"'My heart has give 'way!' he yelled. 'I didn't have three months t' live! An' Doctor Luke tol' me so!'
"Well, now, sir," Skipper Joe concluded, "Skinflint done what he said he would do. He laid the money in the hands o' Tom West's wife last week. But a queer thing happened next day. Up went the price o' pork at Skinflint's shop! And up went the price o' tea an' molasses! An' up went the price o' flour!"
[CHAPTER XXII]
In Which Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail Go North, and at Candlestick Cove, Returning, Doctor Luke Finds Himself Just a Bit Peckish
A rumour came to Our Harbour, by the tongue of a fur-trader, who stopped over night at Doctor Luke's hospital, on his way to the South, that there was sickness in the North—some need or other; the fur-trader was not sure what. Winter still lingered. The mild spell, which had interrupted the journey of Billy Topsail and Teddy Brisk across Schooner Bay, had been a mere taste of spring. Hard weather had followed. Schooner Bay was once more jammed with ice, which had drifted back—jammed and frozen solid; and the way from Our Harbour to Tight Cove was secure. Teddy Brisk was ready to be moved; and this being so, and the lad being homesick for his mother, and the rumour of need in the North coming down—all this being so, Doctor Luke determined all at once to revisit the northern outports for the last time that winter.