A most acceptable Invitation--- An Evening in the Hutch--Old Songs--Picton
in High Feather--Wolfe and Montcalm--Reminiscences of the Siege--Anecdotes
of Wolfe--A Touch of Rhetoric and its Consequences.
Quite a little crowd of fishermen gathered around us, as the dingledekooch
ran bows on the beach, and Picton, warm with exercise and excitement,
leaped ashore, flourishing his piscatorial javelin with an air of triumph,
which oddly contrasted with the faces of the Louisburghers, who looked at
him and at his game, with countenances of great gravity--either real or
assumed. Presently, another boat ran bows on the beach beside our own, and
from this jumped Bruce, our jolly first mate, who had come ashore to spend
a few hours with an old friend, at one of the hutches. To this we were
hospitably invited also, and were right glad to uncase our limbs of stiff
oil-skin and doff our sou'-westers, and sit down before the cheery fire,
piled up with spruce logs and hackmatack; comfortable, indeed, was it to
be thus snugly housed, while the weather outside was so lowering, and the
schooner wet and cold with rain. To be sure, our gay and festive hall was
not so brilliant as some, but it was none the less acceptable on that
account; and, before long, a fragrant rasher of bacon, fresh eggs, white
bread, and a strong cup of bitter tea made us feel entirely happy. Then
these viands being removed, there came pipes and tobacco; and as something
else was needed to crown the symposium, Picton whispered a word in the ear
of Bruce, who presently disappeared, to return again after a brief
absence, with some of our stores from the schooner. Then the table was
decked again, with china mugs of dazzling whiteness, lemons, hot water,
and a bottle of old Glenlivet; and from the centre of this gallant show,
the one great lamp of the hutch cast its mellow radiance around, and
nursed in the midst of its flame a great ball of red coal that burned like
a bonfire. Then, when our host, the old fisherman, brought out a bundle of
warm furs, of moose and cariboo skins, and distributed them around on the
settles and broad, high-backed benches, so that we could loll at our ease,
we began to realize a sense of being quite snug and cozy, and, indeed, got
used to it in a surprisingly short space of time.
"Now, then," said Picton, "this is what I call serene," and the traveller
relapsed into his usual activity; after a brief respite--"I say, give us
a song, will you, now, some of you; something about this jolly old place,
now--'Brave Wolfe,' or 'Boscawen,'" and he broke out--
"'My name d'ye see's Tom Tough, I've seen a little sarvice,
Where mighty billows roll and loud tempests blow;
I've sailed with noble Howe, and I've sailed with noble Jarvis,
And in Admiral Duncan's fleet I've sung yeo, heave, yeo!
And more ye must be knowin',
I was cox'son to Boscawen
When our fleet attacked Louisburgh,
And laid her bulwarks low.
But push about the grog, boys!
Hang care, it killed a cat,
Push about the grog, and sing--
Yeo, heave, yeo!'"
"Good Lord!" said the old fisherman, "I harn't heard that song for more'n
thirty years. Sing us another bit of it, please."
But Picton had not another bit of it; so he called lustily for some one
else to sing. "Hang it, sing something," said the traveller. "'How stands
the glass around;' that, you know, was written by Wolfe; at least, it was
sung by him the night before the battle of Quebec, and they call it
Wolfe's death song--
'How stands the glass around?
For shame, ye take no care, my boys!
How stands the glass around?'"
Here Picton forgot the next line, and substituted a drink for it, in
correct time with the music:
"'The trumpets sound;
The colors flying are, my boys,
To fight, kill, or wound'"----
Another slip of the memory [drink]:
"'May we still be found,'"
He has found it, and repeats emphatically:
"'May we still be found!
Content with our hard fare, my boys,
[all drink]
On the cold ground!'
"Then there is another song," said Picton, lighting his pipe with coal and
tongs; "'Wolfe and Montcalm'--you must know that," he continued,
addressing the old fisherman. But the ancient trilobite did not know it;
indeed, he was not a singer, so Picton trolled lustily forth--
"'He lifted up his head,
While the cannons did rattle,
To his aid de camp he said,
'How goes the battail?'
The aid de camp, he cried,
''Tis in our favor;'
'Oh! then,' brave Wolfe replied,
'I die with pleasure!'"
"There," said Picton, throwing himself back upon the warm and cosy furs,
"I am at the end of my rope, gentlemen. Sing away, some of you," and the
traveller drew a long spiral of smoke through his tube, and ejected it in
a succession of beautiful rings at the beams overhead.
"Picton," said I, "what a strange, romantic interest attaches itself to
the memory of Wolfe. The very song you have sung, 'How stands the glass
around,' although not written by him, for it was composed before he was
born, yet has a currency from the popular belief that he sang it on the
evening preceding his last battle. And, indeed, it is by no means certain
that Gray's Elegy does not derive additional interest from a kindred
tradition."
"What is that?" said the traveller.
"Of course you will remember it. When Gray had completed the Elegy, he
sent a copy of it to his friend, General Wolfe, in America; and the story
goes, that as the great hero was sitting, wrapped in his military cloak,
on board the barge which the sailors were rowing up the St. Lawrence,
towards Quebec, he produced the poem, and read it in silence by the waning
light of approaching evening, until he came to these lines, which he
repeated aloud to his officers:
'The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour'----"
Then pausing for a moment, he finished the stanza:
"'The paths of glory lead but to the grave.'"
"Gentlemen," he added, "I would rather be the writer of this poem, than
the greatest conqueror the world ever produced."
"That's true," said the old fisherman, sententiously. "We are all bound to
that place, sometime or other."
"What place?" said Picton, rousing up.
"The berrying-ground," answered the ancient; "that is if we don't get
overboard instead."
"But," he continued, "since you are speaking of General Wolfe, you must
know my grandfather served under him at Minden, and at the battle here,
too, where he was wounded, and left behind, when the general went back to
England."
"I thought he went from this place to Quebec," said Picton.
"No, sir," replied the old man, "he went first to London, and came back
again, and then went to Canada. Well," he continued, "my grandfather
served under him, and was left here to get over his wownds, and so he
married my grandmother, and lived in Louisburgh after the French were all
sent away." Here the veteran placed his paws on the table, and looked out
into the infinite. We could see we were in for a long story. "All the
French soldiers and sailors, you see, were sent to England prisoners of
war--and the rest of the people were sent to France; the governor of this
here place was named Drucour; he was taken to Southampton, and put in
prison. Well now, as I was saying, this hutch of mine was built by my
father, just here by Wolfe's landing, for grandfather took a fancy to have
it built on this spot; you see, Wolfe rowed over one night in a boat all
alone from Lighthouse point yonder, and stood on the beach right under
this here old wall, looking straight up at the French sentry over his
head, and taking a general look at the town on both sides. There wasn't a
man in all his soldiers who would have stood there at that time for a
thousand pounds."
"What do you suppose the old file was doing over here?" inquired Picton,
who was getting sleepy.
"I don't know," answered our host, "except it was his daring. He was the
bravest man of his time, I've heard say--and so young"----
"Two and thretty only," said Bruce.
"And a tall, elegant officer, too," continued the ancient fisherman.
"I've heard tell how the French governor's lady used to send him
sweetmeats with a flag of truce, and he used to return his compliments and
a pine apple, or something of that kind. Ah, he was a great favorite with
the ladies! I've heard say, he was much admired for his elegant style of
dancing, and always ambitious to have a tall and graceful lady for his
partner, and then he was as much pleased as if he was in the thick of the
fight. He was a great favorite with the soldiers, too; very careful of
them, to see they were well nursed when they were sick, and sharing the
worst and the best with them; but my grandfather used to say, very strict,
too."
"Who was in command here, Wolfe or Amherst?"
"General Amherst was in command, and got the credit of it, too; but Wolfe
did the fighting--so grandfather used to say."
"What was the name of his leddy in the old country?" said Bruce.
"I do not remember," replied the ancient, "but I've heard it. You know he
was to be married, when he got back to England. And when the first shot
struck him in the wrist, at Quebec, he took out _her_ handkerchief from
his breast-pocket, smiled, wrapped it about the place, and went on with
the battle as if nothing had happened. But, soon after he got another
wound, and yet he wasn't disheartened, but waved his ratan over his head,
for none of the officers carried swords there, and kept on, until the
third bullet went through and through his breast, when he fell back, and
just breathed like, till word was brought that the French were retreating,
when he said, then 'I am content,' and so closed his eyes and died."
Here there was a pause. Our entertainer, waving his hand towards our mugs
of Glenlivet, by way of invitation, lifted his own to his mouth by the
handle, and with a dexterous tilt that showed practice, turned its bottom
towards the beams of the hutch.
"Do you remember any farther particulars of the siege of Louisburgh?" I
asked.
"Oh, yes," replied the old man, "I remember grandfather telling us how he
saw the bodies of fifteen or sixteen deserters hanging over the walls;
they were Germans that had been sold to the French, four years before the
war, by a Prussian colonel. Some of them got away, and came over to our
side. He used to say, the old town looked like a big ship when they came
up to it; it had two tiers of guns, one above the other, on the
south--that is towards Gabarus bay, where our troops landed. And now I
mind me of his telling that when they landed at Gabarus, they had a hard
fight with the French and Indians, until Col. Fraser's regiment of
Highlanders jumped overboard, and swam to a point on the rocks, and drove
the enemy away with their broad-swords."
"That was the 63d Highlanders," said Bruce, with immense gravity.
"Among the Indians killed at Gabarus," continued our host, "they say there
was one Micmac chief, who was six feet nine inches high. The French
soldiers were very much frightened when the Highland men climbed up on the
rocks; they called them English savages."
"That showed," said Bruce, "what a dommed ignorant set they were!"
"And, while I think of it," added our host, rising from his seat, "I have
a bit of the old time to show you," and so saying, he retreated from the
table, and presently brought forth a curious oak box from a mysterious
corner of the hutch, and after some difficulty in drawing out the sliding
cover, produced a roll of tawny newspapers, tied up with rope yarn, a
colored wood engraving in a black frame--a portrait, with the inscription,
"James Wolfe, Esq'r, Commander in Chief of His Majesty's Forces in the
Expedition to Quebec," and on the reverse the following scrap from the
London Chronicle of October 7, 1759:
"Amidst her conquests let Britannia groan
For Wolfe! her gallant, her undaunted son;
For Wolfe, whose breast bright Honor did inspire
With patriot ardor and heroic fire;
For Wolfe, who headed that intrepid band,
Who, greatly daring, forced Cape Breton's strand.
For Wolfe, who following still where glory call'd,
No dangers daunted, no distress appall'd;
Whose eager zeal disasters could not check,
Intent to strike the blow which gained Quebec.
For Wolfe, who, like the gallant Theban, dy'd
In th' arms of victory--his country's pride."
This inscription I read aloud, and then, under the influence of the
loquacious potable, leaned back in my furry throne, crossed my hands over
my forehead, looked steadily into the blazing fire-place, and continued
the theme I had commenced an hour before.
"What a strange interest attaches itself to the memory of Wolfe! A
youthful hero, who, under less happy auspices, might have been known only
as the competent drill-master of regiments, elevated by the sagacity of
England's wisest statesman to a prominent position of command; there to
exhibit his generalship; there to retrieve the long list of disasters
which followed Braddock's defeat; there to annihilate forever every
vestige of French dominion in the Americas; to fulfill gloriously each
point of his mission; to achieve, not by long delays, but by rapid
movements, the conquest of two of the greatest fortresses in the
possession of the rival crown; to pass from the world amid the shouts of
victory--content in the fullness of his fame, without outliving it! His
was a noble, generous nature; brave without cruelty; ardent and warlike,
yet not insensible to the tenderest impulses of humanity. To die betrothed
and beloved, yet wedded only to immortal honor; to leave a mother, with a
nation weeping at her feet; to serve his country, without having his
patriotism contaminated by titles, crosses, and ribbons; this was the most
fortunate fate of England's greatest commander in the colonies! No wonder,
then, that with a grateful sympathy the laurels of his mother country were
woven with the cypress of her chivalric son; that hundreds of pens were
inspired to pay some tribute to his memory; that every branch of
representative art, from stone to ink, essayed to portray his living
likeness; that parliament and pulpit, with words of eloquence and
gratitude, uttered the universal sentiment!
"Brave Wolfe," I continued, "whose memory is linked with his no less
youthful rival, Montcalm"----here I was interrupted by the voice of the
mate of the Balaklava--
"I'll be dommed," said he, "if some person isn't afire!"
Then I unclasped my hands, opened my eyes, and looked around me.
The scene was a striking one. Right before me, with his grey head on the
table, buried in his piscatorial paws, lay the master of the hutch, fast
asleep. On a settle, one of the fishermen, who had been a devout listener
to all the legends of the grandson of the veteran of Louisburgh, was in a
similar condition; Bruce, our jolly first mate, with the pertinacity of
his race, was wide awake, to be sure, but there were unmistakable signs of
drowsiness in the droop of his eyelids; and Picton? That gentleman, buried
in moose and cariboo skins, prostrate on a broad bench, drawn up close by
the fire-place, was dreaming, probably, of sculpins, flounders, fish-pugh,
and dingledekooch!
"I say! wake up here!" said the jolly mate of the Balaklava; bringing his
fist down upon the table with an emphatic blow, that roused all the
sleepers except the traveller. "I say, wake up!" reiterated Brace, shaking
Picton by the shoulder. Then Picton raised himself from his couch, and
yawned twice; walked to the table, seated himself on a bench, thrust his
fingers through his black hair, and instantly fell asleep again, after
shaking out into the close atmosphere of the hutch a stifling odor of
animal charcoal.
"A little straw makes a great reek," said Bruce, laughing, "and when a mon
gives out before his pipe, he is like to be burnet," and he pointed to a
long black and brown singe on the worsted comforter of the traveller, by
which we understood that Picton had fallen asleep, pipe in mouth, and then
dropped his lighted _dudeen_ just on the safest part of his neck.
Once again we roused the sleeper; and so, shaking hands with our
hospitable host, we left the comfortable hutch at Wolfe's Landing, and
were soon on our way to the jolly little schooner.