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Doctor Luke of the Labrador, a novel by Norman Duncan |
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Chapter 16. A Malady Of The Heart |
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_ CHAPTER 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, whatever. "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. _ |
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