out of his
bed."

"Delighted to see you so well. Very near drowned, though. We were
pumping at your lungs for a full half hour."

"Ah? nothing, though, for an experienced professional man like you!"

"Hum! speaks well for your discrimination," says Heale, flattered.
"Very well-spoken young person, though his beard is a bit wild.--How
did you know, then, that I was a doctor?"

"By the reverend looks of you, sir. Besides, I smelt the rhubarb
and senna all the way up-stairs, and knew that I'd fallen among
professional brethren;--

"'Oh, then this valiant mariner,
Which sailed across the sea,
He came home to his own sweetheart,
With his heart so full of glee;

With his heart so full of glee, sir,
And his pockets full of gold,
And his bag of drugget, with many a nugget,
As heavy as he could hold.'

"Don't you wish yours was, Doctor?"

"Eh, eh, eh," sniggered Heale.

"Mine was last night. Now, Doctor, let's have a glass of
brandy-and-water, hot with, and an hour's more sleep; and then kick
me out, and into the workhouse. Was anybody else saved from the wreck
last night?"

"Nobody, sir," said Heale; and said "sir," because, in spite of the
stranger's rough looks, his accent,--or rather, his no-accent,--showed
him that he had fallen in with a very different, and probably a very
superior stamp of man to himself; in the light of which conviction
(and being withal a good-natured old soul), he went down and mixed him
a stiff glass of brandy-and water, answering his wife's remonstrances
by--

"The party up-stairs is a bit of a frantic party, certainly; but he is
certainly a very superior party, and has the true gentleman about him,
any one can see. Besides, he's shipwrecked, as you and I may be any
day; and what's like brandy-and-water?"

"I should like to know when I'm like to be shipwrecked, or you
either;" says Mrs. Heale, in a tone slightly savouring of indignation
and contempt. "You think of nothing but brandy-and-water." But she let
the doctor take the glass upstairs, nevertheless.

A few minutes afterwards, Frank came in, and inquired for the
shipwrecked man.

"Well enough in body, sir; and rather requires your skill than mine,"
said the old time-server. "Won't you walk up?"

So up Frank was shown.

The stranger was sitting up in bed. "Capital, your brandy is,
Doctor,--Ah, sir," seeing Frank, "it is very kind of you, I am sure,
to call on me! I presume you are the clergyman?"