Strange to say, Daddy went with her, willingly enough, after I had kissed him. He didn't resent Susie's manner at all. As I watched he stopped after going a few yards, and looked out at sea, beyond the entrance of the cove. Everything was disappearing in a dull greyness that was beginning to blot out the rocky cliffs, and he turned to the girl.
"My boat will never get back to-night," he said, "and I suppose that to-morrow will be worse. It always is. I wonder whether there is another such beastly country in the world?"
"I've heerd tell," remarked Susie, sagaciously, "as how they is some places as has been fixed so them as lives in 'em will sure know what a good place Heaven is when they gits to it."
CHAPTER XIX
Dr. Frank Johnson to Mrs. Charlotte Johnson
Dearest Mother:
I had expected to sail away from St. John's on the twentieth to return to you before resuming the hard search for something to keep together the body and soul which struggling young doctors without means have so hard a time to maintain in their proper relation. Since the old Chandernagore limped into St. John's with its bow stove in, after that terrible collision, and the underwriters decided that she was hopelessly damaged, my prospects have been those of a man living on a pittance and merely entitled to his passage home and a trifle of salary.
A ship-surgeon utterly stranded can hardly be a very merry soul, and the day before yesterday I was strolling rather disconsolately about the docks, when I saw a stunning yacht come in. She was a sight to feast one's eyes on, and until the last moment was under a cloud of sail while her funnel belched black smoke. For a few minutes I saw some of the smartest handling of canvas it has ever been given me to behold. As she came on the great, silken, light sails fluttered, shrank and disappeared as if by magic; her headway stopped and the screw ceased its throbbing. She was just like a grand, white bird folding its wings and going to sleep. But even before she had ceased to move a boat was overboard and four men were at the sweeps, pulling for shore. A few minutes later I was passing in front of Simpson & Co., the big ship-chandlers who were the Chandernagore's agents, when one of the clerks came out and ran towards me.
"Won't you come in?" he asked, excitedly. "There is the skipper of that white yacht that just came in who wants a doctor at once, and at any cost. We supplied that boat after she left dry-dock here, some weeks ago. She belongs to regular swells, awfully rich people."
"Is the man hurt or ill?" I asked.