University of Vermont - Ariel Yearbook (Burlington, VT)

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THE ARIEL, 1908 21 portage into Lady Evelyn Lake. Nowhere in Canada, he wailed, was there such another carry. He shuddered in telling of the mighty cliffs, up which one sobbingly struggled even under the lightest pack, of the sharp rocks that pierced the toughest leather and of the fallen trees that beset the way in scores. It was known as The Giants Portage, and its mastery was a day's work for ordinary men. As it would be madness to attack this monster, jaded as we were by a days paddling in the rain, we must go into camp early and win, by many hours of rest, fresh strength for the morning assault, On the morrow, with icy tremors of apprehension coursing through our bones, we drew near to the spot of horror. Long was the agony deferred, until all on a sudden it flashed upon us that we were beholdiug the scene of a miracle. In the fashion of those cloud-capped towers of Prospero, the Giant .Portage had dissolved and like this insubstantial pageant faded left not a rack behind. And with its magical crumbling fell also to pieces the prestige of Wfilliam. At one blow he was unkinged from head to heel. Henceforth he might prate at will of lions in the way: ears were deaf, and eyes were fixed upon maps. The pupils now took their seat in the masters chair. As men of the coast bred on beaches with salt always in our nostrils, we had, I fear, but an imperfect sympathy with W'illiam's hatred of high wind and broad water. Like all of his kind he was totally ignorant of swimming: and, as a not unnatural consequence, erred from excess of caution. Despite our angry protests he would cling to a breaker-beaten shore rather than cross a lake in a breezeg and his fears at such times would furnish apprehensions enough to serve during a stormy ocean-voyage. The climax of his woes was reached one boisterous day, when we were fighting a head wind on the widest stretch of Temagami. The blast -became to him a savage personal enemy whom he loaded with reproaches, with bitter irony urging' the eternally condemned creature to blow, blow, blow. Through the centuries, Boreas has doubtless become pretty well accustomed to fervid exhortationsz- Blow, northern wind Send thou me my sweeting! Blow, northern wind, blow, blow, blow! But never since old Neptune's angry dressing down of the winds in the Aeneid passage, familiar to our school-days, had the poor fellows suffered such an uncomfortable quarter of an hour. And do you presume upon your birth? Dare you, winds, without my sovereign leave to embroil heaven and earth, and raise such mountains? Wfhom Il That is Mr. Bohn's reading of Vii-gil's lines: VVil1iam's version, while far more spirited, is less suited to ears polite

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20 THE ARIEL, 1908 Eddas. Having exhausted his evenings repertoire, VVilliam then departed in the canoe for a visit to his mother-in-law's home, a mile across the water. Vtfe noticed, as he left the camp-Hre, that his hip-pocket was bulging suspiciously. Early dawn saw the return of the canoe and of a sadder and more sober William. His back-pocket was empty now, but he had known disappointingly little of the joys in solution there, for the old lady,', he confessed, had knocked the pint silly. Under the pretext of seeking a can-opener, we tendered our respects to the dowager in a morning-call of such ceremony as was due the home of one of the first families-the household being of mingled Indian and Eskimo strain. The matriarch denied her presence to us in a manner that suggested sundry shrewd counter-blows from the spirited pint: but the maidens of the house, whose dumpy little bodies and thick ankles did little to suggest the romantic figures lithe as panther forest-roaming that dance across the pages of the elegant Monsieur Chateaubriand, discharged the sacred duties of hospitality by posing in penguin wise before our cameras. A more distinguished, if less Winsome, member of the connection, was visited at high noon :-XVil- liam's brother-in-law, Eskimo Peter or Hboozy foozled Petef as his friends not so potent in potting dubbed him with respectful envy. Peter's vocation was that of gentleman-farmer on the Montreal River near the Matawabika Falls, in which favored region he promoted the culture of the potato with an ardor worthy the attention of Mr. Luther Burbank. Like another country-dweller, Horace, love of the town and of ambrosial nights CHO noctes coenaeque Deum! j sometimes summoned him from his Sabine Farm. Yet, even after genial urban hours of Udesipere in loco,', he was so loyal to the open road that on such occasions he invariably selected this as a midnight couch. This love of the king's high- way had resulted three weeks since in an unfortunate encounter between Peters broad cheek and the wheel of a water-wagon. The wagon was said to have been put hopelessly out of commission-an outcome that awakened little grief in Haileybury, that town of thirsty souls-and Peter's Visage had been marred by three gaping cracks. Long experience with a canoe had taught him the value of pitch and resin in all cases of leakage, and three tarry seams across the jaw now kept water out and stronger fluid in. Peter's prowess with the canakin was Wllll31lliS never-failing topic. No wonder! 'Were they not Arcadians both ? As far as the Matawabika, Wfilliam had been in his own country, and his right as a leader of men had been unchallenged by us. But he was soon to tumble from his high estate: and sad is the story of his fall. All through the long narrows of Vlfaswaning and Obowanga he chanted a wild miserere of the

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22 THE ARIEL, 1908 and contains at the end a longer dash, indeed a whole series of dashes. The elements were his chief enemies, even in sleep. In his little tent the night- horse, as he called the midnight horror, was frequently active, snorting, kicking, careening, cavorting, and, when in response to groans and cries, we would rush to the rescue, the sufferer would emerge trembling from 'fhigh black rolling waves, in which dream-canoe and man had been engulfed. It was characteristic of him that he slept with an air-pillow, to use as a life-preserver in these watery visions. Yet time has its revenges-even so short a time as a month of canoeing. VVe salts, trained to double-reef breezes, might laugh at Wfilliam, when the wind was having its way on a wide sweep of water, but in streams that were at once narrow, swift and shallow the tables were turned. Then he easily dominated the rush and whirl of things, and none of us, for a moment, disputed his mastery. Wlieii the Matabitchouan, like the overrated cataract at Lodore, came flying and flinging, writhing and wringing, eddying and whisking, spouting and frisk- ing, turning and twisting around and around,', VVilliam was in his glory. I-Iis quick paddle would guide his companion and himself safely past all dangers down into deep, smooth water, while we, in the other canoe, would be poised on a rock, or jammed side-on against a log in the middle of the rapids. Bow-oar and stern-oar would fbandy amenities: 'fLook out, old fellow, where you are steeringlu Keep her stern up-stream!l' For heaven's sake, pole, pole, don't paddle! There, we are stuck fast! In this futile word-play, Wfilliam would take no part, but would come leaping and splashing to the rescue. The jerk of a rope, the pry of a paddle, and Qhurrahlj we would be free-perfectly free to repeat the mishap a few yards further on, despite my wild strokes and Anson's ingenious theories. More distress for the unlucky wights and more work for VVilliam! Here as elsewhere his training progressed rapidly, violently. Fish, flesh and fowl were in little danger from 'William. In darkest Africa or in his Utopia of sport, far-away Pembroke, he may have been a mighty hunter 5 but he gave no proof of his lore. Cn the contrary, his sporting sugges- tions awoke in us a noble doubt, whether he had ever handled gun or rod. Advice to keep the canoe close to the sandy shore that we might perchance get a pistol-shot at partridges feeding, or to whip with a fly, greasily supplemented by a bit of pork, a broad lake for brook trout was not greeted by us very seriously. Even Anson's broken revolver, and the Hy-book that had so long ago served Harris' grandfather, the Bishop, knew better than that. Hunting was, however, barred in the Temagami Forest: so VVilliam's land- functions were only two, he was porter and he was cook. Said to us once a guide of sterner stuff and stronger frame than our master-disciple: I've done in my life a lot of low-down things I hadnft oughter. But I aint never yet asked a man to help me with my canoe at a portage. There were blots of this