Billy Topsail, M.D.. Duncan Norman

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      "A saucy pack o' dogs!" said Teddy's mother. "It's mostly new this season. I don't like un! I'm fair afraid o' them, sir. That big Cracker, sir, that Timothy haves for bully an' leader – he've fair spoiled Timothy Light's whole team. I'm none too fond o' that great dog, sir; an' I'll have my say about it."

      Skipper Thomas laughed – as a man will at a woman's fears.

      "No sheep's manners t' that pack," he drawled. "The team's all dawg."

      "What isn't wolf!" the woman retorted.

      "She've been afraid o' that Cracker," Skipper Thomas explained, "ever since he fetched a brace o' wolves out o' the timber. 'Twas as queer a sight, now, as ever you seed, sir. They hung round the harbour for a day an' a night. You might think, sir, that Cracker was showin' off his new quarters t' some friends from the back country. They two wolves seemed t' have knowed Cracker all their lives. I 'low that they had knowed – "

      "He's half wolf hisself."

      "I 'low he's all wolf," Skipper Thomas admitted. This was not true. Cracker was not all wolf. "I never heard o' nobody that knowed where Cracker was born. That dog come in from the timber."

      "A wicked crew – the pack o' them!"

      "We've had a lean winter at Tight Cove, sir," said Skipper Thomas. "The dogs have gone marvellous hungry this past month, sir. They're just a wee bit savage."

      "Spare your dog meat if you lack it," the Doctor advised. "I'll feed that team at Our Harbour."

      Teddy Brisk put in:

      "Timothy Light haves command o' that pack."

      "I'm not so sure that he've command," Teddy Brisk's mother protested. "I'm not so sure that any man could command a shockin' pack like that. In case o' accident, now – "

      Skipper Thomas chucked his ample, glowing daughter-in-law under the chin.

      "You loves that lad o' yourn!" he bantered.

      "I does!"

      "You're thinkin' he'd make a nice little morsel o' dog meat?"

      "As for me," she laughed, "I could eat him!"

      She caught little Teddy Brisk in her arms and kissed him all over his eager little face. And then Doctor Luke, with a laugh and a boyish "So long, Teddy Brisk! See you soon, old soldier!" vanished to his lodgings for the night.

      CHAPTER II

      Of all this Billy Topsail had been an observer. To a good deal of it he had listened with an awakened astonishment. It did not appear to him that he would be concerned in what might grow out of the incident. He did not for a moment imagine, for example, that he would find himself in a situation wherein his hair would stand on end – that he would stand stripped naked in the north wind, confronting Death in a most unpleasant form. Nor was it that Doctor Luke's personality had stirred him to admiration – though that was true: for Doctor Luke had a hearty, cheery twinkling way with him, occasionally mixed with a proper austerity, that would have won any boy's admiration; but what particularly engaged Billy Topsail was something else – it was Doctor Luke's confident assertion that he could cure little Teddy Brisk.

      Billy Topsail knew something of doctors, to be sure; but he had never before quite realized their power; and that a man, being only human, after all, could take a knife in his hand, which was only a man's hand, after all, and so employ the knife that the painful, hampering leg of Teddy Brisk, which had placed a dreadful limitation on the little boy, would be made whole and useful again, caused Billy Topsail a good deal of deep reflection. If Doctor Luke could do that, why could not Billy Topsail learn to do it? It seemed to Billy Topsail to be a more admirable thing to be able to do than to sail a hundred-tonner in a gale of wind.

      "Who is that man?" he asked.

      "That's Doctor Luke," said Teddy's mother. "You know that."

      "Well, who's Doctor Luke?"

      "I don't know. He's jus' Doctor Luke. He've a wee hospital at Our Harbour. An' he heals folk. You'll find un go anywhere he's asked t' go if there's a poor soul in need. An' that's all I know about un."

      "What does he do it for?"

      "I reckon he wants to. An' anyhow, I'm glad he does do it. An' I reckon you'd be glad, too, if you had a little boy like Teddy."

      "I am glad!" said Billy. "I think 'tis the most wonderful thing ever I heard of. An' I wish – "

      And the course of Billy Topsail's life moved inevitably on towards a nearing fate that he would have shuddered to contemplate had he foreseen it.

      Well, now, there was but one team of dogs in Tight Cove. It was a happy circumstance. No dogs could have existed as a separate pack in the neighbourhood of Timothy Light's mob of potential outlaws. It was all very well for Timothy Light to pleasure his hobby and pride in the unsavoury collection. Timothy Light had command of his own team. It was quite another matter for the timid mothers of Tight Cove. Timothy Light's dogs had a bad name. As neighbours they deserved it, whatever their quality on the trail – a thieving, snarling crew.

      To catch Timothy Light in the act of feeding his team was enough to establish an antipathy in the beholder – to see the old man beat off the rush of the pack with a biting walrus whip while he spread the bucket of frozen fish; to watch him, then, leap away from the ferocious onset; and to be witness of the ravenous anarchy of the scramble – a free fight, dwindling, at last, to melancholy yelps and subsiding in the licking of the small wounds of the encounter. Timothy Light was a fancier of dog flesh, as a man may be devoted to horse-flesh; and the object of his selective taste was what he called go-an'-gumption.

      "The nearer the wolf," said he, "the better the dog."

      It was to accord with this theory – which is a fallacy as a generalization – that he had evolved the team of ten that he had.

      "I'm free t' say," he admitted, "that this here Cracker o' mine is none too tame. He've the wolf in him – that's so. As a wolf, with the pack in the timber, he'd be a bad wolf; as a dog in harbour he's a marvellous wicked rogue. He've a eye as bitter as frost. Did you mark it? He leaves it fool all over a person in a laughin' sort o' fashion an' never stop on the spot he really wants t' look at – except jus' once in a while. An' then it darts t' the throat an' away again; an' Cracker thinks, jus' as plain as speech:

      "'Oh, Lord, wouldn't I like t' fix my teeth in there!'

      "Still an' all," the old man concluded, "he yields t' command. A tap on the snout goes a long way with Cracker. He've a deal o' wolf's blood – that one has; but he's as big a coward, too, as a wolf, an' there's no danger in him when he's overmastered. Still an' all" – with a shrug – "I'd not care t' lose my whip an' stumble an' fall on the trail in the dusk when he haven't been fed for a while."

      Cracker had come to Tight Cove in a dog trade of questionable propriety. Cracker had not at once taken to the customs and dogs of Tight Cove; he had stood off, sullen, alert, still – head low, king-hairs lifted, eyes flaring. It was an attitude of distrust, dashed with melancholy, rather than of challenge. Curiosity alone maintained it through СКАЧАТЬ