Snowflakes and Sunbeams Part 31

"You don't say so," replied the hunter, returning Harry's grasp warmly, while his eyes sparkled with pleasure, and a quiet smile played at the corner of his mouth.

"Yes I do," said Harry; "and I'm very nearly as glad to meet with you, friend Jacques, as I would be to meet with him. But come; it's cold work talking here. Let's go to my room; there's a fire in the stove.--Come along, Hammy;" and taking his new friend by the arm, he hurried him along to his quarters in the fort.

Just as they were pa.s.sing under the fort gate, a large ma.s.s of snow became detached from a housetop and fell heavily at their feet, pa.s.sing within an inch of Hamilton's nose. The young man started back with an exclamation, and became very red in the face.

"Hollo!" cried Harry, laughing, "got a fright, Hammy! That went so close to your chin that it almost saved you the trouble of shaving."

"Yes; I got a little fright from the suddenness of it," said Hamilton quietly.

"What do you think of my friend there?" said Harry to Jacques, in a low voice, pointing to Hamilton, who walked on in advance.

"I've not seen much of him, master," replied the hunter. "Had I been asked the same question about the same lad twenty years agone, I should ha' said he was soft, and perhaps chicken-hearted. But I've learned from experience to judge better than I used to do. I niver thinks o'

forming an opinion o' anyone till I geen them called to sudden action.

It's astonis.h.i.+n' how some faint-hearted men will come to face a danger and put on an awful look o' courage if they only get warnin', but take them by surprise--that's the way to try them."

"Well, Jacques, that is the very reason why I ask your opinion of Hamilton. He was pretty well taken by surprise that time, I think."

"True, master; but _that_ kind of start don't prove much. Hows'ever, I don't think he's easy upset. He does _look_ uncommon soft, and his face grew red when the snow fell, but his eyebrow and his under lip showed that it wasn't from fear."

During that afternoon and the greater part of that night the three friends continued in close conversation--Harry sitting in front of the stove, with his hands in his pockets, on a chair tilted as usual on its hind legs, and pouring out volleys of questions, which were pithily answered by the good-humoured, loquacious hunter, who sat behind the stove, resting his elbows on his knees, and smoking his much-loved pipe; while Hamilton reclined on Harry's bed, and listened with eager avidity to anecdotes and stories, which seemed, like the narrator's pipe, to be inexhaustible.

"Good-night, Jacques, good-night," said Harry, as the latter rose at last to depart; "I'm delighted to have had a talk with you. You must come back to-morrow. I want to hear more about your friend Redfeather.

Where did you say you left him?"

"In the Saskatchewan, master. He said that he would wait there, as he'd heerd the missionary was comin' up to pay the Injins a visit."

"By-the-by, you're going over to the missionary's place to-morrow, are you not?"

"Yes, I am."

"Ah, then, that'll do. I'll go over with you. How far off is it?"

"Three miles or thereabouts."

"Very good. Call in here as you pa.s.s, and my friend Hamilton and I will accompany you. Good-night."

Jacques thrust his pipe into his bosom, held out his h.o.r.n.y hand, and giving his young friends a hearty shake, turned and strode from the room.

On the following day Jacques called according to promise, and the three friends set off together to visit the Indian village. This missionary station was under the management of a Wesleyan clergyman, Pastor Conway by name, an excellent man, of about forty-five years of age, with an energetic mind and body, a bald head, a mild, expressive countenance, and a robust const.i.tution. He was admirably qualified for his position, having a natural apt.i.tude for every sort of work that man is usually called on to perform. His chief care was for the instruction of the Indians, whom he had induced to settle around him, in the great and all-important truths of Christianity. He invented an alphabet, and taught them to write and read their own language. He commenced the laborious task of translating the Scriptures into the Cree language; and being an excellent musician, he instructed his converts to sing in parts the psalms and Wesleyan hymns, many of which are exceedingly beautiful. A school was also established and a church built under his superintendence, so that the natives a.s.sembled in an orderly way in a commodious sanctuary every Sabbath day to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d; while the children were instructed, not only in the Scriptures, and made familiar with the narrative of the humiliation and exaltation of our blessed Saviour, but were also taught the elementary branches of a secular education. But good Pastor Conway's energy did not stop here. Nature had gifted him with that peculiar genius which is powerfully expressed in the term "a jack-of-all-trades." He could turn his hand to anything; and being, as we have said, an energetic man, he did turn his hand to almost everything. If anything happened to get broken, the pastor could either "mend it himself or direct how it was to be done. If a house was to be built for a new family of red men, who had never handled a saw or hammer in their lives, and had lived up to that time in tents, the pastor lent a hand to begin it, drew out the plan (not a very complicated thing certainly), set them fairly at work, and kept his eye on it until it was finished. In short, the worthy pastor was everything to everybody, "that by all means he might gain some."

Under such management the village flourished as a matter of course, although it did not increase very rapidly owing to the almost unconquerable aversion of North American Indians to take up a settled habitation.

It was to this little hamlet, then, that our three friends directed their steps. On arriving, they found Pastor Conway in a sort of workshop, giving directions to an Indian who stood with a soldering-iron in one hand and a sheet of tin in the other, which he was about to apply to a curious-looking half-finished machine that bore some resemblance to a canoe.

"Ah, my friend Jacques!" he exclaimed as the hunter approached him, "the very man I wished to see. But I beg pardon, gentlemen,-strangers, I perceive. You are heartily welcome. It is seldom that I have the pleasure of seeing new friends in my wild dwelling. Pray come with me to my house."

Pastor Conway shook hands with Harry and Hamilton with a degree of warmth that evinced the sincerity of his words. The young men thanked him and accepted the invitation.

As they turned to quit the workshop, the pastor observed Jacques's eye fixed with a puzzled expression of countenance, on his canoe.

"You have never seen anything like that before, I daresay?" said he, with a smile.

"No, sir; I never did see such a queer machine afore."

"It is a tin canoe, with which I hope to pa.s.s through many miles of country this spring, on my way to visit a tribe of Northern Indians, and it was about this very thing that I wanted to see you, my friend."

Jacques made no reply, but cast a look savouring very slightly of contempt on the unfinished canoe as they turned and went away.

The pastor's dwelling stood at one end of the village, a view of which it commanded from the back windows, while those in front overlooked the lake. It was pleasantly situated and pleasantly tenanted, for the pastor's wife was a cheerful, active little lady, like-minded with himself, and delighted to receive and entertain strangers. To her care Mr. Conway consigned the young men, after spending a short time in conversation with them; and then, requesting his wife to show them through the village, he took Jacques by the arm and sauntered out.

"Come with me, Jacques," he began; "I have somewhat to say to you. I had not time to broach the subject when I met you at the Company's fort, and have been anxious to see you ever since. You tell me that you have met with my friend Redfeather."

"Yes, sir; I spent a week or two with him last fall I found him stayin'

with his tribe, and we started to come down here together."

"Ah, that is the very point," exclaimed the pastor, "that I wish to inquire about. I firmly believe that G.o.d has opened that Indian's eyes to see the truth; and I fully expected from what he said when we last met, that he would have made up his mind to come and stay here."

"As to what the Almighty has done to him," said Jacques, in a reverential tone of voice, "I don't pretend to know; he did for sartin speak, and act too, in a way that I never seed an Injin do before. But about his comin' here, sir, you were quite right: he did mean to come, and I've no doubt will come yet."

"What prevented him coming with you, as you tell me he intended?"

inquired the pastor.

"Well, you see, sir, he and I and his squaw, as I said, set off to come here together: but when we got the length o' Edmonton House, we heerd that you were comin' up to pay a visit to the tribe to which Redfeather belongs; and so seem' that it was o' no use to come down hereaway just to turn about an' go up agin, he stopped there to wait for you, for he knew you would want him to interpret--"

"Ay," interrupted the pastor, "that's true. I have two reasons for wis.h.i.+ng to have him here. The primary one is, that he may get good to his immortal soul; and then he understands English so well that I want him to become my interpreter; for although I understand the Cree language pretty well now, I find it exceedingly difficult to explain the doctrines of the Bible to my people in it. But pardon me, I interrupted you."

"I was only going to say," resumed Jacques, "that I made up my mind to stay with him; but they wanted a man to bring the winter packet here, so, as they pressed me very hard, an' I had nothin' particular to do, I 'greed and came, though I would rather ha' stopped; for Redfeather an'

I ha' struck up a friends.h.i.+p togither--a thing that I would never ha'

thought it poss'ble for me to do with a red Injin."

"And why not with a red Indian, friend?" inquired the pastor, while a shade of sadness pa.s.sed over his mild features, as if unpleasant thoughts had been roused by the hunter's speech.

"Well, it's not easy to say why," rejoined the other. "I've no partic'lar objection to the red-skins. There's only one man among them that I bears a grudge agin, and even that one I'd rayther avoid than otherwise."

"But you should _forgive_ him, Jacques. The Bible tells us not only to bear our enemies no grudge, but to love them and to do them good."

The hunter's brow darkened. "That's impossible, sir," he said; "I couldn't do _him_ a good turn if I was to try ever so hard. He may bless his stars that I don't want to do him mischief; but to _love him_, it's jist imposs'ble."

"With man it is impossible, but with G.o.d all things are possible," said the pastor solemnly.

Jacques's naturally philosophic though untutored mind saw the force of this. He felt that G.o.d, who had formed his soul, his body, and the wonderfully complicated machinery and objects of nature, which were patent to his observant and reflective mind wherever he went, must of necessity be equally able to alter, influence, and remould them all according to His will. Common-sense was sufficient to teach him this; and the bold hunter exhibited no ordinary amount of common-sense in admitting the fact at once, although in the case under discussion (the loving of his enemy) it seemed utterly impossible to his feelings and experience. The frown, therefore, pa.s.sed from his brow, while he said respectfully, "What you say, sir, is true; I believe though I can't _feel_ it. But I s'pose the reason I niver felt much drawn to the red-skins is, that all the time I lived in the settlements I was used to hear them called and treated as thievin' dogs, an 'when I com'd among them I didn't see much to alter my opinion. Here an' there I have found one or two honest Injins, an' Redfeather is as true as steel; but the most o' them are no better than they should be. I s'pose I don'

think much o' them just because they are red-skins."

"Ah, Jacques, you will excuse me if I say that there is not much sense in _that_ reason. An Indian cannot help being a red man any more than you can help being a white one, so that he ought not to be despised on that account. Besides, G.o.d made him what he is, and to despise the _work_ of G.o.d, or to undervalue it, is to despise G.o.d Himself. You may indeed despise, or rather abhor, the sins that red men are guilty of; but if you despise _them_ on this ground, you must much more despise white men, for _they_ are guilty of greater iniquities than Indians are. They have more knowledge, and are therefore more inexcusable when they sin; and anyone who has travelled much must be aware that, in regard to general wickedness, white men are at least quite as bad as Indians. Depend upon it, Jacques, that there will be Indians found in heaven at the last day as well as white men. G.o.d is no respecter of persons."

"I niver thought much on that subject afore, sir," returned the hunter; "what you say seems reasonable enough. I'm sure an' sartin, any way, that if there's a red-skin in heaven at all, Redfeather will be there, an' I only hope that I may be there too to keep him company."

"I hope so, my friend,", said the pastor earnestly; "I hope so too, with all my heart. And if you will accept of this little book, it will show you how to get there."