The Ruling Passion: Tales of Nature and Human NatureVan Dyke, Henry
General
The Ruling Passion: Tales of Nature and Human Nature
Van Dyke, Henry
Fiction; Short stories, American
All day the wind was fair and strong from the southeast. The chaloupe
ran swiftly along the coast past the broad mouth of the River
Saint-Jean, with its cluster of white cottages past the hill-encircled
bay of the River Magpie, with its big fish-houses past the fire-swept
cliffs of Riviere-au-Tonnerre, and the turbulent, rocky shores of the
Sheldrake: past the silver cascade of the Riviere-aux-Graines, and the
mist of the hidden fall of the Riviere Manitou: past the long, desolate
ridges of Cap Cormorant, where, at sunset, the wind began to droop away,
and the tide was contrary So the chaloupe felt its way cautiously toward
the corner of the coast where the little Riviere-a-la-Truite comes
tumbling in among the brown rocks, and found a haven for the night in
the mouth of the river.
There was only one human dwelling-place in sight As far as the eye
could sweep, range after range of uninhabitable hills covered with the
skeletons of dead forests; ledge after ledge of ice-worn granite thrust
out like fangs into the foaming waves of the gulf. Nature, with her
teeth bare and her lips scarred: this was the landscape. And in the
midst of it, on a low hill above the murmuring river, surrounded by the
blanched trunks of fallen trees, and the blackened debris of wood and
moss, a small, square, weather-beaten palisade of rough-hewn spruce, and
a patch of the bright green leaves and white flowers of the dwarf cornel
lavishing their beauty on a lonely grave. This was the only habitation
in sight--the last home of the Englishman, Jack Chisholm, whose story
has yet to be told.
In the shelter of this hill Dan Scott cooked his supper and shared it
with Pichou. When night was dark he rolled himself in his blanket,
and slept in the stern of the boat, with the dog at his side. Their
friendship was sealed.
The next morning the weather was squally and full of sudden anger. They
crept out with difficulty through the long rollers that barred the tiny
harbour, and beat their way along the coast. At Moisie they must run far
out into the gulf to avoid the treacherous shoals, and to pass beyond
the furious race of white-capped billows that poured from the great
river for miles into the sea. Then they turned and made for the group of
half-submerged mountains and scattered rocks that Nature, in some freak
of fury, had thrown into the throat of Seven Islands Bay. That was a
difficult passage. The black shores were swept by headlong tides. Tusks
of granite tore the waves. Baffled and perplexed, the wind flapped and
whirled among the cliffs. Through all this the little boat buffeted
bravely on till she reached the point of the Gran Boule. Then a strange
thing happened.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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