"Sure, Granny, we didn't break into her cargo yet. There was a rumpus—aye, ye may well call it a rumpus! Did ye say as she bes sleepin', Granny?"
The old woman nodded her head, her black eyes fixed on the red draught of the stove with a far-away, fateful, veiled glint in them which her grandsons knew well. She had ceased to puff at her pipe for the moment, and in the failing light from the window they could see a thin reek of smoke trailing straight up from the bowl.
"Aye, sleepin'," she mumbled, at last. "Saints presarve us, Denny! There bes fairy blood in her—aye, fairy blood. Sure, can't ye see it in her eyes? I's afeard there bain't no luck in it, Denny. Worse nor wracked diamonds, worse nor wracked gold they be—these humans wid fairy blood in 'em! And don't I know? Sure, wasn't me own grandmother own cousin to the darter o' a fairy-woman? Sure she was, back in old Tyoon. An' there was no luck in the house wid her; an' she was a beauty, too, like the darlint body yonder."
The skipper smiled and lit his pipe. The winter twilight had deepened to gloom. The front of the stove glowed like a long, half-closed red eye, and young Cormick peered fearfully at the black corners of the room. The skipper left his chair, fetched a candle from the dresser and lit it at the door of the stove.
"We bes a long way off from old Tyoon, Granny," he said; "an' maybe there bain't no fairies now, even in Tyoon. I never seen no fairy in Chance Along, anyhow; nor witch, mermaid, pixie, bogey, ghost, sprite—no, nor even a corpus-light. Herself in yonder bes no fairy-child, Granny, but a fine young lady, more beautiful nor an angel in heaven—maybe a marchant's darter an' maybe a king's darter, but nary the child o' any vanishin' sprite. Sure, didn't I hold her in me two arms all the way from the fore-top o' the wrack to the cliff?—an' didn't she weigh agin' me arms till they was nigh broke wid it?"
"Denny, ye poor fool," returned Mother Nolan, "ye bes simple as a squid t'rowed up on the land-wash. What do ye know o' fairies an' the like? Wasn't I born on a Easter Sunday, wid the power to see the good people, an' the little people, an' all the tricksy tribes? The body o' a fairy-child bes human, lad. 'Tis but the heart o' her bes unhuman—an' the beauty o' her—an' there bain't no soul in her. Did ye hear the voice o' her, Denny? Holy saints! But was there ever a human woman wid a voice the like o' that?"
"Aye, Granny, but did she eat? Did she drink? Did she shed tears?" asked the skipper.
The old woman nodded her head.
"Fairies don't shed tears," said Dennis, grinning. "Sure, ye've told me that yerself many a time."
"But half-fairies, like herself, sheds 'em as well as any human, ye mad fool," returned Mother Nolan.