By the time Jack had had his tea a comfortable glow had come over him. Now that it was all over he felt bruised and stiff from the buffeting he had gone through, and after half an hour's chat with his mother and sister, in which he told them more fully the events of the wreck, he turned into bed and slept soundly till the morning. Captain Murchison, for that was his name, came round half an hour after Jack had gone up to bed to ask him to go round to the inn, as the ladies wished to see him and thank him for his share in rescuing them, but on hearing that he had gone up to bed asked his mother to request him to come round in the morning at ten o'clock. "You have reason to be proud of your son, Mrs. Robson," he said. "His leaping over in such a sea as that to get hold of the line from our ship was a most gallant action." "He told me the line was tied round him, sir, so that there was no danger in it at all." "There is always danger in such a business as that, Mrs. Robson. The force of the waves in shallow water is tremendous, and will beat a man to death if they do not drown him. Then there is the difficulty of his getting on board again when a vessel is rolling and pitching so tremendously, and the danger of his being struck by a piece of drift-wood from the wreck. I can assure you that it was a very grand action, whatever your son may have told you about it." The next morning the gale was still blowing fiercely, although with less strength than on the previous day. Jack had heard from his mother of his appointment to go to the "Ship" with much discontent, and had at first positively refused to go. "I hate going up to see strange people, mother, anyhow; and I am sure that I do not want to be thanked. I am glad enough to have had a share in saving all their lives, but of course it was all Uncle Ben and Tom's handling the boat that did it; I had nothing to do with it whatever, except that little swim with the rope tied safely round me. Why, it was nothing to that affair that I had with Bill and Joe Corbett." "But you must go, Jack; the ladies naturally wish to thank you for what you did for them, and whether you like it or not you must go. It would be very rude and uncivil not to do so. They would be sure to send round here if you did not come, and what should I say except that you were so unmannerly that you would not go." Jack twisted himself on his chair uncomfortably.