Acadia
by Frederic S. Cozzens · English · Gutenberg #23409 · 422,273 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Acadia
Author: Frederic S. Cozzens
Release date: November 8, 2007 [eBook #23409]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23409
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACADIA ***
Produced by A www.PGDP.net Volunteer, Brownfox and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: _"This, with the antique kirtle and picturesque petticoat
is an Acadian portrait." PAGE 56._]
[Illustration: _"There is nothing modern in the face or drapery of this
figure. She might have stepped out of Normandy a century ago." PAGE
40._]
ACADIA;
OR,
A MONTH WITH THE BLUE NOSES.
BY
FREDERIC S. COZZENS,
AUTHOR OF "SPARROWGRASS PAPERS."
This is Acadia--this is the land
That weary souls have sighed for;
This is Acadia--this is the land
Heroic hearts have died for:
Yet, strange to tell, this promised land
Has never been applied for!
PORTER.
NEW YORK:
DERBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU STREET.
1859.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
FREDERIC S. COZZENS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.
W.H. TINSON, Stereotyper.
GEO. RUSSELL & Co., Printers.
PREFACE.
As I have a sort of religion in literature, believing that no author can
justly intrude upon the public without feeling that his writings may be of
some benefit to mankind, I beg leave to apologize for this little book. I
know, no critic can tell me better than I know myself, how much it falls
short of what might have been done by an abler pen. Yet it is
something--an index, I should say, to something better. The French in
America may sometime find a champion. For my own part, I would that the
gentler principles which governed them, and the English under William
Penn, and the Dutch under the enlightened rule of the States General, had
obtained here, instead of the narrower, the more penurious, and most
prescriptive policy of their neighbors.
I am indebted to Judge Haliburton's "History of Nova Scotia" for the main
body of historical facts in this volume. Let me acknowledge my
obligations. His researches and impartiality are most creditable, and
worthy of respect and attention. I have also drawn as liberally as time
and space would permit from chronicles contemporary with the events of
those early days, as well as from a curious collection of items relating
to the subject, cut from the London newspapers a hundred years ago, and
kindly furnished me by Geo. P. Putnam, Esq. These are always the surest
guides. To Mrs. Kate Williams, of Providence, R. I., I am indebted also.
Her story of the "Neutral French," no doubt, inspired the author of the
most beautiful pastoral in the language. The "Evangeline" of Longfellow,
and the "Pauline" of this lady's legend, are pictures of the same
individual, only drawn by different hands.
A word in regard to the two Acadian portraits. These are literal
ambrotypes, to which Sarony has added a few touches of his artistic
crayon. It may interest the reader to know that these are the first, the
only likenesses of the real Evangelines of Acadia. The women of
Chezzetcook appear at day-break in the city of Halifax, and as soon as the
sun is up vanish like the dew. They have usually a basket of fresh eggs, a
brace or two of worsted socks, a bottle of fir-balsam to sell. These
comprise their simple commerce. When the market-bell rings you find them
not. To catch such fleeting phantoms, and to transfer them to the
frontispiece of a book published here, is like painting the burnished
wings of a humming-bird. A friend, however, undertook the task. He rose
before the sun, he bought eggs, worsted socks, and fir-balsam of the
Acadians. By constant attentions he became acquainted with a pair of
Acadian women, niece and aunt. Then he proposed the matter to them:
"I want you to go with me to the daguerreotype gallery."
"What for?"
"To have your portraits taken."
"What for?"
"To send to a friend in New York."
"What for?"
"To be put in a book."
"What for?"
"Never mind 'what for,' will you go?"
Aunt and niece--both together in a breath--"No."
So my friend, who was a wise man, wrote to the priest of the settlement of
Chezzetcook, to explain the "what for," and the consequence was--these
portraits! But these women had a terrible time at the head of the first
flight of stairs. Not an inch would these shy creatures budge beyond. At
last, the wife of the operator induced them to rise to the high flight
that led to the Halifax skylight, and there they were painted by the sun,
as we see them now.
Nothing more! Ring the bell, prompter, and draw the curtain.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Vague Rumors of Nova Scotia--A Fortnight upon Salt Water--Interesting
Sketch of the Atlantic--Halifax!--Determine to stay in the
Province--Province Building and Pictures--Coast Scenery--Liberty in
Language, and Aspirations of the People--Evangeline and Relics of
Acadia--Market-Place--The Encampment at Point Pleasant--Kissing
Bridge--The "Himalaya"--A Sabbath in a Garrison Town--Grand Celebration
of the Peace, and Natal Day of Halifax--And a Hint of a Visit to
Chezzetcook 13
CHAPTER II.
Fog clears up--The One Idea not comprehended by the American Mind--A
June Morning in the Province--The Beginning of the Evangeliad--Intuitive
Perception of Genius--The Forest Primeval--Acadian Peasants--A Negro
Settlement--Deer's Castle--The Road to Chezzetcook--Acadian Scenery--A
Glance at the Early History of Acadia--First Encroachments of the
English--The Harbor and Village of Chezzetcook, etc., etc. 34
CHAPTER III.
A Romp at Three Fathom Harbor--The Moral Condition of the Acadians--The
Wild Flowers of Nova Scotia--Mrs. Deer's Wit--No Fish--Picton--The
Balaklava Schooner--And a Voyage to Louisburgh 58
CHAPTER IV.
The Voyage of the "Balaklava"--Something of a Fog--A Novel
Sensation--Picton bursts out--"Nothing to do"--Breakfast under Way--A
Phantom Boat--Mackerel--Gone, Hook and Line--The Colonists--Sectionalism
and Prejudices--Cod-fishing and an Unexpected Banquet--Past the old
French Town--A Pretty Respectable Breeze--We get past the
Rocks--Louisburgh 77
CHAPTER V.
Louisburgh--The Great French Fortress--Incidents of the Old French
War--Relics of the Siege--Description of the Town--The two
Expeditions--A Yankee _ruse de guerre_--The Rev. Samuel Moody's
Grace--Wolfe's Landing--The Fisherman's Hutch--The Lost Coaster--The
Fisheries--Picton tries his hand at a Fish-pugh 102
CHAPTER VI.
A most acceptable Invitation--An Evening in the Hutch--Old Songs--Picton
in High Feather--Wolfe and Montcalm--Reminiscences of the
Siege--Anecdotes of Wolfe--A Touch of Rhetoric and its Consequences 121
CHAPTER VII.
The other side of the Harbor--A Foraging Party--Disappointment--Twilight
at Louisburgh--Long Days and Early Mornings--A Visit and View of an
Interior--A Shark Story--Picton inquires about a Measure--Hospitality
and the Two Brave Boys--Proposals for a Trip Overland to Sydney 133
CHAPTER VIII.
A Blue-Nosed Pair of the most Cerulean Hue--Prospects of a Hard
Bargain--Case of Necessity--Romantic Lake with an Unromantic Name--The
Discussion concerning Oatmeal--Danger of the Gasterophili--McGibbet
makes a Proposition--Farewell to the "Balaklava"--A Midnight
Journey--Sydney--Boat Excursion to the Micmacs--Picton takes off his
Mackintosh 154
CHAPTER IX.
The Micmac Camp--Indian Church-warden and Broker--Interior of a
Wigwam--A Madonna--A Digression--Malcolm Discharged--An Indian
Bargain--The Inn Parlor, and a Comfortable Night's Rest 176
CHAPTER X.
Over the Bay--A Gigantic Dumb Waiter--Erebus--Reflections--White and
Black Squares of the Chess-Board--Leave-taking--An Interruption--The
Aibstract Preencipels of Feenance 185
CHAPTER XI.
The Bras d'Or Road--Farewell to Picton--Home, Sweet Home--The Rob Roys of
Cape Breton--Note and Query--Chapel Island--St. Peter's--Enterprise--The
Strait of Canseau--West River--The Last Out-post of the Scottish Chiefs 196
CHAPTER XII.
The Ride from West River--A Fellow Passenger--Parallels of History--One
Hundred Romances--Baron de Castine--His Character--Made Chief of the
Abenaquis--Duke of York's Charter--Encroachments of the
Puritans--Church's Indian Wars--False Reports--Reflections 212
CHAPTER XIII.
Truro--On the Road to Halifax--Drive to the Left--A Member of the
Foreign Legion--Irish Wit at Government Expense--The first Battle of the
Legion--Ten Pounds Reward--Sir John Gaspard's Revenge--The Shubenacadie
Lakes--Dartmouth Ferry, and the Hotel Waverley 224
CHAPTER XIV.
Halifax again--Hotel Waverley--"Gone the Old Familiar Faces"--The Story
of Marie de la Tour 237
CHAPTER XV.
Bedford Basin--Legend of the two French Admirals--An Invitation to
the Queen--Visit to the Prince's Lodge--A Touch of Old England--The
Ruins 251
CHAPTER XVI.
The Last Night--Farewell, Hotel Waverley--Friends Old and New--What
followed the Marriage of La Tour le Borgne--Invasion of Col. Church 258
CHAPTER XVII.
A few more Threads of History--Acadia again lost--The Oath of
Allegiance--Settlement of Halifax--The brave Three Hundred--Massacre at
Norridgewoack--Le Pere Ralle 269
CHAPTER XVIII.
On the road to Windsor--The great Nova Scotia Railway--A Fellow
Passenger--Cape Sable Shipwrecks--Seals--Ponies--Windsor--Sam Slick--A
lively Example 279
CHAPTER XIX.
Windsor-upon-Avon--Ride to the Gasperau--The Basin of
Minas--Blomidon--This is the Acadian Land--Basil, the
Blacksmith--A Yankee Settlement--Useless Reflections 293
CHAPTER XX.
The Valley of Acadia--A Morning Ride to the Dykes--An unexpected
Wild-duck Chase--High Tides--The Gasperau--Sunset--The Lamp of
History--Conclusion 302
APPENDIX 317
ACADIA.
CHAPTER I.
Vague Rumors of Nova Scotia--A Fortnight upon Salt Water--Interesting
Sketch of the Atlantic--Halifax!--Determine to stay in the
Province--Province Building and Pictures--Coast Scenery--Liberty in
Language, and Aspirations of the People--Evangeline and Relics of
Acadia--Market-Place--The Encampment at Point Pleasant--Kissing
Bridge--The "Himalaya"--A Sabbath in a Garrison Town--Grand Celebration
of the Peace, and Natal Day of Halifax--And a Hint of a Visit to
Chezzetcook.
It is pleasant to visit Nova Scotia in the month of June. Pack up your
flannels and your fishing tackle, leave behind you your prejudices and
your summer clothing, take your trout-pole in one hand and a copy of
Haliburton in the other, and step on board a Cunarder at Boston. In
thirty-six hours you are in the loyal little province, and above you
floats the red flag and the cross of St. George. My word for it, you
will not regret the trip. That the idea of visiting Nova Scotia ever
struck any living person as something peculiarly pleasant and cheerful,
is not within the bounds of probability. Very rude people are wont to
speak of Halifax in connection with the name of a place never alluded to
in polite society--except by clergymen. As for the rest of the Province,
there are certain vague rumors of extensive and constant fogs, but
nothing more. The land is a sort of terra incognita. Many take it to be
a part of Canada, and others firmly believe it is somewhere in
Newfoundland.
In justice to Nova Scotia, it is proper to state that the Province is a
province by itself; that it hath its own governor and parliament, and
its own proper and copper currency. How I chanced to go there was
altogether a matter of destiny. It was a severe illness--a gastric
disorder of the most obstinate kind, that cast me upon its balmy shores.
One day, after a protracted relapse, as I was creeping feebly along
Broadway, sunning myself, like a March fly on a window-pane, whom should
I meet but St. Leger, my friend. "You look pale," said St. Leger. To
which I replied by giving him a full, complete, and accurate history of
my ailments, after the manner of valetudinarians. "Why do you not try
change of air?" he asked; and then briskly added, "You could spare a
couple of weeks or so, could you not, to go to the Springs?" "I could,"
said I, feebly. "Then," said St. Leger, "take the two weeks' time, but
do not go to the Springs. Spend your fortnight on the salt water--get
out of sight of land--that is the thing for you." And so, shaking my
hand warmly, St. Leger passed on, and left me to my reflections.
A fortnight upon salt water? Whither? Cape Cod at once loomed up;
Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard. "And why not the Bermudas?" said a
voice within me; "the enchanted Islands of Prospero, and Ariel, and
Miranda; of Shakspeare, and Raleigh, and Irving?" And echo answered:
"Why not?"
It is but a day-and-a-half's sail to Halifax; thence, by a steamer, to
those neighboring isles; for the Curlew and the Merlin, British
mail-boats, leave Halifax fortnightly for the Bermudas. A thousand miles
of life-invigorating atmosphere--a week upon salt water, and you are
amid the magnificent scenery of the Tempest! And how often had the vague
desire impressed me--how often, indeed, had I visited, in imagination,
those beautiful scenes, those islands which have made Shakspeare our
near kinsman; which are part and parcel of the romantic history of Sir
Walter Raleigh! For, even if he do describe them, in his strong old
Saxon, as "the Bermudas, a hellish sea for Thunder, and Lightning, and
Storms," yet there is a charm even in this description, for doubtless
these very words gave a title to the great drama of William of
Stratford, and suggested the idea of
"The still-vexed Bermooethes."
Ah, yes! and who that has read Irving's "Three Kings of Bermuda" has not
felt the influence of those Islas Encantadas--those islands of palms and
coral, of orange groves and ambergris! "A fortnight?" said I, quoting St.
Leger; "I will take a month for it." And so, in less than a week from the
date of his little prescription, I was bidding farewell to some dear
friends, from the deck of the "Canada," at East Boston wharf, as Captain
Lang, on the top of our wheel-house, shouted out, in a very briny voice:
"Let go the starboard bow chain--go slow!"
It would be presumptuous in me to speak of the Atlantic, from the limited
acquaintance I had with it. The note-book of an invalid for two days at
sea, with a heavy ground swell, and the wind in the most favorable
quarter, can scarcely be attractive. As the breeze freshened, and the tars
of old England ran aloft, to strip from the black sails the wrappers of
white canvas that had hid them when in port; and as these leathern,
bat-like pinions spread out on each side of the funnel, there was a
moment's glimpse of the picturesque; but it was a glimpse only, and no
more. One does not enjoy the rise and dip of the bow of a steamer, at
first, however graceful it may be in the abstract. To be sure, there were
some things else interesting. For instance, three brides aboard! And one
of them lovely enough to awaken interest, on sea or land, in any body but
a Halifax passenger. I hope those fair ladies will have a pleasant tour,
one and all, and that the view they take of the great world, so early in
life, will make them more contented with that minor world, henceforth to
be within the limits of their dominion. Lullaby to the young wives! there
will be rocking enough anon!
But we coasted along pleasantly enough the next day, within sight of the
bold headlands of Maine; the sky and sea clear of vapor, except the long
reek from the steamer's pipe. And then came nightfall and the northern
stars; and, later at night, a new luminary on the edge of the
horizon--Sambro' light; and then a sudden quenching of stars, and horizon,
lighthouse, ropes, spars, and smoke stack; the sounds of hoarse voices of
command in the obscurity; a trampling of men; and then down went the
anchor in the ooze, and the Canada was fog-bound in the old harbor of
Chebucto for the night, within a few miles of the city.
But with the early dawn, we awoke to hear the welcome sounds of the
engines in motion, and when we reached the deck, the mist was drifted with
sunlight, and rose and fell in luminous billows on water and shore, and
then lifted, lingered, and vanished!
"And this is Halifax?" said I, as that quaint, mouldy old town poked its
wooden gables through the fog of the second morning. "This is Halifax?
This the capital of Nova Scotia? This the city that harbored those loyal
heroes of the Revolution, who gallantly and gayly fought, and bled, and
ran for their king? Ah! you brave old Tories; you staunch upholders of the
crown; cavaliers without ringlets or feathers, russet boots or
steeple-crown hats, it seems as if you were still hovering over this
venerable tabernacle of seven hundred gables, and wreathing each
particular ridge-pole, pigeon-hole, and shingle with a halo of fog."
The plank was laid, and the passengers left the steamer. There were a few
vehicles on the wharf for the accommodation of strangers; square, black,
funereal-like, wheeled sarcophagi, eminently suggestive of burials and
crape. Of course I did not ride in one, on account of unpleasant
associations; but, placing my trunk in charge of a cart-boy with a
long-tailed dray, and a diminutive pony, I walked through the silent
streets towards "The Waverley."
It was an inspiriting morning, that which I met upon the well-docked
shores of Halifax, and although the side-walks of the city were neither
bricked nor paved with flags, and the middle street was in its original
and aboriginal clay, yet there was novelty in making its acquaintance.
Everybody was asleep in that early fog; and when everybody woke up, it was
done so quietly that the change was scarcely apparent.
But the "Merlin," British mailer, is to sail at noon for the Shakspeare
Island, and breakfast must be discussed, and then once more I am with you,
my anti-bilious ocean. It chanced, however, I heard at breakfast, that the
"Curlew," the mate of the "Merlin," had been lost a short time before at
sea, and as there was but one, and not two steamers on the route, so that
I would be detained longer with Prospero and Miranda than might be
comfortable in the approaching hot weather, it came to pass that I had
reluctantly to forego the projected voyage, and anchor my trunk of
tropical clothing in room Number Twenty, Hotel Waverley. It was a great
disappointment, to be sure, after such brilliant anticipations--but what
is life without philosophy? When we cannot get what we wish, let us take
what we may. Let the "Merlin" sail! I will visit, instead of those Islas
Encantadas, "The Acadian land on the shore of the Basin of Minas." Let the
"Merlin" sail! I will see the ruined walls of Louisburgh, and the harbors
that once sheltered the Venetian sailor, Cabot. "Let her sail!" said I,
and when the morn passed I saw her slender thread of smoke far off on the
glassy ocean, without a sigh of regret, and resolutely turned my face from
the promised palms to welcome the sturdy pines of the province.
The city hill of Halifax rises proudly from its wharves and shipping in a
multitude of mouse-colored wooden houses, until it is crowned by the
citadel. As it is a garrison town, as well as a naval station, you meet in
the streets red-coats and blue-jackets without number; yonder, with a
brilliant staff, rides the Governor, Sir John Gaspard le Marchant, and
here, in a carriage, is Admiral Fanshawe, C.B., of the "Boscawen"
Flag-ship. Every thing is suggestive of impending hostilities; war, in
burnished trappings, encounters you at the street corners, and the air
vibrates from time to time with bugles, fifes, and drums. But oh! what a
slow place it is! Even two Crimean regiments with medals and decorations
could not wake it up. The little old houses seem to look with wondrous
apathy as these pass by, as though they had given each other a quiet nudge
with their quaint old gables, and whispered: "Keep still!"
I wandered up and down those old streets in search of something
picturesque, but in vain; there was scarcely any thing remarkable to
arrest or interest a stranger. Such, too, might have been the appearance
of other places I wot of, if those staunch old loyalists had had their way
in the days gone by!
But the Province House, which is built of a sort of yellow sand-stone,
with pillars in front, and trees around it, is a well-proportioned
building, with an air of great solidity and respectability. There are in
it very fine full-lengths of King George II. and Queen Caroline, and two
full-lengths of King George III. and Queen Charlotte; a full-length of
Chief-Justice Haliburton, and another full-length, by Benjamin West, of
another chief-justice, in a red robe and a formidable wig. Of these
portraits, the two first-named are the most attractive; there is something
so gay and festive in the appearance of King George II. and Queen
Caroline, so courtly and sprightly, so graceful and amiable, that one is
tempted to exclaim: "Bless the painter! what a genius he had!"
And now, after taking a look at Dalhousie College with the parade in
front, and the square town-clock, built by his graceless Highness the Duke
of Kent, let us climb Citadel Hill, and see the formidable protector of
town and harbor. Lively enough it is, this great stone fortress, with its
soldiers, swarming in and out like bees, and the glimpses of country and
harbor are surpassingly beautiful; but just at the margin of this slope
below us, is the street, and that dark fringe of tenements skirting the
edge of this green glacis is, I fear me, filled with vicious inmates.
Yonder, where the blackened ruins of three houses are visible, a sailor
was killed and thrown out of a window not long since, and his shipmates
burned the houses down in consequence; there is something strikingly
suggestive in looking upon this picture and on that.
But if you cast your eyes over yonder magnificent bay, where vessels
bearing flags of all nations are at anchor, and then let your vision sweep
past and over the islands to the outlets beyond, where the quiet ocean
lies, bordered with fog-banks that loom ominously at the boundary-line of
the horizon, you will see a picture of marvellous beauty; for the coast
scenery here transcends our own sea-shores, both in color and outline. And
behind us again stretch large green plains, dotted with cottages, and
bounded with undulating hills, with now and then glimpses of blue water;
and as we walk down Citadel Hill, we feel half-reconciled to Halifax, its
queer little streets, its quaint, mouldy old gables, its soldiers and
sailors, its fogs, cabs, penny and half-penny tokens, and all its little,
odd, outlandish peculiarities. Peace be with it! after all, it has a quiet
charm for an invalid!
The inhabitants of Halifax exhibit no trifling degree of freedom in
language for a loyal people; they call themselves "Halligonians." This
title, however, is sometimes pronounced "'Alligonians," by the more rigid,
as a mark of respect to the old country. But innovation has been at work
even here, for the majority of Her Majesty's subjects aspirate the letter
H. Alas for innovation! who knows to what results this trifling error may
lead? When Mirabeau went to the French court without buckles in his shoes,
the barriers of etiquette were broken down, and the Swiss Guards fought in
vain.
There is one virtue in humanity peculiarly grateful to an invalid; to him
most valuable, by him most appreciated, namely, hospitality. And that the
'Alligonians are a kind and good people, abundant in hospitality, let me
attest. One can scarcely visit a city occupied by those whose grandsires
would have hung your rebel grandfathers (if they had caught them), without
some misgivings. But I found the old Tory blood of three Halifax
generations, yet warm and vital, happy to accept again a rebellious
kinsman, a real live Yankee, in spite of Sam Slick and the Revolution.
Let us take a stroll through these quiet streets. This is the Province
House with its Ionic porch, and within it are the halls of Parliament, and
offices of government. You see there is a red-coat with his sentry-box at
either corner. Behind the house again are two other sentries on duty, all
glittering with polished brass, and belted, gloved, and bayoneted, in
splendid style. Of what use are these satellites, except to watch the
building and keep it from running away? On the street behind the Province
House is Fuller's American Book-store, which we will step into, and now
among these books, fresh from the teeming presses of the States, we feel
once more at home. Fuller preserves his equanimity in spite of the
blandishments of royalty, and once a year, on the Fourth of July, hoists
the "stars and stripes," and bravely takes dinner with the United States
Consul, in the midst of lions and unicorns. Many pleasant hours I passed
with Fuller, both in town and country. Near by, on the next corner, is the
print-store of our old friends the Wetmores, and here one can see costly
engravings of Landseer's fine pictures, and indeed whole portfolios of
English art. But of all the pictures there was one, the most touching, the
most suggestive! The presiding genius of the place, the unsceptred Queen
of this little realm was before me--Faed's Evangeline! And this reminded
me that I was in the Acadian land! This reminded me of Longfellow's
beautiful pastoral, a poem that has spread a glory over Nova Scotia, a
romantic interest, which our own land has not yet inspired! I knew that I
was in Acadia; the historic scroll unrolled and stretched its long
perspective to earlier days; it recalled De Monts, and the la Tours; Vice
Admiral Destournelle, who ran upon his own sword, hard by, at Bedford
Basin; and the brave Baron Castine.
The largest settlement of the Acadians is in the neighborhood of Halifax.
In the early mornings, you sometimes see a few of these people in the
streets, or at the market, selling a dozen or so of fresh eggs, or a pair
or two of woollen socks, almost the only articles of their simple
commerce. But you must needs be early to see them; after eight o'clock,
they will have all vanished. Chezzetcook, or, as it is pronounced by the
'Alligonians, "Chizzencook," is twenty-two miles from Halifax, and as the
Acadian peasant has neither horse nor mule, he or she must be off betimes
to reach home before mid-day nuncheon. A score of miles on foot is no
trifle, in all weathers, but Gabriel and Evangeline perform it cheerfully;
and when the knitting-needle and the poultry shall have replenished their
slender stock, off again they will start on their midnight pilgrimage,
that they may reach the great city of Halifax before day-break.
We must see Chezzetcook anon, gentle reader.
Let us visit the market-place. Here is Masaniello, with his fish in great
profusion. Codfish, three-pence or four-pence each; lobsters, a penny; and
salmon of immense size at six-pence a pound (currency), equal to a dime of
our money. If you prefer trout, you must buy them of these Micmac squaws
in traditional blankets, a shilling a bunch; and you may also buy baskets
of rainbow tints from these copper ladies for a mere trifle; and as every
race has a separate vocation here, only of the negroes can you purchase
berries. "This is a busy town," one would say, drawing his conclusion from
the market-place; for the shifting crowd, in all costumes and in all
colors, Indians, negroes, soldiers, sailors, civilians, and
Chizzincookers, make up a pageant of no little theatrical effect and
bustle. Again: if you are still strong in limb, and ready for a longer
walk, which I, leaning upon my staff, am not, we will visit the encampment
at Point Pleasant. The Seventy-sixth Regiment has pitched its tents here
among the evergreens. Yonder you see the soldiers, looking like masses of
red fruit amidst the spicy verdure of the spruces. Row upon row of tents,
and file upon file of men standing at ease, each one before his knapsack,
his little leather household, with its shoes, socks, shirts, brushes,
razors, and other furniture open for inspection. And there is Sir John
Gaspard le Marchant, with a brilliant staff, engaged in the pleasant duty
of picking a personal quarrel with each medal-decorated hero, and marking
down every hole in his socks, and every gap in his comb, for the honor of
the service. And this Point Pleasant is a lovely place, too, with a broad
look-out in front, for yonder lies the blue harbor and the ocean deeps.
Just back of the tents is the cookery of the camp, huge mounds of loose
stones, with grooves at the top, very like the architecture of a
cranberry-pie; and if the simile be an homely one, it is the best that
comes to mind to convey an idea of those regimental stoves, with their
seams and channels of fire, over which potatoes bubble, and roast and
boiled scud forth a savory odor. And here and there, wistfully regarding
this active scene, amid the green shrubbery, stands a sentinel before his
sentry-box, built of spruce boughs, wrought into a mimic military temple,
and fanciful enough, too, for a garden of roses. And look you now! If here
be not Die Vernon, with "habit, hat, and feather," cantering gayly down
the road between the tents, and behind her a stately groom in gold-lace
band, top-boots, and buck-skins. A word in your ear--that pleasant
half-English face is the face of the Governor's daughter.
The road to Point Pleasant is a favorite promenade in the long Acadian
twilights. Mid-way between the city and the Point lies "Kissing Bridge,"
which the Halifax maidens sometimes pass over. Who gathers toll nobody
knows, but I thought there was a mischievous glance in the blue eyes of
those passing damsels that said plainly they could tell, "an' they would."
I love to look upon those happy, healthy English faces; those ruddy
cheeks, flushed with exercise, and those well-developed forms, not less
attractive because of the sober-colored dresses and brown flat hats, in
which, o' summer evenings, they glide towards the mysterious precincts of
"The Bridge." What a tale those old arches could tell? _?Quien sabe?_ Who
knows?
But next to "Kissing Bridge," the prominent object of interest, now, to
Halifax ladies, is the great steamer that lies at the Admiralty, the
Oriental screw-steamer Himalaya--the transport ship of two regiments of
the heroes of Balaklava, and Alma, and Inkerman, and Sebastopol. A vast
specimen of naval architecture; an unusual sight in these waters; a marine
vehicle to carry twenty-five hundred men! Think of this moving town; this
portable village of royal belligerents covered with glory and medals,
breasting the billows! Is there not something glorious in such a
spectacle? And yet I was told by a brave officer, who wore the decorations
of the four great battles on his breast, that of his regiment, the
Sixty-third, but thirty men were now living, and of the thirty, seventeen
only were able to attend drill. That regiment numbered a thousand at Alma!
No gun broke the silence of the Sabbath morning, as the giant ship moved
from the Admiralty, on the day following our visit to Point Pleasant, and
silently furrowed her path oceanward on her return to Gibraltar. A long
line of thick bituminous smoke, above the low house-tops, was the only
hint of her departure, to the citizens. It was a grand sight to see her
vast bulk moving among the islands in the harbor, almost as large as they.
And now, being Sunday, after looking in at the Cathedral, which does not
represent the usual pomp of the Romish Church, we will visit the Garrison
Chapel. A bugle-call from barracks, or Citadel Hill, salutes us as we
stroll towards the chapel; otherwise, Halifax is quiet, as becomes the
day. Presently we see the long scarlet lines approaching, and presently
the men, with orderly step, file from the street through the porch into
the gallery and pews. Then the officers of field and line, of ordnance and
commissary departments, take their allotted seats below. Then the chimes
cease, and the service begins. Most devoutly we prayed for the Queen, and
omitted the President of the United States.
As the Crimeans ebbed from the church, and, floating off in the distance,
wound slowly up Citadel Hill against the quiet clear summer sky, I could
not but think of these lines from Thomas Miller's "Summer Morning:"
"A troop of soldiers pass with stately pace,
Their early music wakes the village street:
Through yon turned blinds peeps many a lovely face,
Smiling perchance unconsciously how sweet!
One does the carpet press with blue-veined feet,
Not thinking how her fair neck she exposes,
But with white foot timing the drum's deep beat;
And when again she on her pillow dozes,
Dreams how she'll dance that tune 'mong summer's sweetest roses
"So let her dream, even as beauty should!
Let the while plumes athwart her slumbers away!
Why should I steep their swaling snows in blood,
Or bid her think of battle's grim array?
Truth will too soon her blinding star display,
And like a fearful comet meet her eyes.
And yet how peaceful they pass on their way!
How grand the sight as up the hill they rise!
_I will not think of cities reddening in the skies._"
It was my fate to see next day a great celebration. It was the celebration
of peace between England and Russia. Peace having been proclaimed, all
Halifax was in arms! Loyalty threw out her bunting to the breeze, and
fired her crackers. The civic authorities presented an address to the
royal representative of Her Majesty, requesting His Excellency to transmit
the same to the foot of the throne. Militia-men shot off municipal cannon;
bells echoed from the belfries; the shipping fluttered with signals; and
Citadel Hill telegraph, in a multitude of flags, announced that ships,
brigs, schooners, and steamers, in vast quantities, "were below." Nor was
the peace alone the great feature of the holiday. The eighth of June, the
natal day of Halifax, was to be celebrated also. For Halifax was founded,
so says the Chronicle, on the eighth of June, 1749, by the Hon. Edward
Cornwallis (not our Cornwallis), and the 'Alligonians in consequence made
a specialty of that fact once a year. And to add to the attraction, the
Board of Works had decided to lay the corner-stone of a Lunatic Asylum in
the afternoon; so there was no end to the festivities. And, to crown all,
an immense fog settled upon the city.
Leaning upon my friend Robert's arm and my staff, I went forth to see the
grand review. When we arrived upon the ground, in the rear of Citadel
Hill, we saw the outline of something glimmering through the fog, which
Robert said were shrubs, and which I said were soldiers. A few minutes'
walking proved my position to be correct; we found ourselves in the centre
of a three-sided square of three regiments, within which the civic
authorities were loyally boring Sir John Gaspard le Merchant and staff, to
the verge of insanity, with the Address which was to be laid at the foot
of the throne. Notwithstanding the despairing air with which His
Excellency essayed to reply to this formidable paper, I could not help
enjoying the scene; and I also noted, when the reply was over, and the few
ragamuffins near His Excellency cheered bravely, and the band struck up
the national anthem, how gravely and discreetly the rest of the
'Alligonians, in the circumambient fog, echoed the sentiment by a
silence, that, under other circumstances, would have been disheartening.
What a quiet people it is! As I said before, to make the festivities
complete, in the afternoon there was a procession to lay the corner-stone
of a Lunatic Asylum. But oh! how the jolly old rain poured down upon the
luckless pilgrimage! There were the "Virgins" of Masonic Lodge No.--, the
Army Masons, in scarlet; the African Masons, in ivory and black; the
Scotch-piper Mason, with his legs in enormous plaid trowsers, defiant of
Shakspeare's theory about the sensitiveness of some men, when the bag-pipe
sings i' the nose; the Clerical Mason in shovel hat; the municipal
artillery; the Sons of Temperance, and the band. Away they marched, with
drum and banner, key and compasses, BIBLE and sword, to Dartmouth, in
great feather, for the eyes of Halifax were upon them.
CHAPTER II.
Fog clears Up--The One Idea not comprehended by the American Mind--A June
Morning in the Province--The Beginning of the Evangeliad--Intuitive
Perception of Genius--The Forest Primeval--Acadian Peasants--A Negro
Settlement--Deer's Castle--The Road to Chezzetcook--Acadian Scenery--A
Glance at the Early History of Acadia--First Encroachments of the
English--The Harbor and Village of Chezzetcook--Etc., etc.
The celebration being over, the fog cleared up. Loyalty furled her flags;
the civic authorities were silent; the signal-telegraph was put upon short
allowance. But the 'Alligonian papers next day were loaded to the muzzle
with typographical missiles. From them we learned that there had been a
great amount of enthusiasm displayed at the celebration, and "everything
had passed off happily in spite of the weather." "Old Chebucto" was right
side up, and then she quietly sparkled out again.
There is one solitary idea, and only one, not comprehensible by the
American mind. I say it feebly, but I say it fearlessly, there is an idea
which does not present anything to the American mind but a blank. Every
metaphysical dog has worried the life out of every abstraction but this. I
strike my stick down, cross my hands, and rest my chin upon them, in
support of my position. Let anybody attempt to controvert it! "I say, that
in the American mind, there is no such thing as the conception even, of an
idea of tranquillity!" I once for a little repose, went to a "quiet
New-England village," as it was called, and the first thing that attracted
my attention there was a statement in the village paper, that no less than
twenty persons in that quiet place had obtained patent-rights for
inventions and improvements during the past year. They had been at
everything, from an apple-parer to a steam-engine. In the next column was
an article "on capital punishment," and the leader was thoroughly fired up
with a bran-new project for a railroad to the Pacific. That day I dined
with a member of Congress, a peripatetic lecturer, and the principal
citizens of the township, and took the return cars at night amid the glare
of a torch-light procession. Repose, forsooth? Why, the great busy city
seemed to sing lullaby, after the shock of that quiet New-England village.
But in this quaint, mouldy old town, one _can_ get an idea of the calm and
the tranquil--especially after a celebration. It has been said: "Halifax
is the only place that is finished." One can readily believe it. The
population has been twenty-five thousand for the last twenty-five years,
and a new house is beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant.
The fog cleared up. And one of those inexpressibly balmy days followed.
June in Halifax represents our early May. The trees are all in bud; the
peas in the garden-beds are just marking the lines of drills with faint
stripes of green. Here and there a solitary bird whets his bill on the
bare bark of a forked bough. The chilly air has departed, and in its place
is a sense of freshness, of dewiness, of fragrance and delight. A sense of
these only, an instinctive feeling, that anticipates the odor of the rose
before the rose is blown. On such a morning we went forth to visit
Chezzetcook, and here, gentle reader, beginneth the Evangeliad.
The intuitive perception of genius is its most striking element. I was
told by a traveller and an artist, who had been for nearly twenty years on
the northwest coast, that he had read Irving's "Astoria" as a mere
romance, in early life, but when he visited the place itself, he found
that _he was reading the book over again_; that Irving's descriptions were
so minute and perfect, that he was at home in Astoria, and familiar, not
only with the country, but with individuals residing there; "for," said
he, "although many of the old explorers, trappers, and adventurers
described in the book were dead and gone, yet I found the descendants of
those pioneers had the peculiar characteristics of their fathers; and the
daughter of Concomly, whom I met, was as interesting a historical
personage at home as Queen Elizabeth would have been in Westminster Abbey.
At Vancouver's Island," said the traveller, "I found an old dingy copy of
the book itself, embroidered and seamed with interlineations and marginal
notes of hundreds of pens, in every style of chirography, yet all
attesting the faithfulness of the narrative. I would have given anything
for that copy, but I do not believe I could have purchased it with the
price of the whole island."
What but that wonderful clement of genius, _intuitive perception_, could
have produced such a book? Irving was never on the Columbia River, never
saw the northwest coast. "The materials were furnished him from the
log-books and journals of the explorers themselves," says Dr. Dryasdust.
True, my learned friend, but suppose I furnish you with pallet and colors,
with canvas and brushes, the materials of art, will you paint me as I sit
here, and make a living, breathing picture, that will survive my ashes for
centuries? "I have not the genius of the artist," replies Dr. Dryasdust.
Then, my dear Doctor, we will put the materials aside for the present, and
venture a little farther with our theory of "intuitive perception."
Longfellow never saw the Acadian Land, and yet thus his pastoral begins:
"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks."
This is the opening line of the poem: this is the striking feature of Nova
Scotia scenery. The shores welcome us with waving masses of foliage, but
not the foliage of familiar woods. As we travel on this hilly road to the
Acadian settlement, we look up and say, "This is the forest primeval," but
it is the forest of the poem, not that of our childhood. There is not, in
all this vast greenwood, an oak, an elm, a chestnut, a beech, a cedar or
maple. For miles and miles, we see nothing against the clear blue sky but
the spiry tops of evergreens; or perhaps, a gigantic skeleton, "a
rampike," pine or hemlock, scathed and spectral, stretches its gaunt
outline above its fellows. Spruces and firs, such as adorn our gardens,
cluster in never-ending profusion; and aromatic and unwonted odor pervades
the air--the spicy breath of resinous balsams. Sometimes the sense is
touched with a new fragrance, and presently we see a buckthorn, white
with a thousand blossoms. These, however, only meet us at times. The
distinct and characteristic feature of the forest is conveyed in that one
line of the poet.
And yet another feature of the forest primeval presents itself, not less
striking and unfamiliar. From the dead branches of those skeleton pines
and hemlocks, these _rampikes_, hang masses of white moss, snow-white,
amid the dark verdure. An actor might wear such a beard in the play of
King Lear. Acadian children wore such to imitate "_grandpere_," centuries
ago; Cowley's trees are "Patricians," these are Patriarchs.
----"The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
_Bearded with moss_, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic,
_Stand like harpers hoar with beards that rest on their bosoms_."
We are re-reading Evangeline line by line. And here, at this turn of the
road, we encounter two Acadian peasants. The man wears an old tarpaulin
hat, home-spun worsted shirt, and tarry canvas trowsers; innovation has
certainly changed him, in costume at least, from the Acadian of our fancy;
but the pretty brown-skinned girl beside him, with lustrous eyes, and soft
black hair under her hood, with kirtle of antique form, and petticoat of
holiday homespun, is true to tradition. There is nothing modern in the
face or drapery of that figure. She might have stepped out of Normandy a
century ago,
"Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings
Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heir-loom,
Handed down from mother to child, through long generations."
Alas! the ear-rings are worn out with age! but save them, the picture is
very true to the life. As we salute the pair, we learn they have been
walking on their way since dawn from distant Chezzetcook: the man speaks
English with a strong French accent; the maiden only the language of her
people on the banks of the Seine.
"Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers,
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the
way-side:
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her
tresses."
Who can help repeating the familiar words of the idyl amid such scenery,
and in such a presence?
"We are now approaching a Negro settlement," said my _compagnon de voyage_
after we had passed the Acadians; "and we will take a fresh horse at
Deer's Castle; this is rough travelling." In a few minutes we saw a log
house perched on a bare bone of granite that stood out on a ragged
hill-side, and presently another cabin of the same kind came in view. Then
other scare-crow edifices wheeled in sight as we drove along; all forlorn,
all patched with mud, all perched on barren knolls, or gigantic bars of
granite, high up, like ragged redoubts of poverty, armed at every window
with a formidable artillery of old hats, rolls of rags, quilts, carpets,
and indescribable bundles, or barricaded with boards to keep out the air
and sunshine.
"You do not mean to say those wretched hovels are occupied by living
beings?" said I to my companion.
"Oh yes," he replied, with a quiet smile, "these are your people, your
_fugitives_."
"But, surely," said I, "they do not live in those airy nests during your
intensely cold winters?"
"Yes," replied my companion, "and they have a pretty hard time of it.
Between you and I," he continued, "they are a miserable set of devils;
they won't work, and they shiver it out here as well as they can. During
the most of the year they are in a state of abject want, and then they are
very humble. But in the strawberry season they make a little money, and
while it lasts are fat and saucy enough. We can't do anything with them,
they won't work. There they are in their cabins, just as you see them, a
poor, woe-begone set of vagabonds; a burden upon the community; of no use
to themselves, nor to anybody else."
"Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy and pursue with
eagerness the phantoms of hope, who expect that age will perform the
promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be
supplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Rasselas, here in his
happy valley."
"Now then," said my companion, as this trite quotation was passing through
my mind. The wagon had stopped in front of a little, weather-beaten house
that kept watch and ward over an acre of greensward, broken ever and anon
with a projecting bone of granite, and not only fenced with stone, but
dotted also with various mounds of pebbles, some as large as a
paving-stone, and some much larger. This was "Deer's Castle." In front of
the castle was a swing-sign with an inscription:
"William Deer, who lives here,
Keeps the best of wine and beer,
Brandy, and cider, and other good cheer;
Fish, and ducks, and moose, and deer.
Caught or shot in the woods just here,
With cutlets, or steaks, as will appear;
If you will stop you need not fear
But you will be well treated by WILLIAM DEER,
And by Mrs. DEER, his dearest, deary dear!"
I quote from memory. The precise words have escaped me, but the above is
the substance of the sense, and the metre is accurate.
It was a little, weather-beaten shanty of boards, that clung like flakes
to the frame-work. A show-box of a room, papered with select wood-cuts
from _Punch_ and the _Illustrated London News_, was the grand banquet-hall
of the castle. And indeed it was a castle compared with the wretched
redoubts of poverty around it. Here we changed horses, or rather we
exchanged our horse, for a diminutive, bantam pony, that, under the
supervision of "Bill," was put inside the shafts and buckled up to the
very roots of the harness. This Bill, the son and heir of the Castellen,
was a good-natured yellow boy, about fifteen years of age, with such a
development of under-lip and such a want of development elsewhere, that
his head looked like a scoop. There was an infinite fund of humor in
Billy, an uncontrollable sense of the comic, that would break out in spite
of his grave endeavors to put himself under guard. It exhibited itself in
his motions and gestures, in the flourish of his hands as he buckled up
the pony, in the looseness of his gait, the swing of his head, and the
roll of his eyes. His very language was pregnant with mirth; thus:
"Bill!"
"Cheh, cheh, sir? cheh."
"Is your father at home?"
"Cheh, cheh, father? cheh, cheh."
"Yes, your father?"
"Cheh, cheh, at home, sah? cheh."
"Yes, is your father at home?"
"I guess so, cheh, cheh."
"What is the matter with you, Bill? what are you laughing about?"
"Cheh, cheh, I don't know, sah, cheh, cheh."
"Well, take out the horse, and put in the pony; we want to go to
Chizzencook."
"Cheh, Cheh'z'ncook? Yes, sah," and so with that facetious gait and droll
twist of the elbow, Bill swings himself against the horse and unbuckles
him in a perpetual jingle of merriment.
"And this," said I to my companion, as we looked from the door-step of the
shanty upon the spiry tops of evergreens in the valley below us, and at
the wretched log-huts that were roosting up on the bare rocks around us,
"this is the negro settlement?"
"Yes," he replied.
"Are all the negro settlements in Nova Scotia as miserable, as this?"
"Yes," he answered; "you can tell a negro settlement at once by its
appearance."
"Then," I thought to myself, "I would, for poor Cuffee's sake, that
much-vaunted British sympathy and British philanthropy had something
better to show to an admiring world than the prospect around Deer's
Castle."
Notwithstanding the very generous banquet spread before the eyes of the
traveller, on the sign-board, we were compelled to dismiss the pleasant
fiction of the poet upon the announcement of Mrs. Deer, that "Nathin was
in de house 'cept bacon," and she "reckoned" she "might have an egg or two
by de time we got back from Chizzincook."
"But you have plenty of trout here in these streams?"
"Oh! yes, plenty, sah."
"Then let Bill catch some trout for us."
And so the pony being strapped up and buckled to the wagon, we left the
negro settlement for the French settlement. They are all in "settlements,"
here, the people of this Province. Centuries are mutable, but prejudices
never alter in the Colonies.
But we are again in the Acadian forest--a truce to moralizing--let us
enjoy the scenery. The road we are on is but a few miles from the
sea-shore, but the ocean is hidden from view by the thick woods. As we
ride along, however, we skirt the edges of coves and inlets that
frequently break in upon the landscape. There is a chain of fresh-water
lakes also along this road; sometimes we cross a bridge over a rushing
torrent; sometimes a calm expanse of water, doubling the evergreens at its
margin, comes in view; anon a gleam of sapphire strikes through the
verdure, and an ocean-bay with its shingly beach curves in and out between
the piny slopes. At last we reach the crest of a hill, and at the foot of
the road is another bridge, a house, a wharf, and two or three coasters at
anchor in a diminutive harbor. This is "Three Fathom Harbor." We are
within a mile of Chezzetcook.
Now if it were not for Pony we should press on to the settlement, but we
must give Pony a respite. Pony is an enthusiastic little fellow, but his
lungs are too much for him, they have blown him out like a bagpipe. A mile
farther and then eleven miles back to Deer's Castle, is a great
undertaking for so small an animal. In the meanwhile, we will ourselves
rest and take some "home-brewed" with the landlord, who is harbor-master,
inn-keeper, store-keeper, fisherman, shipper, skipper, mayor, and
corporation of Three Fathom Harbor, beside being father of the town, for
all the children in it are his own. A draught of foaming ale, a whiff or
two from a clay pipe, a look out of the window to be assured that Pony had
subsided, and we take leave of the corporate authority of Three Fathom
Harbor, and are once more on the road.
One can scarcely draw near to a settlement of these poor refugees without
a feeling of pity for the sufferings they have endured; and this spark of
pity quickly warms and kindles into indignation when we think of the story
of hapless Acadia--the grievous wrong done those simple-minded, harmless,
honest people, by the rapacious, free-booting adventurers of merry
England, and those precious filibusters, our Pilgrim Fathers.
The early explorations of the French in the young hemisphere which
Columbus had revealed to the older half of the world, have been almost
entirely obscured by the greater events which followed. Nearly a century
after the first colonies were established in New France, New England was
discovered. I shall not dwell upon the importance of this event, as it has
been so often alluded to by historians and others; and, indeed, I believe
it is generally acknowledged now, that the finding of the continent itself
would have been a failure had it not been for the discovery of
Massachusetts. As this, however, happened long after the establishment of
Acadia, and as the Pilgrim Fathers did not interfere with their French
neighbors for a surprising length of time, it will be as well not to
expatiate upon it at present. In the course of a couple of centuries or
so, I shall have occasion to allude to it, in connection with the story of
the neutral French.
In the year 1504, says the Chronicle, some fishermen from Brittany
discovered the island that now forms the eastern division of Nova Scotia,
and named it "Cape Breton." Two years after, Dennys of Harfleur, made a
rude chart of the vast sheet of water that stretches from Cape Breton and
Newfoundland to the mainland. In 1534, Cartier, sailing under the orders
of the French Admiral, Chabot, visited the coast of Newfoundland, crossed
the gulf Dennys had seen and described twenty-eight years before, and took
possession of the country around it, in the name of the king, his master.
As Cartier was recrossing the Gulf, on his return voyage, he named the
waters he was sailing upon "St. Lawrence," in honor of that saint whose
day chanced to turn up on the calendar at that very happy time. According
to some accounts, Baron de Lery established a settlement here as early as
1518. Some authorities state that a French colony was planted on the St.
Lawrence as early as 1524, and soon after others were formed in Canada and
Nova Scotia. In 1535, Cartier again crossed the waters of the Gulf, and
following the course of the river, penetrated into the interior until he
reached an island upon which was a hill; this he named "_Mont Real_."
Various adventurers followed these first discoverers and explorers, and
the coast was from time to time visited by French ships, in pursuit of the
fisheries.
Among these expeditions, one of the most eminent was that of Champlain,
who, in the year 1609, penetrated as far south as the head waters of the
Hudson River; visited Lake George and the cascades of Ticonderoga; and
gave his own name to the lake which lies between the proud shores of New
York and New England. Thence le Sr. Champlain, "_Capitaine pour le Roy_,"
travelled westward, as far as the country of the Hurons, giving to the
discovered territory the title of Nouvelle France; and to the lakes
Ontario, Erie, and Huron, the names of St. Louis, Mer Douce, and Grand
Lac; which any person can see by referring to the original chart in the
State library of New York. But before these discoveries of Champlain, an
important step had been taken by the parent government. In the year 1603,
an expedition, under the patronage of Henry IV., sailed for the New World.
The leader of this was a Protestant gentleman, by name De Monts. As the
people under his command were both Protestants and Catholics, De Monts had
permission given in his charter to establish, as one of the fundamental
laws of the Colony, the free exercise of "religious worship," upon
condition of settling in the country, and teaching the Roman Catholic
faith to the savages. Heretofore, all the countries discovered by the
French had been called New France, but in De Monts' Patent, that portion
of the territory lying east of the Penobscot and embracing the present
provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and part of Maine was named
"Acadia."
The little colony under De Monts flourished in spite of the rigors of the
climate, and its commander, with a few men, explored the coast on the St.
Lawrence and the bay of Fundy, as well as the rivers of Maine, the
Penobscot, the Kennebec, the Saco and Casco Bay, and even coasted as far
south as the long, hook-shaped cape that is now known in all parts of the
world as the famous Cape Cod. In a few years, the settlement began to
assume a smiling aspect; houses were erected, and lands were tilled; the
settlers planted seeds and gathered the increase thereof; gardens sprang
out of the wilderness, peace and order reigned everywhere, and the savage
tribes around viewed the kind, light-hearted colonists with admiration and
fraternal good-will. It is pleasant to read this part of the
chronicle--of their social meetings in the winter at the banqueting hall;
of the order of "_Le Bon Temps_," established by Champlain; of the great
pomp and insignia of office (a collar, a napkin, and staff) of the grand
chamberlain, whose government only lasted for a day, when he was
supplanted by another; of their dinners in the sunshine amid the
corn-fields; of their boats, banners, and music on the water; of their
gentleness, simplicity, and honest, hearty enjoyments. These halcyon days
soon came to an end. The infamous Captain Argall, hearing that a number of
white people had settled in this hyperborean region, set sail from
Jamestown for the colony, in a ship of fourteen guns, in the midst of a
profound peace, to burn, pillage, and slaughter the intruders upon the
territory of Virginia! Finding the people unprepared for defence, his
enterprise was successful. Argall took possession of the lands, in the
name of the King of England, laid waste some of the settlements, burned
the forts, and, under circumstances of peculiar perfidy, induced a number
of the poor Acadians to go with him to Jamestown. Here they were treated
as pirates, thrown into prison, and sentenced to be executed. Argall, who
it seems had some touch of manhood in his nature, upon this confessed to
the Governor, Sir Thomas Dale, that these people had a patent from the
King of France, which he had stolen from them and concealed, and that they
were not pirates, but simply colonists. Upon this, Sir Thomas Dale was
induced to fit out an expedition to dislodge the rest of them from Acadia.
Three ships were got ready, the brave Captain Argall was appointed
Commander-in-chief, and the first colony was terminated by fire and sword
before the end of the year. This was in 1613, ten years after the first
planting of Acadia.
"Some of the settlers," says the Chronicle, "finding resistance to be
unavailing, fled to the woods." What became of them history does not
inform us, but with a graceful appearance of candor, relates that the
transaction itself "was not approved of by the court of England, nor
resented by that of France." Five years afterward we find Captain Argall
appointed Deputy-Governor of Virginia.
This outrage was the initial letter only of a series that for nearly a
century and a half after, made the successive colonists of Acadia the prey
of their rapacious neighbors. We shall take up the story from time to
time, gentle reader, as we voyage around and through the province.
Meanwhile let us open our eyes again upon the present, for just below us
lies the village and harbor of Chezzetcook.
A conspiracy of earth and air and ocean had certainly broken out that
morning, for the ominous lines of Fog and Mist were hovering afar off upon
the boundaries of the horizon. Under the crystalline azure of a summer
sky, the water of the harbor had an intensity of color rarely seen, except
in the pictures of the most ultra-marine painters. Here and there a green
island or a fishing-boat rested upon the surface of the tranquil blue. For
miles and miles the eye followed indented grassy slopes, that rolled away
on either side of the harbor, and the most delicate pencil could scarcely
portray the exquisite line of creamy sand that skirted their edges and
melted off in the clear margin of the water. Occasional little cottages
nestle among these green banks, not the Acadian houses of the poem, "with
thatched roofs, and dormer windows projecting," but comfortable,
homely-looking buildings of modern shapes, shingled and un-weather-cocked.
No cattle visible, no ploughs nor horses. Some of the men are at work in
the open air; all in tarpaulin hats, all in tarry canvas trowsers. These
are boat-builders and coopers. Simple, honest, and good-tempered enough;
you see how courteously they salute us as we ride by them. In front of
every house there is a knot of curious little faces; Young Acadia is out
this bright day, and although Young Acadia has not a clean face on, yet
its hair is of the darkest and softest, and its eyes are lustrous and
most delicately fringed. Yonder is one of the veterans of the place, so we
will tie Pony to the fence, and rest here.
"Fine day you have here," said my companion.
"Oh yes! oh yes!" (with great deference and politeness).
"Can you give us anything in the way of refreshment? a glass of ale, or a
glass of milk?"
"Oh no!" (with the unmistakable shrug of the shoulders); "we no have milk,
no have ale, no have brandy, no have noting here: ah! we very poor peep'
here." (Poor people here.)
"Can we sit down and rest in one of your houses?"
"Oh yes! oh yes!" (with great politeness and alacrity); "walk in, walk in;
we very poor peep', no milk, no brandy: walk in."
The little house is divided by a partition. The larger half is the hall,
the parlor, kitchen, and nursery in one. A huge fire-place, an antique
spinning-wheel, a bench, and two settles, or high-backed seats, a table, a
cradle and a baby very wide awake, complete the inventory. In the
apartment adjoining is a bin that represents, no doubt, a French bedstead
of the early ages. Everything is suggestive of boat-builders, of Robinson
Crusoe work, of undisciplined hands, that have had to do with ineffectual
tools. As you look at the walls, you see the house is built of timbers,
squared and notched together, and caulked with moss or oakum.
"Very poor peep' here," says the old man, with every finger on his hands
stretched out to deprecate the fact. By the fire-side sits an old woman,
in a face all cracked and seamed with wrinkles, like a picture by one of
the old masters. "Yes," she echoes, "very poor peep' here, and very cold,
too, sometime." By this time the door-way is entirely packed with little,
black, shining heads, and curious faces, all shy, timid, and yet not the
less good-natured. Just back of the cradle are two of the Acadian women,
"knitters i' the sun," with features that might serve for Palmer's
sculptures; and eyes so lustrous, and teeth so white, and cheeks so rich
with brown and blush, that if one were a painter and not an invalid, he
might pray for canvas and pallet as the very things most wanted in the
critical moment of his life. Faed's picture does not convey the Acadian
face. The mouth and chin are more delicate in the real than in the ideal
Evangeline. If you look again, after the first surprise is over, you will
see that these are the traditional pictures, such as we might have fancied
they should be, after reading the idyl. From the forehead of each you see
at a glance how the dark mass of hair has been combed forward and over the
face, that the little triangular Norman cap might be tied across the crown
of the head. Then the hair is thrown back again over this, so as to form a
large bow in front, then re-tied at the crown with colored ribbons. Then
you see it has been plaited in a shining mesh, brought forward again, and
braided with ribbons, so that it forms, as it were, a pretty coronet,
well-placed above those brilliant eyes and harmonious features. This, with
the antique kirtle and picturesque petticoat, is an Acadian portrait. Such
is it now, and such it was, no doubt, when De Monts sailed from Havre de
Grace, two centuries and a half ago. In visiting this kind and simple
people, one can scarcely forget the little chapel. The young French priest
was in his garden, behind the little tenement, set apart for him by the
piety of his flock, and readily admitted us. A small place indeed was it,
but clean and orderly, the altar decorated with toy images, that were not
too large for a Christmas table. Yet I have been in the grandest
tabernacles of episcopacy with lesser feelings of respect than those which
were awakened in that tiny Acadian chapel. Peace be with it, and with its
gentle flock.
"Pony is getting impatient," said my companion, as we reverently stepped
from the door-way, "and it is a long ride to Halifax." So, with courteous
salutation on both sides, we take leave of the good father, and once more
are on the road to Deer's Castle.
CHAPTER III.
A Romp at Three Fathom Harbor--The Moral Condition of the Acadians--The
Wild Flowers of Nova Scotia--Mrs. Deer's Wit--No Fish--Picton--The
Balaklava Schooner--And a Voyage to Louisburgh.
Pony is very enterprising. We are soon at the top of the first long hill,
and look again, for the last time, upon the Acadian village. How cosily
and quietly it is nestled down amid those graceful green slopes! What a
bit of poetry it is in itself! Jog on, Pony!
The corporate authority of Three Fathom Harbor has been improving his time
during our absence. As we drive up we find him in high romp with a brace
of buxom, red-cheeked, Nova Scotia girls, who have just alighted from a
wagon. The landlady of Three Fathom Harbor, in her matronly cap, is
smiling over the little garden gate at her lord, who is pursuing his
Daphnes, and catching, and kissing, and hugging, first one and then the
other, to his heart's content. Notwithstanding their screams, and slaps,
and robust struggles, it is very plain to be seen that the skipper's
attentions are not very unwelcome. Leaving his fair friends, he catches
Pony by the bridle and stops us with a hospitable--"Come in--you must come
in; just a glass of ale, you'll want it;" and sure enough, we found when
we came to taste the ale, that we did want it, and many thanks to him, the
kind-hearted landlord of the Three Fathoms.
"It is surprising," said I to my companion, as we rolled again over the
road, "that these people, these Acadians, should still preserve their
language and customs, so near to your principal city, and yet with no more
affiliation than if they were on an island in the South Seas!"
"The reason of that," he replied, "is because they stick to their own
settlement; never see anything of the world except Halifax early in the
morning; never marry out of their own set; never read--I do not believe
one of them can read or write--and are in fact _so slow_, so destitute of
enterprise, so much behind the age"----
I could not avoid smiling. My companion observed it. "What are you
thinking about?" said he.
The truth is, I was thinking of Halifax, which was anything but a _fast_
place; but I simply observed:
"Your settlements here are somewhat novel to a stranger. That a mere
handful of men should be so near your city, and yet so isolated: that this
village of a few hundred only, should retain its customs and language,
intact, for generation after generation, within walking distance of
Halifax, seems to me unaccountable. But let me ask you," I continued,
"what is the moral condition of the Acadians?"
"As for that," said he, "I believe it stands pretty fair. I do not think
an Acadian would cheat, lie, or steal; I know that the women are virtuous,
and if I had a thousand pounds in my pocket I could sleep with confidence
in any of their houses, although all the doors were unlocked and everybody
in the village knew it."
"That," said I, "reminds one of the poem:
'Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows,
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of their owners;
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.'"
Poor exiles! You will never see the Gasperau and the shore of the Basin of
Minas, but if this very feeble life I have holds out, I hope to visit
Grandpre and the broad meadows that gave a name to the village.
One thing Longfellow has certainly omitted in "Evangeline"--the wild
flowers of Acadia. The roadside is all fringed and tasselled with white,
pink, and purple. The wild strawberries are in blossom, whitening the turf
all the way from Halifax to Chezzetcook. You see their starry settlements
thick in every bit of turf. These are the silver mines of poor Cuffee; he
has the monopoly of the berry trade. It is his only revenue. Then in the
swampy grounds there are long green needles in solitary groups, surmounted
with snowy tufts; and here and there, clusters of light purple blossoms,
called laurel flowers, but not like our laurels, spring up from the bases
of grey rocks and boulders; sometimes a rich array of blood-red berries
gleams out of a mass of greenery; then again great floral white radii,
tipped with snowy petals, rise up profuse and lofty; down by the ditches
hundreds of pitcher plants lift their veined and mottled vases, brimming
with water, to the wood-birds who drink and perch upon their thick rims;
May-flowers of delightful fragrance hide beneath those shining,
tropical-looking leaves, and meadow-sweet, not less fragrant, but less
beautiful, pours its tender aroma into the fresh air; here again we see
the buckthorn in blossom; there, scattered on the turf, the scarlet
partridge berry; then wild-cherry trees, mere shrubs only, in full bud;
and around all and above all, the evergreens, the murmuring pines, and the
hemlocks; the rampikes--the grey-beards of the primeval forest; the spicy
breath of resinous balsams; the spiry tops, and the serene heaven. Is this
fairy land? No, it is only poor, old, barren Nova Scotia, and yet I think
Felix, Prince of Salerno, if he were here, might say, and say truly too,
"In all my life I never beheld a more enchanting place;" but Felix, Prince
of Salerno, must remember this is the month of June, and summer is not
perpetual in the latitude of forty-five.
We reach at last Deer's Castle. Pony, under the hands of Bill, seems
remarkably cheerful and fresh after his long travel up hill and down. When
he pops out of his harness, with his knock-knees and sturdy, stocky little
frame, he looks very like an animated saw-buck, clothed in seal-skin; and
with a jump, and snort, and flourish of tail, he escorts Bill to the
stable, as if twenty miles over a rough road was a trifle not worth
consideration.
A savory odor of frying bacon and eggs stole forth from the door as we
sat, in the calm summer air, upon the stone fence. William Deer, Jr., was
wandering about in front of the castle, endeavoring to get control of his
under lip and keep his exuberant mirth within the limits of decorum; but
every instant, to use a military figure, it would flash in the pan. Up on
the bare rocks were the wretched, woe-begone, patched, and ragged log
huts of poor Cuffee. The hour and the season were suggestive of
philosophizing, of theories, and questions.
"Mrs. Deer," said I, "is that your husband's portrait on the back of the
sign?" (there was a picture of a stag with antlers on the reverse of the
poetical swing-board, either intended as a pictographic pun upon the name
of "Deer," or as a hint to sportsmen of good game hereabouts).
"Why," replied Mrs. Deer, an old tidy wench, of fifty, pretty well bent by
rheumatism, and so square in the lower half of her figure, and so spare in
the upper, that she appeared to have been carved out of her own hips:
"why, as to dat, he ain't good-looking to brag on, but I don't think he
looks quite like a beast neither."
At this unexpected retort, Bill flashed off so many pans at once that he
seemed to be a platoon of militia. My companion also enjoyed it immensely.
Being an invalid, I could not participate in the general mirth.
"Mrs. Deer," said I, "how long have you lived here?"
"Oh, sah! a good many years; I cum here afore I had Bill dar." (Here
William flashed in the pan twice.)
"Where did you reside before you came to Nova Scotia?"
"Sah?"
"Where did you live?"
"Oh, sah! I is from Maryland." (William at it again.)
"Did you run away?"
"Yes, sah; I left when I was young. Bill, what you laughing at? _I_ was
young once."
"Were you married then--when you run away?"
"Oh yes, sah!" (a glance at Bill, who was off again).
"And left your husband behind in Maryland?"
"Yes, sah; but he didn't stay long dar after I left. He was after me putty
sharp, soon as I travelled;" (here Mrs. Deer and William interchanged
glances, and indulged freely in mirth).
"And which place do you like the best--this or Maryland?"
"Why, I never had no such work to do at home as I have to do here,
grubbin' up old stumps and stones; dem isn't women's work. When I was
home, I had only to wait on misses, and work was light and easy." (William
quiet.)
"But which place do you like the best--Nova Scotia or Maryland?"
"Oh! de work here is awful, grubbin' up old stones and stumps; 'tain't
fit for women." (William much impressed with the cogency of this
repetition.)
"But which place do you like the best?"
"And de winter here, oh! it's wonderful tryin." (William utters an
affirmative flash.)
"But which place do you like the best?"
"And den dere's de rheumatiz."
"But which place do you like the best, Mrs. Deer?"
"Well," said Mrs. Deer, glancing at Bill, "I like Nova Scotia best."
(Whatever visions of Maryland were gleaming in William's mind, seemed to
be entirely quenched by this remark.)
"But why," said I, "do you prefer Nova Scotia to Maryland? Here you have
to work so much harder, to suffer so much from the cold and the
rheumatism, and get so little for it;" for I could not help looking over
the green patch of stony grass that has been rescued by the labor of a
quarter century.
"Oh!" replied Mrs. Deer, "de difference is, dat when I work here, I work
for myself, and when I was working at home, I was working for other
people." (At this, William broke forth again in such a series of platoon
flashes, that we all joined in with infinite merriment.)
"Mrs. Deer," said I, recovering my gravity, "I want to ask you one more
question."
"Well, sah," said the lady Deer, cocking her head on one side, expressive
of being able to answer any number of questions in a twinkling.
"You have, no doubt, still many relatives left in Maryland?"
"Oh! yes," replied Mrs. Deer, "_all_ of dem are dar."
"And suppose you had a chance to advise them in regard to this matter,
would you tell them to run away, and take their part with you in Nova
Scotia, or would you advise them to stay where they are?"
Mrs. Deer, at this, looked a long time at William, and William looked
earnestly at his parent. Then she cocked her head on the other side, to
take a new view of the question. Then she gathered up mouth and eyebrows,
in a puzzle, and again broadened out upon Bill in an odd kind of smile; at
last she doubled up one fist, put it against her cheek, glanced at Bill,
and out came the answer: "Well, sah, I'd let 'em take dere _own_ heads for
dat!" I must confess the philosophy of this remark awakened in me a train
of very grave reflections; but my companion burst into a most obstreperous
laugh. As for Mrs. Deer, she shook her old hips as long as she could
stand, and then sat down and continued, until she wiped the tears out of
her eyes with the corner of her apron. William cast himself down upon a
strawberry bank, and gave way to the most flagrant mirth, kicking up his
old shoes in the air, and fairly wallowing in laughter and blossoms. I
endeavored to change the subject. "Bill, did you catch any trout?" It was
some time before William could control himself enough to say, "Not a
single one, sah;" and then he rolled over on his back, put his black paws
up to his eyes, and twitched and jingled to his heart's content. I did not
ask Mrs. Deer any more questions; but there is a moral in the story,
enough for a day.
As we rattled over the road, after our brief dinner at Deer's Castle, I
could not avoid a pervading feeling of gloom and disappointment, in spite
of the balmy air and pretty landscape. The old ragged abodes of
wretchedness seemed to be too clearly defined--to stand out too
intrusively against the bright blue sky. But why should I feel so much for
Cuffee? Has he not enlisted in his behalf every philanthropist in England?
Is he not within ten miles of either the British flag or Acadia? Does not
the Duchess of Sutherland entertain the authoress of Uncle Tom's Cabin,
and the Black Swan? Why should I sorrow for Cuffee, when he is in the
midst of his best friends? Why should I pretend to say that this appears
to be the raggedest, the meanest, the worst condition of humanity, when
the papers are constantly lauding British philanthropy, and holding it up
as a great example, which we must "bow down and worship?" For my own part,
although the pleasant fiction of seeing Cuffee clothed, educated, and
Christianized, seemed to be somewhat obscured in this glimpse of his real
condition, yet I hope he will do well under his new owners; at the very
least, I trust his berry crop will be good, and that a benevolent British
blanket or two may enable him to shiver out the winter safely, if not
comfortably. Poor William Deer, Sen'r, of Deer's Castle, was suffering
with rheumatism in the next apartment, while we were at his eggs and bacon
in the banquet hall; but Deer of Deer's Castle is a prince to his
neighbors. I shall not easily forget the brightening eye, the swift glance
of intelligence in the face of another old negro, an hostler, in Nova
Scotia. He was from Virginia, and adopting the sweet, mellifluous language
of his own home, I asked him whether he liked best to stay where he was,
or go back to "Old Virginny?" "O massa!" said he, with _such_ a look, "you
_must know_ dat I has de warmest side for my own country!"
We rattled soberly into Dartmouth, and took the ferry-boat across the bay
to the city. At the hotel there was no little questioning about
Chezzetcook, for some of the Halifax merchants are at the Waverley. "GOED
bless ye, what took ye to Chizzencook?" said one, "I never was there een
in my life; ther's no bizz'ness ther, noathing to be seen: ai doant think
there is a maen in Halifax scairsly, 'as ever seen the place."
At the supper-table, while we were discussing, over the cheese and ale,
the Chezzetcook and negro settlements, and exhibiting with no little
vainglory a gorgeous bunch of wild flowers (half of which vanity my
_compagnon de voyage_ is accountable for), there was a young English-Irish
gentleman, well built, well featured, well educated: by name--I shall call
him Picton.
Picton took much interest in Deer's Castle and Chezzetcook, but slily and
satirically. I do not think this the best way for a young man to begin
with; but nevertheless, Picton managed so well to keep his sarcasms within
the bounds of good humor, that before eleven o'clock we had become pretty
well acquainted. At eleven o'clock the gas is turned off at Hotel
Waverley. We went to bed, and renewed the acquaintance at breakfast.
Picton had travelled overland from Montreal to take the "Canada" for
Liverpool, and had arrived too late. Picton had nearly a fortnight before
him in which to anticipate the next steamer. Picton was terribly bored
with Halifax. Picton wanted to go somewhere--where?--"he did not care
where." The consequence was a consultation upon the best disposal of a
fortnight of waste time, a general survey of the maritime craft of
Halifax, the selection of the schooner "Balaklava," bound for Sydney in
ballast, and an understanding with the captain, that the old French town
of Louisburgh was the point we wished to arrive at, into which harbor we
expected to be put safely--three hundred and odd miles from Halifax, and
this side of Sydney about sixty-two miles by sea. To all this did captain
Capstan "seriously incline," and the result was, two berths in the
"Balaklava," several cans of preserved meats and soups, a hamper of ale,
two bottles of Scotch whisky, a ramshackle, Halifax van for the luggage, a
general shaking of hands at departure, and another set of white sails
among the many white sails in the blue harbor of Chebucto.
The "Balaklava" glimmered out of the harbor. Slowly and gently we swept
past the islands and great ships; there on the shore is Point Pleasant in
full uniform, its red soldiers and yellow tents in the thick of the pines
and spruces; yonder is the admiralty, and the "Boscawen" seventy-four,
the receiving-ship, a French war-steamer, and merchantmen of all flags.
Slowly and gently we swept out past the round fort and long barracks, past
the lighthouse and beaches, out upon the tranquil ocean, with its ominous
fog-banks on the skirts of the horizon; out upon the evening sea, with the
summer air fanning our faces, and a large white Acadian moon, faintly
defined overhead.
Picton was a traveller; anybody could see that he was a traveller, and if
he had then been in any part of the habitable globe, in Scotland or
Tartary, Peru or Pennsylvania, there would not have been the least doubt
about the fact that he was a traveller travelling on his travels. He
looked like a traveller, and was dressed like a traveller. He had a
travelling-cap, a travelling-coat, a portable-desk, a life-preserver, a
water-proof blanket, a travelling-shirt, a travelling green leather
satchel strapped across his shoulder, a Minie-rifle, several trunks
adorned with geographical railway labels of all colors and languages,
cork-soled boots, a pocket-compass, and a hand-organ. As for the
hand-organ, that was an accident in his outfit. The hand-organ was a
present for a little boy on the other side of the ocean; but nevertheless,
it played its part very pleasantly in the cabin of the "Balaklava." And
now let me observe here, that when we left Halifax in the schooner, I was
scarcely less feeble than when I left New York. I mention it to show how
speedily "roughing it" on the salt water will bring one's stomach to its
senses.
The "Balaklava" was a fore-and-aft schooner in ballast, and very little
ballast at that; easily handled; painted black outside, and pink inside;
as staunch a craft as ever shook sail; very obedient to the rudder; of
some seventy or eighty tons burden; clean and neat everywhere, except in
the cabin. As for her commander, he was a fine gentleman; true, honest,
brave, modest, prudent and courteous. Sincerely polite, for if politeness
be only kindness mixed with refinement, then Captain Capstan was polite,
as we understand it. The mate of the schooner was a cannie Scot; by name,
Robert, Fitzjames, Buchanan, Wallace, Burns, Bruce; and Bruce was as jolly
a first-mate as ever sailed under the cross-bones of the British flag. The
crew was composed of four Newfoundland sailor men; and the cook, whose
h'eighth letter of the h'alphabet smacked somewhat strongly of H'albion.
As for the rest, there was Mrs. Captain Capstan, Captain and Mrs. Captain
Capstan's baby; Picton and myself. It is cruel to speak of a baby, except
in terms of endearment and affection, and therefore I could not but
condemn Picton, who would sometimes, in his position as a traveller,
allude to baby in language of most emphatic character. The fact is, Picton
_swore_ at that baby! Baby was in feeble health and would sometimes bewail
its fate as if the cabin of the "Balaklava" were four times the size of
baby's misfortunes. So Picton got to be very nervous and uncharitable, and
slept on deck after the first night.
"How do you like this?" said Picton, as we leaned over the side of the
"Balaklava," looking down at the millions of gelatinous quarls in the
clear waters.
"Oh! very much; this lazy life will soon bring me up; how exhilarating the
air is--how fresh and free!
"'A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep.'"
Just then the schooner gave a lurch and shook her feathers alow and aloft
by way of chorus. "I like this kind of life very much; how gracefully this
vessel moves; what a beautiful union of strength, proportion, lightness,
in the taper masts, the slender ropes and stays, the full spread and sweep
of her sails! Then how expansive the view, the calm ocean in its solitude,
the receding land, the twinkling lighthouse, the"----
"Ever been sea-sick?" said Picton, drily.
"Not often. By the way, my appetite is improving; I think Cookey is
getting tea ready, by the smoke and the smell."
"Likely," replied Picton; "let us take a squint at the galley."
To the galley we went, where we saw Cookey in great distress; for the wind
would blow in at the wrong end of his stove-pipe, so as to reverse the
draft, and his stove was smoking at every seam. Poor Cookey's eyes were
full of tears.
"Why don't you turn the elbow of the pipe the other way?" said Picton.
"Hi av tried that," said Cookey, "but the helbow is so 'eavy the 'ole
thing comes h'off."
"Then, take off the elbow," said Picton.
So Cookey did, and very soon tea was ready. Imagine a cabin, not much
larger than a good-sized omnibus, and far less steady in its motion,
choked up with trunks, and a table about the size of a wash-stand; imagine
two stools and a locker to sit on: a canvas table-cloth in full blotch;
three chipped yellow mugs by way of cups; as many plates, but of great
variety of gap, crack, and pattern; pewter spoons; a blacking-bottle of
milk; an earthen piggin of brown sugar, embroidered with a lively gang of
great, fat, black pismires; hard bread, old as Nineveh; and butter of a
most forbidding aspect. Imagine this array set before an invalid, with an
appetite of the most Miss Nancyish kind!
"One misses the comforts here at sea," said the captain's lady, a pretty
young woman, with a sweet Milesian accent.
"Yes, ma'am," said I, glancing again at the banquet.
"I don't rightly know," she continued, "how I forgot the rocking-chair;"
and she gave baby an affectionate squeeze.
"And that," said the captain, "is as bad as me forgetting the potatoes."
Pic and I sat down, but we could neither eat nor drink; we were very soon
on deck again, sucking away dolefully at two precious cigars. At last he
broke out:
"By gad, to think of it!"
"What is the matter?" said I.
"Not a potato on board the 'Balaklava!'"
So we pulled away dolefully at our segars, in solemn silence.
"Picton," said I, "did you ever hear 'Annie Laurie?'"
"Yes," replied Picton, "about as many times as I want to hear it."
"Don't be impolite, Picton," said I; "it is not my intention to sing it
this evening. Indeed, I never heard it before I heard it in Halifax. I had
the good fortune to make one of a very pleasant company, at the house of
an old friend in the city, and I must say that song touched me, both the
song and the _singing_ of it. You know it was _the_ song in the Crimea?"
"Yes," said Picton, smoking vigorously.
"I asked Major ----," said I, "if 'Annie Laurie' was sung by the soldiers
in the Crimea; and he replied 'they did not sing anything else; they sang
it,' said he, 'by thousands at a time.' How does it go, Picton? Come now!"
So Picton held forth under the moon, and sang "Annie Laurie" on the
"Balaklava." And long after we turned in, the music kept singing on--
"Her voice is low and sweet,
And she's all the world to me;
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me down and dee."
CHAPTER IV.
The Voyage of the "Balaklava"--Something of a Fog--A Novel
Sensation--Picton bursts out--"Nothing to do"--Breakfast under Way--A
Phantom Boat--Mackerel--Gone, Hook and Line--The Colonists--Sectionalism
and Prejudices--Cod-fishing and an Unexpected Banquet--Past the Old French
Town--A Pretty Respectable Breeze--We get past the Rocks--Louisburgh.
"Picton!"
"Hallo!" replied the traveller, sitting up on his locker; "what is the
matter now?"
"Nothing, only it is morning; let us get up, I want to see the sun rise
out of the ocean."
"Pooh!" replied Picton, "what do you want to be bothering with the sun
for?" And again Picton rolled himself up in his sheet-rubber
travelling-blanket, and stretched his long body out on the locker. I got
up, or rather got down, from my berth, and casting a bucket over the
schooner's side soon made a sea-water toilet. I forgot to mention the
sleeping arrangements of the "Balaklava." There were two lower berths on
one side the cabin, either of which was large enough for two persons; and
two single upper berths on the other side, neither of which was large
enough for one person. At the proper hour for retiring, the captain's lady
shut the cabin-door to keep out intruders, deliberately arrayed herself in
dimity, turned in with baby in one of the large berths, and reoepened the
door. There she lay, wide awake, with her bright eyes twinkling within the
folds of her night cap, unaffected, chatty, and agreeable; then the
captain divested himself of boots and pea-jacket and turned in beside his
lady (the mate slept, when off his watch, in the other double berth).
Picton rolled himself up in his blanket and stretched out on his locker; I
climbed into the narrow coop, over the salt beef and hard biscuit
department; and so we dozed and talked until sleep reigned over all. In
the morning the ceremonies were reversed, with the exception of the
Captain, who was up first. "I never see a man sleep so little as the
captain," said Bruce; "about two hoors, an' that's aw."
The sun was already risen when I came out on the deck of the "Balaklava;"
but where _was_ the sun? Indeed, where was the ocean, or anything? The
schooner was barely making steerage-way, with a light head-wind, over a
small patch of water, not much larger apparently than the schooner
herself. The air was filled with a luminous haze that appeared to be
penetrable by the eye, and yet was not; that seemed at once open and
dense; near yet afar off; close yet diffuse; contracted yet boundless.
There was no light nor shade, no outline, distance, aerial perspective.
There was no east and west, nor blushing Aurora, rising from old Tithonus'
bed; nor blue sky, nor green sea, nor ship, nor shore, nor color, tint,
hue, ray, or reflection. There was nothing visible except the sides of the
vessel, a maze of dripping rigging, two sailors bristling with drops, and
the captain in a shiny sou-wester. The feeling of seclusion and security
was complete, although we might have been run down by another vessel at
any moment; the air was deliciously bland, invigorating, and pregnant with
life; to breathe it was a transport; you felt it in every globule of
blood, in every pore of the lungs. I could have hugged that fog, I was so
happy!
Up and down the rolling deck I marched, and with every inspiration of the
moist air, felt the old, tiresome, lingering sickness floating away. Then
I was startled with a new sensation, I began to get hungry!
It was between four and five o'clock in the morning, and the "Balaklava"
did not breakfast until eight. Reader, were you ever hungry _at sea_?
Were you ever on deck, upon the measureless ocean, four hours earlier than
the ring of the breakfast-bell? Were you ever awake on the briny deep, in
advance, when the cook had yet two hours to sleep; when the stove in the
galley was cold, and the kindling-wood unsplit; the coffee still in its
tender, green, unroasted innocence? Were you ever upon "the blue, the
fresh, the ever free," under these circumstances? If so, I need not say to
_you_ that the sentiment, then and there awakened, is stronger than
avarice, pride, ambition or, love.
Presently Picton burst out like a flower on deck, in a mass of over-coats,
with an India-rubber mackintosh by way of calyx. These were his
night-clothes. Picton could do nothing except in full costume; he could
not fish, in ever so small a stream, without being booted to the hips; nor
shoot, in ever so good a cover, without being jacketed above the hips. He
shaved himself in front of a silver-mounted dressing-case, wrote his
letters on a portable secretary, drew off his boots with a patent
boot-jack, brewed his punch with a peripatetic kettle, and in fact carried
a little London with him in every quarter of the globe. "Well," said
Picton, looking around at the fog with a low and expressive whistle, "this
_is_ serene!"
Although Picton used the word "serene" ironically, just as a man riding in
an omnibus and suddenly discovering that he was destitute of the needful
sixpence might exclaim, "This is pleasant," yet the phrase was not out of
place. The "Balaklava" was gliding lazily over the water, at the rate of
three knots an hour, sometimes giving a little lurch by way of shaking the
wet out of her invisible sails, for the fog obscured all her upper canvas,
and the mind and body easily yielded to the lullaby movement of the
vessel. Talk of lotus-eating; of Castles of Indolence; of the dreamy ether
inhaled from amber-tubed narghile; of poppy and mandragora, and all the
drowsy syrups of the world; of rain upon the midnight roof; the cooing of
doves, the hush of falling snow, the murmur of brooks, the long summer
song of grasshoppers in the field, the tinkling of fountains, and
everything else that can soothe, lull, or tranquillize; and what are these
to the serenity of this sail-swinging, ripple-stirring, gently-creaking
craft, in her veil of luminous vapor? "How delightful this is!" said I.
The traveller eyed me with surprise, but at last comprehending the idea,
admitted, that with the exception of the fog and the calm, the scarcity of
news, the damp state of the decks, and the want of the morning papers, it
was very charming indeed. Then the traveller got a little restive, and
began to peer closely into the fog, and look aloft to see if he could make
out the stay-sails, and then he entered into a long confidential talk with
the captain, in relation to the chances of "getting on," of a fresh breeze
springing up, and the fog lifting; whether we should make Louisburgh by
to-morrow night, and if not, when; with various other salt-water
speculations and problems. Then Picton climbed up on the patent-windlass
to get a full view of the fog at the end of the bow-sprit, and took
another survey of the buried stay-sails, and the flying-jib. Then he and
the Newfoundland sailor on the look-out, had a long consultation of great
gravity and importance; and finally he turned around and came up to the
place where I was standing, and broke out: "I say, what the devil are we
to do with ourselves this morning?"
"What are we to do?" That eternal question. It instantly seemed to double
the thickness of the fog, to arrest the slow movement of the vessel.
Picton had nothing to do for a fortnight, and I had left home with the
sole object of going somewhere where soul and body could rest. "Nothing to
do," was precisely the one thing needful. "Nothing to do," is exquisite
happiness, for real happiness is but a negation. "Nothing to do," is
repose for the body, respite for the mind. It is an ideal hammock
swinging in drowsy tropical groves, apart from the roar of the busy,
relentless world; away from the strife of faction, the toils of business,
the restless stretch of ambition, wealth's tinsel pride, poverty's galling
harness. "Nothing to do," is the phantom of young Imagination, the
evanescent hope that promises to crown
"A youth of labor with an age of ease."
"Nothing to do," was the charm that lured us on board the "Balaklava," and
now "nothing to do," was with us like the Bottle-Imp, an incubus, still
crying out: "You may yet exchange me for a smaller coin, if such there
be!" "Nothing to do," is an imposture. Something to do is the very life of
life, the beginning and end of being. "Picton," said I, "one thing we must
do, at least, this morning."
"What is that?" replied the traveller, eagerly opening his mackintosh, and
drawing it off so as to be ready to do it.
"Taking into consideration the slow and sleepy nature of this climate, the
thickness of the fog, the faint, thin air that impels the vessel, the
early time of day, and the regulations of the 'Balaklava,' it seems to me
we shall have to be steadily occupied, for at least three hours, in
waiting for breakfast."
Then Picton got hungry! He was a large, stout man, wrapped up by a
multitude of garments to the thickness of a polar bear, and when he got
hungry, it was on a scale of corresponding dimensions. First he alluded to
the fact that we had gone supperless to bed the night before; then he
buttoned up his mackintosh, had a brief interview with the captain,
shouted down the gang-way for the cook, and finally disappeared in the
forecastle. Then he came up again with that officer, rummaged in the
galley for the ship's hatchet, and split up all the kindling-wood on deck;
then he shed his petals (mackintosh and over-coats) and instructed Cookey
in the mystery of building a fire. Then he emerged from the intolerable
smoke he had raised in the galley, and devoted himself to the stove-pipe
outside, Cookey, meanwhile, within the caboose, getting the benefit of all
the experiments.
At last a faint smell of coffee issued forth from the caboose, a little
Arabia breathed through the humid atmosphere, and a sound, as if Cookey
were stirring the berries in a pan, was heard in the midst of the smoke.
Meanwhile Picton descends in the hold with a bucket of salt-water to enjoy
the luxury of a bath, and reappears in full toilet just as Cookey is
grinding the berries, burnt and green, with a hand-mill between his knees.
The pan by this time is put to a new use; it is now lined with bacon in
full frizzle; presently it will be turned to account as a bake-pan, for
pearl-ash cakes of chrome-yellow complexion: everything must take its
turn; the pan is the actor of all work; it accepts coffee, cakes, pork,
fish, pudding, besides being general dish-washer and soup-warmer, as we
found out before long.
During the preparation of these successive courses, Picton and I sat on
deck in hungry silence. Now and then an anxious glance at the galley, or a
tormenting whiff of the savory viands, would give new life to the demon
that raged within us. I believe if Cookey had accidentally upset the
coffee tea-kettle, and put out the fire, his sanctuary would have been
sacked instantly. Eight o'clock came, and yet we had not broken bread. We
walked up and down the deck to relieve our appetites. At last we saw the
three cracked mugs, our tea-cups, which had been our ale-glasses of the
night before, brought up for a rinse, and then we knew that breakfast was
not far off. The cloth was spread, the saffron cakes, ship's butter,
yellow mugs, coffee, pork, and pismires temptingly arrayed. We did not
wait to hear the cook ring the bell. We watched him as he came up with it
in his hand, and squeezed past him before he shook out a single vibration.
Then we made a MEAL!
Breakfast being over, the fog lightened a little. Our tiny horizon widened
its boundaries a few hundred feet, or so; we could see once more the
top-mast of the schooner. So we lazily swung along, with nothing to do
again. Sometimes a distant fog-bell; sometimes a distant sound across the
face of the deep, like the falling of cataract waters.
"What is that sound, Bruce?"
"It's the surf breakin' on the rocks," responds Bruce; "I hae been
listenen to it for hoors."
"Are we then so near shore?"
"About three miles aff," replies the mate.
Presently we heard the sound of human voices; a laugh; the stroke of oars
in the row-locks, plainly distinguishable in the mysterious vapor. The
captain hailed: "Hallo!" "Halloo!" echoes in answer. The strokes of the
oars are louder and quicker; they are approaching us, but where? "Halloo!"
comes again out of the mist. And again the captain shouts in reply. Then a
white phantom boat, thin, vapory, unsubstantial, now seen, now lost again,
appears on the skirts of our horizon.
"Where are we?" asks the captain.
"Off St. Esprit," answer the boatmen.
"What are you after?" asks the captain.
"Looking for our nets," is the reply; and once more boat and boatmen
disappear in the luminous vapor. These are _mackerel fishermen_; their
nets are adrift from their stone-anchors: the fish are used for bait in
the cod-fisheries, as well as for salting down. If we could but come
across the nets, what a rare treat we might have at dinner!
Lazily on we glide--nothing to do. Picton is reading a stunning book; the
captain, his lady, the baby, and I making a small family circle around the
wheel; the mate is on the look-out over the bows; all at once, he shouts
out: "_There they are! the nets!_" Down goes Picton's book on the deck;
Bruce catches up a rope and fastens it to a large iron hook; the sailors
run to the side of the vessel; captain releases his forefinger from baby's
hand, and catches the wheel; all is excitement in a moment. "_Starboard!_"
shouts the mate, as the nets come sweeping on, directly in front of the
cut-water. The schooner obeys the wheel, sheers off, and now, as the
floats come along sidewise, Bruce has dropped his hook in the mesh--_it
takes hold!_ and the heavy mass is partially raised up in the water.
"Thousands of them," says Picton; sure enough, the whole net is alive with
mackerel, splashing, quivering, glistening. "Catch hold here, I canna
hold them; O the beauties!" says the mate. Some grasp at the rope, others
look around for another hook. "Hauld 'em! hauld 'em!" shouts Bruce; but
the weighty piscatorial mass is too much for us, it will drag us
desperately along the deck to the stern of the vessel. The schooner is
going slowly, but still she is going. Another hook is rigged and thrown at
the struggling mesh; but it breaks loose, the mackerel are dragging behind
the rudder; we are at our rope's end. At last, rope, hook, and nets are
abandoned, and again we have nothing to do.
High noon, and a red spot visible overhead; the captain brings out his
sextant to take an observation. This proceeding we viewed with no little
interest, and, for the humor of the thing, I borrowed the sextant of the
captain and took a satirical view of a great luminary in obscurity. As I
had the instrument upside down, the sailors were in convulsions of
laughter; but why should we not make everybody happy when we have it in
our power?
High noon, and again hunger overtook us. Picton, by this time, had brought
out the cans of preserved meats, the curried tin chicken, the portable
soup, the ale and pickles. The cook was put upon duty; pot and pan were
scoured for more delicate viands; Picton was _chef de cuisine_; we had a
magnificent banquet that day on the "Balaklava."
To give a zest to the entertainment, the captain's lady dined with us; the
mate kindly undertaking the charge of the baby.
When we came on deck, after a repast that would have been perfect but for
the absence of potatoes, Bruce was marching up and down, dangling the baby
in a way that made it appear all legs; "I doan't see," said he, "hoo a
wummun can lug a baby all day aboot in her airms! I hae only carried this
one half an 'our, and boath airms is sore. But I suppose it's naturely,
it's naturely--everything to its nature."
The dinner having been a success, Picton was in great spirits for the rest
of the day. The fog spread its munificent halo around us, and before
nightfall broke into myriads of white rainbows--sea-dogs the sailors call
them--and finally lifted so high that we could see the spectral moon
shining through the thin rack. Once more we sang "Annie Laurie;" the
traveller brought out his travelling blanket for a dewy slumber on deck;
the lady of the "Balaklava" put on her night-cap and retired with baby to
the double berth: Bruce took the helm. As I was passing the light in the
binnacle, I looked in at the compass for a moment. "She's nailed there,"
said the old mate. Nailed there, true to her course, as steadfast to the
guiding rudder as truth is to religion. We were but a few miles from a
dangerous coast, in a vessel of the frailest kind, but she was "nailed
there," obedient to man's intelligence, and that was security and safety.
What a text to say one's prayers upon!
"Picton," said I, the next morning, after the schooner-breakfast, "it
seems to me the strangest thing that Mrs. Capstan should have the pure
Irish pronunciation and the mate the thorough Scotch brogue, although both
were born in Newfoundland, and of Newfoundland parents. I must confess to
no small amount of surprise at the complete isolation of the people of
these colonies; the divisions among them; the separate pursuits,
prejudices, languages; they seem to have nothing in common; no aggregation
of interests; it is existence without nationality; sectionalism without
emulation; a mere exotic life with not a fibre rooted firmly in the soil.
The colonists are English, Irish, Scotch, French, for generation after
generation. Why is this, O Picton? Why is it that the captain's lady has
high cheek-bones, and speaks the pure Hibernise? why is the only railroad
in the colony but nine and three-quarter miles long, and the great
Shubenacadie Canal yet unfinished, although it was begun in the year
1826; a canal fifty-three mortal miles in length, already engineered and
laid out by nature in a chain of lakes, most conveniently arranged with
the foot of each little lake at the head of the next one--like 'orient
pearls at random strung'--requiring but a few locks to be complete: the
head of the first lake lying only twelve hundred and ten yards from
Halifax harbor, and the Shubenacadie River itself at the other end,
emptying in the place of destination, namely, the Basin of Minas; a work
that, if completed, would cut off more than three hundred miles of outside
voyaging around a stormy, foggy, dangerous coast; a work that was
estimated to cost but seventy-five thousand pounds, and for which fifteen
thousand pounds had already been subscribed by the government; a work that
would be the saving of so many vessels, crews, and cargoes of so much
value; a work that would traverse one of the most fertile countries in
America; a work that would bring the inland produce within a few hours of
the seaboard; a work so necessary, so obvious, so easily completed, that
no Yankee could see it undone, if it were within the limits of his county,
and have one single night's rest until the waters were leaping from lock
to lock, from lake to lake in one continuous flood of prosperity from
Minas to Chebucto? Why is this, O traveller of the 'Balaklava?'"
"The reason of it all," replied Picton, with great equanimity of manner,
"is entirely owing to the stupidity of the people here; the British
government is the best government, sir, in the world; it fosters,
protects, and supports the colonies, with a sort of parental care, sir;
the colonies, sir, afford no recompense to the British government for its
care and protection, sir; each colony is only a bill of expense, sir, to
the mother country, and if, with all these advantages, the people of these
colonies will persist, sir, in being behind the age, sir, what can we do
to prevent it, I would like to know, sir?"
"It does seem to me, Picton, this fostering, protecting, and paying the
governmental expenses of the colonies, is very like pampering and amusing
a child with sweetmeats and nick-nacks, and at the same time keeping it in
leading-strings. It is very certain that these colonists would not be the
same people if their ancestors had been transplanted, a century or so ago,
to our side of the Bay of Fundy; no, not even if they had pitched their
tents at the 'jumping-off place,' as it is called--Eastport, for even
there they would have produced a crop of pure Yankees, although grown from
divers nations, religions, and tongues."
Here Picton turned up his lip, and smiled out of a little battery of
sarcasm: "And you think," said he, after a pause, "that these colonists
would no longer revel in those little prejudices and sectionalisms so dear
to every American heart, if they were transplanted to your own favored
coasts? Why, sir, there is more sectionalism in the country you would
transport these people to, than in any one nation I ever heard of; every
one of your States is a petty principality; it has its own separate
interests; its own bigoted boundaries; its conventionalisms; its pet laws;
and as for its prejudices, I will just ask you, as a candid man, not as a
Yankee, but as a traveller like myself, a cosmopolite, if you please, what
you think of the two great eternal States of Massachusetts and South
Carolina, and whether prejudices and sectionalisms are to be fairly
charged upon these colonies, and upon them only?"
"Picton, I will be frank with you. The States you name are looked upon as
the great game-cocks of the Union, and we give them a tolerably large
arena to fight their battles in. Either champion has flapped its wings and
crowed its loudest, and drawn in its local backers, but the great States
of my country are not these two. I feel at this moment an almost
irrepressible desire to instance a single one as an example; but insomuch
as nobody has ever flapped wing or crowed because of it, I will not be the
first to break the silence. This much I will say, there are some States,
and those the very greatest in the Union, that neither claim to be, nor
make a merit of being _provincial_."
"But, even in your State, you have your stately prejudices," said Picton,
with a marked emphasis upon the "stately."
"No, sir, we have no stately prejudices, at least among those entitled to
have them, the native-born citizens; nor do I believe such prejudices
exist in many of the States with us at home, sir."
"But as you admit there is a sectional barrier between your people," said
Picton, "I do not see why our form of government is not as wise as your
form of government."
"The difference, Picton, is simply this: your government is foreign, and
almost unchangeable; ours is local, and mutable as the flux and reflux of
the tide. As a consequence, sectionalism is active with us, and apathetic
with you. Your colonists have nothing to care for, and we have everything
to care for."
"Then," said Picton, "we can sleep while you struggle?"
"Yes, Picton, that is the question----
'Whether 'tis best to roam or rest.
The land's lap, or the water's breast?'
We think it is best to choose the active instead of the stagnant; if a man
cannot take part in the great mechanism of humanity, better to die than to
sleep. And Picton, so far as this is concerned, so far as the general
interests of humanity are concerned, your colonists are only _dead men_,
while our "stately" men are individually responsible, not only to their
own kind, but to all human kind, and herein each form of government tells
its own story."
"I think you are rather severe upon poor Nova Scotia this morning," said
Picton, drily.
"You mistake me, Picton; I do not intend to cast any reflections upon the
people; I am only contrasting the effects produced by two different forms
of government upon neighboring bodies of men that would have been alike
had either a republican or monarchical rule obtained over both."
"Likely," said Picton, sententiously.
Meantime the schooner was lazily holding her course through the fog, which
was now dense as ever. What an odd little bit of ocean this is to be on!
"The sea, the sea, the open sea," all your own, with a diameter of perhaps
forty yards. Picton, who is full of activity, begins to unroll the log
line; the captain turns the glass, away goes the log. "Stop," "not three
knots!" and then comes the question again: "What shall we do?--we are
getting becalmed!"
"By Jove!" said Picton, slapping his thigh, "I have it--_cod-fish_!"
There are plenty of hooks on board the "Balaklava," and unfortunately only
one cod-line; but what with the deep-sea lead-and-line, and a roll of blue
cord, with a spike for a sinker, and the hooks, we are soon in the midst
of excitement. Now we almost pray for a calm; the schooner _will_ heave
ahead, and leave the lines astern; but nevertheless, up come the fine
fish, and plenty of them, too; the deck is all flop and glister with cod,
haddock, pollock; and Cookey, with a short knife, is at work with the
largest, preparing them for the banquet, according to the code
Newfoundland. Certainly the art of "cooking a cod-fish" is not quite
understood, except in this part of the world. The white flakes do not
exhibit the true conchoidal fracture in such perfection elsewhere; nor
break off in such delicious morsels, edged with delicate brown. "Another
bottle of ale, please, and a granitic biscuit, and a pickle, by way of
dessert."
Lazily along swings the "Balaklava." Picton brings up his travelling
blanket, and we stretch out upon it on deck, basking in the warm, humid
light, and leisurely puffing away at our segars, for we have nothing else
to do. Towards evening it grows colder, very much colder; over-coats are
in requisition; the captain says we are nearing some icebergs; the fog
folds itself up and hangs above us in strips of cloud, or rolls away in
voluminous masses to the edges of the horizon. The stars peep out between
the strips overhead, the moon sends forth her silver vapors and finally
emerges from the "crudded clouds;" the wake of the schooner is one long
phosphoric trail of flame; the masts are creaking, sails stretching, the
waters pouring against the bows; out on the deep, white crests lift and
break, the winds are loosened, and now good speed to the "Balaklava."
Meanwhile, the hitherto listless Newfoundland men are now wide awake, and
busy; the man at the wheel is on the alert; the captain is looking at his
charts; Picton and I walking the deck briskly, but unsteadily, to keep off
the cold; Mrs. Capstan has turned in with the baby. Blacker and larger
waves are rising, with whiter crests; on and on goes the schooner with dip
and rise--tossing her yards as a stag tosses his antlers. On and on goes
the brave "Balaklava," the captain at the bows on the look-out; the sky is
mottled with clouds, but fortunately there is no fog; nine, ten o'clock,
and at last a light begins to lift in the distance. "Is it Louisburgh
light, captain?" "I don't make it out yet," replies Captain Capstan, "but
I think it is not." After a pause, he adds: "Now I see what it is; it is
Scattarie light--we have passed Louisburgh."
This was not pleasant; we had undertaken the voyage for the sake of
visiting the old French town. To be sure, it was a great disappointment.
But then we were rapidly nearing Scattarie light; and after we doubled the
island, the wind would be right astern of us, and by breakfast time we
would be in the harbor of Sydney.
"Captain," said we, after a brief consultation, "we will leave the matter
entirely to you; although we had hoped to see Louisburgh this night, yet
we can visit it overland to-morrow; and as the wind is so favorable for
you, why, crack on to Sydney, if you like."
With that we resumed our walk to keep up the circulation.
"It is strange," said Picton, "the captain should have passed the light
without seeing it."
"Ever since we left Richmond," said the man at the wheel, "his eyes has
been weak, so as he couldn't see as good as common."
"Did you see the light?" we asked.
"Oh, yes; I can see it now, right astern of us."
We looked, and at last made it out: a faint, nebulous star, upon the very
edge of the gloomy waters.
"There is the light, captain."
"Where?"
"Right astern."
The captain walked aft to the steersman and peered anxiously in the
distance. Then he came forward again, and shouted down the forecastle:
"Hallo, hallo, turn out there! all hands on deck! turn out, men! turn
out!"
"What now, captain?"
"Nothing," said he, "only I am going to _about-ship_."
And sure enough, the little schooner came up to the wind; the men hauled
away at the sheets, the sails fluttered--filled upon the new tack, and in
a few minutes our bows were pointed for Louisburgh.
The "Balaklava" had barely broadened out her sails to the fair wind, after
she had been put about, when we were conscious of an increased straining
and chirping of the masts and sails, an uneasy, laborious motion of the
vessel; of blacker and larger waves, of whiter and higher crests, that
sometimes broke over the bows, even, and made the deck wet and slippery.
The moon was now rising high, but the clouds were rapidly thickening, and
her majesty seemed to be reeling from side to side, as we bore on, with
plunge and shudder, for the light ahead of us. Bruce had taken the wheel;
all hands were on deck, and all busy, hauling upon this rope or that,
taking in the stay-sails and flying-jib, as the captain shouted out from
time to time; and looking ahead, with no little appearance of anxiety.
"Ah! she's a pretty creature," said the mate; "look there," nodding with
his head at the compass, "did'na I tell you? She's nailed there." Then he
broke out again: "Ay, she's a flyin' noo; see hoo she's _raisin' the
light_!"
It was, indeed, surprising to see the great beacon rising higher and
higher out of the water.
"Is it a good harbor, Bruce?"
"_When ye get in_," answered the mate; "but it's narrar, it's narrar; ye
can pitch a biscuit ashore as ye go through; and inside o't is the 'Nag's
Head,' a sunken bit o' rock, with about five feet water; if ye _miss_
that, ye're aw right!" We were now rapidly approaching the beacon, and
could fairly see the rocks and beach in the track of its light. On the
other side there were great masses of savage surf, whirling high up in the
night, the indications of the three islands on the west of the harbor. The
captain had climbed up in the rigging to keep a good look-out ahead; the
light of the beacon broadened on the deck; we were within the very jaws
of the crags and surf; the wild ocean beating against the doors of the
harbor; the churning, whirling, whistling danger on either side, lighted
up by the glare of the beacon! past we go, and, with a sweep, the
"Balaklava" evades the "Nag's Head," and rounding too, drops sail and
anchor beside the walls of Louisburgh.
Then the thick fog, which had been pursuing us, came, and enveloped all in
obscurity.
"It is lucky," said Captain Capstan, "that it didn't come ten minutes
sooner."
CHAPTER V.
Louisburgh--The Great French Fortress--Incidents of the Old French
War--Relics of the Siege--Description of the Town--The two Expeditions--A
Yankee _ruse de guerre_--The Rev. Samuel Moody's Grace--Wolfe's
Landing--The Fisherman's Hutch--The Lost Coaster--The Fisheries--Picton
tries his hand at a fish-pugh.
Nearly a century has elapsed since the fall of Louisburgh. The great
American fortress of Louis XV. surrendered to Amherst, Wolfe, and Boscawen
in 1758. A broken sea-wall of cut stone; a vast amphitheatre, inclosed
within a succession of green mounds; a glacis; and some miles of
surrounding ditch, yet remain--the relics of a structure for which the
treasury of France paid Thirty Millions of Livres!
We enter where had been the great gate, and walk up what had been the
great avenue. The vision follows undulating billows of green turf that
indicate the buried walls of a once powerful military town. Fifteen
thousand people were gathered in and about these walls; six thousand
troops were locked within this fortress, when the key turned in the
stupendous gate.
A hundred years since, the very air of the spot where we now stand,
vibrated with the chime of the church-bells and the roll of the stately
organ, or wafted to devout multitudes the savor of holy incense. Here were
congregated the soldiers, merchants, artisans of old France; on these high
walls paced the solemn sentry; in these streets the nun stole past in her
modest hood; or the romantic damsel pressed her cheek to the latticed
window, as the young officer rode by and, martial music filled the avenues
with its inspiring strains; in yonder bay floated the great war-ships of
Louis; and around the shores of this harbor could be counted battery after
battery, with scores of guns bristling from the embrasures.
The building of this stronghold was a labor of twenty-five years. The
stone walls rose to the height of thirty-six feet. In those broken arches,
studded with stalactites, those casemates, or vaults of the citadel, you
still see some evidence of its former strength. You will know the citadel
by them, and by the greater height of the mounds which mark the walls that
once encompassed it. Within these stood the smaller military chapel. Think
of looking down from this point upon those broad avenues, busy with life,
a hundred years ago!
Neither roof nor spire remain now; nor square nor street; nor convent,
church, or barrack. The green turf covers all: even the foundations of the
houses are buried. It is a city without an inhabitant. Dismantled cannon,
with the rust clinging in great flakes; scattered implements of war;
broken weapons, bayonets, gun-locks, shot, shell or grenade, unclaimed,
untouched, corroded and corroding, in silence and desolation, with no
signs of life visible within these once warlike parapets except the
peaceful sheep, grazing upon the very brow of the citadel, are the only
relics of once powerful Louisburgh.
Let us recall the outlines of its history. In the early part of the last
century, just after the death of Louis XIV., these foundations were laid,
and the town named in honor of the ruling monarch. Nova Scotia proper had
been ceded, by recent treaty, to the filibusters of Old and New-England,
but the ancient Island of Cape Breton still owned allegiance to the lilies
of France. Among the beautiful and commodious harbors that indent the
southern coast of the island, this one was selected as being most easy of
access. Although naturally well adapted for defence, yet its fortification
cost the government immense sums of money, insomuch as all the materials
for building had to be brought from a distance. Belknap thus describes it:
"It was environed, two miles and a half in circumference, with a rampart
of stone from thirty to thirty-six feet high, and a ditch eighty feet
wide, with the exception of a space of two hundred yards near the sea,
which was inclosed by a dyke and a line of pickets. The water in this
place was shallow, and numerous reefs rendered it inaccessible to
shipping, while it received an additional protection from the side-fire of
the bastions. There were six-bastions and eight batteries, containing
embrasures for one hundred and forty-eight cannon, of which forty-five
only were mounted, and eight mortars. On an island at the entrance of the
harbor was planted a battery of thirty cannon, carrying twenty-eight pound
shot; and at the bottom of the harbor was a grand, or royal battery, of
twenty-eight cannon, forty-two pounders, and two eighteen-pounders. On a
high cliff, opposite to the island-battery, stood a light house, and
within this point, at the north-east part of the harbor, was a careening
wharf, secure from all winds, and a magazine of naval stores. The town was
regularly laid out in squares; the streets were broad and commodious, and
the houses, which were built partly of wood upon stone foundations, and
partly of more durable materials, corresponded with the general appearance
of the place. In the centre of one of the chief bastions was a stone
building, with a moat on the side near the town, which was called the
citadel, though it had neither artillery nor a structure suitable to
receive any. Within this building were the apartments of the governor, the
barracks for the soldiers, and the arsenal; and, under the platform of the
redoubt, a magazine well furnished with military stores. The parish
church, also, stood within the citadel, and without was another, belonging
to the hospital of St. Jean de Dieu, which was an elegant and spacious
structure. The entrance to the town was over a drawbridge, near which was
a circular battery, mounting sixteen guns of fourteen-pound shot."
This cannon-studded harbor was the naval depot of France in America, the
nucleus of its military power, the protector of its fisheries, the key of
the gulf of St. Lawrence, the Sebastopol of the New World. For a quarter
of a century it had been gathering strength by slow degrees: Acadia, poor
inoffensive Acadia, from time to time, had been the prey of its rapacious
neighbors; but Louisburgh had grown amid its protecting batteries, until
Massachusetts felt that it was time for the armies of Gad to go forth and
purge the threshing-floor with such ecclesiastical iron fans as they were
wont to waft peace and good will with, wherever there was a fine opening
for profit and edification.
The first expedition against Louisburgh was only justifiable upon the
ground that the wants of New England for additional territory were
pressing, and immediate action, under the circumstances, indispensable.
Levies of colonial troops were made, both in and out of the territories of
the saints. The forces, however, actually employed, came from
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire; the first supplying three
thousand two hundred, the second five hundred, the third three hundred
men. The cooeperation of Commodore Warren, of the English West-Indian
fleet, was solicited; but the Commodore declined, on the ground "that the
expedition was wholly a provincial affair, undertaken without the assent,
and probably without the knowledge, of the ministry." But Governor Shirley
was not a man to stop at trifles. He had a heart of lignum vitae, a rigid
anti-papistical conscience, beetle brows, and an eye to the cod-fisheries.
Higher authority than international law was pressed into the service.
George Whitefield, then an itinerant preacher in New-England, furnished
the necessary warrant for the expedition, by giving a motto for its
banner: "_Nil desperandum Christo duce_"--Nothing is to be despaired of
with CHRIST for leader. The command was, however, given to William
Pepperel, a fish and shingle merchant of Maine. One of the chaplains of
the filibusters carried a hatchet specially sharpened, to hew down the
wooden images in the churches of Louisburgh. Everything that was needed to
encourage and cheer the saints, was provided by Governor Shirley,
especially a goodly store of New England rum, and the Rev. Samuel Moody,
the lengthiest preacher in the colonies. Louisburgh, at that time feebly
garrisoned, held out bravely in spite of the formidable array concentrated
against it. In vain the Rev. Samuel Moody preached to its high stone
walls; in vain the iconoclast chaplain brandished his ecclesiastical
hatchet; in vain Whitefield's banner flaunted to the wind. The fortress
held out against shot and shell, saint, flag and sermon. New England
ingenuity finally circumvented Louisburgh. Humiliating as the confession
is, it must be admitted that our pious forefathers did actually abandon
"CHRISTO duce," and used instead a little worldly artifice.
Commodore Warren, who had declined taking a part in the siege of
Louisburgh, on account of the regulations of the service, had received,
after the departure of the expedition, instructions to keep a look-out for
the interests of his majesty in North America, which of course could be
readily interpreted, by an experienced officer in his majesty's service,
to mean precisely what was meant to be meant. As a consequence, Commodore
Warren was speedily on the look-out, off the coast of Cape Breton, and in
the course of events fell in with, and captured, the "Vigilant,"
seventy-four, commanded by Captain Stronghouse, or, as his title runs,
"the Marquis de la Maison Forte." The "Vigilant" was a store-ship, filled
with munitions of war for the French town. Here was a glorious
opportunity. If the saints could only intimate to Duchambon, the Governor
of Louisburgh, that his supplies had been cut off, Duchambon might think
of capitulation. But unfortunately the French were prejudiced against the
saints, and would not believe them under oath. But when probity fails, a
little ingenuity and artifice will do quite as well. The chief of the
expedition was equal to the emergency. He took the Marquis of Stronghouse
to the different ships on the station, where the French prisoners were
confined, and showed him that they were treated with great civility; then
he represented to the Marquis that the New England prisoners were cruelly
dealt with in the fortress of Louisburgh; and requested him to write a
letter, in the name of humanity, to Duchambon, Governor, in behalf of
those suffering saints; "expressing his approbation of the conduct of the
English, and entreating similar usuage for those whom the fortune of war
had thrown in his hands." The Marquis wrote the letter; thus it begins:
"On board the 'Vigilant,' _where I am a prisoner_, before Louisburgh, June
thirteen, 1745." The rest of the letter is unimportant. The confession of
Captain Stronghouse, that he was a prisoner, was the point; and the
consequences thereof, which had been foreseen by the filibustering
besiegers, speedily followed. In three days Louisburgh capitulated.
Then the Rev. Samuel Moody greatly distinguished himself. He was a painful
preacher; the most untiring, persevering, long-winded, clamorous,
pertinacious vessel at craving a blessing, in the provinces. There was a
great feast in honor of the occasion. But more formidable than the siege
itself, was the anticipated "grace" of Brother Moody. New England held its
breath when he began, and thus the Reverend Samuel: "Good Lord, we have so
many things to thank Thee for, that time will be infinitely too short to
do it; we must therefore leave it for the work of eternity."
Upon this there was great rejoicing, yea, more than there had been upon
the capture of the French stronghold. Who shall say whether Brother
Moody's brevity may not stretch farther across the intervals of time than
the longest preaching ever preached by mortal preacher?
In three years after its capture, Louisburgh was restored to the French by
the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Ten years after its restoration, a heavier
armament, a greater fleet, a more numerous army, besieged its almost
impregnable walls. Under Amherst, Boscawen, and Wolfe, no less than
twenty-three ships of war, eighteen frigates, sixteen thousand land
forces, with a proportionable train of cannon and mortars, were arrayed
against this great fortress in the year 1758. Here, too, many of our own
ancestral warriors were gathered in that memorable conflict; here Gridley,
who afterwards planned the redoubt at Bunker Hill, won his first laurels
as an engineer; here Pomeroy distinguished himself, and others whose names
are not recorded, but whose deeds survive in the history of a republic.
The very drum that beat to arms before Louisburgh was braced again when
the greater drama of the Revolution opened at Concord and Lexington.
The siege continued for nearly two months. From June 8th until July 26th,
the storm of iron and fire--of rocket, shot, and shell--swept from yonder
batteries, upon the castellated city. Then when the King's, the Queen's,
the Dauphin's bastions were lying in ruins, the commander, Le Chevalier
de Drucour, capitulated, and the lilies of the Bourbon waved over
Louisburgh no more.
And here we stand nearly a century after, looking out from these war-works
upon the desolate harbor. At the entrance, the wrecks of three French
frigates, sunk to prevent the ingress of the British fleet, yet remain;
sometimes visited by our still enterprising countrymen, who come down in
coasters with diving-bell and windlass, to raise again from the deep,
imbedded in sea-shells, the great guns that have slept in the ooze so
long. Between those two points lay the ships of the line, and frigates of
Louis; opposite, where the parapets of stone are yet visible, was the
grand battery of forty guns: at Lighthouse Point yonder, two thousand
grenadiers, under General Wolfe, drove back the French artillerymen, and
tamed their cannon upon these mighty walls. Here the great seventy-four
blew up; there the English boats were sunk by the guns of the fortress;
day and night for many weeks this ground has shuddered with the thunders
of the cannonade.
And what of all this? we may ask. What of the ships that were sunk, and
those that floated away with the booty? What of the soldiers that fell by
hundreds here, and those that lived? What of the prisoners that mourned,
and the captors that triumphed? What of the flash of artillery, and the
shattered wall that answered it? Has any benefit resulted to mankind from
this brilliant achievement? Can any man, of any nation, stand here and
say: "This work was wrought to my profit?" Can any man draw such a breath
here amid these buried walls, as he can upon the humblest sod that ever
was wet with the blood of patriotism? I trow not.
A second time in possession of this stronghold, England had not the means
to maintain her conquest; the fortification was too large for any but a
powerful garrison. A hundred war-ships had congregated in that harbor:
frigates, seventy-fours, transports, sloops, under the _Fleur-de-lis_.
Although Louisburgh was the pivot-point of the French possessions, yet it
was but an outside harbor for the colonies. So the order went forth to
destroy the town that had been reared with so much cost, and captured with
so much sacrifice. And it took two solid years of gunpowder to blow up
these immense walls, upon which we now sadly stand, O gentle reader! Turf,
turf, turf covers all! The gloomiest spectacle the sight of man can dwell
upon is the desolate, but once populous, abode of humanity. Egypt itself
is cheerful compared with Louisburgh!
"It rains," said Picton.
It had rained all the morning; but what did that matter when a hundred
years since was in one's mind? Picton, in his mackintosh, was an
impervious representative of the nineteenth century; but I was as fully
saturated with water as if I were living in the place under the old French
_regime_.
"Let us go down," said Picton, "and see the jolly old fishermen outside
the walls. What is the use of staying here in the rain after you have seen
all that can be seen? Come along. Just think how serene it will be if we
can get some milk and potatoes down there."
There are about a dozen fishermen's huts on the beach outside the walls of
the old town of Louisburgh. When you enter one it reminds you of the
descriptive play-bill of the melo-drama--"Scene II.: Interior of a
Fisherman's Cottage on the Sea-shore: Ocean in the Distance." The walls
are built of heavy timbers, laid one upon another, and caulked with moss
or oakum. Overhead are square beams, with pegs for nets, poles, guns,
boots, the heterogeneous and picturesque tackle with which such ceilings
are usually ornamented. But oh! how clean everything is! The knots are
fairly scrubbed out of the floor-planks, the hearth-bricks red as
cherries, the dresser-shelves worn thin with soap and sand, and white as
the sand with which they have been scoured. I never saw drawing-room that
could compare with the purity of that interior. It was cleanliness itself;
but I saw many such before I left Louisburgh, in both the old town and the
new.
We sat down in the "hutch," as they call it, before a cheery wood-fire,
and soon forgot all about the outside rain. But if we had shut out the
rain, we had not shut out the neighboring Atlantic. That was near enough;
the thunderous surf, whirling, pouring, breaking against the rocky shore
and islands, was sounding in our ears, and we could see the great white
masses of foam lifted against the sky from the window of the hutch, as we
sat before the warm fire.
"You was lucky to get in last night," said the master of the hutch, an
old, weather-beaten fisherman.
"Yes," replied Picton, surveying the grey head before him with as much
complacency as he would a turnip; "and a serene old place it is when we
get in."
To this the weather-beaten replied by winking twice with both eyes.
"Rather a dangerous coast," continued Picton, stretching out one thigh
before the fire. "I say, don't you fishermen often lose your lives out
there?" and he pointed to the mouth of the harbor.
"There was only two lives lost _in seventy years_," replied the old man
(this remarkable fact was confirmed by many persons of whom we asked the
same question during our visit), "and one of them was a young man, a
stranger here, who was capsized in a boat as he was going out to a vessel
in the harbor."
"You are speaking now of lives lost in the fisheries," said Picton, "not
in the coasting trade."
"Oh!" replied the old man, shaking his head, "the coasting trade is
different; there is a many lives lost in that. Last year I had a brother
as sailed out of this in a shallop, on the same day as yon vessel,"
pointing to the Balaklava; "he went out in company with your captain; he
was going to his wedding, he thought, poor fellow, for he was to bring a
young wife home with him from Halifax, but he got caught in a storm off
Canseau, and we never heard of the shallop again. He was my youngest
brother, gentlemen."
It was strange to be seated in that old cottage, listening to so dreary a
story, and watching the storm outside. There was a wonderful fascination
in it, nevertheless, and I was not a little loth to leave the bright
hearth when the sailors from the schooner came for us and carried us on
board again to dinner.
The storm continued; but Picton and I found plenty to do that day.
Equipped with oil-skin pea-jackets and sou'-westers, with a couple of
_fish-pughs_, or poles, pointed with iron, we started on a cruise after
lobsters, in a sort of flat-bottomed skiff, peculiar to the place, called
a _dingledekooch_. And although we did not catch one lobster, yet we did
not lose sight of many interesting particulars that were scattered around
the harbor. And first of the fisheries. All the people here are directly
or indirectly engaged in this business, and to this they devote themselves
entirely; farming being scarcely thought of. I doubt whether there is a
plough in the place; certainly there was not a horse, in either the old or
new town, or a vehicle of any kind, as we found out betimes.
The fishing here, as in all other places along the coast, is carried on in
small, clinker-built boats, sharp at both ends, and carrying two sails. It
is marvellous with what dexterity these boats are handled; they are out in
all weathers, and at all times, night or day, as it happens, and although
sometimes loaded to the gunwale with fish, yet they encounter the roughest
gales, and ride out storms in safety, that would be perilous to the
largest vessels.
"I can carry all sail," said one old fellow, "when the captain there would
have to take in every rag on the schooner."
And such, too, was the fact. These boats usually sail a few miles from the
shore, rarely beyond twelve; the fish are taken with hand-lines generally,
but sometimes a set line with buoys and anchors is used. The fish, are
cured on _flakes_, or high platforms, raised upon poles from the beach, so
that one end of the staging is over the water. The cod are thrown up from
the boat to the flake by means of the fish-pugh--a sort of one-pronged,
piscatory pitchfork--and cleaned, salted, and cured there; then spread out
to dry on the flake, or on the beach, and packed for market. _Nothing can
be neater and cleaner than the whole system of curing the fish!_ popular
opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. The fishermen of Louisburgh are a
happy, contented, kind, and simple people. Living, as they do, far from
the jarring interests of the busy world, having a common revenue, for the
ocean supplies each and all alike; pursuing an occupation which is
constant discipline for body and soul; brave, sincere, and hospitable by
nature, for all of these virtues are inseparable from their relations to
each other; one can scarcely be with them, no matter how brief the visit,
without feeling a kindred sympathy; without having a vague thought of
"sometime I may be only too glad to escape from the world and accept this
humble happiness instead;" without a dreamy idea of "Perhaps _this_, after
all, is the real Arcadia!"
While I was indulging in these reflections, it was amusing to see Picton
at work! The heads and entrails of the cod-fish, thrown from the "flakes"
into the water, attract thousands of the baser tribes, such as sculpins,
flounders, and toad-fish, who feed themselves fat upon the offals, and
enjoy a peaceful life under the clear waters of the harbor. As the
dingledekooch floated silently over them, they lay perfectly quiet and
unsuspicious of danger, although within a few feet of the fatal fish-pugh,
and in an element almost as transparent as air. Lobster, during the storm,
had gone off to other grounds; but here were great flat flounders and
sculpin, within reach of the indefatigable Picton. Down went the fish-pugh
and up came the game! The bottom of the skiff was soon covered with the
spearings of the traveller. Great flounders, those sub-marine buckwheat
cakes; sculpins, bloated with rage and wind, like patriots out of office;
toad-fish, savage and vindictive as Irishmen in a riot. Down went the
fish-pugh! It was rare sport, and no person could have enjoyed it more
than Picton--except perhaps some of the veteran fishermen of Louisburgh,
who were gathered on the beach watching the doings in the dingledekooch.
CHAPTER VI.
A most acceptable Invitation--- An Evening in the Hutch--Old Songs--Picton
in High Feather--Wolfe and Montcalm--Reminiscences of the Siege--Anecdotes
of Wolfe--A Touch of Rhetoric and its Consequences.
Quite a little crowd of fishermen gathered around us, as the dingledekooch
ran bows on the beach, and Picton, warm with exercise and excitement,
leaped ashore, flourishing his piscatorial javelin with an air of triumph,
which oddly contrasted with the faces of the Louisburghers, who looked at
him and at his game, with countenances of great gravity--either real or
assumed. Presently, another boat ran bows on the beach beside our own, and
from this jumped Bruce, our jolly first mate, who had come ashore to spend
a few hours with an old friend, at one of the hutches. To this we were
hospitably invited also, and were right glad to uncase our limbs of stiff
oil-skin and doff our sou'-westers, and sit down before the cheery fire,
piled up with spruce logs and hackmatack; comfortable, indeed, was it to
be thus snugly housed, while the weather outside was so lowering, and the
schooner wet and cold with rain. To be sure, our gay and festive hall was
not so brilliant as some, but it was none the less acceptable on that
account; and, before long, a fragrant rasher of bacon, fresh eggs, white
bread, and a strong cup of bitter tea made us feel entirely happy. Then
these viands being removed, there came pipes and tobacco; and as something
else was needed to crown the symposium, Picton whispered a word in the ear
of Bruce, who presently disappeared, to return again after a brief
absence, with some of our stores from the schooner. Then the table was
decked again, with china mugs of dazzling whiteness, lemons, hot water,
and a bottle of old Glenlivet; and from the centre of this gallant show,
the one great lamp of the hutch cast its mellow radiance around, and
nursed in the midst of its flame a great ball of red coal that burned like
a bonfire. Then, when our host, the old fisherman, brought out a bundle of
warm furs, of moose and cariboo skins, and distributed them around on the
settles and broad, high-backed benches, so that we could loll at our ease,
we began to realize a sense of being quite snug and cozy, and, indeed, got
used to it in a surprisingly short space of time.
"Now, then," said Picton, "this is what I call serene," and the traveller
relapsed into his usual activity; after a brief respite--"I say, give us
a song, will you, now, some of you; something about this jolly old place,
now--'Brave Wolfe,' or 'Boscawen,'" and he broke out--
"'My name d'ye see's Tom Tough, I've seen a little sarvice,
Where mighty billows roll and loud tempests blow;
I've sailed with noble Howe, and I've sailed with noble Jarvis,
And in Admiral Duncan's fleet I've sung yeo, heave, yeo!
And more ye must be knowin',
I was cox'son to Boscawen
When our fleet attacked Louisburgh,
And laid her bulwarks low.
But push about the grog, boys!
Hang care, it killed a cat,
Push about the grog, and sing--
Yeo, heave, yeo!'"
"Good Lord!" said the old fisherman, "I harn't heard that song for more'n
thirty years. Sing us another bit of it, please."
But Picton had not another bit of it; so he called lustily for some one
else to sing. "Hang it, sing something," said the traveller. "'How stands
the glass around;' that, you know, was written by Wolfe; at least, it was
sung by him the night before the battle of Quebec, and they call it
Wolfe's death song--
'How stands the glass around?
For shame, ye take no care, my boys!
How stands the glass around?'"
Here Picton forgot the next line, and substituted a drink for it, in
correct time with the music:
"'The trumpets sound;
The colors flying are, my boys,
To fight, kill, or wound'"----
Another slip of the memory [drink]:
"'May we still be found,'"
He has found it, and repeats emphatically:
"'May we still be found!
Content with our hard fare, my boys,
[all drink]
On the cold ground!'
"Then there is another song," said Picton, lighting his pipe with coal and
tongs; "'Wolfe and Montcalm'--you must know that," he continued,
addressing the old fisherman. But the ancient trilobite did not know it;
indeed, he was not a singer, so Picton trolled lustily forth--
"'He lifted up his head,
While the cannons did rattle,
To his aid de camp he said,
'How goes the battail?'
The aid de camp, he cried,
''Tis in our favor;'
'Oh! then,' brave Wolfe replied,
'I die with pleasure!'"
"There," said Picton, throwing himself back upon the warm and cosy furs,
"I am at the end of my rope, gentlemen. Sing away, some of you," and the
traveller drew a long spiral of smoke through his tube, and ejected it in
a succession of beautiful rings at the beams overhead.
"Picton," said I, "what a strange, romantic interest attaches itself to
the memory of Wolfe. The very song you have sung, 'How stands the glass
around,' although not written by him, for it was composed before he was
born, yet has a currency from the popular belief that he sang it on the
evening preceding his last battle. And, indeed, it is by no means certain
that Gray's Elegy does not derive additional interest from a kindred
tradition."
"What is that?" said the traveller.
"Of course you will remember it. When Gray had completed the Elegy, he
sent a copy of it to his friend, General Wolfe, in America; and the story
goes, that as the great hero was sitting, wrapped in his military cloak,
on board the barge which the sailors were rowing up the St. Lawrence,
towards Quebec, he produced the poem, and read it in silence by the waning
light of approaching evening, until he came to these lines, which he
repeated aloud to his officers:
'The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour'----"
Then pausing for a moment, he finished the stanza:
"'The paths of glory lead but to the grave.'"
"Gentlemen," he added, "I would rather be the writer of this poem, than
the greatest conqueror the world ever produced."
"That's true," said the old fisherman, sententiously. "We are all bound to
that place, sometime or other."
"What place?" said Picton, rousing up.
"The berrying-ground," answered the ancient; "that is if we don't get
overboard instead."
"But," he continued, "since you are speaking of General Wolfe, you must
know my grandfather served under him at Minden, and at the battle here,
too, where he was wounded, and left behind, when the general went back to
England."
"I thought he went from this place to Quebec," said Picton.
"No, sir," replied the old man, "he went first to London, and came back
again, and then went to Canada. Well," he continued, "my grandfather
served under him, and was left here to get over his wownds, and so he
married my grandmother, and lived in Louisburgh after the French were all
sent away." Here the veteran placed his paws on the table, and looked out
into the infinite. We could see we were in for a long story. "All the
French soldiers and sailors, you see, were sent to England prisoners of
war--and the rest of the people were sent to France; the governor of this
here place was named Drucour; he was taken to Southampton, and put in
prison. Well now, as I was saying, this hutch of mine was built by my
father, just here by Wolfe's landing, for grandfather took a fancy to have
it built on this spot; you see, Wolfe rowed over one night in a boat all
alone from Lighthouse point yonder, and stood on the beach right under
this here old wall, looking straight up at the French sentry over his
head, and taking a general look at the town on both sides. There wasn't a
man in all his soldiers who would have stood there at that time for a
thousand pounds."
"What do you suppose the old file was doing over here?" inquired Picton,
who was getting sleepy.
"I don't know," answered our host, "except it was his daring. He was the
bravest man of his time, I've heard say--and so young"----
"Two and thretty only," said Bruce.
"And a tall, elegant officer, too," continued the ancient fisherman.
"I've heard tell how the French governor's lady used to send him
sweetmeats with a flag of truce, and he used to return his compliments and
a pine apple, or something of that kind. Ah, he was a great favorite with
the ladies! I've heard say, he was much admired for his elegant style of
dancing, and always ambitious to have a tall and graceful lady for his
partner, and then he was as much pleased as if he was in the thick of the
fight. He was a great favorite with the soldiers, too; very careful of
them, to see they were well nursed when they were sick, and sharing the
worst and the best with them; but my grandfather used to say, very strict,
too."
"Who was in command here, Wolfe or Amherst?"
"General Amherst was in command, and got the credit of it, too; but Wolfe
did the fighting--so grandfather used to say."
"What was the name of his leddy in the old country?" said Bruce.
"I do not remember," replied the ancient, "but I've heard it. You know he
was to be married, when he got back to England. And when the first shot
struck him in the wrist, at Quebec, he took out _her_ handkerchief from
his breast-pocket, smiled, wrapped it about the place, and went on with
the battle as if nothing had happened. But, soon after he got another
wound, and yet he wasn't disheartened, but waved his ratan over his head,
for none of the officers carried swords there, and kept on, until the
third bullet went through and through his breast, when he fell back, and
just breathed like, till word was brought that the French were retreating,
when he said, then 'I am content,' and so closed his eyes and died."
Here there was a pause. Our entertainer, waving his hand towards our mugs
of Glenlivet, by way of invitation, lifted his own to his mouth by the
handle, and with a dexterous tilt that showed practice, turned its bottom
towards the beams of the hutch.
"Do you remember any farther particulars of the siege of Louisburgh?" I
asked.
"Oh, yes," replied the old man, "I remember grandfather telling us how he
saw the bodies of fifteen or sixteen deserters hanging over the walls;
they were Germans that had been sold to the French, four years before the
war, by a Prussian colonel. Some of them got away, and came over to our
side. He used to say, the old town looked like a big ship when they came
up to it; it had two tiers of guns, one above the other, on the
south--that is towards Gabarus bay, where our troops landed. And now I
mind me of his telling that when they landed at Gabarus, they had a hard
fight with the French and Indians, until Col. Fraser's regiment of
Highlanders jumped overboard, and swam to a point on the rocks, and drove
the enemy away with their broad-swords."
"That was the 63d Highlanders," said Bruce, with immense gravity.
"Among the Indians killed at Gabarus," continued our host, "they say there
was one Micmac chief, who was six feet nine inches high. The French
soldiers were very much frightened when the Highland men climbed up on the
rocks; they called them English savages."
"That showed," said Bruce, "what a dommed ignorant set they were!"
"And, while I think of it," added our host, rising from his seat, "I have
a bit of the old time to show you," and so saying, he retreated from the
table, and presently brought forth a curious oak box from a mysterious
corner of the hutch, and after some difficulty in drawing out the sliding
cover, produced a roll of tawny newspapers, tied up with rope yarn, a
colored wood engraving in a black frame--a portrait, with the inscription,
"James Wolfe, Esq'r, Commander in Chief of His Majesty's Forces in the
Expedition to Quebec," and on the reverse the following scrap from the
London Chronicle of October 7, 1759:
"Amidst her conquests let Britannia groan
For Wolfe! her gallant, her undaunted son;
For Wolfe, whose breast bright Honor did inspire
With patriot ardor and heroic fire;
For Wolfe, who headed that intrepid band,
Who, greatly daring, forced Cape Breton's strand.
For Wolfe, who following still where glory call'd,
No dangers daunted, no distress appall'd;
Whose eager zeal disasters could not check,
Intent to strike the blow which gained Quebec.
For Wolfe, who, like the gallant Theban, dy'd
In th' arms of victory--his country's pride."
This inscription I read aloud, and then, under the influence of the
loquacious potable, leaned back in my furry throne, crossed my hands over
my forehead, looked steadily into the blazing fire-place, and continued
the theme I had commenced an hour before.
"What a strange interest attaches itself to the memory of Wolfe! A
youthful hero, who, under less happy auspices, might have been known only
as the competent drill-master of regiments, elevated by the sagacity of
England's wisest statesman to a prominent position of command; there to
exhibit his generalship; there to retrieve the long list of disasters
which followed Braddock's defeat; there to annihilate forever every
vestige of French dominion in the Americas; to fulfill gloriously each
point of his mission; to achieve, not by long delays, but by rapid
movements, the conquest of two of the greatest fortresses in the
possession of the rival crown; to pass from the world amid the shouts of
victory--content in the fullness of his fame, without outliving it! His
was a noble, generous nature; brave without cruelty; ardent and warlike,
yet not insensible to the tenderest impulses of humanity. To die betrothed
and beloved, yet wedded only to immortal honor; to leave a mother, with a
nation weeping at her feet; to serve his country, without having his
patriotism contaminated by titles, crosses, and ribbons; this was the most
fortunate fate of England's greatest commander in the colonies! No wonder,
then, that with a grateful sympathy the laurels of his mother country were
woven with the cypress of her chivalric son; that hundreds of pens were
inspired to pay some tribute to his memory; that every branch of
representative art, from stone to ink, essayed to portray his living
likeness; that parliament and pulpit, with words of eloquence and
gratitude, uttered the universal sentiment!
"Brave Wolfe," I continued, "whose memory is linked with his no less
youthful rival, Montcalm"----here I was interrupted by the voice of the
mate of the Balaklava--
"I'll be dommed," said he, "if some person isn't afire!"
Then I unclasped my hands, opened my eyes, and looked around me.
The scene was a striking one. Right before me, with his grey head on the
table, buried in his piscatorial paws, lay the master of the hutch, fast
asleep. On a settle, one of the fishermen, who had been a devout listener
to all the legends of the grandson of the veteran of Louisburgh, was in a
similar condition; Bruce, our jolly first mate, with the pertinacity of
his race, was wide awake, to be sure, but there were unmistakable signs of
drowsiness in the droop of his eyelids; and Picton? That gentleman, buried
in moose and cariboo skins, prostrate on a broad bench, drawn up close by
the fire-place, was dreaming, probably, of sculpins, flounders, fish-pugh,
and dingledekooch!
"I say! wake up here!" said the jolly mate of the Balaklava; bringing his
fist down upon the table with an emphatic blow, that roused all the
sleepers except the traveller. "I say, wake up!" reiterated Brace, shaking
Picton by the shoulder. Then Picton raised himself from his couch, and
yawned twice; walked to the table, seated himself on a bench, thrust his
fingers through his black hair, and instantly fell asleep again, after
shaking out into the close atmosphere of the hutch a stifling odor of
animal charcoal.
"A little straw makes a great reek," said Bruce, laughing, "and when a mon
gives out before his pipe, he is like to be burnet," and he pointed to a
long black and brown singe on the worsted comforter of the traveller, by
which we understood that Picton had fallen asleep, pipe in mouth, and then
dropped his lighted _dudeen_ just on the safest part of his neck.
Once again we roused the sleeper; and so, shaking hands with our
hospitable host, we left the comfortable hutch at Wolfe's Landing, and
were soon on our way to the jolly little schooner.
CHAPTER VII.
The other side of the Harbor--A Foraging Party--Disappointment--Twilight
at Louisburgh--Long Days and Early Mornings--A Visit and View of an
Interior--A Shark Story--Picton inquires about a Measure--Hospitality and
the Two Brave Boys--Proposals for a Trip overland to Sydney.
To make use of a quaint but expressive phrase, "it is patent enough," that
travellers are likely to consume more time in reaching a place than they
are apt to bestow upon it when found. And, I am ashamed to say, that even
Louisburgh was not an exception to this general truth; although perhaps
certain reasons might be offered in extenuation for our somewhat speedy
departure from the precincts of the old town. First, then, the uncertainty
of a sailing vessel, for the "Balaklava" was coquettishly courting any and
every wind that could carry her out of our harbor of refuge. Next, the
desire of seeing more of the surroundings of the ancient fortress--the
batteries on the opposite side, the new town, the lighthouse, and the wild
picturesque coast. Add to these the wish of our captain to shift his
anchorage, to get on the side where he would have a better opening towards
the ocean, "when the wind came on to blow,"--to say nothing of being in
the neighborhood of his old friends, whose cottages dotted the green
hill-sides across the bay, as you looked over the bows of the jolly little
schooner. And there might have been other inducements--such as the hope of
getting a few pounds of white sugar, a pitcher of milk (delicious,
lacteous fluid, for which we had yearned so often amid the briny waves);
and last, but not least, a hamper of blue-nosed potatoes. So, when the
shades of the second evening were gathering grandly and gloomily around
the dismantled parapets, and Louisburgh lay in all the lovely and romantic
light of a red and stormy sunset, it seemed but fitting that the
cable-chain of the anchor should clank to the windlass, and the die-away
song of the mariner should resound above the calm waters, and the canvas
stretch towards the land opposite, that seemed so tempting and delectable.
And presently the "Balaklava" bore away across the red and purple harbor
for the new town, leaving in her wake the ruined walls of Louisburgh that
rose up higher the further we sailed from them.
The schooner dropped anchor inside the little cove on the opposite side of
the old town, which the reader will see by referring to the map; and the
old battles of the years '45 and '58 were presently forgotten in the new
aspects that were presented. The anchor was scarcely dropped fairly,
before the yawl-boat was under the stroke of the oars, and Picton and I
_en route_ for the store-house; the general, particular, and only exchange
in the whole district of Louisburgh. It was a small wooden building with a
fair array of tarpaulin hats, oil-skin garments, shelves of dry-goods and
crockery, and boxes and barrels, such as are usually kept by country
traders: on the beach before it were the customary flake for drying fish,
the brown winged boats, and other implements of the fisheries.
But alas! the new town, that looked so pastoral and pleasant, with its
tender slopes of verdure, was not, after all, a Canaan, flowing with milk
and blue-nosed potatoes. Neither was there white sugar, nor coffee, nor
good black tea there; the cabin of the schooner being as well furnished
with these articles of comfort as the store-house of McAlpin, towards
which we had looked with such longing eyes. Indeed, I would not have cared
so much about the disappointment myself, but I secretly felt sorry for
Picton, who went rummaging about the barrels in search of something to eat
or to drink. "No white sugar?" said the traveller. "_We don't have white
sugar in this town_," was the answer. "Nor coffee?" "No, Sir." And the tea
had the same flavor of musty hay, with which we were so well acquainted.
At last Picton stumbled over a prize--a bushel-basket half-filled with
potatoes, whereat he raised a bugle-note of triumph.
It may seem strange that a gentleman of fine education, a traveller, who
had visited the famous European capitals, London, Paris, Rome, Madrid,
Vienna; who had passed between the Pillars of Hercules, and voyaged upon
the blue Mediterranean, far as the Greek Archipelago; who had wandered
through the galleries of the Vatican, and mused within the courts of the
Alhambra; who had seen the fire-works on the carnival dome of St. Peter's,
and the water-works of Versailles; the temples of Athens, and the Boboli
gardens of Florence; the sculptures of Praxiteles, and the frescoes of
Raphael; should exhibit such emotion as Picton exhibited, over a
bushel-basket only half-filled with small-sized blue-nosed tubers. But
Picton was only a man, and "_Homo sum_----" the rest of the sentence it is
needless to quote. I saw at a glance that the potatoes were cut in halves
for planting; but Picton was filled with the divine idea of a feast.
"I say, we want a peck of potatoes."
"A peck?" was the answer. "Why, man, I wouldn't sell ye my seed-potatoes
at a guinea apiece."
Here was a sudden let-down; a string of the human violin snapped, just as
it was keyed up to tuning point. Slowly and sorrowfully we regained the
yawl after that brief and bitter experience, and a few strokes of the oars
carried us to the side of the "Balaklava."
It may seem absurd and trifling to dwell upon such slight particulars in
this itinerary of a month among the Blue Noses (as our brothers of Nova
Scotia are called); but to give a correct idea of this rarely-visited part
of the world, one must notice the salient points that present themselves
in the course of the survey. Louisburgh would speedly become rich from its
fisheries, if there were sufficient capital invested there and properly
used. Halifax is now the only point of contact between it and the outside
world; Halifax supplies it with all the necessary articles of life, and
Halifax buys all the produce of its fisheries. Therefore, Halifax reaps
all the profits on either side, both of buying and selling, in all not
amounting to much--as the matter now stands. But insomuch as the sluggish
blood of the colonies will never move without some quickening impulse from
exterior sources, and as Louisburgh is only ten days' sail, under canvas,
from New York, and as the fisheries there would rapidly grow by kindly
nurture into importance, it does seem as if a moderate amount of capital
diverted in that direction, would be a fortunate investment, both for the
investor and hardy fishermen of the old French town.
I have alluded before to the long Acadian twilights, the tender and loving
leave-takings between the day and his earth; just as two fond and foolish
young people separate sometimes, or as the quaint old poet in Britannia's
Pastorals describes it:
"Look as a lover, with a lingering kiss,
About to part with the best half that's his:
Fain would he stay, but that he fears to do it,
And curseth time for so fast hastening to it:
Now takes his leave, and yet begins anew
To make less vows than are esteemed true:
Then says, he must be gone, and then doth find
Something he should have spoke that's out of mind:
_And while he stands to look for't in her eyes,
Their sad, sweet glance so ties his faculties
To think from what he parts that he is now
As far from leaving her, or knowing how,
As when he came_; begins his former strain,
To kiss, to vow, and take his leave again;
Then turns, comes back, sighs, pants, and yet doth go,
Fain to retire, and loth to leave her so."
Even so these fond and foolish old institutions part company in northern
regions, and, at the early hour of two o'clock in the morning, the amorous
twilight reappears in his foggy mantle, to look at the fair face of his
ancient sweetheart in the month of June.
Tea being over, the "cluck" of the row-locks woke the echoes of the
twilight bay, as our little yawl put off again for the new town, with a
gay evening party, consisting of the captain, his lady, the baby, Picton
and myself, with a brace of Newfoundland oarsmen. If our galley was not a
stately one, it was at least a cheerful vessel, and as the keel grated on
the snow-white pebbles of the beach, Picton and I sprang ashore, with all
the gallantry of a couple of Sir Walter Raleighs, to assist the queen of
the "Balaklava" upon _terra firma_. Her majesty being landed, we made a
royal procession to the largest hutch on the green slope before us, the
captain carrying the insignia of his marital office (the baby) with great
pomp and awkward ceremony, in front, while his lady, Picton and I,
loitered in the rear. We had barely crossed the sill of the hutch-door,
before we felt quite at home and welcome. The same cheery fire in the
chimney-place, the spotless floor, the tidy rush-bottomed chairs, and a
whole nest of little white-heads and twinkling eyes, just on the border of
a bright patchwork quilt, was invitation enough, even if we had not been
met at the threshold by the master himself, who stretched out his great
arms with a kind, "Come-in-and-how-are-ye-all."
And what a wonderful evening we passed in that other hutch, before the
blazing hearth-fire! What stories of wrecks and rescues, of icebergs and
whales, of fogs and fisheries, of domestic lobsters that brought up their
little families, in the mouths of the sunken cannon of the French
frigates; of the great sharks that were sometimes caught in the meshes of
the set-nets! "There was one shark," said our host, another old fisherman,
who, by the way, wore a red skull-cap like a cardinal, and had a habit of
bobbing his head as he spoke, so as to put one continually in mind of a
gigantic woodpecker--"there was one shark I mind particular. My two boys
and me was hauling in the net, and soon as I felt it, says I, 'Boys,
here's something more than common.' So we all hauled away, and O my!
didn't the water boil when he come up? Such a time! Fortnatly, he come up
tail first. LORD, if he'd a come up head first he'd a bit the boat in two
at one bite! He was all hooked in, and twisted up with the net. I s'pose
he had forty hooks in him; and when he got his head above water, he was
took sick, and such a time as he had! He must a' vomited up about two
barrels of bait--true as I set here. Well, as soon as he got over that,
then he tried to get his head around to bite! LORD, if he'd got his head
round, he'd a bit the boat in two, and we had it right full of fish, for
we'd been out all day with hand-lines. He had a nose in front of his gills
just like a duck, only it was nigh upon six feet long."
"It must have been a shovel-nose shark," said Picton.
"That's what a captain of a coaster told me," replied Red-Cap; "he said it
must a been a shovel-nose. If he'd only got that shovel-nose turned
around, he'd a shovelled us into eternity, fish and all."
"What prevented him getting his head around?" said Picton.
"Why, sir, I took two half-hitches round his tail, soon as I see him come
up. And I tell ye when I make two half-hitches, they hold; ask captain
there, if I can't make hitches as will hold. What say, captain?"
Captain assented with a confirmatory nod.
"What did you do then?" said Picton. "Did you get him ashore?"
"Get him ashore?" muttered Red-Cap, covering his mouth with one broad
brown hand to muffle a contemptuous laugh; "get him ashore! why, we was
pretty well off shore for such a sail."
"You might have rowed him ashore," said Picton.
"Rowed him ashore?" echoed Red-Cap, with another contemptuous smile under
the brown hand; "rowed him ashore?"
The traveller, finding he was in deep water, answered: "Yes; that is, if
you were not too far out."
"A little too far out," replied Red-Cap; "why if I had been a hundred
yards only from shore, it would ha' been too far to row, or sail in, with
that shovel-nose, without counting the set-nets."
"And what did you do?" said Picton, a little nettled.
"Why," said Red-Cap, "I had to let him go, but first I cut out his liver,
and that I did bring ashore, although it filled my boat pretty well full.
You can judge how big it was: after I brought it ashore I lay it out on
the beach and we measured it, Mr. McAlpin and me, and he'll tell you so
too; we laid it out on the beach, that ere liver, and it measured
seventeen feet, and then we didn't measure all of it."
"Why the devil," said Picton, "didn't you measure all of it?"
"Well," replied Red-Cap, "because we hadn't a measure long enough."
Meantime the good lady of the hutch was busy arranging some tumblers on
the table, and to our great surprise and delight a huge yellow pitcher of
milk soon made its appearance, and immediately after an old-fashioned iron
bake-pan, with an upper crust of live embers and ashes, was lifted off the
chimney trammel, and when it was opened, the fragrance of hot ginger-bread
filled the apartment. Then Red-Cap bobbed away at a corner cupboard, until
he extracted therefrom a small keg or runlet of St. Croix rum of most ripe
age and choice flavor, some of which, by an adroit and experienced crook
of the elbow, he managed to insinuate into the milk, which, with a little
brown sugar, he stirred up carefully and deliberately with a large spoon,
Picton and I watching the proceedings with intense interest. Then the
punch was poured out and handed around; while the good wife made little
trips from guest to guest with a huge platter filled with the brown and
fragrant pieces of the cake, fresh from the bake-pan. And so the baby
having subsided (our baby of the "Balaklava"), and the twilight having
given place to a grand moonlight on the bay, and the fire sending out its
beams of warmth and happiness, glittering on the utensils of the dresser,
and tenderly touching with rosy light the cheeks of the small,
white-headed fishermen on the margin of the patchwork quilt; while there
was no lack of punch and hospitality in the yellow pitcher, who shall say
that we were not as well off in the fisherman's hutch as in a grand
saloon, surrounded with frescoes and flunkeys, and served with thin
lemonade upon trays of silver?
I do not know why it is, but there always has been something very
attractive to me in the faces of children; I love to read the physiognomy
of posterity, and so get a history of the future world in miniature,
before the book itself is fairly printed. And insomuch as Nova Scotia and
Newfoundland are said to be the nurseries of England's seamen, it was with
no little interest that I caught a glimpse of two boys, one thirteen, the
other eleven years old, the eldest children of our friend Red-Cap.
They came in just as we entered the hutch, and quietly seated themselves
together by the corner of the fire-place, after modestly shaking hands
with all the guests. They were dressed in plain home-spun clothes, with
something of a sailor rig, especially the neat check shirts, and
old-fashioned, little, low-quartered, round-toed shoes, such as are always
a feature in the melo-drama where Jack plays a part. It is not usual, too,
to see such stocky, robust frames as these fisher-boys presented; and in
all three, in the father and his two sons, was one general, pervading
idea of cleanliness and housewifery. And then, to notice the physiognomy
again, each small face, though modest as that of no girl which I could
recall at the moment, had its own tale of hardihood to tell; there was a
something that recalled the open sea, written in either countenance;
courage and endurance; faith and self-reliance; the compass and the
rudder; speaking plainly out under each little thatch of white hair. And
indeed, as we found out afterwards, those young countenances told the
truth; those fisher-boys were Red-Cap's only boat-crew. In all weathers,
in all seasons, by night and by day, the three were together, the parent
and his two children, upon the perilous deep.
"If I were the father of those boys," I whispered to Red-Cap, "I would be
proud of them."
"Would ye?" said he, with a proud, fatherly glance towards them; "well, I
thought so once mysel'; it was when a schooner got ashore out there on the
rocks; and we could see her, just under the lights of the lighthouse,
pounding away; and by reason of the ice, nobody would venture; so my boys
said, says they, 'Father, we can go, any way.' So I wouldn't stop when
they said that, and so we laid beside the schooner and took off all her
crew pretty soon, and they mostly dead with the cold; but it was an awful
bad night, what with the darkness and the ice. Yes," he added, after a
pause, "they are good boys now; but they won't be with me many years."
"And why not?" I inquired, for I could not see that the young Red-Caps
exhibited any migratory signs of their species to justify the remark.
"Because all our boys go to the States just as soon as they get old
enough."
"To the States!" I echoed with no little surprise; "why, I thought they
all entered the British Navy, or something of that kind."
"Lord bless ye," said Red-Cap, "not one of them. Enter the British Navy!
Why, man, you get the whole of our young people. What would they want to
enter the British Navy for, when they can enter the United States of
America?"
"The air of Cape Breton is certainly favorable to health," said I, in a
whisper, to Picton; "look, for example, at the mistress of the hutch!" and
so surely as I have a love of womanity, so surely I intended to convey a
sentiment of admiration in the brief words spoken to Picton. The wife of
_Bonnet Rouge_ was at least not young, but her cheek was smooth, and
flushed with the glow of health; her eyes liquid and bright; her hair
brown, and abundant; her step light and elastic. Although neither Picton,
captain, or anybody else in the hutch would remind one of the Angel
Raphael, yet Mrs. Red-Cap, as
----"With dispatchful looks, in haste
She turned, on hospitable thoughts intent,"
was somewhat suggestive of Eve; her movements were grand and simple; there
was a welcome in her face that dimpled in and out with every current
topic; a Miltonic grandeur in her air, whether she walked or waited. I
could not help but admire her, as I do everything else noble and easily
understood. Mrs. Red-Cap was a splendid woman; the wife of a fisherman,
with an unaffected grace beyond the reach of art, and poor old Louisburgh
was something to speak of. Picton expressed his admiration in stronger and
profaner language.
We were not the only guests at Red-Cap's. The lighthouse keeper, Mr.
Kavanagh, a bachelor and scholar, with his sister, had come down to take a
moonlight walk over the heather; for in new Scotland as in old Scotland,
the bonny heather blooms, although not so much familiarized there by song
and story. But we shall visit lighthouse Point anon, and spend some hours
with the two Kavanaghs. Forthright, into the teeth of the harbor, the wind
is blowing: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou nearest the sound
therof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth." How
long the "Balaklava" may stay here is yet uncertain. So, with a good-night
to the Red-Caps and their guests, we once more bear away for the cabin of
the schooner and another night's discomfort.
As I have said before in other words, this province is nothing more than a
piece of patchwork, intersected with petty boundary lines, so that every
nation is stitched in and quilted in spots, without any harmony, or
coherence, or general design. The people of Louisburgh are a kind,
hospitable, pleasant people, tolerably well informed for the inhabitants
of so isolated a corner of the world; but a few miles further off we come
upon a totally different race: a canting, covenanting, oat-eating,
money-griping, tribe of second-hand Scotch Presbyterians: a transplanted,
degenerate, barren patch of high cheek-bones and red hair, with nothing
cleaving to them of the original stock, except covetousness and that
peculiar cutaneous eruption for which the mother country is celebrated.
But we shall soon have enough of these Scotsmen, good reader. Our present
visit is to Lighthouse Point, to look out upon the broad Atlantic, the
rocky coast, and the island battery, which a century since gave so much
trouble to our filibustering fathers of New England. As we walked towards
the lighthouse over the pebbly beach that borders the green turf, Picton
suddenly starts off and begins a series of great jumps on the turf, giving
with every grasshopper-leap a sort of interjectional "Whuh! whuh!" as
though the feat was not confined to the leg-muscles only, but included
also a necessary exercise of the lungs. And although we shouted at the
traveller, he kept on towards the lighthouse, uttering with every jump,
"Heather, heather." At last he came to, beside a group of evergreens, and
grew rational. The springy, elastic sod, the heather of old Scotland,
reproduced in new Scotland, had reminded him of reels and strathspeys,
"for," said he, "nobody can walk upon this sort of thing without feeling a
desire to dance upon it. Thunder and turf! if we only had the pipes now!"
And sure enough here was the heather; the soft, springy turf, which has
made even Scotchmen affectionate. I do not wonder at it; it answers to the
foot-step like an echo, as the string of an instrument answers its
concord; as love answers love in unison. I do not wonder that Scotchmen
love the heather; I am only surprised that so much heather should be
wasted on Scotchmen.
We had anticipated a fine marine view from the lighthouse, but in place of
it we could only see a sort of semi-luminous vapor, usually called a fog,
which enveloped ocean, island, and picturesque coast. We could not
discover the Island Battery opposite, which had bothered Sir William in
the siege of '45; but nevertheless, we could judge of the difficulty of
reaching it with a hostile force, screened as it was by its waves and
vapors. The lighthouse is striped with black and white bars, like a zebra,
and we entered it. One cannot help but admire such order and neatness, for
the lighthouse is a marvel of purity. We were everywhere--in the
bed-rooms, in the great lantern with its glittering lamps, in the hall,
the parlor, the kitchen; and found in all the same pervading virtue; as
fresh and sweet as a bride was that old zebra-striped lighthouse. The
Kavanaghs, brother and sister, live here entirely alone; what with books
and music, the ocean, the ships, and the sky, they have company enough.
One could not help liking them, they have such cheerful faces, and are so
kind and hospitable. Good bye, good friends, and peace be with you always!
On our route schooner-ward we danced back over the heather, Picton with
great joy carrying a small basket filled with his national fruit--a
present from the Kavanaghs. What a feast we shall have, fresh fish,
lobster, and above all--potatoes!
It is a novel sight to see the firs and spruces on this stormy sea-coast.
They grow out, and not up; an old tree spreading over an area of perhaps
twenty feet in diameter, with the inevitable spike of green in its centre,
and that not above a foot and a half from the ground. The trees in this
region are possessed of extraordinary sagacity; they know how hard the
wind blows at times, and therefore put forth their branches in full squat,
just like country girls at a pic-nic.
On Sunday the wind is still ahead, and Picton and I determine to abandon
the "Balaklava." How long she may yet remain in harbor is a matter of
fate; so, with brave, resolute hearts, we start off for a five-mile walk,
to McGibbet's, the only owner of a horse and wagon in the vicinity of
Louisburgh. Squirrels, robins, and rabbits appear and disappear in the
road as we march forwards. The country is wild, and in its pristine state;
nature everywhere. Now a brook, now a tiny lake, and "the murmuring pines
and the hemlocks." At last we arrive at the house of McGibbet, and
encounter new Scotland in all its original brimstone and oatmeal.
CHAPTER VIII.
A Blue-Nosed Pair of the most Cerulean Hue--Prospects of a Hard
Bargain--Case of Necessity--Romantic Lake with an Unromantic Name--The
Discussion concerning Oatmeal--Danger of the Gasterophili--McGibbet
makes a Proposition--Farewell to the "Balaklava"--A Midnight
Journey--Sydney--Boat Excursion to the Mic Macs--Picton takes off his
Mackintosh.
Some learned philosopher has asserted that when a person has become
accustomed to one peculiar kind of diet, it will be expressed in the
lineaments of his face. How much the constant use of oatmeal could produce
such an effect, was plainly visible in the countenances of McGibbet and
his lady-love. Both had an unmistakable equine cast; McGibbet, wild,
scraggy, and scrubby, with a tuft on his poll that would not have been out
of place between the ears of a plough-horse, stared at us, just as such an
animal would naturally over the top of a fence; while his gentle mate, who
had more of the amiable draught-horse in her aspect, winked at us with
both eyes from under a close-crimped frill, that bore a marvellous
resemblance to a head-stall. The pair had evidently just returned from
kirk. To say nothing of McGibbet's hat, and his wife's shawl, on a chair,
and his best boots on the hearth (for he was walking about in his
stockings), there was a dry _preceese_ air about them, which plainly
betokened they were newly stiffened up with the moral starch of the
conventicle, and were therefore well prepared to drive a hard bargain for
a horse and wagon to Sydney. But what surprised me most of all was the
imperturbable coolness of Picton. Without taking a look scarcely at the
persons he was addressing, the traveller stalked in with an--"I say, we
want a horse and wagon to Sydney; so look sharp, will you, and turn out
the best thing you have here?"
The moral starch of the conventicle stiffened up instantly. Like the
blacksmith of Cairnvreckan, who, as a _professor_, would drive a nail for
no man on the Sabbath or kirk-fast, unless in a case of absolute
necessity, and then always charged an extra saxpence for each shoe; so it
was plain to be seen that McGibbet had a conscience which required to be
pricked both with that which knows no law, and the saxpence extra. He
turned to his wife and addressed her in _Gaelic_! Then we knew what was
coming.
Mrs. McGibbet opened the subject by saying that they were both accustomed
to the observance of the Sabbath, and that "she didn't think it was right
for man to transgress, when the law was so plain"----
Here McGibbet broke in and said that--"He was free to confess he had
commeeted a grreat menny theengs kwhich were a grreat deal worse than
Sabbath-breaking."
Upon which Mrs. McG. interrupted him in turn with a few words, which,
although in Gaelic, a language we did not understand, conveyed the
impression that she was not addressing her liege lord in the language of
endearment, and again continued in English: "That it was held sinful in
the community to wark or do anything o' the sort, or to fetch or carry
even a sma bundle"----
"For kwich," said McGibbet, "is a fine to be paid to the meenister, of
five shillins currency"----
Here Picton stopped whistling a bar of "Bonny Doon," and observed to me:
"About a dollar of your money. We'll pay the fine."
"Yes," chimed in McGibbet, "a dollar"----and was again stopped by his
wife, who raised her eyebrows to the borders of her kirk-frill and brought
them down vehemently over her blue eyes at him.
"Or to travel the road," she said, "even on foot, to say nothing of a
wagon and horse."
"But," interrupted Picton, "my dear madam, we must get on, I tell you; I
must be in Sydney to-morrow, to catch the steamer for St. John's."
At this observation of the traveller the pair fell back upon their Gaelic
for a while, and in the meantime Picton whispered me: "I see; they want to
raise the price on us: but we won't give in; they'll be sharp enough after
the job by and by."
The pair turned towards us and both shook their heads. It was plain to be
seen the conference had not ended in our favor.
"Ye see," said the gude-wife, "we are accustomed to the observance of the
Sabbath, and would na like to break it, except"--
"In a case of necessity; you are perfectly right," chimed in Picton; "I
agree with you myself. Now this is a case of necessity; here we are; we
must get on, you see; if we don't get on we miss the steamer to-morrow for
St. John's--she only runs once a fortnight there--it's plain enough a
clear case of necessity; it's like," continued Picton, evidently trying to
corner some authority in his mind, "it's like--let me see--it's
like--a--pulling--a sheep out of a ditch--a--which they always do on the
Sabbath, you know, to a--get us on to Sydney."
Both McGibbet and his wife smiled at Picton's ingenuity, but straightway
put on the equine look again. "It might be so; but it was clean contrary
to their preenciples."
"I'll be hanged," whispered Picton, "if I offer more than the usual price,
which I heard at Louisburgh was one pound ten, to Sydney, and the fine
extra. I see what they are after."
There was an awkward pause in the negotiations. McGibbet scratched his
poll, and looked wistfully at his wife, but the kirk-frill was stiffened
up with the moral starch, as aforesaid.
Suddenly, Picton looked out of the window. "By Jove!" said he, "I think
the wind is changed! After all, we may get around in the 'Balaklava.'"
McGibbet looked somewhat anxiously out of the window also, and grunted out
a little more Gaelic to his love. The kirk-frill relented a trifle.
"Perhaps the gentlemen wad like a glass of milk after thae long walk? and
Robert" (which she pronounced Robbut), "a bit o' the corn-cake."
Upon which Robbut, with great alacrity, turned towards the bed-room, from
whence he brought forth a great white disk, that resembled the head of a
flour-barrel, but which proved to be a full-grown griddle cake of
corn-meal. This, with the pure milk, from the cleanest of scoured pans,
was acceptable enough after the long walk.
We had observed some beautiful streams, and blue glimpses of lakes on the
road to McGibbet's, and just beyond his house was a larger lake, several
miles in extent, with picturesque hills on either side, indented-with
coves, and studded with islands, sometimes stretching away to distant
slopes of green turf, and sometimes reflecting masses of precipitous rock,
crowned with the spiry tops of spruces and firs. Indeed, all the country
around, both meadow and upland, was very pleasing to the sight. A low
range of hills skirted the northern part of what seemed to be a spacious,
natural amphitheatre, while on the south side a diversity of highlands and
water added to the whole the charm of variety.
"You have a fine country about you, Mr. McGibbet," said I.
"Ay," he replied.
"And what is it called here?"
"We ca' it Get-Along!" said Robbut, with an intensely Scotch accent on the
"Get."
"And yonder beautiful lake--what is the name of that?" said I, in hopes of
taking refuge behind something more euphonious.
"Oh! ay," replied he, "that's just Get-Along, too. We doan't usually speak
of it, but whan we do, we just ca' it Get-Along Lake, and it's not good
for much."
I thought it best to change the subject. "Do you like this as well as the
oat-cake?" said I, with my mouth full of the dry, husky provender.
"Nae," said McGibbet, with an equine shake of the head, "it's not sae
fellin."
Not so filling! Think of that, ye pampered minions of luxury, who live
only upon delicate viands; who prize food, not as it useful, but as it is
tasteful; who can even encourage a depraved, sensual appetite so far as to
appreciate flavor; who enjoy meats, fish, and poultry, only as they
minister to your palates; who flirt with spring-chickens and trifle with
sweet-breads in wanton indolence, without a thought of your cubic
capacity; without a reflection that you can live just as well upon so many
square inches of oatmeal a day as you can upon the most elaborate French
kickshaws; nay, that you can be elevated to the level of a scientific
problem, and work out your fillings, with nothing to guide you but a slate
and pencil!
"Then you like oatmeal better than this?" said Picton, soothing down a
husky lump, with a cup of milk.
"Ay," responded McGibbet.
"And you always eat it, whenever you can get it, I suppose?" continued
Picton, with a most innocent air.
"Ay," responded McGibbet.
"I should think some of you Scotchmen would be afraid of contracting a
disease that is engendered in the system by the use of this sort of grain.
I hope, Mr. McGibbet," said Picton, with imperturbable coolness, "you keep
clear of the bots, and that sort of thing, you know?"
"Kwat?" said Robbut, with the most startled, horse-like look he had yet
put on.
"The gasterophili," replied Picton, "which I would advise you to steer
clear of, if you want to live long."
As this was a word with too many gable-ends for Robbut's comprehension, he
only responded by giving such a smile as a man might be expected to give
who had his mouth full of aloes, and as the conversation was wandering off
from the main point, addressed himself to Mrs. McG. in the vernacular
again.
"We would like to obleege ye," said the lady, "if it was not for the
transgression; and we do na like to break the Sabbath for ony man."
"Although," interposed Robbut, "I am free to confess that I have done a
great many things worse than breakin' the Sabbath."
"But if to-morrow would do as well," resumed his wife, "Robbut would take
ye to Sydney."
To this Picton shook his head. "Too late for the steamer."
"Or to-night; I wad na mind that," said the pious Robbut, "_if it was
after dark_, and that will bring ye to Sydney before the morn."
"That will do," said Picton, slapping his thigh. "Lend us your horse and
wagon to go down to the schooner and get our luggage; we will be back this
evening, and then go on to Sydney, eh? That will do; a ride by moonlight;"
and the traveller jumped up from his seat, walked with great strides
towards the fire-place, turned his back to the blaze, hung a coat-tail
over each arm, and whistled "Annie Laurie" at Mrs. McGibbet.
The suggestion of Picton meeting the views of all concerned, the diplomacy
ended. Robbut put himself in his Sunday boots, and hitched up a spare rib
of a horse before a box-wagon without springs, which he brought before the
door with great complacency. The traveller and I were soon on the
ground-floor of the vehicle, seated upon a log of wood by way of cushion;
and with a chirrup from McGibbet, off we went. At the foot of the first
hill, our horse stopped; in vain Picton jerked at the rein, and shouted at
him: not a step further would he go, until Robbut himself came down to the
rescue. "Get along, Boab!" said his master; and Bob, with a mute, pitiful
appeal in his countenance, turned his face towards salt-water. At the
foot of the next hill he stopped again, when the irascible Picton jumped
out, and with one powerful twitch of the bridle, gave Boab such a hint to
"get on," that it nearly jerked his head off. And Boab did get on, only to
stop at the ascent of the next hill. Then we began to understand the
tactics of the animal. Boab had been the only conveyance between
Louisburgh and Sydney for many years, and, as he was usually
over-burdened, made a point to stop at the up side of every hill on the
road, to let part of his freight get out and walk to the top of the
acclivity with him. So, by way of compromise, we made a feint of getting
out at every rise of ground, and Boab, who always turned his head around
at each stopping-place, seemed to be satisfied with the observance of the
ceremony, and trotted gaily forward. At last we came to a place we had
named Sebastopol in the morning--a great sharp edge of rock as high as a
man's waist, that cut the road in half, over which we lifted the wagon,
and were soon in view of the bright little harbor and the "Balaklava" at
anchor. Mr. McAlpin kindly gave quarters to our steed in his out-house,
and offered to raise a signal for the schooner to send a boat ashore. As
he was Deputy United States Consul, and as I was tired of the red-cross of
St. George, I asked him to hoist his consular flag. Up to the flag-staff
truck rose the roll of white and red worsted, then uncoiled, blew out, and
the blessed stars and stripes were waving over me. It is surprising to
think how transported one can be sometimes with a little bit of bunting!
And now the labor of packing commenced, of which Picton had the greatest
share by far; the little cabin of the schooner was pretty well spread out
with his traps on every side; and this being ended, Picton got out his
travelling-organ and blazed away in a _finale_ of great tunes and small,
sometimes fast, sometimes slow, as the humor took him. After all, we
parted from the jolly little craft with regret: our trunks were lowered
over the side; we shook hands with all on board; and were rowed in silence
to the land.
I have had some experience in travelling, and have learned to bear with
ordinary firmness and philosophy the incidental discomforts one is certain
to meet with on the road; but I must say, the discipline already acquired
had not prepared me for the unexpected appearance of our wagon after
Picton's luggage was placed in it. First, two solid English trunks of
sole-leather filled the bottom of the vehicle; then the traveller's
Minie-rifle, life-preserver, strapped-up blankets, and hand-bag were
stuffed in the sides: over these again were piled my trunk and the
traveller's valise (itself a monster of straps and sole-leather); then
again his portable-secretary and the hand-organ in a box. These made such
a pyramid of luggage, that riding ourselves was out of the question. What
with the trunks and the cordage to keep them staid, our wagon looked like
a ship of the desert. To crown all, it began to rain steadily. "Now,
then," said Picton, climbing up on his confounded travelling equipage,
"let's get on." With some difficulty I made a half-seat on the corner of
my own trunk; Picton shouted out at Boab; the Newfoundland sailors who had
brought us ashore, put their shoulders to the wheels, and away we went,
waving our hats in answer to the hearty cheers of the sailors. It was down
hill from McAlpin's to the first bridge, and so far we had nothing to care
for, except to keep a look-out we were not shaken off our high perch. But
at the foot of the first hill Boab stopped! In vain Picton shouted at him
to get on; in vain he shook rein and made a feint of getting down from the
wagon. Boab was not intractable, but he was sagacious; he had been fed on
that sort of chaff too long. Picton and I were obliged to humor his
prejudices, and dismount in the mud, and after one or two feeble attempts
at a ride, gave it up, walked down hill and up, lifted the wagon by inches
over Sebastopol, and finally arrived at McGibbet's, wet, tired, and
hungry. That Sabbath-broker received us with a grim smile of satisfaction,
put on the half-extinguished fire the smallest bit of wood he could find
in the pile beside the hearth, and then went away with Boab to the stable.
"Gloomy prospects ahead, Picton!" The traveller said never a wo
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