The First of the Fishing
For a whole week the thaw went merrily on. One by one the fishing
boats left their winter anchorage in the river, and sailed out into
the stormy waters of the bay. By the end of the week Jervis
Ferrars had so far recovered the comfortable use of his feet that
he could wear boots again and go about like other men. Directly he
was able to do this he went down to Seal Cove every day, where he
inspected every boat that was ready to put to sea, overhauled the
store shed, and quietly took command, setting Oily Dave on one side
with as little ceremony as if that worthy had never been master of
the fleet.
Oily Dave took the change in government with very bad grace indeed,
and it is probable that the life of Jervis Ferrars would have been
in very grave danger many times during the next few weeks if it had
not been for the fact that the Englishman had made a host of
friends among the fishers, who would protect him at all risks in an
open attack, while Jervis wisely so far avoided Oily Dave as to
give no chance for the secret, cowardly thrusts in which the
deposed man delighted.
Astor M'Kree personally conducted the new boats, one by one, over
the rapids, bringing them down when the river was in flood and
anchoring them in front of the store until their crews were ready;
and when they had cleared for the bay the fishing was in full swing.
Eight hundred miles away, in the north of the great inland sea, the
whalers and sealers were still fast bound in ice and snow, longing
for freedom, yet forced to wait while the tardy spring crept
northward. But down in the more sheltered waters of James Bay
there was abundance of work for everyone. Hundreds of seals
gambolled on the ice floes and on the shores of the little
uncharted islands which make those waters such a serious menace to
the mariner. Sometimes the boats were away for a week. Sometimes
two days found them headed back for Seal Cove, laden with seals,
walrus, and narwhal. Many of them succeeded in getting a good
catch of white whales, for which those waters are so noted; but
these were caught at the mouths of the tidal rivers, for the whales
go up the rivers every day with the tide, and it was when the tide
was ebbing that the whales were most easily caught. It was only
the biggest and strongest boats that ventured so far as the tidal
rivers, however, and with these Jervis Ferrars never went. Indeed,
but from choice he need never have gone to sea at all, for his work
lay more particularly on land, where he had to keep toll of the
catch and take care that the various products of the sea harvest
were properly secured and stored, until the opening of Hudson
Strait enabled vessels to get through.
Astor M'Kree had made a queer addition to the side of Stee Jenkin's
house by building against one end of it part of an old fishing boat
which had been wrecked in the floodtime, and stranded on the bluff
upon which the little house was perched. In this peculiar abode
Jervis took his residence, while Mrs. Jenkin looked after his
comfort and kept his room clean with a slavish industry which she
had certainly never bestowed on her own house.
On most days when he was ashore Jervis contrived to get up to
Roaring Water Portage, his ostensible errand being to see 'Duke
Radford, who was slowly creeping back to physical convalescence.
That is, the bodily part of him was resuming its functions, only
the mental part was at a standstill; and although the sick man
seemed to know and love them all, he had no more understanding for
the serious things of life than an average child of six or seven
might have possessed. It was well for the family that their
father's illness in the previous winter had in a measure prepared
them for doing without him, or they must have felt even more keenly
the heavy work and heavier responsibilities which had fallen upon
them. As it was, they faced their difficulties with a quiet
courage which left no one with a chance to pity them, although
there were plenty to admire "the pluck of 'Duke Radford's young
'uns".
It was Katherine who took the lead, the boy Miles being a good
second, and proving the more valuable aid because of his habit of
unquestioning obedience. Mrs. Burton was willing for any drudgery,
and toiled at housework and nursing with a devotion as beautiful as
it was uncomplaining. But she had no talent for leadership and no
faculty for organization, and, what is more, she was perfectly
aware of the lack.
Night school was of course at an end. Indeed, no one had any time
for thinking about education or books. Katherine made valorous
attempts to carry on the studies of Miles and Phil, but had to give
them up as useless, lacking strength and opportunity for the
endeavour. But the long winter would make up for the neglect of
the short summer, and she left off worrying over their lapse into
ignorance, contenting herself with reading to them on Sundays, and,
what was more important still, making them read to her.
It was delightful to be abroad in those days of early spring, and
Katherine especially enjoyed the journeys to Fort Garry, when she
rowed across the corner of the bay and felt the sweep of the breeze
coming in from the wider waters beyond. Phil was her companion
always now, because when she was absent Miles must be at home to
look after the store. There were other journeys to be taken also,
which, but for the portages, might have been regarded as pleasure
trips pure and simple. But the portage work was hard, and by the
time Katherine and Phil had tramped three times over a mile and a
half of portage, laden with sugar, bacon, and flour, returning the
fourth time for the birchbark, they were mostly too tired to regard
the journey as anything but very hard work indeed.
Yet in spite of this it was lovely to be out in the fresh air and
the sunshine. When Katherine heard the long, laughing chuckle of
the ptarmigan, or saw the trailing flights of geese headed
northward, she could have shouted and sung from sheer lighthearted
joy at the coming of spring. But, however high her spirits rose as
the weather grew better and finer, there was always the cold dread
in her heart because of what the summer must bring. Of course, if
her father remained in his present condition he would feel and
understand nothing of the embarrassment which must fall alone upon
her in meeting Mr. Selincourt. It was the dread and shrinking at
the thought of this meeting which robbed the spring days of their
keenest joy, and although she would be happy sometimes, the
happiness was certain to be followed by fits of black depression,
especially after the doing of a long portage.
There was a long, low shed at Seal Cove, where all the fish oil,
whalebone, blubber, ivory, skins, and other produce of the sea
harvest were stored pending ocean shipment. Jervis Ferrars had a
small office railed off from one end of this unsavoury shed, and he
was sitting in it writing, one afternoon in early May, when he saw
Katherine's boat coming across from Fort Garry. He had been
looking for it any time within the last hour, and had begun to
wonder that it was so long delayed. But it was coming at last, and
putting on his cap he locked his office and went out to hail the
boat. This was no birchbark journey broken by weary toiling to and
fro on a portage trail, but Katherine and Phil were seated in one
of the good, solid boats turned out by Astor M'Kree, and both of
them looked even brighter than usual.
"Are you coming home with us?" Katherine asked, as she came within
speaking distance and saw that Jervis had his birchbark by a
towrope.
"That is my desire, if you will have me," he said.
"With pleasure. You shall be company, and sit in the place of
honour," Katherine said with a laugh, feeling that the occasion had
somehow become festive, even though two miles of rowing against the
current lay in front of her. "Phil, move that bundle from the seat
and let Mr. Ferrars sit there; he will be more comfortable."
"Thank you, I don't want to sit there, and if I can't do as I like
I shall get into the birchbark and paddle you up river on a
towrope, which will jerk you horribly, and probably capsize me,"
said Jervis, with an obstinate air.
"What do you wish to do?" she asked demurely.
"I wish to sit where you are sitting now," he answered. "Then I
will row you up river and give you a necessary lesson in steering;
for don't you remember how nearly you upset us into the bank the
last time but one that I rowed you up?"
Katherine flushed, but there was a laughing light in her eyes as
she replied: "Oh yes! I remember perfectly well, but that was quite
as much your fault as mine, for you were telling us of your
experiences in that Nantucket whaler, and they were quite thrilling
enough to make anyone forget to steer."
"There shall be no such temptation to forgetfulness to-day; that I
can safely promise you," he answered, holding the boat steady while
Katherine moved to the other seat. Then, tying his birchbark on
behind, he stepped into the vacant place and commenced to pull up
stream with long, steady strokes.
"You were a long time at the Fort to-day," he remarked presently.
"Yes, Mrs. M'Crawney is ill, and it was only common humanity to do
what I could for her," Katherine answered gravely, for poor Mrs.
M'Crawney had made her heart ache that day, because of the terrible
discomfort in which the poor woman was lying, and the homesickness
for old Ireland which seemed to oppress her.
"I thought she looked ill the other day when I was over there, but
she would not admit it. I wanted to tell her that less hot pastry
and more fresh air would work a cure perhaps; but it does not do to
thrust one's opinion unasked upon people, especially when one is
only a doctor in intention and not in reality," Jervis said, with a
tug at the oars which expressed a good many things.
"It is a good thing for us that you are not really a doctor, or
else you would not be looking after Mr. Selincourt's fishing
interests, and then you would not have been here to take care of
Father," Phil said.
Katherine laughed as she remarked: "For pure, unadulterated
selfishness that would surely beat the record, Phil. I expect Mr.
Ferrars hates Seal Cove nearly as much as he did the Nantucket
whaler."
"No, he does not," Jervis broke in. "Sometimes of course Seal Cove
smells rather strongly of fish oil, warm blubber, and putrid seal
meat; but, taken as a whole, there are many worse places to live
in. I found a bank gorgeous with anemones in blue and red
yesterday, and that within ten minutes' walk of the fish shed."
"I know it," said Katherine. "That bank is always a beautiful
sight; but wait until you have seen the rhododendrons on the long
portage."
"Where is that--at Astor M'Kree's?" asked the young man, whose time
was too much occupied to admit of much exploration of the
neighbourhood.
"No, four miles farther up the river, and the portage is a mile and
a half long. Phil and I call it the backache portage," replied
Katherine.
"Why, do you deliver goods so far out? With no competition to be
afraid of, I should have thought you might have made your customers
come to buy from you," he said, frowning, for he knew very well
what kind of work was involved in a portage, and it did not seem to
him a fit and proper employment for a girl.
"But there is competition," laughed Katherine. "There is Peter
M'Crawney, with all the great Hudson's Bay Company behind him.
That is our most formidable rival, while up on Marble Island there
has been started a sort of United States General Stores and Canned
Food Depot. Of course, that is eight hundred miles away, and
should not be dangerous, but it makes more difference than anyone
might suppose."
"Well, it isn't round the corner of the next block at any rate,"
Jervis replied, laughing to think that trade could suffer from a
rival establishment so far away.
"Yes it is, only the block is a big one, you see," she answered,
and they all laughed merrily. When one is young, and the sun is
shining, it is so easy to be gay, even though grim care stalks in
the background.
"I thought that you and M'Crawney were rather in the position of
business partners than trade rivals," Jervis said, as, passing the
last bend of the river, he swung the boat along the stretch of
straight water to the store.
"In a sense we are partners; that is, we agree to work together,
and to supply each other's shortages in stores so far as we can.
But the rivalry is there all the same. Peter M'Crawney knows he
would sell three times the stuff that he does now if it were not
for us; while of course our hands would be freer but for him, only
we are tied to him, because half of our customers are able to pay
us only in skins, and then Peter M'Crawney is our Bank of Exchange."
Katherine could not forbear a grimace as she spoke, for peltry can
be a very odorous currency, and she had to examine every skin
closely before deciding what it was worth in flour, bacon, or
tobacco, because the red man is a past master in the art of
outwitting the white man, when it comes to a question of trade.
"The plan of bartering skins for stores is not a good one, and the
man who buys the skins ought not to be the one who sells the sugar
and tea," Jervis remarked in a dictatorial tone; but Katherine only
laughed at him, and said that he knew nothing whatever about the
red man of the Keewatin wilds, or he would never suggest cash
dealings.
"Still it will come, and the red man will be educated to a proper
appreciation of his privileges," Jervis maintained, with the quiet
obstinacy that Katherine had sometimes noticed in him before.
"I hope I shall be out of the trade before that time comes," she
said, as she guided the boat in to the landing place. "As soon as
Miles is able to take control of the store I shall return to my
proper avocation of school teaching--that is, always providing
there are children to be taught."
'Duke Radford sat in a cushioned chair at a sun-shiny window of the
kitchen. He looked up with a smile when his daughter entered the
room, and when she bent over him to kiss him he murmured: "Pretty
Katherine", and stroked her face caressingly; then he turned with
the pleased eagerness of a child to greet Jervis, whom he regarded
as a very good friend indeed.
Katherine sighed as she went back to help with the unlading of the
boat. It was a great comfort to feel that her father suffered
nothing either in body or mind, but sometimes she would have been
very thankful if she could have gone to him with her business
worries, and got his advice on things which perplexed her so much.
However, it was something to be thankful for that his burden of
apprehension was lifted so completely, and the thought of this
banished her tendency to sighing, bringing the smiles back instead.
Life might be hard, but while there was hope in it, it could not be
unbearable.