"She's drivin' finely," said the skipper, when he had looked around. "Stand by, there, an' be ready with the fores'l! We'll soon be through."
It was true enough; in a few minutes the schooner had safely drifted through the passage, and was making off from the berg under a reefed foresail, while the mist cleared and the sun shone out, and the peaks and cliffs of the island of ice, far astern, shone and glistened. And three days later the young skipper bounded up the path at Ruddy Cove, and the little toddler whom he loved was at the kitchen door to greet him.
[5] At this point it may be of interest to the reader to know that the incident is true.
_In Which the Ruddy Cove Doctor Tells Billy Topsail and a Stranger How He Came to Learn that the Longest Way 'Round is Sometimes the Shortest Way Home_
IT was a quiet evening--twilight: with the harbour water unruffled, and the colours of the afterglow fast fading from the sky. Billy Topsail and the doctor and a stranger sat by the surgery door, watching the boats come in from the sea, and their talk had been of the common dangers of that life.
"It was a very narrow escape," said the doctor.
"Crossing the harbour!" the stranger exclaimed. "Why, 'tis not two hundred yards!"
"'Twas my narrowest escape--and 'twas all because of Billy Topsail."
"Ay," said the doctor; "'twas all along o' you. Some years ago," he continued, "when you were a toddler in pinafores, you were taken suddenly ill. It was a warm day in the spring of the year. The ice was still in the harbour, locked in by the rocks at the narrows, though the snow had all melted from the hills, and green things were shooting from the earth in the gardens. The weather had been fine for a week," the doctor continued, addressing the stranger, "Day by day the harbour ice had grown more unsafe, until, when Billy was taken ill, only the daring ventured to cross upon it.
[Illustration: "MY LITTLE LAD'S WONDERFUL SICK. COME QUICK!"]
"Billy's father came rushing into the surgery in a pitiable state of grief and fright. I knew when I first caught sight of his face that Billy was ill.
"'Doctor,' said he, 'my little lad's wonderful sick. Come quick!'
"'I've come by that way,' said he. ''Tis safe enough t' risk. Make haste, doctor, sir! Make haste!'