Still, with all his energy and resources, the genial Highlander began, towards the end of winter, to feel an intense longing for a little intercourse with his equals.
Returning one night to the solitude of his little room, as was his wont, after a couple of hours’ intercourse with his men in their own house, he sat down before his stove and addressed it thus:—
“It won’t last long, I fear. My brain is gradually turning into something like mashed potatoes, and my heart into a tinder-box, ready enough to catch fire, but with neither flint nor steel to light it! The Indians won’t be here for many weeks, and when they do come what good can I get from or do to them? Wow! wow! it’s terribly slow work. Oh! Jessie, Jessie, my dear, what would I not give if I only had you here!”
Lest the reader should suppose Macnab to be a love-sick swain, I may remark here that Jessie was a sister whom he had left on the shores of Loch Ness, and with whom he kept up a vigorous biennial correspondence.
As the stove made no reply, he continued his address.
“If I only had a few books now, it wouldn’t be so hard to bear. To be sure, the Bible is a great resource—a blessed resource; but you see I want something light now and then. A laugh, you know, seems to be absolutely needful at times. Why, now I think of it, we wouldn’t have been given the power to laugh if it hadn’t been necessary, and the last hearty laugh I had was, let me see—that time three months ago, when my long-nosed interpreter mistook a dead mouse in the soup—ha! ha!—for a bit of pemmican, and only found out his mistake when the tail got between his teeth!”
The solitary man burst into peals of laughter at the reminiscence, and then, becoming suddenly grave, looked slowly round the room.
“If I could only have an echo of that,” he resumed, “from somebody else! Well, well, I’ll just go and have another chat with Jessie.”
So saying, Macnab rose, drew a small table near to the stove, laid upon it a very large desk made by himself of pine-wood, and, placing a sheet of paper thereon, began to write.
The sheet of paper merits notice. Like the man who wrote, it was extremely large, being several sizes bigger than foolscap, and very loosely ruled. As I have said, communication with the outer world being possible only twice in the year, our Highlander resolved, as usual, to make the most of his opportunities. Hence he not only used the largest paper which the company provided, but filled up several such sheets with the smallest possible writing, so that Jessie might ultimately get something worth having. It is but justice to add that Macnab wrote not only a very small but a remarkably clear and legible hand—a virtue which I earnestly commend to correspondents in general, to those of them at least who wish their epistles to meet with thorough appreciation.