Produced by David Widger
THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE, Complete
By Gilbert Parker
CONTENTS
Volume 1.
I. HIS GREAT MISTAKE
II. A DIFFICULT SITUATION
III. OUT OF THE NORTH
IV. IN THE NAME OF THE FAMILY
V. AN AWKWARD HALF-HOUR
Volume 2.
VI. THE PASSING OF THE YEARS
VII. A COURT-MARTIAL
VIII. TO EVERY MAN HIS HOUR
Volume 3.
IX. THE FAITH OF COMRADES
X. “THOU KNOWEST THE SECRETS OF OUR HEARTS”
XI. UPON THE HIGHWAY
XII. “THE CHASE OF THE YELLOW SWAN”
XIII. A LIVING POEM
XIV. ON THE EDGE OF A FUTURE
XV. THE END OF THE TRAIL
INTRODUCTION
The Translation of a Savage was written in the early autumn of 1893, at
Hampstead Heath, where for over twenty years I have gone, now and then,
when I wished to be in an atmosphere conducive to composition. Hampstead
is one of the parts of London which has as yet been scarcely invaded
by the lodging-house keeper. It is very difficult to get apartments at
Hampstead; it is essentially a residential place; and, like Chelsea, has
literary and artistic character all its own. I think I have seen more
people carrying books in their hands at Hampstead than in any other spot
in England; and there it was, perched above London, with eyes looking
towards the Atlantic over the leagues of land and the thousand leagues
of sea, that I wrote ‘The Translation of a Savage’. It was written, as
it were, in one concentrated effort, a ceaseless writing. It was, in
effect, what the Daily Chronicle said of ‘When Valmond Came to Pontiac’,
a tour de force. It belonged to a genre which compelled me to dispose of
a thing in one continuous effort, or the impulse, impetus, and fulness
of movement was gone. The writing of a book of the kind admitted of no
invasion from extraneous sources, and that was why, while writing ‘The
Translation of a Savage’ at Hampstead, my letters were only delivered
to me once a week. I saw no friends, for no one knew where I was; but I
walked the heights, I practised with my golf clubs on the Heath, and I
sat in the early autumn evenings looking out at London in that agony of
energy which its myriad lives represented. It was a good time.
The story had a basis of fact; the main incident was true. It happened,
however, in Michigan rather than in Canada; but I placed the incident
in Canada where it was just as true to the life. I was living in
Hertfordshire at the time of writing the story, and that is why the
English scenes were worked out in Hertfordshire and in London. When I
had finished the tale, there came over me suddenly a kind of feeling
that the incident was too bold and maybe too crude to be believed, and
I was almost tempted to consign it to the flames; but the editor of
‘The English Illustrated Magazine’, Sir C. Kinloch-Cooke, took a wholly
different view, and eagerly published it. The judgment of the press was
favourable,--highly so--and I was as much surprised as pleased when Mr.
George Moore, in the Hogarth Club one night, in 1894, said to me: “There
is a really remarkable play in that book of yours, ‘The Translation, of
a Savage’.” I had not thought up to that time that my work was of
the kind which would appeal to George Moore, but he was always making
discoveries. Meeting him in Pall Mall one day, he said to me: “My dear
fellow, I have made a great discovery. I have been reading the Old
Testament. It is magnificent. In the mass of its incoherence it has a
series of the most marvellous stories. Do you remember--” etc. Then he
came home and had tea with me, revelling, in the meantime, on having
discovered the Bible!
I cannot feel that ‘The Translation of a Savage’ has any significance
beyond the truthfulness with which I believe it describes the
transformation, or rather the evolution, of a primitive character into
a character with an intelligence of perception and a sympathy which is
generally supposed to be the outcome of long processes of civilisation
and culture. The book has so many friends--this has been sufficiently
established by the very large sale it has had in cheap editions--that
I am still disposed to feel it was an inevitable manifestation in the
progress of my art, such as it is. People of diverse conditions of life
have found in it something to interest and to stimulate. One of the most
volcanic of the Labour members in the House of Commons told me that the
violence of his opposition to me in debate on a certain bill was greatly
moderated by the fact that I had written ‘The Translation of a Savage’;
while a certain rather grave duke remarked to me concerning the
character of Lali that “She would have been all right anywhere.” I am
bound to say that he was a duke who, while a young man, knew the wilds
of Canada and the United States almost as well as I know Westminster.
THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE
CHAPTER I. HIS GREAT MISTAKE
It appeared that Armour had made the great mistake of his life. When
people came to know, they said that to have done it when sober had shown
him possessed of a kind of maliciousness and cynicism almost pardonable,
but to do it when tipsy proved him merely weak and foolish. But the fact
is, he was less tipsy at the time than was imagined; and he could have
answered to more malice and cynicism than was credited to him. To those
who know the world it is not singular that, of the two, Armour was
thought to have made the mistake and had the misfortune, or that people
wasted their pity and their scorn upon him alone. Apparently they did
not see that the woman was to be pitied. He had married her; and she was
only an Indian girl from Fort Charles of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
with a little honest white blood in her veins. Nobody, not even her
own people, felt that she had anything at stake, or was in danger of
unhappiness, or was other than a person who had ludicrously come to bear
the name of Mrs. Francis Armour. If any one had said in justification
that she loved the man, the answer would have been that plenty of
Indian women had loved white men, but had not married them, and yet the
population of half-breeds went on increasing.
Frank Armour had been a popular man in London. His club might be found
in the vicinity of Pall Mall, his father’s name was high and honoured in
the Army List, one of his brothers had served with Wolseley in Africa,
and Frank himself, having no profession, but with a taste for business
and investment, had gone to Canada with some such intention as Lord
Selkirk’s in the early part of the century. He owned large shares in
the Hudson’s Bay Company, and when he travelled through the North-West
country, prospecting, he was received most hospitably. Of an inquiring
and gregarious nature he went as much among the half-breeds--or ‘metis’,
as they are called--and Indians as among the officers of the Hudson’s
Bay Company and the white settlers. He had ever been credited with
having a philosophical turn of mind; and this was accompanied by a
certain strain of impulsiveness or daring. He had been accustomed all
his life to make up his mind quickly and, because he was well enough
off to bear the consequences of momentary rashness in commercial
investments, he was not counted among the transgressors. He had his
own fortune; he was not drawing upon a common purse. It was a different
matter when he trafficked rashly in the family name so far as to marry
the daughter of Eye-of-the-Moon, the Indian chief.
He was tolerably happy when he went to the Hudson’s Bay country; for
Miss Julia Sherwood was his promised wife, and she, if poor, was notably
beautiful and of good family. His people had not looked quite kindly
on this engagement; they had, indeed, tried in many ways to prevent it;
partly because of Miss Sherwood’s poverty, and also because they knew
that Lady Agnes Martling had long cared for him, and was most happily
endowed with wealth and good looks also. When he left for Canada they
were inwardly glad (they imagined that something might occur to end
the engagement)--all except Richard, the wiseacre of the family,
the book-man, the drone, who preferred living at Greyhope, their
Hertfordshire home, the year through, to spending half the time in
Cavendish Square. Richard was very fond of Frank, admiring him immensely
for his buxom strength and cleverness, and not a little, too, for that
very rashness which had brought him such havoc at last.
Richard was not, as Frank used to say, “perfectly sound on his
pins,”--that is, he was slightly lame, but he was right at heart. He
was an immense reader, but made little use of what he read. He had an
abundant humour, and remembered every anecdote he ever heard. He was
kind to the poor, walked much, talked to himself as he walked, and was
known by the humble sort as “a’centric.” But he had a wise head, and he
foresaw danger to Frank’s happiness when he went away. While others had
gossiped and manoeuvred and were busily idle, he had watched things. He
saw that Frank was dear to Julia in proportion to the distance between
her and young Lord Haldwell, whose father had done something remarkable
in guns or torpedoes and was rewarded with a lordship and an uncommonly
large fortune. He also saw that, after Frank left, the distance between
Lord Haldwell and Julia became distinctly less--they were both staying
at Greyhope. Julia Sherwood was a remarkably clever girl. Though he felt
it his duty to speak to her for his brother,--a difficult and delicate
matter, he thought it would come better from his mother.
But when he took action it was too late. Miss Sherwood naively declared
that she had not known her own heart, and that she did not care for
Frank any more. She wept a little, and was soothed by motherly Mrs.
Armour, who was inwardly glad, though she knew the matter would cause
Frank pain; and even General Armour could not help showing slight
satisfaction, though he was innocent of any deliberate action to
separate the two. Straightway Miss Sherwood despatched a letter to the
wilds of Canada, and for a week was an unengaged young person. But she
was no doubt consoled by the fact that for some time past she had had
complete control of Lord Haldwell’s emotions. At the end of the week
her perceptions were justified by Lord Haldwell’s proposal, which, with
admirable tact and obvious demureness, was accepted.
Now, Frank Armour was wandering much in the wilds, so that his letters
and papers went careering about after him, and some that came first were
last to reach him. That was how he received a newspaper announcing the
marriage of Lord Haldwell and Julia Sherwood at the same time that her
letter, written in estimable English and with admirable feeling, came,
begging for a release from their engagement, and, towards its close,
assuming, with a charming regret, that all was over, and that the last
word had been said between them.
Armour was sitting in the trader’s room at Fort Charles when the carrier
came with the mails. He had had some successful days hunting buffalo
with Eye-of-the-Moon and a little band of metis, had had a long pow-wow
in Eye-of-the-Moon’s lodge, had chatted gaily with Lali the daughter,
and was now prepared to enjoy heartily the arrears of correspondence
and news before him. He ran his hand through the letters and papers,
intending to classify them immediately, according to such handwriting as
he recognised and the dates on the envelopes. But, as he did so, he saw
a newspaper from which the wrapper was partly torn. He also saw a note
in the margin directing him to a certain page. The note was in Richard’s
handwriting. He opened the paper at the page indicated and saw the
account of the marriage! His teeth clinched on his cigar, his face
turned white, the paper fell from his fingers. He gasped, his hands
spread out nervously, then caught the table and held it as though to
steady himself.
The trader rose. “You are ill,” he said. “Have you bad news?” He glanced
towards the paper. Slowly Armour folded the paper up, and then rose
unsteadily. “Gordon,” he said, “give me a glass of brandy.”
He turned towards the cupboard in the room. The trader opened it, took
out a bottle, and put it on the table beside Armour, together with a
glass and some water. Armour poured out a stiff draught, added a very
little water, and drank it. He drew a great sigh, and stood looking at
the paper.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Armour?” urged the trader.
“Nothing, thank you, nothing at all. Just leave the brandy here, will
you? I feel knocked about, and I have to go through the rest of these
letters.”
He ran his fingers through the pile, turning it over hastily, as if
searching for something. The trader understood. He was a cool-headed
Scotsman; he knew that there were some things best not inquired into,
and that men must have their bad hours alone. He glanced at the brandy
debatingly, but presently turned and left the room in silence. In his
own mind, however, he wished he might have taken the brandy without
being discourteous. Armour had discovered Miss Sherwood’s letter. Before
he opened it he took a little more brandy. Then he sat down and read it
deliberately. The liquor had steadied him. The fingers of one hand even
drummed on the table. But the face was drawn, the eyes were hard, and
the look of him was altogether pinched. After he had finished this, he
looked for others from the same hand. He found none. Then he picked out
those from his mother and father. He read them grimly. Once he paused as
he read his mother’s letter, and took a gulp of plain brandy. There was
something very like a sneer on his face when he finished reading. He
read the hollowness of the sympathy extended to him; he understood the
far from adroit references to Lady Agnes Martling. He was very bitter.
He opened no more letters, but took up the Morning Post again, and read
it slowly through. The look of his face was not pleasant. There was a
small looking-glass opposite him. He caught sight of himself in it.
He drew his hand across his eyes and forehead, as though he was in a
miserable dream. He looked again; he could not recognise himself.
He then bundled the letters and papers into his despatch-box. His
attention was drawn to one letter. He picked it up. It was from Richard.
He started to break the seal, but paused. The strain of the event was
too much; he winced. He determined not to read it then, to wait until he
had recovered himself. He laughed now painfully. It had been better
for him--it had, maybe, averted what people were used to term his
tragedy--had he read his brother’s letter at that moment. For Richard
Armour was a sensible man, notwithstanding his peculiarities; and
perhaps the most sensible words he ever wrote were in that letter
thrust unceremoniously into Frank Armour’s pocket. Armour had received a
terrible blow. He read his life backwards. He had no future. The liquor
he had drunk had not fevered him, it had not wildly excited him; it
merely drew him up to a point where he could put a sudden impulse
into practice without flinching. He was bitter against his people;
he credited them with more interference than was actual. He felt that
happiness had gone out of his life and left him hopeless. As we said, he
was a man of quick decisions. He would have made a dashing but reckless
soldier; he was not without the elements of the gamester. It is possible
that there was in him also a strain of cruelty, undeveloped but radical.
Life so far had evolved the best in him; he had been cheery and candid.
Now he travelled back into new avenues of his mind and found strange,
aboriginal passions, fully adapted to the present situation. Vulgar
anger and reproaches were not after his nature. He suddenly found
sources of refined but desperate retaliation. He drew upon them. He
would do something to humiliate his people and the girl who had spoiled
his life. Some one thing! It should be absolute and lasting, it should
show how low had fallen his opinion of women, of whom Julia Sherwood had
once been chiefest to him. In that he would show his scorn of her. He
would bring down the pride of his family, who, he believed, had helped,
out of mere selfishness, to tumble his happiness into the shambles.
He was older by years than an hour ago. But he was not without the
faculty of humour; that was why he did not become very excited; it was
also why he determined upon a comedy which should have all the elements
of tragedy. Perhaps, however, he would have hesitated to carry his
purposes to immediate conclusions, were it not that the very gods seemed
to play his game with him. For, while he stood there, looking out into
the yard of the fort, a Protestant missionary passed the window. The
Protestant missionary, as he is found at such places as Fort Charles, is
not a strictly superior person. A Jesuit might have been of advantage
to Frank Armour at that moment. The Protestant missionary is not above
comfortable assurances of gold. So that when Armour summoned this one
in, and told him what was required of him, and slipped a generous gift
of the Queen’s coin into his hand, he smiled vaguely and was willing to
do what he was bidden. Had he been a Jesuit, who is sworn to poverty,
and more often than not a man of birth and education, he might have
influenced Frank Armour and prevented the notable mishap and scandal. As
it was, Armour took more brandy.
Then he went down to Eye-of-the-Moon’s lodge. A few hours afterwards
the missionary met him there. The next morning Lali, the daughter of
Eye-of-the-Moon, and the chieftainess of a portion of her father’s
tribe, whose grandfather had been a white man, was introduced to the
Hudson’s Bay country as Mrs. Frank Armour. But that was not all. Indeed,
as it stood, it was very little. He had only made his comedy possible as
yet; now the play itself was to come. He had carried his scheme through
boldly so far. He would not flinch in carrying it out to the last
letter. He brought his wife down to the Great Lakes immediately,
scarcely resting day or night. There he engaged an ordinary but reliable
woman, to whom he gave instructions, and sent the pair to the coast.
He instructed his solicitor at Montreal to procure passages for Mrs.
Francis Armour and maid for Liverpool. Then, by letters, he instructed
his solicitor in London to meet Mrs. Francis Armour and maid at
Liverpool and take them to Greyhope in Hertfordshire--that is, if
General Armour and Mrs. Armour, or some representative of the family,
did not meet them when they landed from the steamship.
Presently he sat down and wrote to his father and mother, and asked
them to meet his wife and her maid when they arrived by the steamer
Aphrodite. He did not explain to them in precise detail his feelings on
Miss Julia Sherwood’s marriage, nor did he go into full particulars as
to the personality of Mrs. Frank Armour; but he did say that, because he
knew they were anxious that he should marry “acceptably,” he had married
into the aristocracy, the oldest aristocracy of America; and because he
also knew they wished him to marry wealth, he sent them a wife rich in
virtues--native, unspoiled virtues. He hoped that they would take her to
their hearts and cherish her. He knew their firm principles of honour,
and that he could trust them to be kind to his wife until he returned to
share the affection which he was sure would be given to her. It was not
his intention to return to England for some time yet. He had work to
do in connection with his proposed colony; and a wife--even a native
wife--could not well be a companion in the circumstances. Besides,
Lali--his wife’s name was Lali!--would be better occupied in learning
the peculiarities of the life in which her future would be cast. It
was possible they would find her an apt pupil. Of this they could
not complain, that she was untravelled; for she had ridden a horse,
bareback, half across the continent. They could not cavil at her
education, for she knew several languages--aboriginal languages--of the
North. She had merely to learn the dialect of English society, and how
to carry with acceptable form the costumes of the race to which she was
going. Her own costume was picturesque, but it might appear unusual in
London society. Still, they could use their own judgment about that.
Then, when she was gone beyond recall, he chanced one day to put on the
coat he wore when the letters and paper declaring his misfortune came to
him. He found his brother’s letter; he opened it and read it. It was
the letter of a man who knew how to appreciate at their proper value the
misfortunes, as the fortunes, of life. While Frank Armour read he came
to feel for the first time that his brother Richard had suffered, maybe,
from some such misery as had come to him through Julia Sherwood. It was
a dispassionate, manly letter, relieved by gentle wit, and hinting with
careful kindness that a sudden blow was better for a man than a lifelong
thorn in his side. Of Julia Sherwood he had nothing particularly bitter
to say. He delicately suggested that she had acted according to her
nature, and that in the see-saw of life Frank had had a sore blow;
but this was to be borne. The letter did not say too much; it did
not magnify the difficulty, it did not depreciate it. It did not even
directly counsel; it was wholesomely, tenderly judicial. Indirectly, it
dwelt upon the steadiness and manliness of Frank’s character; directly,
lightly, and without rhetoric, it enlarged upon their own comradeship.
It ran over pleasantly the days of their boyhood, when they were hardly
ever separated. It made distinct, yet with no obvious purpose, how good
were friendship and confidence--which might be the most unselfish thing
in the world--between two men. With the letter before him Frank Armour
saw his act in a new light.
As we said, it is possible if he had read it on the day when his trouble
came to him, he had not married Lali, or sent her to England on this--to
her--involuntary mission of revenge. It is possible, also, that there
came to him the first vague conception of the wrong he had done this
Indian girl, who undoubtedly married him because she cared for him
after her heathen fashion, while he had married her for nothing that
was commendable; not even for passion, which may be pardoned, nor for
vanity, which has its virtues. He had had his hour with circumstance;
circumstance would have its hour with him in due course. Yet there was
no extraordinary revulsion. He was still angry, cynical, and very sore.
He would see the play out with a consistent firmness. He almost managed
a smile when a letter was handed to him some weeks later, bearing his
solicitor’s assurance that Mrs. Frank Armour and her maid had been
safely bestowed on the Aphrodite for England. This was the first act in
his tragic comedy.