ard for our wishes
in the matter. 'Twas the doctor's delight by day to don his new skin
clothes (which my sister had finished in haste after the first fall of
snow) and with help of Timmie Lovejoy to manage the dogs and komatik,
flying here and there at top speed, with many a shout and crack of the
long whip. By night he kept school in the kitchen, which we must all
diligently attend, even to the maids: a profitable occupation, no doubt,
but laborious, to say the least of it, though made tolerable by his good
humour. By and by there came a call from Blister Harbour, which was
forty miles to the north of us, where a man had shot off his
hand--another from Red Cove, eighty miles to the south--others from
Backwater Arm and Molly's Tub. And the doctor responded, afoot or with
the dogs, as seemed best at the moment: myself to bear him company; for
I would have it so, and he was nothing loath.

XX

CHRISTMAS EVE at TOPMAST TICKLE

Returning afoot from the bedside of Long John Wise at Run-by-Guess--and
from many a bedside and wretched hearth by the way--the doctor and I
strapped our packs aback and heartily set out from the Hudson's Bay
Company's post at Bread-and-Water Bay in the dawn of the day before
Christmas: being then three weeks gone from our harbour, and, thinking
to reach it next day. We were to chance hospitality for the night; and
this must be (they told us) at the cottage of a man of the name of Jonas
Jutt, which is at Topmast Tickle. There was a lusty old wind scampering
down the coast, with many a sportive whirl and whoop, flinging the snow
about in vast delight--a big, rollicking winter's wind, blowing straight
out of the north, at the pitch of half a gale. With this abeam we made
brave progress; but yet 'twas late at night when we floundered down the
gully called Long-an'-Deep, where the drifts were overhead and each must
rescue the other from sudden misfortune: a warm glimmer of light in
Jonas Jutt's kitchen window to guide and hearten us.

The doctor beat the door with his fist. "Open, open!" cried he, still
furiously knocking. "Good Lord! will you never open?"

So gruff was the voice, so big and commanding--and so sudden was the
outcry--and so late was the night and wild the wind and far away the
little cottage--that the three little Jutts, who then (as it turned out)
sat expectant at the kitchen fire, must all at once have huddled close;
and I fancy that Sammy blinked no longer at the crack in