The Crew of the Water Wagtail Part 12

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 ash.o.r.e, 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 mult.i.tudes 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 gla.s.sless 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 a.s.sailed 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 appet.i.te 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 t.i.t-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 G.o.d (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 the _young_ men of the world and sows misery, debt and desolation broadcast. In fact, man seems to me to be mad. Rather than obey G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.surance 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 s.p.a.ce 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 ma.n.u.script 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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed over the rich gra.s.sland 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.