Billy Topsail & Company: A Story for Boys

Norman Duncan

Billy Topsail & Company: A Story for Boys

CHAPTER I

In Which Jimmie Grimm, Not Being Able to Help It, Is Born At Buccaneer Cove, Much to His Surprise, and Tog, the Wolf-Dog, Feels the Lash of a Seal-hide Whip and Conceives an Enmity

Young Jimmie Grimm began life at Buccaneer Cove of the Labrador. It was a poor place to begin, of course; but Jimmie had had nothing to do with that. It was by Tog, with the eager help of two hungry gray wolves, that he was taught to take care of the life into which, much to his surprise, he had been ushered. Tog was a dog with a bad name; and everybody knows that a dog with a bad name should be hanged forthwith. It should have happened to Tog. At best he was a wolfish beast. His father was a wolf; and in the end Tog was as lean and savage and cunningly treacherous as any wolf of the gray forest packs. When he had done with Jimmie Grimm–and when Jimmie Grimm’s father had done with Tog–Jimmie Grimm had learned a lesson that he never could recall without a gasp and a quick little shudder.

“I jus’ don’t like t’ think o’ Tog,” he told Billy Topsail and Archie Armstrong, long afterwards.

“You weren’t afraid of him, were you?” Archie Armstrong demanded, a bit scornfully.

“Was I?” Jimmie snorted. “Huh!”

The business with Tog happened before old Jim Grimm moved south to Ruddy Cove of the Newfoundland coast, disgusted with the fishing of Buccaneer. It was before Jimmie Grimm had fallen in with Billy Topsail and Donald North, before he had ever clapped eyes on Bagg, the London gutter-snipe, or had bashfully pawed the gloved hand of Archie Armstrong, Sir Archibald’s son. It was before Donald North cured himself of fear and the First Venture had broken into a blaze in a gale of wind off the Chunks. It was before Billy Topsail, a lad of wits, had held a candle over the powder barrel, when the wreckers boarded the Spot Cash. It was before Bill o’ Burnt Bay had been rescued from a Miquelon jail and the Heavenly Home was cut out of St. Pierre Harbour in the foggy night.

It was also before the Spot Cash had fallen foul of the plot to scuttle the Black Eagle. It was before the big gale and all the adventures of that northward trading voyage. In short, it was before Jim Grimm moved up from the Labrador to Ruddy Cove for better fishing.

Tog had a bad name. On the Labrador coast all dogs have bad names; nor, if the truth must be told, does the reputation do them any injustice. If evil communications corrupt good manners, the desperate character of Tog’s deeds, no less than the tragic manner of his end, may be accounted for. At any rate, long before his abrupt departure from the wilderness trails and snow-covered rock of Buccaneer Cove, he had earned the worst reputation of all the pack.

It began in the beginning. When Tog was eight weeks old his end was foreseen. He was then little more than a soft, fluffy, black-and-white ball, awkwardly perambulating on four absurdly bowed legs. Martha, Jim Grimm’s wife, one day cast the lean scraps of the midday meal to the pack. What came to pass so amazed old Jim Grimm that he dropped his splitting-knife and stared agape.

“An’ would you look at that little beast!” he gasped. “That one’s a wonder for badness!”

The snarling, scrambling heap of dogs, apparently inextricably entangled, had all at once been reduced to order. Instead of a confusion of taut legs and teeth and bristling hair, there was a precise half-circle of gaunt beasts, squatted at a respectful distance from Tog’s mother, hopelessly licking their chops, while, with hair on end and fangs exposed and dripping, she kept them off.

“It ain’t Jinny,” Jim remarked. “You can’t blame she. It’s that little pup with the black eye.”

You couldn’t blame Jenny. Last of all would it occur to Martha Grimm, with a child of her own to rear, to call her in the wrong. With a litter of five hearty pups to provide for, Jenny was animated by a holy maternal instinct. But Tog, which was the one with the black eye, was not to be justified. He was imitating his mother’s tactics with diabolical success. A half-circle of whimpering puppies, keeping a respectful distance, watched in grieved surprise, while, with hair on end and tiny fangs occasionally exposed, he devoured the scraps of the midday meal.

“A wonder for badness!” Jim Grimm repeated.

“‘Give a dog a bad name,’” quoted Martha, quick, like the woman she was, to resent snap-judgment of the young, “‘an’–’”

“‘Hang un,’” Jim concluded. “Well,” he added, “I wouldn’t be s’prised if it did come t’ that.”

It did.

In Tog’s eyes there was never the light of love and humour–no amiable jollity. He would come fawning, industriously wagging his hinder parts, like puppies of more favoured degree; but all the while his black eyes were alert, hard, infinitely suspicious and avaricious. Not once, I am sure, did affection or gratitude lend them beauty. A beautiful pup he was, nevertheless–fat and white, awkwardly big, his body promising splendid strength. Even when he made war on the fleas–and he waged it unceasingly–the vigour and skill of attack, the originality of method, gave him a certain distinction. But his eyes were never well disposed; the pup was neither trustful nor to be trusted.

“If he lives t’ the age o’ three,” said Jim Grimm, with a pessimistic wag of the head, “’twill be more by luck than good conduct.”

“Ah, dad,” said Jimmie Grimm, “you jus’ leave un t’ me!”

“Well, Jimmie,” drawled Jim Grimm, “it might teach you more about dogs than you know. I don’t mind if I do leave un t’ you–for a while.”

“Hut!” Jimmie boasted. “I’ll master un.”

“May be,” said Jim Grimm.

It was Jimmie Grimm who first put Tog in the traces. This was in the early days of Tog’s first winter–and of Jimmie’s seventh. The dog was a lusty youngster then; better nourished than the other dogs of Jim Grimm’s pack, no more because of greater strength and daring than a marvellous versatility in thievery. In a bored sort of way, being at the moment lazy with food stolen from Sam Butt’s stage, Tog submitted. He yawned, stretched his long legs, and gave inopportune attention to a persistent flea near the small of his back. When, however, the butt of Jimmie’s whip fell smartly on his flank, he was surprised into an appreciation of the fact that a serious attempt was being made to curtail his freedom; and he was at once alive with resentful protest.

“Hi, Tog!” Jimmie complained. “Bide still!”

Tog slipped from Jimmie’s grasp and bounded off. He turned with a snarl.

“Here, Tog!” cried Jimmie.

Tog came–stepping warily over the snow. His head was low, his king-hairs bristling, his upper lip lifted.

“Ha, Tog, b’y!” said Jimmie, ingratiatingly.

Tog thawed into limp and servile amiability. The long, wiry white hair of his neck fell flat; he wagged his bushy white tail; he pawed the snow and playfully tossed his long, pointed nose as he crept near. But had Jimmie Grimm been more observant, more knowing, he would have perceived that the light in the lanky pup’s eyes had not mellowed.

“Good dog!” crooned Jimmie, stretching out an affectionate hand.

Vanished, then, in a flash, every symptom of Tog’s righteousness. His long teeth closed on Jimmie’s small hand with a snap. Jimmie struck instantly–and struck hard. The butt of the whip caught Tog on the nose. He dropped the hand and leaped away with a yelp.

“Now, me b’y,” thought Jimmie Grimm, staring into the quivering dog’s eyes, not daring to glance at his own dripping hand, “I’ll master you!”

But it was no longer a question of mastery. The issue was life or death. Tog was now of an age to conceive murder. Moreover, he was of a size to justify an attempt upon Jimmie. And murder was in his heart. He crouched, quivering, his wolfish eyes fixed upon the boy’s blazing blue ones. For a moment neither antagonist ventured attack. Both waited.

It was Jimmie who lost patience. He swung his long dog whip. The lash cracked in Tog’s face. With a low growl, the dog rushed, and before the boy could evade the attack, the dog had him by the leg. Down came the butt of the whip. Tog released his hold and leaped out of reach. He pawed about, snarling, shaking his bruised head.

This advantage the boy sought to pursue. He advanced–alert, cool, ready to strike. Tog retreated. Jimmie rushed upon him. At a bound, Tog passed, turned, and came again. Before Jimmie had well faced him, Tog had leaped for his throat. Down went the boy, overborne by the dog’s weight, and by the impact, which he was not prepared to withstand. But Tog was yet a puppy, unpracticed in fight; he had missed the grip. And a heavy stick, in the hands of Jimmie’s father, falling mercilessly upon him, put him in yelping retreat.

“I ’low, Jimmie,” drawled Jim Grimm, while he helped the boy to his feet, “that that dog is teachin’ you more ’n you knowed.”

“I ’low, dad,” replied the breathless Jimmie, “that he teached me nothin’ more than I forgot.”

“I wouldn’t forget again,” said Jim.

Jimmie did not deign to reply.

CHAPTER II

In Which Jimmie Grimm is Warned Not to Fall Down, and Tog, Confirmed in Bad Ways, Raids Ghost Tickle, Commits Murder, Runs With the Wolves, Plots the Death of Jimmie Grimm and Reaches the End of His Rope

Jimmie Grimm’s father broke Tog to the traces before the winter was over. A wretched time the perverse beast had of it. Labrador dogs are not pampered idlers; in winter they must work or starve–as must men, the year round. But Tog had no will for work, acknowledged no master save the cruel, writhing whip; and the whip was therefore forever flecking his ears or curling about his flanks. Moreover, he was a sad shirk. Thus he made more trouble for himself. When his team-mates discovered the failing–and this was immediately–they pitilessly worried his hind legs. Altogether, in his half-grown days, Tog led a yelping, bleeding life of it; whereby he got no more than his desserts.

Through the summer he lived by theft when thievery was practicable; at other times he went fishing for himself with an ill will. Meantime, he developed strength and craft, both in extraordinary degree. There was not a more successful criminal in the pack, nor was there a more despicable bully. When the first snow fell, Tog was master at Buccaneer Cove, and had already begun to raid the neighbouring settlement at Ghost Tickle. Twice he was known to have adventured there. After the first raid, he licked his wounds in retirement for two weeks; after the second, which was made by night, they found a dead dog at Ghost Tickle.

Thereafter, Tog entered Ghost Tickle by daylight, and with his teeth made good his right to come and go at will. It was this that left him open to suspicion when the Ghost Tickle tragedy occurred. Whether or not Tog was concerned in that affair, nobody knows. They say at Ghost Tickle that he plotted the murder and led the pack; but the opinion is based merely upon the fact that he was familiar with the paths and lurking places of the Tickle–and, possibly, upon the fact of his immediate and significant disappearance from the haunts of men.

News came from Ghost Tickle that Jonathan Wall had come late from the ice with a seal. Weary with the long tramp, he had left the carcass at the waterside.

“Billy,” he said to his young son, forgetting the darkness and the dogs, “go fetch that swile up.”

Billy was gone a long time.

“I wonder what’s keepin’ Billy,” his mother said.

They grew uneasy, at last; and presently they set out to search for the lad. Neither child nor seal did they ever see again; but they came upon the shocking evidences of what had occurred.

And they blamed Tog of Buccaneer Cove.

For a month or more Tog was lost to sight; but an epidemic had so reduced the number of serviceable dogs that he was often in Jim Grimm’s mind. Jim very heartily declared that Tog should have a berth with the team if starvation drove him back; not that he loved Tog, said he, but that he needed him. But Tog seemed to be doing well enough in the wilderness. He did not soon return. Once they saw him. It was when Jim and Jimmie were bound home from Laughing Cove. Of a sudden Jim halted the team.

“Do you see that, Jimmie, b’y?” he asked, pointing with his whip to the white crest of a near-by hill.

“Dogs!” Jimmie ejaculated.

“Take another squint,” said Jim.

“Dogs,” Jimmie repeated.

“Wolves,” drawled Jim. “An’ do you see the beast with the black eye?”

“Why, dad,” Jimmie exclaimed, “’tis Tog!”

“I ’low,” said Jim, “that Tog don’t need us no more.”

But Tog did. He came back–lean and fawning. No more abject contrition was ever shown by dog before. He was starving. They fed him at the usual hour; and not one ounce more than the usual amount of food did he get. Next day he took his old place in the traces and helped haul Jim Grimm the round of the fox traps. But that night Jim Grimm lost another dog; and in the morning Tog had again disappeared into the wilderness. Jimmie Grimm was glad. Tog had grown beyond him. The lad could control the others of the pack; but he was helpless against Tog.

“I isn’t so wonderful sorry, myself,” said Jim. “I ’low, Jimmie,” he added, “that Tog don’t like you.”

“No, that he doesn’t,” Jimmie promptly agreed. “All day yesterday he snooped around, with an eye on me. Looked to me as if he was waitin’ for me to fall down.”

“Jimmie!” said Jim Grimm, gravely.

“Ay, sir?”

“You mustn’t fall down. Don’t matter whether Tog’s about or not. If the dogs is near, don’t you fall down!”

“Not if I knows it,” said Jimmie.

It was a clear night in March. The moon was high. From the rear of Jim Grimm’s isolated cottage the white waste stretched far to the wilderness. The dogs of the pack were sound asleep in the outhouse. An hour ago the mournful howling had ceased for the night. Half-way to the fish-stage, whither he was bound on his father’s errand, Jimmie Grimm came to a startled full stop.

“What was that?” he mused.

A dark object, long and lithe, had seemed to slip like a shadow into hiding below the drying flake. Jimmie continued to muse. What had it been? A prowling dog? Then he laughed a little at his own fears–and continued on his way. But he kept watch on the flake; and so intent was he upon this, so busily was he wondering whether or not his eyes had tricked him, that he stumbled over a stray billet of wood, and fell sprawling.

He was not alarmed, and made no haste to rise; but had he then seen what emerged from the shadow of the flake he would instantly have been in screaming flight toward the kitchen door.

The onslaught of Tog and the two wolves was made silently.

There was not a howl, not a growl, not even an eager snarl. They came leaping, with Tog in the lead–and they came silently. Jimmie caught sight of them when he was half-way to his feet. He had but time to call his father’s name; and he knew that the cry would not be heard. Instinctively, he covered his throat with his arms when Tog fell upon him; and he was relieved to feel Tog’s teeth in his shoulder. He felt no pain–not any more, at any rate, than a sharp stab in the knee. He was merely sensible of the fact that the vital part had not yet been reached.

In the savage joy of attack, Jimmie’s assailants forgot discretion. Snarls and growls escaped them while they worried the small body. In the manner of wolves, too, they snapped at each other. The dogs in the outhouse awoke, cocked their ears, came in a frenzy to the conflict; not to save Jimmie Grimm, but to participate in his destruction. Jimmie was prostrate beneath them all–still protecting his throat; not regarding his other parts.

And by this confusion Jim Grimm was aroused from a sleepy stupor by the kitchen fire.

“I wonder,” said he, “what’s the matter with them dogs.”

“I’m not able t’ make out,” his wife replied, puzzled, “but–”

“Hark!” cried Jim.

They listened.

“Quick!” Jimmie’s mother screamed. “They’re at Jimmie!”

With an axe in his hand, and with merciless wrath in his heart, Jim Grimm descended upon the dogs. He stretched the uppermost dead. A second blow broke the back of a wolf. The third sent a dog yelping to the outhouse with a useless hind leg. The remaining dogs decamped. Their howls expressed pain in a degree to delight Jim Grimm and to inspire him with deadly strength and purpose. Tog and the surviving wolf fled.

“Jimmie!” Jim Grimm called.

Jimmie did not answer.

“They’ve killed you!” his father sobbed. “Jimmie, b’y, is you dead? Mother,” he moaned to his wife, who had now come panting up with a broomstick, “they’ve gone an’ killed our Jimmie!”

Jimmie was unconscious when his father carried him into the house. It was late in the night, and he was lying in his own little bed, and his mother had dressed his wounds, when he revived. And Tog was then howling under his window; and there Tog remained until dawn, listening to the child’s cries of agony.

Two days later, Jim Grimm, practicing unscrupulous deception, lured Tog into captivity. That afternoon the folk of Buccaneer Cove solemnly hanged him by the neck until he was dead, which is the custom in that land. I am glad that they disposed of him. He had a noble body–strong and beautiful, giving delight to the beholder, capable of splendid usefulness. But he had not one redeeming trait of character to justify his existence.

“I wonder why Tog was so bad, dad,” Jimmie mused, one day, when, as they mistakenly thought, he was near well again.

“I s’pose,” Jim explained, “’twas because his father was a wolf.”

Little Jimmie Grimm was not the same after that. For some strange reason he went lame, and the folk of Buccaneer Cove said that he was “took with the rheumatiz.”

“Wisht I could be cured,” the little fellow used to sigh.

CHAPTER III

In Which Little Jimmie Grimm Goes Lame and His Mother Discovers the Whereabouts of a Cure

Little Jimmie Grimm was then ten years old. He had been an active, merry lad, before the night of the assault of Tog and the two wolves–inclined to scamper and shout, given to pranks of a kindly sort. His affectionate, light-hearted disposition had made him the light of his mother’s eyes, and of his father’s, too, for, child though he was, lonely Jim Grimm found him a comforting companion. But he was now taken with what the folk of Buccaneer Cove called “rheumatiz o’ the knee.” There were days when he walked in comfort; but there were also times when he fell to the ground in a sudden agony and had to be carried home. There were weeks when he could not walk at all. He was not now so merry as he had been. He was more affectionate; but his eyes did not flash in the old way, nor were his cheeks so fat and rosy. Jim Grimm and the lad’s mother greatly desired to have him cured.

“’Twould be like old times,” Jim Grimm said once, when Jimmie was put to bed, “if Jimmie was only well.”

“I’m afeared,” the mother sighed, “that he’ll never be well again.”

“For fear you’re right, mum,” said Jim Grimm, “we must make him happy every hour he’s with us. Hush, mother! Don’t cry, or I’ll be cryin’, too!”

Nobody connected Jimmie Grimm’s affliction with the savage teeth of Tog.

It was Jimmie’s mother who discovered the whereabouts of a cure. Hook’s Kurepain was the thing to do it! Who could deny the virtues of that “healing balm”? They were set forth in print, in type both large and small, on a creased and dirty remnant of the Montreal Weekly Globe and Family Messenger, which had providentially strayed into that far port of the Labrador. Who could dispute the works of “the invaluable discovery”? Was it not a positive cure for bruises, sprains, chilblains, cracked hands, stiffness of the joints, contraction 35 of the muscles, numbness of the limbs, neuralgia, rheumatism, pains in the chest, warts, frost bites, sore throat, quinsy, croup, and various other ills? Was it not an excellent hair restorer, as well? If it had cured millions (and apparently it had), why shouldn’t it cure little Jimmie Grimm? So Jimmie’s mother longed with her whole heart for a bottle of the “boon to suffering humanity.”

“I’ve found something, Jim Grimm,” said she, a teasing twinkle in her eye, when, that night, Jimmie’s father came in from the snowy wilderness, where he had made the round of his fox traps.

“Have you, now?” he asked, curiously. “What is it?”

“’Tis something,” said she, “t’ make you glad.”

“Come, tell me!” he cried, his eyes shining.

“I’ve heard you say,” she went on, smiling softly, “that you’d be willin’ t’ give anything t’ find it. I’ve heard you say that–”

“’Tis a silver fox!”

“I’ve heard you say,” she continued, shaking her head, “‘Oh,’ I’ve heard you say, ‘if I could only find it I’d be happy.’”

“Tell me!” he coaxed. “Please tell me!”

She laid a hand on his shoulder. The remnant of the Montreal Weekly Globe and Family Messenger she held behind her.

“’Tis a cure for Jimmie,” said she.

“No!” he cried, incredulous; but there was yet the ring of hope in his voice. “Have you, now?”

“Hook’s Kurepain,” said she, “never failed yet.”

“’Tis wonderful!” said Jim Grimm.

She spread the newspaper on the table and placed her finger at that point of the list where the cure of rheumatism was promised.

“Read that,” said she, “an’ you’ll find ’tis all true.”

Jim Grimm’s eye ran up to the top of the page. His wife waited, a smile on her lips. She was anticipating a profound impression.

“‘Beauty has wonderful charms,’” Jim Grimm read. “‘Few men can withstand the witchcraft of a lovely face. All hearts are won–’”

“No, no!” the mother interrupted, hastily. “That’s the marvellous Oriental Beautifier. I been readin’ that, too. But ’tis not that. ’Tis lower down. Beginnin’, ‘At last the universal remedy of Biblical times.’ Is you got it yet?”

“Ay, sure!”

And thereupon Jim Grimm of Buccaneer Cove discovered that a legion of relieved and rejuvenated rheumatics had without remuneration or constraint sung the virtues of the Kurepain and the praises of Hook. Poor ignorant Jim Grimm did not for a moment doubt the existence of the Well-Known Traveller, the Family Doctor, the Minister of the Gospel, the Champion of the World. He was ready to admit that the cure had been found.

“I’m willin’ t’ believe,” said he, solemnly, the while gazing very earnestly into his wife’s eyes, “that ’twould do Jimmie a world o’ good.”

“Read on,” said she.

“‘It costs money to make the Kurepain,’” Jim read, aloud. “‘It is not a sugar-and-water remedy. It is a cure, manufactured at great expense. Good medicines come high. But the peerless Kurepain is cheap when compared with the worthless substitutes now on the market and sold for just as good. Our price is five dollars a bottle; three bottles guaranteed to cure.’”

Jim Grimm stopped dead. He looked up. His wife steadily returned his glance. The Labrador dweller is a poor man–a very poor man. Rarely does a dollar of hard cash slip into his hand. And this was hard cash. Five dollars a bottle! Five dollars for that which was neither food nor clothing!

“’Tis fearful!” he sighed.

“But read on,” said she.

“‘In order to introduce the Kurepain into this locality, we have set aside one thousand bottles of this incomparable medicine. That number, and no more, we will dispose of at four dollars a bottle. Do not make a mistake. When the supply is exhausted, the price will rise to eight dollars a bottle, owing to a scarcity of one of the ingredients. We honestly advise you, if you are in pain or suffering, to take advantage of this rare opportunity. A word to the wise is sufficient. Order to-day.’”

“’Tis a great bargain, Jim,” the mother whispered.

“Ay,” Jim answered, dubiously.

His wife patted his hand. “When Jimmie’s cured,” she went on, “he could help you with the traps, an’–”

“’Tis not for that I wants un cured,” Jim Grimm flashed. “I’m willin’ an’ able for me labour. ’Tis not for that. I’m just thinkin’ all the time about seein’ him run about like he used to. That’s what I wants.”

“Doesn’t you think, Jim, that we could manage it–if we tried wonderful hard?”