One day in late August, when Doctor Joe was over at The Jug, as he often was, he heard Jamie complain of the mist, and Doctor Joe asked Jamie many questions, and looked long and hard into Jamie’s eyes, and when he was going, and Thomas walked down to the beach to help him launch his boat, he told Thomas that the mist would not clear up of itself.
“And is it a sickness, then, and a bad un?” asked Thomas, aroused to great concern, for he had vast faith in Doctor Joe’s opinion.
“I can’t say yet for a certainty how bad it is, but ’tis a sickness, and may grow worse, if it’s the kind of sickness I take it to be,” said Doctor Joe. “Don’t worry about it yet, Thomas. I’ll be up again soon and look into the eyes again, and see how they’re doing.”
“Can’t you mend un?” asked Thomas anxiously.
“We’ll see. We’ll see what we can do,” and Doctor Joe’s voice was hearty and reassuring, as he launched his boat and pulled away down the bight.
Thomas Angus and Doctor Joe were great friends. Margaret and the boys called Doctor Joe “Uncle,” and they were as fond of him as they could have been had he really been their uncle; and he, on his part, was mightily fond of them. He had come to the Bay three years before Mrs. Angus died, and had now lived at Break Cove and on the coast for eight years.
It was on a blustery July evening that they had first seen him, driving up the bay in an old open boat with a ragged leg-o-mutton sail. Thomas hailed him and he turned in at The Jug in response to Thomas’s invitation to spend the night, for a Labradorman will never permit a stranger to pass his home without a hail and an invitation, and a cheering welcome, warmed with a cup of tea and a snack.
Doctor Joe was a nervous man, with the appearance of one who had been ill. His hand was unsteady, with a tremor—unlike the steady, strong hand of the Labradorman. Thomas saw at once that he was no Labradorman. Any one could have seen that with half an eye. His speech and manner, too, were not of the coast, his skin had not the deep bronze tan of the people, and his dress was not the dress of the native.
But Thomas liked the stranger, and urged him to “’bide for a time at The Jug,” and for several days he remained as Thomas’s guest, asking many questions about the country and manner of life of the folk who lived there, and of the methods of trapping and hunting, and bartering fur and fish.
He introduced himself to Thomas as Joseph Carver, and explained that he had come from the South as a passenger on the mail boat, which he had left at Fort Pelican, eighty miles down the bay, and her nearest port of call. And at length he announced that he had decided to settle here and build a cabin, and turn hunter and trapper, and make The Labrador his home.