Chapter Nine.Their New Acquaintance Becomes Interested and Practical.The tall stranger who had thus suddenly presented himself bore so strong a resemblance to the vikings of old that Paul Burns, who was familiar with tales and legends about the ancient sea-rovers, felt stealing over him at the first glance a sensation somewhat akin to awe, for it seemed as if one of the sea-kings had actually risen from his grave to visit them.This feeling was succeeded, however, by one of intense surprise when the stranger addressed them in the English tongue.“I thought, years ago,” he said, “that I had seen the last of white faces!”It immediately occurred to Oliver Trench that, as their faces were by that time deeply embrowned by the sun, the stranger must be in a bantering mood, but neither he nor his companions replied. They were too much astonished to speak or even move, and waited for more.“This is not a land where the men whose ruling ideas seem to be war and gold are likely to find what they want,” continued the stranger, somewhat sternly. “Whence come ye? Are you alone, or only the advance-guard of the bloodthirsty race?”There was something so commanding as well as courtly in the tone and bearing of this extraordinary man, that Paul half involuntarily removed his cap as he replied:“Forgive me, sir, if astonishment at your sudden appearance has made me appear rude. Will you sit down beside us and share our meal, while I answer your questions?”With a quiet air and slight smile the stranger accepted the invitation, and listened with profound interest to Paul as he gave a brief outline of the wreck of theWater Wagtail, the landing of the crew, the mutinous conduct of Big Swinton and his comrades, and the subsequent adventures and wanderings of himself, Master Trench, and Oliver.“Your voices are like the echoes of an old, old song,” said the stranger, in a low sad voice, when the narrative was concluded. “It is many years since I heard my native tongue from English lips. I had forgotten it ere now if I had not taken special means to keep it in mind.”“And pray, good sir,” said Paul, “may I ask how it happens that we should find an Englishman in this almost unheard-of wilderness? To tell you the truth, my first impression on seeing you was that you were the ghost of an ancient sea-king.”“I am the ghost of my former self,” returned the stranger, “and you are not far wrong about the sea-kings, for I am in very truth a descendant of those rovers who carried death and destruction round the world in ancient times. War and gold—or what gold represents—were their gods in those days.”“It seems to me,” said Captain Trench, at last joining in the conversation, “that if you were in Old England just now, or any other part of Europe, you’d say that war and gold are as much worshipped now-a-days as they ever were in the days of old.”“If you add love and wine to the catalogue,” said Paul, “you have pretty much the motive powers that have swayed the world since the fall of man. But tell us, friend, how you came to be here all alone.”“Not now—not now,” replied the stranger hurriedly, and with a sudden gleam in his blue eyes that told of latent power and passion under his calm exterior. “When we are better acquainted, perhaps you shall know. At present, it is enough to say that I have been a wanderer on the face of the earth for many years. For the last ten years my home has been in this wilderness. My native land is one of those rugged isles which form the advance-guard of Scotland in the Northern Ocean.”“But are you quite alone here?” asked Captain Trench, with increasing interest.“Not quite alone. One woman has had pity on me, and shares my solitude. We dwell, with our children, on an island in a great lake, to which I will conduct you if you will accept my hospitality. Red men have often visited me there, but I had thought that the face of a white man would never more grieve my sight.”“Is, then, the face of the white man so distasteful to you?” asked Paul.“Itwas; but some change must have come over me, for while I hold converse with you the old hatred seems melting away. If I had met you eight or ten years ago, I verily believe that I would have killed you all in cold blood, but now—”He stopped abruptly, and gazed into the flames of the camp-fire, with a grave, almost tender air that seemed greatly at variance with his last murderous remark.“However, the feeling is past and gone—it is dead,” he presently resumed, with a toss of his head which sent the yellow curls back, and appeared at the same time to cast unpleasant memories behind him, “and I am now glad to see and welcome you, though I cannot help grieving that the white race has discovered my lonely island. They might have discovered it long ago if they had only kept their ears open.”“Is it a big island, then—not a cluster of islands?” asked Trench eagerly.“Yes, it is a large island, and there is a great continent of unknown extent to the westward of it.”“But what do you mean, stranger, by saying that it might have been discovered long ago if people had kept their ears open?” asked Paul. “It is well known that only a few years ago a sea-captain named Columbus discovered the great continent of which you speak, and that so recently as the year 1497 the bold mariner, John Cabot, with his son Sebastian, discovered these islands, which they have named Newfoundland.”The stranger listened with evident interest, not unmingled with surprise, to this.“Of Columbus and Cabot I have never heard,” he replied, “having had no intercourse with the civilised world for twenty years. I knew of this island and dwelt on it long before the time you say that Cabot came. But that reminds me that once, on returning from a hunting expedition into the interior, it was reported to me by Indians that a giant canoe had been seen off the coast. That may have been Cabot’s ship. As to Columbus, my forefathers discovered the great continent lying to the west of this about five hundred years before he could have been born. When I was a boy, my father, whose memory was stored with innumerable scraps of the old viking sagas, or stories, used to tell me about the discovery of Vinland by the Norsemen, which is just the land that seems to have been re-discovered by Columbus and Cabot. My father used to say that many of the written sagas were believed to exist among the colonists of Iceland. I know not. It is long since my thoughts ceased to be troubled by such matters, but what you tell me has opened up the flood-gates of old memories that I had thought were dead and buried for ever.”All that day the strange hunter accompanied them, and encamped with them at night. Next morning he resumed with ever-increasing interest the conversation which had been interrupted by the necessity of taking rest. It was evident that his heart was powerfully stirred; not so much by the news which he received, as by the old thoughts and feelings that had been revived. He was very sociable, and, among other things, showed his new friends how to slice and dry their venison, so as to keep it fresh and make it convenient for carriage.“But you won’t require to carry much with you,” he explained, “for the country swarms with living creatures at all times—especially just now.”On this head he gave them so much information, particularly as to the habits and characteristics of birds, beasts, and fishes, that Paul’s natural-historic enthusiasm was aroused; and Oliver, who had hitherto concerned himself exclusively with the uses to which wild animals might be applied—in the way of bone-points for arrows, twisted sinews for bowstrings, flesh for the pot, and furs for garments—began to feel considerable curiosity as to what the creatures did when at home, and why they did it.“If we could only find out what they think about,” he remarked to the hunter, “we might become quite sociable together.”What it was in this not very remarkable speech that interested their new friend we cannot tell, but certain it is that from the time it was uttered he took greater interest in the boy, and addressed many of his remarks and explanations to him.There was a species of dignity about this strange being which prevented undue familiarity either with or by him; hence, he always addressed the boy by his full name, and never condescended to “Olly!” The name by which he himself chose to be called was Hendrick, but whether that was a real or assumed name of course they had no means of knowing.Continuing to advance through a most beautiful country, the party came at last to a river of considerable size and depth, up the banks of which they travelled for several days. Hendrick had by tacit agreement assumed the leadership of the party, because, being intimately acquainted with the land, both as to its character, form, and resources, he was naturally fitted to be their guide.“It seems to me,” said Captain Trench, as they sat down to rest one afternoon on a sunny bank by the river side—out of which Olly had just pulled a magnificent trout—“that the climate of this island has been grossly misrepresented. The report was brought to us that it was a wild barren land, always enveloped in thick fogs; whereas, although I am bound to say we found fogs enough on the coast we have found nothing but beauty, sunshine, and fertility in the interior.”“Does not this arise from the tendency of mankind to found and form opinions on insufficient knowledge?” said Hendrick. “Even the Indians among whom I dwell are prone to this error. If your discoverer Cabot had dwelt as many years as I have in this great island, he would have told you that it has a splendid climate, and is admirably adapted for the abode of man. Just look around you—the region which extends from your feet to the horizon in all directions is watered as you see by lakes and rivers, which swarm with fish and are alive with wildfowl; the woods, which are largely composed of magnificent and useful trees, give shelter to myriads of animals suitable for food to man; the soil is excellent, and the grazing lands would maintain thousands of cattle—what more could man desire?”“Nothing more,” answered Paul, “save the opportunity to utilise it all, and the blessing of God upon his efforts.”“The opportunity to utilise it won’t be long of coming, now that the facts about it are known, or soon to be made known, by us,” remarked Trench.“I’m not so sure about that” said Paul. “It is wonderful how slow men are to believe, and still more wonderful how slow they are to act.”That the captain’s hopes were not well founded, and that Paul’s doubts were justified, is amply proved by the history of Newfoundland. At first its character was misunderstood; then, when its unparalleled cod-fishing banks were discovered, attention was entirely confined to its rugged shores. After that the trade fell into the hands of selfish and unprincipled monopolists, who wilfully misrepresented the nature of this island, and prevailed on the British Government to enact repressive laws, which effectually prevented colonisation. Then prejudice, privileges, and error perpetuated the evil state of things, so that the true character of the land was not known until the present century; its grand interior was not systematically explored till only a few years ago, and thus it comes to pass that even at the present day one of the finest islands belonging to the British Crown—as regards vast portions of its interior—still remains a beautiful wilderness unused by man.But with this we have nothing at present to do. Our business is, in spirit, to follow Hendrick and his friends through that wilderness, as it was at the beginning of the sixteenth century.Deer-tracks, as we have said, were innumerable, and along one of those tracks a herd of deer were seen trotting one day about two bow-shots from the party. With characteristic eagerness Oliver Trench hastily let fly an arrow at them. He might as well have let it fly at the pole-star. The only effect it had was to startle the deer and send them galloping into the shelter of the woods.“Whata pity!” exclaimed Oliver.“Not so, my boy,” remarked his father. “Experience, they say, teaches fools; and if experience has now taught you that it is foolish to shoot at game out of range, you are no fool, which is not a pity, but matter for congratulation.”“But what about practice, daddy? Did you not say only last night that there is nothing like practice to make perfect?”“True, lad, but I did not recommend practising at deer beyond range. Besides, you can practise at stumps and stones.”“But stumps and stones don’t affordrunningshots,” objected Olly.“Yes they do, boy. You can run past the stumps while you shoot, and as to stones, you can roll them down hill and let fly at them as they roll. Now clap the hatches on your mouth; you’re too fond of argument.”“I’m only a chip of the ancient tree, father,” retorted the boy, with a quiet laugh.How much further this little skirmish might have proceeded we cannot tell, for it was brought to an abrupt close by the sudden appearance of a black bear. It was on turning a cliff which bordered the edge of a stream that they came upon the monster—so close to it that they had barely time to get ready their weapons when it rose on its hind legs to attack them.“Look out!” yelled Oliver, who, being in advance, was the first to see the bear.A stone from his sling was well though hastily aimed, for it hit the animal fairly on the nose, thereby rendering it particularly angry. Almost at the same moment a bolt and an arrow flew from the weapons of Paul and Trench; but they flew wide of the mark, and there is no saying what the result might have been had not Hendrick bent his short but powerful bow, and sent an arrow to the feather into the creature’s breast.The modern bullet is no doubt more deadly than the ancient arrow, nevertheless the latter had some advantages over the former. One of these was that, as it transfixed several muscles, it tended to hamper the movements of the victim shot. It also drew attention in some degree from the assailant. Thus, on the present occasion the bear, with a savage growl, seized the head of the arrow which projected from the wound and wrenched it off. This, although little more than a momentary act, gave the hunter time to fit and discharge a second arrow, which entered the animal’s throat, causing it to fall writhing on the ground, while Oliver, who had gone almost mad with excitement, grasped his axe, bounded forward, and brought it down on bruin’s skull.Well was it for the reckless boy that Hendrick’s arrows had done their work, for, although his young arm was stout and the axe sharp, little impression was made on the hard-headed creature by the blow. Hendrick’s knife, however, completed the work and despatched the bear. Then they all sat down to rest while the hunter set to work to skin the animal.
The tall stranger who had thus suddenly presented himself bore so strong a resemblance to the vikings of old that Paul Burns, who was familiar with tales and legends about the ancient sea-rovers, felt stealing over him at the first glance a sensation somewhat akin to awe, for it seemed as if one of the sea-kings had actually risen from his grave to visit them.
This feeling was succeeded, however, by one of intense surprise when the stranger addressed them in the English tongue.
“I thought, years ago,” he said, “that I had seen the last of white faces!”
It immediately occurred to Oliver Trench that, as their faces were by that time deeply embrowned by the sun, the stranger must be in a bantering mood, but neither he nor his companions replied. They were too much astonished to speak or even move, and waited for more.
“This is not a land where the men whose ruling ideas seem to be war and gold are likely to find what they want,” continued the stranger, somewhat sternly. “Whence come ye? Are you alone, or only the advance-guard of the bloodthirsty race?”
There was something so commanding as well as courtly in the tone and bearing of this extraordinary man, that Paul half involuntarily removed his cap as he replied:
“Forgive me, sir, if astonishment at your sudden appearance has made me appear rude. Will you sit down beside us and share our meal, while I answer your questions?”
With a quiet air and slight smile the stranger accepted the invitation, and listened with profound interest to Paul as he gave a brief outline of the wreck of theWater Wagtail, the landing of the crew, the mutinous conduct of Big Swinton and his comrades, and the subsequent adventures and wanderings of himself, Master Trench, and Oliver.
“Your voices are like the echoes of an old, old song,” said the stranger, in a low sad voice, when the narrative was concluded. “It is many years since I heard my native tongue from English lips. I had forgotten it ere now if I had not taken special means to keep it in mind.”
“And pray, good sir,” said Paul, “may I ask how it happens that we should find an Englishman in this almost unheard-of wilderness? To tell you the truth, my first impression on seeing you was that you were the ghost of an ancient sea-king.”
“I am the ghost of my former self,” returned the stranger, “and you are not far wrong about the sea-kings, for I am in very truth a descendant of those rovers who carried death and destruction round the world in ancient times. War and gold—or what gold represents—were their gods in those days.”
“It seems to me,” said Captain Trench, at last joining in the conversation, “that if you were in Old England just now, or any other part of Europe, you’d say that war and gold are as much worshipped now-a-days as they ever were in the days of old.”
“If you add love and wine to the catalogue,” said Paul, “you have pretty much the motive powers that have swayed the world since the fall of man. But tell us, friend, how you came to be here all alone.”
“Not now—not now,” replied the stranger hurriedly, and with a sudden gleam in his blue eyes that told of latent power and passion under his calm exterior. “When we are better acquainted, perhaps you shall know. At present, it is enough to say that I have been a wanderer on the face of the earth for many years. For the last ten years my home has been in this wilderness. My native land is one of those rugged isles which form the advance-guard of Scotland in the Northern Ocean.”
“But are you quite alone here?” asked Captain Trench, with increasing interest.
“Not quite alone. One woman has had pity on me, and shares my solitude. We dwell, with our children, on an island in a great lake, to which I will conduct you if you will accept my hospitality. Red men have often visited me there, but I had thought that the face of a white man would never more grieve my sight.”
“Is, then, the face of the white man so distasteful to you?” asked Paul.
“Itwas; but some change must have come over me, for while I hold converse with you the old hatred seems melting away. If I had met you eight or ten years ago, I verily believe that I would have killed you all in cold blood, but now—”
He stopped abruptly, and gazed into the flames of the camp-fire, with a grave, almost tender air that seemed greatly at variance with his last murderous remark.
“However, the feeling is past and gone—it is dead,” he presently resumed, with a toss of his head which sent the yellow curls back, and appeared at the same time to cast unpleasant memories behind him, “and I am now glad to see and welcome you, though I cannot help grieving that the white race has discovered my lonely island. They might have discovered it long ago if they had only kept their ears open.”
“Is it a big island, then—not a cluster of islands?” asked Trench eagerly.
“Yes, it is a large island, and there is a great continent of unknown extent to the westward of it.”
“But what do you mean, stranger, by saying that it might have been discovered long ago if people had kept their ears open?” asked Paul. “It is well known that only a few years ago a sea-captain named Columbus discovered the great continent of which you speak, and that so recently as the year 1497 the bold mariner, John Cabot, with his son Sebastian, discovered these islands, which they have named Newfoundland.”
The stranger listened with evident interest, not unmingled with surprise, to this.
“Of Columbus and Cabot I have never heard,” he replied, “having had no intercourse with the civilised world for twenty years. I knew of this island and dwelt on it long before the time you say that Cabot came. But that reminds me that once, on returning from a hunting expedition into the interior, it was reported to me by Indians that a giant canoe had been seen off the coast. That may have been Cabot’s ship. As to Columbus, my forefathers discovered the great continent lying to the west of this about five hundred years before he could have been born. When I was a boy, my father, whose memory was stored with innumerable scraps of the old viking sagas, or stories, used to tell me about the discovery of Vinland by the Norsemen, which is just the land that seems to have been re-discovered by Columbus and Cabot. My father used to say that many of the written sagas were believed to exist among the colonists of Iceland. I know not. It is long since my thoughts ceased to be troubled by such matters, but what you tell me has opened up the flood-gates of old memories that I had thought were dead and buried for ever.”
All that day the strange hunter accompanied them, and encamped with them at night. Next morning he resumed with ever-increasing interest the conversation which had been interrupted by the necessity of taking rest. It was evident that his heart was powerfully stirred; not so much by the news which he received, as by the old thoughts and feelings that had been revived. He was very sociable, and, among other things, showed his new friends how to slice and dry their venison, so as to keep it fresh and make it convenient for carriage.
“But you won’t require to carry much with you,” he explained, “for the country swarms with living creatures at all times—especially just now.”
On this head he gave them so much information, particularly as to the habits and characteristics of birds, beasts, and fishes, that Paul’s natural-historic enthusiasm was aroused; and Oliver, who had hitherto concerned himself exclusively with the uses to which wild animals might be applied—in the way of bone-points for arrows, twisted sinews for bowstrings, flesh for the pot, and furs for garments—began to feel considerable curiosity as to what the creatures did when at home, and why they did it.
“If we could only find out what they think about,” he remarked to the hunter, “we might become quite sociable together.”
What it was in this not very remarkable speech that interested their new friend we cannot tell, but certain it is that from the time it was uttered he took greater interest in the boy, and addressed many of his remarks and explanations to him.
There was a species of dignity about this strange being which prevented undue familiarity either with or by him; hence, he always addressed the boy by his full name, and never condescended to “Olly!” The name by which he himself chose to be called was Hendrick, but whether that was a real or assumed name of course they had no means of knowing.
Continuing to advance through a most beautiful country, the party came at last to a river of considerable size and depth, up the banks of which they travelled for several days. Hendrick had by tacit agreement assumed the leadership of the party, because, being intimately acquainted with the land, both as to its character, form, and resources, he was naturally fitted to be their guide.
“It seems to me,” said Captain Trench, as they sat down to rest one afternoon on a sunny bank by the river side—out of which Olly had just pulled a magnificent trout—“that the climate of this island has been grossly misrepresented. The report was brought to us that it was a wild barren land, always enveloped in thick fogs; whereas, although I am bound to say we found fogs enough on the coast we have found nothing but beauty, sunshine, and fertility in the interior.”
“Does not this arise from the tendency of mankind to found and form opinions on insufficient knowledge?” said Hendrick. “Even the Indians among whom I dwell are prone to this error. If your discoverer Cabot had dwelt as many years as I have in this great island, he would have told you that it has a splendid climate, and is admirably adapted for the abode of man. Just look around you—the region which extends from your feet to the horizon in all directions is watered as you see by lakes and rivers, which swarm with fish and are alive with wildfowl; the woods, which are largely composed of magnificent and useful trees, give shelter to myriads of animals suitable for food to man; the soil is excellent, and the grazing lands would maintain thousands of cattle—what more could man desire?”
“Nothing more,” answered Paul, “save the opportunity to utilise it all, and the blessing of God upon his efforts.”
“The opportunity to utilise it won’t be long of coming, now that the facts about it are known, or soon to be made known, by us,” remarked Trench.
“I’m not so sure about that” said Paul. “It is wonderful how slow men are to believe, and still more wonderful how slow they are to act.”
That the captain’s hopes were not well founded, and that Paul’s doubts were justified, is amply proved by the history of Newfoundland. At first its character was misunderstood; then, when its unparalleled cod-fishing banks were discovered, attention was entirely confined to its rugged shores. After that the trade fell into the hands of selfish and unprincipled monopolists, who wilfully misrepresented the nature of this island, and prevailed on the British Government to enact repressive laws, which effectually prevented colonisation. Then prejudice, privileges, and error perpetuated the evil state of things, so that the true character of the land was not known until the present century; its grand interior was not systematically explored till only a few years ago, and thus it comes to pass that even at the present day one of the finest islands belonging to the British Crown—as regards vast portions of its interior—still remains a beautiful wilderness unused by man.
But with this we have nothing at present to do. Our business is, in spirit, to follow Hendrick and his friends through that wilderness, as it was at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Deer-tracks, as we have said, were innumerable, and along one of those tracks a herd of deer were seen trotting one day about two bow-shots from the party. With characteristic eagerness Oliver Trench hastily let fly an arrow at them. He might as well have let it fly at the pole-star. The only effect it had was to startle the deer and send them galloping into the shelter of the woods.
“Whata pity!” exclaimed Oliver.
“Not so, my boy,” remarked his father. “Experience, they say, teaches fools; and if experience has now taught you that it is foolish to shoot at game out of range, you are no fool, which is not a pity, but matter for congratulation.”
“But what about practice, daddy? Did you not say only last night that there is nothing like practice to make perfect?”
“True, lad, but I did not recommend practising at deer beyond range. Besides, you can practise at stumps and stones.”
“But stumps and stones don’t affordrunningshots,” objected Olly.
“Yes they do, boy. You can run past the stumps while you shoot, and as to stones, you can roll them down hill and let fly at them as they roll. Now clap the hatches on your mouth; you’re too fond of argument.”
“I’m only a chip of the ancient tree, father,” retorted the boy, with a quiet laugh.
How much further this little skirmish might have proceeded we cannot tell, for it was brought to an abrupt close by the sudden appearance of a black bear. It was on turning a cliff which bordered the edge of a stream that they came upon the monster—so close to it that they had barely time to get ready their weapons when it rose on its hind legs to attack them.
“Look out!” yelled Oliver, who, being in advance, was the first to see the bear.
A stone from his sling was well though hastily aimed, for it hit the animal fairly on the nose, thereby rendering it particularly angry. Almost at the same moment a bolt and an arrow flew from the weapons of Paul and Trench; but they flew wide of the mark, and there is no saying what the result might have been had not Hendrick bent his short but powerful bow, and sent an arrow to the feather into the creature’s breast.
The modern bullet is no doubt more deadly than the ancient arrow, nevertheless the latter had some advantages over the former. One of these was that, as it transfixed several muscles, it tended to hamper the movements of the victim shot. It also drew attention in some degree from the assailant. Thus, on the present occasion the bear, with a savage growl, seized the head of the arrow which projected from the wound and wrenched it off. This, although little more than a momentary act, gave the hunter time to fit and discharge a second arrow, which entered the animal’s throat, causing it to fall writhing on the ground, while Oliver, who had gone almost mad with excitement, grasped his axe, bounded forward, and brought it down on bruin’s skull.
Well was it for the reckless boy that Hendrick’s arrows had done their work, for, although his young arm was stout and the axe sharp, little impression was made on the hard-headed creature by the blow. Hendrick’s knife, however, completed the work and despatched the bear. Then they all sat down to rest while the hunter set to work to skin the animal.
Chapter Ten.Olly’s First Salmon and Hendrick’s Home.From this time forward the opportunities for hunting and fishing became so numerous that poor Oliver was kept in a constantly bubbling-over condition of excitement, and his father had to restrain him a good deal in order to prevent the larder from being greatly overstocked.One afternoon they came to a river which their guide told them was one of the largest in the country.“It flows out of the lake, on one of the islands of which I have built my home.”“May I ask,” said Paul, with some hesitation, “if your wife came with you from the Shetland Isles?”A profoundly sad expression flitted across the hunter’s countenance.“No,” he replied. “Trueheart, as she is named in the Micmac tongue, is a native of this island—at least her mother was; but her father, I have been told, was a white man—a wanderer like myself—who came in an open boat from no one knows where, and cast his lot among the Indians, one of whom he married. Both parents are dead. I never saw them; but my wife, I think, must resemble her white father in many respects. My children are like her. Look now, Oliver,” he said, as if desirous of changing the subject, “yonder is a pool in which it will be worth while to cast your hook. You will find something larger there than you have yet caught in the smaller streams. Get ready. I will find bait for you.”Olly needed no urging. His cod-hook and line, being always handy, were arranged in a few minutes, and his friend, turning up the sod with a piece of wood, soon procured several large worms, which were duly impaled, until they formed a bunch on the hook. With this the lad hurried eagerly to the edge of a magnificent pool, where the oily ripples and curling eddies, as well as the great depth, effectually concealed the bottom from view. He was about to whirl the bunch of worms round his head, preparatory to a grand heave, when he was arrested by the guide.“Stay, Oliver; you will need a rod for this river. Without one you will be apt to lose your fish. I will cut one.”So saying, he went into the woods that bordered the pool, and soon returned with what seemed to the boy to be a small tree about fourteen feet long.“Why, Hendrick, do you take me for Goliath, who as Paul Burns tells us, was brought down by a stone from the sling of David? I’ll never be able to fish with that.”“Oliver,” returned the hunter gravely, as he continued the peeling of the bark from the rod, “a lad with strong limbs and a stout heart should never use the words ‘not able’ till he has tried. I have seen many promising and goodly young men come to wreck because ‘I can’t’ was too often on their lips. You never know what you can do till you try.”The boy listened to this reproof with a slight feeling of displeasure, for he felt in his heart that he was not one of those lazy fellows to whom his friend referred. However, he wisely said nothing, but Hendrick observed, with some amusement, that his brow flushed and his lips were firmly compressed.“There now,” he said in a cheery tone, being anxious to remove the impression he had made, “you will find the rod is lighter than it looks, and supple, as you see. We will tie your line half-way down and run it through a loop at the end—so!—to prevent its being lost if the point should break. Now, try to cast your hook into the spot yonder where a curl in the water meets and battles with an eddy. Do you see it?”“Yes, I see it,” replied Olly, advancing to the pool, with the rod grasped in both hands.“It would be better,” continued Hendrick, “if you could cast out into the stream beyond, but the line is too short for that, unless you could jump on to that big rock in the rapid, which is impossible with the river so high.”Oliver looked at the rock referred to. It stood up in the midst of foaming water, full twenty feet from the bank. He knew that he might as well try to jump over the moon as attempt to leap upon that rock; nevertheless, without a moment’s hesitation, he rushed down the bank, sprang furiously off, cleared considerably more than half the distance, and disappeared in the foaming flood!Hendrick was suddenly changed from a slow and sedate elephant into an agile panther. He sprang along the bank to a point lower down the stream, and was up to the waist in the water before Olly reached the point—struggling to keep his head above the surface, and at the same time to hold on to his rod. Hendrick caught him by the collar, and dragged him, panting, to land.Paul and his father had each, with a shout of surprise or alarm, rushed for the same point, but they would have been too late.“Olly, my son,” said Trench, in a remonstrative tone, “have you gone mad?”“No, father; I knew that I could not jump it, but I’ve been advised never to say so till I have tried!”“Nay, Oliver, be just,” said the guide, with a laugh. “I did truly advise you never to say ‘I can’t’ till you had tried, but I never told you to try the impossible. However, I am not sorry you did this, for I’d rather see a boy try and fail, than see him fail because of unwillingness to try. Come, now, I will show you something else to try.”He took Oliver up the stream a few yards, and pointed to a ledge of rock, more than knee-deep under water, which communicated with the rock he had failed to reach.“The ledge is narrow,” he said, “and the current crossing it is strong, but from what I’ve seen of you I think you will manage to wade out if you go cautiously, and don’t lose heart. I will go down stream again, so that if you should slip I’ll be ready to rescue.”Boldly did Oliver step out upon the ledge; cautiously did he advance each foot, until he was more than leg-deep, and wildly, like an insane semaphore, did he wave his arms, as well as the heavy rod, in his frantic efforts not to lose his balance! At last he planted his feet, with a cheer of triumph, on the rock.“Hush, Olly, you’ll frighten the fish,” cried Paul, with feigned anxiety.“You’ll tumble in again, if you don’t mind,” said his cautious father.But Olly heard not. The whole of his little soul was centred on the oily pool into which he had just cast the bunch of worms. Another moment, and the stout rod was almost wrenched from his grasp.“Have a care! Hold on! Stand fast!” saluted him in various keys, from the bank.“A cod! or a whale!” was the response from the rock.“More likely a salmon,” remarked Hendrick, in an undertone, while a sober smile lit up his features.At the moment a magnificent salmon, not less than twenty pounds weight, leapt like a bar of silver from the flood, and fell back, with a mighty splash.The leap caused a momentary and sudden removal of the strain on the rod. Oliver staggered, slipped, and fell with a yell that told of anxiety more than alarm; but he got up smartly, still holding on by both hands.In fishing with the tapering rods and rattling reels of modern days, fishers never become fully aware of the strength of salmon, unless, indeed, a hitch in their line occurs, and everything snaps! It was otherwise about the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is otherwise still with primitive fishers everywhere. Oliver’s line could not run; his rod was rigid, save at the point. The result was that it was all he could do to stand and hold on to his captive. The rod, bent down into the water, sprang up to the perpendicular, flew hither and thither, jerked and quivered, causing the poor boy to jerk and quiver in irresistible sympathy. At last a mighty rush of the fish drew the fisher headlong into the flood.“He’ll be drowned or killed on the boulders below,” gasped his father, running wildly down the bank of the river.“Don’t fear,” said Hendrick, as he ran beside him. “There is a shallow just above the boulders. We will stop him there.”Paul Burns was already abreast of the shallow in question, and Oliver was stranded on it, but a deep rapid stream ran between it and the bank, so that Paul hesitated and looked eagerly about for the best spot to cross.“Follow me,” cried Hendrick, “I know the ford.”He led his comrade swiftly to a point where the river widened and became shallow, enabling them to wade to the tail of the bank at the top of which Oliver stood engaged in a double struggle—with the water that hissed and leaped around him, and the fish that still surged wildly about in its vain efforts to escape.As the three men waded nearer to him they got into shallower water, and then perceived that the boy had not lost his self-possession, but was still tightly grasping the butt of his rod. Just as they came up the salmon, in its blind terror, ran straight against the boy’s legs. Olly fell upon it, let go the rod, and embraced it! Happily, his friends reached him at the moment, else the water that rushed over his head would have compelled him to let go—or die!Paul lifted him up. The great fish struggled in its captor’s arms. It was slippery as an eel, and its strength tremendous. No digging of his ten nails into it was of any use. Slowly but surely it was wriggling out of his tight embrace when Hendrick inserted his great thumbs into its gills, and grasped it round the throat.“Let go, Oliver,” he said, “I’ve got him safe.”But Olly would not let go. Indeed, in the state of his mind and body at the moment it is probable that he couldnotlet go.His father, having made some ineffectual attempts to clear the line, with which, and the rod, they had got completely entangled, was obliged to “stand by” and see that the entanglement became no worse. Thus, holding on each to the other and all together, they staggered slowly and safely to land with their beautiful prize.“Are there many fish like that in these rivers?” asked Paul, as they all stood contemplating the salmon, and recovering breath.“Ay, thousands of them in all the rivers, and the rivers are numerous—some of them large,” replied Hendrick.“This will be a great country some day, you take my word for it,” said the captain, in a dogmatic manner, which was peculiar to him when he attempted amateur prophecy.That prophecy, however, like many other prophecies, has been only partly fulfilled. It has come true, indeed, that Newfoundland now possesses the most valuable cod-fishery in the world, and that her exports of salmon are considerable, but as to her being a great country—well, that still remains unfulfilled prophecy; for, owing to no fault of her people, but to the evils of monopoly and selfishness, as we have already said, her career has been severely checked.Not many days after the catching of the salmon—which remained a memorable point in the career of Oliver Trench—the explorers were led by Hendrick to the shores of a magnificent lake. It was so large that the captain at first doubted whether it was not the great ocean itself.“It is not the sea,” said their guide, as he surveyed the watery expanse with evident enthusiasm. “It is a lake full fifty miles long, yet it is not the largest lake in this island. Taste its waters and you will find them sweet. Here,” he added, with a look of gratification, “is my home.”“God has given you a wide domain,” said Paul, gazing with pleasure on the verdant islets with which the bay before him was studded. “Yet I cannot help thinking that it is a waste of one’s life to spend it in a solitude, however beautiful, when the sorrowing and the suffering world around us calls for the active energies of all good men.”The hunter seemed to ponder Paul’s words.“It appears to me,” he said at last, “that our Creator meant us to serve Him by making ourselves and those around us happy. I have to do so here, and in some degree have succeeded.”As he spoke he raised both hands to his mouth and gave vent to a prolonged halloo that swept out over the calm waters of the bay.It was quickly replied to by a shrill cry, and in a few minutes a canoe, emerging from one of the islets, was seen paddling swiftly towards them.
From this time forward the opportunities for hunting and fishing became so numerous that poor Oliver was kept in a constantly bubbling-over condition of excitement, and his father had to restrain him a good deal in order to prevent the larder from being greatly overstocked.
One afternoon they came to a river which their guide told them was one of the largest in the country.
“It flows out of the lake, on one of the islands of which I have built my home.”
“May I ask,” said Paul, with some hesitation, “if your wife came with you from the Shetland Isles?”
A profoundly sad expression flitted across the hunter’s countenance.
“No,” he replied. “Trueheart, as she is named in the Micmac tongue, is a native of this island—at least her mother was; but her father, I have been told, was a white man—a wanderer like myself—who came in an open boat from no one knows where, and cast his lot among the Indians, one of whom he married. Both parents are dead. I never saw them; but my wife, I think, must resemble her white father in many respects. My children are like her. Look now, Oliver,” he said, as if desirous of changing the subject, “yonder is a pool in which it will be worth while to cast your hook. You will find something larger there than you have yet caught in the smaller streams. Get ready. I will find bait for you.”
Olly needed no urging. His cod-hook and line, being always handy, were arranged in a few minutes, and his friend, turning up the sod with a piece of wood, soon procured several large worms, which were duly impaled, until they formed a bunch on the hook. With this the lad hurried eagerly to the edge of a magnificent pool, where the oily ripples and curling eddies, as well as the great depth, effectually concealed the bottom from view. He was about to whirl the bunch of worms round his head, preparatory to a grand heave, when he was arrested by the guide.
“Stay, Oliver; you will need a rod for this river. Without one you will be apt to lose your fish. I will cut one.”
So saying, he went into the woods that bordered the pool, and soon returned with what seemed to the boy to be a small tree about fourteen feet long.
“Why, Hendrick, do you take me for Goliath, who as Paul Burns tells us, was brought down by a stone from the sling of David? I’ll never be able to fish with that.”
“Oliver,” returned the hunter gravely, as he continued the peeling of the bark from the rod, “a lad with strong limbs and a stout heart should never use the words ‘not able’ till he has tried. I have seen many promising and goodly young men come to wreck because ‘I can’t’ was too often on their lips. You never know what you can do till you try.”
The boy listened to this reproof with a slight feeling of displeasure, for he felt in his heart that he was not one of those lazy fellows to whom his friend referred. However, he wisely said nothing, but Hendrick observed, with some amusement, that his brow flushed and his lips were firmly compressed.
“There now,” he said in a cheery tone, being anxious to remove the impression he had made, “you will find the rod is lighter than it looks, and supple, as you see. We will tie your line half-way down and run it through a loop at the end—so!—to prevent its being lost if the point should break. Now, try to cast your hook into the spot yonder where a curl in the water meets and battles with an eddy. Do you see it?”
“Yes, I see it,” replied Olly, advancing to the pool, with the rod grasped in both hands.
“It would be better,” continued Hendrick, “if you could cast out into the stream beyond, but the line is too short for that, unless you could jump on to that big rock in the rapid, which is impossible with the river so high.”
Oliver looked at the rock referred to. It stood up in the midst of foaming water, full twenty feet from the bank. He knew that he might as well try to jump over the moon as attempt to leap upon that rock; nevertheless, without a moment’s hesitation, he rushed down the bank, sprang furiously off, cleared considerably more than half the distance, and disappeared in the foaming flood!
Hendrick was suddenly changed from a slow and sedate elephant into an agile panther. He sprang along the bank to a point lower down the stream, and was up to the waist in the water before Olly reached the point—struggling to keep his head above the surface, and at the same time to hold on to his rod. Hendrick caught him by the collar, and dragged him, panting, to land.
Paul and his father had each, with a shout of surprise or alarm, rushed for the same point, but they would have been too late.
“Olly, my son,” said Trench, in a remonstrative tone, “have you gone mad?”
“No, father; I knew that I could not jump it, but I’ve been advised never to say so till I have tried!”
“Nay, Oliver, be just,” said the guide, with a laugh. “I did truly advise you never to say ‘I can’t’ till you had tried, but I never told you to try the impossible. However, I am not sorry you did this, for I’d rather see a boy try and fail, than see him fail because of unwillingness to try. Come, now, I will show you something else to try.”
He took Oliver up the stream a few yards, and pointed to a ledge of rock, more than knee-deep under water, which communicated with the rock he had failed to reach.
“The ledge is narrow,” he said, “and the current crossing it is strong, but from what I’ve seen of you I think you will manage to wade out if you go cautiously, and don’t lose heart. I will go down stream again, so that if you should slip I’ll be ready to rescue.”
Boldly did Oliver step out upon the ledge; cautiously did he advance each foot, until he was more than leg-deep, and wildly, like an insane semaphore, did he wave his arms, as well as the heavy rod, in his frantic efforts not to lose his balance! At last he planted his feet, with a cheer of triumph, on the rock.
“Hush, Olly, you’ll frighten the fish,” cried Paul, with feigned anxiety.
“You’ll tumble in again, if you don’t mind,” said his cautious father.
But Olly heard not. The whole of his little soul was centred on the oily pool into which he had just cast the bunch of worms. Another moment, and the stout rod was almost wrenched from his grasp.
“Have a care! Hold on! Stand fast!” saluted him in various keys, from the bank.
“A cod! or a whale!” was the response from the rock.
“More likely a salmon,” remarked Hendrick, in an undertone, while a sober smile lit up his features.
At the moment a magnificent salmon, not less than twenty pounds weight, leapt like a bar of silver from the flood, and fell back, with a mighty splash.
The leap caused a momentary and sudden removal of the strain on the rod. Oliver staggered, slipped, and fell with a yell that told of anxiety more than alarm; but he got up smartly, still holding on by both hands.
In fishing with the tapering rods and rattling reels of modern days, fishers never become fully aware of the strength of salmon, unless, indeed, a hitch in their line occurs, and everything snaps! It was otherwise about the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is otherwise still with primitive fishers everywhere. Oliver’s line could not run; his rod was rigid, save at the point. The result was that it was all he could do to stand and hold on to his captive. The rod, bent down into the water, sprang up to the perpendicular, flew hither and thither, jerked and quivered, causing the poor boy to jerk and quiver in irresistible sympathy. At last a mighty rush of the fish drew the fisher headlong into the flood.
“He’ll be drowned or killed on the boulders below,” gasped his father, running wildly down the bank of the river.
“Don’t fear,” said Hendrick, as he ran beside him. “There is a shallow just above the boulders. We will stop him there.”
Paul Burns was already abreast of the shallow in question, and Oliver was stranded on it, but a deep rapid stream ran between it and the bank, so that Paul hesitated and looked eagerly about for the best spot to cross.
“Follow me,” cried Hendrick, “I know the ford.”
He led his comrade swiftly to a point where the river widened and became shallow, enabling them to wade to the tail of the bank at the top of which Oliver stood engaged in a double struggle—with the water that hissed and leaped around him, and the fish that still surged wildly about in its vain efforts to escape.
As the three men waded nearer to him they got into shallower water, and then perceived that the boy had not lost his self-possession, but was still tightly grasping the butt of his rod. Just as they came up the salmon, in its blind terror, ran straight against the boy’s legs. Olly fell upon it, let go the rod, and embraced it! Happily, his friends reached him at the moment, else the water that rushed over his head would have compelled him to let go—or die!
Paul lifted him up. The great fish struggled in its captor’s arms. It was slippery as an eel, and its strength tremendous. No digging of his ten nails into it was of any use. Slowly but surely it was wriggling out of his tight embrace when Hendrick inserted his great thumbs into its gills, and grasped it round the throat.
“Let go, Oliver,” he said, “I’ve got him safe.”
But Olly would not let go. Indeed, in the state of his mind and body at the moment it is probable that he couldnotlet go.
His father, having made some ineffectual attempts to clear the line, with which, and the rod, they had got completely entangled, was obliged to “stand by” and see that the entanglement became no worse. Thus, holding on each to the other and all together, they staggered slowly and safely to land with their beautiful prize.
“Are there many fish like that in these rivers?” asked Paul, as they all stood contemplating the salmon, and recovering breath.
“Ay, thousands of them in all the rivers, and the rivers are numerous—some of them large,” replied Hendrick.
“This will be a great country some day, you take my word for it,” said the captain, in a dogmatic manner, which was peculiar to him when he attempted amateur prophecy.
That prophecy, however, like many other prophecies, has been only partly fulfilled. It has come true, indeed, that Newfoundland now possesses the most valuable cod-fishery in the world, and that her exports of salmon are considerable, but as to her being a great country—well, that still remains unfulfilled prophecy; for, owing to no fault of her people, but to the evils of monopoly and selfishness, as we have already said, her career has been severely checked.
Not many days after the catching of the salmon—which remained a memorable point in the career of Oliver Trench—the explorers were led by Hendrick to the shores of a magnificent lake. It was so large that the captain at first doubted whether it was not the great ocean itself.
“It is not the sea,” said their guide, as he surveyed the watery expanse with evident enthusiasm. “It is a lake full fifty miles long, yet it is not the largest lake in this island. Taste its waters and you will find them sweet. Here,” he added, with a look of gratification, “is my home.”
“God has given you a wide domain,” said Paul, gazing with pleasure on the verdant islets with which the bay before him was studded. “Yet I cannot help thinking that it is a waste of one’s life to spend it in a solitude, however beautiful, when the sorrowing and the suffering world around us calls for the active energies of all good men.”
The hunter seemed to ponder Paul’s words.
“It appears to me,” he said at last, “that our Creator meant us to serve Him by making ourselves and those around us happy. I have to do so here, and in some degree have succeeded.”
As he spoke he raised both hands to his mouth and gave vent to a prolonged halloo that swept out over the calm waters of the bay.
It was quickly replied to by a shrill cry, and in a few minutes a canoe, emerging from one of the islets, was seen paddling swiftly towards them.
Chapter Eleven.The Hunter’s Home.The canoe, which approached the shores of the lake where our explorers stood, was a large one, built after the fashion of the coracle of the ancient Britons, namely, with a frame of wicker-work covered with deerskin. It was propelled with paddles by a woman seated in the stern and a little girl in the bow.“My wife is a woman of forethought,” remarked Hendrick, with a pleased expression. “Seeing that we are a large party, she has not only brought our largest canoe, but has made Oscar get out the small one.”He pointed to the island, from a creek in which a little canoe of a reddish colour was seen to issue. It was made of birch-bark, and was propelled by a small boy, who seemed from his exertions to be in urgent haste to overtake the other craft.“Your son, I suppose?” said Paul.“Yes, my eldest. His younger brother is but a babe yet. These, with my daughter Goodred, and my wife Trueheart, who are now approaching, constitute the family which God has given to me.”A feeling of satisfaction filled the heart of Paul Burns as he listened to the last words, for they proved that their new friend was not among those who deem it weakness or hypocrisy in men to openly acknowledge their Maker as the Giver of all that they possess. This feeling was merged in one of surprise when the canoe touched the shore, and an exceedingly pretty child, with fair complexion, blue eyes, and curling hair, stepped lightly out, and ran to her father, who stooped to kiss her on the cheek. Hendrick was not demonstrative, that was evident; neither was his wife, nor his child. Whatever depth of feeling they possessed, the surface ran smooth. Yet there was an air of quiet gladness about the meeting which enabled Paul to understand what the hunter meant when, in a former conversation, he had said that he “made those around him happy.”“Is baby well?” he asked quickly.“Yes, father, quite well, and I very sure wishing much that you come home soon. You been long time away.”“Longer than I expected, Goodred. And I have brought friends with me,” he added, turning to his wife. “Friends whom I have found in the forest, Trueheart.”“You friends be welcome,” said Trueheart, with a modest yet self-possessed air.The woman, who advanced and held out a small hand to be shaken in European fashion, was obviously of Indian extraction, yet her brown hair, refined cast of features, and easy manner, showed as obviously the characteristics of her white father. Though not nearly so fair as her child, she was still far removed from the deep colour of her mother’s race.Before more could be said on either side the enthusiastic youngster in the bark canoe leaped ashore, burst into the midst of the group with a cheer, and began wildly to embrace one of his father’s huge legs, which was about as much of his person as he could conveniently grasp. He was a miniature Hendrick, clad in leather from top to toe.The whole party now entered the canoes, skimmed over the lake, and past the wooded islets, towards the particular island which the hunter called “home.”It was as romantic a spot as one could desire for a residence. Though only a quarter of a mile or so in diameter, the island, which was composed of granite, was wonderfully diversified in form and character. There was a little cove which formed a harbour for the hunter’s canoes; bordering it was a patch of open ground backed by shrubs, above which rose a miniature precipice. The ground in the centre of the isle was rugged—as the captain remarked, quite mountainous in a small way! Hendrick had taught his children to call it the mountain, and in the midst of its miniature fastnesses he had arranged a sort of citadel, to which he and his family could retire in case of attack from savages. One peak of this mountainette rose in naked grandeur to a height of about fifty feet above the lake. Elsewhere the islet was wooded to the water’s edge with spruce and birch-trees, in some places fringed with willows. On a few open patches were multitudes of ripe berries, which here and there seemed literally to cover the ground with a carpet of bright red.On the open ground, or lawn, beside the cove, stood the hunter’s hut, a small structure of rounded logs, with a door, on either side of which was a window. From those glassless windows there was a view of lake and isles and distant woods, with purple mountains beyond, which formed a scene of indescribable beauty. Close to the door, forming, as it were, a porch to it, there stood a semi-circular erection of poles covered with birch-bark and deerskins, in front of which blazed the household fire, with a tripod over it, and a bubbling earthen pot hanging therefrom. Around the inner side of the fire, under the semi-circular tent, were spread a number of deerskins to serve as couches. On one of these sat an Indian woman, with the family babe in her arms.It was a wonderful babe! and obviously a wise one, for it knew its own father directly, stretched out its little arms, and shouted for instant recognition. Nor had it to shout long, for Hendrick, being fond of it and regardless of appearances, seized it in his arms and smothered it in his beard, out of which retreat crows and squalls of satisfaction thereafter issued.“Excuse me, friends,” said Hendrick at last, delivering the child to its mother. “I have been absent on a visit to my wife’s relations, and have not seen little Ian for a long time. Sit down, and we will see what cheer the pot contains. I don’t ask you to enter the hut, because while the weather is mild it is pleasanter outside. When winter comes we make more use of the house. My wife, you see, does not like it, having been accustomed to tents all her life.”“But me—I—likes it when the snow fall,” said Trueheart, looking up with a bright smile from the pot, into which she had previously been making investigations.“True—true. I think you like whatever I like; at least you try to!” returned the hunter, as he sat down and began to tie the feathers on the head of an arrow. “You even try to speak good grammar for my sake!”Trueheart laughed and continued her culinary duties.“You told us when we first met,” said Captain Trench, who had made himself comfortable on a deerskin beside the baby, “that you had taken special means not to forget your native tongue. Do I guess rightly in supposing that the teaching of it to your wife and children was the means?”“You are right, captain. Of course, the language of the Micmac Indians is more familiar and agreeable to Trueheart, but she is obstinate, though a good creature on the whole, and insists on speaking English, as you hear.”Another little laugh in the vicinity of the earthen pot showed that his wife appreciated the remark.Meanwhile Goodred busied herself in preparing venison steaks over the same fire, and Oscar undertook to roast marrow bones for the whole party, as well as to instruct Oliver Trench in that delicate operation.While they were thus engaged the shades of evening gradually descended on the scene, but that did not interfere with their enjoyment, for by heaping fresh resinous logs on the fire they produced a ruddy light, which seemed scarcely inferior to that of day; a light which glowed on the pretty and pleasant features of the wife and daughter as they moved about placing plates of birch-bark before the guests, and ladling soup and viands into trenchers of the same. Savoury smells floated on the air, and gradually expelled the scent of shrub and flower from the banqueting-hall.Truly, it was a right royal banquet; fit for a king—if not too particular a king—to say nothing of its being spread before one who was monarch of all he surveyed, and served by his queen and princess!There was, first of all, soup of excellent quality. Then followed boiled salmon and roast sea-trout. Next came a course of boiled venison, fat and juicy, with an alternative of steaks and grilled ribs. This was followed by what may be styled a haunch of beaver, accompanied by the animal’s tail—a prime delicacy—in regard to which Captain Trench, with his mouth full of it, said—“This is excellent eatin’, Master Hendrick. What may it be—if I may presume to ask?”“Beaver’s tail,” replied the hunter.“Dear me!” exclaimed Olly, withdrawing a roast rib from his mouth for the purpose of speech; “beavers seem to have wonderfully broad and flat tails.”“They have, Oliver, and if you will try a bit you will find that their tails are wonderfully good.”Oliver tried, and admitted that it was good; then, observing that little Oscar had just finished his fourth venison steak, he politely handed him the trencher. The greasy-fingered boy gravely helped himself to number five, and assailed it as if he had only just begun to terminate a long fast.There were no vegetables at that feast, and instead of bread they had cakes of hard deer’s-fat, with scraps of suet toasted brown intermixed—a species of plum-cake, which was greatly relished by the visitors. At the last, when repletion seemed imminent, they finished off with marrow bones. With these they trifled far on into the night. Of course as the demands of appetite abated the flow of soul began.“I see neither nets, hooks, nor lines about the camp, Hendrick,” said Paul Burns, after the queen and princess had retired into the hut for the night. “How do you manage to catch salmon?”The hunter replied by pointing to a spear somewhat resembling Neptune’s trident which stood against a neighbouring tree.“We spear them by torchlight,” he said. “Oscar is a pretty good hand at it now.”“You live well, Master Hendrick,” remarked Trench, raising a bark flagon to his lips and tossing off a pint of venison soup, with the memory of pots of ale strong upon him. “Do you ever have a scarcity of food?”“Never; for the country, as you have seen, swarms with game. We dry the flesh of deer, otter, martens, and musk-rats, and store it for winter, and during that season we have willow-grouse and rabbits for fresh meat. Besides, in autumn we freeze both flesh and fish, and thus keep it fresh till spring, at which time the wildfowl return to us. The skins and furs of these creatures furnish us with plenty of clothing—in fact, more than we can use. The question sometimes comes into my mind, Why did the Great Father provide such abundance for the use of man without sending men to use it?—for the few Micmacs who dwell in the land are but as a drop in the ocean, and they totally neglect some things, while they waste others. I have seen them slaughter thousands of deer merely for the sake of their tongues and other tit-bits.”“There is much of mystery connected with that, Master Hendrick, which we cannot clear up,” remarked Trench.“Mystery there is, no doubt,” said Paul quickly. “Yet there are some things about it that are plain enough to those who choose to look. The Word of God (which, by the way, is beginning to be circulated now among us in England in our mother tongue), that Word tells man plainly to go forth and replenish the earth. Common sense, from the beginning of time, has told us the same thing, but what does man do? He sticks to several small patches of the earth, and there he trades, and works, and builds, and propagates, until these patches swarm like ant-hills, and then he wars, and fights, and kills off the surplus population; in other words, slays theyoungmen of the world and sows misery, debt and desolation broadcast. In fact, man seems to me to be mad. Rather than obey God and the dictates of common sense, he will leave the fairest portions of the world untenanted, and waste his life and energies in toiling for a crust of bread or fighting for a foot of land!”“Some such thoughts have passed through my mind,” said Hendrick thoughtfully, “when I have remembered that my ancestors, as I have told you, discovered this land, as well as that which lies to the west and south of it, long before this Columbus you speak of was born. But surely we may now expect that with all our modern appliances and knowledge, the earth will soon be overrun and peopled.”“I don’t feel very sanguine about it,” said Paul, with a prophetic shake of the head.That Paul was justified in his doubts must be obvious to every reader who is aware of the fact that in the present year of grace (1889) there are millions of the world’s fair and fertile acres still left untenanted and almost untrodden by the foot of man.“It’s my opinion,” remarked Captain Trench, with a blink of the eyes, induced possibly by wisdom and partly by sleep, “that you two are talking nonsense on a subject which is quite beyond the reach of man’s intellect.”“It may be so,” replied Paul, with a laugh which merged into a yawn, “and perhaps it would be wiser that we should go to rest. Olly and Oscar have already set us a good example. What say you, Hendrick?”“As you please,” answered the polite hunter. “I am ready either to sleep or to converse.”“Then I will not tax your good-nature. We will seek repose. But what of our future movements? My sleep will be sounder if I could lie down with the assurance that you will continue to be our guide into the fertile interior of which you have said so much.”“I will go with you,” returned Hendrick, after a few moments’ thought, “but I must ask you to spend a few days in my camp to rest yourselves, while I provide a supply of fresh meat and fish for my family; for, willing and able though Oscar is to provide for them, he is yet too young to have the duty laid upon his little shoulders.”This having been satisfactorily settled, the captain and Paul wrapped themselves in deerskin blankets, and lay down with their feet to the fire.Hendrick, having heaped a fresh supply of fuel on the embers, followed their example, and the camp was soon buried in profound silence.
The canoe, which approached the shores of the lake where our explorers stood, was a large one, built after the fashion of the coracle of the ancient Britons, namely, with a frame of wicker-work covered with deerskin. It was propelled with paddles by a woman seated in the stern and a little girl in the bow.
“My wife is a woman of forethought,” remarked Hendrick, with a pleased expression. “Seeing that we are a large party, she has not only brought our largest canoe, but has made Oscar get out the small one.”
He pointed to the island, from a creek in which a little canoe of a reddish colour was seen to issue. It was made of birch-bark, and was propelled by a small boy, who seemed from his exertions to be in urgent haste to overtake the other craft.
“Your son, I suppose?” said Paul.
“Yes, my eldest. His younger brother is but a babe yet. These, with my daughter Goodred, and my wife Trueheart, who are now approaching, constitute the family which God has given to me.”
A feeling of satisfaction filled the heart of Paul Burns as he listened to the last words, for they proved that their new friend was not among those who deem it weakness or hypocrisy in men to openly acknowledge their Maker as the Giver of all that they possess. This feeling was merged in one of surprise when the canoe touched the shore, and an exceedingly pretty child, with fair complexion, blue eyes, and curling hair, stepped lightly out, and ran to her father, who stooped to kiss her on the cheek. Hendrick was not demonstrative, that was evident; neither was his wife, nor his child. Whatever depth of feeling they possessed, the surface ran smooth. Yet there was an air of quiet gladness about the meeting which enabled Paul to understand what the hunter meant when, in a former conversation, he had said that he “made those around him happy.”
“Is baby well?” he asked quickly.
“Yes, father, quite well, and I very sure wishing much that you come home soon. You been long time away.”
“Longer than I expected, Goodred. And I have brought friends with me,” he added, turning to his wife. “Friends whom I have found in the forest, Trueheart.”
“You friends be welcome,” said Trueheart, with a modest yet self-possessed air.
The woman, who advanced and held out a small hand to be shaken in European fashion, was obviously of Indian extraction, yet her brown hair, refined cast of features, and easy manner, showed as obviously the characteristics of her white father. Though not nearly so fair as her child, she was still far removed from the deep colour of her mother’s race.
Before more could be said on either side the enthusiastic youngster in the bark canoe leaped ashore, burst into the midst of the group with a cheer, and began wildly to embrace one of his father’s huge legs, which was about as much of his person as he could conveniently grasp. He was a miniature Hendrick, clad in leather from top to toe.
The whole party now entered the canoes, skimmed over the lake, and past the wooded islets, towards the particular island which the hunter called “home.”
It was as romantic a spot as one could desire for a residence. Though only a quarter of a mile or so in diameter, the island, which was composed of granite, was wonderfully diversified in form and character. There was a little cove which formed a harbour for the hunter’s canoes; bordering it was a patch of open ground backed by shrubs, above which rose a miniature precipice. The ground in the centre of the isle was rugged—as the captain remarked, quite mountainous in a small way! Hendrick had taught his children to call it the mountain, and in the midst of its miniature fastnesses he had arranged a sort of citadel, to which he and his family could retire in case of attack from savages. One peak of this mountainette rose in naked grandeur to a height of about fifty feet above the lake. Elsewhere the islet was wooded to the water’s edge with spruce and birch-trees, in some places fringed with willows. On a few open patches were multitudes of ripe berries, which here and there seemed literally to cover the ground with a carpet of bright red.
On the open ground, or lawn, beside the cove, stood the hunter’s hut, a small structure of rounded logs, with a door, on either side of which was a window. From those glassless windows there was a view of lake and isles and distant woods, with purple mountains beyond, which formed a scene of indescribable beauty. Close to the door, forming, as it were, a porch to it, there stood a semi-circular erection of poles covered with birch-bark and deerskins, in front of which blazed the household fire, with a tripod over it, and a bubbling earthen pot hanging therefrom. Around the inner side of the fire, under the semi-circular tent, were spread a number of deerskins to serve as couches. On one of these sat an Indian woman, with the family babe in her arms.
It was a wonderful babe! and obviously a wise one, for it knew its own father directly, stretched out its little arms, and shouted for instant recognition. Nor had it to shout long, for Hendrick, being fond of it and regardless of appearances, seized it in his arms and smothered it in his beard, out of which retreat crows and squalls of satisfaction thereafter issued.
“Excuse me, friends,” said Hendrick at last, delivering the child to its mother. “I have been absent on a visit to my wife’s relations, and have not seen little Ian for a long time. Sit down, and we will see what cheer the pot contains. I don’t ask you to enter the hut, because while the weather is mild it is pleasanter outside. When winter comes we make more use of the house. My wife, you see, does not like it, having been accustomed to tents all her life.”
“But me—I—likes it when the snow fall,” said Trueheart, looking up with a bright smile from the pot, into which she had previously been making investigations.
“True—true. I think you like whatever I like; at least you try to!” returned the hunter, as he sat down and began to tie the feathers on the head of an arrow. “You even try to speak good grammar for my sake!”
Trueheart laughed and continued her culinary duties.
“You told us when we first met,” said Captain Trench, who had made himself comfortable on a deerskin beside the baby, “that you had taken special means not to forget your native tongue. Do I guess rightly in supposing that the teaching of it to your wife and children was the means?”
“You are right, captain. Of course, the language of the Micmac Indians is more familiar and agreeable to Trueheart, but she is obstinate, though a good creature on the whole, and insists on speaking English, as you hear.”
Another little laugh in the vicinity of the earthen pot showed that his wife appreciated the remark.
Meanwhile Goodred busied herself in preparing venison steaks over the same fire, and Oscar undertook to roast marrow bones for the whole party, as well as to instruct Oliver Trench in that delicate operation.
While they were thus engaged the shades of evening gradually descended on the scene, but that did not interfere with their enjoyment, for by heaping fresh resinous logs on the fire they produced a ruddy light, which seemed scarcely inferior to that of day; a light which glowed on the pretty and pleasant features of the wife and daughter as they moved about placing plates of birch-bark before the guests, and ladling soup and viands into trenchers of the same. Savoury smells floated on the air, and gradually expelled the scent of shrub and flower from the banqueting-hall.
Truly, it was a right royal banquet; fit for a king—if not too particular a king—to say nothing of its being spread before one who was monarch of all he surveyed, and served by his queen and princess!
There was, first of all, soup of excellent quality. Then followed boiled salmon and roast sea-trout. Next came a course of boiled venison, fat and juicy, with an alternative of steaks and grilled ribs. This was followed by what may be styled a haunch of beaver, accompanied by the animal’s tail—a prime delicacy—in regard to which Captain Trench, with his mouth full of it, said—
“This is excellent eatin’, Master Hendrick. What may it be—if I may presume to ask?”
“Beaver’s tail,” replied the hunter.
“Dear me!” exclaimed Olly, withdrawing a roast rib from his mouth for the purpose of speech; “beavers seem to have wonderfully broad and flat tails.”
“They have, Oliver, and if you will try a bit you will find that their tails are wonderfully good.”
Oliver tried, and admitted that it was good; then, observing that little Oscar had just finished his fourth venison steak, he politely handed him the trencher. The greasy-fingered boy gravely helped himself to number five, and assailed it as if he had only just begun to terminate a long fast.
There were no vegetables at that feast, and instead of bread they had cakes of hard deer’s-fat, with scraps of suet toasted brown intermixed—a species of plum-cake, which was greatly relished by the visitors. At the last, when repletion seemed imminent, they finished off with marrow bones. With these they trifled far on into the night. Of course as the demands of appetite abated the flow of soul began.
“I see neither nets, hooks, nor lines about the camp, Hendrick,” said Paul Burns, after the queen and princess had retired into the hut for the night. “How do you manage to catch salmon?”
The hunter replied by pointing to a spear somewhat resembling Neptune’s trident which stood against a neighbouring tree.
“We spear them by torchlight,” he said. “Oscar is a pretty good hand at it now.”
“You live well, Master Hendrick,” remarked Trench, raising a bark flagon to his lips and tossing off a pint of venison soup, with the memory of pots of ale strong upon him. “Do you ever have a scarcity of food?”
“Never; for the country, as you have seen, swarms with game. We dry the flesh of deer, otter, martens, and musk-rats, and store it for winter, and during that season we have willow-grouse and rabbits for fresh meat. Besides, in autumn we freeze both flesh and fish, and thus keep it fresh till spring, at which time the wildfowl return to us. The skins and furs of these creatures furnish us with plenty of clothing—in fact, more than we can use. The question sometimes comes into my mind, Why did the Great Father provide such abundance for the use of man without sending men to use it?—for the few Micmacs who dwell in the land are but as a drop in the ocean, and they totally neglect some things, while they waste others. I have seen them slaughter thousands of deer merely for the sake of their tongues and other tit-bits.”
“There is much of mystery connected with that, Master Hendrick, which we cannot clear up,” remarked Trench.
“Mystery there is, no doubt,” said Paul quickly. “Yet there are some things about it that are plain enough to those who choose to look. The Word of God (which, by the way, is beginning to be circulated now among us in England in our mother tongue), that Word tells man plainly to go forth and replenish the earth. Common sense, from the beginning of time, has told us the same thing, but what does man do? He sticks to several small patches of the earth, and there he trades, and works, and builds, and propagates, until these patches swarm like ant-hills, and then he wars, and fights, and kills off the surplus population; in other words, slays theyoungmen of the world and sows misery, debt and desolation broadcast. In fact, man seems to me to be mad. Rather than obey God and the dictates of common sense, he will leave the fairest portions of the world untenanted, and waste his life and energies in toiling for a crust of bread or fighting for a foot of land!”
“Some such thoughts have passed through my mind,” said Hendrick thoughtfully, “when I have remembered that my ancestors, as I have told you, discovered this land, as well as that which lies to the west and south of it, long before this Columbus you speak of was born. But surely we may now expect that with all our modern appliances and knowledge, the earth will soon be overrun and peopled.”
“I don’t feel very sanguine about it,” said Paul, with a prophetic shake of the head.
That Paul was justified in his doubts must be obvious to every reader who is aware of the fact that in the present year of grace (1889) there are millions of the world’s fair and fertile acres still left untenanted and almost untrodden by the foot of man.
“It’s my opinion,” remarked Captain Trench, with a blink of the eyes, induced possibly by wisdom and partly by sleep, “that you two are talking nonsense on a subject which is quite beyond the reach of man’s intellect.”
“It may be so,” replied Paul, with a laugh which merged into a yawn, “and perhaps it would be wiser that we should go to rest. Olly and Oscar have already set us a good example. What say you, Hendrick?”
“As you please,” answered the polite hunter. “I am ready either to sleep or to converse.”
“Then I will not tax your good-nature. We will seek repose. But what of our future movements? My sleep will be sounder if I could lie down with the assurance that you will continue to be our guide into the fertile interior of which you have said so much.”
“I will go with you,” returned Hendrick, after a few moments’ thought, “but I must ask you to spend a few days in my camp to rest yourselves, while I provide a supply of fresh meat and fish for my family; for, willing and able though Oscar is to provide for them, he is yet too young to have the duty laid upon his little shoulders.”
This having been satisfactorily settled, the captain and Paul wrapped themselves in deerskin blankets, and lay down with their feet to the fire.
Hendrick, having heaped a fresh supply of fuel on the embers, followed their example, and the camp was soon buried in profound silence.
Chapter Twelve.A Surprise, a Fight, and a War Party.At this point in our tale we might profitably turn aside for a little to dilate upon the interesting—not to say exciting—proceedings of our explorers and the hunter’s family during the few days spent in the island home and its neighbourhood, were it not that incidents of a more stirring and important nature claim our attention.We might, if time and space permitted, tell how they all went fishing in the lake with Oliver’s cod-hooks, which were, of course, greatly superior to the bone-hooks which Hendrick had been accustomed to manufacture; how they went salmon-spearing by torchlight in a neighbouring stream, in which operation Oliver soon became as expert as his entertainers, and even more enthusiastic, insomuch that he several times met what seemed to be his ordinary fate—a ducking in the water; how, in consequence, he caught a bad cold, as well as fish, and was compelled to lie up and be nursed for several days, during which time of forced inaction he learned to appreciate the excellent nursing qualities of Trueheart and her daughter Goodred. He also learned to estimate at its true value the yelling power of the family baby, whose will was iron and whose lungs were leather, besides being inflated by the fresh, wholesome air of the grand wilderness. We might tell of the short but thrilling expeditions undertaken by the men and boys in pursuit of bears, otters, beaver, and deer, in which Hendrick displayed the certainty of his deadly aim, and Master Trench the uncertainty of his dreadful shooting, despite all his former “practice.” We might relate the interesting stories, anecdotes, and narratives with which the explorers and the hunter sought to beguile the pleasant periods that used to follow supper and precede repose, and describe the tremendous energy of Paul Burns in springing to the rescue of the self-willed baby when it fell into the fire, and the cool courage of Oliver Trench in succouring the same baby when it tumbled into the water. All this we might dilate on, and a great deal more—such as the great friendship struck up between Oscar and Oliver, and the intense interest expressed by Hendrick on finding that his friend Paul possessed a manuscript copy of the Gospel of John, and the frequent perusals of that Gospel over the camp-fire, and the discussions that followed on the great subjects of man’s duty, the soul’s destiny, and the love of God, as shown in and by Jesus Christ—but over all this we must unwillingly draw a curtain and leave it to the courteous reader’s imagination, while we pass on to subjects which bear more directly on the issues of our tale.One day, some time after leaving Hendrick’s camp on the great lake, Captain Trench and his son, with Paul Burns and the hunter, halted to rest on the summit of a cliff from which they could obtain a magnificent view of the country lying beyond.They had by that time passed over the rich grassland with its park-like plains, its lakes and streams and belts of woodland, and had entered upon that mountainous region which lies towards the southwesterly portion of the island.“Hendrick,” said Paul, as he gazed with admiration on the wild scene before him, “I have now seen enough to know that this land is most suitable for the abode of man. The soil is admirable; the woods contain magnificent timber; fish, flesh, and fowl are plentiful; coal exists in, I should think, extensive fields, while there are indications in many places of great mineral wealth, especially copper. Besides this, the land, you tell me, is pierced by innumerable bays, inlets, fords, and natural harbours; and, to crown all, the climate, except on some parts of the coast, is exceedingly good. Now it seems to me that these facts ought to be made known in England, and that our King should not only take possession, but should send out colonists to settle all over this island and develop its resources. If permitted, it will be my part to finish this exploration and carry home the news.”Hendrick did not reply for a few minutes, then a faint sigh escaped him as he replied—“No doubt what you say is just, and I doubt not that these plains and hills will one day resound with the activities of civilised life: the plough will obliterate the deer-tracks, the axe will lay low the forests, and the lowing of cattle and the bark of dogs will replace the trumpeting of the wild-goose and the cry of plover; but when the change begins to come, I will strike my tent and go to the great unknown lands of the west, for I cannot bear the clatter and the strife of men.”Paul was about to reply, when an arrow whizzed through the air, pierced the sleeve of his coat, scratched his left arm slightly as it passed, and quivered in a tree behind them.Leaping up, each member of the party sprang for shelter behind a neighbouring tree.At the same moment there arose a terrible cry, as of men rushing to attack each other. The form of the ground prevented our travellers from seeing the combatants, though the sound of their strife proved them to be close at hand. Suddenly Hendrick left the tree behind which he had taken shelter, and, running towards a precipitous bank or cliff, called to his companions to follow. They obeyed at once.“I fear,” he said, as Paul ran up alongside of him, “that I know the meaning of this. Some of the voices sound familiar to me. That arrow was not, I think, discharged at us. We shall be wanted here. May I count on you?”“You may,” said Paul. “I cannot doubt that your cause must be a just one.”“I’m with you!” exclaimed Master Trench, plucking the hatchet from his son’s belt—a weapon that the youngster could well spare, as the bludgeon and the bow were still left to him.Hendrick had spoken in quick, sharp tones, for he was evidently much excited. On reaching the crest of a rising ground he looked cautiously over it.“As I thought!” he said; “my wife’s relations are attacked by savages from Labrador. Come, follow me!”He ran swiftly round the base of the rising ground, not giving his comrades time even to see the combatants to whom he referred.Suddenly they came in full sight of perhaps the most terrible sight that our fallen world can present—two bands of armed men, mad with rage, engaged in the fiendish work of butchering each other.In the immediate foreground two powerful Indians were struggling each to plant a short spear in the other’s heart. One, who was shorter than the other but equally powerful, was making a desperate effort to wrench his right hand from his foe’s grasp, and another foe was on the point of stabbing the short man in the back, when the white men appeared on the scene. Paul, the captain, and Oliver, although ready with arrow and bolt hesitated, for they knew not which to regard as foes, and which as friends. No such difficulty, however, interfered with Hendrick, who sent an arrow into the brain of the savage who meant to strike from behind. At the same instant the short warrior succeeded in his effort; his spear flashed upwards, and the next moment his tall enemy fell to rise no more.Hendrick, who seemed to have been transformed into a human tiger, rushed to the attack with a shout and a display of fury that for a moment arrested the fight. The short Indian, whose life he had just saved, bestowed on him and his companions one look of surprise, and joined him in the rush. Captain Trench, whose combative tendencies were easily aroused, joined them with a roar which was somewhat intensified by the fact that he was still a little uncertain as to which was “the enemy.” Oliver relieved his overcharged bosom by an involuntary shriek or howl, that rose high and shrill above the tumult, as he followed suit, whirling his bludgeon with some difficulty round his head.The combined effect of all this was to strike terror into the enemy who, turning short round, fled precipitately, and were followed for a considerable distance by some of the victorious Indians.On returning from the pursuit, Hendrick introduced the short Indian as his wife’s cousin, who, with a party of hunters, had been out for a supply of fresh meat when attacked by the Labrador savages.“It is an old feud,” remarked Hendrick, as he and Paul sat a little apart that evening, while their comrades assisted the Indians to prepare supper; “an old feud. Oh! war—war! There is no place of rest from it, I fear, in this world.”The hunter’s tone was so sad that Paul looked at him inquiringly.“You are surprised,” said his companion, “that I should long thus for escape from the warring passions of men, but if you knew what reason I have for hating war, you would not wonder. Listen! Many years ago I went with my wife and child to visit a kinsman in the Scottish Highlands. I need scarcely tell you that it was not my present wife and child. She was young, fair, faultless in person and disposition. Our little daughter resembled her in all respects. There chanced to be a miserable feud existing between my relative and a neighbouring chief. It originated in some disputed boundary, and always smouldered, like a subdued volcano, but occasionally broke forth in open warfare. At the time of my visit my kinsman, who was a bachelor, had gone to transact some business at a town not far distant, leaving a message for me to follow him as he required my assistance in some family arrangements, and meant to return home the same night. I went, leaving my wife and child in the castle. That very night my kinsman’s foe—knowing nothing of my arrival—came to the castle, took the small body of defenders by surprise, overcame them, and set the place on fire. Fiendish and revengeful though the marauders were, I believe they would not wantonly have murdered the helpless ones, had they known of their being in the place, but they knew it not until too late.“When we returned that night the castle was a black smoking ruin, and my wife and little one had perished! Can you wonder that I fled from the horrible spot; that I left my native land for ever; and that I shudder at the very thought of strife?”“Nay, brother, I wonder not,” said Paul, in a sympathetic tone; “but I fear there is no region on the face of this earth where the terrible war-spirit, or, rather, war-fiend, is not alive.”“Why, the man whose life I took this very day,” resumed Hendrick, clenching his right hand almost fiercely, “has doubtless left a woman at home who is now a widow, and it may be children, whom I have rendered fatherless! No rest—no rest anywhere from this constant slaying of our fellow-men; yet I was forced to do it to save the life of my wife’s kinsman! Oh! is there no deliverance, no hope for this poor world?”“Hendrick,” said Paul, laying his hand impressively on his friend’s arm, “thereisdeliverance—thereishope. See here.”He pulled out the manuscript Gospel as he spoke, and turning over the well-thumbed leaves, read the words—“‘Jesus saith... A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another... Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In My Father’s house are many mansions.’ Hendrick, this same Jesus, who is Immanuel, God with us, has said, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give yourest.’ ‘Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.’ These latter words are not here, but they are in other scriptures which I have often heard read.”“But how shall I know,” said the hunter earnestly, “that these words are true—that they are the words of God?”For some time Paul made no reply, then suddenly, to the surprise of his friend, he looked upwards, and, in a low voice, said—“O Holy Spirit of God, convince my friend that these words are Thine,—in Jesus’ name!”Then, turning to the hunter, he continued: “Come, let us examine this writing together.”“Something of this have I heard before,” said Hendrick, “and, as I thirst for light and truth, I will gladly examine it with you.”Need we say that those two earnest men were soon engrossed in the study of the Word, and that the interruption of the evening meal did not prevent them from afterwards poring over the manuscript far into the night by the light of the camp-fire. Hendrick was well able to do so, for, like Paul, he had received a better education than fell to the lot of most men in those days.At first Captain Trench and his son had listened to the conversation and discussion of the students with much interest and the sturdy matter-of-fact mariner even ventured to put one or two puzzling questions to them; but by degrees their interest flagged, and at last taking example by the Indians, they rolled themselves in deerskin robes and sought repose.Continuing their journey next day, they were about to part from their Indian friends on the mountain ridge, from which a view of the Western ocean could be obtained, when they observed a band of Indians in the far distance travelling eastward.“On the war-path!” suggested Hendrick.After a prolonged gaze the kinsman of Trueheart came to the same conclusion, and said he felt sure that they were not from Labrador, but were evidently men of the Island.“Can you guess what they are going to do?” asked Hendrick.The Indian shook his head solemnly. “No, he did not know—he could not guess, and as they were separated by some miles of valleys, precipices, and mountain gorges, there was no possibility of finding out.”After some time spent in speculation and guessing as to the intention of the war party, our explorers, bidding farewell to their red friends, proceeded on their journey, while the latter diverged to the southward, and continued their hunt after fresh meat.If Paul Burns and his friends had known the purpose of the warriors whom they had just seen, it is probable that they might not have slept quite as soundly as they did that night under the greenwood trees.
At this point in our tale we might profitably turn aside for a little to dilate upon the interesting—not to say exciting—proceedings of our explorers and the hunter’s family during the few days spent in the island home and its neighbourhood, were it not that incidents of a more stirring and important nature claim our attention.
We might, if time and space permitted, tell how they all went fishing in the lake with Oliver’s cod-hooks, which were, of course, greatly superior to the bone-hooks which Hendrick had been accustomed to manufacture; how they went salmon-spearing by torchlight in a neighbouring stream, in which operation Oliver soon became as expert as his entertainers, and even more enthusiastic, insomuch that he several times met what seemed to be his ordinary fate—a ducking in the water; how, in consequence, he caught a bad cold, as well as fish, and was compelled to lie up and be nursed for several days, during which time of forced inaction he learned to appreciate the excellent nursing qualities of Trueheart and her daughter Goodred. He also learned to estimate at its true value the yelling power of the family baby, whose will was iron and whose lungs were leather, besides being inflated by the fresh, wholesome air of the grand wilderness. We might tell of the short but thrilling expeditions undertaken by the men and boys in pursuit of bears, otters, beaver, and deer, in which Hendrick displayed the certainty of his deadly aim, and Master Trench the uncertainty of his dreadful shooting, despite all his former “practice.” We might relate the interesting stories, anecdotes, and narratives with which the explorers and the hunter sought to beguile the pleasant periods that used to follow supper and precede repose, and describe the tremendous energy of Paul Burns in springing to the rescue of the self-willed baby when it fell into the fire, and the cool courage of Oliver Trench in succouring the same baby when it tumbled into the water. All this we might dilate on, and a great deal more—such as the great friendship struck up between Oscar and Oliver, and the intense interest expressed by Hendrick on finding that his friend Paul possessed a manuscript copy of the Gospel of John, and the frequent perusals of that Gospel over the camp-fire, and the discussions that followed on the great subjects of man’s duty, the soul’s destiny, and the love of God, as shown in and by Jesus Christ—but over all this we must unwillingly draw a curtain and leave it to the courteous reader’s imagination, while we pass on to subjects which bear more directly on the issues of our tale.
One day, some time after leaving Hendrick’s camp on the great lake, Captain Trench and his son, with Paul Burns and the hunter, halted to rest on the summit of a cliff from which they could obtain a magnificent view of the country lying beyond.
They had by that time passed over the rich grassland with its park-like plains, its lakes and streams and belts of woodland, and had entered upon that mountainous region which lies towards the southwesterly portion of the island.
“Hendrick,” said Paul, as he gazed with admiration on the wild scene before him, “I have now seen enough to know that this land is most suitable for the abode of man. The soil is admirable; the woods contain magnificent timber; fish, flesh, and fowl are plentiful; coal exists in, I should think, extensive fields, while there are indications in many places of great mineral wealth, especially copper. Besides this, the land, you tell me, is pierced by innumerable bays, inlets, fords, and natural harbours; and, to crown all, the climate, except on some parts of the coast, is exceedingly good. Now it seems to me that these facts ought to be made known in England, and that our King should not only take possession, but should send out colonists to settle all over this island and develop its resources. If permitted, it will be my part to finish this exploration and carry home the news.”
Hendrick did not reply for a few minutes, then a faint sigh escaped him as he replied—
“No doubt what you say is just, and I doubt not that these plains and hills will one day resound with the activities of civilised life: the plough will obliterate the deer-tracks, the axe will lay low the forests, and the lowing of cattle and the bark of dogs will replace the trumpeting of the wild-goose and the cry of plover; but when the change begins to come, I will strike my tent and go to the great unknown lands of the west, for I cannot bear the clatter and the strife of men.”
Paul was about to reply, when an arrow whizzed through the air, pierced the sleeve of his coat, scratched his left arm slightly as it passed, and quivered in a tree behind them.
Leaping up, each member of the party sprang for shelter behind a neighbouring tree.
At the same moment there arose a terrible cry, as of men rushing to attack each other. The form of the ground prevented our travellers from seeing the combatants, though the sound of their strife proved them to be close at hand. Suddenly Hendrick left the tree behind which he had taken shelter, and, running towards a precipitous bank or cliff, called to his companions to follow. They obeyed at once.
“I fear,” he said, as Paul ran up alongside of him, “that I know the meaning of this. Some of the voices sound familiar to me. That arrow was not, I think, discharged at us. We shall be wanted here. May I count on you?”
“You may,” said Paul. “I cannot doubt that your cause must be a just one.”
“I’m with you!” exclaimed Master Trench, plucking the hatchet from his son’s belt—a weapon that the youngster could well spare, as the bludgeon and the bow were still left to him.
Hendrick had spoken in quick, sharp tones, for he was evidently much excited. On reaching the crest of a rising ground he looked cautiously over it.
“As I thought!” he said; “my wife’s relations are attacked by savages from Labrador. Come, follow me!”
He ran swiftly round the base of the rising ground, not giving his comrades time even to see the combatants to whom he referred.
Suddenly they came in full sight of perhaps the most terrible sight that our fallen world can present—two bands of armed men, mad with rage, engaged in the fiendish work of butchering each other.
In the immediate foreground two powerful Indians were struggling each to plant a short spear in the other’s heart. One, who was shorter than the other but equally powerful, was making a desperate effort to wrench his right hand from his foe’s grasp, and another foe was on the point of stabbing the short man in the back, when the white men appeared on the scene. Paul, the captain, and Oliver, although ready with arrow and bolt hesitated, for they knew not which to regard as foes, and which as friends. No such difficulty, however, interfered with Hendrick, who sent an arrow into the brain of the savage who meant to strike from behind. At the same instant the short warrior succeeded in his effort; his spear flashed upwards, and the next moment his tall enemy fell to rise no more.
Hendrick, who seemed to have been transformed into a human tiger, rushed to the attack with a shout and a display of fury that for a moment arrested the fight. The short Indian, whose life he had just saved, bestowed on him and his companions one look of surprise, and joined him in the rush. Captain Trench, whose combative tendencies were easily aroused, joined them with a roar which was somewhat intensified by the fact that he was still a little uncertain as to which was “the enemy.” Oliver relieved his overcharged bosom by an involuntary shriek or howl, that rose high and shrill above the tumult, as he followed suit, whirling his bludgeon with some difficulty round his head.
The combined effect of all this was to strike terror into the enemy who, turning short round, fled precipitately, and were followed for a considerable distance by some of the victorious Indians.
On returning from the pursuit, Hendrick introduced the short Indian as his wife’s cousin, who, with a party of hunters, had been out for a supply of fresh meat when attacked by the Labrador savages.
“It is an old feud,” remarked Hendrick, as he and Paul sat a little apart that evening, while their comrades assisted the Indians to prepare supper; “an old feud. Oh! war—war! There is no place of rest from it, I fear, in this world.”
The hunter’s tone was so sad that Paul looked at him inquiringly.
“You are surprised,” said his companion, “that I should long thus for escape from the warring passions of men, but if you knew what reason I have for hating war, you would not wonder. Listen! Many years ago I went with my wife and child to visit a kinsman in the Scottish Highlands. I need scarcely tell you that it was not my present wife and child. She was young, fair, faultless in person and disposition. Our little daughter resembled her in all respects. There chanced to be a miserable feud existing between my relative and a neighbouring chief. It originated in some disputed boundary, and always smouldered, like a subdued volcano, but occasionally broke forth in open warfare. At the time of my visit my kinsman, who was a bachelor, had gone to transact some business at a town not far distant, leaving a message for me to follow him as he required my assistance in some family arrangements, and meant to return home the same night. I went, leaving my wife and child in the castle. That very night my kinsman’s foe—knowing nothing of my arrival—came to the castle, took the small body of defenders by surprise, overcame them, and set the place on fire. Fiendish and revengeful though the marauders were, I believe they would not wantonly have murdered the helpless ones, had they known of their being in the place, but they knew it not until too late.
“When we returned that night the castle was a black smoking ruin, and my wife and little one had perished! Can you wonder that I fled from the horrible spot; that I left my native land for ever; and that I shudder at the very thought of strife?”
“Nay, brother, I wonder not,” said Paul, in a sympathetic tone; “but I fear there is no region on the face of this earth where the terrible war-spirit, or, rather, war-fiend, is not alive.”
“Why, the man whose life I took this very day,” resumed Hendrick, clenching his right hand almost fiercely, “has doubtless left a woman at home who is now a widow, and it may be children, whom I have rendered fatherless! No rest—no rest anywhere from this constant slaying of our fellow-men; yet I was forced to do it to save the life of my wife’s kinsman! Oh! is there no deliverance, no hope for this poor world?”
“Hendrick,” said Paul, laying his hand impressively on his friend’s arm, “thereisdeliverance—thereishope. See here.”
He pulled out the manuscript Gospel as he spoke, and turning over the well-thumbed leaves, read the words—
“‘Jesus saith... A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another... Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In My Father’s house are many mansions.’ Hendrick, this same Jesus, who is Immanuel, God with us, has said, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give yourest.’ ‘Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.’ These latter words are not here, but they are in other scriptures which I have often heard read.”
“But how shall I know,” said the hunter earnestly, “that these words are true—that they are the words of God?”
For some time Paul made no reply, then suddenly, to the surprise of his friend, he looked upwards, and, in a low voice, said—
“O Holy Spirit of God, convince my friend that these words are Thine,—in Jesus’ name!”
Then, turning to the hunter, he continued: “Come, let us examine this writing together.”
“Something of this have I heard before,” said Hendrick, “and, as I thirst for light and truth, I will gladly examine it with you.”
Need we say that those two earnest men were soon engrossed in the study of the Word, and that the interruption of the evening meal did not prevent them from afterwards poring over the manuscript far into the night by the light of the camp-fire. Hendrick was well able to do so, for, like Paul, he had received a better education than fell to the lot of most men in those days.
At first Captain Trench and his son had listened to the conversation and discussion of the students with much interest and the sturdy matter-of-fact mariner even ventured to put one or two puzzling questions to them; but by degrees their interest flagged, and at last taking example by the Indians, they rolled themselves in deerskin robes and sought repose.
Continuing their journey next day, they were about to part from their Indian friends on the mountain ridge, from which a view of the Western ocean could be obtained, when they observed a band of Indians in the far distance travelling eastward.
“On the war-path!” suggested Hendrick.
After a prolonged gaze the kinsman of Trueheart came to the same conclusion, and said he felt sure that they were not from Labrador, but were evidently men of the Island.
“Can you guess what they are going to do?” asked Hendrick.
The Indian shook his head solemnly. “No, he did not know—he could not guess, and as they were separated by some miles of valleys, precipices, and mountain gorges, there was no possibility of finding out.”
After some time spent in speculation and guessing as to the intention of the war party, our explorers, bidding farewell to their red friends, proceeded on their journey, while the latter diverged to the southward, and continued their hunt after fresh meat.
If Paul Burns and his friends had known the purpose of the warriors whom they had just seen, it is probable that they might not have slept quite as soundly as they did that night under the greenwood trees.