Nature and Human Nature

by Thomas Chandler Haliburton

“‘Oh!’ sais I, ‘don’t take me for one of your Dutch boors, I beg of you. I can spell, but you can’t read, that’s all. You remind me,’ sais I, ‘of a feller in Slickville when the six-cent letter stamps came in fashion. He licked the stamp so hard, he took all the gum off, and it wouldn’t stay on, no how he could fix it, so what does he do but put a pin through it, and writes on the letter, “Paid, if the darned thing will only stick.” Now, if you go and lick the stamp etarnally that way, folks will put a pin through it, and the story will stick to you for ever and ever. But come on board, and let’s liquor, and I will stand treat.’

“I felt sorry for the poor critter, and I told him how to feed the horse, and advised him to take him to Saratoga, advertise him, and sell him the same way; and he did, and got rid of him. The rise raised his character as a lawyer amazing. He was elected governor next year; a sell like that is the making of a lawyer.

“Now I don’t call the lead Washingtons nor the heavey horse either on ’em a case of cheat; but I do think a man ought to know how to read a law and how to read an advertisement, don’t you? But come, let us go ashore, and see how the galls look, for you have raised my curiosity.”

We accordingly had the boat lowered; and taking Sorrow with us to see if he could do anything in the catering line, the doctor, Cutler, and myself landed on the beach, and walked round the settlement.

The shore was covered with fish flakes, which sent up an aroma not the most agreeable in the world except to those who lived there, and they, I do suppose, snuff up the breeze as if it was loaded with wealth and smelt of the Gold Coast. But this was nothing (although I don’t think I can ever eat dum fish again as long as I live) to the effluvia arising from decomposed heaps of sea-wood, which had been gathered for manure, and was in the act of removal to the fields. No words can describe this, and I leave it to your imagination, Squire, to form an idea of a new perfume in nastiness that has never yet been appreciated but by an Irishman.

I heard a Paddy once, at Halifax, describe the wreck of a carriage which had been dashed to pieces. He said there was not “a smell of it left.” Poor fellow, he must have landed at Chesencook, and removed one of those oloriferous heaps, as Sorrow called them, and borrowed the metaphor from it, that there was not “a smell of it left.” On the beach between the “flakes” and the water, were smaller heaps of the garbage of the cod-fish and mackarel, on which the grey and white gulls fought, screamed, and gorged themselves, while on the bar were the remains of several enormous black fish, half the size of whales, which had been driven on shore, and hauled up out of the reach of the waves by strong ox teams. The heads and livers of these huge monsters had been “tried out in the Sperm court” for ile, and the putrid remains of the carcass were disputed for by pigs and crows. The discordant noises of these hungry birds and beasts were perfectly deafening.

On the right-hand side of the harbour, boys and girls waded out on the flats to dig clams, and were assailed on all sides by the screams of wild fowl who resented the invasion of their territory, and were replied to in tones no less shrill and unintelligible. On the left was the wreck of a large ship, which had perished on the coast, and left its ribs and skeleton to bleach on the shore, as if it had failed in the vain attempt to reach the forest from which it had sprung, and to repose in death in its native valley. From one of its masts, a long, loose, solitary shroud was pendant, having at its end a large double block attached to it, on which a boy was seated, and swung backward and forward. He was a little saucy urchin, of about twelve years of age, dressed in striped homespun, and had on his head a red yarn clackmutch, that resembled a cap of liberty. He seemed quite happy, and sung a verse of a French song with an air of conscious pride and defiance as his mother, stick in hand, stood before him, and at the top of her voice now threatened him with the rod, his father, and the priest—and then treacherously coaxed him with a promise to take him to Halifax, where he should see the great chapel, hear the big bell, and look at the bishop. A group of little girls stared in amazement at his courage, but trembled when they heard his mother predict a broken neck—purgatory—and the devil as his portion. The dog was as excited as the boy—he didn’t bark, but he whimpered as he gazed upon him, as if he would like to jump up and be with him, or to assure him he would catch him if he fell, if he had but the power to do so.

What a picture it was—the huge wreck of that that once “walked the waters as a thing of life”—the merry boy—the anxious mother—the trembling sisters—the affectionate dog; what bits of church-yard scenes were here combined—children playing on the tombs—the young and the old—the merry and the aching heart—the living among the dead. Far beyond this were tall figures wading in the water, and seeking their food in the shallows; cranes, who felt the impunity that the superstition of the simple habitans had extended to them, and sought their daily meal in peace.

Above the beach and parallel with it, ran a main road, on the upper side of which were the houses, and on a swelling mound behind them rose the spire of the chapel visible far off in the Atlantic, a sacred signal-post for the guidance of the poor coaster. As soon as you reach this street or road and look around you, you feel at once you are in a foreign country and a land of strangers. The people, their dress, and their language, the houses, their form and appearance, the implements of husbandry, their shape and construction—all that you hear and see is unlike anything else. It is neither above, beyond, or behind the age. It is the world before the Flood. I have sketched it for you, and I think without bragging I may say I can take things off to the life. Once I drawed a mutton chop so nateral, my dog broke his teeth in tearing the panel to pieces to get at it; and at another time I painted a shingle so like stone, when I threw it into the water, it sunk right kerlash to the bottom.

“Oh, Mr Slick,” said the doctor, “let me get away from here. I can’t bear the sight of the sea-coast, and above all, of this offensive place. Let us get into the woods where we can enjoy ourselves. You have never witnessed what I have lately, and I trust in God you never will. I have seen within this month two hundred dead bodies on a beach in every possible shape of disfiguration and decomposition—mangled, mutilated, and dismembered corpses; male and female, old and young, the prey of fishes, birds, beasts, and, what is worse, of human beings. The wrecker had been there—whether he was of your country or mine I know not, but I fervently hope he belonged to neither. Oh, I have never slept sound since. The screams of the birds terrify me, and yet what do they do but follow the instincts of their nature? They batten on the dead, and if they do feed on the living, God has given them animated beings for their sustenance, as, he has the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, and the beasts of the field to us, but they feed not on each other. Man, man alone is a cannibal. What an awful word that is!”