"Well, well! If you've the mind. Come along, boy. I'll be glad to have you."
Teddy Brisk was taken across Schooner Bay and restored to his mother's arms. And Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail drove the dogs north on Doctor Luke's successful round of visits.
It was on the return journey that Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail fell in with the Little Fiddler of Amen Island. At Candlestick Cove they were to feed the dogs and put up for the night. It was still treacherous March weather; and the night threatened foul—a flurry of snow falling and the sky overcast with a thickening drab scud. Day was done when Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail crawled out of the timber and scurried down Twist Hill. In the early dusk the lights were already twinkling yellow and warm in the cottages below; and from the crest of the long hill, in the last of the light, Amen Island was visible, an outlying shadow, across Ships' Run.
There were still sixty miles left of Doctor Luke's round—this second winter round from Our Harbour to the lonely huts of Laughter Bight, thirty miles north of Cape Blind, touching all the harbours between, and by way of Thunder Tickle and Candlestick Cove, which lay midway, back to the shaded lamp and radiant open fire of the little surgery at Our Harbour.
As the dogs scurried down Twist Hill, whimpering and snarling, eager to make an end of a hard day, Doctor Luke visioned those wintry miles and reflected upon the propriety of omitting a call at Amen Island.
Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail drew up at Mild Jim Cull's.
"Skipper James," said Doctor Luke, in the kitchen, across the lamp-lit, devastated supper table, an hour later, "what's the health of Amen Island?"
"They're all well, sir—so far as I knows."
"All well? Just my luck! Then I won't——"