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was permanent, but it couldn’t be as bad as being blind. At least, that’s what I thought … at the time.” He fell silent then, sipping at his tea.

    There was a heavy footstep on a stairway leading from the lower part of the house, then the boy loomed. He seemed taller, heavier.

    “There you are,” his father said. “Pour yourself a cup.”

    The boy had a ball cap in his hand. “I think I’ll go out,” he said.

    “Okay,” his father said. I thought the tone was guarded. “This here’s Danny. Danny Beag. Meet Father MacAskill.”

    “Call me Duncan,” I said. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been ‘ beag. ’”

    “ Beag means ‘small,’” his father said.

    “I know,” I said.

    “Of course you do,” said Danny Ban. “I keep forgetting you’re a local yokel.”

    The boy was anything but small. He shook my hand silently, a coolness in his expression. Interested, but guarded.

    “Father is in Creignish,” said his father.

    “I think I heard your name somewhere before,” the boy said. “Weren’t you at the university?”

    “I was.”

    “You knew Brendan Bell, I think.”

    I could feel the rush of colour to my face. “Slightly,” I said.

    “I’m pretty sure he mentioned you. He was here for a while. I think your name came up. MacAskill. You don’t hear it very often. He knew you somehow.”

    “It’s possible.”

    His face was impossible to read. He turned then, toward his father. “I might be late.”

    I remember asking, almost robotically: “So, how well did you know Brendan?”

    The boy just shrugged and looked away. “Everybody knew Father Brendan.”

    Then he was gone. I think that I forgot to say goodbye when he was leaving. I had a hard time concentrating because of that other, invisible presence in the room. Brendan Bell. I heard the roar of the truck as it raced away.

    The visit withered after that. Outside, groping for a safe place to engage, I asked his father, “When do you expect to get this new boat in the water?”

    “We’ll get her in before the fall. We’ll put a drive on soon. Want to do some tests, make sure she floats even and everything is working proper. Don’t want any surprises in the spring.”

    “And what did you do with the boat I saw you in, when we met that morning on the shore? The Lady Hawthorne. ”

    It was a formality, but it sparked a new enthusiasm. “She’s for sale,” he replied. “Down at the harbour. Great little boat for somebody.”

    And I may have said something like, I always wanted a boat, since I was a kid hanging around the shore.

    And he said: “Really?”

    I tried to retreat from his obvious enthusiasm, but he was already remarking how so many old fishing boats are being cleaned up and converted for recreation, and if I was interested he’d be only too happy to make a special arrangement.

    Embarrassed, I went into full withdrawal. “Good Lord, I wouldn’t know the first thing about a boat, one end from the other.”

    “You’d be surprised how simple they are,” Danny Ban said. “Nothing like a good old wooden boat.”

    Brendan was the last of them. That was the bishop’s promise, and he kept it. One last small assignment. An easy one, compared to so many of the others. A special favour to the bishop of St. John’s. Take this fellow off their hands for a little while, find some useful work for him to do, someplace where he’ll stay out of sight and out of trouble.

    Port Hood was my idea.

    The bishop cautioned: “The fewer people in the know, the less the risk of slip-ups. Just make it look like a favour to Father Mullins and his parish. Charismatic renewal has added to his workload—this will take the pressure off. In any event, Bell is low risk. Seems there was only the one lapse, some drunken groping. At least, that’s all they know about. Compared to some of the others over there, Bell is pretty small potatoes, otherwise he’d be in the clink where he belongs. Mostly it’s a