Katherine bent and kissed him. With all the strength of her heart she loved her father. In her early girlhood he had been her hero. Since her mother's death he had been her good comrade, and never had there been a shadow between them until that day when they had taken the last mail of the season up to the second portage, and heard the news about the change in the ownership of the fishing fleet from Astor M'Kree. Perhaps he had been taken with some feeling of illness that day, and this continuing ever since had led to his altered ways and gloomy looks. But even with this idea to comfort her Katherine went to her bed with a heavy heart that night, and a dread of the morning to which before she had been a stranger. Her father had said that it was of no use to fear disaster until it really came, but her heart quailed that night as she lay sleepless, thinking of the days which stretched in front of her. Until her father grew strong again she would have to let the day teaching go, even though it might be possible to keep the night school together. Her days would have to be spent in buying and selling, in bartering barrels of flour and pork for skins of wolf, of ermine, and of beaver. She would have to stand between home and the difficulties that menaced from the outside, and if her heart failed her who could wonder at it?
CHAPTER V
A Sacred Confidence
'Duke Radford was very ill. For a week he hovered between life and death, and Mrs. Burton's skill was taxed to the uttermost. There was no doctor within at least a hundred miles. One of the fishers at Seal Cove had set the broken collar bone, the work being very well done too, although the man was only an amateur in the art of bone-setting. But it was not the broken bone, nor any of his bruises and abrasions, which made 'Duke Radford's peril during that black week of care and anxiety. He was ill in himself, so ill in fact that Mrs. Burton lost heart, declaring that her father's constitution had broken up, and that half a dozen doctors could not pull him through if his time had come.
Katherine would not share this gloomy view, and was always hoping against hope. If only the waters had been open, a doctor might have been procured from somewhere; but in winter time, when the small lakes and many of the lesser rivers were all frozen, nothing in the way of outside help was available, and the dwellers in remote places had to depend upon their own skill, making up in nursing what was lacking in medicine.
By the time the second Sunday came, the sick man showed signs of mending. Mrs. Burton grew hopeful again, while Katherine was nearly beside herself with joy. It had been a fearfully hard week for them all, though the neighbours had been as kind as possible. Stee Jenkin's wife came up from Seal Cove one day, and, after doing as much work as she could find to do, carried the twins off with her to her little house at the Cove, which was a great relief to Mrs. Burton and Katherine. Mrs. M'Kree was ill herself, so could do no more than send a kindly message; but even that was better than nothing, for sympathy is one of the sweetest things on earth when one is in trouble.
Sunday was a blessed relief to them at the end of their troubled week. Finding her father so much better, Mrs. Burton betook herself to bed at noon for the first real untroubled rest she had enjoyed for many days. The boys were stretched in luxurious idleness before the glowing fire in the kitchen, and Katherine was in charge of the sickroom. She was half-asleep herself; the place was so warm and her father lay in such a restful quiet. It had been so terrible all the week because no rest had seemed possible to him. But since last night his symptoms had changed, and now he lay quietly dozing, only rousing to take nourishment. Presently he stirred uneasily, as if the old restlessness were coming back, then asked in a feeble tone:
"Are you there, Nellie?"
"Nellie has gone to lie down, Father; but I will call her if you want her," Katherine said, coming forward to where the sick man could see her.
"No, I don't want her; it is you I want to talk to, only I didn't know whether she was here," he replied.