The Crew of the Water Wagtail

“This is becoming serious,” remarked the captain, with a face so solemn that Paul burst into a fit of laughter.

“Ha! you may laugh, lad,” continued Trench, “but if you were as hungry as I am you’d be more inclined to cry. D’ye think a stout man like me can sup heartily on rabbit bones?”

“You’ve forgot, daddy, the four big trout I caught to-day.”

“So I have, Olly; well, come and let’s have ’em cooked at once.”

The fish, which were really more than sufficient without the rabbit bones, were soon grilling over a huge fire under the canopy of a spreading birch-tree.

When the skipper had disposed of enough to allay the pangs of hunger, he turned and said to his comrades, in a tone of marked decision—

“Now, mess-mates, I’ve been rummagin’ my brains a bit, and the outcome of it is as follows:– ‘Whatever is worth doin’ is worth doin’ well,’ as the old proverb puts it. If we are to explore this country, we must set about learning to shoot, for if we don’t, we are likely to starve in the midst of plenty, and leave our bones to bleach in this beautiful wilderness.”

“True, Master Trench,” remarked Paul, for the seaman had paused at this point; “thus far you and I think alike. What more have you to say?”

“This I have to say, that I am resolved not to explore another fathom o’ this land until I can make sure of hittin’ the crown o’ my cap with a cross-bow bolt at a reasonable distance; and I would advise you both to make the same resolution, for if you don’t you will have to do your exploring without me.”

“Just so, captain,” said Paul, putting the last morsel of fish into his mouth, with a sigh of contentment; “you are commander of this expedition. I will obey orders.”

“But what do you call a ‘reasonable’ distance, daddy?” asked Oliver, with that pert cock of the head peculiar to insolent youths; “a yard, or a fathom?”

“Well, now,” continued Trench, ignoring the question, “we will set about it to-morrow morning, first thing after breakfast; stick up a target, retire to a reasonable distance, and work away from morning till night, and every day till we become perfect.”

“Agreed, captain,” said Paul; “but what about food?”

“We will give Olly leave of absence for an hour or two daily to go and fish,” said the captain; “that will keep us alive, coupled with what birds or beasts may come accidentally in front of our arrows.”

This plan, although proposed at first half in jest, was carried into operation next day, during the whole of which they practised shooting at a mark most diligently. At supper-time, over a couple of fine trout, it was admitted sadly by each that the progress made was very slight—indeed, scarcely perceptible. Next night, however, the report was more favourable, and the third night it was felt that the prospect ahead was becoming hopeful; for, besides the improvement in shooting, two rabbits graced their supper, one having been arrested by an almost miraculous bolt when bolting; the other having been caught, unintentionally, by a stone similar to that which brought down the giant of Gath. The fact that skill had nothing to do with the procuring of either did not in the least detract from the enjoyment with which they consumed both.

“Nothing is denied,” they say, “to well-directed labour, and nothing can be done without it.” Like most of the world’s maxims, this is a partially erroneous statement; for many things are denied to well-directed labour, and sometimes amazing success is accorded to ill-directed and blundering efforts. Still, what truth does exist in the saying was verified by our three friends; for, after two weeks of unremitting, unwearied, persistent labour, each labourer succeeded in raising enormous blisters on two fingers of his right hand, and in hitting objects the size of a swan six times out of ten at a “reasonable distance!”

Having arrived at this state of proficiency with their weapons, they resumed their journey, fortified with a hearty breakfast, the foundation of which was fish, the superstructure willow-grouse interspersed with rabbit, and the apex plover.

Not long after that the first deer was shot. It occurred thus:—

They were walking one beautiful morning slowly along one of the numerous deer-tracks of which we have already made mention, and were approaching the summit of a ridge at the very time that a herd of deer, headed by a noble stag, were ascending the same ridge from the opposite side. The little air that moved was blowing in the right direction—from the deer towards the travellers. As they topped the ridge about the same instant, the two parties stood suddenly face to face, and it would be difficult to determine which party looked most amazed.

Facility in fitting arrows, etcetera, had been acquired by that time. The hunters were ready in a couple of seconds. The deer, recovering, wheeled about; but before they could take the first bound, “burr, twang, and whizz,” sounded in their ears. The stone struck an antler of the stag, the arrow pierced his flank, the bolt quivered in his heart, and the monarch of the woods, leaping wildly into the air, fell dead upon the ground.

“Well done, Master Trench!” shouted Paul, with a hearty cheer. As for Oliver, he uttered a squeal of delight, threw an uncontrollable somersault, and landed, sittingwise, on a bed of soft moss.

This was a tremendous triumph and source of jubilation, and it soon became obvious to each that the other two had a hard struggle to keep their expressions of satisfaction within the limits of moderation; for not only had they now obtained the crowning evidence of their skill, but they were provided with a supply of meat which, if properly dried, would furnish them with food for many days to come.

It was a striking and picturesque, though perhaps not an agreeable, sight to witness the party that night, in the ruddy light of the camp-fire, with sleeves rolled to the shoulders, and bloody knives in hands, operating on the carcase of the deer, and it was several hours past their usual supper-time before they felt themselves at liberty to sit down on a bed of spruce-fir branches and enjoy the luxury of rest and food.

Next day, while proceeding slowly through the woods, chatting merrily over the incidents of the previous day, a sudden silence fell upon them; for out of the thick shrubbery there stalked a tall, noble-looking man of middle age. He was dressed in the garb of a hunter. Long yellow curls hung on his shoulders, and a heavy beard and moustache of the same colour concealed the lower part of a bronzed and handsome countenance. His bright blue eyes seemed to sparkle with good humour as he gazed inquiringly, yet sadly, at the astonished faces of the three travellers.

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 the Water 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.

“It was; 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.

“What a 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 afford running shots,” 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.