Wrecked but not Ruined

It was this note which interrupted the conversation between Reginald Redding and the elder McLeod at a somewhat critical moment, and this note, as the reader may easily believe, threw the whole establishment into sudden consternation.

Chapter Eight

Shifting Winds

Immediately on receipt of the note referred to, vigorous preparations were made to convey relief to Roderick McLeod. Such provisions as the party at Jenkins Creek could muster were packed into the smallest possible space, because the boat, or cobble, which was to convey them down the gulf was very small—scarcely large enough to hold the party which meant to embark in it. This party consisted of McLeod senior, Kenneth, and Flora, it being arranged that Ian and Rooney should remain to prosecute, as well as to guard, the works at the Creek.

Seeing that there was so little room to spare in the boat, Reginald Redding decided to hasten down on foot to the Cliff Fort, in order to see to the comfort of the wrecked men who had been sent there. He, however, offered the rescue party the services of his man, Le Rue, an offer which was accepted all the more readily that the Canadian possessed some knowledge of the coast.

It was very dark when they started, but, fortunately, calm. McLeod had resolved to travel night and day, if the weather permitted, until he should reach the scene of the wreck, and to take snatches of rest if possible in the boat.

There were only two oars in the boat, so that one of its crew was always idle. This, however, proved to be rather an advantage, for, by affording frequent relief to each rower, it saved the strength of all, and at the same time enabled them to relieve the tedium of the journey to poor Flora.

At first they proceeded along under the deep shade of the ghost-like cliffs in unbroken silence, the mind of each no doubt being busy with the wreck of their last remnant of fortune, as well as with the dangerous condition in which the youthful Roderick lay; but as the dawn of day approached they began to talk a little, and when the sun arose its gladdening beams appeared to carry hope to each breast, inducing an almost cheerful state of mind. In the case of François Le Rue, the influence of sunshine was so powerful that a feeling of sympathy and respect for the McLeods in the calamity which had overtaken them alone restrained him from breaking out into song!

“Father,” said Flora, as her sire, wearied by a long spell at the bow oar, resigned his seat to Kenneth, and sat down beside her, “that glorious light brings to my remembrance a very sweet verse, ‘Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.’”

“True, true, Flo,” returned her father, “I wish I had the simple faith that you seem to possess, but I haven’t, so there’s no use in pretending to it. This,” he added bitterly, “seems only a pure and unmitigated disaster. The last remnant of my fortune is wrecked, I am utterly ruined, and my poor boy is perhaps dying.”

Flora did not reply. She felt that in his present state of mind nothing she could say would comfort him.

At that moment Le Rue suddenly roused himself and suggested that it was about time to think of breakfast.

As all the party were of the same mind, the boat was allowed to drift down the gulf with the tide, while the pork and biscuit-bags were opened. Little time was allowed for the meal, nevertheless the mercurial Canadian managed, between mouthfuls, to keep up a running commentary on things in general. Among other things he referred to the property which his master had just purchased in Partridge Bay.

“Whereabouts is this property that you talk of?” asked McLeod, becoming interested at the mention of Partridge Bay.

“About la tête of de village near de house of Monsieur Gambart.”

“What like a place is it?” asked McLeod, becoming suddenly much more interested.

“Oh! one place mos bootiful,” replied Le Rue, with enthusiasm; “de house is superb, de grounds splendeed, et le prospect magnifique, wid plenty of duck—perhaps sometimes goose, vild vons—in von lac near cliff immense.”

At the mention of the lake and the cliff McLeod’s brow darkened, and he glanced at Flora, who met his glance with a look of surprise.

“Did you happen to hear the name of the place?” asked McLeod.

“Oui, it vas, I tink, Lac Do, or Doo—someting like so.”

“The scoundrel!” muttered McLeod between his teeth, while a gleam of wrath shot from his eyes.

Le Rue looked at him with some surprise, being uncertain as to the person referred to by this pithy remark, and Flora glanced at him with a look of anxiety.

After a brief silence he said to Flora in a low tone, as though he were expressing the continuation of his thoughts, “To think that the fellow should thus abuse my hospitality by inducing me to speak of our fallen fortunes, and of our being obliged to part with the old home we had loved so well, and never to utter a word about his having bought the place.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Flora, “you had not mentioned the name of the place, and so it might not have occurred to him that—”

“Oh yes, I did,” interrupted her father, with increasing anger, as his memory recalled the converse with Redding on the preceding night, “I remember it well, for he asked the name, and I told it him. It’s not that I care a straw whether the old place was bought by Tom, Dick, or Harry, but I can’t stand his having concealed the fact from me after so much, I may say, confidential conversation about it and our affairs generally. When I meet him again the young coxcomb shall have a piece of my mind.”

McLeod was, as we have said, an angry man, and, as the intelligent reader well knows, angry men are apt to blind themselves and to become outrageously unreasonable. He was wrong in supposing that he did not care a straw who should have bought the old place. Without, perhaps, admitting it to himself, he had entertained a hope that the home which was intimately associated with his wife, and in which some of the happiest years of his life had been spent, would remain unsold until he should manage to scrape together money enough to repurchase it. If it had been sold to the proverbial Tom, or Dick, or Harry, he would have been bitterly disappointed; the fact that it was sold to one who had, as he thought, deceived him while enjoying his hospitality, only served as a reason for his finding relief to disappointment in indignation. Flora, who had entertained similar hopes in regard to Loch Dhu, shared the disappointment, but not the indignation, for, although it did seem unaccountable that one so evidently candid and truthful as Redding should conceal the actual state of matters, she felt certain that there was some satisfactory explanation of the mystery, and in that state of mind she determined to remain until time should throw further light on the affair.

Neither she nor her father happened to remember that the truth had broken on Redding at the moment when the Indian entered the hut at Jenkins Creek with the news of the wreck, which created such a sudden excitement there that it banished thoughts of all other things from the minds of every one.

The elder McLeod was a man of very strong and sensitive feelings, so that, although possessed of an amiable and kindly disposition, he found it exceedingly difficult to forget injuries, especially when these were unprovoked. His native generosity might have prompted him perhaps to find some excuse for the fur-trader’s apparent want of candour, or to believe that there might be some explanation of it, but, as it was, he flung into the other scale not only the supposed injury inflicted by Redding, but all his weighty disappointments at the loss of his old home, and of course generosity kicked the beam!

Acting on these feelings, he turned the bow of the boat inshore without uttering a word, and when her keel grated on the gravelly beach, he looked somewhat sternly at Le Rue, and said:—

“You may jump ashore, and go back to your fort.”

“Monsieur?” exclaimed Le Rue, aghast with surprise.

“Jump ashore,” repeated McLeod, with a steady, quiet look of impassibility. “Go, tell your master that I do not require further assistance from him.”

The Canadian felt that McLeod’s look and tone admitted of neither question nor delay. His surprise therefore gave way to a burst of indignation. He leaped ashore with a degree of energy that sent the little boat violently off the beach, and the shingles spurted from his heels as he strode into the forest, renewing his vows of vengeance against his late friends and old enemies, “de Macklodds!”

Chapter Nine

Surmisings, Disagreements, Vexations, and Botherations

Great was the amazement and perplexity of Reginald Redding when his faithful cook returned to the Cliff Fort bearing the elder McLeod’s message. At first he jumped to the conclusion that McLeod had observed his affection for Flora, and meant thus to give him a broad hint that his addresses were not agreeable. Being, like McLeod, an angry man, he too became somewhat blind. All his pride and indignation were aroused. The more he brooded over the subject, however, the more he came to see that this could not be the cause of McLeod’s behaviour. He was terribly perplexed, and, finally, after several days, he determined to go down to the scene of the wreck and demand an explanation.

“It is the proper course to follow,” he muttered to himself, one day after breakfast, while brooding alone over the remnants of the meal, “for it would be unjust to allow myself to lie under a false imputation, and it would be equally unjust to allow the McLeods to remain under a false impression. Perhaps some enemy may have put them against me. Anyhow, I shall go down and try to clear the matter up. If I succeed—well. If not—”

His thoughts were diverted at this point by the entrance of Bob Smart. That energetic individual had been to visit the frost-bitten seamen, for whose comfort an old out-house had been made weather-tight, and fitted up as a rough-and-ready hospital.

“They’re all getting on famously,” said Bob, rubbing his hands, as he sat down and pulled out the little black pipe to which he was so much addicted. “Green’s left little toe looks beautiful this morning, quite red and healthy, and, I think, won’t require amputation, which is well, for it is doubly a left little toe since you cut off the right one yesterday. His big toe seems to my amateur eye in a thoroughly convalescent state, but his left middle finger obviously requires removal. You’ll do it to-day, I suppose?”

“Yes, I meant to do it yesterday,” answered Redding, with much gravity, “but gave it another chance. How’s Brixton?”

“Oh, he’s all right. He groans enough to make one believe he’s the worst of ’em all, but his hurts are mostly skin deep, and will heal no doubt in course of time. His nose, certainly, looks blobby enough, like an over-ripe plum, and I rather think it’s that which makes him growl so horribly; but after all, it won’t be shortened more than quarter of an inch, which will be rather an advantage, for it was originally too long. Then as to Harper and Jennings, they are quite cheery and their appetites increasing, which is the best of signs, though, I fear, poor fellows, that the first will lose a hand and the other a foot. The dressings you put on yesterday seem to have relieved them much. I wish I could say the same for the poor nigger. His foot is sure to go. It’s in such a state that I believe the cleverest surgeon alive couldn’t save it, and even if he could what’s left of it would be of no use. You know I have a mechanical turn and could make him a splendid wooden leg if you will pluck up courage to cut it off.”

“No,” said Redding decidedly; “it’s all very well to lop off a finger or a toe with a razor, but I don’t think it’s allowable for an amateur to attempt a foot except under circumstances of extreme urgency.”

“Well, it don’t much matter,” continued Bob Smart, drawing vigorously at the black pipe, “for we’ll have an opportunity of sending them up to Quebec in a week or so, and in the meantime the poor fellows are very jolly considering their circumstances. That man Ned Wright keeps them all in good humour. Although, as you know, he has suffered severely in hands and feet, he feels himself well enough to limp about the room and act the part, as he says, of ‘stooard and cook to the ship’s company.’ He insisted on beginning last night just after you left, and I found him hard at it this morning when I went to see them. He must have been the life of the ship before she went ashore, for he goes about continually trolling out some verses of his own composing, though he has got no more idea of tune in him than the main-top-mast back-stay, to which, or something of the same kind, he makes very frequent reference. Here is a verse of his latest composition:—”

O-o-o-o-h! it’s once I froze the end of my nose,
On the coast of Labrador, sir,
An’ I lost my smell, an’ my taste as well,
An’ my pipe, which made me roar, sir;
But the traders come, an’ think wot they done!
They poked an’ pinched an’ skewered me;
They cut an’ snipped, an’ they carved an’ ripped,
An’ they clothed an’ fed an’ cured me.

Chorus.—Hooroo! it’s true
An’ a sailor’s life for me.

“Not bad, eh?” said Bob.