Hopes and fears—An unexpected meeting—Philosophical talk between the
hunter and the parson.
On arriving at Norway House, Harry Somerville and his friend Hamilton
found that they were to remain at that establishment during an
indefinite period of time, until it should please those in whose hands
their ultimate destination lay to direct them how and where to proceed.
This was an unlooked-for trial of their patience; but after the first
exclamation of disappointment, they made up their minds, like wise men,
to think no more about it, but bide their time, and make the most of
present circumstances.
“You see,” remarked Hamilton, as the two friends, after having had an
audience of the gentleman in charge of the establishment, sauntered
towards the rocks that overhang the margin of Playgreen Lake—“you see,
it is of no use to fret about what we cannot possibly help. Nobody
within three hundred miles of us knows where we are destined to spend
next winter. Perhaps orders may come in a couple of weeks, perhaps in a
couple of months, but they will certainly come at last. Anyhow, it is
of no use thinking about it, so we had better forget it, and make the
best of things as we find them.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Harry, “your advice is, that we should by all means be
happy, and if we can’t be happy, be as happy as we can. Is that it?”
“Just so. That’s it exactly.”
“Ho! But then you see, Hammy, you’re a philosopher and I’m not, and
that makes all the difference. I’m not given to anticipating evil, but
I cannot help dreading that they will send me to some lonely, swampy,
out-of-the-way hole, where there will be no society, no shooting, no
riding, no work even to speak of—nothing, in fact, but the miserable
satisfaction of being styled ‘bourgeois’ by five or six men, wretched
outcasts like myself.”
“Come, Harry,” cried Hamilton; “you are taking the very worst view of
it. There certainly are plenty of such outposts in the country, but you
know very well that young fellows like you are seldom sent to such
places.”
“I don’t know that,” interrupted Harry. “There’s young M’Andrew: he was
sent to an outpost up the Mackenzie his second year in the service,
where he was all but starved, and had to live for about two weeks on
boiled parchment. Then there’s poor Forrester: he was shipped off to a
place—the name of which I never could remember—somewhere between the
head-waters of the Athabasca Lake and the North Pole. To be sure, he
had good shooting, I’m told, but he had only four labouring men to
enjoy it with; and he has been there _ten_ years now, and he has more
than once had to scrape the rocks of that detestable stuff called
_tripe de roche_ to keep himself alive. And then there’s——”
“Very true,” interrupted Hamilton. “Then there’s your friend Charles
Kennedy, whom you so often talk about, and many other young fellows we
know, who have been sent to the Saskatchewan, and to the Columbia, and
to Athabasca, and to a host of other capital places, where they have
enough of society—male society, at least—and good sport.”
The young men had climbed a rocky eminence which commanded a view of
the lake on the one side, and the fort, with its background of woods,
on the other. Here they sat down on a stone, and continued for some
time to admire the scene in silence.
“Yes,” said Harry, resuming the thread of discourse, “you are right: we
have a good chance of seeing some pleasant parts of the country. But
suspense is not pleasant. O man, if they would only send me up the
Saskatchewan River! I’ve set my heart upon going there. I’m quite sure
it’s the very best place in the whole country.”
“You’ve told the truth that time, master,” said a deep voice behind
them.
The young men turned quickly round. Close beside them, and leaning
composedly on a long Indian fowling-piece, stood a tall,
broad-shouldered, sun-burned man, apparently about forty years of age.
He was dressed in the usual leathern hunting-coat, cloth leggings, fur
cap, mittens, and moccasins that constitute the winter garb of a
hunter; and had a grave, firm, but good-humoured expression of
countenance.
“You’ve told the truth that time, master,” he repeated, without moving
from his place. “The Saskatchewan _is_, to my mind, the best place in
the whole country; and havin’ seen a considerable deal o’ places in my
time, I can speak from experience.”
“Indeed, friend,” said Harry, “I’m glad to hear you say so. Come, sit
down beside us, and let’s hear something about it.”
Thus invited, the hunter seated himself on a stone and laid his gun on
the hollow of his left arm.
“First of all, friend,” continued Harry, “do you belong to the fort
here?”
“No,” replied the man, “I’m staying here just now, but I don’t belong
to the place.”
“Where do you come from then, and what’s your name?”
“Why, I’ve comed d’rect from the Saskatchewan with a packet o’ letters.
I’m payin’ a visit to the missionary village yonder”—the hunter pointed
as he spoke across the lake—“and when the ice breaks up I shall get a
canoe and return again.”
“And your name?”
“Why, I’ve got four or five names. Somehow or other people have given
me a nickname wherever I ha’ chanced to go. But my true name, and the
one I hail by just now, is Jacques Caradoc.”
“Jacques Caradoc!” exclaimed Harry, starting with surprise. “You knew a
Charley Kennedy in the Saskatchewan, did you?”
“That did I. As fine a lad as ever pulled a trigger.”
“Give us your hand, friend,” exclaimed Harry, springing forward, and
seizing the hunter’s large, hard fist in both hands. “Why, man, Charley
is my dearest friend, and I had a letter from him some time ago in
which he speaks of you, and says you’re one of the best fellows he ever
met.”
“You don’t say so,” replied the hunter, returning Harry’s grasp warmly,
while his eyes sparkled with pleasure, and a quiet smile played at the
corner of his mouth.
“Yes I do,” said Harry; “and I’m very nearly as glad to meet with you,
friend Jacques, as I would be to meet with him. But come; it’s cold
work talking here. Let’s go to my room; there’s a fire in the
stove.—Come along, Hammy;” and taking his new friend by the arm, he
hurried him along to his quarters in the fort.
Just as they were passing under the fort gate, a large mass of snow
became detached from a housetop and fell heavily at their feet, passing
within an inch of Hamilton’s nose. The young man started back with an
exclamation, and became very red in the face.
“Hollo!” cried Harry, laughing, “got a fright, Hammy! That went so
close to your chin that it almost saved you the trouble of shaving.”
“Yes; I got a little fright from the suddenness of it,” said Hamilton
quietly.
“What do you think of my friend there?” said Harry to Jacques, in a low
voice, pointing to Hamilton, who walked on in advance.
“I’ve not seen much of him, master,” replied the hunter. “Had I been
asked the same question about the same lad twenty years agone, I should
ha’ said he was soft, and perhaps chicken-hearted. But I’ve learned
from experience to judge better than I used to do. I niver thinks o’
forming an opinion o’ anyone till I geen them called to sudden action.
It’s astonishin’ how some faint-hearted men will come to face a danger
and put on an awful look o’ courage if they only get warnin’, but take
them by surprise—that’s the way to try them.”
“Well, Jacques, that is the very reason why I ask your opinion of
Hamilton. He was pretty well taken by surprise that time, I think.”
“True, master; but _that_ kind of start don’t prove much. Hows’ever, I
don’t think he’s easy upset. He does _look_ uncommon soft, and his face
grew red when the snow fell, but his eyebrow and his under lip showed
that it wasn’t from fear.”
During that afternoon and the greater part of that night the three
friends continued in close conversation—Harry sitting in front of the
stove, with his hands in his pockets, on a chair tilted as usual on its
hind legs, and pouring out volleys of questions, which were pithily
answered by the good-humoured, loquacious hunter, who sat behind the
stove, resting his elbows on his knees, and smoking his much-loved
pipe; while Hamilton reclined on Harry’s bed, and listened with eager
avidity to anecdotes and stories, which seemed, like the narrator’s
pipe, to be inexhaustible.
“Good-night, Jacques, good-night,” said Harry, as the latter rose at
last to depart; “I’m delighted to have had a talk with you. You must
come back to-morrow. I want to hear more about your friend Redfeather.
Where did you say you left him?”
“In the Saskatchewan, master. He said that he would wait there, as he’d
heerd the missionary was comin’ up to pay the Injins a visit.”
“By-the-by, you’re going over to the missionary’s place to-morrow, are
you not?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Ah, then, that’ll do. I’ll go over with you. How far off is it?”
“Three miles or thereabouts.”
“Very good. Call in here as you pass, and my friend Hamilton and I will
accompany you. Good-night.”
Jacques thrust his pipe into his bosom, held out his horny hand, and
giving his young friends a hearty shake, turned and strode from the
room.
On the following day Jacques called according to promise, and the three
friends set off together to visit the Indian village. This missionary
station was under the management of a Wesleyan clergyman, Pastor Conway
by name, an excellent man, of about forty-five years of age, with an
energetic mind and body, a bald head, a mild, expressive countenance,
and a robust constitution. He was admirably qualified for his position,
having a natural aptitude for every sort of work that man is usually
called on to perform. His chief care was for the instruction of the
Indians, whom he had induced to settle around him, in the great and
all-important truths of Christianity. He invented an alphabet, and
taught them to write and read their own language. He commenced the
laborious task of translating the Scriptures into the Cree language;
and being an excellent musician, he instructed his converts to sing in
parts the psalms and Wesleyan hymns, many of which are exceedingly
beautiful. A school was also established and a church built under his
superintendence, so that the natives assembled in an orderly way in a
commodious sanctuary every Sabbath day to worship God; while the
children were instructed, not only in the Scriptures, and made familiar
with the narrative of the humiliation and exaltation of our blessed
Saviour, but were also taught the elementary branches of a secular
education. But good Pastor Conway’s energy did not stop here. Nature
had gifted him with that peculiar genius which is powerfully expressed
in the term “a jack-of-all-trades.” He could turn his hand to anything;
and being, as we have said, an energetic man, he did turn his hand to
almost everything. If anything happened to get broken, the pastor could
either “mend it himself or direct how it was to be done. If a house was
to be built for a new family of red men, who had never handled a saw or
hammer in their lives, and had lived up to that time in tents, the
pastor lent a hand to begin it, drew out the plan (not a very
complicated thing certainly), set them fairly at work, and kept his eye
on it until it was finished. In short, the worthy pastor was everything
to everybody, “that by all means he might gain some.”
Under such management the village flourished as a matter of course,
although it did not increase very rapidly owing to the almost
unconquerable aversion of North American Indians to take up a settled
habitation.
It was to this little hamlet, then, that our three friends directed
their steps. On arriving, they found Pastor Conway in a sort of
workshop, giving directions to an Indian who stood with a
soldering-iron in one hand and a sheet of tin in the other, which he
was about to apply to a curious-looking half-finished machine that bore
some resemblance to a canoe.
“Ah, my friend Jacques!” he exclaimed as the hunter approached him,
“the very man I wished to see. But I beg pardon, gentlemen,-strangers,
I perceive. You are heartily welcome. It is seldom that I have the
pleasure of seeing new friends in my wild dwelling. Pray come with me
to my house.”
Pastor Conway shook hands with Harry and Hamilton with a degree of
warmth that evinced the sincerity of his words. The young men thanked
him and accepted the invitation.
As they turned to quit the workshop, the pastor observed Jacques’s eye
fixed with a puzzled expression of countenance, on his canoe.
“You have never seen anything like that before, I daresay?” said he,
with a smile.
“No, sir; I never did see such a queer machine afore.”
“It is a tin canoe, with which I hope to pass through many miles of
country this spring, on my way to visit a tribe of Northern Indians,
and it was about this very thing that I wanted to see you, my friend.”
Jacques made no reply, but cast a look savouring very slightly of
contempt on the unfinished canoe as they turned and went away.
The pastor’s dwelling stood at one end of the village, a view of which
it commanded from the back windows, while those in front overlooked the
lake. It was pleasantly situated and pleasantly tenanted, for the
pastor’s wife was a cheerful, active little lady, like-minded with
himself, and delighted to receive and entertain strangers. To her care
Mr. Conway consigned the young men, after spending a short time in
conversation with them; and then, requesting his wife to show them
through the village, he took Jacques by the arm and sauntered out.
“Come with me, Jacques,” he began; “I have somewhat to say to you. I
had not time to broach the subject when I met you at the Company’s
fort, and have been anxious to see you ever since. You tell me that you
have met with my friend Redfeather.”
“Yes, sir; I spent a week or two with him last fall I found him stayin’
with his tribe, and we started to come down here together.”
“Ah, that is the very point,” exclaimed the pastor, “that I wish to
inquire about. I firmly believe that God has opened that Indian’s eyes
to see the truth; and I fully expected from what he said when we last
met, that he would have made up his mind to come and stay here.”
“As to what the Almighty has done to him,” said Jacques, in a
reverential tone of voice, “I don’t pretend to know; he did for sartin
speak, and act too, in a way that I never seed an Injin do before. But
about his comin’ here, sir, you were quite right: he did mean to come,
and I’ve no doubt will come yet.”
“What prevented him coming with you, as you tell me he intended?”
inquired the pastor.
“Well, you see, sir, he and I and his squaw, as I said, set off to come
here together: but when we got the length o’ Edmonton House, we heerd
that you were comin’ up to pay a visit to the tribe to which Redfeather
belongs; and so seem’ that it was o’ no use to come down hereaway just
to turn about an’ go up agin, he stopped there to wait for you, for he
knew you would want him to interpret—”
“Ay,” interrupted the pastor, “that’s true. I have two reasons for
wishing to have him here. The primary one is, that he may get good to
his immortal soul; and then he understands English so well that I want
him to become my interpreter; for although I understand the Cree
language pretty well now, I find it exceedingly difficult to explain
the doctrines of the Bible to my people in it. But pardon me, I
interrupted you.”
“I was only going to say,” resumed Jacques, “that I made up my mind to
stay with him; but they wanted a man to bring the winter packet here,
so, as they pressed me very hard, an’ I had nothin’ particular to do, I
’greed and came, though I would rather ha’ stopped; for Redfeather an’
I ha’ struck up a friendship togither—a thing that I would never ha’
thought it poss’ble for me to do with a red Injin.”
“And why not with a red Indian, friend?” inquired the pastor, while a
shade of sadness passed over his mild features, as if unpleasant
thoughts had been roused by the hunter’s speech.
“Well, it’s not easy to say why,” rejoined the other. “I’ve no
partic’lar objection to the red-skins. There’s only one man among them
that I bears a grudge agin, and even that one I’d rayther avoid than
otherwise.”
“But you should _forgive_ him, Jacques. The Bible tells us not only to
bear our enemies no grudge, but to love them and to do them good.”
The hunter’s brow darkened. “That’s impossible, sir,” he said; “I
couldn’t do _him_ a good turn if I was to try ever so hard. He may
bless his stars that I don’t want to do him mischief; but to _love
him_, it’s jist imposs’ble.”
“With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible,” said
the pastor solemnly.
Jacques’s naturally philosophic though untutored mind saw the force of
this. He felt that God, who had formed his soul, his body, and the
wonderfully complicated machinery and objects of nature, which were
patent to his observant and reflective mind wherever he went, must of
necessity be equally able to alter, influence, and remould them all
according to His will. Common-sense was sufficient to teach him this;
and the bold hunter exhibited no ordinary amount of common-sense in
admitting the fact at once, although in the case under discussion (the
loving of his enemy) it seemed utterly impossible to his feelings and
experience. The frown, therefore, passed from his brow, while he said
respectfully, “What you say, sir, is true; I believe though I can’t
_feel_ it. But I s’pose the reason I niver felt much drawn to the
red-skins is, that all the time I lived in the settlements I was used
to hear them called and treated as thievin’ dogs, an ‘when I com’d
among them I didn’t see much to alter my opinion. Here an’ there I have
found one or two honest Injins, an’ Redfeather is as true as steel; but
the most o’ them are no better than they should be. I s’pose I don’
think much o’ them just because they are red-skins.”
“Ah, Jacques, you will excuse me if I say that there is not much sense
in _that_ reason. An Indian cannot help being a red man any more than
you can help being a white one, so that he ought not to be despised on
that account. Besides, God made him what he is, and to despise the
_work_ of God, or to undervalue it, is to despise God Himself. You may
indeed despise, or rather abhor, the sins that red men are guilty of;
but if you despise _them_ on this ground, you must much more despise
white men, for _they_ are guilty of greater iniquities than Indians
are. They have more knowledge, and are therefore more inexcusable when
they sin; and anyone who has travelled much must be aware that, in
regard to general wickedness, white men are at least quite as bad as
Indians. Depend upon it, Jacques, that there will be Indians found in
heaven at the last day as well as white men. God is no respecter of
persons.”
“I niver thought much on that subject afore, sir,” returned the hunter;
“what you say seems reasonable enough. I’m sure an’ sartin, any way,
that if there’s a red-skin in heaven at all, Redfeather will be there,
an’ I only hope that I may be there too to keep him company.”
“I hope so, my friend,”, said the pastor earnestly; “I hope so too,
with all my heart. And if you will accept of this little book, it will
show you how to get there.”
The missionary drew a small, plainly-bound copy of the Bible from his
pocket as he spoke, and presented it to Jacques, who received it with a
smile, and thanked him, saying, at the same time, that he “was not much
up to book-larnin’, but he would read it with pleasure.”
“Now, Jacques,” said the pastor, after a little further conversation on
the subject of the Bible, in which he endeavoured to impress upon him
the absolute necessity of being acquainted with the blessed truths
which it contains—“now, Jacques, about my visit to the Indians. I
intend, if the Almighty spares me, to embark in yon tin canoe that you
found me engaged with, and, with six men to work it, proceed to the
country of the Knisteneux Indians, visit their chief camp, and preach
to them there as long as the weather will permit. When the season is
pretty well advanced, and winter threatens to cut off my retreat, I
shall re-embark in my canoe and return home. By this means I hope to be
able to sow the good seed of Christian truths in the hearts of men who,
as they will not come to this settlement, have no chance of being
brought under the power of the Gospel by any other means.”
Jacques gave one of his quiet smiles on hearing this. “Right
sir—right,” he said, with some energy; “I have always thought, although
I niver made bold to say it before, that there was not enough o’ this
sort o’ thing. It has always seemed to me a kind o’ madness (excuse my
plainness o’ speech, sir) in you pastors, thinkin’ to make the
red-skins come and settle round you like so many squaws, and dig up an’
grub at the ground, when it’s quite clear that their natur’ and the
natur’ o’ things about them meant them to be hunters. An’ surely, since
the Almighty made them hunters, He intended them to _be_ hunters, an’
won’t refuse to make them Christians on _that_ account. A red-skin’s
natur’ is a huntin’ natur’, an’ nothin’ on arth ’ll ever make it
anything else.’
“There is much truth in what you observe, friend,” rejoined the pastor;
“but you are not _altogether_ right. Their nature _may_ be changed,
although certainly nothing on _earth_ will change it. Look at that
frozen lake.” He pointed to the wide field of thick snow-covered ice
that stretched out for miles like a sheet of white marble before them.
“Could anything on earth break up or sink or melt that?”
“Nothin’,” replied Jacques, laconically.
“But the warm beams of yon glorious sun can do it,” continued the
pastor, pointing upwards as he spoke, “and do it effectually too; so
that, although you can scarcely observe the process, it nevertheless
turns the hard, thick, solid ice into limpid water at last. So is it in
regard to man. Nothing on earth can change his heart, or alter his
nature; but our Saviour, who is called the Sun of Righteousness, can.
When He shines into a man’s soul it melts. The old man becomes a little
child, the wild savage a Christian. But I agree with you in thinking
that we have not been sufficiently alive to the necessity of seeking to
convert the Indians before trying to gather them round us. The one
would follow as a natural consequence, I think, of the other, and it is
owing to this conviction that I intend, as I have already said, to make
a journey in spring to visit those who will not or cannot come to visit
me. And now, what I want to ask is whether you will agree to accompany
me as steersman and guide on my expedition.”
The hunter slowly shook his head. “I’m afeard not sir; I have already
promised to take charge of a canoe for the Company. I would much rather
go with you, but I must keep my word.”
“Certainly, Jacques, certainly; that settles the question You cannot go
with me—unless—” the pastor paused as if in thought for a
moment—“unless you can persuade them to let you off.”
“Well, sir, I can try,” returned Jacques.
“Do; and I need not say how happy I shall be if you succeed. Good-day,
friend, good-bye.” So saying, the missionary shook hands with the
hunter and returned to his house, while Jacques wended his way to the
village in search of Harry and Hamilton.