Jack Robinson’s first proceeding
on entering the new fort and assuming the command,
was to summon the man, (supposed to be a maniac), named
Teddy O’Donel, to his presence in the “Hall.”
“Your name is Teddy O’Donel?” said
Jack.
“The same, sir, at your sarvice,”
said Teddy, with a respectful pull at his forelock.
“They was used to call me Mister O’Donel
when I was in the army, but I’ve guv that up
long ago an’ dropped the title wid the commission.”
“Indeed: then you were
a commissioned officer?” inquired Jack, with
a smile.
“Be no manes. It was a
slight longer title than that I had. They called
me a non-commissioned officer. I niver could
find in me heart to consociate wid them consaited
commissioners though there was wan or two
of ’em as was desarvin’ o’ the three
stripes. But I niver took kindly to sodgerin’.
It was in the Howth militia I was. Good enough
boys they was in their way, but I couldn’t pull
wid them no how. They made me a corp’ral
for good conduct, but, faix, the great review
finished me; for I got into that state of warlike
feeling that I loaded me muskit five times widout
firin’, an’ there was such a row round
about that I didn’t know the dirty thing had
niver wint off till the fifth time, when she bursted
into smithereens an’ wint off intirely.
No wan iver seed a scrag of her after that.
An’ the worst was, she carried away the small
finger of Bob Riley’s left hand. Bob threw
down his muskit an’ ran off the ground howlin’,
so I picked the wipon up an’ blazed away at the
inimy; but, bad luck to him, Bob had left his ramrod
in, and I sint it right through the flank of an owld
donkey as was pullin’ an apple and orange cart.
Oh! how that baste did kick up its heels, to be sure!
and the apples and oranges they was flyin’ like Well,
well the long and the short was, that I
wint an’ towld the colonel I couldn’t stop
no longer in such a regiment. So I guv it up
an’ comed out here.”
“And became a fur-trader,”
said Jack Robinson, with a smile.
“Just so, sur, an’ fort-builder
to boot; for, being a jiner to trade and handy wid
the tools, Mr Murray sent me down here to build the
place and take command, but I s’pose I’m
suppersheeded now!”
“Well, I believe you are, Teddy;
but I hope that you will yet do good service as my
lieutenant.”
The beaming smile on Teddy’s
face showed that he was well pleased to be relieved
from the responsibilities of office.
“Sure,” said he, “the
throuble I have had wid the min an’ the salvages
for the last six weeks it’s past belavin’!
An’ thin, whin I sint the men down to the river
to fush more nor twinty miles off an’
whin the salvages wint away and left me alone wid
only wan old salvage woman! och!
I’d not wish my worst inimy in me sitivation.”
“Then the savages have been
giving you trouble, have they?”
“They have, sur, but not so much as the min.”
“Well, Teddy,” said Jack,
“go and fetch me something to eat, and then
you shall sit down and give me an account of things
in general. But first give my men food.”
“Sure they’ve got it,”
replied Teddy, with a broad grin. “That
spalpeen they calls Rollo axed for meat the first
thing, in a voice that made me think he’d ait
me up alive av he didn’t git it. So
I guv ’em the run o’ the pantry.
What’ll yer plaze to dhrink, sur?”
“What have you got?”
“Tay and coffee, sur, not to
mintion wather. There’s only flour an’
salt pork to ait, for this is a bad place for game.
I’ve not seed a bird or a bear for three weeks,
an’ the seals is too cute for me. But
I’ll bring ye the best that we’ve got.”
Teddy O’Donel hastened to the
kitchen, a small log-hut in rear of the dwelling-house,
and left Jack Robinson alone in the “Hall.”
Jack rose, thrust his hands deep into
his pockets, and walked to the window. It was
glazed with parchment, with the exception of the centre
square, which was of glass.
“Pleasant, uncommonly pleasant,”
he muttered, as he surveyed the landscape.
In front lay a flat beach of sand
with the gulf beyond, the horizon being veiled in
mist. Up the river there was a flat beach with
a hill beyond. It was a black iron-looking hill,
devoid of all visible verdure, and it plunged abruptly
down into the sea as if it were trying fiercely to
drown itself. Down the river there was a continuation
of flat beach, with, apparently, nothing whatever
beyond. The only objects that enlivened the
dreary expanse were, the sloop at the end of the wooden
jetty and a small flagstaff in front of the house,
from which a flag was flying in honour of the arrival
of the new governor. At the foot of this flagstaff
there stood an old iron cannon, which looked pugnacious
and cross, as if it longed to burst itself and blow
down all visible creation.
Jack Robinson’s countenance
became a simple blank as he took the first survey
of his new dominions. Suddenly a gleam of hope
flitted across the blank.
“Perhaps the back is better,”
he muttered, opening the door that led to the rear
of the premises. In order to get out he had to
pass through the kitchen, where he found his men busy
with fried pork and flour cakes, and his lieutenant,
Teddy, preparing coffee.
“What is that?” inquired
Jack, pointing to a small heap of brown substance
which Teddy was roasting in a frying-pan.
“Sure it’s coffee,” said the man.
“Eh?” inquired Jack.
“Coffee, sur,” repeated Teddy with emphasis.
“What is it made of?” inquired Jack.
“Bread-crumbs, sur. I’m
used to make it of pais, but it takes longer,
d’ye see, for I’ve got to pound ’em
in a cloth after they’re roasted. The crumbs
is a’most as good as the pais, an’
quicker made whin yer in a hurry.”
Jack’s first impulse was to
countermand the crumbs and order tea, but he refrained,
and went out to survey the back regions of his new
home.
He found that the point selected for
the establishment of the fort was a plain of sand,
on which little herbage of any kind grew. In
rear of the house there was a belt of stunted bushes,
which, as he went onward into the interior, became
a wood of stunted firs. This seemed to grow a
little more dense farther inland, and finally terminated
at the base of the distant and rugged mountains of
the interior. In fact, he found that he was
established on a sandbank which had either been thrown
up by the sea, or at no very remote period had formed
part of its bed. Returning home so as to enter
by the front door, he observed an enclosed space a
few hundred yards distant from the fort. Curious
to know what it was, he walked up to it, and, looking
over the stockade, beheld numerous little mounds of
sand with wooden crosses at the head of them.
It was the burial-ground of the establishment.
Trade had been carried on here by a few adventurous
white men before the fort was built. Some of
their number having died, a space had been enclosed
as a burying-ground. The Roman Catholic Indians
afterwards used it, and it was eventually consecrated
with much ceremony by a priest.
With a face from which every vestige
of intelligence was removed, Jack Robinson returned
to the fort and sat down in solitary state in the
hall. In the act of sitting down he discovered
that the only arm-chair in the room was unsteady on
its legs, these being of unequal length. There
were two other chairs without arms, and equally unsteady
on their legs. These, as well as everything
in the room, were made of fir-wood as
yet unpainted. In the empty fire-place Jack observed
a piece of charcoal, which he took up and began, in
an absent way, to sketch on the white wall.
He portrayed a raving maniac as large as life, and
then, sitting down, began insensibly to hum
“I dreamt that I dwelt in marble
halls.”
In the midst of which he was interrupted
by the entrance of his lieutenant with a tray of viands.
“Ah, yer a purty creatur,”
exclaimed Teddy, pausing with a look of admiration
before the maniac.
“Come, Teddy, sit down and let’s
have the news. What have we here?” said
Jack, looking at three covered plates which were placed
before him.
“Salt pork fried,” said Teddy removing
the cover.
“And here?”
“Salt pork biled,” said
the man, removing the second cover; “an’
salt pork cold,” he added, removing the third.
“You see, sur, I wasn’t sure which way
ye’d like it, an’ ye was out whin I come
to ax; so I just did it up in three fashions.
Here’s loaf bread, an’ it’s not
bad, though I say it that made it.”
As Jack cut down into the loaf, he
naturally remembered those lines of a well-known writer:
“Who has not tasted home-made bread,
A heavy compound of putty and
lead!”
“Are these cakes?” he
said, as Teddy presented another plate with something
hot in it.
“Ay, pancakes they is, made
of flour an’ wather fried in grease, an’
the best of aitin’, as ye’ll find; but,
musha! they’ve all stuck together from some
raison I han’t yet diskivered: but they’ll
be none the worse for that, and there’s plenty
of good thick molasses to wash ’em down wid.”
“And this,” said Jack,
pointing to a battered tin kettle, “is the
the ”
“That’s the coffee, sur.”
“Ah! well, sit down, Teddy,
I have seen worse fare than this. Let’s
be thankful for it. Now, then, let me hear about
the fishery.”
Nothing pleased Teddy O’Donel
so much as being allowed to talk. He sat down
accordingly and entertained his master for the next
hour with a full, true, and particular account of
every thing connected with Fort Desolation.
We will not, however, inflict this on the reader.
Reduced to its narrowest limits, his information
was to the following effect:
That the Indians, generally, were
well disposed towards the traders, though difficult
to please. That a good many furs had been already
obtained, and there was a report of more coming in.
That the salmon fishery was situated on a river twenty
miles below the fort, and was progressing favourably;
but that the five men engaged there were a quarrelsome
set and difficult to keep in order. Teddy thought,
however, that it was all owing to one of the men,
named Ladoc, a bully, who kept the other four in bad
humour.
But the point on which poor Teddy
dilated most was his solitude. For some time
he had been living with no other companions than an
old Indian woman and her half-caste daughter, and
they having left him, during the last three days he
had been living entirely alone “among the ghosts,”
many of which he described minutely.
This intelligence was brought to an
abrupt close by a row among the men in the kitchen.
Rollo had been boasting of his walking powers to such
an extent, that Pierre had become disgusted and spoke
contemptuously of Rollo; whereupon the bully, as usual,
began to storm, and his wrath culminated when Pierre
asserted that, “Mr Robinson would bring him to
his marrow-bones ere long.”
“Jack Robinson!” exclaimed
Rollo with contempt; “I’d walk him blind
in two hours.”
Just at that moment the door opened,
and Jack stood before them.
“You are too noisy, men,”
said he, in a quiet voice, (Jack almost always spoke
in a soft voice); “remember that this kitchen
is within hearing of the hall. Rollo, go down
to the beach and haul up the sloop’s boat, I
see the tide is making on her.”
Rollo hesitated.
“You hear?” said Jack,
still in a quiet tone, but with a look not
a fierce look, or a threatening look, but a
peculiar look, which instantly took effect.
One has often observed a cat when
about to spring. It makes many pauses in its
prowling towards its prey, and occasional motions that
lead one to expect a spring. But the motion
which precedes the actual spring is always emphatic.
It may not be violent; it may be as slight as all
the previous motions, but there is that in it which
tells irresistibly, somehow, of a fixed purpose.
So is it, doubtless, with tigers; so was it with
Jack Robinson. His first remark to the men was
a prowl; his order to Rollo was a pause, with an intention;
his “you hear?” softly said, had a something
in it which induced Rollo to accord instant obedience!
On returning to the hall, Jack paced
up and down indignantly. “So there are
two bullies in the camp,” he soliloquised;
“I must cure them both; but softly,
Jack. It won’t do to fight if you can secure
peace by other means. Let blows be the last
resource. That’s my motto. He’ll
walk me blind! Well, we shall see, to-morrow!”