. . .I’ll no’ get better anyway.’  And then, with a moan that went to my heart, ‘O why did I come upon this miserable journey?’

I was reminded of the song which I had heard a little while before in the close, tossing steerage: ‘O why left I my hame?’

Meantime Jones, relieved of his immediate charge, had gone off to the galley, where we could see a light.  There he found a belated cook scouring pans by the radiance of two lanterns, and one of these he sought to borrow.  The scullion was backward.  ‘Was it one of the crew?’ he asked.  And when Jones, smitten with my theory, had assured him that it was a fireman, he reluctantly left his scouring and came towards us at an easy pace, with one of the lanterns swinging from his finger.  The light, as it reached the spot, showed us an elderly man, thick-set, and grizzled with years; but the shifting and coarse shadows concealed from us . . . Read More