



Produced by Al Haines










[Frontispiece: "So you're not dead after all, my hearty."  _Page 37_]




[Illustration: Title page]




THE WRECKERS

OF

SABLE ISLAND



BY

J. MACDONALD OXLEY


_Author of "Up Among the Ice-Floes," "Diamond Rock," &c._




T. NELSON AND SONS

_London, Edinburgh, and New York_

1897




CONTENTS.


    I.  THE SETTING FORTH
   II.  IN ROUGH WEATHER
  III.  THE WRECK
   IV.  ALONE AMONG STRANGERS
    V.  ERIC LOOKS ABOUT HIM
   VI.  BEN HARDEN
  VII.  A SABLE ISLAND WINTER
 VIII.  ANXIOUS TIMES
   IX.  FAREWELL TO SABLE ISLAND
    X.  RELEASE AND RETRIBUTION




THE WRECKERS OF SABLE ISLAND.


CHAPTER I.

THE SETTING FORTH.

A voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in the year 1799 was not the
every-day affair that it has come to be at the present time.  There
were no "ocean greyhounds" then.  The passage was a long and trying one
in the clumsy craft of those days, and people looked upon it as a more
serious affair than they now do on a tour round the world.

In the year 1799 few people thought of travelling for mere pleasure.
North, south, east, and west, the men went on missions of discovery, of
conquest, or of commerce; but the women and children abode at home,
save, of course, when they ventured out to seek new homes in that new
world which was drawing so many to its shores.

It was therefore not to be wondered at that the notion of Eric Copeland
going out to his father in far-away Nova Scotia should form the subject
of more than one family council at Oakdene Manor, the beautiful country
seat of the Copeland family, situated in one of the prettiest parts of
Warwickshire.

Eric was the only son of Doctor Copeland, surgeon-in-chief of the
Seventh Fusiliers, the favourite regiment of the Duke of Kent, the
father of Queen Victoria.  This regiment formed part of the garrison at
Halifax, then under the command of the royal duke himself; and the
doctor had written to say that if the squire, Eric's grandfather,
approved, he would like Eric to come out to him, as his term of service
had been extended three years beyond what he expected, and he wanted to
have his boy with him.  At the same time, he left the matter entirely
in the squire's hands for him to decide.

So far as the old gentleman was concerned, he decided at once.

"Send the boy out there to that wild place, and have him scalped by an
Indian or gobbled by a bear before he's there a month?  Not a bit of
it.  I won't hear of it.  He's a hundred times better off here."

The squire, be it observed, held very vague notions about Nova Scotia,
and indeed the American continent generally, in spite of his son's
endeavours to enlighten him.  He still firmly believed that there were
as many wigwams as houses in New York, and that Indians in full
war-paint and plumes were every day seen on the streets of
Philadelphia; while as for poor little Nova Scotia, it was more than
his mind could take in how the Duke of Kent could ever bring himself to
spend a week in such an outlandish place, not to speak of a number of
years.

So soon as Eric learned of his father's request, he was not less quick
in coming to a conclusion, but it was of a precisely opposite kind to
the squire's.  He was what the Irish would call "a broth of a boy."
Fifteen last birthday, five feet six inches in height, broad of
shoulder and stout of limb, yet perfectly proportioned, as nimble on
his feet as a squirrel, and as quick of eye as a king-bird, entirely
free from any trace of nervousness or timidity, good-looking in that
sense of the word which means more than merely handsome, courteous in
his manners, and quite up to the mark in his books, Eric represented
the best type of the British boy as he looked about him with his brave
brown eyes, and longed to be something more than simply a school-boy,
and to see a little of that great world up and down which his father
had been travelling ever since he could remember.

"Of course I want to go to father," said he, promptly and decidedly.
"I don't believe there are any bears or Indians at Halifax; and even if
there should be, I don't care.  I'm not afraid of them."

He had not the look of a boy that could be easily frightened, or turned
aside from anything upon which he had set his heart, and the old squire
felt as though he were seeing a youthful reflection of himself in the
sturdy spirit of resolution shown by his grandson.

"But, Eric, lad," he began to argue, "whether the Indians and bears are
plentiful or not, I don't see why you want to leave Oakdene, and go
away out to a wild place that is only fit for soldiers.  You're quite
happy with us here, aren't you?"  And the old gentleman's face took on
rather a reproachful expression as he put the question.

Eric's face flushed crimson, and crossing over to where the squire sat,
he bent down and kissed his wrinkled forehead tenderly.

"I am quite happy, grandpa.  You and grandma do so much for me that it
would be strange if I wasn't.  But you know I have been more with you
than I have with my own father; and now when he wants me to go out to
him, I want to go too.  You can't blame me, can you?"

What Eric said was true enough.  The doctor's regiment had somehow come
in for more than its share of foreign service.  It had carried its
colours with credit over the burning plains of India, upon the
battle-fields of the Continent, and then, crossing to America, had
taken its part, however ineffectually, in the struggle which ended so
happily in the birth of a new nation.  During all of his years Eric had
remained at Oakdene, seeing nothing of his father save when he came to
them on leave for a few months at a time.

These home-comings of the doctor were the great events in Eric's life.
Nothing was allowed to interfere with his enjoyment of his father's
society.  All studies were laid aside, and one day of happiness
followed another, as together they rode to hounds, whipped the
trout-streams, shot over the coverts where pheasants were in plenty, or
went on delightful excursions to lovely places round about the
neighbourhood.

Dr. Copeland enjoyed his release from the routine of military duty
quite as much as Eric did his freedom from school, and it would not
have been easy to say which of the two went in more heartily for a good
time.

It was just a year since the doctor had last been home on leave, and a
year seems a very long time to a boy of fifteen, so that when the
letter came proposing that Eric should go out to his father (it should
have been told before that his mother was dead, having been taken away
from him when he was a very little fellow), and spend three long years
with him without a break, if the doctor had been in Kamtchatka or
Tierra del Fuego instead of simply in Nova Scotia, Eric would not have
hesitated a moment, but have jumped at the offer.

The old squire was very loath to part with his grandson, and it was
because he knew it would be so that the doctor had not positively asked
for Eric to be sent out, but had left the question to be decided by the
squire.

Perhaps Eric might have failed to carry his point but for the help
given him by Major Maunsell, a brother-officer of Doctor Copeland's,
who had been home on leave, and in whose charge Eric was to be placed
if it was decided to let him go.

The major had come to spend a day or two at Oakdene a little while
before taking his leave of England, and of course the question of
Eric's returning to Nova Scotia with him came up for discussion.  Eric
pleaded his case very earnestly.

"Now please listen to me a moment," said he, taking advantage of a
pause in the conversation.  "I love you, grandpa and grandma, very
dearly, and am very happy with you here; but I love my father too, and
I never see him, except just for a little while, when he comes home on
leave, and it would be lovely to be with him all the time for three
whole years.  Besides that, I do want to see America, and this is such
a good chance