“But it’s about her husband that she’s grieving, sir,” said Nancy. “He went away to Spithead yesterday morning and has never come back.”
“Ah, that’s bad,” replied Mr Jones. “However, perhaps he will appear before long. If he doesn’t, it can’t be helped. You must give her the medicines, at all events. I’ll write the directions clearly for you.”
Poor Nancy had to confess that she could not read. The doctor then tried to impress upon her how and when she was to give the physic.
“You’ll remember, and there can be no mistake,” he added, as he hurried off.
I fancied that everything now depended on the arrival of the apothecary’s stuff, and kept running to the door looking out for the boy who was to bring it. He seemed very long coming. I had gone half-a-dozen times when I caught sight, as I turned my eyes the other way thinking he might have passed by, of Tom Swatridge stumping slowly up the street. He stopped when he saw me, and beckoned. He looked very downcast. I observed that he had a straw hat in his hand, and I knew that it was father’s.
“How is mother?” he asked, when I got up to him.
“Very bad,” I answered, looking at the hat, but afraid to ask questions.
“The news I bring will make her worse, I’m afeard,” he said, in a husky voice, as he took my hand. “Peter, you had as good a father as ever lived, but you haven’t got one now. A cutter just come in picked up this hat off Saint Helen’s, and afterwards an oar and a sprit which both belonged to the wherry. I went out the first thing this morning to the ship your father was to put the gentleman aboard. He had got alongside all right, for I saw the gentleman himself, and he told me that he had watched the wherry after she shoved off till he lost sight of her in a heavy squall of rain. When it cleared off she was nowhere to be seen. So, Peter, my poor boy, there’s no hope, I’m afeard, and we shall never see my old messmate or Ned Dore again.”
“Oh, Tom! Tom! You don’t mean to say that father’s gone!” I cried out.
“I’d sooner have lost another leg than have to say it,” answered the old man. “But it must be said notwithstanding, and now how are we to tell mother?”