Part 40 (1/2)
Then the moon went down and the grey light of morning--Christmas morning--dawned. Still the red-man held on his way unchanged-- apparently unchangeable. When the sun was high, he stopped suddenly beside a fallen tree, cleared the snow off it, and sat down to eat. He did not sit long, and the breakfast was a cold one.
In a few minutes the journey was resumed. The Indian was drawing largely on his capital now, but, looking at him, you could not have told it. By a little after six o'clock that evening the feat was accomplished, and, as I have said, Big Otter presented himself at a critical moment to the wonder-stricken eyes of the wedding guests.
”Did they make much of him?” you ask. I should think they did! ”Did they feed him?” Of course they did--stuffed him to repletion--set him down before the ma.s.sive ruins of the plum-puddinn, and would not let him rise till the last morsel was gone! Moreover, when Big Otter discovered that he had arrived at Fort Wichikagan, not only on Christmas Day, but on Chief Lumley's wedding-day, his spirit was so rejoiced that his strength came back again unimpaired, like Sampson's, and he danced that night with the pale-faces, till the small hours of the morning, to the strains of a pig-in-its-agonies fiddle, during which process he consumed several buckets of hot tea. He went to rest at last on a buffalo robe in a corner of the hall in a state of complete exhaustion and perfect felicity.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
THE WILDERNESS AGAIN--NEW PLANS MOOTED--TREACHEROUS ICE, AND A BRAVE RESCUE.
The well-known disinclination of time and tide to wait for any man holds good in the wilderness of the Great Nor'-west, as elsewhere.
Notwithstanding the momentous events which took place at Fort Wichikagan and in Colorado, as detailed in preceding chapters, the winter pa.s.sed away as usual, spring returned, and the voice of the grey-goose and plover began once more to gladden the heart of exiled man.
Jack Lumley sat on a rustic chair in front of the Hall, gazing with wistful eyes at the still ice-covered lake, and occasionally consulting an open letter in his hand with frowning looks of meditation. The sweet voice of Jessie Lumley came from the interior of the Hall, trilling a tuneful Highland air, which, sweeping over the lawn and lake, mingled with the discords of the plover and geese, thus producing a species of wild-wood harmony.
Peter Macnab--who, since the memorable day when the table became a split-camel under his weight, had been to the Mountain Fort and got back again to Wichikagan--came up, sat down on a bench beside his brother-in-law, and said,--”Shall I become a prophet?”
”Perhaps you'd better not, Macnab. It is not safe to sail under false colours, or pretend to powers which one does not possess.”
”But what if I feel a sort of inspiration which convinces me that I do possess prophetic powers, at least to some extent?”
”Then explode and relieve yourself by all means,” said Lumley.
”You have read that letter,” resumed Macnab, ”at least fifty times, if you have read it once.”
”If you had said that I had read it a hundred and fifty times,” returned Lumley, ”you would have been still under the mark.”
”Just so. And you have meditated over it, and dreamed about it, and talked it over with your wife at least as many times--if not more.”
”Your claim to rank among the prophets is indisputable, Macnab--at least as regards the past. What have you got to say about the future?”
”The future is as clear to me, my boy, as yonder sun, which gleams in the pools that stud the ice on Lake Wichikagan.”
”I am afraid, brother-in-law,” returned Lumley, with a pitiful smile, ”that your intellects are sinking to a par with those of the geese which fly over the pools referred to.”
”Listen!” resumed the Highlander, with a serious air that was unusual in him. ”I read the future thus. You have already, as I am aware, sent in your resignation. Well, you will not only quit the service of the HBC, but you will go and join your friend Maxby in Colorado; you will become a farmer; and, worst of all, you will take my dear sister with you.”
”In some respects,” said Lumley, also becoming serious, ”you are right.
I have made up my mind that, G.o.d willing, I shall quit the service--not that I find fault with it, very much the reverse; but it is too much of a life of exile and solitude to my dear Jessie. I will also go to Colorado and join Maxby, but I won't take your sister from you. I will take you with me, brother-in-law, if you will consent to go, and we shall all live together. What say you?”
Macnab shook his head, sadly.
”You forget my boy, that your case is very different from mine. You have only just reached the end of your second term of service, and are still a youth. Whereas, I am a commissioned officer of the Fur Trade, with a fairish income, besides being an elderly man, and not very keen to throw all up and begin life over again.”
There was much in what Macnab said, yet not so much but that Lumley set himself, with all his powers of suasion and suavity, to induce his brother-in-law to change his mind. But Lumley had yet to learn that no power of Saxon logic, or personal influence, can move the will of a man from beyond the Grampian range who has once made up his mind.
When all was said, Macnab still shook his head, and smiled regretfully.
”It's of no use wasting your breath, my boy,--but tell me, is Jessie anxious for this change?”