Doctor Luke of the Labrador by Norman Duncan (i want to read a book .TXT) 📕

*


Near midsummer our coast was mightily outraged by the sailings of the _Sink or Swim_, Jim Tall, master--Jagger's new schooner, trading our ports and the harbours of the Newfoundland French Shore, with a case of smallpox in the forecastle. We were all agog over it, bitterly angered, every one of us; and by day we kept watch from the heads to warn her off, and by night we saw to our guns, that we might instantly deal with her, should she so much as poke her prow into the waters of our harbour. Once, being on the Watchman with my father's glass, I fancied I sighted her, far off shore, beating up to Wayfarer's Tickle in the dusk: but could not make sure, for there was a haze abroad, and her cut was not yet well known to us. Then we heard no more of her, until, by and by, the skipper of the _Huskie Dog_, bound north, left news that she was still at large to the south, and sang us a rousing song, which, he said, had been made by young Dannie Crew of Ragged Harbour, and was then vastly popular with the folk of the places below.


"Oh, _have_ you seed the skipper o' the schooner _Sink or Swim_?
We'll use a rope what's long an' strong, when we cotches him.
He've a case o' smallpox for'ard,
An' we'll hang un, by the Lord!
For he've traded every fishin' port from Conch t' Harbour Rim.

"T' save the folk that dreads it,
We'll hang the man that spreads it,
They's lakes o' fire in hell t' sail for such as Skipper Jim!"


My sister, sweet maid! being then in failing health and spirits, I secretly took ship with the skipper of the _Bonnie Betsy Buttercup_, bound south with the first load of that season: this that I might surely fetch the doctor to my sister's help, who sorely needed cheer and healing, lest she die like a thirsty flower, as my heart told me. And I found the doctor busy with the plague at Bay Saint Billy, himself quartered aboard the _Greased Lightning_, a fore-and-after which he had chartered for the season: to whom I lied diligently and without shame concerning my sister's condition, and with such happy effect that we put to sea in the brewing of the great gale of that year, with our topsail and tommy-dancer spread to a sousing breeze. But so evil a turn did the weather take--so thick and wild--that we were thrice near driven on a lee shore, and, in the end, were glad enough to take chance shelter behind Saul's Island, which lies close to the mainland near the Harbourless Shore. There we lay three days, with all anchors over the side, waiting in comfortable security for the gale to blow out; and 'twas at dusk of the third day that we were hailed from the coast rocks by that ill-starred young castaway of the name of Docks whose tale precipitated the final catastrophe in the life of Jagger of Wayfarer's Tickle.

* * * * *


He was only a lad, but, doubtless, rated a man; and he was now sadly woebegone--starved, shivering, bruised by the rocks and breaking water from which he had escaped. We got him into the cozy forecastle, clapped him on the back, put him in dry duds; and, then, "Come, now, lads!" cried Billy Lisson, the hearty skipper of the _Greased Lightning_, "don't you go sayin' a word 'til I brew you a cup o' tea. On the Harbourless Shore, says you? An' all hands lost? Don't you say a word. Not one!"

The castaway turned a ghastly face towards the skipper. "No," he whispered, in a gasp, "not one."

"Not you!" Skipper Billy rattled. "You keep mum. Don't you so much as _mutter_ 'til I melts that iceberg in your belly."

"No, sir."

Perchance to forestall some perverse attempt at loquacity, Skipper Billy lifted his voice in song--a large, rasping voice, little enough acquainted with melody, but expressing the worst of the rage of those days: being thus quite sufficient to the occasion.


"Oh, _have_ you seed the skipper o' the schooner _Sink or Swim_?
We'll use a rope what's long an' strong, when we cotches him.
He've a case o' smallpox for'ard,
An' we'll hang un, by the Lord!
For he've traded every fishin' port from Conch t' Harbour Rim.

"T' save the folk that dreads it,
We'll _hang_ the man that spreads it,
They's lakes o' fire in hell t' sail for such as Skipper Jim!"


"Skipper Billy, sir," said Docks, hoarsely, leaning into the light of the forecastle lamp, "does you say _hang_? Was they goin' t' hang Skipper Jim if they cotched him?"

"_Was_ we?" asked Skipper Billy. "By God," he roared, "we _is_!"

"My God!" Docks whispered, staring deep into the skipper's eyes, "they was goin' t' hang the skipper!"

There was not so much as the drawing of a breath then to be heard in the forecastle of the _Greased Lightning_. Only the wind, blowing in the night--and the water lapping at the prow--broke the silence.

"Skipper Billy, sir," said Docks, his voice breaking to a whimper, "was they goin' t' hang the crew? They wasn't, was they? Not goin' t' _hang_ un?"

"Skipper t' cook, lad," Skipper Billy answered, the words prompt and sure. "Hang un by the neck 'til they was dead."

"My God!" Docks whined. "They was goin' t' hang the crew!"

"But we isn't cotched un yet."

"No," said the boy, vacantly. "Nor you never will."

The skipper hitched close to the table. "Lookee, lad," said he, leaning over until his face was close to the face of Docks, "was _you_ ever aboard the _Sink or Swim_?"

"Ay, sir," Docks replied, at last, brushing his hair from his brow. "I was clerk aboard the _Sink or Swim_ two days ago."

For a time Skipper Billy quietly regarded the lad--the while scratching his beard with a shaking hand.

"Clerk," Docks sighed, "two days ago."

"Oh, _was_ you?" the skipper asked. "Well, well!" His lower jaw dropped. "An' would mind tellin' us," he continued, his voice now touched with passion, "what's _come_ o' that damned craft?"

"She was lost on the Harbourless Shore, sir, with all hands--but me."

"Thank God for that!"

"Ay, thank God!"

Whereupon the doctor vaccinated Docks.


XXV

A CAPITAL CRIME

"You never set eyes on old Skipper Jim, did you, Skipper Billy?" Docks began, later, that night. "No? Well, he was a wonderful hard man. They says the devil was abroad the night of his bornin'; but I'm thinkin' that Jagger o' Wayfarer's Tickle had more t' do with the life he lived than ever the devil could manage. 'Twas Jagger that owned the _Sink or Swim_; 'twas he that laid the courses--ay, that laid this last one, too. Believe me, sir," now turning to Doctor Luke, who had uttered a sharp exclamation, "for I _knowed_ Jagger, an' I _sailed_ along o' Skipper Jim. 'Skipper Jim,' says I, when the trick we played was scurvy, 'this here ain't right.' 'Right?' says he. 'Jagger's gone an' laid _that_ word by an' forgot where he put it.' 'But you, Skipper Jim,' says I, '_you_; what _you_ doin' this here for?' 'Well, Docks,' says he, 'Jagger,' says he, 'says 'tis a clever thing t' do, an' I'm thinkin',' says he, 'that Jagger's near right. Anyhow,' says he, 'Jagger's my owner.'"

Doctor Luke put his elbows on the forecastle table, his chin on his hands--and thus gazed, immovable, at young Docks.

"Skipper Jim," the lad went on, "was a lank old man, with a beard that used t' put me in mind of a dead shrub on a cliff. Old, an' tall, an' skinny he was; an' the flesh of his face was sort o' wet an' whitish, as if it had no feelin'. They wasn't a thing in the way o' wind or sea that Skipper Jim was afeard of. I like a brave man so well as anybody does, but I haven't no love for a fool; an' I've seed _him_ beat out o' safe harbour, with all canvas set, when other schooners was reefed down an' runnin' for shelter. Many a time I've took my trick at the wheel when the most I hoped for was three minutes t' say my prayers.

"'Skipper, sir,' we used t' say, when 'twas lookin' black an' nasty t' win'ard an' we was wantin' t' run for the handiest harbour, ''tis like you'll be holdin' on for Rocky Cove. Sure, you've no call t' run for harbour from _this here_ blow!'

"'Stand by that mainsheet there!' he'd yell. 'Let her off out o' the wind. We'll be makin' for Harbour Round for shelter. Holdin' on, did you say? My dear man, they's a whirlwind brewin'!'

"But if 'twas blowin' hard--a nor'east snorter, with the gale raisin' a wind-lop on the swell, an' the night comin' down--if 'twas blowin' barb'rous hard, sometimes we'd get scared.

"'Skipper,' we couldn't help sayin', ''tis time t' get out o' this. Leave us run for shelter, man, for our lives!'

"'Steady, there, at the wheel!' he'd sing out. 'Keep her on her course. 'Tis no more than a clever sailin' breeze.'

"Believe _me_, sir," Docks sighed, "they wasn't a port Skipper Jim wouldn't make, whatever the weather, if he could trade a dress or a Bible or a what-not for a quintal o' fish. 'Docks,' says he, 'Jagger,' says he, 'wants fish, an' _I_ got t' get un.' So it wasn't pleasant sailin' along o' him in the fall o' the year, when the wind was all in the nor'east, an' the shore was a lee shore every night o' the week. No, sir! 'twasn't pleasant sailin' along o' Skipper Jim in the _Sink or Swim_. On no account, 'twasn't pleasant! Believe _me_, sir, when I lets my heart feel again the fears o' last fall, I haven't no love left for Jim. No, sir! doin' what he done this summer, I haven't no love left for Jim.

"'It's fish me an' Jagger wants, b'y,' says he t' me, 'an' they's no one'll keep un from us.'

"'Dear man!' says I, pointin' t' the scales, 'haven't you got no conscience?'

"'Conscience!' says he. 'What's that? Sure,' says he, 'Jagger never _heared_ that word!'

"Well, sir, as you knows, there's been a wonderful cotch o' fish on the Labrador side o' the Straits this summer. An' when Skipper Jim hears a Frenchman has brought the smallpox t' Poor Luck Harbour, we was tradin' the French shore o' Newfoundland. Then he up an' cusses the smallpox, an' says he'll make a v'y'ge of it, no matter what. I'm thinkin' 'twas all the fault o' the cook, the skipper bein' the contrary man he was; for the cook he says he've signed t' cook the grub, an' he'll cook 'til he drops in his tracks, but he _haven't_ signed t' take the smallpox, an' he'll be jiggered for a squid afore he'll sail t' the