“It all seems very dreadful to me,” I said.

But the old fellow, though he nodded civilly in assent, had not understood me in the least.  This was clearly the only world with which he was acquainted; the one particular bit of earth whereupon fate had dropped him, as fertilizing seeds are dropped by wandering birds.  I daresay he is unable to realize any other sort of existence, excepting perhaps in some such vague way as you and I may think of those canal-diggers of Mars.  Close to us, to port, we passed a big rock that was jutting from the water and over which the long smooth seas washed, foaming with hissing sounds.

“He nigh ketched us, day I fetched doctor back to yer father,” Sammy informed me.  “Ye mind t’were a bit rough that day, and ye couldn’t tell yer hand afore yer face, hardly, t’were that thick, and tide she’d drawed us furder inshore ‘n I mistrusted.  The wind he were middlin’ high an’ gusty, too.  I don’t mind many sich hard times a-makin’ th’ cove.  We was sure glad enough ter get in.”

“I never thought of it in that way,” I exclaimed.  “It certainly was an awful afternoon, and it must have been horribly dangerous.”

“I telled ‘un afore startin’ as how t’were a bit of a job, an’ he asks me kin I make it, an’ I says I expect I kin, like enough, wid luck.  Then he tells me ter think o’ th’ old woman an’ th’ children, an’ I says it’s all right.  Frenchy he were willin’ too, so in course we started.”

Then, perhaps for the first time, I took a real long look at that doctor, who was sitting forward, perched on the head of a barrel.  He was laughing with Frenchy, and held the boy on his lap.  I decided that he belongs to a class that is familiar to us.  You know his kind, Aunt Jennie, keen of eye, full of quiet determination, and always moving forcibly, even if slowly, towards success.  We have seen lots of them on the football fields, at Corinthian yacht races, wherever big chaps are contending and care but little for the safety of their necks as long as they are playing the game.

To me the strangest thing about this man is that he appears to be thoroughly adapted to these surroundings, and yet would be equally at home in what we choose to call our set, just like that dear woman Mrs. Barnett.  I can’t help wondering what he is doing here, I mean apart from his obvious work which, in all conscience, appears to be hard enough.

He was pointing out something to the little boy, in the distance, so that I stared also and caught a puff of vapor above the water.

“It’s a whale, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yis, ma’am,” replied Sammy.  “It’s one o’ they big sulphur-bottoms.  Them little whaling steamers is mighty glad to get hold o’ that kind.  They grows awful big.  I’ve seed some shockin’ big fellows.”

“I’d like to see one caught.  It must be ever so exciting,” I said.

“There ain’t no whalin’ stations in these parts, but they tells me some of ’em ‘ll tow them little steamers miles and miles, even wid’ engine half speed astern.  Then other times they gits ’em killed first shot out o’ the gun.”