After breakfast she asked for Pat Kavanagh. She did not remember his name, but spoke of him as the funny old fellow with the violin and the wooden leg.
"If he were here we could have a fine concert," she said, "and forget all about the terrible wind and snow whirling around the house." Her laughing face was turned to the skipper.
"Sure then, Pat bes the lad we wants," said the skipper, grinning like one entranced by a glimpse of heaven itself. There was a golden vision in his head, poor fool, of this beautiful creature sitting beneath his roof for all time, her red lips and wonderful eyes always laughing at him, her silvery voice forever telling him to forget the storm outside. The future looked to him like a state of bliss such as one sometimes half-sees, half-feels, in dreams.
"I'll go fetch him an' his fiddle," he said, pulling on his heavy jumper.
"Now don't ye be losin' yerself in the flurry," continued Mother Nolan.
"It bes nought, Granny," returned the skipper. "Sure I kin feel me way on me hands an' knees."
It took him fifteen minutes to find Pat Kavanagh's shanty and locate the door of it, so blinding and choking was the storm. He pushed the door open, stumbled into the warmth, and slammed the timbers shut behind him. Mary was sewing beside the stove, and Pat was mumbling over the first verse of a new "come-all-ye." They looked up at the skipper in astonishment.
"What the divil bes troublin' ye, Denny Nolan, to fetch ye out o' yer own house sich a day as this?" demanded the ex-sailorman. "Bes there anything the matter wid that grand young lady from up-along?"
The skipper removed his cap and with it beat the snow from his limbs and body. He breathed heavily from his struggle with the storm. Mary eyed him anxiously, her hands idle in her lap.
"I's come to fetch yer over to me own house—ye an' yer fiddle," said Nolan.