physical vices, wonderfully exhilarating, and enforced confinement by a
few hours of rain only intensifies physical spirit and alertness. Every
nerve and muscle seems to demand something to do, a mountain to climb,
an untamed horse to ride, a locomotive to drive, a regiment to lead
into a battle, or--as was the case with the Vice on this particular
afternoon--a good, close, vicious political canvass to dash into. To
gratify and utilize this sensation, there is no sport superior or equal
to that of paddling a canoe. Rowing may lessen the physical disquiet,
but while the canoeist sits upright in his boat, voluntarily working
only with his arms, and learning of unsupposed physical availability
and grace with every motion, the oarsman sways to and fro like the
deserted half of a melancholy hinge, which wavers helplessly about
in air, always longing for something to attach itself to, but never
finding it. Besides, the paddler faces his water and his goal, instead
of fixing his eyes unceasingly upon the fleeting past. The oarsman's
duties are confined to steady pulling, while with every stroke of his
paddle, the canoeist pulls and pushes also, discharging these duties
with alternate arms as he works upon the opposite sides of his boat.
The exercise is not passive, like that which one takes on horseback,
nor does it partake of that mental strain which a man experiences when
he takes the helm of his own yacht. It is superior, by far, in physical
benefit, to that most exhilarating experience that comes of driving
a canoe under full sail and before a brisk breeze. And if, after an
hour's work at the beginning of a cruise, the canoeist finds himself
the owner of two handfuls of blisters which nobody cares to borrow, he
finds himself at its end in possession of a fund of strength, spirits,
and clearness of head and heart that are far too precious to lend,
although they may have been bought very cheaply.
The paddles used by the modern canoeist are like that represented on
the cover of this book. They are very light, being made usually of
spruce, an inch and a half in diameter at the largest part of the
shaft. For a wide canoe a nine foot paddle is desirable, but for
narrower craft one seven and a half feet or even seven feet long is
sufficient. A common ferule joint in the middle facilitates close
packing. Two joints dividing the paddle in three parts, do not work
well in practice. Rubber rings, or the two halves of a three inch
rubber ball cut to slip over the shafts prevent the water from dripping
inboard.
The squadron had sailed thus far without beholding any of the
picturesque which is peculiarly French, but now it hoped that at
landing, the essence of Acadia would be visible. It seemed for a few
moments as if this hope was about to be realized, for as the boats
approached their prospective landing, two quaintly dressed boys stood
observantly and quietly upon the bank, instead of dancing and hooting
like savages, or casting stones and objurgations at the squadron, as
almost any brace of boys in the United States would have done under
similar circumstances.
"Note the respectful ways engendered by monarchical institutions,"
observed the Commodore.
"Rather the absence of the spirit which the heavy hand of despotism has
crushed out," replied the Vice.
As the boats were beached, the boys timidly approached them. The Vice,
forgetting his first encounter of the picturesque, accosted them in
French, and was somewhat confused by their replies until he learned
that the youths were of English parentage, and that they lisped.
The boys were soon reinforced by their father, a tall, modest, but
self-reliant looking man, who eyed the camping preparations of the
party with an interest which was greater than curiosity, and which was
explained afterward by the discovery that he had been of the Argonauts
of '49.
The Vice, in his capacity of Statesman, knew the honest farmer as a
type, only as the principal element of mass-meetings which he sometimes
addressed; the Commodore, when in his editorial chair, knew him
principally as a subscriber to be secured; the Cook, when playing
scribbler, found the farmer-type useful to contrast with other types,
and the Purser, when in his studio, knew him only as an occasional
adjunct to a pastoral composition.
But after the self-contained, hard-working, rather lonely and diffident
farmer had lounged about the camp for a couple of hours that evening,
the party learned, as the city-bred man needs sorely to learn about
many another farmer, that the old man could see something in a sunset
besides tints reducible into pigments, more in a book than its writer's
art, that he knew more of the essentials of politics than the editor
and statesman combined, and stranger still, that he cared neither to
edit a newspaper nor to run for office.
After a good supper and a cheerful pipe or two, the Commodore, who had
been extremely quiet for a few moments, announced that he considered it
the proper thing for canoeists to sleep in their boats instead of tents.
"Then," said the Commodore, "if the river rises suddenly, you will be
in your boat, instead of having it drift away from you."
"And if you turn over in bed, in such case," remarked the Vice, "you'll
never know what drowned you."
The Commodore did not reply, for the real object of suggestion was
to emphasize one point of superiority of the Red Lake model, after
which his own boat and the Cook's were built, over the Chrysalid model
affected by the other two mariners. But the Commodore's will was law,
and that night the four men slept each in his own canoe, a rubber
blanket thrown across a line extending from mast to mast affording
protection from dew and possible rain.
[Illustration]
VIII.
THE BEGINNING OF ACADIA.
On the morning of this day, two canoeists arose from their nautical
couches with that satisfied air which betokens a night of peaceful
rest, but the Vice and the Purser arose only after many a premonitory
groan, and even then they strongly resembled a couple of rough logs
from which a single slab had been sawn, so flattened was one side of
each. The Commodore eyed them with manifest satisfaction, called the
attention of each of them to the appearance of the other, and exclaimed,
"Observe the effect of sleeping in a canoe with ribs and a bottom
board! I was curious to see how the experiment would result."
"I wish, then," grunted the Vice, as by vicious pinches he sought
to restore animation in his flattened side, "I wish--ow--that your
devotion to science had prompted you to try the experiment upon
yourself, and borrowed my canoe to do it in."
"Thanks, thanks," rejoined the Commodore, briskly, "but I had an
experiment of the same sort to try in my own boat, which has a smooth
concave bottom. I beg you will observe how my outlines preserve their
habitual shapeliness."
The flat-sided sufferers retired for a bath, and speedily forgot their
sorrows. If the morning bath in a city bath-tub is a washer-away of
fragments of slumber, and a merry awakener, how much more delightful
is the same exercise in an ever-replenishing body of water half a mile
wide and hundreds of miles long, enclosed only by blue sky, green trees
and brown earth, with no close dining-room and conventional breakfast
to be descended to, no morning paper to be read, no vile horse-car to
go to business on, nor any hard pavement to tramp over, and no brother
man to find fault with, except in that cheerful banter which always
comes back to bless the giver. Thus thought the Cook as he stood waist
deep in the clear water, and thus he might have continued to think for
a long time had his foot not impinged upon the riparian rights of an
honest mussel with slightly parted shells.
The Commodore had already been out for provisions, and returned
rejoicing.
"Another proof of the superiority of monarchical institutions," said
he. "Instead of the prices we have been accustomed to heretofore, I pay
twelve cents a-piece for chickens, ten cents per pound for butter, and
three cents per dozen for eggs."
"And you are pleased to regard this cheapness as a virtue?" asked the
Vice. "Is no one but the buyer to be considered?" How do you suppose
people live who sell the products of their industry at such starvation
figures? But monarchists and imperialists have but a single idea--to
crush the poor."
The Commodore shrunk an inch or two in length and breadth, but soon
recovered himself, donned a vicious smile, and announced with assumed
cheerfulness that the time had come to "sling the healthy," whereby
monarchists, imperialists and republicans would suffer alike.
"What's that?" asked the Cook.
The Commodore grinned sardonically. "He wants to know what, slinging
the healthy, is," said he. "Well, he'll know before dinner. It means
paddling--paddling in earnest, young man--paddling a ten or fifteen
mile stretch, instead of a leisurely half mile."
There seemed no alternative, for the river was as smooth as glass.
The sun noted the mirror-like surface of the water, and his natural
vanity caused him to rub up his face until its brightness could not
be increased. Just by way of refreshing the pleasurable sensation of
beholding his face in the water, he dropped his gaze quite frequently
upon the blue-shirted backs of the canoeists, until each man imagined
that he must have caught some sparks from the camp-fire. Then it seemed
as if there must be rain falling from the cloudless sky, for the Cook
felt water-drops coursing steadily down his back. The Purser was sure
his boat must be leaking, for water was gradually soaking the small
canvas cushion on which he sat in the bottom of his canoe. The Vice's
slippers grew clammily moist, and the Commodore's eyes filled with
water which was not an accumulation of remorseful tears. But no man
would debase himself so far as to be the first to cry for mercy.
But the Vice, the Statesman, was true to his profession. To have
suggested a rest would have been merely a straight-forward act which
even an idiot might have performed. The Vice preferred to gain his
point by an exercise of intellect. Half a mile down the stream was a
small pier; to this the Vice called the panting Commodore's attention,
and exclaimed,
"That, by gosh,[6] is the identical dock where the Alderman and I
went swimming. I assume that all such important precedents are to be
respectfully observed?"
"They _are_," said the Commodore, almost fainting with the ecstasy of
the transition from despair to hope.
Within ten minutes the boats were beached, and four perspiring
canoeists, after an interval of rest, made haste to disrobe and take
headers from the pier into the refreshing water.
From this pier the Commodore called the attention of his companions to
a glittering spire which shot heavenward a mile down the river, and
exclaimed,
"There begins Acadia. Every spire we see hereafter will be of that
precise pattern--they are as unchanging as the beautiful faith which
our sister Church of Rome maintains."
[Illustration: The Dock.]
"Have we a Ritualist among us?" whispered the Vice to the Cook, with a
face full of horror.
"Ye--es," replied the Cook, reluctantly, "but don't think too hardly of
the poor fellow. Editors _must_ have some sort of religious belief, you
know--they're human, like the rest of us--and how can they reconcile
their practice to any thing but a religion of mere forms? What would
religion be, if it did not provide for every man's own peculiar
infirmities?"
The Vice eyed the Commodore with abating horror, nevertheless he began
to talk Baptist doctrine to him. He even, to arouse his faculties to
the utmost, strode up and down the shore warbling to himself (so the
Purser declared) something like this:
"Baptist, Baptist is my style,
Baptist born was I.
I've been baptized in the Baptist way
And Baptist will I die."
But the Commodore was obdurate, and intimated that the Vice's
experience in upsetting from a canoe had something to do with his
denominational preference; things had to go according to law in
newspaper offices, he said; the newspaper was the highest embodiment
of human intellect, and so he reasoned, analogically, that men had
no higher model to which to conform religion. The Vice sighed and
determined to convert the Commodore--at a more convenient season.
The calm and heat continued, and no one was rude enough to make
suggestions to the Commodore about starting. Indeed, the Purser
remembered that he had brought a hammock, which until now he had
forgotten. It was one of the most remarkable hammocks in the
world--woven of silk by an Italian sailor--wouldn't the Commodore just
try it? The Commodore accepted the proffer in gracious spirit; then
the Cook remembered that the Commodore had never tried the wonderful,
the priceless Brazilian tobacco, and there could be no fitter place
than a hammock in which to sample it. The general result was that the
Commodore occupied the hammock until the Cook announced dinner, and
even then he arose with noticeable reluctance.
After dinner the breeze sprang up again, and as it wafted clouds of
dust into the eyes, faces and hair of the expedition, as well as upon
their garments, still damp with honest sweat, every one hailed with
joy the order to sail. Besides, the dinner had been a mere lunch, and
as the largest town on the river was but a few miles distant, the
Cook suggested that an excellent dinner might be procured there at
a quaint little French inn which he had visited in other days. This
suggestion led to a lively race, which as usual in such cases was won
by the Cook.[7] Whether beating or beaten, however, the pleasure of
spreading all sails and making the best possible time in a good wind,
was more than sufficient reward for all the effort put forth. With a
boat fourteen feet long, and weighing, all rigging, spars, personal
property, stores, etc., included, a scant hundred and fifty pounds,
yet carrying fifty square feet of canvas, the canoeist has to exert to
the uttermost his clearness of vision, nicety of touch (at the helm)
weather wisdom, and balancing ability. He is himself his own ballast
and the principal portion of the cargo. The shifting of five pounds
of weight would compel a capsize, and the slightest flaw, carelessly
caught, would even more certainly induce the same undesirable result.
To keep all dead weight as far as possible below the water line, the
navigator sits in the bottom of his boat, his back resting against a
small board which, in turn, bears upon the after thwart or bulkhead.
In one hand he holds the sheet of his mainsail; if he steers with
a rudder, he holds one tiller rope in the same hand, and the other
in the remaining digits. If he steers with a paddle, which is for
several reasons the preferable mode, he holds the paddle with the
hand unoccupied by the sheet; there is thus a steady strain upon both
arms, and this strain is also a perfect brace. Some canoeists work the
tiller with the feet, and this when properly carried out is a very
convenient mode, but not every one who has tried it succeeds in making
it work. The time which intervenes between the coming of a flaw and
the full fruition of a capsize, is usually about three seconds, but
one of these suffices for prevention, if the sailor promptly lets go
his sheet or allows his boat's head to go into the wind. In practice,
however, a flaw seldom strikes a close-hauled sail; the pilot's ear
detects it coming several seconds before it strikes, and so, before it
appears, the mainsail is as innocent of the possibility of abetting
disaster as if it were the proprietor of a gambling saloon, who had
been forewarned by some sympathetic police captain of an impending
raid, or a skilful insurance president who knows that the state
inspector is coming. How the canoeist's ear detects the coming flaw
is the mystery and despair of the novice, though several hours of
practice make this wisdom seem an acquisition some centuries old. When
the "green" canoeist experiences a flaw, he generally seeks safety by
letting go his sheet and at the same time steering "into the wind".
Safety is at once assured, but when the boat again takes the "course,"
the other boats, if sailed by experts, are already too far away to
be available if one wishes to borrow an æsthetic idea or a pipe of
tobacco. The experienced sailor lets his sheet go sufficiently, but he
knows to a breath when the flaw is sufficiently spent to allow him to
"haul close" again, and he holds his course to a point all the while,
saving some wind by throwing his weight well to windward. If he has a
satisfactory family, but lacks as much life insurance as he desires,
he will prefer to try a good wind over water not more than five feet
deep, (and such water is a hundred times as plentiful as deeper water)
but the chance of capsizing a sober canoeist of a week's practice is
less than that of falling dead in the street at home; it is as easy
to avoid as if it were the risk of stepping over a precipice in full
view, for in the former case the catastrophe is as easily foreseen as
in the latter. And while the boat is flying (literally, for her bottom
barely touches the water, and she can sail at a respectable speed over
tide-mud barely glazed with water,) its occupant has every pleasure
experienced by the owner of a twenty-thousand dollar yacht. He has the
same glorious wind whistling in his ears, the same sharp remonstrance
of the waters divided by the bow, the same murmurs of recognition and
complaint by the same waters as they reunite under the stern-post, the
same sense of triumph over one element, of compulsion of another, which
if it had its own way would be only a fitful ally, the same glorious
_abandon_ of health and spirits revelling in pure air and in endeavor
unconstrained by age, sex, or previous conditions of social or business
servitude. And when the sail is over, or the season itself is ended,
the delightful memories of the cruise are not, as in the case of the
yachtsman, palled by recollections of the frightful expense of the
crew, or the extortionate charges of ship-builders for repairs. And
while the yachtsman lays up his boat for the winter, and bemoans the
wasting interest upon her cost, and the various charges for dockage,
keeping, etc., the canoeist quietly puts his boat upon his back, or,
at worst a cart, carries it to his house, and puts her down in the
cellar or up in the garret (after an unsuccessful attempt to have her
wintered on top of the piano in the parlor) in either of which places
he may visit her as frequently as he pleases, in any weather, and
refresh any memories that may seem laggard when recalled.
[Illustration: Under the Elms.]
The party went into camp in the shade of some grand old elms which
stood in front of what had once been her Majesty's barracks. During the
political changes which had turned the British spear into the Canadian
pruning-hook, the barracks had been diverted from their original
purpose into homes for the friendless poor; the shore of the river in
front of them was, therefore, full of the discarded crockery and broken
bottles peculiar to a certain phase of poverty, and as the Vice and the
Purser stepped barefooted into the water to carry their boats ashore,
the soles of their feet testified to the truth of the scriptural saying
"The poor ye have with you always."[8]
As the expedition landed, weary, foot sore, hungry, unshaven, and
covered with the dust of their last camp, the sight of a busy town,
full of brisk well-to-do people, caused them to experience to the
uttermost the sensations peculiar to the vagabond and the pariah.
A marvelously good dinner at a marvelously low price comforted the
material part of their inner man, but their mental parts remained ill
at ease. So uncomfortable were they that the party took pattern after
the vulgar who wish to appear as gentlemen--they purchased and smoked
the best cigars in the town. Returned to their camp, the spectacle of
a number of well-dressed, sprightly children playing under the trees
reminded them strongly of home, where changes of clothing were more
numerous than on board canoes, and where whatever bath tub may be
available, is not paved with scrap tin and broken glass and crockery.
[Illustration: The Enchantress.]
Suddenly an unexpected, an unhoped for influence appeared upon the
scene. A young lady, who apparently had a nephew or niece among the
children, strolled toward the water's edge a little way from the boats,
and amused herself with the gambols of a huge water-dog. The parlor
critic would scarcely have called her beautiful--probably at the Court
of Jove there were goddesses more beautiful than Juno, nevertheless
Juno ruled men as no rival beauty did. The lady with the dog noticed
no member of the expedition, but it was impossible for the mariners
to be as unconcerned in return, for maidens who are embodiments of
health, strength, grace and modesty are not seen often enough even
where maidens most do congregate. The Commodore sat down and leaned
against a tree to hide the dusty back of his shirt; the Purser made
haste to don a blue jacket which he had fortunately brought with him;
the Vice, who, apparently with malice aforethought, had shaved himself,
sat in his canoe, adjusted his statesmanlike glasses, and took full
satisfaction out of the ennobling spectacle, while the Cook, with
characteristic modesty, crept within the tent, where he might behold
and yet remain invisible. When the lady departed, as unfortunately she
did, the quartette debated whether she went on wings, or floated off on
one of the clouds that were hovering about, or was wafted away by the
fortunate breezes which could express their admiration without being
suspected of forwardness or flattery, or, whether she was suddenly
translated to a better world, as the Vice enthusiastically declared
was no more than her desert. And yet, the material optics of every
member of that expedition knew that the lady walked away upon her own
feet, as any ordinary mortal would have done, for each of them had
gazed industriously after her as long as her form was visible. The
difference of opinion led to no dispute, however, for the manners of
the expedition had noticeably improved within an hour, and though no
canoeist had modified his apparel in any way, each man had something in
his face which made him more presentable.
Meanwhile the little clouds which had been previously acting, each
for itself, gathered in convention, resolved that in union there was
strength, and then proceeded to business. The merry children, with
juvenile trust in nature, suspected nothing until they felt it, and
then protests were of no avail. But the Commodore took charge of the
entire party, and massed it within the expedition's tent, where the
children had a glorious time while the navigators strolled about
outside and made-believe enjoy the heaven-sent shower-bath. Then the
shower departed and so did the children, the shades of night were
drawn, and behind these the expedition hid itself while it changed its
soaked clothing. Then it lit its evening candle and prepared for bed,
the Vice and the Purser insisting that the evening couches should be
within the tent instead of the boats. While in the preliminary stages
of a discussion, however, a vivacious small dog announced the approach
of visitors, and then ushered to the front of the tent a gentleman,
a lady and a small hand-wagon. The couple proved to be the parents
of one of the children who had been sheltered by the tent during the
afternoon, and they had called to express their thanks, some of which
were from the tongue and heart, while others were from the hand-wagon,
and consisted of bottles of excellent ale, a huge loaf of cake, some
dainty preserves, etc. The gentleman proved to be an ex-officer of a
famous Canadian regiment, so the Commodore and the Cook talked military
affairs with him; he knew all about Dominion politics, so he and the
Vice found a point of contact; he was also of English birth, and when
the Purser learned this, he monopolized him, and the couple talked
church and agriculture, Gladstone and Melton-Mowbray pork pies, while
the lady exhibited a degree of tact and vivacity which prevented the
other gentlemen from remembering that the place was not a parlor, and
that they themselves were not within their respective funereal dress
suits. Then several citizens with aquatic tastes dropped in, one by
one, and offered various generous hospitalities, and the result of it
all was that the expedition thought no more of its shabbiness than if
this condition had suddenly gone out of existence.
It was not until an unprecedentedly late hour that the last visitor
departed, and the members of the squadron retired with a faint notion
that rain was again beginning to patter upon the leaves overhead.
[Footnote 6: The Vice was from an eastern rural district.]
[Footnote 7: Note by the Cook.--Contradictions of this statement
have been received from the Vice and the Purser, but they are
couched in language unfit for publication. The proof-sheet of this
page has been carefully kept from the eye of the Commodore.]