“What is your name?”
“Just Tam McAlpine.”
“Foretop Tom!”
“Ay, just himsel’.”
Miss Conyers sank down upon a coil of ropes, and drew the trembling Irish girl to her side, and then said:
“You have surprised me very much, and you have terrified this girl nearly out of her senses, but I am glad to know that you were saved from the wreck;” then turning to her agitated companion, she said, “Judith, you see it is Tom himself. Why don’t you speak to him?”
“Sure I see it now. And I’ll spake whin I’m able. I can’t yit!” sobbed Judith, covering her face with her apron, and rocking herself to and fro.
“Ay, that will be the way she has treated me ever sin’ I foregathered wi’ her on the deck. Screeching and rinning fra me as if I had been Auld Nick!” complained the Scotchman.
“No wonder. We all thought that you were drowned more than two years ago. And she took you for your own ghost. How were you saved?”
“E’en by a miracle—nae less. When the boat capsized I laid hold of an empty cask, and whilk buoyed me up all night until the tide turned, when I was floated far out to sea. I gave mysel’ up for lost, but held on to the cask till my strength was weel nigh spent. At length I was seen and picked up by the ither lifeboat, whilk had been beating about all that time. Three days after, when our bread and water was nearly gane, our boat was picked up by an outward bound Dutch merchantman, and we were saved.”