CHAPTER X 



MY OLD BOAT 



The village was in the grip of a real August day 

 a damp, dreary, drizzling August day, bleak and 

 raw ; just the sort of August day we often see in 

 Labrador. 



I stood at my window, and looked out upon the 

 sullen sky and the dull grey sea. It was a cheerless 

 picture : a soaking mist hung over the water, and 

 the bare black rocks on the shore looked cold and 

 dismal ; they would look less cold even in the frozen 

 winter-time, when their blackness would at least be 

 relieved by the sparkle of snow and the glint of a 

 crusting of ice. A depressing picture ; but as I 

 looked a touch of life came into the scene. 



A little knot of men walked across the beach to 

 where my old boat lay upon the shingle. They were 

 clad in the usual hooded smock of calico that the 

 Eskimos wear, and I knew them for some of my 

 Eskimo neighbours. They cared nothing for the 

 weather ; they were used to it. Some of them were 

 soaked with the wet, as if they had been out all day ; 

 others seemed to have come but lately out of doors, 

 for their smocks were pulled over their shoulders and 

 arms like sacks, and the sleeves hung loosely at their 

 sides. 



The sight of that group of men set me a-thinking. 

 They were neighbours of mine. Their homes were 

 close by mere huts of rough-sawn boards, built up 



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