Pierre And His People, [Tales of the Far North], Complete - Gilbert Parker
"This is the fashion of it. John and Audrey Malbrouck had come to Quebec
in the year 1865, and sojourned in the parish of St. Genevieve, in the
house of the mother of Pretty Pierre. Of an inquiring turn of mind, the
French half-breed desired to know concerning the history of these English
people, who, being poor, were yet gentle, and spoke French with a grace
and accent which was to the French-Canadian patois as Shakespeare's
English is to that of Seven Dials. Pierre's methods of inquisitiveness
were not strictly dishonest. He did not open letters, he did not besiege
dispatch-boxes, he did not ask impudent questions; he watched and
listened. In his own way he found out that the man had been a soldier in
the ranks, and that he had served in India. They were most attached to
the child, whose name was Marguerite. One day a visitor, a lady, came to
them. She seemed to be the cause of much unhappiness to Mrs. Malbrouck.
And Pierre was alert enough to discover that this distinguished-looking
person desired to take the child away with her. To this the young mother
would not consent, and the visitor departed with some chillingly-polite
phrases, part English, part French, beyond the exact comprehension of
Pierre, and leaving the father and mother and little Marguerite happy.
Then, however, these people seemed to become suddenly poorer, and
Malbrouck began farming in a humble, but not entirely successful way. The
energy of the man was prodigious; but his luck was sardonic. Floods
destroyed his first crops, prices ran low, debt accumulated, foreclosure
of mortgage occurred, and Malbrouck and the wife and child went west.
"Five years later, Pretty Pierre saw them again at Marigold Lake:
Malbrouck as agent for the Hudson's Bay Company--still poor, but
contented. It was at this period that the former visitor again appeared,
clothed in purple and fine linen, and, strange as it may seem, succeeded
in carrying off the little child, leaving the father and mother broken,
but still devoted to each other.
"Pretty Pierre closed his narration with these words: ''Bien,' that
Malbrouck, he is great. I have not much love of men, but he--well, if he
say,--"See, Pierre, I go to the home of the white bear and the winter
that never ends; perhaps we come back, perhaps we die; but there will be
sport for men--" 'voila!' I would go. To know one strong man in this
world is good. Perhaps, some time I will go to him--yes, Pierre, the
gambler, will go to him, and say: It is good for the wild dog that he
live near the lion. And the child, she was beautiful; she had a light
heart and a sweet way.'"
It was with this slight knowledge that Gregory Thorne set out on his
journey over the great Canadian prairie to Marigold Lake, for his
December moose-hunt.
Gregory has since told me that, as he travelled with Jacques Pontiac
across the Height of Land to his destination, he had uncomfortable
feelings; presentiments, peculiar reflections of the past, and
melancholy--a thing far from habitual with him. Insolence is all very
well, but you cannot apply it to indefinite thoughts; it isn't effective
with vague presentiments. And when Gregory's insolence was taken away
from him, he was very like other mortals; virtue had gone out of him; his
brown cheek and frank eye had lost something of their charm. It was these
unusual broodings that worried him; he waked up suddenly one night
calling, "Margaret! Margaret!" like any childlike lover. And that did not
please him. He believed in things that, as he said himself, "he could get
between his fingers;" he had little sympathy with morbid
sentimentalities. But there was an English Margaret in his life; and he,
like many another childlike man, had fallen in love, and with her--very
much in love indeed; and a star had crossed his love to a degree that
greatly shocked him and pleased the girl's relatives. She was the
granddaughter of a certain haughty dame of high degree, who regarded
icily this poorest of younger sons, and held her darling aloof. Gregory,
very like a blunt unreasoning lover, sought to carry the redoubt by wild
assault; and was overwhelmingly routed. The young lady, though finding
some avowed pleasure in his company, accompanied by brilliant
misunderstanding of his advances and full-front speeches, had never given
him enough encouragement to warrant his playing young Lochinvar in Park
Lane; and his cup became full when, at the close of the season, she was
whisked off to the seclusion of a country-seat, whose walls to him were
impregnable. His defeat was then, and afterwards, complete. He pluckily
replied to the derision of his relatives with multiplied derision,
demanded his inheritance, got his traps together, bought a fur coat, and
straightway sailed the wintry seas to Canada.
His experiences had not soured his temper. He believed that every dog has
his day, and that Fate was very malicious; that it brought down the
proud, and rewarded the patient; that it took up its abode in marble
halls, and was the mocker at the feast. All this had reference, of
course, to the time when he should--rich as any nabob--return to London,
and be victorious over his enemy in Park Lane. It was singular that he
believed this thing would occur; but he did. He had not yet made his
fortune, but he had been successful in the game of buying and selling
lands, and luck seemed to dog his path. He was fearless, and he had a
keen eye for all the points of every game--every game but love.
Yet he was born to succeed in that game too. For though his theory was,
that everything should be treated with impertinence before you could get
a proper view of it, he was markedly respectful to people. Few could
resist him; his impudence of ideas was so pleasantly mixed with
delicately suggested admiration of those to whom he talked. It was
impossible that John Malbrouck and his wife could have received him other
than they did; his was the eloquent, conquering spirit.
II.
By the time he reached Lake Marigold he had shaken off all those hovering
fancies of the woods, which, after all, might only have been the
whisperings of those friendly and far-seeing spirits who liked the lad as
he journeyed through their lonely pleasure-grounds. John Malbrouck
greeted him with quiet cordiality, and Mrs. Malbrouck smiled upon him
with a different smile from that with which she had speeded him a month
before; there was in it a new light of knowledge, and Gregory could not
understand it. It struck him as singular that the lady should be dressed
in finer garments than she wore when he last saw her; though certainly
her purple became her. She wore it as if born to it; and with an air more
sedately courteous than he had ever seen, save at one house in Park Lane.
Had this rustle of fine trappings been made for him? No; the woman had a
mind above such snobbishness, he thought. He suffered for a moment the
pang of a cynical idea; but the eyes of Mrs. Malbrouck were on him and he
knew that he was as nothing before her. Her eyes--how they were fixed
upon him! Only two women had looked so truthfully at him before: his dead
mother and--Margaret. And Margaret--why, how strangely now at this
instant came the thought that she was like his Margaret! Wonder sprang to
his eyes. At that moment a door opened and a girl entered the room--a
girl lissome, sweet-faced, well-bred of manner, who came slowly towards
them.
"My daughter, Mr. Thorne," the mother briefly remarked. There was no
surprise in the girl's face, only an even reserve of pleasure, as she
held out her hand and said: "Mr. Gregory Thorne and I are old enemies."
Gregory Thorne's nerve forsook him for an instant. He knew now the reason
of his vague presentiments in the woods; he understood why, one night,
when he had been more childlike than usual in his memory of the one woman
who could make life joyous for him, the voice of a voyageur, not
Jacques's nor that of any one in camp, sang:
"My dear love, she waits for me,
None other my world is adorning;
My true love I come to thee,
My dear, the white star of the morning.
Eagles spread out your wings,
Behold where the red dawn is breaking!
Hark, 'tis my darling sings,
The flowers, the song-birds awaking;
See, where she comes to me,
My love, ah, my dear love!"
And here she was. He raised her hand to his lips, and said: "Miss Carley,
you have your enemy at an advantage."
"Miss Carley in Park Lane, Margaret Malbrouck here in my old home," she
replied.
There ran swiftly through the young man's brain the brief story that
Pretty Pierre had told him. This, then, was the child who had been
carried away, and who, years after, had made captive his heart in London
town! Well, one thing was clear, the girl's mother here seemed inclined
to be kinder to him than was the guardian grandmother--if she was the
grandmother--because they had their first talk undisturbed, it may be
encouraged; amiable mothers do such deeds at times.
"And now pray, Mr. Thorne," she continued, "may I ask how came you here
in my father's house after having treated me so cavalierly in
London?--not even sending a P.P.C. when you vanished from your
worshippers in Vanity Fair."
"As for my being here, it is simply a case of blind fate; as for my
friends, the only one I wanted to be sorry for my going was behind
earthworks which I could not scale in order to leave my card, or--or
anything else of more importance; and being left as it were to the
inclemency of a winter world, I fled from--"
She interrupted him. "What! the conqueror, you, flying from your Moscow?"
He felt rather helpless under her gay raillery; but he said:
"Well, I didn't burn my kremlin behind me."
"Your kremlin?"
"My ships, then: they--they are just the same," he earnestly pleaded.
Foolish youth, to attempt to take such a heart by surprise and storm!
"That is very interesting," she said, "but hardly wise. To make fortunes
and be happy in new countries, one should forget the old ones. Meditation
is the enemy of action."
"There's one meditation could make me conquer the North Pole, if I could
but grasp it definitely."
"Grasp the North Pole? That would be awkward for your friends and
gratifying to your enemies, if one may believe science and history. But,
perhaps, you are in earnest after all, poor fellow! for my father tells
me you are going over the hills and far away to the moose-yards. How
valiant you are, and how quickly you grasp the essentials of
fortune-making!"
"Miss Malbrouck, I am in earnest, and I've always been in earnest in one
thing at least. I came out here to make money, and I've made some, and
shall make more; but just now the moose are as brands for the burning,
and I have a gun sulky for want of exercise."
"What an eloquent warrior-temper! And to whom are your deeds of valour to
be dedicated? Before whom do you intend to lay your trophies of the
chase?"
"Before the most provoking but worshipful lady that I know."
"Who is the sylvan maid? What princess of the glade has now the homage of
your impressionable heart, Mr. Thorne?"
And Gregory Thorne, his native insolence standing him in no stead, said
very humbly:
"You are that sylvan maid, that princess--ah, is this fair to me, is it
fair, I ask you?"
"You really mean that about the trophies"? she replied. "And shall you
return like the mighty khans, with captive tigers and lions, led by
stalwart slaves, in your train, or shall they be captive moose or
grizzlies?"
"Grizzlies are not possible here," he said, with cheerful seriousness,
"but the moose is possible, and more, if you would be kinder--Margaret."
"Your supper, see, is ready," she said. "I venture to hope your appetite
has not suffered because of long absence from your friends."
He could only dumbly answer by a protesting motion of the hand, and his
smile was not remarkably buoyant.
The next morning they started on their moose-hunt. Gregory Thorne was
cast down when he crossed the threshold into the winter morning without
hand-clasp or god-speed from Margaret Malbrouck; but Mrs. Malbrouck was
there, and Gregory, looking into her eyes, thought how good a thing it
would be for him, if some such face looked benignly out on him every
morning, before he ventured forth into the deceitful day. But what was
the use of wishing! Margaret evidently did not care. And though the air
was clear and the sun shone brightly, he felt there was a cheerless wind
blowing on him; a wind that chilled him; and he hummed to himself
bitterly a song of the voyageurs:
"O, O, the winter wind, the North wind,
My snow-bird, where art thou gone?
O, O, the wailing wind the night wind,
The cold nest; I am alone.
O, O, my snow-bird!
"O, O, the waving sky, the white sky,
My snow-bird thou fliest far;
O, O, the eagle's cry, the wild cry,
My lost love, my lonely star.
O, O, my snow-bird!"
He was about to start briskly forward to join Malbrouck and his Indians,
who were already on their way, when he heard his name called, and,
turning, he saw Margaret in the doorway, her fingers held to the tips of
her ears, as yet unused to the frost. He ran back to where she stood, and
held out his hand. "I was afraid," he bluntly said, "that you wouldn't
forsake your morning sleep to say good-bye to me."
"It isn't always the custom, is it," she replied, "for ladies to send the
very early hunter away with a tally-ho? But since you have the grace to
be afraid of anything, I can excuse myself to myself for fleeing the
pleasantest dreams to speed you on your warlike path."
At this he brightened very much, but she, as if repenting she had given
him so much pleasure, added: "I wanted to say good-bye to my father, you
know; and--" she paused.
"And"? he added.
"And to tell him that you have fond relatives in the old land who would
mourn your early taking off; and, therefore, to beg him, for their sakes,
to keep you safe from any outrageous moose that mightn't know how the
world needed you."
"But there you are mistaken," he said; "I haven't anyone who would really
care, worse luck! except the dowager; and she, perhaps, would be consoled
to know that I had died in battle,--even with a moose,--and was clear of
the possibility of hanging another lost reputation on the family tree, to
say nothing of suspension from any other kind of tree. But, if it should
be the other way; if I should see your father in the path of an
outrageous moose--what then?"
"My father is a hunter born," she responded; "he is a great man," she
proudly added.
"Of course, of course," he replied. "Good-bye. I'll take him your
love.--Good-bye!" and he turned away.
"Good-bye," she gaily replied; and yet, one looking closely would have
seen that this stalwart fellow was pleasant to her eyes, and as she
closed the door to his hand waving farewell to her from the pines, she
said, reflecting on his words:
"You'll take him my love, will you? But, Master Gregory, you carry a
freight of which you do not know the measure; and, perhaps, you never
shall, though you are very brave and honest, and not so impudent as you
used to be,--and I'm not so sure that I like you so much better for that
either, Monsieur Gregory."
Then she went and laid her cheek against her mother's, and said: "They've
gone away for big game, mother dear; what shall be our quarry?"
"My child," the mother replied, "the story of our lives since last you
were with me is my only quarry. I want to know from your own lips all
that you have been in that life which once was mine also, but far away
from me now, even though you come from it, bringing its memories without
its messages."
"Dear, do you think that life there was so sweet to me? It meant as
little to your daughter as to you. She was always a child of the wild
woods. What rustle of pretty gowns is pleasant as the silken shiver of
the maple leaves in summer at this door? The happiest time in that life
was when we got away to Holwood or Marchurst, with the balls and calls
all over."
Mrs. Malbrouck smoothed her daughter's hand gently and smiled
approvingly.
"But that old life of yours, mother; what was it? You said that you would
tell me some day. Tell me now. Grandmother was fond of me--poor
grandmother! But she would never tell me anything. How I longed to be
back with you! . . . Sometimes you came to me in my sleep, and called to
me to come with you; and then again, when I was gay in the sunshine, you
came, and only smiled but never beckoned; though your eyes seemed to me
very sad, and I wondered if mine would not also become sad through
looking in them so--are they sad, mother?" And she laughed up brightly
into her mother's face.
"No, dear; they are like the stars. You ask me for my part in that life.
I will tell you soon, but not now. Be patient. Do you not tire of this
lonely life? Are you truly not anxious to return to--"
"'To the husks that the swine did eat?' No, no, no; for, see: I was born
for a free, strong life; the prairie or the wild wood, or else to live in
some far castle in Welsh mountains, where I should never hear the voice
of the social Thou must!--oh, what a must! never to be quite free or
natural. To be the slave of the code. I was born--I know not how! but so
longing for the sky, and space, and endless woods. I think I never saw an
animal but I loved it, nor ever lounged the mornings out at Holwood but I
wished it were a hut on the mountain side, and you and father with me."
Here she whispered, in a kind of awe: "And yet to think that Holwood is
now mine, and that I am mistress there, and that I must go back to it--if
only you would go back with me.... ah, dear, isn't it your duty to go
back with me"? she added, hesitatingly.
Audrey Malbrouck drew her daughter hungrily to her bosom, and said: "Yes,
dear, I will go back, if it chances that you need me; but your father and
I have lived the best days of our lives here, and we are content. But, my
Margaret, there is another to be thought of too, is there not? And in
that case is my duty then so clear?"
The girl's hand closed on her mother's, and she knew her heart had been
truly read.
III.
The hunters pursued their way, swinging grandly along on their
snow-shoes, as they made for the Wild Hawk Woods. It would seem as if
Malbrouck was testing Gregory's strength and stride, for the march that
day was a long and hard one. He was equal to the test, and even Big
Moccasin, the chief, grunted sound approval. But every day brought out
new capacities for endurance and larger resources; so that Malbrouck, who
had known the clash of civilisation with barbarian battle, and deeds both
dour and doughty, and who loved a man of might, regarded this youth with
increasing favour. By simple processes he drew from Gregory his aims and
ambitions, and found the real courage and power behind the front of
irony--the language of manhood and culture which was crusted by free and
easy idioms. Now and then they saw moose-tracks, but they were some days
out before they came to a moose-yard--a spot hoof-beaten by the moose;
his home, from which he strays, and to which he returns at times like a
repentant prodigal. Now the sport began. The dog-trains were put out of
view, and Big Moccasin and another Indian went off immediately to explore
the country round about. A few hours, and word was brought that there was
a small herd feeding not far away. Together they crept stealthily within
range of the cattle. Gregory Thorne's blood leaped as he saw the noble
quarry, with their wide-spread horns, sniffing the air, in which they had
detected something unusual. Their leader, a colossal beast, stamped with
his forefoot, and threw back his head with a snort.
"The first shot belongs to you, Mr. Thorne," said Malbrouck. "In the
shoulder, you know. You have him in good line. I'll take the heifer."
Gregory showed all the coolness of an old hunter, though his lips
twitched slightly with excitement. He took a short but steady aim, and
fired. The beast plunged forward and then fell on his knees. The others
broke away. Malbrouck fired and killed a heifer, and then all ran in
pursuit as the moose made for the woods.
Gregory, in the pride of his first slaughter, sprang away towards the
wounded leader, which, sunk to the earth, was shaking its great horns to
and fro. When at close range, he raised his gun to fire again, but the
moose rose suddenly, and with a wild bellowing sound rushed at Gregory,
who knew full well that a straight stroke from those hoofs would end his
moose-hunting days. He fired, but to no effect. He could not, like a
toreador, jump aside, for those mighty horns would sweep too wide a
space. He dropped on his knees swiftly, and as the great antlers almost
touched him, and he could feel the roaring breath of the mad creature in
his face, he slipped a cartridge in, and fired as he swung round; but at
that instant a dark body bore him down. He was aware of grasping those
sweeping horns, conscious of a blow which tore the flesh from his chest;
and then his knife--how came it in his hand?--with the instinct of the
true hunter. He plunged it once, twice, past a foaming mouth, into that
firm body, and then both fell together; each having fought valiantly
after his kind.
Gregory dragged himself from beneath the still heaving body, and
stretched to his feet; but a blindness came, and the next knowledge he
had was of brandy being poured slowly between his teeth, and of a voice
coming through endless distances: "A fighter, a born fighter," it said.
"The pluck of Lucifer--good boy!"
Then the voice left those humming spaces of infinity, and said: "Tilt him
this way a little, Big Moccasin. There, press firmly, so. Now the band
steady--together--tighter--now the withes--a little higher up--cut them
here." There was a slight pause, and then: "There, that's as good as an
army surgeon could do it. He'll be as sound as a bell in two weeks. Eh,
well, how do you feel now? Better? That's right! Like to be on your feet,
would you? Wait. Here, a sup of this. There you are. . . . Well?"
"Well," said the young man, faintly, "he was a beauty."
Malbrouck looked at him a moment, thoughtfully, and then said: "Yes, he
was a beauty."
"I want a dozen more like him, and then I shall be able to drop 'em as
neat as, you do."
"H'm! the order is large. I'm afraid we shall have to fill it at some
other time;" and Malbrouck smiled a little grimly.
"What! only one moose to take back to the Height of Land, to--" something
in the eye of the other stopped him.
"To? Yes, to"? and now the eye had a suggestion of humour.
"To show I'm not a tenderfoot."
"Yes, to show you're not a tenderfoot. I fancy that will be hardly
necessary. Oh, you will be up, eh? Well!"
"Well, I'm a tottering imbecile. What's the matter with my legs?--my
prophetic soul, it hurts! Oh, I see; that's where the old warrior's hoof
caught me sideways. Now, I'll tell you what, I'm going to have another
moose to take back to Marigold Lake."
"Oh?"
"Yes. I'm going to take back a young, live moose."
"A significant ambition. For what?--a sacrifice to the gods you have
offended in your classic existence?"
"Both. A peace-offering, and a sacrifice to--a goddess."
"Young man," said the other, the light of a smile playing on his lips,
"'Prosperity be thy page!' Big Moccasin, what of this young live moose?"
The Indian shook his head doubtfully.
"But I tell you I shall have that live moose, if I have to stay here to
see it grow."
And Malbrouck liked his pluck, and wished him good luck. And the good
luck came. They travelled back slowly to the Height of Land, making a
circuit. For a week they saw no more moose; but meanwhile Gregory's hurt
quickly healed. They had now left only eight days in which to get back to
Dog Ear River and Marigold Lake. If the young moose was to come it must
come soon. It came soon.
They chanced upon a moose-yard, and while the Indians were beating the
woods, Malbrouck and Gregory watched.
Soon a cow and a young moose came swinging down to the embankment.
Malbrouck whispered: "Now if you must have your live moose, here's a
lasso. I'll bring down the cow. The young one's horns are not large.
Remember, no pulling. I'll do that. Keep your broken chest and bad arm
safe. Now!"
Down came the cow with a plunge into the yard-dead. The lasso, too, was
over the horns of the calf, and in an instant Malbrouck was swinging away
with it over the snow. It was making for the trees--exactly what
Malbrouck desired. He deftly threw the rope round a sapling, but not too
taut, lest the moose's horns should be injured. The plucky animal now
turned on him. He sprang behind a tree, and at that instant he heard the
thud of hoofs behind him. He turned to see a huge bull-moose bounding
towards him. He was between two fires, and quite unarmed. Those hoofs had
murder in them. But at the instant a rifle shot rang out, and he only
caught the forward rush of the antlers as the beast fell.