It was true enough; in a few minutes the schooner had safely drifted through the passage, and was making off from the berg under a reefed foresail, while the mist cleared and the sun shone out, and the peaks and cliffs of the island of ice, far astern, shone and glistened. And three days later the young skipper bounded up the path at Ruddy Cove, and the little toddler whom he loved was at the kitchen door to greet him.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] At this point it may be of interest to the reader to know that the incident is true.
CHAPTER XV
In Which the Ruddy Cove Doctor Tells Billy Topsail and a Stranger How He Came to Learn that the Longest Way 'Round is Sometimes the Shortest Way Home
IT was a quiet evening—twilight: with the harbour water unruffled, and the colours of the afterglow fast fading from the sky. Billy Topsail and the doctor and a stranger sat by the surgery door, watching the boats come in from the sea, and their talk had been of the common dangers of that life.
"It was a very narrow escape," said the doctor.
"Crossing the harbour!" the stranger exclaimed. "Why, 'tis not two hundred yards!"