a little house on the after deck, where men were lounging in a thick fog of tobacco smoke, I would go no further (though Skipper Tommy said that words were spoken not meet for the ears of lads to hear); for my interest was caught by a giant pup, which was not like the pups of our harbour but a lean, long-limbed, short-haired dog, with heavy jaws and sagging, blood-red eyelids. At a round table, whereon there lay a short dog-whip, his master sat at cards with a stout little man in a pea-jacket—a loose-lipped, blear-eyed, flabby little fellow, but, withal, hearty in his own way—and himself cut a curious figure, being grotesquely ill-featured and ill-fashioned, so that one rebelled against the sight of him.
A gust of rain beat viciously upon the windows and the wind ran swishing past.
“ ’Tis a dirty night,” said the dog’s master, shuffling nervously in his seat.
At this the dog lifted his head with a sharp snarl: whereupon, in a flash, the man struck him on the snout with the butt of the whip.
“That’s for you!” he growled.
The dog regarded him sullenly—his upper lip still lifted from his teeth.
“Eh?” the man taunted. “Will you have another?”
The dog’s head subsided upon his paws; but his eyes never once left his master’s face—and the eyes were alert, steady, hard as steel.
“You’re l’arnin’,” the man drawled.
But the dog had learned no submission, but, if anything, only craft, as even I, a child, could perceive; and I marvelled that the man could conceive himself to be winning the mastery of that splendid brute. ’Twas no way to treat a dog of that disposition. It had been a wanton blow—taken with not so much as a whimper. Mastery? Hut! The beast was but biding his time. And I wished him well in the issue. “Ecod!” thought I, with heat. “I hopes he gets a good grip o’ the throat!” Whether or not, at the last, it was the throat, I do not know; but I do know the brutal tragedy of that man’s end, for, soon, he came rough-shod into our quiet life, and there came a time when I was hot on his trail, and rejoiced, deep in the wilderness, to see the snow all trampled and gory. But the telling of that is for a later page; the man had small part in the scene immediately approaching: it was another. When the wind and rain again beat angrily upon the ship, his look of triumph at once gave place to cowardly concern; and he repeated:
“ ’Tis a dirty night.”
“Ay,” said the other, and, frowning, spread his cards before him. “What do you make, Jagger?”
My father came in—and with him a breath of wet, cool air, which I caught with delight.
“Ha!” he cried, heartily, advancing upon the flabby little man, “we been waitin’ a long time for you, doctor. Thank God, you’ve come, at last!”
“Fifteen, two——” said the doctor.
My father started. “I’m wantin’ you t’ take a look at my poor wife,” he went on, renewing his heartiness with an effort. “She’ve been wonderful sick all winter, an’ we been waitin’——”
“Fifteen, four,” said the doctor; “fifteen, six——”
“Doctor,” my father said, touching the man on the shoulder, while Jagger smiled some faint amusement, “does you hear?”
It was suddenly very quiet in the cabin.
“Fifteen, eight——” said the doctor.
My father’s voice changed ominously. “Is you listenin’, zur?” he asked.
“Sick, is she?” said the doctor. “Fifteen, ten. I’ve got you, Jagger, sure …’Tis no fit night for a man to go ashore … Fifteen, ten, did I say? and one for his nibs … Go fetch her aboard, man … And two for his heels——”
My father laid his hand over the doctor’s cards. “Was you sayin’,” he asked, “t’ fetch her aboard?”
“The doctor struck the hand away.
“Was you sayin’,” my father quietly persisted, “t’ fetch her aboard?”
I knew my father for a man of temper; and, now, I wondered that his patience lasted.
“Damme!” the doctor burst out. “Think I’m going ashore in this weather? If you want me to see her now, go fetch her aboard.”
My father coughed—then fingered the neck-band of his shirt.
“I wants t’ get this here clear in my mind,” he said, slowly. “Is you askin’ me t’ fetch that sick woman aboard this here ship?”
The doctor leaned over the table to spit.
“Has I got it right, zur?”
In the pause the spectators softly withdrew to the further end of the cabin.
“If he won’t fetch her aboard, Jagger,” said the doctor, turning to the dog’s master, “she’ll do very well, I’ll be bound, till we get back from the north. Eh, Jagger? If he cared very much, he’d fetch her aboard, wouldn’t he?”
Jagger laughed.
“Ay, she’ll do very well,” the doctor repeated, now addressing my father, “till we get back. I’ll take a look at her then.”
I saw the color rush into my father’s face. Skipper Tommy laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“Easy, now, Skipper David!” he muttered.
“Is I right,” said my father, bending close to the doctor’s face, “in thinkin’ you says you won’t come ashore?”
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
“Is I right,” pursued my father, his voice rising, “in thinkin’ the gov’ment pays you t’ tend the sick o’ this coast?”
“That’s my business,” flashed the doctor. “That’s my business, sir!”
Jagger looked upon my father’s angry face and smiled.
“Is we right, doctor,” said Skipper Tommy, “in thinkin’ you knows she lies desperate sick?”
“Damme!” cried the doctor. “I’ve heard that tale before. You’re a pretty set, you are, to try to play on a man’s feelings like that. But you can’t take me in. No, you can’t,” he repeated, his loose under-lip trembling. “You’re a pretty set, you are. But you can’t come it over me. Don’t you go blustering, now! You can’t come your bluster on me. Understand? You try any bluster on me, and, by heaven! I’ll let every man of your harbour die in his tracks. I’m the doctor, here, I want you to know. And I’ll not go ashore in weather like this.”
My father deliberately turned to wave Skipper Tommy and me out of the way: then laid a heavy hand on the doctor’s shoulder.
“You’ll not come?”
“Damned
