Robert Michael Ballantyne - The Crew of the Water Wagtail

“Now, then, while this is getting ready let us examine our possessions,” said the captain, “for we shall greatly need all that we have. It is quite clear that we could not return to our shipmates even if we would—”

“No, and I would not even if I could,” interrupted Oliver, while busy with the pork chops.

“And,” continued his father, regardless of the interruption, “it is equally clear that we shall have to earn our own livelihood somehow.”

Upon careful examination it was found that their entire possessions consisted of two large clasp-knives; a sheath hunting-knife; flint, steel, and tinder; the captain’s watch; a small axe; a large note-book, belonging to Paul; three pencils; bit of indiarubber; several fish-hooks; a long piece of twine, and three brass buttons, the property of Oliver, besides the manuscript Gospel of John, and Olly’s treasured letter from his mother. These articles, with the garments in which they stood, constituted the small fortune of our wanderers, and it became a matter of profound speculation, during the progress of the supper, as to whether it was possible to exist in an unknown wilderness on such very slender means.

Olly thought it was—as a matter of course.

Master Trench doubted, and shook his head with an air of much sagacity, a method of expressing an opinion which is eminently unassailable. Paul Burns condescended on reasons for his belief—which, like Olly’s, was favourable.

“You see,” he said, wiping his uncommonly greasy fingers on the grass, “we have enough of pork and cakes here for several days—on short allowance. Then it is likely that we shall find some wild fruits, and manage to kill something or other with stones, and it cannot be long till we fall in with natives, who will be sure to be friendly—if not, we will make them so—and where they can live, we can live. So I am going to turn in and dream about it. Luckily the weather is warm. Good-night.”

Thus did our three adventurers, turning in on that giddy ledge, spend their first night in Newfoundland.

The position in which the trio found themselves next morning, when daylight revealed it, was, we might almost say, tremendously romantic.

The ledge on which they had passed the night was much narrower than they had supposed it to be, and their beds, if we may so call them, had been dangerously near to the edge of a frightful precipice which descended sheer down to a strip of sand that looked like a yellow thread two hundred feet below. The cliff behind them rose almost perpendicularly another hundred feet or more, and the narrow path or gully by which they had gained their eyrie was so steep and rugged that their reaching the spot at all in safety seemed little short of a miracle. The sun was brightening with its first beams an absolutely tranquil sea when the sleepers opened their eyes, and beheld what seemed to them a great universe of liquid light. Their ears at the same time drank in the soft sound of murmuring ripples far below, and the occasional cry of sportive sea-birds.

“Grand! glorious!” exclaimed Trench, as he sat up and gazed with enthusiasm on the scene.

Paul did not speak. His thoughts were too deep for utterance, but his mind reverted irresistibly to some of the verses in that manuscript Gospel which he carried so carefully in his bosom.

As for Oliver, his flushed young face and glittering eyes told their own tale. At first he felt inclined to shout for joy, but his feelings choked him; so he, too, remained speechless. The silence was broken at last by a commonplace remark from Paul, as he pointed to the horizon—“The home of our shipmates is further off than I thought it was.”

“The rascals!” exclaimed the captain, thinking of the shipmates, not of the home; “the place is too good for ’em.”

“But all of them are not equally bad,” suggested Paul gently.

“Humph!” replied Trench, for kind and good-natured though he was he always found it difficult to restrain his indignation at anything that savoured of injustice. In occasionally giving way to this temper, he failed to perceive at first that he was himself sometimes guilty of injustice. It is only fair to add, however, that in his cooler moments our captain freely condemned himself.

“‘Humph!’ is a very expressive word,” observed Paul, “and in some sense satisfactory to those who utter it, but it is ambiguous. Do you mean to deny, Master Trench, that some of your late crew were very good fellows? and don’t you admit that Little Stubbs and Squill and Grummidge were first-rate specimens of—”

“I don’t admit or deny anything!” said the captain, rising, with a light laugh, “and I have no intention of engaging in a controversy with you before breakfast. Come, Olly, blow up the fire, and go to work with your pork and cakes. I’ll fetch some more wood, and Paul will help me, no doubt.”

With a good grace Paul dropped the discussion and went to work. In a few minutes breakfast was not only ready, but consumed; for a certain measure of anxiety as to the probability of there being an available path to the top of the cliffs tended to hasten their proceedings.

The question was soon settled, for after ascending a few yards above their encampment they found an indentation or crevice in the cliff which led into an open spot—a sort of broader shelf—which sloped upwards, and finally conducted them to the summit.

Here, to their surprise, they discovered that their new home, instead of being, as they had supposed it, one of a series of large islands, was in truth a territory of vast, apparently boundless, extent, covered with dense forests. Far as the eye could reach, interminable woods presented themselves, merging, in the far distance, into what appeared to be a range of low hills.

“Newfoundland is bigger than we have been led to believe,” said Paul Burns, surveying the prospect with great satisfaction.

“Ay is it,” responded Trench. “The fact is that discoverers of new lands, bein’ naturally in ships, have not much chance to go far inland. In a country like this, with such a wild seaboard, it’s no wonder they have made mistakes. We will find out the truth about it now, however, for we’ll undertake a land voyage of discovery.”

“What! without arms or provisions, father?” asked Oliver.

“What d’ye call the two things dangling from your shoulders, boy?” returned the captain, with some severity; “are these not ‘arms’? and have not woods—generally got lakes in ’em and rivers which usually swarm with provisions?”

“That’s so, father,” returned the lad, somewhat abashed; “but I did not raise the question as a difficulty, only I’ve heard you sometimes say that a ship is not fit for sea till she is well-armed and provisioned, so I thought that it might be the same with land expeditions.”

Before the skipper could reply, Paul drew attention to an opening in the woods not far from them, where an animal of some kind was seen to emerge into an open space, gaze for a moment around it, and then trot quietly away.

“Some of our provisions—uncooked as yet,” remarked Oliver.

“More of them,” returned his father, pointing to a covey of birds resembling grouse, which flashed past them at the moment on whirring wings. “How we are to get hold of ’em, however, remains, of course, to be seen.”

“There are many ways of getting hold of them, and with some of these I am familiar,” said Paul. “For instance, I can use the long-bow with some skill—at least I could do so when at school. And I have no doubt, captain, that you know how to use the cross-bow?”

“That I do,” returned Trench, with a broad grin.