Norman Duncan

Billy Topsail, M.D. Norman Duncan

ONE dark night in the fall of the year, the trading-schooner Black Bat, of Ruddy Cove, slipped ashore on the rocks of Tight Cove, of the Labrador. She was frozen fast before she could be floated. And that was the end of her flitting about. It was the end, too, of Billy Topsail's rosy expectation of an hilarious return to his home at Ruddy Cove. Winter fell down next day. A great wind blew with snow and frost; and when the gale was blown out-the sun out and the sky blue again-it was out of the question to rip the Black Bat out of her icy berth in Tight Cove Harbour and put her on the tumbled way to Ruddy.