CHAPTER XXI
_In Which Billy Topsail Goes Fishing in Earnest. Concerning, also, Feather's Folly of the Devil's Teeth, Mary Robinson, and the Wreck of the Fish Killer_
FEATHER'S FOLLY was one of a group of troublesome islands lying offCape Grief on the way to the Labrador. Surveyed by a generouslyinaccurate apprentice it might have measured an acre. It was as barrenas an old bone; but a painstaking man, with unimpaired eyesight, if helingered long and lovingly enough over the task, could doubtless havediscovered more than one blade of grass. There is no adjective in theEnglish language adequate to describe its forbidding appearance asviewed from the sea in a gale of wind.
On the chart it was a mere dot--a nameless rock, the outermost of agroup most happily called the Devil's Teeth. To the Labrador fishermen,bound north from Newfoundland in the spring, bound south, with theirloads of green cod, in the fall, it was the Cocked Hat. This name,too, is aptly descriptive; many a schooner, caught in the breakers,had, as the old proverb hath it, been knocked into that condition, orworse. But to the folk of the immediate coast, and especially of Hulk'sHarbour, which lies within sight on the mainland, it was for long knownas Feather's Folly.
Old Bill Feather had once been wrecked on the Cocked Hat. The little_Lucky Lass_, bound to Hulk's Harbour from the Hen-and-Chickens,and sunk to the scupper-holes with green fish, had struck in a fog.Four minutes later she had gone down with all hands save Bill. Anabsentminded breaker had deposited him high and dry on a ledge of thenortheast cliff; needless to say, it was much to Bill's surprise. Forfive days the castaway had shivered and starved on the barren rock.This was within sight of the chimney-smoke of home--of the harbourtickle, of the cottage roofs; even, in clear weather, of the flakes andstage of his own place.
"It won't happen again," vowed Bill, when they took his lean, sore hulkhome.
What Bill did--what he planned and accomplished in the face of ridiculeand adverse fortune--earned the rock the name of Feather's Folly inthat neighbourhood.
"Anyhow," old Bill was in the habit of repeating, to defend himself, "I'low it won't happen again. An' I'll _see_ that it don't!"
But season followed season, without event; and the Cocked Hat was stillknown as Feather's Folly.
Billy Topsail was to learn this.
* * * * *
It was early in the spring of the year--too early by half, the oldsalts said, for Labrador craft to put out from the Newfoundland ports.Thick, vagrant fogs, drifting with the variable winds, were abroadon all the coast; and the Arctic current was spread with drift icefrom the upper shores and with great bergs from the glaciers of thefar north. But Skipper Libe Tussel, of the thirty-ton _Fish Killer_,hailing from Ruddy Cove, was a firm believer in the fortunes of theearly bird; moreover, he was determined that the skipper of the _CodTrap_, hailing from Fortune, should not this season preempt histrap-berth on the Thigh Bone fishing grounds. So the _Fish Killer_ wasunderway for the north, early as it was; and she was cheerily game toface the chances of wind and ice, if only she might beat the _Cod Trap_to the favourable opportunities of the Thigh Bone grounds off IndianHarbour.
"It's thick," Robinson remarked to the skipper.
"_'Tis_ thick."
Billy Topsail, now grown old enough for the adventurous voyage to theLabrador coast, was aboard; and he listened to this exchange with adeal of interest. It was his first fishing voyage; he had been northin the _Rescue_, to be sure, but that was no more than a cruise,undertaken to relieve the starving fishermen of the upper harbours. Atlast, he was fishing in earnest--really aboard the _Fish Killer_, boundnorth, there to fish the summer through, in all sorts of weather, witha share in the catch at the end of it! He was vastly delighted by this:for 'twas a man's work he was about, and 'twas a man's work he waswanting to do.
"Thick as mud," said Robinson, with a little shiver.
"'S mud," the skipper responded, in laconic agreement.
And it _was_ thick! The fog had settled at mid-day. A fearsome arrayof icebergs had then been in sight, and the low coast, with the snowstill upon it, had to leeward shone in the brilliant sunlight. Butnow, with the afternoon not yet on the wane, the day had turned murkyand damp. A bank of black fog had drifted in from the open sea. Iceand shore had disappeared. The limit of vision approached, possibly,but did not attain, twenty-five yards. The weather was thick, indeed;the schooner seemed to be winging along through a boundless cloud; andthere was a smart breeze blowing, and the circle of sea, in the exactcentre of which the schooner floated, was choppy and black.
"Thick enough," Skipper Libe echoed, thoughtfully. "But," he added,"you wouldn't advise heavin' to, would you?"
"No, no!" Robinson exclaimed. "I'm too anxious to get to IndianHarbour."
"And I," muttered the skipper, with an anxious look ahead, "to make theThigh Bone grounds. But----"
"Give her all the wind she'll carry," said Robinson. "It won't botherme."
"I thinks," the skipper continued, ignoring the interruption, "thatI'll shorten sail. For," said he, "I'm thinkin' the old girl mightbleed at the nose if she happened t' bump a berg."
While the crew reduced the canvas, Robinson went below. He was theHudson's Bay Company's agent at Dog Arm of the Labrador, which is closeto Indian Harbour. In January, with his invalid daughter in a dog-sled,he had journeyed from that far place to Desolate Bay of Newfoundland,and thence by train to St. John's. It had been a toilsome, dangerous,incredibly bitter experience. But he had forgotten that, nor had heever complained of it; his happiness was that his child had survivedthe surgeons' operation, had profited in ease and hope, had alreadybeen restored near to her old sunny health. Early in the spring, wordof the proposed sailing of the _Fish Killer_ from Ruddy Cove had cometo him at St. John's; and he had taken passage with Skipper Libe, nomore, it must be said, because he wished Mary's mother to know the goodnews (she had had no word since his departure) than because he wasbreathlessly impatient once more to be serving the company's interestsat Dog Arm.
To Mary and her father Skipper Libe had with seamanlike courtesyabandoned the tiny cabin. The child was lying in the skipper's ownberth--warmly covered, comfortably tucked in, provided with a book toread by the light of the swinging lamp.
"Are you happy, dear?" her father asked.
"Oh, yes!"
The man took the child's hand. "I'm sometimes sorry," he said, "thatwe didn't wait for the mail-boat. The _Fish Killer_ is a pretty toughcraft for a little girl to be aboard."
"Sorry?" was the instant response, made with a little smile. "I'm not.I'm glad. Isn't Cape Grief close to leeward? Well, then, father, we'rehalf way home. Think of it! _We're--half--way--home!_"
The father laughed.
"And we might have been waiting at St. John's," the child continued,her blue eyes shining. "Oh, father, I'd rather be aboard the _FishKiller_ off Grief Head than in the very best room of the Crosbie Hotel.Half way home!" she repeated. "Half way home!"
"Half way is a long way."
"But it's half way!"
"On this coast," the father sighed, "no man is home until he getsthere."
"It's a fair wind."
"And the fog as thick as mud."
"But they've reefed the mains'l; they've stowed the stays'l; they'vegot the tops'l down. Haven't you heard them? I've been listening----"
"_What's that!_" Robinson cried.
It was a mere ejaculation of terror. He had no need to ask thequestion. Even Mary knew well enough what had happened. The _FishKiller_ had struck an iceberg bow on. The shock; the crash forward;the clatter of a falling topmast; the cries on deck: these things werealive with the fearful information.
The Adventures of Billy Topsail Page 24