"'A life on the ocean wave,A home on the rolling deep.'"
"'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 mostforbidding 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 notmy 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 thesingingof it. You know it wasthesong 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 LaurieI'd lay me down and dee."
"Her voice is low and sweet,And she's all the world to me;And for bonnie Annie LaurieI'd lay me down and dee."
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 sidethe 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 reöpened 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 wherewasthe 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, aërial 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 untileight. Reader, were you ever hungryat 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 toyouthat 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, "thisisserene!"
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 narghilé; 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."
"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,' itseems 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 Cookeyis 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 ashe came up with it in his hand, and squeezed past him before he shook out a single vibration.
Then we made aMeal!
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 aremackerel 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 waschef de cuisine; we had amagnificent 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 ladyofthe "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 theyear 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 fromMinas 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 asingle 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 beingprovincial."
"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?'
'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 onlydead 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 schoonerwillheave 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 lightbegins 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 toabout-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 boreon, 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'sraisin' 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 yemissthat, 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 ofthe 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."
Louisburgh—The Great French Fortress—Incidents of the Old French War—Relics of the Siege—Description of the Town—The two Expeditions—A Yankeeruse 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 squarenor 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, witha 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 dépôt 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 coöperation 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 vitæ, 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 withChristfor leader. The command was, however, given to William Pepperel, a fish and shingle merchantof 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 "Christoduce," 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'sservice, 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 similarusuage 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 theintervals 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 thattriumphed? 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 theFleur-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 Frenchrégime.
"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 lostin 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 toleave 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 offish-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 adingledekooch. 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 outstorms 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 onflakes, 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 eachother; 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 "Perhapsthis, 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.
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 asong, will you, now, some of you; something about this jolly old place, now—'Brave Wolfe,' or 'Boscawen,'" and he broke out—