‘Better!’ I says, taking a long draught of the soft sweet-scented air, and filling my chest—‘better, old girl! I feel as if I was growing backwards into a boy.’
“ ‘And you fifty last week!’ she says.
“ ‘Yes,’ I says, smiling, ‘and you forty-seven next week.’ And then we sat thinking for a bit.
“ ‘Polly,’ I says at last, as I sat there drinking in that soft breeze, and feeling it give me strength, ‘it’s worth being ill only to feel as I do now.’
“For you see I’d been very bad, else I dare say I’m not the man to go hanging about churchyards and watching funerals: I’m a stoker, and my work lies in steamers trading to the East. I’d come home from my last voyage bad with fever, caught out in one of those nasty hot bad-smelling ports—been carried home to die, as my mates thought; and it was being like this, and getting better, that had set me thinking so seriously, and made me so quiet; not that I was ever a noisy sort of man, as any one who knows me will say. And now, after getting better, the doctor had said I must go into the country to get strength; so as there was no more voyaging till I was strong, there was nothing for it but to leave the youngsters under the care of the eldest girl and a neighbour, and come and take lodgings out in this quiet Surrey village.
“Polly never thought I should get better, and one time no more did I; for about a month before this time, as I lay hollow-eyed and yellow on the bed, knowing, too, how bad I looked—for I used to make young Dick bring me the looking-glass every morning—the doctor came as usual, and like a blunt Englishman I put it to him flat.
“ ‘Doctor,’ I says, ‘you don’t think I shall get better?’ and I looked him straight in the face.
“ ‘Oh, come, come, my man!’ he says, smiling, ‘we never look at the black side like that.’
“ ‘None of that, doctor,’ I says; ‘out with it like a man. I can stand it: I’ve been expecting to be drowned or blown up half my life, so I shan’t be scared at what you say.’
“ ‘Well, my man,’ he says, ‘your symptoms are of a very grave nature. You see the fever had undermined you before you came home, and unless—’
“ ‘All right, doctor,’ I says; ‘I understand: you mean that unless you can get a new plate in the boiler, she won’t stand another voyage.’
“ ‘Oh, come! we won’t look upon it as a hopeless case,’ he says; ‘there’s always hope;’ and after a little more talk, he shook hands and went away.
“Next day, when he came, I had been thinking it all over, and was ready for him. I don’t believe I was a bit better; in fact, I know I was drifting fast, and I saw it in his eyes as well.
“I waited till he had asked me his different questions, and then just as he was getting up to go, I asked him to sit down again.
“ ‘Polly, my dear,’ I says, ‘I just want a few words with the doctor;’ and she put her apron up to her eyes and went out, closing the door after her very softly, while the doctor looked at me curious-like, and waited for me to speak.
“ ‘Doctor,’ I says, ‘you’ve about given me up. There, don’t shake your head, for I know. Now don’t you think I’m afraid to die, for I don’t believe I am; but look here: there’s seven children downstairs, and if I leave my wife a widow with the few pounds I’ve been able to save, what’s to become of them? Can’t you pull me through?’
“ ‘My dear fellow,’ he says, ‘honestly I’ve done everything I can for your case.’
“ ‘That’s what you think, doctor,’ I says, ‘but look here: I’ve been at sea thirty years, and in seven wrecks. It’s been like dodging death with me a score of times. Why, I pulled my wife there regularly out of the hands of death, and I’m not going to give up now. I’ve been—’
“ ‘Stop, stop,’ he says gently. ‘You’re exciting yourself.’
“ ‘Not a bit,’ I says, though my voice was quite a whisper. ‘I’ve had this over all night, and I’ve come to think I must be up and doing my duty.’
“ ‘But, my good man—’ he began.
“ ‘Listen to me, doctor,’ I says. ‘A score of times I might have given up and been drowned, but I made a fight for it and was saved. Now I mean to make a fight for it here, for the sake of the wife and bairns. I don’t mean to die, doctor, without a struggle. I believe this here, that life’s given to us all as a treasure to keep; we might throw it away by our own folly at any time, but there’s hundreds of times when we may preserve it, and we never know whether we can save it till we try. Give me a drink of that water.’
“He held the glass to my lips, and I took a big draught and went on, he seeming all the time to be stopping to humour me in my madness.
“ ‘That’s better, doctor,’ I says. ‘Now look here, sir, speaking as one who has sailed the seas, it’s a terrible stormy time with me; there’s a lee shore close at hand, the fires are drowned out, and unless we can get up a bit of sail, there’s no chance for me. Now then, doctor, can you get up a bit of sail?’
“ ‘I’ll go and send you something that will quiet you,’ he said, rising.
“ ‘Thank ye, doctor,’ I says, smiling to myself. ‘And now look here,’ I says, ‘I’m not going to give up till the last; and when that last comes, and the ship’s going down, why, I shall have a try if I can’t swim to safety. If that fails, and I can really feel that it is to be, why, I hope I shall go down into the great deep calmly, like a hopeful man, praying that Somebody above will forgive me all I’ve done amiss, and stretch out His fatherly hand to my little ones at home.’
“He went away, and I dropped asleep, worn out with my exertion.
“When I woke, Polly was standing by the bedside watching me, with a bottle and glass on the little table.
“As soon as she saw my eyes open, she shook up the stuff, and poured it into a wine-glass.
“ ‘Is that what the doctor sent?’ I says.
“ ‘Yes, dear; you were to take it directly.’
“ ‘Then I shan’t take it,’ I says. ‘He’s given me up, and that stuff’s only to keep me quiet. Polly, you go and make me some beef-tea, and make it strong.’
“She looked horrified, poor old girl, and was going to beg me to take hold of the rotten life-belt he’d sent me, when I held out my shaking hand for it, took the glass, and let it tilt over—there was only about a couple of teaspoonfuls in it—and the stuff fell on the carpet.
“I saw the tears come in her eyes, but she said nothing—only put down the glass, and ran out to make the beef-tea.
“The doctor didn’t come till late next day, and I was lying very still and drowsy, half asleep like, but I was awake enough to hear him whisper to Polly, ‘Sinking fast;’ and I heard her give such a heart-broken sob, that as the next great wave came on the sea where I was floating, I struck out with all
