Part 7 (1/2)
Meanwhile, weeks, months, and even a couple of years pa.s.sed, Macavoy and Pierre coming and going, sometimes together, sometimes not, in all manner of words at war, in all manner of fact at peace. And Ida, out of the bounty of her nature, gave the two vagabonds a place at her fireside whenever they chose to come. Perhaps, where speech was not given, a gift of divination entered into her instead, and she valued what others found useless, and held aloof from what others found good. She had powers which had ever been the admiration of Guidon Hill. Birds and animals were her friends--she called them her kinsmen. A peculiar sympathy joined them; so that when, at last, she tamed a white wild duck, and made it do the duties of a carrier-pigeon, no one thought it strange.
Up in the hills, beside the White Sun River, lived her sister and her sister's children; and, by and by, the duck carried messages back and forth, so that when, in the winter, Ida's health became delicate, she had comfort in the solicitude and cheerfulness of her sister, and the gaiety of the young birds of her nest, who sent Ida many a sprightly message and tales of their good vagrancy in the hills. In these days Pierre and Macavoy were little at the Post, save now and then to sit with Hilton beside the fire, waiting for spring and telling tales. Upon Hilton had settled that peaceful, abstracted expectancy which shows man at his best, as he waits for the time when, through the half-lights of his fatherhood, he shall see the broad fine dawn of motherhood spreading up the world--which, all being said and done, is that place called Home.
Something gentle came over him while he grew stouter in body and in all other ways made a larger figure among the people of the West.
As Pierre said, whose wisdom was more to be trusted than his general morality, ”It is strange that most men think not enough of themselves till a woman shows them how. But it is the great wonder that the woman does not despise him for it. Quel caractere! She has so often to show him his way like a babe, and yet she says to him, Mon grand homme! my master! my lord! Pshaw! I have often thought that women are half saints, half fools, and men half fools, half rogues. But Quelle vie!--what life!
without a woman you are half a man; with one you are bound to a single spot in the world, you are tied by the leg, your wing is clipped--you cannot have all. Quelle vie--what life!”
To this Macavoy said: ”Spit-spat! But what the devil good does all yer thinkin' do ye, Pierre? It's argufy here and argufy there, an' while yer at that, me an' the rest av us is squeezin' the fun out o' life. Aw, go 'long wid ye. Y'are only a bit o' h.e.l.l and grammar, annyway. Wid all yer cuttin' and carvin' things to see the internals av thim, I'd do more to the call av a woman's finger than for all the logic and knowalogy y'
ever chewed--an' there y'are, me little tailor o' jur'sprudince!”
”To the finger call of Hilton's wife, eh?”
Macavoy was not quite sure what Pierre's enigmatical tone meant. A wild light showed in his eyes, and his tongue blundered out: ”Yis, Hilton's wife's finger, or a look av her eye, or nothin' at all. Aisy, aisy, ye wasp! Ye'd go stalkin' divils in h.e.l.l for her yerself, so ye would. But the tongue av ye--but, it's gall to the tip.”
”Maybe, my king. But I'd go hunting because I wanted; you because you must. You're a slave to come and to go, with a Queen's seal on the promissory.”
Macavoy leaned back and roared. ”Aw, that! The rose o' the valley--the joy o' the wurruld! S't, Pierre--” his voice grew softer on a sudden, as a fresh thought came to him--”did y' ever think that the child might be dumb like the mother?”
This was a day in the early spring, when the snows were melting in the hills, and freshets were sweeping down the valleys far and near. That night a warm heavy rain came on, and in the morning every stream and river was swollen to twice its size. The mountains seemed to have stripped themselves of snow, and the vivid sun began at once to colour the foothills with green. As Pierre and Macavoy stood at their door, looking out upon the earth cleansing itself, Macavoy suddenly said: ”Aw, look, look, Pierre--her white duck off to the nest on Champak Hill!”
They both shaded their eyes with their hands. Circling round two or three times above the Post, the duck then stretched out its neck to the west, and floated away beyond Guidon Hill, and was hid from view.
Pierre, without a word, began cleaning his rifle, while Macavoy smoked, and sat looking into the distance, surveying the sweet warmth and light.
His face blossomed with colour, and the look of his eyes was that of an irresponsible child. Once or twice he smiled and puffed in his beard, but perhaps that was involuntary, or was, maybe, a vague reflection of his dreams, themselves most vague, for he was only soaking in sun and air and life.
Within an hour they saw the wild duck-again pa.s.sing the crest of Guidon, and they watched it sailing down to the Post, Pierre idly fondling the gun, Macavoy half roused from his dreams. But presently they were altogether roused, the gun was put away, and both were on their feet; for after the pigeon arrived there was a stir at the Post, and Hilton could be seen running from the store to his house, not far away.
”Something's wrong there,” said Pierre.
”D'ye think 'twas the duck brought it?” asked Macavoy.
Without a word Pierre started away towards the Post, Macavoy following.
As they did so, a half-breed boy came from the house, hurrying towards them.
Inside the house Hilton's wife lay in her bed, her great hour coming on before the time, because of ill news from beyond the Guidon. There was with her an old Frenchwoman, who herself, in her time, had brought many children into the world, whose heart brooded tenderly, if uncouthly, over the dumb girl. She it was who had handed to Hilton the paper the wild duck had brought, after Ida had read it and fallen in a faint on the floor.
The message that had felled the young wife was brief and awful. A cloud-burst had fallen on Champak Hill, had torn part of it away, and a part of this part had swept down into the path that led to the little house, having been stopped by some falling trees and a great boulder.
It blocked the only way to escape above, and beneath, the river was creeping up to sweep away the little house. So, there the mother and her children waited (the father was in the farthest north), facing death below and above. The wild duck had carried the tale in its terrible simplicity. The last words were, ”There mayn't be any help for me and my sweet chicks, but I am still hoping, and you must send a man or many.
But send soon, for we are cut off, and the end may come any hour.”
Macavoy and Pierre were soon at the Post, and knew from Hilton all there was to know. At once Pierre began to gather men, though what one or many could do none could say. Eight white men and three Indians watched the wild duck sailing away again from the bedroom window where Ida lay, to carry a word of comfort to Champak Hill. Before it went, Ida asked for Macavoy, and he was brought to her bedroom by Hilton. He saw a pale, almost unearthly, yet beautiful face, flus.h.i.+ng and paling with a coming agony, looking up at him; and presently two trembling hands made those mystic signs which are the primal language of the soul. Hilton interpreted to him this: ”I have sent for you. There is no man so big or strong as you in the north. I did not know that I should ever ask you to redeem the note. I want my gift, and I will give you your paper with the Queen's head on it. Those little lives, those pretty little dears, you will not see them die. If there is a way, any way, you will save them.
Sometimes one man can do what twenty cannot. You were my wedding-gift: I claim you now.”
She paused, and then motioned to the nurse, who laid the piece of brown paper in Macavoy's hand. He held it for a moment as delicately as if it were a fragile bit of gla.s.s, something that his huge fingers might crush by touching. Then he reached over and laid it on the bed beside her and said, looking Hilton in the eyes, ”Tell her, the slip av a saint she is, if the breakin' av me bones, or the lettin' av me blood's what'll set all right at Champak Hill, let her mind be aisy--aw yis!”
Soon afterwards they were all on their way--all save Hilton, whose duty was beside this other danger, for the old nurse said that, ”like as not,” her life would hang upon the news from Champak Hill; and if ill came, his place was beside the speechless traveller on the Brink.