Part 8

"Yes," assured the Doctor. "I hope I am."

"They's a man ashore that's wonderful bad off, but us hasn't no money," suggested the man, adding expectantly, "You couldn't come to doctor he now could you, sir?"

"Certainly I will," assured the Doctor. "What's the matter with the man? Do you know?"

"He have a distemper in his chest, sir, and a wonderful bad cough," explained the man.

"All right," said the Doctor. "I'll go at once. How far is it?"

"Right handy, sir," said the man with evident relief.

"Pull alongside and I'll be with you in a jiffy," and the Doctor hurried below for his medicine case.

The man was alongside waiting for him when he returned a few moments later, and he stepped into the rickety old boat. As the liveyere rowed away Grenfell may have thought of his own famous flat-boat that sank with him and his brother in the estuary below Parkgate years before when they were left to swim for it. But in his mental comparison it is probable that the flat-boat, even in her oldest and most decrepid days, would have passed for a rather fine and seaworthy craft in contrast to this rickety old rowboat. The boat kept afloat, however, and presently the liveyere pulled it alongside the gray rock that served for a landing. They stepped out and the guide led the way up the rocks to a lonely and miserable little sod hut. At the door he halted.

"Here we is, sir," he announced. "Step right in. They'll be wonderful glad to see you, sir."

Grenfell entered. Within was a room perhaps twelve by fourteen feet in size. A single small window of pieces of glass patched together was designed to admit light and at the same time to exclude God's good fresh air. The floor was of earth, partially paved with small round stones. Built against the walls were six berths, fashioned after the model of ship's berths, three lower and three upper ones. A broken old stove, with its pipe extending through the roof into a mud protection rising upon the peak outside in lieu of a chimney, made a smoky attempt to heat the place. The lower berths and floor served as seats. There was no furniture.

The walls of the hut were damp. The atmosphere was dank and unwholesome and heavy with the ill-smelling odor of stale seal oil and fish. The place was dirty and as unsanitary and unhealthful as any human habitation could well be.

Six ragged, half-starved little children huddled timidly into a corner upon the entrance of the visitor from the ship and gazed at the Doctor with wide-open frightened eyes. In one of the lower bunks lay the sick man coughing himself to death. At his side a gaunt woman, miserably and scantily clothed, was offering him water in a spoon.

It was evident to the trained eye of the Doctor that the man was fatally ill and could live but a short time. He was a hopeless consumptive, and a hasty examination revealed the fact that he was also suffering from a severe attack of pneumonia.

Doctor Grenfell's big sympathetic heart went out to the poor sufferer and his destitute family. What could he do? How could he help the man in such a place? He might remove him to one of the clean, white hospital cots on the Albert, but it would scarcely serve to make easier the impending death, and the exposure and effort of the transfer might even hasten it. Then, too, the wife and children would be denied the satisfaction of the last moments with the departing soul of the husband and father, for the Albert was to sail at once. The summer was short, and up and down the coast many others were in sore need of the Doctor's care, and delay might cost some of them their lives.

Grenfell sat silently for several minutes observing his patient and asking himself the question: "What can I do for this poor man?" If there had only been a doctor that the man could have called a few days earlier his life, at least might have been prolonged.

There was but one answer to the question. There was nothing to do but leave medicine and give advice and directions for the man's care, and to supply the ill-nourished family much-needed food and perhaps some warmer clothing.

If there were only a hospital on the coast where such cases could be taken and properly treated! If there were only some place where fatherless and orphaned children could be cared for! These were some of the thoughts that crowded upon Doctor Grenfell as he left the hut that evening and was rowed back to the Albert. And in the weeks that followed his mind was filled with plans, for never did the picture of the dying man and helpless little ones fade as he saw it that first day in Domino Run.

Another call to go ashore came that evening, and the Doctor answered it promptly. Again he was guided to a little mud hut, but this had an advantage over the other in that it was well ventilated. The one window which it boasted was an open hole in the side wall with no glass or other covering to exclude the fresh air. There was no stove, and an open fire on the earthen floor supplied warmth, while a large opening in the roof, for there was no chimney, offered an escape for the smoke, an offer of which the smoke did not freely take advantage.

On a wooden bench in a corner of the room a man sat doubled up with pain. Here too was a family consisting of the man's wife and several children.

"What's the trouble?" asked the Doctor.

"I'm wonderful bad with a distemper in my insides, sir," answered the man with a groan.

"Been ill long?"

"Aye, sir, for three weeks."

"We'll see what can be done."

"Thank you, sir."

"We'll patch you up and make you as well as ever in a little while," assured the Doctor after a thorough examination, for this proved to be a curable case.

"That'll be fine, sir."

Medicine was provided, with directions for taking, and, as the Doctor had promised, and as he later learned, the man soon recovered his health and returned to his fishing.