* * * * * Skipper Jonathan Stock was alone with the trader in the shop of Candlestick Cove. The squat, whitewashed building gripped a weather-beaten point of harbor shore. It was night—a black night, the wind blowing high, rain pattering fretfully upon the roof. The worried little trader—spare, gimlet-eyed, thin-whiskered, now perched on the counter—slapped his calf with a yardstick; the easterly gale was fast aggravating his temper beyond control. It was bright and warm in the shop; the birch billets spluttered and snored in the stove, and a great lamp suspended from the main rafter showered the shelves and counter and greasy floor with light. Skipper Jonathan’s clothes of moleskin steamed with the rain and spray of the day’s toil. “No, John,” said the trader, sharply; “she can’t have un—it can’t be done.” Jonathan slowly examined his wrist; the bandage had got loose. “No?” he asked, gently, his eyes still fixed on the salt-water sore. “No, sir.” Jonathan drew a great hand over his narrow brow, where the rain still lay in the furrows. It passed over his beard—a gigantic beard, bushy and flaming red. He shook the rain-drops from his hand. “No, Mister Totley,” he repeated, in a patient drawl. “No—oh no.” Totley hummed the opening bars of “Wrecked on the Devil’s Finger.” He broke off impatiently—and sighed. “She _can’t_,” Jonathan mused. “No—_she_ can’t.” The trader began to whistle, but there was no heart in the diversion; and there was much poignant distress in the way he drummed on the counter. “I wouldn’t be carin’ so much,” Jonathan softly persisted—“no, not so _much_, if ’twasn’t their birthday. She told un three year ago they could have un—when they was twelve. An’, dear man! they’ll be twelve two weeks come Toosday. Dear man!” he exclaimed again, with a fleeting little smile, “_how_ the young ones grows!” The trader slapped his lean thigh and turned his eyes from Jonathan’s simple face to the rafters. Jonathan bungled with the bandage on his wrist; but his fingers were stiff and large, and he could not manage the thread. A gust of wind made the roof ring with the rain. “An’ the other little thing?” Jonathan inquired. “Was you ’lowin’ my woman could have—the other little thing? She’ve her heart sort o’ sot on _that_. Sort o’ _sot_ on havin’—that there little thing.” “Can’t do it, Jonathan.” “Ay,” Jonathan repeated, blankly. “She was sayin’ the day ’twas sort o’ giddy of her; but she was ’lowin’ her heart was sort o’ _sot_ on havin’—that little thing.” Totley shook his head. “Her heart,” Jonathan sighed. “Can’t do it, John.” “Mm-m-m! No,” Jonathan muttered, scratching his head in helplessness and bewilderment; “he can’t give that little thing t’ the woman, neither. Can’t give she _that_.”