supplied to the world that
tenderness and pity which the Church had stripped from God. Even in his
delirium the man of fastidious instincts knew this was what he craved;
even now he remembered other living mothers he had known, delicate,
nobly born women, looking on their babes with eyes full of all gracious
and pure thoughts. With the sharp contrast of a dream came the old
clam-digger, barefoot in the mud, her basket of soiled clothes on her
shoulder,--her son Derrick, a vulgar lad, aping gentility, behind her.
Closer and closer came the waters; a shark's gray hide glittered a few
feet from him. Death, sure of his prey, nibbled and played with it; in
a little while he lay supine and unconscious.

Reason came back to him like an electric shock; for all the parts of Dr.
Birkenshead's organization were instinctive, nervous, like a woman's.
When it came, the transient delirium had passed; he was his cool,
observant self. He lay on the wet floor of a yawl skiff, his head
resting on a man's leg; the man was rowing with even, powerful strokes,
and he could feel rather than see in the darkness a figure steering. He
was saved. His heart burned with a sudden glorious glow of joy, and
genial, boyish zest of life,--one of the excesses of his nature. He
tried to speak, but his tongue was stiff, his throat dry; he could have
caressed the man's slimy sleeve that touched his cheek, he was so glad
to live. The boatman was in no humor for caresses; he drew his labored
breath sharply, fighting the waves, rasping out a sullen oath when they
baffled him. The little surgeon had tact enough to keep silent; he did
not care to talk, either. Life rose before him a splendid possibility,
as never before. From the silent figure at the helm came neither word
nor motion. Presently a bleak morning wind mingled with the fierce,
incessant nor'easter; the three in the yawl, all sea-bred, knew the
difference.

"Night ull break soon," said Bowlegs.

It did break in an hour or two into a ghastly gray dawn, bitter
cold,--the slanting bars of sharp light from beyond the sea-line falling
on the bare coast, on a headland of which moved some black, uneasy
figures.

"Th' wrackers be thar."

There was no answer.

"Starboard! Hoy, Mother Phebe!"

She swayed her arms round, her head still fallen on her breast. Doctor
Birkenshead, from his half-shut eyes, could see beside him the
half-naked, withered old body, in its dripping flannel clothes, God! it
had