Читать книгу The Best Ballantyne Westerns - R. M. Ballantyne - Страница 35

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The course of true love, curiously enough, runs smooth for once, and the curtain falls.

Time rolled on, and with it the sunbeams of summer went—the snowflakes of winter came. Needles of ice began to shoot across the surface of Red River, and gradually narrowed its bed. Crystalline trees formed upon the window-panes. Icicles depended from the eaves of the houses. Snow fell in abundance on the plains; liquid nature began rapidly to solidify, and not many weeks after the first frost made its appearance everything was (as the settlers expressed it) “hard and fast.”

Mr Kennedy, senior, was in his parlour, with his back to a blazing wood fire that seemed large enough to roast an ox whole. He was standing, moreover, in a semi-picturesque attitude, with his right hand in his breeches pocket and his left arm round Kate’s waist. Kate was dressed in a gown that rivalled the snow itself in whiteness. One little gold clasp shone in her bosom; it was the only ornament she wore. Mr Kennedy, too, had somewhat altered his style of costume. He wore a sky-blue swallow-tailed coat, whose maker had flourished in London half a century before. It had a velvet collar about five inches deep, fitted uncommonly tight to the figure, and had a pair of bright brass buttons, very close together, situated half a foot above the wearer’s natural waist. Besides this, he had on a canary-coloured vest, and a pair of white duck trousers, in the fob of which evidently reposed an immense gold watch of the olden time, with a bunch of seals that would have served very well as an anchor for a small boat. Although the dress was, on the whole, slightly comical, its owner, with his full, fat, broad figaro, looked remarkably well in it, nevertheless.

It was Kate’s marriage-day, or rather marriage-evening; for the sun had set two hours ago, and the moon was now sailing in the frosty sky, its pale rays causing the whole country to shine with a clear, cold, silvery whiteness.

The old gentleman had been for some time gazing in silent admiration on the fair brow and clustering ringlets of his daughter, when it suddenly occurred to him that the company would arrive in half an hour, and there were several things still to be attended to.

“Hollo, Kate!” he exclaimed, with a start, “we’re forgetting ourselves. The candles are yet to light, and lots of other things to do.” Saying this, he began to bustle about the room in a state of considerable agitation.

“Oh, don’t worry yourself, dear father!” cried Kate, running after him, and catching him by the hand. “Miss Cookumwell and good Mrs Taddipopple are arranging everything about tea and supper in the kitchen, and Tom Whyte has been kindly sent to us by Mr Grant, with orders to make himself generally useful, so he can light the candles in a few minutes, and you’ve nothing to do but to kiss me and receive the company.” Kate pulled her father gently towards the fire again, and replaced his arm round her waist.

“Receive company! Ah, Kate, my love, that’s just what I know nothing about. If they’d let me receive them in my own way, I’d do it well enough; but that abominable Mrs Taddi—what’s her name—has quite addled my brains and driven me distracted with trying to get me to understand what she calls etiquette.”

Kate laughed, and said she didn’t care how he received them, as she was quite sure that, whichever way he did it, he would do it pleasantly and well.

At that moment the door opened, and Tom Whyte entered. He was thinner, if possible, than he used to be, and considerably stiffer, and more upright.

“Please, sir,” said he, with a motion that made you expect to hear his back creak (it was intended for a bow)—“please, sir, can I do hanythink for yer?”

“Yes, Tom, you can,” replied Mr Kennedy. “Light these candles, my man, and then go to the stable and see that everything there is arranged for putting up the horses. It will be pretty full to-night, Tom, and will require some management. Then, let me see—ah, yes, bring me my pipe, Tom, my big meerschaum.—I’ll sport that to-night in honour of you, Kate.”

“Please, sir,” began Tom, with a slightly disconcerted air, “I’m afeard, sir, that—um—”

“Well, Tom, what would you say? Go on.”

“The pipe, sir,” said Tom, growing still more disconcerted—“says I to cook, says I, ‘Cook, wot’s been an’ done it, d’ye think?’ ‘Dun know, Tom,’ says he, ‘but it’s smashed, that’s sartin. I think the gray cat—’”

“What!” cried the old trader, in a voice of thunder, while a frown of the most portentous ferocity darkened his brow for an instant. It was only for an instant, however. Clearing his brow quickly, he said with a smile, “But it’s your wedding-day, Kate, my darling. It won’t do to blow up anybody to-day, not even the cat.—There, be off, Tom, and see to things. Look sharp! I hear sleigh-bells already.”

As he spoke Tom vanished perpendicularly, Kate hastened to her room, and the old gentleman himself went to the front door to receive his guests.

The night was of that intensely calm and still character that invariably accompanies intense frost, so that the merry jingle of the sleigh-bells that struck on Mr Kennedy’s listening ear continued to sound, and grow louder as they drew near, for a considerable time ere the visitors arrived. Presently the dull, soft tramp of horses’ hoofs was heard in the snow, and a well-known voice shouted out lustily, “Now then, Mactavish, keep to the left. Doesn’t the road take a turn there? Mind the gap in the fence. That’s old Kennedy’s only fault. He’d rather risk breaking his friends’ necks than mend his fences!”

“All right, here we are,” cried Mactavish, as the next instant two sleighs emerged out of the avenue into the moonlit space in front of the house, and dashed up to the door amid an immense noise and clatter of bells, harness, hoofs, snorting, and salutations.

“Ah, Grant, my dear fellow!” cried Mr Kennedy, springing to the sleigh and seizing his friend by the hand as he dragged him out. “This is kind of you to come early. And Mrs Grant, too. Take care, my dear madam, step clear of the haps; now, then—cleverly done” (as Mrs Grant tumbled into his arms in a confused heap). “Come along now; there’s a capital fire in here.—Don’t mind the horses, Mactavish—follow us, my lad; Tom Whyte will attend to them.”

Uttering such disjointed remarks, Mr Kennedy led Mrs Grant into the house, and made her over to Mrs Taddipopple, who hurried her away to an inner apartment, while Mr Kennedy conducted her spouse, along with Mactavish and our friend the head clerk at Fort Garry, into the parlour.

“Harry, my dear fellow, I wish you joy,” cried Mr Grant, as the former grasped his hand. “Lucky dog you are. Where’s Kate, eh? Not visible yet, I suppose.”

“No, not till the parson comes,” interrupted Mr Kennedy, convulsing his left cheek.—“Hollo, Charley, where are you? Ah! bring the cigars, Charley.—Sit down, gentlemen; make yourselves at home.—I say, Mrs Taddi—Taddi—oh, botheration—popple! that’s it—your name, madam, is a puzzler—but—we’ll need more chairs, I think. Fetch one or two, like a dear!”

As he spoke the jingle of bells was heard outside, and Mr Kennedy rushed to the door again.

“Good-evening, Mr Addison,” said he, taking that gentleman warmly by the hand as he resigned the reins to Tom Whyte. “I am delighted to see you, sir (look after the minister’s mare, Tom), glad to see you, my dear sir. Some of my friends have come already. This way, Mr Addison.”

The worthy clergyman responded to Mr Kennedy’s greeting in his own hearty manner, and followed him into the parlour, where the guests now began to assemble rapidly.

“Father,” cried Charley, catching his sire by the arm, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, but you dance about like a will-o’-the-wisp. Do you know, I’ve invited my friends Jacques and Redfeather to come to-night, and also Louis Peltier, the guide with whom I made my first trip. You recollect him, father?”

“Ay, that do I, lad, and happy shall I be to see three such worthy men under my roof as guests on this night.”

“Yes, yes, I know that, father; but I don’t see them here. Have they come yet?”

“Can’t say, boy. By the way, Pastor Conway is also coming, so we’ll have a meeting between an Episcopalian and a Wesleyan. I sincerely trust that they won’t fight!” As he said this the old gentleman grinned and threw his cheek into convulsions—an expression which was suddenly changed into one of confusion when he observed that Mr Addison was standing close beside him, and had heard the remark.

“Don’t blush, my dear sir,” said Mr Addison, with a quiet smile, as he patted his friend on the shoulder. “You have too much reason, I am sorry to say, for expecting that clergymen of different denominations should look coldly on each other. There is far too much of this indifference and distrust among those who labour in different parts of the Lord’s vineyard. But I trust you will find that my sympathies extend a little beyond the circle of my own particular body. Indeed, Mr Conway is a particular friend of mine; so I assure you we won’t fight.”

“Right, right,” cried Mr Kennedy, giving the clergyman an energetic grasp of the hand; “I like to hear you speak that way. I must confess that I have been a good deal surprised to observe, by what one reads in the old-country newspapers, as well as by what one sees even hereaway in the backwood settlements, how little interest clergymen show in the doings of those who don’t happen to belong to their own particular sect; just as if a soul saved through the means of an Episcopalian was not of as much value as one saved by a Wesleyan, or a Presbyterian, or a Dissenter. Why, sir, it seems to me just as mean-spirited and selfish as if one of our chief factors was so entirely taken up with the doings and success of his own particular district that he didn’t care a gun-flint for any other district in the Company’s service.”

There was at least one man listening to these remarks, whose naturally logical and liberal mind fully agreed with them. This was Jacques Caradoc, who had entered the room a few minutes before, in company with his friend Redfeather and Louis Peltier.

“Right, sir! That’s fact, straight up and down,” said he, in an approving tone.

“Ha! Jacques, my good fellow, is that you?—Redfeather, my friend, how are you?” said Mr Kennedy, turning round and grasping a hand of each.—“Sit down there, Louis, beside Mrs Taddi—eh!—ah!—popple.—Mr Addison, this is Jacques Caradoc, the best and stoutest hunter between Hudson’s Bay and Oregon.”

Jacques smiled and bowed modestly as Mr Addison shook his hand. The worthy hunter did indeed at that moment look as if he fully merited Mr Kennedy’s eulogium. Instead of endeavouring to ape the gentleman, as many men in his rank of life would have been likely to do on an occasion like this, Jacques had not altered his costume a hairbreadth from what it usually was, excepting that some parts of it were quite new, and all of it faultlessly clean. He wore the usual capote, but it was his best one, and had been washed for the occasion. The scarlet belt and blue leggings were also as bright in colour as if they had been put on for the first time; and the moccasins, which fitted closely to his well-formed feet, were of the cleanest and brightest yellow leather, ornamented, as usual, in front. The collar of his blue-striped shirt was folded back a little more carefully than usual, exposing his sunburned and muscular throat. In fact, he wanted nothing, save the hunting-knife, the rifle, and the powder-horn, to constitute him a perfect specimen of a thorough backwoodsman.

Redfeather and Louis were similarly costumed; and a noble trio they looked as they sat modestly in a corner, talking to each other in whispers, and endeavouring, as much as possible, to curtail their colossal proportions.

“Now, Harry,” said Mr Kennedy, in a hoarse whisper, at the same time winking vehemently, “we’re about ready, lad. Where’s Kate, eh? shall we send for her?”

Harry blushed, and stammered out something that was wholly unintelligible, but which, nevertheless, seemed to afford infinite delight to the old gentleman, who chuckled and winked tremendously, gave his son-in-law a facetious poke in the ribs, and turning abruptly to Miss Cookumwell, said to that lady, “Now, Miss Cookumpopple, we’re all ready. They seem to have had enough tea and trash; you’d better be looking after Kate, I think.”

Miss Cookumwell smiled, rose, and left the room to obey; Mrs Taddipopple followed to help, and soon returned with Kate, whom they delivered up to her father at the door. Mr Kennedy led her to the upper end of the room; Harry Somerville stood by her side, as if by magic; Mr Addison dropped opportunely before them, as if from the clouds; there was an extraordinary and abrupt pause in the hum of conversation, and ere Kate was well aware of what was about to happen, she felt herself suddenly embraced by her husband, from whom she was thereafter violently torn and all but smothered by her sympathising friends.

Poor Kate! she had gone through the ceremony almost mechanically—recklessly, we might be justified in saying; for not having raised her eyes off the floor from its commencement to its close, the man whom she accepted for better or for worse might have been Jacques or Redfeather for all that she knew.

Immediately after this there was heard the sound of a fiddle, and an old Canadian was led to the upper end of the room, placed on a chair, and hoisted, by the powerful arms of Jacques and Louis, upon a table. In this conspicuous position the old man seemed to be quite at his ease. He spent a few minutes in bringing his instrument into perfect tune; then looking round with a mild, patronising glance to see that the dancers were ready, he suddenly struck up a Scotch reel with an amount of energy, precision, and spirit that might have shot a pang of jealousy through the heart of Neil Gow himself. The noise that instantly commenced, and was kept up from that moment, with but few intervals, during the whole evening, was of a kind that is never heard in fashionable drawing-rooms. Dancing in the backwood settlements is dancing. It is not walking; it is not sailing; it is not undulating; it is not sliding; no, it is bona-fide dancing! It is the performance of intricate evolutions with the feet and legs that makes one wink to look at; performed in good time too, and by people who look upon all their muscles as being useful machines, not merely things of which a select few, that cannot be dispensed with, are brought into daily operation. Consequently the thing was done with an amount of vigour that was conducive to the health of performers, and productive of satisfaction to the eyes of beholders. When the evening wore on apace, however, and Jacques’s modesty was so far overcome as to induce him to engage in a reel, along with his friend Louis Peltier, and two bouncing young ladies whose father had driven them twenty miles over the plains that day in order to attend the wedding of their dear friend and former playmate, Kate—when these four stood up, we say, and the fiddler played more energetically than ever, and the stout backwoodsmen began to warm and grow vigorous, until, in the midst of their tremendous leaps and rapid but well-timed motions, they looked like very giants amid their brethren, then it was that Harry, as he felt Kate’s little hand pressing his arm, and observed her sparkling eyes gazing at the dancers in genuine admiration, began at last firmly to believe that the whole thing was a dream; and then it was that old Mr Kennedy rejoiced to think that the house had been built under his own special directions, and he knew that it could not by any possibility be shaken to pieces.

And well might Harry imagine that he dreamed; for besides the bewildering tendency of the almost too-good-to-be-true fact that Kate was really Mrs Harry Somerville, the scene before him was a particularly odd and perplexing mixture of widely different elements, suggestive of new and old associations. The company was miscellaneous. There were retired old traders, whose lives from boyhood had been spent in danger, solitude, wild scenes, and adventures to which those of Robinson Crusoe are mere child’s play. There were young girls, the daughters of these men, who had received good educations in the Red River academy, and a certain degree of polish which education always gives, a very different polish, indeed, from that which the conventionalities and refinements of the Old World bestow, but not the less agreeable on that account—nay, we might even venture to say, all the more agreeable on that account. There were Red Indians and clergymen—there were one or two ladies of a doubtful age, who had come out from the old country to live there, having found it no easy matter, poor things, to live at home; there were matrons whose absolute silence on every subject save “yes” or “no” showed that they had not been subjected to the refining influences of the academy, but whose hearty smiles and laughs of genuine good-nature proved that the storing of the brain has, after all, very little to do with the best and deepest feelings of the heart. There were the tones of Scotch reels sounding-tones that brought Scotland vividly before the very eyes; and there were Canadian hunters and half-breed voyageurs, whose moccasins were more accustomed to the turf of the woods than the boards of a drawing-room, and whose speech and accents made Scotland vanish away altogether from the memory. There were old people and young folk; there were fat and lean, short and long. There were songs too—ballads of England, pathetic songs of Scotland, alternating with the French ditties of Canada, and the sweet, inexpressibly plaintive canoe-songs of the voyageur. There were strong contrasts in dress also: some wore the home-spun trousers of the settlement, a few the ornamented leggings of the hunter. Capotes were there—loose, flowing, and picturesque; and broadcloth tail-coats were there, of the last century, tight-fitting, angular—in a word, detestable; verifying the truth of the proverb that extremes meet, by showing that the cut which all the wisdom of tailors and scientific fops, after centuries of study, had laboriously wrought out and foisted upon the poor civilised world as perfectly sublime, appeared in the eyes of backwoodsmen and Indians utterly ridiculous. No wonder that Harry, under the circumstances, became quietly insane, and went about committing nothing but mistakes the whole evening. No wonder that he emulated his father-in-law in abusing the gray cat, when he found it surreptitiously devouring part of the supper in an adjoining room; and no wonder that, when he rushed about vainly in search of Mrs Taddipopple, to acquaint her with the cat’s wickedness, he at last, in desperation, laid violent hands on Miss Cookumwell, and addressed that excellent lady by the name of Mrs Poppletaddy.

Were we courageous enough to make the attempt, we would endeavour to describe that joyful evening from beginning to end. We would tell you how the company’s spirits rose higher and higher, as each individual became more and more anxious to lend his or her aid in adding to the general hilarity; how old Mr Kennedy nearly killed himself in his fruitless efforts to be everywhere, speak to everybody, and do everything at once; how Charley danced till he could scarcely speak, and then talked till he could hardly dance; and how the fiddler, instead of growing wearied, became gradually and continuously more powerful, until it seemed as if fifty fiddles were playing at one and the same time. We would tell you how Mr Addison drew more than ever to Mr Conway, and how the latter gentleman agreed to correspond regularly with the former thenceforth, in order that their interest in the great work each had in hand for the same Master might be increased and kept up; how, in a spirit of recklessness (afterwards deeply repented of), a bashful young man was induced to sing a song which in the present mirthful state of the company ought to have been a humorous song, or a patriotic song, or a good, loud, inspiriting song, or anything, in short, but what it was—a slow, dull, sentimental song, about wasting gradually away in a sort of melancholy decay, on account of disappointed love, or some such trash, which was a false sentiment in itself, and certainly did not derive any additional tinge of truthfulness from a thin, weak voice, that was afflicted with chronic flatness, and edged all its notes. Were we courageous enough to go on, we would further relate to you how during supper Mr Kennedy, senior, tried to make a speech, and broke down amid uproarious applause; how Mr Kennedy, junior, got up thereafter—being urged thereto by his father, who said, with a convulsion of the cheek, “Get me out of the scrape, Charley, my boy!”—and delivered an oration which did not display much power of concise elucidation, but was replete, nevertheless, with consummate impudence; how during this point in the proceedings the grey cat made a last desperate effort to purloin a cold chicken, which it had watched anxiously the whole evening, and was caught in the very act, nearly strangled, and flung out of the window, where it alighted in safety on the snow, and fled, a wiser, and, we trust, a better cat. We would recount all this to you, reader, and a great deal more besides; but we fear to try your patience, and we tremble violently—much more so, indeed, than you will believe—at the bare idea of waxing prosy.

Suffice it to say that the party separated at an early hour—a good, sober, reasonable hour for such an occasion—somewhere before midnight. The horses were harnessed; the ladies were packed in the sleighs with furs so thick and plentiful as to defy the cold; the gentlemen seized their reins and cracked their whips; the horses snorted, plunged, and dashed away over the white plains in different directions, while the merry sleigh-bells sounded fainter and fainter in the frosty air. In half an hour the stars twinkled down on the still, cold scene, and threw a pale light on the now silent dwelling of the old fur-trader.

* * * * *

Ere dropping the curtain over a picture in which we have sought faithfully to portray the prominent features of those wild regions that lie to the north of the Canadas, and in which we have endeavoured to describe some of the peculiarities of a class of men whose histories seldom meet the public eye, we feel tempted to add a few more touches to the sketch; we would fain trace a little further the fortunes of one or two of the chief actors in our book. But this must not be.

Snowflakes and sunbeams came and went as in days gone by. Time rolled on, working many changes in its course, and among others consigning Harry Somerville to an important post in Red River colony, to the unutterable joy of Mr Kennedy, senior, and of Kate. After much consideration and frequent consultation with Mr Addison, Mr Conway resolved to make another journey to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to those Indian tribes that inhabit the regions beyond Athabasca; and being a man of great energy, he determined not to await the opening of the river navigation, but to undertake the first part of his expedition on snowshoes. Jacques agreed to go with him as guide and hunter, Redfeather as interpreter. It was a bright, cold morning when he set out, accompanied part of the way by Charley Kennedy and Harry Somerville, whose hearts were heavy at the prospect of parting with the two men who had guided and protected them during their earliest experience of a voyageur’s life, when, with hearts full to overflowing with romantic anticipations, they first dashed joyously into the almost untrodden wilderness.

During their career in the woods together, the young men and the two hunters had become warmly attached to each other; and now that they were about to part—it might be for years, perhaps for ever—a feeling of sadness crept over them which they could not shake off and which the promise given by Mr Conway to revisit Red River on the following spring served but slightly to dispel.

On arriving at the spot where they intended to bid their friends a last farewell, the two young men held out their hands in silence. Jacques grasped them warmly.

“Mister Charles, Mister Harry,” said he, in a deep, earnest voice, “the Almighty has guided us in safety for many a day when we travelled the woods together; for which praised be His holy name! May He guide and bless you still, and bring us together in this world again, if in His wisdom He see fit.”

There was no answer save a deeply-murmured “Amen.” In another moment the travellers resumed their march. On reaching the summit of a slight eminence, where the prairies terminated and the woods began, they paused to wave a last adieu; then Jacques, putting himself at the head of the little party, plunged into the forest, and led them away towards the snowy regions of the Far North.