_In Which the Ruddy Cove Doctor Tells Billy Topsail and
a Stranger How He Came to Learn that the Longest Way
'Round is Sometimes the Shortest Way Home_
IT was a quiet evening--twilight: with the harbour water unruffled, and
the colours of the afterglow fast fading from the sky. Billy Topsail
and the doctor and a stranger sat by the surgery door, watching the
boats come in from the sea, and their talk had been of the common
dangers of that life.
"It was a very narrow escape," said the doctor.
"Crossing the harbour!" the stranger exclaimed. "Why, 'tis not two
hundred yards!"
"'Twas my narrowest escape--and 'twas all because of Billy Topsail."
"Along o' _me_!" cried Billy.
"Ay," said the doctor; "'twas all along o' you. Some years ago," he
continued, "when you were a toddler in pinafores, you were taken
suddenly ill. It was a warm day in the spring of the year. The ice was
still in the harbour, locked in by the rocks at the narrows, though
the snow had all melted from the hills, and green things were shooting
from the earth in the gardens. The weather had been fine for a week,"
the doctor continued, addressing the stranger, "Day by day the harbour
ice had grown more unsafe, until, when Billy was taken ill, only the
daring ventured to cross upon it.
[Illustration: "MY LITTLE LAD'S WONDERFUL SICK. COME QUICK!"]
"Billy's father came rushing into the surgery in a pitiable state of
grief and fright. I knew when I first caught sight of his face that
Billy was ill.
"'Doctor,' said he, 'my little lad's wonderful sick. Come quick!'
"'Can we cross by the ice?' I asked.
"'I've come by that way,' said he. ''Tis safe enough t' risk. Make
haste, doctor, sir! Make haste!'
"'Lead the way!' said I.
"He led so cleverly that we crossed without once sounding the ice. It
was a zigzag way--a long, winding course--and I knew the day after,
though I was too intent upon the matter in hand to perceive it at the
moment, that only his experience and acquaintance with the condition of
the ice made the passage possible. After midnight, when my situation
was one of extreme peril, I realized that the way had been neither safe
for me, who followed, nor easy for the man who led.
"'My boy is dying, doctor!' said the mother, when we entered the house.
'Oh, save him!'
"My sympathy for the child and his parents,--they loved that lad--no
less than a certain professional interest which takes hold of a young
physician in such cases, kept me at Billy's bedside until long,
long after dark. I need not have stayed so long--ought not to have
stayed--for the lad was safe and out of pain; but in this far-away
place a man must be both nurse and doctor, and there I found myself, at
eleven o'clock of a dark night, worn out, and anxious only to reach my
bed by the shortest way.
"'I thinks, sir,' said Billy's father, when I made ready to go, 'that I
wouldn't go back by the ice.'
"'Oh, nonsense!' said I. 'We came over without any trouble, and I'll
find my way back, never fear.'
"'I wisht you'd stay here the night,' said the mother. 'If you'll bide,
sir, we'll make you comfortable.'
"'No, no,' said I. 'I must get to my own bed.'
"'If you'll not go round by the shore, sir,' said the man, 'leave me
pilot you across.'
"'Stay with your lad,' said I, somewhat testily. 'I'll cross by the
ice.'
"''Twill be the longest way home the night,' said he.
"When a man is sleepy and worn out he can be strangely perverse. I
would have my own way; and, to my cost, I was permitted to take it.
Billy's father led me down to the landing-stage, put a gaff in my hand,
and warned me to be careful--warned me particularly not to take a step
without sounding the ice ahead with my gaff; and he brought the little
lesson to an end with a wistful, 'I wisht you wouldn't risk it.'
"The tone of his voice, the earnestness and warm feeling with which he
spoke, gave me pause. I hesitated; but the light in my surgery window,
shining so near at hand, gave me a vision of comfortable rest, and I
put the momentary indecision away from me.
"'It is two hundred yards to my surgery by the ice,' I said, 'and it
is two miles round the harbour by the road. I'm going by the shortest
way.'
"'You'll find it the longest, sir,' said he.
"I repeated my directions as to the treatment of little Billy, then
gave the man good-night, and stepped out on the ice, gaff in hand. The
three hours following were charged with more terror and despair than,
doubtless, any year of my life to come shall know. I am not morbidly
afraid of death. It was not that--not the simple, natural fear of
death that made me suffer. It was the manner of its coming--in the
night, with the harbour folk, all ignorant of my extremity, peacefully
sleeping around me--the slow, cruel approach of it, closing in upon
every hand, lying all about me, and hidden from me by the night."
The doctor paused. He looked over the quiet water of the harbour.
"Yes," he said, repeating the short, nervous laugh, "it was a narrow
escape. The sun of the afternoon--it had shone hot and bright--had
weakened the ice, and a strong, gusty wind, such a wind as breaks up
the ice every spring, was blowing down the harbour to the sea. It had
overcast the sky with thick clouds. The night was dark. Nothing more of
the opposite shore than the vaguest outline of the hills--a blacker
shadow in a black sky--was to be seen.
"But I had the lamp in the surgery window to guide me, and I pushed out
from the shore, resolute and hopeful. I made constant use of my gaff
to sound the ice. Without it I should have been lost before I had gone
twenty yards. From time to time, in rotten places, it broke through the
ice with but slight pressure; then I had to turn to right or left, as
seemed best, keeping to the general direction as well as I could all
the while.
"As I proceeded, treading lightly and cautiously, I was dismayed to
find that the condition of the ice was worse than the worst I had
feared.
"'Ah,' thought I, with a wistful glance towards the light in the
window, 'I'll be glad enough to get there.'
"There were lakes of open water in my path; there were flooded patches,
sheets of thin, rubbery ice, stretches of rotten 'slob.' I was not even
sure that a solid path to my surgery wound through these dangers; and
if path there were, it was a puzzling maze, strewn with pitfalls, with
death waiting upon a misstep.
"Had it been broad day, my situation would have been serious enough.
In the night, with the treacherous places all covered up and hidden, it
was desperate. I determined to return; but I was quite as unfamiliar
with the lay of the ice behind as with the path ahead. A moment of
thought persuaded me that the best plan was the boldest--to push on for
the light in the window. I should have, at least, a star to guide me.
"'I have not far to go,' I thought. 'I must proceed with confidence and
a common-sense sort of caution. Above all, I must _not_ lose my nerve.'
"It was easy to make the resolve; it was hard to carry it out. When I
was searching for solid ice and my gaff splashed water, when the ice
offered no more resistance to my gaff than a similar mass of sea-foam,
when my foothold bent and cracked beneath me, when, upon either side,
lay open water, and a narrowing, uncertain path lay ahead, my nerve was
sorely tried.
"At times, overcome by the peril I could not see, I stopped dead and
trembled. I feared to strike my gaff, feared to set my foot down,
feared to quit the square foot of solid ice upon which I stood. Had it
not been for the high wind--high and fast rising to a gale--I should
have sat down and waited for the morning. But there were ominous
sounds abroad, and, although I knew little about the ways of ice, I
felt that the break-up would come before the dawn. There was nothing
for it but to go on.
"And on I went; but at last--the mischance was inevitable--my step was
badly chosen. My foot broke through, and I found myself, of a sudden,
sinking. I threw myself forward, and fell with my arms spread out; thus
I distributed my weight over a wider area of ice and was borne up.
"For a time I was incapable of moving a muscle; the surprise, the
rush of terror, the shock of the fall, the sudden relief of finding
myself safe for the moment had stunned me. So I lay still, hugging the
ice; for how long I cannot tell, but I know that when I recovered my
self-possession my first thought was that the light was still burning
in the surgery window--an immeasurable distance away. I must reach that
light, I knew; but it was a long time before I had the courage to move
forward.
"Then I managed to get the gaff under my chest, so that I could throw
some part of my weight upon it, and began to crawl. The progress was
inch by inch--slow and toilsome, with no moment of security to lighten
it. I was keenly aware of my danger; at any moment, as I knew, the ice
might open and let me in.
"I had gained fifty yards or more, and had come to a broad lake, which
I must round, when the light in the window went out.
"'Elizabeth has given me up for the night,' I thought in despair. 'She
has blown out the light and gone to bed.'
"There was now no point of light to mark my goal. It was very dark;
and in a few minutes I was lost. I had the wind to guide me, it is
true; but I soon mistrusted the wind. It was veering, it had veered, I
thought; it was not possible for me to trust it implicitly. In whatever
direction I set my face I fancied that the open sea lay that way.
"Again and again I started, but upon each occasion I had no sooner
begun to crawl than I fancied that I had mischosen the way. Of course
I cried for help, but the wind swept my frantic screams away, and no
man heard them. The moaning and swish of the gale, as it ran past the
cottages, drowned my cries. The sleepers were not alarmed.
"Meanwhile that same wind was breaking up the ice. I could hear the
cracking and grinding long before I felt the motion of the pan upon
which I lay. But at last I did feel that mass of ice turn and gently
heave, and then I gave myself up for lost.
"'Doctor! Doctor!'
"The voice came from far to windward. The wind caught my answering
shout and carried it out to sea.
"'They will not hear me,' I thought. 'They will not come to help me.'
"The light shone out from the surgery window again. Then lights
appeared in the neighbouring houses, and passed from room to room.
There had been an alarm. But my pan was breaking up! Would they find me
in time? Would they find me at all?
"Lanterns were now gleaming on the rocks back of my wharf. Half a dozen
men were coming down on the run, bounding from rock to rock of the
path. By the light of the lanterns I saw them launch a boat on the ice
and drag it out towards me. From the edge of the shore ice they let it
slip into the water, pushed off and came slowly through the opening
lanes of water, calling my name at intervals.
"The ice was fast breaking and moving out. When they caught my hail
they were not long about pushing the boat to where I lay. Nor, you may
be sure, was I long about getting aboard."
The doctor laughed nervously.
"Doctor," said the stranger, "how did they know that you were in
distress?"
"Oh," said the doctor, "it was Billy's father. He was worried, and
walked around by the shore. When he found that I was not home, he
roused the neighbours."
"As the proverb runs," said the stranger, "the longest way round is
sometimes the shortest way home."
"Yes," said the doctor, "I chose the longest way."