The Pilgrim

by Paul Almond

  “Well I’m not!” How harsh that sounded. I immediately regretted it. “I mean, I’m all involved in packing, preparations, girding myself for the voyage. It... it would just be the kind of diversion I cannot undertake right now.”

  She dropped her eyes. “Well, who else?”

  “Nobody else. I’m going alone, and that’s that.” I returned to my packing.

  She turned on her heel, went upstairs into her room, and closed the door.

  Of course, I felt terrible. How had this come up? The last thing in the world I ever wanted was to hurt my lovely Lorna.

  Should I go up and see her? No, let time go by. And time was at a premium right now. So much to do, to prepare the dog feed for three weeks, think of everything I would need and what I had forgotten on the other trip. I must bring some snow spectacles, more changes of socks, and another pair of sealskin boots somehow. I should have to buy them, for Aunt Minnie was too elderly to make another. Thankfully, my mind turned to these many details, helping me forget how harsh I had just been.

  And as luck would have it, Clay came in soon after, wanting to show me the lesson plans he had worked out for his students. He was so excited at the prospect of teaching that I had to stop and sit with him. Lorna, I suppose hearing us talk, emerged from her bedroom upstairs, came down, and helped Aunt Minnie prepare a meal.

  What a thrilling start to my great tour. The dogs were in fine form after their week of rest and were fairly speeding out across the flat, frozen sea. But what made it special, of course, was my lovely passenger, the belle of the festival, the much sought-after Lorna.

  The state of affairs that existed between us after yesterday morning’s conversation could not last. So because Harrington Harbour was only one day’s journey away, I suggested she leave with me early this morning and go that far. Provided of course the glass stayed up and the weather remained clear. The prospect of her returning to Harrington Harbour pleased and, I would say, mollified her somewhat.

  We rose at dawn and as the conditions were right, we set off together, rejoicing. After a time, I even let her drive the team. We were having such fun together, chatting merrily. The future was forgotten, as was the past; we just revelled in the moment. I refused to allow myself to think of how wonderful it might have been to spend the next three weeks with her travelling the whole parish. For the moment this thought arose, I realized how much my energies would be diverted. So I said to myself, just enjoy these few moments now.

  After a splendid ride, we arrived late in the afternoon at Harrington Harbour. I directed the team straight to John Bobbitt’s house. I pulled up outside, left Lorna to mind the dogs, and I went up to his door and banged. The tall, lean, elderly figure opened the door and welcomed me in. He had been expecting me, for I’d sent an earlier message.

  “Who do ya think I brought you?” I asked him and beckoned Lorna, calling out, “The dogs will be fine; they’ll stay quiet now they’ve had a long run. I’ll feed them later.”

  She walked over, a tall, striking figure, striding confidently, and looked John Bobbitt in the eye as she shook his hand.

  I watched him closely. “Who’s this?” he asked. “Someone from away, for sure.”

  Lorna was enjoying it. “You don’t recognize me, Mr. Bobbitt?”

  His eyes narrowed, he rubbed his forehead, and then motioned us in. “For sure I don’t, young lady. If you was from here, no fear, I’d know you at once.”

  I gestured her to wait while we doffed our heavy coats and boots and then I turned to our host. “You sure you don’t?”

  “No, Mr. John, can’t say I do. But we’re sure glad you’re ’ere.”

  “Well sir,” I said, “this is the maid to whom you kindly gave a room when I rescued her from off a schooner.”

  Well, he couldn’t believe his eyes. “That poor woman who ya brung ’ere that night?”

  “None other,” I said. “You find her different?” I was grinning all the while, as was Lorna.

  “Never seen such a change,” he said. “Well, you’re welcome, young lady!”

  I introduced her as Lorna Maclean, and she spoke up: “I wanted to come and thank you for your many kindnesses. If you agree, I shall help you round the house, work hard for a day, or a week, or even till Mr. John comes back. Whenever you decide, I shall return to Mutton Bay, where I’m lucky enough to have lots of friends.”

  “So you’re that young lady. Your fame precedes you, my dear young Lorna,” Mr. Bobbitt said. “Seems you’re not afraid of work and you have a willing personality. I don’t know what you’ll find to do around ’ere,” he looked round his house, the quite untidy house of a widower, and she burst out laughing.

  “Oh never fear, Mr. Bobbitt, I may find a few things that need doing. After I leave, this lovely house will be as clean as new. And now, gentlemen, why don’t I get into your kitchen and rustle up a good feed. Myself, I’m mightily hungry. I had no idea, Jack, that a komatik ride brought on such craving.” And with that, she turned to the kitchen and left John and myself to plan the next couple of days. I hoped to instruct some of the local children in impromptu classes, prepare for some fine services on the Sunday, and afterwards take off on my westward voyage, alone.

  My first port of call was Pointa Murray (Pointe à Maurier). I had been able to scrounge, and also accept, donations from my parishioners at Harrington, so I was well provisioned as I went on. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in London sent me each quarter some thirty-seven pounds ten shillings for my expenses, which included the dogs and the mission boat. Most missionaries, for example in Shigawake where Rev. Mr. Kerr had gone from here, with no dogs or dog food to buy and the use of a local sleigh or buggy, were sent only three pounds. This was in addition to the tiny stipends we received from the diocese. I had purchased enough seal meat to keep the dogs happy for the entire journey to Natashquan and back. My aim was to go even as far west as the first young couple, the Foremans, whom Mr. Bishop had married, and then to return, visiting everyone that I could.

  Sunday came and went and here it was a Monday afternoon, and I was finding this first day out on the trail invigorating, though I did miss Lorna’s vivacious personality, her happiness, and encouragement. But on the other hand, I also welcomed the next few days of being alone. I had a good bit of thinking to do, without having to teach Clayton nor living up to others’ expectations, so I enjoyed the rest, ordering my spirit to face the many problems bound to be facing me in my ministry.

  Before the cluster of houses at Christian Bay hove into view, I felt the dogs quicken their pace and then, I too caught the scent. Seal oil, sealskins, seal remnants everywhere, came into view. In fact, though I pride myself on having a good memory, I had to admit I didn’t remember any of this from my passing through on the mission boat with Gene. The five or six houses, decorated with many rounded frames for stretching seal pelts, did appear to me now quite different.

  I pulled up at the largest house, probably the best place to begin. The dogs smelled entrails piled at the next house and it was almost impossible to control them until I gave them a taste of the whip. Then I fastened their sealskin laces around a rail and walked up onto the house bridge to knock. On it, stood barrels of rendered down fat, beside the frozen carcasses awaiting their transfer inside.

  A short but wiry man opened the door and I was struck in the face by the overpowering smell of seal. The entire large downstairs room was filled with the processing. On the stove bubbled a big, black cauldron, making the room furiously hot. Normally, rendering is never done inside but at an outside foundry in spring. I imagined that this family had its own needs and was not averse to running counter to the main practices. At one side, a young lad was vigorously slicing layers of thawed blubber into two- or three-inch pieces, which he tossed into the cauldron. A couple of older girls, daughters I guessed, sat by a window stitching seal pelts into clothes and boots. A regular factory, I saw, all one family.

  We introduced ourselves, and Wilbur Stubbert
did remember me as the young deacon who had come through with Mr. Bishop. He introduced me to his wife, Mabel, and to his sons, who were cutting thawed seal meat into portions to freeze later for the dogs and for the family.

  I could clearly see this house, indeed the whole cluster, was not ripe for religious services, nor could I really lead any prayers. Perhaps later, after dinner they might take a few minutes off. But now I observed only a hive of uninterruptible activity.

  “So Mr. Stubbert, is everyone as busy as you fellows here?”

  “I’d be a lot busier if it hadn’t been for them rascals, the Bucklands!”

  Oh dear, better take a deep breath. I took off my coat and enjoyed the heat for a few moments, allowing it to seep into my chilled body. The family continued working and I took in snatches of the problem as Wilbur saw it.

  “This year, didn’t the bugger go and put his seal net across in front of mine?” continued Wilbur as he handily and swiftly divested a mostly unfrozen carcass of its pelt and subsequently from this pelt, its blubber. “I had to keep movin’ mine back, for no matter what I said, he left ’er there! Right in front o’ mine! It was ’im gettin’ all the seals coming through our channel. I finally had to string myself a net out there by Fakey’s Rock (which I knew to be Fequet’s) so I did get a good few b’ the end o’ the season.” He flopped the carcass over and continued to work efficiently with his sharp, skinning knife. “But it meant me ’avin’ to go way out in the boat, break m’self a way through the ice, chop a jeezly great ’ole, ’aul them nets up through it. If ’tweren’t for me two sons ’ere, fine young fellows I gotta say, we’d a ’ad no seal at all, at all, this year.”

  In the free hour or two before supper to which I’d been invited, I went outside and walked well-trodden paths to a few other houses where I made myself known, ending up at the infamous Bucklands.

  Howard Buckland was a man twice the size of Wilbur, twice the weight in any case. His house was also a hive of activity, though only three children were helping, along with his wife’s young sister. His wife was cutting the thawed blubber into pieces for rendering, and the one son, who looked about eight years old, was wielding a skinning knife, separating the blubber from the sealskin. The seal was first sculped (pelt removed) and then skinned (fat removed from the pelt). Of course, he wore his arm-wrappers up to the elbow to protect himself. They were pleased to see me, for they let it be known that Christian Bay felt the lack of a leader, a clergyman, one who could resolve disputes and weld them all together in one single harmonious unit, which was the case with most communities. I felt encouraged.

  So I brought up the question of the dispute with his neighbour.

  “He don’t want to ’ear of no compromise. It be all or nothin’ wit’ him. I offered to give ’em a bit of my rock to dry ’is cod in summer, if ’e’d let my flake stand as is. But no, ’e says my flake interrupts ’is boats coming back some terble. He wants I tear it down! Why not build yours out a bit on one side? That’s do the trick, I keeps tellin’ ’im. But no, ’e won’t budge. So this year, I strung my seal net ahead o’ his — I had an idea that that would make him budge, but still nothin’.”

  I gathered that here was a man open to negotiation, and now that I had arrived in their community, I felt I should not leave until the situation was resolved.

  But again, no amount of Old Testament theology would help solve it. After ten years in this Canadian Labrador, I might well have become pretty good at resolving disputes. But for now I felt my youth and inexperience only too keenly. Oddly enough, my mind flashed to Lorna, how she would have had some good ideas. Women always know best, judging from the way my mother ran our household on the Gaspé Coast.

  I left Howard’s house, unresolved, and went on visiting. In the end, the community of Christian Bay agreed that on the morrow, after their dinners and time to clean up, they would gather for special prayers and a short service. That cheered me and I went back to the Stubberts for a supper of stewed sea duck, called an eider, that the son had shot the previous day. Actually, like the murres, it was a little too fishy for my taste, but anything hot and liquid felt good on an empty stomach.

  I had been invited to stay at the Anderson house at one end of the village, which had no sealing industry going on. The Andersons had finished their sealing, being only a husband, wife, and two small children, and they offered me a mattress in the corner on which their old mother had slept. She had died a month previously and now lay well secured on a high platform outside to await the spring melt when they could bury her body. I agreed to say some rites over her for the time being.

  I wondered where on earth they would bury her, for I saw no sign on these granite outcroppings of the depth of soil needed. They told me their cemetery was back a good way in the hills behind. But, of course, the central issue now for me was to resolve the seal-net dispute. However, these journeys are always more exhausting than one realizes, and after I lay down, hoping to go over the problem, sleep claimed me almost at once.

  First thing the next morning, I asked if I might be taken by my host, the amenable Dave Anderson, to see the site of the disputed territory. Everyone knew of the squabble, and I came to realize that a fair and just resolution would be welcomed. But what on earth could that be? I hoped with all my heart that when I saw the actual landing stages, something would come to me.

  Again, of course, the problem related to open water, especially during the cod season, and right now as we walked to the lip of land in question and looked down, I found it exceedingly difficult to imagine where the shore ended and the ocean began. The heavy covering of snow over a uniform sheet of shore ice all flowed into one, merging the two stages with no clear delineation.

  I asked Dave if he could try to explain the problem, which he did, motioning me down onto the Stubberts’ stage. “He just needs to build that out to one side, one crib length is all ya’d need.” A crib — actually squared log pilings filled with boulders — is what underpinned a stagehead, or wharf. “But the stubborn bugger, excuse me Mr. John, ’e won’t budge an inch. No building out fer ’im!” He shrugged.

  Well, we walked back slowly and I dropped in at a few houses again, in case I could be of help, either spiritually or physically. Then, I had my dinner with the Bucklands so that it wouldn’t look as if I’d had both meals at the Stubberts.

  The community gathered in the Andersons’ house for my short service. After we had said appropriate prayers and even sung a couple of hymns, I motioned with outstretched arms and said I had a couple of announcements. I felt I had to solve the dispute one way or another, and I hoped I could hit on something, though I had no idea how it would be received.

  “It has been brought to my attention in this lovely community — and I wish I could stay longer here, but the rest of my parish also needs attention — that we here are somewhat torn by a conflict. I think we all know who I’m speaking about. And I have a solution.”

  There was a low rumble as neighbour turned to neighbour. I saw they had expected no such thing, welcome though it might be.

  “I have examined the location in question,” I went on, “and here is what I propose. If Mr. Stubbert were to extend his stage to the right, he would have even better access to the water in cod season and not be impeded any longer by the other stagehead. So in the spring, because the Bucklands’ stagehead is what seems to be causing the obstruction, I propose that the Buckland family — before the capelin and the cod come running and all of us net our fill of fish — that they themselves build out that extension crib for the Stubberts — with everyone’s help.”

  I went on quickly, “Because the whole community should benefit from the ensuing peace, I want you all to pitch in and help build this one crib. That, as I see it, should do nothing but weld us all together: two weeks working together for the good of the whole, and...” I lifted my hand as someone was about to throw in, “of course, for Mr. Stubbert and his family. This is what I, as your clergyman, suggest.”

  I l
ooked around the room. People were nodding, others whispering to their neighbours. I gave them a few moments and then I said loudly, “Is there anyone here who might object?”

  A few heads shook, one or two people said no, and in the end, when I asked for a vote, it looked pretty unanimous.

  “Now I have another announcement. It seems that young Jane Smith and Alf Blais have decided, with me arriving so unexpectedly, that it would be a good time to put on a wedding!” This was greeted with consternation by one family, I noticed, but on the whole the others were delighted and went over to congratulate the two of them.

  On learning of the couple’s decision this morning, I had approached the two sets of parents with the stricture that they seemed awfully young to be entering the bonds of matrimony that would bind them together for the rest of their natural lives. The boy’s parents seemed in favour for they loved the young girl and had already treated her as one of the family. Jane’s parents were less enthusiastic, for indeed their daughter was only seventeen. Oh dear, more difficulties! We discussed the matter at length, and in the circumstances, they ended up agreeing to the match. So I had offered to announce it myself.

  “So now, everyone is invited over to the Smith home at four o’clock for the ceremony. After which, I have no doubt larders will be opened, and everyone can share in what should turn out to be a great celebration for the newlyweds.”

  And indeed, a lovely, simple wedding ceremony followed, after which the evening was spent, as is usual in these parts, with a fine fiddler, dancing, and lots of drink of various sorts, mostly homemade. I finally got to bed in the wee hours of the morning. But I felt pleased because this visit had ended with some solutions. I hoped as much for the next stage of my journey.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I found it difficult to get up after all the partying, but with the day bright though very cold, I ate breakfast and took off. No question of a barometer in Christian Bay, and this next leg of my trip went through fairly deserted territory so I left feeling nervous, hoping the weather would hold. The bravado with which I had started was evaporating; I couldn’t stop myself remembering tales of travellers whose bodies had been found after the spring melt. I wrapped my scarf around my face, for the glass had fallen to minus thirty or more. The sun was blasting onto the dazzling snow, so I secured round my head the spectacles I had fashioned from a branch with only slits to see through, whittled by one of my parishioners.