The foaming fore shore/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
THE RETURN OF THE ESPERANCE
WHAT passed between Pellier and Beauport in the cabin of the Esperance the fishers of Château never knew for a certainty, but they shrewdly surmised. For in the fair weather of the next day the auxiliary vessel in charge of Codroy John crossed the strait under a single stick for repairs at Humbermouth. Furthermore, Jacques Beauport and six men of the Groix went with her, and at that Château tongues commenced wagging. It was plain enough!
Voilà, they all knew Marie Laval had another suitor, one at last whom she did not flout! Jacques Beauport, the observant, the cunning, had tried to get rid of him at a stroke, but Jacques had gone too far with his trickery and the admiral had taken a hand. How honorable, that man Pellier! The desire of his heart likely to be snatched away, and yet he had not countenanced the opportunity to take unfair advantage of his rival!
Oui, Jacques Beauport and the six who had helped him change Capitaine Taylor's net in secret were going across to be disciplined at the Fishery Protection Service headquarters at Humbermouth, over on the Humber arm of Bay of Islands, Newfoundland.
Indeed, it seemed that the Château tongues were right, for Taylor heard no more about the charge of using unlawful mesh in strait waters. His seine was not returned, in all probability because Beauport had destroyed it, but he himself was not molested. As for Marie, she did not go back to her stagehead position on old Peter's wharf. Taylor saw to that.
Every day in the gray of the dawn Hughie Hay took up her work at the room while she spent her glorious freedom on the Château hills or afloat on Château Bay. The Graywing being under repairs in the harbor itself, Taylor had commissioned a trap skiff belonging to Laval and with his handy craft he tended a fresh trap, likewise bought in old Peter's barter- house, moored in his former trap-berth. His luck ran riotously. The cod had struck in in immense numbers.
Every day for three weeks and more was a big fish day. On old Peter's wharf the knives flashed early and the kerosene flares burned late while his vats bulged with waterhorse and his acres of drying flakes covered the bawn (beach). Every week, and often twice a week, he shipped his made fish on a foreigner to over-ocean ports or chartered huge top-masted schooners from Newfoundland's East Coast to freight it to Twillingate or Fogo.
And well he might! For the most famous cod-grounds on the Labrador were here on its southern fore shore, on the banks and shoals of Belle Isle Strait! Slimed with their food, the Château shoals drew the teeming millions, and men of many nations fished while the harvest held. From all the Atlantic ports of the Union American schooners flocked; from all the Newfoundland outports all manner of sailing craft came, stationers, floaters, trawlers, gallant topmast schooners and ponderous brigantines.
Yet amid a horde of mighty fishers Taylor maintained his reputation as the greatest of them all. No man hauled more quintals at a single haul than he, and no man sent such catches slithering along old Peter's chutes. Between hauls he and his crew worked on the Graywing. Like Cortereal of old he cut tall masts from the hills, and when everything was in readiness all Château turned out to restep the schooner and dance on her deck and old Peter's wharf in her honor as they christened her brand-new canvas with strong waters of the North.
A gay day that and a gay night with one thousand craft in the Bay, and ten thousand men and women on the beach. And king and queen of the ten thousand were Capitaine Taylor and Marie Laval, Taylor hoisting his flag to the foretop and Marie, beautiful as a siren, spraying the new canvas with a bottle of port and humming a little sea song as she sprayed.
AS MARIE finished her song she flung the empty bottle overside and pointed toward the outer reach of the harbor.
"Mon Dieu—the Esperance!'" she cried. "As if the song called her—and what mountainous freight has she got?"
Taylor turned to stare at Pellier's auxiliary vessel boasting a new foremast and loaded with all the shining lumber and gear of a modern room. Codroy John was in charge and nowhere among her crew were to be seen Jacques Beauport and the six men who had sailed to Humbermouth with him. Château tongues were right indeed. Jacques was undergoing his discipline.
Yet Taylor's wondering mind did not dwell upon Jacques. He stared at the magnificence of the cargo the Esperance carried, the finest timbers, the most luxurious fixings he had ever seen destined for a room on the coast.
"Is it your father's stuff, Marie?" he asked. And as old Peter at that moment rolled none too steadily down the wharf to meet the schooner, Taylor hailed him with the query: "How now, Peter—have you opened your heart at last? Yonder are the makings of a palace aboard the Esperance, and it must have cost you a good many francs!"
"Diable, never a franc!" leered old Peter, regarding him and Marie with maliciously triumphant eyes. "It was paid for by Admiral Pellier."
"What?" demanded Taylor. "Is Pellier forsaking the bridge for the planter's flakes?"
"Non!"
Laval shook his sou'westered head and wiggled his chin in mirthful grimace so that his fringe of white whisker wavered back and forth.
"It is to replace my own old tumble-down sheds. People have laughed and turned up their offended noses at my room. Well, wait till the old boards rattle down and yonder gear goes up instead, and we will see who cackles with laughter and casts the merry eye. Mon Dieu," laughing in drunken raucousness, "does it surprise you, then? Should a son-in-law not be so lavish with his wealth? Voilà, Pellier has spoken to Anne and myself in the way of the French for the hand of our daughter. The answer? Ciel, see there the marriage gift!"