IN BRITISH OREGON
I
What is a Christian? Is he one who professes the Faith? I have my
doubts. The Holy Inquisition professed belief, and generously burned
the bodies of the orthodox in order to save their souls.
Perhaps He accepts as Christian all who do the will of His Father by
loving God and their neighbors. I dare hold that these are the
Christians whom Christ believes in. Throughout a varied and
misguided life I have found the sort of Christians who love God and
their neighbors, both in the cities and the countryside; but they
seemed most numerous in the fighting forces at war, the fishing
vessels, the deep-sea shipping, the cow camps, the remote gold
fields, and the forlorn outposts of trappers, rangers, scouts,
explorers, pioneers. Such Christians did not always clean their
teeth, or wash behind their ears, their conversation would have
shocked their mothers and all angels; but then one doubts if the
fisherman of Galilee had any table manners, and if Peter, James, and
John called on a modern bishop, they would certainly be sent to the
back door.
Is this too long a sermon? Skip, then!
Nowhere are men so jammed as in a deep-sea forecastle, or piled on
top of one another for so long a time, so plagued by rats, bugs,
damp, cold, and gloom, with such a suffering from lack of sleep,
fresh water, decent food, pure air, and privacy. And nowhere do men
learn a more whole-hearted charity towards others, and liberality,
such a complete unselfishness, so grand a Christianity of mind. In
foul weather everybody saves a shipmate's life, say, once a day, and
nobody expects a word of thanks.
The fellow who does not matter one way or the other is called Hi!
The chap who provides any sport, puts up a good fight, or makes
friends worth having generally earns a nickname and as a rule will
answer to it, cheerily or with his fists, according to his nature.
Murderer Bill, as his shipmates called young Fright, took his
nickname without resentment. So one may address the most frightful
insults to a dog in such a tone of voice that he wags his tail
delighted.
If anybody wanted to have trouble, Murderer Bill made haste to
provide. He fought several battles, and had a reputation for
pugnacity. Yet to anybody who treated him half decently he proved a
loyal friend in thought, word, and deed, the least selfish man on
board, recklessly generous. No doubt was ever thrown upon his
courage, he had a natural bent for seamanship, and fully held his
ground as able seaman. In the larboard watch his special chum,
towards the end, was Silas, Auld Jock his instructor, and the rest
were friends. There was no man on board more generally liked.
And when the _Beaver_ came safe inside the breakers on the Columbia
bar, the captain had Murderer Bill haled down from aloft by the
bos'n, clapped in irons, and once again consigned to the 'tween-decks
as a prisoner. The ship's company as a whole determined to get even
with the captain.
Thus Rain's prayer to the Sun came to be answered. The mate lent a
flint which fitted the lock of Silas's gun. A bullet mold was found
in the bos'n's locker and plenty of lead in the ballast for a supply
of bullets. When the ship's magazine was opened for the salute to
Fort Vancouver, a bag of powder strayed. The Iroquois made the belt
and pouches, Auld Jock gave a hunting knife, somebody stole a lens
from the captain's telescope to serve as a burning glass for making
fire. The Yorkshireman gave a wallet with flint, steel, and tinder.
There was a purse filled by subscription. It was certain that, when
Murderer Bill escaped to the woods, he would not go empty handed, but
doubtful rather whether he might need a wagon to carry his equipment.
II
To have a luminous mind concerning Fort Vancouver it is better not to
get the place mixed with Vancouver Island, or with the modern seaport
of Vancouver upon the adjacent mainland. The old capital of British
Oregon--a city stands there now--was on the northern bank of the
Columbia where a natural park of pasturage and timber sloped upwards
from the river. Upstream the valley was barred by lofty forests, and
from north to south no less than seven white immense volcanoes
appeared to float above a sea of mist.
The village on the river bank had three dozen log cabins, very neatly
kept by Indian housewives, their men being Shetlanders and Orkneymen,
French-Canadians and Métis, Kanakas and Iroquois. The offspring
attended school, where Solomon Smith taught American, singing,
deportment, and morality. Behind the village rose the stockade 20
feet high, quadrangular, and in extent 750 feet by 450. It was not
really a fort, having neither bastions, galleries, guns, nor even
loopholes, for indeed a wooden popgun would suffice to terrorize the
Chinooks. Facing the main gate was the chief factor's house, a
French-Canadian manor, its white veranda trellised for vines which
yielded purple grapes. Between two flights of steps forming a
horseshoe stood a 24-pounder gun, with a mortar on either side, and
pyramids of shot, to frighten children away from the geranium beds.
On either side of the great house extended the officers' mess,
anteroom, library, a range of officers' quarters, and houses for the
guests. Fronting these were the big warehouses, store, ration house,
hospital, and shops for the artificers, the tailor, the turner, the
cobbler, the smith who made fifty hatchets a day in his spare time,
the bakers who supplied hard biscuits to the Company's ships, and the
Indians who beat the furs each week to rid them of moth and dust. On
the lawn which covered the main square stood the bell-house and the
flag-staff. Outside the stockade was the stead, with a threshing
floor worked by oxen, the orchard where all the trees had props to
help them carry their load, and the farm of seven hundred acres.
Beyond was pasturage where the sheep yielded twelve-pound fleeces,
and the growing herd of cattle was kept sacred for the future
prosperity of Oregon. Downstream a couple of miles an Hawaiian
herder tended the pigs in the oak woods. Upstream was the sawmill
which furnished cargoes of lumber to the Sandwich Islands. In all
that husbandry the figs and lemons were the only failures; but Mr.
Bruce, the gardener, had an exchange of seeds with the Duke of
Devonshire's place over at Chiswick-on-Thames, and yielded to no man
in strawberries or Juan Fernandez peaches. Outlying this capital of
the fur trade was old Astoria, an American fort bought by the Company
during the American-British War of 1812, but now in ruins. A white
man lived there to tend the four-acre garden and report the arrival
of ships. On Puget Sound was Fort Nisqually, and farther up the
coast Forts Langley, McLoughlin, Simpson, and Stickeen, which last
had been leased from the Russians. Up the Columbia Valley was Fort
Walla Walla, from whence a trail went eastward a couple of thousand
miles to the United States, then spreading steadily up the Missouri
Valley. Northward of Walla Walla was Fort Okanagan, which had
stockaded outposts on the Spokane River, Lake Pend d'Oreille and
Flathead River, with others farther on in what is now Canadian
territory. Fort Colville, near the present boundary, and on the main
stream of the Columbia, was second only to the capital, and thence
the annual brigade of cargo boats went by river to Hudson's Bay.
Southward of Vancouver about two hundred miles there was an outpost,
and beyond that, six hundred miles or so, was the little Mexican
presidio of San Francisco.
In theory the country was held jointly by Great Britain and the
United States, but in fact it was British Oregon. The Hudson's Bay
voyageurs retired, who farmed in the Willamette, were hardly as yet a
colony, nor did the Company project large settlements to disturb the
Indians or the fur trade. The time was a golden age of progress,
prosperity, sane government, and unbroken peace, the sole creation of
one man, Chief Factor David McLoughlin, Father of Oregon.
This gentleman was Irish on the father's and French-Canadian on the
mother's side, Canadian born, and held a degree in medicine from the
Faculty of Paris. He stood six feet six inches, powerfully built,
strikingly handsome, with long hair iron-gray. One would compare
him, in stern probity, with Washington, in charm with Lincoln, but
not by any means with lesser men than these. His enemies testify to
his hospitality, his delight fulness as a host, his generosity.
People who came out of the wilderness or from the sea were charmed
with the officers' mess, with its willow-pattern crockery salved in
1825 from a wrecked Chinese junk, the English cut glass, the bright
silver, the flowers, the gracious ease, the sparkling conversation.
And after dinner, Dr. McLoughlin, who had one glass of wine when a
ship came in, would ring the bell for Bruce the gardener, who
presented him with the snuff box. The pinch of snuff was a
solemnity, a signal which sent the officers to their work, and the
guests for a ride, or in wet weather to the library.
The pioneer serpents in this Paradise were the Reverend Herbert
Beaver, Church of England chaplain, and Mrs. Beaver, the first white
woman in Oregon. Beaver had been an army chaplain in the West
Indies, a fox-hunting vicar at home, always more horse-proud than
church-proud. He was a little man of light complexion, a feminine
voice, an oratorical manner, flippant and arrogant, who hunted every
morning and baptized the heathen in drill time all the afternoon. He
was appalled by the discovery that each of the twenty officers, the
doctor included, had an Indian woman in quarters, a half-breed
family, not married. It did not occur to him that the Indian
marriage was sacred to the Indians, and that himself was the first
priest with power to celebrate the Christian rite for the men. With
one exception, they refused his services as an insult. Beaver would
not associate with immoral women, or Mrs. Beaver with lewd,
adulterous men. They said so. Indeed, the pair made themselves
variously and acutely unpleasant, and that in the name of Christ.
The American missionaries who followed them developed deadly
treachery against the doctor; the American pioneers, all pleasantly
uncouth, wrested the country from its British owners, but the English
Beavers were first to undermine the happiness of Oregon, and it was
their advent which closed the golden age.
III
H.B.C. brigantine _Beaver_, all shiny with fresh paint and burnished
brass, dipped her ensign to the fort, fired her salute of guns,
dropped anchor abreast of the village, reported to the chief factor,
and sent ashore all sorts of reading matter and other precious
treasure. Then she proceeded to turn herself into a little paddle
boat, the pioneer steamer of the Pacific Ocean. It was on the 14th
of June, 1836, that she took the gentlemen of the fort on an
excursion all round Wapato Island. After that came her maiden voyage
under steam of 800 miles to Milbank Sound, and the first filling of
her little bunkers at the Nanaimo coal seam. So she passes out of
our story.
Meanwhile, at his first obeisance to the chief factor, Captain Home
made report with much pomp and circumstance that he had a prisoner in
irons awaiting commitment on the horrible charge of murdering his
parents. The doctor advised him to see Mr. Douglas, Justice of the
Peace.
Black Douglas, scarce less tall and imposing of presence than the
doctor himself, received the little fuss box with an amiable grin,
read over the newspaper cutting with some slight impatience, and
remarked that Bill Fright seemed to have a jolly good case for
criminal libel against the _London Advertiser_. The captain was
disgusted, and presently consoled himself by telling Mr. Beaver all
about it.
Meanwhile, the ship's company related to all comers that the prisoner
was a pretty good fellow, with the makings of a sailorman, although
the skipper "had a down on him."
The officers' mess agreed that Captain Home was a pompous ass,
sitting on a mare's nest, and making a ridiculous fuss about some
youngster falsely accused of felony.
At the mess the Reverend Herbert Beaver observed over his wine that
he had already reported to the Aborigines Protection Society of
London on the hideous and callous immorality of the present company,
and if this parricide were not at once committed for trial he in fact
would proceed--to take steps.
Doctor McLoughlin rang for Bruce, took a pinch of snuff, released the
servants, then requested the Reverend Chaplain to resign from the
mess, because it was intended only for the use of gentlemen.
The Reverend Beaver having flounced out of the room in a huff, and
banged the door, the chief factor bowed to the delighted officers,
who came about him as he stood to receive their congratulations. "Do
you know, gentlemen," he said, "I agree with the chaplain. Yes. I
regret to say that for once I find myself in agreement with Mr.
Beaver.
"Now, James," he turned to Douglas, "please don't give Mr. Beaver
ground for complaints against you to the Government of Lower Canada
from which you hold Commission of the Peace."
"You mean sir, that I should try this rotten case?"
"I do, Jim, really. I have my reasons too. And Jim," he winked at
the magistrate, "may I be prisoner's friend?"'
There was a roar of laughter.
"And mind you, Jim, no hole-and-corner business. All white men
should be present, as witnesses to the fact that Mr. Beaver has no
grounds for complaint either against you or against me."
"May we use this room, sir?"
And so was the trial arranged.
IV
"Prisoner. The London news-sheets of 29th October, 1835, our latest
advices, report that a coroner's inquest was convened at a place
called, yes--Margate, the day previous, upon the bodies of James
Fright, a barge master, and Catherine his wife. The jury gave a
verdict of deliberate and willful murder against the son of the
deceased, by name Bill Fright. As a Justice of the Peace I'm obliged
to rule that this newspaper report is bona fide evidence.
"What is your name?"
"Bill Fright."
"Call Mr. David Home."
David Home, having taken oath, protested that he was entitled to be
called Captain.
"By courtesy," said the magistrate blandly, "which I shall render,
when I have inspected your log book. You will please show the
prisoner's name in your log."
"Prisoner is shown here," said Home, "under a purser's name, as
Willie Muggins." The captain was mopping his forehead with a
handkerchief. Certainly the mess room was hot and crowded.
"You assert that the prisoner signed on under a false name?"
The captain shuffled. "Oh, well, fact is----"
"Be careful, Mister David Home, be careful!"
Still the captain shuffled, and his ship's company, present at his
request, excepting the Iroquois and the Negro, began to rejoice aloud.
"Am I to understand," thundered Black Douglas, "that you attempt to
prejudice the prisoner's case by suggesting that he signed under a
false name?"
"No, sir!"
"Then what the devil do you mean by appearing in a British Court of
Justice with a false log book? I refuse to receive your evidence.
You will leave my court. Get out!"
Nothing could restrain the _Beaver's_ crew from rousing cheers as
their captain was shown out, but Black Douglas ordered silence or he
would clear the court.
The boatswain's evidence was accepted as to the fact of arrest.
"And now," the magistrate turned to the prisoner, "you are charged,"
he spoke with a grave gentleness, "with the murder of your parents.
Do you plead guilty or not guilty?"
Bill knew that this man was a friend worth winning. "Not guilty!" he
answered joyfully.
Black Douglas looked at the crowd. "I want you all to know," he
said, "that I don't pretend to any training at all in law or in court
procedure. I'm a trader. But I am a white man claiming British
blood. Deep down in all our hearts there is one root principle of
our common sense, fair play between man and man. We are here to play
the game. A prisoner is a man restrained by the law because his
conduct has been called in question, held until Justice can give him
absolute fair play, and he stands free in presence of his fellows.
He is an innocent man in trouble, in jeopardy."
Here the Reverend Beaver, seated in the front row of the spectators,
was unrestrained in his impatience.
"Pish! Pshaw! Mawkish sentiment! Playing to the gallery!
Disgraceful!"
The magistrate seemed to be pleased, and addressed the remainder of
his remarks directly to the chaplain. As he drove home the attack,
great was the joy of his brother officers.
"To slander a prisoner behind his back, to question, bully, or punish
him, or in any way to treat him as a felon before he is proven
guilty, is a beastly and contemptible act of cowardice. The prisoner
before me has been slandered by the news-sheets behind his back prior
to his trial. I cannot shoot the reptiles of the press, but I can
and will defend the prisoner in the establishment of his own
innocence. As magistrate I am allowed to ask him which way he
pleads, in guilt appealing to the Crown for mercy, or in innocence
demanding release as an act of justice. Pleading 'Not guilty,' he
has demanded trial.
"Prisoner, Dr. David McLoughlin, Chief Factor, asks leave to appear
on your behalf as prisoner's friend to see that you get fair play and
benefit of doubt. Do you accept his help?"
There were tears in Bill's eyes and his voice was very gruff as he
answered "Yes."
Press cuttings were then read by the clerk of the court and noted as
documentary evidence, completing the case for the prosecution.
Mr. Dodd, mate of the _Beaver_, was sworn for the defense, and
presently examined by the doctor.
"In whose watch, Mr. Dodd, did the prisoner serve?"
"In mine, sir; I chose him."
"Any regrets?"
"None, sir."
"What sort of character?"
"First-rate, sir; best helmsman we has, makings of an excellent
seaman. Couldn't have done it, sir."
"Done what?"
"Done murder, sir."
"I think," observed the magistrate, "that this is opinion rather than
evidence as to fact."
"Does the prisoner get on well with Captain Home?"
"No, sir."
"Why?"
"Rather not say. It's not my place to discuss my commanding officer."
"Excellent. By the way, Mr. Dodd, was the prisoner wearing a belt
knife when he joined the ship?"
"He was, sir."
"May I request the court to have one or two of the newspaper reports
read again with reference to the weapon?"
The clerk read two or three versions which described the murderer's
blood-stained belt knife as found in the barge's cabin. The last
version showed the weapon as clutched in the dead man's hand.
"That's right, sir," cried the prisoner, and when the doctor tried to
silence him, so much the more he protested. "Why, I seen it!"
"Prisoner," said the magistrate, "you will be wise to leave your
defense to your counsel."
"Bias! Bias!" The Reverend Herbert Beaver jumped up and shrieked in
his shrill voice. "Bias! The court is shielding a felon!"
"Silence in court," said the magistrate. "Usher, if that man
interrupts with one more word, remove him, using all necessary
violence."
The prisoner had whirled round to stare at the chaplain. His face
became deadly pale, his eyes were starting from his head, his teeth
were clenched, lips parted. "You go to 'Ell," he snarled. "And that
ain't far--for you!"
"I call you all to witness----" shrieked the reverend gentleman; but
he got no further, for all necessary violence attended his departure.
The Reverend Jason and Daniel Lee, of the Methodist faith, American
missionaries, some visiting officers of the company's outposts, one
or two overland trappers, a couple of stray seamen, the gentlemen and
servants of Fort Vancouver, and the ships' companies of the _Beaver_,
_Nereid_, and _Una_, made in all perhaps the largest assemblage of
white men which had so far met on the Pacific coast. The affair of
Bill Fright was not of the smallest consequence that day compared
with the great issue, the chaplain's grievance against the magistrate
which would be laid before the Government of Lower Canada, and his
complaints to the Governor and Company in London which might easily
ruin the Father of Oregon. Now he would claim conspiracy between the
doctor, the magistrate, and the prisoner! How much worse his
grievance, if the prisoner were found not guilty, and released as an
innocent man! The doctor and Black Douglas were exchanging glances,
and both understood that the boy must be committed for trial.
The case went on, for Mr. Dodd was witness as to Silas discovering
the charge against the prisoner, and how as chief officer he himself
examined the supposed Willie Muggins, who proved perfectly frank, and
manfully indignant at an outrageous slander. Again the seamen of the
_Beaver_ broke out cheering, and had to be restrained. There was no
doubt as to their sympathy.
Now Bill demanded that the Court should hear his story; and, rueful
as they were lest he should ruin his case, neither the magistrate nor
the doctor felt that it was wise to appear in the suppression of
evidence. Great was their relief as the lad spoke, simply and to the
point, clearing away all mystery, all doubt, until the crime was seen
in its true proportions, a murder and suicide committed by his
father, which left him motherless, friendless, and in jeopardy of the
gallows.
The doctor scribbled a note, and handed it to Douglas.
"Dr. McLoughlin," the magistrate looked up from reading the note, "I
quite understand. The clerk of the court will make record that the
prisoner, having taken over his own case, the prisoner's friend
withdraws from his defense."
Bill was horrified at that disaster just when he thought that he had
won the game.
"Prisoner, it is your right as a British subject, to proceed to
England, and there as an innocent man demand a reversal of the
coroner's sentence, so that your innocence may be established before
the world. You are therefore committed for trial."
"May I speak?" asked Bill.
"You may."
"Then"--he shook with anger--"I says as you sends the mouse to eat
the cheese in the mousetrap--and calls that justice!"
The magistrate's grave face preserved an unsmiling severity, but his
right eye closed, then opened. "Exactly so," said Douglas.
V
"And then," said Storm, "he wunk!"
"But _how_?" asked Rain.
"Like this," Storm closed one eye and opened it with much solemnity,
first to the padre on his stool, and then to Rain in the corner.
"Of which," explained the padre, winking a few times to try what it
felt like, "I will proceed to give the interpretation. For if," he
assumed the pulpit manner, and winked devotionally, "there is an
interpretation of dreams down there on Earth, there is likewise an
interpretation of wakes up here in Dreamland."
"Quite so," said Rain. "I always felt that there should be, seeing
that our actions down on the hunting ground are never taken seriously
by any fairies here."
"The meaning of the magistrate's gesture," continued the padre, "is
as follows. My good youth, if I declare you innocent and free, you
are a seaman on board the _Beaver_ and go to the northwest coast, to
shovel coals and have yourself bullied by that Complete Swine Captain
David Home.
"Or if I get the doctor here to take you on the permanent staff of
the Fort, you come under the spiritual ministrations of the Holy
Beaver, which stirs up mud with its tail instead of using it as a
trowel and building dams to keep out Satan withal.
"And if I commit you to take your trial as a mouse in the Public
Mousetrap, which is very bad for mice----"
"That's what he done!" cried Storm indignantly.
"But for the wunk," explained the padre, "yes; albeit, dear
Brethren-in-the-singular, you will take to the woods, and presently
get yourself devoured by a very fierce bear----"
"A real bear," said Rain very gravely.
"Because you don't know how to shoot."
"I do!" cried Storm.
"Not to hit, my son."
"I see." Storm showed dismay, and relapsed into gloomy attention.
"Wherefore we will fool the captain of the ship, the Holy Beaver, the
Public Mousetrap, and the Real Bear by sending you away to be taught
hunting, trapping, and woodcraft with my old friend Lieutenant
Tschirikov----"
"The Fatbald!" said Rain. "I'm sure he must be very nice to make up
for being so plain."
"So that's why!" cried Storm, delighted.
"--who lives, my son, at the river of the Kutenais, on the green
meads at the head of Flatbow Lake."
"Why, that's my lake!" cried Rain.
"Of course," observed the padre: "for this cause was Storm brought
from the Land of Barbarian-hereticks who drop their aitches, and
carried to the mouth of your river, in order that he may come to your
own lake, and meet you on the high snow field overlooking the Apse of
Ice."
"The Sun Lodge where I am priestess!" cried Rain, exultant. "Now do
I thank thee, Holy Spirit in the Sun, for all Thy mercies!"
When they had all three said their thanks, the padre observed that
Julia was outside waiting to conduct them. They really must call on
the invalid dragon.
"Who is that?" asked Storm.
"He is a poor dragon who devoured so many virgins that he has grown
too stout, his cave is pinching him, and he can't get out."
"If I killed him," said Rain reflectively, "it would count for a good
coup, like a scalp."
"Nay," the padre rebuked her ignorance, "a proper scalping lasts, but
the more you chop a dragon the more he grows, and when you kill him
he comes alive again."
"Anyway," said Rain, who had turned obstinate, "when Julia guides us,
she is so busy showing herself off, that she always loses her way."
"Let's give her the slip," said Storm; so they got the padre out, by
stretching him a little, through the back window, and went to see the
dragon.
It took Rain and Storm some time before they mislaid the clergyman,
and forgot all about the dragon, as they set forward upon that great
adventure. At first they crossed part of a city, set in the midst of
a park with very stately, formal gardens. They wanted to have a
nearer view of the palace which rose beyond. It was made of silvery
morning mist carved into colonnades, big shiny towers, and, far up in
the sky, a dome all iridescent like the soap bubbles which have
gliding colors. Rather frightened, daring one another to come on,
expecting to be turned back at any moment, they crept into the
vestibule. It had a sheen of pearl, and went away on either side
into cool green distances. It was like the soul of the sea. Beyond
it they found a courtyard with a pool reflecting its high walls,
which were of opal, changing as one watched with color which rolled
like sea waves towards the open doors upon the farther side. Within
those doors was a big ante-chamber, where the light was all golden.
Then there was a forest of columns, dusky and enormous, where
footsteps echoed so that one went on tiptoe, until one looked through
into the vast throne room. That seemed to be hewn out of the heart
of a diamond, and in the midst of its flashing splendors there sat
enthroned and all alone the King of the High Fairies. So dazzling
was the light which came from him that the intruders went down on
their knees and covered their faces.
"My thought has called you here," said the King, softly as though he
whispered. "Do not fear, my children. Come to the step here at my
feet, and rest while I speak to you."
Now, the story which was told by the King of the High Fairies is no
invention, but real; not mine at all, but copied word for word out of
a splendid book.[1]
[1] _A Subaltern in Spirit Land_, by J. S. M. Ward, B.A.,
F.R.Econ.S., F.R.S.S. (London: Rider & Son.)
Long ago I was one of the fairy folk, such as those you have just
left, and so were we all. I dwelt in a castle, and did deeds of
glamour, and hoped that a mortal would one day proclaim them to the
world. But one day I fell into a strange trance, and dreamed of
Earth, and of the sufferings of mortals, and their follies, and I saw
how foolish were their griefs, and how easy it would be to relieve
them.
And when I awoke, I pondered over these things, and it grew upon me
that the life I lived was aimless and empty, since it was but
glamour, and there was neither real sorrow nor sin, but only
make-believe. For evil was only potential, but there it was real.
Here the triumph of the good knight was always assured, but there it
was uncertain.
Be it understood that the High Fairies are like ourselves, real
people, but belong to a separate Order of Spirits, who have never
been in mortal bodies to learn the discipline of pain, of sin and
sorrow. Many of their adventures which happened in Fairyland are
well known to all of us, in the _Annals of the Round Table_, _The
Arabian Nights_, and some of the so-called fairy tales. The writers
of such books went in their dreams to Fairyland, invented earth-names
for the High Fairies they encountered there, and brought back great
annals of adventure. Others of the High Fairies hope that some day a
writer will come and give them earth-names, so that they and their
adventures may be known by mortals. Now to resume the story told by
the Fairy King.
Then I set out towards the confines of Fairyland, and turned my back
on the pleasant vales. I journeyed through the dark wood, and came
at last to the cave where the gnomes dwell. These would have bidden
me stay, but I heeded them not, and at length I came out into the
astral plane, of which you know. But lower and lower I went, seeking
sin and suffering, just as you menfolk flee from them, and on the
astral plane I worked for a while, but as I knew not earth-life, I
found my efforts of little avail.
So at length I reached the earth plane, and wandered unseen among the
sons of men till the sorrow of the world ate into my soul and grief
for its woe overwhelmed me.
Yet, try as I would, I found I could do little to help mankind, for I
was not of their nature. Till one dread day I stood on a hill near a
city men call Jerusalem, and I gazed in the faces of three who were
crucified. Then He in the center saw me, though the rest saw me not,
and He spoke these words:
"O spirit of air, who knowest not the love of men, draw near."
And I drew near, and said, "I have sought suffering and grief that I
might be able to aid menfolk. Thou, who seemest to be the King of
Pain, bring pain to me."
And He smiled. "Thou askest a hard thing. Yet shall it be given
unto thee. Wrench forth the nails which fasten My hands and feet and
set Me free."
Then I arose and strove to grasp the nails, but couldn't, for they
were material and I immaterial. And as I strove, my helplessness
filled me with a new sensation, and it was grief. For, strive as I
might, I could do nothing to help that gentle sufferer.
And the grief grew to an intensity of pain which is indescribable.
Then again He spoke. "It avails not--thou canst not help Me; and yet
in the striving thy request has been granted. Go, and My love for
men go with thee!"
Then the vague desire to help men grew into a burning passion, and I
went from the spot and strove to help them. And now it seemed that I
was changed in spirit, for I comprehended their griefs and how to
help them.
So I comforted the heavy-hearted in the dark watches of the night.
And I guided the erring ones into the safe road. I strove with the
wayward and warned the foolish, until my work was accomplished. I
have learned to suffer, yet have I never learned to die, and I think
that none can become perfect till that experience has been endured.
All the time that he was telling the story the King's right hand had
rested upon Storm's head, or gently stroked the wavy, sun-gold hair.
"Why do you tremble so?" he asked--"you that are learning to die,
that shalt become what I may never be, perfected in endurance by the
rite of death. Why are you frightened?"
"I'm not frightened, sir. We gets a training on our earth so as not
to show funk when we're scared."
We all know how dream-scenes change, how dream-people are
transformed. By the King's magic the throne room had vanished. They
seemed to be in a paved courtyard, and in front of him there rose a
Roman colonnade. It was the Prætorium in old Jerusalem. "Why,
that's the orderly room," said Storm; "it's lucky I'm off duty."
His clothes had changed themselves into Roman infantry uniform,
parade kit, a burnished and plumed steel helmet, a shining steel
cuirass, a kilt, strapped sandals.
That was the King's magic, which awakened slumbering memories, making
far-past events to live as though they happened within the hour.
"You are not frightened," said the King; "what then, lad, makes you
as the leaves when they are dry, when their voice is harsh, ere the
death wind carries them away?"
Storm glanced sideways angrily at Rain. "It was all along of her,"
he answered. "When she blamed it on to me that she was to have a
baby. Wanted me to make an honest woman of her, as if I'd stoop to
the likes--a native--a Jew drab.
"She slobbered," cried Storm, "all over my breast-plate and shoulder
straps, which I'd been burnishing for inspection. I never noticed
that anything was wrong until the morning parade. And there was my
steel all rusted. The old centurion told our ten-man, Vivianus his
name was, that if he couldn't keep his men clean he'd better chuck
his stripes. The ten-man was proper sick at that and when we got
back to the barrack room he took it out of me, yes, good and plenty.
He had to furnish the day's execution detail, and I was senior
soldier of the section. Said he couldn't trust a dirty man in
charge. He'd have to take the detail himself. Besides he insulted
me, and we Northmen take no lip from them little black Italians.
Tell you, what with that, and the woman, and the disgrace--by
Mithras! I was just about crazy by the time he marched us round here
to this Prætorium Courtyard."
Storm was a Roman soldier once again, back in the garrison of old
Jerusalem.
"Got to chuck a brace, breast to breastplate, shoulder blades
touching or you galls your windpipe on the cuirass. Got to watch
your step and mind your dressing so as not to make a holy show of our
legion in front of them natives. Got to keep your mouth from
yelling, yes, and leave your dirk sheathed when ye can't see nothin'
but blood--blood, blood, and the ten-man a-prompting in yer
ear--'left, left, left, right, left, right incline, come up on the
left there! Mark time, by the left--forward, march straight through
the swineherd! Shoulder through them! Damn them! Frontform. Halt.
Stand at ease--stand easy.' Blood! Blood! By the crucified
Mithras, I'll have his blood for insulting me.
"The natives was having their usual riot. It was something about one
of them street-preachers they wanted hanged; and, after a shindy, the
Governor let 'em have Him, provided of course He was turned off
decently by the troops, not torn to pieces by the mob.
"Of course the Governor's guard escorted the prisoner to the
Prætorium Courtyard for the usual flogging, and then, as He seemed to
be something special--claimed to be King of the Jews--the boys on
guard called the battalion out of barracks for a bit of fun with Him.
They sent out for a dead branch from one of them acacias, with
ivory-white thorns a couple of inches long. They plaited that into a
crown. They got an old short crimson cloak--general officers' batmen
gets such things given them. And a long cane did for scepter, though
it broke. They stripped the preacher, and rigged Him out, had a
great game with the King of the Jews, bashing the crown of thorns on
His head with that scepter. His face was running with blood.
"Of course our execution squad, of an N.C.O. and three privates, just
stood easy until the day's prisoners was handed over to us for our
job of hanging. If the boys behaved like kids, they was off duty,
and it weren't no business of mine. Besides, the prisoner was only a
Jew, and Jews is offal.
"Yet He was sort of getting hold of me, like drink takes hold of a
man before he knows. That's why I acted rough when we took over,
cause us Roman soldiers can't afford to be sloppy, especially with
natives. His eyes--crucified Mithras, His eyes! I couldn't look Him
in the face while I was going to murder Vivianus. That's the first
man I ever forgave.
"The quartermaster used to issue crosses which we had to turn into
store after the day's executions. They was heavy, and this preacher,
after the way the boys had handled Him--well, He was none too strong.
The other two was just the usual thieves and they come fresh from the
cells, but He broke down under the load. We caught a friend of
His'n, an old fellow from Cyrene, in North Africa, who had a couple
of sons, Alexander and Rufus, in the horse trade. Them Cyreneans is
horse copers to a man. Well, this old Simon what we caught, we made
to carry the preacher's cross all the way to the West Gate, with the
natives mobbing Him, cursing and throwing muck. When they're roused,
them Jews is beastly. So we come to the Skull Hill just due west of
the city, in full view from every roof. There's holes hewn in the
rock there, a row of 'em for crosses. Them two thieves was lashed to
their crosses, which is the usual way, but He was a sort of special
case, so I had the job of driving the spikes with a sledge through
His hands and feet. He lay there on the cross, watching me, and when
I went sick all of a sudden He tells me to do my duty. He was
smiling at me. My God! We lifted them three crosses, dropped the
butts into the mortise holes, and hammered in the wedges--same as
quoins, to keep 'em steady.
"We'd took off all their clothes, which was our perquisite, and our
ten-man makes fair division. Except His tunic, no use if it was cut,
being woven, same as a jersey in one piece. We used knucklebones,
which is much the same as throwing dice. I won, and in the evening I
give it----"
He glanced at Rain.
"To her."
The King bent low. "Go on," he said.
"The day was heavy, and along in the afternoon come a big storm,
dark, with sheets of rain, and blinding flashes.
* * * * * * *
"Hello!" said Storm, "that's Snow Fell! This is Broad Firth. We're
in Iceland. This is another life. Oh, what's the name of the farm?"
"Under-the-lava," said Rain, "the stead of Slaying Stir. And I'm the
veiled woman from Swede-realm. Don't you remember Slaying Stir has
murdered my dear brothers Halli and Leikner? Their ghosts have
brought me hither to murder Slaying Stir. In my dream they said I
must come to Iceland and avenge their deaths. So I did. I came with
the two poor ghosts to Iceland to the house of Slaying Stir. And
when I tried to stab him, my heart was turned to water. My man here,
Storm, was guesting at Stir's house. Storm loved me."
The King laid his hand on the lad's arm.
"That I did," said Storm.
"What were you, then?" asked the King.
"A slave. I, Harald Christian, Earl of Man, captured in battle, sold
to be a thrall. My master, I loved my master, young Leif Ericson.
And we came guesting to the house of Slaying Stir, where we met my
woman. That was in Iceland, but our home was Greenland, the new
Colony."
"So," Rain continued, "my man and I loved and were wedded secretly.
But Leif captured me. Then he took his thrall, my poor man, Storm,
and lashed him to a post which stood in the tideway. 'One prayer to
Thor,' said Leif, 'and you go free. One prayer to Thor,' said Leif,
'and you get your woman.'"
"'One prayer to Christ,' said Storm, 'and you save your soul!' Then
the tide closed over Storm's mouth."
"So," asked the King of the Fairies, "you gave your life for the
Christ you had slain?"
"No such luck," answered Storm gloomily. "Leif got me back to life,
made me a freeman, gave me my woman. Christ had him. Afterwards I
was with him, steersman of the _Flying Dragon_, when we found a new
world."
There came a sudden vision of smoking seas, of lashing spray, a
reeling, staggering ship, with one great lugsail lifting her as she
drove, thirty-two oarsmen straining at their labor, Storm in a
leather jerkin at the thwart-ship tiller, and beside him a youth
gigantic in chain mail who pointed with drawn sword, conning the
passage between drowned sand banks and terrific combers into the
entry of a land-locked bay.
"A new-found world," said the King. "New-found America."
But Storm answered concerning the Viking hero, Leif the Fortunate.
"He called it Christ-realm. Yes. That was afterwards, when we'd
crossed the Western Ocean, made Norway, and put in at Nidaros, the
new capital. There was Leif baptized, with the Norse King standing
godfather. He offered Christ-Realm to Olaf Tryggveson, the Christian
King of Norway."
The King of the Fairies said then:
"There seems to be a purpose running from life to life. So in the
voyage of a ship the days pass, and the nights pass, but from day to
day the purpose of her master continues always towards one end, one
seaport. Mortals, your lives are days. Tell me of the next
incarnation."
"That time," said Storm, "I never found my woman, so it don't count."
"Tell me, though. Perhaps the purpose runs."
"I was Gaston le Brut, de Joinville's body servant, and him crusading
with Louis, King of France. Them wars is a muddle of battles, mud,
and hunger, the pest, and slavery among the Paynim at Babylon the
Less. The King and de Joinville got ransomed before they could raise
the money to buy out us troops from the Soldan. It's all a muddle of
bad management, but yes--I see--the ridge! the dragging my little
master by the hand and he squealing 'Non! non! non!' but I made him
see that which St. Louis didn't, the view of the Holy City through
the heat mist faint in the distance, and the Hill of Skulls where I'd
helped crucify my God! Oh, Christ Almighty!"
"The purpose runs, Rain," said the King of the Fairies. "Follow the
quest. What was your next life?"
"When next we met," Rain answered, "I was what Storm calls Red
Indian. I was Powhatan's daughter then. It was in those days that
the English came first into our country--the land they call
Virginia--yes, and the English called me Pocahontas. It wasn't my
real name though. I wedded my man, and he was Master John Rolfe--a
little widower. Twice he was Roman soldier, once he was thrall in
Iceland, and then it seems crusader, and again John Rolfe the
planter, and now what he calls bargee; but he is always Storm and I
am always Rain, and we shall always love."
"And have you loved none other?" asked the King.
"Nay, but there was one I worshiped as though he were a god. Captain
Johnsmith."
"Which," cried Storm--"I'd know that face among millions--was Leif
Ericson, the man who found a new world."
"And in his next life," said the King of the Fairies, "founded the
United States, eh?"
"Then that," cried Rain, "which we drop in the last life, we take up
again in the next."
"The ship," answered the Fairy King, "carries on her journey during
the night, and at the next daybreak is that much nearer to her haven.
Now tell me of this present day's journey, which you mortals call a
lifetime, down on earth."
Storm answered. "Me and her is man and wife."
"Whom God hath joined," said the King, "no man can possibly sunder."
"Till death us part?" Rain whispered.
The Fairy King leaned forward on his throne, his hands clasped.
"Death," he reflected, "Time, and Space are only three impostors.
They are shadows, glamour, not realities like Faith or Hope or Love.
A Spirit told me once that a man and a woman who love, whom death
cannot set asunder, may in the end be parts of one, one Angel.
"How I do envy you two children! And have you been parted in this
life you are living now down on the Earth?"
"We've never met," said Rain. "Storm is an English sailor; I live
with my mother Thunder Feather, the sacred woman of the Blackfoot
nation. We have our tipi in a lonely valley of the mountains, and
pilgrims come to Thunder Feather to be healed when they are sick in
soul or body. But she is dying, so I take up her work. And always I
call my man, so that he has come on a voyage of six moons, to the
mouth of my river. Still I call him to come up my river, then over
the mountains to the sacred lodge. He brings the Christ Faith with
him for our Indian peoples."
"I'm a prisoner," said Storm, "at Fort Vancouver, and they want to
send me to England because they say I murdered mother. I didn't, so
I don't want to be hanged for that. I did murder Christ. I want to
die for that."
"A Roman legionary," said the King, "a brave man among the Vikings, a
Crusader, a pioneer of the United States, a seaman of England--how I
envy you the least of these achievements! And you, my daughter,
loving and heroic, how poor my fate compared with yours! But I see
ahead of you the greatest of all adventures, the most splendid, the
most tremendous, the most triumphant. May God bless you both!"
"Good-by, sir." Storm kissed his hand. "My body is calling me,
dragging me back to earth--to prison at Vancouver."
"And," said Rain, "my mother calls me home. Farewell, Great Chief."
VI
Bill Fright awakened in his cell at Fort Vancouver.
The dawn was breaking, and pale blue smoke went up from the chimneys
as Fort Vancouver awakened, yawning, for the new day's work. Quite
naked, wrapping a blanket about him, stately as a Roman Emperor,
Black Douglas came to his door to snuff the breath of the spring.
Then stepping gingerly, barefooted across the crisp and dewy lawn and
the gravel road beyond, he made his way out of the fort and across
the village, until he stood upon the riverbank, where he dropped his
blanket and bath towel. It looked very cold.
Mist lay on the shining water and the dim gray ships, whose masts
went up so sharply etched against the deeps of sky. Beyond them
lofty firs and spreading cedars faint as dreams arose from isles
invisible, rapt, waiting. Far up the valley, soaring above the
forest and the cloud belts, snow fields of icy blue were edged with
flame against the throbbing splendors of the sunrise. Close at hand
some little fussy birds were singing orisons, but the great prayer of
the forest and the volcanoes was a Silence, faithful, calm,
triumphant, rendered to Love and Power which reigns for ever, the
Spirit in the Sun, their Lord, their God.
In that homage Douglas joined for a moment shivering with cold, then
dived for his morning bath in the Columbia.
Near by, at the jetty, a crew of five voyageurs, the hoods of their
blanket capotes like the cowls of monks, were urging a prisoner into
their birch canoe. As he flatly refused to enter they gabbled like
squattering sea fowl in shrill French, until the patron Louis le
Grandeur bade them desist. "Laissez, mes enfants! Restez! Cet
animal!" He shook his fist in Bill's face. "And how you t'ink we
mak' ze bre'kfas' if we no depart--hein? Sacré, mojee, batteme,
goddam pig!"
He turned about and saw Black Douglas climb dripping up the bank, all
glowing from the sting of the crisp tide.
"V'la!" He ran to the big chief. "Bo'jour, M'sieu Dougla!" He
saluted. "Sare--zees animal prisonnier Beel----"
"Good morning, le Grandeur. Ready to start, eh?"
"--'e say he no coom!"
Bill shouldered him aside, presenting shackled hands.
"Don't like the handcuffs, eh?" said Mr. Douglas cheerily, grooming
his back with the bath towel.
"Called me an animal!" cried Bill, exasperated, raging at fresh
indignities. Yet somehow this man, twice his size and many times as
strong, this Justice of the Peace, this leader born to command, who
looked down at him smiling, indulgent, did make him feel like one of
the lower animals content to obey, to trust, to do his bidding.
"You and I," said Douglas, "are being watched. There's your late
commanding officer watching from the poop, and no doubt His Holiness
the Chaplain is peeping somewhere from behind a house. The handcuffs
look impressive."
"I see," said Bill, quite humbled.
"Look up the valley," said Douglas. "See a point of standing forest
yonder?"
The headland was black against the sunblaze.
"Behind that point," said Douglas, "le Grandeur will release you."
"Yes, sure!" broke in le Grandeur, "and ze fusil!"
"The gun," Douglas translated, "and everything your shipmates gave
you is in that canoe. You are free. You can run away, and my
voyageurs will not shoot. They have my orders."
"You mean that, sir?"
"Yes. But will you take advice from an old frontiersman? I know
you're too sensible a lad to run away and starve in the bush with a
gun you can't use, in swamps you cannot cross. These good voyageurs
will teach you how to hunt, and if you can feed the crew it stands to
reason you wouldn't starve alone."
"Then I run away, sir?"
"I wouldn't. Inland the tribes are dangerous, unless you know their
ways. Run by all means, but, if you want to live, go with these men
to the point where the River of the Kutenais falls into Flatbow Lake.
There you will find my old friend the Russian, Nicolai Tschirikoff."
"I've heard that name, sir, somewhere, Fatbald Tschirikov."
"That's curious, for the doctor and myself are the only men here in
Oregon who know him by that name, or call him Fatbald."
"I must ha' dreamed it."
"Maybe. Anyway"--Douglas picked up his blanket and wrapped it about
him like a Roman toga--"he'll make a man of you, hunter, trapper,
able to hold your own among the tribes."
"Gawd bless you, sir."
"But, lad, remember that you've run away, and as a Justice of the
Peace I'm after you, to catch you if I can, and ship you to England,
to be hanged because your worthy father killed your mother. Don't
let me catch you, Bill.
"Now, march off looking just as if I had sent you to the gallows."
"Mayn't I shake 'ands, sir?"
The magistrate shook his head, and as Bill turned to go assisted him
on his way with a bare foot. At that Bill was indignant.
Still Black Douglas stood on the river bank, until the prisoner had
boarded the canoe, and the voyageurs shoved off. They came upstream
saluting as they passed, then the swing and flash and glitter of
their paddles took time from the voyageur chantey:
_Allouette! Chantez Allouette!
All-ou-ette! Je le plumerai!_
Douglas followed with his eyes as the canoe went on into the blaze of
sunshine on the ripples. There was something very tender, very
wistful, in his smile as he stood listening.
_Je le plumerai le bee;
Et les yeux,
Et la tête,
Et les ailles,
Ah-a-allouette! Chantez allouette!_
* * * * *
_Et les ailles!_