Billy Topsail & Company: A Story for Boys

When the candle had burned low, he lighted another, put the butt through the hole, and jammed it. At last he fell asleep, with his head resting on a pile of dress-goods; and the candle was burning unattended. He was awakened by a hail from the deck.

“Billy, b’y, where is you?”

It was Skipper Bill’s hearty voice; and before Billy could tumble up the ladder, the skipper’s bulky body closed the exit.

“She’s all safe, sir!” said the boy.

Skipper Bill at that moment caught sight of the lighted candle. He snatched it from its place, dropped it on the floor and stamped on it. He was a-tremble from head to foot.

“What’s this foolery?” he demanded, angrily.

Billy explained.

“It was plucky, b’y,” said the skipper, “but ’twas wonderful risky.”

“Sure, there was no call to be afraid.”

“No call to be afraid!” cried the skipper.

“No, sir–no,” said Billy. “There’s not a grain of powder in the keg.”

“Empty–an empty keg?” the skipper roared.

“Do you think,” said Billy, indignantly, “that I’d have risked the schooner that way if ’twas a full keg?”

Skipper Bill stared; and for a long time afterwards he could not look at Billy without staring.

CHAPTER XXXIV

In Which Skipper Bill, as a Desperate Expedient, Contemplates the Use of His Teeth, and Archie Armstrong, to Save His Honour, Sets Sail in a Basket, But Seems to Have Come a Cropper

Billy Topsail suddenly demanded:

“Where’s the Grand Lake?”

“The Grand Lake,” Skipper Bill drawled, with a sigh, “is somewheres t’ the s’uth’ard footin’ it for St. John’s.”

“You missed her!” Billy accused.

“Didn’t neither,” said the indignant skipper. “She steamed right past Hook-an’-Line without a wink in that direction.”

This was shocking news.

“Anyhow,” said little Donald North, as though it mattered importantly, “we seed her smoke.”

Billy looked from Donald to Jimmie, from Jimmie to Bagg, from Bagg to the skipper; and then he stared about.

“Where’s Archie?” he asked.

“Archie,” the skipper replied, “is footin’ it for St. John’s, too. ‘Skipper Bill,’ says Archie, ‘Billy Topsail has kep’ that schooner safe. I knows he has. It was up t’ Billy Topsail t’ save the firm from wreckers an’ I’ll lay you that Billy Topsail has saved the firm. Now, Skipper Bill,’ says Archie, ‘you go back t’ Jolly Harbour an’ get that schooner off. You get her off somehow. Get her off jus’ as soon as you can,’ says he, ‘an’ fetch her to St. John’s.’

“‘I can’t get her off,’ says I.

“‘Yes, you can, too, Skipper Bill,’ says he. ‘I’ll lay you can get her off. I don’t know how you’ll do it,’ says he; ‘but I’ll lay you can!’

“‘I’ll get her off, Archie,’ says I, ‘if I got t’ jump in the sea an’ haul her off with a line in my teeth.’

“‘I knowed you would,’ says he; ‘an’ you got the best teeth, Skipper Bill,’ says he, ‘t’ be found on this here coast. As for me, skipper,’ says he, ‘I’m goin’ down t’ St. John’s if I got t’ walk on water. I told my father that I’d be in his office on the first o’ September–an’ I’m goin’ t’ be there. If I can’t be there with the fish I can be there with the promise o’ fish; an’ I can back that promise up with a motor boat, a sloop yacht an’ a pony an’ cart. I don’t know how I’m goin’ t’ get t’ St. John’s,’ says he, ‘an’ I don’t want t’ walk on a wet sea like this; but I’m goin’ t’ get there somehow by the first o’ September, an’ I’m goin’ to assoom’–yes, sir, ‘assoom, Skipper Bill,’ says Archie–‘I’m goin’ to assoom that you’ll fetch down the Spot Cash an’ the tail an’ fins of every last tom-cod aboard that there craft.’

“An’ I’m goin’ t’ do it!” Skipper Bill roared in conclusion, with a slap of the counter with his hairy fist that made the depleted stock rattle on the shelves.

“Does you t-t-think you c-c-can haul her off with your teeth?” Donald North asked with staring eyes.

Bill o’ Burnt Bay burst into a shout of laughter.

“We’ll have no help from the Jolly Harbour folk,” said Billy Topsail, gravely. “They’re good-humoured men,” he added, “but they means t’ have this here schooner if they can.”

“Never mind,” said Skipper Bill, with an assumption of far more hope than was in his honest, willing heart. “We’ll get her off afore they comes again.”

“Wisht you’d ’urry up,” said Bagg.

With the Spot Cash high and dry–with a small crew aboard–with a numerous folk, clever and unfriendly (however good-humoured they were), bent on possessing that which they were fully persuaded it was their right to have–with no help near at hand and small prospect of the appearance of aid–the task which Archie Armstrong had set Bill o’ Burnt Bay was the most difficult one the old sea-dog had ever encountered in a long career of hard work, self-dependence and tight places. The Jolly Harbour folk might laugh and joke, they might even offer sympathy, they might be the most hospitable, tender-hearted, God-fearing folk in the world; but tradition had taught them that what the sea cast up belonged righteously to the men who could take it, and they would with good consciences and the best humour in the world stand upon that doctrine. And Bill o’ Burnt Bay would do no murder to prevent them: it was not the custom of the coast to do murder in such cases; and Archie Armstrong’s last injunction had been to take no lives.

Bill o’ Burnt Bay declared in growing wrath to the boys that he would come next door to murder.

“I’ll pink ’em, anyhow,” said he, as he loaded his long gun. “I’ll makes holes for earrings, ecod!”

Yes, sir; the skipper would show the Jolly Harbour folk how near a venturesome man could come to letting daylight into a Jolly Harbour hull without making a hopeless leak. Jus’ t’ keep ’em busy calking, ecod! How much of this was mere loud and saucy words–with how much real meaning the skipper spoke–even the skipper himself did not know. But, yes, sir; he’d show ’em in the morning. It was night, now, however–though near morning. Nobody would put out from shore before daybreak. They had been frightened off once. Skipper Bill’s wrath could simmer to the boiling point. But a watch must be kept. No chances must be taken with the Spot Cash, and–

“Ahoy, Billy!” a pleasant voice called from the water.

The crew of the Spot Cash rushed on deck.

“Oh, ho!” another voice laughed. “Skipper’s back, too, eh?”

“With a long–perfeckly trustworthy–loaded–gun,” Skipper Bill solemnly replied.

The men in the punts laughed heartily.

“Sheer off!” Skipper Bill roared.

But in the protecting shadows of the night the punts came closer. And there was another laugh.

It chanced at Hook-and-Line Harbour before night–Skipper Bill had then for hours been gone towards Jolly Harbour–that a Labrador fishing craft put in for water. She was loaded deep; her decks were fairly awash with her load of fish, and at best she was squat and old and rotten–a basket to put to sea in. Here was no fleet craft; but she was south-bound, at any rate, and Archie Armstrong determined to board her. To get to St. John’s–to open the door of his father’s office on the first of September as he had promised–to explain and to reassure and even to present in hard cash the value of a sloop yacht and a pony and a motor boat–was the boy’s feverish determination. He could not forget his father’s grave words: “Your honour is involved.” Perhaps he exaggerated the importance of them. His honour? The boy had no wish to be excused–had no liking for fatherly indulgence. He was wholly intent upon justifying his father’s faith and satisfying his own sense of honourable obligation. It must be fish or cash–fish or cash–and as it seemed it could not be fish it must therefore be cash.

It must be hard cash–cash down–paid on the first of September over his father’s desk in the little office overlooking the wharves.

“Green Bay bound,” the skipper of the Labrador craft replied to Archie’s question.