"Oh, it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise,
With the knees pressing hard to the saddle, my men;
With the sparks from the hoofs giving light to the eyes,
And our hearts beating hard as we rode to the glen!
"And it's back with the ring of the chain and the spur,
And it's back with the sun on the hill and the moor,
And it's back is the thought sets my pulses astir!
But I'll never go back to Farcalladen more."
Shon McGann was lying on a pile of buffalo robes in a mountain hut,--an
Australian would call it a humpey,--singing thus to himself with his pipe
between his teeth. In the room, besides Shon, were Pretty Pierre, Jo
Gordineer, the Hon. Just Trafford, called by his companions simply "The
Honourable," and Prince Levis, the owner of the establishment. Not that
Monsieur Levis, the French Canadian, was really a Prince. The name was
given to him with a humorous cynicism peculiar to the Rockies. We have
little to do with Prince Levis here; but since he may appear elsewhere,
this explanation is made.
Jo Gordineer had been telling The Honourable about the ghost of Guidon
Mountain, and Pretty Pierre was collaborating with their host in the
preparation of what, in the presence of the Law--that is of the North-
West Mounted Police--was called ginger-tea, in consideration of the
prohibition statute.
Shon McGann had been left to himself--an unusual thing; for everyone had
a shot at Shon when opportunity occurred; and never a bull's-eye could
they make on him. His wit was like the shield of a certain personage of
mythology.
He had wandered on from verse to verse of the song with one eye on the
collaborators and an ear open to The Honourable's polite exclamations of
wonder. Jo had, however, come to the end of his weird tale--for weird it
certainly was, told at the foot of Guidon Mountain itself, and in a
region of vast solitudes--the pair of chemists were approaching "the
supreme union of unctuous elements," as The Honourable put it, and in the
silence that fell for a moment there crept the words of the singer:
"And it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise,
And it's swift as an arrow and straight as a spear--"
Jo Gordineer interrupted. "Say, Shon, when'll you be through that
tobogan ride of yours? Aint there any end to it?"
But Shon was looking with both eyes now at the collaborators, and he sang
softly on:
"And it's keen as the frost when the summer-time dies,
That we rode to the glen and with never a fear."
Then he added: "The end's cut off, Joey, me boy; but what's a tobogan
ride, annyway?"
"Listen to that, Pierre. I'll be eternally shivered if he knows what a
tobogan ride is!"
"Hot shivers it'll be for you, Joey, me boy, and no quinine over the bar
aither," said Shon.
"Tell him what a tobogan ride is, Pierre."
And Pretty Pierre said: "Eh, well, I will tell you. It is like-no, you
have the word precise, Joseph. Eh? What?"
Pierre then added something in French. Shon did not understand it, but
he saw The Honourable smile, so with a gentle kind of contempt he went on
singing:
"And it's hey for the hedge, and it's hey for the wall!
And it's over the stream with an echoing cry;
And there's three fled for ever from old Donegal,
And there's two that have shown how bold Irishmen die."
The Honourable then said, "What is that all about, Shon? I never heard
the song before."
"No more you did. And I wish I could see the lad that wrote that song,
livin' or dead. If one of ye's will tell me about your tobogan rides,
I'll unfold about Farcalladen Rise."
Prince Levis passed the liquor. Pretty Pierre, seated on a candle-box,
with a glass in his delicate fingers, said: "Eh, well, the Honourable has
much language. He can speak, precise--this would be better with a little
lemon, just a little,--the Honourable, he, perhaps, will tell. Eh?"
Pretty Pierre was showing his white teeth. At this stage in his career,
he did not love the Honourable. The Honourable understood that, but he
made clear to Shon's mind what toboganing is.
And Shon, on his part, with fresh and hearty voice, touched here and
there by a plaintive modulation, told about that ride on Farcalladen
Rise; a tale of broken laws, and fight and fighting, and death and exile;
and never a word of hatred in it all.
"And the writer of the song, who was he?" asked the Honourable.
"A gentleman after God's own heart. Heaven rest his soul, if he's dead,
which I'm thinkin' is so, and give him the luck of the world if he's
livin', say I. But it's little I know what's come to him. In the heart
of Australia I saw him last; and mates we were together after gold. And
little gold did we get but what was in the heart of him. And we parted
one day, I carryin' the song that he wrote for me of Farcalladen Rise,
and the memory of him; and him givin' me the word,'I'll not forget you,
Shon, me boy, whatever comes; remember that. And a short pull of the
Three-Star together for the partin' salute,' says he. And the Three-Star
in one sup each we took, as solemn as the Mass, and he went away towards
Cloncurry and I to the coast; and that's the last that I saw of him, now
three years gone. And here I am, and I wish I was with him wherever he
is."
"What was his name"? said the Honourable.
"Lawless."
The fingers of the Honourable trembled on his cigar. "Very interesting,
Shon," he said, as he rose, puffing hard till his face was in a cloud of
smoke. "You had many adventures together, I suppose," he continued.
"Adventures we had and sufferin' bewhiles, and fun, too, to the neck and
flowin' over."
"You'll spin us a long yarn about them another night, Shon"? said the
Honourable.
"I'll do it now--a yarn as long as the lies of the Government; and proud
of the chance."
"Not to-night, Shon" (there was a kind of huskiness in the voice of the
Honourable); "it's time to turn in. We've a long tramp over the glacier
to-morrow, and we must start at sunrise."
The Honourable was in command of the party, though Jo Gordineer was the
guide, and all were, for the moment, miners, making for the little Goshen
Field over in Pipi Valley.--At least Pretty Pierre said he was a miner.
No one thought of disputing the authority of the Honourable, and they all
rose.
In a few minutes there was silence in the hut, save for the oracular
breathing of Prince Levis and the sparks from the fire. But the
Honourable did not sleep well; he lay and watched the fire through most
of the night.
The day was clear, glowing, decisive. Not a cloud in the curve of azure,
not a shiver of wind down the canon, not a frown in Nature, if we except
the lowering shadows from the shoulders of the giants of the range.
Crowning the shadows was a splendid helmet of light, rich with the dyes
of the morning; the pines were touched with a brilliant if austere
warmth. The pride of lofty lineage and severe isolation was regnant over
all. And up through the splendour, and the shadows, and the loneliness,
and the austere warmth, must our travellers go. Must go? Scarcely that,
but the Honourable had made up his mind to cross the glacier and none
sought to dissuade him from his choice; the more so, because there was
something of danger in the business. Pretty Pierre had merely shrugged
his shoulders at the suggestion, and had said:
"'Nom de Dieu,' the higher we go the faster we live, that is something."
"Sometimes we live ourselves to death too quickly. In my schooldays I
watched a mouse in a jar of oxygen do that;" said the Honourable.
"That is the best way to die," remarked the halfbreed--"much."
Jo Gordineer had been over the path before. He was confident of the way,
and proud of his office of guide.
"Climb Mont Blanc, if you will," said the Honourable, "but leave me these
white bastions of the Selkirks."
Even so. They have not seen the snowy hills of God who have yet to look
upon the Rocky Mountains, absolute, stupendous, sublimely grave.
Jo Gordineer and Pretty Pierre strode on together. They being well away
from the other two, the Honourable turned and said to Shon: "What was the
name of the man who wrote that song of yours, again, Shon?"
"Lawless."
"Yes, but his first name?"
"Duke--Duke Lawless."
There was a pause, in which the other seemed to be intently studying the
glacier above them. Then he said: "What was he like?--in appearance, I
mean."
"A trifle more than your six feet, about your colour of hair and eyes,
and with a trick of smilin' that would melt the heart of an exciseman,
and O'Connell's own at a joke, barrin' a time or two that he got hold of
a pile of papers from the ould country. By the grave of St. Shon! thin
he was as dry of fun as a piece of blotting paper. And he said at last,
before he was aisy and free again, 'Shon,' says he, 'it's better to burn
your ships behind ye, isn't it?'
"And I, havin' thought of a glen in ould Ireland that I'll never see
again, nor any that's in it, said: 'Not, only burn them to the water's
edge, Duke Lawless, but swear to your own soul that they never lived but
in the dreams of the night.'
"'You're right there, Shon,' says he, and after that no luck was bad
enough to cloud the gay heart of him, and bad enough it was sometimes."
"And why do you fear that he is not alive?"
"Because I met an old mate of mine one day on the Frazer, and he said
that Lawless had never come to Cloncurry; and a hard, hard road it was to
travel."
Jo Gordineer was calling to them, and there the conversation ended.
In a few minutes the four stood on the edge of the glacier. Each man had
a long hickory stick which served as alpenstock, a bag hung at his side,
and tied to his back was his gold-pan, the hollow side in, of course.
Shon's was tied a little lower down than the others.
They passed up this solid river of ice, this giant power at endless
strife with the high hills, up towards its head. The Honourable was the
first to reach the point of vantage, and to look down upon the vast and
wandering fissures, the frigid bulwarks, the great fortresses of ice, the
ceaseless snows, the aisles of this mountain sanctuary through which
Nature's splendid anthems rolled. Shon was a short distance below, with
his hand over his eyes, sweeping the semi-circle of glory.