The Cook longed for social intercourse in this real Acadia, but he doubted the ability of his French to see him through; fortunately he espied a shop, and therein he purchased sundry sticks of candy; with one of these gravitating between his fingers and lips, he strolled about, and within five minutes he had enchained in sweet bonds several lapsful of dark-eyed children whose pure intuitions taught them that in the great human search for sweetness and light it was never well to decline a proffered half of the desirable whole.
When the Purser drew near, it was with a sketchbook loaded with drawings of odd boats which had been passed at their moorings; and the names of these, with those of their owners, which were painted in antique letters astern, would have been of inestimable value to any writer of a French romance. And he brought something dearer yet to the eyes and heart of the Cook, and yet not wholly unpicturesque, it being a pair of cockerels, handsomely spangled, which he had purchased of a thrifty dame with whom he had exchanged some courteous words as he lounged past her riparian laundry in his boat. The Cook hastily took to his boat, distanced the Commodore and Vice, and an hour later announced broiled chickens for dinner, the gridiron having been a few feet of stout wire, which after use could be crumpled together into a thin handful of old iron, yet extended, at need, to a two-chicken capacity.
After the expedition had dined, each member discovered, upon arising, that the human side is not destitute of muscles, and that a steady strain of half a day at rudder and paddle, can search these out in a manner as uncomfortable as it is thorough. The Purser, who usually made himself conspicuous, when ashore, by a broad red woolen sash, apparently a muffler such as small boys wear upon their necks in winter, was by far the most agile of the party, and his companions, as they rubbed away the stitches in their sides, inwardly vowed that the picturesque was not always ridiculously useless, particularly when assumed on proper occasions, instead of being treated as of constant utility.
As the wind was gaining in industry, the Commodore permitted an overlong delay, to be improved physically, and while this was being enjoyed there hove in view a craft peculiar to French-American waters, but which would not be tolerated anywhere else. It was an immense barge, considerably more awkward than a canal boat, and moved by two great square sails, each with a mast to itself. The breeze which bellied the canvas of this monster would have driven a canoe along at the rate of twelve miles an hour, but the barge proceeded so leisurely that a maiden sauntering along the road on the bank chatted with the pilot for a mile or two without quickening her pace. Having both his vessel and his sweetheart upon his mind, it is not strange that the pilot did not perceive the four foreign craft beached a-starboard; the maiden, however, with a woman's eye for color, caught sight of the club signal which the Cook always flew at his masthead, instead of upon the mainpeak, with which it would have been furled when sail was taken in. Her figure, which had afforded so gracious a relief against the blue sky behind her, disappeared with the unscientific effect of seeming to leave a cloud behind, and as the unintentional listeners devoutly thanked heaven for such knowledge of the French tongue as had enabled them to overhear the artless affectionate dialogue which had been going on, they saw, gazing at the pilot, how dark the Acadian complexion can be when displayed in the face of a lover newly made lonesome. Gladly would the swain himself have retired from sight, but the helm of his boat was obedient only under greatest effort, so he strained sullenly at the tiller, a figure at first amusing but soon pathetic. The sentiment which keeps the world from growing old was not a stranger to the canoeists, so the Purser murmured a bit from Jasmin and caught a hint which for years he had tried to take from Jules Breton; the Cook wished there might be a joint of chicken left to offer the poor fellow; the Commodore hailed him heartily, and offered to carry him out a taste of brandy in token of a professional and sentimental sympathy, and the Vice sent him a good cigar; and it came to pass that five minutes later the ere-while lovelorn helmsman was trolling a song of war and slaughter as merrily as if love and Evangeline had never existed.
"Ah," sighed the Commodore, "the days are gone when rum and true religion were the principal supports of fallen humanity. Smoke seems to answer that fellow's purpose as well as religion."
"If my memory serves me rightly," said the Vice, as if in profound reflection, "a great deal of the religion I have heard preached, was well informed with a something from which smoke is a natural deduction."
"That," said the Purser, "is because in the universal fitness of things a man recalls most readily that which he most urgently needs. No one can wonder that a politician—"
"Language unparliamentary," interrupted the Vice, with a wry face.
"A statesman, then," resumed the Purser, "should recall most vividly the only element by which he can effectually be purified."
"Sulphur is not to be used under the rays of the sun," interposed the Commodore; "let's take to a more cooling element."