They all knew that Dr. Grant was very ill, and were gathered there with
anxious faces. They simply looked worried to death. Isn't it wonderful,
Aunt Jennie, how some people have the faculty of causing themselves to be
loved by every one? Of course, his coming here has been such a great
thing for these poor fishermen that they have learned to regard him as
their best friend, one whose loss would be a frightful calamity. He
certainly has never spared himself in their behalf.

Mr. Barnett stopped to shake hands with a few of them, and I heard little
bits of their talk, which made me feel very unhappy.

"I jist seen Frenchy little whiles ago," one of them was saying, "and
they wuz tears runnin' erlong the face o' he. Yes, man, he were cryin'
like a young 'un, though some does say as his bye be better. Things must
sure be awful bad with th' doctor."

The fisherman brandished his splitting knife as he spoke, and, with his
torn oilskins dripping with blood and slime he was a terrible-looking
figure, until his arms fell to his side and he stood there, an abject
picture of dejection.

Then I heard a woman's voice. She is a poor thing whose husband and two
sons were "ketched" last year, as they say, by these dreadful seas, and
some think that her brain is a little affected.

"I mistrust as they is times when th' Lord 'Un's kept too busy ter be
tendin' ter all as needs Him bad," she cried.

"Hush, woman!" an old man reproved her. "Ye'll be temptin' the wrath o'
God on all of us wid sich talkin's."