"Old fool!" he said to himself, but kept an unmoved face and opened his snuff-box.
Young Seth came labouring into the courtyard, with Jim on his shoulder and Jack at his heels.
Sir Denzil never looked at them. He had eyes for nothing but old Mrs. Lee's face, which was hard-set and the colour of gray stone.
"What's happen't, Seth Rimmer?" she croaked as he came, peering through half-closed eyes at him and his burden.
"Sand-boat ran i' stick-sand. Nigh got 'im."
"Is hoo gone?"--as Seth laid the limp body on the table.
"Nay, I dunno' think hoo con be dead; but it wur sore wark getting' 'im out--nigh pooed 'im i' two--an' hoo swallowed a lot o' stuff."
"Hoo'll do," she said, after a quick examination. "Yo' leave 'im to me." And she "shooed" them all out of the kitchen and proceeded to maltreat Jim tenderly back to life.
"H'm!" said Sir Denzil disappointedly, as he climbed the stairs again--"a good chance missed! D--d fools all! . . . I wonder if Lady Susan's mother would have kept as quiet a face! . . . Well . . . The deuce take one of them! . . . Which doesn't matter."
Young Seth waited till the tide washed up over the quicksand, and then with assistance from the village dragged the _Gracie_ back to life and trundled her forlornly home. And Sir Denzil sent him out a guinea by Mr. Kennet--not for saving Jim's life, but for bringing back the means whereby one or other of his grandsons might still possibly come to a sudden end.
Jim, for the first time since he began to remember things, lay in bed for three whole days, but, thanks to Mrs. Lee's anointings and rubbings, suffered no further ill-effects from his adventure--except, indeed, many a horrible nightmare, in which he was perpetually sinking down into the clinging sands, with his hands and feet fast bound and the scum running into his mouth; from which he would awake with a howl which always woke Jack with a start, and the ensuing scrimmage had in it all the joy of new life.
Eager, when he hurried up to see Jim and hear all about it, exacted a promise from them both never to sail the _Gracie_ single-handed again, and was satisfied the promise would be kept.
Sir Denzil, hearing he was there, sent for him, and received him as usual.