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Around the Camp-fire. Roberts Charles G. D.
Читать онлайн.Название Around the Camp-fire
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Автор произведения Roberts Charles G. D.
Жанр Зарубежная классика
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“Our blows with the oar and gaff served temporarily to disable our assailants, but not gash their tough skin. But the moment blood was started on one of our enemies his comrades finished the work for us. Almost every stroke of the boat-hook tore a fish, which straightway became food for its fellows. The most I could do with my gaff was to tap a dogfish on the head when I could, and stun him for a while.
“During these exciting minutes the tide was rising with terrible speed. The water that now came washing over our toes was a lather of foam and blood, through which sharp, dark fins and long keen bodies darted and crowded and snapped.
“Suddenly one fish, fiercer than the rest, made a dart at B – ’s leg, and its sharp snout just grazed his skin, causing him to yell with horror. We tried to get our feet out of the water by standing on the highest stones we could find. Our arms were weary from wielding the oar and the gaff, but the rector’s boat-hook kept up its deadly lunges.
“Chris had been firing among our assailants; but now, beholding our strait, he threw down the gun, and strained furiously upon his one oar in the endeavor to shove off the boat. She would not budge.
“‘Boys, brace up! brace up!’ cried the rector. ‘She’ll float in another minute or two. We can give these chaps all they want.’ As he spoke, his boat-hook ripped another fish open. He had caught the knack of so using his weapon that he raked his opponents from underneath without wasting an ounce of effort.
“The fight was getting too hot to last. A big fish, with a most appalling array of fangs, snatched at my foot. Just in time I thrust the broken end of the gaff through his throat and turned him on his back. His neighbors took charge of him, and he vanished in bloody fragments.
“As I watched this an idea struck me.
“‘Chris!’ I yelled, ‘the shad! the shad! Throw them overboard, a dozen at a time!’
“‘Splendid!’ cried the rector; and B – panted approvingly, ‘That’s the talk! That’ll call ’em off.’
“Down came his oar with fresh vigor upon the head of a dogfish, which turned at once on its side. Then the shad began to go overboard.
“At first the throwing of the shad produced no visible effect, and the attack on us continued in unabated fury. Then the water began to foam and twist where the shad were dropping, and on a sudden we were left alone.
“The whole pack forsook us to attack the shad. How they fought and lashed and sprang and tore in one mad turmoil of foam and fish!
“‘Spread them a bit!’ B – cried. ‘Give them all a chance, or they’ll come back at us.’
“‘She’s afloat! she’s afloat!’ he yelled the next moment, in frantic delight.
“Chris threw out another dozen of fish. Then he thrust his oar over the stern, and the big boat moved slowly toward us. At intervals Chris stopped and threw out more shad. As we eagerly watched his approach the thought occurred to us that when the boat should reach us it would be with the whole pack surrounding it. The ravenous creatures seemed almost ready to leap aboard.
“‘We can use these oars and things as leaping-poles,’ suggested B – .
“‘That’s what we’ll have to do,’ agreed the rector. Then he cried to Chris, ‘Bring her side onto the shoal, so we can all jump aboard at the same time.’
“As the boat drew nearer, Chris paused again, and threw a score of shad far astern. Away darted the dogfish; and the boat rounded up close before us.
“The agility with which we sprang aboard was remarkable, and Chris almost hugged us in his joy.
“‘Not another shad’ll they git out er me!’ he declared triumphantly.
“‘Well, I should rather think not,” remarked the rector. ‘But they might as well have some more dogfish.’
“With these words he put his foot upon the gunwale, and his unwearying boat-hook went back jubilantly into the battle.
“Rapidly loading and firing my shotgun, I picked off as many of our enemies as I comfortably could; and B – , by lashing the boat’s hatchet on the end of the gaff, made a weapon with which he played havoc among our foes.
“But the fray lasted not much longer. Innumerable as were yet the survivors, their hunger was becoming appeased, and their ferocity diminished. In a little while they sheered off to a safer distance.
“When we had time to think of our own condition, we found that our backs were painfully scorched by the blazing June sun. As with pain we struggled into our clothes, Chris trimmed our course toward home.
“‘I reckon you know now ’bout all you’ll wanter know ’bout the ways o’ dogfish,’ he suggested.
“‘They are certainly very bloodthirsty,’ said the rector; ‘but at the same time they are interesting. That they gave us a noble contest you can’t deny.’”
When Queerman relapsed into silence, Ranolf took up the parable without waiting to be called upon.
“Queerman’s story,” said he, “reminds me of an adventure of my own, which befell me in that same tide-region which he has just been talking of. You know, I spent much of my illustrious boyhood about the Tantramar marshes, and overlooking the yellow head-waters of the Bay of Fundy. The name of my story is, ‘The Bull and the Leaping-Pole,’ and the scene of it is within a mile of the spot whence Queerman and his crowd set out for shad. It will serve to show what agility I am capable of on a suitable occasion.
“Out on the Tantramar marshes the wind, as usual, was racing with superfluous energy, bowing all one way the purple timothy-tops, and rolling up long green waves of grass that shimmered like the sea under the steady afternoon sun. I revelled in the fresh and breezy loneliness, which nevertheless at times gave me a sort of thrill, as the bobolinks, stopping their song for a moment, left no sound in my ears save the confused ‘swish’ of the wind. Men talk at times of the loneliness of the dark, but to my mind there is no more utter solitude than may be found in a broad white glare of sunshine.
“Here on the marsh, two miles from the skirt of the uplands, perhaps half a mile from the nearest incurve of the dike, on a twisted, sweet-smelling bed of purple vetch, I lay pretending to read, and deliciously dreaming. My bed of vetch sloped gently toward the sun, being on the bank of a little winding creek which idled through the long grasses on its way to the Tantramar. Once a tidal stream, the creek had been brought into subjection by what the country people call a ‘bito,’ built across its mouth to shut out the tides; and now it was little more than a rivulet at the bottom of the deep gash which it had cut for itself through the flats in its days of freedom. From my resting-place I could see in the distance a marsh-hawk noiselessly skimming the tops of the grass, peering for field-mice; or a white gull wandering aimlessly in from the sea. Beyond the dike rose the gaunt skeletons of three or four empty net-reels; and a little way off towards the uplands stood an old barn used for storing hay.
“Beside me among the vetch-blossoms, hummed about by the great bumblebees and flickered over by white and yellow butterflies, lay my faithful leaping-pole, – a straight young spruce trimmed and peeled, light and white and tough. Some years before, fired by reading in Hereward of the feats of ‘Wulfric the Heron,’ I had bent myself to learn to leap with the pole, and had become no less skilful in the exercise than eagerly devoted thereto. It gave me, indeed, a most fascinating sense of freedom. Ditches, dikes, and fences were of small concern to me, and I went craning it over the country like a huge meadow-hen.
“On this particular afternoon, which I am not likely soon to forget, when the bobolinks had hushed for so long that the whispering stillness grew oppressive, I became ashamed of the weird apprehension which kept stealing across me; and springing to my feet with a shout, I seized my leaping-pole, and went sailing over the creek hilariously. It was a good leap, and I contemplated the distance with satisfaction, marred only