Doctor Luke of the Labrador - Norman Duncan (e reader .TXT) 📗

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I started up.

"I'm that proud," she went on, hovering now between great joy and pain, "that it--it--fair _hurts_ me!"

"I'll not have you cry!" I protested.

She caught me in her arms and we broke into merry laughter. Then to please her I said that I would gather flowers for her hair--and she would be the stranded mermaid and I the fisherman whom she besought to put her back in the sea and rewarded with three wishes--and I sought flowers everywhere in the hollows and crevices of the bald old Watchman, where, through years, some soil had gathered, but found only whisps of wiry grass and one wretched blossom; whereupon I returned to her very wroth.

"God made a botch o' the world!" I declared.

She looked up in dismay.

"Ay," I repeated, with a stamp of the foot, "a wonderful botch o' the world He's gone an' made. Why, they's but one flower on the Watchman!"

She looked over the barren land--the great gray waste of naked rock--and sighed.

"But one?" she asked, softly.

"An I was God," I said, indignantly, "I'd have made _more_ flowers an' made un _bigger_."

She smiled in the way of one dreaming.

"Hut!" I went on, giving daring wing to my imagination. "I'd have made a hundred kinds an' soil enough t' grow un all--_every one o' the whole hundred!_ I'd have----"

She laid a soft hand on my lips. "'Tis a land," she whispered, with shining eyes, "that grows rosy lads, and I'm well content!"

"'Tis a poor way," I continued, disregarding her caress, "t' gather soil in buckets. _I'd_ have made enough t' gather it in _barrows_! I'd have made lots of it--heaps of it. Why," I boasted, growing yet more recklessly prodigal, "I'd have made a _hill_ of it somewheres handy t' every harbour in the world--as big as the Watchman--ay, an' handy t' the harbours, so the folk could take so much as they wanted--t' make potato-gardens--an'--an' t' make the grave-yards deep enough. 'Tis a wonderful poor way," I concluded with contempt, "t' have t' gather it in buckets from the rocks!"

My mother was laughing heartily now.

"'Twould not be a better world, thinks you?" said I. "Ay, but I could do better than that! Hut!" I cried, at last utterly abandoned to my imagination, "I'd have more things than potatoes grow in the ground an' more things than berries grow on bushes. _What_ would I have grow in the ground, says you? Is you thinkin' I don't _know_? Oh, ay, mum," I protested, somewhat at a loss, but very knowingly, "_I_ knows!" I was now getting rapidly beyond my depth; but I plunged bravely on, wondering like lightning, the while, what else _could_ grow in the ground and on bushes. "I'd have _flour_ grow in the ground, mum," I cried, triumphantly, "an' I'd have sea-boots an' sou'westers grow on the bushes. An', ecod!" I continued, inspired, "I'd have fishes grow on bushes, already split an' cleaned!"

What other improvements I would have made on the good Lord's handiwork I do not know. Skipper Tommy Lovejoy, being on the road to Trader's Cove from the Rat Hole, where he lived alone with his twin lads, had spied us from Needle Rock, and now came puffing up the hill to wish my mother good-day: which, indeed, all true men of the harbour never failed to do, whenever they came near. He was a short, marvellously broad, bow-legged old man--but yet straight and full of strength and fine hope--all the while dressed in tight white moleskin (much soiled by the slime of the day's work), long skin boots, tied below the knees, and a ragged cloth cap, which he kept pulled tight over his bushy grey hair. There was a mild twinkle forever lying in the depths of his blue eyes, and thence, at times, overflowing upon his broad brown face, which then rippled with wrinkles, from the roots of his hair to the fringe of white beard under his chin, in a way at once to make one laugh with him, though one could not quite tell why. We lads of the harbour loved him very much, for his good-humour and for his tenderness--never more so, however, than when, by night, in the glow of the fire, he told us long tales of the fairies and wicked elves he had dealt with in his time, twinkling with every word, so that we were sorely puzzled to know whether to take him in jest or earnest.

"I've a very bad son, the day, Skipper Tommy," said my mother, laying a fond hand on my head.

"Have you, now, mum!" cried the skipper, with a wink. "'Tis hard t' believe. He've been huntin' gulls' nests in parlous places on the cliff o' the Watchman, I'm thinkin'."

"'Tis worse than that."

"Dear man! Worse than that, says you? Then he've took the punt beyond the Gate all by hisself."

"'Tis even worse than that. He's not pleased with the dear Lord's world."

Skipper Tommy stopped dead and stared me in the eye--but not coldly, you must know; just in mild wonder, in which, it may be, was mixed some admiration, as though he, too, deep in his guileless old heart, had had some doubt which he dared not entertain.

"Ay," said I, loftily, "He've not made flowers enough t' suit _my_ taste."

Skipper Tommy rubbed his nose in a meditative way. "Well," he drawled, "He haven't made many, true enough. I'm not sayin' He mightn't have made more. But He've done very well. They's enough--oh, ay, they's enough t' get along with. For, look you! lad, they's no real _need_ o' any more. 'Twas wonderful kind of Un," he went on, swept away by a flood of good feeling, as often happened, "t' make even one little flower. Sure, He didn't _have_ t' do it. He just went an' done it for love of us. Ay," he repeated, delighting himself with this new thought of his Lord's goodness, "'twas wonderful kind o' the Lard t' take so much trouble as that!"

My mother was looking deep into Skipper Tommy's eyes as though she saw some lovely thing therein.

"Ay," said I, "'twas fair kind; but I'm wishin' He'd been a bit more free."

My mother smiled at that. Then, "And my son," she said, in the way of one poking fun, "would have _flour_ grow out of the ground!"

"An' did he say that!" cried Skipper Tommy.

My mother laughed, and Skipper Tommy laughed uproariously, and loudly slapped his thick thigh; and I felt woefully foolish, and wondered much what depth of ignorance I had betrayed, but I laughed, too, because Skipper Tommy laughed so heartily and opened his great mouth so wide; and we were all very merry for a time. At last, while I wondered, I thought that, perhaps, flour _did_ grow, after all--though, for the life of me, I could not tell how--and that my mother and Skipper Tommy knew it well enough; whereupon I laughed the merrier.

"Come, look you!" then said Skipper Tommy, gently taking the lobe of my ear between his thick, hard thumb and forefinger. "Don't you go thinkin' you could make better worlds than the Lard. Why, lad, 'tis but _play_ for _Him_! _He've_ no trouble makin' a world! I'm thinkin' He've made more than one," he added, his voice changing to a knowing whisper. "'Tis my own idea, but," now sagely, "I'm thinkin' He did. 'Tis like that this was the first, an' He done better when He got His hand in. Oh, ay, nar a doubt He done better with the rest! But He done wonderful well with this one. When you're so old as me, lad, you'll know that though the Lard made few flowers He put a deal o' time an' labour on the harbours; an' when you're beatin' up t' the Gate, lad, in a gale o' wind--an' when you thinks o' the quiet place t'other side o' Frothy Point--you'll know the Lard done well by all the folk o' this world when He made safe harbours instead o' wastin' His time on flowers. Ay, lad, 'tis a wonderful well built world; an' you'll know it--then!"

We turned homeward--down the long road over the shoulder of the Watchman; for the evening was drawing near.

"They's times," said Skipper Tommy, giving his nose a puzzled tweak, "when I wonders how He done it. 'Tis fair beyond me! I wonders a deal, now, mum," turning to my mother, his face lighting with interest, "about they stars. Now, mum," smiling wistfully, "I wonders ... I wonders ... how He stuck un up there in the sky. Ah," with a long sigh, "I'd sure like t' know that! An' wouldn't you, mum? Ecod! but I _would_ like t' know that! 'Twould be worth while, I'm thinkin'. I'm wishin' I could find out. But, hut!" he cried, with a laugh which yet rang strangely sad in my ears, "'tis none o' my business. 'Twould be a queer thing, indeed, if men went pryin' into the Lard's secrets. He'd fix un, I 'low--He'd snarl un all up--He'd let un think theirselves wise an' guess theirselves mad! That's what He'd do. But, now," falling again into a wistful, dreaming whisper, "I wonders ... wonders ... how He _does_ stick them stars up there. I'm thinkin' I'll try t' think that out--some day--so people could know, an' wouldn't have t' wonder no more. I--wonders--if I could!"

We walked on in silence--down the last slope, and along the rocky path to Trader's Cove; and never a word was spoken. When we came to the turn to our house we bade the skipper good-evening.

"Don't you be forgettin'," he said, tipping up my face with a finger under my chin, "that you'll soon be thinkin' more o' harbours than o' flowers."

I laughed.

"But, ecod!" he broke out, violently rubbing his nose, until I was fairly concerned for it, so red did it turn, "that was a wonderful good idea about the flour!"

My mother looked at him sharply; then her eyes twinkled, and she hid a smile behind her hand.

"_'Twould_ be a good thing t' have it grow," the old man continued. "'Twould be far better than--than--well, now--makin' it the way they does. Ecod!" he concluded, letting his glance fall in bewilderment on the ground, "I wonders how they _does_ make flour. I wonders ... wonders ... where they gets the stuff an'--an'--how they makes it!"

He went off, wondering still; and my mother and I went slowly home, and sat in the broad window of our house, which overlooked the harbour and fronted the flaring western sky; and then first she told me of the kind green world beyond.


III

IN THE HAVEN of HER ARMS

There was a day not far distant--my father had told my mother with a touch of impatience that it _must_ come for all sons--when Skipper Tommy took me with one of the twin lads in the punt to the Hook-an'-Line grounds to jig, for the traps were doing poorly with the fish, the summer was wasting and there was nothing for it but to take to hook and line: which my father's dealers heartily did, being anxious to add what fish they could to the catch, though in this slower way. And it was my first time beyond the Gate--and the sea seemed very vast and strange and sullen when we put out at dawn--and when the long day was near done the wind blew gray and angry from the north and spread a thickening mist over the far-off Watchman--and before night closed, all that