Mission developing its labour-saving devices as the work increased,
and the help of its friends made it possible. A water-supply system
soon partially obviated the need for hauling barrels in the summer
from our spring and puncheons on the dog sledges in the winter. A
roadway and narrow-gauge railway track relieved us of the necessity of
so much portage on men's backs; and a circular saw, run by a small
gasoline engine, cut up our firewood with less waste and with more
satisfactory results.
As with the basket market, so with the chore market, the ground was
once more falling away from beneath our poor friends' feet. Only the
indefatigable Jeanie held the household together, for in the heyday of
the dual alliance's prosperity, the little daughter had been permitted
to return to her parents from the Children's Home.
With the lapse of years, however, even if Emile could see no better
with his eyes, his other faculties had developed so largely as to
surrender to him again the joy of independence of outside help, and
with characteristic self-reliance and optimism he once more tackled
his own difficulties.
I was recently visiting a small cottage, built on a tiny ledge under
the shadow of gloomy, high cliffs. It was far from any pathway and
only approachable by stumbling over huge rocks--the debris of the
crags behind. The hut had been built by a lonely old fellow who
resorted to it in summer because it was right on the fishing-grounds,
and he was getting unable any longer to face the long row to and from
his house in the harbour. Nowhere in the world is the old adage
concerning the birds of a feather truer than on this coast. The poorer
and lonelier a man is, the greater is the certainty that some other
poor and lonely person will seek the shelter of their poverty. Thus it
had been with old man Martin.
One day there had appeared at the cottage door from twenty miles
farther down the coast one-legged Ike, an irregular, angular youth,
who, stumbling over the hillside, and magnified into portentous
proportions by one of our Promethean fogs, had nearly scared the wits
out of even my trusty dog team. Quite without invitation from old man
Martin, one-legged Ike had come to stay. The proximity to the
fishing-grounds suited this seafarer, who shared in every particular
the limpet-like characteristics of Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea.
Anyhow, old Martin had never shaken him off, and had been heard to
excuse himself by saying, "After all, he can sit in a boat as well as
any of them with two legs." "Where there's room for one, there's room
for two," is almost an axiom of life on these shores. In the lapse of
time the old man had taken his last voyage, and Ike had come into full
possession of the estate, living almost like Robinson Crusoe, cut off
from his fellows by to him impassable barriers.
It was a reported lapse in some other portion of Ike's anatomy that
had led me to scramble along the landwash to the cottage. The ice
having broken up and gone out of the harbour, I should have considered
longer the advisability of the trip,--for the morning frosts left the
jagged rock masses at the foot of the cliff harbingers of ill omen to
the traveller,--had it not been that his isolation might possibly
make even trivial trouble serious. For he had come safely through so
many scrapes, not a few being of his own making, that I had nicknamed
him in my mind "indestructible Ike."
At last, congratulating myself that I had arrived without any untoward
happenings, I rapped loudly on his door, expecting to hear his
squeaky, perpetually broken voice bid me enter. Much to my surprise,
therefore, the door opened itself, and smiling in the doorway stood
our blind friend.
"Good Heavens! Emile, how on earth did you get here? And why did you
ever want to come, anyhow?"
"Why, I thought it was a good plan for me to go fishing," he replied,
addressing apparently a huge rock, so accurately poised over the hut
that it suggested any moment an annihilating assault upon it. "Ike's
going to be pilot and I'm to do t' rowing. We're to be partners for t'
summer, and Karlek's going to look after t' family and help out when
he can. It feels like being young again to be on t' water with a
fishing-line. And, mind you, Ike knows a few tricks with a line that's
worth more'n another leg to we, once we be on t' grounds. They all
'lows he be as good as t' next man for hauling in fish, so be as
there's any around."
Ike's indisposition, as I had surmised, was not of a serious nature,
and I learned subsequently that it was the proper ratification of the
terms of the new triple alliance that had more to do with the sick
call than any undue foreboding of impending dissolution on Ike's part.
There had been some hitch in coming to terms, and Emile had put the
only one point in them to his credit, when he saw through the trick,
and "plumped for a magistrate," feeling also that he could trust me
for more than mere legal technicalities.
It was obviously an offensive campaign on which I found them bent. Ike
had himself carefully repaired the boat's structure, having always a
keen eye to comfort and safety; while from Emile's hands I could see
that the task of tarring their warship, owing to Ike's temporary
indisposition and the need for immediate preparedness, had fallen to
him. His only method for finding out where he had applied that hot and
adhesive liquid had left very apparent evidences of both his energy
and his zeal. To Emile also had fallen the rearrangement of the big
rocks, so as to form as level a surface as possible on which to dry
the fish. It was a Sisyphean task, and poor Emile had spent much sweat
and not a little blood in his efforts. But, as Ike told him, "lifting
rocks weren't no work for a man with one leg." So he had offset
against it getting the meals ready, and what he called "tidying things
up." But as Karlek was, unrewarded, to bring the bread, Ike's
household labours did not promise to be onerous.
In one sense the entente campaign proved victorious, for they had a
goodly catch; but in the division of the spoils it apparently turned
out that it had been so arranged that Emile's share was to catch the
fish, Karlek's to dry it, and Ike's to exchange it piecemeal for
tobacco or "things for t' house," as he called them.
Ever since Stevenson wrote of the one-legged rascal Silver, one
associates with that handicap a tendency to try to outwit others;
while the dependence of blind men presupposes simplicity and
trustfulness.
Emile worked like a tiger, with the single-mindedness of the Verdun
spirit of France, blissfully supposing that Ike did the same in his
end of the boat. Fishing in sixty fathoms of icy water, Emile would
haul his lines up and down, re-bait and tend them, till his hands were
blue with cold, and the skin "fair wore off t' bones." One day,
however, a harbour trap boat happened to pass close by their rodney
while they were anchored on the fishing-grounds, and the owner called
out, "Wake up, Ike! Price of dream fish is down." Ike had somewhat
loudly and not too politely responded to the salutation, but all the
same it awoke a first suspicion in Emile's mind. While not slacking
himself, he "kept an eye" on his partner as best he could.
He knew that a one-legged man must sit down for work, while for his
part he stood, but he had not realized that Ike considered any more
restful posture essential. "A blind man sees more'n most folk" is a
common claim of Emile's. It is tedious pegging away when fish are
scarce, yet fishing is a trade where "'tis dogged as does it." He
suspected that Ike took it easy in the stern while he worked in the
bow; and his doubts were confirmed when one day, from a passing boat,
some one called out: "'Tain't safe for you to be out alone, Emile.
You'll be running some one down one of these days." It was obvious
that Ike was not visible over the gunwale.
From that day on, Emile began to count his catch and to put a
cross-thwait in the middle of the boat to keep them separate--"Something
to push my feet against when I rows, I called 'un," he told me. Still
Ike was almost too much for him, for Karlek remembered seeing him
sorting out the fish as he landed them, and the big ones, somehow or
other, all found their way into Ike's yaffles. Ike also discovered that
it was good economy constantly to change the location of such things as
the tobacco box, butter tub, and molasses jar, for it often meant that
the good-natured Emile went without.
The cold weather set in early, and though the contract was not up,
Ike's hereditary instinct that hardship was bad for his constitution
made him decide to stop if he could. But Emile went steadily on,
having learned from Karlek that there were occasional leakages from
the fish pile. He ventured to remonstrate with his partner, but as
fish were plentiful, he refused to cancel the contract before the
proper date.
It was Ike who finally forced the issue. Emile being bowman, it was
their custom always to come in to the ladder leading to the stage
platform head on, when Emile, grabbing the cross-bars with one hand
and holding the painter in the other, climbed up and "made her fast."
Projecting from the stage head is a long pole used for preventing
boats that are made fast from bumping against the stage. Coming in a
day or so later, Ike drove the punt in parallel with the stage head,
and the pole coming into Emile's hands deceived him into thinking that
the stage was above him as usual. He promptly stepped off the boat,
and naturally fell into the water. Naturally also, it shook Emile up a
good deal, for he was in the water quite a while. After the incident
Ike's tender heart had made him absolutely refuse the responsibility
of a blind man in a small boat in fall weather. As we walked up the
wharf together Emile told me many more such details of the
transactions of our only "triple alliance." All he wanted me to do was
to add up his own tally of the fish he had caught, multiplying it by a
reasonable average fish, and for the sake of the family help him to
get from his ally a return for his labour which would enable him to
buy food for the winter for Jeanie and the little girl.
Fortunately it proved to be not too late. You cannot "get the breeks
off a Highlander," and after a week or two not a cod tail or a cent
would have been available from Ike. As it was, my coming to the
assistance of my poor friend happened to save the "entente" from being
a tragedy, and enabled us to relegate the whole incident to our comedy
group.
A peremptory order to Ike to wait for me at midday at the room we call
the court-house would, I knew, impress him with the necessity of
obedience, far more than a second visit to his cabin. The effort which
the journey would cost him and the time allowed for reflection would,
moreover, punctuate the importance of the occasion.
Emile's calculation of the amount of fish caught, corrected by Karlek
by the simple process of multiplying the sum by two, and with a bit
more added by myself to be sure not to underestimate it, formed all
the legal data I needed. The lean, scrawny figure of Ike, twisting and
squirming with evident uneasiness, awaited my arrival at the appointed
time. Ike's fear of "t' Law" was the superstition of a child. It was
to him a great big man waiting to pounce upon you and "lug youse
away." Indeed, I learned afterwards that he had stayed in bed for fear
of being carried off surreptitiously. "'T is a lonesome spot I lives
in," he had explained.
"To steal from a blind man, Ike," I began, "is bad. Moreover, it
doesn't bring any one any luck ever. Where have you put those sixty
quintals of fish which belong to Emile?"
"It took more'n half t' voyage, believe me, Doctor, to meet t'
summer's expenses. There wasn't more'n thirty quintals all told, and
half of that was mine. Samuels only allowed we four dollars a quintal,
and his flour was eight, and molasses seventy cents. He said he'd land
Emile's share when he comes in on his home trip."
"The Law will have to send down and search your house and all around
it, and carry off things while you wait here, and you won't get any
credit for it either. I told you there was no luck for those who rob a
blind man, unless they confess in time. I'll come back in half an hour
for your decision." And, having an unfair advantage of a one-legged
man, I locked the door and was well down the road before Ike had made
a move.
Our little rickety court-house, in order to be in the centre of the
village, stands on a rocky hill-crest away by itself. When the wind
blows high, awesome noises with much creaking and groaning help to
suggest to the guilty conscience that supernatural agencies are at
work. The half-hour was purposely a long one, and had the desired
effect. Ike made a full confession of his delinquencies and promised
reparation. An immediate search while he was in this frame of mind
revealed that Emile's winter food could only be obtained by leaving
Ike to a diet of hope and charity. The lesson being necessary,
however, the whole of his supplies were loaded into the boat, and Ike
condemned to row it to Emile's house and land it at once. It was late
and dark, but the fear of what might happen to him alone on his point,
now that it was known that he had robbed a blind man, held more
terrors even than hunger for Ike. So the judgment of the court was
carried out that very night.
Partly moved by curiosity, Christmas found me once again visiting the
mansion under the cliff. A shortage in the commissariat was, I knew,
no new experience to the poor fellow, and even the wiles of a
"one-legger" cannot convert stones into bread. Ike, radiant with
smiles and fat as a spring seal, was out to meet me on my
arrival--which circumstance was a little difficult at first to
understand. Then he explained:
"You'm right, Doctor. It drives away t' bad luck when you pays up a
blind man. I hasn't wanted ne'er a t'ing since."
It had been a good voyage that year, and, as a matter of fact, every
one had a warm spot somewhere in his heart for "that rascal Ike." For
though he was admittedly a rogue, he was always such an amusing,
hail-fellow-well-met rogue, and not the really mean type which every
one dislikes. All the shore had heard of his dilemma, and, isolation
not allowing one man to know what another is doing, indiscriminate
charity had poured in upon poor Ike, without possibly doing him much
harm, for he attributed it absolutely to that oftentimes useful mentor
of the feeble-minded, the great god of good luck.
To my surprise it was Emile who really suffered most, though he would
not admit it, but by actual computation of the supplies in his very
give-away storeroom, I learned that he had secretly carried back to
Ike's beach in the dark just one half of those goods which "t' Law"
had recovered for him; and which Ike to this day believes were
deposited for his benefit by the good-luck fairy.
PORTLAND BILL
"It must be nigh sixty years ago, but I remembers it as if it was
yesterday, when a new settler come to live in our harbour," said
Skipper Life Flynn, at whose house I was spending the night with my
driver and dogs.
"Life" was short for Eliphoreth--the "given" names being mostly out of
the Bible down North. "It were a wonderful thing them days, for Father
were the only Liveyer then--that is, as stayed all the year round. He
didn't mind being alone, and t' moving in t' schooner every spring and
fall were bad for Mother. Fish were plenty every season one side or
t'other of Deadman's Cape, and there was lots of fur and swiles t'
winter. So he built a house in Sleepy Cove, and there us grew up!
"No, Doctor, I'm not able now to read and write. None of us is, for us
had no teachers. But we was all big, strong men, and handy at that,
and there wasn't a thing to be done wi' axe or saw about boats and
timber us couldn't do. We made a good deal at furring, too, and
many's and many's t' night in winter I've laid down under t' trees and
slept--with ne'er a greatcoat neither. An' if us wasn't brought up
scholars, Father taught us to be honest, and to fear God and nothing
and nobody else.
"It were our way them days to greet every stranger as a friend, and so
when Bill started his cabin,--for that was all it ever were,--us lads
all went in and helped him chop and saw t' logs for studding.
"In winter Father minded t' big French Room; but he were away hunting
most of t' time, there being no need to watch much, being as there was
no one besides ourselves anywhere near. But early spring and late fall
when t' fleets were passing, it were day and night watch, and not
without a gun neither.
"But it would have paid us better to have watched that winter; for
when t' Frenchmen come in t' spring there was a number of little
things missing that Father had to stand to--and, somehow, us never
suspected t' newcomer.
"It was only long afterwards us learned how t' new settler come by his
name--which was 'Skipper Bill Portland.' Seems that's where the big
English convict prison is. So after Bill escaped, he not being good at
letters, and not wanting exactly to use his own name, he just twisted
her round, and to this day no one's ever found out really who he was
before.
"Hundreds of schooners anchored in the Bight in our harbour that
spring, t' whitecoats having come right in on t' floe, just t' other
side of t' Deadman's Cape. One day a schooner captain read we a piece
in t' papers about a man what had been a pirate, what had escaped to
Newfoundland; and a hundred dollars was being offered for his head.
Reading about that man made us all think of Skipper Portland. It were
his build and his kind, too. But us folk never mixed with that kind of
work; and all us did was to keep a good lookout for t' future. But a
poor neighbour he proved to be, for he were as cute as a fox, and he
had no fear o' nothing.
"He weren't no idle man, though, Skipper Bill weren't. That second
winter he set to and built a ten-tonner all by hisself--that is, t'
hull. He had galvanized fastenings for her, such as he never bought
fair in Newfoundland. But o' course he had no gear to fit her out, and
he couldn't get any more than he'd got already off our room. We lads
saw to that, and he knew it, too--and that it weren't safe playing no
games, neither.
"He were away t' following winter, 'furring,' so he told we, but no
fox could ever get fooled by a trap Skipper Bill set. It weren't in
his line, getting round animals. Beyond which he had ne'er a trap. He
'lowed he just set deadfalls--a good name for his work, I'm thinking
now. Anyhow, he came back with enough gear, stolen off French Rooms to
t' south, I reckon, to get his boat afloat by t' time t' owners got
back.
"She were an odd craft, built for a crew of one man only. For Skipper
Bill hadn't much trust in any man 'cept hisself. Once when he were
full o' French brandy he told me that when he were working on t'
cliffs in England, he found out that his mate were going to 'squeal,'
as he called it, about his leaving, so he'd given him such a kick
behind when he weren't expecting it that no one had ever heard from
him since. He meant, we reckoned, that t' poor fellow had fell off t'
bill into t' sea.
"When he built that boat he were thinking already that he might have
to leave sudden, and perhaps a crew wouldn't be willing to, even if he
got one. So he trimmed his teller lanyards to run forrard, so as he
could steer before t' foremast, and handle t' headsheets hisself going
to windward, and at t' same time keep a lookout for ice and slob.
"Many's t' time I've seen him sailing along with ne'er a watch on deck
at all, he being below aft steering by compass from t' locker, with t'
tiller lines leading down the companion hatch.
"I minds one fall that he brought in a big cask o' rum and a lot o'
brandy, which he were going to sell to us folk. But Father wouldn't
stand for that. He said that he'd seen too much of it when he were
young to want any more lying round. We lads found it only fun to go
over and knock t' heads in, and hear what old Portland had to say
about we.
"One day, however, a fellow all dressed in blue came down from St.
John's to take he along, and before Bill knew it t' boat were
alongside his craft and t' man calling he to come ashore. Bill knowed
what he were at once. He'd had experience. 'All right, Officer,' he
said, 'I'll just get my coat and come along,' But when he come up on
deck he had a barrel of gunpowder all open and a box of matches in his
hand. 'Come on, now,' he shouted with an oath, 'let's all go to hell
together.' But just as soon as ever t' small boat backed off, he runs
forrard and slips his cable, and was off before t' wind before youse
could say 'Jack Robinson.'
"He always left his mainsail up, Skipper Bill did. 'Better be sure
than sorry' was a rule he always told us were his religion.
"T' policeman seemed in two minds about following t' boat, but when
she rounded Deadman's Cape, he rows back ashore. I minds running up t'
hill to watch where Skipper Bill would go, but he stood right on
across for t' Larbadore. T' policeman said that that weren't his beat;
and he looked glad enough that it weren't neither. Old Portland never
came back to Sleepy Cove to live. He just left everything
standing--which were mostly only what he couldn't take away with him
anyhow.
"That fall one of t' Frenchmen stowed away in t' woods when their ship
was getting ready for home. His name was Louis Marteau; and his vessel
had no sooner gone than in he goes and lives in Bill's house across t'
cove. Things got missing again that winter, and though Father had to
feed him, seeing that he hadn't been able to steal a diet, we lads
give him notice to quit in t' spring. As he didn't show no signs of
moving, us just put a couple of big trees for shoes under t' house,
and ran it and Louis, too, out onto t' ice as far as t' cape--a matter
of two miles or more.
"So us thought us had done with both of them, and a good riddance too;
but when t' spring opened t' Frenchman wrote up to t' English
man-o'-war captain to come in and find out about t' things what
they'd lost. So one day in comes t' big ship and anchors right
alongside in our bay. T' very first man to come rowing across and go
aboard to see what he could get, I reckon, was Louis Marteau. When t'
captain asked him what he wanted, he said that he had come over to ask
him to send a boat to t' cape to search his rooms, as t' neighbours
blamed he for having taken their things.
"Well, it were a long way to go and there were no motor boats them
days; and t' captain must have thought if Louis had taken anything he
had it hid away where no one would find it. So they just didn't take
t' trouble to send out a crew and look. At the same time Louis had
stolen fish drying on his flakes, and stolen twine right in his open
fish stage to go and catch more with.
"Another steamer came in t' fall, and Louis, thinking that t' trouble
had blown over, went aboard as usual. One of t' officers, thinking
that the man was just a fisherman, and as simple as most o' we, asked
him if he didn't know where a man called Louis Marteau was. 'Yes,"
said Louis, 'I knows he well. He be here to-day, and gone
to-morrow'--and with that he slips away, and was far enough in the
woods for safety long before the searching party landed.
"Louis, like old Bill, was as fond o' liquor as a cat is o' milk; and
when he got French brandy in him, he didn't care what he did. There be
only one law here which every one keeps, as you knows, Doctor, on this
coast. Whatever else you does, you must never touch t' property of
another settler, whether he be good or bad, or whether he be away
fishing, or whether he be in America. Because any time he may need to
come back, and that many are away summers fishing, if they can't leave
their homes locked and feel 'em safe, they can't live at all. So
everybody minds that law, whether it be written in St. John's or not.
There are new stages, yes, and houses, too, and plenty of 'em, and
boats hauled up, that men has left and gone to Canada years ago.
They're tumbling down right alongside folk as needs 'em as bad as gold
just for firewood, but ne'er a stick is touched come year, go
year--not till they rots or t' sea comes and carries 'em away.
"Well, Louis and a man called Tom Marling got some liquor aboard that
day, and started scrapping, Marling saying that Louis must be a crook
or he wouldn't steal another man's house. T' end of that was that
Louis shot Marling through the shoulder and nearly blew his arm off.