Donald stood huddled under a boulder and watched a number of the women land. He saw Ruth and Helena among them. He did not wish to see either of them—the events of the afternoon were too fresh in his mind. He was still bitter. Then he remembered his contract with Cal Heneker, and the memory spurred him to ask a man to loan him an overcoat and get him over to the town. Seeing that he could do no more, and that the packet’s crowd would be rescued all right, he left for home in company with a farmer who had a horse and buggy with him.
His mother was standing in the door of Shelter Harbor when he arrived, and she almost went into hysterics when she saw him. “Don’t be frightened, Mother,” he soothed. “I’m all right and so is everybody else. The old steamer went aground in that storm, but everybody got off safe. I had to swim ashore and I left my clothes. So now, Mother dear, make me a good hot cup of tea while I change, for I must get aboard my ship and away with the tide. The storm is breaking off now and it’s going to be a fine night.”
Aching in every muscle, and with his shoulders, arms and legs skinned and bruised by the pounding he had got on the sand, Donald rubbed himself down with liniment and bandaged a few of the worst scrapes. Then he climbed stiffly into his sea clothes and went down-stairs.
Over a cup of scalding tea, hot biscuits and cake, he smiled at his mother and patted her cheek. “Dear old mother,” he said with a tender note in his voice. “Always worrying and fretting about me.”
“But just think, Donny, if you’d been drowned?” she said plaintively. He laughed happily. “I’m not born to be drowned, mammy-dear. Swimming is the only athletic accomplishment I have, and I can swim easier than I can walk. I did it easily. ’Twas only a hundred yards.”
The mother shook her head as if doubting the light manner in which he was relating the experience of the evening, and she thought of the day, years ago, when M’Leish, mate of the Sarmania, had come to her with evil news. She shuddered involuntarily and her hand gripped that of her son’s in a tense clasp. “Oh, Donny-laddie, if I were to lose you...?” She bit her lips and her eyes filled with tears at the bare thought.
He set down his cup and rose to his feet. Slipping his arms around her neck, he kissed her, saying tenderly. “Mother mine, you’re not going to lose me. I’m yours always, and you’re always mine!”
She smiled gravely and looked into his eyes. “Maybe ... someday, Donny, my son, you’ll be saying that to another woman.”
He winced imperceptibly, and into his tired eyes there flashed a sudden tense look—a shadow of painful memory reflected in the windows of the soul—then it vanished, and he smoothed her hair lovingly. “There is no other woman but you, Mother dear!”