"Come, all ye hardy fishermen
An' hearken to me lay
O' how the good brig 'Peggy Bell'
Went down in Trin'ty Bay.

"The skipper he was from St. John's,
The mate from Harbor Grace;
The bosun was a noble lad
Wid whiskers 'round his face."

Pat Kavanagh was the author of the ballad that commences this way, and
of many more.

He was proud of his daughter and his wooden leg; he was happy with his
fiddle and his verses; he did not hold with physical or emotional
violence, and asked the world for nothing more than to be left alone
beside his stove with a knowledge that there was something in the pot
and a few cakes of hard bread in the bin. He could not understand the
new skipper, his terrible activity, his hard-fisted ways and his
ambitions, and he took no stock in wrecks except as subjects for songs;
but he had been delighted with a gift of four fine blankets and two
quarts of rum which the skipper had made him recently.

Mary Kavanagh opened the door to the skipper, and let a fine light slip
into her blue eyes at the sight of him. Her cheeks, which had been
unusually pale when she opened the door, flushed bright and deep. The
young man greeted her pleasantly and easily, and stepped across the
threshold. Pat was already out of bed and seated in his chair close to
the stove. He was long and thin, with a straggling beard and moustaches,
a long face, a long nose, and kindly, twinkling eyes. Though he looked