The graveyard at Battle Harbour is in a sheltered hollow near the sea. It is a green spot-the one, perhaps, on the island-and they have enclosed it with a high board fence. Men have fished from that harbour for a hundred years and more-but there are not many graves; why, I do not know. The crumbling stones, the weather-beaten boards, the sprawling ill-worded inscriptions, are all, in their way, eloquent: VARA H DID THE FORTH 1881 "Sarah Combe died the fourth of August, 1881, aged 31 years." There is another, better carved, somewhat better spelled, but quite as interesting and luminous : In Memory of John Hill who Died Aged 34 Weep not dear Parents For your lost tis my May Crist you all take up Shuld meat again These things are, indeed, eloquent-of ignorance, of poverty; but no less eloquent of sorrow and of love. The Labrador "liveyere" is kin with the whole wide world. I VIII WITH The FLEET N the early spring—when the sunlight is yellow and the warm winds blow and the melting snow drips over the cliffs and runs in little rivulets from the barren hills—in the thousand harbours of Newfoundland the great fleet is made ready for the long adventure upon the Labrador coast. The rocks echo the noise of hammer and saw and mallet and the song and shout of the workers. The new schooners-building the winter long at the harbour sideare hurried to completion. The old craftthe weather-beaten, ragged old craft, which, it may be, have dodged the reefs and outlived the gales of forty seasons—are fitted with new spars, patched with new canvas and rope, calked anew, daubed anew and, thus refitted, float brave enough on the quiet harbour water. There is no end to the bustle of labour on ships and nets-no end to the clatter of planning. From the skipper of the ten-ton First Venture, who sails with a crew of sons bred for the purpose, to the powerful dealer who supplies on shares a fleet of seventeen fore-and-afters manned from the harbours of a great bay, there is hope in the hearts of all. Whatever the last season, every man is to make a good "voyage" now. This season—this season-there is to be fish a-plenty on the Labrador! The future is bright as the new spring days. Aunt Matilda is to have a bonnet with feathers-when Skipper Thomas gets home from the Labrador. Little Johnny Tatt, he of the crooked back, is to know again the virtue of Pike's Pain Compound, at a dollar a bottle, warranted to curewhen daddy gets home from the Labrador. Skipper Bill's Lizzie, plump, blushing, merryeyed, is to wed Jack Lute o' Burnt Armwhen Jack comes back from the Labrador. Every man's heart, and, indeed, most men's fortunes, are in the venture. The man who has nothing has yet the labour of his hands. Be he skipper, there is one to back his skill and honesty; be he hand, there is no lack of berths to choose from. Skippers stand upon their record and schooners upon their reputation; it's take your choice, for the hands are not too many: the skippers are timid or bold, as God made them; the schooners are lucky or not, as Fate determines. Every man has his chance. John Smith o' Twillingate provisions the Lucky Queen and gives her to the penniless Skipper Jim o' Yellow Tickle on shares. Old Tom Tatter o' Salmon Cove, with plea and argument, persuades the Four Arms trader to trust him once again with the Busy Bee. He'll get the fish this time. Nar a doubt of it! He'll be home in August-this year -loaded to the gunwale. God knows who pays the cash when the fish fail! God knows how the folk survive the disappointment! It is a great lottery of hope and fortune. |