The position in which the trio found themselves next morning, when
daylight revealed it, was, we might almost say, tremendously romantic.
The ledge on which they had passed the night was much narrower than they
had supposed it to be, and their beds, if we may so call them, had been
dangerously near to the edge of a frightful precipice which descended
sheer down to a strip of sand that looked like a yellow thread two
hundred feet below. The cliff behind them rose almost perpendicularly
another hundred feet or more, and the narrow path or gully by which they
had gained their eyrie was so steep and rugged that their reaching the
spot at all in safety seemed little short of a miracle. The sun was
brightening with its first beams an absolutely tranquil sea when the
sleepers opened their eyes, and beheld what seemed to them a great
universe of liquid light. Their ears at the same time drank in the soft
sound of murmuring ripples far below, and the occasional cry of sportive
sea-birds.
"Grand! glorious!" exclaimed Trench, as he sat up and gazed with
enthusiasm on the scene.
Paul did not speak. His thoughts were too deep for utterance, but his
mind reverted irresistibly to some of the verses in that manuscript
Gospel which he carried so carefully in his bosom.
As for Oliver, his flushed young face and glittering eyes told their own
tale. At first he felt inclined to shout for joy, but his feelings
choked him; so he, too, remained speechless. The silence was broken at
last by a commonplace remark from Paul, as he pointed to the
horizon--"The home of our shipmates is further off than I thought it
was."
"The rascals!" exclaimed the captain, thinking of the shipmates, not of
the home; "the place is too good for 'em."
"But all of them are not equally bad," suggested Paul gently.
"Humph!" replied Trench, for kind and good-natured though he was he
always found it difficult to restrain his indignation at anything that
savoured of injustice. In occasionally giving way to this temper, he
failed to perceive at first that he was himself sometimes guilty of
injustice. It is only fair to add, however, that in his cooler moments
our captain freely condemned himself.
"`Humph!' is a very expressive word," observed Paul, "and in some sense
satisfactory to those who utter it, but it is ambiguous. Do you mean to
deny, Master Trench, that some of your late crew were very good fellows?
and don't you admit that Little Stubbs and Squill and Grummidge were
first-rate specimens of--"
"I don't admit or deny anything!" said the captain, rising, with a light
laugh, "and I have no intention of engaging in a controversy with you
before breakfast. Come, Olly, blow up the fire, and go to work with
your pork and cakes. I'll fetch some more wood, and Paul will help me,
no doubt."
With a good grace Paul dropped the discussion and went to work. In a
few minutes breakfast was not only ready, but consumed; for a certain
measure of anxiety as to the probability of there being an available
path to the top of the cliffs tended to hasten their proceedings.
The question was soon settled, for after ascending a few yards above
their encampment they found an indentation or crevice in the cliff which
led into an open spot--a sort of broader shelf--which sloped upwards,
and finally conducted them to the summit.
Here, to their surprise, they discovered that their new home, instead of
being, as they had supposed it, one of a series of large islands, was in
truth a territory of vast, apparently boundless, extent, covered with
dense forests. Far as the eye could reach, interminable woods presented
themselves, merging, in the far distance, into what appeared to be a
range of low hills.
"Newfoundland is bigger than we have been led to believe," said Paul
Burns, surveying the prospect with great satisfaction.
"Ay is it," responded Trench. "The fact is that discoverers of new
lands, bein' naturally in ships, have not much chance to go far inland.
In a country like this, with such a wild seaboard, it's no wonder they
have made mistakes. We will find out the truth about it now, however,
for we'll undertake a land voyage of discovery."
"What! without arms or provisions, father?" asked Oliver.
"What d'ye call the two things dangling from your shoulders, boy?"
returned the captain, with some severity; "are these not `arms'? and
have not woods--generally got lakes in 'em and rivers which usually
swarm with provisions?"
"That's so, father," returned the lad, somewhat abashed; "but I did not
raise the question as a difficulty, only I've heard you sometimes say
that a ship is not fit for sea till she is well-armed and provisioned,
so I thought that it might be the same with land expeditions."
Before the skipper could reply, Paul drew attention to an opening in the
woods not far from them, where an animal of some kind was seen to emerge
into an open space, gaze for a moment around it, and then trot quietly
away.
"Some of our provisions--uncooked as yet," remarked Oliver.
"More of them," returned his father, pointing to a covey of birds
resembling grouse, which flashed past them at the moment on whirring
wings. "How we are to get hold of 'em, however, remains, of course, to
be seen."
"There are many ways of getting hold of them, and with some of these I
am familiar," said Paul. "For instance, I can use the long-bow with
some skill--at least I could do so when at school. And I have no doubt,
captain, that you know how to use the cross-bow?"
"That I do," returned Trench, with a broad grin.
"I was noted at school as bein' out o' sight the worst shot in the
neighbourhood where I lived. Indeed, I've bin known to miss a barn-door
at twenty yards!"
"Well, well, you must learn to shoot, that's all," said Paul, "and you
may, perchance, turn out better with the sling. That weapon did great
execution, as no doubt you know, in the hands of King David."
"But where are we to get long-bows and cross-bows and slings?" asked
Oliver eagerly.
"Why, Olly, my boy, excitement seems to have confused your brain, or the
air of Newfoundland disagrees with you," said Paul. "We shall make
them, of course. But come," he added, in a more serious tone, "we have
reached a point--I may say a crisis--in our lives, for we must now
decide definitely what we shall do, and I pray God to direct us so that
we may do only that which is right and wise. Are you prepared, captain,
to give up all hope of returning to our shipmates?"
"Of course I am," returned Trench firmly, while a slight frown gathered
on his brow. "The few who are on our side could not make the rest
friendly. They may now fight it out amongst themselves as best they
can, for all that I care. We did not forsake _them_. They sent _us_
away. Besides, we could not return, if we wished it ever so much. No;
a grand new country has been opened up to us, and I mean to have a
cruise of exploration. What say _you_, Olly?"
"I'm with 'ee, father!" answered the boy, with a nod of the head that
was even more emphatic than the tone of his voice.
With a laugh at Oliver's enthusiasm, Paul declared himself to be of much
the same mind, and added that, as they had no boxes to pack or friends
to bid farewell to, they should commence the journey there and then.
"I don't agree with that," said the captain.
"Why not, Master Trench?"
"Because we have not yet made our weapons, and it may be that we shall
have some good chances of getting supplies at the very beginning of our
travels. My opinion is that we should arm ourselves before starting,
for the pork and cakes cannot last long."
This being at once recognised as sound advice, they entered the forest,
which was not so thick at that place as it at first appeared to be.
They went just far enough to enable them to obtain a species of
hardwood, which the experienced eye of Paul Burns told them was suitable
for bow-making. Here they pitched their camp. Paul took the axe and
cut down several small trees; the captain gathered firewood, and Oliver
set about the fabrication of a hut or booth, with poles, bark, turf, and
leaves, which was to shelter them from rain if it should _fall_, though
there was little chance of that, the weather being fine and settled at
the time.
The work which they had undertaken was by no means as easy as they had
anticipated. Paul had indeed made bows and arrows in former years, but
then all the materials had been furnished "in the rough" to his hands,
whereas he had now not only to select the tree best adapted to his
purpose, but had to choose the best part of it, and to reduce that
portion from a massive trunk to suitably slender proportions. It was
much the same with the arrows and cross-bow bolts. However, there was
resolution and perseverance in each member of the party far more than
sufficient to overcome such little difficulties; only, as we have said,
they were slower about it than had been expected, and the work was far
from completed when the descent of night obliged them to seek repose.
"Not a bad little bower," remarked Paul, as they sat down to supper in
the primitive edifice which Oliver had erected.
The said bower was about four feet high, eight wide, and five deep, of
irregular form, with three sides and a roof; walls and roof being of the
same material--branchy, leafy, and turfy. The fourth side was an open
space in which the inhabitants sat, facing the fire. The latter, being
large enough to roast a sheep whole, was built outside.
"Why, Olly, you're a selfish fellow," said the captain, during a pause
in the meal; "you've thought only of yourself in building this bower.
Just look at Paul's feet. They are sticking out ten or twelve inches
beyond our shelter!"
"That comes of his being so tall, daddy. But it does not matter much.
If it should come on to rain he can draw his feet inside; there's room
enough to double up. Don't you think so, Paul?"
But Paul replied not, save by a gentle snore, for he was a healthy man,
and child-like in many respects, especially in the matter of going off
to the land of Nod the moment his head touched his pillow. Possibly the
fresh air, the excitement, the energy with which he had wrought, and the
relish with which he had supped, intensified this tendency on the
present occasion. Oliver very soon followed his friend's example, and
so Captain Trench was left to meditate beside the fire. He gazed into
its glowing embers, or sometimes glanced beyond it towards an open space
where a tiny rivulet glittered in the moonlight, and a little cascade
sent its purling music into the still air.
Ere long he passed from the meditative to the blinking stage. Then he
turned his eyes on the sleepers, smiled meekly once or twice and nodded
to them--quite inadvertently! After that he stretched his bulky frame
beside them, and resigned himself to repose.
Now, it is probable that we should have had nothing more to record in
reference to that first night in Newfoundland if Captain Trench had been
in the habit of taking his rest like ordinary mortals, but such was not
his habit. He bounced in his sleep! Why he did so no one could ever
find out. He himself denied the "soft impeachment," and, in his waking
moments, was wont to express disbelief as well as profound ignorance in
regard to the subject. Several broken beds, however, had, in the course
of his career, testified against him; but, like the man who blamed "the
salmon," not "the whisky," for his headaches, Trench blamed "the beds,"
not "the bouncing," for his misfortunes.
One might have counted him safe with the solid earth of Newfoundland for
his bed, but danger often lurks where least expected. Oliver Trench was
not an architect either by nature or training. His bower had been
erected on several false principles. The bouncing of a big man inside
was too much for its infirm constitution. Its weak points were
discovered by the captain. A bounce into one of its salient supports
proved fatal, and the structure finally collapsed, burying its family in
a compost of earth and herbage.
With a roar that would have done credit to a native walrus, the captain
struggled to free himself, under the impression that a band of savages
had attacked them. All three quickly threw off the comparatively light
material that covered them, and stood in warlike attitudes for a few
seconds, glancing around for foes who did not exist! Then the roar of
alarm was transformed into shouts of laughter, but these were quickly
checked by a real foe who crept up insidiously and leaped on them
unexpectedly. The half-extinguished fire, having been replenished by
the falling structure--much of which was dry and inflammable--caught on
the roof and flashed down into the interior.
"Save the pork, lad!" shouted the captain, as he sprang out of the
kindling mass.
"Ay, ay, father," replied the son.
Paul meanwhile grasped the half-finished bows and arrows in his arms,
and thus their little all was rescued from the flames. Of course, the
bower was utterly consumed, but that caused them little grief. Having
extinguished the flames, they all lay down to finish off the night under
a neighbouring tree, and even its architect became so oblivious of what
had occurred that he employed the remainder of his slumbering hours in
dreaming of the home in old England, and of that dear mother whose last
letter was still carefully guarded in the pocket of the coat that
covered his ardent little bosom.