Doctor Luke of the Labrador

N >> Norman Duncan >> Doctor Luke of the Labrador

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* * * * *

One night there came a maid from Punch Bowl Harbour. My sister sent her
to the shop, where the doctor was occupied with the accounts of our
business, myself to keep him company. 'Twas a raw, black night; and she
entered with a gust of wind, which fluttered the doctor's papers, set
the lamp flaring, and, at last, escaped by way of the stove to the gale
from which it had strayed.

"Is you the doctor?" she gasped.

She stood with her back against the door, one hand still on the knob and
the other shading her eyes--a slender slip of a girl, her head covered
with a shawl, now dripping. Whisps of wet black hair clung to her
forehead, and rain-drops lay in the flushed hollows of her cheeks.

"I am," the doctor answered, cheerily, rising from his work.

"Well, zur," said she, "I'm Tim Hodd's maid, zur, an' I'm just come from
the Punch Bowl in the bait-skiff, zur--for healin'."

"And what, my child," asked the doctor, sympathetically, "may be the
matter with you?"

Looking back--with the added knowledge that I have--it seems to me that
he had no need to ask the question. The flush and gasp told the story
well enough, quite well enough: the maid was dying of consumption.

"Me lights is floatin', zur," she answered.

"Your lights?"

"Ay, zur," laying a hand on her chest. "They're floatin' wonderful high.
I been tryin' t' kape un down; but, zur, 'tis no use, at all."

With raised eyebrows the doctor turned to me. "What does she mean,
Davy," he inquired, "by her 'lights'?"

"I'm not well knowin'," said I; "but if 'tis what _we_ calls 'lights,'
'tis what _you_ calls 'lungs.'"

The doctor turned sadly to the maid.

"I been takin' shot, zur, t' weight un down," she went on; "but, zur,
'tis no use, at all. An' Jim Butt's my man," she added, hurriedly, in a
low voice. "I'm t' be married to un when he comes up from the Narth.
Does you think----"

She paused--in embarrassment, perhaps: for it may be that it was the
great hope of this maid, as it is of all true women of our coast, to
live to be the mother of sons.

"Go on," the doctor quietly said.

"Oh, does you think, zur," she said, clasping her hands, a sob in her
voice, "that you can cure me--afore the fleet--gets home?"

"Davy," said the doctor, hoarsely, "go to your sister. I must have a
word with this maid--alone." I went away.

* * * * *

We caught sight of the _Word of the Lord_ beating down from the south in
light winds--and guessed her errand--long before that trim little
schooner dropped anchor in the basin. The skipper came ashore for
healing of an angry abscess in the palm of his hand. Could the doctor
cure it? To be sure--the doctor could do _that_! The man had suffered
sleepless agony for five days; he was glad that the doctor could ease
his pain--glad that he was soon again to be at the fishing. Thank God,
he was to be cured!

"I have only to lance and dress it," said the doctor. "You will have
relief at once."

"Not the knife," the skipper groaned. "Praise God, I'll not have the
knife!"

It was the doctor's first conflict with the strange doctrines of our
coast. I still behold--as I lift my eyes from the page--his astonishment
when he was sternly informed that the way of the Lord was not the way of
a surgeon with a knife. Nor was the austere old fellow to be moved. The
lance, said he, was an invention of the devil himself--its use plainly a
defiance of the purposes of the Creator. Thank God! he had been reared
by a Christian father of the old school.

"No, no, doctor!" he declared, his face contorted by pain. "I'm thankin'
you kindly; but I'm not carin' t' interfere with the decrees o'
Providence."

"But, man," cried the doctor, "I _must_----"

"No!" doggedly. "I'll not stand in the Lard's way. If 'tis His will for
me t' get better, I'll get better, I s'pose. If 'tis His blessed will
for me t' die," he added, reverently, "I'll have t' die."

"I give you my word," said the doctor, impatiently, "that if that hand
is not lanced you'll be dead in three days."

The man looked off to his schooner.

"Three days," the doctor repeated.

"I'm wonderful sorry," sighed the skipper, "but I got t' stand by the
Lard."

And he _was_ dead--within three days, as we afterwards learned: even as
the doctor had said.

* * * * *

Once, when the doctor was off in haste to Cuddy Cove to save the life of
a mother of seven--the Cuddy Cove men had without a moment's respite
pulled twelve miles against a switch of wind from the north and were
streaming sweat when they landed--once, when the doctor was thus about
his beneficent business, a woman from Bowsprit Head brought her child
to be cured, incredulous of the physician's power, but yet desperately
seeking, as mothers will. She came timidly--her ailing child on her
bosom, where, as it seemed to me, it had lain complaining since she gave
it birth.

"I'm thinkin' he'll die," she told my sister.

My sister cried out against this hopelessness. 'Twas not kind to the
dear Lord, said she, thus to despair.

"They says t' Bowsprit Head," the woman persisted, "that he'll die in a
fit. I'm--I'm--not wantin' him," she faltered, "t' die--like that."

"No, no! He'll not!"

She hushed the child in a mechanical way--being none the less tender and
patient the while--as though her arms were long accustomed to the
burden, her heart used to the pain.

"There haven't ever been no child," said she, looking up, after a
moment, "like this--afore--t' Bowsprit Head."

My sister was silent.

"No," the woman sighed; "not like this one."

"Come, come, ma'm!" I put in, confidently. "Do you leave un t' the
doctor. _He'll_ cure un."

She looked at me quickly. "What say?" she said, as though she had not
understood.

"I says," I repeated, "that the doctor will cure that one."

"Cure un?" she asked, blankly.

"That he will!"

She smiled--and looked up to the sky, smiling still, while she pressed
the infant to her breast. "They isn't nobody," she whispered, "not
nobody, ever said that--afore--about my baby!"

Next morning we sat her on the platform to wait for the doctor, who had
now been gone three days. "He does better in the air," said she.
"He--he-_needs_ air!" It was melancholy weather--thick fog, with a
drizzle of rain: the wind in the east, fretful and cold. All morning
long she rocked the child in her arms: now softly singing to him--now
vainly seeking to win a smile--now staring vacantly into the mist,
dreaming dull dreams, while he lay in her lap.

"He isn't come through the tickle, have he?" she asked, when I came up
from the shop at noon.

"He've not been sighted yet."

"I'm thinkin' he'll be comin' soon."

"Ay; you'll not have t' wait much longer."

"I'm not mindin' _that_," said she, "for I'm used t' waitin'."

The doctor came in from the sea at evening--when the wind had freshened
to a gale, blowing bitter cold. He had been for three days and nights
fighting without sleep for the life of that mother of seven--and had
won! Ay, she had pulled through; she was now resting in the practiced
care of the Cuddy Cove women, whose knowledge of such things had been
generously increased. The ragged, sturdy seven still had a mother to
love and counsel them. The Cuddy Cove men spoke reverently of the deed
and the man who had done it. Tired? The doctor laughed. Not he! Why, he
had been asleep under a tarpaulin all the way from Cuddy Cove! And
Skipper Elisha Timbertight had handled the skiff in the high seas so
cleverly, so tenderly, so watchfully--what a marvellous hand it
was!--that the man under the tarpaulin had not been awakened until the
nose of the boat touched the wharf piles. But the doctor was hollow-eyed
and hoarse, staggering of weariness, but cheerfully smiling, as he went
up the path to talk with the woman from Bowsprit Head.

"You are waiting for me?" he asked.

She was frightened--by his accent, his soft voice, his gentle manner, to
which the women of our coast are not used. But she managed to stammer
that her baby was sick.

"'Tis his throat," she added.

The child was noisily fighting for breath. He gasped, writhed in her
lap, struggled desperately for air, and, at last, lay panting. She
exposed him to the doctor's gaze--a dull-eyed, scrawny, ugly babe: such
as mothers wish to hide from sight.

"He've always been like that," she said. "He's wonderful sick. I've
fetched un here t' be cured."

"A pretty child," said the doctor.

'Twas a wondrous kind lie--told with such perfect dissimulation that it
carried the conviction of truth.

"What say?" she asked, leaning forward.

"A pretty child," the doctor repeated, very distinctly.

"They don't say that t' Bowsprit Head, zur."

"Well--_I_ say it!"

"I'll tell un so!" she exclaimed, joyfully. "I'll tell un you said so,
zur, when I gets back t' Bowsprit Head. For nobody--nobody, zur--ever
said that afore--about my baby!"

The child stirred and complained. She lifted him from her lap--rocked
him--hushed him--drew him close, rocking him all the time.

"Have you another?"

"No, zur; 'tis me first."

"And does he talk?" the doctor asked.

She looked up--in a glow of pride. And she flushed gloriously while she
turned her eyes once more upon the gasping, ill-featured babe upon her
breast.

"He said 'mama'--once!" she answered.

In the fog--far, far away, in the distances beyond Skull Island, which
were hidden--the doctor found at that moment some strange interest.

"Once?" he asked, his face still turned away.

"Ay, zur," she solemnly declared. "I calls my God t' witness! I'm not
makin' believe, zur," she went on, with rising excitement. "They says t'
Bowsprit Head that I dreamed it, zur, but I knows I didn't. 'Twas at the
dawn. He lay here, zur--here, zur--on me breast. I was wide awake,
zur--waitin' for the day. Oh, he said it, zur," she cried, 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 declared, his head on one side, the letter held gingerly
before him, "I wouldn't read that letter an I could. No, lad--not an I
could! But I've heared tell she had a deal o' l'arnin'; an' I'd kind
o'--like t'--take a peek inside. Just," he added, hurriedly, "t' see
what power she had for writin'."

This pretense to a purely artistic interest in the production was
wondrously trying to the patience.

"Skipper Davy," he went on, awkwardly, skippering me with a guile that
was shameless, "it bein' from a woman--bein' from a _woman_, now, says
I--'twould be no more 'n po-lite t' open it. Come, now, Davy!" he
challenged. "You wouldn't _say_ 'twould be more 'n po-lite, would you?
It bein' from a lone woman?"

I made no answer: for, at that moment, I caught sight of the twins,
listening with open-mouthed interest from the threshold.

"I wonders, Davy," the skipper confided, taking the leap, at last, "what
she've gone an' writ!"

"Jacky," I burst out, in disgust, turning to the twins, "I just _knowed_
he'd get t' wonderin'!"

Skipper Tommy started: he grew shamefaced, all in a moment; and he
seemed now first conscious of guilty wishes.

"Timmie," said Jacky, hoarsely, from the doorway, "she've writ."

"Ay, Jacky," Timmie echoed, "she've certain gone an' done it."

They entered.

"I been--sort o'--gettin' a letter, lads," the skipper stammered: a hint
of pride in his manner. "It come ashore," he added, with importance,
"from the mail-boat."

"Dad," Timmie asked, sorrowfully, "is you been askin' Davy t' read that
letter?"

"Well, no, Timmie," the skipper drawled, tweaking his nose; "'tisn't
quite so bad. But I been wonderin'----"

"Oh, is you!" Jacky broke in. "Timmie," said he, grinning, "dad's been
wonderin'!"

"Is he?" Timmie asked, assuming innocence. "Wonderin'?"

"Wasn't you sayin' so, dad?"

"Well," the skipper admitted, "havin' _said_ so, I'll not gainsay it. I
_was_ wonderin'----"

"An' you _knowin'_," sighed Timmie, "that you're an obligin' man!"

"Dad," Jacky demanded, "didn't the Lard kindly send a switch o' wind
from the sou'east t' save you oncet?"

The skipper blushed uneasily.

"Does you think," Timmie pursued, "that He'll turn His hand _again_ t'
save you?"

"Well----"

"Look you, dad," said Jacky, "isn't you got in trouble enough all along
o' wonderin' too much?"

"Well," the skipper exclaimed, badgered into self-assertion, "I _was_
wonderin'; but since you two lads come in I been _thinkin'_. Since them
two twins o' mine come in, Davy," he repeated, turning to me, his eyes
sparkling with fatherly affection, "I been thinkin' 'twould be a fine
plan t' tack this letter t' the wall for a warnin' t' the household agin
the wiles o' women!"

Timmie and Jacky silently embraced--containing their delight as best
they could, though it pained them.

"Not," the skipper continued, "that I'll have a word said agin' that
woman: which I won't," said he, "nor no other. The Lard knowed what He
was about. He made them with His own hands, an' if _He_ was willin' t'
take the responsibility, us men can do no less than stand by an' weather
it out. 'Tis my own idea that He was more sot on fine lines than sailin'
qualities when He whittled His model. 'I'll make a craft,' says He, 'for
looks, an' I'll pay no heed,' says He, 't' the cranks she may have,
hopin' for the best.' An' He done it! That He did! They're tidy
craft--oh, ay, they're wonderful tidy craft--but 'tis Lard help un in a
gale o' wind! An' the Lard made _she_," he continued, reverting to the
woman from Wolf Cove, "after her kind, a woman, acquaint with the wiles
o' women, actin' accordin' t' nature An'," he declared, irrelevantly,
"_'tis_ gettin' close t' winter, an' _'twould_ be comfortable t' have a
man t' tend the fires. She _do_ be of a designin' turn o' mind," he
proceeded, "which is accordin' t' the nature o' women, puttin' no blame
on her, an' she's not a wonderful lot for looks an' temper; but,"
impressively lifting his hand, voice and manner awed, "she've l'arnin',
which is ek'al t' looks, if not t' temper. So," said he, "we'll say
nothin' agin' her, but just tack this letter t' the wall, an' go split
the fish. But," when the letter had thus been disposed of, "I wonder
what----"

"Come on, dad!"

He put an arm around each of the grinning twins, and Timmie put an arm
around me; and thus we went pell-mell down to the stage, where we had an
uproarious time splitting the day's catch.

* * * * *

You must know, now, that all this time we had been busy with the fish,
dawn to dark; that beyond our little lives, while, intent upon their
small concerns, we lived them, a great and lovely work was wrought upon
our barren coast: as every year, unfailingly, to the glory of God, who
made such hearts as beat under the brown, hairy breasts of our men.
From the Strait to Chidley, our folk and their kin from Newfoundland
with hook and net reaped the harvest from the sea--a vast, sullen sea,
unwilling to yield: sourly striving to withhold the good Lord's bounty
from the stout and merry fellows who had with lively courage put out to
gather it. 'Twas catch and split and stow away! In the dawn of stormy
days and sunny ones--contemptuous of the gray wind and reaching
seas--the skiffs came and went. From headland to headland--dodging the
reefs, escaping the shifting peril of ice, outwitting the drifting
mists--little schooners chased the fish. Wave and rock and wind and
bergs--separate dangers, allied with night and fog and sleety rain--were
blithely encountered. Sometimes, to be sure, they wreaked their purpose;
but, notwithstanding, day by day the schooners sailed and the skiffs put
out to the open, and fish were cheerily taken from the sea. Spite of
all, the splitting-knives flashed, and torches flared on the decks and
in the mud huts ashore. Barren hills--the bleak and uninhabited places
of the northern coast--for a season reflected the lurid glow and echoed
the song and shout. Thanks be to God, the fleet was loading!

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