50 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



was called, the port was resounding every night with shouts 

 and cries and responses, bandied from vessel to vessel, 

 nicknames, ribald jokes, and opprobrious epithets showered 

 on the inoffensive heads of the poor meek men from the 

 North Shore. Their dialect was peculiar. It sounded 

 particularly strange in the ears of the Irish, although it 

 was really equally diverse from that of any English 

 peasantry. One of its traits was an inability to pronounce 

 the th, which became t or d. Most of them were Wesleyans, 

 and it was amusing to hear them fervently singing hymns 

 in their odd language : — 



" De ting my God dut hate, 

 Dat I no more may do." 



With these simple folk the summer business of the 

 counting-house was mainly occupied, they bringing their 

 little boat-loads of excellent fish, according as it was 

 cured, with such subordinate matters as fresh salmon for 

 the house-table, and various delicious berries. Of these 

 latter the Newfoundland summer produces a considerable 

 variety, as cranberries, whortleberries, and the exquisitely 

 delicate cloudberry [Riihiis chamcEmortis), locally known as 

 " bake-apples." These were always saleable, and some- 

 times, though not often, the North Shore men would bring 

 a carcase of reindeer venison, nearly as large as a cow — an 

 excellent and savoury meat. Such minute transactions as 

 these, however, hardly broke the office holiday, and alto- 

 gether the work of these four summer months would have 

 been by no means oppressive, if performed in one. 



In October the harbour gradually filled again, and as 

 the 31st of that month was the terminus of every en- 

 gagement, no sooner did that much-hated and dreaded 

 day arrive, than the counting-house was beset by the 

 clamorous rogues, a dozen or more crowding in at once 

 into the office, all shouting, swearing, and wrangling to- 



