Snowflakes and Sunbeams; Or, The Young Fur-traders: A Tale of the Far North, - [best summer reads .txt] 📗

began; “I have somewhat to say to you. I had not time to broach the subject when I met you at the Company’s fort, and have been anxious to see you ever since. You tell me that you have met with my friend Redfeather.”

“Yes, sir; I spent a week or two with him last fall I found him stayin’ with his tribe, and we started to come down here together.”

“Ah, that is the very point,” exclaimed the pastor, “that I wish to inquire about. I firmly believe that God has opened that Indian’s eyes to see the truth; and I fully expected from what he said when we last met, that he would have made up his mind to come and stay here.”

“As to what the Almighty has done to him,” said Jacques, in a reverential tone of voice, “I don’t pretend to know; he did for sartin speak, and act too, in a way that I never seed an Injin do before. But about his comin’ here, sir, you were quite right: he did mean to come, and I’ve no doubt will come yet.”

“What prevented him coming with you, as you tell me he intended?” inquired the pastor.

“Well, you see, sir, he and I and his squaw, as I said, set off to come here together: but when we got the length o’ Edmonton House, we heerd that you were comin’ up to pay a visit to the tribe to which Redfeather belongs; and so seem’ that it was o’ no use to come down hereaway just to turn about an’ go up agin, he stopped there to wait for you, for he knew you would want him to interpret—”

“Ay,” interrupted the pastor, “that’s true. I have two reasons for wishing to have him here. The primary one is, that he may get good to his immortal soul; and then he understands English so well that I want him to become my interpreter; for although I understand the Cree language pretty well now, I find it exceedingly difficult to explain the doctrines of the Bible to my people in it. But pardon me, I interrupted you.”

“I was only going to say,” resumed Jacques, “that I made up my mind to stay with him; but they wanted a man to bring the winter packet here, so, as they pressed me very hard, an’ I had nothin’ particular to do, I ’greed and came, though I would rather ha’ stopped; for Redfeather an’ I ha’ struck up a friendship togither—a thing that I would never ha’ thought it poss’ble for me to do with a red Injin.”

“And why not with a red Indian, friend?” inquired the pastor, while a shade of sadness passed over his mild features, as if unpleasant thoughts had been roused by the hunter’s speech.

“Well, it’s not easy to say why,” rejoined the other. “I’ve no partic’lar objection to the red-skins. There’s only one man among them that I bears a grudge agin, and even that one I’d rayther avoid than otherwise.”

“But you should forgive him, Jacques. The Bible tells us not only to bear our enemies no grudge, but to love them and to do them good.”

The hunter’s brow darkened. “That’s impossible, sir,” he said; “I couldn’t do him a good turn if I was to try ever so hard. He may bless his stars that I don’t want to do him mischief; but to love him, it’s jist imposs’ble.”

“With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible,” said the pastor solemnly.

Jacques’s naturally philosophic though untutored mind saw the force of this. He felt that God, who had formed his soul, his body, and the wonderfully complicated machinery and objects of nature, which were patent to his observant and reflective mind wherever he went, must of necessity be equally able to alter, influence, and remould them all according to His will. Common-sense was sufficient to teach him this; and the bold hunter exhibited no ordinary amount of common-sense in admitting the fact at once, although in the case under discussion (the loving of his enemy) it seemed utterly impossible to his feelings and experience. The frown, therefore, passed from his brow, while he said respectfully, “What you say, sir, is true; I believe though I can’t feel it. But I s’pose the reason I niver felt much drawn to the red-skins is, that all the time I lived in the settlements I was used to hear them called and treated as thievin’ dogs, an ‘when I com’d among them I didn’t see much to alter my opinion. Here an’ there I have found one or two honest Injins, an’ Redfeather is as true as steel; but the most o’ them are no better than they should be. I s’pose I don’ think much o’ them just because they are red-skins.”

“Ah, Jacques, you will excuse me if I say that there is not much sense in that reason. An Indian cannot help being a red man any more than you can help being a white one, so that he ought not to be despised on that account. Besides, God made him what he is, and to despise the work of God, or to undervalue it, is to despise God Himself. You may indeed despise, or rather abhor, the sins that red men are guilty of; but if you despise them on this ground, you must much more despise white men, for they are guilty of greater iniquities than Indians are. They have more knowledge, and are therefore more inexcusable when they sin; and anyone who has travelled much must be aware that, in regard to general wickedness, white men are at least quite as bad as Indians. Depend upon it, Jacques, that there will be Indians found in heaven at the last day as well as white men. God is no respecter of persons.”

“I niver thought much on that subject afore, sir,” returned the hunter; “what you say seems reasonable enough. I’m sure an’ sartin, any way, that if there’s a red-skin in heaven at all, Redfeather will be there, an’ I only hope that I may be there too to keep him company.”

“I hope so, my friend,”, said the pastor earnestly; “I hope so too, with all my heart. And if you will accept of this little book, it will show you how to get there.”

The missionary drew a small, plainly-bound copy of the Bible from his pocket as he spoke, and presented it to Jacques, who received it with a smile, and thanked him, saying, at the same time, that he “was not much up to book-larnin’, but he would read it with pleasure.”

“Now, Jacques,” said the pastor, after a little further conversation on the subject of the Bible, in which he endeavoured to impress upon him the absolute necessity of being acquainted with the blessed truths which it contains—“now, Jacques, about my visit to the Indians. I intend, if the Almighty spares me, to embark in yon tin canoe that you found me engaged with, and, with six men to work it, proceed to the country of the Knisteneux Indians, visit their chief camp, and preach to them there as long as the weather will permit. When the season is pretty well advanced, and winter threatens to cut off my retreat, I shall re-embark in my canoe and return home. By this means I hope to be able to sow the good seed of Christian truths in the hearts of men who, as they will not come to this settlement, have no chance of being brought under the power of the Gospel by any other means.”

Jacques gave one of his quiet smiles on hearing this. “Right sir—right,” he said, with some energy; “I have always thought, although I niver made bold to say it before, that there was not enough o’ this sort o’ thing. It has always seemed to me a kind o’ madness (excuse my plainness o’ speech, sir) in you pastors, thinkin’ to make the red-skins come and settle round you like so many squaws, and dig up an’ grub at the ground, when it’s quite clear that their natur’ and the natur’ o’ things about them meant them to be hunters. An’ surely, since the Almighty made them hunters, He intended them to be hunters, an’ won’t refuse to make them Christians on that account. A red-skin’s natur’ is a huntin’ natur’, an’ nothin’ on arth ’ll ever make it anything else.’

“There is much truth in what you observe, friend,” rejoined the pastor; “but you are not altogether right. Their nature may be changed, although certainly nothing on earth will change it. Look at that frozen lake.” He pointed to the wide field of thick snow-covered ice that stretched out for miles like a sheet of white marble before them. “Could anything on earth break up or sink or melt that?”

“Nothin’,” replied Jacques, laconically.

“But the warm beams of yon glorious sun can do it,” continued the pastor, pointing upwards as he spoke, “and do it effectually too; so that, although you can scarcely observe the process, it nevertheless turns the hard, thick, solid ice into limpid water at last. So is it in regard to man. Nothing on earth can change his heart, or alter his nature; but our Saviour, who is called the Sun of Righteousness, can. When He shines into a man’s soul it melts. The old man becomes a little child, the wild savage a Christian. But I agree with you in thinking that we have not been sufficiently alive to the necessity of seeking to convert the Indians before trying to gather them round us. The one would follow as a natural consequence, I think, of the other, and it is owing to this conviction that I intend, as I have already said, to make a journey in spring to visit those who will not or cannot come to visit me. And now, what I want to ask is whether you will agree to accompany me as steersman and guide on my expedition.”

The hunter slowly shook his head. “I’m afeard not sir; I have already promised to take charge of a canoe for the Company. I would much rather go with you, but I must keep my word.”

“Certainly, Jacques, certainly; that settles the question You cannot go with me—unless—” the pastor paused as if in thought for a moment—“unless you can persuade them to let you off.”

“Well, sir, I can try,” returned Jacques.

“Do; and I need not say how happy I shall be if you succeed. Good-day, friend, good-bye.” So saying, the missionary shook hands with the hunter and returned to his house, while Jacques wended his way to the village in search of Harry and Hamilton.