Hopes and fears—An unexpected meeting—Philosophical talk between the hunter and the parson.
On arriving at Norway House, Harry Somerville and his friend Hamilton found that they were to remain at that establishment during an indefinite period of time, until it should please those in whose hands their ultimate destination lay to direct them how and where to proceed. This was an unlooked-for trial of their patience; but after the first exclamation of disappointment, they made up their minds, like wise men, to think no more about it, but bide their time, and make the most of present circumstances.
“You see,” remarked Hamilton, as the two friends, after having had an audience of the gentleman in charge of the establishment, sauntered towards the rocks that overhang the margin of Playgreen Lake—“you see, it is of no use to fret about what we cannot possibly help. Nobody within three hundred miles of us knows where we are destined to spend next winter. Perhaps orders may come in a couple of weeks, perhaps in a couple of months, but they will certainly come at last. Anyhow, it is of no use thinking about it, so we had better forget it, and make the best of things as we find them.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Harry, “your advice is, that we should by all means be happy, and if we can’t be happy, be as happy as we can. Is that it?”
“Just so. That’s it exactly.”
“Ho! But then you see, Hammy, you’re a philosopher and I’m not, and that makes all the difference. I’m not given to anticipating evil, but I cannot help dreading that they will send me to some lonely, swampy, out-of-the-way hole, where there will be no society, no shooting, no riding, no work even to speak of—nothing, in fact, but the miserable satisfaction of being styled ‘bourgeois’ by five or six men, wretched outcasts like myself.”
“Come, Harry,” cried Hamilton; “you are taking the very worst view of it. There certainly are plenty of such outposts in the country, but you know very well that young fellows like you are seldom sent to such places.”
“I don’t know that,” interrupted Harry. “There’s young M’Andrew: he was sent to an outpost up the Mackenzie his second year in the service, where he was all but starved, and had to live for about two weeks on boiled parchment. Then there’s poor Forrester: he was shipped off to a place—the name of which I never could remember—somewhere between the head-waters of the Athabasca Lake and the North Pole. To be sure, he had good shooting, I’m told, but he had only four labouring men to enjoy it with; and he has been there ten years now, and he has more than once had to scrape the rocks of that detestable stuff called tripe de roche to keep himself alive. And then there’s——”
“Very true,” interrupted Hamilton. “Then there’s your friend Charles Kennedy, whom you so often talk about, and many other young fellows we know, who have been sent to the Saskatchewan, and to the Columbia, and to Athabasca, and to a host of other capital places, where they have enough of society—male society, at least—and good sport.”
The young men had climbed a rocky eminence which commanded a view of the lake on the one side, and the fort, with its background of woods, on the other. Here they sat down on a stone, and continued for some time to admire the scene in silence.