Part 24 (1/2)

The doctor came in from the sea at evening--when the wind had freshened to a gale, blowing bitter cold. He had been for three days and nights fighting without sleep for the life of that mother of seven--and had won! Ay, she had pulled through; she was now resting in the practiced care of the Cuddy Cove women, whose knowledge of such things had been generously increased. The ragged, st.u.r.dy seven still had a mother to love and counsel them. The Cuddy Cove men spoke reverently of the deed and the man who had done it. Tired? The doctor laughed. Not he! Why, he had been asleep under a tarpaulin all the way from Cuddy Cove! And Skipper Elisha Timbertight had handled the skiff in the high seas so cleverly, so tenderly, so watchfully--what a marvellous hand it was!--that the man under the tarpaulin had not been awakened until the nose of the boat touched the wharf piles. But the doctor was hollow-eyed and hoa.r.s.e, staggering of weariness, but cheerfully smiling, as he went up the path to talk with the woman from Bowsprit Head.

”You are waiting for me?” he asked.

She was frightened--by his accent, his soft voice, his gentle manner, to which the women of our coast are not used. But she managed to stammer that her baby was sick.

”'Tis his throat,” she added.

The child was noisily fighting for breath. He gasped, writhed in her lap, struggled desperately for air, and, at last, lay panting. She exposed him to the doctor's gaze--a dull-eyed, scrawny, ugly babe: such as mothers wish to hide from sight.

”He've always been like that,” she said. ”He's wonderful sick. I've fetched un here t' be cured.”

”A pretty child,” said the doctor.

'Twas a wondrous kind lie--told with such perfect dissimulation that it carried the conviction of truth.

”What say?” she asked, leaning forward.

”A pretty child,” the doctor repeated, very distinctly.

”They don't say that t' Bowsprit Head, zur.”

”Well--_I_ say it!”

”I'll tell un so!” she exclaimed, joyfully. ”I'll tell un you said so, zur, when I gets back t' Bowsprit Head. For n.o.body--n.o.body, zur--ever said that afore--about my baby!”

The child stirred and complained. She lifted him from her lap--rocked him--hushed him--drew him close, rocking him all the time.

”Have you another?”

”No, zur; 'tis me first.”

”And does he talk?” the doctor asked.

She looked up--in a glow of pride. And she flushed gloriously while she turned her eyes once more upon the gasping, ill-featured babe upon her breast.

”He said 'mama'--once!” she answered.

In the fog--far, far away, in the distances beyond Skull Island, which were hidden--the doctor found at that moment some strange interest.

”Once?” he asked, his face still turned away.

”Ay, zur,” she solemnly declared. ”I calls my G.o.d t' witness! I'm not makin' believe, zur,” she went on, with rising excitement. ”They says t'

Bowsprit Head that I dreamed it, zur, but I knows I didn't. 'Twas at the dawn. He lay here, zur--here, zur--on me breast. I was wide awake, zur--waitin' for the day. Oh, he said it, zur,” she cried, crus.h.i.+ng the child to her bosom. ”I heared un say it! 'Mama!' says he.”

”When I have cured him,” said the doctor, gently, ”he will say more than that.”