“But it is me, daddy,” cried the poor youth, almost sobbing aloud as he kissed the hand he held, “why, you old curmudgeon, I thought you’d ’ave know’d the voice o’ yer own son! I’ve grow’d a bit, no doubt, but it’s me for all that. Look at me!”
Ned did look, with all the intensity of which he was capable, and then fell back on his pillow with a great sigh, while a death-like pallor overspread his face, almost inducing the belief that he was really dead.
“No, Bobby, I ain’t dead yet,” he said in a low whisper, as his terrified son bent over him. “Thank God for sendin’ you back to me.”
He stopped, but, gradually, strength returned, and he again looked earnestly at his son.
“Bobby,” he said, in stronger tones, “I thought the end was drawin’ near—or, rather, the beginnin’—the beginnin’ o’ the New Life. But I don’t feel like that now. I feel, some’ow, as I used to feel in the ring when they sponged my face arter a leveller. I did think I was done for this mornin’. The nurse thought so too, for I ’eerd her say so; an’ the doctor said as much. Indeed I’m not sure that my own ’art didn’t say so—but I’ll cheat ’em all yet, Bobby, my boy. You’ve put new life into my old carcase, an’ I’ll come up to the scratch yet—see if I don’t.”
But Ned Frog did not “come up to the scratch.” His work for the Master on earth was finished—the battle fought out and the victory gained.
“Gi’ them all my love in Canada, Bobby, an’ say to your dear mother that I know she forgives me—but I’ll tell her all about that when we meet—in the better land.”
Thus he died with his rugged head resting on the bosom of his loved and loving son.