When Ian Macdonald had seen his father's house fairly stranded on the
knoll, and had made it fast there with innumerable ropes, thin and
thick, as the Lilliputians secured Gulliver, he bethought him that it
was high time to visit the Little Mountain, to which his father had gone
on at that time, and inform him of the amazing fact.
Before setting off, however, common propriety required that he should
look in at Willow Creek in passing, not only to let them know what had
occurred, if they had not already observed it, but to ask if there was
any message for Mr Ravenshaw.
First releasing Peegwish, who now regarded him as a maniac, he embarked
with him in the punt, and rowed over.
It was by that time approaching the afternoon. Before that--indeed
before the house of Angus had gone afloat--Tony, Victor, and
Petawanaquat had gone off to the Little Mountain in search of Mr
Ravenshaw. Those of the family who remained behind had been so busy
about their various avocations, that no one had observed the sudden
removal of their neighbour's dwelling.
"Cora! quick! come here!" cried Elsie, in a tone that alarmed her
sister. "Am I dreaming?"
Cora looked out at the window, where the other stood as if petrified.
"Angus Macdonald's house on the knoll!" she screamed.
The scream brought her mother and Miss Trim hurriedly into the room.
They stared in speechless amazement, and rubbed their eyes, but they
could not rub the house of Angus Macdonald off the knoll.
"There comes Ian in the punt," said Cora; "he will explain it."
"He seems to be miserable enough about it if one may judge from the
expression of his face," observed Miss Trim.
Poor Ian was indeed profoundly miserable. The excitement of the recent
event over, his mind insisted on reverting to his forlorn condition.
"So near," he thought, "and yet to miss her! Old Ravenshaw could not
refuse her to me now, but of what avail is his consent without Elsie's?
Ah, Lambert! you're a lucky fellow, and it is shameful in me to wish it
were otherwise when it makes Elsie happy."
Ian now tried to act philosophically, but it would not do. In the upper
room he gave the ladies a brief account of his adventure. He spoke in a
cold, passionless manner, without looking once at Elsie. Of course, he
did not reveal the motives that had influenced him. When he had
finished he rose abruptly to leave.
"Don't go yet," said Mrs Ravenshaw, "there's a bit of carpentering that
I want done, and there is not a man left at the house to do it. The
last gale loosened some of the shingles on the roof, and one of them
slipped down to-day, so that the place leaks.--Go, Elsie, and show him
the shingle near the attic window."
Ian looked at Elsie, and his resolves vanished like smoke. He went
meekly to the attic.
"You are much changed," said Elsie, "since you went on this trip."
"Changed? Not for the worse, I hope," said Ian.
"Well, scarcely for the better," returned the girl with a smile. "See,
here is the window, and the loose shingle is close to the sill. You
won't require to go out on the roof. There is father's tool-box. If
you want anything some of us will be in the room below. You may call,
or come down."
"Stay, Elsie," said the youth, turning abruptly on her. "You say I am
changed. Well, perhaps I am. I've gone through pretty severe hardships
since we parted, and the injuries I received on gaining _this_ have left
their mark."
He touched, as he spoke, the splendid bear-claw collar which still
graced his neck.
"I doubt not you have suffered," returned Elsie, in a softened tone,
"but you are now well, or nearly so, and your reason is not a sufficient
one to account for your being rude to all your old friends, and taking
no interest in anything."
"Am I, then, so rude, so callous?" rejoined Ian, drawing his hand across
his brow. "Ah! Elsie, if--if--but what am I saying? Forgive me! I
think that grizzly must have touched my brain when he had me under his
paw. There can be no harm, however, in telling you that a wish, lightly
expressed by you long ago, has been the motive power which led to the
procuring of this collar. Will you accept it of me now? It is but a
trifle, yet, being a bad hunter, and more used to grammars than to guns,
it cost me no trifle of anxiety and trouble before I won it. I am
afraid that the hope of procuring it for you had almost as much to do
with cheering me on as the hope of finding Tony. Nay, don't refuse it,
Elsie, from one who has known you so long that he feels almost as if he
might regard you as a sister."
He took off the collar as he spoke, and, with a return of his wonted
heartiness, presented it to Elsie. There was something in his manner,
however, which induced her to blush and hesitate.
"Your kindness in searching for Tony we can never forget or repay," she
said quickly, "and--and--"
She paused.
"Well, well," continued Ian, a little impatiently; "I did not mean to
talk of Tony just now. Surely you won't refuse a gift from so old a
friend as I on the eve of my departure for Canada?"
"For Canada!" echoed Elsie, in surprise.
"Yes. I leave the instant I can get my affairs in Red River settled."
"And you return?"
"Never!"
Elsie looked at the youth in undisguised astonishment. She, too, began
to suspect that a claw of the collar must have touched his brain.
"But why hesitate?" continued Ian. "Surely you cannot refuse me so
simple a favour! Even Lambert himself would approve of it in the
circumstances."
"Lambert!" exclaimed Elsie, with increasing amazement; "what has Lambert
got to do with it?"
It was now Ian's turn to look surprised.
"Forgive me if I have touched on a forbidden subject; but as every one
in the settlement seems to know of your engagement to Lambert, I
thought--"
"_My_ engagement!" interrupted Elsie. "It is Cora who is engaged to
Lambert."
A sudden and mighty shock seemed to fall on Ian Macdonald. He slightly
staggered, paled a little, then became fiery red, leaped forward, and
caught the girl's hand.
"Elsie! Elsie!" he exclaimed, in tones of suppressed eagerness, "will--
will you accept the collar?"
He put it over her head as he spoke, and she blushed deeply, but did not
refuse it.
"And, Elsie," he added, in a deeper voice, drawing her nearer, "will you
accept the hunter?"
"No," answered Elsie, with _such_ an arch smile; "but I would accept the
schoolmaster if he were not going away to Canada for--"
She did not finish the sentence, because something shut her mouth.
"You're taking a _very_ long time to that shingle," called Mrs
Ravenshaw from below. "Have you got everything you want, Ian?"
"Yes," replied Ian promptly; "I've got all that the world contains."
"What's that you say?"
"It will soon be done now, mother," cried Elsie, breaking away with a
soft laugh, and hurrying down-stairs.
She was right. A few minutes sufficed to put the loose shingle to
rights, and then Ian descended to the room below.
"What a time you have been about it!" said Cora, with a suspicious
glance at the young man's face; "and how flushed you are! I had no idea
that fixing a loose shingle was such hard work."
"Oh yes, it's tremendously hard work," said Ian, recovering himself;
"you have to detach it from the roof, you know, and it is wonderful the
tenacity with which nails hold on sometimes; and then there's the
fitting of the new shingle to the--"
"Come, don't talk nonsense," said Cora; "you know that is not what kept
you. You have been telling some secret to Elsie. What was it?"
Instead of answering, Ian turned with a twinkle in his eyes, and asked
abruptly:
"By the way--when does Louis Lambert return?"
It was now Cora's turn to flush.
"I don't know," she said, bending quickly over her work; "how should _I_
know? But you have not answered my question.--Oh! look there!"
She pointed to the doorway, where a huge rat was seen seated, looking at
them as if in solemn surprise at the trifling nature of their
conversation.
Not sorry to have a reason for escaping, Ian uttered a laughing shout,
threw his cap at the creature, missed, and rushed out of the room in
chase of it. Of course he did not catch it; but, continuing his flight
down-stairs, he jumped into the punt, pushed through the passage, and
out at the front door. As he passed under the windows he looked up with
a smile, and saw Cora shaking her little fist at him.
"You have not improved in your shooting," she cried; "you missed the
rat."
"Never mind," he replied, "Lambert will fetch his rifle and hunt for it;
and, I say, Cora, ask Elsie to explain how shingles are put on. She
knows all about it."
He kissed his hand as he turned the corner of the house, and rowed away.
A dark shadow falling over him at the moment caused him to turn round,
and there, to his amazement, stood one of his father's largest barns!
It had been floated, like many other houses, from its foundation, and,
having been caught by a diverging current, had been stranded on the lawn
at the side of Mr Ravenshaw's house so as to completely shut out the
view in that direction.
Intense amusement followed Ian's feeling of surprise. His first impulse
was to return and let the inmates of Willow Creek know what had
occurred; but be thinking himself that they would find it out the first
time they chanced to look from the windows on that side of the house,
and observing that the day was advancing, he changed his mind and rowed
away in the direction of the plains, chuckling heartily as he meditated
on the very peculiar alterations which the flood had effected on the
properties of his father and Samuel Ravenshaw, to say nothing of the
probable result in regard to his own future.
A stiffish breeze sprang up soon after he left. Being a fair wind, he
set up a rag of sail that fortunately chanced to be in the punt, and
advanced swiftly on his voyage to the Little Mountain.
On their way to the same place, at an earlier part of the day, Victor
and Tony, with Petawanaquat and Meekeye, touched at the mission station.
Many of the people were still on the stage, but Mrs Cockran, finding
that the water had almost ceased to rise, and that the parsonage still
stood fast, returned to the garret of her old home. Here she received
Victor and the recovered Tony with great delight. It chanced to be
about the period which Tony styled feeding-time, so that, although
Victor was anxious to reach his father as soon as possible, he agreed to
remain there for an hour or so. While they were enjoying the
hospitality of the garret, Petawanaquat was entertained in a
comparatively quiet corner of the stage, by a youth named Sinclair, a
Scotch half-breed, who had been a pupil in Ian Macdonald's school, and,
latterly, an assistant.
Petawanaquat had made the acquaintance of young Sinclair on his first
visit to Red River. They were kindred spirits. Both were earnest men,
intensely desirous of finding out truth--truth in regard to everything
that came under their notice, but especially in reference to God and
religion. This grave, thoughtful disposition and earnest longing is by
no means confined to men of refinement and culture. In all ranks and
conditions among men, from the so-called savage upwards, there have been
found more or less profound thinkers, and honest logical reasoners, who,
but for the lack of training, might have become pillars in the world of
intellect.
Both Sinclair and Petawanaquat were naturally quiet and modest men, but
they were not credulous. They did not absolutely disbelieve their
opponents, or teachers; but, while giving them full credit for honesty
and sincerity--because themselves were honest and sincere--they
nevertheless demanded proof of every position advanced, and utterly
refused to take anything on credit. Bigoted men found them "obstinate"
and "troublesome." Capable reasoners found them "interesting."
Sinclair possessed a considerable amount of education, and spoke the
Indian language fluently. Petawanaquat, although densely ignorant, had
an acute and logical mind.
To look at them as they sat there, spoon in hand, over a pan of burgout,
one would not readily have guessed the drift of their conversation.
"It almost broke my heart," said Sinclair, "when I heard you had stolen
Mr Ravenshaw's boy, and words cannot express my joy that you have
repented and brought him back. What induced you to steal him?"
"My bad heart," replied the Indian.
"Was it then your _good_ heart that made you bring him back?" asked
Sinclair, with a keen glance at his friend.
"No; it was the voice of the Great Spirit in Petawanaquat that made him
do it. The voice said, `Forgive! Return good for evil!'"
"Ah; you learned these words here, and have been pondering them."
"Petawanaquat heard them here; he did not learn them here," returned the
red man quietly. "Listen!" he continued with a sudden glow of animation
on his countenance, "My brother is young, but he knows much, and is
wise. He will understand his friend. In the mountains I pitched my
tent. It was a lonely spot. No trappers or Indians came there, but one
day in winter a paleface came. He was a servant of the Great Spirit.
He talked much. I said little, but listened. The paleface was very
earnest. He spoke much of Jesus. He told the story of His love, His
sufferings, His death. He spoke of little else. When he was gone I
asked Jesus to forgive me. He forgave. Then I was glad, but I looked
at Tonyquat and my spirit was troubled. Then it was that I heard the
voice of the Great Spirit. It did not fall on my ear: it fell upon my
heart like the rippling of a mountain stream. It said, `Send the child
back to his father.' I obeyed the Voice, and I am here."
With sparkling eyes Sinclair stretched out his right hand, and, grasping
that of the red man, said in a deep voice--"My brother!"
Petawanaquat returned the grasp in silence. Before either of them could
resume the conversation they were interrupted by Victor shouting from a
window of the parsonage to fetch the canoe.
A few minutes later they were again on their way.