Blackstrap Hawco (24 page)

A great many gulls were upon a bulk on the shore, which we learned to be the remnants of a beached whale, the occasion of which drew from memory the day I toured the whaling establishment of Messrs. Hunt and Newman at Swanger's Cove. The machine with which the fat of the whale is cut into small pieces for the boiler, reminded me of a similar machine which I have seen used by sausage-makers in England. The refuse pieces of the whale, which are left in the boiler, after the oil is extracted, furnish, I am informed, all the fuel which is required for heating the coppers. This recalls to my recollection the fact that the early settlers on this island used to make fires with piles of the carcasses of fat penguins, a bird which used then to be very common, but is now extinct, or has left the island. They were most cruelly treated while they abounded in the island, being often plucked for their feathers and then turned loose to perish, or burnt in piles as above described.

On our arrival at Bareneed, the people, being upon their fishing-ground outside, had seen us go into their harbour, so they returned, on so unusual an event as the entrance of a strange boat to their harbour. In this place, so plentiful is the fish all the year round, that the women and children cut holes in the salt-water ice, and catch great quantities of codfish all through the winter.

Upon shore, I soon learned that one of those scourges of this coast, a floating grog-shop, under the name of a ‘trading-vessel,' had been sojourning in Bareneed, last week, and had kept ‘all hands,' during the time of its stay, in a state of intoxication: and it was likely, now that they had not a stick to burn, or a fish for the kettle; and, as this floating nuisance had only left the place the day before, it was not unlikely that the fumes of the intoxicating poisons thus supplied, had not yet evaporated.

Every hole and corner in the tilt which I first visited, that was not taken up by the human inmates, being occupied by pigs, ducks, fowls, sheep, or dogs, I was glad to find a more roomy and a cleaner retreat in
another tilt; here, though, the door did not close by at least a foot, to prevent the inconvenience of smoke, which is almost universal in these houses where the cooking is done on an open stone hearth with only a hole in the roof for ventilation.

I sat upon a chest and listened to the poor widower, who was my host, speak of his deceased wife with deep affection: the anxiety, too, which he showed to bring up his children well by catechizing them, and hearing them repeat their prayers before they retired to the single bed which served for the entire family of eight, was very creditable.

Although these services, which I begged my presence might not be permitted to interrupt, were mixed with much which I deem error, yet I could not but wish that many a careless Protestant could have seen this pious Romanist, and been led to imitate so praiseworthy an attention to the religious interests of his children.

The settlers at Bareneed are chiefly of Irish extraction. I heard in the evening, that of three Englishmen who had been for years settled among them, one alone, a native of Greenwich, had not turned to the Romish faith. I went, therefore, to visit him in the morning. At his tilt, over a pond or lake, about two miles from the harbour, which sat alone, I found he was from home. He had heard the preceding evening of the arrival in the settlement of a clergyman, and attempted to cross the harbour after dark in a state of inebriation to have some conversation with me; had capsized his canoe, and had in consequence of his wet condition, slept at the tilt in the harbour, which I had passed at day-break. I returned thither, and found him at the house of J. D. of Arundel, one of the Englishmen who had turned Papist. The man requiring reformation informed me that his fondness for spirits had kept him thus poor, and he could trace to this source all his lapses, and all his misfortunes.

By the light of a piece of ignited seal's fat, placed in a scallop shell, which served for the lamp of our humble sanctuary in the woods, he assured me in our conversation that he had forsworn the further use of spirits. I made acquaintance here, for the first time, with a decoction of the tops of the spruce branches, to which I afterwards became much accustomed, as a substitute for tea, and which, from experience, I can pronounce to be very salutary and bracing, though not so palatable, as the beverage supplied by the Honourable East India Company.

In conversation, I told him of a strength greater than his own; this I entreated him to implore. He was much affected by a prayer in which I proposed he should join me in his tilt: he kept a standing posture when I commenced, but the poor fellow soon sank upon his knees, and before the conclusion of my prayer on his behalf, he was weeping like a child. It will give some idea of the prevailing use of spirits in this island, and of the consequent discouragement which the minister is doomed to experience, if I mention that notwithstanding all which I had said against the use of this intoxicating stimulant, in all which he had heartily acquiesced, and bringing the test of his own melancholy experience, had declared voluntarily, that he had left it off, he yet offered to myself, on my rising from my knees, what is called ‘a morning,' from a little keg, which he drew from under his straw bed; and, on my reminding him, when about to help himself, that he had engaged to break off this habit, he excused himself by saying he had made a reservation for the use of the remaining contents of that keg. I was reminded of Jeremiah xiii. 23. I promised the poor fellow a prayer-book, which he was most anxious to possess.

We were put across the Harbour arm, back to Bareneed where I finally assembled two dozen people in the Shea household, baptized three children, and churched one woman, and was much pleased with their simple manner of singing.

As not one in this settlement could read, I was requested to read a letter containing intelligence of the most interesting kind, of which the family had been in ignorance, although they had had it by them for weeks. In many similar settlements, I was engaged in writing letters for the people to relatives who had been settled, some ten, some twenty years, in other parts of the island, and with whom they had been unable to hold any communication since their original settlement in the country, or, at least, since their dispersion.

A cock crowing during the preceding night was said, by a woman in one of the fishermen's tilts, to portend rain: I found the next day, as I subsequently did on many other occasions during my present trip, that this augury was quite correct. The woman, a new arrival from Ireland with the name Rose Cavanagh, was only weeks before made a widow by what was openly spoken of as the suicide of her husband. The suffering woman was unfortunate enough to not only have experienced this loss,
but also to have found herself in the cursed condition of pregnancy with bastard child. Despite these trespasses, we were not dissuaded from ensuring that the Saviour provided for her and delivered the required spiritual sustenance.

In my visits to the different tilts, I was, again, much shocked at the poverty of the people, which was greater here than any which I had ever witnessed in Newfoundland. Some married females in one house were literally almost in a state of nudity; their manifest want of cleanliness, however, made it seem probable – as I was afterwards informed was the case – that part of their poverty might be traced to mismanagement. It must be most distressing to any merchant, or other settler, who is himself raised above poverty, and is possessed of human feeling, to live in a place where the improvidence of the people makes them so wretchedly dependent, for a greater part of the year, as the people are in this settlement.

While I was arranging these notes to send to England, I have heard of the decease of one of the wretched females mentioned above. I held service in Mr. Shea's house in her name which was attended by thirty-two.

One tilt was visited by me in this settlement, the dimensions of which were only twelve feet by ten, and I found living in it a man and his wife – the master and mistress of the house – two married daughters with their husbands and children, amounting, in all, to fifteen souls!

I found a fine old widow lady here who has forty grandchildren living: her feelings had been severely tried at the death of her husband, to whom she had been many years allied, and was fondly attached. She had, in early youth, been a Protestant, but from conviction had renounced the errors of that faith, and attached herself to the church of her husband. On her making the anxious enquiry of her husband on his death-bed, ‘Whether he would like to turn?' he, affixing a very different meaning to her affectionate enquiry, than that which merely implied his being turned in his bed, begged that the poor woman would go out of his sight, and not disturb his last moments, adding ‘that he had occasionally before doubted the sincerity of her professed conversion, but he had rather have cherished the delusion to the last, than have been thus cruelly undeceived at such a moment!'

While in the settlement, I endeavoured to remove here, and in other places along the coast, an unfavourable impression which some of the ignorant had conceived, and some mischievous and interested traders had encouraged, respecting a supply of seed potatoes, which, during the last year, had been sent by the colonial government, for gratuitous distribution among the distressed inhabitants of this and the other bays of the island.

The potatoes sent did not suffice for the supply of all who needed them, and those which respectable merchants imported for sale, or transported from St. John, and sold from their own stores, were alleged to be part of the gratuitous supply furnished by Government. However, delicate investigation of the matter with Master Lawton gave little remedy.

Master Lawton, while exceeding all bounds of gentle and generous hospitality, preferred an exchange of anecdotes regarding the area.

Here he went into details of the helpless states of intoxication preferred by the inhabitants over sensible diversions. Women, and among them positively girls of fourteen, may be seen, under the plea of its helping them in their work, habitually taking their ‘morning' of raw spirits before breakfast.

‘I have seen this dram repeated a second time before a seven o'clock breakfast,' said Master Lawton. ‘The same, the girls among the rest, also smoke tobacco in short pipes, blackened with constant use, like what the Irish here call “dudees,” all day long. The instant they drop into a neighbour's house and are seated by the fire, there is a shuffling of the clothes, and the pipe, already partly filled, is drawn from the side pocket, and applied to the ashes for lighting.'

As is often the case, once conversation turns to heated gossip, our talk degenerated further, with complaints of the habitual conversation of the people and its disgusting character; profanity is the dialect, decency and delicacy are the rare exceptions.

‘Children swear at their parents, and frequently strike them,' said Master Lawton, raising his eyebrows, then offering me accommodation in one of his better rooms, which I was obliged to accept considering his fine standing.

Where American privateers are battled and Rose Cavanagh gives birth

In darkness, while smoking a cigarette offered by Ferrol, who was off playing cards with the crew, Patrick took notice of the lantern lights adrift in the distance. The lights, while interesting to watch, held little meaning. The shouts passed from one man to another from the rear of him barely registered, as they were not uncommon, although rarer in the night. He smoked his cigarette, his body slipping gradually to the left, registering a sudden change in compass direction. He glanced down into the black water, a gleam barely discernible as the moon was locked behind clouds. The shouting rose in volume and then stopped.

The steamer's engine gave out, its vibration dying beneath his boots.

Done with his cigarette, Patrick flicked it over the rail and turned to check what might be the matter. The scene before him was a cloak of pitch black, as every lantern on board had been extinguished. He gazed up toward the captain's deck to discover not one light aglow within. In time, he felt a presence before him, a sniff and the flutter of movement further left. As the moon freed itself from a billowed edge of black cloud, members of the crew were revealed positioned before him, silently still as though they had perished on their feet and were stood as mere monuments to their truer selves.

The eyes in every face were fixed on the distant lights, barely a breath issuing from the collection of mouths, their flesh beneath the dim moonlight bluish-white and unbecoming.

At once, all heads turned in the direction of the cabins as a boisterous noise was heard. A man clearing his throat and stomping onto the deck. Who other than Ferrol? Patrick suspected.

A few of the men shook their heads in censure and one foolish fellow even placed his finger to his lips to shush Ferrol.

‘Wha's dis?'

The men pointed toward the distant lights. A young man, a mate of no more than seventeen, whispered: ‘It's a four-masted privateering schooner.'

A four-master, thought Patrick. Did such a thing exist? And
privateering? Why would such a ship be so far north? The ship they were sailing on was a steamer, not a trading vessel.

‘Americans,' the young man, in a censured hiss of a voice, announced.

The previous day, Patrick had heard the same young mate bragging that he possessed an authentic mate's licence, a requirement that had recently been introduced under an appendage to outdated naval law. There had been an argument between the young man and an older man from Dublin who laughed off the thought of licensing, the elder tormenting the younger with volleys of rough wisdom. The young man went on to explain, with the utmost precision and in a gratingly insistent voice, other forthcoming changes to naval laws. It was a miraculous show of restraint on the part of the seamen that the young man hadn't been hurled overboard, an action that would, doubtlessly, yet occur.

‘Dere,' said Ferrol, nodding his bald head in a stabbing gesture, and stomping ahead. It was only the railing that prevented him from venturing further, for he seemed set on treading straight to the ship, regardless of the daunting stretch of water that separated the vessels. Ferrol laughed derisively and looked back at the men. ‘Facking idjiots!' he roared in a voice quarried from stone and reverberating through the ship to echo up into the heavens.