very perplexing interviews with little bill.
things in the colony had at this time come to what may be styled a complicated pass, for distress and starvation were rampant on the one hand, while on the other hand the weather was superb, giving prospect at last of a successful harvest.
the spring buffalo-hunt had been but partially successful, so that a number of the buffalo runners had to make arrangements to support themselves by fishing during the autumn in lakes winnipeg and manitoba.
in these great fresh-water seas there is an unlimited quantity of rich and finely flavoured whitefish, or titameg, besides other fish. but titameg are only to be caught in large quantities during autumn, and of course much of the success of fishing depends on weather—one gale sometimes visiting the fishermen with ruin—ruin all the more complete that the nets which may be carried away have in many cases to be paid for out of the produce of the season’s fishing.
in addition to the buffalo-hunters, who were obliged to support themselves by fishing, there was a large number of idle half-breeds, of a much lower type than these plain hunters, who had to betake themselves to the same pursuit. these were the “ne’er-do-weels” of the colony; men who, like la certe, with more or less—usually less—of his good-nature, seemed to hold that all the industrious people in the world were created to help or to support them and their families. of course when the industrious people were unsuccessful, these idlers were obliged to work for their living, which, being unaccustomed to do anything energetic, they found it hard and difficult to do, and generally regarded themselves as the harshly used victims of a tyrannous fate.
there was one thing, however, at which these idlers were very expert and diligent—they begged well, and with persistency. no wonder; for their lives often depended on their persistent and successful begging. the company and the private storekeepers were always more or less willing to risk their goods by advancing them on credit. before the summer was over, most of these people had got their supplies and were off to the fishing grounds, regardless of the future, with large quantities of tea and tobacco, and happy as kings are said to be—but never are, if history be true!
among these, of course, was la certe. that typical idler had made the most of his misfortunes. everybody had heard what the sioux had done to him, and everybody had pitied him. pity opens the heart, and that opens the hand; and, when the poor man entered a store with the polite manner of a french canadian and the humble aspect of a ruined man, he scarcely required to beg. one man lent him a tent. another lent him a canoe. from the company’s store at fort garry he received a fair outfit of nearly all that he could require. further down the settlement there was a private store-keeper with a jovial countenance.
“o it was a sad, sad sight!” he said to this man on entering the store—“so very sad to see my tent in ashes, and nothing left—nothing—absolutely!” the jovial man was moved. he gave la certe what he asked for—even pressed things on him, and also bestowed on him a considerable “gratuity.”
still further down the settlement the unfortunate man found the store, or shop, of another friend. this man was saturnine of countenance, but moderately liberal of heart. la certe approached him with an air so pitiful that the saturnine man melted like snow in the sunshine or wax under heat.
“i have heard of your loss,” he said, “and i will give you credit this time, la certe, though you are so bad at paying your debts. but i won’t give you much.”
“i do not want much,” returned the afflicted man in tones of deep humility—“only a little—a very little.”
by asking much more than he required, la certe obtained as much as he wanted from the saturnine man, and thus he finally started for lake winnipeg with a canoe laden, almost to sinking, with the good things of this life.
the fineness of that summer brought forth the fruits of the earth in great luxuriance, and it really seemed as if at last the scotch settlers were going to reap some reward for all their prolonged perseverance and industry. the long rest, the good feeding, the sunshine of nature, and the starlight of elspie’s eyes had a powerful effect on dan davidson’s health, so that, by the time autumn arrived and the prospects of a splendid harvest became more certain every day, he had recovered much of his usual strength of body and vigour of mind.
little bill also felt the genial influences around him, and, to the intense joy of archie, became visibly fatter and stronger, while his large blue eyes lost some of that wistfully solemn appearance with which they had been wont to gaze inquiringly into people’s faces.
one afternoon billie, having walked to the summer house in the prairie cottage garden, along with archie, was left alone there at his own request, for, unlike other boys, he was fond of occasional solitary meditation.
“now mind, little bill—you whistle if you want me,” said archie, when about to leave him. “i’ll hear you, for i’m only going to the carpenter’s shed.”
“i will, archie, if i want you; but i don’t think i shall, for i can walk by myself now, quite easily, as far as the house.”
but little bill was not destined to be left to solitary meditations that day, for his brother had not left him more than a few minutes when a footstep was heard on the path outside, and next moment fred jenkins presented himself at the opening of the summer-house. the face of the mariner betrayed him, for he was too honest by nature to dissemble effectively.
“well, fred, how are you? you seem a little disappointed, i think.”
“not exactly disappointed, little bill, but sort o’ ways scumbusticated, so to speak—perplexed, if i may say so. kind o’ ways puzzled, d’ee see?”
there was something very amusing in the manner of the strapping seaman as he sat down beside the puny little boy, with a bashful expression on his handsome face, as if he were about to make a humiliating confession.
“what troubles you, jenkins?” asked billie, with the air of a man who is ready to give any amount of advice, or, if need be, consolation.
the seaman twisted his eyebrows into a complex form, and seemed uncertain how to proceed. suddenly he made up his mind.
“was you ever in love, little bill?” he asked abruptly, and with a smile that seemed to indicate a feeling that the question was absurd.
“o yes,” answered the boy quite coolly. “i’ve been in love with brother archie ever since i can remember.”
jenkins looked at his little friend with a still more complicated knot of puzzlement in his eyebrows, for he felt that billie was scarcely fitted by years or experience to be a useful confidant. after resting his hands on his knees, and his eyes on the ground, for some time, he again made up his mind and turned to billie, who sat with his large eyes fixed earnestly on the countenance of his tall friend, wondering what perplexed him so much, and waiting for further communications.
“little bill,” said jenkins, laying a large hand on his small knee, “in course you can’t be expected to understand what i wants to talk about, but there’s nobody else i’d like to speak to, and you’re such a knowin’ little shaver that somehow i felt a kind of—of notion that i’d like to ask your advice—d’ee see?”
“i see—all right,” returned billie; “though i wonder at such a man as you wanting advice from the like of me. but i’ll do what i can for you, jenkins, and perhaps i know more about the thing that troubles you than you think.”
“i’m afraid not,” returned the seaman, with a humorous twinkle in his eye. “you see, billie, you never wanted to get spliced, did you?”
“spliced! what’s that?”
“well, i should have said married.”
“o no! i don’t think the thought of that ever did occur to me. i’m sorry, jenkins, but i really cannot give you advice on that subject.”
“h’m! i’m not so sure o’ that, little bill. you’re such a practical little chap that i do believe if you was put to it you’d be able to—see, now. if you happened to want to marry a nice little gal, what would you do?”
“i would ask her,” said little bill, promptly.
“jus’ so; but that is what i have not got courage to do.”
jenkins laughed at the expression of blazing surprise with which the boy received this statement.
“have not got courage!” he repeated; and then, after a pause—“have all the stories you have told me, then, been nothing but lies!”
“what stories, billie?”
“why, such as that one about the pirates in the java seas, when ten of them attacked you and you were obliged to kill four, and all the rest ran away?”
“no, billie—that was no lie: it was quite true. but, then, these blackguards were cowards at bottom, and they saw that i’d got a brace o’ double-barrelled pistols in my belt, and was pretty well up in the cutlass exercise.”
“and that time when you led a storming party against the fort in south america, and was the only one left o’ the party, and fought your way all alone in through the breach till the troops came up and carried you on with a rush, and—and—was all about that untrue?”
“not a bit of it, billie, though i wouldn’t have you think i was boastin’ about it. i only gave you the bare facts, which, like bare poles, is as much as a ship can stand sometimes.”
“an’ that time you jumped overboard in port royal among the sharks to save the little girl?”
“that’s a fact, if ever there was one,” said the seaman quickly, “for the dear child is alive this good day to swear to it if need be.”
“yet you tell me,” continued little bill, “that you have not the courage to ask a nice little girl to marry you?”
“that’s exactly how the matter stands, billie.”
it was now billie’s turn to look perplexed.
“who is this nice little girl?” he asked abruptly, as if the answer to that question might help to explain the enigma.
“well—it’s elise morel; an’, mind, not a soul knows about that but you an’ me, little bill.”
“but—but elise is not a little girl. she’s a big woman!”
jenkins laughed as he explained that seamen sometimes had a habit—mistaken, it might be—of calling even big women “nice little gals” when they chanced to be fond of them.
“and are you really afraid to ask elise to marry you?” asked the boy, earnestly.
“i suspect that’s what’s the matter wi’ me,” replied the sailor, with a modest look.
“i always thought that nothing could frighten you,” said billie, in a somewhat disappointed tone, for it seemed to him as if one of his idols were shaking on its pedestal. “i can’t understand it, for i would not be afraid to ask her—if i wanted her.”
at this jenkins again laughed, and said that he believed him, and that billie would understand these things better when he was older.
“in the meantime, little bill,” he continued, “i haven’t got the heart of a mother carey’s chicken. i could stand afore a broadside without winkin’, i believe; i think i could blow up a magazine, or fight the french, as easy as i could eat my breakfast a’most, but to ask a pure, beautiful angel like elise to marry me, a common seaman—why, i hasn’t got it in me. yet i’m so fond o’ that little gal that i’d strike my colours to her without firin’ a single shot—”
“does elise want to marry you?” asked billie.
“oh, that’s the very pint!” said the seaman with decision. “if i could only make sure o’ that pint, i’d maybe manage to come up to the scratch. now, that’s what i wants you to find out for me, little bill, an’ i know you’re a good little shaver, as’ll do a friend a good turn when you can. but you must on no account mention—”
he was going to have said, “you must on no account mention that i was blabbing to you about this, or that i wanted to find out such a thing,” when the sudden appearance of elise’s lap-dog announced the fact that its mistress was approaching.
with a flushed face the bold seaman sprang up and darted out, as if to attack one of those pirates of the java seas who had made so powerful an impression on little bill’s mind. but his object was escape—not attack. lightly vaulting the garden fence, he disappeared into the same thicket which, on another occasion, had afforded opportune refuge to kateegoose. a few moments later elise turned into the walk, and stood before the summer-house.
“you here, little bill!” she exclaimed on entering, “i am very glad to find you, for i have been alone all the morning. everybody is away—in the fields, i suppose—and i don’t like being alone.”
“was you ever in love, elise?” asked the boy with a solemn countenance.
the girl laughed heartily, and blushed a little.
“what a strange question, billie,” she said; “why do you ask?”
“well, it’s not easy to explain all at once; but—but i want to know if you want to be married?”
elise laughed again, and, then, becoming suddenly grave, asked seriously why billie put such foolish questions.
“because,” said little bill, slowly, and with an earnest look, “jenkins is very anxious to know if you are fond of him, and he actually says that he’s afraid to ask you to marry him! isn’t that funny? i said that even i would not be afraid to ask you, if i wanted you—how red you are, elise! have you been running?”
“o no,” replied the girl, sheltering herself under another laugh; “and what did he say to that?”
“he said a great many things. i will try to remember them. let me see—he said: ‘i haven’t got the heart of a mother carey’s chicken,’—(he didn’t tell me who mother carey is, but that’s no matter, for it was only one of her chickens he was speaking of);—‘i could stand afore a broadside without winkin’,’—(i give you his very words, elise, for i don’t quite understand them myself);—‘i could blow up a magazine,’ he went on, ‘or fight the french, as easy as i could eat my breakfast, a’most, but to ask a pure an’ beautiful angel like elise’—yes, indeed, you needn’t shake your head; he said these very words exactly—‘a pure an’ beautiful angel like elise to marry me, a common seaman, why, i hasn’t got it in me. yet i’m so fond o’ that little gal that i’d strike my colours to her without firin’ a single shot.’ now, do you understand all that, elise? for i don’t understand the half of it.”
“o yes, i understand a good deal of it, though some of it is indeed puzzling, as you say. but how did you come to recollect it all so well, little bill?”
“because he said he wanted me to help him, and to find out if you wanted to marry him, so i paid particular attention to what he said, and—”
“did he tell you to tell me all this?” asked elise abruptly, and with sudden gravity.
“o dear, no; but as he wanted me to find it out for him, and said that not a soul knew about the matter but me, i thought the simplest way would be to tell you all he said, and then ask you straight. he was going to tell me something more, very particularly, for he was just saying, in a very solemn tone, ‘you must on no account mention—’ when your little dog bounced in and jenkins bounced out, leaving the rest of it unsaid.”
“then he has just left you?” said elise.
“just a moment or two before you came up. i think he must have seen some sort of beast in the wood, and gone in chase of it, he bolted in such a hurry, so i don’t know yet what i was not to mention.”
“now, little bill,” said elise with great seriousness of tone and manner, “you must not tell mr jenkins one word of the conversation that you and i have had just now.”
“what! not a single word?”
“not one. you understand?”
“yes, but, if he asks me, i must answer something, you know, and i must not tell lies.”
“quite true, billie. you must not tell lies on any account whatever. now, listen. if he asks you about our conversation this morning, you must say that i told you you were never to open your lips about the subject again either to me or to him or to anybody. mr jenkins is an honourable man, and will not ask you a single question after that.”
“then i’m not to tell him whether you want to marry him?”
“how can you tell him what you don’t know?”
“well, but, i mean that you’re not going to tell me, so that i might tell him?”
“certainly not.”
“not a word to him and not a word to you—nor to anybody! not even to archie!”
“yes. that is exactly what you must promise me.”
“this is a very unpleasant state of things,” said little bill, with a sad and puzzled countenance, “but of course i promise, for it is your affair, you know.”
it was a notable fact, which little bill did not fail to note—but did not dare to mention—that after that date there was a distinct change of demeanour in elise morel towards the handsome sailor—whether in his favour or otherwise it was impossible to tell.
meanwhile, events were pending which were destined to exercise a very powerful influence over the fortunes of the red river colony, and, indeed, over the condition of the whole of rupert’s land.
