Dr. Grenfell's Parish Part 5

There are degrees of wretchedness: a frame cottage is the habitation of the rich and great where the poor live in turf huts; and the poor subsist on roots and a paste of flour and water when the rich feast on salt junk. The folk who live near the Strait of Belle Isle and on the gulf sh.o.r.e may be in happier circ.u.mstances. To be sure, they know the pinch of famine; but some--the really well-to-do--are clear of the over-shadowing dread of it. The "liveyeres" of the north dwell in huts, in lonely coves of the bays, remote even from neighbours as ill-cased as themselves; there they live and laugh and love and suffer and die and bury their dead--alone. To the south, however, there are little settlements in the more sheltered harbours--the largest of not more than a hundred souls--where there is a degree of prosperity and of comfort; potatoes are a luxury, but the flour-barrel is always full, the pork-barrel not always empty, and there are raisins in the duff on feast-days; moreover, there are stoves in the whitewashed houses (the northern "liveyere's" stove is more often than not a flat rock), beds to sleep in, muslin curtains in the little windows, and a flower, it may be, sprouting desperately in a red pot on the sill.

That is the extreme of luxury--rare to be met with; and it is at all times open to dissolution by famine.

"Sure, zur, _last_ winter," a stout young fellow boasted, "we had all the grease us wanted!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE LABRADOR 'LIVEYERE'"]

It is related of a thrifty settler named Olliver, however, who lived with his wife and five children at Big Bight,--he was a man of superior qualities, as the event makes manifest,--that, having come close to the pa.s.s of starvation at the end of a long winter, he set out afoot over the hills to seek relief from his nearest neighbour, forty miles away. But there was no relief to be had; the good neighbour had already given away all that he dared spare, and something more. Twelve miles farther on he was again denied; it is said that the second neighbour mutely pointed to his flour-barrel and his family--which was quite sufficient for Olliver, who thereupon departed to a third house, where his fortune was no better. Perceiving then that he must depend upon the store of food in his own house, which was insufficient to support the lives of all, he returned home, sent his wife and eldest son and eldest daughter away on a pretext, despatched his three youngest children with an axe, and shot himself.

As he had foreseen, wife, daughter, and son survived until the "break-up" brought food within their reach; and the son was a well-grown boy, and made a capable head of the house thereafter.

The "liveyere" is a fisherman and trapper. In the summer he catches cod; in the winter he traps the fox, otter, mink, lynx, and marten, and sometimes he shoots a bear, white or black, and kills a wolf. The "planter," who advances the salt to cure the fish, takes the catch at the end of the season, giving in exchange provisions at an incredible profit; the Hudson Bay Company takes the fur, giving in exchange provisions at an even larger profit; for obvious reasons, both aim (there are exceptions, of course) to keep the "liveyere" in debt--which is not by any means a difficult matter, for the "liveyere"

is both shiftless and (what is more to the point) illiterate. So it comes about that what he may have to eat and wear depends upon the will of the "planter" and of the company; and when for his ill-luck or his ill-will both cast him off--which sometimes happens--he looks starvation in the very face. A silver fox, of good fur and acceptable colour, is the "liveyere's" great catch; no doubt his most ecstatic nightmare has to do with finding one fast in his trap; but when, "more by chance than good conduct," as they say, he has that heavenly fortune (the event is of the rarest), the company pays sixty or eighty dollars for that which it sells abroad for $600. Of late, however, the free-traders seem to have established a footing on the coast; their stay may not be long, but for the moment, at any rate, the "liveyere"

may dispose of his fur to greater advantage--if he dare.

The earth yields the "liveyere" nothing but berries, which are abundant, and, in midsummer, "turnip tops"; and as numerous dogs are needed for winter travelling--wolfish creatures, savage, big, famished--no domestic animals can be kept. There was once a man who somehow managed for a season to possess a pig and a sheep; he marooned his dogs on an island half a mile off the coast; unhappily, however, there blew an off-sh.o.r.e wind in the night, and next morning neither the pig nor the sheep was to be found; the dogs were engaged in innocent diversions on the island, but there was evidence sufficient on their persons, so to speak, to convict them of the depredation in any court of justice. There are no cows on the coast, no goats,--consequently no additional milk-supply for babies,--who manage from the beginning, however, to thrive on bread and salt beef, if put to the necessity. There are no pigs--there is one pig, I believe,--no sheep, no chickens; and the first horses to be taken to the sawmill on Hamilton Inlet so frightened the natives that they scampered in every direction for their lives whenever the team came near, crying: "Look out! The ha.r.s.es is comin'!" The caribou are too far inland for most of the settlers; but at various seasons (excluding such times as there is no game at all) there are to be had grouse, partridge, geese, eider-duck, puffin, gulls, loon and petrel, bear, arctic hare, and bay seal, which are shot with marvellously long and old guns--some of them ancient flintlocks.

Notwithstanding all, the folk are large and hardy--capable of withstanding cruel hardship and deprivation.

In summer-time the weather is blistering hot inland; and on the coast it is more often than not wet, foggy, bl.u.s.tering--bitter enough for the man from the south, who shivers as he goes about. Innumerable icebergs drift southward, sc.r.a.ping the coast as they go, and patches of snow lie in the hollows of the coast hills--midway between Battle Harbour and Cape Chidley there is a low headland called Snowy Point because the snow forever lies upon it. But warm, sunny days are to be counted upon in August--days when the sea is quiet, the sky deep blue, the rocks bathed in yellow sunlight, the air clear and bracing; at such times it is good to lie on the high heads and look away out to sea, dreaming the while. In winter, storm and intense cold make most of the coast uninhabitable; the "liveyeres" retire up the bays and rivers, bag and baggage, not only to escape the winds and bitter cold, but to be nearer the supply of game and fire-wood. They live in little "tilts"--log huts of one large square room, with "bunks" at each end for the women-folk, and a "c.o.c.kloft" above for the men and lads. It is very cold; frost forms on the walls, icicles under the "bunks"; the thermometer frequently falls to fifty degrees below zero, which, as you may be sure, is exceedingly cold near the sea. Nor can a man do much heavy work in the woods, for the perspiration freezes under his clothing. Impoverished families have no stoves--merely an arrangement of flat stones, with an opening in the roof for the escape of the smoke, with which they are quite content if only they have enough flour to make hard bread for all.

It goes without saying that there is neither butcher, baker, nor candlestick-maker on the coast. Every man is his own bootmaker, tailor, and what not; there is not a trade or profession practiced anywhere. There is no resident doctor, save the mission doctors, one of whom is established at Battle Harbour, and with a dog-team makes a toilsome journey up the coast in the dead of winter, relieving whom he can. There is no public building, no munic.i.p.al government, no road.

There is no lawyer, no constable; and I very much doubt that there is a parson regularly stationed among the whites beyond Battle Harbour, with the exception of the Moravian missionaries. They are scarce enough, at any rate, for the folk in a certain practical way to feel the hardship of their absence. Dr. Grenfell tells of landing late one night in a lonely harbour where three "couples wanted marrying." They had waited many years for the opportunity. It chanced that the doctor was entertaining a minister on the cruise; so one couple determined at once to return to the ship with him. "The minister," says the doctor, "decided that p.r.o.nouncing the banns might be dispensed with in this case. He went ahead with the ceremony, for the couple had three children already!"

The "liveyere" is of a sombrely religious turn of mind--his creed as harsh and gloomy as the land he lives in; he is superst.i.tious as a savage as well, and an incorrigible fatalist, all of which is not hard to account for: he is forever in the midst of vast s.p.a.ce and silence, face to face with dread and mysterious forces, and in conflict with wind and sea and the changing season, which are irresistible and indifferent.

Jared was young, l.u.s.ty, light-hearted; but he lived in the fear and dread of h.e.l.l. I had known that for two days.

"The flies, zur," said he to the sportsman, whose hospitality I was enjoying, "was wonderful bad the day."

We were twelve miles inland, fishing a small stream; and we were now in the "tilt," at the end of the day, safe from the swarming, vicious black-flies.

"Yes," the sportsman replied, emphatically. "I've suffered the tortures of the d.a.m.ned this day!"

Jared burst into a roar of laughter--as sudden and violent as a thunderclap.

"What you laughing at?" the sportsman demanded, as he tenderly stroked his swollen neck.

"Tartures o' the d.a.m.ned!" Jared gasped. "Sure, if _that's_ all 'tis, I'll jack 'asy about it!"

He laughed louder--reckless levity; but I knew that deep in his heart he would be infinitely relieved could he believe--could he only make sure--that the punishment of the wicked was no worse than an eternity of fighting with poisonous insects.

"Ay," he repeated, ruefully, "if that's all 'twas, 'twould not trouble me much."

The graveyard at Battle Harbour is in a sheltered hollow near the sea.

It is a green spot--the one, perhaps, on the island--and they have enclosed it with a high board fence. Men have fished from that harbour for a hundred years and more--but there are not many graves; why, I do not know. The crumbling stones, the weather-beaten boards, the sprawling ill-worded inscriptions, are all, in their way, eloquent:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Sarah Combe died the fourth of August, 1881, aged 31 years."]

There is another, better carved, somewhat better spelled, but quite as interesting and luminous:

In Memory of John Hill who Died December 30 1890 Aged 34

Weep not dear Parents For your lost tis my Etarnel gain May May Crist you all take up The crost that we Shuld meat again

These things are, indeed, eloquent--of ignorance, of poverty; but no less eloquent of sorrow and of love. The Labrador "liveyere" is kin with the whole wide world.

VIII

_WITH The FLEET_

In the early spring--when the sunlight is yellow and the warm winds blow and the melting snow drips over the cliffs and runs in little rivulets from the barren hills--in the thousand harbours of Newfoundland the great fleet is made ready for the long adventure upon the Labrador coast. The rocks echo the noise of hammer and saw and mallet and the song and shout of the workers. The new schooners--building the winter long at the harbour side--are hurried to completion. The old craft--the weather-beaten, ragged old craft, which, it may be, have dodged the reefs and out-lived the gales of forty seasons--are fitted with new spars, patched with new canvas and rope, calked anew, daubed anew and, thus refitted, float brave enough on the quiet harbour water. There is no end to the bustle of labour on ships and nets--no end to the clatter of planning. From the skipper of the ten-ton _First Venture_, who sails with a crew of sons bred for the purpose, to the powerful dealer who supplies on shares a fleet of seventeen fore-and-afters manned from the harbours of a great bay, there is hope in the hearts of all. Whatever the last season, every man is to make a good "voyage" now. This season--_this_ season--there is to be fish a-plenty on the Labrador!

The future is bright as the new spring days. Aunt Matilda is to have a bonnet with feathers--when Skipper Thomas gets home from the Labrador.

Little Johnny Tatt, he of the crooked back, is to know again the virtue of Pike's Pain Compound, at a dollar a bottle, warranted to cure--when daddy gets home from the Labrador. Skipper Bill's Lizzie, plump, blushing, merry-eyed, is to wed Jack Lute o' Burnt Arm--when Jack comes back from the Labrador. Every man's heart, and, indeed, most men's fortunes, are in the venture. The man who has nothing has yet the labour of his hands. Be he skipper, there is one to back his skill and honesty; be he hand, there is no lack of berths to choose from. Skippers stand upon their record and schooners upon their reputation; it's take your choice, for the hands are not too many: the skippers are timid or bold, as G.o.d made them; the schooners are lucky or not, as Fate determines. Every man has his chance. John Smith o'

Twillingate provisions the _Lucky Queen_ and gives her to the penniless Skipper Jim o' Yellow Tickle on shares. Old Tom Tatter o'

Salmon Cove, with plea and argument, persuades the Four Arms trader to trust him once again with the _Busy Bee_. He'll get the fish _this_ time. Nar a doubt of it! _He'll_ be home in August--this year--loaded to the gunwale. G.o.d knows who pays the cash when the fish fail! G.o.d knows how the folk survive the disappointment! It is a great lottery of hope and fortune.

When, at last, word comes south that the ice is clearing from the coast, the vessels spread their little wings to the first favouring winds; and in a week--two weeks or three--the last of the Labradormen have gone "down north."

Dr. Grenfell and his workers find much to do among these men and women and children.

At Indian Harbour where the _Strathcona_ lay at anchor, I went aboard the schooner _Jolly Crew_. It was a raw, foggy day, with a fresh northeast gale blowing, and a high sea running outside the harbour.

They were splitting fish on deck; the skiff was just in from the trap--she was still wet with spray.

"I sails with me sons an' gran'sons, zur," said the skipper, smiling.

"Sure, I be a old feller t' be down the Labrador, isn't I, zur?"

He did not mean that. He was proud of his age and strength--glad that he was still able "t' be at the fishin'."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AT INDIAN HARBOR"]

"'Tis a wonder you've lived through it all," said I.

He laughed. "An' why, zur?" he asked.

"Many's the ship wrecked on this coast," I answered.