"'Twas me give it to ye, not the saints," said Black Dennis Nolan, "an'
there bes more for ye where it come from."

He turned and went out of the cabin.

"I'll fix him yet," mumbled Foxey Jack Quinn.

The woman gave no heed to the remark, for she had already opened one of
the tins of choice meat and was feeding the children from her fingers.

The skipper returned to the store, took up his bag of gold and went
home. He lived with his grandmother, old Kate Nolan (commonly known in
the harbor as Mother Nolan) and with his young brother Cormick. The
cottage was the largest in the harbor--a grand house altogether. It
contained three rooms, a loft, and a lean-to extension occupied by a pig
and a dozen fowls. The skipper found the old woman squatted in a low
chair beside the stove in the main room. This room served as kitchen,
dining-room, general reception, and the skipper's bed-room. A ladder led
up to the loft from one corner. Of the remaining rooms on the ground
floor one was where the grandmother slept, and the other one was kept
spotless, musty and airless for the occasional occupation of good
Father McQueen, the missionary priest, who visited Chance Along three
times a year. Cormick slept in the loft.

Mother Nolan glanced up from the red draft of the stove at her
grandson's entrance. She held a short clay pipe in one wrinkled hand.
She regarded the youth inscrutably with black, undimmed eyes, but did
not speak. He closed the door, faced her and extended the heavy bag of
coins.

"Granny, we bes rich this minute; but we'll be richer yet afore we
finishes," he said. "This bag bes full o' gold, Granny--full o' coined
English gold."

"Out o' the wrack?" she queried.

"Aye, it was in the ship, Granny."

The old woman puffed on her pipe for a few seconds.

"An' what else come out o' the wrack, Denny?"

"Diamonds an' rubies an' pearls, the wine ye drank last night an' the
fancy grub ye et to-day. 'Twas a grand wrack altogether, Granny."

Mother Nolan wagged her gray head and returned her gaze to the red draft
of the stove. "'Twas grand wine," she muttered. "Wracker's wine! Dead
man's wine!"

"Nay, Granny, there ye bes wrong. Not a lad aboard her was killed nor
drownded."

"Then how come ye by the gold an' diamonds, Denny?"

The skipper laughed.

"Sure, Granny, I tricked 'em!" he exclaimed. "I made use o' my wits--an'
the harbor bes rich."

"Saints pity ye, Denny! Rich? The folk o' this harbor bain't i