“Poor granfer!” exclaimed Nell, and then she stroked his withered face with gentle fingers, trying to forget all his unkindness and brutality, remembering only that he was poor, sick, and aged, an object of compassion to anyone whose heart held a spark of tenderness. Then, after a little pause, she asked, “What did you do after that?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I must have got to Port Simpson somehow, for I seem to remember having been there, and I know I got to Vancouver City by boat, for I was dreadful sick and ill. But it seems as if there have been holes knocked in my memory in places; I can remember parts, but not the whole. It was at New Westminster that I fell in with Fred Higgins and the boy Joe, and I’ve lived along with them ever since. I lent him some money when he was hard up, and he’s been sort of kind to me ever since,” Doss Umpey said feebly. Then he dropped to sleep without any warning, and Nell sat silently watching him, noting the grey shadow which had gathered in the hollows of his eyes, and wondering how best she could bring help and comfort to soothe his dying hours.
He awoke as suddenly as he had gone to sleep, seeming so bright and alert from the brief rest, that Nell began to think she must be mistaken, and that he could not be so low down as she had imagined.
“Had a nap, have I? It’s real curious how I go to sleep all of a sudden; but it’s comforting too, and passes the time wonderful.”
“Granfer, do you think you could be moved? I’ve got a house now, at least, I live with the Lorimers, and we could nurse you until you are better,” said Nell, seeing that to care for the sick man was her duty, and deciding that the plan of having summer boarders must be held over, at least, for a time.
“No; I don’t want to be moved. I’m as comfortable here as I should be anywhere, and I don’t want no bother,” he said weakly.
“But it is such a long way for me to come every day, and if I had you at home I could look after you so much better,” she said coaxingly.
“I should only die on the way. I know what that road is, and the shaking is more than I could stand. Besides, I don’t want the police coming poking round, asking questions by the dozen, and they’d be sure to do that, if I came down to the Settlement.”
“I don’t live at the Settlement, but at the depot,” said Nell, quickly.
“It’s all the same, and I ain’t coming down there not to please nobody,” he said, setting his weak jaw into obstinate lines.