"Gilby's no fool in a surf-boat, anyway," he mused, as he went back dripping to the factory.
Another hour had passed when the boat was flung upon the beach with a crash which rent her damaged plank from end to end; and the soaked white man who sprang out of her hurried to the factory with his proud display of two bottles of claret, and one, partly-empty, of liqueur, besides a piece of ice in flannel, and a cigar box.
"The time was too short, or I might have done better," he explained. "Had only a few minutes to tax the skipper and mates in, while the old man wasn't over-pleased about stopping for one passenger. Boat was half-full when we got alongside, and Maxwell too weak to climb the ladder. They hove him on board with the crane, wrong side uppermost, and half-dazed apparently. The boat was plunging wildly, and Sorrowful Tom too drunk to fix the sling. Taking things all around, it's a mercy we didn't drown him."
"You're a good man in a boat," Redmond conceded. "Still, you have very little sense. Fancy making a run of that kind and coming ashore with--claret!"
While Dane and Maxwell fought the plague in Africa, Lilian Chatterton and the young clergyman in charge of that parish walked side by side down the street of a village in North Britain one afternoon. The village was neither picturesque nor prosperous just then, for there was a scarcity of work at the quarries, and for weeks together hard frost had rendered all stone-cutting impossible. A bitter wind sighed about the low stone houses which rose dripping in unlovely simplicity from the muddy street, while an air of stolid, uncomplaining poverty was stamped upon the faces of the men who lounged idly where they could find a shelter in the lee of a building. Miss Chatterton had not enjoyed good health that winter, and the surroundings depressed her. Neither did she find the vista of bleak hillside, snow-streaked moor, and lowering sky much more cheerful, and she was glad when her companion broke the silence.
"It is not exhilarating weather, and this has been a hard winter for the poor," he said. "Unfortunately, we have had rather more of them than usual with us of late, and the sick would have suffered considerably if it had not been for your kindness."