THE SAMPLER.
THE LASSIE WITH BRETON CAP.
else in Canada. The women pass the supper they have brought to the men, and while these hungrily consume their evening meal on the sands, Mesdames having taken the horses out of the carts, hook the traces on to the boats and before M’sieu can come to their aid, first one and then another has “clucked” to her horses, the reins in the strong hands are taut, the horses are straining and floundering in the shifting sand, madame or sturdy demoiselle skillfully keeping her own feet and admonishing “les chevals” with a commanding “Marche donc!” “Marche donc!” which would make any horse obey. Thus is attained the lively progression of the boat up the beach, to the appointed place of safety above the reach of the high tide, however angrily, through the night waves may curl and foam.
If you come here in the early morning, as many as sixty or seventy boats stand gunwale to gunwale on different parts of the long beach, answering the roll call of a great industry.
But it is on the north shore of Amherst, about the sand bar joining Amherst with Grindstone and partly enclosing Basque Harbour, that one sees still other groups and figures essentially of the Madeleines. Women and children, horses and carts, and dog-carts here appear far out from land, afoot in the low water that washes for miles the undersea sandbanks. Women and children and lassies with Breton caps, stand ankle-deep in the water with hand-made three-pronged forks, like the trident of a sea-god, in hand, digging and digging clams for bait, piling them into the receiving baskets and pails, and thence into the waiting carts—the carts in which island horses doze between the shafts, the rising tide lapping their fetlocks. It is a rare sight this clam-digging in the Madeleine barachois! And so far as we know one not duplicated anywhere in America. It occurs only at low-tide and it is therefore possible to pass any number of times at full tide and not see anything of it. But should it once be chanced upon, it will never be forgotten. Never was there a “piece” with so much atmosphere and action. While the tide is still ebbing the women wade far out to the edge of the clam line and begin their uncovering of the mollusc harvest. Even after the tide turns and begins to come in, they still hold their own with a bold front, retreating a few inches only, at a time. Atmospheric indeed is the effect produced by all these people, the horses in the two-wheeled carts, and the tiny dog-carts, when they are half shrouded in a soft wet fog creeping in from sea. Then it is as though Nature wished to reiterate that ’tis she who is the Great Artist, composing Aquamarines that no mere human artist can ever hope to touch.
Sometimes the low tide happens at night. And at dusk one meets the women driving in their carts, the lighted lanterns beside them, lanterns which later in the evening will appear to one looking off to the barachois like so many amphibious fire-flies dancing above the waves and lighting up the restless waters and the night gloom with a ghastly flare.
This night-scene is of even rarer quality than that screened by the day. Certainly this is exclusively a Madeleine canvas.