Doctor Luke of the Labrador Part 22

"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 ash.o.r.e 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 G.o.d!"

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 G.o.d, you'll do----"

He thrashed me soundly on the spot.

XVII

HARD PRACTICE

I bore him no grudge--the chastis.e.m.e.nt 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 s.p.a.ce 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 mult.i.tude emerged from the hovels--crying, "Heal us!" And to every varied demand the doctor freely responded, smiling heartily, G.o.d 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 k.n.o.b 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?"