“Grummidge,” said the sick man, in a low voice, “I’ll never git over this. That seal have done for me. There’s injury somewheres inside o’ me, I feel sure on it. But that’s not what I was going to speak about. I want to make a clean breast of it afore I goes. I’ve been a bad man, Grummidge, there’s no question about that in my own mind, whatever may be in the mind of others. I had even gone the length of making up my mind to murder you, the first safe chance I got, for which, and all else I’ve done and thought agin ye, I ax your pardon.”
“You have it” said his friend earnestly. “Thank ’ee. That’s just what I expected, Grummidge. Now what I want to know is, d’ye think God will forgive me?”
The seaman was perplexed. Such a question had never been put to him before, and he knew not what to answer. After a few moments’ consideration, he replied—
“What you say is true, Swinton. You’ve bin a bad lot ever since I’ve know’d ye. I won’t go for to deny that. As to what the Almighty will do or won’t do, how can I tell? I wish I knew more about such things myself, for I’d like to help you, but I can’t.”
Suddenly an idea flashed into his mind and he continued:—
“But it do seem to me, Swinton, that if a poor sinner like me is willin’ to forgive ye, ain’t the Almighty likely to be much more willin’?”
“There’s somethin’ in that, Grummidge—somethin’ in that,” said the sick man eagerly. Then the hopeful look disappeared as he added slowly, “but I fear, Grummidge, that what you say don’t quite fit my case, for I’ve got a notion that the Almighty must have been willin’ all my life to save me from myself, and that all my life I’ve bin refusin’ to listen to Him.”
“How d’ye make that out, boy?”
“This way. There’s bin somethin’ or other inside o’ me, as far back as I can remember, that somehow didn’t seem to be me, that has been always sayin’ ‘Don’t’ to me, whenever I was a-goin’ to do a mean thing. Now, I can’t help thinkin’ that it must have bin God that spoke, for a man would never say ‘Don’t’ to himself, an’ then go right off an’ do it, would he?”
“That’s more than I can tell,” answered Grummidge. “I remember hearin’ Master Burns a-talkin’ on that point wi’ the cappen, an’ he thought it was conscience or the voice of God.”