Under the Great Bear. Munroe Kirk

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СКАЧАТЬ resumed his preparations for supper. At the same time he was still too weak, and, in spite of his biscuit, too ravenously hungry to care for further conversation just then. So it was only after a most satisfactory meal and several cups of very hot tea that he was ready in his turn to ask questions. But he was not given the chance; for, as soon as White Baldwin was through with eating, he went on dock to relieve the tiller, and the other member of the crew, whose name was David Gidge, came below.

      He was a man of remarkable appearance, of very broad shoulders and long arms; but with legs so bowed outward as to materially lower his stature, which would have been short at best, and convert his gait into an absurd waddle. His face was disfigured by a scar across one cheek that so drew that corner of his mouth downward as to produce a peculiarly forbidding expression. He also wore a bristling iron-grey beard that grew in form of a fringe or ruff, and added an air of ferocity to his make up.

      As this striking-looking individual entered the cabin and rolled into a seat at the table, he cast one glance, accompanied by a grunt, at Cabot, and then proceeded to attend strictly to the business in hand. He ate in such prodigious haste, and gulped his food in such vast mouthfuls, that he had cleaned the table of its last crumb, and was fiercely stuffing black tobacco into a still blacker pipe, before Cabot, who really wished to talk with him, had decided how to open the conversation. Lighting his pipe and puffing it into a ruddy glow, Mr. Gidge made a waddling exit from the cabin, bestowing on our lad another grunt as he passed him, and leaving an eddying wake of rank tobacco smoke to mark his passage.

      For some time after this episode Cabot struggled to keep awake in the hope that White would return and answer some of his questions; but finally weariness overcame him, and he fell into a sleep that lasted without a break until after sunrise of the following morning.

      In the meantime the little schooner had held her course, and swept onward past the flashing beacons of Cape Race, Cape Pine, and Cape St. Mary, until, at daylight, she was standing across the broad reach of Placentia Bay towards the bald headland of Cape Chapeau Rouge. She was making a fine run, and in spite of his weariness after a six hours' watch on deck, White Baldwin presented a cheery face to Cabot, as the latter vainly strove to recognise and account for his surroundings.

      "Good morning," said the young skipper, "I hope you have slept well, and are feeling all right again."

      "Yes, thank you," replied Cabot, suddenly remembering, "I slept splendidly, and am as fit as a fiddle. Have we made a good run?"

      "Fine; we have come nearly a hundred miles from the place where we picked you up."

      "Then we must be almost to St. Johns," suggested Cabot, tumbling from his bunk as he spoke. "I am glad, for it is important that I should get there as quickly as possible."

      "St. Johns!" replied the other blankly. "Didn't you know that we had come from St. Johns, and were going in the opposite direction? Why, we are more than one hundred and fifty miles from there at this minute."

      CHAPTER VI.

      THE FRENCH SHORE QUESTION

      Although Cabot had had no reason to suppose that the "Sea Bee" was on her way to St. Johns, it had not for a moment occurred to him that she could be going anywhere else. Thus the news that they were not only a long way from the place he wished to reach, but steadily increasing their distance from it, so surprised him that for a moment he sat on the edge of his bunk gazing at the speaker as though doubting if he had heard aright. Finally he asked: "Where, then, are we bound?"

      "To Pretty Harbour, around on the west coast, where I live," was the answer.

      "I'd be willing to give you fifty dollars to turn around and carry me to St. Johns," said Cabot.

      "Couldn't do it if you offered me a hundred, much as I need the money, and glad as I would be to oblige you, for I've got to get home in a hurry if I want to find any home to get to. You see, it's this way," continued White, noting Cabot's look of inquiry, "Pretty Harbour being on the French shore–"

      "What do you mean by the French shore?" interrupted Cabot. "I thought you lived in Newfoundland, and that it was an English island."

      "So it is," explained White; "but, for some reason or other, I don't know why, England made a treaty with France nearly two hundred years ago, by which the French were granted fishing privileges from Cape Bay along the whole west coast to Cape Bauld, and from there down the east coast as far as Cape St. John. By another treaty made some years afterwards France was granted, for her own exclusive use, the islands of Miquelon and St. Pierre, that lie just ahead of us now.

      "In the meantime the French have been allowed to do pretty much as they pleased with the west coast, until now they claim exclusive rights to its fisheries, and will hardly allow us natives to catch what we want for our own use. They send warships to enforce their demands, and these compel us to sell bait to French fishermen at such price as they choose to offer. Why, I have seen men forced to sell bait to the French at thirty cents a barrel, when Canadian and American fishing boats wore offering five times that much for it. At the same time the French officers forbid us to sell to any but Frenchmen, declaring that if we do they will not only prevent us from fishing, but will destroy our nets."

      "I should think you would call on English warships for protection," said Cabot. "There surely must be some on this station."

      "Yes," replied the other, bitterly, "there are, but they always take the part of the French, and do even more than they towards breaking up our business."

      "What?" cried Cabot. "British warships take part with the French against their own people! That is one of the strangest things I ever heard of, and I can't understand it. Is not this an English colony?"

      "Yes, it is England's oldest colony; but, while I was born in it, and have lived here all my life, I don't understand the situation any better than you."

      "It seems to me," continued Cabot, "that the conditions here must be fully as bad as those that led to the American Revolution, and I should think you Newfoundlanders would rebel, and set up a government of your own, or join the United States, or do something of that kind."

      "Perhaps we would if we could," replied White; "but our country is only a poor little island, with a population of less than a quarter of a million. If we should rebel, we would have to fight both England and France. We should have to do it without help, too, for the United States, which is the only country we desire to join, does not want us. So you see there is nothing for us to do but accept the situation, and get along as best we can."

      "Why don't you emigrate to the States?" suggested Cabot.

      "Plenty of people whom I know have done so," replied the young Newfoundlander, "and I might, too, if it were not for my mother and sister; but I don't know how I could make a living for them in the States, or even for myself. You see, everything we have in the world is tied up right here. Besides, it would be hard to leave one's own country and go to live among strangers. Don't you think so?"

      "How do you make a living here?" asked Cabot, ignoring the last question.

      "We have made it until now by canning lobsters; but it looks as though even that business was to be stopped from this on."

      "Why? Is it wrong to can lobsters?"

      "On the French shore, it seems to be one of the greatest crimes a person can commit, worse even than smuggling, and the chief duty of British warships on this station is to break it up."

      "Well, that beats all!" exclaimed Cabot. "Why is canning lobsters considered so wicked?"

      "I don't know that I can explain СКАЧАТЬ