Malcolm informed him.
“Well, then they’re all landed alive.”
“Thank God!”
“Aye; but whether they are all saved, that is another matter, master. Some on ’em are badly hurt; and one on ’em mos’ particular badly hurt, poor fellow! nigh upon killed, I should think. He’s lying in the next cottage.”
Malcolm uttered some few words of sympathy, but his whole heart was with Eudora. He could think of no one else. At length the fisherman’s wife appeared to relieve his anxiety. “The young lady had come round,” she said, “and had inquired after the gentleman, and being told that he was safe and well, she had taken a quieting drink and gone to sleep. And now could the gentleman do better than to follow her example? There was a good bed in the room up-stairs that was heartily at his honor’s service.”
Malcolm thanked the woman, and followed the man, who led him up-stairs, to a humble attic, where he stretched himself upon a hard bed. But notwithstanding the weariness and exhaustion of his body, the excitement and anxiety of his mind kept him from sleep until near morning, when he was aroused by a loud knocking at his door. It was the fisherman, who entered, deprecatingly saying:
“Excuse me, master, but might your name be Mr. Montrose?”
“Yes; what is the matter?” demanded the young man, in a voice so startled as to seem angry, for he dreaded some evil to Eudora.
“Why, then, master, the poor man as were so badly hurt last night, which we think he is dying, is very particular anxious to see you, sir.”
“Which of them is he? What is his name?”