When old Bob Likely, the mail-man, travelling afoot, southbound from Elegant Tickle to Our Harbour and the lesser harbours of Mad Harry and Thank-the-Lord, a matter of eighty miles—when old Bob Likely, on the night of Doctor Luke's arrival at Candlestick Cove, rounded Come-Along Point of Amen Island and searched the shadows ahead for his entertainment, his lodgings for the night were determined and disclosed.
It was late—a flurry of snow falling and the moon overcast with a thickening drab scud; and old Bob Likely's disheartened expectation on the tumbled ice of Ships' Run, between Point o' Bay of the Harbourless Shore and Amen Island, had consequently discovered the cottages of his destination dark—the windows black, the fires dead, the kitchens frosty and the folk of Amen Island long ago turned in.
Of the thirty cottages of Amen, however, snuggled under thick blankets of snow, all asleep in the gray night, one was wide awake—lighted up as though for some festivity; and for the hospitality of its lamps and smoking chimney old Bob Likely shaped his astonished course.
"'Tis a dance!" he reflected, heartening his step. "I'll shake a foot if I lame myself!"
Approaching Tom Lute's cottage from the harbour ice, old Bob Likely cocked his ear for the thump and shuffle of feet and the lively music of the Little Fiddler of Amen Island. It was the Little Fiddler's way to boast: "They'll sweat the night! Mark me! I'm feelin' fine. They'll shed their jackets! I'll have their boots off!"
And old Bob Likely expected surely to discover the Little Fiddler, perched on the back of a chair, the chair aloft on the kitchen table, mischievously delighting in the abandoned antics of the dancers, the while a castaway sealing crew, jackets shed and boots kicked off, executed a reel with the maids of Amen Island.
But there was no music—no thump or shuffle of feet or lively strain; the house was still—except for a whizz and metallic squeaking in the kitchen shed to which old Bob Likely made his way to lay off the sacred bag of His Majesty's Mail and his own raquets and brush himself clean of snow.