“But I had become addicted to liquor, which I first took to stimulate me when I was very tired, and to steady my nerves, usually on occasions when I had denied myself proper rest, or when weary from overwork. At length there came a time when I could not do without it, and I always fortified myself with a dose before beginning an operation. Sometimes in the midst of long operations it would lose its stimulating effect to such an extent that my hand would become uncertain and unsteady. One day, because of this, I ruined a patient’s sight.
“That was the last operation I ever performed. I turned my patients over to a young surgeon who had assisted me, and he is the great doctor I hoped might operate on Jamie’s eyes, for he has taken the place I once held.
“I made a desperate effort to break myself of the liquor habit, but I soon discovered this to be impossible so long as I remained where liquor could be had. It had broken my will and power of resistance, and shattered my nerves to such an extent that I could not again trust myself with the surgeon’s knife. The desire for liquor had become a disease with me, as it is with many a man, and in its presence I was irresponsible. Liquor, you know, is a poisonous drug, just as opium is, and the man who becomes addicted to its use is to be pitied.
“There was but one cure for me, and that was to go where it was not to be had. So in desperation I came north to The Labrador, and left the mail boat at Fort Pelican, where I bought the old boat which I was sailing up the bay when you hailed me that day eight years ago. Do you remember, Thomas, how nervous and restless I was?”
“Aye, you were a bit shaky, and we were sayin’ you had been sick,” admitted Thomas.
“I was sick then. If you had not taken me in, a stranger of whom you knew nothing, and had not helped me with your friendship, I should have returned to New York and ruin. I felt that if I could remain until the freeze-up came that year, and the mail boat stopped running, I would have my longings conquered before another summer came around. God knows how hard it was, even then, for me to stay. More than once that fall I said to myself of a night, ‘I can’t stand it any longer! I must go!’ But each morning you held me with kindness, and your sturdy, wholesome life, and each morning I resolved to stay, whatever my suffering might be.
“And so it came to pass that you cured me by reaching out to me a helping hand when I needed it, and so I have remained on The Labrador year after year, until I am cured of my old thirst and no longer feel a desire for liquor. I shall never regain my old position as the greatest eye surgeon in my country, Thomas, but, thank God, I am more than that. I am a sane, strong man again, and after all, man is the greatest thing God ever created.”
Doctor Joe, his face beaming, held out his clenched fist, as he had done before in the forest.
“See!” he exclaimed. “There’s no shake to that! I’ve a man’s steady nerve, because you cured me, Thomas Angus, by making it possible for me to live as a clean man should.”
“’Tis wonderful steady!” said Thomas, quite astonished and moved by Doctor Joe’s story.