“And I promise that every day you will be remembered in my Mass, Dan.”
“Thank you, Father! That ought to keep me out of trouble sure.”
“And now where is this seashore place?” asked Father Mack, quite cheerfully.
“An island called Killykinick, Father.”
“Killykinick?” echoed Father Mack, startled. “You are going to Killykinick? God bless me, how wonderful!”
“You know the place, Father?” asked Dan, with interest.
“I know it indeed,” was the answer. “I was wrecked there in the wild days of which I told you, Dan, sixty years ago. The ‘Maria Teresa’ (I was on a Portuguese ship) went upon the rocks on a dark winter night, that I thought was likely to be my last. For the first time in my reckless youth I really prayed. My dear mother, no doubt, was praying for me, too; for I learned afterwards that it was on that night she died, offering with her last breath her life for her boy. Well, we held together somehow until morning, and got off to the shore of Killykinick before the ‘Maria Teresa’ went down, loaded with the golden profits of a two years’ cruise.”
“And did they never get her up?” asked Dan, quite breathless with interest at this glimpse of a “dying saint’s” past.
“Never,” answered Father Mack,—“at least never that I heard of. It was soon afterward that I turned into other ways and lost sight of my old mates. But I always have remembered the friendly haven of Killykinick. It was a wild place,—only a few deserted fishermen’s huts on the rocky shore, where we lived on fish and clams until taken off by a passing ship. But that same rocky shore meant safety, shelter, life. And so in the after years I have always blessed Killykinick. And you are going there to-morrow! You will find it all changed,—all changed, I am sure,” said Father Mack, as he slowly rose to his feet, for the sunset was fading now. “But I will think of you there, Dan,—think of you frolicking over the rocks and sands where I wandered so long ago a shipwrecked boy. Now it is time for me to go in, for my old blood chills in the twilight; so I must say good-bye,—good-bye and God bless you, my boy!”
And, laying his hand for a moment on the boyish head, the old priest turned away into the deepening shadow of the pines, leaving Dan, who was beginning to feel vividly conscious that he had missed his supper, to make a rapid foray into the refectory, where Brother James could always be beguiled into furnishing bread and jam in and out of time,—having been, as he assured the belated ones, a boy himself.