Part 1

This eBook was produced by David Widger <[email protected]>

[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an entire meal of them. D.W.]

A ROMANY OF THE SNOWS

BEING A CONTINUATION OF THE PERSONAL HISTORIES OF "PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE" AND THE LAST EXISTING RECORDS OF PRETTY PIERRE

By Gilbert Parker

Volume 2.

MALACHI THE LAKE OF THE GREAT SLAVE THE RED PATROL THE GOING OF THE WHITE SWAN AT BAMBER'S BOOM

MALACHI

"He'll swing just the same to-morrow. Exit Malachi!" said Freddy Tarlton gravely.

The door suddenly opened on the group of gossips, and a man stepped inside and took the only vacant seat near the fire. He glanced at none, but stretched out his hands to the heat, looking at the coals with drooping introspective eyes.

"Exit Malachi," he said presently in a soft ironical voice, but did not look up.

"By the holy poker, Pierre, where did you spring from?" asked Tarlton genially.

"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and--" Pierre responded, with a little turn of his fingers.

"And the wind doesn't tell where it's been, but that's no reason Pierre shouldn't," urged the other.

Pierre shrugged his shoulders, but made no answer. "He was a tough," said a voice from the crowd. "To-morrow he'll get the breakfast he's paid for." Pierre turned and looked at the speaker with a cold inquisitive stare. "Mon Dieu!" he said presently, "here's this Gohawk playing preacher. What do you know of Malachi, Gohawk? What do any of you know about Malachi? A little of this, a little of that, a drink here, a game of euchre there, a ride after cattle, a hunt behind Guidon Hill!--But what is that? You have heard the cry of the eagle, you have seen him carry off a lamb, you have had a pot-shot at him, but what do you know of the eagle's nest? Mais non.

"The lamb is one thing, the nest is another. You don't know the eagle till you've been there. And you, Gohawk, would not understand, if you saw the nest. Such cancan!"

"Shut your mouth!" broke out Gohawk. "D'ye think I'm going to stand your--"

Freddy Tarlton laid a hand on his arm. "Keep quiet, Gohawk. What good will it do?" Then he said, "Tell us about the nest, Pierre; they're hanging him for the lamb in the morning."

"Who spoke for him at the trial?" Pierre asked.

"I did," said Tarlton. "I spoke as well as I could, but the game was dead against him from the start. The sheriff was popular, and young; young--that was the thing; handsome too, and the women, of course! It was sure from the start; besides, Malachi would say nothing--didn't seem to care."

"No, not to care," mused Pierre. "What did you say for him to the jury --I mean the devil of a thing to make them sit up and think, 'Poor Malachi!'--like that."

"Best speech y'ever heard," Gohawk interjected; "just emptied the words out, split 'em like peas, by gol! till he got to one place right before the end. Then he pulled up sudden, and it got so quiet you could 'a heard a pin drop. 'Gen'lemen of the jury,' says Freddy Tarlton here-- gen'lemen, by gol! all that lot--Lagan and the rest! 'Gen'lemen of the jury,' he says, 'be you danged well sure that you're at one with God A'mighty in this; that you've got at the core of justice here; that you've got evidence to satisfy Him who you've all got to satisfy some day, or git out. Not evidence as to shootin', but evidence as to what that shootin' meant, an' whether it was meant to kill, an' what for. The case is like this, gen'lemen of the jury,' says Freddy Tarlton here. 'Two men are in a street alone. There's a shot, out comes everybody, and sees Fargo the sheriff laid along the ground, his mouth in the dust, and a full-up gun in his fingers. Not forty feet away stands Malachi with a gun smokin' in his fist. It seems to be the opinion that it was cussedness--just cussedness--that made Malachi turn the sheriff's boots to the sun. For Malachi was quarrelsome. I'll give you a quarter on that. And the sheriff was mettlesome, used to have high spirits, like as if he's lift himself over the fence with his bootstraps. So when Malachi come and saw the sheriff steppin' round in his paten' leathers, it give him the needle, and he got a bead on him--and away went Sheriff Fargo-- right away! That seems to be the sense of the public.' And he stops again, soft and quick, and looks the twelve in the eyes at once. 'But,' says Freddy Tarlton here, 'are you goin' to hang a man on the little you know? Or are you goin' to credit him with somethin' of what you don't know? You haint got the inside of this thing, and Malachi doesn't let you know it, and God keeps quiet. But be danged well sure that you've got the bulge on iniquity here; for gen'lemen with pistols out in the street is one thing, and sittin' weavin' a rope in a court-room for a man's neck is another thing,' says Freddy Tarlton here. 'My client has refused to say one word this or that way, but don't be sure that Some One that knows the inside of things won't speak for him in the end.' Then he turns and looks at Malachi, and Malachi was standin' still and steady like a tree, but his face was white, and sweat poured on his forehead. 'If God has no voice to be heard for my client in this court-room to-day, is there no one on earth--no man or woman--who can speak for one who won't speak for himself?' says Freddy Tarlton here. Then, by gol! for the first time Malachi opened. 'There's no one,' he says. 'The speakin' is all for the sheriff. But I spoke once, and the sheriff didn't answer.' Not a bit of beg-yer-pardon in it. It struck cold. 'I leave his case in the hands of twelve true men,' says Freddy Tarlton here, and he sits down."

"So they said he must walk the air?" suggested Pierre.

"Without leavin' their seats," someone added instantly.

"So. But that speech of 'Freddy Tarlton here'?" "It was worth twelve drinks to me, no more, and nothing at all to Malachi," said Tarlton. "When I said I'd come to him to-night to cheer him up, he said he'd rather sleep. The missionary, too, he can make nothing of him. 'I don't need anyone here,' he says. 'I eat this off my own plate.' And that's the end of Malachi."

"Because there was no one to speak for him--eh? Well, well."

"If he'd said anything that'd justify the thing--make it a manslaughter business or a quarrel--then! But no, not a word, up or down, high or low. Exit Malachi!" rejoined Freddy Tarlton sorrowfully. "I wish he'd given me half a chance."

"I wish I'd been there," said Pierre, taking a match from Gohawk, and lighting his cigarette.

"To hear his speech?" asked Gohawk, nodding towards Tarlton.

"To tell the truth about it all. T'sh, you bats, you sheep, what have you in your skulls? When a man will not speak, will not lie to gain a case for his lawyer--or save himself, there is something! Now, listen to me, and I will tell you the story of Malachi. Then you shall judge.

"I never saw such a face as that girl had down there at Lachine in Quebec. I knew her when she was a child, and I knew Malachi when he was on the river with the rafts, the foreman of a gang. He had a look all open then as the sun--yes. Happy? Yes, as happy as a man ought to be. Well, the mother of the child died, and Malachi alone was left to take care of the little Norice. He left the river and went to work in the mills, so that he might be with the child; and when he got to be foreman there he used to bring her to the mill. He had a basket swung for her just inside the mill not far from him, right where she was in the shade; but if she stretched out her hand it would be in the sun. I've seen a hundred men turn to look at her where she swung, singing to herself, and then chuckle to themselves afterwards as they worked.

"When Trevoor, the owner, come one day, and saw her, he swore, and was going to sack Malachi, but the child--that little Norice--leaned over the basket, and offered him an apple. He looked for a minute, then he reached up, took the apple, turned round, and went out of the mill without a word--so. Next month when he come he walked straight to her, and handed up to her a box of toys and a silver whistle. 'That's to call me when you want me,' he said, as he put the whistle to her lips, and then he put the gold string of it round her neck. She was a wise little thing, that Norice, and noticed things. I don't believe that Trevoor or Malachi ever knew how sweet was the smell of the fresh sawdust till she held it to their noses; and it was she that had the saws--all sizes-- start one after the other, making so strange a tune. She made up a little song about fairies and others to sing to that tune. And no one ever thought much about Indian Island, off beyond the sweating, baking piles of lumber, and the blistering logs and timbers in the bay, till she told stories about it. Sure enough, when you saw the shut doors and open windows of those empty houses, all white without in the sun and dark within, and not a human to be seen, you could believe almost anything. You can think how proud Malachi was. She used to get plenty of presents from the men who had no wives or children to care for--little silver and gold things as well as others. She was fond of them, but no, not vain. She loved the gold and silver for their own sake."

Pierre paused. "I knew a youngster once," said Gohawk, "that--"

Pierre waved his hand. "I am not through, M'sieu' Gohawk the talker. Years went on. Now she took care of the house of Malachi. She wore the whistle that Trevoor gave her. He kept saying to her still, 'If ever you need me, little Norice, blow it, and I will come.' He was droll, that M'sieu' Trevoor, at times. Well, she did not blow, but still he used to come every year, and always brought her something. One year he brought his nephew, a young fellow of about twenty-three. She did not whistle for him either, but he kept on coming. That was the beginning of 'Exit Malachi.' The man was clever and bad, the girl believing and good. He was young, but he knew how to win a woman's heart. When that is done, there is nothing more to do--she is yours for good or evil; and if a man, through a woman's love, makes her to sin, even his mother cannot be proud of him-no. But the man married Norice, and took her away to Madison, down in Wisconsin. Malachi was left alone--Malachi and Trevoor, for Trevoor felt towards her as a father.

"Alors, sorrow come to the girl, for her husband began to play cards and to drink, and he lost much money. There was the trouble--the two together. They lived in a hotel. One day a lady missed a diamond necklace from her room. Norice had been with her the evening before. Norice come into her own room the next afternoon, and found detectives searching. In her own jewel-case, which was tucked away in the pocket of an old dress, was found the necklace. She was arrested. She said nothing--for she waited for her husband, who was out of town that day. He only come in time to see her in court next morning. She did not deny anything; she was quiet, like Malachi. The man played his part well. He had hid the necklace where he thought it would be safe, but when it was found, he let the wife take the blame--a little innocent thing. People were sorry for them both. She was sent to jail. Her father was away in the Rocky Mountains, and he did not hear; Trevoor was in Europe. The husband got a divorce, and was gone. Norice was in jail for over a year, and then she was set free, for her health went bad, and her mind was going, they thought. She did not know till she come out that she was divorced. Then she nearly died. But then Trevoor come."

Freddy Tarlton's hands were cold with excitement, and his fingers trembled so he could hardly light a cigar.

"Go on, go on, Pierre," he said huskily.

"Trevoor said to her--he told me this himself--'Why did you not whistle for me, Norice? A word would have brought me from Europe.' 'No one could help me, no one at all,' she answered. Then Trevoor said, 'I know who did it, for he has robbed me too.' She sank in a heap on the floor. 'I could have borne it and anything for him, if he hadn't divorced me,' she said. Then they cleared her name before the world. But where was the man? No one knew. At last Malachi, in the Rocky Mountains, heard of her trouble, for Norice wrote to him, but told him not to do the man any harm, if he ever found him--ah, a woman, a woman! . . . But Malachi met the man one day at Guidon Hill, and shot him in the street."

"Fargo the sheriff!" roared half-a-dozen voices. "Yes; he had changed his name, had come up here, and because he was clever and spent money, and had a pull on someone,--got it at cards perhaps,--he was made sheriff."

"In God's name, why didn't Malachi speak?" said Tarlton; "why didn't he tell me this?"

"Because he and I had our own plans. The one evidence he wanted was Norice. If she would come to him in his danger, and in spite of his killing the man, good. If not, then he would die. Well, I went to find her and fetch her. I found her. There was no way to send word, so we had to come on as fast as we could. We have come just in time."

"Do you mean to say, Pierre, that she's here?" said Gohawk.

Pierre waved his hand emphatically. "And so we came on with a pardon."

Every man was on his feet, every man's tongue was loosed, and each ordered liquor for Pierre, and asked him where the girl was. Freddy Tarlton wrung his hand, and called a boy to go to his rooms and bring three bottles of wine, which he had kept for two years, to drink when he had won his first big case.

Gohawk was importunate. "Where is the girl, Pierre?" he urged.

"Such a fool as you are, Gohawk! She is with her father."

A half-hour later, in a large sitting-room, Freddy Tarlton was making eloquent toasts over the wine. As they all stood drinking to Pierre, the door opened from the hall-way, and Malachi stood before them. At his shoulder was a face, wistful, worn, yet with a kind of happiness too; and the eyes had depths which any man might be glad to drown his heart in.

Malachi stood still, not speaking, and an awe or awkwardness fell on the group at the table.

But Norice stepped forward a little, and said: "May we come in?"

In an instant Freddy Tarlton was by her side, and had her by the hand, her and her father, drawing them over.

His ardent, admiring look gave Norice thought for many a day.

And that night Pierre made an accurate prophecy.

THE LAKE OF THE GREAT SLAVE

When Tybalt the tale-gatherer asked why it was so called, Pierre said: "Because of the Great Slave;" and then paused.

Tybalt did not hurry Pierre, knowing his whims. If he wished to tell, he would in his own time; if not, nothing could draw it from him. It was nearly an hour before Pierre, eased off from the puzzle he was solving with bits of paper and obliged Tybalt. He began as if they had been speaking the moment before:

"They have said it is legend, but I know better. I have seen the records of the Company, and it is all there. I was at Fort O'Glory once, and in a box two hundred years old the factor and I found it. There were other papers, and some of them had large red seals, and a name scrawled along the end of the page."

Pierre shook his head, as if in contented musing. He was a born story- teller. Tybalt was aching with interest, for he scented a thing of note.

"How did any of those papers, signed with a scrawl, begin?" he asked.

"'To our dearly-beloved,' or something like that," answered Pierre. "There were letters also. Two of them were full of harsh words, and these were signed with the scrawl."

"What was that scrawl?" asked Tybalt.

Pierre stooped to the sand, and wrote two words with his finger. "Like that," he answered.

Tybalt looked intently for an instant, and then drew a long breath. "Charles Rex," he said, hardly above his breath.

Pierre gave him a suggestive sidelong glance. "That name was droll, eh?"

Tybalt's blood was tingling with the joy of discovery. "It is a great name," he said shortly.

"The Slave was great--the Indians said so at the last."

"But that was not the name of the Slave?"

"Mais non. Who said so! Charles Rex--like that! was the man who wrote the letters."

"To the Great Slave?"

Pierre made a gesture of impatience. "Very sure."

"Where are those letters now?"

"With the Governor of the Company." Tybalt cut the tobacco for his pipe savagely. "You'd have liked one of those papers?" asked Pierre provokingly.

"I'd give five hundred dollars for one," broke out Tybalt.

Pierre lifted his eyebrows. "T'sh, what's the good of five hundred dollars up here? What would you do with a letter like that?"

Tybalt laughed with a touch of irony, for Pierre was clearly "rubbing it in."

"Perhaps for a book?" gently asked Pierre.

"Yes, if you like."

"It is a pity. But there is a way."

"How?"

"Put me in the book. Then--"

"How does that touch the case?"

Pierre shrugged a shoulder gently, for he thought Tybalt was unusually obtuse. Tybalt thought so himself before the episode ended.

"Go on," he said, with clouded brow, but interested eye. Then, as if with sudden thought: "To whom were the letters addressed, Pierre?"

"Wait!" was the reply. "One letter said: 'Good cousin, We are evermore glad to have thee and thy most excelling mistress near us. So, fail us not at our cheerful doings, yonder at Highgate.' Another--a year after-- said: 'Cousin, for the sweetening of our mind, get thee gone into some distant corner of our pasturage--the farthest doth please us most. We would not have thee on foreign ground, for we bear no ill-will to our brother princes, and yet we would not have thee near our garden of good loyal souls, for thou hast a rebel heart and a tongue of divers tunes. Thou lovest not the good old song of duty to thy prince. Obeying us, thy lady shall keep thine estates untouched; failing obedience, thou wilt make more than thy prince unhappy. Fare thee well.' That was the way of two letters," said Pierre.

"How do you remember so?"

Pierre shrugged a shoulder again. "It is easy with things like that."

"But word for word?"

"I learned it word for word."

"Now for the story of the Lake--if you won't tell me the name of the man."

"The name afterwards-perhaps. Well, he came to that farthest corner of the pasturage, to the Hudson's Bay country, two hundred years ago. What do you think? Was he so sick of all, that he would go so far he could never get back? Maybe those 'cheerful doings' at Highgate, eh? And the lady--who can tell?"

Tybalt seized Pierre's arm. "You know more. Damnation, can't you see I'm on needles to hear? Was there anything in the letters about the lady? Anything more than you've told?"

Pierre liked no man's hand on him. He glanced down at the eager fingers, and said coldly:

"You are a great man; you can tell a story in many ways, but I in one way alone, and that is my way--mais oui!"

"Very well, take your own time."

"Bien. I got the story from two heads. If you hear a thing like that from Indians, you call it 'legend'; if from the Company's papers, you call it 'history.' Well, in this there is not much difference. The papers tell precise the facts; the legend gives the feeling, is more true. How can you judge the facts if you don't know the feeling? No! what is bad turns good sometimes, when you know the how, the feeling, the place. Well, this story of the Great Slave--eh? . . . There is a race of Indians in the far north who have hair so brown like yours, m'sieu', and eyes no darker. It is said they are of those that lived at the Pole, before the sea swamped the Isthmus, and swallowed up so many islands. So. In those days the fair race came to the south for the first time, that is, far below the Circle. They had their women with them. I have seen those of to-day: fine and tall, with breasts like apples, and a cheek to tempt a man like you, m'sieu'; no grease in the hair--no, M'sieu' Tybalt."

Tybalt sat moveless under the obvious irony, but his eyes were fixed intently on Pierre, his mind ever travelling far ahead of the tale.

"Alors: the 'good cousin' of Charles Rex, he made a journey with two men to the Far-off Metal River, and one day this tribe from the north come on his camp. It was summer, and they were camping in the Valley of the Young Moon, more sweet, they say, than any in the north. The Indians cornered them. There was a fight, and one of the Company's men was killed, and five of the other. But when the king of the people of the Pole saw that the great man was fair of face, he called for the fight to stop.

"There was a big talk all by signs, and the king said for the great man to come and be one with them, for they liked his fair face--their forefathers were fair like him. He should have the noblest of their women for his wife, and be a prince among them. He would not go: so they drew away again and fought. A stone-axe brought the great man to the ground. He was stunned, not killed. Then the other man gave up, and said he would be one of them if they would take him. They would have killed him but for one of their women. She said that he should live to tell them tales of the south country and the strange people, when they came again to their camp-fires. So they let him live, and he was one of them. But the chief man, because he was stubborn and scorned them, and had killed the son of their king in the fight, they made a slave, and carried him north a captive, till they came to this lake--the Lake of the Great Slave.

"In all ways they tried him, but he would not yield, neither to wear their dress nor to worship their gods. He was robbed of his clothes, of his gold-handled dagger, his belt of silk and silver, his carbine with rich chasing, and all, and he was among them almost naked,--it was summer, as I said, yet defying them. He was taller by a head than any of them, and his white skin rippled in the sun like soft steel."

Tybalt was inclined to ask Pierre how he knew all this, but he held his peace. Pierre, as if divining his thoughts, continued:

"You ask how I know these things. Very good: there are the legends, and there were the papers of the Company. The Indians tried every way, but it was no use; he would have nothing to say to them. At last they came to this lake. Now something great occurred. The woman who had been the wife of the king's dead son, her heart went out in love of the Great Slave; but he never looked at her. One day there were great sports, for it was the feast of the Red Star. The young men did feats of strength, here on this ground where we sit. The king's wife called out for the Great Slave to measure strength with them all. He would not stir. The king commanded him; still he would not, but stood among them silent and looking far away over their heads. At last, two young men of good height and bone threw arrows at his bare breast. The blood came in spots. Then he gave a cry through his beard, and was on them like a lion. He caught them, one in each arm, swung them from the ground, and brought their heads together with a crash, breaking their skulls, and dropped them at his feet. Catching up a long spear, he waited for the rest. But they did not come, for, with a loud voice, the king told them to fall back, and went and felt the bodies of the men. One of them was dead; the other was his second son--he would live.

"'It is a great deed,' said the king, 'for these were no children, but strong men.'

"Then again he offered the Great Slave women to marry, and fifty tents of deerskin for the making of a village. But the Great Slave said no, and asked to be sent back to Fort O'Glory.