Pierre And His People, [Tales of the Far North], Complete - Gilbert Parker
PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE
TALES OF THE FAR NORTH
By Gilbert Parker
CONTENTS
Volume 1.
THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS
GOD'S GARRISON
A HAZARD OF THE NORTH
Volume 2.
A PRAIRIE VAGABOND
SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON
THREE OUTLAWS
Volume 3.
SHON MCGANN'S TOBOGAN RIDE
PERE CHAMPAGNE
THE SCARLET HUNTER
THE STONE
Volume 4.
THE TALL MASTER
THE CRIMSON FLAG
THE FLOOD
IN PIPI VALLEY
Volume 5.
ANTOINE AND ANGELIQUE
THE CIPHER
A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES
A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
With each volume of this subscription edition (1912) there is a special
introduction, setting forth, in so far as seemed possible, the relation
of each work to myself, to its companion works, and to the scheme of my
literary life. Only one or two things, therefore, need be said here, as I
wish God-speed to this edition, which, I trust, may help to make old
friends warmer friends and new friends more understanding. Most of the
novels and most of the short stories were suggested by incidents or
characters which I had known, had heard of intimately, or, as in the case
of the historical novels, had discovered in the works of historians. In
no case are the main characters drawn absolutely from life; they are not
portraits; and the proof of that is that no one has ever been able to
identify, absolutely, any single character in these books. Indeed, it
would be impossible for me to restrict myself to actual portraiture. It
is trite to say that photography is not art, and photography has no charm
for the artist, or the humanitarian indeed, in the portrayal of life. At
its best it is only an exhibition of outer formal characteristics,
idiosyncrasies, and contours. Freedom is the first essential of the
artistic mind. As will be noticed in the introductions and original notes
to several of these volumes, it is stated that they possess anachronisms;
that they are not portraits of people living or dead, and that they only
assume to be in harmony with the spirit of men and times and things.
Perhaps in the first few pages of 'The Right of Way' portraiture is more
nearly reached than in any other of these books, but it was only the
nucleus, if I may say so, of a larger development which the original
Charley Steele never attained. In the novel he grew to represent
infinitely more than the original ever represented in his short life.
That would not be strange when it is remembered that the germ of The
'Right of Way' was growing in my mind over a long period of years, and it
must necessarily have developed into a larger conception than the
original character could have suggested. The same may be said of the
chief characters in 'The Weavers'. The story of the two brothers--David
Claridge and Lord Eglington--in that book was brewing in my mind for
quite fifteen years, and the main incidents and characters of other
novels in this edition had the same slow growth. My forthcoming novel,
called 'The Judgment House', had been in my mind for nearly twenty years
and only emerged when it was full grown, as it were; when I was so
familiar with the characters that they seemed as real in all ways as
though they were absolute people and incidents of one's own experience.
Little more need be said. In outward form the publishers have made this
edition beautiful. I should be ill-content if there was not also an
element of beauty in the work of the author. To my mind truth alone is
not sufficient. Every work of art, no matter how primitive in conception,
how tragic or how painful, or even how grotesque in design--like the
gargoyles on Notre Dame must have, too, the elements of beauty--that
which lures and holds, the durable and delightful thing. I have a hope
that these books of mine, as faithful to life as I could make them, have
also been touched here and there by the staff of beauty. Otherwise their
day will be short indeed; and I should wish for them a day a little
longer at least than my day and span.
I launch the ship. May it visit many a port! May its freight never lie
neglected on the quays!
INTRODUCTION
So far as my literary work is concerned 'Pierre and His People' may be
likened to a new city built upon the ashes of an old one. Let me explain.
While I was in Australia I began a series of short stories and sketches
of life in Canada which I called 'Pike Pole Sketches on the Madawaska'. A
very few of them were published in Australia, and I brought with me to
England in 1889 about twenty of them to make into a volume. I told
Archibald Forbes, the great war correspondent, of my wish for
publication, and asked him if he would mind reading the sketches and
stories before I approached a publisher. He immediately consented, and
one day I brought him the little brown bag containing the tales.
A few days afterwards there came an invitation to lunch, and I went to
Clarence Gate, Regent's Park, to learn what Archibald Forbes thought of
my tales. We were quite merry at luncheon, and after luncheon, which for
him was a glass of milk and a biscuit, Forbes said to me, "Those stories,
Parker--you have the best collection of titles I have ever known." He
paused. I understood. To his mind the tales did not live up to their
titles. He hastily added, "But I am going to give you a letter of
introduction to Macmillan. I may be wrong." My reply was: "You need not
give me a letter to Macmillan unless I write and ask you for it."
I took my little brown bag and went back to my comfortable rooms in an
old-fashioned square. I sat down before the fire on this bleak winter's
night with a couple of years' work on my knee. One by one I glanced
through the stories and in some cases read them carefully, and one by one
I put them in the fire, and watched them burn. I was heavy at heart, but
I felt that Forbes was right, and my own instinct told me that my ideas
were better than my performance--and Forbes was right. Nothing was left
of the tales; not a shred of paper, not a scrap of writing. They had all
gone up the chimney in smoke. There was no self-pity. I had a grim kind
of feeling regarding the thing, but I had no regrets, and I have never
had any regrets since. I have forgotten most of the titles, and indeed
all the stories except one. But Forbes and I were right; of that I am
sure.
The next day after the arson I walked for hours where London was busiest.
The shop windows fascinated me; they always did; but that day I seemed,
subconsciously, to be looking for something. At last I found it. It was a
second-hand shop in Covent Garden. In the window there was the uniform of
an officer of the time of Wellington, and beside it--the leather coat and
fur cap of a trapper of the Hudson's Bay Company! At that window I
commenced to build again upon the ashes of last night's fire. Pretty
Pierre, the French half-breed, or rather the original of him as I knew
him when a child, looked out of the window at me. So I went home, and
sitting in front of the fire which had received my manuscript the night
before, with a pad upon my knee, I began to write 'The Patrol of the
Cypress Hills' which opens 'Pierre and His People'.
The next day was Sunday. I went to service at the Foundling Hospital in
Bloomsbury, and while listening superficially to the sermon I was also
reading the psalms. I came upon these words, "Free among the Dead like
unto them that are wounded and lie in the grave, that are out of
remembrance," and this text, which I used in the story 'The Patrol of the
Cypress Hills', became, in a sense, the text for all the stories which
came after. It seemed to suggest the lives and the end of the lives of
the workers of the pioneer world.
So it was that Pierre and His People chiefly concerned those who had been
wounded by Fate, and had suffered the robberies of life and time while
they did their work in the wide places. It may be that my readers have
found what I tried, instinctively, to convey in the pioneer life I
portrayed--"The soul of goodness in things evil." Such, on the whole, my
observation had found in life, and the original of Pierre, with all his
mistakes, misdemeanours, and even crimes, was such an one as I would have
gone to in trouble or in hour of need, knowing that his face would never
be turned from me.
These stories made their place at once. The 'Patrol of the Cypress Hills'
was published first in 'The Independent' of New York and in 'Macmillan's
Magazine' in England. Mr. Bliss Carman, then editor of 'The Independent',
eagerly published several of them--'She of the Triple Chevron' and
others. Mr. Carman's sympathy and insight were a great help to me in
those early days. The then editor of 'Macmillan's Magazine', Mr. Mowbray
Morris, was not, I think, quite so sure of the merits of the Pierre
stories. He published them, but he was a little credulous regarding them,
and he did not pat me on the back by any means. There was one, however,
who made the best that is in 'Pierre and His People' possible; this was
the unforgettable W. E. Henley, editor of The 'National Observer'. One
day at a sitting I wrote a short story called 'Antoine and Angelique',
and sent it to him almost before the ink was dry. The reply came by
return of post: "It is almost, or quite, as good as can be. Send me
another." So forthwith I sent him 'God's Garrison', and it was quickly
followed by 'The Three Outlaws', 'The Tall Master', 'The Flood', 'The
Cipher', 'A Prairie Vagabond', and several others. At length came 'The
Stone', which brought a telegram of congratulation, and finally 'The
Crimson Flag'. The acknowledgment of that was a postcard containing these
all too-flattering words: "Bravo, Balzac!" Henley would print what no
other editor would print; he gave a man his chance to do the boldest
thing that was in him, and I can truthfully say that the doors which he
threw open gave freedom to an imagination and an individuality of
conception, for which I can never be sufficiently grateful.
These stories and others which appeared in 'The National Observer', in
'Macmillan's', in 'The English Illustrated Magazine' and others made many
friends; so that when the book at length came out it was received with
generous praise, though not without some criticism. It made its place,
however, at once, and later appeared another series, called 'An
Adventurer of the North', or, as it is called in this edition, 'A Romany
of the Snows'. Through all the twenty stories of this second volume the
character of Pierre moved; and by the time the last was written there was
scarcely an important magazine in the English-speaking world which had
not printed one or more of them. Whatever may be thought of the stories
themselves, or of the manner in which the life of the Far North was
portrayed, of one thing I am sure: Pierre was true to the life--to his
race, to his environment, to the conditions of pioneer life through which
he moved. When the book first came out there was some criticism from
Canada itself, but that criticism has long since died away, and it never
was determined.
Plays have been founded on the 'Pierre' series, and one in particular,
'Pierre of the Plains', had a considerable success, with Mr. Edgar
Selwyn, the adapter, in the main part. I do not know whether, if I were
to begin again, I should have written all the Pierre stories in quite the
same way. Perhaps it is just as well that I am not able to begin again.
The stories made their own place in their own way, and that there is
still a steady demand for 'Pierre and His People' and 'A Romany of the
Snows' seems evidence that the editor of an important magazine in New
York who declined to recommend them for publication to his firm (and
later published several of the same series) was wrong, when he said that
the tales "seemed not to be salient." Things that are not "salient" do
not endure. It is twenty years since 'Pierre and His People' was
produced--and it still endures. For this I cannot but be deeply grateful.
In any case, what 'Pierre' did was to open up a field which had not been
opened before, but which other authors have exploited since with success
and distinction. 'Pierre' was the pioneer of the Far North in fiction;
that much may be said; and for the rest, Time is the test, and Time will
have its way with me as with the rest.
NOTE
It is possible that a Note on the country portrayed in these stories may
be in keeping. Until 1870, the Hudson's Bay Company--first granted its
charter by King Charles II--practically ruled that vast region stretching
from the fiftieth parallel of latitude to the Arctic Ocean--a handful of
adventurous men entrenched in forts and posts, yet trading with, and
mostly peacefully conquering, many savage tribes. Once the sole master of
the North, the H. B. C. (as it is familiarly called) is reverenced by the
Indians and half-breeds as much as, if not more than, the Government
established at Ottawa. It has had its forts within the Arctic Circle; it
has successfully exploited a country larger than the United States. The
Red River Valley, the Saskatchewan Valley, and British Columbia, are now
belted by a great railway, and given to the plough; but in the far north
life is much the same as it was a hundred years ago. There the trapper,
clerk, trader, and factor are cast in the mould of another century,
though possessing the acuter energies of this. The 'voyageur' and
'courier de bois' still exist, though, generally, under less picturesque
names.
The bare story of the hardy and wonderful career of the adventurers
trading in Hudson's Bay,--of whom Prince Rupert was once chiefest,--and
the life of the prairies, may be found in histories and books of travel;
but their romances, the near narratives of individual lives, have waited
the telling. In this book I have tried to feel my way towards the heart
of that life--worthy of being loved by all British men, for it has given
honest graves to gallant fellows of our breeding. Imperfectly, of course,
I have done it; but there is much more to be told.
When I started Pretty Pierre on his travels, I did not know--nor did
he--how far or wide his adventurers and experiences would run. They have,
however, extended from Quebec in the east to British Columbia in the
west, and from the Cypress Hills in the south to the Coppermine River in
the north. With a less adventurous man we had had fewer happenings. His
faults were not of his race, that is, French and Indian,--nor were his
virtues; they belong to all peoples. But the expression of these is
affected by the country itself. Pierre passes through this series of
stories, connecting them, as he himself connects two races, and here and
there links the past of the Hudson's Bay Company with more modern life
and Canadian energy pushing northward. Here is something of romance "pure
and simple," but also traditions and character, which are the single
property of this austere but not cheerless heritage of our race.
All of the tales have appeared in magazines and journals--namely, 'The
National Observer', 'Macmillan's', 'The National Review', and 'The
English Illustrated'; and 'The Independent of New York'. By the courtesy
of the proprietors of these I am permitted to republish.
G. P.
HARPENDEN, HERTFORDSHIRE, July, 1892.
Volume 1.
THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS
GOD'S GARRISON
A HAZARD OF THE NORTH
THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS
"He's too ha'sh," said old Alexander Windsor, as he shut the creaking
door of the store after a vanishing figure, and turned to the big iron
stove with outstretched hands; hands that were cold both summer and
winter. He was of lean and frigid make.
"Sergeant Fones is too ha'sh," he repeated, as he pulled out the damper
and cleared away the ashes with the iron poker.
Pretty Pierre blew a quick, straight column of cigarette smoke into the
air, tilted his chair back, and said: "I do not know what you mean by
'ha'sh,' but he is the devil. Eh, well, there was more than one devil
made sometime in the North West." He laughed softly.
"That gives you a chance in history, Pretty Pierre," said a voice from
behind a pile of woollen goods and buffalo skins in the centre of the
floor. The owner of the voice then walked to the window. He scratched
some frost from the pane and looked out to where the trooper in dog-skin
coat, gauntlets and cap, was mounting his broncho. The old man came and
stood near the young man,--the owner of the voice,--and said again: "He's
too ha'sh."
"Harsh you mean, father," added the other.
"Yes, harsh you mean, Old Brown Windsor,--quite harsh," said Pierre.
Alexander Windsor, storekeeper and general dealer, was sometimes called
"Old Brown Windsor" and sometimes "Old Aleck," to distinguish him from
his son, who was known as "Young Aleck."
As the old man walked back again to the stove to warm his hands, Young
Aleck continued: "He does his duty, that's all. If he doesn't wear kid
gloves while at it, it's his choice. He doesn't go beyond his duty. You
can bank on that. It would be hard to exceed that way out here."
"True, Young Aleck, so true; but then he wears gloves of iron, of ice.
That is not good. Sometime the glove will be too hard and cold on a man's
shoulder, and then!--Well, I should like to be there," said Pierre,
showing his white teeth.
Old Aleck shivered, and held his fingers where the stove was red hot.
The young man did not hear this speech; from the window he was watching
Sergeant Fones as he rode towards the Big Divide. Presently he said:
"He's going towards Humphrey's place. I--" He stopped, bent his brows,
caught one corner of his slight moustache between his teeth, and did not
stir a muscle until the Sergeant had passed over the Divide.
Old Aleck was meanwhile dilating upon his theme before a passive
listener. But Pierre was only passive outwardly. Besides hearkening to
the father's complaints he was closely watching the son. Pierre was
clever, and a good actor. He had learned the power of reserve and outward
immobility. The Indian in him helped him there. He had heard what Young
Aleck had just muttered; but to the man of the cold fingers he said: "You
keep good whisky in spite of the law and the iron glove, Old Aleck." To
the young man: "And you can drink it so free, eh, Young Aleck?"
The half-breed looked out of the corners of his eyes at the young man,
but he did not raise the peak of his fur cap in doing so, and his glances
askance were not seen.
Young Aleck had been writing something with his finger-nail on the frost
of the pane, over and over again. When Pierre spoke to him thus he
scratched out the word he had written, with what seemed unnecessary
force. But in one corner it remained:
"Mab--"
Pierre added: "That is what they say at Humphrey's ranch."
"Who says that at Humphrey's?--Pierre, you lie!" was the sharp and
threatening reply. The significance of this last statement had been often
attested on the prairies by the piercing emphasis of a six-chambered
revolver. It was evident that Young Aleck was in earnest. Pierre's eyes
glowed in the shadow, but he idly replied:
"I do not remember quite who said it. Well, 'mon ami,' perhaps I lie;
perhaps. Sometimes we dream things, and these dreams are true. You call
it a lie--'bien!' Sergeant Fones, he dreams perhaps Old Aleck sells
whisky against the law to men you call whisky runners, sometimes to
Indians and half-breeds--halfbreeds like Pretty Pierre. That was a dream
of Sergeant Fones; but you see he believes it true. It is good sport, eh?
Will you not take--what is it?--a silent partner? Yes; a silent partner,
Old Aleck. Pretty Pierre has spare time, a little, to make money for his
friends and for himself, eh?"
When did not Pierre have time to spare? He was a gambler. Unlike the
majority of half-breeds, he had a pronounced French manner, nonchalant
and debonair.
The Indian in him gave him coolness and nerve. His cheeks had a tinge of
delicate red under their whiteness, like those of a woman. That was why
he was called Pretty Pierre. The country had, however, felt a kind of
weird menace in the name. It was used to snakes whose rattle gave notice
of approach or signal of danger. But Pretty Pierre was like the
death-adder, small and beautiful, silent and deadly. At one time he had
made a secret of his trade, or thought he was doing so. In those days he
was often to be seen at David Humphrey's home, and often in talk with Mab
Humphrey; but it was there one night that the man who was ha'sh gave him
his true character, with much candour and no comment.
Afterwards Pierre was not seen at Humphrey's ranch. Men prophesied that
he would have revenge some day on Sergeant Fones; but he did not show
anything on which this opinion could be based. He took no umbrage at
being called Pretty Pierre the gambler. But for all that he was possessed
of a devil.
Young Aleck had inherited some money through his dead mother from his
grandfather, a Hudson's Bay factor. He had been in the East for some
years, and when he came back he brought his "little pile" and an
impressionable heart with him. The former Pretty Pierre and his friends
set about to win; the latter, Mab Humphrey won without the trying. Yet
Mab gave Young Aleck as much as he gave her. More. Because her love
sprang from a simple, earnest, and uncontaminated life. Her purity and
affection were being played against Pierre's designs and Young Aleck's
weakness. With Aleck cards and liquor went together. Pierre seldom drank.
But what of Sergeant Fones? If the man that knew him best--the
Commandant--had been asked for his history, the reply would have been:
"Five years in the Service, rigid disciplinarian, best non-commissioned
officer on the Patrol of the Cypress Hills." That was all the Commandant
knew.
A soldier-policeman's life on the frontier is rough, solitary, and
severe. Active duty and responsibility are all that make it endurable. To
few is it fascinating. A free and thoughtful nature would, however, find
much in it, in spite of great hardships, to give interest and even
pleasure. The sense of breadth and vastness, and the inspiration of pure
air could be a very gospel of strength, beauty, and courage, to such an
one--for a time. But was Sergeant Fones such an one? The Commandant's
scornful reply to a question of the kind would have been: "He is the best
soldier on the Patrol."
And so with hard gallops here and there after the refugees of crime or
misfortune, or both, who fled before them like deer among the passes of
the hills, and, like deer at bay, often fought like demons to the death;
with border watchings, and protection and care and vigilance of the
Indians; with hurried marches at sunrise, the thermometer at fifty
degrees below zero often in winter, and open camps beneath the stars, and
no camp at all, as often as not, winter and summer; with rough barrack
fun and parade and drill and guard of prisoners; and with chances now and
then to pay homage to a woman's face, the Mounted Force grew full of the
Spirit of the West and became brown, valiant, and hardy, with wind and
weather. Perhaps some of them longed to touch, oftener than they did, the
hands of children, and to consider more the faces of women,--for hearts
are hearts even under a belted coat of red on the Fiftieth Parallel,--but
men of nerve do not blazon their feelings.
No one would have accused Sergeant Fones of having a heart. Men of keen
discernment would have seen in him the little Bismarck of the Mounted
Police. His name carried farther on the Cypress Hills Patrol than any
other; and yet his officers could never say that he exceeded his duty or
enlarged upon the orders he received. He had no sympathy with crime.
Others of the force might wink at it; but his mind appeared to sit
severely upright upon the cold platform of Penalty, in beholding breaches
of the statutes. He would not have rained upon the unjust as the just if
he had had the directing of the heavens. As Private Gellatly put it:
"Sergeant Fones has the fear o' God in his heart, and the law of the land
across his saddle, and the newest breech-loading at that!" He was part of
the great machine of Order, the servant of Justice, the sentinel in the
vestibule of Martial Law. His interpretation of duty worked upward as
downward. Officers and privates were acted on by the force known as
Sergeant Fones. Some people, like Old Brown Windsor, spoke hardly and
openly of this force. There were three people who never did--Pretty
Pierre, Young Aleck, and Mab Humphrey. Pierre hated him; Young Aleck
admired in him a quality lying dormant in himself--decision; Mab Humphrey
spoke unkindly of no one. Besides--but no!
What was Sergeant Fones's country? No one knew. Where had he come from?
No one asked him more than once. He could talk French with Pierre,--a
kind of French that sometimes made the undertone of red in the
Frenchman's cheeks darker. He had been heard to speak German to a German
prisoner, and once, when a gang of Italians were making trouble on a line
of railway under construction, he arrested the leader, and, in a few
swift, sharp words in the language of the rioters, settled the business.
He had no accent that betrayed his nationality.