can’t see her? And maybe she’s seein’ us all the time, and knowin’ all we does and talks about.”
Margaret, then a little maid of twelve, took her mother’s place as housekeeper, and bravely did her best to mother the boys. In these five years she had grown into a handsome, rosy-cheeked lass of seventeen, and as capable and fine a housekeeper as you could find on the whole Labrador.
David and Andy, too, had developed with the years from energetic small boys into broad-shouldered, bronze-faced, brawny lads. David, nearly sixteen, and Andy, fourteen, lent a hand at anything that was to be done indoors and out. They kept the water barrel filled from Roaring Brook, they helped cut the firewood and haul it with the dogs, and sawed and split it into proper size for the big box stove. In summer they did their part at the salmon and trout fishing and in winter they kept the house supplied with partridges and rabbits and other small game. In Labrador every one must do his part, and lads learn early to bear their share of the responsibilities of life, and so it was with David and Andy. And adventures, too, they had, for in that brave land adventures come often enough.
Jamie, the youngest of the family, was ten, and as cheerful and lusty and fine a little lad as ever lived. But Jamie’s sight was failing.
“They’s a smoke in the house,” said Jamie when he awoke one morning.
“They’s no smoke in the house,” protested Andy.
“But I sees un! I sees un!” insisted Jamie.
“’Tis the sleep in your eyes yet,” suggested David. “’Twill pass away when you wakes.”
And so Jamie said no more, believing it was the sleep in his eyes, and he rubbed them to drive it away, and dressed, and looked out of the window toward the bay.
“They’s a mist on the water,” said Jamie.
“They’s no mist,” denied Andy. “’Tis fine and clear, and the sun shines wonderful bright.”
“I sees the sunshine, but ’tis not bright. They’s a mist,” Jamie insisted.
And the mist had remained, and thickened gradually with the passing weeks. It was in the beginning of July when the mist had first appeared before Jamie’s eyes, and before the month was ended he complained that he could no longer see the Mealy Mountains across the bay, with their glistening white snow-capped peaks. And this was too bad, for Jamie loved the mountains rising so brave and changeless like a row of great rugged giants guarding and holding the world firm beyond the restless waters of the bay. Jamie always felt that he could depend upon the mountains, and he had a fancy, when of evenings the setting sun tipped their white summits with its last glow, that it was a bit of the dazzling light of heaven breaking through the sky when God reached down to kiss the world good night.
And it had been many days now since Jamie had seen his loved mountains. Even the point, at the entrance to the bight, had become veiled in haze and seemed to have moved far out into the bay, as it used to do when the fog hung low on murky days, and Jamie’s sight was as keen as David’s and Andy’s.
In the beginning Thomas gave little heed to Jamie’s complaints of the mist, for he was busy then at his fishing.
“’Tis a bit of a strain,” said he, “and ’twill soon pass away. A bit of the burn and glare of the spring sun upon the snow, left in the eyes to shade un. ’Twill soon pass away.”
One day in late August, when Doctor Joe was over at The Jug, as he often was, he heard Jamie complain of the mist, and Doctor Joe asked Jamie many questions, and looked long and hard into Jamie’s eyes, and when he was going, and Thomas walked down to the beach to help him launch his boat, he told Thomas that the mist would not clear up of itself.
“And is it a sickness, then, and a bad un?” asked Thomas, aroused to great concern, for he had vast faith in Doctor Joe’s opinion.
“I can’t say yet for a certainty how bad it is, but ’tis a sickness, and may grow worse, if it’s the kind of sickness I take it to be,” said Doctor Joe. “Don’t worry about it yet, Thomas. I’ll be up again soon and look into the eyes again, and see how they’re doing.”
“Can’t you mend un?” asked Thomas anxiously.
“We’ll see. We’ll see what we can do,” and Doctor Joe’s voice was hearty and reassuring, as he launched his boat and pulled away down the bight.
Thomas Angus and Doctor Joe were great friends. Margaret and the boys called Doctor Joe “Uncle,” and they were as fond of him as they could have been had he really been their uncle; and he, on his part, was mightily fond of them. He had come to the Bay three years before Mrs. Angus died, and had now lived at Break Cove and on the coast for eight years.
It was on a blustery July evening that they had first seen him, driving up the bay in an old open boat with a ragged leg-o-mutton sail. Thomas hailed him and he turned in at The Jug in response to Thomas’s invitation to spend the night, for a Labradorman will never permit a stranger to pass his home without a hail and an invitation, and a cheering welcome, warmed with a cup of tea and a snack.
Doctor Joe was a nervous man, with the appearance of one who had been ill. His hand was unsteady, with a tremor—unlike the steady, strong hand of the Labradorman. Thomas saw at once that he was no Labradorman. Any one could have seen that with half an eye. His speech and manner, too, were not of the coast, his skin had not the deep bronze tan of the people, and his dress was not the dress of the native.
But Thomas liked the stranger, and urged him to “’bide for a time at The Jug,” and for several days he remained as Thomas’s guest, asking many questions about the country and manner of life of the folk who lived there, and of the methods of trapping and hunting, and bartering fur and fish.
He introduced himself to Thomas as Joseph Carver, and explained that he had come from the South as a passenger on the mail boat, which he had left at Fort Pelican, eighty miles down the bay, and her nearest port of call. And at length he announced that he had decided to settle here and build a cabin, and turn hunter and trapper, and make The Labrador his home.
“’Twill be a strange life for you,” said Thomas.
“Yes,” said Doctor Joe, “a strange life.”
Then Doctor Joe turned his attention to the selection of a suitable place to build his cabin, and cruising along the shore one day fell upon Break Cove, which he liked immensely, and here he declared his home should be. Thomas, after the manner of the country, and because he was glad to have so near a neighbor, turned to and helped Doctor Joe, and presently they had as snug a little cabin built and furnished as a man could wish for, and here Doctor Joe began his new life in a new land.
He was a mystery to the Bay folk at first, coming as he had, and a mystery to Thomas, too. Sometimes he seemed as gay and happy as ever a man could be, but there were days when he was silent and grave and troubled, like a man with a great load of sorrow upon his soul.
There was one autumn evening, a fortnight after Doctor Joe had established himself in the new cabin, when Thomas, who had been down the bay hunting geese, ran his boat into Break Cove to pay his neighbor a call, and to leave with him one of the fine fat geese he had shot. The candle was lighted and the cabin door stood open. As Thomas approached with the goose he saw Doctor Joe, a wild, hunted look upon his face, pacing up and down the room, and Thomas heard him exclaim:
“I can’t endure it! I cannot, cannot endure it! Another month and I’d be safe! But I can’t hold out! I must give up! Oh, God, have mercy on me!”
Thomas
