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Read Ebook: The Adventures of Billy Topsail by Duncan Norman
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Ebook has 1450 lines and 65958 words, and 29 pages
In which young Billy Topsail of Ruddy Cove puts out to his first adventure with his dog in the bow of the punt.
Describing the haunts and habits of devil-fish and informing the reader of Billy Topsail's determination to make a capture at all hazards.
Recounting the adventure of the giant squid of Chain Tickle, in which the punt gets in the grip of a gigantic tentacle and Billy Topsail strikes with an axe.
On the face of the cliff: Wherein Billy Topsail gets lost in a perilous place and sits down to recover his composure.
In which Billy Topsail loses his nerve. Wherein, also, the wings of gulls seem to brush past.
In which Billy Topsail hears the fur trader's story of a jigger and a cake of ice in the wind.
In the offshore gale: In which Billy Topsail goes seal hunting and is swept to sea with the floe.
In which old Tom Topsail burns his punt and Billy wanders in the night and three lives hang on a change of wind.
How Billy Topsail's friend Bobby Lot joined fortunes with Eli Zitt and whether or not he proved worthy of the partnership.
Bobby Lot learns to swim and Eli Zitt shows amazing courage and self-possession and strength.
Containing the surprising adventure of Eli Zitt's little partner on the way back from Fortune Harbour, in which a Newfoundland dog displays a saving intelligence.
Faithfully narrating the amazing experiences of a Newfoundland schooner and describing Billy Topsail's conduct in a sinking boat.
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.
Describing how Billy Topsail set out for Ruddy Cove with Her Majesty's Mail and met with catastrophe.
Billy Topsail wrings out his clothes and finds himself cut off from shore by thirty yards of heaving ice.
In which the chase is kept up and the captain promises himself a kill.
The mate of the fin-back whale rises for the last time, with a blood-red sunset beyond, and Billy Topsail says, "Too bad!"
In which a pirate's cave grows interesting, and two young members of the Ethnological and Antiquarian Club of St. John's, undertake an adventure under the guidance of Billy Topsail.
In which there is a landslide at Little Tickle Basin and something of great interest and peculiar value is discovered in the cave.
In which Billy Topsail determines to go to the ice in the spring of the year, and young Archibald Armstrong of St. John's is permitted to set out upon an adventure which promises to be perilous and profitable.
In which Archie Armstrong falls in with Bill o' Burnt Bay and Billy Topsail of Ruddy Cove, and makes a speech.
In which Archie Armstrong and Billy Topsail have an exciting encounter with a big dog hood, and, at the sound of alarm, leave the issue in doubt, while the ice goes abroad and the enemy goes swimming.
In which seals are sighted and Archie Armstrong has a narrow chance in the crow's-nest.
The ice runs red, and, in storm and dusk, Tim Tuttle brews a pot o' trouble for Captain Hand, while Billy Topsail observes the operation.
In which the issue is determined.
It appears that the courage and strength of the son of a colonial knight are to be tried. The hunters are caught in a great storm.
And last: In which wind and snow and cold have their way and death lands on the floe. Billy Topsail gives himself to a gust of wind, and Archie Armstrong finds peril and hardship stern teachers. Concerning, also, a new sloop, a fore-an'-after and a tailor's lay figure.
FACING PAGE
BILLY RAISED HIS HAND AS IF TO STRIKE HIM 20
THEN LIKE A FLASH IT SHOT TOWARDS THE BOAT 38
"JUMPED LIKE A STAG FOR THE SECOND PAN" 62
BILLY STAGGERED INTO THE CIRCLE OF LIGHT 82
"SHE'S LOST," HE THOUGHT. "LOST WITH ALL HANDS" 126
"MY LITTLE LAD'S WONDERFUL SICK. COME QUICK!" 132
"IT IS A DEAD W'ALE!" 174
THEN HE ADVANCED UPON THE BOY 261
"LASH YOUR TOWS, B'YS," SAID BILL. "LEAVE THE REST GO" 305
"WE'RE SAVED!" SAID BILL 326
THE ADVENTURES OF BILLY TOPSAIL
FROM the very beginning it was inevitable that Billy Topsail should have adventures. He was a fisherman's son, born at Ruddy Cove, which is a fishing harbour on the bleak northeast coast of Newfoundland; and there was nothing else for it. All Newfoundland boys have adventures; but not all Newfoundland boys survive them. And there came, in the course of the day's work and play, to Billy Topsail, many adventures. The first--the first real adventure in which Billy Topsail was abandoned to his own wit and strength--came by reason of a gust of wind and his own dog. It was not strange that a gust of wind should overturn Billy Topsail's punt; but that old Skipper should turn troublesome in the thick of the mess was an event the most unexpected. . . .
Skipper was a Newfoundland dog, born of reputable parents at Back Arm and decently bred in Ruddy Cove. He had black hair, short, straight and wiry--the curly-haired breed has failed on the Island--and broad, ample shoulders, which his forbears had transmitted to him from generations of hauling wood.
He was heavy, awkward and ugly, resembling somewhat a great draft-horse. But he pulled with a will, fended for himself, and within the knowledge of men had never stolen a fish; so he had a high place in the hearts of all the people of the Cove, and a safe one in their estimation.
"Skipper! Skipper! Here, b'y!"
The ringing call, in the voice of Billy Topsail, never failed to bring the dog from the kitchen with an eager rush, when the snow lay deep on the rocks, and all the paths of the wilderness were ready for the sled. He stood stock-still for the harness, and at the first "Hi, b'y! Gee up there!" he bounded away with a wagging tail and a glad bark. It was as if nothing pleased him so much on a frosty morning as the prospect of a hard day's work.
If the call came in summer-time when Skipper was dozing in the cool shadow of a flake--a platform of boughs for drying fish--he scrambled to his feet, took his clog in his mouth and ran, all a-quiver for what might come, to where young Billy waited. If the clog were taken off, as it was almost sure to be, it meant sport in the water. Then Skipper would paw the ground and whine until the stick was flung out for him. But best of all he loved to dive for stones.
At the peep of many a day, too, he went out in the punt to the fishing-grounds with Billy Topsail, and there kept the lad good company all the day long. It was because he sat on the little cuddy in the bow, as if keeping a lookout ahead, that he was called Skipper.
"Sure, 'tis a clever dog, that!" was Billy's boast. "He would save life--that dog would!"
This was proved beyond doubt when little Isaiah Tommy Goodman toddled over the wharf-head, where he had been playing with a squid. Isaiah Tommy was four years old, and would surely have been drowned had not Skipper strolled down the wharf just at that moment.
Skipper was obedient to the instinct of all Newfoundland dogs to drag the sons of men from the water. He plunged in and caught Isaiah Tommy by the collar of his pinafore. Still following his instinct, he kept the child's head above water with powerful strokes of his fore paws while he towed him to shore. Then the outcry which Isaiah Tommy immediately set up brought his mother to complete the rescue.
For this deed Skipper was petted for a day and a half, and fed with fried caplin and salt pork, to his evident gratification. No doubt he was persuaded that he had acted worthily. However that be, he continued in merry moods, in affectionate behaviour, in honesty--although the fish were even then drying on the flakes, all exposed--and he carried his clog like a hero.
"'Tis time to be off home, b'y," said Billy to the dog. "'Tis getting thick in the sou'west."
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