scattered pans of the floe were frozen. Some of the wider patches of
green ice had been weakened to the breaking point. Here and there they
must have been eaten clear through. Doctor Rolfe contemplated an
advance with distaste. And by and by the first brief barrier of new ice
confronted him. He must cross it. A black film--the color of water in
that light--bridged the way from one pan to another. He would not touch
it. He leaped it easily. A few fathoms forward a second space halted
him. Must he put foot on it? With a running start he could----Well, he
chose not to touch the second space, but to leap it.
Soon a third interval stopped him. No man could leap it. He cast about
for another way. There was none. He must run across. He scowled.
Disinclination increased. He snarled: "Green ice!" He crossed then
like a cat--on tiptoe and swiftly; and he came to the other side with
his heart in a flutter. "Whew!"
The ice had yielded without breaking. It had creaked, perhaps; nothing
worse. It was what is called "rubber ice." There was more of it; there
were miles of it. The nearer the open sea the more widespread was the
floe. Beyond--hauling down the Spotted Horses, which lay in the
open--the proportion of new ice would be vastly greater. At a trot for
the time over the pans, which were flat, and in delicate, mincing
little spurts across the bending ice, Doctor Rolfe proceeded. In a
confidence that was somewhat flushed--he had rested--he went forward.
And presently, midway of a lane of green ice, he heard a gurgle as the
ice bent under his weight. Water washed his boots. He had been on the
lookout for holes. This hole he heard--the spurt and gurgle of it. He
had not seen it. Safe across, Doctor Rolfe grinned. It was a reaction
of relief. "Whew! _Whew!_" he whistled.
* * * * *
By and by he caught ear of the sea breaking under the wind beyond the
Little Spotted Horse. He was nearing the limits of the ice. In full
moonlight the whitecaps flashed news of a tumultuous open. A rumble
and splash of breakers came down with the gale from the point of the
island. It indicated that the sea was working in the passage between
the Spotted Horses and Blow-me-down Dick of the Ragged Run coast. The
waves would run under the ice, would lift it and break it. In this way
the sea would eat its way through the passage. It would destroy the
young ice. It would break the pans to pieces and rub them to slush.
Doctor Rolfe must make the Little Spotted Horse and cross the passage
between the island and the Ragged Run coast. Whatever the issue of
haste, he must carry on and make the best of a bad job. Otherwise he
would come to Tickle-my-Ribs, between the Little Spotted Horse and
Blow-me-Down Dick of Ragged Run, and be marooned from the main shore.
And there was another reason: it was immediate and desperately urgent.
As the sea was biting off the ice in Tickle-my-Ribs, so, too, it was
encroaching upon the body of the ice in Anxious Bight. Anxious Bight
was breaking up. Acres of ice were wrenched from the field at a time
and then broken up by the sea. What was the direction of this swift
melting? It might take any direction. And a survey of the sky troubled
Doctor Rolfe. All this while the light had diminished. It was failing
still. It was failing faster. There was less of the moon. By and by it
would be wholly obscured.
A man would surely lose his life on the ice in thick weather--on one
or other of the reaches of new ice. And thereabouts the areas of young
ice were wider. To tiptoe across the yielding film of these dimly
visible stretches was instantly and dreadfully dangerous. It was
horrifying. A man took his life in his hand every time he left a pan.
Doctor Rolfe was not insensitive. He began to sweat--not with labor
but with fear. When the ice bent under him he gasped and held his
breath; and he came each time to the solid refuge of a pan with his
teeth set, his face contorted, his hands clenched--a shiver in the
small of his back.
To achieve safety once, however, was not to win a final relief; it was
merely to confront, in the same circumstances, a precisely similar
peril. Doctor Rolfe was not physically exhausted; every muscle that he
had was warm and alert. Yet he was weak; a repetition of suspense had
unnerved him. A full hour of this, and sometimes he chattered and
shook in a nervous chill. In the meantime he had approached the rocks
of the Little Spotted Horse.
In the lee of the Little Spotted Horse the ice had gathered as in a
back current. It was close packed alongshore to the point of the
island. Between this solidly frozen press of pans and the dissolving
field in Anxious Bight there had been a lane of ruffled open water
before the frost fell. It measured perhaps fifty yards. It was now
black and still, sheeted with new ice which had been delayed in
forming by the ripple of that exposed situation. Doctor Rolfe had
encountered nothing as doubtful. He paused on the brink. A long, thin
line of solid pan ice, ghostly white in the dusk beyond, was attached
to the rocks of the Little Spotted Horse. It led all the way to
Tickle-my-Ribs. Doctor Rolfe must make that line of solid ice. He must
cross the wide lane of black, delicately frozen new ice that lay
between and barred his way.
He waited for the moon. When the light broke--a thin, transient
gleam--he started. A few fathoms forth the ice began to yield. A
moment later he stopped short and recoiled. There was a hole--gaping
wide and almost under his feet. He stopped. The water overflowed and
the ice cracked. He must not stand still. To avoid a second hole he
twisted violently to the right and almost plunged into a third
opening. It seemed the ice was rotten from shore to shore. And it was
a long way across. Doctor Rolfe danced a zigzag toward the pan ice
under the cliffs, spurting forward and retreating and swerving. He did
not pause; had he paused he would have dropped through. When he was
within two fathoms of the pan ice a foot broke through and tripped him
flat on his face. With his weight thus distributed he was momentarily
held up. Water squirted and gurgled out of the break--an inch of
water, forming a pool. Doctor Rolfe lay still and expectant in this
pool.
* * * * *
Dolly West's mother still sat by the kitchen fire. It was long past
midnight now.
Once more Bad-Weather Tom tiptoed in from the frosty night. "Is she
sleepin' still?" he whispered.
"Hush! She've jus' toppled off again. She's havin' a deal o' pain,
Tom. An' she've been bleedin' again."
"Put her down on the bed, dear."
The woman shook her head. "I'm afeared 'twould start the wounds, Tom.
Any sign of un yet, Tom?"
"Not yet."
"He'll come soon."
"No; 'tis not near time. 'Twill be dawn afore he----"
"Soon, Tom."
"He'll be delayed by snow. The moon's near gone. 'Twill be black dark
in half an hour. I felt a flake o' snow as I come in. An' he'll maybe
wait at Mad Harry----"
"He's comin' by the Bight, Tom."
Dolly stirred, cried out, awakened with a start, and lifted her
bandaged head a little. She did not open her eyes. "Is that you,
doctor, sir?"
"Hush!" the mother whispered. "'Tis not the doctor yet."
"When----"
"He's comin'."
"I'll take a look," said Tom. He went out again and stumbled down the
path to Blow-me-Down Dick by Tickle-my-Ribs.
Doctor Rolfe lay still and expectant in the pool of water near the pan
ice and rocks of the Little Spotted Horse. He waited. Nothing
happened. Presently he ventured delicately to take off a mitten, to
extend his hand, to sink his fingernails in the ice and try to draw
himself forward. It was a failure. His fingernails were too short. He
could merely scratch the ice. He reflected that if he did not
concentrate his weight--that if he kept it distributed--he would not
break through. And once more he tried to make use of his fingernails.
It turned out that the nails of the other hand were longer. Doctor
Rolfe managed to gain half an inch before they slipped. They slipped
again--and again and again. It was hopeless. Doctor Rolfe lay still,
pondering.
Presently he shot his gaff toward the pan ice, to be rid of the
incumbrance of it, and lifted himself on his palms and toes. By this
the distribution of his weight was not greatly disturbed. It was not
concentrated upon one point. It was divided by four and laid upon four
points. And there were no fearsome consequences. It was a hopeful
experiment.
Doctor Rolfe stepped by inches on his hands toward the pan
ice--dragging his toes. In this way he came to the line of solid ice
under the cliffs of the Little Spotted Horse and had a clear path
forward. Whereupon he picked up his gaff, and set out for the point of
the Little Spotted Horse and the passage of Tickle-my-Ribs. He was
heartened.
Tickle-my-Ribs was heaving. The sea had by this time eaten its way
clear through the passage from the open to the first reaches of
Anxious Bight and far and wide beyond. The channel was half a mile
long; in width a quarter of a mile at the narrowest. Doctor Rolfe's
path was determined. It must lead from the point of the island to the
base of Blow-me-Down Dick and the adjoining fixed and solid ice of the
narrows to Ragged Run Harbor. Ice choked the channel. It was
continuously running in from the open. It was a thin sheet of
fragments. There was only an occasional considerable pan. A high sea
ran outside. Waves from the open slipped under this field of little
pieces and lifted it in running swells. No single block of ice was at
rest.
* * * * *
Precisely as a country doctor might petulantly regard a stretch of
hub-deep crossroad, Doctor Rolfe, the outport physician, complained of
the passage of Tickle-my-Ribs. Not many of the little pans would bear
his weight. They would sustain it momentarily. Then they would tip or
sink. There would be foothold through the instant required to choose
another foothold and leap toward it. Always the leap would have to be
taken from sinking ground. When he came, by good chance, to a pan that
would bear him up for a moment, Doctor Rolfe would have instantly to
discover another heavy block to which to shape his agitated course.
There would be no rest, no certainty beyond the impending moment.
But, leaping thus, alert and agile and daring, a man might----
Might? Mm-m, a man might! And he might not! There were contingencies:
A man might leap short and find black water where he had depended upon
a footing of ice; a man might land on the edge of a pan and fall
slowly back for sheer lack of power to obtain a balance; a man might
misjudge the strength of a pan to bear him up; a man might find no ice
near enough for the next immediately imperative leap; a man might be
unable either to go forward or retreat. And there was the light to
consider. A man might be caught in the dark. He would be in hopeless
case if caught in the dark.
Light was imperative. Doctor Rolfe glanced aloft. "Whew!" he whistled.
The moon and the ominous bank of black cloud were very close. There
was snow in the air. A thickening flurry ran past.
* * * * *
Bad-Weather Tom West was not on the lookout when Doctor Rolfe opened
the kitchen door at Ragged Run Harbor and strode in with the air of a
man who had survived difficulties and was proud of it. Bad-weather Tom
West was sitting by the fire, his face in his hands; and the mother of
Dolly West--with Dolly still restlessly asleep in her arms--was
rocking, rocking, as before.
And Doctor Rolfe set to work--in a way so gentle, with a voice so
persuasive, with a hand so tender and sure, with a skill and wisdom so
keen, that little Dolly West, who was brave enough in any case, as you
know, yielded the additional patience and courage which the simple
means at hand for her relief required; and Doctor Rolfe laved Dolly
West's blue eyes until she could see again, and sewed up her wounds
that night so that no scar remained; and in the broad light of the
next day picked out grains of powder until not a single grain was left
to disfigure the child.
* * * * *
Three months after that it again occurred to Doctor Rolfe, of
Afternoon Arm, that the practice of medicine was amply provided with
hardship and shockingly empty of pecuniary reward. Since the night of
the passage of Anxious Bight he had not found time to send out any
statements of accounts. It occurred to him that he had then
determined, after a reasonable and sufficient consideration of the
whole matter, to "tilt the fee." Very well; he would "tilt the fee."
He would provide for himself an old age of reasonable ease and
self-respecting independence.
Thereupon Doctor Rolfe prepared a statement of account for Bad-Weather
West, of Ragged Run Harbor, and after he had written the amount of the
bill--"$4"--he thoughtfully crossed it out and wrote "$1.75."
* * * * *
V
A CROESUS OF GINGERBREAD COVE
* * * * *
V
A CROESUS OF GINGERBREAD COVE
My name's Race. I've traded these here Newfoundland north-coast
outports for salt-fish for half a lifetime. Boy and youth afore that I
served Pinch-a-Penny Peter in his shop at Gingerbread Cove. I was born
in the Cove. I knowed all the tricks of Pinch-a-Penny's trade. And I
tells you it was Pinch-a-Penny Peter's conscience that made
Pinch-a-Penny rich. That's queer two ways: you wouldn't expect a
north-coast trader to have a conscience; and you wouldn't expect a
north-coast trader with a conscience to be rich. But conscience is
much like the wind: it blows every which way; and if a man does but
trim his sails to suit, he can bowl along in any direction without
much wear and tear of the spirit. Pinch-a-Penny bowled along,
paddle-punt fisherman to Gingerbread merchant. He went where he was
bound for, wing-and-wing to the breeze behind, and got there with his
peace of mind showing never a sign of the weather. In my day the old
codger had an easy conscience and twenty thousand dollars.
Long Tom Lane, of Gingerbread Cove, vowed in his prime that he'd sure
have to even scores with Pinch-a-Penny Peter afore he could pass to
his last harbor with any satisfaction.
"With me, Tom?" says Pinch-a-Penny. "That's a saucy notion for a
hook-an'-line man."
"Ten more years o' life," says Tom, "an' I'll square scores."
"Afore you evens scores with me, Tom," says Peter, "you'll have t'
have what I wants an' can't get."
"There's times," says Tom, "when a man stands in sore need o' what he
never thought he'd want."
"When you haves what I needs," says Peter, "I'll pay what you asks."
"If 'tis for sale," says Tom.
"Money talks," says Peter.
"Ah, well," says Tom, "maybe it don't speak my language."
Pinch-a-Penny Peter's conscience was just as busy as any other man's
conscience. And it liked its job. It troubled Pinch-a-Penny. It
didn't trouble un to be honest; it troubled un to be rich. And it
give un no rest. When trade was dull--no fish coming into
Pinch-a-Penny's storehouses and no goods going out of Pinch-a-Penny's
shop--Pinch-a-Penny's conscience made un grumble and groan like the
damned. I never seed a man so tortured by conscience afore nor since.
And to ease his conscience Pinch-a-Penny would go over his ledgers by
night; and he'd jot down a gallon of molasses here, and a pound of
tea there, until he had made a good day's trade of a bad one. 'Twas
simple enough, too; for Pinch-a-Penny never gived out no accounts to
amount to nothing, but just struck his balances to please his greed
at the end of the season, and told his dealers how much they owed him
or how little he owed them.
In dull times Pinch-a-Penny's conscience irked him into overhauling
his ledgers. 'Twas otherwise in seasons of plenty. But Pinch-a-Penny's
conscience kept pricking away just the same--aggravating him into
getting richer and richer. No rest for Pinch-a-Penny! He had to have
all the money he could take by hook and crook or suffer the tortures
of an evil conscience. Just like any other man, Pinch-a-penny must
ease that conscience or lose sleep o' nights. And so in seasons of
plenty up went the price of tea at Pinch-a-Penny's shop. And up went
the price of pork. And up went the price of flour. All sky-high, ecod!
Never was such harsh times, says Peter; why, my dear man, up St.
John's way, says he, you couldn't touch tea nor pork nor flour with a
ten-foot sealing-gaff; and no telling what the world was coming to,
with prices soaring like a gull in a gale and all the St. John's
merchants chary of credit!
"Damme!" said Pinch-a-Penny; "'tis awful times for us poor traders. No
tellin' who'll weather this here panic. I'd not be surprised if we got
a war out of it."
Well, now, on the Newfoundland north-coast in them days 'twasn't much
like the big world beyond. Folk didn't cruise about. They was too
busy. And they wasn't used to it, anyhow. Gingerbread Cove folk wasn't
born at Gingerbread Cove, raised at Rickity Tickle, married at
Seldom-Come-By, aged at Skeleton Harbor, and buried at Run-by-Guess;
they were born and buried at Gingerbread Cove. So what the fathers
thought at Gingerbread Cove the sons thought; and what the sons knowed
had been knowed by the old men for a good many years. Nobody was used
to changes. They was shy of changes. New ways was fearsome. And so the
price of flour was a mystery. It is, anyhow--wherever you finds it. It
always has been. And why it should go up and down at Gingerbread Cove
was beyond any man of Gingerbread Cove to fathom. When Pinch-a-Penny
said the price of flour was up--well, then, she was up; and that's all
there was about it. Nobody knowed no better. And Pinch-a-Penny had the
flour.
Pinch-a-Penny had the pork, too. And he had the sweetness and the tea.
And he had the shoes and the clothes and the patent medicines. And he
had the twine and the salt. And he had all the cash there was at
Gingerbread Cove. And he had the schooner that fetched in the supplies
and carried away the fish to the St. John's markets. He was the only
trader at Gingerbread Cove; his storehouses and shop was fair jammed
with the things the folk of Gingerbread Cove couldn't do without and
wasn't able to get nowhere else. So, all in all, Pinch-a-Penny Peter
could make trouble for the folk that made trouble for he. And the folk
grumbled. By times, ecod, they grumbled like the devil of a fine
Sunday morning! But 'twas all they had the courage to do. And
Pinch-a-Penny let un grumble away. The best cure for grumbling, says
he, was to give it free course. If a man could speak out in meeting,
says he, he'd work no mischief in secret.
"Sea-lawyers, eh?" says Peter. "Huh! What you fellers want, anyhow?
Huh? You got everything now that any man could expect. Isn't you
housed? Isn't you fed? Isn't you clothed? Isn't you got a parson and a
schoolmaster? Damme, I believes you wants a doctor settled in the
harbor! A doctor! An' 'tisn't two years since I got you your
schoolmaster! Queer times we're havin' in the outports these days,
with every harbor on the coast wantin' a doctor within hail. You're
well enough done by at Gingerbread Cove. None better nowhere. An' why?
Does you ever think o' that? Why? Because I got my trade here. An'
think o' _me_! Damme, if ar a one o' you had my brain-labor t' do,
you'd soon find out what harsh labor was like. What with bad debts an'
roguery an' failed seasons an' creditors t' St. John's I'm hard put to
it t' keep my seven senses. An' small thanks I gets--me that keeps
this harbor alive, in famine an' plenty. 'Tis the business I haves
that keeps you. You make trouble for my business, ecod, an' you'll
come t' starvation! Now, you mark me!"
There would be a scattered time when Pinch-a-Penny would yield an
inch. Oh, ay! I've knowed Pinch-a-Penny to drop the price of
stick-candy when he had put the price of flour too high for anybody's
comfort.
* * * * *
Well, now, Long Tom Lane, of Gingerbread Cove, had a conscience, too.
But 'twas a common conscience. Most men haves un. And they're irksome
enough for some. 'Twas not like Pinch-a-Penny Peter's conscience.
Nothing useful ever come of it. 'Twas like yours and mine. It troubled
Tom Lane to be honest and it kept him poor. All Tom Lane's conscience
ever aggravated him to do was just to live along in a religious sort
of fashion and rear his family and be decently stowed away in the
graveyard when his time was up if the sea didn't cotch un first. But
'twas a busy conscience for all that--and as sharp as a fish-prong. No
rest for Tom Lane if he didn't fatten his wife and crew of little lads
and maids! No peace of mind for Tom if he didn't labor! And so Tom
labored and labored and labored. Dawn to dusk his punt was on the
grounds off Lack-a-Day Head, taking fish from the sea to be salted and
dried and passed into Pinch-a-Penny's storehouses.
* * * * *
When Tom Lane was along about fourteen years old his father died.
'Twas of a Sunday afternoon that we stowed un away. I mind the time:
spring weather and a fair day, with the sun low, and the birds
twittering in the alders just afore turning in.
Pinch-a-Penny Peter cotched up with young Tom on the road home from
the little graveyard on Sunset Hill.
"Well, lad," says he, "the old skipper's gone."
"Ay, sir, he's dead an' buried."
"A fine man," says Pinch-a-Penny. "None finer."
With that young Tom broke out crying. "He were a kind father t' we,"
says he. "An' now he's dead!"
"You lacked nothin' in your father's lifetime," says Peter.
"An' now he's dead!"
"Well, well, you've no call t' be afeared o' goin' hungry on that
account," says Peter, laying an arm over the lad's shoulder. "No, nor
none o' the little crew over t' your house. Take up the fishin' where
your father left it off, lad," says he, "an' you'll find small
difference. I'll cross out your father's name on the books an' put
down your own in its stead."
"I'm fair obliged," says Tom. "That's kind, sir."
"Nothin' like kindness t' ease sorrow," says Pinch-a-Penny. "Your
father died in debt, lad."
"Ay, sir?"
"Deep."
"How much, sir?"
"I'm not able t' tell offhand," says Peter. "'Twas deep enough. But
never you care. You'll be able t' square it in course o' time. You're
young an' hearty. An' I'll not be harsh. Damme, I'm no skinflint!"
"That's kind, sir."
"You--you--_will_ square it?"
"I don't know, sir."
"What?" cries Peter. "What! You're not knowin', eh? That's saucy talk.
You had them there supplies?"
"I 'low, sir."
"An' you guzzled your share, I'll be bound!"
"Yes, sir."
"An' your mother had her share?"
"Yes, sir."
"An' you're not knowin' whether you'll pay or not! Ecod! What is you?
A scoundrel? A dead beat? A rascal? A thief? A jail-bird?"
"No, sir."
"'Tis for the likes o' you that jails was made."
"Oh, no, sir!"
"Doesn't you go t' church? Is that what they learns you there? I'm
thinkin' the parson doesn't earn what I pays un. Isn't you got no
conscience?"
'Twas too much for young Tom. You sees, Tom Lane _had_ a conscience--a
conscience as fresh and as young as his years. And Tom had loved his
father well. And Tom honored his father's name. And so when he had
brooded over Pinch-a-Penny's words for a spell--and when he had maybe
laid awake in the night thinking of his father's goodness--he went
over to Pinch-a-Penny's office and allowed he'd pay his father's debt.
Pinch-a-Penny give un a clap on the back, and says: "You is an honest
lad, Tom Lane! I knowed you was. I'm proud t' have your name on my
books!"--and that heartened Tom to continue. And after that Tom kept
hacking away on his father's debt. In good years Pinch-a-Penny would
say: "She's comin' down, Tom. I'll just apply the surplus." And in bad
he'd say: "You isn't quite cotched up with your own self this season,
b'y. A little less pork this season, Tom, an' you'll square this here
little balance afore next. I wisht this whole harbor was as honest as
you. No trouble, then," says he, "t' do business in a business-like
way."
When Tom got over the hill--fifty and more--his father's debt, with
interest, according to Pinch-a-Penny's figures, which Tom had no
learning to dispute, was more than it ever had been; and his own was
as much as he ever could hope to pay. And by that time Pinch-a-Penny
Peter was rich, and Long Tom Lane was gone sour.
* * * * *