The morning was propitious. The sun blazed in dazzling splendour in a sky of deep, unclouded blue, while the white prairie glittered as if it were a sea of diamonds rolling out in an unbroken sheet from the walls of the fort to the horizon, and on looking at which one experienced all the pleasurable feelings of being out on a calm day on the wide, wide sea, without the disagreeable consequence of being very, very sick.
The thermometer stood at 39 in the shade, and “everythink,” as Tom White emphatically expressed it, “looked like a runnin’ of right away into slush.” That unusual sound, the trickling of water, so inexpressibly grateful to the ears of those who dwell in frosty climes, was heard all around, as the heavy masses of snow on the housetops sent a few adventurous drops gliding down the icicles which depended from the ewes and gables; and there was a balmy softness in the air that told of coming spring. Nature, in fact, seemed to have wakened from her long nap, and was beginning to think of getting up. Like people, however, who venture to delay so long as to think about it, Nature frequently turns round and goes to sleep again in her icy cradle for a few weeks after the first awakening.
The scene in the courtyard of Fort Garry harmonised with the cheerful spirit of the morning. Tom Whyte, with that upright solemnity which constituted one of his characteristic features, was standing in the centre of a group of horses, whose energy he endeavoured to restrain with the help of a small Indian boy, to whom meanwhile he imparted a variety of useful and otherwise unattainable information.
“You see, Joseph,” said he to the urchin, who gazed gravely in his face with a pair of very large and dark eyes, “ponies is often skittish. Reason why one should be, an’ another not, I can’t comprehend. P’r’aps it’s nat’ral, p’r’aps not, but howsomediver so ’tis; an’ if it’s more nor above the likes o’ me, Joseph, you needn’t be surprised that it’s somethink haltogether beyond you.”
It will not surprise the reader to be told that Joseph made no reply to this speech, having a very imperfect acquaintance with the English language, especially the peculiar dialect of that tongue in which Tom Whyte was wont to express his ideas, when he had any.
He merely gave a grunt, and continued to gaze at Tom’s fishy eyes, which were about as interesting as the face to which they belonged, and that might have been mistaken for almost anything.
“Yes, Joseph,” he continued, “that’s a fact. There’s the noo brown ’oss now, it’s a skittish ’un. And there’s Mr Kennedy’s gray mare, wot’s a standin’ of beside me, she ain’t skittish a bit, though she’s plenty of spirit, and wouldn’t care hanythink for a five-barred gate. Now, wot I want to know is, wot’s the reason why?”
We fear that the reason why, however interesting it might prove to naturalists, must remain a profound secret for ever; for just as the groom was about to entertain Joseph with one of his theories on the point, Charley Kennedy and Harry Somerville hastily approached.
“Ho, Tom!” exclaimed the former, “have you got the miller’s pony for me?”
“Why, no, sir; ’e ’adn’t got his shoes on, sir, last night—”
“Oh, bother his shoes!” said Charley, in a voice of great disappointment. “Why didn’t you bring him up without shoes, man, eh?”
“Well, sir, the miller said ’e’d get ’em put on early this mornin’, an’ I ’xpect ’e’ll be ’ere in ’alf a hour at farthest, sir.”
“Oh, very well,” replied Charley, much relieved, but still a little nettled at the bare possibility of being late.—“Come along, Harry; let’s go and meet him. He’ll be long enough of coming if we don’t go to poke him up a bit.”
“You’d better wait,” called out the groom, as the boys hastened away. “If you go by the river, he’ll p’r’aps come by the plains; and if you go by the plains, he’ll p’r’aps come by the river.”
Charley and Harry stopped and looked at each other. Then they looked at the groom, and as their eyes surveyed his solemn, cadaverous countenance, which seemed a sort of bad caricature of the long visages of the horses that stood around him, they burst into a simultaneous and prolonged laugh. “He’s a clever old lamp-post,” said Harry at last: “we had better remain, Charley.”
“You see,” continued Tom Whyte, “the pony’s ’oofs is in an ’orrible state. Last night w’en I seed ’im I said to the miller, says I, ‘John, I’ll take ’im down to the smith d’rectly.’ ‘Very good,’ said John. So I ’ad ’im down to the smith—”
The remainder of Tom’s speech was cut short by one of those unforeseen operations of the laws of nature which are peculiar to arctic climates. During the long winter repeated falls of snow cover the housetops with white mantles upwards of a foot thick, which become gradually thicker and more consolidated as winter advances. In spring the suddenness of the thaw loosens these from the sloping roofs, and precipitates them in masses to the ground. These miniature avalanches are dangerous, people having been seriously injured and sometimes killed by them. Now it happened that a very large mass of snow, which lay on and partly depended from the roof of the house near to which the horses were standing, gave way, and just at that critical point in Tom Whyte’s speech when he “’ad ’im down to the smith,” fell with a stunning crash on the back of Mr Kennedy’s gray mare. The mare was not “skittish”—by no means—according to Tom’s idea, but it would have been more than an ordinary mare to have stood the sudden descent of half a ton of snow without some symptoms of consciousness. No sooner did it feel the blow than it sent both heels with a bang against the wooden store, by way of preliminary movement, and then rearing up with a wild snort, it sprang over Tom Whyte’s head, jerked the reins from his hand, and upset him in the snow. Poor Tom never bent to anything. The military despotism under which he had been reared having substituted a touch of the cap for a bow, rendered it unnecessary to bend; prolonged drill, laziness, and rheumatism made it at last impossible. When he stood up, he did so after the manner of a pillar; when he sat down, he broke across at two points, much in the way in which a foot-rule would have done had it felt disposed to sit down; and when he fell, he came down like an overturned lamp-post. On the present occasion Tom became horizontal in a moment, and from his unfortunate propensity to fall straight, his head, reaching much farther than might have been expected, came into violent contact with the small Indian boy, who fell flat likewise, letting go the reins of the horses, which latter no sooner felt themselves free than they fled, curvetting and snorting round the court, with reins and manes flying in rare confusion.
The two boys, who could scarce stand for laughing, ran to the gates of the fort to prevent the chargers getting free, and in a short time they were again secured, although evidently much elated in spirit.
A few minutes after this Mr Grant issued from the principal house, leaning on Mr Kennedy’s arm, and followed by the senior clerk, Peter Mactavish, and one or two friends who had come to take part in the wolf-hunt. They were all armed with double or single barrelled guns or pistols, according to their several fancies. The two elderly gentlemen alone entered upon the scene without any more deadly weapons than their heavy riding-whips. Young Harry Somerville, who had been strongly advised not to take a gun, lest he should shoot himself or his horse or his companions, was content to take the field with a small pocket-pistol, which he crammed to the muzzle with a compound of ball and swan-shot.
“It won’t do,” said Mr Grant, in an earnest voice, to his friend, as they walked towards the horses—“it won’t do to check him too abruptly, my dear sir.”
It was evident that they were recurring to the subject of conversation of the previous day, and it was also evident that the father’s wrath was in that very uncertain state when a word or a look can throw it into violent agitation.
“Just permit me,” continued Mr Grant, “to get him sent to the