Kitabı oku: «The Red Man's Revenge: A Tale of The Red River Flood», sayfa 12
Chapter Twenty Two.
The “Impossible” Accomplished
And what a dwelling Angus Macdonald’s house had become!
“What a home-coming!” exclaimed Ian, thinking, in the bitterness of his soul, of Elsie as well as the house.
“It’s awful!” said Victor, with a sympathetic glance at his friend.
The desolation was indeed complete—symbolic, Ian thought, of the condition of his own heart. Besides having eight or ten feet of water on its walls, all the lower rooms were utterly wrecked. A heavy log, ready for the saw-pit, had come down with the torrent, and, taking upon it the duties of a battering-ram, had charged the parlour window. Not only did it carry this bodily into the room, but it forced it into the passage beyond, where it jammed and stuck fast. The butt of this log, projecting several feet from the window, had intercepted straw and hay to such an extent that a miniature stack was formed, in which all sorts of light articles of furniture and débris had been caught. With the stubborn determination of a Celt, Angus had refused to remove his main door, which faced up stream. The result was that the flood removed it for him with a degree of violence that had induced Miss Martha to exclaim, “The house is goin’ at last!” to which Angus had replied doggedly.
“Let it go. It will hef to go some day, whatever.” But the house had not gone. It was only, as we have said, the main door which went, and was hurled through the passage into the kitchen, where it charged the back door, wrenched it off, and accompanied it to Lake Winnipeg with a tail of miscellaneous cooking utensils. Only shreds of the back windows remained hanging by twisted hinges to the frames, telling with mute eloquence of heroic resistance to the last gasp. Whatever had not been removed by Angus from the ground-floor of his house had been swept out at the windows and doorways, as with the besom of destruction.
Paddling in through the front door, the two friends disembarked from their canoe on the staircase, and ascended to the upper floor. Here everything betokened a hurried departure. Furniture was strewn about in disorder; articles of clothing were scattered broadcast, as if Miss Martha and her maid had been summoned to sudden departure, and had rummaged recklessly for their most cherished possessions. In the principal bedroom, on the best bed, stood Beauty in her native ugliness—the only living thing left to do the honours of the house.
“What a brute!” exclaimed Victor.
He seized a saucepan that stood handy, and hurled it at her. Beauty was equal to the emergency; she leaped up, allowed the pan to pass under her, fled shrieking through the window, and took refuge on the top of the house.
“I’m glad you missed her, Vic,” said Ian, in a slightly reproachful tone; “she’s an old friend of the family, and a harmless thing.”
“Miss Trim would not agree with you in your opinion of her,” returned Victor, with a laugh; “but I’m also glad I missed her. It was a sudden impulse that I couldn’t resist, and you know a fellow is scarcely accountable for his impulses.”
“True; not for his impulses, but he is very accountable for actions resulting from impulse. If you had killed Beauty I should have had an irresistible impulse to pitch you over the window. If I were to do so in such circumstances would you hold me unaccountable?”
“I’m not sure,” said Victor, with a grim smile. “But we’ll change the subject; I don’t like argument when I’m likely to get the worst of it. It’s plain that you can do no good here, I therefore propose that we return to Willow Creek, take the small boat, and go up to the Mountain to see father, taking Tony and Petawanaquat along with us.”
Ian shook his head with an expression of sadness that surprised his friend.
“No, Vic, no; my work with you in search of your brother is done, my father’s home now claims my chief care. You are wrong in saying I can do no good here; look round at the wreck and mess. There is much to be done. Now I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll remain here all day and all night too. You will return home and send me the little punt, if it can be spared, for I shall have to row to the outhouses a good deal, and round the house too. As you see, nothing can be done without a craft of some sort. Send Peegwish with it, without Wildcat, she would only be in the way.”
Victor tried to induce his friend to change his mind, but Ian was immoveable. He therefore returned to Willow Creek in the canoe, and sent Peegwish back with the punt—a tub-like little boat, with two small oars or sculls.
Left alone, Ian Macdonald leaned on the sill of a window in the gable of the house, from which he could see the house at Willow Creek, and sighed deeply. “So then,” he thought, “all my hopes are blighted; my air castles are knocked down, my bear-hunting has been in vain; Elsie is engaged to Louis Lambert!”
There was no bitterness in his heart now, only a feeling of profound loneliness. As he raised himself with another sigh, the top of the window tipped off his cap, which fell into the water. He cared little for the loss, but stood watching the cap as it floated slowly away with the current, and compared its receding form with his dwindling joys. The current, which was not strong there, carried the cap straight to the knoll several hundred yards off, on which stood the smoking-box of old Sam Ravenshaw, and stranded it there.
The incident turned the poor youth’s mind back to brighter days and other scenes, especially to the last conversation which he had held with the owner of the smoking-box. He was mentally enacting that scene over again when Peegwish pulled up to the house and passed under the window.
“Come along, you old savage,” said Ian, with a good-humoured nod; “I want your help. Go round to the front and shove into the passage. The doorway’s wide enough.”
Peegwish, who was fond of Ian, replied to the nod with a hideous smile. In a few minutes the two were busily engaged in collecting loose articles and bringing things in general into order.
While thus engaged they were interrupted by Beauty cackling and screaming with tremendous violence. She was evidently in distress. Running up a ladder leading to the garret, Ian found that the creature had forced her way through a hole in the roof, and entangled herself in a mass of cordage thrown in a heap along with several stout ropes, or cables, which Angus had recently bought with the intention of rigging out a sloop with which to traverse the great Lake Winnipeg. Setting the hen free, Ian returned to his work.
A few minutes later he was again arrested suddenly, but not by Beauty this time. He became aware of a peculiar sensation which caused a slight throbbing of his heart, and clearly proved that, although lacerated, or even severely crushed, that organ was not quite broken!
He looked round at Peegwish, and beheld that savage glaring, as if transfixed, with mouth and eyes equally wide open.
“Did you feel that, Peegwish?”
Yes, Peegwish had felt “that,” and said so in an awful whisper without moving.
“Surely—no, it cannot have been the—”
He stopped short. There was a low, grinding sound, accompanied by a strange tremor in the planks on which they stood, as if the house were gradually coming alive! There could be no mistake. The flood had risen sufficiently to float the house, and it was beginning to slide from its foundations!
“Peegwish,” he said, quickly dropping the things with which he had been busy, “is there a stout rope anywhere? Oh, yes; I forgot,” he added, springing towards the attic. “Blessings on you, Beauty, for having guided me here!”
In a few seconds a stout rope or cable was procured. The end of this Ian ran out at the main doorway, round through the parlour window, and tied it in a trice. The other end he coiled in the punt, and soon made it fast to a stout elm, under whose grateful shade Angus Macdonald had enjoyed many a pipe and Martha many a cup of tea in other days. The tree bent slowly forward; the thick rope became rigid. Ian and Peegwish sat in the boat anxiously looking on.
In that moment of enforced inaction Ian conceived an idea! Thought is quick, quicker than light, which, we believe, has reached the maximum of “express speed” in material things. By intermittent flashes, so rapid that it resembled a stream of sparks, the whole plan rushed through his mind, from conception to completion. We can only give a suggestive outline, as follows. The knoll, the smoking-box, the smoker, his words, “Mark what I say. I will sell this knoll to your father, and give my daughter to you, when you take that house, and with your own unaided hands place it on this knoll!” The impossible had, in the wondrous course of recent events, come just within the verge of possibility—a stout arm, a strong will, coupled with a high flood—“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood,”—immortal and prophetic bard! There could be no chance of Elsie now, but even to win the right to claim her if she had been willing was better than nothing. In any case old Angus and the knoll would be united!
“Peegwish!” shouted Ian, turning on the unfortunate ex-brewer with a flushed face and blazing eyes that caused him to shrink in alarm, “can you sit still and do nothing?”
“Eh?” exclaimed Peegwish, in surprise.
“Bah!” said Ian, seizing the sculls.
The punt whirled round, leaped over the water, dashed through the doorway, and went crashing into the staircase. Before Peegwish could pick himself up, Ian had vanished up the stairs. The savage found him a moment later wildly selecting a rope from the heap that lay on the floor of the attic. As Peegwish entered, Ian suddenly turned on him with a gaze of increased intensity. Had the young man gone mad? Peegwish felt very uncomfortable. He had some reason to! Another thought had flashed into Ian’s mind—the words “your own unaided hands” troubled him. Peegwish could be kept out of the boat, but he could not be kept from rendering aid of some sort, in some way or other. There was but one resource.
Ian sprang on Peegwish like a lion. The savage was both bold and strong, but he was elderly, and Ian was young and bolder; besides, he had the unusual strength of a half-madman at that moment. Down went the ex-brewer. He struggled hard. Ian crushed him in his arms, raised him, crammed him into a chair, seized a pliant rope and bound him therewith, winding him and the chair round and round in his haste—for there was no time to tie knots—until he resembled a gigantic spool of ravelled thread. Not a moment too soon! There was a snap outside; the rope was gone! A grind, a slide, and then a lurch, as of a ship at sea.
Ian is on the staircase now, in the punt, and out upon the flood with a stout rope fast to the stern and to the door-post. Panting from his recent exertions, and half-wild with the mingled excitement, danger, novelty, and fun of the thing, he draws two or three long breaths as he grasps the sculls and looks quickly round.
The house moves sluggishly, probably retarded by sunken shrubs, or dragging débris connected with the foundation. This is somewhat of a relief. There is time. He pulls ahead till the rope tightens, and then stands up in the punt to observe the situation critically. The current is bearing him straight towards the knoll. So far well; but there are two slightly diverging currents on right and left, caused by the knoll itself, which are so strong that if the house should get fairly into either of them no power that he possessed could prevent its being swept, on the one hand, into the main current of the Red River, on the other hand away over the flooded plains. To watch with lynx eyes the slightest tendency to divergence on the part of the house now absorbs his whole being. But thought again intervenes. What if he should be observed by those at Willow Creek, and they should send assistance? horror! But by good fortune all the males at the Creek have departed, and none are left but women. He casts one of the lynx glances in that direction—no one is coming. He breathes again, freely. Suddenly the house diverges a little to the right. Away flies the punt to the left, and he is just about to bend to the sculls with the force of Goliath, when he perceives his mistake—the divergence was to the left! In agonies of haste he shoots to the other side, where he discovers that the divergence must have been in his own excited brain, for the house still holds on the even tenor of its way; and Ian, puffing straight ahead, tightens the rope, and helps it on its voyage.
Presently there is a sudden, and this time a decided divergence to the right—probably caused by some undercurrent acting on the foundations. Away goes the punt in the opposite direction, and now Goliath and David together were babes to Ian! Talk of horse-power. Elephanto-hippopotamus-Power is a more appropriate term. The muscles of his arms rise up like rolls of gutta-percha; the knotted veins stand out on his flushed forehead, but all in vain—the house continues to diverge, and Ian feeling the game to be all but lost, pulls with the concentrated energy of rage and despair. The sculls bend like wands, the rowlocks creak, the thole-pins crack. It won’t do. As well might mortal man pull against Niagara falls.
At this moment of horrible disappointment the house touches something submerged—a post, a fence, a mound; he knows not nor cares what—which checks the divergence and turns the house back in the right direction.
What a rebound there is in Ian’s heart! He would cheer if there were a cubic inch of air to spare in his labouring chest—but there is not, and what of it remains must be used in a tough pull to the opposite side, for the sheer given to the building has been almost too strong. In a few minutes his efforts have been successful. The house is bearing steadily though slowly down in the right direction.
Ian rests on his oars a few seconds, and wipes his heated brow.
So—in the great battle of life we sometimes are allowed to pause and breathe awhile in the very heat of conflict; and happy is it for us if our thoughts and hearts go out towards Him whose love is ever near to bless those who trust in it.
He is drawing near to the knoll now, and there seems every chance of success; but the nearer he draws to the goal the greater becomes the risk of divergence, for while the slack water at the head of the knoll becomes slacker, so that the house seems to have ceased moving, the diverging currents on either side become swifter, and their suction-power more dangerous. The anxiety of the pilot at this stage, and his consequent shooting from side to side, is far more trying than his more sustained efforts had been.
At last the punt reaches the smoking-box, which itself stands in several feet of water, for the ground of the knoll is submerged, its bushes alone being visible. There is only the length of the rope now between our hero and victory! In that length, however, there are innumerable possibilities. Even while he gazes the house bumps on something, slews round, and is caught by the current on the right. Before Ian has time to recover from his agony of alarm, and dip the sculls, it bumps again and slews to the left; a third favouring bump sends it back into the slack water. The combined bumps have given an impulse to the house under the influence of which it bears straight down upon the knoll with considerable force. Its gable-end is close to the smoking-box. Entranced with expectancy Ian sits in the punt panting and with eyes flashing. There is a sudden shock! Inside the house Peegwish and his chair are tumbled head over heels. Outside, the gable has just touched—as it were kissed—the smoking-box, Elsie’s “summer-house;” Beauty, flapping her wings at that moment on the ridge-pole, crows, and Angus Macdonald’s dwelling is, finally and fairly, hard and fast upon Sam Ravenshaw’s knoll.
Chapter Twenty Three.
Found and Saved
Now it must not be imagined that old Liz, after being carried away by the flood, submitted to her fate without a struggle. It was not in her nature to give in without good reason. She did not sit down and wring her hands, or tear her hair, or reproach her destiny, or relieve her feelings by venting them on the old couple under her charge. In short, she did not fall back in her distress on any of the refuges of the imbecile.
Her first care was to arrange Daddy and Mrs Winklemann in such a manner that they could sleep with some degree of comfort in their chairs. This she did by means of pillows and blankets, and, after accomplishing it, sat down on the wet bed to contemplate the pair. Her satisfaction was soon marred, however, by the discovery that Mrs Winklemann was given to kicking in her sleep. In one of the spasmodic lunges with her lower limbs she gave Daddy’s legs such a shake that the old gentleman was half awakened by the surprise.
It will be remembered that the pair were seated vis-à-vis in their respective arm-chairs, with a low table between them, and their legs resting thereon. To prevent a recurrence of the kick Liz put a piece of broken plank between them on the table, and by means of a rope wound round legs and table, effectually restrained the unruly members.
She then returned to her place on the soaking truckle-bed, and, leaning her wet shoulders against the wall, endeavoured to think what was to be done when the return of day should enable her to act. To act was easy to Liz, but thought was difficult. In attempting it she fell sound asleep. Her shape helped her; she did not require to lie down. Her head merely dropped on one of her fat shoulders. The rotundity of her frame rendered a collapse impossible. Thus she slept and snored until daylight shone through the parchment windows—until Daddy awoke her with a gasping cough.
“Hough! Hi! Liz, there’s sumthin’ wrang wi’ my legs!”
“Hoots! haud yer gab!” cried his polite daughter, leaping from her damp couch into the water, with no other evidence of feeling than a sharp “Hech!” as the cold element laved her limbs. “There’s naethin’ wrang wi’ yer legs, only I’ve tied them to the table to keep them frae tum’lin’ aff.”
“Mine boy, have he comin’ back?” asked Mrs Winklemann, who was awakened by the conversation.
“Na; he’s no come back yet, but he’ll be here afore lang, nae doot. Be quiet noo, like guid bairns. I canna let yer legs doon yet, for the floor’s dreedfu’ wat. There!” she added, casting loose the ropes and arranging the limbs more comfortably; “jist let them lie where they are, and I’ll gie ye yer brekfists in a meenit.”
She was as good as her word. In a few minutes the submissive pair were busy with bread and cheese, which, with a little cold water, was the only breakfast poor Liz had to give them.
While the morning meal was being dispensed the anxious little woman thrust a bite or two into her own mouth, and ate as she moved about. Then she told the old people she was “gauin’ up the lum to look aboot her.” Without more ado she dipped into the fireplace and disappeared up the chimney.
Her surprise on reaching this point of vantage was very great. The cottage was no longer driven over the bosom of a wide sea, but floated quietly in a calm basin surrounded by trees. During the night it had been carried far down in the direction of Lake Winnipeg, and had got entangled in one of the clumps of wood with which some parts of that region were studded. The hut had been so completely thrust into the copse that it was quite encompassed by foliage, and nothing of the surrounding country was visible from the chimney-top. The only thing that remained obvious to old Liz was the fact that the hut still floated, and was held in position by a stout branch which had caught the roof.
We have said that thought—that is, profound or consecutive thought—was a trouble to old Liz. Her mind leaped in an interjectional, flashing manner. Her actions were impulsive. A tall tree, a squirrel, and a bird’s-eye view flashed into her brain at the same moment. She desired the last, and proceeded to act like the second, by seizing a limb of the first, which hung conveniently at her elbow. But her emulation of the squirrel was not very successful, for, although a strong frame and powerful will are useful in climbing tall trees, petticoats, even when short, are against that operation. It is needless to say, however, that in the case of old Liz difficulties were only met to be overcome. In five or ten minutes she stood with dishevelled hair, bleeding hands, and torn garments, among the topmost branches of the tall tree, and surveyed the world beneath with feelings of mingled surprise and dismay. There was evidently no abatement of the flood. On her left hand lay a boundless lake; on her right there spread out a little archipelago of trees and bushes. While she gazed her eye was arrested by two dark specks on the horizon. Could they be boats? Yes; they moved! Clearly they must be either boats or canoes.
One of the old woman’s intellectual flashes occurred at this point. There was a fishing-rod in the hut below, a primitive one, such as Adam might have used in Eden—the branch of a tree.
Down came old Liz, much faster than she went up; slipping, scratching, rending, grasping, and clutching, until she gained the chimney, down which she went unceremoniously, alighting as formerly, with a squash which not only alarmed but besprinkled the old couple.
Liz caught up the rod, tied an apron to it, and then, using it as a lance, charged the fireplace. It stuck, of course, but Liz was in no mood to be baffled. She bent the rod powerfully and forced it up. Following it, she emerged from the chimney, and, with a spirit worthy of Excelsior, bore her banner to the tall tree-top, and fastened it to the topmost bough with the last remnant of her torn neckerchief.
It was in the morning of the day about which we now write, that Victor Ravenshaw and his friends arrived at the settlement. We have said that Michel Rollin set off alone in a canoe in search of his mother the moment he obtained sufficient information to enable him to act. At first he paddled wildly over the watery plain, as if mere exertion of muscle would accomplish his end, but soon he began to consider that without giving definite direction to his energies he could not hope for success. He therefore made straight for the mission station, where he found Mr Cockran’s family and people encamped on the stage, the minister himself being away in his canoe visiting some of his scattered flock, and offering them such comfort as only those can who truly trust in Christ. Here he was advised to go to the Mountain, to which place it was probable his mother and grandfather would have been conveyed if picked up by any passing boat or canoe.
Deciding to do so, he paddled away at once with diminishing hopes and a heavy heart, for the evidences of total destruction around him were terribly real. He had not gone far when a canoe appeared on the horizon. There was one figure in it. As it drew near the figure seemed familiar. Nearer still, and he recognised it.
“Vinklemann!”
“Michel!”
The friends arrested their canoes by grasping hands.
“I seek for ma mère,” said the half-breed.
“I for mine moder,” returned the German.
A hurried consultation ensued. It was of no use going to the Mountain. Winklemann had just come from it, having failed to find his mother. He was still suffering from the effects of his recent accident, but he could not wait. He would continue the search till he died. Rollin was of the same mind, though neither he nor his friend appeared likely to die soon. They resolved to continue the search together.
Both of them were thoroughly acquainted with the Red River plains in all directions, but Rollin was more versed in the action of water. The greater part of his boyhood had been spent in canoeing and hunting expeditions with his father, from whom he inherited the French tongue and manners which showed so much more powerfully than the Scotch element in his composition. After his father’s death he had consorted and hunted much with Peegwish, who spoke Indian and French, but remarkably little English. Peegwish was also a splendid canoe-man, so that Rollin had come to study with great intelligence the flow and effect of currents of water, whether deep or shallow, narrow or broad. Hence when Winklemann related circumstantially all he had done, he shook his head and gave it as his opinion that he had not gone the right way to work at all, and that, according to the lie of the land and the height of the flood, it was certain the hut must have been carried far below that part of the settlement in the direction of the lower fort.
Poor Winklemann was so worn out with unsuccessful searching that he was only too glad to follow wherever Michel Rollin chose to lead. Hence it came to pass that in the afternoon of the same day the searchers came in view of the tall tree where old Liz had hoisted her flag of distress.
“Voilà!” exclaimed Michel, on first catching sight of the ensign.
“Vat is dat?” said his companion, paddling closer alongside of his friend, and speaking in a hoarse whisper.
“It look like a flag,” said Rollin, pushing on with increased vigour. “There’s something like one crow below it,” he added, after a short time.
“It have stranch voice for von crow,” said the German.
He was right. The yell of triumphant joy uttered by old Liz when she saw that her signal had been observed was beyond the imitative powers of any crow. As the poor creature waved her free arm, and continued to shout, while her loose hair tossed wildly round her sooty face, she presented a spectacle that might well have caused alarm not unmixed with awe even in a manly breast; but there was a certain tone in the shouts which sent a sudden thrill to the heart of Rollin, causing him, strange to say, to think of lullabies and infant days! With eyeballs fixed on the tree-top, open-mouthed and breathing quick, he paddled swiftly on.
“Michel,” said Winklemann, in a whisper, even hoarser than before, “your moder!”
Rollin replied not, but gave a stentorian roar, that rolled grandly over the water.
Why was it that old Liz suddenly ceased her gesticulations, lifted her black brows in unutterable surprise, opened her mouth, and became a listening statue? Did she too recognise tones which recalled other days—and the puling cries of infancy? It might have been so. Certain it is that when the shout was repeated she broke down in an effort to reply, and burst into mingled laughter and tears, at the same time waving her free arm more violently than ever.
This was too much for the branch on which she had been performing. It gave way, and old Liz suddenly came down, as sailors have it, “by the run.” She crashed through the smaller branches of the tree-top, which happily broke her fall, bounded from mass to mass of the thicker foliage below, and finally came down on a massive bough which, shunting her clear of the tree altogether, and clear of the hut as well, sent her headlong into the water.
With something like frozen blood and marrow, Michel witnessed the fall. A few seconds more and his canoe went crashing through the leafy screen that hid the hut. Old Liz was up and floundering about like a black seal, or mermaid. She could not swim, but, owing to some peculiarity of her remarkable frame, she could not sink. Her son was at her side in a moment, seized her, and tried to kiss her. In his eagerness the canoe overturned, and he fell into her arms and the water at the same time.
It was a joyful though awkward meeting. Much water could not quench the love wherewith the poor creature strained Michel to her heart. Winklemann came up in time to rescue both, and dragged them to the door-step of the floating hut, the door of which he burst open with a single kick, and sprang in.
Who shall attempt to describe the meeting that followed? We ask the question because we feel unequal to the task. There issued from the hut a roll of German gutturals. Winklemann, rushing through two feet of water, seized his mother’s hand and fell on his knees beside her. He was thus, of course, submerged to the waist; but he recked not—not he! Michel and old Liz entered, dripping like water-nymphs, and sat down on the soppy bed. Daddy, impressed with the idea that a good practical joke was being enacted, smiled benignantly like a guardian angel.
“Now den, zee night draws on. Ve must be gone,” said Winklemann, turning to Rollin; “git zee canoes ready—qveek!”
Both canoes were soon got ready; blankets and pillows were spread in the centre of each. Mrs Winklemann was lifted carefully into one; Daddy, as carefully, into the other. Old Liz quietly took her seat in the bow of Daddy’s canoe; her son sat down in the stern, while Herr Winklemann took charge of that which contained his mother.
“No room to take any of de property to-night, ma mère,” said Michel.
“Hoots! niver heed,” replied Liz.
“No, I vill not heed. Moreover, Veenklemann and moi ve vill retoorn demorrow.”
As he spoke he chanced to look up and saw the apron which had guided him to the spot waving gently at the tree-top. In a few seconds he was beside it. Cutting the staff free, he descended and stuck it in the bow of his canoe as a trophy. Thus they paddled away from the old home.
It was night when they reached the camp of the settlers on the Little Mountain. The homeless people were busy with their evening meal, and, sad though their case was, the aspect of things just then did not convey the idea of distress. The weather was fine; camp-fires blazed cheerfully lighting up bronzed and swarthy men, comely women, and healthy children, with a ruddy glow, while merry laughter now and then rose above the general hum, for children care little for unfelt distress, and grown people easily forget it in present comfort. Ruined though they were, many of them felt only the warmth of the hour.
There was a shout of welcome when Winklemann’s canoe was observed emerging from surrounding darkness, and a cheer burst from those who first heard the glad news—“The old folk saved!” But that was a mere chirp to the roar of congratulation that rang out when the little party landed, and the rescuers strode into camp bearing the rescued in their arms.
