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The kitchen window which his mother had opened was directly beneath Laura's, and was a very long, narrow window, in the style of the house, and there was a protecting stone ledge above it. Upon this ledge lay the book, wrapped in its oil-skin covering and secured from falling by a piece of broken iron hooping, stuck in the mortar of the bricks.
Many of these belonged to dealers in marine stores, and the numerous suits of oil-skin, hung up for exhibition, swung to and fro in the uncertain light, like rows of attenuated pirates. At every corner was a great public-house with glittering windows, and a crowd of slatternly women and jersey-clad men elbowing each other at the door.
It was a massive piece of furniture in its way, with a large cross-piece running from side to side underneath. And on this cross-piece, so tied with string that it could not slip off, was a tiny packet of oil-skin. "The safest place in the house," I said, as I stood upright and held out a helping hand to Moira. "No one would ever think of looking there. See how nearly we missed it."
At the bend of the river towards Chaton fresh boats showed themselves unceasingly. They came nearer and grew larger, and if only faces were recognized, the vociferations broke out anew. A canoe covered with an awning and manned by four women came slowly down the current. She who rowed was little, thin, faded, in a cabin boy's costume, her hair drawn up under an oil-skin cap.
There was a bench on either side of the hut which was lumbered with a confused mass of spars, sails, sou'westers, oil-skin coats and trousers; buoys, sea-chests, rudders, tar-barrels, and telescopes. This hovel belonged jointly to old Jeph and Captain Bluenose. Bax had shared it with them before he was appointed to the command of the "Nancy."
Jack took off his sou'-wester and shook the water from his oil-skin, and then opening the locker where the coke was kept replenished the fire. It settled down so dark when the squall struck the boat that he could scarce see across the little cabin. Regardless of the howling of the wind and the motion of the vessel, he sat on the floor putting in stick after stick to hasten up the fire.
The little steamer Maid of the Mist was coming up, riding the waves, dashed here and there by conflicting currents, but resolutely steaming on such is the audacity of man and poking her venturesome nose into the boiling foam under the Horseshoe. On the deck are pigmy passengers in oil-skin suits, clumsy figures, like arctic explorers.
The string was tied so tightly that I could not unknot it. I drew my knife and cut it, and the oil-skin unrolled of itself. The first thing I came across was a letter from Bryce addressed to the two of us. It was not contained in an envelope, but seemed to have been slipped in as an after-thought. It ran: Dear Moira and Dear Jimmy,
They arrayed themselves in oil-skin suits and spent an unconscionable time at the back of the Horseshoe Fall, roaring out observations about it that were rarely heard, owing to the deafening din, and had more than one narrow escape from tumbling into the water in these expeditions.
"She dies hard," said Captain Sol, shaking the water from the creases of his oil-skin as the boat rounded to at a safe distance from the dying whale. "But," he continued, lighting a match by biting the sulphur and puffing violently at a short, black pipe, "that ain't nothing to what they do sometimes: is it, Sam?"
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