Now, Jemmy Balladhoo had, as we have seen, one weakness, but it was not work. He remembered quite opportunely that there was a boy in the kitchen who had just come up on an errand from the town, and must of course go back again. It was quite an inspiration, but none the less plainly evident that the boy was the very person to carry the message to the harbor-master. "Who is he?" shouted Kerruish Kinvig. "Danny Fayle," answered Jemmy. "Pshaw! he'll never get there," bawled Kinvig. "Bring him up," said Mylrea Balladhoo. A minute later, a fisher-lad of eighteen shambled into the room. You might have said he was long rather than tall. He wore a guernsey and fumbled with a soft blue seaman's cap in one hand. His fair hair clustered in tangled curls over his face, which was sweet and comely, but had a simple vacant look from a lagging lower lip. Danny was an orphan, and had been brought up none too tenderly by an uncle and aunt. The uncle, Bill Kisseck, was admiral of the fishing-fleet, and master of a fishing-lugger belonging to Mr. Mylrea. To-morrow was to be the first day of the herring season, and it was relative to that event that Danny had been sent up to Balladhoo. The lad received from Mr. Mylrea, in his capacity as harbor commissioner, a message of stern reproof and warning, which he was to convey to the official whose lack of watchfulness had allowed the light on the harbor pier to go out. "Run straight to his house, Danny, my lad," said Mylrea Balladhoo. "And don't go cooling your heels round that cottage of the Cregeens," put in Kerruish Kinvig. A faint smile that had rested like a ray of pale sunshine on the lad's simple face suddenly vanished. He hung his head, touched his forehead with the hand holding the cap, and disappeared. CHAPTER II IN PEEL CASTLE When Danny reached the outside of the house, the night was even more dark and dumb than before. He turned to the right under the hill known as the Giant's Fingers, and took the cliff road to the town. The deep boom of the waters rolling slowly on the sand below came up to him through the dense air. He could hear the little sandpiper screaming at Orry's Head across the bay. The sea-swallow shot past him, too, with its low mournful cry. Save for these, everything was still. Danny had walked about a quarter of a mile, when he paused for a moment at the gate of a cottage that stood halfway down the hill to the town. There was a light in the kitchen, and from where he stood in the road Danny could see those who were within. As if by an involuntary movement, his cap was lifted from his head and fumbled in his fingers, while his eyes gazed yearningly in at the curtainless window. Then he remembered the harsh word of Kerruish Kinvig, and started off again more rapidly. It was as though he had been kneeling at a fair shrine when a cruel hand befouled and blurred it.