The hunters pursued their way, swinging grandly along on their
snow-shoes, as they made for the Wild Hawk Woods. It would seem as if
Malbrouck was testing Gregory’s strength and stride, for the march that
day was a long and hard one. He was equal to the test, and even Big
Moccasin, the chief, grunted sound approval. But every day brought out
new capacities for endurance and larger resources; so that Malbrouck,
who had known the clash of civilisation with barbarian battle, and deeds
both dour and doughty, and who loved a man of might, regarded this youth
with increasing favour. By simple processes he drew from Gregory his
aims and ambitions, and found the real courage and power behind the
front of irony--the language of manhood and culture which was crusted by
free and easy idioms. Now and then they saw moose-tracks, but they were
some days out before they came to a moose-yard--a spot hoof-beaten by
the moose; his home, from which he strays, and to which he returns at
times like a repentant prodigal. Now the sport began. The dog-trains
were put out of view, and Big Moccasin and another Indian went off
immediately to explore the country round about. A few hours, and word
was brought that there was a small herd feeding not far away. Together
they crept stealthily within range of the cattle. Gregory Thorne’s
blood leaped as he saw the noble quarry, with their wide-spread horns,
sniffing the air, in which they had detected something unusual. Their
leader, a colossal beast, stamped with his forefoot, and threw back his
head with a snort.
“The first shot belongs to you, Mr. Thorne,” said Malbrouck. “In the
shoulder, you know. You have him in good line. I’ll take the heifer.”
Gregory showed all the coolness of an old hunter, though his lips
twitched slightly with excitement. He took a short but steady aim, and
fired. The beast plunged forward and then fell on his knees. The others
broke away. Malbrouck fired and killed a heifer, and then all ran in
pursuit as the moose made for the woods.
Gregory, in the pride of his first slaughter, sprang away towards the
wounded leader, which, sunk to the earth, was shaking its great horns to
and fro. When at close range, he raised his gun to fire again, but the
moose rose suddenly, and with a wild bellowing sound rushed at Gregory,
who knew full well that a straight stroke from those hoofs would end
his moose-hunting days. He fired, but to no effect. He could not, like
a toreador, jump aside, for those mighty horns would sweep too wide a
space. He dropped on his knees swiftly, and as the great antlers almost
touched him, and he could feel the roaring breath of the mad creature in
his face, he slipped a cartridge in, and fired as he swung round; but at
that instant a dark body bore him down. He was aware of grasping those
sweeping horns, conscious of a blow which tore the flesh from his chest;
and then his knife--how came it in his hand?--with the instinct of the
true hunter. He plunged it once, twice, past a foaming mouth, into that
firm body, and then both fell together; each having fought valiantly
after his kind.
Gregory dragged himself from beneath the still heaving body, and
stretched to his feet; but a blindness came, and the next knowledge he
had was of brandy being poured slowly between his teeth, and of a voice
coming through endless distances: “A fighter, a born fighter,” it said.
“The pluck of Lucifer--good boy!”
Then the voice left those humming spaces of infinity, and said: “Tilt
him this way a little, Big Moccasin. There, press firmly, so. Now the
band steady--together--tighter--now the withes--a little higher up--cut
them here.” There was a slight pause, and then: “There, that’s as good
as an army surgeon could do it. He’ll be as sound as a bell in two
weeks. Eh, well, how do you feel now? Better? That’s right! Like to be
on your feet, would you? Wait. Here, a sup of this. There you are....
Well?”
“Well,” said the young man, faintly, “he was a beauty.”
Malbrouck looked at him a moment, thoughtfully, and then said: “Yes, he
was a beauty.”
“I want a dozen more like him, and then I shall be able to drop ‘em as
neat as, you do.”
“H’m! the order is large. I’m afraid we shall have to fill it at some
other time;” and Malbrouck smiled a little grimly.
“What! only one moose to take back to the Height of Land, to--”
something in the eye of the other stopped him.
“To? Yes, to”? and now the eye had a suggestion of humour.
“To show I’m not a tenderfoot.”
“Yes, to show you’re not a tenderfoot. I fancy that will be hardly
necessary. Oh, you will be up, eh? Well!”
“Well, I’m a tottering imbecile. What’s the matter with my legs?--my
prophetic soul, it hurts! Oh, I see; that’s where the old warrior’s hoof
caught me sideways. Now, I’ll tell you what, I’m going to have another
moose to take back to Marigold Lake.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I’m going to take back a young, live moose.”
“A significant ambition. For what?--a sacrifice to the gods you have
offended in your classic existence?”
“Both. A peace-offering, and a sacrifice to--a goddess.”
“Young man,” said the other, the light of a smile playing on his lips,
“‘Prosperity be thy page!’ Big Moccasin, what of this young live moose?”
The Indian shook his head doubtfully.
“But I tell you I shall have that live moose, if I have to stay here to
see it grow.”
And Malbrouck liked his pluck, and wished him good luck. And the good
luck came. They travelled back slowly to the Height of Land, making a
circuit. For a week they saw no more moose; but meanwhile Gregory’s hurt
quickly healed. They had now left only eight days in which to get back
to Dog Ear River and Marigold Lake. If the young moose was to come it
must come soon. It came soon.
They chanced upon a moose-yard, and while the Indians were beating the
woods, Malbrouck and Gregory watched.
Soon a cow and a young moose came swinging down to the embankment.
Malbrouck whispered: “Now if you must have your live moose, here’s a
lasso. I’ll bring down the cow. The young one’s horns are not large.
Remember, no pulling. I’ll do that. Keep your broken chest and bad arm
safe. Now!”
Down came the cow with a plunge into the yard-dead. The lasso, too, was
over the horns of the calf, and in an instant Malbrouck was swinging
away with it over the snow. It was making for the trees--exactly what
Malbrouck desired. He deftly threw the rope round a sapling, but not too
taut, lest the moose’s horns should be injured. The plucky animal now
turned on him. He sprang behind a tree, and at that instant he heard the
thud of hoofs behind him. He turned to see a huge bull-moose bounding
towards him. He was between two fires, and quite unarmed. Those hoofs
had murder in them. But at the instant a rifle shot rang out, and he
only caught the forward rush of the antlers as the beast fell.
The young moose now had ceased its struggles, and came forward to the
dead bull with that hollow sound of mourning peculiar to its kind.
Though it afterwards struggled once or twice to be free, it became
docile and was easily taught, when its anger and fear were over.
And Gregory Thorne had his live moose. He had also, by that splendid
shot, achieved with one arm, saved Malbrouck from peril, perhaps from
death.
They drew up before the house at Marigold Lake on the afternoon of the
day before Christmas, a triumphal procession. The moose was driven,
a peaceful captive with a wreath of cedar leaves around its neck--the
humourous conception of Gregory Thorne. Malbrouck had announced their
coming by a blast from his horn, and Margaret was standing in the
doorway wrapped in furs, which may have come originally from Hudson’s
Bay, but which had been deftly re-manufactured in Regent Street.
Astonishment, pleasure, beamed in her eyes. She clapped her hands gaily,
and cried: “Welcome, welcome, merry-men all!” She kissed her father;
she called to her mother to come and see; then she said to Gregory,
with arch raillery, as she held out her hand: “Oh, companion of hunters,
comest thou like Jacques in Arden from dropping the trustful tear upon
the prey of others, or bringest thou quarry of thine own? Art thou a
warrior sated with spoil, master of the sports, spectator of the fight,
Prince, or Pistol? Answer, what art thou?”
And he, with a touch of his old insolence, though with something of
irony too, for he had hoped for a different fashion of greeting, said:
“All, lady, all! The Olympian all! The player of many parts. I am
Touchstone, Jacques, and yet Orlando too.”
“And yet Orlando too, my daughter,” said Malbrouck, gravely. “He saved
your father from the hoofs of a moose bent on sacrifice. Had your father
his eye, his nerve, his power to shoot with one arm a bull moose at long
range, so!--he would not refuse to be called a great hunter, but wear
the title gladly.”
Margaret Malbrouck’s face became anxious instantly. “He saved you from
danger--from injury, father”? she slowly said, and looked earnestly at
Gregory; “but why to shoot with one arm only?”
“Because in a fight of his own with a moose--a hand-to-hand fight--he
had a bad moment with the hoofs of the beast.”
And this young man, who had a reputation for insolence, blushed, so that
the paleness which the girl now noticed in his face was banished; and to
turn the subject he interposed:
“Here is the live moose that I said I should bring. Now say that he’s a
beauty, please. Your father and I--”
But Malbrouck interrupted:
“He lassoed it with his one arm, Margaret. He was determined to do it
himself, because, being a superstitious gentleman, as well as a hunter,
he had some foolish notion that this capture would propitiate a goddess
whom he imagined required offerings of the kind.”
“It is the privilege of the gods to be merciful,” she said. “This
peace-offering should propitiate the angriest, cruellest goddess in the
universe; and for one who was neither angry nor really cruel--well, she
should be satisfied.... altogether satisfied,” she added, as she put her
cheek against the warm fur of the captive’s neck, and let it feel her
hand with its lips.
There was silence for a minute, and then with his old gay spirit all
returned, and as if to give an air not too serious to the situation,
Gregory, remembering his Euripides, said:
“........let the steer bleed,
And the rich altars, as they pay their vows,
Breathe incense to the gods: for me, I rise
To better life, and grateful own the blessing.”
“A pagan thought for a Christmas Eve,” she said to him, with her fingers
feeling for the folds of silken flesh in the throat of the moose; “but
wounded men must be humoured. And, mother dear, here are our Argonauts
returned; and--and now I think I will go.”
With a quick kiss on her father’s cheek--not so quick but he caught the
tear that ran through her happy smile--she vanished into the house.
That night there was gladness in this home. Mirth sprang to the lips of
the men like foam on a beaker of wine, so that the evening ran towards
midnight swiftly. All the tale of the hunt was given by Malbrouck to
joyful ears; for the mother lived again her youth in the sunrise of this
romance which was being sped before her eyes; and the father, knowing
that in this world there is nothing so good as courage, nothing so base
as the shifting eye, looked on the young man, and was satisfied, and
told his story well;--told it as a brave man would tell it, bluntly as
to deeds done, warmly as to the pleasures of good sport, directly as
to all. In the eye of the young man there had come the glance of larger
life, of a new-developed manhood. When he felt that dun body crashing
on him, and his life closing with its strength, and ran the good knife
home, there flashed through his mind how much life meant to the dying,
how much it ought to mean to the living; and then this girl, this
Margaret, swam before his eyes--and he had been graver since.
He knew, as truly as if she had told him, that she could never mate with
any man who was a loiterer on God’s highway, who could live life without
some sincerity in his aims. It all came to him again in this room, so
austere in its appointments, yet so gracious, so full of the spirit of
humanity without a note of ennui, or the rust of careless deeds. As this
thought grew he looked at the face of the girl, then at the faces of the
father and mother, and the memory of his boast came back--that he would
win the stake he laid, to know the story of John and Audrey Malbrouck
before this coming Christmas morning. With a faint smile at his own past
insolent self, he glanced at the clock. It was eleven. “I have lost my
bet,” he unconsciously said aloud.
He was roused by John Malbrouck remarking: “Yes, you have lost your bet?
Well, what was it? The youth, the childlike quality in him,” flushed his
face deeply, and then, with a sudden burst of frankness, he said:
“I did not know that I had spoken. As for the bet, I deserve to be
thrashed for ever having made it; but, duffer as I am, I want you to
know that I’m something worse than duffer. The first time I met you
I made a bet that I should know your history before Christmas Day. I
haven’t a word to say for myself. I’m contemptible. I beg your pardon;
for your history is none of my business. I was really interested; that’s
all; but your lives, I believe it, as if it was in the Bible, have been
great--yes, that’s the word! and I’m a better chap for having known you,
though, perhaps, I’ve known you all along, because, you see, I’ve--I’ve
been friends with your daughter--and-well, really I haven’t anything
else to say, except that I hope you’ll forgive me, and let me know you
always.”
Malbrouck regarded him for a moment with a grave smile, and then looked
toward his wife. Both turned their glances quickly upon Margaret, whose
eyes were on the fire. The look upon her face was very gentle; something
new and beautiful had come to reign there.
A moment, and Malbrouck spoke: “You did what was youthful and curious,
but not wrong; and you shall not lose your hazard. I--”
“No, do not tell me,” Gregory interrupted; “only let me be pardoned.”
“As I said, lad, you shall not lose your hazard. I will tell you the
brief tale of two lives.”
“But, I beg of you! For the instant I forgot. I have more to confess.”
And Gregory told them in substance what Pretty Pierre had disclosed to
him in the Rocky Mountains.
When he had finished, Malbrouck said: “My tale then is briefer still: I
was a common soldier, English and humble by my mother, French and noble
through my father--noble, but poor. In Burmah, at an outbreak among the
natives, I rescued my colonel from immediate and horrible death, though
he died in my arms from the injuries he received. His daughter too, it
was my fortune, through God’s Providence, to save from great danger.
She became my wife. You remember that song you sang the day we first met
you?
“It brought her father back to mind painfully. When we came to England
her people--her mother--would not receive me. For myself I did not care;
for my wife, that was another matter. She loved me and preferred to go
with me anywhere; to a new country, preferably. We came to Canada.
“We were forgotten in England. Time moves so fast, even if the records
in red-books stand. Our daughter went to her grandmother to be brought
up and educated in England--though it was a sore trial to us both--that
she might fill nobly that place in life for which she is destined.
With all she learned she did not forget us. We were happy save in her
absence. We are happy now; not because she is mistress of Holwood and
Marchurst--for her grandmother and another is dead--but because such as
she is our daughter, and--”
He said no more. Margaret was beside him, and her fingers were on his
lips.
Gregory came to his feet suddenly, and with a troubled face.
“Mistress of Holwood and Marchurst!” he said; and his mind ran over his
own great deficiencies, and the list of eligible and anxious suitors
that Park Lane could muster. He had never thought of her in the light of
a great heiress.
But he looked down at her as she knelt at her father’s knee, her eyes
upturned to his, and the tide of his fear retreated; for he saw in them
the same look she had given him when she leaned her cheek against the
moose’s neck that afternoon.
When the clock struck twelve upon a moment’s pleasant silence, John
Malbrouck said to Gregory Thorne:
“Yes, you have won your Christmas hazard, my boy.”
But a softer voice than his whispered: “Are you--content--Gregory?”
The Spirits of Christmas-tide, whose paths lie north as well as south,
smiled as they wrote his answer on their tablets; for they knew, as the
man said, that he would always be content, and--which is more in the
sight of angels--that the woman would be content also.