"How do you do?" Tristan greeted when they were introduced. He wondered if Crane was friends with the man and how that had happened or if he was just kind enough to assist a stranger. It wouldn't surprise him with all he'd heard about him.

"And how long would you estimate you've had this cough?" He glanced briefly at Crane, in case the man knew the patient well enough to verify.

The man looked strong at least, even though he was rather pale and looked tired. Many of the fisherfolk looked older than they were, Tristan knew by now. And no wonder with the work they did and the conditions in which they lived. He had been spared the slums of Leeds, but had heard enough to dread them. But some of Whitby's yards too were entirely unsanitary. The work he did for Douglas confronted him with damp, overcrowded housing, where consumption, typhoid and other disease spread like wildfire. Even if it wasn't consumption, many of those people had poor lungs. And there was no point in giving them the best medical advice. They did not have the luxury of changing the smoke and damp for the clean air of the country side, or of airing their rooms and still being able to heat them up properly afterwards. Nor did they have gardens with clean air where they could hang out their laundry. He had not seen that many newborns die earlier in his career.