"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.
