THE SCENE CHANGES--BACHELOR'S HALL--A PRACTICAL JOKE AND ITS
CONSEQUENCES--A SNOW-SHOE WALK AT NIGHT IN THE FOREST.
Leaving Charley to pursue his adventurous career among the Indians, we
will introduce our reader to a new scene, and follow for a time the
fortunes of our friend Harry Somerville. It will be remembered that we
left him labouring under severe disappointment at the idea of having to
spend a year, it might be many years, at the depot, and being condemned
to the desk, instead of realising his fond dreams of bear-hunting and
deer-stalking in the woods and prairies.
It was now the autumn of Harry's second year at York Fort. This period
of the year happens to be the busiest at the depot, in consequence of
the preparation of the annual accounts for transmission to England, in
the solitary ship which visits this lonely spot once a year; so that
Harry was tied to his desk all day and the greater part of the night
too, till his spirits fell infinitely below zero, and he began to look
on himself as the most miserable of mortals. His spirits rose, however,
with amazing rapidity after the ship went away, and the "young
gentlemen," as the clerks were styled _en masse_, were permitted to run
wild in the swamps and woods for the three weeks succeeding that event.
During this glimpse of sunshine they recruited their exhausted frames by
paddling about all day in Indian canoes, or wandering through the
marshes, sleeping at nights in tents or under the pine trees, and
spreading dismay among the feathered tribes, of which there were immense
numbers of all kinds. After this they returned to their regular work at
the desk; but as this was not so severe as in summer, and was further
lightened by Wednesdays and Saturdays being devoted entirely to
recreation, Harry began to look on things in a less gloomy aspect, and
at length regained his wonted cheerful spirits.
Autumn passed away. The ducks and geese took their departure to more
genial climes. The swamps froze up and became solid. Snow fell in
great abundance, covering every vestige of vegetable nature, except the
dark fir trees, that only helped to render the scenery more dreary, and
winter settled down upon the land. Within the pickets of York Fort, the
thirty or forty souls who lived there were actively employed in cutting
their firewood, putting in double window-frames to keep out the severe
cold, cutting tracks in the snow from one house to another, and
otherwise preparing for a winter of eight months duration, as cold as
that of Nova Zembla, and in the course of which the only new faces they
had any chance of seeing were those of the two men who conveyed the
annual winter packet of letters from the next station. Outside of the
fort all was a wide, waste wilderness for _thousands_ of miles around.
Deathlike stillness and solitude reigned everywhere, except when a covey
of ptarmigan whirred like large snowflakes athwart the sky, or an arctic
fox prowled stealthily through the woods in search of prey.
As if in opposition to the gloom and stillness and solitude outside, the
interior of the clerks' house presented a striking contrast of ruddy
warmth, cheerful sounds, and bustling activity.
It was evening; but although the sun had set, there was still sufficient
daylight to render candles unnecessary, though not enough to prevent a
bright glare from the stove in the centre of the hall taking full effect
in the darkening chamber, and making it glow with fiery red. Harry
Somerville sat in front, and full in the blaze of this stove, resting
after the labours of the day; his arms crossed on his breast, his head a
little to one side, as if in deep contemplation, as he gazed earnestly
into the fire, and his chair tilted on its hind legs so as to balance
with such nicety that a feather's weight additional outside its centre
of gravity would have upset it. He had divested himself of his coat--a
practice that prevailed among the young gentlemen when _at home_, as
being free-and-easy as well as convenient. The doctor, a tall,
broad-shouldered man, with red hair and whiskers, paced the room
sedately, with a long pipe depending from his lips, which he removed
occasionally to address a few remarks to the accountant, a stout, heavy
man of about thirty, with a voice like a Stentor, eyes sharp and active
as those of a ferret, and a tongue that moved with twice the ordinary
amount of lingual rapidity. The doctor's remarks seemed to be
particularly humorous, if one might judge from the peals of laughter
with which they were received by the accountant, who stood with his back
to the stove in such a position that, while it warmed him from his heels
to his waist, he enjoyed the additional benefit of the pipe or chimney,
which rose upwards, parallel with his spine, and, taking a sudden bend
near the roof, passed over his head--thus producing a genial and equable
warmth from top to toe.
"Yes," said the doctor, "I left him hotly following up a rabbit-track,
in the firm belief that it was that of a silver fox."
"And did you not undeceive the greenhorn?" cried the accountant, with
another shout of laughter.
"Not I," replied the doctor. "I merely recommended him to keep his eye
on the sun, lest he should lose his way, and hastened home; for it just
occurred to me that I had forgotten to visit Louis Blanc, who cut his
foot with an axe yesterday, and whose wound required redressing, so I
left the poor youth to learn from experience."
"Pray, who did you leave to that delightful fate?" asked Mr Wilson,
issuing from his bedroom and approaching the stove.
Mr Wilson was a middle-aged, good-humoured, active man, who filled the
onerous offices of superintendent of the men, trader of furs, seller of
goods to the Indians, and general factotum.
"Our friend Hamilton," answered the doctor, in reply to his question.
"I think he is, without exception, the most egregious nincompoop I ever
saw. Just as I passed the long swamp on my way home, I met him crashing
through the bushes in hot pursuit of a rabbit, the track of which he
mistook for a fox. Poor fellow! he had been out since breakfast, and
only shot a brace of ptarmigan, although they are as thick as bees and
quite tame. `But then, do you see,' said he, in excuse, `I'm so very
short-sighted! Would you believe it, I've blown fifteen lumps of snow
to atoms, in the belief that they were ptarmigan!' and then he rushed
off again."
"No doubt," said Mr Wilson, smiling, "the lad is very green, but he's a
good fellow for all that."
"I'll answer for that," said the accountant; "I found him over at the
men's houses this morning doing _your_ work for you, doctor."
"How so?" inquired the disciple of Aesculapius.
"Attending to your wounded man, Louis Blanc, to be sure; and he seemed
to speak to him as wisely as if he had walked the hospitals, and
regularly passed for an M.D."
"Indeed!" said the doctor, with a mischievous grin. "Then I must pay
him off for interfering with my patients."
"Ah, doctor, you're too fond of practical jokes. You never let slip an
opportunity of `paying off' your friends for something or other. It's a
bad habit. Practical jokes are very bad things--shockingly bad," said
Mr Wilson, as he put on his fur cap, and wound a thick shawl round his
throat, preparatory to leaving the room.
As Mr Wilson gave utterance to this opinion, he passed Harry
Somerville, who was still staring at the fire in deep mental
abstraction, and, as he did so, gave his tilted chair a very slight push
backwards with his finger--an action which caused Harry to toss up his
legs, grasp convulsively with both hands at empty air, and fall with a
loud noise and an angry yell to the ground, while his persecutor
vanished from the scene.
"O you outrageous villain!" cried Harry, shaking his fist at the door,
as he slowly gathered himself up: "I might have expected that."
"Quite so," said the doctor; "you might. It was very neatly done,
undoubtedly. Wilson deserves credit for the way in which it was
executed."
"He deserves to be executed for doing it at all," replied Harry, rubbing
his elbow as he resumed his seat.
"Any bark knocked off?" inquired the accountant, as he took a piece of
glowing charcoal from the stove wherewith to light his pipe. "Try a
whiff, Harry. It's good for such things. Bruises, sores, contusions,
sprains, rheumatic affections of the back and loins, carbuncles, and
earache--there's nothing that smoking won't cure; eh, doctor?"
"Certainly. If applied inwardly, there's nothing so good for digestion
when one doesn't require tonics.--Try it, Harry; it will do you good, I
assure you."
"No, thank you," replied Harry; "I'll leave that to you and the chimney.
I don't wish to make a soot-bag of my mouth. But tell me, doctor, what
do you mean to do with that lump of snow there?"
Harry pointed to a mass of snow, of about two feet square, which lay on
the floor beside the door. It had been placed there by the doctor some
time previously.
"Do with it? Have patience, my friend, and you shall see. It is a
little surprise I have in store for Hamilton."
As he spoke, the door opened, and a short, square-built man rushed into
the room, with a pistol in one hand and a bright little bullet in the
other.
"Hullo, skipper!" cried Harry, "what's the row?"
"All right," cried the skipper; "here it is at last, solid as the fluke
of an anchor. Toss me the powder-flask, Harry; look sharp, else it'll
melt."
A powder-flask was immediately produced, from which the skipper hastily
charged the pistol, and rammed down the shining bullet.
"Now then," said he, "look out for squalls. Clear the decks there."
And rushing to the door, he flung it open, took a steady aim at
something outside, and fired.
"Is the man mad?" said the accountant, as with a look of amazement he
beheld the skipper spring through the doorway, and immediately return,
bearing in his arms a large piece of fir plank.
"Not quite mad yet," he said, in reply, "but I've sent a ball of
quicksilver through an inch plank, and that's not a thing to be done
every day--even _here_, although it _is_ cold enough sometimes to freeze
up one's very ideas."
"Dear me," interrupted Harry Somerville, looking as if a new thought had
struck him, "that must be it! I've no doubt that poor Hamilton's ideas
are _frozen_, which accounts for the total absence of any indication of
his possessing such things."
"I observed," continued the skipper, not noticing the interruption,
"that the glass was down at 45 degrees below zero this morning, and put
out a bullet-mould full of mercury, and you see the result." As he
spoke he held up the perforated plank in triumph.
The skipper was a strange mixture of qualities. To a wild, offhand,
sailor-like hilarity of disposition in hours of leisure, he united a
grave, stern energy of character while employed in the performance of
his duties. Duty was always paramount with him. A smile could scarcely
be extracted from him while it was in the course of performance. But
the instant his work was done a new spirit seemed to take possession of
the man. Fun, mischief of any kind, no matter how childish, he entered
into with the greatest delight and enthusiasm. Among other
peculiarities, he had become deeply imbued with a thirst for scientific
knowledge, ever since he had acquired, with infinite labour, the small
modicum of science necessary to navigation; and his doings in pursuit of
statistical information relative to the weather, and the phenomena of
nature generally, were very peculiar, and in some cases outrageous. His
transaction with the quicksilver was in consequence of an eager desire
to see that metal frozen (an effect which takes place when the
spirit-of-wine thermometer falls to 39 degrees below zero of
Fahrenheit), and a wish to be able to boast of having actually fired a
mercurial bullet through an inch plank. Having made a careful note of
the fact, with all the relative circumstances attending it, in a very
much blotted book, which he denominated his scientific log, the worthy
skipper threw off his coat, drew a chair to the stove, and prepared to
regale himself with a pipe. As he glanced slowly round the room while
thus engaged, his eye fell on the mass of snow before alluded to. On
being informed by the doctor for what it was intended, he laid down his
pipe and rose hastily from his chair.
"You've not a moment to lose," said he. "As I came in at the gate just
now, I saw Hamilton coming down the river on the ice, and he must be
almost arrived now."
"Up with it then," cried the doctor, seizing the snow, and lifting it to
the top of the door. "Hand me those bits of stick, Harry; quick, man,
stir your stumps.--Now then, skipper, fix them in so, while I hold this
up."
The skipper lent willing and effective aid, so that in a few minutes the
snow was placed in such a position that upon the opening of the door it
must inevitably fall on the head of the first person who should enter
the room.
"So," said the skipper; "that's rigged up in what I call a ship-shape
fashion."
"True," remarked the doctor, eyeing the arrangement with a look of
approval; "it will do, I think, admirably."
"Don't you think, skipper," said Harry Somerville gravely, as he resumed
his seat in front of the fire, "that it would be worth while to make a
careful and minute entry in your private log of the manner in which it
was put up, to be afterwards followed by an account of its effect? You
might write an essay on it now, and call it the extraordinary effects of
a fall of snow in latitude so and so, eh? What think you of it?"
The skipper vouchsafed no reply, but made a significant gesture with his
fist, which caused Harry to put himself in a posture of defence.
At this moment footsteps were heard on the wooden platform in front of
the building.
Instantly all became silence and expectation in the hall as the result
of the practical joke was about to be realised. Just then another step
was heard on the platform, and it became evident that two persons were
approaching the door.
"Hope it'll be the right man," said the skipper, with a look savouring
slightly of anxiety.
As he spoke the door opened, and a foot crossed the threshold; the next
instant the miniature avalanche descended on the head and shoulders of a
man, who reeled forward from the weight of the blow, and, covered from
head to foot with snow, fell to the ground amid shouts of laughter.
With a convulsive stamp and shake, the prostrate figure sprang up and
confronted the party. Had the cast-iron stove suddenly burst into atoms
and blown the roof off the house, it could scarcely have created greater
consternation than that which filled the merry jesters when they beheld
the visage of Mr Rogan, the superintendent of the fort, red with
passion and fringed with snow.
"So," said he, stamping violently with his foot, partly from anger, and
partly with the view of shaking off the unexpected covering, which stuck
all over his dress in little patches, producing a somewhat piebald
effect,--"so you are pleased to jest, gentlemen. Pray, who placed that
piece of snow over the door?" Mr Rogan glared fiercely round upon the
culprits, who stood speechless before him.
For a moment he stood silent, as if uncertain how to act; then turning
short on his heel, he strode quickly out of the room, nearly overturning
Mr Hamilton, who at the same instant entered it, carrying his gun and
snow-shoes under his arm.
"Dear me, what has happened?" he exclaimed, in a peculiarly gentle tone
of voice, at the same time regarding the snow and the horror-stricken
circle with a look of intense surprise.
"You _see_ what has happened," replied Harry Somerville, who was the
first to recover his composure; "I presume you intended to ask, `What
has _caused_ it to happen?' Perhaps the skipper will explain; it's
beyond me, quite."