Once again we roused the sleeper; and so, shaking hands with our hospitable host, we left the comfortable hutch at Wolfe's Landing, and were soon on our way to the jolly little schooner.
CHAPTER VII.
The other side of the Harbor—A Foraging Party—Disappointment—Twilight at Louisburgh—Long Days and Early Mornings—A Visit and View of an Interior—A Shark Story—Picton inquires about a Measure—Hospitality and the Two Brave Boys—Proposals for a Trip overland to Sydney.
To make use of a quaint but expressive phrase, "it is patent enough," that travellers are likely to consume more time in reaching a place than they are apt to bestow upon it when found. And, I am ashamed to say, that even Louisburgh was not an exception to this general truth; although perhaps certain reasons might be offered in extenuation for our somewhat speedy departure from the precincts of the old town. First, then, the uncertainty of a sailing vessel, for the "Balaklava" was coquettishly courting any and every wind that could carry her out of our harbor of refuge. Next, the desire of seeing more of the surroundings of the ancient fortress—the batteries on the opposite side, the new town, the lighthouse, and the wild picturesque coast. Add to these the wish of our captain to shift his anchorage, to get on the side where he would have a better opening towards the ocean, "when the wind came on to blow,"—to say nothing of being in the neighborhood of his old friends, whose cottages dotted the green hill-sides across the bay, as you looked over the bows of the jolly little schooner. And there might have been other inducements—such as the hope of getting a few pounds of white sugar, a pitcher of milk (delicious, lacteous fluid, for which we had yearned so often amid the briny waves); and last, but not least, a hamper of blue-nosed potatoes. So, when the shades of the second evening were gathering grandly and gloomily around the dismantled parapets, and Louisburgh lay in all the lovely and romantic light of a red and stormy sunset, it seemed but fitting that the cable-chain of the anchor should clank to the windlass, and the die-away song of the mariner should resound above the calm waters, and the canvas stretch towards the land opposite, that seemed so tempting and delectable. And presently the "Balaklava" bore away across the red and purple harbor for the new town, leaving in her wake the ruined walls of Louisburgh that rose up higher the further we sailed from them.
The schooner dropped anchor inside the little cove on the opposite side of the old town, which the reader will see by referring to the map; and the old battles of the years '45 and '58 were presently forgotten in the new aspects that were presented. The anchor was scarcely dropped fairly, before the yawl-boat was under the stroke of the oars, and Picton and I en route for the store-house; the general, particular, and only exchange in the whole district of Louisburgh. It was a small wooden building with a fair array of tarpaulin hats, oil-skin garments, shelves of dry-goods and crockery, and boxes and barrels, such as are usually kept by country traders: on the beach before it were the customary flake for drying fish, the brown winged boats, and other implements of the fisheries.
But alas! the new town, that looked so pastoral and pleasant, with its tender slopes of verdure, was not, after all, a Canaan, flowing with milk and blue-nosed potatoes. Neither was there white sugar, nor coffee, nor good black tea there; the cabin of the schooner being as well furnished with these articles of comfort as the store-house of McAlpin, towards which we had looked with such longing eyes. Indeed, I would not have cared so much about the disappointment myself, but I secretly felt sorry for Picton, who went rummaging about the barrels in search of something to eat or to drink. "No white sugar?" said the traveller. "We don't have white sugar in this town," was the answer. "Nor coffee?" "No, Sir." And the tea had the same flavor of musty hay, with which we were so well acquainted. At last Picton stumbled over a prize—a bushel-basket half-filled with potatoes, whereat he raised a bugle-note of triumph.
It may seem strange that a gentleman of fine education, a traveller, who had visited the famous European capitals, London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Vienna; who had passed between the Pillars of Hercules, and voyaged upon the blue Mediterranean, far as the Greek Archipelago; who had wandered through the galleries of the Vatican, and mused within the courts of the Alhambra; who had seen the fire-works on the carnival dome of St. Peter's, and the water-works of Versailles; the temples of Athens, and the Boboli gardens of Florence; the sculptures of Praxiteles, and the frescoes of Raphael; should exhibit such emotion as Picton exhibited, over a bushel-basket only half-filled with small-sized blue-nosed tubers. But Picton was only a man, and "Homo sum——" the rest of the sentence it is needless to quote. I saw at a glance that the potatoes were cut in halves for planting; but Picton was filled with the divine idea of a feast.
"I say, we want a peck of potatoes."
"A peck?" was the answer. "Why, man, I wouldn't sell ye my seed-potatoes at a guinea apiece."