“Thank you, Mr. Cavendish, thank you,” he said faintly, “I hope I haven’t troubled you—I feel better now—almost well enough to sit up.”
“No—no, my poor boy,” I said, though my emotion almost choked me, “lie still—I can easily hold you. You have slept well?”
“Oh! I have had such a sweet sleep, and it was full of happy dreams, though before that it seemed as if I was standing at my father’s dying bed, or saw my mother weeping as she wept the night I came away. And then,” and a melancholy shadow passed across his face as he spoke, “I thought that she cried more bitterly than ever, as if her very heart were breaking for some one who was dead—and it appears, too, as if I was that one,” he said, with child-like simplicity. Then for a moment he mused sadly, but suddenly said—“Do you think I am dying, sir?”
The suddenness of the question startled me, and when I saw those large, clear eyes fixed on me, I was more embarrassed than ever.
“I hope not,” I said brokenly. He shook his head, and again that melancholy shadow passed across his face, and he answered in a tone of grief that brought the tears into other eyes than mine,
“I feel I am. Oh! my poor mother—my poor, poor widowed mother, who will care for you when I am gone?”
“I will,” I said with emotion; “if God spares me to reach the land, I will seek her out, and tell her all about you—what a noble fellow you were—”
“And—and,” and here a blush shot over his pale face, “will you see that she never wants—will you?” he continued eagerly.
“I will,” said I, “rest easy on that point, my dear, noble boy.”
“Aye! and while there’s a shot in the locker for Bill Seaton she shall never want,” said the topman, pressing in his own horny hand the more delicate one of the boy.