is heart for
women and children.

"He was to my house last night," he said. "He bust in a windy an' tried
to rob me--aye, an' maybe he done it."

The woman covered her face with her rough, red hands and moaned like a
wounded thing.

"I bain't holdin' it agin' ye," continued the skipper. "I fight wid men,
not women an' childern. I fit Jack Quinn fair an' bate him fair. Let it
be! If ye wants for food, Polly--whenever ye wants for food an'
clothin'--send the word to me. I bes skipper in this harbor--aye, an'
more nor skipper."

He turned then and let himself out into the shrieking storm. Polly Quinn
stared at the door and the children clustered about her and pulled at
her shabby skirts.

"Aye, he tells true," she murmured. "Never a hard word did Mother Nolan
ever have from him. He was a good son to his mother an' the old skipper.
But them as crosses him--the holy saints presarve 'em! Men-folks must be
his dogs or his enemies. He batted me poor Jack nigh to death wid his
big hands."

She turned at last and fed the glowing stove. Then she set about getting
breakfast for herself and the children. There was enough hard bread in
the house to last the day. There was a pinch of tea in the canister.
Jack had drunk the wine from the wreck and taken away with him all that
had been left of the tinned meats which the skipper had brought over the
day before. The woman observed these things and gave some thoughts to
them. She glanced up at the blinding white tumult against the drifted
window, reflecting that her husband had taken the best food in the
house--enough to last him for two days, at least--and had left behind
him, for herself and three children, eight cakes of hard bread and a
pinch of tea. Her faded eyes glowed and her lips hardened.

Black Dennis Nolan brooded all day by the stove with his big hands
clasped idly between his knees. The grandmother sat near him, in a
tattered armchair, smoking her pipe and mumbling wise saws and broken
stories of the past.

"I bes a storm-child," she mumbled. "Aye, sure, wasn't I born a night in
winter wid jist sich a flurry as this one howlin' over Chance
Along--aye, an' wid a caul over me face. So I has the power o' seein'
the fairies." And then, "me man were bigger nor ye, Denny. Skipper Tim,
he were. Built the first fore-an'-after on this coast, he did." And
later--"There bain't no luck in diamonds. The divil bes in 'em."

Young Cormick sat on the other side of the stove, busi