uld hold--aye,
an' never once did they wake me up when I was sleepin' quiet, not even
to give the quinine to me. An' they stowed me in blankets an' made me
sweat, though the fo'castle was hotter nor the hatches o' hell. An' when
I wouldn't stick out me tongue for the powder then they'd melt it in
whiskey an' pour it down me neck."

With this Mother Nolan had to be content. She retired to her own room,
mixed a powder in a cup of root-tea and gave it to the girl, who was
quiet now, though wide-awake and bright-eyed. Kavanagh went home,
invented a ballad about his fever in Port-o'-Spain, and wrote it upon
his memory, verse by verse--for he did not possess the art of writing
upon paper. After supper Cormick retired to the loft and his bed; but
the skipper did not touch a blanket that night. He spent most of the
time in his chair by the stove; but once in every hour he tiptoed into
his grandmother's room and listened. If he heard any sound from the
inner room when the old woman happened to be asleep he awakened her and
sent her in to Flora Lockhart. At dawn he fell asleep in his chair and
dreamed that he was the mate of a foreign-going ship, and that all he
had to do was to shake white powders on to the tongue of the girl he had
saved from the fore-top of the _Royal William_. Cormick shook him awake
when breakfast was ready. After hearing from Mother Nolan that the girl
seemed much cooler and better than she had since the early afternoon of
the previous day, he ate his breakfast and went out and sent all the
able-bodied men to get timber for Father McQueen's church, some from the
woods and others from the wreck. They would haul the timber after the
next fall of snow. But he did not go abroad himself. He hung about the
harbor all day, sometimes in his own kitchen, sometimes down on the
land-wash, and sometimes in other men's cabins. He put a new dressing on
the wound of the lad who had received the knife and paid another visit
to Dick Lynch. Lynch was still in bed; but this time he did not drag him
out on the floor.

Mother Nolan was full of common sense and wise instincts, in spite of
the fact that she believed in fairies, mermaids and the personal
attentions of the devil. She was doctor and nurse by nature as well as
by practice--by everything, in short, but education. So it happened that
she did not follow Pat Kavanagh's instructions to the letter. She argued
to herself that Pat's fever had been a hot-climate one, while F