Doctor Luke of the Labrador

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* * * * *

But I was a child--only a child--living in the shadow of some great
sorrow, which, though I did not know it, had pressed close upon us.
There flashed before me a vision of my mother lying wan and white on
the pillows. And I turned on my face and began to cry.

"Davy, lad!" said the skipper, tenderly, seeking to lift my head. "Hush,
lad! Don't cry!"

But I sobbed the harder.

"Ah, Davy," the twins pleaded, "stop cryin'! Do, now!"

Skipper Tommy took me on his knee; and I hid my face on his breast, and
lay sobbing hopelessly, while he sought to sooth me with many a pat and
"Hush!" and "Never mind!"

"I'm wantin' t' go home," I moaned.

He gathered me closer in his arms. "Do you stay your grief, Davy," he
whispered, "afore you goes."

"I'm wantin' t' go home," I sobbed, "t' my mother!"

Timmie and Jacky came near, and the one patted my hand, and the other
put an arm around me.

"Sure, the twins 'll take you home, Davy," said the skipper, softly,
"when you stops cryin'. Hush, lad! Hush, now!"

They were tender with me, and I was comforted; my sobs soon ceased, but
still I kept my head against the skipper's breast. And while there I
lay, there came from the sea--from the southwest in a lull of the
wind--breaking into the tender silence--the blast of a steam whistle,
deep, full-throated, prolonged.

"Hist!" whispered Jacky. "Does you not hear?"

Skipper Tommy stood me on my feet, and himself slowly rose, listening
intently.

"Lads," he asked, his voice shaking, "was it the mail-boat?"

"No, zur!" the twins gasped.

"Is you sure?"

"'Tis not the way she blows, zur!"

"'Tis surely not she," the skipper mused. "In the sou'west she'd be out
of her course. Hark!"

Once more the long, hoarse roar broke the silence, but now rising again
and again, agonized, like a cry for help.

"Dear Lard!" skipper Tommy cried, putting his hands to his face. "'Tis a
big steamer on the Thirty Black Devils!"

"A wreck!" shouted Jacky, leaping for his jacket. "A wreck! A wreck!"

Distraction seized the skipper. "'Tis a wreck!" he roared. "My boots,
lads! Wreck! Wreck!"

We lads went mad. No steamer had been wrecked on the coast in our time.
There were deeds to do! There was salvage to win!

"Wreck!" we screamed. "Wreck! Wreck! Wreck!"

Then out we four ran. It was after dark. The vault was black. But the
wind had turned the fog to thin mist. The surrounding hills stood
disclosed--solid shadows in the night. Half a gale was blowing from the
sea: it broke over the hills; it swooped from the inky sky; it swept
past in long, clinging gusts. We breasted it heads down. The twins
raised the alarm. Wreck! Wreck! Folk joined us as we ran. They were in
anxious haste to save life. They were gleeful with the hope of salvage.
What the sea casts up the Lord provides! Wreck! Wreck! Far-off cries
answered us. The cottage windows were aglow. Lanterns danced over the
flakes. Lights moved over the harbour water. Wreck! Wreck! On we
stumbled. Our feet struck the road with thud and scrape. Our lanterns
clattered and buzzed and fluttered. Wreck! Wreck! We plunged down the
last hill and came gasping to my father's wharf.

Most of our folk were already vigorously underway towards South Tickle.

"Lives afore salvage, lads!" my father shouted from his punt.

My sister caught my arm.

"'Tis a big steamer, Bessie!" I cried, turning.

"Ay," she said, hurriedly. "But do you go stay with mother, Davy. She've
sent me t' Tom Turr's by the path. They're t' fetch the wrecked folk
there. Make haste, lad! She've been left alone."

I ran up the path to our house.

X

THE FLIGHT

It was late in the night. My mother and I sat alone in her dim-lit room.
We were waiting--both waiting. And I was waiting for the lights of the
returning punts.

"Davy!" my mother called. "You are still there?"

"Ay, mother," I answered. "I'm still sittin' by the window, lookin'
out."

"I am glad, dear," she sighed, "that you are here--with me--to-night."

She craved love, my love; and my heart responded, as the knowing hearts
of children will.

"Ah, mother," I said, "'tis lovely t' be sittin' here--all alone with
you!"

"Don't, Davy!" she cried, catching her breath. "I'm not able to bear the
joy of it. My heart----"

"'Tis so," I persisted, "'cause I loves you so!"

"But, oh, I'm glad, Davy!" she whispered. "I'm glad you love your
mother. And I'm glad," she added, softly, "that you've told me
so--to-night."

By and by I grew drowsy. My eyes would not stay open. And I fell asleep
with my head on the window-sill. I do not know how long I slept.

"Davy!" my mother called.

"Ay?" I answered, waking. "Sure, I been asleep!"

"But you're not wanting to go to bed?" she asked, anxiously. "You'll not
leave your mother all alone, will you?"

"No, no, mama!"

"No," she said. "Do not leave your mother, now."

Again I fell asleep. It may be that I wasted a long, long time in sleep.

"Davy!" she called.

I answered. And, "I cannot stay awake," I said. "Sure, 'tis quite past
me t' do it, for I'm so wonderful sleepy."

"Come closer," she said. "Tired lad!" she went on, when she had my hand
in hers. "Sleepy head! Lie down beside me, dear, and go to sleep. I'm
not afraid--not afraid, at all--to be left alone. Oh, you're so tired,
little lad! Lie down and sleep. For your mother is very brave--to-night.
And tell your father, Davy--when he comes and wakes you--and tell your
sister, too--that your mother was happy, oh, very happy and brave,
when...."

"When you fell asleep?" I asked.

"Yes," she answered, in a voice so low I could but hear it. "That I was
happy when--I fell asleep."

I pulled off my jacket.

"I'm wanting to hear you say your prayers, Davy," she said, "before you
go to sleep. I'm wanting once again--just once again--to hear you say
your prayers."

I knelt beside the bed.

"My little son!" my mother said. "My--little--son!"

"My mother!" I responded, looking up.

She lifted my right hand. "Dear Jesus, lover of children," she prayed,
"take, oh, take this little hand!"

And I began to say my prayers, while my mother's fingers wandered
tenderly through my curls, but I was a tired child, and fell asleep as I
prayed. And when I awoke, my mother's hand lay still and strangely heavy
on my head.

* * * * *

Then the child that was I knew that his mother was dead. He leaped from
his knees with a broken cry, and stood expectant, but yet in awe,
searching the dim, breathless room for a beatified figure, white-robed,
winged, radiant, like the angel of the picture by his bed, for he
believed that souls thus took their flight; but he saw only shadows.

"Mama," he whispered, "where is you?"

There was no answer to the child's question. The risen wind blew wildly
in the black night without. But it was still dim and breathless in the
room.

"Mama," said the child, "is your soul hidin' from me?"

Still the child was left unanswered. He waited, listening--but was not
answered.

"Don't hide," he pleaded. "Oh, don't hide, for I'm not wantin' to play!
Oh, mother, I'm wantin' you sore!"

And, now, he knew that she would come, for, "I'm wantin' you, mother!"
he had been used to crying in the night, and she had never failed to
answer, but had come swiftly and with comfort. He waited for a voice and
for a vision, surely expecting them in answer to his cry; but he saw
only shadows, heard only the scream of the wind, and a sudden, angry
patter of rain on the roof. Then the child that was I fancied that his
mother's soul had fled while yet he slept, and, being persuaded that its
course was heavenward, ran out, seeking it. And he forgets what then he
did, save that he climbed the broken cliff behind the house, crying,
"Wait, oh, wait!" and that he came, at last, to the summit of the
Watchman, where there was a tumult of wind and rain.

"Mama!" he screamed, lifting his hands in appeal to the wide, black
sky. "You forgot t' kiss me good-bye! Oh, come back!"

He flung himself prone on the naked rock, for the soul of his mother did
not come, though patiently he had watched for the glory of its returning
flight.

"She've forgot me!" he moaned. "Oh, she've forgot me!"

* * * * *

When, trembling and bedraggled, I came again to the room where my
mother's body lay, my sister was kneeling by the bed, and my father was
in converse with a stranger, who was not like the men of our coast. "Not
necessarily mortal," this man was saying. "An operation--just a simple
operation--easily performed with what you have at hand--would have saved
the woman."

"Saved her, Doctor?" said my father passionately. "Is you sayin'
_that_?"

"I have said so. It would have saved her. Had we been wrecked five days
ago she would have been alive."

A torrent of rain beat on the house.

"Alive?" my father muttered, staring at the floor. "She would have been
alive!"

The stranger looked upon my father in pity. "I'm sorry for you, my man,"
he said.

"'Tis strange," my father muttered, still staring at the floor. "'Tis
strange--how things--comes about. Five days--just five...."

He muttered on.

"Yes," the stranger broke in, stirring nervously. "Had I come but five
days ago."

A sudden rising of the gale--the breaking of its fury--filled the room
with a dreadful confusion.

"Indeed--I'm--sorry--very sorry," the stranger stammered; his lips were
drawn; in his eyes was the flare of some tragedy of feeling.

My father did not move--but continued vacantly to stare at the floor.

"Really--you know--I am!"

"Is you?" then my father asked, looking up. "Is you sorry for me an'
Davy an' the lass?" The stranger dared not meet my father's eyes. "An'
you could have saved her," my father went on. "_You_ could have saved
her! She didn't have t' go. She died--for want o' you! God Almighty," he
cried, raising his clenched hand, "this man come too late God
Almighty--does you hear me, God Almighty?--the man you sent come too
late! An' you," he flashed, turning on the stranger, "could have saved
her? Oh, my dear lass! An' she would have been here the night? Here like
she used t' be? Here in her dear body? Here?" he cried, striking his
breast. "She would have lain here the night had you come afore? Oh, why
didn't you come?" he moaned. "You hold life an' death in your hands,
zur, t' give or withhold. Why didn't you come--t' give the gift o' life
t' she?"

The stranger shrank away. "Stop!" he cried, in agony. "How was I to
know?"

"Hush, father!" my sister pleaded.

In a flash of passion my father advanced upon the man. "How was you t'
know?" he burst out. "Where you been? What you been doin'? Does you hear
me?" he demanded, his voice rising with the noise of wind and rain.
"What you been doin'?"

"Stop it, man! You touch me to the quick! You don't know--you don't
know--"

"What you been doin'? We're dyin' here for want o' such as you. What you
been doin'?"

There was no answer. The stranger had covered his face with his hands.

"O God," my father cried, again appealing to Heaven, "judge this man!"

"Stop!"

It was a bitter cry--the agony sounding clear and poignant above the
manifold voices of the storm--but it won no heed.

"O God, judge this man!"

"Will no one stop him?" the stranger moaned. "For God's sake--stop
him--some one!"

"O God, judge this man!"

The stranger fled....

* * * * *

"Oh, my dear wife!" my father sobbed, at last, sinking into the great
armchair, wherein the mail-boat doctor had not sat. "Oh, my dear wife!"

"Father!" my dear sister whispered, flinging her soft arms about his
neck and pressing her cheek against his brow. "Dear father!"

And while the great gale raged, she sought to comfort my father and me,
but could not.

XI

The WOMEN at The GATE

By and by my sister put me in dry clothes, and bidding me be a good lad,
sat me in the best room below, where the maids had laid a fire. And
Skipper Tommy Lovejoy, finding me there disconsolate, took me to the
seaward hills to watch the break of day: for the rain had ceased, the
wind fallen away; and the gray light of dawn was in the eastern sky.

"I'm wantin' t' tell you, Davy," he said, in a confidential way, as we
trudged along, "about the gate o' heaven."

I took his hand.

"An' I _been_ wantin' t' tell you," he added, giving his nose a little
tweak, "for a long, long time."

"Is you?"

"Ay, lad; an' about the women at the gate."

"Women, Skipper Tommy?" said I, puzzled. "An', pray, who is they?"

"Mothers," he answered. "Just mothers."

"What they doin' at the gate? No, no! They're not _there_. Sure, they're
playin' harps at the foot o' the throne."

"No," said he, positively; "they're at the gate."

"What they doin' there?"

"Waitin'."

We were now come to the crest of a hill; and the sea was spread before
us--breaking angrily under the low, black sky.

"What's they waitin' for?" I asked.

"Davy, lad," he answered, impressively, "they're waitin' for them they
bore. _That's_ what they're waitin' for."

"For their sons?"

"Ay; an' for their daughters, too."

While I watched the big seas break on the rocks below--and the clouds
drift up from the edge of the world--I pondered upon this strange
teaching. My mother had never told me of the women waiting at the gate.

"Ah, but," I said, at last, "I'm thinkin' God would never allow it t' go
on. He'd want un all t' sing His praises. Sure, they'd just be wastin'
His time--waitin' there at the gate."

Skipper Tommy shook his head--and smiled, and softly patted my shoulder.

"An' He'd gather un there, at the foot o' the throne," I went on, "an'
tell un t' waste no more, but strike up their golden harps."

"No, no!"

"Why not?"

"They wouldn't go."

"But He'd _make_ un go."

"He couldn't."

"Not _make_ un!" I cried, amazed.

"Look you, lad," he explained, in a sage whisper, "they're all mothers,
an' they'd be _wantin_' t' stay where they was, an', ecod! they'd find a
way."

"Ah, well," I sighed, "'tis wearisome work--this waitin'."

"I'm thinkin' not," he answered, soberly, speaking rather to himself
than to me. "'Tis not wearisome for such as know the good Lard's plan."

"'Tis wonderful hard," said I, "on the mothers o' wicked sons."

The old man smiled. "Who knows," he asked, "that 'tis wonderful hard on
they?"

"But then," I mused, "the Lord would find a way t' comfort the mother o'
such."

"Oh, ay!"

"I'm thinkin', maybe," I went on, "that He'd send an angel t' tell her
they wasn't worth the waitin' for. 'Mind un not,' He'd say. 'They're
nothin' but bad, wicked boys. Leave un go t' hell an' burn.'"

"An', now, what, lad," he inquired with deep interest, "is you thinkin'
the mother would do?"

"She'd take the angel's hand," I sighed.

"Ay?"

"An' go up t' the throne--forgettin' them she'd left."

"An' then?"

"She'd praise the Lard," I sobbed.

"Never!" the skipper cried.

I looked hopefully in his face.

"Never!" he repeated. "'Lard,' she'd say, 'I loves un all the more for
their sins. Leave me wait--oh, leave me wait--here at the gate.
Maybe--sometime--they'll come!'"

"But some," said I, in awe, "would wait forever--an' ever--an' ever----"

"Not one!"

"Not one?"

"Not one! 'Twould break the dear Lard's heart t' see un waitin' there."

I looked away to the furthest clouds, fast changing, now, from gray to
silver; and for a long time I watched them thin and brighten.

"Skipper Tommy," I asked, at last, "is _my_ mother at the gate?"

"Ay," said he confidently.

"Waitin'?"

"Ay."

"An' for me?"

He gave me an odd look--searching my very soul with his mild old eyes.
"Doesn't you think she is?" he asked.

"I knows it!" I cried.

* * * * *

Far off, at the horizon, the sky broke--and the rift broadened--and the
clouds lifted--and the east flamed with colour--and all at once the
rosy, hopeful light of dawn flushed the frowning sea.

"Look!" the skipper whispered.

"Ay," said I, "the day is broke."

"A new day!" said he.

XII

DOCTOR AND I

How the _St. Lawrence_ came to stray from her course down the Strait I
do not remember. As concerns such trivial things, the days that followed
my mother's death are all misty in my mind; but I do recall (for when
Skipper Tommy had made my mother's coffin he took me to the heads of
Good Promise to see the sight) that the big seas of that day pounded the
vessel to a shapeless wreck on the jagged rocks of the Reef of the
Thirty Black Devils: where she lay desolate for many a day thereafter.
But the sea was not quick enough to balk our folk of their salvage: all
day long--even while the ship was going to pieces--they swarmed upon
her; and they loaded their punts again and again, fearlessly boarding,
and with infinite patience and courage managed to get their heavensent
plunder ashore. 'Twas diverting to watch them; and when the twins, who
had been among the most active at the wreck, came at last to their
father, I laughed to know that, as Timmie said, they had food enough
ashore to keep the wrinkles out of their stomachs all winter.

* * * * *

Our harbour was for many days crowded with wrecked folk--strange of
speech, of dress, of manners--who went about in flocks, prying into our
innermost concerns, so that we were soon wearied of their perverse and
insatiable curiosity, though we did not let them know it. They were
sorry for my father and sister and me, I know, for, one and all, when
they came to see my mother lying dead, they _said_ they were. And they
stood soberly by her shallow grave, when we laid her dear body away, and
they wept when old Tom Tot spoke of the dust and ashes, which we are,
and the stony earth rattled hopelessly on the coffin. Doubtless they
were well-intentioned towards us all, and towards me, a motherless lad,
more than any other, and doubtless they should be forgiven much, for
they were but ignorant folk, from strange parts of the world; but I took
it hard that they should laugh on the roads, as though no great thing
had happened, and when, at last, the women folk took to praising my hair
and eyes, as my mother used to do, and, moreover, to kissing me in
public places, which had been my mother's privilege, I was speedily
scandalized and fled their proximity with great cunning and agility.

My father, however, sought them out, at all times and places, that he
might tell them the tragic circumstances of my mother's death, and
seemed not to remember that he had told them all before.

"But five days!" he would whisper, excitedly, when he had buttonholed a
stranger in the shop. "Eh, man? Have you heared tell o' my poor wife?"

"Five days?"

"Ay; had you folk been wrecked five days afore--just five, mark
you--she would have been alive, the day."

"How sad!"

"Five days!" my father would suddenly cry, wringing his hands. "My God!
_Only five days_!"

A new expression of sympathy--and a glance of the sharpest
suspicion--would escape the stranger.

"Five days!" my father would repeat, as though communicating some fact
which made him peculiarly important to all the world. "That, now," with
a knowing glance, "is what I calls wonderful queer."

My father was not the same as he had been. He was like a man become a
child again--interested in little things, dreaming much, wondering more:
conceiving himself, like a child, an object of deepest interest to us
all. No longer, now, did he command us, but, rather, sought to know from
my sister (to whom he constantly turned) what he should do from hour to
hour; and I thought it strange that he should do our bidding as though
he had never been used to bidding us. But so it was; and, moreover
(which I thought a great pity), he forgot that he was to kill the
mail-boat doctor when the steamer put into our harbour on the southward
trip--a purpose from which, a week before, Skipper Tommy Lovejoy could
not dissuade him, though he tried for hours together. Ay, with his bare
hands, my father was to have killed that man--to have wrung his neck and
flung him overboard--but now there was no word of the deed: my father
but puttered about, mildly muttering that the great ship had been
wrecked five days too late.

I have said that my father loved my mother; it may be that he loved her
overmuch--and, perhaps, that accounts for what came upon him when he
lost her. I have since thought it sad that our hearts may contain a love
so great that all the world seems empty when chance plucks it out; but
the thought, no doubt, is not a wise one.

* * * * *

The doctor whom I had found with my father in my mother's room was not
among the folk who babbled on the roads and came prying into the stages
with tiresome exclamations of "Really!" and "How in-tres-ting!" He kept
aloof from them and from us all. All day long he wandered on the heads
and hills of our harbour--a melancholy figure, conspicuous against the
blue sky of those days: far off, solitary, bowed. Sometimes he sat for
hours on the Watchman, staring out to sea, so still that it would have
been small blame to the gulls had they mistaken him for a new boulder,
mysteriously come to the hill; sometimes he lay sprawling on the high
point of Skull Island, staring at the sky, lost to knowledge of the
world around; sometimes he clambered down the cliffs of Good Promise to
the water's edge, and stood staring, forever staring, at the breakers
(which no man should do). Often I was not content with watching him from
afar, but softly followed close, and peered at him from the shelter of a
boulder or peeped over the shoulder of a hill; and so sad did he
seem--so full of sighs and melancholy attitudes--that invariably I went
home pitying: for at that time my heart was tender, and the sight of
sorrow hurt it.

Once I crept closer and closer, and, at last, taking courage (though his
clean-shaven face and soft gray hat abashed me), ran to him and slipped
my hand in his.

He started; then, perceiving who it was, he withdrew his hand with a
wrench, and turned away: which hurt me.

"You are the son," said he, "of the woman who died, are you not?"

I was more abashed than ever--and wished I had not been so bold.

"I'm Davy Roth, zur," I whispered, for I was much afraid. "My mother's
dead an' buried, zur."

"I saw you," said he, "in the room--that night."

There was a long pause. Then, "What's _your_ name, zur?" I asked him.

"Mine?"

"Ay."

"Mine," said he, "is Luke--"

He stopped--and thoughtfully frowned. I waited; but he said no more.

"Doctor Luke?" I ventured.

"Well," he drawled, "that will serve."

Then I thought I must tell him what was in my heart to say. Why not? The
wish was good, and his soft, melancholy voice irresistibly appealed to
my raw and childish sympathies.

"I wisht, zur," I whispered, looking down at my boots, through sheer
embarrassment, "that you----"

My tongue failed me. I was left in a sad lurch. He was not like our
folk--not like our folk, at all--and I could not freely speak my mind.

"Yes?" he said, to encourage me.

"That you wasn't so sad," I blurted, with a rush, looking swift and deep
into his gray eyes.

"Why not?" said he, taking my hand.

"I'm not wantin' you t' be."

He put his arm over my shoulder. "Why not?" he asked. "Tell me why not,
won't you?"

The corners of my mouth fell. It may have been in sympathetic response
to the tremolo of feeling in his voice. I was in peril of unmanly tears
(as often chanced in those days)--and only women, as I knew, should see
lads weep. I hid my face against him.

"Because, zur," I said, "it makes me sad, too!"

He sat down and drew me to his knee. "This is very strange," he said,
"and very kind. You would not have me sad?" I shook my head. "I do not
understand," he muttered. "It is very strange." (But it was not strange
on our coast, where all men are neighbours, and each may without shame
or offense seek to comfort the other.) Then he had me tell him tales of
our folk, to which he listened with interest so eager that I quickly
warmed to the diversion and chattered as fast as my tongue would wag. He
laughed at me for saying "nar" for not (and the like) and I at him for
saying "cawm" for calm; and soon we were very merry, and not only merry,
but as intimate as friends of a lifetime. By and by I took him to see
the Soldier's Ear, which is an odd rock near the Rat Hole, and, after
that, to listen to the sea coughing and gurgling at the bottom of
Satan's Well. And in all this he forgot that he was sad--and I that my
mother was dead.

"Will you walk with me to-morrow, Davy?" he asked, when I said that I
must be off home.

"That I will, zur," said I.

"After breakfast."

"Ay, zur; a quarter of five."

"Well, no," he drawled. "Half after nine."

"'Tis a sheer waste o' time," I protested. "But 'twill suit me, zur, an
it pleases you. My sister will tell _me_ the hour."

"Your sister?" he asked, quickly.

"Bessie," said I.

"Ah," he exclaimed, "she was your sister. I saw her there--that night.
And she is your sister?"

"You got it right," cried I, proudly. "_That's_ my sister!"

He slapped me on the back (which shocked me, for our folk are not that
playful); and, laughing heartily as he went, he took the road to Tom
Tot's, where he had found food and housing for a time. I watched him
from the turn in the road, as he went lightly down the slope towards
South Tickle--his trim-clad, straight, graceful figure,
broad-shouldered, clean-cut, lithe in action, as compared with our
lumbering gait; inefficient, 'tis true, but potentially strong. As I
walked home, I straightened my own shoulders, held my head high, lifted
my feet from the ground, flung bold glances to right and left, as I had
seen him do: for, even then, I loved him very much. All the while I was
exultantly conscious that a new duty and a new delight had come to me:
some great thing, given of God--a work to do, a happiness to cherish.
And that night he came and went in my dreams--but glorified: his smile
not mirthless, his grave, gray eyes not overcast, his face not flabby
and flushed, his voice not slow and sad, but vibrant with fine, live
purpose. My waking thought was the wish that the man of the hills might
be the man of my vision; and in my simple morning petition it became a
prayer.

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