come, then, the time to choose! It was she who had saved, him! she
was here,--alive!

"Mother!" he cried, trying to rise.

But the word died in his dry throat; his body, stiff and icy cold,
refused to move.

"What ails ye?" growled the man, looking at her. "Be ye giv' out so near
land? We've had a jolly seinin' together," laughing savagely, "ef we did
miss the fish we went for, an' brought in this herrin'."

"Thee little brother's safe, Bowlegs," said the old woman, in a feeble,
far-off voice. "My boy ull bring him to shore."

The boatman gulped back his breath; it sounded like a cry, but he
laughed it down.

"You think yer Derrick ull make shore, eh? Well, I don't think that ar
way o' Ben. Ben's gone under. It's not often the water gets a
ten-year-older like that. I raised him. It was I sent him with Van Note
this run. That makes it pleasanter now!" The words were grating out
stern and sharp.

"Thee knows Derrick said he'd come," the woman said simply.

She stooped with an effort, after a while, and, thrusting her hand under
Doctor Birkenshead's shirt, felt his chest.

"It's a mere patchin' of a body. He's warm yet. Maybe," looking closely
into the face, "he'd have seen my boy aboord, an' could say which way he
tuk. A drop of raw liquor ull bring him round."

Phil glanced contemptuously at the surgeon's fine linen, and the diamond
_solitaire_ on the small, white hand.

"It's not likely that chap ud know the deck-hands. It's the man Doctor
Dennis was expectin'."

"Ay?" vaguely.

She kept her hand on the feebly beating heart, chafing it. He lay there,
looking her straight in the eyes; in hers--dull with the love and
waiting of a life--there was no instinct of recognition. The kind,
simple, blue eyes, that had watched his baby limbs grow and strengthen
in her arms! How gray the hair was! but its bit of curl was in it yet.
The same dear old face that he used to hurry home at night to see!
Nobody had loved him but this woman,--never; if he could but struggle up
and get his head on her breast! How he used to lie there when he was a
big boy, listening to the same old stories night after night,--the same
old stories! Something homely and warm and true was waking in him
to-night that had been dead for years and years; this was no matter of
aesthetics or taste, it was real, _real_. He wondered if people felt in
this way who had homes, or those simple folk who loved the Lord.

Inch by inch, with hard, slow pulls