'Old Man's' Marriage

Front matter

a BY THE SAME AUTHOR. HIS LORDSHIP AND OTHERS. TUXTER'S LITTLE MAID. THE JUDGE OF THE FOUR CORNERS. GASCOIGNE'S GHOST. TOMALYN'S QUEST. b. G. B. BURGIN. LONDON : GRANT RICHARDS, 9, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 1897. LONDON : PRINTED BV WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. TO MR. and MRS. ROBERT LEIGHTON. My dear Mr. and Mrs. Leighton, We first met " Under the wide and starry sky " of the Isle of Man, brought together by our mutual admira tion and sympathy for a man of genius, who has made that little island imperishable. Permit me, in happy remembrance of so gracious a holiday, to commemorate the beginning of our friendship by laying at your feet this story of archaic solitudes. To you, who are the busiest workers in the world, it may, perhaps, bring an hour's rest from toil, a breath of free air from that primeval Bush where man can meet his Maker face to face, and cleanse his ink stained soul from "All life's fitful fever and its stir."

Vour very sincere friend and comrade. THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS. CHAFTHR PAGE Prologue ... ... ... ... ... i I. Five Years Later ... ... ... 16 II. An Interrupted Honeymoon ... ... 34 III. Thomas Claude Greene... ... ... 55 IV. "The Pup" runs Home again ... ... 75 V. In the Bush ... ... ... ... 89 VI. The Poet's Abasement ... ... ... 107 VII. "I'm the Man" ... ... ... ... 125 VIII. Fergus Crane reappears ... ... ... 139 IX. An Indian Courtship ... ... ... 158 X. An Unbidden Guest ... ... ... 180 XI. A Game of Bluff ... ... ... 19S XII. A Cowardly Bard ... ... ... ... 216 XIII. In Gaol ... ... 236 XIV. "It might have been" ... ... ... 258 XV. " Him heap Brave ! " ... ... ... 272 XVI. " Sylv anus Tree " ... ... ... ...

Prologue

. WATSON BANGS, the editor of the Four Corners Gazette, was a sublimely great man. He not only asserted but strenuously maintained this point himself on many a hard-fought political field ; and if one cannot believe such a personal statement, then some of the world's so-called heroes have lived and lied in vain. Four Corner folk knew that Watson meant what he said ; for if they failed to endorse his meaning, he reluctantly supported it with pistol shots — a method that was far more convincing to them than all the logic of the schools. To use a technical illustration, he was accustomed to "lead out" — with his pistol — the intervening spaces when any one presumed to doubt his veracity. As he lived alone (save for the society of his beautiful daughter, Miranda, a girl of fifteen) B off the main street on the brink of the swamp, his audiences, though select, were generally small ; but there was always the mitigating consolation of the post-office.

And there Watson Bangs could hold forth on most subjects, secure of the silent sympathy of Constable Wrong, who, in return for a free copy of the Four Corners Gazette every week, felt morally bound to support the editor's opinions. Soon after Bangs had bestowed this great boon on Constable Wrong, the Gazette secured an un expected addition to its staff in the shape of a boy of seventeen, who burst through the Bush at the back of the house one evening, nodded slightly to Bangs, and made himself very much at home on the verandah, with the air of one who had travelled far and did not intend to go another inch. The lad's deeply-set dark eyes shone out beneath penthouse brows ; his chin had a cleft in the centre. One bleeding toe appeared through his boot ; the left foot lacked a sole ; and his general appearance suggested that a bath would not be an inappropriate or superfluous luxury. It was evident that in his struggle to get through the swamp he had more than once fallen upon

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. 3 projecting roots and caked himself with mud. Little bits of moss, tenaciously stuck all over him, pleasantly reminded Watson Bangs of an individual whom he had once helped to tar and feather. The lad's rough thatch of hair thrust itself through a hole in his cap, and he had lost one of his thick winter gloves. In spite of the disfiguring dirt, his fingers were long and aristo cratically slim. They looked as if they could " set " type or play a violin. Although the snow had but recently gone, the brief Canadian spring clothed every inch of ground with swiftly-growing blades of grass. Already myriads of mosquitoes pestered the sleek kine as they emerged panting from the Bush and slowly sought the village, their swollen udders craving the customary pressure of human hands. Fire flies flickered through the long grass, or faded away into the dewy dusk of oncoming night ; while the musical monotone of the never-satiated little saw-mill in the creek, as the " night-shift " came on and the circular saw ate its way through monster tree-trunks, mingled with the distant roar of the Long Sault Falls and the faint lap-lapping of the river.

The village itself was situated on the Ottawa bank, and consisted of one row of wooden houses, a disused and dismantled fort — sole remnant of the time when the Red Man was feared in the land — a Presbyterian church with a tin spire, ten taverns, a court-house and gaol in one, six stores, and a rough stone Catholic church with painted windows on which the setting sun shone redly down. The boy comprehended the village at one glance. He had seen many others like it in thc course of his wanderings, but never one so picturesquely situated. His eyes roved with sym pathetic interest across the swollen river to thc mountains on the other side as if he longed to climb their pine-clad sides and reach the tops. The difficulty of doing so was a personal challenge and affront, particularly as he could not swim the river, and had no boat in which to cross it.

Giving up this impracticable feat for the present, he came back to his immediate surroundings. " You run this thing ? " he energetically queried pointing in the direction of the printing-office. (A tame turkey, with literary tendencies, was making a light meal off the broken types which strewed the ground, whilst a long-bearded, patient-

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. 5 looking goat tried to digest a tin tomato-can containing printers' paste. They both glanced up at the new-comer with a disparaging air, and con tinued their respective suppers.) Bangs was taken at a disadvantage on hearing his cherished printing-office spoken of so dis respectfully, and stammered — " Ye-es." " I'll stay," said the boy. " Guess I can put you up to some new wrinkles. You backwoods settle ments are behind the times. Takes a man from a big city to wake you up. Yes ; I'll stay. Don't mind thanking me. Got any pie about ? Genuine pie, not printers' ? I've had nothing to eat for the last ten hours. I'm editing a pocket Horace, but it'll keep till after supper. Exegi monit But you don't know Horace, I guess ? " "You're beginning early to edit things," said Bangs, evading the blunt reference to his defective scholarship.

" Maybe you'll join the staff and edit me ? " The boy fixed a frank gaze on him. "Guess I will. You need it badly— with a razor. Got any Greek type ? I might want to throw in a ' quote ' or two." Bangs's first impulse, although he admired the lad's pluck, was to pitch his unbidden guest into the Creek at the back of the building. Before he could carry it out, however, Miranda appeared, bearing a bounteous wedge of pie. " The poor fellow's starving, dad. Look how blue his lips are. I've brought him some of my pie. It's nice and fresh." The youthful but hot-headed adventurer's hasty answer died away unspoken in her presence. In spite of the hunger raging within him, he gazed intently, not at the pie but, at Miranda's beautiful blue eyes, the glorious masses of black hair which hung over her shoulders, the proud curve of the girl's upper lip, her gleaming teeth, and the dimpled chin not cleft like a dint in granite after the fashion of his own.

She wore a daintily-made frock of grey homespun, on her head a red ribbon ; in her hand was the willow-patterned platter heaped with pie. As the boy's eyes dropped, hers fairly danced with fun and the consciousness of coming empire ; the proffered pie remaining poised between them in mid-air. "Eat," said the girl, shyly, her long lashes drooping in their turn.

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. 7 The boy mechanically took the plate. " Yes ; since you wish it. May I ask what place you hold in this house ? " " You want to edit dad," replied the girl ; " I'm going to edit you, as a punishment for your impudence." Bangs grimly regarded them. " She'll do it, my boy. Better go away — you're welcome to the pie— and chop wood." The youth's retort was scarcely warrantable. He looked apprehensively at the pie on his plate. " D-did you make it ? " he tragically murmured. "Ye-es," the girl faltered, a sense of fearsome guilt lying suddenly on her soul. " Your first ? " " Ye-es ! " " Show me the heroes of a nation," said the youngster, taking a huge bite out of a slice, " and I will show you the men who have managed to survive home-made pie." " It disagrees with you ? " Miranda inquired. "Not yet."

The young fellow looked at her critically. " Confess now, and I will absolve your soul. Didn't you say to yourself this morning, ' To-day I will arise and make my first pie, and try a piece of it on father ? ' Didn't you, now ? " " Ye-es." " As the day drew on, and you knew what you had deliberately put into that pie, you hesitated. In the heat of the noontide you could doom your dad to destruction ; but as the calm shadows of night fell about this peaceful home your purpose failed you. You said, mindful that this white-headed man is your father, ' My soul shall be spared so monstrous a crime. I'll try it instead on the first tramp who comes along.' ' Fiat experimeutum in corpore viliA Can you deny it ? " "You know I can't." Miranda was reduced almost to tears by the long words the new-comer used.

" I thought of it directly I saw you ; you looked so hungry." "Well, you needn't trouble yourself." He took another comprehensive bite out of the pie. " So far, it is a good pie — very good indeed. I don't remember to have partaken of so ethereal a pie for weeks. There is nothing at all paleolithic about it." Miranda, relieved from her fears, and mollified by this generous compliment, asked him to stay

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. 9 for the night. Watson Bangs, although it went sorely against the grain, nodded a surly assent to her invitation. Thus it was that Fergus Crane slept that night, and for many succeeding nights, with the faint ripple of the wandering Ottawa river sounding in his ears, and the sweet west wind, laden with piny odours, softly blowing through the open lattice as the stars peered solemnly over the tree-tops into his little room. But after that first meeting, Bangs lost all faith in this pretentious boy, who knew so much more about the way to manage a newspaper than he himself did. Bangs would not admit, what every one else shrewdly surmised, that jealousy was the dominant reason for his dislike. Miranda soon learned to love the boy ; he was her constant companion and delight. Bangs held the second place in her heart, and the night which brought Fergus such peaceful repose occasioned the old man nothing but sad unrest.

He loathed the very sight of the lad, although for more than a year there was no open manifestation of their mutual dislike. Moreover, on one or two occasions, Bangs felt a glow of almost parental pride in Fergus's ability when a more than usually trenchant article from the pen of that truculent youth, plentifully garnished by quotations from the Latin poets, had aroused a desire on the part of Four Corners folk to lynch the legally-responsible head of the concern. Fergus, however, at the first rumour of reprisals, boldly avowed the authorship of the article, borrowed a big shot-gun, and expressed his willingness to receive a committee of any six citizens, with or without pistols, to discuss the question, provided they would permit him to open the argument. The lad's strenuous defiance had the desired effect, although many leading citizens went about vowing that he was not destined to die of old age.

Miranda vainly did her best to mend matters. Then something occurred which might have been foreseen by any one but Bangs, who was always ready to under-estimate the personal charm of this waif from the Bush — a charm which, in spite of his jealousy, often made him wish that Miranda had been born a boy, with all Fergus's tremendous dash and obstinacy. When Fergus stated that he was about to do something, it was generally done. Bangs had a dim prescience that the boy could revolutionize the universe, if he chose to set about it. This foreknowledge made him uneasy ; there

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. 11 was no telling what might happen next. One day the thunderbolt fell under his nose, and caused him to commit an act of brutality of which he was ashamed afterwards, when his hasty action could not be remedied ; and Miranda, for the first time in her life, ceased to think that her father could do no wrong. One summer evening, about fourteen months after Fergus's arrival at Four Corners, Miranda was in the printing-office talking to him. The turkey — it weighed four or five pounds more, owing to its constant internal accumulation of broken type — which was a disinterested spectator from the door way, noticed that Fergus's arm was round Miranda's waist. " I'm going to marry you," he said, flinging back his handsome head ; " but I shall never make money enough to do it here. Besides, every night the river calls me : ' Come away to the world.

You're a stranded log here. Come, taste the world's delights. There's fame in the world, and fame is good ; there's joy in the world, and joy is good ; there's wealth in the world, and wealth is good. They all wait for you. Get up. Seek them. Taste them. They're not here, save love ; the world passes this place by as it passes the monks of La Trappe at Two Mountains. Don't ripen and rot here. Come ! ' " Miranda drew without the shelter of his arm. " Go ; I don't wish you to stay ; you would only break your heart and hate me. Come back some day ; you've promised. Bring your world with you, lay it at my feet ; I shall decide whether to pick it up. But I will be second nowhere. Go to your world, embrace her, weary of her ; then come back and " — she laughed — " say whether you prefer her to me."

The lad drew her to him. " You are right. Some day I'll bring you the world — as much of it as I can carry, at least ; or " — he pointed to the moon sailing over the pine tops — " would you prefer that ? " Miranda held up her pretty hands to the moon with a longing gesture. " It's as yellow as gold ; but, ah me ! how lonely to be up there with only the tiny stars ! " "But they look at it. The stars are little moons." "The moon doesn't want to be looked at un less "

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. 13 " Unless ? " " She can look back at her peer." The boy kissed her. " I will remember that. " And this," cried a furious voice, as Bangs smote him to the floor with one blow from his leg of-mutton fist. The boy bounded to his feet and laid hold of an iron crowbar, but Miranda rushed between them. He laughed lightly, tossed the bar into a corner, and wiped away the dust from his face. " Watson Bangs, grey-haired old man, I've eaten your pie, or I'd kill you." Watson walked to the door. It hurt him that Miranda should move away as he passed. " Git," he said, relapsing into the vernacular of his boyhood, and utterly disregarding the laboriously-acquired grammatical culture of half a century. " Git out of this ; I don't want to see your face again." The boy laughed and kissed Miranda. "All right ; I can catch the night-boat for Montreal.

Look out for me, Miranda. I'll come back, and bring the world with me." He ran up hastily to the garret, emerged with a bundle containing his few goods and chattels, waved one hand with gay good-nature to Watson, who was too proud to bid him stay, and turned towards the wharf after again kissing Miranda. " Listen ! There's the night-boat coming ! Don't you hear the chunk-chunk of her churning paddles ? The roustabouts' cries ? Those old screech-owls, the Fates, whistle for me ; the river calls ' Come ! ' Remember, Miranda, if any one but yourself uses my garret I'll never forgive you. It's going to be a show place at a dollar a head some day. Good-bye — good-bye." He set off at a run as the boat fussed up to the wharf, and the deck hands began to dump down apple-barrels with lightning-like rapidity, and to swear at the local loafers with a facility attained only by long and careful practice.

Miranda gazed after Fergus through misty tears, passed her father without a word, and entered the house. An hour later, Watson went to Miranda's door to bid her good night, but she was not there. He climbed to the garret and looked in. Everything was strewn about. Miranda had moved her dainty belongings up the rough stairs, and was arranging them one by one. He would

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. 15 have remonstrated, but a glance at her firm-set features and resolute chin deterred him from all speech. Once Watson awoke in the middle of thc night. It seemed to him that he heard some one sob, away up in the roof. He stuffed his fingers into his ears, resolving to follow Fergus Crane to Montreal in the morning and entreat him to return. But when Watson carried out his intention, there was no trace of the lad. He had not been to any of the city printing-offices ; no one knew anything about him. Miranda greeted Watson affectionately on his return. " You've done all you could, dad. You never heard Fergus say a thing he didn't carry out, did you?" " N-no, can't say I have," answered Watson. " Sorry I hit him." " You'll be sorrier some day, when he brings me the world." The old man sniffed.

" What ? " Miranda smiled. " He'll bring me the whole world or — nothing ! " "Guess he'll find nothing easier to carry," said Watson, turning away to the pump.

Chapter I. Five Years Later

The lanky mule was leg-weary and sore-backed ; Old Man Evans tired of " furrin parts ; " and the irregularly-shaped quadruped, nose to ground, sniffed at the well-known trail in an ecstasy which partially appeased the hunger of three long years — years of hard service, short commons often, and many narrow escapes ; for her master, true to his aboriginal instincts, had wandered among "bad Injuns," and the mule bore an ugly arrow-scar on her quarters. Old Man kept the arrow-head slung round the animal's neck as a kind of amulet to ward off all future harm, and, when telling the story of this Homeric engage ment, was accustomed to tie the mule up in a place where she could not hear ; but, sooner or later, before the tale was ended, a long melancholy visage protruded itself over Old Man's shoulder, and reproachfully looked at his auditors with an air which implied, " I show my wounds, gentle men ; my master doesn't." Thus compelled to " own up " by his four-footed friend, Old Man would make the amende honorable, and proceed to display her skill in unfastening herself; for no knot that was ever tied could keep the mule captive.

Old Man's grotesque and preposterous animal had deteriorated in some respects and improved in others. The durability of her scarred hide made it as valuable as that of a caribou ; and a wider intelligence, fostered by encounters with strange hybrids in the great North-West, had be gotten in her an acuter intellect than of yore. She was an extraordinarily powerful, clay-coloured mule, projecting in all kinds of uncomfortable and unexpected directions, blind in the right eye, and wanting an ear, the remaining ear lopping over as if to conceal her lack of sight. The missing ear had been " chawed " off in single combat with one of her own race. An originality of gait, which had first endeared her to Old Man, still remained to comfort his loneliness ; she shuffled along, moving both legs on one side at the same time.

C Her mode of progression suggested an appearance of constant effort, as if she were continually changing shoulders, and undecided which leg should lead. The perpetual friction this walking, or running, rather, involved on the part of Old Man, pleased his active mind, although necessitating a good deal of superfluous outlay for leather "britches." Besides, the animal's gait attracted a certain amount of attention and respect among the Indians, who regarded her and Old Man as delegates from the happy hunting-grounds, whom it was their duty to slay before they could ride up to the Great Manitou. In a facetious moment, Old Man had christened his mule "Miss Wilks," as a tribute to the one woman whose charms had made a lasting impression on him. It may be remembered in certain other chronicles that Old Man and his quondam "familiar," Ikey Marston, had been suitors for the fair hand of one Miss Wilks, a damsel of masculine proportions and strength ; but that Old Man, though loving her, had renounced all pretensions in favour of his rival, and departed for a trip to the great North- West on the eve of the marriage ceremony.

The force of habit was now beginning to oppress Old Man ; he yearned for the sight of Ikey's weather beaten face — Ikey, who knew his moods and loved them all. Occasional pioneers from Four Corners, who had from time to time drifted across his path, insisted on Old Man's return, alleging that there was no " tone " in the place without him — a blow which was grievous to be borne, inasmuch as Four Corners had always prided itself upon a certain amount of style in the demeanour of its leading inhabitants. Of late, too, "Miss Wilks" had appeared to be off her feed. One evening, when camping out, she came up to Old Man, senti mentally hung her enormous head over his shoulder, and meekly insisted that she needed change of air, together with a plentiful supply of home comforts. "You're a dum fool!"

Old Man had remarked, fondling her pendulous ear. " A dum fool ! You know as well as I do the late Miss Wilks (Mrs. Ikey Marston as is) ain't got no durned manner of use for neither of us ; but if you think it'll stop your snivellin', an' you can stand it, we'll go. We've stretched our legs a bit, shared our baccy " (Miss Wilks's head hung still lower at this allusion to her one great failing ; she would have sold her own hide for an extra allowance of tobacco), "an' made fools of ourselves gin'rally, specially when I'd fever an' you an' White Plume stood off them bad Injuns as wanted my traps. My ! I remember how you got old Yellow Feather by the slack of his breech-clout an' slung him off to the happy hunting-grounds. If you says the word is to be 'git,' why, we'll git. Onless I'm mistook, you'll soon be glad to clear out agin for the North- West."

Whereupon Miss Wilks had uttered uncouth sounds, chewing her tobacco with solemn satisfac tion meanwhile, and, the next morning, set off with such speed, in her own slab-sided peculiar way, that she and Old Man some two months later found themselves on the brow of a green hill overlooking the village of Four Corners as it lay basking below in the spring sunshine. "Thar you are!" said Old Man, slipping from the saddle to the ground, and stretching himself with visible satisfaction. " Thar you are ! Got a sore back along of your darned hurry, under mined both our constitutions, an' spavined your legs through home-sickness. You can go back agin if you like, an' as soon as you like. Only don't say when we git into trubble as it's all my doin'." The mule threw up her head, sniffed the rising breeze with increasing satisfaction, and uttered an eerie sound which startled even Old Man, accustomed though he was to her peculiarities.

"Oh, if you feel that way about it," he said, moving slowly down the hill, " come on. You know the way to Four Corners by this time. Now for it." His persistent pessimism on returning to Four Corners appeared to sober Miss Wilks ; she slowly took the trail with the air of one whose back was galled and withers wrung. In fact, Miss Wilks's manner implied that she would much rather go the other way, but that out of deference to Old Man's wishes, and under protest, she consented to return to the haunts of her shameless youth — a youth which had been spent in chewing odd fragments which would have sickened an ostrich, or in trying her 'prentice heels against the sides of every barn and dwelling-house for miles round. Old Man followed her through dim colonnades of odorous pines and rock elms, whilst a catbird, perched on a cedar bough, flirted its pretty wings at him and disdained to fly away.

Lower down the hill they went by a cluster of little huts, to the last of which a man was putting a coat of whitewash ; his fat child rolled on the grass, play ing with a pig, whose shrill squeals afforded the young barbarian intense delight. Old Man's eyes momentarily brightened at the sight of the Ottawa river shining on his left through the trees. As a steamer puffed up to the long wharf which reached out half across the bay, the mule silently con tinued her way past a tavern, the proprietor of which rushed out with a joyous shout and wrung Old Man's hand. "Ah, ze leetle heifair which comes back for to be fatted," he cried. "Ah, ze beautiful mu-el," and affectionately threw his arms around Miss Wilks's lean barrel. Miss Wilks, resenting this uncalled for familiarity, and ashamed of previous sentimental exhibitions on her own part, planted both heels in the habitant's fur waistcoat with unpleasant emphasis.

Fourrier, the tavern-keeper, thus forcibly checked in his joyous greeting, sat up on the grass and gasped — " No mattaire ! Ah, mon Dieu, ze same old mu-el, ze same Old Man, ze same old kick. I know you both anyveres. Now ve shall make ze same old times. Vait till I git again my vinds. Tell her to come avays, Old Man. She vill of me eat." " She's only showin' off all along of gettin' back," said Old Man, apologetically. " That's what's the matter with her. Bustin' with pride an' original sin. Come here, you old volcaner, an' stop kickin' your friends in thisyer onchristian style." Miss Wilks left off squealing and prancing around Fourrier, and absently tickled her lean ribs with one leg, as if thinking of something else. Then she suddenly started onward, occasionally uttering the weird and gruesome sound which had previously startled Old Man.

" So long, Fourrier ! It's only her joy at gettin' back. She was bound to let drive at somebody. If you hadn't come along, it 'ud have been me," said Old Man, slouching off after Miss Wilks, who had now reached the bottom of the hill. " I'd be ashamed to give myself away like that," he said severely. " Whar's your manners, you old barskin with the hair off ? " But, in spite of this rebuke, Miss Wilks continued to shuffle along the main road leading to Four Corners, still uttering strange sounds, indicative of sentimental pleasure and emotion. Old Man, for once in his life, hesitated, a deeper tinge showing on his weather-beaten cheek. " Thar may be a cabin full of 'em by this time," he muttered irresolutely ; " a hull crowd of little Ikeys. This blessed mule's no more manners 'n a hog. She'd go crowdin' slap into that cabin as soon as not, an' break 'em all up in no time, jest to show she didn't approve of strangers foolin' round the old place."