The Big Otter

by R. M. Ballantyne

“What cheer—what cheer?” said the accommodating old lady, responding to the salutation in kind. “Tell him, George, that I’m so happy to see once again the friend of my beloved William.”

“Big Otter rejoices to meet again the mother of Weeum,” replied the Indian.

“And tell him,” said Mrs Listen, “that I hope he has now come to stay with us altogether.”

The Indian smiled gravely, and shook his head, intimating that the question required consideration.

When the other members of the party were introduced—Jessie and Eve having been separated for the purpose—we all adjourned to the verandah to interchange news.

Need it be said that we had much to hear and tell? I think not. Neither need the fact be enlarged on that we all retired late that night, in a state of supreme felicity and mental exhaustion.

There was one exception, however, as regards the felicity, for Mrs Liston, out of regard for the friend of her darling William, insisted that Big Otter should occupy the best bedroom on the ground floor. The result was eminently unsatisfactory, for Big Otter was not accustomed to best bedrooms. Eve conducted the Indian to his room. He cared nothing for his comfort, and was prepared humbly to do whatever he was bid. He silently followed her and looked round the room with open-mouthed wonder as she pointed to his bed and, with a pleasant nod, left him.

Resting his gun in a corner—for he never parted with that weapon night or day—and laying his powder-horn and shot-pouch on the ground, he drew his tomahawk and scalping-knife, and was about to deposit them beside the horn, when his eye suddenly fell on a gigantic Indian crouching, as if on the point of springing on him. Like lightning he sprang erect. Then an expression of intense humility and shame covered his grave features on discovering that a large mirror had presented him with a full-length portrait of himself! A sort of pitiful smile curled his lip as he took off his hunting coat. Being now in his ordinary sleeping costume he approached the bed, but did not like the look of it. No wonder! Besides being obviously too short, it had white curtains with frills or flounces of some sort, with various tags and tassels around, and it did not look strong. He sat cautiously down on the side of it, however, and put one leg in. The sheets felt unpleasant to his naked foot, but not being particular, he shoved it in, and was slowly letting himself down on one elbow, when the bed creaked!

This was enough. Big Otter was brave to rashness in facing known danger, but he was too wise to risk his body on the unknown! Drawing forth his leg he stood up again, and glanced round the room. There was a small dressing-table opposite the bed; beside it was the large glass which had given him such a surprise. Further on a washhand-stand with a towel-rack beside it, but there was no spot on which he could stretch his bulky frame save the middle of the floor. Calmly he lay down on that, having previously pulled off all the bedclothes in a heap and selected therefrom a single blanket. Pillowing his head on a footstool, he tried to sleep, but the effort was vain. There was a want of air—a dreadful silence, as if he had been buried alive—no tinkling of water, or rustling of leaves, or roar of cataract. It was insupportable. He got up and tried to open the door, but the handle was a mystery which he could not unriddle. There was a window behind the dressing-table. He examined that, overturning and extinguishing the candle in the act. But that was nothing. The stars gave enough of light. Fortunately the window was a simple cottage one, which opened inwards with a pull. He put on his coat and belt, resumed his arms, and, putting his long leg over the sill, once more stood on his native soil and breathed the pure air! Quietly gliding round the house, he found a clump of bushes with a footpath leading through it. There he laid him down, enveloped in one of Mrs Liston’s best blankets, and there he was found next morning in tranquil slumber by our domestic when she went to milk the cows!

Before the three weeks were over Peter Macnab almost paralysed Aunt Temple by a cool proposal that she should exchange the civilised settlements for the wilderness, and go back with him, as Mrs Macnab, to the Mountain Fort! The lady, recovering from her semi-paralytic affection, agreed to the suggestion, and thus Peter Macnab was, according to his own statement, “set up for life.”