While he was speaking Nellie herself came softly to her husband’s side and sat down. Her face was very grave.
“The doctor says there’s no hope,” she said. “The poor boy may last a few days, so he tells us, but he may be taken away at any moment. Pour me out a cup o’ tea, Bob. I must go back to him immediately. His poor mother is so broken down that she’s not fit to attend to him, and the father’s o’ no use at all. He can only go about groanin’. No wonder; Ian is their only child, Bob—their first-born. I can’t bear to think of it.”
“But you’ll break down yourself, Nell, if you go nursin’ him every night, an’ all night, like this. Surely there’s some o’ the women on board that’ll be glad to lend a helpin’ hand.”
“I know one who’ll be only too happy to do that, whether she’s well or ill,” said Mitford, rising with unwonted alacrity, and hastening to his wife’s berth.
Just then the bo’s’n’s stentorian voice was heard giving the order to close reef tops’ls, and the hurried tramping of many feet on the deck overhead, coupled with one or two heavy lurches of the ship, seemed to justify the assistant cook’s remark—“Sure it’s durty weather we’re goin’ to have, annyhow.”
Story 1 -- Chapter 4.
The indications of bad weather which had been observed were not misleading, for it not only became what Terrence O’Connor had termed “durty,” but it went on next day to develop a regular gale, insomuch that every rag of canvas, except storm-sails, had to be taken in and the hatches battened down, thus confining the passengers to the cabins.
These passengers looked at matters from wonderfully different points of view, and felt accordingly. Surroundings had undoubtedly far greater influence on some of them than was reasonable. Of course we refer to the landsmen only. In the after-cabin, where all was light, cosy, and comfortable, and well fastened, and where a considerable degree of propriety existed, feelings were comparatively serene. Most of the ladies sought the retirement of berths, and became invisible, though not necessarily inaudible; a few, who were happily weather-proof, jammed themselves into velvety corners, held on to something fixed, and lost themselves in books. The gentlemen, linking themselves to articles of stability, did the same, or, retiring to an appropriate room, played cards and draughts and enveloped themselves in smoke. Few, if any of them, bestowed much thought on the weather. Beyond giving them, occasionally, a little involuntary exercise, it did not seriously affect them.