Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1900-08-25
Puul's Honor
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BY A. Ii. de Mile.

THEY still tell the story at Ten
nant's when the feet is home in
summer or when the cargo hunters
are storm bound in winter. What chief
ly puzzles me is how first il got abroad,
for Paul Fralic was lost, and the other
two were most like to keep the matter
hid. But set il down here-not in the
picturesque fisher speech, which is god
less and unrefned-as il was told me
one summer twilight with the sky
like flaming gold and all the hills asleep.
Be il known that the south coast of
Nova Scotia is a rampant of solid rock
fronting the Atlantic surges- Some
times the fog wells its stern precipices
and gray-backed waves beat in from
the shrouded sea, and sometimes great
Gains descend, when the headlands
glass themselves all day in the quiet
water. There are huge lodges cropping
up out of the deep and sunken rocks
where the surf takes on a heavier note,
and mile on miles of frowning cliffs
where the SHOWS lie strangely white
In winter. But there are also broad
harbors and sheltered coves where the
fishermen find shelter in time of storm.
The place called Tenants is a good
example of the latter. 1t is wide and
deep, with a narrow entrance and a
girding of rocky hills. AT its mouth
stands fat white lighthouse, put
there, not for the Importance of the
place, but because Tenant Cap sticks
Tar out into the Atlantic and the light
guides cOastwise vessels to the town
20 miles away. Seward. east of the
entrance, lies a rock on which many a
tan ship has come to grief. The charts
mark it by cross and the legend:
Breaker nearly always shows" The
Usher folk can it The Bull" because,
hours before storm rolls up, its hoarse
complaining can be heard along the
coast. Currents which know no law
beat upon 1t in stormy weather, and
OF all the seafarers who there have
met their doom not one has ever
reached the shore, alive or dead. The
Bull claims its own and guards its Sc
eret well.
At the head of Tenant Harbor there
Is small village-two or three streets
of whitewashed houses, with a few slim
wharves thrust out into the still waters
beneath. During certain seasons of the
year the place is lively enough-when
the little feet of bankers is fitting out,
for example, and the harbor is astir
with the passage of loaded dories; or
when the schooners return deep laden,
and the gaunt fish skids creak beneath
their whitening burden. But ordinar-
lily all is quiet; the men are absent half
the year, while the women and chill
oh
COWS and goats which find scant pas
turing on the stormy hills.
Tenants impressed something of its
own character upon the early genera
lions of its settlers. Of former days it
Was secluded from the world-with-
dawn among its granite rock and
somber pine scrub. The life and en-
nronment bred sturdy class; fisher
men who piled their trade from Labra-
dor to Cape Ann, from the Grand Banks
TO the Georges; sailors who built their
own ships and took them round the
world. There still survives certain
eapabihty of heroism-rough, often I'M
south, but none the less genuine.
For many years the place retained
Its quaint customs and modes of liv-
ing The house OF a former day,
erammed with relics of ancient voyag-
mgs, sufficed the fisherfolk. The wom-
In chung to their huge hand looms and
wore the strong gray and blue cloth of
heir own weaving. The schooling of
The children consisted of what they
could pick up from the old Catholic
priest, who taught them their letters
as the spirit moved him or the rheum-
stism permitted, and of much unholy
sore gathered along the water front.