Billy Topsail, M.D.

CHAPTER XXV

In Which a Stretch of Slush is to be Crossed and Billy Topsail Takes the Law in His Own Hands

It was falling dusk and blowing up when Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail, gaffs in hand, left the heads of Candlestick Cove for the ice of Ships' Run; and a spit of frosty snow – driving in straight lines – was in the gale. Amen Island, lying nearly in the wind's eye, was hardly distinguishable, through the misty interval, from the blue-black sky beyond.

There was more wind in the northeast – more snow and a more penetrating degree of frost. It was already blowing at the pitch of half a gale: it would rise to a gale in the night, thick with snow, it might be, and blowing bitter cold – the wind jumping over the point of Amen Island on a diagonal and sweeping down the Run.

Somewhere to leeward of Candlestick Cove the jam had yielded to the rising pressure of the wind. The floe was outward bound from the Run. It was already moving in the channel, scraping the rocks of both shores – moving faster as the pans below ran off to open water and removed their restraint.

As yet the pans and hummocks were in reasonably sure contact all the way from Candlestick Cove to Come-Along Point of Amen Island; but the ice was thinning out with accelerating speed – black water disclosing itself in widening gaps – as the compression was relieved. All the while, thus, as Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail made across, the path was diminishing.

In the slant of the wind the ice in the channel of Ships' Run was blown lightly against the Candlestick coast. About the urgent business of its escape to the wide water of Great Yellow Bay the floe rubbed the Candlestick rocks in passing and crushed around the corner of Dead Man's Point.

Near Amen Island, where the wind fell with less force, there was a perilous line of separation. In the lee of the Amen hills – close inshore – the ice was not disturbed: it hugged the coast as before; but outward of this – where the wind dropped down – a lane of water was opening between the inert shore ice and the wind-blown main floe.

As yet the lane was narrow; and there were pans in it – adrift and sluggishly moving away from the Amen shore. When Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail came to this widening breach they were delayed – the course was from pan to pan in a direction determined by the exigency of the moment; and when they had drawn near the coast of Amen – having advanced in a general direction as best they could – they were halted altogether.

And they were not then under Come-Along Point, but on a gathering of heavy Arctic ice, to the north, at the limit of Ships' Run, under that exposed head of Amen, called Deep Water Head, which thrusts itself into the open sea.

"We're stopped, sir," Billy Topsail declared. "We'd best turn back, sir, while there's time."

A way of return was still open. It would be laborious – nothing worse.

"One moment – "

"No chance, sir."

"I'm an agile man, Billy. One moment. I – "

Billy Topsail turned his back to a blast of the gale and patiently awaited the issue of Doctor Luke's inspection of the path.

"A man can't cross that slush, sir," said he.

Past Deep Water Head the last of the floe was driving. There is a wide little cove there – it is called Deep Water Cove; and there is deep water – a drop of ten fathoms (they say) – under Deep Water Cliff. There was open water in both directions beyond the points of the cove. A detour was thus interrupted.

Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail confronted the only ice that was still in contact with the shore. At no time had the floe extended far beyond Deep Water Head. A high sea, rolling in from the northeast, had played under the ice; and this had gone on for three days – the seas running in and subsiding: all the while casting the ice ponderously against the rocks.

Heavy Arctic ice – fragments of many glacial bergs – had caught the lesser, more brittle drift-pans of the floe against the broken base and submerged face of Deep Water Cliff and ground them slowly to slush in the swells. There were six feet of this slush, perhaps – a depth of six feet and a width of thirty.

It was as coarse as cracked ice in a freezer. It was a quicksand. Should a man's leg go deep enough he would not be able to withdraw it; and once fairly caught – both feet gripped – he would inevitably drop through. It would be a slow and horrible descent – like sinking in a quicksand.

It was near dark. The snow – falling thicker – was fast narrowing the circle of vision.

"I might get across," said Doctor Luke.

"You'll not try, sir," Billy Topsail declared, positively. "You'll start back t' Candlestick Cove."

"I might – "

"You'll not!"

There was something in Billy Topsail's tone to make Doctor Luke lift his brows and stare.

"What's that?" said he, smiling grimly.

"I says you'll not try."

Doctor Luke laughed uneasily.

"No?"

"No, sir."

Billy Topsail was a big boy. Doctor Luke measured his length and breadth and power with new interest and recalled that he had always admired the lusty proportions of the lad. Decidedly – Billy Topsail was a big fellow! And Billy Topsail's intentions were plain.

"Now – " the Doctor began, argumentatively.

"'Tis no use, sir. I knows you."

Doctor Luke moved off a step. "But Billy, you see, my dear fellow – "

"No, sir!" Billy Topsail moved within reach.

"I'm quite sure – "

"No."

Doctor Luke stared at the breach of slush. He faced away, then, abruptly. "Wel-ll," he admitted, with a shrug, "no doubt you're right, Billy. I – "

CHAPTER XXVI

In Which it Seems that an Axe and Terry Lute's Finger Are Surely to Come into Injurious Contact, and Terry Lute is Caught and Carried Bawling to the Block, While His Mother Holds the Pot of Tar

In Tom Lute's cottage beyond Come-Along Point of Amen Island they were ready for the operation. There was a thick, round billet of birch, upended in the middle of the kitchen floor, to serve as a block for the amputation; and the axe was sharp, at last – at hand, too, but concealed, for the moment, behind the pantry door – and a pot of tar was warming on the kitchen stove.

Sandy Lands had reported for duty, whom nothing but a sense of duty had drawn to a hand in the surgical assistance – a bit perturbed, as he contemplated the task of restraining the struggles of a violent little subject, whose temper he knew, but sturdy and resolved, his resolution substantiated by a sort of religious austerity.

Black Walt Anderson, a gigantic, phlegmatic fellow, who would have subdivided into half a dozen little Terry Lutes, also awaited the signal to pounce upon the Little Fiddler of Amen Island, imprison his arms, confine his legs, subdue all his little struggles, in short, bear him to the block and flatten his hand and spread his fingers for the severing blow.

It was to be a simple operation – a swift descent of the axe and a quick application of hot tar and bandages to stifle the wound. And that was to be the end of the finger and the trouble.

There had been a good deal of trouble. Terry Lute's sore finger was a source of brutal agony. There had been many days of this pain – a throbbing torture in the finger and hand and arm. And Terry had practiced deception in an heroic degree.

No pain (said he); but, ah, well, a twinge, now an' again – but nothin' at all t' make a man complain. An' sure (said he), 'twas better all the while – improvin' every blessed minute, sir. A day more (said he) would see the boil yield t' mother's poultice; an' a fortnight would see un all healed up an' the finger able for labour again.

It was in the night that Terry could conceal the agony no longer – deep in the night, when his mother sat beside the cot; and then he would crawl out of bed, stow his slender little body away in his mother's arms, put his head down and cry and moan without shame until he had exhausted himself and fallen into a fitful sleep.

No; it was no trifling agony for Terry Lute to withstand. And he knew all the while, moreover, that the cut of an axe – no more, it might be, than a flash – would eventually relieve him. Terry Lute was not afraid of the pain of the thing they wanted to do. That was not the inspiration of his infuriated rebellion.

There was nothing mistaken in the intention of the axe. It was neither cruel nor blundering.

Amen Island lies remote: the folk do for themselves – they are nearly sufficient to themselves, indeed, in all the affairs of life; and when they fail (they say) and sorrow comes of it – well, there is failure everywhere, too, and life leaves every man when the spirit is finished with its habitation. "I done the best I could!" It is epitaph honourable enough. There was no horror on Amen Island – no furious complaint of the wrongs of a social arrangement – when catastrophe came through lack of uncommon means to stave it off.

And so when Tom Lute told old Bob Likely that when he had a job to do he was accustomed to employ the best means at hand – he expressed in simple terms the lesson of his habitat. This affair of Terry Lute's finger was of gravest moment; had the finger gangrened – it must come off in haste, and the sooner the better; and an axe and a pot of tar were the serviceable instruments according to the teaching of all experience.

Doubtless doctors were better provided and more able; but as there was no doctor to be had, and as Terry Lute was loved and greatly desired in the flesh, and as he was apparently in peril of a sudden departure – and as he was in desperate pain – and as —

But Terry Lute would not have his finger off. From the corner, where he stood at bay, roaring in a way to silence the very gale that had now begun to shake the cottage, he ran to his mother's knee, as though for better harbour.

And there he sobbed his complaint.

"Ah, Terry, lad," his father pleaded; "'tis only a finger!"

"'Tis on my left hand!"

"You're not left-handed, son," Tom Lute argued, patiently. "You've no real need o' four fingers there. Why, sonny, boy, once I knowed a man – "

"'Tis one o' my fiddle fingers."

Tom Lute sighed. "Fiddle fingers, son!" said he. "Ah, now, boy! You've said that so often, an' so foolishly, that I – "

"I'll not have it off!"

"But – "

"Isn't no use in havin' it off," Terry complained, "an' I can't spare it. This here boil – "

"'Tisn't a boil, son. 'Tis mortification. An' – "

"'Tis not mortification."

Again Tom sighed.

"Is you afeared, Terry?" said he. "Surely you isn't a pullin' little coward, is you? A finger! 'Tis such a simple little thing t' suffer – "

"I'm not afeared neither!"

"Well, then – "

"You may cut any finger you likes off my right hand," Terry boasted, "an' I'll not whimper a peep."

"I don't want a finger off your right hand, Terry."

"I won't have it!"

"'Tis no pleasure t' me t' – "

"I won't have a finger off my left hand!"

"I tells you, Terry, you isn't left-handed. I've told you that a thousand times. What in the name o' – "

"I tells you I won't have it!"

Black Walt Anderson looked to Tom Lute for a signal. Sandy Lands rose.

"Now?" he seemed to inquire.

Tom Lute shook his head.

"That's the way we done aboard the Royal Bloodhound," the Little Fiddler's grandfather put in. He began to pace the floor. The tap-tap of his wooden leg was furious and his voice was as gusty as the gale outside. "Now, you mark me!" he ran on. "We chopped Cap'n Sam Small's foot off with a axe an' plugged it with b'ilin' tar. 'Twas mortification. I knows mortification when I sees it. An' Sam Small got well."

He was bawling, by this time, like a skipper in a gale – being deaf, the old man was accustomed to raise his voice, a gradual crescendo, until he had come as near hearing himself as possible.

"Yes, sir – you mark me! That's what we done aboard the Royal Bloodhound the year I shipped for the seals along o' Small Sam Small. We chopped it clean off with a meat axe an' plugged it with b'ilin' tar. If Small Sam Small had clung t' that member for another day he would have died. Mark me! Small Sam Small would have been dropped over the side o' the Royal Bloodhound an' left t' shift for hisself in a sack an' a Union Jack!"

He paused before Terry Lute and shook a lean finger under the little boy's nose.

"Now," he roared, "you mark me!"

"I isn't aboard the Royal Bloodhound!" Terry sobbed.

"Ah, Terry!" This was Terry's mother. She was crying bitterly. "You'll die an you don't have that finger off!"

"I'll die an I got to!"

"Oh, Terry, Terry!"

"I isn't afeared t' die."

"Ah, Terry, dear, whatever would I do – "

"I'll die afore I gives up one o' my fiddle fingers."

"But you isn't got – "

"Never you mind about that!"

"If you had – "

"You jus' wait till I grows up!"

Again Sandy Lands inquired for the signal. Tom Lute lifted a hand to forbid.

"Terry, son," said he, gravely, "once an' for all, now, will you – "

"No!" Terry roared.

"Oh, oh, Terry, dear!" the mother wailed, observing the preparations that were making behind Terry's back. "If you'd only – "

Terry screamed in a furious passion:

"Have done, woman! I tells you I won't have none o' my fiddle fingers cut off!"

It was the end. Tom Lute gave the signal. Sandy Lands and Black Walt Anderson pounced upon little Terry Lute and carried him bawling and struggling from his mother's knee towards the block of birch in the middle of the kitchen floor. Tom Lute stood waiting there with the axe.

As for Terry Lute's mother, she flew to the stove, tears streaming from her eyes, her mouth grim, and fetched the pot of tar. And then all at once the Little Fiddler of Amen Island wriggled out of the clutches of his captors – they were too tender with him – and dived under the kitchen table.

CHAPTER XXVII

In Which Doctor Luke's Flesh Creeps, Billy Topsail Acts Like a Bob-Cat, and the Little Fiddler of Amen Island Tells a Secret

Confronting the slush of Deep Water Cove, with the finger of the Little Fiddler of Amen Island awaiting his ministration beyond, Doctor Luke had misled the faithful Billy Topsail into the assumption of his acquiescence. It was not in his mind to return to Candlestick Cove that night. It was in his mind to gain the shore and proceed upon his professional call. And there was reason in this. For when the group of Arctic ice – still rhythmically swinging in and out with the great seas from the open – drove down upon the broken base of Deep Water Cliff, it compressed the ice between.

At the moment of greatest compression the slush was reasonably solid ground. When the Arctic ice subsided with the wave, the slush expanded in the wider space it was then permitted to occupy. A man could cross – a light, agile man, daring the depth of the slush, might be able to cross – when the slush was compressed. No man could run all the way across. It must be in two advances. Midway he would be caught by the subsidence of the wave. From this he must preserve himself.

And from this – from dropping through the field of slush and having it close over his head – he might preserve himself by means of his gaff.

"Wel-ll," Doctor Luke had admitted, apparently resigned, "no doubt you're right, Billy. I – "

Now the Arctic ice was poised.

"Ay, sir. An' you're more reasonable than ever I knowed you t' – "

A sea was rolling in.

"Wel-ll," the Doctor drawled, "as I grow older – "

Then came the moment of advantage. Doctor Luke ran out on the slush before Billy Topsail could reach out a hand to restrain him. It was indiscreet. Doctor Luke had been too eager to escape – he had started too soon; the sea was not down – the slush was not squeezed tight. A foot sank to the ankle. Doctor Luke jerked it out The other foot went down to the calf of the leg. Doctor Luke jerked it – tugged it. It was fast. The slush, in increasing compression, had caught it. He must wait for the wave to subside.

His flesh crept with the horror of the thing. He was trapped – caught fast! A moment later the sea was in retreat from the cliff and the slush began rapidly to thin. Doctor Luke employed the stratagem that is familiar to the coast for dealing with such ice as the slush in which he was entrapped. He waited – alert. There would come a moment when the consistency of the ice would be so thin that he would drop through.

Precisely before that moment – when his feet were first free – he dropped flat on his gaff. Having in this way distributed his weight – avoided its concentration on a small area – he was borne up. And he withdrew his feet and waited for the sea to fall in again and compress the ice.

When the next wave fell in Billy Topsail started across the ice like a bob-cat.

Doctor Luke lay inert through two waves. When the third fell he jumped up and ran towards the base of Deep Water Cliff. Again the sea caught him unaware. His flesh was creeping again. Horror of the stuff underfoot – the treacherous insecurity of it – drove him. The shore was close. He was too eager for the shore – he ran too far; and his foot went down again – foot and leg to the thigh. As instinctively he tried violently to extract the leg by stepping up on the other foot – that leg went down to the knee.

A fall to the arm-pits impended – a drop clean through and overhead. The drop would inevitably be the result of a flash of hesitation. Doctor Luke cried out. And as he cried he plunged forward – a swift, conscious effort to fall prone on his gaff. There was a blank. Nothing seemed to happen. He was amazed to discover that the gaff upheld him. It occurred to him, then, that his feet were trapped – that he could not withdraw his legs from the sucking slush.

Nor could he. They were caught. And he perceived that they were sinking deeper – that he was slowly slipping through the slush.

He was conscious of the night – the dark and snow and wind; and he fancied that he heard a voice of warning.

"Cotch hold – "

It was a voice.

"Cotch hold o' the gaff!"

Doctor Luke seized the end of Billy Topsail's gaff and drew himself out of the grip of the slush. When the sea came in again he jumped up and joined Billy Topsail on the broken base of Deep Water Cliff. He was breathing hard. He did not look back. Billy Topsail said that they had better make haste – that somebody would "cotch a death o' cold" if they did not make haste. And they made haste.

An hour or more later Doctor Luke, with Billy Topsail in his wake, thrust into Tom Lute's agitated kitchen and interrupted the amputation of the fiddle finger of the Little Fiddler of Amen Island with a "Well, well, well! What in the name of – " and stood staring – all dusted with snow and shivering and fairly gone purple with cold.

They had Terry Lute cornered, then – his back against the wall, his face horrified, his mouth wide open in a bellow of rage; and Sandy Lands and Black Walt Anderson were almost upon him – and Tom Lute was grimly ready with the axe and Terry Lute's mother was standing beside the round birch block with the pot of tar in her hands and her apron over her head.

Doctor Luke stood staring at all this – his mouth as wide open, because of a temporary paralysis, due to his amazement, as Terry Lute's mouth was fallen in anger and terror. And it was not long after that – the Doctor being warm and dry, then, and the kitchen quiet and expectant, and Tom Lute and Terry Lute's mother exhibiting relief and the keenest sort of interest – that the Doctor took Terry Lute's fiddle finger in his hand.

Then he began to prepare the finger for the healing thrust of a lance.

"I'm going to cure it, Terry," said he.

"That's good, sir. I'm wonderful glad t' save that finger."

"You cherish that finger, Terry?"

"I does that, sir! I've need of it, sir."

The Doctor was not attending. His attention was on the lance and its object. "Mm-m," he ran on, absently, to make distracting conversation. "You've need of it, eh?"

"'Tis one o' my fiddle fingers, sir."

"Mm-m? Ah! The Little Fiddler of Amen Island! Well, Terry, lad, you'll be able to play your fiddle again in a fortnight."

Terry grinned.

"No, sir," said he. "I won't be playin' my fiddle by that time."

The Doctor looked up in astonishment.

"Yes, you will," he flashed, sharply.

"No, sir."

"But I tell you – "

"I isn't got no fiddle."

"What!"

"All I got now," said the Little Fiddler of Amen Island, "is a jew's-harp. But jus' you wait till I grows up!"

Billy Topsail had broken into smothered laughter; and Doctor Luke, laughing, too, had already determined that the Little Fiddler of Amen Island should not have to wait until he grew up for his first violin (which came to pass in due course) – this hearty mirth was in progress when there was a loud knock on the door, a trample of feet in the entry, a draught of cold air blowing through the open door, and Billy Topsail had the surprise of his not uneventful career. He stared, helpless with amazement, incredulity, delight; and for a moment he could do nothing more worthy of his manners than keep on staring, as though he had clapped eyes on a ghost.

Archie Armstrong had come in.

"Archie!" Doctor Luke exclaimed.

They shook hands. But Archie Armstrong's eyes were not on Doctor Luke. Doctor Luke might be met anywhere at any time. It was not surprising to find him on Amen Island. Archie was staring at Billy Topsail.

"Ye little lobster!" said he, at last, grinning.

"Whoop!" Billy yelled. "'Tis you!"

They flew at each other. It was like a wrestling bout. Each in the bear-like embrace of the other, they staggered over the floor and eventually fell down exhausted. And then they got up and shook hands in what Archie called "the regular" way.

CHAPTER XXVIII

In Which Sir Archibald Armstrong's Son and Heir is Presented for the Reader's Inspection, Highly Complimented and Recommended by the Author, and the Thrilling Adventure, Which Archie and Billy are Presently to Begin, Has its Inception on the Departure of Archie From St. John's Aboard the "Rough and Tumble"

As everybody in St. John's knew very well (and a good many folk of the outports, to say nothing of a large proportion of the sealing fleet), Archie Armstrong was the son of Sir Archibald Armstrong, who was used to calling himself a fish-dealer, but was, in fact, a deal more than that. Directly or indirectly, Sir Archibald's business interests touched every port in Newfoundland, every cove of the Labrador, the markets of Spain and Portugal, of the West Indies and the South American Republics.

His fishing schooners went south to the Banks and north to the gray, cold seas off Cape Chidley; his whalers gave chase in the waters of the Gulf and the Straits; his trading schooners ran from port to port of all that rugged coast; his barques carried cod and salmon and oil to all the markets of the world. And when the ice came down from the north in the spring of the year, his sealing vessels sailed from St. John's on the great adventure.

Archie was Sir Archibald's son. There was no doubt about that. He was a fine, hearty lad – robust, as every young Newfoundlander should be; straight, agile, alert, with head carried high; merry, quick-minded, ready-tongued, fearless in wind and high sea, as a good many adventures with Billy Topsail had proved. His hair was tawny, his eyes as blue as Billy Topsail's, and as wide and as clear; and his face was broad and good-humoured.

And (every lad has his amiable weakness) Archie was something of a dandy in his dress – a tailored, speckless, polished, fashionable person, to whom the set of his trousers and the knot in his cravat were matters of concern. All in all, from his soles to his crown, and from his rosy skin to the innermost recesses of his good red heart, he was very much of a brave, kindly, self-respecting man.