_In Which Jimmie Grimm and Billy Topsail, Being Added Up
and Called a Man, Are Shipped For St. John's, With Bill o'
Burnt Bay, Where They Fall In With Archie Armstrong, Sir
Archibald's Son, and Bill o' Burnt Bay Declines to Insure
the "First Venture"_
Of course, Donald North, who had been ferryman to his father, had no
foolishly romantic idea of his experience on that pan of ice; nor had
Jimmie Grimm, nor had Billy Topsail. Donald North would not have
called it an adventure, nor himself a hero; he would have said,
without any affectation of modesty, "Oh, that was jus' a little mess!"
The thing had come in the course of the day's work: that was all.
Something had depended upon him, and, greatly to his elation, he had
"made good." It was no more to him than a hard tackle to a boy of the
American towns. Any sound American boy--any boy of healthy courage and
clean heart--would doubtless have taken Job North off the drifting
floe; and Donald North, for his part, would no doubt have made the
tackle and saved the goal--though frightened to a greenish pallor--had
he ever been face to face with the necessity. Had he ever survived a
football game, he would have thought himself a hero, and perhaps have
boasted more than was pleasant; but to have taken a larger chance with
his life on a pan of ice was so small and usual a thing as presently
to be forgotten.
Newfoundland boys are used to that.
* * * * *
It was still spring at Ruddy Cove--two weeks or more after Bagg came
back to his real home--when Donald North's friends, Billy Topsail and
Jimmie Grimm, fell into considerable peril in a gale of wind off the
Chunks. Even they--used to such adventures as they were--called it a
narrow escape.
"No more o' that for _me_," said Billy Topsail, afterwards.
"Nor me," said Jimmie Grimm.
"You'll both o' you take all that comes your way," Bill o' Burnt Bay
put in, tartly.
It was aboard the _First Venture_, which Bill o' Burnt Bay had as
master-builder built at Ruddy Cove for himself. She was to be his--she
_was_ his--and he loved her from stem to stern. And she was his
because Sir Archibald Armstrong, the great St. John's merchant and
ship-owner, had advanced the money to build her in recognition of
Skipper Bill's courageous rescue of Archie Armstrong, Sir Archibald's
only son, in a great blizzard, on the sealing voyage of the year
before.[2] At any rate, the _First Venture_ was Bill's; and she was
now afloat and finished, rigged to the last strand of rope. To say
that Skipper Bill was proud of her does not begin to express the way
in which he loved her.
"Now, look you, Billy Topsail, and you, too, Jimmie Grimm!" said he,
gravely, one day, beckoning the boys near.
The _First Venture_ was lying at anchor in the harbour, ready for her
maiden voyage to St. John's.
"I'm in need of a man aboard this here craft," Bill o' Burnt Bay went
on; "an' as there's none t' be had in this harbour I'm thinkin' of
addin' you two boys up an' callin' the answer t' the sum a man."
"Wisht you would, Skipper Bill," said Jimmie.
"Two halves makes a whole," Bill mused, scratching his head in doubt.
"Leastwise, so I was teached."
"They teach it in school," said Jimmie.
Billy Topsail grinned delightedly.
"Well," Bill declared, at last, "I'll take you, no matter what comes
of it, for there's nothing else I can do."
It wasn't quite complimentary; but the boys didn't mind.
* * * * *
When the _First Venture_ made St. John's it was still early enough in
the spring of the year for small craft to be at sea. When she was
ready to depart on the return voyage to Ruddy Cove, the days were days
of changeable weather, of wind and snow, of fog and rain, of
unseasonable intervals of quiet sunshine. The predictions of the
wiseacres were not to be trusted; and, at any rate, every forecast was
made with a wag of the head that implied a large mental reservation.
At sea it was better to proceed with caution. To be prepared for
emergencies--to expect the worst and to be ready for it--was the part
of plain common sense. And Skipper Bill o' Burnt Bay was well aware of
this.
The _First Venture_ lay in dock at St. John's. She was loaded for
Ruddy Cove and the ports beyond. Skipper Bill had launched himself as
a coastwise skipper--master of the stout _First Venture_, carrying
freight to the northern settlements at a fair rate for all comers. The
hold was full to the deck; and the deck itself was cumbered with casks
and cases, all lashed fast in anticipation of a rough voyage. It was a
miscellaneous cargo: flour, beef, powder and shot, molasses, kerosene,
clothing--such necessities, in short, as the various merchants to whom
the cargo was consigned could dispose of to the people of the coast,
and such simple comforts as the people could afford.
She was a trim and stout little fore-and-aft schooner of fifty tons
burthen. The viewers had awarded the government bounty without a
quibble. Old John Hulton, the chief of them--a terror to the slipshod
master-builders--had frankly said that she was an honest little craft
from bowsprit to taffrail. The newspapers had complimented Bill o'
Burnt Bay, her builder, in black and white which could not be
disputed. They had even called Skipper Bill "one of the honest
master-builders of the outports." Nor had they forgotten to add the
hope that "in the hands of Skipper William, builder and master, the
new craft will have many and prosperous voyages." By this praise, of
course, Skipper Bill was made to glow from head to foot with happy
gratification.
All the _First Venture_ wanted was a fair wind out.
"She can leg it, sir," Skipper Bill said to Sir Archibald, running his
eyes over the tall, trim spars of the new craft; "an' once she gets t'
sea she's got ballast enough t' stand up to a sousing breeze. With any
sort o' civil weather she ought t' make Ruddy Cove in five days."
"I'd not drive her too hard," said Sir Archibald, who had come down to
look at the new schooner for a purpose.
Bill o' Burnt Bay looked up in amazement. This from the hard-sailing
Sir Archibald!
"Not too hard," Sir Archibald repeated.
Skipper Bill laughed.
"I'm sure," said Sir Archibald, "that Mrs. William had rather have you
come safe than unexpected. Be modest, Skipper Bill, and reef the
_Venture_ when she howls for mercy."
"I'll bargain t' reef her, sir," Bill replied, "when I thinks you
would yourself."
"Oh, come, skipper!" Sir Archibald laughed.
Bill o' Burnt Bay roared like the lusty sea-dog he was.
"I've good reason for wishing you to go cautiously," said Sir
Archibald, gravely.
Bill looked up with interest.
"You've settled at Ruddy Cove, skipper?"
"Ay, sir," Bill answered. "I moved the wife t' Ruddy Cove when I
undertook t' build the _Venture_."
"I'm thinking of sending Archie down to spend the summer," said Sir
Archibald.
Bill o' Burnt Bay beamed largely and delightedly.
"Do you think," Sir Archibald went on, with a little grin, "that Mrs.
Skipper William would care to take him in?"
"_Care?_" Skipper Bill exclaimed. "Why, sir, 'twould be as good as
takin' her a stick o' peppermint."
"He'll come aboard this afternoon," said Sir Archibald.
"He'll be second mate o' the _Venture_," Bill declared.
"Skipper," said Sir Archibald, presently, "you'll be wanting this
craft insured, I suppose?"
"Well, no, sir," Bill drawled.
Sir Archibald frowned. "No trouble for me to take the papers out for
you," said he.
"You see, sir," Bill explained, "I was allowin' t' save that there
insurance money."
"Penny wise and pound foolish," said Sir Archibald.
"Oh," drawled Skipper Bill, "I'll manage t' get her t' Ruddy Cove well
enough. Anyhow," he added, "'twon't be wind nor sea that will wreck my
schooner."
"As you will," said Sir Archibald, shortly; "the craft's yours."
* * * * *
Archie Armstrong came aboard that afternoon--followed by two porters
and two trunks. He was Sir Archibald's son; there was no doubt about
that: a fine, hardy lad--robust, straight, agile, alert, with his head
carried high; merry, quick-minded, ready-tongued, fearless in wind and
high sea. His hair was tawny, his eyes blue and wide and clear, his
face broad and good-humoured. He was something of a small dandy, too,
as the two porters and the two trunks might have explained. The cut of
his coat, the knot in his cravat, the polish on his boots, the set of
his knickerbockers, were always matters of deep concern to him. But
this did not interfere with his friendship with Billy Topsail, the
outport boy. That friendship had been formed in times of peril and
hardship, when a boy was a boy, and clothes had had nothing to say in
the matter.
Archie bounded up the gangplank, crossed the deck in three leaps and
stuck his head into the forecastle.
"Ahoy, Billy Topsail!" he roared.
"Ahoy, yourself!" Billy shouted. "Come below, Archie, an' take a look
at Jimmie Grimm."
Jimmie Grimm was at once taken into the company of friends.
-----
[2] The story of this voyage--the tale of the time when Archie
Armstrong and Billy Topsail and Bill o' Burnt Bay were lost in
the snow on the ice-floe--with certain other happenings in which
Billy Topsail was involved--is related in "The Adventures of
Billy Topsail."
[Illustration: _Courtesy of "The Youth's Companion"_
SHE WAS BEATING LABORIOUSLY INTO A VIOLENT HEAD WIND.]