There was a nip in the air that drove sleep and dreams from him and made him keen to launch forth into action and adventure. He went on deck, and drawing up a bucket of water plunged his head deep into it. His toilet was soon made. He grinned as he remembered that for the first time in his life he had an adequate excuse for not scrubbing his face. When he had finished he went to the fo'c'sle head and called down to Ben.
"Brekfus is not ready yet," Ben told him. "As you're up there you might as well wash down the deck and take a turn at the pump."
While he was doing this the mist rolled away and the sun appeared as if by magic, gilding the town and the shipping with early morning beauty.
The boat was too far below the quay for him to see anything but the upper stories of the buildings facing the harbour, so he had to content himself with gazing upon the latter and the variegated shipping that filled it. Steam trawlers, coal tramps, American deep-water fishermen, Newfoundland Bank fishermen, cargo boats, sailing and steam yachts, steam tugs and a host of smaller craft filled the basin.
He gazed on this scene as he had so often gazed on St. John's harbour as seen from the college windows, admiring the beautiful lines of some of the vessels, the ugliness of others, indeed their endless variety.
He was torn from this pleasant exercise by the call to breakfast. After the meal was over they loosened the sails and shook them out to dry, then prepared to go ashore. By this time the town was well awake. At a neighbouring quay one vessel was discharging coal and another produce, both of which commodities were being loaded on to antiquated ox-carts drawn by even more antiquated oxen. Numerous dogs were barking and pretending to be fiercely excited by pieces of stick floating in the water, and one after another were diving off the quay, encouraged by errant bakers' boys and other seemingly unattached youths.
The sound of strange speech struck the ear, a French that Dare could hardly believe was the same language he was taught at school.
In time they prepared to enter this strange world. Ben locked up the fo'c'sle, asked the crew of a nearby boat to keep an eye on the Nancy, then, followed by Dare, climbed up the side of the quay and stood erect on dry land.
The town of St. Pierre has been formed by the needs of the visiting sailors and fishermen of France, America, and Newfoundland. Old as age goes in the Americas, the remains of the English fortifications can still be seen, but now by the Treaty of Utrecht, no garrisoning or fortification of the island is permitted. Its architecture is such as one finds in the seaports of Brittany and sea towns such as Marseilles. There has been a rich trade done there in its day, but its importance has declined with the importance of St. Pierre et Miquelon as a colony, the only French colony in the Atlantic, and little more in reality than a station for her Bank fishermen.
But enough remains of the colony's importance to ensure a brisk trade in the summer months when the population is greatly augmented by the visiting fleets.