Part 1 (1/2)
Romany of the Snows.
by Gilbert Parker.
INTRODUCTION
It can hardly be said that there were two series of Pierre stories.
There never was but one series, in fact. Pierre moved through all the thirty-nine stories of Pierre and His People and A Romany of the Snows without any thought on my part of putting him out of existence in one series and bringing him to life again in another. The publication of the stories was continuous, and at the time that Pierre and His People appeared several of those which came between the covers of A Romany of the Snows were pa.s.sing through the pages of magazines in England and America. All of the thirty-nine stories might have appeared in one volume under the t.i.tle of Pierre and His People, but they were published in two volumes with different t.i.tles in England, and in three volumes in America, simply because there was enough material for the two and the three volumes. In America The Adventurer of the North was broken up into two volumes at the urgent request of my then publishers, Messrs. Stone & Kimball, who had the gift of producing beautiful books, but perhaps had not the same gift of business. These two American volumes succeeding Pierre were published under the t.i.tle of An Adventurer of the North and A Romany of the Snows respectively. Now, the latter t.i.tle, A Romany of the Snows, was that which I originally chose for the volume published in England as An Adventurer of the North. I was persuaded to reject the t.i.tle, A Romany of the Snows, by my English publisher, and I have never forgiven myself since for being so weak. If a publisher had the infallible instinct for these things he would not be a publisher--he would be an author; and though an author may make mistakes like everybody else, the average of his. .h.i.ts will be far higher than the average of his misses in such things. The t.i.tle, An Adventurer of the North, is to my mind c.u.mbrous and rough, and difficult in the mouth.
Compare it with some of the stories within the volume itself: for instance, The Going of the White Swan, A Lovely Bully, At Bamber's Boom, At Point o' Bugles, The Pilot of Belle Amour, The Spoil of the Puma, A Romany of the Snows, and The Finding of Fingall. There it was, however; I made the mistake and it sticks; but the book now will be published in this subscription edition under the t.i.tle first chosen by me, A Romany of the Snows. It really does express what Pierre was.
Perhaps some of the stories in A Romany of the Snows have not the sentimental simplicity of some of the earlier stories in Pierre and His People, which take hold where a deeper and better work might not seize the general public; but, reading these later stories after twenty years, I feel that I was moving on steadily to a larger, firmer command of my material, and was getting at closer grips with intimate human things.
There is some proof of what I say in the fact that one of the stories in A Romany of the Snows, called The Going of the White Swan, appropriately enough published originally in Scribner's Magazine, has had an extraordinary popularity. It has been included in the programmes of reciters from the Murrumbidgee to the Vaal, from John O'Groat's to Land's End, and is now being published as a separate volume in England and America. It has been dramatised several times, and is more alive to-day than it was when it was published nearly twenty years ago. Almost the same may be said of The Three Commandments in the Vulgar Tongue.
It has been said that, apart from the colour, form, and setting, the incidents of these Pierre stories might have occurred anywhere. That is true beyond a doubt, and it exactly represents my att.i.tude of mind.
Every human pa.s.sion, every incident springing out of a human pa.s.sion to-day, had its counterpart in the time of Amenhotep. The only difference is in the setting, is in the language or dialect which is the vehicle of expression, and in race and character, which are the media of human idiosyncrasy. There is nothing new in anything that one may write, except the outer and visible variation of race, character, and country, which reincarnates the everlasting human ego and its scena.
The atmosphere of a story or novel is what temperament is to a man.
Atmosphere cannot be created; it is not a matter of skill; it is a matter of personality, of the power of visualisation, of feeling for the thing which the mind sees. It has been said that my books possess atmosphere. This has often been said when criticism has been more or less acute upon other things; but I think that in all my experience there has never been a critic who has not credited my books with that quality; and I should say that Pierre and His People and A Romany of the Snows have an atmosphere in which the beings who make the stories live seem natural to their environment. It is this quality which gives vitality to the characters themselves. Had I not been able to create atmosphere which would have given naturalness to Pierre and his friends, some of the characters, and many of the incidents, would have seemed monstrosities--melodramatic episodes merely. The truth is, that while the episode, which is the first essential of a short story, was always in the very forefront of my imagination, the character or characters in the episode meant infinitely more to me. To my mind the episode was always the consequence of character. That almost seems a paradox; but apart from the phenomena of nature, as possible incidents in a book, the episodes which make what are called ”human situations” are, in most instances, the sequence of character and are incidental to the law of the character set in motion. As I realise it now, subconsciously, my mind and imagination were controlled by this point of view in the days of the writing of Pierre and His People.
In the life and adventures of Pierre and his people I came, as I think, to a certain command of my material, without losing real sympathy with the simple nature of things. Dexterity has its dangers, and one of its dangers is artificiality. It is very difficult to be skilful and to ring true. If I have not wholly succeeded in A Romany of the Snows, I think I have not wholly failed, as the continued appeal of a few of the stories would seem to show.
ACROSS THE JUMPING SANDHILLS
”Here now, Trader; aisy, aisy! Quicksands I've seen along the saysh.o.r.e, and up to me half-ways I've been in wan, wid a double-and-twist in the rope to pull me out; but a suckin' sand in the open plain--aw, Trader, aw! the like o' that niver a bit saw I.”
So said Macavoy the giant, when the thing was talked of in his presence.
”Well, I tell you it's true, and they're not three miles from Fort O'Glory. The Company's--[Hudson's Bay Company]--men don't talk about it--what's the use! Travellers are few that way, and you can't get the Indians within miles of them. Pretty Pierre knows all about them--better than anyone else almost. He'll stand by me in it--eh, Pierre?”
Pierre, the half-breed gambler and adventurer, took no notice, and was silent for a time, intent on his cigarette; and in the pause Mowley the trapper said: ”Pierre's gone back on you, Trader. P'r'aps ye haven't paid him for the last lie. I go one better, you stand by me--my treat--that's the game!”
”Aw, the like o' that,” added Macavoy reproachfully. ”Aw, yer tongue to the roof o' yer mouth, Mowley. Liars all men may be, but that's wid wimmin or landlords. But, Pierre, aff another man's bat like that--aw, Mowley, fill your mouth wid the bowl o' yer pipe.”
Pierre now looked up at the three men, rolling another cigarette as he did so; but he seemed to be thinking of a distant matter. Meeting the three pairs of eyes fixed on him, his own held them for a moment musingly; then he lit his cigarette, and, half reclining on the bench where he sat, he began to speak, talking into the fire as it were.
”I was at Guidon Hill, at the Company's post there. It was the fall of the year, when you feel that there is nothing so good as life, and the air drinks like wine. You think that sounds like a woman or a priest?
Mais, no. The seasons are strange. In the spring I am lazy and sad; in the fall I am gay, I am for the big things to do. This matter was in the fall. I felt that I must move. Yet, what to do? There was the thing.
Cards, of course. But that's only for times, not for all seasons. So I was like a wild dog on a chain. I had a good horse--Tophet, black as a coal, all raw bones and joint, and a reach like a moose. His legs worked like piston-rods. But, as I said, I did not know where to go or what to do. So we used to sit at the Post loafing: in the daytime watching the empty plains all panting for travellers, like a young bride waiting her husband for the first time.”
Macavoy regarded Pierre with delight. He had an unctuous spirit, and his heart was soft for women--so soft that he never had had one on his conscience, though he had brushed gay smiles off the lips of many. But that was an amiable weakness in a strong man. ”Aw, Pierre,” he said coaxingly, ”kape it down; aisy, aisy. Me heart's goin' like a trip-hammer at thought av it; aw yis, aw yis, Pierre.”
”Well, it was like that to me--all sun and a sweet sting in the air. At night to sit and tell tales and such things; and perhaps a little brown brandy, a look at the stars, a half-hour with the cattle--the same old game. Of course, there was the wife of Hilton the factor--fine, always fine to see, but deaf and dumb. We were good friends, Ida and me. I had a hand in her wedding. Holy, I knew her when she was a little girl.
We could talk together by signs. She was a good woman; she had never guessed at evil. She was quick, too, like a flash, to read and understand without words. A face was a book to her.
”Eh bien. One afternoon we were all standing outside the Post, when we saw someone ride over the Long Divide. It was good for the eyes. I cannot tell quite how, but horse and rider were so sharp and clear-cut against the sky, that they looked very large and peculiar--there was something in the air to magnify. They stopped for a minute on the top of the Divide, and it seemed like a messenger out of the strange country at the farthest north--the place of legends. But, of course, it was only a traveller like ourselves, for in a half-hour she was with us.
”Yes, it was a girl dressed as a man. She did not try to hide it; she dressed so for ease. She would make a man's heart leap in his mouth--if he was like Macavoy, or the pious Mowley there.”
Pierre's last three words had a touch of irony, for he knew that the Trapper had a precious tongue for Scripture when a missionary pa.s.sed that way, and a bad name with women to give it point. Mowley smiled sourly; but Macavoy laughed outright, and smacked his lips on his pipe-stem luxuriously.
”Aw now, Pierre--all me little failin's--aw!” he protested.