R. M. Ballantyne

The Best Ballantyne Westerns


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       Table of Contents

      The scene changes—Bachelor’s Hall—A practical Joke and its consequences—A snow-shoe walk at night in the forest.

      Leaving Charley to pursue his adventurous career among the Indians, we will introduce our reader to a new scene, and follow for a time the fortunes of our friend Harry Somerville. It will be remembered that we left him labouring under severe disappointment at the idea of having to spend a year, it might be many years, at the depot, and being condemned to the desk, instead of realising his fond dreams of bear-hunting and deer-stalking in the woods and prairies.

      It was now the autumn of Harry’s second year at York Fort. This period of the year happens to be the busiest at the depot, in consequence of the preparation of the annual accounts for transmission to England, in the solitary ship which visits this lonely spot once a year; so that Harry was tied to his desk all day and the greater part of the night too, till his spirits fell infinitely below zero, and he began to look on himself as the most miserable of mortals. His spirits rose, however, with amazing rapidity after the ship went away, and the “young gentlemen,” as the clerks were styled en masse, were permitted to run wild in the swamps and woods for the three weeks succeeding that event. During this glimpse of sunshine they recruited their exhausted frames by paddling about all day in Indian canoes, or wandering through the marshes, sleeping at nights in tents or under the pine trees, and spreading dismay among the feathered tribes, of which there were immense numbers of all kinds. After this they returned to their regular work at the desk; but as this was not so severe as in summer, and was further lightened by Wednesdays and Saturdays being devoted entirely to recreation, Harry began to look on things in a less gloomy aspect, and at length regained his wonted cheerful spirits.

      Autumn passed away. The ducks and geese took their departure to more genial climes. The swamps froze up and became solid. Snow fell in great abundance, covering every vestige of vegetable nature, except the dark fir trees, that only helped to render the scenery more dreary, and winter settled down upon the land. Within the pickets of York Fort, the thirty or forty souls who lived there were actively employed in cutting their firewood, putting in double window-frames to keep out the severe cold, cutting tracks in the snow from one house to another, and otherwise preparing for a winter of eight months duration, as cold as that of Nova Zembla, and in the course of which the only new faces they had any chance of seeing were those of the two men who conveyed the annual winter packet of letters from the next station. Outside of the fort all was a wide, waste wilderness for thousands of miles around. Deathlike stillness and solitude reigned everywhere, except when a covey of ptarmigan whirred like large snowflakes athwart the sky, or an arctic fox prowled stealthily through the woods in search of prey.

      As if in opposition to the gloom and stillness and solitude outside, the interior of the clerks’ house presented a striking contrast of ruddy warmth, cheerful sounds, and bustling activity.

      It was evening; but although the sun had set, there was still sufficient daylight to render candles unnecessary, though not enough to prevent a bright glare from the stove in the centre of the hall taking full effect in the darkening chamber, and making it glow with fiery red. Harry Somerville sat in front, and full in the blaze of this stove, resting after the labours of the day; his arms crossed on his breast, his head a little to one side, as if in deep contemplation, as he gazed earnestly into the fire, and his chair tilted on its hind legs so as to balance with such nicety that a feather’s weight additional outside its centre of gravity would have upset it. He had divested himself of his coat—a practice that prevailed among the young gentlemen when at home, as being free-and-easy as well as convenient. The doctor, a tall, broad-shouldered man, with red hair and whiskers, paced the room sedately, with a long pipe depending from his lips, which he removed occasionally to address a few remarks to the accountant, a stout, heavy man of about thirty, with a voice like a Stentor, eyes sharp and active as those of a ferret, and a tongue that moved with twice the ordinary amount of lingual rapidity. The doctor’s remarks seemed to be particularly humorous, if one might judge from the peals of laughter with which they were received by the accountant, who stood with his back to the stove in such a position that, while it warmed him from his heels to his waist, he enjoyed the additional benefit of the pipe or chimney, which rose upwards, parallel with his spine, and, taking a sudden bend near the roof, passed over his head—thus producing a genial and equable warmth from top to toe.

      “Yes,” said the doctor, “I left him hotly following up a rabbit-track, in the firm belief that it was that of a silver fox.”

      “And did you not undeceive the greenhorn?” cried the accountant, with another shout of laughter.

      “Not I,” replied the doctor. “I merely recommended him to keep his eye on the sun, lest he should lose his way, and hastened home; for it just occurred to me that I had forgotten to visit Louis Blanc, who cut his foot with an axe yesterday, and whose wound required redressing, so I left the poor youth to learn from experience.”

      “Pray, who did you leave to that delightful fate?” asked Mr Wilson, issuing from his bedroom and approaching the stove.

      Mr Wilson was a middle-aged, good-humoured, active man, who filled the onerous offices of superintendent of the men, trader of furs, seller of goods to the Indians, and general factotum.

      “Our friend Hamilton,” answered the doctor, in reply to his question. “I think he is, without exception, the most egregious nincompoop I ever saw. Just as I passed the long swamp on my way home, I met him crashing through the bushes in hot pursuit of a rabbit, the track of which he mistook for a fox. Poor fellow! he had been out since breakfast, and only shot a brace of ptarmigan, although they are as thick as bees and quite tame. ‘But then, do you see,’ said he, in excuse, ‘I’m so very short-sighted! Would you believe it, I’ve blown fifteen lumps of snow to atoms, in the belief that they were ptarmigan!’ and then he rushed off again.”

      “No doubt,” said Mr Wilson, smiling, “the lad is very green, but he’s a good fellow for all that.”

      “I’ll answer for that,” said the accountant; “I found him over at the men’s houses this morning doing your work for you, doctor.”

      “How so?” inquired the disciple of Aesculapius.

      “Attending to your wounded man, Louis Blanc, to be sure; and he seemed to speak to him as wisely as if he had walked the hospitals, and regularly passed for an M.D.”

      “Indeed!” said the doctor, with a mischievous grin. “Then I must pay him off for interfering with my patients.”

      “Ah, doctor, you’re too fond of practical jokes. You never let slip an opportunity of ‘paying off’ your friends for something or other. It’s a bad habit. Practical jokes are very bad things—shockingly bad,” said Mr Wilson, as he put on his fur cap, and wound a thick shawl round his throat, preparatory to leaving the room.

      As Mr Wilson gave utterance to this opinion, he passed Harry Somerville, who was still staring at the fire in deep mental abstraction, and, as he did so, gave his tilted chair a very slight push backwards with his finger—an action which caused Harry to toss up his legs, grasp convulsively with both hands at empty air, and fall with a loud noise and an angry yell to the ground, while his persecutor vanished from the scene.

      “O you outrageous villain!” cried Harry, shaking his fist at the door, as he slowly gathered himself up: “I might have expected that.”

      “Quite so,” said the doctor; “you might. It was very neatly done, undoubtedly. Wilson deserves credit for the way in which it was executed.”

      “He deserves to be executed for doing it at all,” replied Harry, rubbing his elbow as he resumed his seat.

      “Any bark knocked off?” inquired the accountant, as he took a piece of glowing charcoal from the stove wherewith to light his pipe. “Try a whiff, Harry. It’s good for such things. Bruises, sores, contusions, sprains, rheumatic affections of the back and loins, carbuncles, and earache—there’s nothing that smoking won’t cure; eh,