Young Lion of the Woods Part 4

Margaret stepped to his side and said, "Paul, do you feel ill?"

He shook his head, and with his hand pointed at the vast waters of the bay.

Margaret proceeded to get dinner, and the red man was left alone. Paul was asked to the lunch, but replied not.

The sloop ran leisurely along the sh.o.r.e all day, the wind being light and the water quite smooth. All were compelled to rest on deck during the night, which was bright, and the moon made it almost like day,--the little cabin was besieged with mosquitoes. About midnight the Indian, who had not spoken since leaving the St. John, suddenly sprang to his feet and peered over the moon-lit water in the direction of the sh.o.r.e.

Captain G.o.dfrey, who was at the helm, seeing him, thought he was about to make a plunge overboard, and called to his wife who was asleep. She sprang up, asking what was the matter. At this moment Paul sang out, "Indians coming." Margaret went to the cabin, got the musket and pointed toward the canoes, three in number, and fired. The canoes soon after disappeared in the direction of the sh.o.r.e. Paul sank back into his former position, and in a short time all were asleep except the Captain and the Indian. Nothing unusual occurred during the remainder of the night, and in the morning, the wind growing stronger, the little ship made greater headway. The day was a beautiful one, and Paul was as quiet as usual. He ate nothing. Night again came on, and the breeze holding through the moon-lit hours, the Captain ran the sloop into Pa.s.smaquaddy early in the morning.

As the sun was rising in all his splendour, throwing his brightening rays over land and water, the little vessel was headed into her port of destination. As she was running in, Paul, quick as a flash, jumped up, as though some attendant spirit had suddenly opened to him a vision of the future. He fixed his eyes intently on the sh.o.r.e. In an instant he crouched down on the deck with his head and shoulders partly over the rail. His att.i.tude and manner were those of a wild beast about to spring upon its prey. The Captain thought Paul saw something strange on the sh.o.r.e. In a few minutes the Indian sat down again, and for sometime remained perfectly quiet. The anchor was let go, and the little craft rested in Pa.s.smaquaddy harbour. The Captain ran in for the purpose of getting some one to pilot the sloop to Halifax, but to his great disappointment could find no one willing to go. He had neither money nor goods to offer in payment for the service of a pilot.

The day following he set sail for Machias, ten leagues distant, in the hope of securing some person at that place willing to a.s.sist him in the pa.s.sage to Halifax. Paul Guidon had consented to go as far as Machias, and there land and make his way back to the St. John.

After leaving Pa.s.smaquaddy, Captain G.o.dfrey concluded to put into Head harbour and try his luck at that place in securing a pilot, but being unacquainted with the locality he ran the sloop on a ledge of rocks.

However, the tide coming in she floated off unharmed.

"Flung from the rock, on ocean's foam, to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail."

The wind suddenly veered round and blew off sh.o.r.e quite fresh. The vessel stood well off during the night, and the Captain hoped to make the harbour sometime the next morning, but toward daylight a fog began to settle down fast and thick. Captain G.o.dfrey fully realized the perilous position of all on board, but having been early trained in seamanship, he had full confidence in his ability to manage the sloop.

In the morning land could not be seen. The fog continued for three days, during which time (to use the Captain's words) "the situation was dismal enough, and every moment I was expecting to see the craft drawn on the rocks and all on board perish." The fourth day the fog was less dense, and those on board could see for some distance, but the sun was invisible, and the war of the elements was raging with increasing fury.

In the afternoon the wind had shifted to north-west and increased to a partial gale. The sloop was running under a bit of mainsail; it seemed at times as if the following seas would founder the little vessel as they towered over the low rail. Nothing was to be seen but the wide expanse of water. Not even a solitary gull. The Captain remarked to his wife, "It is a curious fact that, excepting the petrels, sea birds keep near to the land in bad weather." Captain G.o.dfrey feared the night, and as it came on the wind grew in strength. A terrible sea was running, and all were fastened below excepting Paul and the Captain. The Indian would not leave the deck, although more than once he was nearly washed overboard. At length darkness covered the face of the ocean, and the wind howled in all its fury. The seas were like mountains, tossing the sloop about like a cork. Mrs. G.o.dfrey would remain below no longer. She told her children, who were tumbling like nine-pins about the cabin floor, not to cry, as she would soon return to them. As she put her head out of the companion way, the Captain ordered her back. She said, "Where is Paul?" Her husband answered, "I have called to him time and time again to get below." She called to Paul, who was holding fast to the anchor chain with his legs stuck under the windla.s.s. He did not answer.

She started to creep forward. Her husband could not see her. At this moment the sloop took a dreadful plunge. A heavy sea swept over her from stern to bow, completely submerging her. The Captain, who had taken the precaution to lash himself to the deck, in a half-drowned state, held steadily to the tiller. As soon as possible he called to his wife, but no answer came back. He called to Paul, and he too was silent. Was she lost? Had she, in whom all his hopes were placed, been carried into the sea and for ever lost to him on earth? These thoughts bewildered him while he was trying to steer his vessel. He dare not leave the helm to look after his wife and children. He hoped the sea had not broken into the cabin and drowned all that were left to him on earth. He had often been called to drink the cup of bitterness, had he been called to drink it to its dregs? Had his sorrow at last reached its destined depths. He burst into tears, almost stupified, and calling upon Him who is able to guide the storm in its course and hush it to a calm; to Him whose charities have distilled like the dews of Heaven; who had fed the hungry and clothed the naked; who had opened a way of escape in the wilderness; to Him he cried for succor. And at last in utter despair he earnestly prayed for morning or death. Now and again a huge sea would break over the little ship, but she rode the waves as beautifully as an ocean liner. Terribly the night wore away. With the dawn of the morning the gale began to abate. The Captain lashed the tiller and crept to the companion way. He opened it, went down, found his children, bruised, bleeding and terrified. He kissed them, feeling they were now dearer than ever to him. They asked him where their mother was. He came on deck and shut them in the cabin without replying. As Captain G.o.dfrey crawled to his position at the helm, he said to himself, my dear children have escaped the arrow and tomahawk, the flames at Grimross, the thunder, lightning and tempest, and even yet they are safe. If it were not for my children I would prefer to sleep here in death rather than live elsewhere. I would be near my wife to share a part with her in the resurrection.

While the Captain was thus mournfully musing, a faint light began to creep around the eastern horizon. He was so absorbed in thought and in watching every movement of the sloop that he did not notice the increasing light. There were rifts in the dark clouds, and the air was growing moist. The morning light brought with it rain. The sea gradually grew less and less troubled, and the little vessel rolled and pitched more easily. The Captain was suddenly startled from his reverie by the increasing rays of the rising sun, who was now beginning to show his golden circle above the horizon. He made fast the tiller and went forward to see what damage had been done through the night. The jib had been snugly furled before darkness set in. As he stepped forward of the mainsail, to his great surprise he saw two human forms wedged in under the windla.s.s and locked in each other's arms. They were tightly wedged to their knees, between the windla.s.s and the deck. Mrs. G.o.dfrey's clothes were torn in shreds. She lay with her head across the Indian's shoulders, her arms were tightly locked around his neck and flowing black hair.

The Captain had on board the sloop an old axe, which he at once got and commenced to cut the windla.s.s from its fastenings. A piece of the wood flew and struck his wife on the leg, he thought he the saw the limb, which was partially bare, tremble. He then threw his whole strength into his work, and in a few minutes had the satisfaction of seeing one end of the windla.s.s loosened. He took hold of the unfastened end and with a sudden jerk wrenched the other end from its socket. He then rubbed his wife's limb with his open palm, and soon felt it growing warm. In a few minutes she breathed quickly, and appeared to grasp her swarthy companion more tightly. She moaned, and then opened her eyes and stared vacantly at her husband, who almost fainted with joy. He turned his wife over, and pulled the shreds of clothing towards her feet. He then went to the cabin and got a bottle containing brandy, presented to him during his first visit to Pa.s.smaquaddy. He poured out a spoonful, and forced it down his wife's throat. Soon after she spoke, and asked her husband to raise her up. As he did so she said, "give some brandy to Paul, he cannot be dead, if I am alive." Paul all this time had never stirred. He lay like a fallen statue, brown and stiff. Margaret brushed the coa.r.s.e black hair from off his face. Captain G.o.dfrey opened the Indian's jaws and put a spoonful of brandy into his mouth. His muscles began to quiver, he trembled, he breathed, he moaned, and again relapsed into perfect quietness. Margaret sat beside Paul while the Captain went to jibe the mainsail and port the helm. She thrust her hand beneath his torn shirt and laid it over his heart. She felt its weak pulsations. She then ran her hand around and over his swarthy skin; she felt it growing warm. He moaned and moved. She continued the application of her hand, his eyelids opened, he trembled all over, and looked up at Margaret in a sort of amazed stare. At length the Indian completely recovered his senses, and by this time Margaret G.o.dfrey again became exhausted. She was carried to the dingy little cabin by her husband and her son Charlie. Paul was so weak that he could not raise himself from the deck. The Captain moved him a few feet and lashed him to the mast.

Neither Margaret nor the Indian were able to move from their resting places till late in the afternoon.

Captain G.o.dfrey judged the sloop to be well across the Bay of Fundy, and he determined to make all speed possible for the town of Halifax. The wind was fair, and all the reefs in the sails were shaken out. For the next two days the weather was fine and the wind fair, and Margaret and Paul were regaining their strength. Nothing of an unusual character occurred on board. Since the jam under the windla.s.s, Paul Guidon appeared more lively and conversed more freely. About four o'clock in the afternoon of the second day after the storm, while the Indian was sitting at the bow of the sloop, a school of porpoises was seen approaching in as regular order as a company of British soldiers to a charge. When the fish had approached to within a hundred yard's of the sloop, the Indian threw up his hands and uttered a most mournful wail, and staggered backward. Captain G.o.dfrey rushed forward and caught Paul as he was falling overboard. Both fell athwart the rail and all but into the sea.

The Indian, who had not recovered sufficient strength to endure much excitement or hardship, was in a high state of feverish bewilderment.

The Captain said: "Paul, what gave you such a fright?" He replied, "that when he first saw the fish approaching, he thought that they were a lot of canoes paddled by evil spirits from the dark, dismal hunting grounds of thieving and murderous Indians, and that they were after him to carry him away over the great waters to live in misery among them, because he had left the wigwam and forsaken his mother's grave before two moons were gone."

Early next morning Mrs. G.o.dfrey relieved her husband at the helm; Charlie a.s.sisting her. The Captain went below to rest, asking to be called if anything out of the ordinary occurred. He had hardly closed his eyes during the voyage, but fell asleep at his post during the previous night, when the weather fortunately was fine and the sea quite peaceful.

At about ten o'clock, a.m., Paul sighted something in the distance. He called to Mrs. G.o.dfrey to look in the direction of his hand, which he was pointing over the port bow. She could see nothing, but she headed the sloop in the direction that Paul gave, and in an hour's time had the satisfaction of seeing what she supposed to be the outline of rocks or land. She kept the vessel headed in toward what she supposed to be land, and at three o'clock called her husband on deck. The Captain judged his vessel to be on the east coast of Nova Scotia.

Margaret called her children around her, and asked Paul to sit down with them. She opened the old service book and read a portion of scripture.

The deck was made an altar of the living G.o.d. From the deck fervent prayer mingled with the voice of the ocean and with the sighing wind ascended on high. Margaret said to Paul: "You and I were rescued at the gate of death. When our frail bark was tossing and labouring hard for life in her lone path over the surging billows and through the blackness of the night, a kind hand overshadowed us and kept us, and now not one of the ship's company is lost."

Full of bright hope, she turned to her husband and said: "I now am satisfied we shall safely reach port, and once again we and our dear ones shall see our native lands. English civilization and English justice will do rightly by us in our misfortunes. We, who have lost all our possessions,--in an hour stripped of all that we owned,--and have been compelled to endure hardships and face death itself in an English colony, may in confidence look to the old land for succor."

The next two days the wind continued favourable, and the little vessel ran along in sight of the coast.

The following day an adverse wind blew and a storm seemed brewing, but the wind only freshened a bit, and all day the vessel beat about in sight of land. Paul, who had now sufficiently recovered, appeared to take a great interest in everything about the sloop; the sun shone brightly and the clouds were lifted high in the heavens. All around was perfect peace.

The Indian remarked to Captain G.o.dfrey: "This not so good as canoe on stream, or roaming hunting ground. Wide, big, great sea, would make splendid hunting ground if only covered with gra.s.s and trees."

Early the next morning a King's schooner was sighted. The wind shifting, Captain G.o.dfrey ran the sloop into Pet.i.te Pa.s.sage and anch.o.r.ed. The King's schooner came to an anchor about the same time--a league distant.

Captain Spry, (Captain and pilot) of the King's schooner, sent a messenger on board the sloop, who inquired where they had come from and whither they were bound. After the messenger had returned to the King's schooner, Lieutenant Knight of the Royal Navy, commander of the schooner, sent a boat to the sloop with three men to a.s.sist Captain G.o.dfrey to Halifax, also some tea, chocolate, coffee, sugar, wine and rum, bread, pork and flour. Captain Spry took the sloop under convoy.

The vessels put into several harbours; and the night before they arrived at Halifax Captain Spry's schooner was lost sight of in a thick fog. The fog lifted during the night, when they were able to see Halifax lights, but on entering the harbour the sloop ran foul of a ledge of rocks called "Two Sisters." The sea was running very high. Destruction seemed on every hand. Fortunately a pa.s.sage was perceived between the rocks. At last they succeeded in getting through the pa.s.sage, and came to anchor before morning opposite the town of Halifax. Captain G.o.dfrey and his wife, after a long and eventful pa.s.sage from Fort Frederick, found themselves once again at Halifax, worn out and almost disheartened. The new men on board the sloop appeared to admire Paul Guidon, and Paul took kindly to them.

Shortly after their arrival at Halifax Captain G.o.dfrey admitted to Lieutenant Knight, that during the terrible storm in the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, he expected every moment to see the sloop founder and all on board perish in the ocean.

CHAPTER V.

CAPT. G.o.dFREY AND LORD WM. CAMPBELL.--YOUNG LION OF THE WOODS.

Shortly after the arrival of the sloop at Halifax, Capt. G.o.dfrey waited on Lord William Campbell, at that time (the summer of 1771) Governor of the Provinces.

His Lordship received him in the most cordial and gentlemanly manner, and remarked that he would be pleased to order an investigation into his case and have the Indians who committed the outrage ordered down from the St. John river.

On September 2nd, 1771, a council met and an investigation took place.

Letters and affidavits were produced, sworn to before Plato Denny and William Isherwood, Justices of the Peace for Campo Bello, where Lewis LeBlond, a Canadian, made oath, that he was told by Lewis Neptune, an Indian, that Captain G.o.dfrey was to be burned out by Chief Pere Thomas'

orders, and that other Indians of the St. John tribe were to perform the deed.

An affidavit was made by Gervase Say, an inhabitant of Gage township, sworn to before Francis Peabody, Justice of the Peace, in which it was stated that John Baptiste Caltpate, an Indian of the St. John tribe, had declared to him that Francis DeFalt, an Indian belonging to Pere Thomas' tribe, set fire to Captain G.o.dfrey's house and store at Grimross.

A schedule of the Captain's losses, attested before one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace at Halifax, was also laid before the council. The reader will not be troubled with the items, suffice it to say the losses, including lands, amounted to seven thousand four hundred and sixty-two pounds.

His Excellency, finding that Captain G.o.dfrey had acted conformably to the rules and regulations of the Province, returned to him his bond that he had given the government for carrying on a legitimate trade with the Indians.

He was also satisfied that the Captain's losses were on account of the action of the savages, and being fully convinced of the great hardships and privations the Captain and his distressed wife and family had undergone, he was pleased to give him an honourable clearance out of the province, according to the regulations of said province, and also to recommend him to the protection of the Right Honourable the Earl of Hillsborough, at that time first Lord of Trade and Plantations for public relief. The Governor had it not in his power to grant Captain G.o.dfrey any suitable gratuity for the great loss he had sustained.

COPY OF LORD CAMPBELL'S LETTER TO LORD HILLSBOROUGH.

HALIFAX, October 9th, 1771.

_My Lord_:

The gentleman who will deliver this to you was lately a Captain in the 52nd Regiment of foot, and came out to this province in August, 1769, with his wife and a large family, to settle on some lands on river St.

John, which he had purchased before he left Europe, with a view of carrying on trade with the Indians. I have frequent complaints of those Indians since Fort Frederick, situate on the entrance of the St. John river, has been dismantled, and the garrison, which consisted of an officer's command, reduced to a corporal and four.

The Fort, when properly garrisoned, kept the Indians of that district in pretty good order, but not so effectively by situation as it would if it had been constructed higher up the river, and as now the fort is entirely dismantled, I beg leave to offer to your Lordship's consideration whether a strong Block House, properly garrisoned, might not prove a proper check upon the insolence of the savages, at the same time it would afford a secure protection to a very increasing settlement on the banks of the river St. John, a situation abounding with most excellent soil, which produces the most valuable timber of all sorts in the province.

These are considerations which I beg your Lordship will please to submit to His Majesty's advisers. The unhappy state of _Mr. G.o.dfrey's_ misfortunes will, I am persuaded, speak everything in his favour with your Lordship, which his past services or present suffering can ent.i.tle him to.

I have the honour to be, Yours, &c., &c.,

WM. CAMPBELL.

_The Earl of Hillsborough_.