Billy Topsail, M.D.

When Teddy returned to the edge of the field they sat regarding him in amazement and renewed suspicion. In this way for a time the boy kept the dogs at a distance – by exciting their surprise and suspicion. It sufficed for a space. The dogs were curious. They were entertained. What was strange in the behaviour of the quarry, moreover, was fearsome to the dogs. It indicated unknown resources. The dogs waited.

Presently Teddy could devise no new startling gestures. He was never silent – he was never still; but his fantastic antics, growing familiar and proving innocuous, began to fail of effect. Something else – something out of the way and unexpected – must be done to distract and employ the attention of the dogs. They were aware of Billy Topsail's absence – they were cunning cowards and they would take advantage of the opportunity.

The dogs began to move – to whine and circle and toss their heads. Teddy could see the concerted purpose take form. It was as though they were conspiring together. He was fully aware of what impended. They were coming! he thought; and they were coming in a moment. It was an attack agreed on. They were to act as a pack.

They advanced. It was tentative and slow. They paused.

They came closer. Teddy brandished his club and reviled them in shrill screams. The dogs paused again. They crouched then. Cracker was in the lead. The boy hated Cracker. Cracker's white breast was touching the ice.

His head was thrust forward. His crest began to rise.

CHAPTER XI

In Which Teddy Brisk Gives the Strains of a Tight Cove Ballad to the North Wind, Billy Topsail Wins the Reward of Daring, Cracker Finds Himself in the Way of the Evil-Doer, and Teddy Brisk's Boast Makes Doctor Luke Laugh

Stripped down, at first, on the field, Billy Topsail would not yield to the cold. He did not shrink from the wind. He moved like a man all clothed. Nor would he yield to the shock of the water. He ignored it. It was heroic self-command. But he was the man for that – a Newfoundlander. He struck out precisely as though he had gone into the summer water of Ruddy Cove. If he relapsed from this attitude the cold would strike through him. A chill would momentarily paralyze his strength.

He was neither a strong nor a cunning swimmer. In this lapse he would go down and be choked beyond further effort before he could recover the use of his arms and legs. It was icy cold. He would not think of the cold. His best protection against it was the sufficient will to ignore it. The power would not long endure. It must endure until he had clambered out of the water to the little pan towards which he floundered. He was slow in the water. It seemed to him that his progress was mysteriously prolonged – that the wind was driving the pan away.

The wind could not rise to this pitch in a minute; but when he was midway of the lane he thought half an hour had elapsed – an hour – that he must have left the field and the boy far behind.

The boy was not much more than fifteen yards away.

A word of advice occurred to Billy. He did not turn. He was then within a dozen strokes of the little pan.

He shouted:

"Give un a tune!"

Teddy Brisk dropped his crutch, fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, whipped out his mouth organ, clapped it to his lips, and blew a lively air:

Lukie's boat was painted green,
The finest boat that ever was seen;
Lukie's boat had cotton sails,
A juniper rudder and galvanized nails.

And he so profoundly astonished the dogs with these sudden, harmonious sounds, accompanied by the jerky movement of a crippled leg, designed to resemble a dance, and in itself shockingly suspicious – so profoundly astonished the dogs that they paused to reconsider the matter in hand.

It was startling. They sat up. Aha! What was this? What did it portend?

And the little boy wheezed away:

Lukie sailed her out one day,
A fine spell o' weather in the month o' May;
She leaked so bad when he put about,
He drove her ashore on the Tailor's Snout.

And he kept on blowing that famous jig-time ballad of Tight Cove for dear life until a tug at the line round his waist warned him to brace himself against the steady pull to follow.

Teddy was still giving the strains of Lukie's adventure to the north wind when the little pan came alongside.

"Carry on!" Billy Topsail chattered behind him.

Teddy interrupted himself to answer:

"Aye, sir!"

"I'll get my clothes an' the skins aboard. Ecod! It's awful cold!"

Presently they pushed out from the field. It had not taken long. The patch of white light that was the sun had not yet dropped out of sight behind the cliffs of the shore.

It was a bad night on the field to the south. The boys were hungry. It was cold. Billy Topsail suffered from the cold. In the morning the northerly wind had turned the heap of dogskin robes into a snowdrift. The sun shone. Billy was still cold. He shivered and chattered. He despaired. Rescue came, however, in the afternoon. It was the Tight Cove skiff, hailing now from Our Harbour, with Doctor Luke aboard.

The skiff from Come-Again Bight found the dogs. The dogs were wild – the men said – and would not come aboard, but ran off in a pack to the farthest limits of the field and were not seen again – save only Cracker, who fawned and jumped into the skiff without so much as a by-your-leave. And Cracker, in due course and according to custom, they hanged by the neck at Tight Cove until he was dead.

That day, however – the afternoon of the rescue – when the Tight Cove skiff came near, Teddy Brisk put his hands to his mouth and shouted – none too lustily:

"Ahoy!"

"Aye?" Skipper Thomas answered.

"Did my mother send you?"

"She did."

Teddy Brisk turned to Billy Topsail.

"Didn't I tell you," he sobbed, his eyes blazing, "that I knowed my mother's ways?"

And Doctor Luke laughed.

CHAPTER XII

In Which Billy Topsail's Agreeable Qualities Win a Warm Welcome with Doctor Luke at Our Harbour, There is an Explosion at Ragged Run, Tommy West Drops Through the Ice and Vanishes, and Doctor Luke is in a Way Never to Be Warned of the Desperate Need of His Services

In Doctor Luke's little hospital at Our Harbour, Billy Topsail fell in with a charming group – Doctor Luke and his friends; and being himself a boy of a good many attractive qualities, and of natural good manners, which association with his friend Archie Armstrong, of St. John's, Sir Archibald's son, had helped to fashion – being a manly, good-mannered, humorous fellow, he was very soon warmly accepted. There was no mystery about Doctor Luke. He was an Englishman – a well-bred, cultured man; and having been wrecked on the coast, and having perceived the great need of a physician in those parts, he had thrown in his lot for good and all with the Labrador folk. And he was obviously happy – both busy and happy. That he regretted his determination was a preposterous thing to assume; on the contrary, he positively did not regret it – he whistled and sang and laughed and laboured, and Billy Topsail was convinced that he was not only the most useful man in the world, but the most delightful and best, and the happiest, too.

That Doctor Luke was useful was very soon evident to an astonishing degree. Teddy Brisk's leg was scraped – it was eventually healed and became quite as sound as Billy Topsail's "off shank." But there was a period of convalescence, during which Billy Topsail had all the opportunity in the world to observe just how mightily useful Doctor Luke was. The demands upon him were extraordinary; and his response to them – his ready, cheerful, skillful, brave response – was more extraordinary still.

Winter was not yet done with: summer delayed – there was more snow, more frost; and the ice drifted in and out with the variable winds: so that travelling in those parts was at its most dangerous period. Yet Doctor Luke went about with small regard for what might happen – afoot, with the dogs, and in a punt, when the ice, having temporarily drifted away, left open water. Up and down the coast, near and far, always on the wing: that was Doctor Luke – the busiest, happiest, most useful man Billy Topsail had ever known.

And Billy Topsail was profoundly affected by all this beneficent activity. He wished to emulate it. This was a secret, to be sure; there was no reason for Billy Topsail to think that a fisherman's son like himself would ever be presented with the opportunity to "wield a knife" and be made master of the arts of healing – and consequently he said nothing about the growing ambition. But the ambition flourished.

When Doctor Luke returned from his professional calls with tales of illness cured and distress alleviated, and when Billy Topsail reflected that there would have been neither cure nor alleviation had it not been for Doctor Luke's skill and kindly heart, Billy Topsail wanted with all his strength to be about that selfsame business. And there was a good deal in the performance of it to appeal to a lad like Billy Topsail – the adventure of the thing: for Doctor Luke seldom counted the chances, when they seemed not too unreasonably against him, and when the need was urgent he did not count them at all.

Billy Topsail was just a little bit puzzled at first. Why should Doctor Luke do these things? There was no gain – no material gain worth considering; but it did not take Billy Topsail long to perceive that there was in fact great gain – far exceeding material gain: the satisfaction in doing a good deed for what Doctor Luke called "the love of God" and nothing else whatsoever. Doctor Luke was not attached to any Mission. His work was his own: his field was his own – nobody contributed to his activities; nobody helped him in any way. Yet his work was done in the spirit of the missionary; and that was what Billy Topsail liked about it – the masterful, generous, high-minded quality of it.

Being an honest, healthy lad, Billy Topsail set Doctor Luke in the hero's seat and began to worship, as no good boy could very well help doing; it was not long, indeed, before Doctor Luke had grown to be as great a hero as Sir Archibald Armstrong, Archie's father – and that is saying a good deal. In the lap of the future there lay some adventures in which Billy Topsail and Archie Armstrong were to be concerned; but Billy Topsail was not aware of that.