Part 2

I have said that the Newfoundlanders occasionally navigate by means of old rhymes; and this brings me to the case of Zachariah, the skipper of the _Heavenly Rest_. He was a Newf'un'lander. Neither wind, fog nor a loppy sea could turn his blood to water. He was a Newf'un'lander of the hardshell breed. So he sailed the _Heavenly Rest_ without a chart. To be sure, he favoured the day for getting along, but he ran through the night when he was crowding south, and blithely took his chance with islands of ice and rock alike. He had some faith in a "telltale," had Zachariah, but he scorned charts. It was his boast that if he could not carry the harbours and headlands and shallows of five hundred miles of hungry coast in his head he should give up the _Heavenly Rest_ and sail a paddle-punt for a living. It was well that he could--well for the ship and the crew and the folk at home. For, at the time of which I write, the _Rest_, too light in ballast to withstand a gusty breeze, was groping through the fog for harbour from a gale which threatened a swift descent. It was "thick as bags," with a rising wind running in from the sea, and the surf breaking and hissing within hearing to leeward.

"We be handy t' Hollow Harbour," said Zachariah.

"Is you sure, skipper?" asked the cook.

"Sure," said Zachariah.

The _Heavenly Rest_ was in desperate case. She was running in--pursuing an unfaltering course for an unfamiliar, rocky shore. The warning of the surf sounded in every man's ears. It was imperative that her true position should soon be determined. The skipper was perched far forward, peering through the fog for a sight of the coast.

"Sure, an' I hopes," said the man at the wheel, "that she woan't break her nose on a rock afore the ol' man sees un."

"Joe Bett's P'int!" exclaimed the skipper.

Dead ahead, and high in the air, a mass of rock loomed through the mist. The skipper had recognized it in a flash. He ran aft and took the wheel. The _Heavenly Rest_ sheered off and ran to sea.

"We'll run in t' Hollow Harbour," said the skipper.

"Has you ever been there?" said the man who had surrendered the wheel.

"Noa, b'y," the skipper answered, "but I'll get there, whatever."

The nose of the _Heavenly Rest_ was turned shoreward. Sang the skipper, humming it to himself in a rasping sing-song:

"When Joe Bett's P'int you is abreast, Dane's Rock bears due west. West-nor'west you must steer, 'Til Brimstone Head do appear.

"The tickle's narrow, not very wide; The deepest water's on the starboard side When in the harbour you is shot, Four fathoms you has got."

The old song was chart enough for Skipper Zachariah. Three times the _Heavenly Rest_ ran in and out. Then she sighted Dane's Rock, which bore due west, true enough. West-nor'west was the course she followed, running blindly through the fog and heeling to the wind. Brimstone Head appeared in due time; and in due time the rocks of the tickle--that narrow entrance to the harbour--appeared in vague, forbidding form to port and starboard. The schooner ran to the starboard for the deeper water. Into the harbour she shot; and there they dropped anchor, caring not at all whether the water was four or forty fathoms, for it was deep enough. Through the night the gale tickled the topmasts, but the ship rode smoothly at her anchors, and Skipper Zachariah's stentorian sleep was not disturbed by any sudden call to duty.

And the doctor of the Deep Sea Mission has had many a similar experience.

IV

_DESPERATE NEED_

It was to these rough waters that Dr. Grenfell came when the need of the folk reached his ears and touched his heart. Before that, in the remoter parts of Newfoundland and on the coast of Labrador there were no doctors. The folk depended for healing upon traditional cures, upon old women who worked charms, upon remedies ingeniously devised to meet the need of the moment, upon deluded persons who prescribed medicines of the most curious description, upon a rough-and-ready surgery of their own, in which the implements of the kitchen and of the splitting-stage served a useful purpose. For example, there was a misled old fellow who set himself up as a healer in a lonely cove of the Newfoundland coast, where he lived a hermit, verily believing, it may be, in the glory of his call and in the blessed efficacy of his ministrations; his cure for consumption--it was a tragic failure, in one case, at least--was a bull's heart, dried and powdered and administered with faith and regularity. Elsewhere there was a man, stricken with a mortal ailment, who, upon the recommendation of a kindly neighbour, regularly dosed himself with an ill-flavoured liquid obtained by boiling cast-off pulley-blocks in water. There was also a father who most hopefully attempted to cure his little lad of diphtheria by wrapping his throat with a split herring; but, unhappily, as he has said, "the wee feller choked hisself t' death," notwithstanding. There was another father--a man of grim, heroic disposition--whose little daughter chanced to freeze her feet to the very bone in midwinter; when he perceived that a surgical operation could no longer be delayed, he cut them off with an axe.

An original preventative of sea-boils--with which the fishermen are cruelly afflicted upon the hands and wrists in raw weather--was evolved by a frowsy-headed old Labradorman of serious parts.

"_I_ never has none," said he, in the fashion of superior fellows.

"No?"

"Nar a one. No, _zur_! Not _me_!"

A glance of interested inquiry elicited no response. It but prolonged a large silence.

"Have you never _had_ a sea-boil?" with the note and sharp glance of incredulity.

"Not me. Not since I got my cure."

"And what might that cure be?"

"Well, zur," was the amazing reply, "I cuts my nails on a Monday."

* * * * *

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.

"Let 'em die!" he had said more than once.

The government had provided for the transportation of sick fishermen from the Labrador coast to their homes in Newfoundland; these men were of the great Newfoundland fleet of cod-fishing schooners, which fish the Labrador seas in the summer. It needed only the doctor's word to get the boon. Once a fisherman brought his consumptive son aboard--a young lad, with but a few weeks of life left. The boy wanted his mother, who was at home in Newfoundland.

"Ay, he's fair _sick_ for his mother," said the father to the doctor. "I'm askin' you, zur, t' take un home on the mail-boat."

The doctor was in a perverse mood that day. He would not take the boy.

"Sure, zur," said the fisherman, "the schooner's not goin' 'til fall, an' I've no money, an' the lad's dyin'."

But still the doctor would not.

"I'm thinkin', zur," said the fisherman, steadily, "that you're not quite knowin' that the lad wants t' see his mother afore he dies."

The doctor laughed.

"We'll have a laugh at _you_," cried the indignant fisherman, "when _you_ comes t' die!"

Then he cursed the doctor most heartily and took his son ashore. He was right--they did have a laugh at the doctor; the whole coast might have laughed when he came to die. Being drunk on a stormy night, he fell down the companion way and broke his neck.

* * * * *

Deep in the bays and up the rivers south of Hamilton Inlet, which is itself rather heavily timbered, there is wood to be had for the cutting; but "down t' Chidley"--which is the northernmost point of the Labrador coast--the whole world is bare; there is neither tree nor shrub, shore nor inland, to grace the naked rock; the land lies bleak and desolate. But, once, a man lived there the year round. I don't know why; it is inexplicable; but I am sure that the shiftless fellow and his wife had never an inkling that the circumstance was otherwise than commonplace and reasonable; and the child, had he lived, would have continued to dwell there, boy and man, in faith that the earth was good to live in. One hard winter the man burnt all his wood long before the schooners came up from the lower coast. It was a desperate strait to come to; but I am sure that he regarded his situation with surprising phlegm; doubtless he slept as sound, if not as warm, as before. There was no more wood to be had; so he burnt the furniture, every stick of it, and when that was gone, began on the frame of his house--a turf hut, builded under a kindly cliff, sheltered somewhat from the winds from the frozen sea. As, rafter by rafter, the frame was withdrawn, he cut off the roof and folded in the turf walls; thus, day by day, the space within dwindled; his last fire was to consume the last of his shelter--which, no doubt, troubled him not at all; for the day was not yet come. It is an ugly story. When they were found in the spring, the woman lay dying on a heap of straw in a muddy corner--she was afflicted with hip-disease--and the house was tumbling about her ears; the child, new born, had long ago frozen on its mother's breast.

* * * * *

A doctor of the Newfoundland outports was once called to a little white cottage where three children lay sick of diphtheria. He was the family physician; that is to say, the fisherman paid him so much by the year for medical attendance. But the injection of antitoxin is a "surgical operation" and therefore not provided for by the annual fee.

"This," said the doctor, "will cost you two dollars an injection, John."

"Oh, ay, zur," was the ready reply. "I'll pay you, zur. Go on, zur!"

"But you know my rule, John--no pay, no work. I can't break it for you, you know, or I'd have to break it for half the coast."

"Oh, ay! 'Tis all right. I wants un cured. I'll pay you when I sells me fish."

"But you know my rule, John--cash down."

The fisherman had but four dollars--no more; nor could he obtain any more, though the doctor gave him ample time. I am sure that he loved his children dearly, but, unfortunately, he had no more than four dollars; and there was no other doctor for fifty miles up and down the coast.

"Four dollars," said the doctor, "two children. Which ones shall it be, John?"

Which ones? Why, of course, after all, the doctor had himself to make the choice. John couldn't. So the doctor chose the "handiest" ones. The other one died.

"Well," said John, unresentfully, the day after the funeral, "I s'pose a doctor haves a right t' be paid for what he does. But," much puzzled, "'tis kind o' queer!"

* * * * *

This is not a work of fiction. These incidents are true. I set them down here for the purpose of adequately showing the need of such a practitioner as Wilfred T. Grenfell in the sphere in which he now labours. My point is--that if in the more settled places, where physicians might be summoned, such neglect and brutality could exist, in what a lamentable condition were the folk of the remoter parts, where even money could not purchase healing! Nor are these true stories designed to reflect upon the regular practitioners of Newfoundland; nor should they create a false impression concerning them. I have known many noble physicians in practice there; indeed, I am persuaded that heroism and devotion are, perhaps, their distinguishing characteristics. God knows, there is little enough gain to be had! God knows, too, that that little is hard earned! These men do their work well and courageously, and as adequately as may be; it is on the coasts beyond that the mission-doctor labours.

V

_A HELPING HAND_

While the poor "liveyeres" and Newfoundland fishermen thus depended upon the mail-boat doctor and their own strange inventions for relief, Wilfred Grenfell, this well-born, Oxford-bred young Englishman, was walking the London hospitals. He was athletic, adventurous, dogged, unsentimental, merry, kind; moreover--and most happily--he was used to the sea, and he loved it. It chanced one night that he strayed into the Tabernacle in East London, where D. L. Moody, the American evangelist, was preaching. When he came out he had resolved to make his religion "practical." There was nothing violent in this--no fevered, ill-judged determination to martyr himself at all costs. It was a quiet resolve to make the best of his life--which he would have done at any rate, I think, for he was a young Englishman of good breeding and the finest impulses. At once he cast about for "some way in which he could satisfy the aspirations of a young medical man, and combine with this a desire for adventure and definite Christian work."

I had never before met a missionary of that frank type. "Why," I exclaimed to him, off the coast of Labrador, not long ago, "you seem to _like_ this sort of life!"

We were aboard the mission steamer, bound north under full steam and all sail. He had been in feverish haste to reach the northern harbours, where, as he knew, the sick were watching for his coming. The fair wind, the rush of the little steamer on her way, pleased him.

"Oh," said he, somewhat impatiently, "_I'm_ not a martyr."

So he found what he sought. After applying certain revolutionary ideas to Sunday-school work in the London slums, in which a horizontal bar and a set of boxing-gloves for a time held equal place with the Bible and the hymn-book, he joined the staff of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, and established the medical mission to the fishermen of the North Sea. When that work was organized--when the fight was gone out of it--he sought a harder task; he is of that type, then extraordinary but now familiar, which finds no delight where there is no difficulty. In the spring of 1892 he set sail from Great Yarmouth Harbour for Labrador in a ninety-ton schooner. Since then, in the face of hardship, peril, and prejudice, he has, with a light heart and strong purpose, healed the sick, preached the Word, clothed the naked, fed the starving, given shelter to them that had no roof, championed the wronged--in all, devotedly fought evil, poverty, oppression, and disease; for he is bitterly intolerant of those things. And----

"It's been jolly good fun!" says he.

The immediate inspiration of this work was the sermon preached in East London by D. L. Moody. Later in life--indeed, soon before the great evangelist's death--Dr. Grenfell thanked him for that sermon. "And what have you been doing since?" was Mr. Moody's prompt and searching question. "_What have you been doing since?_" Dr. Grenfell might with propriety and effect have placed in Mr. Moody's hands such letters as those which I reprint, saying: "What have I been doing since? I have been kept busy, sir, responding to such calls as these." Such calls as these:

Docter plase I whant to see you. Doeher sir have you got a leg if you have Will you plase send him Down Praps he may fet and you would oblig.

* * * * *

Reverance dr. Grandfell. Dear sir we are expecting you hup and we would like for you to come so quick as you can for my dater is very sick with a very large sore under her left harm we emenangin that the old is two enchis deep and tow enches wide plase com as quick as you can to save life I remains yours truely.

* * * * *

Docker,--Please wel you send me somting for the pain in my feet and what you proismed to send my little boy. Docker I am almost cripple, it is up my hips, I can hardly walk. This is my housban is gaining you this note from

* * * * *

To Dr. Gransfield

Dear honrabel Sir,

I would wish to ask you Sir, if you would Be pleased to give me and my wife a littel poor close. I was going in the Bay to cut some wood. But I am all amost blind and cant Do much so if you would spear me some Sir I should Be very thankfull to you Sir.

* * * * *

I got Bad splotches all over my Body and i dont know what the cause of it is. Please Have you got anything for it. i Have'nt got any money to Pay you now for anything But i wont forget to Pay you when i gets the money.

* * * * *

doctor--i have a compleant i ham weak with wind on the chest, weaknes all all over me up in my harm.

* * * * *

Dear Dr. Grenfell.

I would like for you to Have time to come Down to my House Before you leaves to go to St. Anthony. My little Girl is very Bad. it seems all in Her neck. Cant Ply her Neck forward if do she nearly goes in the fits, i dont know what it is the matter with Her myself. But if you see Her you would know what the matter with Her. Please send a Word By the Bearer what gives you this note and let me know where you will have time to come down to my House. i lives down the Bay a Place called Berry Head.

"What have you been doing since?" Dr. Grenfell has not been idle. There is now a mission hospital at St. Anthony, near the extreme northeast point of the Newfoundland coast. There is another, well-equipped and commodious, at Battle Harbour--a rocky island lying out from the Labrador coast near the Strait of Belle Isle--which is open the year round; when the writer was last on the coast, it was in charge of Dr. Cluny McPherson, a courageous young physician, Newfoundland-born, who went six hundred miles up the coast by dog-team in the dead of winter, finding shelter where he might, curing whom he could--everywhere seeking out those who needed him, caring not a whit, it appears, for the peril and hardship of the long white road. There is a third at Indian Harbour, half-way up the coast, which is open through the fishing season. It is conducted with the care and precision of a London hospital--admirably kept, well-ordered, efficient. The physician in charge is Dr. George H. Simpson--a wiry, keen, brave little Englishman, who goes about in an open boat, whatever the distance, whatever the weather; he is a man of splendid courage and sympathy: the fishing-folk love him for his kind heart and for the courage with which he responds to their every call. There is also the little hospital steamer _Strathcona_, in which Dr. Grenfell makes the round of all the coast, from the time of the break-up until the fall gales have driven the fishing-schooners home to harbour.

VI

_FAITH and DUTY_

When Dr. Grenfell first appeared on the coast, I am told, the folk thought him a madman of some benign description. He knew nothing of the reefs, the tides, the currents, cared nothing, apparently, for the winds; he sailed with the confidence and reckless courage of a Labrador skipper. Fearing at times to trust his schooner in unknown waters, he went about in a whale-boat, and so hard did he drive her that he wore her out in a single season. She was capsized with all hands, once driven out to sea, many times nearly swamped, once blown on the rocks; never before was a boat put to such tasks on that coast, and at the end of it she was wrecked beyond repair. Next season he appeared with a little steam-launch, the _Princess May_--her beam was eight feet!--in which he not only journeyed from St. Johns to Labrador, to the astonishment of the whole colony, but sailed the length of that bitter coast, passing into the gulf and safely out again, and pushing to the very farthest settlements in the north. Late in the fall, upon, the return journey to St. Johns in stormy weather, she was reported lost, and many a skipper, I suppose, wondered that she had lived so long; but she weathered a gale that bothered the mail-boat, and triumphantly made St. Johns, after as adventurous a voyage, no doubt, as ever a boat of her measure survived.

"Sure," said a skipper, "I don't know how she done it. The Lord," he added, piously, "must kape an eye on that man."

* * * * *

There is a new proverb on the coast. The folk say, when a great wind blows, "This'll bring Grenfell!" Often it does. He is impatient of delay, fretted by inaction; a gale is the wind for him--a wind to take him swiftly towards the place ahead. Had he been a weakling, he would long ago have died on the coast; had he been a coward, a multitude of terrors would long ago have driven him to a life ashore; had he been anything but a true man and tender, indeed, he would long ago have retreated under the suspicion and laughter of the folk. But he has outsailed the Labrador skippers--out-dared them--done deeds of courage under their very eyes that they would shiver to contemplate,--never in a foolhardy spirit; always with the object of kindly service. So he has the heart and willing hand of every honest man on the Labrador--and of none more than of the men of his crew, who take the chances with him; they are wholly devoted.

One of his engineers, for example, once developed the unhappy habit of knocking the cook down.

"You must keep your temper," said the doctor. "This won't do, you know."

But there came an unfortunate day when, being out of temper, the engineer again knocked the cook down.

"This is positively disgraceful!" said the doctor. "I can't keep a quarrelsome fellow aboard the mission-ship. Remember that, if you will, when next you feel tempted to strike the cook."

The engineer protested that he would never again lay hands on the cook, whatever the provocation. But again he lost his temper, and down went the poor cook, flat on his back.

"I'll discharge you," said the doctor, angrily, "at the end of the cruise!"

The engineer pleaded for another chance. He was denied. From day to day he renewed his plea, but to no purpose, and at last the crew came to the conclusion that something really ought to be done for the engineer, who was visibly fretting himself thin.

"Very well," said the doctor to the engineer; "I'll make this agreement with you. If ever again you knock down the cook, I'll put you ashore at the first land we come to, and you may get back to St. Johns as best you can."