"Didn't Mona say Danny was at sea?" "Yes, she was saying so." Then the little one sang: "In Jorby curragh they dwell alone By dark peat bogs, where the willows moan, Down in a gloomy and lonely glen--" "Mammy, had Danny any father?" "Everybody had a father, my veen." "Had Ruby a father?" "Hush, Ruby veg!" Mona's hand unconsciously pressed the hand of Christian. "Oh," she muttered, and crept closer to his breast. Christian's bowels yearned for the child. The silvery voice was singing again: "Who has not heard of Adair, the youth? Who does not know that his soul was truth? Woe is me! how smoothly they speak, And Adair was brave, and a man, but weak." "I am quite sure a good fairy is coming," said Ruby, cocking her eye aslant at that peg on the dresser. Christian could bear it no longer. He flung open the door, and snatched up the darling in his arms. An hour later he and Mona came out again into the night, leaving the little one with laughing, wondering, wakeful eyes in bed, and Mrs. Cregeen sitting before the fire with something like happiness in her usually mournful face. They took the road toward the town. They had no errand there, but the restless, tumultuous joy of this night would not leave them a moment's peace. As they passed through the market-place they saw that the church windows were lit up. The bells were ringing. Numbers of young people were thronging in at the gates. But the parson was coming out of them. There was no pleasant expression on his face as he beheld the throngs that sought admission. It was Oiel Verree, the Eve of Mary. The bells were ringing for the only service in the year at which not the parson but the parishioners presided. It was an old Manx custom, that after prayers on Christmas-eve the church should be given up to the people for the singing of their native carols. Prayers were now over, and on his way through the market-place the parson encountered Tommy-Bill-beg among the others who were walking toward the church. He stopped the harbor-master, and said, "Mind you see that all is done in decency and order, and that you close my church before midnight." "Aw, but the church is the people's, I'm thinkin'," said Tommy-Bill-beg, with a deprecating shake of his wise head. "The people are as ignorant as goats," said the parson angrily. "Aw, well, and you're the shepherd, so just make sheeps of them," answered Tommy, and passed on. Laughing at the rejoinder, Christian and Mona went by the church, and, reaching the quay, they crossed the bridge at the top of the harbor. Then, hand in hand, they walked under the Horse Hill, and, without thinking what direction they took, they turned up the path that led toward the cottage in the old quarry.