‘Hello, lads, what ’ave yer got there?’ exclaimed an old woman, who came out of the Cimmerian darkness, carrying a tallow candle stuck in the neck of an old beer bottle. ‘Mercy me! not a corpus, surely? Why, what on airth made you bring it in ’ere? A gal too, and a purty one! Garge; tell me the rights of it all, or I’ll ’ave none of ’er ’ere.’
‘Theer ain’t no rights, nor wrongs neither, mother,’ replied Garge, ‘only this body floated under our bows, and I don’t believe the pore gal is dead, and no one knows better ’ow to rewive a corpus than you do, so we carried ’er ’ome to you at onst. She’s a lady, and maybe a rich ’un, and you may git a good reward for rewivin’ ’er, from ’er friends. So, wheer’s the blankets and the ’ot water? Yer’ve got some bilin’ to make our tea, I know, and I’ll go and call Mrs Benson to ’elp yer with ’er.’
‘That’s it my lad,’ replied the mother, who, though most people would have designated her as a filthy hag, was a kind-hearted old body. ‘And Jim and you must make yerself scarce for to-night, for I can’t do nothin’ till you two are gone. Take Garge ’ome with you, Jim, and if this gal’s too fur gone to do anything with, yer must give notice fust thing in the mornin’ to the perlice, for I can’t keep a dead body ’ere longer than the mornin’.’
‘I don’t believe as she is dead,’ said Garge, who had been bending over Nell’s body and listening with his ear upon her chest. ‘Yer can’t deceive me much, yer know, mother, for I’ve seen too many on ’em. ’Owever, I’ll fetch Mrs Benson at once, and I’ll look in larst thing to ’ear your news.’
The old woman had lighted a fire by this time and dragged the body in front of it, and as soon as her neighbour joined her, they commenced rubbing and thumping and chafing the limbs of the apparently drowned girl, and though their remedies were rough, they were successful, for after some fifteen or twenty minutes of this treatment, Nell sighed deeply, gasped for breath, and finally opened her eyes and looked at her good Samaritans. She attempted to rise, but they held her down with their strong hands, and continued their original massage treatment with redoubled energy. At last their patient ejaculated, ‘Where am I?’ Which is invariably the first question asked by a woman recovering from a fit of unconsciousness.
‘Wheer are ye, honey?’ repeated Garge’s mother. ‘Why, afore the fire, of course, and on the floor, which is rather a hard bed I ’spect for one like you, but we’d no better place to lay you on.’
‘But how did I come here?’ said Nell, and then, as remembrance poured back upon her, she moaned,—‘Ah, the water, I remember, the water!’ and closed her eyes again. But as her strength returned more fully she started to a sitting posture and cried fiercely,—‘Who brought me here? Who told you to do this? What right have you to interfere with me? I thought it would have been all over by this time, and now it has all to come over again—all over again!’
‘Oh, no, it won’t, honey,’ replied her companion. ‘You won’t go to do any think so foolish agin. Why, you’ve as near lost yer life as possible. It wore jest touch and go with yer, wern’t it, Mrs Benson?’
‘That it wure, indeed,’ said that worthy. ‘And you’re too fine a gal to throw yerself away in sich a fashion, yer should leave that sorter thing to the poor gutter drabs. My Garge, ’e found yer and brought yer ’ome, and I’ve no doubt you’ve fine friends as will be real glad to git yer back agin!’
‘No, I haven’t. I have no friends,’ said Nell.