"Notely fell from the mast and was stunted; they put him in the boat: else he wouldn't 'a' come and left my Gurd, I b'lieve." Tears rolled down his cheeks.
Vesty spoke to me so softly, as if her head were turned, or she were wandering in a dream. "When Gurdon had anything that anybody needed, and they asked him for it, he always gave it them. So they asked him for his life—and he gave that!"
Notely, on recovering consciousness, had been carried to his house at the Neck: by the next morning they had his mother with him; he was in a fever.
Would Vesty remember now the promise she had asked of Mrs. Garrison?
At all events, the sick man babbled deliriously of past days, had fallen from the rock once more, and would have Vesty to nurse him: "where," asking ever, "is Vesty?"
Mrs. Garrison herself went to her, pleading his pain and danger. Vesty came.
"Hello! we're saved!—the Vesty!" cried Notely, whose fever had been plunging him in cold sea-waves, his voice a feeble echo of its old gay tone, as he put up his hand to her.
So ashy and sunken was his face, Vesty took him on her arm as she would her child; he fell asleep.
"Vesty stops the pain—no one lifts me like Vesty—sing, Vesty!" from pathetic lips and wandering blue eyes that would die if one recalled them to their sorrow.
"Only stay," said Mrs. Garrison. "His life hangs upon it. Surely you are not afraid to have your child with me?"