Book: The Young Fur Traders

R >> R.M. Ballantyne >> The Young Fur Traders




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 clergy man an energetic
grasp of the hand; "I like to hear you speak that way. I must confess
that I've 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 hair-
breadth 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 sun-burned 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 make 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 broad-cloth 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 gray 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 farther
the fortunes of one or two of the chief factors in our book. But this
is not to 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 snow-shoes. 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.

THE END.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.