Romany of the Snows, vol. 4 : Being a Continuation of the Personal Histories of &quote;Pierre and His People&quote; and the Last Existing Records of Pretty Pierre (eBook)

Gilbert Parker (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016
88 Seiten
Krill Press (Verlag)
978-1-5183-5743-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Gilbert Parker was a late 19th and early 20th century politician and novelist who wrote prodigiously. The British-Canadian's works are still popular in the 21st century.

Textauszug

LITTLE BABICHE AT POINT O’ BUGLES THE SPOIL OF THE PUMA THE TRAIL OF THE SUN DOGS THE PILOT OF BELLE AMOUR: LITTLE BABICHE

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“NO, NO, M’SIEU’ THE GOVERNOR, they did not tell you right. I was with him, and I have known Little Babiche fifteen years—as long as I’ve known you. . . . It was against the time when down in your world there they have feastings, and in the churches the grand songs and many candles on the altars. Yes, Noel, that is the word—the day of the Great Birth. You shall hear how strange it all was—the thing, the time, the end of it.”

The governor of the great Company settled back in a chair, his powerful face seamed by years, his hair grey and thick still, his keen, steady eyes burning under shaggy brows. He had himself spent long solitary years in the wild fastnesses of the north. He fastened his dark eyes on Pierre, and said: “Monsieur Pierre, I shall be glad to hear. It was at the time of Noel—yes?”

Pierre began: “You have seen it beautiful and cold in the north, but never so cold and beautiful as it was last year. The world was white with sun and ice, the frost never melting, the sun never warming—just a glitter, so lovely, so deadly. If only you could keep the heart warm, you were not afraid. But if once—just for a moment—the blood ran out from the heart and did not come in again, the frost clamped the doors shut, and there was an end of all. Ah, m’sieu’, when the north clinches a man’s heart in anger there is no pain like it—for a moment.”

“Yes, yes; and Little Babiche?”

“For ten years he carried the mails along the route of Fort St. Mary, Fort O’Glory, Fort St. Saviour, and Fort Perseverance within the circle- just one mail once a year, but that was enough. There he was with his Esquimaux dogs on the trail, going and coming, with a laugh and a word for anyone that crossed his track. ‘Good-day, Babiche’ ‘Good-day, m’sieu’.’ ‘How do you, Babiche?’ ‘Well, thank the Lord, m’sieu’.’ ‘Where to and where from, Babiche?’ ‘To the Great Fort by the old trail, from the Far-off River, m’sieu’.’ ‘Come safe along, Babiche.’ ‘Merci, m’sieu’; the good God travels north, m’sieu’.’ ‘Adieu, Babiche.’ ‘Adieu, m’sieu’.’ That is about the way of the thing, year after year. Sometimes a night at a hut or a post, but mostly alone—alone, except for the dogs. He slept with them, and they slept on the mails—to guard: as though there should be highwaymen on the Prairie of the Ten Stars! But no, it was his way, m’sieu’. Now and again I crossed him on the trail, for have I not travelled to every corner of the north? We were not so great friends, for—well, Babiche is a man who says his aves, and never was a loafer, and there was no reason why he should have love for me; but we were good company when we met. I knew him when he was a boy down on the Chaudiere, and he always had a heart like a lion-and a woman. I had seen him fight, I had seen him suffer cold, and I had heard him sing.

“Well, I was up last fall to Fort St. Saviour. Ho, how dull was it! Macgregor, the trader there, has brains like rubber. So I said, I will go down to Fort O’Glory. I knew someone would be there—it is nearer the world. So I started away with four dogs and plenty of jerked buffalo, and so much brown brandy as Macgregor could squeeze out of his eye! Never, never were there such days—the frost shaking like steel and silver as it powdered the sunlight, the white level of snow lifting and falling, and falling and lifting, the sky so great a travel away, the air which made you cry out with pain one minute and gave you joy the next. And all so wild, so lonely! Yet I have seen hanging in those plains cities all blue and red with millions of lights showing, and voices, voices everywhere, like the singing of soft masses. After a time in that cold up there you are no longer yourself—no. You move in a dream. “Eh bien, m’sieu’, there came, I thought, a dream to me one evening—well, perhaps one afternoon, for the days are short—so short, the sun just coming over a little bend of sky, and sinking down like a big orange ball. I come out of a tumble of little hills, and there over on the plains I saw a sight! Ragged hills of ice were thrown up, as if they’d been heaved out by the breaking earth, jutting here and there like wedges—like the teeth of a world. Alors, on one crag, shaped as an anvil, I saw what struck me like a blow, and I felt the blood shoot out of my heart and leave it dry. I was for a minute like a pump with no water in its throat to work the piston and fetch the stream up. I got sick and numb. There on that anvil of snow and ice I saw a big white bear, one such as you shall see within the Arctic Circle, his long nose fetching out towards that bleeding sun in the sky, his white coat shining. But that was not the thing—there was another. At the feet of the bear was a body, and one clawed foot was on that body—of a man. So clear was the air, the red sun shining on the face as it was turned towards me, that I wonder I did not at once know whose it was. You cannot think, m’sieu’, what that was like—no. But all at once I remembered the Chant of the Scarlet Hunter. I spoke it quick, and the blood came creeping back in here.” He tapped his chest with his slight forefinger.

“What was the chant?” asked the governor, who had scarce stirred a muscle since the tale began. Pierre made a little gesture of deprecation. “Ah, it is perhaps a thing of foolishness, as you may think—”

“No, no. I have heard and seen in my day,” urged the governor.

“So? Good. Yes, I remember, you told me years ago, m’sieu’. . . .

“The blinding Trail and Night and Cold are man’s: mine is the trail that finds the Ancient Lodge. Morning and Night they travel with me; my camp is set by the pines, its fires are burning—are burning. The lost, they shall sit by my fires, and the fearful ones shall seek, and the sick shall abide. I am the Hunter, the Son of the North; I am thy lover where no man may love thee. With me thou shalt journey, and thine the Safe Tent.

“As I said, the blood came back to my heart. I turned to my dogs, and gave them a cut with the whip to see if I dreamed. They sat back and snarled, and their wild red eyes, the same as mine, kept looking at the bear and the quiet man on the anvil of ice and snow. Tell me, can you think of anything like it?—the strange light, the white bear of the Pole, that has no friends at all except the shooting stars, the great ice plains, the quick night hurrying on, the silence—such silence as no man can think! I have seen trouble flying at me in a hundred ways, but this was different—yes. We come to the foot of the little hill. Still the bear not stir. As I went up, feeling for my knives and my gun, the dogs began to snarl with anger, and for one little step I shivered, for the thing seem not natural. I was about two hundred feet away from the bear when it turned slow round at me, lifting its foot from the body. The dogs all at once come huddling about me, and I dropped on my knee to take aim, but the bear stole away from the man and come moving down past us at an angle, making for the plain. I could see his deep shining eyes, and the steam roll from his nose in long puffs. Very slow and heavy, like as if he see no one and care for no one, he shambled down, and in a minute was gone behind a boulder. I ran on to the man—”

The governor was leaning forward, looking intently, and said now: “It’s like a wild dream—but the north—the north is near to the Strangest of All!”

“I knelt down and lifted him up in my arms, all a great bundle of furs and wool, and I got my hand at last to his wrist. He was alive. It was Little Babiche! Part of his face was frozen stiff. I rubbed out the frost with snow, and then I forced some brandy into his mouth, good old H.B.C. brandy,—and began to call to him: ‘Babiche! Babiche! Come back, Babiche! The wolf’s at the pot, Babiche!’ That’s the way to call a hunter to his share of meat. I was afraid, for the sleep of cold is the sleep of death, and it is hard to call the soul back to this world. But I called, and kept calling, and got him on his feet, with my arm round him. I gave him more brandy; and at last I almost shrieked in his ear. Little by little I saw his face take on the look of waking life. It was like the dawn creeping over white hills and spreading into day. I said to myself: What a thing it will be if I can fetch him back! For I never knew one to come back after the sleep had settled on them. It is too comfortable—all pain gone, all trouble, the world forgot, just a kind weight in all the body, as you go sinking down, down to the valley, where the long hands of old comrades beckon to you, and their soft, high voices cry, ‘Hello! hello-o!’” Pierre nodded his head towards the distance, and a musing smile divided his lips on his white teeth. Presently he folded a cigarette, and went on:

“I had saved...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 2.1.2016
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Anthologien
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Klassiker / Moderne Klassiker
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: Austen • Bronte • classics • Dickens • Hawthorne • Prejudice • Sense
• ISBN-10: 1-5183-5743-1 / 1518357431
• ISBN-13: 978-1-5183-5743-5 / 9781518357435