When he recovers himself he is warm and in bed.
For a time he can remember nothing, but soon it all comes back, the storm, the squall, the wreck.
And just at that moment sounds of wailing and of woe fall upon his ear from the other room. Some one is weeping and moaning in sadness and sorrow. A strange terror creeps over Sandie’s heart, a kind of nameless fear. He sits up and listens intently. Some one is talking too. It is Eppie. But her voice is strangely altered.
“My ain wee man! my ain wee man!” she is crying. “O dool (grief) on the day I e’er let you leave me! O John, John, John, you’ll never speak to your Eppie again! O my heart will break, my heart will break!”
Then once more she broke off into a fit of sobbing and crying.
A cold hand seemed to clutch at Sandie’s heart. He knew only too well what it all meant. John Menzies, the blithesome and merry little fisherman, was gone. It was but the lifeless body he had succeeded in bringing on shore—the soul had fled.
Sandie rose now, although he felt a little giddy. He slowly dressed himself in dry clothes, that had thoughtfully been placed handy for him.
“Poor Eppie!” Sandie said half aloud, “even in her own great grief she did not forget me.” The very kindness of the woman’s act brought the tears to his eyes.
He opened his door at last and went softly into the kitchen.
Eppie was swaying back and fore beside the corpse, which lay on the bed; swaying backwards and forwards, her wet apron to her face and in an agony of grief.