Part 39 (1/2)
”Yes, Geo-o-o-r-r-r-r-ge!”
”Eve,” I whispered, as we sat on the sofa together, while Mrs Liston was wiping her spectacles, ”I've been earnestly considering that last attempt of yours, and I think upon the whole, that `Geo'ge' is better.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
A PECULIAR WEDDING AND A WONDERFUL WALK.
Turn we once again to the great wilderness, and if we do so with half the zest felt by Big Otter when he set forth on his journey, we will certainly enjoy the trip, you and I, whoever you be.
But we must take the journey at a bound.
It is Christmas-time once more. Lake Wichikagan has put on its top-coat of the purest Carrara marble. The roof of the little fort once again resembles a French cake overloaded with creamy sugar. The pines are black by contrast. The willows are smothered, all save the tops where the snow-flakey ptarmigan find food and shelter. Smoke rises from the various chimneys, showing that the dwellers in that remote outpost are enjoying themselves as of old. The volumes of smoke also suggest Christmas puddings.
Let us look in upon our old friends. In the men's house great preparation for something or other is going on, for each man is doing his best with soap, water, razor, brush, and garments, to make himself spruce. Salamander is there, before a circular looking-gla.s.s three inches in diameter in the lid of a soap-box, making a complicated mess of a neck-tie in futile attempts to produce the sailor's knot. Blondin is there, before a similar gla.s.s, carefully sc.r.a.ping the bristles round a frostbite on his chin with a blunt razor. Henri Coppet, having already dressed, is smoking his pipe and quizzing Marcelle Dumont--who is also shaving--one of his chief jokes being an offer to give Dumont's razor a turn on the grindstone. Donald Bane is stooping over a tin basin on a chair, with his hair and face soap-sudded and his eyes tight shut, which fact being observed by his friend Dougall, induces that worthy to cry,--”Tonal', man--look here. Did iver man or wuman see the likes o' _that_!”
The invitation is so irresistible to Donald that he half involuntarily exclaims, ”Wow, man, Shames--what is't?” and opens his eyes to find that Shames is laughing at him, and that soap does not improve sight. The old chief, Muskrat, is also there, having been invited along with Masqua and his son Mozwa, with their respective squaws, to the great event that is pending, and, to judge from the intense gravity--not to say owlish solemnity--of these redskins, they are much edified by the proceedings of the men.
In the hall preparations are also being carried on for something of some sort. Macnab is there, with his coat off, mounted on a chair, which he had previously set upon a rickety table, hammering away at a festoon of pine-branches with which one end of the room is being decorated.
Spooner is also there, weaving boughs into rude garlands of gigantic size. The dark-haired pale-face, Jessie, is there too, helping Spooner--who might almost be called Spooney, he looks so imbecile and sweet. Jack Lumley is likewise there. He is calm, collected, suave, as usual, and is aiding Macnab.
It was a doubly auspicious day, for it was not only Christmas, but, a wedding-day.
”It seems like a dream,” cried Macnab, stopping his noisy hammer in order to look round and comment with his noisy voice, ”to think, Jessie, that you should refuse at least a dozen st.u.r.dy Highlanders north o' the Grampians, and come out to the backwoods at last to marry an Englishman.”
”I wish you would attend to what you are doing, brother,” said Jessie, blus.h.i.+ng very much.
”She might have done worse,” remarked Spooner, who happened to be an Englishman.
Lumley said nothing, but a pleased smile flickered for a minute on his lips, while Macnab resumed his hammering with redoubled zest to a chuckling accompaniment.
”It would be nothing,” he resumed, turning round again and lowering his hammer, ”if you hadn't always protested that you would _never_ marry, but--oh, Jessie, I wonder at a girl who has always been so firm in sticking to her resolves, turning out so fickle. I really never thought that the family of Macnab could be brought so low through one of its female members.”
”I know one of its male members,” said Lumley, in a warning voice, ”who will be brought still lower if he keeps dancing about so on that rickety--there--I told you so!”
As he spoke, Peter Macnab missed his footing and came down on the table with a crash so tremendous that the crazy article of furniture became something like what Easterns style a split-camel--its feeble legs spread outwards, and its body came flat to the ground.
Sprawling for a moment Macnab rose dishevelled from a ma.s.s of pine-branches and looked surprised.
”Not hurt, I hope,” said Lumley, laughing, while Jessie looked anxious for a moment.
”I--I think not. No--evidently not. Yes, Jessie, my dear, you may regard this as a sort of practical ill.u.s.tration of the value of submission. If that table had resisted me I had been hurt, probably.
Giving way as it did--I'm all right.”
”Your ill.u.s.tration is not a happy one,” said Lumley, ”for your own safety was purchased at the cost of the table. If you had taken the lesson home, and said that `pride goes before a fall,' it would have been more to the purpose.”
”Perhaps so,” returned Macnab, a.s.sisting to clear away the split table: ”my pride is at its lowest ebb now, anyhow, for not only does Jessie Macnab become Mrs Lumley within an hour, but I am constrained to perform the marriage ceremony myself, as well as give her away.”
The Highlander here referred to the fact that, for the convenience of those numerous individuals whose lives were spent in the Great Nor'-west, far removed at that time from clergymen, churches, and other civilised inst.i.tutions, the commissioned gentlemen in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company were legally empowered to perform the marriage ceremony.
Of course Jessie regretted much the impossibility of procuring a minister of any denomination to officiate in that remote corner of the earth, and had pleaded for delay in order that they might go home and get married there; but Lumley pointed out firstly, that there was not the remotest chance of his obtaining leave of absence for years to come; secondly, that the marriage tie, as tied by her brothers would be as legally binding as if managed by an Archbishop of Canterbury or a moderator of the Scottish General a.s.sembly; and thirdly, that as he was filled with as deep a reverence for the Church as herself, he would have the rite re-performed, (”_ceremonially_, observe, Jessie, not _really_, for that will be done to-day,”) on the first possible opportunity.