Lords of the North
Page 28
CHAPTER XXVI
FATHER HOLLAND AND I IN THE TOILS
Behind the lantern was a face with terrified eyes and gaping mouth. Itwas the priest, his genial countenance a very picture of fear.
"What's wrong, Father?" I asked. "You needn't be alarmed; you're allright."
"But I am alarmed, for you're all wrong! Lord, boy, why didn't ye staywith that peppery Scotchman? What did Frances mane by lettin' you outto-night?" and he shaded the light of the lantern with his hand.
"I wanted these things," I explained.
"Ye want a broad thumpin', I'm thinkin', ye rattle-pate, to risk y'rprecious noodle here to-night," he whispered, coming forward and fussingabout me with all the maternal anxiety of a hen over her only chicken.
"Listen," said I. "The whole mob's coming in."
"Go!" he urged, pushing me from the desk over which I still fumbled.
"Run for those dogs of mercenaries!" I protested.
"Ye swash-buckler! Ye stiff-necked braggart!" bawled the priest. "Outwid y'r nonsense, and what good are y' thinkin' ye'll do--? Stir yourstumps, y' stoopid spalpeen!"
"Listen," I urged, undisturbed by the tongue-thrashing that stormedabout my ears. In the babel of voices I thought I had heard some onecall my name.
"Run, Rufus! Run for y'r life, boy!" urged Father Holland, apparentlythinking the ruffians had come solely for me.
"Run yourself, Father; run yourself, and see how you like it," and Itucked the documents inside my coat.
"Divil a bit I'll run," returned the priest.
"Hark!"
The De Meurons' leaders were shouting orders to their men. Above thescreams of people fleeing in terror through passage-ways, came a shrillbugle-call.
"Go--go--go--Rufus!" begged Father Holland in a paroxysm of fear. "Go!"he pleaded, pushing me towards the door.
"I won't!" and I jerked away from him. "There, now." I caught up a cluband loaded pistol.
The Nor'-Westers had no time to defend themselves. Almost before mystubborn defiance was uttered, the building was filled with a mob ofintoxicated De Meurons. Rushing everywhere with fixed bayonets andcursing at the top of their voices, they threatened death to allNor'-Westers. There was a loud scuffling of men forcing their waythrough the defended hall downstairs.
"Go, Rufus, go! Think of Frances! Save yourself," urged the priest.
It was too late. I could not escape by the hall. Noisy feet were alreadytrampling up the stairs and the clank of armed men filled every passage.
"Jee-les-pee! Jee-les-pee! Seven Oaks!" bawled a French voice from thehalf-way landing, and a multitude of men with torches dashed up thestairs. I took a stand to defend myself; for I thought I might becharged with implication in the massacre.
"Jee-les-pee," roared the voices. "Where is Gillespie?" thundered aleader.
"That's you, Rufus, lad! Down with you!" muttered the priest. Before Iknew his purpose, he had tripped my feet from under me and knocked meflat on the floor. Overturning the empty coffin-box, he clapped it abovemy whole length, imprisoning me with the snap and celerity of amouse-trap. Then I heard the thud of two hundred avoirdupois seatingitself on top of the case. The man above my person had whisked out abook of prayers, and with lantern on the desk was conning overdevotions, which, I am sure, must have been read with the manual upsidedown; for bits of the _pater noster_, service of the mass, and vesperpsalms were uttered in a disconnected jumble, though I could not butapply the words to my own case.
"_Libera nos a malo--ora pro nobis, peccatoribus--ab hoste malignodefende me--ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me--peccator videbit etirascetur--desiderium peccatorum peribit_----" came from the priest withtorrent speed.
"Jee-les-pee! Jee-les-pee!" roared a dozen throats above the half-waylanding. Then came the stamp of many feet to the door.
"Wait, men!" Hamilton's voice commanded. "I'll see if he's here!"
"_Simulacra gentium argentum et aurum, opera manuum hominum_," likehailstones rattled the Latin words down on my prison.
"One moment, men," came Eric's voice; but he could not hold them back.In burst the door with a rush, and immediately the room was crowded withvociferating French soldiers.
"_Manus habent, et non palpabunt; pedes_----"
"Is Gillespie here?" interrupted Hamilton, without the slightestrecognition of the priest in his tones.
"_Pedes habent et non ambulabunt; non clamabunt in gutture suo_,"muttered the priest, finishing his verse; then to the men with astiffness which I did not think Father Holland could ever assume--
"How often must I be disturbed by men seeking that young scoundrel? Lookat this place, fairly topsy-turvy with their hunt! Faith! The room isbefore you. Look and see!" and with a great indifference he went on withhis devotions.
"_Similes illis fiant qui faciunt ea_----"
"Some one here before us?" interrupted an Englishman with somesuspicion.
"Two parties here before ye," answered the priest, icily, as if theserepeated questions rumpled ecclesiastical dignity, and he gabbled onwith the psalm, "_similes illis fiant qui faciunt ea, et omnes_----"
"If we lifted that box," interrupted the persistent Englishman, "whatmight there be?"
"If ye lift that box," answered Father Holland with massivesolemnity--and I confess every hair on my body bristled as he rose--"Ifye lift that box there might be a powr--dead--body," which was verytrue; for I still held the cocked pistol in hand and would have shot thefirst man daring to molest me.
But the priest's indifference was not so great as it appeared. I couldtell from a tremor in his voice that he was greatly disturbed; and hecertainly lost his place altogether in the vesper psalm.
"_Requiescat in pace_," were his next words, uttered in funerealgravity. Singularly enough, they seemed to fit the situation.
Father Holland's prompt offer to have the rough box examined satisfiedthe searchers, and there were no further demands.
"Oh," said the Englishman, taken aback, "I beg your pardon, sir! Nooffence meant."
"No offence," replied the priest, reseating himself. "_Benedicite_----"
"Sittin' on the coffin!" blurted out the voice of an English youth asthe weight of the priest again came down heavily on my prison; and againI breathed easily.
"Come on, men!" shouted Hamilton, apprehensive of more curiosity. "We'rewasting time! He may be escaping by the basement window!"
"_Jam hiems transiit, imber abiit et recessit; surge, amica mea, etveni!_" droned the priest, and the whole company clattered downstairs.
"Quick!--Out with you!" commanded Father Holland. "Speed to y'r heels,and blessing on the last o' ye!"
I dashed down the stairs and was bolting through the doorway when someone shouted, "There he is!"
"Run, Gillespie!" cried some one else--one of our men, I suppose--and Ihad plunged into the storm and raced for the ladders at the rearstockades with a pack of pursuers at my heels. The snow drifts were inmy favor, for with my moccasins, I leaped lightly forward, while thebooted soldiers floundered deep. I eluded my pursuers and was half-wayup a ladder when a soldier's head suddenly appeared above the wall onthe other side. Then a bayonet prodded me in the chest and I fellheavily backwards to the ground.
* * * * *
I was captured.
That is all there is to say. No man dilates with pleasure over that partof his life when he was vanquished. It is not pleasant to have weaponsof defence wrested from one's hands, to feel soldiers standing uponone's wrists and rifling pockets.
It is hard to feel every inch the man on the horizontal.
In truth, when the soldiers picked me up without ceremony, orgentleness, and bundling me up the stairs of the main hall, flung meinto a miserable pen, with windows iron-barred to mid-sash, I was but asorry hero. My tormentors did not shackle me; I was spared thathumiliation.
"There!" exclaimed a Hudson's Bay man, throwing lantern-light across thedismal low roof as I fell sprawling into the room. "That'll cool theyoung hot-h
ead," and all the French soldiers laughed at my discomfiture.
They chained and locked the door on the outside. I heard the soldiers'steps reverberating through the empty passages, and was alone in a sortof prison-room, used during the regime of the petty tyrant McDonell. Itwas cold enough to cool any hot-head, and mine was very hot indeed. Iknew the apartment well. Nor'-Westers had used it as a fur storeroom.The wind came through the crevices of the board walls and piledminiature drifts on the floor-cracks, all the while rattling loosetimbers like a saw-mill. The roof was but a few feet high, and I creptto the window, finding all the small panes coated with two inches ofhoar-frost. Whether the iron bars outside ran across, or up and down, Icould not remember; but the fact would make a difference to a mantrying to escape. Much as I disliked to break the glass letting in morecold, there was only one way of finding out about those bars. I raisedmy foot for an outward kick, but remembering I wore only the moccasinswith which I had been snowshoeing, I struck my fist through instead, andshattered the whole upper half of the window. I broke away cross-piecesthat might obstruct outward passage, and leaning down put my hand on thesharp points of upright spikes. So intense was the frost, the skin of myfinger tips stuck to the iron, and I drew my hand in, with the sting ofa fresh burn.
It was unfortunate about those bars. I could not possibly get past themdown to the ground without making a ladder from my great-coat. I gropedround the room hoping that some of the canvas in which we tied thepeltries, might be lying about. There was nothing of the sort, or Imissed it in the dark. Quickly tearing my coat into strips, I knottedtriple plies together and fastened the upper end to the crosspiece ofthe lower window. Feet first, I poked myself out, caught the strandswith both hands, and like a flash struck ground below with badly skinnedpalms. That reminded me I had left my mits in the prison room.
The storm had driven the soldiers inside. I did not encounter a soul inthe courtyard, and had no difficulty in letting myself out by the maingate.
I whistled for the dogs. They came huddling from the ladders where Ihad left them, the sleigh still trailing at their heels. One poor animalwas so benumbed I cut him from the traces and left him to die. Gatheringup the robes, I shook them free of snow, replaced them in the sleigh andled the string of dogs down to the river. It would be bitterly coldfacing that sweep of unbroken wind in mid-river; but the trail over icewould permit greater speed, and with the high banks on each side thedogs could not go astray.
To an overruling Providence, and to the instincts of the dogs, I owe mylife. The creatures had not gone ten sleigh-lengths when I felt the lossof my coat, and giving one final shout to them, I lay back on the sleighand covered myself, head and all, under the robes, trusting the huskiesto find their way home.
I do not like to recall that return to the Sutherlands. The man, who isfrozen to death, knows nothing of the cruelties of northern cold. Theicy hand, that takes his life, does not torture, but deadens the victiminto an everlasting, easy, painless sleep. This I know, for I felt thedeadly frost-slumber, and fought against it. Aching hands and feetstopped paining and became utterly feelingless; and the deadening thingbegan creeping inch by inch up the stiffening limbs the life centres,till a great drowsiness began to overpower body and mind. Realizing whatthis meant, I sprang from the sleigh and stopped the dogs. I tried togrip the empty traces of the dead one, but my hands were too feeble; soI twisted the rope round my arm, gave the word, and raced off abreastthe dog train. The creatures went faster with lightened sleigh, butevery step I took was a knife-thrust through half-frozen awakeninglimbs. Not the man who is frozen to death, but the man who ishalf-frozen and thawed back to life, knows the cruelties of northerncold.
In a stupefied way, I was aware the dogs had taken a sudden turn to theleft and were scrambling up the bank. Here my strength failed or Itripped; for I only remember being dragged through the snow, rollingover and over, to a doorway, where the huskies stopped and set up agreat whining. Somehow, I floundered to my feet. With a blaze of lightthat blinded me, the door flew open and I fell across the thresholdunconscious.
* * * * *
Need I say what door opened, what hands drew me in and chafed life intothe benumbed being?
"What was the matter, Rufus Gillespie?" asked a bluff voice the nextmorning. I had awakened from what seemed a long, troubled sleep andvaguely wondered where I was.
"What happened to ye, Rufus Gillespie?" and the man's hand took hold ofmy wrist to feel my pulse.
"Don't, father! you'll hurt him!" said a voice that was music to myears, and a woman's hand, whose touch was healing, began bathing myblistered palms.
At once I knew where I was and forgot pain. In few and confused words Itried to relate what had happened.
"The country's yours, Mr. Sutherland," said I, too weak, thick-tonguedand deliriously happy for speech.
"Much to be thankful for," was the Scotchman's comment. "Seven Oaks isavenged. It would ill 'a' become a Sutherland to give his daughter'shand to a conqueror, but I would na' say I'd refuse a wife to a manbeaten as you were, Rufus Gillespie," and he strode off to attend tooutdoor work.
And what next took place, I refrain from relating; for lovers' eloquenceis only eloquent to lovers.