The Young Fur Traders by R. M. Ballantyne (best pdf ebook reader for android TXT) 📕

It must not be supposed that Frank Kennedy was very deeply offended with his son, although he did shower on him a considerable amount of abuse. On the contrary, he loved him very much. But it was the old man’s nature to give way to little bursts of passion on almost every occasion in which his feelings were at all excited. These bursts, however, were like the little puffs that ripple the surface of the sea on a calm summer’s day. They were over in a second, and left his good-humoured, rough, candid countenance in unruffled serenity. Charley knew this well, and loved his father tenderly, so that his conscience frequently smote him for raising his anger so often; and he over and over again promised his sister Kate to do his best to refrain from doing anything that was likely to annoy the old man in future. But, alas! Charley’s resolves, like those of many other boys, were soon forgotten, and his father’s equanimity was upset generally two or three times a day; but after the gust was over, the fur-trader would kiss his son, call him a “rascal,” and send him off to fill and fetch his pipe.

Mr Grant, who was in charge of Fort Garry, led the way to his smoking apartment, where the two were soon seated in front of a roaring log-fire, emulating each other in the manufacture of smoke.

“Well, Kennedy,” said Mr Grant, throwing himself back in his chair, elevating his chin, and emitting a long thin stream of white vapour from his lips, through which he gazed at his friend complacently—“well, Kennedy, to what fortunate chance am I indebted for this visit? It is not often that we have the pleasure of seeing you here.”

Mr Kennedy created two large volumes of smoke, which, by means of a vigorous puff, he sent rolling over towards his friend, and said, “Charley.”

“And what of Charley?” said Mr Grant, with a smile, for he was well aware of the boy’s propensity to fun, and of the father’s desire to curb it.

“The fact is,” replied Kennedy, “that Charley must be broke. He’s the wildest colt I ever had to tame, but I’ll do it—I will—that’s a fact.”

If Charley’s subjugation had depended on the rapidity with which the little white clouds proceeded from his sire’s mouth, there is no doubt that it would have been a “fact” in a very short time, for they rushed from him with the violence of a high wind. Long habit had made the old trader and his pipe not only inseparable companions, but part and parcel of each other—so intimately connected that a change in the one was sure to produce a sympathetic change in the other. In the present instance, the little clouds rapidly increased in size and number as the old gentleman thought on the obstinacy of his “colt.”

“Yes,” he continued, after a moment’s silence, “I’ve made up my mind to tame him, and I want you, Mr Grant, to help me.”

Mr Grant looked as if he would rather not undertake to lend his aid in a work that was evidently difficult; but being a good-natured man, he said, “And how, friend, can I assist in the operation?”

“Well, you see, Charley’s a good fellow at bottom, and a clever fellow too—at least so says the schoolmaster; though I must confess that, so far as my experience goes, he’s only clever at finding out excuses for not doing what I want him to. But still I’m told he’s clever, and can use his pen well; and I know for certain that he can use his tongue well. So I want to get him into the service, and have him placed in a situation where he shall have to stick to his desk all day. In fact, I want to have him broken in to work; for you’ve no notion, sir, how that boy talks about bears and buffaloes and badgers, and life in the woods among the Indians. I do believe,” continued the old gentleman, waxing warm, “that he would willingly go into the woods to-morrow, if I would let him, and never show his nose in the settlement again. He’s quite incorrigible. But I’ll tame him yet—I will!”

Mr Kennedy followed this up with an indignant grunt, and a puff of smoke, so thick, and propelled with such vigour, that it rolled and curled in fantastic evolutions towards the ceiling, as if it were unable to control itself with delight at the absolute certainty of Charley being tamed at last.

Mr Grant, however, shook his head, and remained for five minutes in profound silence, during which time the two friends puffed in concert, until they began to grow quite indistinct and ghostlike in the thick atmosphere. At last he broke silence.

“My opinion is that you’re wrong, Mr Kennedy. No doubt you know the disposition of your son better than I do; but even judging of it from what you have said, I’m quite sure that a sedentary life will ruin him.”

“Ruin him! Humbug!” said Kennedy, who never failed to express his opinion at the shortest notice and in the plainest language—a fact so well known by his friends that they had got into the habit of taking no notice of it. “Humbug!” he repeated, “perfect humbug! You don’t mean to tell me that the way to break him in is to let him run loose and wild whenever and wherever he pleases?”

“By no means. But you may rest assured that tying him down won’t do it.”

“Nonsense!” said Mr Kennedy testily; “don’t tell me. Have I not broken in young colts by the score? and don’t I know that the way to fix their flints is to clap on a good strong curb?”

“If you had travelled farther south, friend,” replied Mr Grant, “you would have seen the Spaniards of Mexico break in their wild horses in a very different way; for after catching one with a lasso, a fellow gets on his back, and gives it the rein and the whip—ay, and the spur too; and before that race is over, there is no need for a curb.”

“What!” exclaimed Kennedy, “and do you mean to argue from that, that I should let Charley run—and help him too? Send him off to the woods with gun and blanket, canoe and tent, all complete?” The old gentleman puffed a furious puff, and broke into a loud, sarcastic laugh.

“No, no,” interrupted Mr Grant; “I don’t exactly mean that, but I think that you might give him his way for a year or so. He’s a fine, active, generous fellow; and after the novelty wore off, he would be in a much better frame of mind to listen to your proposals. Besides” (and Mr Grant smiled expressively), “Charley is somewhat like his father. He has got a will of his own; and if you do not give him his way, I very much fear that he’ll—”

“What?” inquired Mr Kennedy abruptly.

“Take it,” said Mr Grant.

The puff that burst from Mr Kennedy’s lips on hearing this would have done credit to a thirty-six pounder.

“Take it!” said he; “he’d better not.”

The latter part of this speech was not in itself of a nature calculated to convey much; but the tone of the old trader’s voice, the contraction of his eyebrows, and above all the overwhelming flow of cloudlets that followed, imparted to it a significance that induced the belief that Charley’s taking his own way would be productive of more terrific consequences than it was in the power of the most highly imaginative man to conceive.

“There’s his sister Kate, now,” continued the old gentleman; “she’s as gentle and biddable as a lamb. I’ve only to say a word, and she’s off like a shot to do my bidding; and she does it with such a sweet smile too.” There was a touch of pathos in the old trader’s voice as he said this. He was a man of strong feeling, and as impulsive in his tenderness as in his wrath. “But that rascal Charley,” he continued, “is quite different. He’s obstinate as a mule. To be sure, he has a good temper; and I must say for him he never goes into the sulks, which is a comfort, for of all things in the world sulking is the most childish and contemptible. He generally does what I bid him, too. But he’s always getting into scrapes of one kind or other. And during the last week, notwithstanding all I can say to him, he won’t admit that the best thing for him is to get a place in your counting-room, with the prospect of rapid promotion in the service. Very odd. I can’t understand it at all;” and Mr Kennedy heaved a deep sigh.

“Did you ever explain to him the prospects that he would have in the situation you propose for him?” inquired Mr Grant.

“Can’t say I ever did.”

“Did you ever point out the probable end of a life spent in the woods?”

“No.”

“Nor suggest to him that the appointment to the office here would only be temporary, and to see how he got on in it?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then, my dear sir, I’m not surprised that Charley rebels. You have left him to suppose that, once placed at the desk here, he is a prisoner for life. But see, there he is,” said Mr Grant, pointing as he spoke towards the subject of their conversation, who was passing the window at the moment; “let me call him, and I feel certain that he will listen to reason in a few minutes.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Mr Kennedy, “you may try.”

In another minute Charley had been summoned, and was seated, cap in hand, near the door.

“Charley, my boy,” began Mr Grant, standing with his back to the fire, his feet pretty wide apart, and his coat-tails under his arms—“Charley, my boy, your father has just been speaking of you. He is very anxious that you should enter the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company; and as you are a clever boy and a good penman, we think that you would be likely to get on if placed for a year or so in our office here. I need scarcely point out to you, my boy, that in such a position you would be sure to obtain more rapid promotion than if you were placed in one of the distant outposts, where you would have very little to do, and perhaps little to eat, and no one to converse with except one or two men. Of course, we would merely place you here on trial, to see how you suited us; and if you prove steady and diligent, there is no saying how fast you might get on. Why, you might even come to fill my place in course of time. Come now, Charley, what think you of it?”

Charley’s eyes had been cast on the ground while Mr Grant was speaking. He now raised them, looked at his father, then at his interrogator, and said—

“It is very kind of you both to be so anxious about my prospects. I thank you, indeed, very much; but I—a—”

“Don’t like the desk?” said his father, in an angry tone. “Is that it, eh?”

Charley made no reply, but cast down his eyes again and smiled (Charley had a sweet smile, a peculiarly sweet, candid smile), as if he meant to say that his father had hit the nail quite on the top of the head that time, and no mistake.

“But consider,” resumed Mr Grant, “although you might probably be pleased with an outpost life at first, you would be sure to grow weary of it after the novelty wore off, and then you would wish with all your heart to be back here again. Believe me, child, a trader’s life is a very hard and not often a very satisfactory one—”

“Ay,” broke in the father, desirous, if possible, to help the argument, “and you’ll find