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He crept cautiously aft to the stern-sheets and took Emmeline in his arms.

“Don’t want the shawl,” said Emmeline; “I’m not so much afraid in your coat.” The rough, tobacco-smelling old coat gave her courage somehow.

“Well, thin, keep it on. Dicky, are you cowld?”

“I’ve got into daddy’s great-coat; he left it behind him.”

“Well, thin, I’ll put the shawl round me own shoulders, for it’s cowld I am. Are y’ hungry, childer?”

“No,” said Dick, “but I’m drefful—Hi—yow——”

“Slapy, is it? Well, down you get in the bottom of the boat, and here’s the shawl for a pilla. I’ll be rowin’ again in a minit to keep meself warm.”

He buttoned the top button of the coat.

“I’m a’right,” murmured Emmeline in a dreamy voice.

“Shut your eyes tight,” replied Mr Button, “or Billy Winker will be dridgin’ sand in them.

“‘Shoheen, shoheen, shoheen, shoheen,

Sho—hu—lo, sho—hu—lo.

Shoheen, shoheen, shoheen, shoheen,

Hush a by the babby O.’”

It was the tag of an old nursery folk-song they sing in the hovels of the Achill coast fixed in his memory, along with the rain and the wind and the smell of the burning turf, and the grunting of the pig and the knickety-knock of a rocking cradle.