Copyright : The Estate of Ted Russell
In all the years that Skipper Bob Killick was Magistrate along this shore, the shrewdest piece of courtwork he had to handle was the time when Uncle Sol Noddy stole the two holes from Skipper Lige Bartle.
Now what good, you might say, is two holes? Not much nowadays since most people give up keeping dogs. But years ago, well how else can a man set a herring net under the ice? You cut two holes, eight or ten feet apart, tie a rope to one end of a flake longer, poke it down through one hole and hook it up through the other with a hand gaff. Oh yes, if you want to set a bigger net, you cut three holes, or even four.
But two holes was enough to serve Skipper Lige Bartle’s purpose that evening he was coming home down the Arm on dogteam from his rabbit slips. He chopped his two holes, then hurried home to get his net and a flake longer so as to have it set and home again before night overtook him. He didn’t even stop for a bite to eat. Just grabbed a pair of dry cuffs and was off again, a spry man.
But spry as he was, Uncle Sol Noddy was spryer. Uncle Sol was already there and had just finished setting his net in Lige’s holes. Well, Lige ordered Sol to take that net out of his holes. Sol said they was his ’cause he’d found them. Lige said they was his ’cause he chopped them. Well, Sol said, be that as it might, he owned them now ’cause possession was nine points of the law.
Skipper Lige was a younger man than Uncle Sol, and a bigger man. And if he hadn’t been a church going man besides, he said after as how he’d a tied Uncle Sol to his own rope and reeved him down one hole and up through the other. As it was, he went home and he wired Skipper Bob Killick, the Magistrate, to come immediately, or a bit quicker than that if ’twas possible. Skipper Bob wired back that he’d come and have courtwork in May, when navigation opened.
Public opinion was one-sided. Skipper Lige was a respectable man whereas Uncle Sol was the worse miserable hangashore on the coast. And to make matters worse, Uncle Sol was doing real well with the herring and even offered Skipper Lige a meal for his Good Friday dinner. I can’t repeat Skipper Lige’s answer but it made him feel so low that he didn’t have the face to go to church on Easter Sunday.
Well, Pigeon Inlet School was packed for courtwork when Skipper Bob Killick come on his rounds in May and he read out the charge how Uncle Sol had stolen the property of Skipper Lige: namely and to wit, two holes.
Then Uncle Sol, instead of having the common decency to confess what he done and take what was coming, had the impudence to look the Magistrate right square in the face and say he didn’t know whether he was guilty or not, and what he would like to know was, “What was the law concerning holes?” Well, Skipper Bob was took right aback for a minute and he said he allowed the law concerning holes was like the law concerning anything else: you mustn’t steal them. Then Uncle Sol, brazener than ever, asked, “How could you steal a hole anyway?” And when Skipper Bob said what did he mean how could you steal a hole, Uncle Sol said ’cause a hole, well a hole was nothing, only a hole.
All this time poor Skipper Lige was sitting there saying nothing but swelling up like a gurnet, ready to bust. Then he said as how a hole might be nothing to the hangashore that stole it but ’twas something to the man that had to chop it. But Skipper Bob called him to order so Lige kept quiet but he swelled bigger, if that was possible, until Skipper Bob ruled that on his first point, Uncle Sol had lost out and a hole was something.
“Alright then,” said Uncle Sol, “I only borrowed the use of his holes, never intending to keep them, and now he can have them back again.” Skipper Lige said the holes was drove out the Bay when the ice went out, but Sol maintained that holes was only fresh air and water and they were still up there in the Arm and Lige could have them and ten thousand welcomes.
Well, Skipper Bob had to call a fifteen minute recess on that, but after it was over he come back and he ruled as how Uncle Sol was wrong on account of how, in what he called the common law, a hole couldn’t be a hole unless there was an edge around it.
Then Uncle Sol tried his last dodge. He said as how a man couldn’t steal anything without shifting it from where he’d found it in the first place and that he hadn’t shifted these holes an inch. Skipper Lige said no, Sol hadn’t shifted ’em, not ’cause he wouldn’t but ‘cause he couldn’t and if he could’ve he’d a slung the two holes over his back quick enough and gone off with them. Sol said be that as it might, the fact was he hadn’t shifted them and on that point, Skipper Bob Killick the Magistrate had to agree with him.
He give his verdict that, although Uncle Sol hadn’t actually stolen the holes, he had trespassed on them and he asked Uncle Sol what he had to say before sentence was passed. Well, Uncle Sol said, right cheerful-like, that if all he’d done was trespass against Skipper Lige, then no doubt Skipper Lige, as a churchgoing man, would be only too ready to forgive those, including Uncle Sol, who had trespassed against him. And Skipper Lige bust right out then for sure and he said he’d forgive Uncle Sol when Uncle Sol give him back his holes, edges and all, and with that, Skipper Bob delivered his judgement.
He ordered Uncle Sol to cut two holes the following winter, in the same place, for Skipper Lige to set his herring net in and that was the end of it as far as the law was concerned. Of course, Uncle Sol got the best of it in the long run but that’s another story, and like Skipper Bob his own self said the following summer, after he’d heard the outcome, he doubted very much if even the Supreme Court could do much to cure a hangashore like Uncle Sol Noddy, ’cause he was one miserable hangashore if ever there was one.