Notwithstanding their "tanning", however, the party were in splendid spirits, and ate their roast goose, potatoes, and hot bread with a gusto which far more delicate viands at home would fail to provoke. As the meal proceeded, and the merry jest went round, all feelings of fatigue, pain, and discomfort were lost in the revulsion of comfort which a full meal produces in a man of thoroughly healthy physique. How few of us in the crowded cities know, or indeed can appreciate, the pleasures of the hardy sportsman. To bear wet, cold, and discomfort; to exercise patience, skill, and endurance; and to undergo the extreme point of fatigue, was the sum of nearly every day's experience of the members of the party; but when their heavy guns and cumbrous clothing were laid aside, the rough chair and cushionless settle afforded luxurious rest, the craving appetite made their coarse fare a delightsome feast, and when, warm, full-fed, and refreshed, they invoked the dreamy solace of the deity Nicotiana, the sense of animal pleasure and satisfaction was complete.
"Is your pipe filled, Creamer?" asked Lund, carelessly.
"Yes; but you'll not get it until you give us the story you're to tell us this night. Faith, there's not one of us can beat you at the same trade, and it's little of fact that you'll give us, any how."
"For shame, Hughie, to malign the credibility of an old friend in that way, and me the father of a family. I'm almost ready to swear that you shan't have a yarn from me for the whole spring. To accuse me of yarning—me that—"
"That humbugged the whole Associated Press of the United States no longer ago than the war with the southerns. I mind myself how you told them at Shediac, that the Alabama was down among the fishermen in the bay, like a hawk among a flock of pigeons. Faith, you had twenty of them taken and burned before you stopped that time, and the telegraph operator at Point de Chêne was hopping all the evening between the boat and the office, like a pea in a hot skillet," retorted La Salle, laughing. "Ah, Lund! you mustn't plead innocent with us, who have been humbugged by you too many times already. But come, captain, draw on your imagination, and give us a regular stunner—one without a word of truth in it."
"Well, gentlemen," answered Lund, deliberately, "I ain't got anything to say to that young jackanapes, for nobody that ever heard him tell stories will ever believe anything he says again. But I mean to have my revenge somehow, and so I'll tell you a story that is as true as gospel, and yet you'll hardly believe a word of it. We who live here on this little island call it the story of
"The Packet Light.
"About thirty years ago, my wife's father, old Mr. Bridges, lived in a snug little log house down in the next field, towards the Point. He was a young man then, and my wife here was a little girl, unable to do more than to drive home the cows, or help mind the younger children. The island is uncivilized enough now, sir, but in those days, besides the old French military road to St. Peter's, and a government mail route to St. Eleanor's, there was nothing but bridle-paths and rough trails through the woods. Men came to market with horses in straw harnesses, dragging carts with block-wheels sawn from the butt of a big pine; and often when twenty or thirty of them were drinking into old Katty Frazer's, the beasts would get hungry, and eat each other loose.
"It was next to an impossibility to get any money in exchange for produce or labor, and everything was paid for in orders on the different dealers for so many shillings' or pounds' worth of goods. In winter a whale-boat on runners carried the mail between the Wood Islands and Pictou, and in summer a small schooner, called the Packet, sailed with the mail, and what few passengers presented themselves, between the capital and the same port.
"It was in the last of November that year that the Packet made her last cruise. The weather was freezing cold, with a thick sky, and heavy squalls from the south of west, when she struck on the East Bar, near the main channel. They put down the helm, thinking to slide off; but she only swung broadside to the waves, and as the tide was at ebb, she was soon hard and fast, with the sea making a clean breach over her.