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Fort Desolation: Red Indians And Fur Traders Of Rupert’s Land
by
After that, he scraped together a sufficient number of old planks, and built therewith a flat-bottomed boat–a vessel much wanted at the place. But, do what he would, time hung very heavy on his hands, even although he made as much of a companion of Teddy O’Donel, as was consistent with his dignity. The season for wild fowl had not arrived, and he soon got tired of going out with his gun, with the certainty of returning empty-handed.
At last there was a brief break in the monotony of the daily life at Fort Desolation. A band of Indians came with a good supply of furs. They were not a very high type of human beings, had little to say, and did not seem disposed to say it. But they wanted goods from Jack, and Jack wanted furs from them; so their presence during the two days and nights they stayed shed a glow of moral sunshine over the fort that made its inhabitants as light-hearted and joyful as though some unwonted piece of good fortune had befallen them.
When the Indians went away, however, the gloom was proportionally deeper, Jack and his man sounded lower depths of despair than they had ever before fathomed, and the latter began to make frequent allusions to the possibility of making away with himself. Indeed, he did one evening, while he and Jack stood silently on the shore together, propose that they should go into the bush behind the fort, cover themselves over with leaves, and perish “at wance, like the babes in the wood.”
Things were in this gloomy condition, when an event occurred, which, although not of great importance in itself, made such a deep impression on the dwellers at Fort Desolation, that it is worthy of a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
HORRORS.
One morning the sun rose with unwonted splendour on the broad bosom of the Saint Lawrence. The gulf was like a mirror, in which the images of the seagulls were as perfect as the birds themselves, and the warm hazy atmosphere was lighted up so brightly by the sun, that it seemed as though the world were enveloped in delicate golden gauze.
Jack Robinson stood on the shore, with the exile of Erin beside him. Strange to say, the effect of this lovely scene on both was the reverse of gladdening.
“It’s very sad,” said Jack, slowly.
“True for ye,” observed the sympathising Teddy, supposing that his master had finished his remark.
“It’s very sad,” repeated Jack, “to look abroad upon this lovely world, and know that thousands of our fellow-men are enjoying it in each other’s society, while we are self-exiled here.”
“An’ so it is,” said Teddy, “not to mintion our fellow-women an’ our fellow-childers to boot.”
“To be sure we have got each other’s society, O’Donel,” continued Jack, “and the society of the gulls–“
“An’ the fush,” interposed Teddy.
“And the fish,” assented Jack; “for all of which blessings we have cause to be thankful; but it’s my opinion that you and I are a couple of egregious asses for having forsaken our kind and come to vegetate here in the wilderness.”
“That’s just how it is, sur. We’re both on us big asses, an’ it’s a pint for investigation which on us is the biggest–you, who ought to have know’d better, or me, as niver kno’w’d anything, a’most, to spake of.”
Jack smiled. He was much too deeply depressed to laugh. For some minutes they stood gazing in silent despondency at the sea.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Jack, with sudden animation, pointing to an object which appeared at the moment near the extremity of a point of rocks not far from the spot where they stood–“a canoe?”
“Two of ’em!” cried O’Donel, as another object came into view.
The change which came over the countenances of the two men, as they stood watching the approach of the two canoes, would have been incomprehensible to any one not acquainted with the effect of solitude on the human mind. They did not exactly caper on the beach, but they felt inclined to do so, and their heaving bosoms and sparkling eyes told of the depth of emotion within.