""Tis a wild night," said I: in my heart doubting--and that with shame--that the doctor would venture out upon the open sea in a gale of wind.
""Tis _not_ very civil," said the skipper frankly. "I"m free t" say," in a drawl, "that "tis--well--rather--dirty."
"An" he isn"t got used t" sailin" yet. But----"
"No?" in mild wonder. "Isn"t he, now? Well, we got a stout little skiff.
Once she gets past the Thirty Devils, she"ll maybe make Wreck Cove, all right--if she"s handled proper. Oh, she"ll maybe make it if----"
"Davy!" my sister called from above. "Do you take the men through t" the kitchen. I"ll rouse the doctor an" send the maids down t" make tea."
"Well, now, thank you kindly, miss," Skipper Tom called up to the landing. "That"s wonderful kind."
It was a familiar story--told while the sleepy maids put the kettle on the fire and the fury of the gale increased. "Twas the schooner _Lucky Fisherman_, thirty tons, Tom Lisson master, hailing from Burnt Harbour of the Newfoundland Green Bay, and fishing the Labrador at Wreck Cove, with a tidy catch in the hold and four traps in the water. There had been a fine run o" fish o" late; an" Bill Sparks, the splitter--with a brood of ten children to grow fat or go hungry on the venture--labouring without sleep and by the light of a flaring torch, had stabbed his right hand with a fish bone. The old, old story--now so sadly threadbare to me--of ignorance and uncleanliness! The hand was swollen to a wonderful size and grown wonderful angry--the man gone mad of pain--the crew contemplating forcible amputation with an axe. Wonderful sad the mail-boat doctor wasn"t nowhere near! Wonderful sad if Bill Sparks must lose his hand! Bill Sparks was a wonderful clever hand with the splittin"-knife--able t" split a wonderful sight o" fish a minute.
Wonderful sad if Bill Sparks"s family was to be throwed on the gov"ment all along o" Bill losin" his right hand! Wonderful sad if poor Bill Sparks----
The doctor entered at that moment. "Who is asking for me?" he demanded, sharply.
"Well," Skipper Tom drawled, rising, "we was thinkin" we"d sort o" like t" see the doctor."
"I am he," the doctor snapped. "Yes?" inquiringly.
"We was wonderin", doctor," Skipper Tom answered, abashed, "what you"d charge t" go t" Wreck Cove an"--an"--well, use the knife on a man"s hand."
"Charge? Nonsense!"
"We"d like wonderful well," said the skipper, earnestly, "t" have you----"
"But--_to-night_!"
"You see, zur," said the skipper, gently, "he"ve wonderful pain, an"
he"ve broke everything breakable that we got, an" we"ve got un locked in the fo"c"s"le, an"----"
"Where"s Wreck Cove?"
""Tis t" the s"uth"ard, zur," one of the men put in. "Some twelve miles beyond the Thirty Devils."
The doctor opened the kitchen door and stepped out. There was no doubt about the weather. A dirty gale was blowing. Wind and rain drove in from the black night; and, under all the near and petty noises, sounded the great, deep roar of breakers.
"Hear that?" he asked, excitedly, closing the door against the wind.
"Ay," the skipper admitted; "as I was tellin" the young feller, it _isn"t_ so _very_ civil."
"Civil!" cried the doctor.
"No; not so civil that it mightn"t be a bit civiller; but, now----"
"And twelve miles of open sea!"
"No, zur--no; not accordin" t" my judgment. Eleven an" a half, zur, would cover it."
The doctor laughed.
"An", as I was sayin", zur," the skipper concluded, pointedly, "we just come through it."
My sister and I exchanged anxious glances: then turned again to the doctor--who continued to stare at the floor.
"Just," one of the crew repeated, blankly, for the silence was painful, "come through it."
The doctor looked up. "Of course, you know," he began, quietly, with a formal smile, "I am not--accustomed to this sort of--professional call.
It--rather--takes my breath away. When do we start?"
Skipper Tom took a look at the weather. "Blowin" up wonderful," he observed, quietly, smoothing his long hair, which the wind had put awry.
"Gets real dirty long about the Thirty Devils in the dark. Don"t it, Will?"
Will said that it did--indeed, it did--no doubt about that, _what_ever.
"I s"pose," the skipper drawled, in conclusion, "we"d as lief get underway at dawn."
"Very good," said the doctor. "And--you were asking about my fee--were you not? You"ll have to pay, you know--if you can--for I believe in--that sort of thing. Could you manage three dollars?"
"We was "lowin"," the skipper answered, "t" pay about seven when we sold the v"y"ge in the fall. "Tis a wonderful bad hand Bill Sparks has got."
"Let it be seven," said the doctor, quickly. "The balance may go, you know, to help some poor devil who hasn"t a penny. Send it to me in the fall if----"
The skipper looked up in mild inquiry.
"Well," said the doctor, with a nervous smile, "if we"re all here, you know."
"Oh," said the skipper, with a large wave of the hand, "_that"s G.o.d"s_ business."
They put out at dawn--into a sea as wild as ever I knew an open boat to brave. The doctor bade us a merry good-bye; and he waved his hand, shouting that which the wind swept away, as the boat darted off towards South Tickle. My sister and I went to the heads of Good Promise to watch the little craft on her way. The clouds were low and black--torn by the wind--driving up from the southwest like mad: threatening still heavier weather. We followed the skiff with my father"s gla.s.s--saw her beat bravely on, reeling through the seas, smothered in spray--until she was but a black speck on the vast, angry waste, and, at last, vanished altogether in the spume and thickening fog. Then we went back to my father"s house, prayerfully wishing the doctor safe voyage to Wreck Cove; and all that day, and all the next, while the gale still blew, my sister was nervous and downcast, often at the window, often on the heads, forever sighing as she went about the work of the house. And when I saw her thus distraught and colourless--no warm light in her eyes--no bloom on her dimpled cheeks--no merry smile lurking about the corners of her sweet mouth--I was fretted beyond description; and I determined this: that when the doctor got back from Wreck Cove I should report her case to him, whether she liked it or not, with every symptom I had observed, and entreat him, by the love and admiration in which I held him, to cure her of her malady, whatever the cost.
On the evening of the third day, when the sea was gone down and the wind was blowing fair and mild from the south, I sat with my sister at the broad window, where was the outlook upon great hills, and upon sombre water, and upon high, glowing sky--she in my mother"s rocker, placidly sewing, as my mother used to do, and I pitifully lost in my father"s armchair, covertly gazing at her, in my father"s way.
"Is you better, this even, sister, dear?" I asked.
"Oh, ay," she answered, vehemently, as my mother used to do. "Much better."
"You"re wonderful poorly."
""Tis true," she said, putting the thread between her white little teeth. "But," the strand now broken, "though you"d not believe it, Davy, dear, I"m feeling--almost--nay, quite--well."
I doubted it. ""Tis a strange sickness," I observed, with a sigh.
"Yes, Davy," she said, her voice falling, her lips pursed, her brows drawn down. "I"m not able t" make it out, at all. I"m feelin"--so wonderful--queer."
"Is you, dear?"