? Th