Chapter V: Appendix: 249 (3)

"It's the same way with conventions and caucuses," remarked the Vice, regaining his self-respect as he imagined himself once more the Commodore's equal.

"You've been a soldier," said the Purser to the Cook, "and I am longing to see once more the uniform of my native country. Tell me how to gain admission to the fort."

The Cook replied,

"Go around to the sally port, which you will be sure to find opening away from the neighboring republic, and fire your pistol. The guard will hurry out and make you its prisoner; then the Commodore and I will come around and intercede for you, on the ground of your ignorance."

The Purser looked disdainful; "And think you," said he, "that Britain's laws are so fitful as to waver under the persuasions of a brace of Yankees?"

"When Yankees can't persuade Britishers," remarked the Vice, "they usually proceed to"--

"Pack a High Court of Arbitration," interrupted the Purser.

The quartette straggled through the tall weeds, which prevented farther chaff, and reached the sally port. The heavy gates hung aloft, their duty being discharged by deputy in the shape of long rails resting edgewise in two posts, and with "No Admittance" painted upon a board. The garrison, moving on interior lines, gradually massed itself behind the board, its forefingers taking wary positions within its respective mouths. Behind, and in the centre of the terreplain, towered an enormous haystack. "Behold," said the Purser, "the ingenuity with which the garrison has placed the haystack just where riflemen can take shelter behind it, and command the entrance to the fort, picking off infatuated Yankees who venture upon the drawbridge."

"True," retorted the Cook, "the idea is not unlike that of General Jackson, who used cotton-bales at New Orleans, but I believe it was not Yankees, who were picked off." The contrast between the ideal and the real was so absorbing, as the four stood at the bridge-head, that some time elapsed before they realized that clouds had gathered heavily, and begun to drop their contents.

"My main hatch is open!" shrieked the Vice, as he hurried off to his canoe.

"My tobacco--and it's a rare Brazilian article--is lying in the bottom of my boat!" shouted the Cook, as he followed the Vice.

"The Vice and the Cook will tow up the other boats," ordered the Commodore, "while the Purser and I construct temporary shelter."

Several hundred yards from the fort was a group of trees and a board pile, and to this the commanding officer and the Purser hastened. The trees seemed to have been a favorite resort of cattle, and the contents of the board pile were rotten, but it was not a time to be particular, so a beam was stretched between the limbs of two trees, and boards slanted against it to shed the rain. Fortunately a platform of boards happened to be just where the extempore shed would cover it. When the Vice and the Cook returned, the latter considerately bringing dinner material with him, it was discovered to be noon-day, so the party did justice to bread and butter, cold tongue, and a can of apricots. Suddenly the Vice remarked,

"I suppose these boards beneath our feet are the floor of some late military structure. I can't help noticing how perfectly they are combined for drainage, sagging, as they do, at the centre."

The Commodore had not before noticed the peculiarity alluded to, but now his mathematical eye saw that the depression in the boards was lower than the surface of the surrounding ground. Extracting a trolling line from the Vice's pocket, he lowered a sinker cautiously in a crack between two boards, unrolled considerable line, withdrew it, and remarked,

"I have the pleasure of informing the squadron that during military occupation of the fort, the inmates of the hospital, the ruins of which we behold in front of us, had an abundant supply of cool water from a very deep well, which well is at the present moment directly under us, while the boards which cover it are slowly breaking."

Every one sprang to his feet. While at his home occupation of statesmanship, the Vice never beheld disaster impending over his own party without speedily traversing the whole distance between his own party and the opposition, so on this particular occasion, his instincts impelled him to dash through rain, mud, and thistles toward the ruins of the hospital, whose wall offered the most distinct shelter within view. The Vice wore a helmet, his long whiskers fluttered behind him on the breeze, his shoulders and body were covered by a black rubber blanket, his trowsers were rolled high above his stockingless calves, and he wore a huge pair of carpet slippers, which were nearly as wide as they were long. His figure and attitudes, as he ran, were so full of suggestion that the artist preserved them in a series of sketches, severally entitled.

"The Flight of Cain."

"Scotch Laird enjoying His Favorite Weather."

"Study of the Bottom of a Bear's Foot."

"Rip Van Winkle chased by Dogs."

"Mephistophiles Triumphant."

"Election Returns from a Rural District."

"The great Vampire Bat."

The absence of the Vice left his late companions in possession of additional elbow room, but on a rainy day there are blessings more to be desired than elbow room. Among these is a pipe of tobacco, and four walls between which to smoke it. The Cook's precious Brazilian tobacco was wet, the Commodore and the Purser had left their pouches in their boats, but each man had a pipe in his pocket, and it was known that the Vice had in his possession a bag of delicious weed. So dispatches were sent him during a slight lull in the storm, and the Commodore and Purser made a reconnoissance in the direction of the fort. The garrison being invisible, the storming party dashed over the bridge and beneath the temporary portcullis, putting to flight a large body of chickens who were carelessly resting upon their arms in the guard-room. These alarmed the commander of the fort, who at once emerged from headquarters, with an axe upon his shoulder, and himself in dishabille.

The Commodore saluted the commandant, and asked, with due formality, the courtesy of shelter for himself and companions, and for permission to walk about the fort when the rain should cease.

"Is it wantin' to be out av the wet ye are?" asked the commandant; "come straight into the kitchen an dhry yerselves."

"There are two more of us, yet to come," explained the Commodore.

"Ah, niver ye fear," quoth the old man; "isn't the kitchen in the casemate that held the biggest gun, in the good ould times, an' hasn't a whole company av the Rifles been in there to wanst many's the time."

The casemate proved of generous size, as was also the cooking-stove that stood in the midst of it. The commandant's wife and children made haste to place chairs, while one child was detailed to bring in the Vice and the Cook at the double-quick. Soon the quartette sat about the refilled stove, and though the month was July, no one thought to push back his chair. Gradually there stole over the party that delicious drowsiness which is peculiar to a man who has been acting as clothes-horse to a wet suit--a drowsiness

"That resembles slumber only
As the mist resembles rain"--

a drowsiness which demands not sleep, but smoke. In short, each member of the expedition was dying for a pipe, but he would have prolonged his sensation of dissolution to its logical end rather than have got out of his chair on the one hand, or, on the other, have ventured to smoke in an apartment which was apparently the host's parlor as well as his kitchen. But the Vice, the Statesman, the moulder of men, came at the critical instant to the rescue of his companions and to that of

"A nearer one
Still, and a dearer one"--

himself.

"You must find it quite lonesome here at times," he remarked to the commandant of the fort.

"Thrue for yez, an' I do," responded her Majesty's representative.

"Still," continued the Vice, "I suppose you can once in a while take some comfort out of a drop and a smoke?"

The commandant of the fort winked profoundly. The Vice passed his half pint flask stealthily to the custodian of Britain's honor, and the old man, first prudently sending his wife out of the casemate for something, drained the flask with the greatest courtesy and enthusiasm. Then the Vice remarked,

"I suppose you get very good smoking tobacco in Canada, as there is no duty on it, but permit me to leave you a fine pouch of it, as a slight remembrance of your courtesy to us."

The commandant accepted the token of esteem, and smiled his thanks from every line of his wrinkled visage. Then he opened the pouch, and advanced his ancient nose, first cautiously, then critically, and finally with a sniff of decided approbation.

"Try it at once," said the Vice, with ill-dissembled eagerness. "Don't hesitate on our account--we are old smokers."

The commandant acted at once upon the suggestion, first courteously passing the bag to his guests. Within three minutes these traditional enemies were smoking the pipe of peace together, nor was lovely woman missing from the circle, for the commandant's lady filled and lit, not exactly a yard, but a "lady-finger" of clay herself, and puffed thereat with great satisfaction.

The rain ended, the party went out to look at the fort, and discovered that what from the outside had appeared a mere earthwork was really a very carefully built fort, with stone quarters, galleries, casemates and revetments, and easy of defence to a mere handful of men.

Just as the party was bidding adieu to their kind entertainers, there occurred an accident which displayed to an unexpected degree the _esprit de corps_ of the expedition. The commandant had offered the Commodore some milk for the expedition, if some one would wait an hour for it--the cows were quite a way off, he said. To wait inside a grim fort while the sun shone brightly outside, and four canoes needing inspection on account of damages by rain, was a duty to chill the ardent soul. Just then, however, when the Commodore was wondering if he could safely forget his own morning detail of himself as fleet milkman, and assign this duty to some one else, the commandant's older daughter, heretofore invisible, and of about eighteen or twenty summers, appeared from an adjoining room.

"_I'll_ stay, Commodore," shouted three manly voices in unison. The Commodore was so affected by this devotion to the interests of the fleet that he felt shamed into a determination to remain true to his self-appointed duty, but when he beheld the Purser's pleading eyes, more eloquent than any words could be, human sympathy overcame soulless discipline in the Commodore's rugged breast, and the brotherhood of man asserted itself.

The wind and the shower died together, and as each captain of a vessel had some special reason to wish himself farther on his journey, it was agreed that the squadron should proceed under paddles, and camp for the night at a point which the Vice knew all about, having camped there during a previous cruise with the Alderman. This plan was accepted with expressions of the liveliest satisfaction.

As the Purser rejoined the command with his milk pail, the three Americans were seriously conversing about garrison life, as it exists in the British service.

"I have often read," the Vice was saying, "of the exalted social tone which pervades the British army, and I confess that I am glad to have been admitted even for so short a time into society so select."

"I have always understood," said the Commodore, "that the commandant of an English military post is sure to be a gentleman of high social position at home."

The Cook remarked that "it was pleasant to have the notions of the simple and unaffected manners of the English aristocracy, as derived from contemporaneous literature, so pleasantly confirmed by an actual experience."

"But you know that there isn't any--" put in the Purser.

The Cook went on serenely with his remarks, in the same vein and was so ably seconded by his fellow citizens, that the Purser finally embarked and paddled away, stopping a few yards from shore to shout defiantly back,

"It was all Gladstone's doings, you know. But for him there would have been a regular garrison there, and may be you wouldn't have been so cordially received."

To be out of doors and at liberty for ten days is, to men without physical vices, wonderfully exhilarating, and enforced confinement by a few hours of rain only intensifies physical spirit and alertness. Every nerve and muscle seems to demand something to do, a mountain to climb, an untamed horse to ride, a locomotive to drive, a regiment to lead into a battle, or--as was the case with the Vice on this particular afternoon--a good, close, vicious political canvass to dash into. To gratify and utilize this sensation, there is no sport superior or equal to that of paddling a canoe. Rowing may lessen the physical disquiet, but while the canoeist sits upright in his boat, voluntarily working only with his arms, and learning of unsupposed physical availability and grace with every motion, the oarsman sways to and fro like the deserted half of a melancholy hinge, which wavers helplessly about in air, always longing for something to attach itself to, but never finding it. Besides, the paddler faces his water and his goal, instead of fixing his eyes unceasingly upon the fleeting past. The oarsman's duties are confined to steady pulling, while with every stroke of his paddle, the canoeist pulls and pushes also, discharging these duties with alternate arms as he works upon the opposite sides of his boat. The exercise is not passive, like that which one takes on horseback, nor does it partake of that mental strain which a man experiences when he takes the helm of his own yacht. It is superior, by far, in physical benefit, to that most exhilarating experience that comes of driving a canoe under full sail and before a brisk breeze. And if, after an hour's work at the beginning of a cruise, the canoeist finds himself the owner of two handfuls of blisters which nobody cares to borrow, he finds himself at its end in possession of a fund of strength, spirits, and clearness of head and heart that are far too precious to lend, although they may have been bought very cheaply.

The paddles used by the modern canoeist are like that represented on the cover of this book. They are very light, being made usually of spruce, an inch and a half in diameter at the largest part of the shaft. For a wide canoe a nine foot paddle is desirable, but for narrower craft one seven and a half feet or even seven feet long is sufficient. A common ferule joint in the middle facilitates close packing. Two joints dividing the paddle in three parts, do not work well in practice. Rubber rings, or the two halves of a three inch rubber ball cut to slip over the shafts prevent the water from dripping inboard.

The squadron had sailed thus far without beholding any of the picturesque which is peculiarly French, but now it hoped that at landing, the essence of Acadia would be visible. It seemed for a few moments as if this hope was about to be realized, for as the boats approached their prospective landing, two quaintly dressed boys stood observantly and quietly upon the bank, instead of dancing and hooting like savages, or casting stones and objurgations at the squadron, as almost any brace of boys in the United States would have done under similar circumstances.

"Note the respectful ways engendered by monarchical institutions," observed the Commodore.

"Rather the absence of the spirit which the heavy hand of despotism has crushed out," replied the Vice.

As the boats were beached, the boys timidly approached them. The Vice, forgetting his first encounter of the picturesque, accosted them in French, and was somewhat confused by their replies until he learned that the youths were of English parentage, and that they lisped.

The boys were soon reinforced by their father, a tall, modest, but self-reliant looking man, who eyed the camping preparations of the party with an interest which was greater than curiosity, and which was explained afterward by the discovery that he had been of the Argonauts of '49.

The Vice, in his capacity of Statesman, knew the honest farmer as a type, only as the principal element of mass-meetings which he sometimes addressed; the Commodore, when in his editorial chair, knew him principally as a subscriber to be secured; the Cook, when playing scribbler, found the farmer-type useful to contrast with other types, and the Purser, when in his studio, knew him only as an occasional adjunct to a pastoral composition.

But after the self-contained, hard-working, rather lonely and diffident farmer had lounged about the camp for a couple of hours that evening, the party learned, as the city-bred man needs sorely to learn about many another farmer, that the old man could see something in a sunset besides tints reducible into pigments, more in a book than its writer's art, that he knew more of the essentials of politics than the editor and statesman combined, and stranger still, that he cared neither to edit a newspaper nor to run for office.

After a good supper and a cheerful pipe or two, the Commodore, who had been extremely quiet for a few moments, announced that he considered it the proper thing for canoeists to sleep in their boats instead of tents.

"Then," said the Commodore, "if the river rises suddenly, you will be in your boat, instead of having it drift away from you."

"And if you turn over in bed, in such case," remarked the Vice, "you'll never know what drowned you."

The Commodore did not reply, for the real object of suggestion was to emphasize one point of superiority of the Red Lake model, after which his own boat and the Cook's were built, over the Chrysalid model affected by the other two mariners. But the Commodore's will was law, and that night the four men slept each in his own canoe, a rubber blanket thrown across a line extending from mast to mast affording protection from dew and possible rain.

VIII.

THE BEGINNING OF ACADIA.

On the morning of this day, two canoeists arose from their nautical couches with that satisfied air which betokens a night of peaceful rest, but the Vice and the Purser arose only after many a premonitory groan, and even then they strongly resembled a couple of rough logs from which a single slab had been sawn, so flattened was one side of each. The Commodore eyed them with manifest satisfaction, called the attention of each of them to the appearance of the other, and exclaimed,

"Observe the effect of sleeping in a canoe with ribs and a bottom board! I was curious to see how the experiment would result."

"I wish, then," grunted the Vice, as by vicious pinches he sought to restore animation in his flattened side, "I wish--ow--that your devotion to science had prompted you to try the experiment upon yourself, and borrowed my canoe to do it in."

"Thanks, thanks," rejoined the Commodore, briskly, "but I had an experiment of the same sort to try in my own boat, which has a smooth concave bottom. I beg you will observe how my outlines preserve their habitual shapeliness."

The flat-sided sufferers retired for a bath, and speedily forgot their sorrows. If the morning bath in a city bath-tub is a washer-away of fragments of slumber, and a merry awakener, how much more delightful is the same exercise in an ever-replenishing body of water half a mile wide and hundreds of miles long, enclosed only by blue sky, green trees and brown earth, with no close dining-room and conventional breakfast to be descended to, no morning paper to be read, no vile horse-car to go to business on, nor any hard pavement to tramp over, and no brother man to find fault with, except in that cheerful banter which always comes back to bless the giver. Thus thought the Cook as he stood waist deep in the clear water, and thus he might have continued to think for a long time had his foot not impinged upon the riparian rights of an honest mussel with slightly parted shells.

The Commodore had already been out for provisions, and returned rejoicing.

"Another proof of the superiority of monarchical institutions," said he. "Instead of the prices we have been accustomed to heretofore, I pay twelve cents a-piece for chickens, ten cents per pound for butter, and three cents per dozen for eggs."

"And you are pleased to regard this cheapness as a virtue?" asked the Vice. "Is no one but the buyer to be considered?" How do you suppose people live who sell the products of their industry at such starvation figures? But monarchists and imperialists have but a single idea--to crush the poor."

The Commodore shrunk an inch or two in length and breadth, but soon recovered himself, donned a vicious smile, and announced with assumed cheerfulness that the time had come to "sling the healthy," whereby monarchists, imperialists and republicans would suffer alike.

"What's that?" asked the Cook.

The Commodore grinned sardonically. "He wants to know what, slinging the healthy, is," said he. "Well, he'll know before dinner. It means paddling--paddling in earnest, young man--paddling a ten or fifteen mile stretch, instead of a leisurely half mile."

There seemed no alternative, for the river was as smooth as glass. The sun noted the mirror-like surface of the water, and his natural vanity caused him to rub up his face until its brightness could not be increased. Just by way of refreshing the pleasurable sensation of beholding his face in the water, he dropped his gaze quite frequently upon the blue-shirted backs of the canoeists, until each man imagined that he must have caught some sparks from the camp-fire. Then it seemed as if there must be rain falling from the cloudless sky, for the Cook felt water-drops coursing steadily down his back. The Purser was sure his boat must be leaking, for water was gradually soaking the small canvas cushion on which he sat in the bottom of his canoe. The Vice's slippers grew clammily moist, and the Commodore's eyes filled with water which was not an accumulation of remorseful tears. But no man would debase himself so far as to be the first to cry for mercy.

But the Vice, the Statesman, was true to his profession. To have suggested a rest would have been merely a straight-forward act which even an idiot might have performed. The Vice preferred to gain his point by an exercise of intellect. Half a mile down the stream was a small pier; to this the Vice called the panting Commodore's attention, and exclaimed,

"That, by gosh,[6] is the identical dock where the Alderman and I went swimming. I assume that all such important precedents are to be respectfully observed?"

"They _are_," said the Commodore, almost fainting with the ecstasy of the transition from despair to hope.

Within ten minutes the boats were beached, and four perspiring canoeists, after an interval of rest, made haste to disrobe and take headers from the pier into the refreshing water.

From this pier the Commodore called the attention of his companions to a glittering spire which shot heavenward a mile down the river, and exclaimed,

"There begins Acadia. Every spire we see hereafter will be of that precise pattern--they are as unchanging as the beautiful faith which our sister Church of Rome maintains."

"Have we a Ritualist among us?" whispered the Vice to the Cook, with a face full of horror.

"Ye--es," replied the Cook, reluctantly, "but don't think too hardly of the poor fellow. Editors _must_ have some sort of religious belief, you know--they're human, like the rest of us--and how can they reconcile their practice to any thing but a religion of mere forms? What would religion be, if it did not provide for every man's own peculiar infirmities?"

The Vice eyed the Commodore with abating horror, nevertheless he began to talk Baptist doctrine to him. He even, to arouse his faculties to the utmost, strode up and down the shore warbling to himself (so the Purser declared) something like this:

"Baptist, Baptist is my style,
Baptist born was I.
I've been baptized in the Baptist way
And Baptist will I die."

But the Commodore was obdurate, and intimated that the Vice's experience in upsetting from a canoe had something to do with his denominational preference; things had to go according to law in newspaper offices, he said; the newspaper was the highest embodiment of human intellect, and so he reasoned, analogically, that men had no higher model to which to conform religion. The Vice sighed and determined to convert the Commodore--at a more convenient season.

The calm and heat continued, and no one was rude enough to make suggestions to the Commodore about starting. Indeed, the Purser remembered that he had brought a hammock, which until now he had forgotten. It was one of the most remarkable hammocks in the world--woven of silk by an Italian sailor--wouldn't the Commodore just try it? The Commodore accepted the proffer in gracious spirit; then the Cook remembered that the Commodore had never tried the wonderful, the priceless Brazilian tobacco, and there could be no fitter place than a hammock in which to sample it. The general result was that the Commodore occupied the hammock until the Cook announced dinner, and even then he arose with noticeable reluctance.

After dinner the breeze sprang up again, and as it wafted clouds of dust into the eyes, faces and hair of the expedition, as well as upon their garments, still damp with honest sweat, every one hailed with joy the order to sail. Besides, the dinner had been a mere lunch, and as the largest town on the river was but a few miles distant, the Cook suggested that an excellent dinner might be procured there at a quaint little French inn which he had visited in other days. This suggestion led to a lively race, which as usual in such cases was won by the Cook.[7] Whether beating or beaten, however, the pleasure of spreading all sails and making the best possible time in a good wind, was more than sufficient reward for all the effort put forth. With a boat fourteen feet long, and weighing, all rigging, spars, personal property, stores, etc., included, a scant hundred and fifty pounds, yet carrying fifty square feet of canvas, the canoeist has to exert to the uttermost his clearness of vision, nicety of touch (at the helm) weather wisdom, and balancing ability. He is himself his own ballast and the principal portion of the cargo. The shifting of five pounds of weight would compel a capsize, and the slightest flaw, carelessly caught, would even more certainly induce the same undesirable result. To keep all dead weight as far as possible below the water line, the navigator sits in the bottom of his boat, his back resting against a small board which, in turn, bears upon the after thwart or bulkhead. In one hand he holds the sheet of his mainsail; if he steers with a rudder, he holds one tiller rope in the same hand, and the other in the remaining digits. If he steers with a paddle, which is for several reasons the preferable mode, he holds the paddle with the hand unoccupied by the sheet; there is thus a steady strain upon both arms, and this strain is also a perfect brace. Some canoeists work the tiller with the feet, and this when properly carried out is a very convenient mode, but not every one who has tried it succeeds in making it work. The time which intervenes between the coming of a flaw and the full fruition of a capsize, is usually about three seconds, but one of these suffices for prevention, if the sailor promptly lets go his sheet or allows his boat's head to go into the wind. In practice, however, a flaw seldom strikes a close-hauled sail; the pilot's ear detects it coming several seconds before it strikes, and so, before it appears, the mainsail is as innocent of the possibility of abetting disaster as if it were the proprietor of a gambling saloon, who had been forewarned by some sympathetic police captain of an impending raid, or a skilful insurance president who knows that the state inspector is coming. How the canoeist's ear detects the coming flaw is the mystery and despair of the novice, though several hours of practice make this wisdom seem an acquisition some centuries old. When the "green" canoeist experiences a flaw, he generally seeks safety by letting go his sheet and at the same time steering "into the wind". Safety is at once assured, but when the boat again takes the "course," the other boats, if sailed by experts, are already too far away to be available if one wishes to borrow an æsthetic idea or a pipe of tobacco. The experienced sailor lets his sheet go sufficiently, but he knows to a breath when the flaw is sufficiently spent to allow him to "haul close" again, and he holds his course to a point all the while, saving some wind by throwing his weight well to windward. If he has a satisfactory family, but lacks as much life insurance as he desires, he will prefer to try a good wind over water not more than five feet deep, (and such water is a hundred times as plentiful as deeper water) but the chance of capsizing a sober canoeist of a week's practice is less than that of falling dead in the street at home; it is as easy to avoid as if it were the risk of stepping over a precipice in full view, for in the former case the catastrophe is as easily foreseen as in the latter. And while the boat is flying (literally, for her bottom barely touches the water, and she can sail at a respectable speed over tide-mud barely glazed with water,) its occupant has every pleasure experienced by the owner of a twenty-thousand dollar yacht. He has the same glorious wind whistling in his ears, the same sharp remonstrance of the waters divided by the bow, the same murmurs of recognition and complaint by the same waters as they reunite under the stern-post, the same sense of triumph over one element, of compulsion of another, which if it had its own way would be only a fitful ally, the same glorious _abandon_ of health and spirits revelling in pure air and in endeavor unconstrained by age, sex, or previous conditions of social or business servitude. And when the sail is over, or the season itself is ended, the delightful memories of the cruise are not, as in the case of the yachtsman, palled by recollections of the frightful expense of the crew, or the extortionate charges of ship-builders for repairs. And while the yachtsman lays up his boat for the winter, and bemoans the wasting interest upon her cost, and the various charges for dockage, keeping, etc., the canoeist quietly puts his boat upon his back, or, at worst a cart, carries it to his house, and puts her down in the cellar or up in the garret (after an unsuccessful attempt to have her wintered on top of the piano in the parlor) in either of which places he may visit her as frequently as he pleases, in any weather, and refresh any memories that may seem laggard when recalled.

The party went into camp in the shade of some grand old elms which stood in front of what had once been her Majesty's barracks. During the political changes which had turned the British spear into the Canadian pruning-hook, the barracks had been diverted from their original purpose into homes for the friendless poor; the shore of the river in front of them was, therefore, full of the discarded crockery and broken bottles peculiar to a certain phase of poverty, and as the Vice and the Purser stepped barefooted into the water to carry their boats ashore, the soles of their feet testified to the truth of the scriptural saying "The poor ye have with you always."[8]

As the expedition landed, weary, foot sore, hungry, unshaven, and covered with the dust of their last camp, the sight of a busy town, full of brisk well-to-do people, caused them to experience to the uttermost the sensations peculiar to the vagabond and the pariah. A marvelously good dinner at a marvelously low price comforted the material part of their inner man, but their mental parts remained ill at ease. So uncomfortable were they that the party took pattern after the vulgar who wish to appear as gentlemen--they purchased and smoked the best cigars in the town. Returned to their camp, the spectacle of a number of well-dressed, sprightly children playing under the trees reminded them strongly of home, where changes of clothing were more numerous than on board canoes, and where whatever bath tub may be available, is not paved with scrap tin and broken glass and crockery.

Suddenly an unexpected, an unhoped for influence appeared upon the scene. A young lady, who apparently had a nephew or niece among the children, strolled toward the water's edge a little way from the boats, and amused herself with the gambols of a huge water-dog. The parlor critic would scarcely have called her beautiful--probably at the Court of Jove there were goddesses more beautiful than Juno, nevertheless Juno ruled men as no rival beauty did. The lady with the dog noticed no member of the expedition, but it was impossible for the mariners to be as unconcerned in return, for maidens who are embodiments of health, strength, grace and modesty are not seen often enough even where maidens most do congregate. The Commodore sat down and leaned against a tree to hide the dusty back of his shirt; the Purser made haste to don a blue jacket which he had fortunately brought with him; the Vice, who, apparently with malice aforethought, had shaved himself, sat in his canoe, adjusted his statesmanlike glasses, and took full satisfaction out of the ennobling spectacle, while the Cook, with characteristic modesty, crept within the tent, where he might behold and yet remain invisible. When the lady departed, as unfortunately she did, the quartette debated whether she went on wings, or floated off on one of the clouds that were hovering about, or was wafted away by the fortunate breezes which could express their admiration without being suspected of forwardness or flattery, or, whether she was suddenly translated to a better world, as the Vice enthusiastically declared was no more than her desert. And yet, the material optics of every member of that expedition knew that the lady walked away upon her own feet, as any ordinary mortal would have done, for each of them had gazed industriously after her as long as her form was visible. The difference of opinion led to no dispute, however, for the manners of the expedition had noticeably improved within an hour, and though no canoeist had modified his apparel in any way, each man had something in his face which made him more presentable.

Meanwhile the little clouds which had been previously acting, each for itself, gathered in convention, resolved that in union there was strength, and then proceeded to business. The merry children, with juvenile trust in nature, suspected nothing until they felt it, and then protests were of no avail. But the Commodore took charge of the entire party, and massed it within the expedition's tent, where the children had a glorious time while the navigators strolled about outside and made-believe enjoy the heaven-sent shower-bath. Then the shower departed and so did the children, the shades of night were drawn, and behind these the expedition hid itself while it changed its soaked clothing. Then it lit its evening candle and prepared for bed, the Vice and the Purser insisting that the evening couches should be within the tent instead of the boats. While in the preliminary stages of a discussion, however, a vivacious small dog announced the approach of visitors, and then ushered to the front of the tent a gentleman, a lady and a small hand-wagon. The couple proved to be the parents of one of the children who had been sheltered by the tent during the afternoon, and they had called to express their thanks, some of which were from the tongue and heart, while others were from the hand-wagon, and consisted of bottles of excellent ale, a huge loaf of cake, some dainty preserves, etc. The gentleman proved to be an ex-officer of a famous Canadian regiment, so the Commodore and the Cook talked military affairs with him; he knew all about Dominion politics, so he and the Vice found a point of contact; he was also of English birth, and when the Purser learned this, he monopolized him, and the couple talked church and agriculture, Gladstone and Melton-Mowbray pork pies, while the lady exhibited a degree of tact and vivacity which prevented the other gentlemen from remembering that the place was not a parlor, and that they themselves were not within their respective funereal dress suits. Then several citizens with aquatic tastes dropped in, one by one, and offered various generous hospitalities, and the result of it all was that the expedition thought no more of its shabbiness than if this condition had suddenly gone out of existence.

It was not until an unprecedentedly late hour that the last visitor departed, and the members of the squadron retired with a faint notion that rain was again beginning to patter upon the leaves overhead.

[Footnote 6: The Vice was from an eastern rural district.]

[Footnote 7: Note by the Cook.--Contradictions of this statement
have been received from the Vice and the Purser, but they are
couched in language unfit for publication. The proof-sheet of this
page has been carefully kept from the eye of the Commodore.]

[Footnote 8: As boats of the Chrysalid model have prominent keels,
and stern-posts that are merely ornamental, they cannot be beached
by a gentle tug at the painter, such as is always sufficient with a
Red-Lake boat.]

IX.

AREAS OF RAIN.

Sleep was sedulously courted this morning by the entire squadron, for not only did the late hours and social dissipations of the preceding night have a soporific effect, but a steady rain had set in during the small hours, and not even the Cook felt any disposition to arise and shine. The tent was rather close quarters for four, so the Commodore had slept in his canoe, and for him rising meant stepping out of a dry nest into a steady down-pour. After a while, however, voices began to issue from the tent and a desire for breakfast soon asserted itself. As the camp was in the outskirts of a town, no wood was to be had save through purchase, so the Rob-Roy cuisine was resorted to with eminent success, and a wandering small boy who spoke nothing but Kanuck of the most rudimentary description, was persuaded to fill an order from the maternal larder.

Breakfast was at last finished, and numerous pipes were smoked to kill time until the rain should cease, but still it poured down with such steady persistency, that it had its effect even upon the buoyant spirits of the quartette. The sole objects of interest which presented themselves were boats laden with hay which drove past the tent-door down the river before the wind. These the Commodore sketched with the adjoining result, and then relapsing into a state of demoralization was maliciously portrayed by the artist on page 147. At length the showers became intermittent, and the two division commanders sallied forth in different directions to collate information regarding the rapids.

"One charm of the character of your true rural," remarked the Commodore, on their return to compare notes, "is that he is unconventional. When you have learned the opinions of one, upon matters about him, you are not justified in accepting them as those of the community at large."

"Very true," said the Vice. "I have spent two hours in interviewing the honest villagers near the waterside, to ascertain if the rapids, which begin a short half mile below, are passable, and from no two of them did I get the same reply. One said yes, another said no, a third looked doubtful, a fourth encouraging, number five was dumb, and from a dozen or two others I obtained enough of shrugs, gestures, and facial contortions to supply the clown of a pantomime. So little recks your true rural of what doesn't particularly concern him that one fellow, who works in a flour-mill, informed me that there were no rapids whatever, any where in the river."

"Proof positive that he doesn't pay taxes upon property," said the Commodore. "The tax-collector is the grand educator upon local geography: hence, the most intelligent nations of Europe are those which are taxed heaviest."

"The Turks, for instance," suggested the Vice. "I accept your theory, however, for the sake of offering it back to you as proof positive that we Americans are the most intelligent people on the face of the globe."

"The exact bearings of taxation upon the passability of rapids," said the Commodore, "may be clear to a statesman's mind, but the editorial brain fails to record any impression regarding it. The question is, are we to run the rapids or pass around them by canal? I propose first to listen to the counsels of my captains, and then to act according to my own. Officers will speak in reverse order of rank. Cook?"

"Run the rapids by all means," promptly replied the Cook, who had no nautical reputation to lose, but might gain an immense amount without exceeding the demand.

"Purser?" said the Commodore.

The custodian of the fleet's treasure tossed his auburn locks gaily behind his ears, and replied,

"As well ask the bird if it would soar heavenward, the imprisoned soul if it would yearn for light, the poet if he would seek his ideal!"

"Or a duck could he swim," put in the Vice.

"Do you mean that you prefer to run the rapids?" asked the Commodore.

"Certainly," replied the Purser.

"Say so, then," said the Commodore, with editorial sternness, "Vice?"

"The one delight of a canoe cruise," said the Vice, "is to run rapids. I don't know of another joy that compares with it, unless it be that of a Presidential campaign full of personalities."

"I decide in favor of the canal," said the Commodore. "My duty to society demands it. Moreover, I encountered this morning a large number of natives, all of whom without a single exception assured me that the rapids could not be run. Running unknown rapids is attended by considerable danger, and while the loss of a Statesman, an Artist or a Scribbler might be a blessing to suffering humanity, an Editor cannot be spared. Editors are born, not made, and are consequently very rare."

"Which fact, like that of the crocodile destroying its young," remarked the Vice, "is a proof of the merciful interposition of Providence to save the human race from what might otherwise be a terrible scourge."

As the natives had missed neither spoons, poultry nor any other easily secreted property during the night, they viewed the departing fleet with kindly eyes, and pressed sundry favors upon it. The expedition attempted to advance in column under sail, but it speedily became involved in difficulties with sundry saw-logs and slightly submerged ropes, until all available seamanship was called into exercise to avoid humiliating disaster. When the entrance to the canal was reached, the navigators discovered that the water was spanned, at short intervals, by bridges not only so low as to compel the striking of masts, but also to necessitate the striking of signal staffs fore and aft, and the temporary assumption, by the various commanders, of a physical attitude most truly devout. As the fourth bridge was approached by the expedition, it was also reached by an industrious shower, and no one made haste to pass from under the cover afforded by the structure.

"Think of the poor sailors on the broad ocean, with no bridge to shelter them," remarked the Cook, as he improved the opportunity to light a peaceful pipe. Just then a small stream of water, in search of its final level, meandered between two planks of the bridge, and trickled into the Cook's pipe, producing a sizzle which seemed to greatly titillate the nerves of those who were not smoking. Then another stream struck the helmet of the Vice and broke into what would have been a graceful cascade had not its perfect curve been broken by the official nose. The Purser bowed his head to avoid showing unseemly merriment at the expense of his superior officer, when another stream, heavily charged with the soil which wagons had deposited upon the bridge, insinuated itself between his shirt and his skin. Then began a magnificent but ineffectual struggle of mind against matter. Given, a bridge the planks of which were not more than ten inches wide, and several men whose shoulders exceeded in width any two of the planks, and whose depth of chest, with its environment, also exceeded the distance between any two cracks, and the reader will perceive, more freely than by any logical form of demonstration, the utter futility of free will in a contest against destiny. The best that man can do in such an unequal conflict is to prepare himself as well as possible for the blow, and this the Commodore did by throwing a rubber poncho (a square sheet with a hole in the middle) over his head, the ends dropping outside the gunwales of the boat, and shedding the water into the canal. The wooden decks of the Chrysalids kept water from dripping into the boats except amidships, the oilcloth decking of the flagship served a similar purpose, but the inside of the Cherub was soon deplorable in the extreme.

In time the sun banished the shower, and under its beams the canoeists brightened sufficiently to drop into song, beating time with their paddles. As they approached one bridge, and recurred to the reflection that civilization has its penalties as well as its pleasures, the keeper of the bridge good-naturedly opened it.

"By Jove!" exclaimed the Commodore, "no one but a Frenchman would have been civil enough to do that. Let's sing the 'Marseillaise' for him, and remind him of his far distant home. Now!

'Allons, enfants de la patrie.
Le jour de gloire est arrivè.'"

The song was given with spirit, and with that confidence of accent which song somehow inspires. The squadron, in perfect line, and keeping a rhythmic stroke as of one man, reached the bridge just as they struck the refrain,--

"Aux armes, citoyens!
Formez vos battalions!
Marchez, marchez, qu'un sang impur,
Abreuve nos sillons."

The bridge-keeper raised himself from the leaning position which he had at first assumed, his eye brightened, a flush of red showed under the dark brown of his cheek.

"That's a magnificent song," he shouted in French. "What do you call it?"

Four paddles stopped abruptly in mid-air, four men stared blankly at each other, then the Commodore sank back into his cockpit as nerveless as Salvini in the finale of "La Morte Civile." In a moment he recovered himself enough to gasp,

"True enough; the ancestors of these French Canadians came over a century before Rouget de Lisle was born!"

"What?" exclaimed the Vice, hastily backing out of line and turning his boat, "and that poor fellow knows nothing of the glory of his race, of the rights of man, and things? I'll go back and enlighten him."

"Let him alone," said the Purser. "He knows enough to be polite and sympathetic--to volunteer extra labor that others may be saved annoyance, so he knows more of the rights of man than you can teach him."

The Vice meekly drew back into line, merely asking if it was not nearly dinner-time. As one bank of the canal was heavily covered with weeds, and the other was being frequently traversed by tow-horses, the noon-day meal was taken in the boats, the four being temporarily lashed together that the various viands might be passed back and forth without danger of being dropped overboard. The leisure consequent upon dining enabled the squadron to observe critically the crews of the various barges that passed, and to learn that although the spirit of trade has not altered the French canal-boatmen of Canada from their national model, the environment of circumstance has made the rider of the canal-horse like unto his brother navigators of all climes. The remarks which these gentlemen volunteered as they passed the squadron were all couched in the French tongue, but the accent was that of the Erie canal, the Delaware and Hudson, and all other watery highways upon which the motive power is equine or mulish.

These canalers indeed, as was quickly evident, were of cosmopolitan or at least of republican habit, for so personal did their remarks become that some means of retaliation or self-defence was manifestly necessary. Dignified silence is all very well, but your modern canaler does not appreciate it in the traditional fashion, and when a quiet professional gentleman is invited to "come out of that and have a head put on him" by a burly ruffian, it is apparent that the policy of silence is not always that of wisdom. Under these circumstances it occurred to the Vice, who had been a "Son of Malta," that portions of the extinct ritual might be made available. The Cook was accordingly instructed to hang the expeditionary frying-pan over his forward-thwart and provide himself with a short baton, wherewith to beat it after the manner of a Chinese gong. The next "Bargees" that we encountered opened the usual conversation, inquiring where we were from, and where bound, all which questions were answered with due civility. Then the chaff element cropped out.

"Say, Boss, whar did you get that hat?" The remark was addressed to the Commodore who headed the line. In a resonant voice that officer repeated: "He asks where did I get my hat."

Then the Vice, "He asks where did he get his hat?"

Then the Purser, "He asks where did he get his hat?"

Then the Cook, "He asks where did he get his hat?" and then lifting his bâton he proclaimed in a stentorian voice RECORDED! and mightily smote the frying-pan till it rung again. The invariable sequence of this was a momentary pause, during which the squadron usually passed out of ear-shot. Sometimes however, the canalers attempted a continuation of the attack, as for instance:

"Now then," (but really this part of the sentence can only be represented by blanks) "Come out o' that, and I'll learn yer."

_Commodore._ "He calls us scions of a noble race."

_Vice._ "He calls us scions of a noble race."

_Purser._ "He calls us scions of a noble race."

_Cook._ "He calls us scions of a noble race. Recorded! WHANG!!"

"The recorded answer turneth away chaff," said the Vice somewhat irreverently after the success of the experiment was established, and so it was, for the profane resources of the most fluent mule-driver failed him in the presence of the frying-pan.

Soon after dinner the squadron approached a lock, and the Commodore went ashore to exhibit the passes of his command. As the collective measurement of the boats did not reach ten tons, the four had been included in a single pass, the cost of which was twenty cents, and this sufficed for the dozen locks which were to be passed before the smooth water of the river could again be reached. It was probably a realization of the small amount of money which their labor represented which made the various lock-keepers so solemn of mien as they labored over their gates to let the Liliputian squadron through. The walls of each lock were substantially built of huge blocks of grey stone, and as the water subsided rapidly the Artist imagined himself being let down into a dark dungeon. He hastily drew his portfolio from a locker, and proceeded to sketch a study for a "Prisoner of Chillon," hugging the shady side of the lock as he did so. The sketch proceeded to his satisfaction, and then some loose earth behind the stones ejected through a crack some of its superfluous moisture in a parabolic curve over the Artist's shoulder, and upon the sketch, putting in some half tints which gave the picture an air of extreme realism and antiquity.