"I ain't taking away his character. I'm only saying that if he was fated to drown it is a great pity that he wasn't left to drown in the first place, seeing that it would have saved a lot of bother, and other precious lives also," replied Oily Dave, with the look and pose of a man who is bitterly misunderstood.
"Why, you must be stark, staring mad to talk like this!" exclaimed Miles, in doubt whether to heave the nearest article on which he could lay hands at the head of Oily Dave, or to pity him as a lunatic.
"I'm no more mad than you are, young 'un; but there's a deal of what scholars call practical economy in me, and I can't bear waste of no sort or kind, I can't. Why, when customers come to my hotel and leaves any liquor in their mugs, which is but seldom, I always goes and drains 'em down my own neck, to stop waste. And so I says that if Mr. Ferrars hadn't been saved that first time, we should have been spared trouble since."
"What trouble have you ever taken in the matter?" demanded Miles.
"Didn't I risk my life, and wet myself to the skin, pulling him and Miss Selincourt out of the tidehole?" asked Oily Dave. "If you misdoubt my word, ask your sister, who was there and helped as well as a gal could, which isn't much anyhow. Well, there was three lives in danger that time, him, and me, and Miss Selincourt, and I dare say your sister got dampish at the feet. Now, this third and last time, matters is a deal more serious still. Nick Jones leaves a widow, though she don't much count. Stee Jenkin leaves a widow, nice little woman too. Then there's the children, poor things, orphans afore they are big enough to earn a penny for themselves. Bobby Poole hadn't a wife certainly, but he would have had by and by, most likely. It is a bad business altogether. And now I want some tobacco."
Oily Dave jerked out this last statement with a swift change of tone from mournful regret to cheerful business complacency, and Miles served him in silence, too saddened by the heavy tidings from the sea to break into resentful angry speech with this man, who appeared devoid of either heart or feeling. Then the heavy boots squelched out again, going towards the river bank, where the waiting boat was tied to the mooring post. A moment of waiting to make sure he did not return, and then Katherine, pale now as a ghost, glided out from the shadow of the rugs.
"Miles, dear, can you do without me for the rest of the day if need be? I am going down river to poor Mrs. Jenkin," she said, her voice steady though strained.
"I can manage; but look at the rain!" he exclaimed, swinging his hand towards the open door.
"All the more reason why I should go to her, poor little woman," Katherine answered, then passed with a quick step into the house, in search of garments to keep out the weather.
Mrs. Burton was preparing the early dinner, and Katherine told her of the news Oily Dave had brought, speaking in quiet, mournful tones which yet lacked any note of personal loss. Not even to herself would she admit the sorrow at this time, or it would have broken her down completely. Her instinct of going to comfort someone else was the outcome of the strife she was having not to collapse in a miserable, selfish breakdown.