“Davy,” said the doctor, hoarsely, “go to your sister. I must have a word with this maid—alone.” I went away.
We caught sight of the Word of the Lord beating down from the south in light winds—and guessed her errand—long before that trim little schooner dropped anchor in the basin. The skipper came ashore for healing of an angry abscess in the palm of his hand. Could the doctor cure it? To be sure—the doctor could do that! The man had suffered sleepless agony for five days; he was glad that the doctor could ease his pain—glad that he was soon again to be at the fishing. Thank God, he was to be cured!
“I have only to lance and dress it,” said the doctor. “You will have relief at once.”
“Not the knife,” the skipper groaned. “Praise God, I’ll not have the knife!”
It was the doctor’s first conflict with the strange doctrines of our coast. I still behold—as I lift my eyes from the page—his astonishment when he was sternly informed that the way of the Lord was not the way of a surgeon with a knife. Nor was the austere old fellow to be moved. The lance, said he, was an invention of the devil himself—its use plainly a defiance of the purposes of the Creator. Thank God! he had been reared by a Christian father of the old school.
“No, no, doctor!” he declared, his face contorted by pain. “I’m thankin’ you kindly; but I’m not carin’ t’ interfere with the decrees o’ Providence.”
“But, man,” cried the doctor, “I must——”
“No!” doggedly. “I’ll not stand in the Lard’s way. If ’tis His will for me t’ get better, I’ll get better, I s’pose. If ’tis His blessed will for me t’ die,” he added, reverently, “I’ll have t’ die.”
“I give you my word,” said the doctor, impatiently, “that if that hand is not lanced you’ll be dead in three days.”