Once Macavoy the giant ruled a tribe of Northern people, achieving the
dignity by the hands of Pierre, who called him King Macavoy. Then came
a time when, tiring of his kingship, he journeyed south, leaving all
behind, even his queen, Wonta, who, in her bed of cypresses and yarrow,
came forth no more into the morning. About Fort Guidon they still
gave him his title, and because of his guilelessness, sincerity, and
generosity, Pierre called him “The Simple King.” His seven feet and over
shambled about, suggesting unjointed power, unshackled force. No one
hated Macavoy, many loved him, he was welcome at the fire and the
cooking-pot; yet it seemed shameful to have so much man useless--such
an engine of life, which might do great things, wasting fuel. Nobody
thought much of that at Fort Guidon, except, perhaps, Pierre, who
sometimes said, “My simple king, some day you shall have your great
chance again; but not as a king--as a giant, a man--voila!”
The day did not come immediately, but it came. When Ida, the deaf and
dumb girl, married Hilton, of the H.B.C., every man at Fort Guidon, and
some from posts beyond, sent her or brought her presents of one kind or
another. Pierre’s gift was a Mexican saddle. He was branding Ida’s name
on it with the broken blade of a case-knife when Macavoy entered on him,
having just returned from a vagabond visit to Fort Ste. Anne.
“Is it digging out or carvin’ in y’are?” he asked, puffing into his
beard.
Pierre looked up contemptuously, but did not reply to the insinuation,
for he never saw an insult unless he intended to avenge it; and he would
not quarrel with Macavoy.
“What are you going to give?” he asked.
“Aw, give what to who, hop-o’-me-thumb?” Macavoy said, stretching
himself out in the doorway, his legs in the sun, head in the shade.
“You’ve been taking a walk in the country, then?” Pierre asked, though
he knew.
“To Fort Ste. Anne: a buryin’, two christ’nin’s, an’ a weddin’; an’
lashin’s av grog an’ swill-aw that, me button o’ the North!”
“La la! What a fool you are, my simple king! You’ve got the things end
foremost. Turn your head to the open air, for I go to light a cigarette,
and if you breathe this way, there will be a grand explode.”
“Aw, yer thumb in yer eye, Pierre! It’s like a baby’s, me breath is,
milk and honey it is--aw yis; an’ Father Corraine, that was doin’ the
trick for the love o’ God, says he to me, ‘Little Tim Macavoy,’--aw yis,
little Tim Macavoy,--says he, ‘when are you goin’ to buckle to, for
the love o’ God?’ says he. Ashamed I was, Pierre, that Father Corraine
should spake to me like that, for I’d only a twig twisted at me hips to
kape me trousies up, an’ I thought ‘twas that he had in his eye! ‘Buckle
to,’ says I, ‘Father Corraine? Buckle to, yer riv’rince?’--feelin’ I
was at the twigs the while. ‘Ay, little Tim Macavoy,’ he says, says he,
‘you’ve bin ‘atin’ the husks av idleness long enough; when are you goin’
to buckle to? You had a kingdom and ye guv it up,’ says he; ‘take
a field, get a plough, and buckle to,’ says he, ‘an’ turn back no
more’--like that, says Father Corraine; and I thinkin’ all the time
‘twas the want o’ me belt he was drivin’ at.”
Pierre looked at him a moment idly, then said: “Such a tom-fool! And
where’s that grand leather belt of yours, eh, my monarch?”
A laugh shook through Macavoy’s beard. “For the weddin’ it wint: buckled
the two up wid it for better or worse--an’ purty they looked, they did,
standin’ there in me cinch, an’ one hole left--aw yis, Pierre.”
“And what do you give to Ida?” Pierre asked, with a little emphasis of
the branding-iron.
Macavoy got to his feet. “Ida! Ida!” said he. “Is that saddle for Ida?
Is it her and Hilton that’s to ate aff one dish togither? That rose o’
the valley, that bird wid a song in her face and none an her tongue.
That daisy dot av a thing, steppin’ through the world like a sprig o’
glory. Aw, Pierre, thim two!--an’ I’ve divil a scrap to give, good or
bad. I’ve nothin’ at all in the wide wurruld but the clothes an me
back, an’ thim hangin’ on the underbrush!”--giving a little twist to the
twigs. “An’ many a meal an’ many a dipper o’ drink she’s guv me, little
smiles dancin’ at her lips.”
He sat down in the doorway again, with his face turned towards Pierre,
and the back of his head in the sun. He was a picture of perfect health,
sumptuous, huge, a bull in beauty, the heart of a child looking out of
his eyes, but a sort of despair, too, in his bearing.
Pierre watched him with a furtive humour for a time, then he said
languidly: “Never mind your clothes, give yourself.”
“Yer tongue in yer cheek, me spot o’ vinegar. Give meself! What’s that
for? A purty weddin’ gift, says I? Handy thing to have in the house! Use
me for a clothes-horse, or shtand me in the garden for a fairy bower-aw
yis, wid a hole in me face that’d ate thim out o’ house and home!”
Pierre drew a piece of brown paper towards him, and wrote on it with a
burnt match. Presently he held it up. “Voila, my simple king, the thing
for you to do: a grand gift, and to cost you nothing now. Come, read it
out, and tell me what you think.”
Macavoy took the paper, and in a large, judicial way, read slowly:
“On demand, for value received, I promise to pay to... IDA HILTON... or
order, meself, Tim Macavoy, standin’ seven foot three on me bare fut,
wid interest at nothin’ at all.”
Macavoy ended with a loud smack of the lips. “McGuire!” he said, and
nothing more.
McGuire was his strongest expression. In the most important moments
of his career he had said it, and it sounded deep, strange, and more
powerful than many usual oaths. A moment later he said again “McGuire!”
Then he read the paper once more out loud. “What’s that, me Frinchman?”
he asked. “What Ballzeboob’s tricks are y’at now?”
Pierre was complacently eyeing his handiwork on the saddle. He now
settled back with his shoulders to the wall, and said: “See, then, it’s
a little promissory note for a wedding-gift to Ida. When she says some
day, ‘Tim Macavoy, I want you to do this or that, or to go here or
there, or to sell you or trade you, or use you for a clothes-horse, or a
bridge over a canyon, or to hold up a house, or blow out a prairie-fire,
or be my second husband,’ you shall say, ‘Here I am’; and you shall
travel from Heaven to Halifax, but you shall come at the call of this
promissory.”
Pierre’s teeth glistened behind a smile as he spoke, and Macavoy broke
into a roar of laughter. “Black’s the white o’ yer eye,” he said at
last, “an’ a joke’s a joke. Seven fut three I am, an’ sound av wind an’
limb--an’ a weddin’-gift to that swate rose o’ the valley! Aisy, aisy,
Pierre. A bit o’ foolin’ ‘twas ye put on the paper, but truth I’ll make
it, me cock o’ the walk. That’s me gift to her an’ Hilton, an’ no other.
An’ a dab wid red wax it shall have, an’ what more be the word o’ Freddy
Tarlton the lawyer?”
“You’re a great man,” said Pierre with a touch of gentle irony, for his
natural malice had no play against the huge ex-king of his own making.
With these big creatures--he had connived with several in his time--he
had ever been superior, protective, making them to feel that they were
as children beside him. He looked at Macavoy musingly, and said to
himself: “Well, why not? If it is a joke, then it is a joke; if it is a
thing to make the world stand still for a minute sometime, so much the
better. He is all waste now. By the holy, he shall do it. It is amusing,
and it may be great by and by.”
Presently Pierre said aloud: “Well, my Macavoy, what will you do? Send
this good gift?”
“Aw yis, Pierre; I shtand by that from the crown av me head to the sole
av me fut sure. Face like a mornin’ in May, and hands like the tunes of
an organ, she has. Spakes wid a look av her eye and a twist av her
purty lips an’ swaying body, an’ talkin’ to you widout a word. Aw
motion--motion--motion; yis, that’s it. An’ I’ve seen her an tap av
a hill wid the wind blowin’ her hair free, and the yellow buds on the
tree, and the grass green beneath her feet, the world smilin’ betune her
and the sun: pictures--pictures, aw yis! Promissory notice on demand is
it anny toime? Seven fut three on me bare toes--but Father o’ Sin! when
she calls I come, yis.”
“On your oath, Macavoy?” asked Pierre; “by the book av the Mass?”
Macavoy stood up straight till his head scraped the cobwebs between the
rafters, the wild indignation of a child in his eye. “D’ye think I’m a
thafe to stale me own word? Hut! I’ll break ye in two, ye wisp o’ straw,
if ye doubt me word to a lady. There’s me note av hand, and ye shall
have me fist on it, in writin’, at Freddy Tarlton’s office, wid a blotch
av red an’ the Queen’s head at the bottom. McGuire!” he said again, and
paused, puffing his lips through his beard.
Pierre looked at him a moment, then waving his fingers idly, said,
“So, my straw-breaker! Then tomorrow morning at ten you will fetch your
wedding-gift. But come so soon now to M’sieu’ Tarlton’s office, and
we will have it all as you say, with the red seal and the turn of your
fist--yes. Well, well, we travel far in the world, and sometimes we see
strange things, and no two strange things are alike--no; there is only
one Macavoy in the world, there was only one Shon McGann. Shon McGann
was a fine fool, but he did something at last, truly yes: Tim Macavoy,
perhaps, will do something at last on his own hook. Hey, I wonder!” He
felt the muscles of Macavoy’s arm musingly, and then laughed up in the
giant’s face. “Once I made you a king, my own, and you threw it all
away; now I make you a slave, and we shall see what you will do. Come
along, for M’sieu’ Tarlton.”
Macavoy dropped a heavy hand on Pierre’s shoulder. “‘Tis hard to be a
king, Pierre, but ‘tis aisy to be a slave for the likes o’ her. I’d kiss
her dirty shoe sure!”
As they passed through the door, Pierre said, “Dis done, perhaps, when
all is done, she will sell you for old bones and rags. Then I will buy
you, and I will burn your bones and the rags, and I will scatter to the
four winds of the earth the ashes of a king, a slave, a fool, and an
Irishman--truly!”
“Bedad, ye’ll have more earth in yer hands then, Pierre, than ye’ll ever
earn, and more heaven than ye’ll ever shtand in.”
Half an hour later they were in Freddy Tarlton’s office on the banks of
the Little Big Swan, which tumbled past, swelled by the first rain of
the early autumn. Freddy Tarlton, who had a gift of humour, entered into
the spirit of the thing, and treated it seriously; but in vain did
he protest that the large red seal with Her Majesty’s head on it was
unnecessary; Macavoy insisted, and wrote his name across it with a large
indistinctness worthy of a king. Before the night was over everybody at
Guidon Hill, save Hilton and Ida, knew what gift would come from Macavoy
to the wedded pair.