Part 3 (1/2)
”In truth, Hec, it were a sin and a shame to cut her pretty curls, that become her so well,” said Louis. ”But we have no scissors, ma belle, so you need fear no injury to your precious locks.”
”For the matter of that, Louis, we could cut them with your _couteau de chaise_. I could tell you a story that my father told me, not long since, of Charles Stuart, the second king of that name in England. You know he was the granduncle of the young chevalier, Charles Edward, that my father talks of, and loves so much.”
”I know all about him,” said Catharine, nodding sagaciously; ”let us hear the story of his granduncle. But I should like to know what my hair and Louis's knife can have to do with King Charles.”
”Wait a bit, Kate, and you shall hear--that is, if you have patience,”
said her brother. ”Well then, you must know, that after some great battle, the name of which I forget, [Footnote: Battle of Worcester] in which the king and his handful of brave soldiers were defeated by the forces of the Parliament (the Roundheads, as they were called), the poor young king was hunted like a partridge upon the mountains, a large price was set on his head, to be given to any traitor who should slay him or bring him prisoner to Oliver Cromwell. He was obliged to dress himself in all sorts of queer clothes, and hide in all manner of strange, out-of-the-way places, and keep company with rude and humble men, the better to hide his real rank from the cruel enemies that sought his life. Once he hid along with a gallant gentleman, [Footnote: Colonel Careless.] one of his own brave officers, in the branches of a great oak. Once he was hid in a mill; and another time he was in the house of one Pendril, a woodman. The soldiers of the Parliament, who were always prowling about, and popping in unawares wherever they suspected the poor king to be hidden, were at one time in the very room where he was standing beside the fire.”
”Oh!” exclaimed Catharine, ”that was frightful. And did they take him prisoner?”
”No; for the wise woodman and his brothers, fearing lest the soldiers should discover that he was a cavalier and a gentleman, by the long curls that the king's men all wore in those days, and called _lovelocks_, begged of his majesty to let his hair be cropped close to his head.”
”That was very hard, to lose his nice curls.”
”I dare say the young king thought so too; but it was better to lose his hair than his head. So, I suppose, the men told him; for he suffered them to cut it all close to his head, laying down his head on a rough deal table, or a chopping-block, while his faithful friends with a large knife trimmed off the curls.”
”I wonder if the young king thought at that minute of his poor father, who, you know, was forced by wicked men to lay down his head upon a block to have it cut from his shoulders, because Cromwell, and others as hard-hearted as himself, willed that he should die.”
”Poor king!” said Catharine, sighing; ”I see that it is better to be poor children, wandering on these plains under G.o.d's own care, than to be kings and princes at the mercy of bad and sinful men.”
”Who told your father all these things, Hec?” said Louis.
”It was the son of his brave colonel, who knew a great deal about the history of the Stuart kings, for our colonel had been with Prince Charles, the young chevalier, and fought by his side when he was in Scotland. He loved him dearly, and after the battle of Culloden, where the prince lost all, and was driven from place to place, and had not where to lay his head, he went abroad in hopes of better times. But those times did not come for the poor prince; and our colonel, after a while, through the friends.h.i.+p of General Wolfe, got a commission in the army that was embarking for Quebec, and at last commanded the regiment to which my father belonged. He was a kind man, and my father loved both him and his son, and grieved not a little when he parted from him.”
”Well,” said-Catharine, ”as you have told me such a nice story, Mister Hec, I shall forgive the affront about my curls.”
”Well, then, to-morrow we are to try our luck at fis.h.i.+ng, and if we fail, we will make us bows and arrows to kill deer or small game; I fancy we shall not be over-particular as to its quality. Why should not we be able to find subsistence as well as the wild Indians?”
”True,” said Hector; ”the wild men of the wilderness, and the animals and birds, all are fed by the things that He provideth; then wherefore should His white children fear?”
”I have often heard my father tell of the privations of the lumberers, when they have fallen short of provisions, and of the contrivances of himself and old Jacob Morelle when they were lost for several days, nay, weeks I believe it was. Like the Indians, they made themselves bows and arrows, using the sinews of the deer, or fresh thongs of leather, for bow-strings; and when they could not get game to eat, they boiled the inner bark of the slippery elm to jelly, or birch bark, and drank the sap of the sugar maple when they could get no water but melted snow only, which is unwholesome: at last they even boiled their own moccasins.”
”Indeed, Louis, that must have been a very unsavoury dish,” said Catharine.
”That old buck-skin vest would have made a famous pot of soup of itself,” added Hector, ”or the deer-skin hunting s.h.i.+rt.”
”They might have been reduced even to that,” said Louis, laughing, ”but for the good fortune that befell them in the way of a half-roasted bear.”
”Nonsense, Cousin Louis; bears do not run about ready roasted in the forest, like the lambs in the old nursery tale.”
”Kate, this was a fact; at least it was told as one by old Jacob, and my father did not deny it. Shall I tell you about it? After pa.s.sing several hungry days, with no better food to keep them alive than the sc.r.a.pings of the inner bark of the poplars and elms, which was not very substantial for hearty men, they encamped one night in a thick dark swamp,--not the sort of place they would have chosen, but they could not help themselves, having been enticed into it by the tracks of a deer or a moose,--and night came upon them unawares, so they set to work to kindle a fire with s.p.u.n.k, and a flint and knife; rifle they had none, or maybe they would have had game to eat.
”Old Jacob fixed upon a huge hollow pine that lay across their path, against which he soon piled a glorious heap of boughs and arms of trees, and whatever wood he could collect, and lighted up a fine fire.
The wood was dry pine and cedar and birch, and it blazed away, and crackled and burned like a pine-torch. By-and-by they heard a most awful growling close to them. 'That's a big bear, as I live,' said old Jacob, looking all about, thinking to see one come out from the thick bush. But Bruin was nearer to him than he thought; for presently a great black bear burst out from the b.u.t.t-end of the great burning log, and made towards Jacob. Just then the wind blew the flame outward, and it caught the bear's thick coat, and he was all in a blaze in a moment. No doubt the heat of the fire had penetrated to the hollow of the log, where he had lain himself snugly up for the winter, and wakened him. Jacob seeing the huge black brute all in a flame of fire, roared with fright; the bear roared with pain and rage; and my father roared with laughing to see Jacob's terror. But he did not let the bear laugh at him, for he seized a thick pole that he had used for closing in the brands and logs, and soon demolished the bear, who was so blinded with the fire and smoke that he made no fight; and they feasted on roast bear's flesh for many days, and got a capital skin to cover them beside.”
”What, Louis! after the fur was all singed?” said Catharine.
”Kate, you are too particular,” said Louis; ”a story never loses, you know.”
Hector laughed heartily at the adventure, and enjoyed the dilemma of the bear in his winter quarters; but Catharine was somewhat shocked at the levity displayed by her cousin and brother when recounting the terror of old Jacob and the sufferings of the poor bear.