“What are ye up to now, Denny?” he asked, halting for a moment, and pointing with a plump but strong and weather-beaten hand.

The skipper’s black eyes followed the line indicated.

“That bes a grand idee o’ mine, yer reverence,” he answered, after a moment’s hesitation.  “Sure I’ll tell ye all about it, sir, after ye get yerself dry alongside the stove.”

“Something to do with wrecks, Denny?” queried the priest.

“Aye, yer reverence, it bes a part o’ the gear for salvin’ wrecks,” returned Nolan.

At the skipper’s door Father McQueen dismissed his followers with a blessing and a promise to see them all after dinner.  Then, after a few kindly words to Mother Nolan, he entered his own room, where Cormick had a fire of driftwood roaring in the chimney.  He soon returned to the kitchen, in socks and moccasins of the skipper’s, a rusty cassock and a red blanket.  The innate dignity and virtue of the old man gave to his grotesque attire the seeming of robes of glory, in spite of the very human twinkle in his gray eyes and the shadow of a grin about the corners of his large mouth.  He accepted a chair close to the stove—­but not the most comfortable chair, which was Mother Nolan’s.  They knew his nature too well to offer him that.  The skipper gave him a bowl of hot wine, mulled with sugar and spices, which he accepted without demur and sipped with relish.  After a few minutes of general conversation, during which Mother Nolan expatiated on her rheumatics, he turned to the skipper, and laid a hand on that young giant’s knee.

“So ye are preparing gear for the salving of wrecks, my son?” he queried.

“Aye, yer reverence, we bes fixin’ chains an’ lines among the rocks so as maybe we kin get a holt on whatever comes ashore,” replied Nolan.

“A good idea,” returned the other.  And then, “Have ye had any wrecks already this winter?”

“Aye, yer reverence, there be’d one in Nolan’s Cove.”

“So?  Did any of the poor souls come ashore alive?”

“Aye, yer reverence, every mother’s son o’ them.  They come ashore in their boats, sir, an’ left the ship acrost a rock wid a hole in her bows bigger nor this house.”

“And where are they now?”

“That I couldn’t tell, yer reverence.  They set out for Nap Harbor, to the south, that very night, an’ got there safe an’ sound.  An’ I heard tell, sir, as how they sailed from Nap Harbor for St. John’s in a fore-an’-after.”

The priest regarded the skipper keenly.

“Safe and sound, ye say, Denny?”

“Aye, yer reverence, safe an’ sound, wid their clothes on their backs an’ food an’ drink in their pockets an’ their bellies.”

“I am glad to hear it, Denny.  Ye sent them on their way warmly clad and full-fed; but I’m thinking, my son, they must have left something behind them?  It’s grand wine this, Denny.”

“Aye, father, it bes grand wine.  It came out o’ the wreck, sir, along wid a skiff-load o’ fancy grub.  There bes wine, spirits an’ tinned stuff in every house o’ the harbor, yer reverence.  But the cargo weren’t no manner o’ use to us—­an’ the hull broke up an’ went all abroad two days back.”