In the meantime, Mary Kavanagh had not been idle.  She felt sure that the stranger was safe from bodily harm for the night at least, now that Dennis had shaken off the first blind deviltry of his rage.  She knew Dennis almost as well as old Mother Nolan did; and to-night she felt sorry for him as well as angry with him.  Leaving Flora in Mother Nolan’s care, she left the house, and followed Cormick and the others down to the land-wash.  The fog was thinning swiftly; but night had fallen, and the sky, sea and land were all black as tar.  She soon learned that no sign of the stranger’s boat could be found in the harbor.  Returning from the land-wash, she met Nick Leary.

“How bes ye a-feelin’ now?” she asked, not unkindly.  “But it served ye right, Nick.  A great man like ye has no call to be fightin’ wid women.”

“Me poor head buzzes like a nest o’ wasps whin ye pokes it wid a club,” said Nick.  “Sure, Mary, ’twas a sweet tap ye give me!  Marry me, girl, an’ ye’ll be free to bat me every day o’ yer born life.”

“Sure, an’ ’twould do ye no harm,” said Mary.  And then, “So ye’ve shut the poor lad in the store, have ye?”

“Aye, but how’d ye know it, Mary?”

“I didn’t know it, Nick, till ye telled me.  Now go on wid yer business o’ huntin’ for the boat an’ I’ll be goin’ on wid mine.  An’ thanks for yer offer, lad; but sure I’ll never marry a man I kin knock down wid the leg o’ a chair.”

Nick seemed to be in no mood to accept this statement as final; but the girl soon cleared her tracks of him in the inky darkness, among the little houses.  She climbed the path to the edge of the barren and turned northward.  From what she had seen of John Darling she felt sure that he was no fool; and therefore she had not expected to find his boat in the harbor.  He had told Mother Nolan that he had a boat, but had not mentioned its whereabouts.  Mary decided that it was hidden somewhere handy to the harbor; and she was inclined to think that it was manned.  He had come from the north, of course; therefore the chances were good that he had left his boat somewhere to the north of the harbor.  She knew every hollow, break and out-thrust of that coast for miles as well as she knew the walls and floors of her father’s cabin.  A thought of the little drook came to her mind and she quickened her steps along the path.  The light wind was shifting and the fog was trailing coastwise to the south before it.  Mary noted this, sniffed at the air, which was slowly but surely changing in quality, and looked up at the black sky.

“There’ll be snow afore mornin’,” she said.