Grenfell: Knight-Errant of the North Part 24

But just then the _Yosemite_ struck a reef. She turned over on her side. In that position the sea drove the vessel ash.o.r.e, through the breakers, with the crew clinging to the bridge.

The fact that the _Strathcona_ kept steam up and was "steaming to her anchors" all night long had saved her, the only survivor of the entire fleet. Every vessel that went ash.o.r.e was smashed to kindling.

As they were about to weigh anchor, the main steam pipe began to leak.

It was necessary to "blow down" the boilers.

For the whole of that short day the engineers tinkered at the damage, knowing that the lives of all on board might depend on their success ere nightfall.

Suddenly, to the inexpressible relief of everyone, the engineer shouted:

"Right for'ard!"

Then came the sweet music of the engine-room bell, and presently they were under way again, so nightfall found them safe at last in the harbor, with those eleven wrecks pounding on the rocks outside.

Sometimes the fishermen expected miracles of healing. One day a big "husk" of a fisherman clambered aboard, saying that his teeth hurt him.

"Sit down on that wood-pile," said the Doctor.

The man obeyed. The Doctor pried his mouth open, and saw the tooth that was making the trouble. Then he fetched the forceps.

Up started the patient in wide-eyed alarm.

"Bees you a-goin' to haul it, Doctor?"

"Of course I'm going to pull it out. What did you want me to do?"

"I wouldn't have you touch it! Not for all the fish in the sea!"

"Well then, why did you come to me? You're just wasting my time."

"I wanted you to charm her, Doctor."

"But my dear fellow, I'm not an Eskimo medicine-man. I don't know how, and I don't believe in it anyway."

Mr. Fisherman looked very much put out. "I knows why youse won't charm un. It's because I'm a Roman Catholic."

"Nonsense. That wouldn't make the slightest difference. But if you really think it would do any good,--come on, I'll try. Only--you'll have to pay twenty-five cents, just as though I had 'hauled' it."

"That I will, Doctor, and glad to do it. Go ahead!"

He perched on the rail like a great sea-bird. The Doctor to carry out the farce put his finger in the gaping mouth and touched the tooth.

While he kept his finger in place he uttered the solemn words:

"Abracadabra Tiddlywink.u.m Umslopoga."

That last word must have come from a hazy memory of the name of the wonderful big black man in H. Rider Haggard's "Alan Quatermain," who after a long, hard run beside a horse that carries his master, defends a stairway against their enemies and splits a magic stone with an axe and so brings the foe to grief.

At any rate, the combination worked. Grenfell pulled out his finger quickly so that his patient wouldn't bite him.

The fisherman got up in silence. Then he slowly made the circuit of the deck. In the course of the brief journey, he thrust his hand deep into his jeans and pulled out a quarter.

"Thank you, Doctor. Many thanks." He solemnly handed the coin to his benefactor. "All the pain has gone."

Dr. Grenfell stood holding the coin in his hand, wondering how he came to make such a fool of himself, while the fisherman's broad back bent to the oars of the little boat that took him ash.o.r.e.

A month later, in the same harbor, the same man swung his leg over the rail with a hearty greeting.

"Had any more trouble?" asked the Doctor.

"No--sir! Not an ache out of her since!" came the jovial answer.

The Doctor had much trouble with patients who wanted to drink at one draught all the medicine he gave them. They thought that if a teaspoonful of the remedy was good for you, the whole bottle must be ever so much better.

A haddock's fin-bone was a "liveyere's" charm against rheumatism--but you must get hold of the haddock and cut off the fin before he touches the boat. So you don't often get a fin that is good for anything.

If you want to avoid a hemorrhage, the best plan is to tie a bit of green worsted round your wrist.

Both Protestants and Catholics write prayers on pieces of paper and wear them in little bags about their necks to drive off evil things.

The constant battle against wind and wave develops heroes and heroines, and the tales told of golden deeds such as might earn a Carnegie medal or pension are beyond number.

One man started south for the winter in his fis.h.i.+ng-boat, with his fis.h.i.+ng partner, his wife, four children and a servant girl. A gale of wind came up. On the Labrador a gale is a gale: they do not use the word lightly. Grenfell tells of a new church that was blown into the sea with its pulpit, pews and communion-table. In a storm like that, the mainsail, jib and mast of this luckless smack went over the side.

The boat was driven helplessly before the wind, for three days and nights. Then the wind changed, and they could put up a small foresail, which in two more awful days brought them to the land. But they were running ash.o.r.e with such violence that they would have been lost beyond a doubt, if six brave "liveyeres" had not put out to rescue them. Their boat was smashed to flinders.

Then they found that all this time they had been going due north, for a hundred and fifty miles. They had to stay till the next summer.

Their friends, when they got back to Newfoundland, had given them up for dead.

A fisherman said to Grenfell, in explaining why he couldn't swim: "You see, we has enough o' the water without goin' to bother wi' it when we are ash.o.r.e." This man had barely escaped drowning on no less than four occasions. Once he saved himself by clinging to a rope with his teeth, after his hands were too numb to serve him, till they hauled him aboard.

The sh.o.r.e of one of the Labrador bays had a total adult population of just one man. As the ice was breaking up in the spring, he had sent his two young sons out on the ice-pans in pursuit of seals.

But the treacherous flooring gave way, and the father from the sh.o.r.e saw his boys struggling in the water.

He tied a long fis.h.i.+ng-line round his body, and gave the other end to his daughter. While she held it he crawled out over the pans. Then he jumped into the bitter water, like a deep-sea diver going down to examine a wreck, and stayed between and below the pans till he had recovered both bodies--but the last spark of life was extinct.

Almost under the windows of Dr. Grenfell's hospital at Battle Harbor two men started with sled and dogs to get fire-wood. They were rounding a headland, when the sled went into the water, taking not merely the dogs but the drivers with it. One man got under the ice, and was seen no more. The other clung to the edge of the ice, too weak to crawl out.

His sister saw what happened, and came running over the ice. Men further away who were bringing a boat shouted to her: "For G.o.d's sake, don't go near the hole." She did not heed their warning. Instead, she threw herself flat, so as to distribute her weight, and dragged herself along till she was close enough to reach her brother's hand.

She could not quite pull him out. He was so benumbed that he could not help in the rescue. She lifted his body part way over the edge of the ice-sheet and held on.

Nearer and nearer the boat came with the rescuers shouting encouragement. "We're a-comin', girl.' Don't let go!" Her strength was almost gone. But she was bound to be faithful unto death--if the sea claimed her brother it must take her too.

She did not cry out. She wasted no energy in words upon the frosty air. The boat seemed ages in coming, though the rowers plied the oars with might and main.

One of her legs had broken through the ice. At any instant she might find herself struggling in the sea, and her agony of effort would have been in vain.

At what seemed the last second of the last moment for the pair, the brawny arms of the fishermen hauled them over the gunwale.