Home > Authors Index > Norman Duncan > Doctor Luke of the Labrador > This page
Doctor Luke of the Labrador, a novel by Norman Duncan |
||
Chapter 17. Hard Practice |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER 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. * * * * * 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. _ |
||