Chapter XI

_In Which Teddy Brisk Gives the Strains of a Tight Cove Ballad to
the North Wind, Billy Topsail Wins the Reward of Daring, Cracker
Finds Himself in the Way of the Evil-Doer, and Teddy Brisk's Boast
Makes Doctor Luke Laugh_

Stripped down, at first, on the field, Billy Topsail would not yield to the cold. He did not shrink from the wind. He moved like a man all clothed. Nor would he yield to the shock of the water. He ignored it. It was heroic self-command. But he was the man for that--a Newfoundlander. He struck out precisely as though he had gone into the summer water of Ruddy Cove. If he relapsed from this attitude the cold would strike through him. A chill would momentarily paralyze his strength.

He was neither a strong nor a cunning swimmer. In this lapse he would go down and be choked beyond further effort before he could recover the use of his arms and legs. It was icy cold. He would not think of the cold. His best protection against it was the sufficient will to ignore it. The power would not long endure. It must endure until he had clambered out of the water to the little pan towards which he floundered. He was slow in the water. It seemed to him that his progress was mysteriously prolonged--that the wind was driving the pan away.

The wind could not rise to this pitch in a minute; but when he was midway of the lane he thought half an hour had elapsed--an hour--that he must have left the field and the boy far behind.

The boy was not much more than fifteen yards away.

A word of advice occurred to Billy. He did not turn. He was then within a dozen strokes of the little pan.

He shouted:

"Give un a tune!"

Teddy Brisk dropped his crutch, fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, whipped out his mouth organ, clapped it to his lips, and blew a lively air:

Lukie's boat was painted green,
The finest boat that ever was seen;
Lukie's boat had cotton sails,
A juniper rudder and galvanized nails.

And he so profoundly astonished the dogs with these sudden, harmonious sounds, accompanied by the jerky movement of a crippled leg, designed to resemble a dance, and in itself shockingly suspicious--so profoundly astonished the dogs that they paused to reconsider the matter in hand.

It was startling. They sat up. Aha! What was this? What did it portend?

And the little boy wheezed away:

Lukie sailed her out one day,
A fine spell o' weather in the month o' May;
She leaked so bad when he put about,
He drove her ashore on the Tailor's Snout.

And he kept on blowing that famous jig-time ballad of Tight Cove for dear life until a tug at the line round his waist warned him to brace himself against the steady pull to follow.

Teddy was still giving the strains of Lukie's adventure to the north wind when the little pan came alongside.

"Carry on!" Billy Topsail chattered behind him.

Teddy interrupted himself to answer:

"Aye, sir!"

"I'll get my clothes an' the skins aboard. Ecod! It's awful cold!"

Presently they pushed out from the field. It had not taken long. The patch of white light that was the sun had not yet dropped out of sight behind the cliffs of the shore.

* * * * *

It was a bad night on the field to the south. The boys were hungry. It was cold. Billy Topsail suffered from the cold. In the morning the northerly wind had turned the heap of dogskin robes into a snowdrift. The sun shone. Billy was still cold. He shivered and chattered. He despaired. Rescue came, however, in the afternoon. It was the Tight Cove skiff, hailing now from Our Harbour, with Doctor Luke aboard.

The skiff from Come-Again Bight found the dogs. The dogs were wild--the men said--and would not come aboard, but ran off in a pack to the farthest limits of the field and were not seen again--save only Cracker, who fawned and jumped into the skiff without so much as a by-your-leave. And Cracker, in due course and according to custom, they hanged by the neck at Tight Cove until he was dead.

That day, however--the afternoon of the rescue--when the Tight Cove skiff came near, Teddy Brisk put his hands to his mouth and shouted--none too lustily:

"Ahoy!"

"Aye?" Skipper Thomas answered.

"Did my mother send you?"

"She did."

Teddy Brisk turned to Billy Topsail.

"Didn't I tell you," he sobbed, his eyes blazing, "that I knowed my mother's ways?"

And Doctor Luke laughed.