A half hundred icebergs, children of age-old glaciers of the far North, were scattered over the green-blue waters.  Some of them were of gigantic proportions and strange outlines.  There were hills with lofty summits, marvellous castles, turreted and towered, and majestic cathedrals, their icy pinnacles and spires reaching high above the top-masts of the ship and their polished adamantine surfaces sparkling in the brilliant sunshine and scintillating fire and colour with the wondrous iridescent beauty of mammoth opals.

“There’s Domino Run,” said the pilot.

“Domino Run?  What is that?”

“’Tis a fine deep run behind the islands,” explained the pilot.  “All the fleets of schooners cruisin’ north and south go through Domino Run.  There’s a fine tidy harbor in there, and we’d be findin’ some schooners anchored there now.”

“We’ll go in and see.”

“I think ’twould be well and meet some of the fleet.  There’s liviyeres in there too.  There’s some liviyeres handy to most of the harbors on the coast.”

“Liveyeres?  What are liveyeres?”

“They’re the folk that live on the coast all the time,—­the whites and half-breeds.  Newfoundlanders only come to fish in summer, but liveyeres stay the winter.  The shop keepers we calls planters.  They’re set up by traders that has fishin’ places.  The liveyeres has their homes up the heads of bays in winter, and when the ice fastens over they trap fur.  In the summer they come out to the islands to fish.”

Doctor Grenfell had heard all this before, but now as he looked at the dreary desolation of the rocks it seemed almost incredible that children could be born and grow to manhood and womanhood and live their lives here, forever fighting for mere existence, and die at last without ever once knowing the comforts that we who live in kindlier warmer lands enjoy.

Presently a beautiful and splendid harbor opened before the Albert.  Several schooners were lying at anchor within the harbor’s shelter, and the strange new ship created a vast sensation as she hove to and dropped her anchor among them, and hoisted the blue flag of the Deep Sea Mission.

From masthead after masthead rose flags of greeting.  It was a glorious welcome for any visitor to receive.  A warmer or more cordial greeting could scarcely have been offered the Governor General himself.  It was given with the fine hearty fervour and characteristic hospitality of the Newfoundland fishermen and seamen.

The Albert’s anchor chains had scarce ceased to rattle before boats were pulling toward her from every vessel in the harbor.  Ships enough sailed down the coast, to be sure, but if they were not fishing vessels they were traders looking to barter for fish, bearing sharp men who drove hard bargains with the fishermen, as we shall see.  But here was a different vessel from any of them.  Everybody knew that this was not a fisherman, and that she was not a trader.  What was her business?  What had she come for?  What did her blue flag mean?  These were questions to which everybody must needs find the answer for himself.