olly’s first salmon and hendrick’s home.
from this time forward the opportunities for hunting and fishing became so numerous that poor oliver was kept in a constantly bubbling-over condition of excitement, and his father had to restrain him a good deal in order to prevent the larder from being greatly overstocked.
one afternoon they came to a river which their guide told them was one of the largest in the country.
“it flows out of the lake, on one of the islands of which i have built my home.”
“may i ask,” said paul, with some hesitation, “if your wife came with you from the shetland isles?”
a profoundly sad expression flitted across the hunter’s countenance.
“no,” he replied. “trueheart, as she is named in the micmac tongue, is a native of this island—at least her mother was; but her father, i have been told, was a white man—a wanderer like myself—who came in an open boat from no one knows where, and cast his lot among the indians, one of whom he married. both parents are dead. i never saw them; but my wife, i think, must resemble her white father in many respects. my children are like her. look now, oliver,” he said, as if desirous of changing the subject, “yonder is a pool in which it will be worth while to cast your hook. you will find something larger there than you have yet caught in the smaller streams. get ready. i will find bait for you.”
olly needed no urging. his cod-hook and line, being always handy, were arranged in a few minutes, and his friend, turning up the sod with a piece of wood, soon procured several large worms, which were duly impaled, until they formed a bunch on the hook. with this the lad hurried eagerly to the edge of a magnificent pool, where the oily ripples and curling eddies, as well as the great depth, effectually concealed the bottom from view. he was about to whirl the bunch of worms round his head, preparatory to a grand heave, when he was arrested by the guide.
“stay, oliver; you will need a rod for this river. without one you will be apt to lose your fish. i will cut one.”
so saying, he went into the woods that bordered the pool, and soon returned with what seemed to the boy to be a small tree about fourteen feet long.
“why, hendrick, do you take me for goliath, who as paul burns tells us, was brought down by a stone from the sling of david? i’ll never be able to fish with that.”
“oliver,” returned the hunter gravely, as he continued the peeling of the bark from the rod, “a lad with strong limbs and a stout heart should never use the words ‘not able’ till he has tried. i have seen many promising and goodly young men come to wreck because ‘i can’t’ was too often on their lips. you never know what you can do till you try.”
the boy listened to this reproof with a slight feeling of displeasure, for he felt in his heart that he was not one of those lazy fellows to whom his friend referred. however, he wisely said nothing, but hendrick observed, with some amusement, that his brow flushed and his lips were firmly compressed.
“there now,” he said in a cheery tone, being anxious to remove the impression he had made, “you will find the rod is lighter than it looks, and supple, as you see. we will tie your line half-way down and run it through a loop at the end—so!—to prevent its being lost if the point should break. now, try to cast your hook into the spot yonder where a curl in the water meets and battles with an eddy. do you see it?”
“yes, i see it,” replied olly, advancing to the pool, with the rod grasped in both hands.
“it would be better,” continued hendrick, “if you could cast out into the stream beyond, but the line is too short for that, unless you could jump on to that big rock in the rapid, which is impossible with the river so high.”
oliver looked at the rock referred to. it stood up in the midst of foaming water, full twenty feet from the bank. he knew that he might as well try to jump over the moon as attempt to leap upon that rock; nevertheless, without a moment’s hesitation, he rushed down the bank, sprang furiously off, cleared considerably more than half the distance, and disappeared in the foaming flood!
hendrick was suddenly changed from a slow and sedate elephant into an agile panther. he sprang along the bank to a point lower down the stream, and was up to the waist in the water before olly reached the point—struggling to keep his head above the surface, and at the same time to hold on to his rod. hendrick caught him by the collar, and dragged him, panting, to land.
paul and his father had each, with a shout of surprise or alarm, rushed for the same point, but they would have been too late.
“olly, my son,” said trench, in a remonstrative tone, “have you gone mad?”
“no, father; i knew that i could not jump it, but i’ve been advised never to say so till i have tried!”
“nay, oliver, be just,” said the guide, with a laugh. “i did truly advise you never to say ‘i can’t’ till you had tried, but i never told you to try the impossible. however, i am not sorry you did this, for i’d rather see a boy try and fail, than see him fail because of unwillingness to try. come, now, i will show you something else to try.”
he took oliver up the stream a few yards, and pointed to a ledge of rock, more than knee-deep under water, which communicated with the rock he had failed to reach.
“the ledge is narrow,” he said, “and the current crossing it is strong, but from what i’ve seen of you i think you will manage to wade out if you go cautiously, and don’t lose heart. i will go down stream again, so that if you should slip i’ll be ready to rescue.”
boldly did oliver step out upon the ledge; cautiously did he advance each foot, until he was more than leg-deep, and wildly, like an insane semaphore, did he wave his arms, as well as the heavy rod, in his frantic efforts not to lose his balance! at last he planted his feet, with a cheer of triumph, on the rock.
“hush, olly, you’ll frighten the fish,” cried paul, with feigned anxiety.
“you’ll tumble in again, if you don’t mind,” said his cautious father.
but olly heard not. the whole of his little soul was centred on the oily pool into which he had just cast the bunch of worms. another moment, and the stout rod was almost wrenched from his grasp.
“have a care! hold on! stand fast!” saluted him in various keys, from the bank.
“a cod! or a whale!” was the response from the rock.
“more likely a salmon,” remarked hendrick, in an undertone, while a sober smile lit up his features.
at the moment a magnificent salmon, not less than twenty pounds weight, leapt like a bar of silver from the flood, and fell back, with a mighty splash.
the leap caused a momentary and sudden removal of the strain on the rod. oliver staggered, slipped, and fell with a yell that told of anxiety more than alarm; but he got up smartly, still holding on by both hands.
in fishing with the tapering rods and rattling reels of modern days, fishers never become fully aware of the strength of salmon, unless, indeed, a hitch in their line occurs, and everything snaps! it was otherwise about the beginning of the sixteenth century. it is otherwise still with primitive fishers everywhere. oliver’s line could not run; his rod was rigid, save at the point. the result was that it was all he could do to stand and hold on to his captive. the rod, bent down into the water, sprang up to the perpendicular, flew hither and thither, jerked and quivered, causing the poor boy to jerk and quiver in irresistible sympathy. at last a mighty rush of the fish drew the fisher headlong into the flood.
“he’ll be drowned or killed on the boulders below,” gasped his father, running wildly down the bank of the river.
“don’t fear,” said hendrick, as he ran beside him. “there is a shallow just above the boulders. we will stop him there.”
paul burns was already abreast of the shallow in question, and oliver was stranded on it, but a deep rapid stream ran between it and the bank, so that paul hesitated and looked eagerly about for the best spot to cross.
“follow me,” cried hendrick, “i know the ford.”
he led his comrade swiftly to a point where the river widened and became shallow, enabling them to wade to the tail of the bank at the top of which oliver stood engaged in a double struggle—with the water that hissed and leaped around him, and the fish that still surged wildly about in its vain efforts to escape.
as the three men waded nearer to him they got into shallower water, and then perceived that the boy had not lost his self-possession, but was still tightly grasping the butt of his rod. just as they came up the salmon, in its blind terror, ran straight against the boy’s legs. olly fell upon it, let go the rod, and embraced it! happily, his friends reached him at the moment, else the water that rushed over his head would have compelled him to let go—or die!
paul lifted him up. the great fish struggled in its captor’s arms. it was slippery as an eel, and its strength tremendous. no digging of his ten nails into it was of any use. slowly but surely it was wriggling out of his tight embrace when hendrick inserted his great thumbs into its gills, and grasped it round the throat.
“let go, oliver,” he said, “i’ve got him safe.”
but olly would not let go. indeed, in the state of his mind and body at the moment it is probable that he could not let go.
his father, having made some ineffectual attempts to clear the line, with which, and the rod, they had got completely entangled, was obliged to “stand by” and see that the entanglement became no worse. thus, holding on each to the other and all together, they staggered slowly and safely to land with their beautiful prize.
“are there many fish like that in these rivers?” asked paul, as they all stood contemplating the salmon, and recovering breath.
“ay, thousands of them in all the rivers, and the rivers are numerous—some of them large,” replied hendrick.
“this will be a great country some day, you take my word for it,” said the captain, in a dogmatic manner, which was peculiar to him when he attempted amateur prophecy.
that prophecy, however, like many other prophecies, has been only partly fulfilled. it has come true, indeed, that newfoundland now possesses the most valuable cod-fishery in the world, and that her exports of salmon are considerable, but as to her being a great country—well, that still remains unfulfilled prophecy; for, owing to no fault of her people, but to the evils of monopoly and selfishness, as we have already said, her career has been severely checked.
not many days after the catching of the salmon—which remained a memorable point in the career of oliver trench—the explorers were led by hendrick to the shores of a magnificent lake. it was so large that the captain at first doubted whether it was not the great ocean itself.
“it is not the sea,” said their guide, as he surveyed the watery expanse with evident enthusiasm. “it is a lake full fifty miles long, yet it is not the largest lake in this island. taste its waters and you will find them sweet. here,” he added, with a look of gratification, “is my home.”
“god has given you a wide domain,” said paul, gazing with pleasure on the verdant islets with which the bay before him was studded. “yet i cannot help thinking that it is a waste of one’s life to spend it in a solitude, however beautiful, when the sorrowing and the suffering world around us calls for the active energies of all good men.”
the hunter seemed to ponder paul’s words.
“it appears to me,” he said at last, “that our creator meant us to serve him by making ourselves and those around us happy. i have to do so here, and in some degree have succeeded.”
as he spoke he raised both hands to his mouth and gave vent to a prolonged halloo that swept out over the calm waters of the bay.
it was quickly replied to by a shrill cry, and in a few minutes a canoe, emerging from one of the islets, was seen paddling swiftly towards them.
