The Doctor's Dilemma. Stretton Hesba
the sake of the good God, Dr. Martin," cried Tardif, excitedly, and of course speaking in the Sark dialect, "I beg of you to come this instant even. She has been lying in anguish since mid-day yesterday—twenty-four hours now, sir. I started at dawn this morning, but both wind and tide were against me, and I have been waiting here some time. Be quick, doctor. Mon Dieu! if she should be dead!"
The poor fellow's voice faltered, and his eyes met mine imploringly. He and I had been fast friends in my boyhood, when all my holidays were spent in Sark, though he was some years older than I; and our friendship was still firm and true, though it had slackened a little from absence. I shook his hand heartily, giving it a good hard grip in token of my unaltered friendship—a grip which he returned with his fingers of iron till my own tingled again.
"I knew you'd come," he gasped.
"Ah, I'll go, Tardif," I said; "only I must get a snatch of something to eat while Dr. Dobrée puts up what I shall have need of. I'll be ready in half an hour. Go into the kitchen, and get some dinner yourself."
"Thank you, Dr. Martin," he answered, his voice still unsteady, and his mustache quivering; "but I can eat nothing. I'll go down and have the boat ready. You'll waste no time?"
"Not a moment," I promised.
I left my father to put up the things I should require, supposing he had heard all the particulars of the accident from Tardif. He was inclined to grumble a little at me for going; but I asked him what else I could have done. As he had no answer ready to that question, I walked away to the dining-room, where my mother and Julia were waiting; for dinner was ready, as we dined early on Sundays on account of the servants. Julia was suffering from the beginning of a bilious attack, to which she was subject, and her eyes were heavy and dull. I told them hastily where I was going, and what a hurry I was in.
"You are never going across to Sark to-day!" Julia exclaimed.
"Why not?" I asked, taking my seat and helping myself quickly.
"Because I am sure bad weather is coming," she answered, looking anxiously through a window facing the west. "I could see the coast of France this morning as plainly as Sark, and the gulls are keeping close to the shore, and the sunset last night was threatening. I will go and look at the storm-glass."
She went away, but came back again very soon, with an increase of anxiety in her face. "Don't go, dear Martin," she said, with her hand upon my shoulder; "the storm-glass is as troubled as it can be, and the wind is veering round to the west. You know what that foretells at this time of the year. There is a storm at hand; take my word for it, and do not venture across to Sark to-day."
"And what is to become of the poor woman?" I remonstrated. "Tardif says she has been suffering the pain of a broken limb these twenty-four hours. It would be my duty to go even if the storm were here, unless the risk was exceedingly great. Come, Julia, remember you are to be a doctor's wife, and don't be a coward."
"Don't go!" she reiterated, "for my sake and your mother's. I am certain some trouble will come of it. We shall be frightened to death; and this woman is only a stranger to you. Oh, I cannot bear to let you go!"
I did not attempt to reason with her, for I knew of old that when Julia was bilious and nervous she was quite deaf to reason. I only stroked the hand that lay on my shoulder, and went on with my dinner as if my life depended upon the speed with which I dispatched it.
"Uncle," she said, as my father came in with a small portmanteau in his hand, "tell Martin he must not go. There is sure to be a storm to-night."
"Pooh! pooh!" he answered. "I should be glad enough for Martin to stay at home, but there's no help for it, I suppose. There will be no storm at present, and they'll run across quickly. It will be the coming back that will be difficult. You'll scarcely get home again to-night, Martin."
"No," I said. "I'll stop at Gavey's, and come back in the Sark cutter if it has begun to ply. If not, Tardif must bring me over in the morning."
"Don't go," persisted Julia, as I thrust myself into my rough pilot-coat, and then bent down to kiss her cheek. Julia always presented me her cheek, and my lips had never met hers yet. My mother was standing by and looking tearful, but she did not say a word; she knew there was no question about what I ought to do. Julia followed me to the door and held me fast with both hands round my arm, sobbing out hysterically, "Don't go!" Even when I had released myself and was running down the drive, I could hear her still calling, "O Martin, don't go!"
I was glad to get out of hearing. I felt sorry for her, yet there was a considerable amount of pleasure in being the object of so much tender solicitude. I thought of her for a minute or two as I hurried along the steep streets leading down to the quay. But the prospect before me caught my eye. Opposite lay Sark, bathed in sunlight, and the sea between was calm enough at present. A ride across, with a westerly breeze filling the sails, and the boat dancing lightly over the waves, would not be a bad exchange for a dull Sunday afternoon, with Julia at the Sunday-school and my mother asleep. Besides, it was the path of duty which was leading me across the quiet gray sea before me.
Tardif was waiting, with his sails set and oars in the rowlocks, ready for clearing the harbor. I took one of them, and bent myself willingly to the light task. There was less wind than I had expected, but what there was blew in our favor. We were very quickly beyond the pier-head, where a group of idlers was always gathered, who sent after us a few warning shouts. Nothing could be more exhilarating than our onward progress. I felt as if I had been a prisoner, with, chains which had pressed heavily yet insensibly upon me, and that now I was free. I drew into my lungs the fresh, bracing, salt air of the sea, with a deep sigh of delight.
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
A PATIENT IN SARK.
It struck me after a while that my friend Tardif was unusually silent. The shifting of the sails appeared to give him plenty to do; and to my surprise, instead of keeping to the ordinary course, he ran recklessly as it seemed across the grunes, which lie all about the bed of the channel between Guernsey and Sark. These grunes are reefs, rising a little above low water, but, as the tide was about half-flood, they were a few feet below it; yet at times there was scarcely enough depth to float us over them, while the brown seaweed torn from their edges lay in our wake, something like the swaths of grass in a meadow after the scythe has swept through it. Now and then came a bump and a scrape of the keel against their sharp ridges. The sweat stood in beads upon Tardif's face, and his thick hair fell forward over his forehead, where the great veins in the temples were purple and swollen. I spoke to him after a heavier bump over the grunes than any we had yet come to.
"Tardif," I said, "we are shaving the weeds a little too close, aren't we?"
"Look behind you, Dr. Martin," he answered, shifting the sails a little.
I did not look behind us. We were more than half-way over the channel, and Guernsey lay four miles or so west of us; but instead of the clear outline of the island standing out against the sky, I could see nothing but a bank of white fog. The afternoon sun was shining brightly over it, but before long it would dip into its dense folds. The fogs about our islands are peculiar. You may see them form apparently thick blocks of blanched vapor, with a distinct line between the atmosphere where the haze is and where it is not. To be overtaken by a fog like this, which would almost hide Tardif at one end of the boat from me at the other, would be no laughing matter in a sea lined with sunken reefs. The wind had almost gone, but a little breeze still caught us from the north of the fog-bank. Without a word I took the oars again, while Tardif devoted himself to the sails and the helm.
"A mile nearer home," he said, "and I could row my boat as easily in the dark as you could ride your horse along a lane."
My face was westward now, and I kept my eye upon the fog-bank creeping stealthily after us. I thought of my mother and Julia, and the fright they would be in. Moreover a fog like this was pretty often