I used to stretch myself on a
buffalo-robe before the wood-fire, in company with a faithful spaniel,
who was as wakeful on these occasions as if he suspected that the
low-bred curs of the establishment might pick his pockets.
Quatreaux's _cabane_ was situated on the edge of an extensive tract of
marsh,--lagoon would be a more descriptive word for it, perhaps,--a
splashy, ditch-divided district, extending along the borders of a lake
for miles. Snipe-shooting was my motive there; and dull work it was in
those dark, Novembry, October days, with "the low rain falling" half
the time, and the yellow leaves all the time, and no snipe. But
whether we poled our log canoe up to some stunted old willow-tree that
sat low in the horizontal marsh, and took shelter under it to smoke
our pipes, or whether we mollified the privation of snipe in the
_cabane_ at night with mellow rum and tobacco brought by me, still was
Walker the old _voyageur's_ favorite theme.
Old Quatreaux spoke English perfectly well, although his conservatism
as a Canadian induced him to prefer his mother tongue as a vehicle for
general conversation. But I remarked that his anecdotes of Walker were
always related in English, and on these occasions, therefore, for my
benefit alone: for but little of the Anglo-Saxon tongue appeared to be
known to, or at least used by, any member of his numerous family.
Indeed, I can recall but two words of that language which I could
positively aver to have heard in colloquial use among them,--_poodare_
and _schotte_.
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