e high
endeavour to succour an enemy--but shed no tears: for 'tis not the way
of our folk to do it.... Rain turned to sleet--sleet to black fog. The
smell of winter was in the air. There was a feeling of snow abroad....
Then came the snow--warning flakes, driving strangely through the mist,
where no snow should have been. Our folk cowered--not knowing what they
feared: but by instinct perceiving a sudden change of season, for which
they were not ready; and were disquieted....

What a rush of feeling and things done--what rage and impulsive
deeds--came then! The days are not remembered--but lie hid in a mist, as
I write.... Timmie Lovejoy crawled into our harbour in the dusk of that
day: having gone ashore at Long Cove with the deck-litter of the _Trap
and Seine_; which surprised us not at all, for we are used to such
things. And when he gave us the message (having now, God knows! a tragic
opportunity, but forgetting that)--when he sobbed that Jagger, being in
sound health, would prove the doctor a coward or drown him--we
determined to go forthwith by the coast rocks to Wayfarer's Tickle to
punish Jagger in some way for the thing he had done. And when I went up
the path to tell my poor sister of the villany practiced upon the
doctor, designed to compass his very death--ah! 'tis dreadful to recall
it--when I went up the path, my mother's last prayer pleading in my
soul, the whitening world was all turned red; and my wish was that, some
day, I might take my enemy by the throat, whereat I would tear with my
naked fingers, until my hands were warm with blood.... But it came on to
snow; and for two days and nights snow fell, the wind blowing mightily:
so that no man could well move from his own house. And when the wind
went down, and the day dawned clear again, we put the dogs to my
father's komatik and set out for Wayfarer's Tickle: whence Jagger had
that morning fled, as Jonas Jutt told us.

"Gone!" cried Tom Tot.

"T' the s'uth'ard with the dogs. He's bound t' the Straits Shore t' get
the last coastal boat t' Bay o' Islands."

"Gone!" we repeated, blankly.

"Ay--but ten hours gone. In mad haste--alone--ill provisioned--fleein'
in terror.... He sat on the hills--sat there like an old crag--in the
rain an' wind--waitin' for the doctor's sloop. 'There she is, Jutt!'
says he. 'No,' says I. 'Thank God, Jagger, that's a schooner, reefed
down an' runnin' for harbour!' ... 'There she is!' says he. 'No,' says
I. 'Thank God, t