FATHER HOLLAND AND I IN THE TOILS
Behind the lantern was a face with terrified eyes and gaping mouth. It
was the priest, his genial countenance a very picture of fear.
"What's wrong, Father?" I asked. "You needn't be alarmed; you're all
right."
"But I am alarmed, for you're all wrong! Lord, boy, why didn't ye stay
with that peppery Scotchman? What did Frances mane by lettin' you out
to-night?" and he shaded the light of the lantern with his hand.
"I wanted these things," I explained.
"Ye want a broad thumpin', I'm thinkin', ye rattle-pate, to risk y'r
precious noodle here to-night," he whispered, coming forward and fussing
about me with all the maternal anxiety of a hen over her only chicken.
"Listen," said I. "The whole mob's coming in."
"Go!" he urged, pushing me from the desk over which I still fumbled.
"Run for those dogs of mercenaries!" I protested.
"Ye swash-buckler! Ye stiff-necked braggart!" bawled the priest. "Out
wid y'r nonsense, and what good are y' thinkin' ye'll do--? Stir your
stumps, y' stoopid spalpeen!"
"Listen," I urged, undisturbed by the tongue-thrashing that stormed
about my ears. In the babel of voices I thought I had heard some one
call my name.
"Run, Rufus! Run for y'r life, boy!" urged Father Holland, apparently
thinking the ruffians had come solely for me.
"Run yourself, Father; run yourself, and see how you like it," and I
tucked the documents inside my coat.
"Divil a bit I'll run," returned the priest.
"Hark!"
The De Meurons' leaders were shouting orders to their men. Above the
screams of people fleeing in terror through passage-ways, came a shrill
bugle-call.
"Go--go--go--Rufus!" begged Father Holland in a paroxysm of fear. "Go!"
he pleaded, pushing me towards the door.
"I won't!" and I jerked away from him. "There, now." I caught up a club
and loaded pistol.
The Nor'-Westers had no time to defend themselves. Almost before my
stubborn defiance was uttered, the building was filled with a mob of
intoxicated De Meurons. Rushing everywhere with fixed bayonets and
cursing at the top of their voices, they threatened death to all
Nor'-Westers. There was a loud scuffling of men forcing their way
through the defended hall downstairs.
"Go, Rufus, go! Think of Frances! Save yourself," urged the priest.
It was too late. I could not escape by the hall. Noisy feet were already
trampling up the stairs and the clank of armed men filled every passage.
"Jee-les-pee! Jee-les-pee! Seven Oaks!" bawled a French voice from the
half-way landing, and a multitude of men with torches dashed up the
stairs. I took a stand to defend myself; for I thought I might be
charged with implication in the massacre.
"Jee-les-pee," roared the voices. "Where is Gillespie?" thundered a
leader.
"That's you, Rufus, lad! Down with you!" muttered the priest. Before I
knew his purpose, he had tripped my feet from under me and knocked me
flat on the floor. Overturning the empty coffin-box, he clapped it above
my whole length, imprisoning me with the snap and celerity of a
mouse-trap. Then I heard the thud of two hundred avoirdupois seating
itself on top of the case. The man above my person had whisked out a
book of prayers, and with lantern on the desk was conning over
devotions, which, I am sure, must have been read with the manual upside
down; for bits of the _pater noster_, service of the mass, and vesper
psalms were uttered in a disconnected jumble, though I could not but
apply the words to my own case.
"_Libera nos a malo--ora pro nobis, peccatoribus--ab hoste maligno
defende me--ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me--peccator videbit et
irascetur--desiderium peccatorum peribit_----" came from the priest with
torrent speed.
"Jee-les-pee! Jee-les-pee!" roared a dozen throats above the half-way
landing. Then came the stamp of many feet to the door.
"Wait, men!" Hamilton's voice commanded. "I'll see if he's here!"
"_Simulacra gentium argentum et aurum, opera manuum hominum_," like
hailstones rattled the Latin words down on my prison.
"One moment, men," came Eric's voice; but he could not hold them back.
In burst the door with a rush, and immediately the room was crowded with
vociferating French soldiers.
"_Manus habent, et non palpabunt; pedes_----"
"Is Gillespie here?" interrupted Hamilton, without the slightest
recognition of the priest in his tones.
"_Pedes habent et non ambulabunt; non clamabunt in gutture suo_,"
muttered the priest, finishing his verse; then to the men with a
stiffness which I did not think Father Holland could ever assume--
"How often must I be disturbed by men seeking that young scoundrel? Look
at this place, fairly topsy-turvy with their hunt! Faith! The room is
before you. Look and see!" and with a great indifference he went on with
his devotions.
"_Similes illis fiant qui faciunt ea_----"
"Some one here before us?" interrupted an Englishman with some
suspicion.
"Two parties here before ye," answered the priest, icily, as if these
repeated questions rumpled ecclesiastical dignity, and he gabbled on
with the psalm, "_similes illis fiant qui faciunt ea, et omnes_----"
"If we lifted that box," interrupted the persistent Englishman, "what
might there be?"
"If ye lift that box," answered Father Holland with massive
solemnity--and I confess every hair on my body bristled as he rose--"If
ye lift that box there might be a powr--dead--body," which was very
true; for I still held the cocked pistol in hand and would have shot the
first man daring to molest me.
But the priest's indifference was not so great as it appeared. I could
tell from a tremor in his voice that he was greatly disturbed; and he
certainly lost his place altogether in the vesper psalm.
"_Requiescat in pace_," were his next words, uttered in funereal
gravity. Singularly enough, they seemed to fit the situation.
Father Holland's prompt offer to have the rough box examined satisfied
the searchers, and there were no further demands.
"Oh," said the Englishman, taken aback, "I beg your pardon, sir! No
offence meant."
"No offence," replied the priest, reseating himself. "_Benedicite_----"
"Sittin' on the coffin!" blurted out the voice of an English youth as
the weight of the priest again came down heavily on my prison; and again
I breathed easily.
"Come on, men!" shouted Hamilton, apprehensive of more curiosity. "We're
wasting time! He may be escaping by the basement window!"
"_Jam hiems transiit, imber abiit et recessit; surge, amica mea, et
veni!_" droned the priest, and the whole company clattered downstairs.
"Quick!--Out with you!" commanded Father Holland. "Speed to y'r heels,
and blessing on the last o' ye!"
I dashed down the stairs and was bolting through the doorway when some
one shouted, "There he is!"
"Run, Gillespie!" cried some one else--one of our men, I suppose--and I
had plunged into the storm and raced for the ladders at the rear
stockades with a pack of pursuers at my heels. The snow drifts were in
my favor, for with my moccasins, I leaped lightly forward, while the
booted soldiers floundered deep. I eluded my pursuers and was half-way
up a ladder when a soldier's head suddenly appeared above the wall on
the other side. Then a bayonet prodded me in the chest and I fell
heavily backwards to the ground.
* * * * *
I was captured.
That is all there is to say. No man dilates with pleasure over that part
of his life when he was vanquished. It is not pleasant to have weapons
of defence wrested from one's hands, to feel soldiers standing upon
one's wrists and rifling pockets.
It is hard to feel every inch the man on the horizontal.
In truth, when the soldiers picked me up without ceremony, or
gentleness, and bundling me up the stairs of the main hall, flung me
into a miserable pen, with windows iron-barred to mid-sash, I was but a
sorry hero. My tormentors did not shackle me; I was spared that
humiliation.
"There!" exclaimed a Hudson's Bay man, throwing lantern-light across the
dismal low roof as I fell sprawling into the room. "That'll cool the
young hot-head," and all the French soldiers laughed at my discomfiture.
They chained and locked the door on the outside. I heard the soldiers'
steps reverberating through the empty passages, and was alone in a sort
of prison-room, used during the régime of the petty tyrant McDonell. It
was cold enough to cool any hot-head, and mine was very hot indeed. I
knew the apartment well. Nor'-Westers had used it as a fur storeroom.
The wind came through the crevices of the board walls and piled
miniature drifts on the floor-cracks, all the while rattling loose
timbers like a saw-mill. The roof was but a few feet high, and I crept
to the window, finding all the small panes coated with two inches of
hoar-frost. Whether the iron bars outside ran across, or up and down, I
could not remember; but the fact would make a difference to a man
trying to escape. Much as I disliked to break the glass letting in more
cold, there was only one way of finding out about those bars. I raised
my foot for an outward kick, but remembering I wore only the moccasins
with which I had been snowshoeing, I struck my fist through instead, and
shattered the whole upper half of the window. I broke away cross-pieces
that might obstruct outward passage, and leaning down put my hand on the
sharp points of upright spikes. So intense was the frost, the skin of my
finger tips stuck to the iron, and I drew my hand in, with the sting of
a fresh burn.
It was unfortunate about those bars. I could not possibly get past them
down to the ground without making a ladder from my great-coat. I groped
round the room hoping that some of the canvas in which we tied the
peltries, might be lying about. There was nothing of the sort, or I
missed it in the dark. Quickly tearing my coat into strips, I knotted
triple plies together and fastened the upper end to the crosspiece of
the lower window. Feet first, I poked myself out, caught the strands
with both hands, and like a flash struck ground below with badly skinned
palms. That reminded me I had left my mits in the prison room.
The storm had driven the soldiers inside. I did not encounter a soul in
the courtyard, and had no difficulty in letting myself out by the main
gate.
I whistled for the dogs. They came huddling from the ladders where I
had left them, the sleigh still trailing at their heels. One poor animal
was so benumbed I cut him from the traces and left him to die. Gathering
up the robes, I shook them free of snow, replaced them in the sleigh and
led the string of dogs down to the river. It would be bitterly cold
facing that sweep of unbroken wind in mid-river; but the trail over ice
would permit greater speed, and with the high banks on each side the
dogs could not go astray.
To an overruling Providence, and to the instincts of the dogs, I owe my
life. The creatures had not gone ten sleigh-lengths when I felt the loss
of my coat, and giving one final shout to them, I lay back on the sleigh
and covered myself, head and all, under the robes, trusting the huskies
to find their way home.
I do not like to recall that return to the Sutherlands. The man, who is
frozen to death, knows nothing of the cruelties of northern cold. The
icy hand, that takes his life, does not torture, but deadens the victim
into an everlasting, easy, painless sleep. This I know, for I felt the
deadly frost-slumber, and fought against it. Aching hands and feet
stopped paining and became utterly feelingless; and the deadening thing
began creeping inch by inch up the stiffening limbs the life centres,
till a great drowsiness began to overpower body and mind. Realizing what
this meant, I sprang from the sleigh and stopped the dogs. I tried to
grip the empty traces of the dead one, but my hands were too feeble; so
I twisted the rope round my arm, gave the word, and raced off abreast
the dog train. The creatures went faster with lightened sleigh, but
every step I took was a knife-thrust through half-frozen awakening
limbs. Not the man who is frozen to death, but the man who is
half-frozen and thawed back to life, knows the cruelties of northern
cold.
In a stupefied way, I was aware the dogs had taken a sudden turn to the
left and were scrambling up the bank. Here my strength failed or I
tripped; for I only remember being dragged through the snow, rolling
over and over, to a doorway, where the huskies stopped and set up a
great whining. Somehow, I floundered to my feet. With a blaze of light
that blinded me, the door flew open and I fell across the threshold
unconscious.
* * * * *
Need I say what door opened, what hands drew me in and chafed life into
the benumbed being?
"What was the matter, Rufus Gillespie?" asked a bluff voice the next
morning. I had awakened from what seemed a long, troubled sleep and
vaguely wondered where I was.
"What happened to ye, Rufus Gillespie?" and the man's hand took hold of
my wrist to feel my pulse.
"Don't, father! you'll hurt him!" said a voice that was music to my
ears, and a woman's hand, whose touch was healing, began bathing my
blistered palms.
At once I knew where I was and forgot pain. In few and confused words I
tried to relate what had happened.
"The country's yours, Mr. Sutherland," said I, too weak, thick-tongued
and deliriously happy for speech.
"Much to be thankful for," was the Scotchman's comment. "Seven Oaks is
avenged. It would ill 'a' become a Sutherland to give his daughter's
hand to a conqueror, but I would na' say I'd refuse a wife to a man
beaten as you were, Rufus Gillespie," and he strode off to attend to
outdoor work.
And what next took place, I refrain from relating; for lovers' eloquence
is only eloquent to lovers.