o symptoms of animation, and it might only be the effect
produced by the applications--as he remained in the same state for
several hours. Fresh wood was added to the fire, and the boatmen having
returned to their vessel, Grace and I proceeded to keep watch during
the night, or until the arrival of a doctor. The poor old body, to whom
scenes such as this were matter of frequent occurrence, seemed to think
nothing of it, and proceeded to relate some of the wonderful escapes and
recoveries she had witnessed, in the course of which she dropped many
a sigh to the memory of some of her friends--the bold smugglers. There
were no such "braw lads" now as formerly, she said, and were it not that
"she was past eighty, and might as weel die in one place as anither,
she wad gang back to the bonny blue hulls (hills) of her ain canny
Scotland."
In the middle of one of her long stories I thought I perceived a
movement of the bedclothes, and, going to look, I found a considerable
increase in the quickness of pulsation, and also a generous sort of glow
upon the skin. "An' ded I no tell ye I wad recover him?" said she, with
a triumphant look. "Afore twa mair hours are o'er he'll spak to ye." "I
hope so, I'm sure," said I, still almost doubting her. "Oh, trust to
me," said she, "he'll come about--I've seen mony a chiel in a mickle
worse state nor him recovered. Pray, is the ould gintleman your father
or your grandfather?"
_Yorkshireman._ Why, I can't say that he's either exactly--but he's
always been as good as a grandmother to me, I know.
Grace was right. About three o'clock in the morning a sort of revulsion
of nature took place, and after having lain insensible, and to all
appearance lifeless, all that time, he suddenly began to move. Casting
his eye wildly around, he seemed lost in amazement. He muttered
something, but what it was I could not catch.
"Lush-crib again, by Jove!" were the first words he articulated, and
then, appearing to recollect himself, he added, "Oh, I forgot, I'm
drowned--well drowned, too--can't be help'd, however--wasn't born to be
hanged--and that seems clear." Thus he kept muttering and mumbling for
an hour, until old Grace thinking him so far recovered as to remove all
danger from sudden surprise, allowed me to take her seat at the bedside.
He looked at me long and intensely, but the light was not sufficiently
strong to enable him to make out who I was.
"Jorrocks!" at length said I, taking him by the
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