It must be said, however, that the Newfoundland government did provide a physician—of a sort. Every summer he was sent north with the mail-boat, which made not more than six trips, touching here and there at long intervals, and, of a hard season, failing altogether to reach the farthest ports. While the boat waited—an hour, or a half, as might be—the doctor went ashore to cure the sick, if he chanced to be in the humour; otherwise the folk brought the sick aboard, where they were painstakingly treated or not, as the doctor’s humour went. The government seemed never to inquire too minutely into the qualifications and character of its appointee. The incumbent for many years—the folk thank God that he is dead—was an inefficient, ill-tempered, cruel man; if not the very man himself, he was of a kind with the Newfoundland physician who ran a flag of warning to his masthead when he set out to get very drunk.
The mail-boat dropped anchor one night in a far-away harbour of the Labrador, where there was desperate need of a doctor to ease a man’s pain. They had waited a long time, patiently, day after day. I am told; and when at last the mail-boat came, the man’s skipper put out in glad haste to fetch the government physician.
“He’ve turned in,” they told him aboard.
What did that matter? The skipper roused the doctor.
“We’ve a sick man ashore, zur,” said he, “an’ he wants you t’ come——”
“What!” roared the doctor. “Think I’m going to turn out this time of night?”
“Sure, zur,” stammered the astounded skipper. “I—I—s’pose so. He’s very sick, zur. He’s coughin’——”
“Let him cough himself to death!” said the doctor.
Turn out? Not he! Rather, he turned over in his warm berth. It is to be assumed that the sick man died in pain; it is to be assumed, too, that the physician continued a tranquil slumber, for the experience was not exceptional.