“Here he comes naow,” said the matron, whose quick ear had caught the sound of approaching footsteps.  “Sam, set aout my pennyroyal, will ye?  Ye see,” she added apologetically, “Sol is literary, and when he comes raound he gives us all the news, and there is sech goin’s on in the papers nowadays that it jest upsots my nerves to hear him and Sam talkin’ ’em over.  Sech murders, riots, wrackin’, and killin’ of folks!  If it wa’n’t for a dish of tea I ’low I couldn’t hear to it.”  And the good woman held out her hand to a burly fisherman in a full suit of oil-skins, and presented him to the visitors as Sam’s friend, Captain Sol Gillis.

“I’m a white-whaler at present, gentlemen,” said the captain, with a hearty laugh that was so contagious that all hands joined in, scarcely knowing why.

He was a tall, robust specimen of a down-Easter, his open face reddened by long battling with wind and weather, and shaved close except beneath the chin, from which depended an enormous beard that served as a scarf in winter and even now was tucked into his jacket.

“It’s a curious thing, naow, for the captain and mate of a coaster to be in furrin parts a-whalin’; but we find it pays,—­eh, Sam?” And Captain Sol closed one eye and looked wisely for a second at his friend, upon which the two broke into hearty laughter that had a ring of smuggled brandy and kerosene in it, though perhaps it was only a ring, after all.

“Kin yaou go whalin’?” said the captain in reply to a question of one of the visitors.  “Why, sartin.  White-whalin’s gittin’ fashionable.  There’s heaps o’ chaps come daown here from Montreal and Quebec and want to go aout:  so I take ’em.  Some shoots, and some harpoons, and abaout the only thing I’ve seen ’em ketch yet is a bad cold; but there’s excitement in it, —­heaps of it:  ain’t there, Sam?”

“I ain’t denyin’ of it,” replied the latter.  “What’s sport for some is hard work for others.  Work I calls it.”

“Wall, as I say,” continued the skipper, “white-whalin’ is gittin’ fashionable, so in course there ain’t no hard work abaout it; and if yaou will go, why, I’m goin’ aout now, me and Sam.  The only thing, it’s dampish like; but perhaps mother here kin rig yaou aout.”

Half an hour later the two landsmen were metamorphosed into very respectable whalers, and, with the two captains, were running the whale-boat down the sands of Bic into the dark waters of the St. Lawrence.  The light sail was set, and soon we were bounding away in the direction of Mille Vaches, Captain Sam at the oar that constituted the helm, and Captain Sol in the bow, with harpoon at hand, ready for the appearance of game.

The white whale, or Beluga, is extremely common at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and is found a considerable distance up the river beyond Tadousac.  The oil is in constant demand for delicate machinery, and Beluga leather, made from the tanned hide, is manufactured into a great variety of articles of necessity and luxury.