Doctor Luke of the Labrador

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"'Tis not for sale," my sister answered.

"I wants the trade o' this harbour," said he, ignoring her, "on my
books. An' I got t' have it."

"We're wantin' my father's business," my sister persisted, but faintly
now, "for Davy, when he's growed."

"I'm able t' buy you out," Jagger pursued, addressing the ceiling, "or
run you out. 'Tis cheaper an' quicker t' buy you out. Now," dropping his
eyes suddenly to my sister's, "how much are you askin' for this here
trade?"

"'Tis not for sale."

"Not for sale?" roared he, jumping up.

"No, zur," she gasped.

"If I can't buy it," he cried, in a rage, driving the threat home with
an oath peculiarly unfit for the ears of women, "I'll break it!"

Which brought tears to my tender sister's eyes; whereupon, with a good
round oath to match his own, I flew at him, in a red passion, and, being
at all times agile and now moved to extraordinary effort, managed to
inflict some damage on his shins before he was well aware of my
intention--and that so painful that he yelped like a hurt cur. But he
caught me by the arms, which he jammed against my ribs, lifted me high,
cruelly shaking me, and sat me on the edge of the table in a fashion so
sudden and violent that my teeth came together with a snap: having done
which, he trapped my legs with his paunch, and thus held me in durance
impotent and humiliating, so that I felt mean, indeed, to come to such
a pass after an attack impetuously undertaken and executed with no
little gallantry and effect. And he brought his face close to mine, his
eyes flaring and winking with rage, his lips lifted from his yellow,
broken teeth; and 'twas in his mind, as I perceived, to beat me as I had
never been beaten before.

"Ye crab!" he began. "Ye little----"

"The dog!" my sister screamed.

'Twas timely warning: for the dog was crouched in the hall, his muscles
taut for the spring, his king-hairs bristling, his fangs exposed.

"Down!" shrieks Jagger.

The diversion released me. Jagger sprang away; and I saw, in a flash,
that his concern was not for me, but for himself, upon whom the dog's
baleful glance was fastened. There was now no ring of mastery in his
voice, as there had been on the mail-boat, but the shiver of panic; and
this, it may be, the dog detected, for he settled more alertly, pawing
the floor with his forefeet, as though seeking firmer foothold from
which to leap. As once before, I wished the beast well in the issue;
indeed, I hoped 'twould be the throat and a fair grip! But Jagger caught
a billet of wood from the box, and, with a hoarse, stifled
cry--frightful to hear--drew back to throw. Then the doctor's light
step sounded in the hall, and in he came, brushing past the dog, which
slunk away into the shadows. For a moment he regarded us curiously, and
then, his brows falling in a quick frown, he laid his medicine case on
my sister's sewing-machine, with never a word, and went to the window,
where he stood idle, gazing out over the darkening prospect of sea and
rock and upon great clouds flushed with lurid colour.

There was silence in the room--which none of us who waited found the
will to break.

"Jagger"--said the doctor.

The voice was low--almost a drawl--but mightily authoritative: being
without trace of feeling, but superior to passion, majestic.

"Ay, sir?"

"Go!"

The doctor still stood with his back to us, still gazed, continuing
tranquil, through the broad window to the world without. And Jagger,
overmastered by this confident assumption of authority, went away, as he
was bidden, casting backward glances, ominous of machinations to come.

* * * * *

What Jagger uttered on my father's wharf--what on the deck of the sloop
while he moored his dog to the windlass for a beating--what he flung
back while she gathered way--strangely moved Tom Tot, who hearkened,
spellbound, until the last words of it (and the last yelp of the dog)
were lost in the distance of North Tickle: it impelled the old man (as
he has said many a time) to go wash his hands. But 'tis of small moment
beside what the doctor said when informed of the occurrences in our
house: being this, that he must have a partnership in our firm, because,
first, it was in his heart to help my sister and me, who had been kind
to him and were now like sheep fallen in with a wolf-pack, and second,
because by thus establishing himself on the coast he might avert the
suspicion of the folk from such good works as he had in contemplation.

"More than that," said he, "we will prove fair dealing possible here as
elsewhere. It needs but courage and--money."

"I'm thinkin'," my sister said, "that Davy has the courage."

"And I," said he, "have the money."

I was very glad to hear it.

XVI

A MALADY of The HEART

In the firelight of that evening--when the maids had cleared the cozy
room and carried away the lamp and we three sat alone together in my
father's house--was planned our simple partnership in good works and the
fish business. 'Tis wonderful what magic is abroad at such times--what
dreams, what sure hopes, lie in the flickering blaze, the warm, red
glow, the dancing shadows; what fine aspirations unfold in hearts that
are brave and hopeful and kind. Presently, we had set a fleet of new
schooners afloat, put a score of new traps in the water, proved
fair-dealing and prosperity the selfsame thing, visited the sick of five
hundred miles, established a hospital--transformed our wretched coast,
indeed, into a place no longer ignorant of jollity and thrift and
healing. The doctor projected all with lively confidence--his eyes
aflash, his lean, white hand eloquent, his tongue amazingly active and
persuasive--and with an insight so sagacious and well-informed, a
purpose so pure and wise, that he revealed himself (though we did not
think of it then) not only as a man of heart but of conspicuous sense.
It did not enter our minds to distrust him: because our folk are not
sophisticated in polite overreaching, not given to the vice of
suspicion, and because--well, he was what he was.

My sister's face was aglow--most divinely radiant--with responsive faith
and enthusiasm; and as for me----

"Leave me get down," I gasped, at last, to the doctor, "or I'll bust
with delight, by heaven!"

He laughed, but unclasped his hands and let me slip from his knee; and
then I began to strut the floor, my chest puffed out to twice its
natural extent.

"By heaven!" I began. "If that Jagger----"

The clock struck ten. "David Roth," my sister exclaimed, lifting her
hands in mock horror, "'tis fair scandalous for a lad o' your years t'
be up 't this hour!"

"Off to bed with you, you rascal!" roared the doctor.

"I'll not go," I protested.

"Off with you!"

"Not I."

"Catch un, doctor!" cried my sister.

"An you can, zur!" I taunted.

If he could? Ecod! He snatched at me, quick as a cat; but I dodged his
hand, laughed in his face and put the table between us. With an agility
beyond compare--with a flow of spirits like a gale of wind--he vaulted
the broad board. The great, grave fellow appeared of a sudden to my
startled vision in midair--his arms and legs at sixes and sevens--his
coat-tails flapping like a loose sail--his mouth wide open in a
demoniacal whoop--and I dropped to the floor but in the bare nick of
time to elude him. Uproarious pursuit ensued: it made my sister limp and
pain-stricken and powerless with laughter; it brought our two maids from
the kitchen and kept them hysterically screaming in the doorway, the
lamp at a fearsome angle; it tumbled the furniture about with rollicking
disregard, led the doctor a staggering, scrambling, leaping course in
the midst of upturned tables and chairs, and, at last, ran the gasping
quarry to earth under the sofa. I was taken out by the heels,
shouldered, carried aloft and flung sprawling on my bed--while the whole
house rang again with peal upon peal of hearty laughter.

"Oh, zur," I groaned, "I never knowed you was so jolly!"

"Not so?"

"On my word, zur!"

He sighed.

"I fancied you was never but sad."

"Ah, well," said he, "the Labrador, Davy, is evidently working a cure."

"God be thanked for that!" said I, devoutly.

He rumpled my hair and went out. And I bade him send my sister with the
candle; and while I lay waiting in the dark a glow of content came upon
me--because of this: that whereas I had before felt woefully inadequate
to my sister's protection, however boastfully I had undertaken it, I was
now sure that in our new partnership her welfare and peace of heart were
to be accomplished. Then she came in and sat with me while I got ready
for bed. She had me say my prayers at her knee, as a matter of course,
but this night hinted that an additional petition for the doctor's
well-doing and happiness might not be out of place. She chided me, after
that, for the temper I had shown against Jagger and for the oath I had
flung at his head, as I knew she would--but did not chide me heartily,
because, as she said, she was for the moment too gratefully happy to
remember my short-comings against me. I thanked her, then, for this
indulgence, and told her that she might go to bed, for I was safely and
comfortably bestowed, as she could see, and ready for sleep; but she
would not go, and there sat, with the candle in her hand, her face
flushed and her great blue eyes soulfully glowing, while she continued
to chatter in an incoherent and strangely irrelevant fashion: so that,
astonished into broad wakefulness by this extraordinary behaviour, I sat
bolt upright in bed, determined to discover the cause.

"Bessie Roth," said I, severely, "what's come upon you?"

"I'm not knowin', Davy," she answered, softly, looking away.

"'Tis somewhat awful, then," said I, in alarm, "for you're not lookin'
me in the eye."

She looked then in her lap--and did not raise her eyes, though I waited:
which was very strange.

"You isn't sick, is you?"

"No-o," she answered, doubtfully.

"Oh, you _mustn't_ get sick," I protested. "'Twould _never_ do. I'd fair
die--if _you_ got sick!"

"'Tisn't sickness; 'tis--I'm not knowin' what."

"Ah, come," I pleaded; "what is it, dear?"

"Davy, lad," she faltered, "I'm just--dreadful--happy."

"Happy?" cried I, scornfully. "'Tis not happiness! Why, sure, your lip
is curlin' with grief!"

"But I _was_ happy."

"You isn't happy now, my girl."

"No," she sobbed, "I'm wonderful miserable--now."

I kicked off the covers. "You've the fever, that's what!" I exclaimed,
jumping out of bed.

"'Tis not that, Davy."

"Then--oh, for pity's sake, Bessie, tell your brother what's gone wrong
along o' you!"

"I'm thinkin', Davy," she whispered, despairingly, "that I'm nothin' but
a sinful woman."

"A--what! Why, Bessie----"

"Nothin'," she repeated, positively, "but a sinful, wicked person."

"Who told you that?" said I, dancing about in a rage.

"My own heart."

"Your heart!" cried I, blind angry. "'Tis a liar an it says so."

"What words!" she exclaimed, changed in a twinkling. "An' to your
sister! Do you get back in bed this instant, David Roth, an' tell her
that you're sorry."

I was loath to do it, but did, to pacify her; and when she had carried
away the candle I chuckled, for I had cured her of her indisposition for
that night, at any rate: as I knew, for when she kissed me 'twas plain
that she was more concerned for her wayward brother than for herself.

* * * * *

Past midnight I was awakened by the clang of the bell on my father's
wharf. 'Twas an unpleasant sound. Half a gale--no less--could do it. I
then knew that the wind had freshened and veered to the southeast; and
I listened to determine how wild the night. Wild enough! The bell
clanged frequently, sharply, jangling in the gusts--like an anxious
warning. My window was black; there was no light in the sky--no star
shining. Rain pattered on the roof. I heard the rush of wind. 'Twas
inevitable that I should contrast the quiet of the room, the security of
my place, the comfort of my couch and blankets, with a rain-swept,
heaving deck and a tumultuous sea. A gusty night, I thought--thick, wet,
with the wind rising. The sea would be in a turmoil on the grounds by
dawn: there would be no fishing; and I was regretting this--between
sleep and waking--when the bell again clanged dolefully. Roused, in a
measure, I got ear of men stumbling up the path. I was into my breeches
before they had trampled half the length of the platform--well on my way
down the dark stair when they knocked on the door--standing scared in
the light of their lantern, the door open, before they found time to
hail.

I was addressed by a gray old man in ragged oilskins. "We heared tell,"
said he, mildly, wiping his dripping beard, "that you got a doctor
here."

I said that we had.

"Well," he observed, in a dull, slow voice, "we got a sick man over
there t' Wreck Cove."

"Ay?" said I.

"An' we was sort o' wonderin', wasn't we, Skipper Tom," another put in,
"how much this doctor would be askin' t' go over an' cure un?"

"Well, ay," the skipper admitted, taking off his sou'wester to scratch
his head, "we _did_ kind o' have that idea."

"'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 God'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 glass--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?"

"Davy Roth," she averred, with a wag of the head so earnest that strands
of flaxen hair fell over her eyes, and she had to brush them back again,
"I never felt so queer in all my life afore!"

"I'm dreadful worried about you, Bessie."

"Hut! as for that," said she, brightly, "I'm not thinkin' I'm goin' t'
_die_, Davy."

"Sure, you never can tell about sickness," I sagely observed.

"Oh, no!" said she. "I isn't got that--kind o'--sickness."

"Well," I insisted, triumphantly, "you're wonderful shy o' eatin' pork."

She shuddered.

"I wished I knowed what you had," I exclaimed impatiently.

"I wished you did," she agreed, frankly, if somewhat faintly. "For,
then, Davy, you'd give me a potion t' cure me."

She drew back the curtain--for the hundredth time, I vow--and peered
towards South Tickle.

"What you lookin' for?" I asked.

"I was thinkin', Davy," she said, still gazing through the window, "that
Skipper Zach Tupper might be comin' in from the Last Chance grounds with
a fish for breakfast."

The Last Chance grounds? 'Twas ignorance beyond belief! "Bessie," I
said, with heat, "is you gone mad? Doesn't you know that no man in his
seven senses would fish the Last Chance grounds in a light southerly
wind? Why----"

"Well," she interrupted, with a pretty pout, "you knows so well as me
that Zach Tupper haven't _got_ his seven senses."

"Bessie!"

She peeked towards South Tickle again; and then--what a wonder-worker
the divine malady is!--she leaned eagerly forward, her sewing falling
unheeded to the floor; and her soft breast rose and fell to a rush of
sweet emotion, and her lips parted in delicious wonderment, and the
blood came back to her cheeks, and her dimples were no longer pathetic,
but eloquent of sweetness and innocence, and her eyes turned moist and
brilliant, glowing with the glory of womanhood first recognized, tender
and pure. Ah, my sister--lovely in person but lovelier far in heart and
mind--adorably innocent--troubled and destined to infinitely deeper
distress before the end--brave and true and hopeful through all the
chequered course of love! You had not known, dear heart, but then
discovered, all in a heavenly flash, what sickness you suffered of.

"Davy!" she whispered.

"Ay, dear?"

"I'm knowin'--now--what ails me."

I sat gazing at her in love and great awe. "'Tis not a wickedness,
Bessie," I declared.

"No, no!"

"'Tis not that. No, no! I knows 'tis not a sin."

"'Tis a holy thing," she said, turning, her eyes wide and solemn.

"A holy thing?"

"Ay--holy!"

I chanced to look out of the window. "Ecod!" I cried. "The Wreck Cove
skiff is in with Doctor Luke!"

Unfeeling, like all lads--in love with things seen--I ran out.

* * * * *

The doctor came ashore at the wharf in a state of wild elation. He made
a rush for me, caught me up, called to the crew of the skiff to come to
the house for tea--then shouldered me, against my laughing protest, and
started up the path.

"I'm back, safe and sound," cried he. "Davy, I have been to Wreck Cove
and back."

"An' you're wonderful happy," cried I, from the uncertain situation of
his shoulder.

"Happy? That's the word, Davy. I'm happy! And why?"

"Tell me."

"I've done a good deed. I've saved a man's right hand. I've done a good
deed for once," he repeated, between his teeth, "by God!"

There was something contagious in all this; and (I say it by way of
apology) I was ever the lad to catch at a rousing phrase.

"A good deed!" I exclaimed. "By God, you'll do----"

He thrashed me soundly on the spot.

XVII

HARD PRACTICE

I bore him no grudge--the chastisement had been fairly deserved: for
then, being loosed from parental restraint, I was by half too fond of
aping the ways and words of full-grown men; and I was not unaware of the
failing. However, the prediction on the tip of my tongue--that he would
live to do many another good deed--would have found rich fulfillment had
it been spoken. It was soon noised the length of the coast that a doctor
dwelt in our harbour--one of good heart and skill and courage: to whom
the sick of every station might go for healing. In short space the
inevitable came upon us: punts put in for the doctor at unseasonable
hours, desperately reckless of weather; schooners beat up with men lying
ill or injured in the forecastles; the folk of the neighbouring ports
brought their afflicted to be miraculously restored, and ingenuously
quartered their dying upon us. A wretched multitude emerged from the
hovels--crying, "Heal us!" And to every varied demand the doctor freely
responded, smiling heartily, God bless him! spite of wind and weather:
ready, active, merry, untiring--sad but when the only gift he bore was
that of tender consolation.

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