The Big Otter

by R. M. Ballantyne

Before that point was reached, however, much had to be done. Games had to be undertaken as long as the daylight lasted—chief among which were tobogganing down the snow-slope, and football on the ice. Then, after dark, the Hall was lighted up with an extra supply of candles round the room—though the powerful blaze of the mighty wood fire in the open chimney rendered these almost unnecessary, and another feast was instituted under the name of supper, though it commenced at the early hour of six o’clock.

At this feast there was some speechifying—partly humorous and partly touching—and it remains a disputed point to this day whether the touching was more humorous or the humorous more touching. I therefore refrain from perplexing the reader with the speeches in detail. Only part of one speech will I refer to, as it may be said to have had a sort of prophetic bearing on our tale. It fell from the lips of Lumley.

“My friends,” he said, with that grave yet pleasant urbanity which I have before said was so natural to him, “there is only one regret which I will venture to express on this happy day, and it is this, that some of those who were wont to enliven us with their presence at Fort Wichikagan, are not with us to-night. I really do not think there would be a single element wanting in the joy which it has pleased a loving God to send me, if I could only have had my dear young friend, George Maxby, to be my best man—”

He had to pause a few moments at this point, because of noisy demonstrations of assent.

“And I am quite sure,” he continued, “that it would have afforded as much satisfaction to you as it would to my dear wife and me, if we could only have had our sedate friend, Big Otter—”

Again he had to pause, for the shouting with which this name was received not only made the rafters ring, but caused the very candles on the walls to wink.

“If we could only have had Big Otter,” repeated Lumley, “to dance at our wedding. But it is of no use to sigh after the impossible. The days of miracles are over, and—”

As he spoke the hall door slowly opened, and a sight appeared which not only bereft the speaker of speech, but for a few minutes absolutely petrified all the rest of the company. It was the face and figure of a man—tall, gaunt and worn.

Now, good reader, as Lumley said (without very good authority!) the days of miracles are over, yet I venture to think that many events in this life do so much resemble miracles that we could not distinguish them from such unless the keys to their solution were given to us.

I give you the key to the supposed miracle now in hand, by asking you to accompany me deep into the wild-woods, and backward in time to about an hour before noon of the day preceding Christmas. It is a tangled shady spot to which I draw attention, the snow-floor of which is over-arched by dark pine-branches and surrounded by walls of willows and other shrubs. There is a somewhat open circular space in the centre of the spot, into which an Indian on snow-shoes strode at the hour mentioned. Even his most intimate friends might have failed at a first glance to recognise Big Otter, for he was at the time very near the close of a long, hard, wearisome journey, during the course of which he had experienced both danger and privation. Latterly he had conceived an idea, which he had striven with all his powers—and they were not small—to carry out. It was neither more nor less than to arrive in time to spend Christmas Day with his friends at Fort Wichikagan.