These were all who sank, but there was one who came ashore. He and the boy were clinging to the same piece of timber. Then this man kicked the boy on the chest and so he fell off and went down, and this man had the balk to himself. The waves went over him, and he lost consciousness, but not his hold. He was saved, and the gulls, wheeling above, laughed and scoffed more loudly than before.
Up the narrow track cut in the face of the cliff this man was carried.
’By goll!’ said Pascho, ’I hope the chap ain’t dead, but he looks cruel bad. It makes all the difference to us between five shillings and ten guineas.’
’Now look here, you niggers!’ exclaimed Pentecost, angrily. ’What be all you a coming up and making believe you are helping? You’ve had nort to do with the saving of this chap, and so don’t you come putting in your claims for a share. Go back and see if you can’t pick up a corpse or two as will find you in liquor or backie for a week or a fortnight. The ten guineas is to share between five of us? and that will be four too many. I lugged un out of the water.’
’Ah, but I squeedged the water out of his chest,’ said Pascho.
’And if I hadn’t held the rope,’ said Gerans, ’you’d have all been swept into the water and become crowners’ sittings.’
’There!’ said Pentecost, ’chuck him across a barrel, and let the water run out of him.’
’Yes, in the snow indeed. Do you think I want to risk my honest earnings that way? He must be took to bed and hot bricks be put to his feet.’
’To Welltown, of course; where else? There ain’t no other house nigh.’
’Let the young lady see un,’ said Genefer. ’It be a rare fine sight for the soul to see a man hanging atween life and death. Let her see un.’
The men laid their unconscious burden at the feet of Mirelle.
She looked into the face with mingled sympathy and terror. The figure seen battling with the waves had grown big—human size now, it was no longer an ant. She could feel pity.
As she looked, she started and shrank away, holding up her hands to shut out what she saw.
’There!’ said Genefer, ’it be a brave and improving sight. I reckon it do as much good to the soul as a lump of sugar with a drop of peppermint on it does to the stomick when out of sorts. It warms and strengthens and gives tone. He be a young man. Well, the Lord, I reckon, has got a work in store for he, as He has called him out of the deep, and has given him the life back as were trembling at the door of his heart to leave. As for the rest, they be cut off in their sins. Take him to Welltown.’