The Buffalo Runners: A Tale of the Red River Plains. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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Lazy Couple described—and roused
François La Certe was seated on the floor of his hut smoking a long clay pipe beside an open wood fire when Fergus McKay approached. His wife was seated beside him calmly smoking a shorter pipe with obvious enjoyment.
The man was a Canadian half-breed. His wife was an Indian woman. They were both moderately young and well matched, for they thoroughly agreed in everything conceivable—or otherwise. In the length and breadth of the Settlement there could not have been found a lazier or more good-natured or good-for-nothing couple than La Certe and his spouse. Love was, if we may venture to say so, the chief element in the character of each. Love of self was the foundation. Then, happily, love of each other came next. Rising gracefully, the superstructure may be described as, love of tobacco, love of tea, love of ease, and love of general comfort, finishing off with a top-dressing, or capital, of pronounced, decided, and apparently incurable love of indolence. They had only one clear and unmistakable hatred about them, and that was the hatred of work. They had a child about four years of age which was like-minded—and not unlike-bodied.
In the wilderness, as in the city, such individuals are well-known by the similarity of their characteristics. It is not that they can’t work, but they won’t work—though, of course, if taxed with this disposition they would disclaim it with mild indignation, or an expression of hurt remonstrance, for they are almost too lazy to become enraged. “Take life easy, or, if we can’t take it easy, let us take it as easy as we can,” is, or ought to be, their motto. In low life at home they slouch and smile. In high life they saunter and affect easy-going urbanity—slightly mingled with mild superiority to things in general. Whatever rank of life they belong to they lay themselves out with persistent resolution to do as little work as they can; to make other people do as much work for them as possible; to get out of life as much of enjoyment as may be attainable—consistently, of course, with the incurable indolence—and, to put off as long as may be the evil day which, they perceive or suspect, must inevitably be coming.
The curious thing about this race of beings is, that, whether in high or low station, they are never ashamed of themselves—or of their position as drones in the world’s hive. They seem rather to apologise for their degradation as a thing inevitable, for which they are not accountable—and sometimes, in the case of the rich, as a thing justifiable.
“I’m glad I did not go to the plains this fall,” said La Certe, stirring the logs on the fire with his toe and emitting a prolonged sigh of mingled smoke and contentment, while a blast from the bleak nor’-west shook every blackened rafter in his little hut.
“Heel hee!” responded his wife, whose Indian name—translated—was Slowfoot, and might have been Slowtongue with equal propriety, for she was quite an adept at the art of silence. She frequently caused a giggle to do duty for speech. This suited her husband admirably, for he was fond of talking—could tell a good story, sing a good song, and express his feelings in a good hearty laugh.
“Yes, it will be hard for the poor boys who have gone to the plains, the weather is so awful, to say nothing of the women.”
“Ho,” replied Slowfoot—though what she meant to express by this no mortal knows—nor, perhaps, cares. It meant nothing bad, however, for she smiled seraphically and sent forth a stream of smoke, which, mingling with that just emitted by her husband, rose in a curling harmony to the roof.
Slowfoot was not a bad-looking woman as North American Indians go. She was brown unquestionably, and dirty without doubt, but she had a pleasant expression, suggestive of general good-will, and in the budding period of life must have been even pretty. She was evidently older than her husband, who might, perhaps, have been a little over thirty.
“I should not wonder,” continued La Certe, “if the buffalo was drove away, and the people starved this year. But the buffalo, perhaps, will return in time to save them.”
“Hm!” responded the wife, helping herself to some very strong tea, which she poured out of a tin kettle into a tin mug and sweetened with maple sugar.
“Do you know if Cloudbrow went with them?” asked the half-breed, pushing forward his mug for a supply of the cheering beverage.
“No, he stopped in his house,” replied the woman, rousing herself for a moment to the conversational point, but relapsing immediately.
The man spoke in patois French, the woman in her native Cree language. For convenience we translate their conversation as near as may be into the English in which they were wont to converse with the Scotch settlers who, some time before, had been sent out by the Earl of Selkirk to colonise that remote part of the northern wilderness.
La Certe’s father was a French Canadian, his mother an Indian woman, but both having died while he was yet a boy he had been brought or left to grow up under the care of an English woman who had followed the fortunes of the La Certe family. His early companions had been half-breeds and Indians. Hence he could speak the English, French, and Indian languages with equal incorrectness and facility.
“You don’t like Cloudbrow,” remarked the man with an inquiring glance over the rim of his mug. “Why you not like him?”
“Hee! hee!” was Slowfoot’s lucid reply. Then, with an unwonted frown on her mild visage, she added with emphasis—
“No! I not like him.”
“I know that,” returned the husband, setting down his mug and resuming his pipe, “but why?”
To this the lady answered with a sound too brief to spell, and the gentleman, being accustomed to his wife’s little eccentricities, broke into a hilarious laugh, and assured her that Cloudbrow was not a bad fellow—a capital hunter and worthy of more regard than she was aware of.
“For,” said he, “Cloudbrow is willing to wait till spring for payment of the horse an’ cart I hired from him last year. You know that I could not pay him till I go to the plains an’ get another load of meat an’ leather. You will go with me, Slowfoot, an’ we will have grand times of it with buffalo-humps an’ marrow bones, an’ tea an’ tobacco. Ah! it makes my mouth water. Give me more tea. So. That will do. What a noise the wind makes! I hopes it won’t blow over the shed an’ kill the horse. But if it do I cannot help that. Cloudbrow could not ask me to pay for what the wind does.”
There came another gust of such violence, as he spoke, that even Slowfoot’s benignant expression changed to a momentary glance of anxiety, for the shingles on the roof rattled, and the rafters creaked as if the hut were groaning under the strain. It passed, however, and the pair went on smoking with placid contentment, for they had but recently had a “square” meal of pemmican and flour.
This compost when cooked in a frying-pan is exceedingly rich and satisfying—not to say heavy—food, but it does not incommode such as La Certe and his wife. It even made the latter feel amiably disposed to Cloudbrow.
This sobriquet had been given by the half-breeds to a young Scotch settler named Duncan McKay, in consequence of the dark frown which had settled habitually on his brow—the result of bad temper and unbridled passion. He was younger brother to that Fergus who has already been introduced to the reader. Having been partially trained, while in Scotland, away from the small farm-house of his father, and having received a better education, Duncan conceived himself to stand on a higher level than the sedate and uneducated Fergus. Thus pride was added to his bad temper. But he was not altogether destitute of good points. What man is? One of these was a certain reckless open-handedness, so that he was easily imposed on by the protestations and assurances of the sly, plausible, and lazy La Certe.
The couple were still engaged in smoking, quaffing tea, and other intellectual pursuits, when they heard sounds outside as of some one approaching. Another moment, and the door burst open, and a man in white stepped in. He saluted them with a familiar and hasty “bonjour,” as he stamped and beat the snow vigorously from his garments.
“What? Antoine Dechamp!” exclaimed La Certe, rising slowly to welcome his friend; “you seem in hurry?”
“Ay—in great hurry! They are starving on the plains! Many are dead! Davidson has come in! He is more than