Doctor Luke of the Labrador Part 19

"Ras.h.!.+" laughed I. "I'll cut off the reef points! Rash? There won't be a skipper can carry sail with me! I'll get the fish--an' I'll see to it that my masters does. Then I'll push our trade north an' south. Ay, I will! Oh, I knows what I'll do, Bessie, for I been talkin' with the doctor, an' we got it split an' dried. Hard work an' fair dealing, mum; that's what's t' do it. Our father's way, mum: honest scales on the wharf an' full weight at the counter. 'Twill be that or bust----"

"Why, Davy," she exclaimed, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng, "you're talkin' like a growed man!"

"Ay, ecod!" I boasted, flattered by the inference, "'twill not be many years afore we does more trade in our harbour than they does at the big stores o' Wayfarer's Tickle."

A low growl, coming from the shadows in the hall, brought me to a full stop; and upon the heels of that a fantastic e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n:

"Scuttle me!"

So sudden and savage the outburst, so raucous the voice, so charged with angry chagrin--the whole so incongruous with soft dreams and evening light--that 'twas in a s.h.i.+ver of terror my sister and I turned to discover whose presence had disturbed us.

The intruder stood in the door--a stubby, grossly stout man, thin-legged, thick-necked, all body and beard: clad below in tight trousers, falling loose, however, over the boots; swathed above in an absurdly inadequate pea-jacket, short in the sleeves and b.u.t.toned tight over a monstrous paunch, which laboured (and that right st.u.r.dily) to burst the bonds of its confinement, but succeeded only in creating a vast confusion of wrinkles. His att.i.tude was that of a man for the moment amazed beyond utterance: his head was thrown back, so that of his face nothing was to be seen but a short, ragged growth of iron-gray beard and a ridge of bushy eyebrow; his hands were plunged deep in his trousers pockets, which the fists distended; his legs, the left deformed (being bent inward at the knee), were spread wide. In the shadows beyond lurked a huge dog--a mighty, sullen beast, which came stepping up, with lowered head, to peer at us from between his master's legs.

"I'll be scuttled," said the man, bringing his head forward with a jerk, "if the little c.o.c.k wouldn't cut into the trade o' Wayfarer's Tickle!"

Having thus in a measure mastered his amazement (and not waiting to be bidden), he emerged from the obscurity of the doorway, advanced, limping heavily, and sat himself in my father's chair, from which, his bandy legs comfortably hanging from the table, where he had disposed his feet, he regarded me in a way so sinister--with a glance so fixed and ill-intentioned--that his great, hairy face, malformed and mottled, is clear to me to this day, to its last pimple and wrinkle, its bulbous, flaming nose and bloodshot eyes, as though 'twere yesterday I saw it.

And there he sat, puffing angrily, blowing his nose like a whale, scowling, ejaculating, until (as I've no doubt) he conceived us to have been reduced to a condition of trepidation wherein he might most easily overmaster us.

"Scuttled!" he repeated, fetching his paunch a resounding thwack.

"Bored!"

Thereupon he drew from the depths of his trousers pocket a disreputable clay pipe, filled it, got it alight, noisily puffed it, darting little glances at my sister and me the while, in the way of one outraged--now of reproach, now of righteous indignation, now betraying uttermost disappointment--for all the world as though he had been pained to surprise us in the thick of a conspiracy to wrong him, but, being of a meek and most forgiving disposition, would overlook the offense, though 'twas beyond his power, however willing the spirit, to hide the wound our guilt had dealt him. Whatever the object of this display, it gave me a great itching to retreat behind my sister's skirts, for fear and shame. And, as it appeared, he was quick to conjecture my feeling: for at once he dropped the fantastic manner and proceeded to a quiet and appallingly lucid statement of his business.

"I'm Jagger o' Wayfarer's Tickle," said he, "an' I'm come t' take over this trade."

"'Tis not for sale," my sister answered.

"I wants the trade o' this harbour," said he, ignoring her, "on my books. An' I got t' have it."

"We're wantin' my father's business," my sister persisted, but faintly now, "for Davy, when he's growed."

"I'm able t' buy you out," Jagger pursued, addressing the ceiling, "or run you out. 'Tis cheaper an' quicker t' buy you out. Now," dropping his eyes suddenly to my sister's, "how much are you askin' for this here trade?"

"'Tis not for sale."

"Not for sale?" roared he, jumping up.

"No, zur," she gasped.

"If I can't buy it," he cried, in a rage, driving the threat home with an oath peculiarly unfit for the ears of women, "I'll break it!"

Which brought tears to my tender sister's eyes; whereupon, with a good round oath to match his own, I flew at him, in a red pa.s.sion, and, being at all times agile and now moved to extraordinary effort, managed to inflict some damage on his s.h.i.+ns before he was well aware of my intention--and that so painful that he yelped like a hurt cur. But he caught me by the arms, which he jammed against my ribs, lifted me high, cruelly shaking me, and sat me on the edge of the table in a fas.h.i.+on so sudden and violent that my teeth came together with a snap: having done which, he trapped my legs with his paunch, and thus held me in durance impotent and humiliating, so that I felt mean, indeed, to come to such a pa.s.s after an attack impetuously undertaken and executed with no little gallantry and effect. And he brought his face close to mine, his eyes flaring and winking with rage, his lips lifted from his yellow, broken teeth; and 'twas in his mind, as I perceived, to beat me as I had never been beaten before.

"Ye crab!" he began. "Ye little----"

"The dog!" my sister screamed.

'Twas timely warning: for the dog was crouched in the hall, his muscles taut for the spring, his king-hairs bristling, his fangs exposed.

"Down!" shrieks Jagger.

The diversion released me. Jagger sprang away; and I saw, in a flash, that his concern was not for me, but for himself, upon whom the dog's baleful glance was fastened. There was now no ring of mastery in his voice, as there had been on the mail-boat, but the s.h.i.+ver of panic; and this, it may be, the dog detected, for he settled more alertly, pawing the floor with his forefeet, as though seeking firmer foothold from which to leap. As once before, I wished the beast well in the issue; indeed, I hoped 'twould be the throat and a fair grip! But Jagger caught a billet of wood from the box, and, with a hoa.r.s.e, stifled cry--frightful to hear--drew back to throw. Then the doctor's light step sounded in the hall, and in he came, brus.h.i.+ng past the dog, which slunk away into the shadows. For a moment he regarded us curiously, and then, his brows falling in a quick frown, he laid his medicine case on my sister's sewing-machine, with never a word, and went to the window, where he stood idle, gazing out over the darkening prospect of sea and rock and upon great clouds flushed with lurid colour.

There was silence in the room--which none of us who waited found the will to break.

"Jagger"--said the doctor.

The voice was low--almost a drawl--but mightily authoritative: being without trace of feeling, but superior to pa.s.sion, majestic.

"Ay, sir?"

"Go!"

The doctor still stood with his back to us, still gazed, continuing tranquil, through the broad window to the world without. And Jagger, overmastered by this confident a.s.sumption of authority, went away, as he was bidden, casting backward glances, ominous of machinations to come.

What Jagger uttered on my father's wharf--what on the deck of the sloop while he moored his dog to the windla.s.s for a beating--what he flung back while she gathered way--strangely moved Tom Tot, who hearkened, spellbound, until the last words of it (and the last yelp of the dog) were lost in the distance of North Tickle: it impelled the old man (as he has said many a time) to go wash his hands. But 'tis of small moment beside what the doctor said when informed of the occurrences in our house: being this, that he must have a partners.h.i.+p in our firm, because, first, it was in his heart to help my sister and me, who had been kind to him and were now like sheep fallen in with a wolf-pack, and second, because by thus establis.h.i.+ng himself on the coast he might avert the suspicion of the folk from such good works as he had in contemplation.

"More than that," said he, "we will prove fair dealing possible here as elsewhere. It needs but courage and--money."

"I'm thinkin'," my sister said, "that Davy has the courage."

"And I," said he, "have the money."

I was very glad to hear it.

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 partners.h.i.+p 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'