Billy Topsail & Company: A Story for Boys. Duncan Norman
black speck, as far out from shore as their eyes could see.
“They’ll be seals out there the morrow,” the men were all agreed.
So they went home and prepared to set out at dawn of the next day. In the night, the wind swept the whole pack in, to the last lagging pan. The ice was all jammed against the coast–a firm, vast expanse, stretching to the horizon, and held in place by the wind, which continued strong and steady. The men of Fortune Harbour went confidently out to the hunt. At noon, when they were ten miles off the shore, they perceived the approach of a small, black figure.
The meeting came soon afterwards, for the folk of Fortune Harbour, being both curious and quick to respond to need, made haste.
“I say, mister,” said Bagg, briskly, addressing old John Forsyth, “yer ’aven’t got no ’am, ’ave yer?”
The men of Fortune Harbour laughed.
“Or nothink else, ’ave yer?” Bagg continued, hopefully. “I’m a bit ’ungry.”
“Sure, b’y,” said Forsyth. “I’ve a biscuit an’ a bit o’ pork.”
“’Ave yer, now?” said Bagg. “Would yer mind giv–”
But his hands were already full. A moment later his mouth was in the same condition.
“How’d you come out here?” said Forsyth.
“Swep’ out,” said Bagg. “I say, mister,” he added, between munches, “which way would yer say my ’ome was from ’ere?”
“Where’s your home?”
“Ruddy Cove,” said Bagg.
“’Tis fifteen mile up the coast.”
“’Ow would you get there quickest if yer ’ad to?”
“We’ll take care o’ you, b’y,” said Forsyth. “We’ll put you t’ Ruddy Cove in a skiff, when the ice goes out. Seems t’ me,” he added, “you must be the boy Ezekiel Rideout took. Isn’t you Ezekiel Rideout’s boy?”
“Bet yer life I am,” said Bagg.
CHAPTER IX
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.
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