CHAPTER XI
In Which Teddy Brisk Gives the Strains of a Tight Cove Ballad to the North Wind, Billy Topsail Wins the Reward of Daring, Cracker Finds Himself in the Way of the Evil-Doer, and Teddy Brisk's Boast Makes Doctor Luke Laugh
Stripped down, at first, on the field, Billy Topsail would not yield to the cold. He did not shrink from the wind. He moved like a man all clothed. Nor would he yield to the shock of the water. He ignored it. It was heroic self-command. But he was the man for that – a Newfoundlander. He struck out precisely as though he had gone into the summer water of Ruddy Cove. If he relapsed from this attitude the cold would strike through him. A chill would momentarily paralyze his strength.
He was neither a strong nor a cunning swimmer. In this lapse he would go down and be choked beyond further effort before he could recover the use of his arms and legs. It was icy cold. He would not think of the cold. His best protection against it was the sufficient will to ignore it. The power would not long endure. It must endure until he had clambered out of the water to the little pan towards which he floundered. He was slow in the water. It seemed to him that his progress was mysteriously prolonged – that the wind was driving the pan away.
The wind could not rise to this pitch in a minute; but when he was midway of the lane he thought half an hour had elapsed – an hour – that he must have left the field and the boy far behind.
The boy was not much more than fifteen yards away.
A word of advice occurred to Billy. He did not turn. He was then within a dozen strokes of the little pan.
He shouted:
"Give un a tune!"
Teddy Brisk dropped his crutch, fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, whipped out his mouth organ, clapped it to his lips, and blew a lively air:
Lukie's boat was painted green,
The finest boat that ever was seen;
Lukie's boat had cotton sails,
A juniper rudder and galvanized nails.
And he so profoundly astonished the dogs with these sudden, harmonious sounds, accompanied by the jerky movement of a crippled leg, designed to resemble a dance, and in itself shockingly suspicious – so profoundly astonished the dogs that they paused to reconsider the matter in hand.
It was startling. They sat up. Aha! What was this? What did it portend?
And the little boy wheezed away:
Lukie sailed her out one day,
A fine spell o' weather in the month o' May;
She leaked so bad when he put about,
He drove her ashore on the Tailor's Snout.
And he kept on blowing that famous jig-time ballad of Tight Cove for dear life until a tug at the line round his waist warned him to brace himself against the steady pull to follow.
Teddy was still giving the strains of Lukie's adventure to the north wind when the little pan came alongside.
"Carry on!" Billy Topsail chattered behind him.
Teddy interrupted himself to answer:
"Aye, sir!"
"I'll get my clothes an' the skins aboard. Ecod! It's awful cold!"
Presently they pushed out from the field. It had not taken long. The patch of white light that was the sun had not yet dropped out of sight behind the cliffs of the shore.
It was a bad night on the field to the south. The boys were hungry. It was cold. Billy Topsail suffered from the cold. In the morning the northerly wind had turned the heap of dogskin robes into a snowdrift. The sun shone. Billy was still cold. He shivered and chattered. He despaired. Rescue came, however, in the afternoon. It was the Tight Cove skiff, hailing now from Our Harbour, with Doctor Luke aboard.
The skiff from Come-Again Bight found the dogs. The dogs were wild – the men said – and would not come aboard, but ran off in a pack to the farthest limits of the field and were not seen again – save only Cracker, who fawned and jumped into the skiff without so much as a by-your-leave. And Cracker, in due course and according to custom, they hanged by the neck at Tight Cove until he was dead.
That day, however – the afternoon of the rescue – when the Tight Cove skiff came near, Teddy Brisk put his hands to his mouth and shouted – none too lustily:
"Ahoy!"
"Aye?" Skipper Thomas answered.
"Did my mother send you?"
"She did."
Teddy Brisk turned to Billy Topsail.
"Didn't I tell you," he sobbed, his eyes blazing, "that I knowed my mother's ways?"
And Doctor Luke laughed.
CHAPTER XII
In Which Billy Topsail's Agreeable Qualities Win a Warm Welcome with Doctor Luke at Our Harbour, There is an Explosion at Ragged Run, Tommy West Drops Through the Ice and Vanishes, and Doctor Luke is in a Way Never to Be Warned of the Desperate Need of His Services
In Doctor Luke's little hospital at Our Harbour, Billy Topsail fell in with a charming group – Doctor Luke and his friends; and being himself a boy of a good many attractive qualities, and of natural good manners, which association with his friend Archie Armstrong, of St. John's, Sir Archibald's son, had helped to fashion – being a manly, good-mannered, humorous fellow, he was very soon warmly accepted. There was no mystery about Doctor Luke. He was an Englishman – a well-bred, cultured man; and having been wrecked on the coast, and having perceived the great need of a physician in those parts, he had thrown in his lot for good and all with the Labrador folk. And he was obviously happy – both busy and happy. That he regretted his determination was a preposterous thing to assume; on the contrary, he positively did not regret it – he whistled and sang and laughed and laboured, and Billy Topsail was convinced that he was not only the most useful man in the world, but the most delightful and best, and the happiest, too.
That Doctor Luke was useful was very soon evident to an astonishing degree. Teddy Brisk's leg was scraped – it was eventually healed and became quite as sound as Billy Topsail's "off shank." But there was a period of convalescence, during which Billy Topsail had all the opportunity in the world to observe just how mightily useful Doctor Luke was. The demands upon him were extraordinary; and his response to them – his ready, cheerful, skillful, brave response – was more extraordinary still.
Winter was not yet done with: summer delayed – there was more snow, more frost; and the ice drifted in and out with the variable winds: so that travelling in those parts was at its most dangerous period. Yet Doctor Luke went about with small regard for what might happen – afoot, with the dogs, and in a punt, when the ice, having temporarily drifted away, left open water. Up and down the coast, near and far, always on the wing: that was Doctor Luke – the busiest, happiest, most useful man Billy Topsail had ever known.
And Billy Topsail was profoundly affected by all this beneficent activity. He wished to emulate it. This was a secret, to be sure; there was no reason for Billy Topsail to think that a fisherman's son like himself would ever be presented with the opportunity to "wield a knife" and be made master of the arts of healing – and consequently he said nothing about the growing ambition. But the ambition flourished.
When Doctor Luke returned from his professional calls with tales of illness cured and distress alleviated, and when Billy Topsail reflected that there would have been neither cure nor alleviation had it not been for Doctor Luke's skill and kindly heart, Billy Topsail wanted with all his strength to be about that selfsame business. And there was a good deal in the performance of it to appeal to a lad like Billy Topsail – the adventure of the thing: for Doctor Luke seldom counted the chances, when they seemed not too unreasonably against him, and when the need was urgent he did not count them at all.
Billy Topsail was just a little bit puzzled at first. Why should Doctor Luke do these things? There was no gain – no material gain worth considering; but it did not take Billy Topsail long to perceive that there was in fact great gain – far exceeding material gain: the satisfaction in doing a good deed for what Doctor Luke called "the love of God" and nothing else whatsoever. Doctor Luke was not attached to any Mission. His work was his own: his field was his own – nobody contributed to his activities; nobody helped him in any way. Yet his work was done in the spirit of the missionary; and that was what Billy Topsail liked about it – the masterful, generous, high-minded quality of it.
Being an honest, healthy lad, Billy Topsail set Doctor Luke in the hero's seat and began to worship, as no good boy could very well help doing; it was not long, indeed, before Doctor Luke had grown to be as great a hero as Sir Archibald Armstrong, Archie's father – and that is saying a good deal. In the lap of the future there lay some adventures in which Billy Topsail and Archie Armstrong were to be concerned; but Billy Topsail was not aware of that.
Billy Topsail was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet. Sometimes, however, he sighed:
"I wish Archie was here!"
And that wish was to come true.
Before Teddy Brisk was well enough to be sent home, something happened at Ragged Run Cove, which lay across Anxious Bight, near by the hospital at Our Harbour; and Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail were at once drawn into the consequences of the accident. It was March weather. There was sunshine and thaw. Anxious Bight was caught over with rotten ice from Ragged Run Cove to the heads of Our Harbour. A rumour of seals – a herd on the Arctic drift-ice offshore – had come in from the Spotted Horses. It inspired instant haste in all the cottages of Ragged Run – an eager, stumbling haste.
In Bad-Weather Tom West's wife's kitchen, somewhat after ten o'clock in the morning, in the midst of this hilarious scramble to be off to the floe, there was a flash and spit of fire, pale in the sunshine, and the clap of an explosion and the clatter of a sealing gun on the bare floor; and in the breathless, dead little interval, enduring between the appalling detonation and a man's groan of dismay and a woman's choke and scream of terror – in this shocked silence, Dolly West, Bad-Weather Tom's small maid, and Joe West's niece, stood swaying, wreathed in gray smoke, her little hands pressed tight to her eyes.
She was a pretty little creature – she had been a pretty little creature: there had been yellow curls, in the Labrador way – and rosy cheeks and grave blue eyes; but now of all this shy, fair loveliness —
"You've killed her!"
"Dear Lord – no!" cried Uncle Joe West, whose gun had exploded.
Dolly dropped her hands. She reached out, then, for something to grasp.
And she plainted:
"I ithn't dead, mother. I juth' – I juth' can't thee."
She extended her red hands.
"They're all wet!" she complained.
By this time the mother had the little girl gathered close in her arms.
She moaned:
"Doctor Luke – quick!"
Tommy West caught up his cap and mittens and sprang to the door.
"Not by the Bight!" Joe West shouted.
"No, sir."
Dolly West whimpered:
"It thmart-th, mother!"
"By Mad Harry an' Thank-the-Lord!"
"Ay, sir."
Dolly screamed – now:
"It hurt-th! Oh, oh, it hurt-th!"
"An' haste, lad!"
"Ay, sir."
There was of course no doctor at Ragged Run; there was a doctor, Doctor Luke, at Our Harbour, however – across Anxious Bight. Tommy West avoided the rotten ice of the Bight, which he dared not cross, and took the 'longshore trail by way of Mad Harry and Thank-the-Lord. At noon he was past Mad Harry, his little legs wearing well and his breath coming easily through his expanded nostrils – he had not paused; and at four o'clock – still on a dog-trot – he had hauled down the chimney smoke of Thank-the-Lord and was bearing up for Our Harbour. Early dusk caught him short-cutting the doubtful ice of Thank-the-Lord Cove; and half an hour later, midway of the passage to Our Harbour, with two miles left to accomplish – dusk falling thick and cold, then, and a frosty wind blowing – the heads of Our Harbour looming black and solid in the wintry night beyond – he dropped through the ice and vanished. There was not a sign of him left – some bubbles, perhaps: nothing more.
CHAPTER XIII
In Which Doctor Luke Undertakes a Feat of Daring and Endurance and Billy Topsail Thinks Himself the Luckiest Lad in the World
Returning from a call at Tumble Tickle, in clean, sunlit weather, with nothing more tedious than eighteen miles of wilderness trail and rough floe ice behind him, Doctor Luke was chagrined to discover himself a bit fagged. He had come heartily down the trail from Tumble Tickle in the early hours of that fine, windy morning, fit and eager for the trudge – as a matter of course; but on the ice, in the shank of the day – there had been eleven miles of the floe – he had lagged. A man cannot practice medicine out of a Labrador outport harbour and not know what it means to stomach a physical exhaustion. Doctor Luke had been tired before. He was not disturbed by that. But being human, he looked forward to rest; and in the drear, frosty dusk, when he rounded the heads of Home, opened the lights of Our Harbour, and caught the warm, yellow gleam of the lamp in the surgery window, he was glad to be near his supper and his bed.
And so he told Billy Topsail, whom he found in the surgery, replenishing the fire.
"Ha, Billy!" said he. "I'm glad to be home."
Afterwards, when supper had been disposed of, and Doctor Luke was with Billy in the surgery, the rest of the family being elsewhere occupied, there was a tap on the surgery door. Doctor Luke called: "Come in!" – with some wonder as to the event. It was no night to be abroad on the ice. Yet the tap on the surgery door could mean but one thing – somebody was in trouble; and as he called "Come in!" and while he waited for the door to open, Doctor Luke considered the night and wondered what strength he had left.
A youngster – he had been dripping wet and was now sparkling all over with frost and ice in the light of the surgery lamp – intruded.
"Thank-the-Lord Cove?"
"No, sir."
"Mad Harry?"
"Ragged Run, sir."
"Bad-Weather West's lad?"
"Yes, sir."
"Been in the water?"
The boy grinned. He was ashamed of himself. "Yes, sir. I falled through the ice, sir."
"Come across the Bight?"
The boy stared. "No, sir. A cat couldn't cross the Bight the night, sir. 'Tis all rotten. I come alongshore by Mad Harry an' Thank-the-Lord. I dropped through all of a sudden, sir, in Thank-the Lord Cove."
"Who's sick?"
"Uncle Joe's gun went off, sir."
Doctor Luke rose. "Uncle Joe's gun went off! Who was in the way?"
"Dolly, sir."
"And Dolly in the way! And Dolly – "
"She've gone blind, sir. An' her cheek, sir – an' one ear, sir – "
"What's the night?"
"Blowin' up, sir. There's a scud. An' the moon – "
"You didn't cross the Bight? Why not?"
"'Tis rotten from shore t' shore. I'd not try the Bight, sir, the night."
"No?"
"No, sir." The boy was very grave.
"Mm-m."
All this while Doctor Luke had been moving about the surgery in sure haste – packing a waterproof case with little instruments and vials and what-not. And now he got quickly into his boots and jacket, pulled down his coonskin cap, pulled up his sealskin gloves, handed Bad-Weather West's boy over to the family for supper and bed, and was about to close the surgery door upon himself when Billy Topsail interrupted him.
"I say, sir!"
Doctor Luke halted.
"Well, Billy?"
"Take me, sir! Won't you?"
"What for?"
"I wants t' go."
"I go the short way, Billy."
"Sure, you does! I knows you, sir!"
Doctor Luke laughed.
"Come on!" said he.
Billy Topsail thought himself the luckiest lad in the world. And perhaps he was.
CHAPTER XIV
In Which Billy Topsail and Doctor Luke Take to the Ice in the Night and Doctor Luke Tells Billy Topsail Something Interesting About Skinflint Sam and Bad-Weather Tom West of Ragged Run
Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail took to the harbour ice and drove head down into the gale. There were ten miles to go. It was to be a night's work. They settled themselves doggedly to the miles. It was a mile and a half to the Head, where the Tickle led a narrow way from the shelter of Our Harbour to Anxious Bight and the open sea; and from the lee of the Head – a straightaway across Anxious Bight – it was nine miles to Blow-me-Down Dick of Ragged Run Cove. Doctor Luke had rested but three hours. It was but a taste. Legs and feet were bitterly unwilling to forego a sufficient rest. They complained of the interruption. They were stiff and sore and sullen. It was hard to warm them to their labour. Impatient to revive the accustomed comfort and glow of strength, Doctor Luke began to run.
Presently they slowed up. Doctor Luke told Billy Topsail, as they pushed on, something about the Ragged Run family they were to visit. "There is a small trader at Ragged Run," said he. "A strange mixture of conscience and greed he is. Skinflint Sam – they call him. Conscience? Oh, yes, he has a conscience! And his conscience – as he calls it – has made him rich as riches go in these parts. No, of course not! You wouldn't expect a north-coast trader to have a conscience; and you wouldn't expect a north-coast trader with a conscience to be rich!"
Billy Topsail agreed with this.
"Ah, well," Doctor Luke went on, "conscience is much like the wind. It blows every which way (as they say); and if a man does but trim his sails to suit, he can bowl along in any direction without much wear and tear of the spirit. Skinflint Sam bowled along, paddle-punt fisherman to Ragged Run merchant. Skinflint went where he was bound for, wing-and-wing to the breeze behind, and got there with his peace of mind showing never a sign of the weather. It is said that the old man has an easy conscience and ten thousand dollars!
"This Bad-Weather West vowed long ago that he would even scores with Skinflint Sam before he could pass to his last harbour with any satisfaction.
"'With me, Tom?' said Sam. 'That's a saucy notion for a hook-an'-line man.'
"'Ten more years o' life,' said Tom, 'an' I'll square scores.'
"'Afore you evens scores with me, Tom,' said Sam, 'you'll have t' have what I wants.'
"'I may have it.'
"'An' also,' said Sam, 'what I can't get.'
"'There's times,' said Tom, 'when a man stands in sore need o' what he never thought he'd want.'
"'When you haves what I needs,' said Sam, 'I'll pay what you asks.'
"'If 'tis for sale,' said Tom.
"'Money talks,' said Sam.
"'Ah, well,' said Tom, 'maybe it don't speak my language.'
"Of course, Skinflint Sam's conscience is just as busy as any other man's conscience. I think it troubles Sam. It doesn't trouble him to be honest, perhaps; it troubles him only to be rich. And possibly it gives him no rest. When trade is dull – no fish coming into Sam's storehouses and no goods going out of Sam's shop – Sam's conscience makes him grumble and groan. They say a man never was so tortured by conscience before.
"And to ease his conscience Sam goes over his ledgers by night; and he will jot down a gallon of molasses here, and a pound of tea there, until he has made a good day's trade of a bad one. 'Tis simple enough, too: for Sam gives out no accounts, but just strikes his balances to please his greed, at the end of the season, and tells his dealers how much they owe him or how little he owes them."
Doctor Luke paused.
"Ay," said Billy Topsail. "I've seed that way o' doin' business."
"We all have, Billy," said Doctor Luke. And resumed: "In dull times Sam's conscience irks him into overhauling his ledgers. 'Tis otherwise in seasons of plenty. But Sam's conscience apparently keeps pricking away just the same – aggravating Sam into getting richer and richer. There is no rest for Skinflint Sam. Skinflint Sam must have all the money he can take by hook and crook or suffer the tortures of an evil conscience. And as any other man, Sam must ease that conscience or lose sleep o' nights.
"And so in seasons of plenty up goes the price of tea at Skinflint Sam's shop. And up goes the price of pork. And up goes the price of flour. All sky high, ecod! Never was such harsh times (says Sam); why, my dear man, up St. John's way (says he) you couldn't touch tea nor pork nor flour with a ten-foot sealing-gaff. And no telling what the world is coming to, with prices soaring like a gull in a gale and all the St. John's merchants chary of credit!
"''Tis awful times for us poor traders,' says Sam. 'No tellin' who'll weather this here panic. I'd not be surprised if we got a war out of it.'
"Well, now, as you know, Billy, on the north-coast in these days it isn't much like the big world beyond. Folk don't cruise about. They are too busy. And they are not used to it anyhow. Ragged Run folk are not born at Ragged Run, raised at Rickity Tickle, married at Seldom-Come-By, aged at Skeleton Harbour and buried at Run-By-Guess. They are born and buried at Ragged Run. So what the fathers think at Ragged Run, the sons think; and what the sons know, has been known by the old men for a good many years.
"Nobody is used to changes. They are shy of changes. New ways are fearsome. And so the price of flour is a mystery. It is, anyhow. Why it should go up and down at Ragged Run is beyond any man of Ragged Run to fathom. When Skinflint Sam says that the price of flour is up – well, then, it is up; and that's all there is about it. Nobody knows better. And Skinflint Sam has the flour. You know all about that sort of thing, don't you, Billy?"
"Ay, sir," Billy replied. "But I been helpin' the clerk of an honest trader."
"There are honest traders. Of course! Not Sam, though. And, as I was saying, Sam has the pork, as well as the flour. And he has the sweetness and the tea. And he has the shoes and the clothes and the patent medicines. And he has the twine and the salt. And he has almost all the cash there is at Ragged Run. And he has the schooner that brings in the supplies and carries away the fish to the St. John's markets.
"He is the only trader at Ragged Run. His storehouses and shop are jammed with the things that the folk of Ragged Run can't do without and are able to get nowhere else. So all in all, Skinflint Sam can make trouble for the folk that make trouble for him. And the folk grumble. But it is all they have the courage to do. And Skinflint Sam lets them grumble away. The best cure for grumbling (says he) is to give it free course. If a man can speak out in meeting (says he) he will work no mischief in secret.
"'Sea-lawyers, eh?' says Sam. 'Huh! What you fellers want, anyhow? Huh? You got everything now that any man could expect. Isn't you housed? Isn't you fed? Isn't you clothed? Isn't you got a parson and a schoolmaster? I believes you wants a doctor settled in the harbour! A doctor! An' 'tisn't two years since I got you your schoolmaster! Queer times we're havin' in the outports these days with every harbour on the coast wantin' a doctor within hail.
"'You're well enough done by at Ragged Run. None better nowhere. An' why? Does you ever think o' that? Why? Because I got my trade here. An' think o' me! If ar a one o' you had my brain-labour t' do, you'd soon find out what harsh labour was like. What with bad debts, an' roguery, an' failed seasons, an' creditors t' St. John's, I'm hard put to it t' keep my seven senses. An' small thanks I gets – me that keeps this harbour alive in famine an' plenty. 'Tis the business I haves that keeps you. You make trouble for my business, an' you'll come t' starvation! Now, you mark me!'
"I do not want you to think too harshly of Skinflint Sam. No doubt he has his good points. Most of us can discover a good point or two in ourselves and almost everybody else. There are times when Skinflint Sam will yield an inch. Oh, yes! I've known Skinflint Sam to drop the price of stick-candy when he had put the price of flour too high for anybody's comfort."