Lords of the North Part 39

Sutherland.

"Bring him ash.o.r.e," I returned.

The boat headed about and approached the bank. Then the rowers ceased pulling; for the water was shallow, and we were within speaking distance.

"Now, Louis, what do you mean by this nonsense?" I began.

In answer, the Frenchman leaped out of the boat and waded ash.o.r.e.

"Let them go on," he said, scrambling up the cliff in a staggering, faint fashion.

"If you meant to stay at the fort, why didn't you decide sooner?" I demanded roughly.

"I didn't." This doggedly and with downcast eyes.

"Then you go down the lake with the rest and no skulking!"

"Gillespie," answered Louis in a low tone, "there's strength of an ox in you, but not the wit. Let them go on! Simpleton, I tell you of Miriam."

His words recalled the real reason of my presence in the north country; for my quest had indeed been eclipsed by the fearful events of the past week. I signalled the rowers to go without him, waved a last farewell to Frances Sutherland, and turned to see Louis Laplante throw himself on the gra.s.s and cry like a schoolboy. Dismounting I knelt beside him.

"Cheer up, old boy," said I, with the usual vacuity of thought and stupidity of expression at such times. "Cheer up! Seven Oaks has knocked you out. I knew you shouldn't make this trip till you were strong again.

Why, man, you have enough cuts to undo the pluck of a giant-killer!"

Louis was not paying the slightest attention to me. He was mumbling to himself and I wondered if he were in a fever.

"The priest, the Irish priest in the fort, he say to me: 'Wicked fellow, you be tortured forever and ever in the furnace, if you not undo what you did in the gorge!' What care Louis Laplante for the fire? Pah! What care Louis for wounds and cuts and threats? Pah! The fire not half so hot as the h.e.l.l inside! The cuts not half so sharp as the thinks that p.r.i.c.k and sting and lash from morn'g to night, night to morn'g! Pah!

Something inside say: 'Louis Laplante, son of a seigneur, a dog! A cur!

Toad! Reptile!' Then I try stand up straight and give the lie, but it say: 'Pah! Louis Laplante!' The Irish priest, he say, 'You repent!' What care Louis for repents? Pah! But her eyes, they look and look and look like two steel-gray stars! Sometime they caress and he want to pray!

Sometime they stab and he shiver; but they always shine like stars of heaven and the priest, he say, 'You be shut out of heaven!' If the angel all have stars, steel glittering stars, for eyes, heaven worth for trying! The priest, he say, 'You go to abode of torture!' Torture! Pah!

More torture than 'nough here. Angels with stars in their heads, more better. But the stars stab through--through--through----"

"Bother the stars," said I to myself. "What of Miriam?" I asked, interrupting his penitential confidences.

His references to steel-gray eyes and stars and angels somehow put me in no good mood, for a reason with which most men, but few women, will sympathize.

"Stupid ox!" He spat out the words with unspeakable impatience at my obtuseness. "What of Miriam! Why the priest and the starry eyes and the something inside, they all say, 'Go and get Miriam! Where's the white woman? You lied! You let her go! Get her--get her--get her!' What of Miriam? Pah!"

After that angry outburst, the fountains of his sorrow seemed to dry up and he became more the old, nonchalant Louis whom I knew.

"Where is Miriam?" I asked.

He ignored my question and went on reasoning with himself.

"No more peace--no more quiet--no more sing and rollick till he get Miriam!"

Was the fellow really delirious? The boats were disappearing from view.

I could wait no longer.

"Louis," said I, "if you have anything to say, say it quick! I can't wait longer."

"You know I lie to you in the gorge?" and he looked straight at me.

"Certainly," I answered, "and I punished you pretty well for it twice."

"You know what that lie mean"--and he hesitated--"mean to her--to Miriam?"

"Yes, Louis, I know."

"And you forgive all? Call all even?"

"As far as I'm concerned--yes--Louis! G.o.d Almighty alone can forgive the suffering you have caused her."

Then Louis Laplante leaped up and, catching my hand, looked long and steadily into my eyes.

"I go and find her," he muttered in a low, tense voice. "I follow their trail--I keep her from suffer--I bring them all back--back here in the bush on this river--I bring her back, or I kill Louis Laplante!"

"Old comrade--you were always generous," I began; but the words choked in my throat.

"I know not where they are, but I find them! I know not how soon--perhaps a year--but I bring them back! Go on with the boats," and he dropped my hand.

"I can't leave you here," I protested.

"You come back this way," he said. "May be you find me."

Poor Louis! His tongue tripped in its old evasive ways even at the moment of his penitence, which goes to prove--I suppose--that we are all the sum total of the thing called habit, that even spontaneous acts are evidences of the summed result of past years. I did not expect to find him when I came back, and I did not. He had vanished into the woods like the wild creature that he was; but I was placing a strange, reasonless reliance on his promise to find Miriam.

When I caught up with the boats, the river was widening so that attack would be impossible, and I did not ride far. Heading my horse about, I spurred back to Fort Douglas. Pa.s.sing Seven Oaks, I saw some of the Hudson's Bay men, who had remained burying the dead--not removing them.

That was impossible after the wolves and three days of a blistering sun.

I told Hamilton of neither Le Grand Diable's death, nor Louis Laplante's promise. He had suffered disappointments enough and could ill stand any sort of excitement. I found him walking about in the up-stairs hall, but his own grief had deadened him to the fortunes of the warring companies.

"Confound you, boy! Tell me the truth!" said Father Holland to me afterwards in the courtyard.

Le Grand Diable's death and Louis Laplante's promise seemed to make a great impression on the priest.

"I tell you the Lord delivered that evil one into the hands of the punisher; and of the innocent, the Lord, Himself, is the defender.

Await His purpose! Await His time!"

"Mighty long time," said I, with the bitter impatience of youth.

"Quiet, youngster! I tell you she shall be delivered!"

At last the Nor-Westers' Fort William brigade with its sixty men and numerous well-loaded canoes--whose cargoes had been the bone of contention between Hudson's Bay and Nor'-Westers at Seven Oaks--arrived at Fort Douglas. The newcomers were surprised to find us in possession of the enemy's fort. The last news they had heard was of wanton and successful aggression on the part of Lord Selkirk's Company; and I think the extra crews sent north were quite as much for purposes of defence as swift travel. But the gravity of affairs startled the men from Fort William; for they, themselves, had astounding news. Lord Selkirk was on his way north with munitions of war and an army of mercenaries formerly of the De Meurons' regiment, numbering two hundred, some said three or four hundred men; but this was an exaggeration. For what was he coming to Red River in this warlike fashion? His purpose would probably show itself. Also, if his intent were hostile, would not Seven Oaks ma.s.sacre afford him the very pretence he wanted for chastising Nor'-Westers out of the country? The canoemen had met the ejected settlers bound up the lake; and with them, whom did they see but the bellicose Captain Miles McDonell, given free pa.s.sage but a year before to Montreal and now on "the prosperous return," which he, himself, had prophesied?

The settlers' news of Seven Oaks sent the brave captain hurrying southward to inform Lord Selkirk of the ma.s.sacre.