Agnes C Laut

The ''Adventurers of England'' on Hudson Bay Agnes C Laut

Book Excerpt: ... match-legged phalaropes, and geese and ducks of every hue, collected for the autumnal flight south. It was a yellowish sea under a sky blue as turquoise; and it may be that Hudson recalled sailor yarns of China's seas, lying yellow under skies blue as a robin's egg. At any rate he continued to steer south in spite of the old mate's mutterings. Men in unwilling service at a few shillings a month do not court death for the sake of glory. The shore line of rocks and pine turned westward. So did Hudson, sounding the ship's line as he crept forward one sail up, the others rattling against the bare masts in the autumn wind--doleful music to the thoughts of the coward crew. The shore line at the south end of Hudson Bay, as the world now knows, is cut sharply by a ridge of swampy land that shoals to muddy flats in what is known as Hannah Bay. ...