"In the boat!" I repeated, the truth coming upon me. "Then how came you here?"
"Why," she returned prettily, "it was dark, and the big waves frightened poor mother, and I fell in the water and got all wet. Then I climbed out and looked for mother, but could not find her."
I put her words into Gaelic, staring the while at her cloak-clasp, which was like a seal of gold bearing a coat of arms. But when my father heard the story he drew her to him with a half-sob.
"Davie, the lassie came ashore in the storm! Take Grim and run down to the beach. If you find any others, men or women, bring them home. And mind," he flung over his shoulder savagely, "mind you waste no time hunting for shells and the like!"
He swung the little maid to his shoulder, bidding Grim go with me, and so was striding off across the moor before the words were done. I stared after the two of them, and the lass waved a hand to me gayly enough; but as I turned away I felt something grip on my throat, for well I knew what her story boded. Many a good ship has been blown north of the Irish coast and full upon our cliffs, from the time of the great Armada even to this day, and few of them all have weathered the great rocks that strew our coast from Bute to Man.
There was little hope in my mind that I would find anything left of that "boat" the maid spoke of, but I called Grim and started for the nearest gully leading down to the shore. Soon the rocks were towering above me, and the beat of the surf thundered ahead, and then I entered a little sheltered cove where I had gathered shells many a time.
Almost at my feet there was a boat—a ship's longboat, rolling bottom side up on the rocks. I stood looking around, but could see no living thing on the spray-wet rocks that glittered black in the sunlight. Then Grim gave a little growl and pawed at something just below us. I felt a thrill, for more than once he had found in just such fashion the body of a dead sailor, but as I stooped down to the object rolling in the foam I saw it was nothing but a helpless crab washed up into a pocket. I pulled him out with a jerk and flung him back into the waves, turning away. The longboat was not worth saving, being battered to pieces, and if any of the crew had reached the shore they were not in sight.
So Grim and I returned home across the moor. How had a French ship come so far north, and on our western coasts too, I wondered? As we went, Grim found a score of sheep clustered in a hollow, so I hastened on and left him to drive the poor brutes home.
When I reached the house I made report of my errand, seeking some trace of the maid. But she was asleep in my own cot, and her crimson cloak was drying before the peat-fire, which seemed more like to fill it with smoke than dryness.
"Did you find who she was or whence?" I asked my mother, knowing that she spoke the French tongue far better than I.