TOBOGGANING.
The moon was at the full, and she hung, still tending upwards, high in
the transparent vault where all the host of heaven were burning and
blinking like tapers in a fitful wind, so brilliant was their
scintillating lustre seen through that clear dry atmosphere where the
moonlight shows the red and the green of brick wall and painted
verandah, colours which are but modulated greys where insular
moistness thickens and dims the air. It was bright as day over the
snow-covered landscape, with even a trace of the yellowness of
sunshine in the light, but with an uncertainty in distances, and a
liquid idealizing of objects and their shadows, sublimating reality
out of commonplace, and lifting it into the likeness of what is seen
in dreams.
The thermometer stood at zero, but the air was still, for all the
fantastic flicker of the stars overhead; and it was so dry with the
frost, which had precipitated all moisture, that it did not feel cold
on emerging from heated houses. It was bright and exhilarating to
breathe--like something to drink--and sent the blood dancing more
briskly than before down to the tips of the thickly-gloved fingers
Sounds of laughter and frolic were about, every one who was young and
strong was abroad in the intoxicating lustre, arrayed in blanket-coat
and moccasins, with _toque_ and sash of blue or scarlet.
It was a steep snow-covered bank in the suburbs, with a long meadow
spreading out below. Steps and footpaths were worn up the face on
either hand, and in the middle was the slide polished into glass, down
which the toboggans, pushed past the brink of the descent, a girl or
even two seated in front with a man behind to steer, shot with the
celerity of an arrow from above, slackening in speed when the steepest
of the declivity was past, and travelling far out across the level
meadow on the spending impulse they had gathered on their way. With
steering and good luck the crew reach a standstill as they started,
the damsel gets up, the swain draws his vehicle by the cord, and both
mount again to the summit, once more to precipitate themselves down
the slope, and if there be no miscarriage, resulting in shipwreck,
with toboggan overturned or broken, and crew shot out promiscuously
with ugly cuts and bruises, to repeat the experience a score of times,
till at length the weary limbs shall refuse to scale the slippery
height again.
"Miss Stanley," said Randolph Jordan, addressing Miss Matilda, "won't
you trust yourself to me. I promise to steer carefully, and I can say
what every one cannot, that I have never spilled my cargo yet."
"Thanks, Mr. Randolph, I do not mistrust you in the least; but
really--it is so long since I got upon a toboggan--that I--I shall
just stay here with Mr. Considine, now I have got to the top of the
hill, and watch you young people like a sedate chaperon. But here is
my cousin, Betsey Bunce; I am sure she will be delighted. They do not
toboggan at St. Euphrase, and I am sure she never saw one in Upper
Canada. Oh!"--with a little scream--"It really is quite frightful to
see them start. And that is Muriel, I declare, and Gerald Herkimer. He
will break the child's neck, I do believe; he is so heedless. I wish
we were home again."
"Oh, law!" cried Betsey; "are you sure it is quite safe? I used to
coast with my hand-sled, like the rest of the kids, when I was little,
but it kind of frightens one to see the go-off. Are you quite sure you
can protect my bones, Mr. Jordan?"--looking clingingly in his face in
search of encouragement--"I feel awful frightened."
"Well, perhaps you are right," said Randolph, impervious to the cling;
"it is a good plan to watch the others for a while first, it gives one
confidence," and he was gone. He had paid his duty invitation to the
head of the party, and, not having bargained for Betsey as a
substitute, availed himself at once of the simulated dread which was
intended merely to make him urgent and assiduous. Betsey felt foolish,
and turned round to Matilda, but she, supposing she had provided for
her charge, had taken Considine's arm and strolled away. Betsey was
pretty well able to do for herself, however, and ere long she descried
a bachelor, unprovided with a maid, and whom she had danced with the
evening before; he, on her recognizing him, was not averse to taking
her on his conveyance _faute de mieux_, it being "kind o' lonesome,"
as he told himself, to ride alone, "when every other fellow was
provided with his bit of muslin."
Randolph was at Miss Rouget's side in a moment, tendering his
respectful services, which she at once accepted with the grave bow of
a maiden obedient to her parents, who feels gratified in her
conscience with the sense of a duty fulfilled, in doing what she knows
they would approve--the superior satisfaction of a well-regulated
mind, higher, because a moral pleasure, than the indulgence of mere
personal preference, but by no means so gratifying to the gentleman,
if he only knew it, which, fortunately, he seldom does. Randolph's
feelings, too, might perhaps be considered as of that same higher
moral sort, which dispenses with good honest attachment of the natural
kind; more exactly to be described as indifference touched with filial
piety and flavoured with a pinch of self-interest.
Old Jordan had been immensely impressed by the mining discoveries at
La Hache, and although it was a damper to recognize in the desired
father-in-law of his son a rapid and an unsuccessful gambler, still,
the man's interest in the mine could be saved, he thought, by settling
it upon his daughter as _dot_, if the old man were permitted to enjoy
the usufruct during his life; besides, was there not a certain
institution where troublesome old gentlemen had been locked up ere
then, at the instance of wives or heirs? and was not monsieur the
seignior eccentric enough for any purpose, with skilful counsel to lay
it properly before a jury? Randolph was the impediment himself; he was
like a badly-ridden colt, whom the horseman, armed with whip and spur,
which he has not the judgment to use, vexes into rebellion which he
cannot overbear.
It was humiliating, but his sight was clear enough to see that Amelia,
in opposition to whom all his dealings with his son hitherto had been
taken, must now be called in to use the very influence which had
hitherto made the lad so unruly, and render him tractable for once.
Amelia, for a wonder, lent a favourable ear. She recognized it as a
tribute, and an admission, in arranging the most important
circumstance in her son's life, that the arrogant block-head, who had
attempted to lord it with so high a hand over herself and the boy, had
come to see his impotence at last. The sense of victory soothed her,
and made her gentle, as a filly has been known to become under
coaxings with lump sugar and carrots, when rougher means had failed.
She agreed to take the youth in hand, and she moulded him without his
knowledge, as she had done all his life before, like wax between her
fingers.
He had as yet--whatever later years might bring him--no very
pronounced faculty of love for other than himself; his attachment to
herself, as she saw full well, being due chiefly to what she could do
for him and give him in the way of flattery, sympathy, and help to
assist himself, and so forth. She saw it without much pain, though she
was his mother, for she was a practical-minded person who indulged in
the affections but sparingly as being too luscious and apt to pall;
"it was just," she thought, "the way of the coarser sex--brutal,
selfish, stupid--overbearing in the rude strength of their muscle, the
delicate nerve-power of the women." "But brain-fibre was more than a
match in the long run for such fibre as theirs," she told herself; and
after all the boy was her own, to be proud of among other women, and
to make do in the long run, as she only could make him, by delicately
pulling the strings she wot of in his being, pretty much as she would.
She was aware, of course, of his kindness for Muriel, but she divined
that its roots did not go deep, and when she now took him in hand to
direct his attachments, his own description confessed the truth when
he spoke of her as "a jolly little girl, and awfully pretty, whom the
fellows were crazy after, and he meant to take the cake from them
all."
"I am not so sure that you can, my boy; having been a girl myself I am
likely to guess nearer the truth than you can; girls are such goosy
little things, and I should say your friend Gerald has the best chance
there."
"Gerald!" said the young man, drawing himself up to the full of that
one-inch advantage he had over his friend; but then he remembered how
Gerald had taken her in to supper the evening or two before, and he
felt a doubt; but it only made him angry and more obstinate to win the
prize.
"I think, Randolph," his mother went on, reading his thoughts, "your
cake, as you call her, you gluttonous boy, is hardly worth the eating;
leave it for your friends, and make them welcome. Muriel Stanley is no
match for you, and no great catch for anybody. She will get her aunt's
money, I suppose--a comfortable little sum--when they die, which is
not likely to happen for twenty years; but she has no connections
whatever, and a good connection is so very advantageous for a young
man. You will realize that more and more as you get on."
"But she is awfully pretty, the prettiest little thing in Montreal,
and the nicest."
"I grant you that, if you think so; but she is only fifteen, and her
aunts will not let her marry for five years yet. She will be stout at
twenty; that kind of girl whose figure forms so early, always gets
stout, and you will think her a little coarse--men of taste always
think that of plump girls, I have observed--but you will sacrifice
yourself all the same, like a man of honour, if you are already
engaged. That will not be the worst, however; five years more and she
will be positively fat! Imagine yourself with a wife like that! You
will be about thirty then, just in your prime, with your nice slim
figure merely improved from what it is now, the shoulders a little
broader, of course, which will be no disadvantage, and your moustache
a trifle heavier, but otherwise scarcely changed--in fact, at your
very best. How will you like then walking down St. James's Street on
the circumference of a copious wife?--a sprig of lavender tied to a
marigold! Does the picture attract you?"
When you drive together or have stalls at the theatre, imagine
yourself protruding from among your spouse's cloaks and flounces. The
buggy could be built of extra size, to be sure, but all the stall
chairs are alike. It is a subject for your own consideration
exclusively. Personally, I am fond of Muriel. She is a nice little
thing, and I should welcome her as a daughter; but it is not I who
should have to appear in public with her for the remainder of my days;
and if a man means to go into society, he is wise to choose a wife who
will group well with him.
"Now, there are our neighbours at St. Euphrase. Think of an only
daughter!--heiress to a seigniory, and connected with all the best
people in the province. You will say she has not a good complexion;
but how short a time complexion lasts in this climate! and those who
have had one, and lost it, always look haggard and older than those
who never had any. A man married to an old-looking woman, whether fat
or lean, always strikes me as a melancholy spectacle--like a sapling
sprouting from a crumbling wall, as the poet says--and the world is
seldom respectful. It is apt to look on him as the man who broke the
commandments and married his grandmama, because nobody of his own age
would have him. There is no fear of that with Adèline Rouget; she will
improve every year she lives. She is distinguished looking now, though
she is not pretty. Every year she will improve, that is the advantage
of having plenty of bone. She will look stately in middle life, and be
beautiful--the rarest kind of beauty--in old age. Look forward always,
my boy, when you think about marrying, it is an experiment which
generally can be tried but once, so bought experience can do you no
good."
Mother and son had a long conversation, in which she plied him with so
many flatteries, that finally of his own free choice he promised to
"go in" for Miss Rouget, yet at the same time felt himself magnanimous
and dutiful in yielding his own wish to the gratification of his
parent; and she encouraged the delusion as likely to hold him to her
point. Self-denial is a heroic sort of virtue, and rather above the
purchase of most folks; therefore, to be self-denying, and so,
admirable to his seldom gratified moral sense, while still pleasing
himself, was exaltedly delightful. If a man is not a hero, it pleases
him the more to see himself in a heroic light. It is new, and it may
not occur again, therefore he will do his best to retain the gallant
attitude in which he finds himself; and Randolph set himself to _live
up to his ideal_.
It was in ceremonious and most well-behaved fashion that the young
lady placed herself on the toboggan, and permitted her cavalier to
wrap the outflowing draperies more compactly about her in gracious
quietude. The gentleman gave the equipage a push beyond the brink,
jumped in behind with a parting kick against the shore, and they were
away; swiftly, and with ever-accelerating speed as the hill grew
steeper--"shooting Niagara." The _bienséances_ of the convent, with
their modest tranquillity, are scarcely maintainable in a toboggan
shooting down a glassy incline of fifty degrees or more, at the rate
of miles in a minute, with the certainty that dislodgment from the
quarter-inch board one is seated on may hurl one anywhere, bruised or
maimed, but assuredly ridiculous.
Adèline caught her breath with a gasp as she found they were off, and,
as the pace quickened down hill, she clenched her teeth tightly and
closed her eyes; and then there came a jolt as they sped across some
swelling in the ice, and she felt herself thrown backwards, and gave a
little scream; and Randolph was there behind to support her, with a
laugh, as she bumped against his chest, a laugh she could not but join
in, though a little hysterically, perhaps, at first. And then the pace
began to slacken as they reached the level of the meadow below, and
still it slackened, and finally they stopped, and stood up, and shook
themselves from adhering snow, and found, the experience was over,
that they were both safe, and that it had been a little thrilling, but
"_awfully jolly_." The ice was broken between the two young people
forthwith, and the Lady Superior with her nuns, who had taken such
pains in the formation of Adèline's character and manners, would
scarcely have recognized her, or been able to distinguish her from one
of those dreadful, fast, heretical English girls, they had been wont
to hold up to her and her companions as models to avoid, as she caught
Randolph's arm to climb to the top of the bank again, and vowed it had
been delightful.
Conventional mannerisms are like mud in a slough, when the animal
which has floundered through gets out into the sunshine, it dries and
peels off and falls away very quickly. These two were average young
people who had been comfortably reared, with warm clothes and
nourishing victuals imagination, sentiment, "yearnings" of any kind
had been omitted from their composition, but they were unconscious of
the deficiency, so were perfectly content. They were both healthy and
strong, and the physical surroundings of the moment were exhilarating
in the highest degree--bright clear air and exciting exercise. The
quickening of their pulses, caused by their romp upon the snow, was as
high a delight as either was capable of knowing, and they clung closer
together each time they re-climbed the steep to shoot again from the
summit, and laughed more joyously with each succeeding jolt, and
persuaded themselves even, perhaps, that they were really falling in
love--it is a delusion which often has no more substantial foundation.
And Muriel, too, was careering merrily down the slope, with Gerald for
steersman. It was a sport in which they frequently indulged, and many
a chilly promenade upon the frozen snow, on the top of the hill, had
it cost Aunt Matilda that winter, though she never dropped a complaint
which might check or damp her darling's pleasure. Perhaps, too, she
may have found the _chaperonage_ not altogether an infliction in every
aspect. By some happy concurrence of circumstances Considine was
always of the party. He might have dropped in to visit the ladies
before the hour for setting out, or else he would accompany young
Gerald when he called to persuade them to go; assuredly he was always
there, and freighted with rugs of the thickest and warmest. When the
ground was reached, he was curious in his selection of the snuggest
nooks and corners sheltered from the wind to rest in; and when his
rugs were heaped on the sealskins she already wore, Miss Matilda found
she was not one bit cold in the world, and Considine in attendance,
who on these occasions was invited to smoke, was perfectly happy, and
blessed the inventor of the toboggan.
Muriel and Gerald were experienced voyagers who slid down and
clambered up again in calm familiarity with what they were about,
without transports of timidity or delight, but in thorough enjoyment.
Muriel sat motionless like a part of the outfit, and Gerald was able
to steer their way intricately and securely between others more
laggard or awkward who got in the way and would have brought grief to
a less skilful pilot. And then it was so pleasant to be together,
though neither said so, they were so used to it--had been used to it
for three or four winters now--and it had grown on them so quietly
that they said and perhaps thought nothing about it. There were no
speeches; there was no opportunity for them, for there had been no
breaks in their intimacy. A boy and girl companionship at first, it
had strengthened and progressed with themselves, till, while it was
possible neither might have confessed an attachment to the other, it
was certain they could never, now, attach themselves to any one else.
They were comrades, at least in their winter exercises, but without
the rough familiarity which sometimes arises in that relation.
Muriel's virginal rearing by those worthy gentlewomen, her aunts, had
made that impossible on her side; and Gerald had been his mother
Martha's "vineyard," tended and weeded and cared for assiduously as to
his moral nature, brought up in manliness to scorn evil and reverence
women, as only that quaint daughter of the solitary places in "Noo
Hampshire" could have done.
The moon hung in the highest heaven, the snow near by was aglitter in
its sheen, the distance was dim with hazy brightness, and many
tobogganers had come in from around to join the sport. The place was
not inclosed, it was a bare hill-face at other times, and somewhat out
of the way; but it suited, and when once a few had used it into shape,
all the tobogganing world was glad to avail itself of it. Its
out-of-the-way-ness alone preserved it to the use of its quieter
frequenters from the gamins and "roughs" of the more densely-peopled
streets; but this night was so gloriously still and bright and
exhilarating that those who had tasted its brightness could not tear
themselves away, and as the shop-lights were extinguished they
wandered farther afield instead of creeping under dusky shelter and
going to sleep. The snow was dotted with groups of a dozen or a score,
streaming out from the town and coming to the snow slide. All were on
foot, a few on snow shoes, and many dragging hand-sleds behind
them--those devices of the enemy which make the winter street of
America so dangerous for an elderly gentleman. He will look around for
a policeman to stop urchins coasting in mid-highway, at the hazard of
their skulls, from passing horse-kicks; he will not find one, but with
a roar and a sweep another coaster will rush down the pavement,
bruising his shins, over-turning him, and passing on its career of
devastation before he can gather himself up to box the audacious ears
of the offenders.
"What a crowd of people are gathering down here at the end of the
track," observed Muriel, as she stepped off the toboggan at the
journey's end to re-climb the hill.
"Yes," said Gerald, "a great many. I do not mind their standing down
here, they seem peaceable. They are only looking on, and soon they
will find it cold, and go away. But look at the crowd up there at the
top! They seem a more unruly crew. I fear there will be a row. Ah!" he
added, "there it is! Our pleasure is over for to-night. There is a
rowdy with a hand-sled, starting down the course. Hsh! what a
pace--and another--and a third. The third has upset, however, and
rolled down the hill. I could almost wish he would get in front of
number four. It would certainly hurt him, and spill number four as
well, and both deserve it. It will not be safe to launch a toboggan
now. The iron shod runners of the sleds travel as fast again as a flat
toboggan board. We shall get run into and smashed. I fear we must
knock off for to-night. I am awfully sorry, but really it is not safe,
with a parcel of roughs in possession of the slide."
"Don't say so," said Muriel. They were climbing the bank, she leaned
on his arm, and she pressed on it just a shade heavier as she said it.
"No doubt," he answered; "they must soon give it up. The ground is too
steep for runners. See how they shoot, and how far they are carried
beyond where we stopped. And there is a ditch there too. The least
thing will upset them coming down at such a bat, and somebody will get
hurt. They will all get hurt in time, but we shall have too long to
wait for it, I fear."
"Don't you think we might have just one or two more? The evening is
only beginning, and it is so lovely. I do not feel one bit afraid, you
steer so beautifully."
And what could Gerald do but yield when so appealed to, and so
flattered?
They made another descent in safety, and then another, in which Gerald
performed prodigies of steering which elicited the lively applause of
the onlookers, and filled himself and his companion with confidence
and pride. For now the sled-riding invaders were in possession of the
field, the tobogganers having withdrawn, all save Gerald, who, in the
new position of affairs, appeared as the intruder, and whom the
majority in possession now set themselves deliberately to molest and
chase from the ground; shooting down after him, and endeavouring to
run into him from different sides, when he would suddenly veer out of
his course and leave the chasers to run into each other, with bruises
and scatterings, and derision from the onlookers.
Each descent they made Gerald begged might be their last, but Muriel
more eagerly pleaded they might have yet another. It was so splendid,
she thought, to see the rowdies, balked in their malice, run
thundering into each other, while Gerald received rounds of applause.
What taskmaster ever drove so hard as does the female partizan, who
desires nothing for herself but merely the glory of her champion?
They made the descent again. It was to be really the last time. "Just
this once more;" but it proved the once too often. They started
immediately behind a sled which shot down like lightning, and insured
a clear course at the going off; but presently one slid by on their
right, and they had to swerve to avoid it, and then there passed one
on their left which almost grazed them. They had scarcely escaped when
another came thundering down behind them. Gerald veered aside as well
as he could, but still as it came on it was only by flinging himself
against the foremost passenger that he avoided being run over, and it
cost him his balance. In the instant, while he was still in poise, he
was able to lay a goodly stroke with his guiding stick across the head
of the steersman of the buccaneer, and then he fell out of his seat
and rolled down the steep. The sled had turned cross-wise to the
incline, and rolled over with the three who were its crew; and Muriel
startled, alarmed, and with the toboggan turned aslant, fell out
likewise, and slid downward with the toboggan atop.
Gerald reached the bottom pell-mell among the brawling, kicking, and
swearing cargo of the sled, who set on him in concert ere yet he had
well reached his feet, when Muriel's falling amidst them, covered by
the over-turned toboggan, dispersed the combatants for an instant, and
gave Gerald time to recover his guard. Then with a howl the three
rushed upon the one, or rather on the two, for they knocked down
Muriel, half risen, and trampled the toboggan to pieces in rushing
over her. Gerald was ready with one from the shoulder, delivered
squarely in the jaw, to knock down the first, but the other two sprang
on him together, and he would have fared ill if one from the crowd had
not leaped into the fray with blazing eye, clenched fist, and gnashing
teeth, and a growl of _sssacrrré_ and _chien_, as he felled one
ruffian with a blow under the ear and attacked the other. The first
was now up again, assaulting Gerald with foot and fist, and calling
his fellows in the crowd to come and help him, when the ministers of
the law appeared in the persons of two burly constables, who caught
Gerald and his succourer by the collar, and stood over the last felled
of the assailants while the other two ran away.
It was a "brache of the pace," they declared, and all must come to the
station, stretching out a hand to seize Muriel by the muffler--an act
which nearly upset Gerald's composure, and brought him into collision
with the police; but fortunately at that moment Considine intervened.
He had been spending an enchanted hour near the top of the hill with
Miss Matilda, swathed in rugs--all but her head--looking down upon the
sports, and chatting pleasantly while he buzzed round her, near enough
to hear and answer, but far enough off to let the fumes of his cigar
travel elsewhere. Something said in the crowd hard by had drawn their
attention to the slide. "Is not that Muriel?" Matilda had exclaimed,
jumping to her feet; and then the collision had come, and the upset,
and they both hurried down the bank to arrive on the scene at the same
moment as the police.
"You need not take the young lady into custody, my man," said
Considine, assuming his grand military manner--learned in "the
war"--so effective with policemen, who, like other disciplined beings,
seem to love being spoken down to. "Here is my card, and I write the
lady's address on the back. She will appear before the magistrate
whenever he desires."
"Roight, yur haunur!" said the man, coming to "attention," and
saluting.
"And this gentleman will give you his card, too, and promise to appear
when wanted," a suggestion which was also complied with, and Gerald
was liberated from custody.
"And this young fellow, who has behaved like a man, can I do nothing
for him?"
"This is Pierre Bruneau," cried Matilda, "our farmer's son at St.
Euphrase. So good of you, Pierre, to come to Miss Muriel's rescue. I
did not know you were in Montreal."
Pierre pulled off his _toque_ and made a shame-faced bow, smiling
gratification all over his countenance to find his service
appreciated.
"The Frinchman must com wid us, sorr. He kin hilp to dhraw the sled
wid the chap he knocked down--an' roight nately he did that same--for
a Frinchman. We'll thrate him well, sorr, but we'll have to lock him
up. Ye kin spake a worrd to his haunor to-morrow maurnin', sorr."
Pierre started, and looked piteously to Miss Matilda, and then his
manly heart gave way--he was not very old--he stuffed his fists into
his eyes and wept sore. To prison! To be locked up! It was dreadful,
and it was shame; and yet, even then, if it had had to be done over
again, he would have done it just the same. It was for Muriel he had
fought, and for her sake he was content to suffer.