The Best Ballantyne Westerns. R. M. Ballantyne
“I’ve often seen hot loaves smoke, and they’re soft enough fellows, in all conscience!”
“Ah!” sighed the accountant, “that reminds me of poor Peterkin, who was so soft that he went by the name of ‘Butter.’ Did you ever hear of what he did the summer before last with an Indian’s head?”
“No, never; what was it?”
“I’ll tell you the story,” replied the accountant, drawing a few vigorous whiffs of smoke, to prevent his pipe going out while he spoke.
As the story in question, however, depicts a new phase of society in the woods, it deserves a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER TWENTY.
The accountant’s story.
“Spring had passed away, and York Fort was filled with all the bustle and activity of summer. Brigades came pouring in upon us with furs from the interior, and as every boat brought a CT or a clerk, our mess-table began to overflow.
“You’ve not seen the summer mess-room filled yet, Hamilton. That’s a treat in store for you.”
“It was pretty full last autumn, I think,” suggested Hamilton, “at the time I arrived from England.”
“Full! why, man, it was getting to feel quite lonely at that time. I’ve seen more than fifty sit down to table there, and it was worth going fifty miles to hear the row they kicked up—telling stories without end (and sometimes without foundation) about their wild doings in the interior, where every man-jack of them having spent at least eight months almost in perfect solitude, they hadn’t had a chance of letting their tongues go till they came down here. But to proceed. When the ship came out in the fall, she brought a batch of new clerks, and among them was this miserable chap Peterkin, whom we soon nicknamed Butter. He was the softest fellow I ever knew (far worse than you, Hamilton), and he hadn’t been here a week before the wild blades from the interior, who were bursting with fun and mischief, began to play off all kinds of practical jokes upon him. The very first day he sat down at the mess-table, our worthy governor (who, you are aware, detests practical jokes) played him a trick, quite unintentionally, which raised a laugh against him for many a day. You know that old Mr Rogan is rather absent at times; well, the first day that Peterkin came to mess (it was breakfast), the old governor asked him, in a patronising sort of way, to sit at his right hand. Accordingly down he sat, and having never, I fancy, been away from his mother’s apron-string before, he seemed to feel very uncomfortable, especially as he was regarded as a sort of novelty. The first thing he did was to capsize his plate into his lap, which set the youngsters at the lower end of the table into suppressed fits of laughter. However, he was eating the leg of a dry grouse at the time, so it didn’t make much of a mess.
“‘Try some fish, Peterkin,’ said Mr Rogan kindly, seeing that the youth was ill at ease. ‘That old grouse is tough enough to break your knife.’
“‘A very rough passage,’ replied the youngster, whose mind was quite confused by hearing the captain of the ship, who sat next to him, giving to his next neighbour a graphic account of the voyage in a very loud key—‘I mean, if you please, no, thank you,’ he stammered, endeavouring to correct himself.
“‘Ah! a cup of tea perhaps.—Here, Anderson,’ (turning to the butler), ‘a cup of tea to Mr Peterkin.’
“The butler obeyed the order.
“‘And here, fill my cup,’ said old Rogan, interrupting himself in an earnest conversation, into which he had plunged with the gentleman on his left hand. As he said this he lifted his cup to empty the slops, but without paying attention to what he was doing. As luck would have it, the slop-basin was not at hand, and Peterkin’s cup was, so he emptied it innocently into that. Peterkin hadn’t courage to arrest his hand, and when the deed was done he looked timidly round to see if the action had been observed. Nearly half the table had seen it, but they pretended ignorance of the thing so well that he thought no one had observed, and so went quietly on with his breakfast, and drank the tea! But I am wandering from my story. Well, about this time there was a young Indian who shot himself accidentally in the woods, and was brought to the fort to see if anything could be done for him. The doctor examined his wound, and found that the ball had passed through the upper part of his right arm and the middle of his right thigh, breaking the bone of the latter in its passage. It was an extraordinary shot for a man to put into himself, for it would have been next to impossible even for another man to have done it, unless the Indian had been creeping on all fours. When he was able to speak, however, he explained the mystery. While running through a rough part of the wood after a wounded bird, he stumbled and fell on all fours. The gun, which he was carrying over his shoulder, holding it, as the Indians usually do, by the muzzle, flew forward, and turned right round as he fell, so that the mouth of it was presented towards him. Striking against the stem of a tree, it exploded, and shot him through the arm and leg as described ere he had time to rise. A comrade carried him to his lodge, and his wife brought him in a canoe to the fort. For three or four days the doctor had hopes of him, but at last he began to sink, and died on the sixth day after his arrival. His wife and one or two friends buried him in our graveyard, which lies, as you know, on that lonely-looking point just below the powder-magazine. For several months previous to this our worthy doctor had been making strenuous efforts to get an Indian skull to send home to one of his medical friends, but without success. The Indians could not be prevailed upon to cut off the head of one of their dead countrymen for love or money, and the doctor had a dislike to the idea, I suppose, of killing one for himself; but now here was a golden opportunity. The Indian was buried near to the fort, and his relatives had gone away to their tents again. What was to prevent his being dug up? The doctor brooded over the thing for one hour and a half (being exactly the length of time required to smoke out his large Turkey pipe), and then sauntered into Wilson’s room. Wilson was busy, as usual, at some of his mechanical contrivances.
“Thrusting his hands deep into his breeches pockets and seating himself on an old sea-chest, he began,—
“‘I say, Wilson, will you do me a favour?’
“‘That depends entirely on what the favour is,’ he replied, without raising his head from his work.
“‘I want you to help me to cut off an Indian’s head!’
“‘Then I won’t do you the favour. But pray, don’t humbug me just now; I’m busy.’
“‘No; but I’m serious, and I can’t get it done without help, and I know you’re an obliging fellow. Besides, the savage is dead, and has no manner of use for his head now.’
“Wilson turned round with a look of intelligence on hearing this.
“‘Ha!’ he exclaimed, ‘I see what you’re up to; but I don’t half like it. In the first place, his friends would be terribly cut up if they heard of it; and then I’ve no sort of aptitude for the work of a resurrectionist; and then, if it got wind, we should never hear the last of it; and then—’
“‘And then,’ interrupted the doctor, ‘it would be adding to the light of medical science, you unaspiring monster.’
“‘A light,’ retorted Wilson, ‘which, in passing through some members of the medical profession, is totally absorbed, and reproduced in the shape of impenetrable darkness.’
“‘Now, don’t object, my dear fellow; you know you’re going to do it, so don’t coquette with me, but agree at once.’
“‘Well, I consent, upon one condition.’
“‘And what is that?’
“‘That you do not play any practical jokes on me with the head when you have got it.’
“‘Agreed!’ cried the doctor, laughing; ‘I give you my word of honour. Now he has been