The Red Man's Revenge: A Tale of The Red River Flood

“Tut, man,” said Mr Ravenshaw, a little testily, “why drag in the subjects of the knoll and my Elsie to-night, of all nights in the year?”

“Because I cannot avoid it,” said Ian. “Events have occurred to-day which compel me to speak of them—of the knoll, at least.”

“Oh, for the matter of that,” interrupted the old gentleman angrily, “you may speak of Elsie too, and the old woman, and Cora, and all the household to boot, for all that I care.”

“I come here to claim a right,” went on Ian, in a calm voice. “It is well known that Samuel Ravenshaw is a man of his word; that what he promises he is sure to perform; that he never draws back from an agreement.”

This speech took Mr Ravenshaw by surprise. He looked round until his eyes rested on Tony. Then he said, in a slightly sarcastic tone—

“What you say is true. Even Tony knows that.”

“Tonyquat knows that what Ian says of his white father is true,” said the boy.

At the name Tonyquat, which was the only word of the sentence he understood, Petawanaquat cast a look of affection on Tony, while his father and the others burst into a laugh at the child’s sententious gravity. But Tony maintained his Indian air, and gazed solemnly at the fire.

“Well, go on, Ian,” said the old gentleman, in somewhat better humour.

“You remember our last meeting in the smoking-box on the knoll?” continued Ian.

“Too well,” said the other, shortly.

“Part of what you said was in the following words: ‘Mark what I say. I will sell this knoll to your father, and give my daughter to you, when you take that house, and with your own unaided hands place it on the top of this knoll!’”

“Well, you have a good memory, Ian. These are the words I used when I wished to convince you of the impossibility of your obtaining what you wanted,” said Mr Ravenshaw, with the determined air of a man who is resolved not to be turned from his purpose.

“What you wanted to convince me of,” rejoined Ian, “has nothing to do with the question. It is what you said that I have to do with.”

Again the irascible fur-trader’s temper gave way as he said—

“Well, what I said I have said, and what I said I’ll stick to.”

“Just so,” returned Ian, with a peculiar smile, “and, knowing this, I have come here to claim the knoll for my father and Elsie for myself.”

This was such a glaring absurdity in the old gentleman’s eyes that he uttered a short contemptuous laugh. At that moment Angus Macdonald appeared upon the scene. His look of amazement at beholding his son may be imagined. Angus was not, however, demonstrative.

He only stepped across the fire, and gave Ian a crushing squeeze of the hand.

“It iss fery glad to see you I am, my poy, but it is taken py surprise I am, whatever. An’ ho!” (as his eyes fell on Tony), “it iss the child you hef found. Well, it iss a happy father you will pe this night, Mr Ruvnshaw. I wish you choy. Don’t let me stop you, whatever. It wass something interesting you would pe telling these chentlemen when I came up.”

“I was just going to tell them, father,” said Ian, resting a hand on his sire’s shoulder, “that I have come straight from Willow Creek with the news that this day I have, with my own unaided hands,”—he cast a sidelong glance at the old gentleman—“transported your house to Mr Ravenshaw’s knoll, and have asked Elsie Ravenshaw to be my wife, and been accepted.”

“Moreover,” continued Ian, in a calm, steady tone, “my father’s biggest barn has, without any assistance from any one, stranded itself on Mr Ravenshaw’s lawn!”

“Bless me, Ian, iss it jokin’ ye are?”

“No, father. It’s in earnest I am.”

Good reader, the aspect of the party—especially of old Ravenshaw and Angus—on hearing these announcements is beyond our powers of description; we therefore prefer to leave it to your own vivid imagination.

Chapter Twenty Six.

The Last

A change—like the flashing colours of a kaleidoscope; like the phantoms of a dream! Red River settlement is dry again, or drying; but ah! what a scene of wreck and ruin! It looks as if the settlement had been devastated by fire and sword as well as water. Broken-down houses, uprooted fences and trees, piles of débris, beds and boxes, billets of wood and blankets, habiliments and hay, carioles and cordage and carcasses of cattle, all mixed up more or less, and cemented together with mud. Nearly every house in the settlement had been destroyed.

Of course many a day passed after the great catastrophe before Red River was itself again, with its river confined to the proper channel, and its prairies rolling with grass-waves; but it was not long before the energetic inhabitants returned to their labours and their desolated houses to begin the world anew. About the 1st of May the flood began; by the 20th of the same month it had reached its height, and on the 22nd the waters began to assuage. On that day they had made a decided fall of two inches. The height to which the waters had risen above the level of ordinary years was fifteen feet. The flood subsided very gradually. About the middle of June the ploughs were at work again, and the people busy sowing what was left to them of their seed-barley and potatoes.

Among the busiest of the busy at that bustling time was Peegwish. While others were hard at work clearing, rebuilding, ploughing, and sowing, our noble savage was fishing. The labour of this occupation consisted chiefly in staring at his line, while he sat on a mud-heap on the river bank, and smoked in the pleasant sunshine. Occasionally he roused himself to haul out a goldeye. Wildcat assisted him ably in his labours, and still more ably in the after consumption of the goldeyes. Angus Macdonald discovered them thus occupied, and had difficulty in resisting his desire to pitch the lazy fellow into the river.

“What wass you doin’ there?” he cried. “Wass it wastin’ your time wi’ small fush you will pe doin’, an’ every wan else workin’ hard? Go an’ putt the ox in the cart an’ haul watter. Look sharp!”

Angus concluded with some deep gutturals in Gaelic which we cannot translate, and Peegwish, rising hastily, went off to do as he was bid. But Peegwish was a poor water-drawer. The ox turned out to be more obstinate than himself, and also more callous, for when it became fatigued with hauling the water-barrel to and fro, it stopped at the foot of the slope near a corner of the garden, and refused to budge. Peegwish lashed it, but it did not feel—at all events, it did not care. He tried to wheedle it, but failed: he became abusive, and used bad language to the ox, but without success. He was in the height of his distress when Petawanaquat passed by with a load of firewood on his shoulder. The red man having been reconciled to his old enemy, had remained at Red River, partly to assist him, partly to see the end of the flood, and partly to be near his friend Sinclair and his adopted son Tonyquat. From the latter he could not tear himself away.

The Indian stood and gazed solemnly at his brother savage for some minutes, then he threw down his load, and entering the garden, cut the remains of a cabbage which had survived the flood. With this he went to the ox and held it to its nose. The animal advanced; the Indian retreated a few steps. The ox advanced again in the hope of obtaining a savoury mouthful, but the Indian still retreated. Thus, step by step, the slope was ascended!

“Wah!” said Petawanaquat, with a grave look, as he handed the cabbage to Peegwish, who profited by the lesson, and gained his ends.

“She’s fery lazy,” muttered Angus to himself—referring to Peegwish—as he went up the river bank towards the knoll, where his house now stood triumphantly, “fery lazy; more lazy than—than—”

Failing to find a just comparison, he tailed off in expressive but untranslatable Gaelic.

“Goot tay to you, Muster Ruvnshaw,” said Angus, on reaching the summit of the knoll. “It wass fery goot of you, whatever, to let my hoose stand here.”

“Don’t mention it, Angus,” said the old gentleman, removing his pipe with one hand, and extending the other. “It would be difficult to prevent it remaining where it is now. Besides, I passed my word, you know, and that cannot be broken. Come, sit down. I’m thankful your house was so considerate as to spare my smoking-box, though it has given it a shove of a few feet to the south’ard. In other respects the house is an advantage, for while it has not hurt the view, it serves to protect my box from the quarter which used to be exposed to east winds. But there is one stipulation I have to make Angus, before the bargain is closed.”

“An’ what may that pe?” asked Angus, with a shade of anxiety.

“That this smoking-box and the ground on which it stands, together with the footpath leading up to it, shall remain my property as long as I live.”

Angus smiled. He had the peculiarity of turning the corners of his mouth down instead of up when he did so, which gave a remarkably knowing look to his smile.

“You shall pe fery welcome,” he said. “And now, Muster Ruvnshaw, I came here to say a word for my poy. You know it iss natural that Ian will pe getting anxious apout the wedding. It iss impatient he will pe, whatever. He is a little shy to speak to you himself, and he will pe botherin’ me to—”

“All right, Angus, I understand,” interrupted Mr Ravenshaw. “You know both he and Lambert are busy removing your barn from my lawn. When that is finished we shall have the weddings. My old woman wants ’em to be on the same day, but nothing can be done till the barn is removed, for I mean to have the dance on that lawn on the double-wedding day. So you can tell them that.”

Angus did tell them that, and it is a remarkable fact which every one in the establishment observed, that the unsightly barn, which had so long disfigured the lawn at Willow Creek, disappeared, as if by magic, in one night, as Cora put it, “like the baseless fabric of a vision!”

Time passed, and changed the face of nature entirely. Wrecks were swept away; houses sprang up; fences were repaired; crops waved on the fields of Red River as of yore, and cattle browsed on the plains; so that if a stranger had visited that outlying settlement there would have been little to inform his eyes of the great disaster which had so recently swept over the place. But there would have been much to inform his ears, for it was many a day before the interest and excitement about the great flood went down. In fact, for a long time afterwards the flood was so much in the thoughts and mouths of the people that they might have been mistaken for the immediate descendants of those who had swarmed on the slopes of Ararat.

Let us now present a series of pictures for the reader’s inspection.

The first is a little log-hut embosomed in bushes, with a stately tree rising close beside it. Flowers and berries bedeck the surrounding shrubbery, pleasant perfumes fill the air. A small garden, in which the useful and ornamental are blended, environs the hut. The two windows are filled with glass, not parchment. A rustic porch, covered with twining plants, conceals the door, and a general air of tidiness marks all the surroundings. Need we say more to convince the intelligent reader that this is the hut of old Liz? It occupies the spot where it was deposited by the flood, the family having been allowed to remain there.

Under the genius of Herr Winklemann and Michel Rollin the old hut has displayed some characteristics of the cactus in sending forth offshoots from its own body. An offshoot in the rear is the kitchen; another on the right is a mansion, as large nearly as the parent, in which Winklemann has placed his mother, to the great relief of Daddy, who never forgot, and with difficulty forgave, the old woman’s kicking habits when their legs reposed together on the table. It must be added, however, that the old people live on good terms, and that Mrs Winklemann frequently visits Daddy, and smokes with him. The offshoot on the left, built by Michel, is a stable, and an excrescence beyond is a cow-house. There, are fowls in front of the hut, and flour, sugar, pork, and tea within, so it may be concluded that the families are now in comfort.

When the improvements just mentioned were completed, Michel Rollin, unable to settle down, had arranged with Peegwish and Wildcat to go off on a fishing expedition.

Before starting he entered the hut, and said to Winklemann, who was filling his “moder’s” pipe for her—