The Crew of the Water Wagtail

As he spoke he raised both hands to his mouth and gave vent to a prolonged halloo that swept out over the calm waters of the bay.

It was quickly replied to by a shrill cry, and in a few minutes a canoe, emerging from one of the islets, was seen paddling swiftly towards them.

Chapter Eleven.

The Hunter’s Home

The canoe, which approached the shores of the lake where our explorers stood, was a large one, built after the fashion of the coracle of the ancient Britons, namely, with a frame of wicker-work covered with deerskin. It was propelled with paddles by a woman seated in the stern and a little girl in the bow.

“My wife is a woman of forethought,” remarked Hendrick, with a pleased expression. “Seeing that we are a large party, she has not only brought our largest canoe, but has made Oscar get out the small one.”

He pointed to the island, from a creek in which a little canoe of a reddish colour was seen to issue. It was made of birch-bark, and was propelled by a small boy, who seemed from his exertions to be in urgent haste to overtake the other craft.

“Your son, I suppose?” said Paul.

“Yes, my eldest. His younger brother is but a babe yet. These, with my daughter Goodred, and my wife Trueheart, who are now approaching, constitute the family which God has given to me.”

A feeling of satisfaction filled the heart of Paul Burns as he listened to the last words, for they proved that their new friend was not among those who deem it weakness or hypocrisy in men to openly acknowledge their Maker as the Giver of all that they possess. This feeling was merged in one of surprise when the canoe touched the shore, and an exceedingly pretty child, with fair complexion, blue eyes, and curling hair, stepped lightly out, and ran to her father, who stooped to kiss her on the cheek. Hendrick was not demonstrative, that was evident; neither was his wife, nor his child. Whatever depth of feeling they possessed, the surface ran smooth. Yet there was an air of quiet gladness about the meeting which enabled Paul to understand what the hunter meant when, in a former conversation, he had said that he “made those around him happy.”

“Is baby well?” he asked quickly.

“Yes, father, quite well, and I very sure wishing much that you come home soon. You been long time away.”

“Longer than I expected, Goodred. And I have brought friends with me,” he added, turning to his wife. “Friends whom I have found in the forest, Trueheart.”

“You friends be welcome,” said Trueheart, with a modest yet self-possessed air.

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 ashore, 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 multitudes 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 glassless 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 assailed 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 scraps 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 appetite 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 tit-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 God (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 God 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 passed 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.”