Doctor Luke of the Labrador by Norman Duncan (color ebook reader .txt) 📖

crushing the child to her bosom. "I heared un say it! 'Mama!' says he."

"When I have cured him," said the doctor, gently, "he will say more than that."

"What say?" she gasped.

"When I have taken--something--out of his throat--with my knife--he will be able to say much more than that. When he has grown a little older, he will say, 'Mama, I loves you!'"

The woman began to cry.

* * * * *


There is virtue for the city-bred, I fancy, in the clean salt air and simple living of our coast--and, surely, for every one, everywhere, a tonic in the performance of good deeds. Hard practice in fair and foul weather worked a vast change in the doctor. Toil and fresh air are eminent physicians. The wonder of salty wind and the hand-to-hand conflict with a northern sea! They gave him health, a clear-eyed, brown, deep-breathed sort of health, and restored a strength, broad-shouldered and lithe and playful, that was his natural heritage. With this new power came joyous courage, indomitability of purpose, a restless activity of body and mind. He no longer carried the suggestion of a wrecked ship; however afflicted his soul may still have been, he was now, in manly qualities, the man the good God designed--strong and bonnie and tender-hearted: betraying no weakness in the duties of the day. His plans shot far beyond our narrow prospect, shaming our blindness and timidity, when he disclosed them; and his interests--searching, insatiable, reflective--comprehended all that touched our work and way of life: so that, as Tom Tot was moved to exclaim, by way of an explosion of amazement, 'twas not long before he had mastered the fish business, gill, fin and liver. And he went about with hearty words on the tip of his tongue and a laugh in his gray eyes--merry the day long, whatever the fortune of it. The children ran out of the cottages to greet him as he passed by, and a multitude of surly, ill-conditioned dogs, which yielded the road to no one else, accepted him as a distinguished intimate. But still, and often--late in the night--my sister and I lay awake listening to the disquieting fall of his feet as he paced his bedroom floor. And sometimes I crept to his door--and hearkened--and came away, sad that I had gone.

* * * * *


When--autumn being come with raw winds and darkened days--the doctor said that he must go an errand south to St. John's and the Canadian cities before winter settled upon our coast, I was beset by melancholy fears that he would not return, but, enamoured anew of the glories of those storied harbours, would abandon us, though we had come to love him, with all our hearts. Skipper Tommy Lovejoy joined with my sister to persuade me out of these drear fancies: which (said they) were ill-conceived; for the doctor must depart a little while, else our plans for the new sloop and little hospital (and our defense against Jagger) would go all awry. Perceiving, then, that I would not be convinced, the doctor took me walking on the bald old Watchman, and there shamed me for mistrusting him: saying, afterwards, that though it might puzzle our harbour and utterly confound his greater world, which must now be informed, he had in truth cast his lot with us, for good and all, counting his fortune a happy one, thus to come at last to a little corner of the world where good impulses, elsewhere scrawny and disregarded, now flourished lustily in his heart. Then with delight I said that I would fly the big flag in welcome when the returning mail-boat came puffing through the Gate. And scampering down the Watchman went the doctor and I, hand in hand, mistrust fled, to the very threshold of my father's house, where my sister waited, smiling to know that all went well again.

Past ten o'clock of a dismal night we sat waiting for the mail-boat--unstrung by anxious expectation: made wretched by the sadness of the parting.

"There she blows, zur!" cried Skipper Tommy, jumping up. "We'd best get aboard smartly, zur, for she'll never come through the Gate this dirty night."

The doctor rose, and looked, for a strained, silent moment, upon my dear sister, but with what emotion, though it sounded the deeps of passion, I could not then conjecture. He took her hand in both of his, and held it tight, without speaking. She tried, dear heart! to meet his ardent eyes--but could not.

"I'm wishin' you a fine voyage, zur," she said, her voice fallen to a tremulous whisper.

He kissed the hand he held.

"T' the south," she added, with a swift, wondering look into his eyes, "an' back."

"Child," he began with feeling, "I----"

In some strange passion my sister stepped from him. "Call me that no more!" she cried, her voice broken, her eyes wide and moist, her little hands clinched. "Why, child!" the doctor exclaimed. "I----"

"I'm _not_ a child!"

The doctor turned helplessly to me--and I in bewilderment to my sister--to whom, again, the doctor extended his hands, but now with a frank smile, as though understanding that which still puzzled me.

"Sister----" said he.

"No, no!"

'Twas my nature, it may be, then to have intervened; but I was mystified and afraid--and felt the play of some great force, unknown and dreadful, which had inevitably cut my sister off from me, her brother, keeping her alone and helpless in the midst of it--and I quailed and kept silent.

"Bessie!"

She took his hand. "Good-bye, zur," she whispered, turning away, flushed.

"Good-bye!"

The doctor went out, with a new mark upon him; and I followed, still silent, thinking it a poor farewell my sister had given him, but yet divining, serenely, that all this was beyond the knowledge of lads. I did not know, when I bade the doctor farewell and Godspeed, that his heart tasted such bitterness as, God grant! the hearts of men do seldom feel, and that, nobility asserting itself, he had determined never again to return: fearing to bring my sister the unhappiness of love, rather than the joy of it. When I had put him safe aboard, I went back to the house, where I found my sister sorely weeping--not for herself, she sobbed, but for him, whom she had wounded.


XVIII

SKIPPER TOMMY GETS A LETTER

It came from the north, addressed, in pale, sprawling characters, to Skipper Tommy Lovejoy of our harbour--a crumpled, greasy, ill-odoured missive: little enough like a letter from a lady, bearing (as we supposed) a coy appeal to the tender passion. But----

"Ay, Davy," my sister insisted. "'Tis from _she_. Smell it for yourself."

I sniffed the letter.

"Eh, Davy?"

"Well, Bessie," I answered, doubtfully, "I'm not able t' call t' mind this minute just how she _did_. But I'm free t' say," regarding the streaks and thumb-marks with quick disfavour, "that it _looks_ a lot like her."

My sister smiled upon me with an air of loftiest superiority. "Smell it again," said she.

"Well," I admitted, after sniffing long and carefully, "I does seem t' have got wind o'----"

"There's no deceivin' a woman's nose," my sister declared, positively. "'Tis a letter from the woman t' Wolf Cove."

"Then," said I, with a frown, "we'd best burn it."

She mused a moment. "He never got a letter afore," she said, looking up.

"Not many folk has," I objected.

"He'd be wonderful proud," she continued, "o' just gettin' a letter."

"But she's a wily woman," I protested, in warning, "an' he's a most obligin' man. I fair shiver t' think o' leadin' un into temptation."

"'Twould do no harm, Davy," said she, "just t' _show_ un the letter."

"'Tis a fearful responsibility t' take."

"'Twould please un so!" she wheedled.

"Ah, well!" I sighed. "You're a wonderful hand at gettin' your own way, Bessie."

* * * * *


When the punts of our folk came sweeping through the tickles and the Gate, in the twilight of that day, I went with the letter to the Rat Hole: knowing that Skipper Tommy would by that time be in from the Hook-an'-Line grounds; for the wind was blowing fair from that quarter. I found the twins pitching the catch into the stage, with great hilarity--a joyous, frolicsome pair: in happy ignorance of what impended. They gave me jolly greeting: whereupon, feeling woefully guilty, I sought the skipper in the house, where he had gone (they said) to get out of his sea-boots.

I was not disposed to dodge the issue. "Skipper Tommy," said I, bluntly, "I got a letter for you."

He stared.

"'Tis no joke," said I, with a wag, "as you'll find, when you gets t' know where 'tis from; but 'tis nothin' t' be scared of."

"Was you sayin', Davy," he began, at last, trailing off into the silence of utter amazement, "that you--been--gettin'--a----"

"I was sayin'," I answered, "that the mail-boat left you a letter."

He came close. "Was you sayin'," he whispered in my ear, with a jerk of his head to the north, "that 'tis from----"

I nodded.

"_She?_"

"Ay."

He put his tongue in his cheek--and gave me a slow, sly wink. "Ecod!" said he.

I was then mystified by his strange behaviour: this occurring while he made ready for the splitting-table. He chuckled, he tweaked his long nose until it flared, he scratched his head, he sighed, he scowled, he broke into vociferous laughter; and he muttered "Ecod!" an innumerable number of times, voicing, thereby, the gamut of human emotions and the degrees thereof, from lowest melancholy to a crafty sort of cynicism and thence to the height of smug elation. And, presently, when he had peered down the path to the stage, where the twins were forking the fish, he approached, stepping mysteriously, his gigantic forefinger raised in a caution to hush.

"Davy," he whispered, "you isn't got that letter _aboard_ o' you, is you?"

My heart misgave me; but--I nodded.

"Well, well!" cried he. "I'm thinkin'," he added, his surprise somewhat mitigated by curiosity, "that you'll be havin' it in your jacket pocket."

"Ay," was my sharp reply; "but I'll not read it."

"No, no!" said he, severely, lifting a protesting hand, which he had now encased in a reeking splitting-mit. "I'd not _have_ you read it. Sure, I'd never 'low _that_! Was you thinkin', David Roth," now so reproachfully that my doubts seemed treasonable, "that I'd _want_ you to? Me--that nibbled once? Not I, lad! But as you _does_ happen t' have that letter in your jacket, you wouldn't mind me just takin' a _look_ at it, would you?"

I produced the crumpled missive--with a sigh: for the skipper's drift was apparent.

"My letter!" said he, gazing raptly. "Davy, lad, I'd kind o'--like t'--just t'--_feel_ it. They wouldn't be no hurt in me _holdin'_ it, would they?"

I passed it over.

"Now, Davy," he