Hudson Bay, R. M. Ballantyne [read full novel TXT] 📗

I was absent from the post. Mr Coral, soon after my arrival, went to visit the Company’s posts lower down the St. Lawrence, leaving me in charge of Isle Jérémie; and as I had little or nothing to do in the way of business (our Indians not having arrived from the interior), most of my time was spent in reading and shooting.

It was here I took my first lessons in navigation—I mean in a practical way; as for the scientific part of the business, that was deferred to a more favourable opportunity—and, truly, the lessons were rather rough. The way of it was this:— Our flour at Isle Jérémie had run out. Indians were arriving every day calling loudly for flour, and more were expected; so Mr Coral told me, one fine morning, to get ready to go to Tadousac in the boat for a load of flour. This I prepared to do at once, and started after breakfast in a large boat, manned by two men. The wind was fair, and I fired a couple of shots with my fowling-piece, as we cleared the harbour, in answer to an equal number of salutes from two iron cannons that stood in front of the house. By-the-bye, one of these guns had a melancholy interest attached to it a few months after this. While firing a salute of fourteen rounds, in honour of the arrival of a Roman Catholic bishop, one of them exploded while the man who acted as gunner was employed in ramming home the cartridge, and blew him about twenty yards down the bank. The unfortunate man expired in a few hours. Poor fellow! he was a fine little Canadian, and had sailed with me, not many weeks before, in a voyage up the St. Lawrence. But to return. Our voyage, during the first few days, was prosperous enough, and I amused myself in shooting the gulls which were foolish enough to come within range of my gun, and in recognizing the various places along shore where I had rested and slept on the memorable occasion of my snow-shoe trip.

But when did the St. Lawrence prove friendly for an entire voyage? Certainly not when I had the pleasure of ploughing its rascally waters! The remainder of our voyage was a succession of squalls, calms, contrary winds, sticking on shoals for hours, and being detained on shore, with an accompaniment of pitching, tossing, oscillation and botheration, that baffles all description. However, time brings the greatest miseries to an end; and in the process of time we arrived at Tadousac—loaded our boat deeply with flour—shook hands with our friends—related our adventures—bade them adieu—and again found ourselves scudding down the St. Lawrence, with a snoring breeze on our quarter.

Now this was truly a most delectable state of things, when contrasted with our wretched trip up; so we wrapped our blankets round us (for it was very cold), and felicitated ourselves considerably on such good fortune. It was rather premature, however; as, not long after, we had a very narrow escape from being swamped. The wind, as I said before, was pretty strong, and it continued so the whole way; so that on the evening of the second day we came within sight of Isle Jérémie, while running before a stiff breeze, through the green waves which were covered with foam. Our boat had a “drooping nose,” and was extremely partial to what the men termed “drinking;” in other words, it shipped a good deal of water over the bows. Now it happened that while we were straining our eyes ahead, to catch a sight of our haven, an insidious squall was creeping fast down behind us. The first intimation we had of its presence was a loud and ominous hiss, which made us turn our heads round rather smartly; but it was too late—for with a howl, that appeared to be quite vicious the wind burst upon our sails, and buried the boat in the water, which rushed in a cataract over the bows, and nearly filled us in a moment, although the steersman threw her into the wind immediately. The sheets were instantly let go, and one of the men, who happened to be a sailor, jumped up, and, seizing an axe, began to cut down the main-mast, at the same time exclaiming to the steersman, “You’ve done for us now, Cooper!” He was mistaken, however, for the sails were taken in just in time to save us; and, while the boat lay tumbling in the sea, we all began to bail, with anything we could lay hands on, as fast as we could. In a few minutes the boat was lightened enough to allow of our hoisting the fore-sail; and about half an hour afterwards we were safely anchored in the harbour.

This happened within about three or four hundred yards of the shore; yet the best swimmer in the world would have been drowned ere he reached it, as the water was so bitterly cold, that when I was bailing for my life, and, consequently, in pretty violent exercise, my hands became quite benumbed and almost powerless.

Shortly after this I was again sent up to Tadousac, in charge of a small bateau, of about ten or fifteen tons, with a number of shipwrecked seamen on board. These unfortunate men had been cast on shore about the commencement of winter, on an uninhabited part of the coast, and had remained without provisions or fire for a long time, till they were discovered by a gentleman of the Hudson Bay Company, and conveyed over the snow in sleighs to the nearest establishment, which happened to be Isle Jérémie. Here they remained all winter, in a most dreadfully mutilated condition, some of them having been desperately frozen. One of the poor fellows, a negro, had one of his feet frozen off at the ankle, and had lost all the toes and the heel of the other, the bone being laid bare for about an inch and a half. Mr Coral, the gentleman who had saved them, did all in his power to relieve their distress—amputating their frozen limbs, and dressing their wounds, while they were provided with food and warm clothing. I am sorry to say, however, that these men, who would have perished had it not been for Mr Coral’s care of them, were the first, upon arriving at Quebec the following spring, to open their mouths in violent reproach and bitter invective against him; forgetting that, while their only charge against him was a little severity in refusing them a few trifling and unnecessary luxuries, he had saved them from a painful and lingering death.

In a couple of days we arrived at Tadousac the second time, to the no small astonishment of my brother scribbler residing there. After reloading our craft, we directed our course once more down the gulf.

This time the wind was also favourable, but, unfortunately, a little too strong; so we were obliged, in the evening, to come to an anchor in Esquimain River. This river has good anchorage close to the bank, but is very deep in the lead, or current; this, however, we did not know at the time, and seeing a small schooner close to shore, we rounded to a few fathoms outside of her, and let go our anchor. Whirr! went the chain—ten! twelve! sixteen! till at last forty fathoms ran out, and only a little bit remained on board, and still we had no bottom. After attaching our spare cable to the other one, the anchor at last grounded. This, however, was a dangerous situation to remain in, as, if the wind blew strong, we would have to run out to sea, and so much cable would take a long time to get in; so I ordered my two men, in a very pompous, despotic way, to heave up the anchor again. But not a bit would it budge. We all heaved at the windlass; still the obstinate anchor held fast. Again we gave another heave, and smashed both the handspikes.

In this dilemma I begged assistance from the neighbouring schooner, and they kindly sent all their men on board with new handspikes; but our refractory anchor would not let go, and at last it was conjectured that it had got foul of a rock, and that it was not in the power of mortal man to move it. Under these pleasant circumstances we went to bed, in hopes that the falling tide might swing us clear before morning. This turned out just as we expected—or, rather, a little better—for next morning, when I went on deck, I found that we were drifting quietly down the gulf, stern foremost, all the sails snugly tied up, and the long cable dragging at the bows! Towards evening we arrived at Jérémie, and I gladly resigned command of the vessel to my first lieutenant.

One afternoon, near the middle of April, I sat sunning myself in the veranda before the door of the principal house at Isle Jérémie, and watched the fields of ice, as they floated down the Gulf of St. Lawrence, occasionally disappearing behind the body of a large pig, which stood upon a hillock close in front of me, and then reappearing again as the current swept them slowly past the intervening obstacle.

Mr Coral, with whom I had been leading a very quiet, harmless sort of life for a couple of weeks past, leant against a wooden post, gazing wistfully out to sea. Suddenly he turned towards me, and with great gravity told me that, as there was nothing particular for me to do at the establishment, he meant to send me down to Seven Islands, to relieve the gentleman at that post of his charge; adding, that as he wished me to set off the following morning at an early hour, I had better pack up a few things to-night.

Now, this order may not seem, at the first glance, a very dreadful one; but taking into consideration that Seven Islands is one hundred and twenty miles below the post at which I then resided, it did appear as if one would wish to think about it a little before starting. Not having time to think about it, however, I merely, in a sort of bantering desperation, signified my readiness to undertake a voyage to any part of the undiscovered world, at any moment he (Mr Coral) might think proper, and then vanished, to prepare myself for the voyage.

It was optional with me whether I should walk through one hundred and twenty miles of primeval and most impassable forest, or paddle over an equal number of miles of water. Preferring the latter, as being at once the less disagreeable and more expeditious method, I accordingly, on the following morning, embarked in a small Indian canoe, similar to the one in which I had formerly travelled with two Indians in the North-West. My companions were—a Canadian, who acted as steersman; a genuine Patlander, who ostensibly acted as bowsman, but in reality was more useful in the way of ballast; and a young Newfoundland dog, which I had got as a present from Mr Stone while at Tadousac.

When we were all in our allotted places, the canoe was quite full; and we started from Isle Jérémie in good spirits, with the broad, sun-like face of Mike Lynch looming over the bows of the canoe, and the black muzzle of Humbug (the dog) resting on its gunwale.

It is needless to describe the voyage minutely. We had the usual amount of bad and good weather, and ran the risk several times of upsetting; we had, also, several breakfasts, dinners, suppers, and beds in the forest; and on the afternoon of the third day we arrived at Goodbout, an establishment nearly half-way between the post I had left and the one to which I was bound. Here we stayed all night, proposing to start again on the morrow. But