1884-02-18 Spectator
“The Idle Spectator : Goes on a Spearing
Expedition Across the Bay”
“We had been talking about doing
it for some weeks beforehand, and the other afternoon we got everything in
readiness, put plenty of smoking material in our pockets, stowed carefully away
three little pocket flasks filled with a cold-destroying beverage, buttoned our
overcoats up to our chins, got cigars going, and in the chill afternoon,
started on a brisk walk for the bay.
“Before
we go any further, let me introduce the party to you, gentle reader. This one,
at the lead here, with the innocent air, and a smile that is childlike and
bland, is John Smith’s son, aged 42, the other one is the only son of a man
named Jones. They are familiar figures, you have seen them both before, and, as
for me, is there a man, woman or child in this whole bloomin’ hamlet who is not
familiar with your humble servant, the Idle Spectator?
“Ever
go fishing in the wintertime? No? Lots of fun, I tell you. Easy to get there,
and if you will follow my steps, you will find out how it is done.
“We
walk down James street, turning west on Stuart, and going straight along until
we reach Bay. Then across the railway bridge, turn to your left on the other
side, go down a little incline, then a few yards west on the road, and turning
to the right, walk carefully along a board walk until we reach Matt Thompson’s
boat house.
“It
is a peculiar place inside this boathouse, though common enough looking, as we
approach, and it revels in a heterogeneous collection of half-finished boats,
broken and unbroken oars, scraps and bolts of iron, skates, fishing nets,
poles, tackle, shavings and odds and ends of all sorts.
“Genial
Mat stands at a carpenter’s bench, running along the west side of the house,
drawing consolation and smoke from a black and juicy clay pipe, that would make
any ordinary man sick for a week.
“Mat is a great favorite among the boys. Kind, jolly, generous, always
ready to do a good turn to anybody, he finds everybody ready and willing to do
a good turn to him. He is quite a character and a great prophet, albeit in
almost every circumstance, his prophesies are not of a particularly cheerful
nature, being generally foretelling of death. A number of cases have come under
my notice where Mat has told people in the best of health that they would not
live more than a week or two longer, and every time he has called the turn with
an accuracy that is little less than miraculous.
“A couple of years ago, I sat one summer afternoon on the little ‘wharf’
in front of Mat’s place, while that gentleman stood in the doorway and pulled
lazily at his pipe. A lad of some twelve or thirteen years was playing around.
Mat was watching him intently and curiously. Presently he said : ‘Me boy, as
sure as ye’re a livin’ boy, before this afternoon is over, ye’ll be drowned!”
The boy went away, and in less than an hour afterwards, his lifeless body was
pulled from the water, into which he had fallen while playing around a
neighboring boathouse.
“I am always afraid to go near Mat because I fear he may sometime call
the turn on me, and I don’t want to start on a voyage of exploration to the undiscovered
country just yet. But, so far, he has kindly refrained from prophesying my
demise, and I am living along from day to day in hopes that I am safe for the
next decade.
“But while I have been telling you about that, we have asked him for the
key of his hut, a favor which he grants as he grants every favor – with a
pleasing alacrity and a ready smile, and as we are inexperienced in the art, if
art it can be called, of spearing fish, he is telling us how to go about it,
while he occupies himself in fixing up a spear for our exclusive use and
benefit. After filling our pockets with shavings, we grapple the spear firmly,
one fellow carrying it while the rest of us wrestle with the cable at the end
of it, and start for the hut, which lies far across the bay by Carroll’s Point.
“In silence, we walk on, John Smith’s son, breaking out into an
occasional whistle, which Jones Jr. promptly suppresses with a lump of snow.
“The bay is sheeted with a light covering of snow between which and the
solid ice, there is a crust of ice and about half an inch of water, which does
not make walking particularly pleasant. But we took the precaution to put on
stout rubbers before we started walking, and though pedestrianism was a little
difficult, our feet remained dry, which is one eternal blessing.
“After fifteen minutes’ walking we reached the little colony of fishing
huts that is built up around Carrol’s Point and the Desjardins canal, a few
scattered ones extending halfway down to Rock Bay.
“John Smith’s son, who had been there before, and who we had installed as
guide, as he professed to now the way and the hut, now leads us up to the door
of an antiquated-looking concern near the canal. When he gets there he finds it’s
not the right place and we have to wander helplessly around from door to door
seeking the hut.
“Finally, after ten minutes’ fruitless search for a door that the key we
carry will unlock, a good Samaritan in the shape of a small boy on skates looms
before us. To him we explain our quandary, and after some hesitation he directs
us to a hut about a quarter of a mile away, with a bench standing in front of
it.
“We go wearily over and find that the key won’t fit there. Then we look
at each other blankly and swear, not violently or in an angry manner, but calmly,
dispassionately and deliberately. Swearing relieves our feelings, but it don’t
find the hut, and after some more searching, we run against a man who directs
us to the right place at last.
“If you never saw the inside of one of these huts, take the advice of an Idle
Spectator and see one before you die. It is a most peculiar affair, both inside
and outside. The base is not more than five feet square, if it’s that, and it
gets gradually narrower as it goes up.
“On one side, a small sheet-iron stove is nailed to the wall. The stove
look miraculously like a piece of stove pipe and the pipe from it is about the
size of a good, healthy apple.
“But, the little stove is capable of throwing an immense amount of heat,
and it can make things most unpleasantly warm. A bench runs along another side
and, right at our feet yawns a round gaping hole in the ice, some two or three
feet in diameter. This is the hole that you get your fish out of – sometimes.
The door is shut, the fire started, we light cigars and proceed to lay
for our finny friends. How do we do it? Simple enough. We use for bait a small iron
fish painted brightly. This dangles in the water by the aid of a small cord and
a short stick with a man at the end of it, and while this fellow plays with the
fish, another one sits with the spear clasped in his hand, in an upright
position, ready to descend and imprison any luckless fish that happens to stray
beneath it, attracted by the bright color and erratic movements of its iron
image.
“The spear is a very common-looking affair, and is merely an iron head
with a number of barbed prongs on it, set on a long wooden handle.
“The other man attends to the fire and performs miscellaneous and
multifarious duties. The phosphorescent light from the ice makes everything
easily visible, the water beneath us clear as crystal and we can see the bottom
of the bay very plainly.
“We are told by John Smith’s son, at this juncture, that we must not make
a noise or we will scare away all the fish within a radius of a hundred yards,
after which he sings softly, with a clearness and accuracy, which shows that
time has left unimpaired his marvellous ear for music, and one of te trios from
the Queen’s Lace Handkerchief:
‘Silence,
silence, not above a whisper
To betray one’s confidence is singularly weak,
In a
serious matter
Only
magpies chatter.’
And it’s only
little pigs go squeak, squeak, squeak.’
“So
we sit and smoke and chat in an underdone. Our cigars go out and we light fresh
ones. Time flies, but we stay.
“The
icon fish dangled at the end of Jones Jr.s stick, skips and goes languidly to
the bottom where it lies patiently for a moment, then upward comes again. But
no fish
“Time
goes along once more. By and by it begins to dawn on us that we came there to
fish, not to sit and gaze idiotically at a hole in the ice. We have been doing
this gaze act for over an hour and it has brought forth no results, save an
unlimited supply of profanity.
“Finally,
we get up and go outside, lock the door and stand for a minute, gazing at
Hamilton, far away in the distance. Large soft flakes of moist snow are falling
gently down. They rest for a moment lovingly against the vast cloud of smoke,
from the dozens of busy factories, that hovers perpetually over the city, and
then sink to the earth and then are lost to sight.
“We
go as we came, without a fish. In silence, we take a simultaneous nip to keep
out the cold, and then start languidly on our homeward way.
