The skipper kept his two unswerving henchmen to supper and brewed a mighty bowl in their honor. He even condescended to thank Nick for his warning, roundabout and prolonged though it had been, and to throw a word of praise to Bill Brennen. He felt that the unqualified success of his unexpected attack upon the mob had rewon for him much of his mastery of the harbor. The others agreed with him. Bill Brennen, with a mug full of punch in his hand, and his eyes on the broken oar which had stood in a corner, humbly advised him to bestir himself at an early hour in the morning, and put the finishing touches on the lesson. He advised a house-to-house visitation before the heroes had recovered from the brandy and the birch billet—not to mention the oar.

"Bat 'em agin whilst their heads bes still sore," said Bill—which is only another and more original way of saying, "Strike while the iron is hot."

"When ye give 'em all the money, skipper, they sure t'ought ye was bewitched," said Nick Leary. "They t'ought ye was under a spell—an' next they was t'inkin' as how the gold sure had a curse on to it or ye wouldn't give it to 'em."

The skipper nodded. "I was too easy wid 'em!" he said. "Sure, b'ys, I'll be mendin' it."

Bill and Nick departed at last; Cormick ascending the ladder to his bed in the loft; Mother Nolan brewed a dose of herbs of great virtue—she was wise in such things—and still the skipper sat by the stove and smoked his pipe. Never before had his life known another such day as this. Now he could have sworn that a whole month had passed since he had been awakened by news of the wreck under the cliff, and again it seemed as swift and dazzling as the flash of the powder in the pan of his old sealing-gun when the spark flies from the flint. It had certainly been an astonishing day! He had saved a life. He had seen those wonderful, pale lids blink open and the soul sweep back into those wonderful eyes. He had been elbow to elbow with violent death. He had struggled submerged in water tinged with blood. He had known exultation, anger and something which a less courageous man would have accepted for defeat. He had suffered a mutiny—and later, in a few violent, reckless minutes of action he had broken it—or cowed it at least. Now he felt himself master of the harbor again, but not the master of his own destiny. He did not sum up his case in these terms; but this is what it came to. Destiny was a conviction with him, and not a word at all—a nameless conviction. He did not consider the future anew; but he felt, without analyzing it, a breathless, new curiosity of what the morrow might hold for him. This sensation was in connection with the girl. Apart from her, his old plans and ambitions stood. He felt no uncertainty and no curiosity concerning the morrow's dealings with the men. He considered it a commonplace subject. He would act upon Bill Brennen's advice and visit the mutineers at an early hour; and as to the wreck?—well, if conditions proved favorable he would break out the cargo and see what could be made of it.

Mother Nolan entered with an empty cup in her hand.

"She took her draught like a babe, an' bes sleepin' agin peaceful as an angel," she whispered. "Mind ye makes no noise, Denny. No more o' yer fightin' an' cursin' this night!"

Black Dennis Nolan put in a night of disturbed dreaming and crawled from his bed before the first streak of dawn. He pulled on his heavy garments and seal-hide "skinnywoppers," built up the fire in the stove, brewed and gulped a mug of tea, and then unbolted the door noiselessly and went out. The dawn was lifting by now, clear, glass-gray and narrow at the rim of the sea to the eastward and southward. The air was still. The lapping of the tide along the icy land-wash and the dull whispering of it among the seaward rocks were the only sounds. The skipper stood motionless beside his own door for a few minutes. Small windows blinked alight here and there; faint, muffled sounds of awakening life came to him from the cabins; pale streamers of smoke arose into the breathless air from the little chimneys.

"Now I'll pay me calls on 'em, like good Father McQueen himself," murmured the skipper.

He moved across the frosty rock to the nearest door. It was opened to him by a wide-eyed woman with a ragged shawl thrown over her head.

"Mornin' to ye, Kate. How bes yer man Tim this mornin'?" inquired the skipper.

He stepped inside without waiting for an answer or an invitation. He found Tim in the bed beside the stove, snoring heavily. He grabbed his shoulder and shook it roughly until the fellow closed his mouth and opened his eyes.

"Tim Leary, ye squid, shut off yer fog-horn an' hark to me!" he exclaimed. "By sun-up ye goes back to the woods and commences cuttin' out poles for Father McQueen's church. Ye'll take yer brother Corny an' Peter Walen along wid ye an' ye'll chop poles all day. Mark that, Tim. I let ye take a fling yesterday, jist to see what kind o' dogs ye be; but if ever I catches ye takin' another widout the word from me I'll be killin' ye!"

The man groaned.

"Holy saints, skipper, ye'd not be sendin' me to choppin' poles wid a head on me like a lobster-pot?" he whispered. "Sure, skipper, me poor head feels that desperate bad, what wid the liquor an' the clout ye give me, I couldn't heave it up from the pillow if Saint Peter himself give the word."

"I bain't troublin' about Saint Peter," returned the skipper. "If ever he wants ye to chop poles he'll see as how ye does it, I bes t'inkin'! It bes me a-tellin' ye now; an' if ye can't carry yer head to the woods wid ye to-day, ye treacherous dog, I'll knock it off for ye to-night so ye'll be able to carry it 'round in yer two hands. Mark that!"

So the skipper paid his round of morning calls. At some cabins he paused only long enough to shout a word through the door, at others he remained for several minutes, re-inspiring treacherous but simple hearts with the fear of Dennis Nolan, master of Chance Along. At one bed he stayed for fifteen minutes, examining and rebandaging the wound given by the knife of Dick Lynch. As for that drunken, sullen, treacherous savage, Dick Lynch himself, he dragged him from his blankets, knocked him about the floor, and then flung him back on to his bed. Then, turning to the dazed man's horrified wife, he said, "See that he don't turn on me agin, Biddy, or by the crowns o' the Holy Saints I'll be the everlastin' death o' him!"

At some of the cabins his orders were for the woods, and at some they were for work on the stranded ship. He did not disturb Bill Brennen or Nick Leary. He knew that they would be around at his house for orders by sun-up. The last cabin he visited was that of Pat Kavanagh. Kavanagh was a man of parts, and had been a close friend of the old skipper. He was a man of the world, having sailed deep-sea voyages in his youth. He was a grand fiddler, a grand singer, and had made more "Come-all-ye's" than you could count on your fingers and toes. He had a wooden leg; and his daughter was the finest girl in Chance Along. His best known Come-all-ye, which is sung to this day from Caplin Arm to Bay Bulls, starts like this:—

Pat Kavanagh was the author of the ballad that commences this way, and of many more.

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 fools ye heard yowlin' last night was to be the death o' me, then ye was on the wrong tack. But I bes here now to ax yer opinion concernin' them same fools, Pat. Yesterday they raised a mutiny agin me, all along o' a poor girl as I saved from the wrack, an' last night an' this mornin' I larned 'em the error o' their ways. Now ye was once a deep-sea sailorman, Pat, a-sailin' foreign v'yages, an' so I wants ye to tell me what I'd better be doin' wid some o' them squid? There was Foxey Jack Quinn; but he run away an' done for himself in the flurry. Here bes Dick Lynch, nigh as treacherous an' full o' divilment as ever Jack was, growlin' an' snarlin' at me heels like a starvin' husky an' showin' his teeth every now an' agin. So I wants to know, Pat, will I kill him dead or run him out o' the harbor? I bes skipper here—aye, an' more nor skipper—an' all a man has to do to live safe an' happy an' rich in this harbor bes to do what I tells him to do—but this here Dick Lynch bain't knowledgeable enough to see it. I's had to bat him twice. Next time I bats him maybe I'd best finish the job? I puts it to ye, Pat Kavanagh, because ye knows the world an' how sich things bes done aboard foreign-going ships."

"This harbor bain't no foreign-going ship, Denny," replied the poet.

"True, Pat; but if I calls it a ship it bes the same as one!" retorted the skipper.

"If ye takes it that way, Denny, then ye'd best be handin' the lad over to the jedges to be tried for mutiny," suggested the other, quietly. "But if ye wants my opinion, ye'll leave him be."

"Leave him be?"

"Aye. He bain't worth troublin' about. Bat him now an' agin, if he tries to knife ye, an' maybe he'll follow Jack Quinn. But this harbor bain't a ship, lad. The skipper o' a ship has the law to his back in cases o' mutiny an' the like—but the law bain't behind ye, Dennis Nolan!"

"The divil fly away wid the law!" cried the skipper. "I bes skipper here! I makes the law for this harbor—an' them as don't like the laws I makes kin go somewheres else."

"Leave him be, skipper. That bes what I tells ye, for yer own good. Don't kill him. Ye kin break up desarted wracks; ye kin fill yer pockets wid gold; ye kin bat yer mates over the nob if ye wants to; but once ye gets to killin' men, Denny Nolan, then ye'll find the law to yer back sure enough, a-fixin' a noose around yer neck! Aye, lad, that bes the truth! I warns ye because I likes ye—an' I bes glad to see ye so prosperous."