_In Which Billy Topsail Goes Fishing in Earnest.
Concerning, also, Feather's Folly of the Devil's
Teeth, Mary Robinson, and the Wreck of the Fish
Killer_
FEATHER'S FOLLY was one of a group of troublesome islands lying off
Cape Grief on the way to the Labrador. Surveyed by a generously
inaccurate apprentice it might have measured an acre. It was as barren
as an old bone; but a painstaking man, with unimpaired eyesight, if he
lingered long and lovingly enough over the task, could doubtless have
discovered more than one blade of grass. There is no adjective in the
English language adequate to describe its forbidding appearance as
viewed from the sea in a gale of wind.
On the chart it was a mere dot--a nameless rock, the outermost of a
group most happily called the Devil's Teeth. To the Labrador fishermen,
bound north from Newfoundland in the spring, bound south, with their
loads of green cod, in the fall, it was the Cocked Hat. This name,
too, is aptly descriptive; many a schooner, caught in the breakers,
had, as the old proverb hath it, been knocked into that condition, or
worse. But to the folk of the immediate coast, and especially of Hulk's
Harbour, which lies within sight on the mainland, it was for long known
as Feather's Folly.
Old Bill Feather had once been wrecked on the Cocked Hat. The little
_Lucky Lass_, bound to Hulk's Harbour from the Hen-and-Chickens,
and sunk to the scupper-holes with green fish, had struck in a fog.
Four minutes later she had gone down with all hands save Bill. An
absentminded breaker had deposited him high and dry on a ledge of the
northeast cliff; needless to say, it was much to Bill's surprise. For
five days the castaway had shivered and starved on the barren rock.
This was within sight of the chimney-smoke of home--of the harbour
tickle, of the cottage roofs; even, in clear weather, of the flakes and
stage of his own place.
"It won't happen again," vowed Bill, when they took his lean, sore hulk
home.
What Bill did--what he planned and accomplished in the face of ridicule
and adverse fortune--earned the rock the name of Feather's Folly in
that neighbourhood.
"Anyhow," old Bill was in the habit of repeating, to defend himself, "I
'low it won't happen again. An' I'll _see_ that it don't!"
But season followed season, without event; and the Cocked Hat was still
known as Feather's Folly.
Billy Topsail was to learn this.
* * * * *
It was early in the spring of the year--too early by half, the old
salts said, for Labrador craft to put out from the Newfoundland ports.
Thick, vagrant fogs, drifting with the variable winds, were abroad
on all the coast; and the Arctic current was spread with drift ice
from the upper shores and with great bergs from the glaciers of the
far north. But Skipper Libe Tussel, of the thirty-ton _Fish Killer_,
hailing from Ruddy Cove, was a firm believer in the fortunes of the
early bird; moreover, he was determined that the skipper of the _Cod
Trap_, hailing from Fortune, should not this season preƫmpt his
trap-berth on the Thigh Bone fishing grounds. So the _Fish Killer_ was
underway for the north, early as it was; and she was cheerily game to
face the chances of wind and ice, if only she might beat the _Cod Trap_
to the favourable opportunities of the Thigh Bone grounds off Indian
Harbour.
"It's thick," Robinson remarked to the skipper.
"_'Tis_ thick."
Billy Topsail, now grown old enough for the adventurous voyage to the
Labrador coast, was aboard; and he listened to this exchange with a
deal of interest. It was his first fishing voyage; he had been north
in the _Rescue_, to be sure, but that was no more than a cruise,
undertaken to relieve the starving fishermen of the upper harbours. At
last, he was fishing in earnest--really aboard the _Fish Killer_, bound
north, there to fish the summer through, in all sorts of weather, with
a share in the catch at the end of it! He was vastly delighted by this:
for 'twas a man's work he was about, and 'twas a man's work he was
wanting to do.
"Thick as mud," said Robinson, with a little shiver.
"'S mud," the skipper responded, in laconic agreement.
And it _was_ thick! The fog had settled at mid-day. A fearsome array
of icebergs had then been in sight, and the low coast, with the snow
still upon it, had to leeward shone in the brilliant sunlight. But
now, with the afternoon not yet on the wane, the day had turned murky
and damp. A bank of black fog had drifted in from the open sea. Ice
and shore had disappeared. The limit of vision approached, possibly,
but did not attain, twenty-five yards. The weather was thick, indeed;
the schooner seemed to be winging along through a boundless cloud; and
there was a smart breeze blowing, and the circle of sea, in the exact
centre of which the schooner floated, was choppy and black.
"Thick enough," Skipper Libe echoed, thoughtfully. "But," he added,
"you wouldn't advise heavin' to, would you?"
"No, no!" Robinson exclaimed. "I'm too anxious to get to Indian
Harbour."
"And I," muttered the skipper, with an anxious look ahead, "to make the
Thigh Bone grounds. But----"
"Give her all the wind she'll carry," said Robinson. "It won't bother
me."
"I thinks," the skipper continued, ignoring the interruption, "that
I'll shorten sail. For," said he, "I'm thinkin' the old girl might
bleed at the nose if she happened t' bump a berg."
While the crew reduced the canvas, Robinson went below. He was the
Hudson's Bay Company's agent at Dog Arm of the Labrador, which is close
to Indian Harbour. In January, with his invalid daughter in a dog-sled,
he had journeyed from that far place to Desolate Bay of Newfoundland,
and thence by train to St. John's. It had been a toilsome, dangerous,
incredibly bitter experience. But he had forgotten that, nor had he
ever complained of it; his happiness was that his child had survived
the surgeons' operation, had profited in ease and hope, had already
been restored near to her old sunny health. Early in the spring, word
of the proposed sailing of the _Fish Killer_ from Ruddy Cove had come
to him at St. John's; and he had taken passage with Skipper Libe, no
more, it must be said, because he wished Mary's mother to know the good
news (she had had no word since his departure) than because he was
breathlessly impatient once more to be serving the company's interests
at Dog Arm.
To Mary and her father Skipper Libe had with seamanlike courtesy
abandoned the tiny cabin. The child was lying in the skipper's own
berth--warmly covered, comfortably tucked in, provided with a book to
read by the light of the swinging lamp.
"Are you happy, dear?" her father asked.
"Oh, yes!"
The man took the child's hand. "I'm sometimes sorry," he said, "that
we didn't wait for the mail-boat. The _Fish Killer_ is a pretty tough
craft for a little girl to be aboard."
"Sorry?" was the instant response, made with a little smile. "I'm not.
I'm glad. Isn't Cape Grief close to leeward? Well, then, father, we're
half way home. Think of it! _We're--half--way--home!_"
The father laughed.
"And we might have been waiting at St. John's," the child continued,
her blue eyes shining. "Oh, father, I'd rather be aboard the _Fish
Killer_ off Grief Head than in the very best room of the Crosbie Hotel.
Half way home!" she repeated. "Half way home!"
"Half way is a long way."
"But it's half way!"
"On this coast," the father sighed, "no man is home until he gets
there."
"It's a fair wind."
"And the fog as thick as mud."
"But they've reefed the mains'l; they've stowed the stays'l; they've
got the tops'l down. Haven't you heard them? I've been listening----"
"_What's that!_" Robinson cried.
It was a mere ejaculation of terror. He had no need to ask the
question. Even Mary knew well enough what had happened. The _Fish
Killer_ had struck an iceberg bow on. The shock; the crash forward;
the clatter of a falling topmast; the cries on deck: these things were
alive with the fearful information.