Billy Topsail & Company Part 9

The boy looked behind. Ruddy Cove was within sight. He was surprised that the coast was still so near.

"Got t' 'urry up a bit more," he determined.

He was elated--highly elated. He thought that his old home was but a night's journey distant; at most, not more than a night and a day, and he had more than food enough in his pockets to last through that. He was elated; but from time to time a certain regret entered in, and it was not easily cast out. He remembered the touch of Aunt Ruth's lips, and her arm, which had often stolen about him in the dusk; and he remembered that Uncle Ezekiel had beamed upon him most affectionately, in times of mischief and good works alike. He had been well loved in Ruddy Cove.

"Wisht I'd told Aunt Ruth," Bagg thought.

On he trudged--straight out to sea.

"Got t' 'urry up," thought he.

Again the affection of Aunt Ruth occurred to him. She had been very kind; and as for Uncle 'Zeke--why, n.o.body could have been kinder.

"Wisht I _'ad_ told Aunt Ruth," Bagg regretted. "Might o' said good-bye anyhow."

The ice was now drifting out; but the wind had not yet risen to that measure of strength wherewith it tears the pack to pieces, nor had the sea attacked it. There was a gap of two hundred yards between the coast rocks and the edge of the ice, but that was far, far back, and hidden from sight. The pack was drifting slowly, smoothly, still in one compact ma.s.s. Its motion was not felt by Bagg, who pressed steadily on toward England, eager again, but fast growing weary.

"Got t' 'urry up," thought he.

But presently he must rest; and while he rested the wind gathered strength. It went singing over the pack, pressing ever with a stronger hand upon its dumpers and ridges--pushing it, everywhere, faster and faster out to sea. The pack was on the point of breaking in pieces under the strain, but the wind still fell short of the power to rend it. There was a greater volume of snow falling; it was driven past in thin, swirling clouds. Hence the light of the moon began to fail. Far away, at the rim of the pack, the sea was eating its way in, but the swish and crash of its work was too far distant to be heard.

"I ain't nothink t' n.o.body but Aunt Ruth," Bagg thought, as he rose to continue the tramp.

On he went, the wind lending him wings; but at last his legs gave out at the knees, and he sat down again to rest. This was in the lee of a clumper, where he was comfortably sheltered. He was still warm--in a glow of heat, indeed--and his hope was still with him. So far he had suffered from nothing save weariness. So he began to dream of what he would do when he got home, just as all men do when they come near, once again, to that old place where they were born. The wind was now a gale, blowing furiously; the pack was groaning in its outlying parts.

"Nothink t' n.o.body," Bagg grumbled, on his way once more.

Then he stopped dead--in terror. He had heard the breaking of an ice-pan--a great clap and rumble, vanishing in the distance. The noise was repeated, all roundabout--bursting from everywhere, rising to a fearful volume: near at hand, a cracking; far off, a continuing roar.

The pack was breaking up. Each separate part was torn from another, and the noise of the rending was great. Each part ground against its neighbour on every side. The weaker pans were crushed like egg-sh.e.l.ls.

Then the whole began to feel the heave of the sea.

"It's a earthquake!" thought Bagg. "I better 'urry up."

He looked back over the way he had come--searching the shadows for Ruddy Cove. But the coast was lost to sight.

"Must be near acrost, now," he thought. "I'll 'urry up."

So he turned his back on Ruddy Cove and ran straight out to sea, for he thought that England was nearer than the coast he had left. He was now upon a pan, both broad and thick--stout enough to withstand the pressure of the pack. It was a wide field of ice, which the cold of the far North, acting through many years, it may be, had made strong.

Elsewhere the pans were breaking--were lifting themselves out of the press and falling back in pieces--were being ground to finest fragments. This mighty confusion of noise and wind and snow and night, and the upheaval of the whole world roundabout, made the soul of Bagg shiver within him. It surpa.s.sed the terrors of his dreams.

"Guess I never _will_ get 'ome," thought he.

Soon he came to the edge of the pan. Beyond, where the pack was in smaller blocks, the sea was swelling beneath it. The ice was all heaving and swaying. He dared not venture out upon this shifting ground. So he ran up and down, seeking a path onward; but he discovered none. Meantime, the parts of the pack had fallen into easier positions; the noise of crunching, as the one ground against the other, had somewhat abated. The ice continued its course outward, under the driving force of the wind, but the pressure was relieved.

The pans fell away from one another. Lakes and lanes of water opened up. The pan upon which Bagg chanced to find himself in the great break-up soon floated free. There was now no escape from it.

Bagg retreated from the edge, for the seas began to break there.

"Wisht I was 'ome again," he sobbed.

This time he did not look towards England, but wistfully back to Ruddy Cove.

The gale wasted away in the night. The next day was warm and sunny on all that coast. An ice-pack hung offsh.o.r.e from Fortune Harbour. In the afternoon it began to creep in with a light wind. The first pans struck the coast at dusk. The folk of the place were on the Head, on the lookout for the sign of a herd of seal. Just before night fell they spied a black speck, as far out from sh.o.r.e as their eyes could see.

"They'll be seals out there the morrow," the men were all agreed.

So they went home and prepared to set out at dawn of the next day. In the night, the wind swept the whole pack in, to the last lagging pan.

The ice was all jammed against the coast--a firm, vast expanse, stretching to the horizon, and held in place by the wind, which continued strong and steady. The men of Fortune Harbour went confidently out to the hunt. At noon, when they were ten miles off the sh.o.r.e, they perceived the approach of a small, black figure.

The meeting came soon afterwards, for the folk of Fortune Harbour, being both curious and quick to respond to need, made haste.

"I say, mister," said Bagg, briskly, addressing old John Forsyth, "yer 'aven't got no 'am, 'ave yer?"

The men of Fortune Harbour laughed.

"Or nothink else, 'ave yer?" Bagg continued, hopefully. "I'm a bit 'ungry."

"Sure, b'y," said Forsyth. "I've a biscuit an' a bit o' pork."

"'Ave yer, now?" said Bagg. "Would yer mind giv----"

But his hands were already full. A moment later his mouth was in the same condition.

"How'd you come out here?" said Forsyth.

"Swep' out," said Bagg. "I say, mister," he added, between munches, "which way would yer say my 'ome was from 'ere?"

"Where's your home?"

"Ruddy Cove," said Bagg.

"'Tis fifteen mile up the coast."

"'Ow would you get there quickest if yer 'ad to?"

"We'll take care o' you, b'y," said Forsyth. "We'll put you t' Ruddy Cove in a skiff, when the ice goes out. Seems t' me," he added, "you must be the boy Ezekiel Rideout took. Isn't you Ezekiel Rideout's boy?"

"Bet yer life I am," said Bagg.

CHAPTER IX

_In Which Jimmie Grimm and Billy Topsail, Being Added Up and Called a Man, Are Shipped For St. John's, With Bill o'

Burnt Bay, Where They Fall In With Archie Armstrong, Sir Archibald's Son, and Bill o' Burnt Bay Declines to Insure the "First Venture"_