e
clutches them,--jerks one this way, the other that, heedless of the
still plunging knives,--fastens upon the worst hurt of the two, and
drags him off. Are the lookers-on abashed? Never think it! They
remonstrate! Smith jets at them fine sentences of fiery, rebuking
eloquence. "Bah!" they say, "this is nothing; we are used to it!" It was
their customary theatricals, their Spanish bull-fight; and they were
little inclined to be robbed of their show.

"Smith, you ran great risk of your life," said one, as the intrepid man
stepped on board, with a great gout of blood on his sleeve; "and your
life is surely worth more by many times than that of the creatures you
rescued."

"I know nothing about that; I only know that they have immortal souls,
and are not fit to die."

"Nor to live either, unhappily," said another.

There was cod- and cunner-fishing while here. Trout, also, were caught
in a pond a little inland,--good trout, too, though nothing, of course,
to what we shall find in Labrador! Enjoy, while ye may, short pleasures,
O trouters! for long tramps--and faces--are to succeed!

_June 11._ After prolonged northeast rain a bright day, and with it the
setting of sail, a many-handed seesaw at the windlass, and departure.

"Well rid of that vile hole!" says one and another.

"Oh, but you'll be glad enough to see it three months hence," answers
the experienced Bradford.

And we were!

The wind blew briskly down the Gut; the tide also, which, especially on
the ebb, runs with force, helping to carry off the waters of the St.
Lawrence, was against us; and the deer-footed schooner made haste slowly
toward the west. Slower vessels failed, and were swept down by the tide;
we crept on, crept past the noble Porcupine Head, which rises abruptly
six hundred and forty feet from the sea, and at last, ceasing to tack,
made a straight line out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, beautiful, most
beautiful, this day, if never before. It was a sweet sail we had across
that gulf, well-named and ill-reputed. The sun shone like southern
summer; the summer breeze blew mild; the rising shores and rich red soil
of Cape-Breton Isle, patched here and there with dark evergreen-forests,
and elsewhere by the lighter green of deciduous woods, lay on the
starboard side, warm-looking and welcome to the eyes. This shore, as
then seen, reminded me more than any other ever did of the Spanish coast
on the approach to Gibraltar,--the spruce woods answ