He was proud of his daughter and his wooden leg; he was happy with his
fiddle and his verses; he did not hold with physical or emotional
violence, and asked the world for nothing more than to be left alone
beside his stove with a knowledge that there was something in the pot
and a few cakes of hard bread in the bin. He could not understand the
new skipper, his terrible activity, his hard-fisted ways and his
ambitions, and he took no stock in wrecks except as subjects for songs;
but he had been delighted with a gift of four fine blankets and two
quarts of rum which the skipper had made him recently.

Mary Kavanagh opened the door to the skipper, and let a fine light slip
into her blue eyes at the sight of him. Her cheeks, which had been
unusually pale when she opened the door, flushed bright and deep. The
young man greeted her pleasantly and easily, and stepped across the
threshold. Pat was already out of bed and seated in his chair close to
the stove. He was long and thin, with a straggling beard and moustaches,
a long face, a long nose, and kindly, twinkling eyes. Though he looked
happy enough he also looked like a widower--why, I can't say. It may
have been owing to his general unstowed, unfurled, unswabbed
appearance. He had not yet fastened on his wooden leg. He never did,
nowadays, until he had eaten his breakfast and played a tune or two on
his fiddle. His eyes were paler than his daughter's, and not nearly so
bright, and he had a way of staring at a thing for minutes at a time as
if he did not see it--and usually he didn't. Altogether, he was a very
impractical person. He must have made a feeble sailor--a regular fool as
a look-out--and the wonder is that he lost only one leg during his
deep-sea career. He looked at the skipper with that calm, far-away
shimmer in his eyes, combing his thin whiskers with his fingers. He did
not speak. His wooden leg was leaning up against his chair.

"Good morning to ye, Pat Kavanagh," said the skipper.

The poet blinked his eyes, thereby altering their expression from a
shimmer to a gray, wise gleam.

"So it bes yerself, Skipper Denny," he said. "Set down. Set down. Sure,
b'y, I didn't expect to see ye so spry to-day, an' was just studyin' out
a few verses concernin' death an' pride an' ructions that would keep yer
memory green."

"Whist, father!" exclaimed the girl.

"I bain't dead, Pat, so ye kin set to on some new varses," said the
skipper. "If ye t'ought them poor fo