Voyageurs

by Margaret Elphinstone

  The draughts creep under the pine boughs and make the fire in the middle roar. As the new logs catch, the bark shrivels and cracks, then drops off in glowing ashes. The red centre of the fire is another country; its colour the very opposite of winter.

  The wind blows flurries of snow down the smoke hole. They whirl like the snowstorm outside, which circles endlessly where the land meets the lake. The new logs are half eaten, grey and lined and glowing. The roar of the fire dies down to a lapping like melted water licking the edges of the ice. A log shifts with a slither and burst of flame. When I look away from it there is only a deep lake of dark; green spots swimming as my eyes move.

  When the fire is soft and low there are only the shadows which flicker across the birchbark patterns in the walls. The musket barrel glints in its place against the wall, and so does the iron kettle by the hearth. Light plays across the pale hide stretched on its frame against the wall. It touches the patterns on the bear's skull, but cannot enter the deep sockets of the eyes. I look away to the live faces, warm and ruddy in the firelight. In this light I can ‘t see hunger or dirt, nor cold or pain. I stare into the flames and see them now as a wild orange river. The logs are rocks, and I pick out a route for a phantom canoe through the converging rapids. I sniff my dirty fingers and they smell of ash and resin from handling the logs.

  Where the lake meets the shore the snow is blown into a circling blizzard that goes nowhere. When it's dark there's nothing beyond the wigwam but sound and snow. I can't go more than a few feet from the doorway, then I piss in the snow but I can't see that either. I get to the woodstack through a whirling white world. Up and down, far and near, are obliterated; the few feet to the woodpile is like trying to walk through rapids in spate. I fight to keep my balance. The snow fills my eyes and nose as if it wants to drown me.

  On such a day as that I fought my way back to our shelter, and, half blinded by the sudden warmth and firelight, I stumbled against the wall, shaking wet snow over Alan where he lay.

  ‘Steady!’ Alan surveyed me critically. ‘The way was long, the wind was cold, the Quaker was infirm and old . . . Pretty wild out there, is it?’

  ‘Ay.’ I brushed snow off my fur hat into the fire, which hissed in protest. ‘Who said that?’ I asked.

  ‘A Scotsman called Walter Scott – well, he said more or less that. In the last ten years he's written three extraordinary poems that took the world by storm – but not the Religious Society of Friends, I don't suppose.’

  ‘Oh, that fellow. Ay, I know him.’

  ‘You do? I thought you didn't read pagan literature?’

  ‘He wasn't a pagan’ – I still mistook Alan's remarks from time to time – ‘on the contrary, I found him a very pleasant fellow.’

  Alan pulled himself upright, and sat staring at me. ‘You mean you've met him?’

  ‘Ay.’

  ‘You've met him! Do you realise he's one of our major living poets?’

  ‘Ay, Robert Southey said that. He was certainly living, I'll grant thee that. We're pretty used to poets, though, where I come from.’

  ‘For God's sake, Mark, is that all you can say? You never mentioned this before. Tell me all about it!’

  I was surprised at his excitement, but had no objection to telling him about it. ‘It was Robert Southey that recommended me. I've not told thee about the guiding though. Maybe I should go back to that.’

  I thought for a bit, while Loic settled himself down as if expecting me to provide the whole evening's entertainment. Little did he realise this was the first time in my life I'd been asked to tell anyone a story.

  ‘It all began with the ewe's milk cheese,’ I began at last. ‘My mother kept our dairy from the day she married my father, and now she makes the best cheeses within twenty miles of Penrith.’ I swallowed. Just thinking about those cheeses made my mouth water. ‘By the time I first remember, we were supplying the gentlemen's houses direct. As a lad that suited me. I delivered the cheeses, and our best butter too, riding one pony and leading the other, to houses around Keswick and to the Royal Oak Inn. That's what first took me to Greta Hall. Sarah Coleridge was in charge of the kitchen then, and she was a bit of a tartar, but she knew we were well to deal with, for everyone in Cumberland knows that Quakers can be trusted.

  ‘That's how I knew Greta Hall pretty well. I'd go into the big kitchen at the back where the family and servants would all be together. Sometimes I'd get a bite there before I went home, for I came in all weather and seasons. They knew they could rely on me.

  ‘The year I turned eighteen I had my first guiding job. It was Ninth Month, and I'd ridden up the lane in the early morning, among brambles covered with gossamer and rowans and bryony all thick with berries. The yard at Greta is at the back of the house, at the top of a steep bank above the beck. The kitchen door and the stables open on to the yard, and Robert Southey's bedroom window is on the floor above. I'd just dismounted when I heard the casement open above me, and there was Robert Southey at the window, his nightcap still on his head, and his razor in his hand.

  ‘"Mark Greenhow, is that you?”

  ‘He could see well that it was I and no other, so I took the question to be a conceit of language merely. I looked up at him and asked, “Is thee wanting me, Robert Southey?”

  ‘"Yes, Greenhow, I am,” he said. “I've had a message from Grasmere. Mr Wordsworth is entertaining guests who wish to climb Skiddaw while they're in the country. Miss Wordsworth is indisposed with the toothache, and Mr Wordsworth is afflicted with a melancholy. Neither is inclined to take part in an expedition of pleasure. They ask if I can arrange something, and I thought of you. The gentlemen would be willing to pay for a reliable guide.”

  ‘I was flattered that he'd thought of me. I first stood on the summit of Blencathra when I was eight years old, on a day when we could see the hills of Scotland over the sea on the one hand, to the wide west ocean, then south to all the mountains of my own country stretched out before me as the hand of God first shaped them. I said to my father, when he showed me all this, that one day I'd have walked the length of every ridge of those same hills. My father said, “Thy word is thy deed, Mark. What thee says, even so must thee do.” And I shall, if God wills that I get home. One day I'll have walked all the hills from Swarthmoor to Caldbeck, and from Gosforth to Shap. That's my country. There are Friends almost everywhere in Lakeland, and even where there are none people will always take a Friend in, because they know we speak the truth and cheat nobody. But that by the by.

  ‘So two days later I was back at Greta Hall. It was a fine clear day, just right for our expedition. The two gentlemen were consigned to my care, and I was given their nuncheon to carry in my knapsack,. It weighed enough to keep us on the hill for a week, I reckoned. The stouter gentleman had a lame leg. I was worried about that, but he had an ashplant, and once we got going he walked like a man used to the hills, steady as a shepherd. Robert Southey introduced him to me as Mr Scott – “Mr Walter Scott,” Robert Southey repeated – but I must have looked blank, for the man laughed, and said with a marked Scotch accent, “You think all the world is interested in literary works, Mr Southey, but indeed, I expect this lad has more poetry in his head than many a scholar. In a land like this, he could hardly avoid it.” “Do you read poetry, Mark Greenhow?” Robert Southey asked me, with a queer little twist to his smile. I knew he was thinking that our people read none but the Bible, although there is poetry enough in that. I felt nettled, and told him straightly, “I've read some of Thomas Wilkinson's poems. That's Thomas Wilkinson of Yanwath. He's a friend of my father's.”

  ‘The gentlemen glanced at one another, and the Scotchman clapped me on the shoulder. “Well, Mr Greenhow, I'll have some of your Cumbrian ballads out of you before the day is done, I hope.”

  ‘We got along very well. The other fellow – Humphrey Davy, he was called – was from Wales – he wasn't a poet – and when we stopped to rest – which they liked to do every hour or so – they each talked about thei
r own hill country. The day couldn't have been better. I got them to the top without any difficulty – some days the hill is so open and easy thee forgets what it can be like – and there wasn't a breath of wind up there. We could sit and spread out our nuncheon as comfortably as if we'd taken a pic-nic to our own back door. Around us all the ranges of Lakeland lay spread out under the sun. But it was the Scotch hills of Galloway that Walter Scott wanted me to name for him. I showed him Criffel, and the one they call Skreel, but that was all I knew.

  ‘He asked me about the Solway shore. He said he'd heard the tide came in over Solway sands faster than a galloping horse, and I told him that was true, but even so a man might ride across from Skinburness to Cardunnock between one high tide and the next, if his horse were good enough. He asked me if I knew anyone who'd done it, and I said, “Ay, none better.” I hope it wasn't vainglorious, but he listened so well that I told him the whole story – how the fellow who sold me our new cart had insisted it couldn't be done. My parents would have been shocked to hear me – but under Walter Scott's enquiring eye I couldn't help it. The excitement of that day came flooding back; I found myself telling him what it was like, with a good horse under me, the line of water gleaming in the west, and the long gallop over the firm flat sands ahead. I told him how a man had to know his path, because of the quicksands. I admit I was gratified by his attention.

  ‘"A wager, was it?” he asked me, his eyes very bright.

  ‘I explained to him that I was a Quaker, and that wagers, along with all other kinds of gambling, were against the principles of our Society. It was merely that the wheelwright said the thing could not be done, and I reckoned that it could, and so I set myself to prove it to him.

  ‘"I thought Quakers did not indulge in Vain Sports either?” he said to me.

  ‘Now that was close to the bone, but he couldn't know it. I tried to explain the difference between a sport undertaken only to indulge the whim and vanity of him that pursued it, and a serious and profitable enterprise. I sensed that he was laughing at me, but it was done with such courteous sympathy that I couldn't take offence. He refrained from asking me what was profitable about risking my life to gallop over Solway Sands, and instead put it to me that, by my reasoning, if profit were a more godly motive than sport, it was a nobler thing to net a salmon than to catch him with a fly. When I looked confounded – for I must have done so – he laughed and said, “I think I have you there, sir.”3

  ‘I liked him very well, for all that I was no match for him in argument. They were pleased with me too, because Robert Southey recommended more of his friends to hire me when they needed a guide. Then I put up a notice at the Royal Oak, and that brought more work. I'd never had guineas in my hand to spend as I chose before. I've never wanted to live anywhere but Highside, nor to take up any trade other than the farm we had, but it suited me to be a little independent of my parents, and to go about the country more.

  ‘It was as well I had something new to do. Not long after I took Walter Scott up Skiddaw we got news of the victory at Trafalgar. I saw the newspaper – this was in Eleventh Month – when I was waiting in the Royal Oak for our account to be paid. The paper was lined with black because Nelson was dead. They lit a great bonfire on the summit of Skiddaw – I saw the red glow of it against the sky even as I stood in our yard at Highside. A few days later I climbed to the top, and in spite of the swirling cloud about me, the embers of that fire were still warm against my hand. I was feeling – I don't know – angry, and confused, and excited, all at the same time. There was a feeling in the country round about – I'm as much an Englishman as my neighbours, and no coward either – people said things about Friends behind my back, and more than once to my face as well. I felt no meekness in me, only the urge to fight back, and not just with words either. I can't explain it, but all through that winter I was kicking against the pricks. The other thing that happened was my cousin John Bristo joined the Cumberland Militia. I wasn't at Monthly Meeting when they disowned him, but I was at Meeting for Worship the next First Day, when they read out the minute at the end of Meeting. I never came so near quarrelling with my Society. Instead I took to the hills. I still saw John, though my parents asked me not to, for the time.4 All through the spring and summer of ‘06 I kept away from home as much as I could. It threw all the burden of work on my father, but I was in a foul temper, and I cared nothing for that.

  ‘Ever since I was a little lad I was at home on the hill. Now my wanderings took me ever further afield. I found ways where there were no paths, where even the shepherds didn't go. I met a fellow in Wasdale who shared my interest. Together we scaled the Great Gavel from the seaward side. The news of our climb spread around, the way these things do, and the next thing I knew there were Lakers enquiring for me, asking me to take them up the rocks. I never told anyone at Meeting. I let them think I was a plain mountain guide, working occasionally for the likes of Robert Southey's poetical friends. For myself, I never thought of walking the hills as being in any sense a Vain Sport, but I was beginning to meet a set of fellows who considered scrambling over rocks very much in that light.5 Mostly they came up from Manchester or thereabouts. I'd thought all city folk were pale, sickly creatures who barely had the use of their legs, let alone a mind to walk upon the high places and know that they were good. I could not truly say, either, that I found their company ill to bear. Anyway, it brought in money, and as I say, that was a new thing for me, and in no way to be despised.’

  Next morning the storm was over. I put on my snowshoes and went out to Bear Lake (for thus we'd named our fishing lake). The snow was light and firm, and so cold it creaked under the weight of every step. Freezing air stung my nose and cheeks. I pulled my far cap as far down over my face as I could. After talking so much all evening it was a relief to head out alone across the frozen lake, while the wind blew the snow off the ice so it looked like smoke puffing in the distance. The sun was so bright it made my eyes water. I never got used to walking over the ice. I felt like Peter on the Lake of Galilee, though glad I had a foot of ice rather than unaided faith to sustain me. I got to the fishing holes I'd made with such difficulty: the branches I'd put to mark them were battered but intact. I broke the new layer of ice with the axe, then settled to the long wait, while the chill of the ice seeped through the moss linings of my moccasins and numbed my toes. It was a chill way to spend a morning, and we weren't short of food, but always when I came out here I felt my soul expand into the open sky around me. I'd had too much of the dark forests and hidden spaces. I caught one whitefish, and then another. With all the memories stirred by last night's story, I found myself wondering if I would ever get home again.

  Thoughts of the past were still running in my mind as we ate our supper. It occurred to me that in all my tale I'd never once mentioned Rachel. Perhaps I was beginning to forget how much of our lives we'd shared. Leaving her out of my story, however unwittingly, was a little like letting her die. I shuddered as a faint chill trickled down my back. Just for a moment I felt I'd betrayed her, but that, I told myself, was a vain superstition; had I not come all this way for her sake alone?

  It was snowing again. The fish made an agreeable change, and I was glad I'd got some while I could. I was noticing how Alan had his appetite back, and how the black hollows under his eyes were fading away. I wondered if he ever felt homesick. I suppose it was a mixture of all my drifting thoughts that prompted me to say to him, when we'd finished eating, ‘I think it's thy turn now, Alan. Will thee tell us thy story tonight?’

  ‘My story?’ Alan whistled. ‘All of it, brother Mark? I'm a sick man, you know. The exertion might well be too much for me. Would you ever forgive yourself?’

  ‘We can take it in stages. It's thy turn. We've all told stories.’ I looked round for support. ‘It is his turn, isn't it, Loic?’

  ’Oui,’ said Loic. ‘I think it is.’

  1 When Alan and Caleb were little lads, they embarrassed me by boasting to their friends that their father ha
d nearly been eaten by a bear, and had the scars to prove it. One little fellow – it was James Wilson's son Jeremiah – actually accosted me outside the Meeting House and asked – and this in front of several elders – if he might see the clawmarks of the beast. I reprimanded my boys quite severely after that, but naught but their own advancing years had the power to make them desist.

  2 As it happens, I write this in another blizzard, in First Month, 1840. Wind and snow rage at the windows, just as they did outside our wigwam in the wilds of the Michigan Territory. A sea-coal fire glows in the hearth, and Caleb is lying on the hearthrug reading The Explorations of Captain James Cook in the Pacific, being the Journals of James Cook, with a map inset, which I bought in Carlisle some twenty years ago. I look across at that dark downbent head, the intent face flushed by the heat, the chin resting on the hand, the way he rubs his thick woollen stockings halfway off his feet with his fidgeting (a habit he acquired as a little lad, and has retained even yet, for all that he's a man grown, and now when he lies in his accustomed place, I see he takes up the whole length of the far rug). I think to myself with a sense of shock, ‘he's only half English,’ and I find myself wondering, as I have sometimes done since they were prattling bairns, what really goes on inside his mind, and whether the world he inhabits is more unlike mine than I'm able to imagine. I know not, but I'm glad we're here at home, sheltered by our two-foot-thick stone walls, in this pleasant room with its whitewashed walls and beeswaxed wood, its rugs and pictures, books and furniture. I've never suggested that either of them should go to North America, and they've never mentioned it to me. His mother learned long ago, I think, that the past is gone for ever, and no use repining. It's odd that I should be the one who shrinks from learning the same hard lesson.