I do not like to recall that return to the Sutherlands. The man, who is frozen to death, knows nothing of the cruelties of northern cold. The icy hand, that takes his life, does not torture, but deadens the victim into an everlasting, easy, painless sleep. This I know, for I felt the deadly frost-slumber, and fought against it. Aching hands and feet stopped paining and became utterly feelingless; and the deadening thing began creeping inch by inch up the stiffening limbs the life centres, till a great drowsiness began to overpower body and mind. Realizing what this meant, I sprang from the sleigh and stopped the dogs. I tried to grip the empty traces of the dead one, but my hands were too feeble; so I twisted the rope round my arm, gave the word, and raced off abreast the dog train. The creatures went faster with lightened sleigh, but every step I took was a knife-thrust through half-frozen awakening limbs. Not the man who is frozen to death, but the man who is half-frozen and thawed back to life, knows the cruelties of northern cold.
In a stupefied way, I was aware the dogs had taken a sudden turn to the left and were scrambling up the bank. Here my strength failed or I tripped; for I only remember being dragged through the snow, rolling over and over, to a doorway, where the huskies stopped and set up a great whining. Somehow, I floundered to my feet. With a blaze of light that blinded me, the door flew open and I fell across the threshold unconscious.
* * *
Need I say what door opened, what hands drew me in and chafed life into the benumbed being?
"What was the matter, Rufus Gillespie?" asked a bluff voice the next morning. I had awakened from what seemed a long, troubled sleep and vaguely wondered where I was.
"What happened to ye, Rufus Gillespie?" and the man's hand took hold of my wrist to feel my pulse.
"Don't, father! you'll hurt him!" said a voice that was music to my ears, and a woman's hand, whose touch was healing, began bathing my blistered palms.
At once I knew where I was and forgot pain. In few and confused words I tried to relate what had happened.
"The country's yours, Mr. Sutherland," said I, too weak, thick-tongued and deliriously happy for speech.
"Much to be thankful for," was the Scotchman's comment. "Seven Oaks is avenged. It would ill 'a' become a Sutherland to give his daughter's hand to a conqueror, but I would na' say I'd refuse a wife to a man beaten as you were, Rufus Gillespie," and he strode off to attend to outdoor work.
And what next took place, I refrain from relating; for lovers' eloquence is only eloquent to lovers.
* * *
CHAPTER XXVII
UNDER ONE ROOF
Nature is not unlike a bank. When drafts exceed deposits comes a protest, and not infrequently, after the protest, bankruptcy. From the buffalo hunt to the recapture of Fort Douglas by the Hudson's Bay soldiers, drafts on that essential part of a human being called stamina had been very heavy with me. Now came the casting-up of accounts, and my bill was minus reserve strength, with a balance of debt on the wrong side.
The morning after the escape from Fort Douglas, when Mr. Sutherland strode off, leaving his daughter alone with me, I remember very well that Frances abruptly began putting my pillow to rights. Instead of keeping wide awake, as I should by all the codes of romance and common sense, I—poor fool—at once swooned, with a vague, glimmering consciousness that I was dying and this, perhaps, was the first blissful glimpse into paradise. When I came to my senses, Mr. Sutherland was again standing by the bedside with a half-shamed look of compassion under his shaggy brows.
"How far," I began, with a curious inability to use my wits and tongue, "how far—I mean how long have I been asleep, sir?"
"Hoots, mon! Dinna claver in that feckless fashion! It's months, lad, sin' ye opened y'r mouth wi' onything but daft gab."
"Months!" I gasped out. "Have I been here for months?"
"Aye, months. The plain was snaw-white when ye began y'r bit nappie. Noo, d'ye no hear the clack o' the geese through yon open window?"
I tried to turn to that side of the little room, where a great wave of fresh, clear air blew from the prairie. For some reason my head refused to revolve. Stooping, the elder man gently raised the sheet and rolled me over so that I faced the sweet freshness of an open, sunny view.
"Did I rive ye sore, lad?" asked the voice with a gruffness in strange contradiction to the gentleness of the touch.
Now I hold that however rasping a man's words may be, if he handle the sick with gentleness, there is much goodness under the rough surface. Thoughtlessness and stupidity, I know, are patent excuses for half the unkindness and sorrow of life. But thoughtlessness and stupidity are also responsible for most of life's brutality and crime. Not spiteful intentions alone, but the dulled, brutalized, deadened sensibilities—that go under the names of thoughtlessness and stupidity—make a man treat something weaker than himself with roughness, or in an excessive degree, qualify for murder. When the harsh voice asked, "Do I rive ye sore?" I began to understand how surface roughness is as often caused by life's asperities as by the inner dullness akin to the brute.
Indeed, if my thoughts had not been so intent on the daughter, I could have found Mr. Sutherland's character a wonderfully interesting study. The infinite capacity of a canny Scot for keeping his mouth shut I never realized till I knew Mr. Sutherland. For instance, now that consciousness had returned, I noticed that the father himself, and not the daughter, did all the waiting on me even to the carrying of my meals.
"How is your daughter, Mr. Sutherland?" I asked, surely a natural enough question to merit a civil reply.
"Aye—is it Frances y'r speerin' after?" he answered, meeting my question with a question; and he deigned not another word. But I lay in wait for him at the next meal.
"I haven't seen your daughter yet, Mr. Sutherland," I stuttered out with a deal of blushing. "I haven't even heard her about the house."
"No?" he asked with a show of surprise. "Have ye no seen Frances?" And that was all the satisfaction I got.
Between the dinner hour and supper time I conjured up various plots to hoodwink paternal caution.
"Mr. Sutherland," I began, "I have a message for your daughter."
"Aye," said he.
"I wish her to hear it personally."
"Aye."
"When may I see her?"
"Ye maun bide patient, lad!"
"But the message is urgent." That was true; for had not forty-eight hours passed since I had regained consciousness and I had heard neither her footsteps nor her voice?
"Aye," said the imperturbable father.
"Very urgent, Mr. Sutherland," I added.
"Aye."
"When may I see her, Sir?"
"All in guid time. Ye maun bide quiet, lad."
"The message cannot wait," I declared. "It must be given at once."
"Then deleever it word for word to me, young mon, and I'll trudge off to Frances."
"Your daughter is not at home?"
"What words wu'l ye have me bear to her, lad?" he asked.
That was too much for a youth in a peevish state of convalescence. What lover could send his heart's eloquence by word of mouth with a peppery, prosaic father?
"Tell Mistress Sutherland I must see her at once," I quickly responded with a flash of temper that was ever wont to flare up when put to the test.
"Aye," he answered, with an amused look in the cold, steel eyes. "I'll deleever y'r message when—when"—and he hesitated in a way suggestive of eternity—"I'll deleever y'r message when I see her."
At that I turned my face to the wall in the bitterness of spirit which only the invalid, with all the strength of a man in his whims and the weakness of an infant in his body, knows. I spent a feverish, restless night, with the hard-faced Scotchman watching from his armchair at my bedside. Once, when I suddenly awakened from sleep, or delirium, his eyes were fastened on my face with a gleam of grave kindliness.
"Mr. Sutherland," I cried, with all the impatience of a child, "please tell me, where is your daughter?"
"I sent her to a neighbor, sin' ye came to y'r senses, lad," said he. "Ye hae kept her about ye night and day sin' ye gaed daft, and losh, mon, ye hae gabbled wild talk enough to turn the head o' ony lassie clean daft. An' ye claver sic' nonsense when ye're daft, what would ye say when ye're sane? Hoots, mon, ye maun learn to haud y'r tongue——"
"Mr. Sutherland," I interrupted in a great heat, quite forgetful of his hospitality, "I'm sorry to be the means of driving your daughter from her home. I beg you to send me back to Fort Douglas——"
"Haud quiet," he ordered with a wave of his hand. "An' wa'd ye have me expose the head of a mitherless bairn to a' the clack o' the auld geese in the settlement? Temper y'r ardor wi' discretion, lad! 'Twas but the day before yesterday she left and she was sair done wi' nursing you and losing of sleep! Till ye're fair y'rsel' again and up, and she's weel and rosy wi' full sleep, bide patient!"
That speech sent my face to the wall again; but this time not in anger. And that dogged fashion Mr. Sutherland had of taking his own way did me many a good turn. Often have I heard those bragging captains of the Hudson's Bay mercenaries swagger into the little cottage sitting-room, while I lay in bed on the other side of the thin board partition, and relate to Mr. Sutherland all the incidents of their day's search for me.
"So many pounds sterling for the man who captures the rascal," declares D'Orsonnens.
"Aye, 'tis a goodly price for one poor rattle-pate," says Mr. Sutherland.
Whereupon, D'Orsonnens swears the price is more than my poor empty head is worth, and proceeds to describe me in terms which Mr. Sutherland will only tolerate when thundered from an orthodox pulpit.
"I'd have ye understand, Sir," he would declare with great dignity, "I'll have no papistical profanity under my roof."
Forthwith, he would show D'Orsonnens the door, lecturing the astonished soldier on the errors of Romanism; for whatever Mr. Sutherland deemed evil, from oaths to theological errors, he attributed directly to the pope.
"The ne'er-do-weel can hawk naething frae me," said he when relating the incident.
Once I heard a Fort Douglas man observe that, as the search had proved futile, I must have fallen into one of the air-holes of the ice.
"Nae doot the headstrong young mon is' gettin' what he deserves. I warrant he's warm in his present abode," answered Mr. Sutherland.
On another occasion D'Orsonnens asked who the man was that Mr. Sutherland's daughter had been nursing all winter.
"A puir body driven from Fort Douglas by those bloodthirsty villains," answered Mr. Sutherland, giving his visitor a strong toddy; and he at once improved the occasion by taking down a volume and reading the French officer a series of selections against Romanism. After that D'Orsonnens came no more.
"I hope I did not tell Nor'-West secrets in a Hudson's Bay house when I was delirious, Mr. Sutherland," I remarked.
The Scotchman had lugged me from bed in a gentle, lumbering, well-meant fashion, and I was sitting up for the first time.
"Ye're no the mon wi' a leak t' y'r mouth. I dinna say, though, ye're aye as discreet wi' the thoughts o' y'r heart as y'r head! Ye need na fash y'r noodle wi' remorse aboot company secrets. I canna say ye'll no fret aboot some other things ye hae told. A' the winter lang, 'twas Frances and stars and spooks and speerits and bogies and statues and graven images—wha' are forbidden by the Holy Scriptures—till the lassie thought ye gane clean daft! 'Twas a bonnie e'e, like silver stars; or a bit blush, like the pippin; or laughter, like a wimplin' brook; or lips, like posies; or hair, like links o' gold; and mair o' the like till the lassie came rinnin' oot o' y'r room, fair red wi' shame! Losh, mon, ye maun keep a still tongue in y'r head and not blab oot y'r thoughts o' a wife till she believes na mon can hae peace wi'out her. I wad na hae ye abate one jot o' all ye think, for her price is far above rubies; but hae a care wi' y'r grand talk! After ye gang to the kirk, lad, na mon can keep that up."
His warning I laughed to the winds, as youth the world over has ever laughed sage counsels of chilling age.
I can compare my recovery only to the swift transition of seasons in those northern latitudes. Without any lingering spring, the cold grayness of long, tense winter gives place to a radiant sun-burst of warm, yellow light. The uplands have long since been blown bare of snow by the March winds, and through the tangle of matted turf shoot myriad purple cups of the prairie anemone, while the russet grass takes on emerald tints. One day the last blizzard may be sweeping a white trail of stormy majesty across the prairie; the next a fragrance of flowers rises from the steaming earth and the snow-filled ravines have become miniature lakes reflecting the dazzle of a sunny sky and fleece clouds.
My convalescence was similar to the coming of summer. Without any weary fluctuation from well to ill, and ill to well—which sickens the heart with a deferred hope—all my old-time strength came back with the glow of that year's June sun.
"There's nae accountin' for some wilful folk, lad," was Mr. Sutherland's remark, one evening after I was able to leave my room. "Ye hae risen frae y'r bed like the crocus frae snaw. An' Frances were hangin' aboot y'r pillow, lad, I'm nae sure y'd be up sae dapper and smart."
"I thought my nurse was to return when I was able to be up," I answered, strolling to the cottage door.
"Come back frae the door, lad. Dinna show y'rsel' tae the enemy. There be more speerin' for ye than hae love for y'r health. Have y'r wits aboot ye! Dinna be frettin' y'rsel' for Frances! The lassies aye rin fast enow tae the mon wi' sense to hold his ain!"
With that advice he motioned me to the only armchair in the room, and sitting down on the outer step to keep watch, began reading some theological disputation aloud.
"Odds, lad, ye should see the papist so'diers rin when I hae Calvin by me," he remarked.
"It's a pity you can't lay the theological thunderers on the doorstep to drive stray De Meurons off. Then you could come in and take this chair yourself," I answered, sitting back where no visitor could see me.
But Mr. Sutherland did not hear. He was deep in polemics, rolling out stout threats, that used Scriptural texts as a cudgel, with a zest that testified enjoyment. "The wicked bend their bow," began the rasping voice; but when he cleared his throat, preparatory to the main argument, my thoughts went wandering far from the reader on the steps. As one whose dream is jarred by outward sound, I heard his tones quaver.
"Aye, Frances, 'tis you," he said, and away he went, pounding at the sophistries of some straw enemy.
A shadow was on the threshold, and before I had recalled my listless fancy, in tripped Frances Sutherland, herself, feigning not to see me. The gray eyes were veiled in the misty fashion of those fluffy things women wear, which let through all beauty, but bar out intrusion. I do not mean she wore a veil: veils and frills were not seen among the colonists in those days. But the heavy lashes hung low in the slumbrous, dreamy way that sees all and reveals nothing. Instinctively I started up, with wild thoughts thronging to my lips. At the same moment Mr. Sutherland did the most chivalrous thing I have seen in homespun or broadcloth.
"Hoots wi' y'r giddy claver," said he, before I had spoken a word; and walking off, he sat down at some distance.
Thereupon his daughter laughed merrily with a whole quiver of dangerous archery about her lips.
"That is the nearest to an untruth I have ever heard him tell," she said, which mightily relieved my embarrassment.
"Why did he say that?" I asked, with my usual stupidity.
"I am sure I cannot say," and looking straight at me, she let go the barbed shaft, that lies hidden in fair eyes for unwary mortals.
"Sit down," she commanded, sinking into the chair I had vacated. "Sit down, Rufus, please!" This with an after-shot of alarm from the heavy lashes; for if a woman's eyes may speak, so may a man's, and their language is sometimes bolder.
"Thanks," and I sat down on the arm of that same chair.
For once in my life I had sense to keep my tongue still; for, if I had spoken, I must have let b
olt some impetuous thing better left unsaid.
"Rufus," she began, in the low, thrilling tones that had enthralled me from the first, "do you know I was your sole nurse all the time you were delirious?"
"No wonder I was delirious! Dolt, that I was, to have been delirious!" thought I to myself; but I choked down the foolish rejoinder and endeavored to look as wise as if my head had been ballasted with the weight of a patriarch's wisdom instead of ballooning about like a kite run wild.
"I think I know all your secrets."
"Oh!" A man usually has some secrets he would rather not share; and though I had not swung the full tether of wild west freedom—thanks solely to her, not to me—I trembled at recollection of the passes that come to every man's life when he has been near enough the precipice to know the sensation of falling without going over.
"You talked incessantly of Miriam and Mr. Hamilton and Father Holland."
"And what did I say about Frances?"
"You said things about Frances that made her tremble."
"Tremble? What a brute, and you waiting on me day and——"
"Hush," she broke in. "Tremble because I am just a woman and not an angel, just a woman and not a star. We women are mortals just as you men are. Sometimes we're fools as well as mortals, just as you men are; but I don't think we're knaves quite so often, because we're denied the opportunity and hedged about and not tempted."
As she gently stripped away the pretty hypocrisies with which lovers delude themselves and lay up store for disappointment, I began to discount that old belief about truth and knowledge rendering a woman mannish and arrogant and assertive.
"You men marry women, expecting them to be angels, and very often the angel's highest ambition is to be considered a doll. Then your hope goes out and your faith——"
"But, Frances," I cried, "if any sensible man had his choice of an angel and a fair, good woman——"
"Be sure to say fair, or he'd grumble because he hadn't a doll," she laughed.
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