[1]Seals.
[1]Seals.
"They brought in a blind man last night," said the house surgeon. "It only seemed a case of starvation, so I didn't call you."
"Where is he from?"
"About thirty miles in the country down north somewhere. Apparently he has been living at the bottom of a bay 'way out of the line of the komatik trail. Formerly he could get firewood easily, and a few bay seals and game to live on. He seems too proud to let people know how badly off he was."
"What's the history?"
"He has a wife and two girls, who appear to be in almost as poor shape as he is himself. He has been gradually growing blind for some time, and was up here two years ago to see the eye specialist. His name is Emile Moreau."
"A Frenchman! Why, I remember the man perfectly. A slow-growing cerebral tumor."
He had been under observation for some weeks, and we had had to decide that he wouldnot be benefited by an operation. So he went away, promising to return soon. But this is the way he had kept his promise.
A few minutes later I stood by the bedside of the blind Frenchman. The poor fellow was a skeleton, with the characteristic sunken face and fallen skin with which we are familiar in those living on what we know as "dry diet." He had nothing to say for himself except, "Times has been none too good, Doctor. It is a bad country when a fellow can't see where he is going. 'T is many an odd tumble I've had, too, knocking around." Emile had been away from France for many a long day, and the only English he had ever heard was the vernacular of our Northern Coast.
"How's your wife and the kiddies you told us about when you were here last time? It strikes me that they may have had a tumble too."
"Well, I 'lows, Doctor, them has been clemmed up on times. But, Jeanie, she never says nothing; she's that busy with t' things I can't do. She 'lowed she'd stay and mind t'children till I get better a bit. No, that's right. She hasn't much grub. But us uses very little, and she never complains."
Two days later our good dogs brought in the rest of the family—the babes to the warm welcome and plenty at the Children's Home, while one of the pluckiest little women I have ever known, even in a country of brave and self-reliant women, was carried into the hospital partially paralyzed with beri-beri. She was so close to the gate from which there is no returning that it took our nurses six months to wean her back to another spell of usefulness.
It was no ordinary conundrum which vexed my mind when the house surgeon at last announced, "These Moreau patients are well enough to leave hospital," though I had realized that for good or evil the day was near.
Neither had said a word about the future. The worst feature of sending them out was the personal affection which their lessons in contentment had kindled in us. How could this helpless family ever hope to keep the wolf from the door. A council of war was called the sameevening, and some neighbours who well knew the dilemma in which we found ourselves asked to be allowed to attend. There was an old shack in the compound in which some workmen had once been housed, and which had subsequently been used as a small store-house. It was proposed, in the absence of funds, for all hands to assault this stronghold, and convert it as far as possible into a habitable home.
Thus came into existence what developed later into the general headquarters of the "triple entente."
To relieve the situation, one child was adopted by a childless, well-to-do neighbour, and the other was left for education and care with our little wards in the Home. Emile learned basket-work; Jeanie took in washing. The Moreau exchequer once more was in funds. But two difficulties soon presented themselves. There was a glut in our basket market, and Emile found life without being able to move out of the house almost more than a man born to the sea and the trail couldbear. Small dogs in civilization are wont to fill this gap. But alas, "down North" small dogs are taboo—their imperious Eskimo congeners having decided against them.
There happened to be at this time also under our care an Eskimo lad from the Far North, whom we had picked up suffering with a form of lung trouble which only the radical operation of collapsing one side of his chest wall could relieve. The ribs had been removed. The boy had recovered slowly; but, having only a very limited breathing capacity, he had been allowed to remain for the chores he could do. Without kith, kin, or even fellow countrymen, he was a veritable pelican in the wilderness without any home attachments—and a very serious problem to ourselves.
Emile could cut wood, being strong as a horse and an excellent axeman; but he could not find it alone. He could carry heavy packages, but he could not find his way. He could haul water, but could not economically direct his energies. Karlek's eyes were the best part of him. So it came about that one morning onthe way to the hospital I met Emile whistling like a newly arrived robin in spring, his hand on Karlek's shoulder, and on his back a heavy sack of potatoes which he was bringing up to the hospital kitchen from the frost-proof cellar in the cove.
It brought a smile to one's lips to see the nonchalance and almost braggadocio of his gait as he stepped out boldly, covering the ground at a speed which was itself a luxury to one so long cut off from thatjoie de vivreof a strong man. And more, it brought a smile to one's soul to see the joy of victory flashing in the features of the upturned face—the triumph of the man over the pitifulness of his sightless eyes. The international dual alliance was making its début on the field. The firm of Karlek and Moreau, Eskimo and Frenchman, had come to stay.
So time went on, cheerfully and even rapidly for all concerned—the Mission developing its labour-saving devices as the work increased, and the help of its friends made it possible. A water-supply system soon partially obviatedthe need for hauling barrels in the summer from our spring and puncheons on the dog sledges in the winter. A roadway and narrow-gauge railway track relieved us of the necessity of so much portage on men's backs; and a circular saw, run by a small gasoline engine, cut up our firewood with less waste and with more satisfactory results.
As with the basket market, so with the chore market, the ground was once more falling away from beneath our poor friends' feet. Only the indefatigable Jeanie held the household together, for in the heyday of the dual alliance's prosperity, the little daughter had been permitted to return to her parents from the Children's Home.
With the lapse of years, however, even if Emile could see no better with his eyes, his other faculties had developed so largely as to surrender to him again the joy of independence of outside help, and with characteristic self-reliance and optimism he once more tackled his own difficulties.
I was recently visiting a small cottage, builton a tiny ledge under the shadow of gloomy, high cliffs. It was far from any pathway and only approachable by stumbling over huge rocks—the débris of the crags behind. The hut had been built by a lonely old fellow who resorted to it in summer because it was right on the fishing-grounds, and he was getting unable any longer to face the long row to and from his house in the harbour. Nowhere in the world is the old adage concerning the birds of a feather truer than on this coast. The poorer and lonelier a man is, the greater is the certainty that some other poor and lonely person will seek the shelter of their poverty. Thus it had been with old man Martin.
One day there had appeared at the cottage door from twenty miles farther down the coast one-legged Ike, an irregular, angular youth, who, stumbling over the hillside, and magnified into portentous proportions by one of our Promethean fogs, had nearly scared the wits out of even my trusty dog team. Quite without invitation from old man Martin, one-legged Ike had come to stay. The proximity tothe fishing-grounds suited this seafarer, who shared in every particular the limpet-like characteristics of Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea.
Anyhow, old Martin had never shaken him off, and had been heard to excuse himself by saying, "After all, he can sit in a boat as well as any of them with two legs." "Where there's room for one, there's room for two," is almost an axiom of life on these shores. In the lapse of time the old man had taken his last voyage, and Ike had come into full possession of the estate, living almost like Robinson Crusoe, cut off from his fellows by to him impassable barriers.
It was a reported lapse in some other portion of Ike's anatomy that had led me to scramble along the landwash to the cottage. The ice having broken up and gone out of the harbour, I should have considered longer the advisability of the trip,—for the morning frosts left the jagged rock masses at the foot of the cliff harbingers of ill omen to the traveller,—had it not been that his isolation mightpossibly make even trivial trouble serious. For he had come safely through so many scrapes, not a few being of his own making, that I had nicknamed him in my mind "indestructible Ike."
At last, congratulating myself that I had arrived without any untoward happenings, I rapped loudly on his door, expecting to hear his squeaky, perpetually broken voice bid me enter. Much to my surprise, therefore, the door opened itself, and smiling in the doorway stood our blind friend.
"Good Heavens! Emile, how on earth did you get here? And why did you ever want to come, anyhow?"
"Why, I thought it was a good plan for me to go fishing," he replied, addressing apparently a huge rock, so accurately poised over the hut that it suggested any moment an annihilating assault upon it. "Ike's going to be pilot and I'm to do t' rowing. We're to be partners for t' summer, and Karlek's going to look after t' family and help out when he can. It feels like being young again to be on t'water with a fishing-line. And, mind you, Ike knows a few tricks with a line that's worth more'n another leg to we, once we be on t' grounds. They all 'lows he be as good as t' next man for hauling in fish, so be as there's any around."
Ike's indisposition, as I had surmised, was not of a serious nature, and I learned subsequently that it was the proper ratification of the terms of the new triple alliance that had more to do with the sick call than any undue foreboding of impending dissolution on Ike's part. There had been some hitch in coming to terms, and Emile had put the only one point in them to his credit, when he saw through the trick, and "plumped for a magistrate," feeling also that he could trust me for more than mere legal technicalities.
It was obviously an offensive campaign on which I found them bent. Ike had himself carefully repaired the boat's structure, having always a keen eye to comfort and safety; while from Emile's hands I could see that the task of tarring their warship, owing to Ike'stemporary indisposition and the need for immediate preparedness, had fallen to him. His only method for finding out where he had applied that hot and adhesive liquid had left very apparent evidences of both his energy and his zeal. To Emile also had fallen the rearrangement of the big rocks, so as to form as level a surface as possible on which to dry the fish. It was a Sisyphean task, and poor Emile had spent much sweat and not a little blood in his efforts. But, as Ike told him, "lifting rocks weren't no work for a man with one leg." So he had offset against it getting the meals ready, and what he called "tidying things up." But as Karlek was, unrewarded, to bring the bread, Ike's household labours did not promise to be onerous.
In one sense the entente campaign proved victorious, for they had a goodly catch; but in the division of the spoils it apparently turned out that it had been so arranged that Emile's share was to catch the fish, Karlek's to dry it, and Ike's to exchange it piecemeal for tobacco or "things for t' house," as he called them.
Ever since Stevenson wrote of the one-legged rascal Silver, one associates with that handicap a tendency to try to outwit others; while the dependence of blind men presupposes simplicity and trustfulness.
Emile worked like a tiger, with the single-mindedness of the Verdun spirit of France, blissfully supposing that Ike did the same in his end of the boat. Fishing in sixty fathoms of icy water, Emile would haul his lines up and down, re-bait and tend them, till his hands were blue with cold, and the skin "fair wore off t' bones." One day, however, a harbour trap boat happened to pass close by their rodney while they were anchored on the fishing-grounds, and the owner called out, "Wake up, Ike! Price of dream fish is down." Ike had somewhat loudly and not too politely responded to the salutation, but all the same it awoke a first suspicion in Emile's mind. While not slacking himself, he "kept an eye" on his partner as best he could.
He knew that a one-legged man must sit down for work, while for his part he stood, buthe had not realized that Ike considered any more restful posture essential. "A blind man sees more'n most folk" is a common claim of Emile's. It is tedious pegging away when fish are scarce, yet fishing is a trade where "'tis dogged as does it." He suspected that Ike took it easy in the stern while he worked in the bow; and his doubts were confirmed when one day, from a passing boat, some one called out: "'Tain't safe for you to be out alone, Emile. You'll be running some one down one of these days." It was obvious that Ike was not visible over the gunwale.
From that day on, Emile began to count his catch and to put a cross-thwait in the middle of the boat to keep them separate—"Something to push my feet against when I rows, I called 'un," he told me. Still Ike was almost too much for him, for Karlek remembered seeing him sorting out the fish as he landed them, and the big ones, somehow or other, all found their way into Ike's yaffles. Ike also discovered that it was good economy constantly to change the location of such things as the tobacco box,butter tub, and molasses jar, for it often meant that the good-natured Emile went without.
The cold weather set in early, and though the contract was not up, Ike's hereditary instinct that hardship was bad for his constitution made him decide to stop if he could. But Emile went steadily on, having learned from Karlek that there were occasional leakages from the fish pile. He ventured to remonstrate with his partner, but as fish were plentiful, he refused to cancel the contract before the proper date.
It was Ike who finally forced the issue. Emile being bowman, it was their custom always to come in to the ladder leading to the stage platform head on, when Emile, grabbing the cross-bars with one hand and holding the painter in the other, climbed up and "made her fast." Projecting from the stage head is a long pole used for preventing boats that are made fast from bumping against the stage. Coming in a day or so later, Ike drove the punt in parallel with the stage head, and the pole coming into Emile's hands deceived him into thinking that the stage was above him as usual.He promptly stepped off the boat, and naturally fell into the water. Naturally also, it shook Emile up a good deal, for he was in the water quite a while. After the incident Ike's tender heart had made him absolutely refuse the responsibility of a blind man in a small boat in fall weather. As we walked up the wharf together Emile told me many more such details of the transactions of our only "triple alliance." All he wanted me to do was to add up his own tally of the fish he had caught, multiplying it by a reasonable average fish, and for the sake of the family help him to get from his ally a return for his labour which would enable him to buy food for the winter for Jeanie and the little girl.
Fortunately it proved to be not too late. You cannot "get the breeks off a Highlander," and after a week or two not a cod tail or a cent would have been available from Ike. As it was, my coming to the assistance of my poor friend happened to save the "entente" from being a tragedy, and enabled us to relegate the whole incident to our comedy group.
A peremptory order to Ike to wait for me at midday at the room we call the court-house would, I knew, impress him with the necessity of obedience, far more than a second visit to his cabin. The effort which the journey would cost him and the time allowed for reflection would, moreover, punctuate the importance of the occasion.
Emile's calculation of the amount of fish caught, corrected by Karlek by the simple process of multiplying the sum by two, and with a bit more added by myself to be sure not to underestimate it, formed all the legal data I needed. The lean, scrawny figure of Ike, twisting and squirming with evident uneasiness, awaited my arrival at the appointed time. Ike's fear of "t' Law" was the superstition of a child. It was to him a great big man waiting to pounce upon you and "lug youse away." Indeed, I learned afterwards that he had stayed in bed for fear of being carried off surreptitiously. "'T is a lonesome spot I lives in," he had explained.
"To steal from a blind man, Ike," I began,"is bad. Moreover, it doesn't bring any one any luck ever. Where have you put those sixty quintals of fish which belong to Emile?"
"It took more'n half t' voyage, believe me, Doctor, to meet t' summer's expenses. There wasn't more'n thirty quintals all told, and half of that was mine. Samuels only allowed we four dollars a quintal, and his flour was eight, and molasses seventy cents. He said he'd land Emile's share when he comes in on his home trip."
"The Law will have to send down and search your house and all around it, and carry off things while you wait here, and you won't get any credit for it either. I told you there was no luck for those who rob a blind man, unless they confess in time. I'll come back in half an hour for your decision." And, having an unfair advantage of a one-legged man, I locked the door and was well down the road before Ike had made a move.
Our little rickety court-house, in order to be in the centre of the village, stands on a rocky hill-crest away by itself. When the windblows high, awesome noises with much creaking and groaning help to suggest to the guilty conscience that supernatural agencies are at work. The half-hour was purposely a long one, and had the desired effect. Ike made a full confession of his delinquencies and promised reparation. An immediate search while he was in this frame of mind revealed that Emile's winter food could only be obtained by leaving Ike to a diet of hope and charity. The lesson being necessary, however, the whole of his supplies were loaded into the boat, and Ike condemned to row it to Emile's house and land it at once. It was late and dark, but the fear of what might happen to him alone on his point, now that it was known that he had robbed a blind man, held more terrors even than hunger for Ike. So the judgment of the court was carried out that very night.
Partly moved by curiosity, Christmas found me once again visiting the mansion under the cliff. A shortage in the commissariat was, I knew, no new experience to the poor fellow, and even the wiles of a "one-legger" cannotconvert stones into bread. Ike, radiant with smiles and fat as a spring seal, was out to meet me on my arrival—which circumstance was a little difficult at first to understand. Then he explained:
"You'm right, Doctor. It drives away t' bad luck when you pays up a blind man. I hasn't wanted ne'er a t'ing since."
It had been a good voyage that year, and, as a matter of fact, every one had a warm spot somewhere in his heart for "that rascal Ike." For though he was admittedly a rogue, he was always such an amusing, hail-fellow-well-met rogue, and not the really mean type which every one dislikes. All the shore had heard of his dilemma, and, isolation not allowing one man to know what another is doing, indiscriminate charity had poured in upon poor Ike, without possibly doing him much harm, for he attributed it absolutely to that oftentimes useful mentor of the feeble-minded, the great god of good luck.
To my surprise it was Emile who really suffered most, though he would not admit it, butby actual computation of the supplies in his very give-away storeroom, I learned that he had secretly carried back to Ike's beach in the dark just one half of those goods which "t' Law" had recovered for him; and which Ike to this day believes were deposited for his benefit by the good-luck fairy.
"It must be nigh sixty years ago, but I remembers it as if it was yesterday, when a new settler come to live in our harbour," said Skipper Life Flynn, at whose house I was spending the night with my driver and dogs.
"Life" was short for Eliphoreth—the "given" names being mostly out of the Bible down North. "It were a wonderful thing them days, for Father were the only Liveyer then—that is, as stayed all the year round. He didn't mind being alone, and t' moving in t' schooner every spring and fall were bad for Mother. Fish were plenty every season one side or t'other of Deadman's Cape, and there was lots of fur and swiles t' winter. So he built a house in Sleepy Cove, and there us grew up!
"No, Doctor, I'm not able now to read and write. None of us is, for us had no teachers. But we was all big, strong men, and handy at that, and there wasn't a thing to be done wi' axe or saw about boats and timber uscouldn't do. We made a good deal at furring, too, and many's and many's t' night in winter I've laid down under t' trees and slept—with ne'er a greatcoat neither. An' if us wasn't brought up scholars, Father taught us to be honest, and to fear God and nothing and nobody else.
"It were our way them days to greet every stranger as a friend, and so when Bill started his cabin,—for that was all it ever were,—us lads all went in and helped him chop and saw t' logs for studding.
"In winter Father minded t' big French Room; but he were away hunting most of t' time, there being no need to watch much, being as there was no one besides ourselves anywhere near. But early spring and late fall when t' fleets were passing, it were day and night watch, and not without a gun neither.
"But it would have paid us better to have watched that winter; for when t' Frenchmen come in t' spring there was a number of little things missing that Father had to stand to—and, somehow, us never suspected t' newcomer.
"It was only long afterwards us learned how t' new settler come by his name—which was 'Skipper Bill Portland.' Seems that's where the big English convict prison is. So after Bill escaped, he not being good at letters, and not wanting exactly to use his own name, he just twisted her round, and to this day no one's ever found out really who he was before.
"Hundreds of schooners anchored in the Bight in our harbour that spring, t' whitecoats having come right in on t' floe, just t' other side of t' Deadman's Cape. One day a schooner captain read we a piece in t' papers about a man what had been a pirate, what had escaped to Newfoundland; and a hundred dollars was being offered for his head. Reading about that man made us all think of Skipper Portland. It were his build and his kind, too. But us folk never mixed with that kind of work; and all us did was to keep a good lookout for t' future. But a poor neighbour he proved to be, for he were as cute as a fox, and he had no fear o' nothing.
"He weren't no idle man, though, SkipperBill weren't. That second winter he set to and built a ten-tonner all by hisself—that is, t' hull. He had galvanized fastenings for her, such as he never bought fair in Newfoundland. But o' course he had no gear to fit her out, and he couldn't get any more than he'd got already off our room. We lads saw to that, and he knew it, too—and that it weren't safe playing no games, neither.
"He were away t' following winter, 'furring,' so he told we, but no fox could ever get fooled by a trap Skipper Bill set. It weren't in his line, getting round animals. Beyond which he had ne'er a trap. He 'lowed he just set deadfalls—a good name for his work, I'm thinking now. Anyhow, he came back with enough gear, stolen off French Rooms to t' south, I reckon, to get his boat afloat by t' time t' owners got back.
"She were an odd craft, built for a crew of one man only. For Skipper Bill hadn't much trust in any man 'cept hisself. Once when he were full o' French brandy he told me that when he were working on t' cliffs in England,he found out that his mate were going to 'squeal,' as he called it, about his leaving, so he'd given him such a kick behind when he weren't expecting it that no one had ever heard from him since. He meant, we reckoned, that t' poor fellow had fell off t' bill into t' sea.
"When he built that boat he were thinking already that he might have to leave sudden, and perhaps a crew wouldn't be willing to, even if he got one. So he trimmed his teller lanyards to run forrard, so as he could steer before t' foremast, and handle t' headsheets hisself going to windward, and at t' same time keep a lookout for ice and slob.
"Many's t' time I've seen him sailing along with ne'er a watch on deck at all, he being below aft steering by compass from t' locker, with t' tiller lines leading down the companion hatch.
"I minds one fall that he brought in a big cask o' rum and a lot o' brandy, which he were going to sell to us folk. But Father wouldn't stand for that. He said that he'd seen too much of it when he were young to want any morelying round. We lads found it only fun to go over and knock t' heads in, and hear what old Portland had to say about we.
"One day, however, a fellow all dressed in blue came down from St. John's to take he along, and before Bill knew it t' boat were alongside his craft and t' man calling he to come ashore. Bill knowed what he were at once. He'd had experience. 'All right, Officer,' he said, 'I'll just get my coat and come along,' But when he come up on deck he had a barrel of gunpowder all open and a box of matches in his hand. 'Come on, now,' he shouted with an oath, 'let's all go to hell together.' But just as soon as ever t' small boat backed off, he runs forrard and slips his cable, and was off before t' wind before youse could say 'Jack Robinson.'
"He always left his mainsail up, Skipper Bill did. 'Better be sure than sorry' was a rule he always told us were his religion.
"T' policeman seemed in two minds about following t' boat, but when she rounded Deadman's Cape, he rows back ashore. I minds running up t' hill to watch where Skipper Billwould go, but he stood right on across for t' Larbadore. T' policeman said that that weren't his beat; and he looked glad enough that it weren't neither. Old Portland never came back to Sleepy Cove to live. He just left everything standing—which were mostly only what he couldn't take away with him anyhow.
"That fall one of t' Frenchmen stowed away in t' woods when their ship was getting ready for home. His name was Louis Marteau; and his vessel had no sooner gone than in he goes and lives in Bill's house across t' cove. Things got missing again that winter, and though Father had to feed him, seeing that he hadn't been able to steal a diet, we lads give him notice to quit in t' spring. As he didn't show no signs of moving, us just put a couple of big trees for shoes under t' house, and ran it and Louis, too, out onto t' ice as far as t' cape—a matter of two miles or more.
"So us thought us had done with both of them, and a good riddance too; but when t' spring opened t' Frenchman wrote up to t' English man-o'-war captain to come in andfind out about t' things what they'd lost. So one day in comes t' big ship and anchors right alongside in our bay. T' very first man to come rowing across and go aboard to see what he could get, I reckon, was Louis Marteau. When t' captain asked him what he wanted, he said that he had come over to ask him to send a boat to t' cape to search his rooms, as t' neighbours blamed he for having taken their things.
"Well, it were a long way to go and there were no motor boats them days; and t' captain must have thought if Louis had taken anything he had it hid away where no one would find it. So they just didn't take t' trouble to send out a crew and look. At the same time Louis had stolen fish drying on his flakes, and stolen twine right in his open fish stage to go and catch more with.
"Another steamer came in t' fall, and Louis, thinking that t' trouble had blown over, went aboard as usual. One of t' officers, thinking that the man was just a fisherman, and as simple as most o' we, asked him if he didn't knowwhere a man called Louis Marteau was. 'Yes," said Louis, 'I knows he well. He be here to-day, and gone to-morrow'—and with that he slips away, and was far enough in the woods for safety long before the searching party landed.
"Louis, like old Bill, was as fond o' liquor as a cat is o' milk; and when he got French brandy in him, he didn't care what he did. There be only one law here which every one keeps, as you knows, Doctor, on this coast. Whatever else you does, you must never touch t' property of another settler, whether he be good or bad, or whether he be away fishing, or whether he be in America. Because any time he may need to come back, and that many are away summers fishing, if they can't leave their homes locked and feel 'em safe, they can't live at all. So everybody minds that law, whether it be written in St. John's or not. There are new stages, yes, and houses, too, and plenty of 'em, and boats hauled up, that men has left and gone to Canada years ago. They're tumbling down right alongside folk as needs 'em as bad as gold just for firewood, but ne'er a stickis touched come year, go year—not till they rots or t' sea comes and carries 'em away.
"Well, Louis and a man called Tom Marling got some liquor aboard that day, and started scrapping, Marling saying that Louis must be a crook or he wouldn't steal another man's house. T' end of that was that Louis shot Marling through the shoulder and nearly blew his arm off.
"Next spring a large bully sailed across t' Straits and four men landed in my cove. It chanced that old Skipper Sam Brewer caught sight of 'em, and he recognized Bill Portland from t' old days. T' other three was Tom Marling's brothers. All t' men had guns, and old Skipper Sam guessed they was after Louis. So he sent off his lad Mose to run out to t' cape and give he warning. Though why he should I can't say. Louis just said, 'All right, I'll be ready for 'em, boy,' and started right in loading his two big guns and his rifle. Then he fixed up t' windows and barred t' door, and when Mose come away he could see Louis moving round inside and swearing enough to frightent' fish off t' coast for t' whole summer. Mose waited round out of sight all day to see what would happen. But nothing did, only before dark he saw the four men making their campfire on the edge of the woods near Louis's house. I reckon they knew he'd be ready and wanted to keep him waiting. Anyway, they was there all next day.
"T' third morning I caught sight of some men loading a boat at Louis's stage, so, being only a hobbledehoy then, I guessed they'd not take much notice of me, and no more they did. They told me Louis had tried to break away t' second night in t' dark, but they caught him and carried his pack back for him, and what else they did to he I don't rightly know. Anyhow, they loaded up their own boat and then Louis's two boats with fish and twine, and everything else that were worth taking and they could stow, not forgetting t' barrel of flour and t' keg of molasses.
"Skipper Bill told me that t' Governor offered to make him t' captain of a man-o'-war, just to stop t' law-breaking on the coast. Buthe were a policeman instead because he felt ashamed to see t' laws broken and villains like Louis go free. 'It's to teach you people on t' coast to be good boys what brings us away from our homes so far in t' fishing season.'
"They never stopped loading a minute all t' time, and as soon as ever they were ready, and that wasn't long after it were light, away they goes towing t' two boats behind, and giving it to her straight for t' Labrador. 'Skipper Life,' Bill shouted, just after the anchor was up, 'if you sees Louis be sure and tell him to be good and say his prayers, and when he is ready, not to forget his uncles in Labrador and come over and settle down peaceful like.'
"No, Doctor, Louis never got so much as a match back, though he wrote and wrote about it—and Louis were a good scholar, being well learnt in France. All t' Government did was to offer Captain Fordland, who fished t' big Jersey rooms across near Isle au Loup on Labrador, another hundred dollars to bring back Skipper Bill with him in t' fall. T' captain told his men that they could divide t' moneyif they liked to catch old Portland out of hours.
"I 'lows it was more t' fun of hunting than anything else that started 'em, though two hundred dollars cash meant a nice bit in them times. Soon there were half a dozen small crowds keeping an eye out for Bill. There were no wires or mail steamers to carry news them days, and it so happened that Bill fell right into t' trap. For Captain Fordland did a bit o' trade, and Bill, being out of flour, come along to buy a barrel. Half a dozen men soon had him and his boat as well. T' trouble was where to keep him till they went home in t' fall, which was a full two months anyhow.
"The crowd what took him got leave from Skipper Fordland to lock Bill up in t' top storey of t' old Jersey brick store on the Island; and 'em fixed it like sailors so that not even Bill should get away. They had to share t' expense of feeding and looking after he between 'em, and though they didn't give he none too much it took quite a bit of their wages—only a hundred dollars for the whole summer.
"Bill had been there nearly six weeks and all hands were thinking of going home, when one day he told t' cook who brought up his food that he was fair dying of doing nothing, and couldn't he give him some work. Being an old sailor, he set Bill to making bread bags, and for a few days he made a whole lot, and t' cook took it easy. All he gave Bill was some canvas, a pocket-knife, and some needles and thread. Bill, however, saved a lot of canvas out of them bags and made himself a long rope of it. Then he just worked on, waiting for a real dark night and an offshore wind, when he let hisself down through t' window, swam off to t' best fishing bully Captain Fordland had, and was out of sight before daylight.
"You may bet they was all mad, more especially t' captain, who swore that t' crowd would have to pay for his good boat. What they said and did to t' cook be scarcely fit for ears to hear. Anyhow, no one knowed where Bill had gone, and none of that crowd ever saw him again. He weren't very dear to memory either.
"T' next place us heard of him was on the West Coast. He brought with him an Eskimo wife he called Nancy, who was very good at doctoring. She could make poultices out of herbs and medicines out of t' woods, and she would charm toothache and warts and such like, and could stop bleeding by just tying green worsted round your left arm. She had a haddock's fin-bone that never touched any boat that she used to lend out for rheumatism. She did a lot o' good, they says, Doctor, and she made a nice bit of money, too, so that old Bill had an easy time. But he spent most of t' cash in liquor, and at last she wouldn't work any more for he and he got beating her. One, day he come rowing down right into Port Warfield, with she tied up in t' bottom of t' boat, and a stone tied round her neck as well! It so happened that big Skipper Weymouth came alongside and seed her.
"'What be you going to do wi' she?' he asked, he not being afraid as most were. 'Why drown her, to be sure,' said Bill. 'I towed her behind t' boat for a mile a week ago comeSunday to drive t' devil out of her. But she ain't no good to me now, and so I reckon I'll get another.'
"The skipper saw that Bill had liquor in him and was quarrelsome, and feared that he'd just as likely as not upset t' boat—and drowned t' woman would be sure enough with that stone round her neck. So he says, 'Drown her! Not on this coast and lobsters just setting in. She'd spoil the catch all summer just to spite you.' Bill looked puzzled. 'You're right, sure enough, Skipper Alf. I'll have to do for she some other way'—and round he goes and rows her home again.
"The people, howsomever, was real afraid, and letters went up to the Government. No doubt Bill heard about it. But there were no place left now for him to go safely, so he just drank and drank where he was, all he could lay hands on; and when he couldn't get no more I guess he must have gone mad. For he were found dead on t' floor of his house, with a great big knife he had for hunting deer in his hand.
"Yes, his wife's alive to this day so far as us knows. Her son Bill found a box of old silver dollars, Spanish and French, buried under t' house Bill had on Labrador, the time he were trapped by Captain Fordland's men. They were mostly about a hundred years old. I saw many of them, but where they come from, or how he come by 'em, no one ever knew. We heard, however, that they helped poor Nancy to get back to her people again all right."
The brief summer of Northern Labrador had passed, and the Eskimos around the Hudson's Bay Post at Katatallik were busy preparing for the approaching winter. The season previous, according to the accurate notes of the Moravians, kept for over a hundred years, had been the worst on record; and now again, as the long, cold, icy grip of winter drew near, the prospect of supplies was menacingly poor. So the Innuits, that cheerful and resourceful little race of the North who wrest their living from so reluctant an environment, were putting forth all their energies in a "preparedness" from whose example many a civilized community might well have profited.
Their chief Kaiachououk, of upright character, and the courage born of simplicity, was a familiar figure at the Hudson's Bay Post where my friend Barlow wasfacteurfor so many years. His acquaintance with the chieftain dated from an afternoon many yearsbefore, when he had first seen him, steering his large oomiavik, or flat-bottomed boat, up to the station, while his four lusty wives cheerily worked at the sweeps with his eldest son—an almost regal procession. It was on that same evening that he had told thefacteur, after watching Mrs. Barlow prepare the evening meal, "Ananaudlualakuk" ("She is much too good for you"), and the frankness of his speech, far from seeming to disparage his host, endeared the speaker all the more to that hospitable and discerning person.
Kaiachououk possessed qualities which evoked the respect and admiration of all with whom he came in contact. Very noticeable among these was his affection for his family. To this day on the coast there is a story told of him and his youngest wife. He had been camping on their outside walrus-hunting station, and as was customary, he was sometimes away two or three days at a time, having to take refuge on one of the off-lying islands, if bad weather or the fickleness of fortune involved longer distances to travel than he wasable to accomplish in a short winter's day. It was on his return from one of these temporary absences that he was greeted with the news that his youngest wife, Kajue, was very ill. One might have supposed that having so generous a complement of that nature, the news would not have afflicted him in the same degree as one less gifted. But exactly the reverse proved to be the case. Kaiachououk was completely prostrated; and when the girl died two days later, having failed to make any rally in spite of all her husband's generous presents to Angelok, he literally went out of his mind.
The Eskimo custom, still observed in the North, is to lay out the dead in all their clothing, but with no other covering, on the rocky summit of some projecting headland. The body thus placed on the surface of the rocks is walled in with tall, flat stones standing on end, long, narrow slits being left between them, so that air and light may freely circulate, and the spirit of the departed may come and go at will and keep watch on passing animals, whose spirits must serve the person in the spirit landjust as, when embodied, they paid tribute to the needs and prowess of the dead. The top of the grave is also covered with large, flat slabs; and in a small separate cache of similar construction are stored all the personal belongings likely to be of use. The spirits of these latter are set free, either by having holes bored in them or some part of them broken or removed, so that thus being rendered useless to the living, they suffer what in the Eskimo mind corresponds to the death of inanimate objects.
Kaiachououk was so convinced of the reality of the spirit world, and so heart-broken at his utter inability to bring back to life the one he had loved so well, that now nothing would satisfy his mind but that in order to continue the communion which had been so sweet to him on earth, he should be treated exactly as his lost wife, and be immediately buried alongside her on some point of vantage.
At first his followers were inclined to treat his injunctions as mere vapourings, but they finally realized that the man was in deadly earnest, and were eventually compelled tocomply with his wishes. The day being set, he was accordingly dressed in his finest garments, and, his dead wife being duly caparisoned and walled in in the customary manner, Kaiachououk, laid out on the rock beside her, was treated in an exactly similar fashion. There was no apparent alteration of the chief's attitude of mind as they proceeded with the walling up, and the heavy slabs were already being laid over him when two of the largest happened to become lodged on his chest. For a short time he made no sign and offered no kind of resistance; but it was gradually forced upon him that this method of translation into other worlds was far from being as easy as he had been inclined to suppose. Consequently, before the cortège had broken up and his last friends departed, he was loudly appealing to them to return and release him.
He was never known afterwards to refer to the incident; but on the whole it had an excellent effect on the Innuits; and they realized, so far as their unimpressionable natures are capable of doing, the strong domestic affectionfor his wife which was one of their chief's pre-eminent sources of greatness.
On this particular fall, when the last drama in Kaiachououk's life was played, when the northern lights sent their many-coloured banners floating over the heavens, and the stars looked so large and shining that it seemed one must surely touch them from the tops of the high hills, he was camping with his family and two or three others on a small ledge at the foot of the mighty Kiglapeit (shining top) Mountains, hunting walrus. This year the hunt was doubly important to them, and they delayed longer than was their wont. Here the great cape with which the spur ends marks the division of the whole trend of the land north from that which runs more directly south toward Katatallik. There the whole force of the south-going polar streams, focused on the ice, keeps open water long after all the rest of the coast is locked in the grim grip of winter. The walrus herds seem, in the evolution of ages, to have got an appreciation of this fact through their adamantine skulls. Therefore, from timeimmemorial, it has been chosen as a rendezvous of the Innuits in spring and fall. The chaos of ancient walrus bones which strews the stony beach reminds one of nothing so forcibly as the stacks of bleaching buffalo bones which disgrace the prairies.
On several occasions during the year previous, Kalleligak (the Capelin) had been guilty of the worst crime in the Eskimo calendar—on several occasions he had failed to extend that hospitality to strangers without which life on the coast is scarcely possible. It had been brought to Kaiachououk's notice, and he had lost no time in seeking out the man and taxing him with his remissness. A mixture of traits like the colours in a variegated skein of worsted formed the spectrum of Kalleligak's character; and selfishness, which fortunately is rarer among the Eskimos than among those in keener competition with civilization, was too often the prevailing colour. After the interview, at which he had promised to mend his ways, he apparently always lived in fear that sooner or later Kaiachououk would have himpunished, and even deprive him of some of his possessions. The obsession haunted him as the thought of the crime does the murderer, and at last impelled him to the act which, though it went unpunished by men, blasted the remainder of his days.
Among the others who camped around Kaiachououk's igloo this year was as usual the sub-chief Kalleligak. He had been more than usually successful in his hunt, and was able to face the prospect of the oncoming winter with optimism. On the other hand, his supposed enemy, Kaiachououk, had been singularly unfortunate, largely owing to the fact that his kayak had been left farther to the north. He showed no signs of either impatience or jealousy, however, and never by word or act gave evidence that he so much as remembered the rebuke he had been forced to administer to the sub-chief. Finally he dispatched his eldest sons, Bakshuak and Kommak, with a big team of dogs, to hurry down north and bring the belated and forgotten boat back with all speed.
Kalleligak, obsessed by his jealousy andchagrin, was able from his camp to watch every movement of the chief's. He positively brooded so much over the incident that he came to believe that his life was in danger at Kaiachououk's hands. The next steps were easy, for he was favoured both by the innocence of his superior and the weather. Days are short in the late fall in the North, and darkness falls before work is finished.
In the late afternoon, two days after Bakshuak and Kommak's departure, while Kaiachououk was still out of his igloo and the darkness was rapidly coming on, Kalleligak stole inside and took the chief's gun. This he unloaded and then reloaded with two balls. Early next morning, before the dawn, he crept out, carrying his own and the stolen weapon, to watch his chance. Kaiachououk, emerging soon after from his snow house, turned his back on Kalleligak's igloo while he stooped to make a trifling repair on his own. Without a second's hesitation, Kalleligak seized Kaiachououk's own gun, and crawling and crouching up behind the five-foot snow ramparts which theEskimos invariably build around their winter houses, he fired two bullets through the unsuspecting man's back and body. The chief fell head foremost, having received two fatal wounds; but Kalleligak, throwing down one gun had instantly grabbed the other, in order if necessary to finish the deed before the mortally wounded man could tell who was responsible. But Kaiachououk never moved, and his enemy slunk inside, believing that he had been unobserved.
As fate would have it, Anatalik, another of the hunters, appeared at the entrance of his igloo just in time to see the smoking gun-barrel over the edge of the snow wall. Running to his fallen chief, he begged him to tell him what had occurred. The dying man had only strength left to whisper "Kiapevunga?" ("Who has killed me?"), and Anatalik could barely discern from his eye that he understood the answer, "Kalleligamut" ("It was Kalleligak who did it").
It was probably this, to us, unimportant item which caused a confession ever to be made.Kalleligak, now convinced that the spirit of his dead chief knew he was the murderer, believed it would haunt him without mercy, and that his own life might be immediately forfeit unless he could appease it. He therefore at once set about preparations for a funeral befitting the dignity of the deceased; which, in the absence of Kaiachououk's eldest son, he himself personally supervised. When all was over he went to the igloo carrying gifts, and offered to support the entire family till the sons should be of an age to assume it. His overtures were as unwelcome as they were importunate; but the poor women were forced to listen in silence. Helpless as they were, with their young men away, they dared not anger the man, whose character was only too well known. Kalleligak, in order further to allay the anger of the spirit, with all speed set out on the trail to meet the dead man's returning sons, and apprize them personally of his version of the story.
Bakshuak, the eldest, listened in silence while Kalleligak first recounted the long list of imaginary wrongs which he had suffered at thehands of his father, then made his plea of self-defence, and lastly recited the hateful overtures which he had made to the helpless family, who were now, in spite of themselves, under very definite obligations to the murderer.
Angrily the lad repudiated any parleying. The family would far rather starve than be beholden to such infamy as was suggested. He was only a boy now, he declared, but he said fearlessly that if no one else killed him, he would do the deed himself as soon as he was big enough; and he raced on with his dogs, to reach home and comfort his poor mother. Had he but known it, he was really indebted for his life to the supposed wrath of his father's spirit and the restraining effect which it had on Kalleligak.
Eskimos never refer to painful events if they can help it. They go even farther than certain modern "scientists," for if a person who dies happens to have had the same name as one still living in the vicinity, the latter incontinently changes his. As a result, confusion not infrequently arises, for a man whom you haveknown all his life as "John" is "William" the next time you meet him. Thus they avoid the mention of the word the memory of which might bring pain to the relatives. Much less would they bring bad news to a white man.
They took good care, however, that the local Innuits should know that Kaiachououk was dead, hoping that they might give the great white man at the post the sad news of the loss of his friend. Barlow, as soon as he was certain of the main facts, at once dispatched messengers to summon to him Kalleligak, and Anatalik, who had seen the deed. The murderer had already expressed his willingness to surrender to the white man, and he at once packed up and accompanied the couriers back to Katatallik.
Meanwhile the news had also reached Ekkoulak, the sister of Kaiachououk, and her husband, Semijak, immediately summoned his council to discuss matters. All were agreed that the tribal custom must be observed. "A life for a life" was the only law they recognized, and the two elder sons of Semijak were selected tocarry the sentence into effect. Well armed and equipped, they started the very next morning for the North. The following day they walked into the Hudson's Bay Post to apprize the white man of their errand, so that there might be no suspicion of their blood-guiltiness, not knowing that by a strange whim of fortune Kalleligak and Anatalik were already there and were seated in one room while they were being received in another.
In the room with Kalleligak and Anatalik was Mr. Barlow's daughter, a little child of six, who was amusing herself with a picture book of the life of Christ. The little girl began to show the pictures to the two men, telling them the story in their own tongue as she went along. She at last came to the picture of Christ upon the Cross between the two thieves. Mr. Barlow in the adjoining room heard Kalleligak ask the child if she thought Jesus would forgive any one who had killed another man, to which the little one replied, "Why, yes, if he were really sorry and tried to be better."
The house of friends is neutral ground, andto start a quarrel in the great white man's house would be about as likely as that we should begin one on the steps of the altar. Thus, when Kalleligak and Anatalik were summoned to dinner, both parties proceeded as if nothing unusual were in the air and all refreshed themselves at the same board.
Bidding them to keep the peace, Mr. Barlow made an effort to get to the bottom of the affair; but he found it very hard to know what to advise. The sister of Kaiachououk had begged and prayed her sons, now chosen as avengers, to have nothing to do with the slaying, saying, "It will only make more trouble. It will be Kalleligak's family who will suffer. They will surely starve to death." She had even sent a special messenger to the agent with an earnest plea that he would use all his influence to save her lads from the shedding of blood.
Having decided that the matter should be settled in open court and to abide by the decision of the great white man, all concerned now adjourned to the kitchen, and not for the firsttime that humble room was transformed into a court of justice. Kalleligak first gave his version of the story without the slightest attempt to conceal anything. He said he had lived in constant terror of what Kaiachououk might inflict upon him; and then, turning to the two men, who were fully armed with loaded guns, he said:—
"I know you have come to kill me. I shall never know good fortune again, anyhow. I have many skins and goods. With those I will pay for Kaiachououk. I can say no more."
As he ceased speaking, Semijak's eldest son burst out angrily:—
"Yes, we have come to kill you. Our law is a life for a life. We will not take any bribe."
But Oggak, the second avenger, thought differently:—
"We will hurt those who are not guilty. It would be different if he had no family. What offer does he make?"
"You know that Kalleligak is the second best hunter in the North," the agent spoke up. "And your mother, the wife of Semijak, hasalso sent me a letter. She says nothing but evil will come from killing the head of another family. Cannot the spirit be satisfied in some other way?"
Mr. Barlow said he would go out and return when they had talked over the matter among themselves. He always felt great pity for these far-off outcasts of humanity. To kill another could only make matters worse. It was quite probable that even a blood feud would be started and more valuable lives be sacrificed. The struggle for existence was hard enough in any case, and if he suggested their taking the law into their own hands, there was no telling where it would end.
So it turned out that the matter was settled by simple word of mouth. That was absolutely sufficient for Kalleligak. If the avengers appointed by the tribe were satisfied, not only would the spirit of the murdered chief rest quietly, but the guilty one's life would be safe.
The agreement, duly drawn up by the agent, read as follows:—