Acadia Part 7

"It rains," said Picton.

It had rained all the morning; but what did that matter when a hundred years since was in one's mind? Picton, in his mackintosh, was an impervious representative of the nineteenth century; but I was as fully saturated with water as if I were living in the place under the old French _regime_.

"Let us go down," said Picton, "and see the jolly old fishermen outside the walls. What is the use of staying here in the rain after you have seen all that can be seen? Come along. Just think how serene it will be if we can get some milk and potatoes down there."

There are about a dozen fishermen's huts on the beach outside the walls of the old town of Louisburgh. When you enter one it reminds you of the descriptive play-bill of the melo-drama--"Scene II.: Interior of a Fisherman's Cottage on the Sea-sh.o.r.e: Ocean in the Distance." The walls are built of heavy timbers, laid one upon another, and caulked with moss or oak.u.m. Overhead are square beams, with pegs for nets, poles, guns, boots, the heterogeneous and picturesque tackle with which such ceilings are usually ornamented. But oh! how clean everything is! The knots are fairly scrubbed out of the floor-planks, the hearth-bricks red as cherries, the dresser-shelves worn thin with soap and sand, and white as the sand with which they have been scoured. I never saw drawing-room that could compare with the purity of that interior. It was cleanliness itself; but I saw many such before I left Louisburgh, in both the old town and the new.

We sat down in the "hutch," as they call it, before a cheery wood-fire, and soon forgot all about the outside rain. But if we had shut out the rain, we had not shut out the neighboring Atlantic. That was near enough; the thunderous surf, whirling, pouring, breaking against the rocky sh.o.r.e and islands, was sounding in our ears, and we could see the great white ma.s.ses of foam lifted against the sky from the window of the hutch, as we sat before the warm fire.

"You was lucky to get in last night," said the master of the hutch, an old, weather-beaten fisherman.

"Yes," replied Picton, surveying the grey head before him with as much complacency as he would a turnip; "and a serene old place it is when we get in."

To this the weather-beaten replied by winking twice with both eyes.

"Rather a dangerous coast," continued Picton, stretching out one thigh before the fire. "I say, don't you fishermen often lose your lives out there?" and he pointed to the mouth of the harbor.

"There was only two lives lost _in seventy years_," replied the old man (this remarkable fact was confirmed by many persons of whom we asked the same question during our visit), "and one of them was a young man, a stranger here, who was capsized in a boat as he was going out to a vessel in the harbor."

"You are speaking now of lives lost in the fisheries," said Picton, "not in the coasting trade."

"Oh!" replied the old man, shaking his head, "the coasting trade is different; there is a many lives lost in that. Last year I had a brother as sailed out of this in a shallop, on the same day as yon vessel,"

pointing to the Balaklava; "he went out in company with your captain; he was going to his wedding, he thought, poor fellow, for he was to bring a young wife home with him from Halifax, but he got caught in a storm off Canseau, and we never heard of the shallop again. He was my youngest brother, gentlemen."

It was strange to be seated in that old cottage, listening to so dreary a story, and watching the storm outside. There was a wonderful fascination in it, nevertheless, and I was not a little loth to leave the bright hearth when the sailors from the schooner came for us and carried us on board again to dinner.

The storm continued; but Picton and I found plenty to do that day.

Equipped with oil-skin pea-jackets and sou'-westers, with a couple of _fish-pughs_, or poles, pointed with iron, we started on a cruise after lobsters, in a sort of flat-bottomed skiff, peculiar to the place, called a _dingledekooch_. And although we did not catch one lobster, yet we did not lose sight of many interesting particulars that were scattered around the harbor. And first of the fisheries. All the people here are directly or indirectly engaged in this business, and to this they devote themselves entirely; farming being scarcely thought of. I doubt whether there is a plough in the place; certainly there was not a horse, in either the old or new town, or a vehicle of any kind, as we found out betimes.

The fishing here, as in all other places along the coast, is carried on in small, clinker-built boats, sharp at both ends, and carrying two sails. It is marvellous with what dexterity these boats are handled; they are out in all weathers, and at all times, night or day, as it happens, and although sometimes loaded to the gunwale with fish, yet they encounter the roughest gales, and ride out storms in safety, that would be perilous to the largest vessels.

"I can carry all sail," said one old fellow, "when the captain there would have to take in every rag on the schooner."

And such, too, was the fact. These boats usually sail a few miles from the sh.o.r.e, rarely beyond twelve; the fish are taken with hand-lines generally, but sometimes a set line with buoys and anchors is used. The fish, are cured on _flakes_, or high platforms, raised upon poles from the beach, so that one end of the staging is over the water. The cod are thrown up from the boat to the flake by means of the fish-pugh--a sort of one-p.r.o.nged, piscatory pitchfork--and cleaned, salted, and cured there; then spread out to dry on the flake, or on the beach, and packed for market. _Nothing can be neater and cleaner than the whole system of curing the fish!_ popular opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. The fishermen of Louisburgh are a happy, contented, kind, and simple people. Living, as they do, far from the jarring interests of the busy world, having a common revenue, for the ocean supplies each and all alike; pursuing an occupation which is constant discipline for body and soul; brave, sincere, and hospitable by nature, for all of these virtues are inseparable from their relations to each other; one can scarcely be with them, no matter how brief the visit, without feeling a kindred sympathy; without having a vague thought of "sometime I may be only too glad to escape from the world and accept this humble happiness instead;" without a dreamy idea of "Perhaps _this_, after all, is the real Arcadia!"

While I was indulging in these reflections, it was amusing to see Picton at work! The heads and entrails of the cod-fish, thrown from the "flakes"

into the water, attract thousands of the baser tribes, such as sculpins, flounders, and toad-fish, who feed themselves fat upon the offals, and enjoy a peaceful life under the clear waters of the harbor. As the dingledekooch floated silently over them, they lay perfectly quiet and unsuspicious of danger, although within a few feet of the fatal fish-pugh, and in an element almost as transparent as air. Lobster, during the storm, had gone off to other grounds; but here were great flat flounders and sculpin, within reach of the indefatigable Picton. Down went the fish-pugh and up came the game! The bottom of the skiff was soon covered with the spearings of the traveller. Great flounders, those sub-marine buckwheat cakes; sculpins, bloated with rage and wind, like patriots out of office; toad-fish, savage and vindictive as Irishmen in a riot. Down went the fish-pugh! It was rare sport, and no person could have enjoyed it more than Picton--except perhaps some of the veteran fishermen of Louisburgh, who were gathered on the beach watching the doings in the dingledekooch.

CHAPTER VI.

A most acceptable Invitation--- An Evening in the Hutch--Old Songs--Picton in High Feather--Wolfe and Montcalm--Reminiscences of the Siege--Anecdotes of Wolfe--A Touch of Rhetoric and its Consequences.

Quite a little crowd of fishermen gathered around us, as the dingledekooch ran bows on the beach, and Picton, warm with exercise and excitement, leaped ash.o.r.e, flourishing his piscatorial javelin with an air of triumph, which oddly contrasted with the faces of the Louisburghers, who looked at him and at his game, with countenances of great gravity--either real or a.s.sumed. Presently, another boat ran bows on the beach beside our own, and from this jumped Bruce, our jolly first mate, who had come ash.o.r.e to spend a few hours with an old friend, at one of the hutches. To this we were hospitably invited also, and were right glad to uncase our limbs of stiff oil-skin and doff our sou'-westers, and sit down before the cheery fire, piled up with spruce logs and hackmatack; comfortable, indeed, was it to be thus snugly housed, while the weather outside was so lowering, and the schooner wet and cold with rain. To be sure, our gay and festive hall was not so brilliant as some, but it was none the less acceptable on that account; and, before long, a fragrant rasher of bacon, fresh eggs, white bread, and a strong cup of bitter tea made us feel entirely happy. Then these viands being removed, there came pipes and tobacco; and as something else was needed to crown the symposium, Picton whispered a word in the ear of Bruce, who presently disappeared, to return again after a brief absence, with some of our stores from the schooner. Then the table was decked again, with china mugs of dazzling whiteness, lemons, hot water, and a bottle of old Glenlivet; and from the centre of this gallant show, the one great lamp of the hutch cast its mellow radiance around, and nursed in the midst of its flame a great ball of red coal that burned like a bonfire. Then, when our host, the old fisherman, brought out a bundle of warm furs, of moose and cariboo skins, and distributed them around on the settles and broad, high-backed benches, so that we could loll at our ease, we began to realize a sense of being quite snug and cozy, and, indeed, got used to it in a surprisingly short s.p.a.ce of time.

"Now, then," said Picton, "this is what I call serene," and the traveller relapsed into his usual activity; after a brief respite--"I say, give us a song, will you, now, some of you; something about this jolly old place, now--'Brave Wolfe,' or 'Boscawen,'" and he broke out--

"'My name d'ye see's Tom Tough, I've seen a little sarvice, Where mighty billows roll and loud tempests blow; I've sailed with n.o.ble Howe, and I've sailed with n.o.ble Jarvis, And in Admiral Duncan's fleet I've sung yeo, heave, yeo!

And more ye must be knowin', I was c.o.x'son to Boscawen When our fleet attacked Louisburgh, And laid her bulwarks low.

But push about the grog, boys!

Hang care, it killed a cat, Push about the grog, and sing-- Yeo, heave, yeo!'"

"Good Lord!" said the old fisherman, "I harn't heard that song for more'n thirty years. Sing us another bit of it, please."

But Picton had not another bit of it; so he called l.u.s.tily for some one else to sing. "Hang it, sing something," said the traveller. "'How stands the gla.s.s around;' that, you know, was written by Wolfe; at least, it was sung by him the night before the battle of Quebec, and they call it Wolfe's death song--

'How stands the gla.s.s around?

For shame, ye take no care, my boys!

How stands the gla.s.s around?'"

Here Picton forgot the next line, and subst.i.tuted a drink for it, in correct time with the music:

"'The trumpets sound; The colors flying are, my boys, To fight, kill, or wound'"----

Another slip of the memory [drink]:

"'May we still be found,'"

He has found it, and repeats emphatically:

"'May we still be found!

Content with our hard fare, my boys,

[all drink]

On the cold ground!'

"Then there is another song," said Picton, lighting his pipe with coal and tongs; "'Wolfe and Montcalm'--you must know that," he continued, addressing the old fisherman. But the ancient trilobite did not know it; indeed, he was not a singer, so Picton trolled l.u.s.tily forth--

"'He lifted up his head, While the cannons did rattle, To his aid de camp he said, 'How goes the battail?'

The aid de camp, he cried, ''Tis in our favor;'

'Oh! then,' brave Wolfe replied, 'I die with pleasure!'"

"There," said Picton, throwing himself back upon the warm and cosy furs, "I am at the end of my rope, gentlemen. Sing away, some of you," and the traveller drew a long spiral of smoke through his tube, and ejected it in a succession of beautiful rings at the beams overhead.

"Picton," said I, "what a strange, romantic interest attaches itself to the memory of Wolfe. The very song you have sung, 'How stands the gla.s.s around,' although not written by him, for it was composed before he was born, yet has a currency from the popular belief that he sang it on the evening preceding his last battle. And, indeed, it is by no means certain that Gray's Elegy does not derive additional interest from a kindred tradition."

"What is that?" said the traveller.

"Of course you will remember it. When Gray had completed the Elegy, he sent a copy of it to his friend, General Wolfe, in America; and the story goes, that as the great hero was sitting, wrapped in his military cloak, on board the barge which the sailors were rowing up the St. Lawrence, towards Quebec, he produced the poem, and read it in silence by the waning light of approaching evening, until he came to these lines, which he repeated aloud to his officers:

'The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour'----"

Then pausing for a moment, he finished the stanza: