I
He entered the backwoods village of Bytown literally on the wings of the
wind. It whirled him along like a big snowflake, and dropped him at the
door of Moody's “Sportsmen's Retreat,” as if he were a New Year's gift
from the North Pole. His coming seemed a mere chance; but perhaps there
was something more in it, after all. At all events, you shall hear, if
you will, the time and the manner of his arrival.
It was the last night of December, some thirty-five years ago. All the
city sportsmen who had hunted the deer under Bill Moody's direction had
long since retreated to their homes, leaving the little settlement
on the border of the Adirondack wilderness wholly under the social
direction of the natives.
The annual ball was in full swing in the dining-room of the hotel. At
one side of the room the tables and chairs were piled up, with their
legs projecting in the air like a thicket of very dead trees.
The huge stove in the southeast corner was blushing a rosy red through
its thin coat of whitewash, and exhaling a furious dry heat flavoured
with the smell of baked iron. At the north end, however, winter reigned;
and there were tiny ridges of fine snow on the floor, sifted in by the
wind through the cracks in the window-frames.
But the bouncing girls and the heavy-footed guides and lumbermen who
filled the ball-room did not appear to mind the heat or the cold. They
balanced and “sashayed” from the tropics to the arctic circle. They
swung at corners and made “ladies' change” all through the temperate
zone. They stamped their feet and did double-shuffles until the floor
trembled beneath them. The tin lamp-reflectors on the walls rattled like
castanets.
There was only one drawback to the hilarity of the occasion. The
band, which was usually imported from Sandy River Forks for such
festivities,--a fiddle, a cornet, a flute, and an accordion,--had not
arrived. There was a general idea that the mail-sleigh, in which the
musicians were to travel, had been delayed by the storm, and might
break its way through the snow-drifts and arrive at any moment. But Bill
Moody, who was naturally of a pessimistic temperament, had offered a
different explanation.
“I tell ye, old Baker's got that blame' band down to his hotel at
the Falls now, makin' 'em play fer his party. Them music fellers is
onsartin; can't trust 'em to keep anythin' 'cept the toon, and they
don't alluz keep that. Guess we might uz well shet up this ball, or go
to work playin' games.”
At this proposal a thick gloom had fallen over the assembly; but it
had been dispersed by Serena Moody's cheerful offer to have the small
melodion brought out of the parlour, and to play for dancing as well as
she could. The company agreed that she was a smart girl, and prepared to
accept her performance with enthusiasm. As the dance went on, there were
frequent comments of approval to encourage her in the labour of love.
“Sereny's doin' splendid, ain't she?” said the other girls.
To which the men replied, “You bet! The playin' 's reel nice, and good
'nough fer anybody--outside o' city folks.”
But Serena's repertory was weak, though her spirit was willing. There
was an unspoken sentiment among the men that “The Sweet By and By” was
not quite the best tune in the world for a quadrille. A Sunday-school
hymn, no matter how rapidly it was rendered, seemed to fall short of
the necessary vivacity for a polka. Besides, the wheezy little organ
positively refused to go faster than a certain gait. Hose Ransom
expressed the popular opinion of the instrument, after a figure in which
he and his partner had been half a bar ahead of the music from start to
finish, when he said:
“By Jolly! that old maloney may be chock full o' relijun and po'try; but
it ain't got no DANCE into it, no more 'n a saw-mill.”
This was the situation of affairs inside of Moody's tavern on New Year's
Eve. But outside of the house the snow lay two feet deep on the level,
and shoulder-high in the drifts. The sky was at last swept clean of
clouds. The shivering stars and the shrunken moon looked infinitely
remote in the black vault of heaven. The frozen lake, on which the ice
was three feet thick and solid as rock, was like a vast, smooth bed,
covered with a white counterpane. The cruel wind still poured out of the
northwest, driving the dry snow along with it like a mist of powdered
diamonds.
Enveloped in this dazzling, pungent atmosphere, half blinded and
bewildered by it, buffeted and yet supported by the onrushing torrent
of air, a man on snow-shoes, with a light pack on his shoulders, emerged
from the shelter of the Three Sisters' Islands, and staggered straight
on, down the lake. He passed the headland of the bay where Moody's
tavern is ensconced, and probably would have drifted on beyond it, to
the marsh at the lower end of the lake, but for the yellow glare of the
ball-room windows and the sound of music and dancing which came out to
him suddenly through a lull in the wind.
He turned to the right, climbed over the low wall of broken ice-blocks
that bordered the lake, and pushed up the gentle slope to the open
passageway by which the two parts of the rambling house were joined
together. Crossing the porch with the last remnant of his strength, he
lifted his hand to knock, and fell heavily against the side door.
The noise, heard through the confusion within, awakened curiosity and
conjecture.
Just as when a letter comes to a forest cabin, it is turned over and
over, and many guesses are made as to the handwriting and the authorship
before it occurs to any one to open it and see who sent it, so was this
rude knocking at the gate the occasion of argument among the rustic
revellers as to what it might portend. Some thought it was the arrival
of the belated band. Others supposed the sound betokened a descent of
the Corey clan from the Upper Lake, or a change of heart on the part of
old Dan Dunning, who had refused to attend the ball because they would
not allow him to call out the figures. The guesses were various; but
no one thought of the possible arrival of a stranger at such an hour
on such a night, until Serena suggested that it would be a good plan
to open the door. Then the unbidden guest was discovered lying benumbed
along the threshold.
There was no want of knowledge as to what should be done with a
half-frozen man, and no lack of ready hands to do it. They carried him
not to the warm stove, but into the semi-arctic region of the parlour.
They rubbed his face and his hands vigorously with snow. They gave him
a drink of hot tea flavoured with whiskey--or perhaps it was a drink of
whiskey with a little hot tea in it--and then, as his senses began to
return to him, they rolled him in a blanket and left him on a sofa to
thaw out gradually, while they went on with the dance.
Naturally, he was the favourite subject of conversation for the next
hour.
“Who is he, anyhow? I never seen 'im before. Where'd he come from?”
asked the girls.
“I dunno,” said Bill Moody; “he didn't say much. Talk seemed all froze
up. Frenchy, 'cordin' to what he did say. Guess he must a come from
Canady, workin' on a lumber job up Raquette River way. Got bounced out
o' the camp, p'raps. All them Frenchies is queer.”
This summary of national character appeared to command general assent.
“Yaas,” said Hose Ransom, “did ye take note how he hung on to that pack
o' his'n all the time? Wouldn't let go on it. Wonder what 't wuz? Seemed
kinder holler 'n light, fer all 'twuz so big an' wropped up in lots o'
coverin's.”
“What's the use of wonderin'?” said one of the younger boys; “find out
later on. Now's the time fer dancin'. Whoop 'er up!”
So the sound of revelry swept on again in full flood. The men and maids
went careering up and down the room. Serena's willing fingers laboured
patiently over the yellow keys of the reluctant melodion. But the
ancient instrument was weakening under the strain; the bellows creaked;
the notes grew more and more asthmatic.
“Hold the Fort” was the tune, “Money Musk” was the dance; and it was a
preposterously bad fit. The figure was tangled up like a fishing-line
after trolling all day without a swivel. The dancers were doing their
best, determined to be happy, as cheerful as possible, but all out of
time. The organ was whirring and gasping and groaning for breath.
Suddenly a new music filled the room.
The right tune--the real old joyful “Money Musk,” played jubilantly,
triumphantly, irresistibly--on a fiddle!
The melodion gave one final gasp of surprise and was dumb.
Every one looked up. There, in the parlour door, stood the stranger,
with his coat off, his violin hugged close under his chin, his right arm
making the bow fly over the strings, his black eyes sparkling, and his
stockinged feet marking time to the tune.
“DANSEZ! DANSEZ,” he cried, “EN AVANT! Don' spik'. Don' res'! Ah'll
goin' play de feedle fo' yo' jess moch yo' lak', eef yo' h'only DANSE!”
The music gushed from the bow like water from the rock when Moses
touched it. Tune followed tune with endless fluency and variety--polkas,
galops, reels, jigs, quadrilles; fragments of airs from many lands--“The
Fisher's Hornpipe,” “Charlie is my Darling,” “Marianne s'en va-t-au
Moulin,” “Petit Jean,” “Jordan is a Hard Road to Trabbel,” woven
together after the strangest fashion and set to the liveliest cadence.
It was a magical performance. No one could withstand it. They all danced
together, like the leaves on the shivering poplars when the wind blows
through them. The gentle Serena was swept away from her stool at the
organ as if she were a little canoe drawn into the rapids, and Bill
Moody stepped high and cut pigeon-wings that had been forgotten for
a generation. It was long after midnight when the dancers paused,
breathless and exhausted.
“Waal,” said Hose Ransom, “that's jess the hightonedest music we ever
had to Bytown. You 're a reel player, Frenchy, that's what you are.
What's your name? Where'd you come from? Where you goin' to? What
brought you here, anyhow?”
“MOI?” said the fiddler, dropping his bow and taking a long breath.
“Mah nem Jacques Tremblay. Ah'll ben come fraum Kebeck. W'ere goin'? Ah
donno. Prob'ly Ah'll stop dis place, eef yo' lak' dat feedle so moch,
hein?”
His hand passed caressingly over the smooth brown wood of the violin. He
drew it up close to his face again, as if he would have kissed it, while
his eyes wandered timidly around the circle of listeners, and rested at
last, with a question in them, on the face of the hotel-keeper. Moody
was fairly warmed, for once, out of his customary temper of mistrust and
indecision. He spoke up promptly.
“You kin stop here jess long's you like. We don' care where you come
from, an' you need n't to go no fu'ther, less you wanter. But we ain't
got no use for French names round here. Guess we 'll call him Fiddlin'
Jack, hey, Sereny? He kin do the chores in the day-time, an' play the
fiddle at night.”
This was the way in which Bytown came to have a lover of music among its
permanent inhabitants.