“An’ it iss fightin’ you hev been?”
“With water and rocks only,” said Dan.
“Well, well, go into the house now, and change your clo’es. Dry yourself, an’ get somethin’ to eat, for you are used up altogither.”
Elspie took his hand, and led him away. Meanwhile La Certe, having gathered himself up and staggered to the front, was seized upon and questioned unmercifully. Then he also was taken into the house and fed; after which both men were made to lie down and rest.
Having slept for six hours Dan awakened, and rose up to be married! Fred Jenkins and Elise were—as the jovial tar expressed it—turned off at the same time.
It was customary in Rupert’s Land at that time, as it is customary in many remote lands, no doubt, at the present day, to celebrate every wedding with a feast and a dance. Feasts are very much alike in substance, if not in detail, everywhere. We refrain from describing that which took place in Ben Nevis Hall at that time, further than to say that it was superb. The dancing was simple: it consisted chiefly of the Highland Fling danced by the performer according to taste or imagination.
But that it was eminently satisfactory to all concerned was clearly evinced by the appearance of the whole party—the elegant ease with which Fergus McKay did it; the tremendous energy with which Jacques Bourassin tried it; the persistent vigour with which André Morel studied it; the facility with which Elise acquired it—under Elspie’s tuition; the untiring perseverance with which Archie and Little Bill did something like it—for the latter had quite recovered, and was fit to hold his own, almost, with any one; the charming confusion of mind with which Fred Jenkins intermingled the sailor’s hornpipe with it; the inimitable languor with which La Certe condescended to go through it; the new-born energy with which Slowfoot footed it; the side-splitting shrieks with which Old Peg regarded it; the uproarious guffaws with which the delighted old Duncan hailed it; the sad smile with which that weak and worn invalid Duncan junior beheld it; and, last, but not least, the earnest mental power and conspicuous physical ability with which Dan Davidson attempted something which Charity personified might have supposed to bear a distant resemblance to it.
The music was worthy of the dancing, for the appointed performer had, owing to some occult cause, failed to turn up, and a volunteer had taken his place with another fiddle, which was homemade, and which he did not quite understand. A small pig with feeble intellect and disordered nerves might have equalled—even surpassed—the tones of that violin, but it could not hope to have beaten the volunteer’s time. That, performed on a board by the volunteer’s foot, automatically, beat everything that we have ever heard of in the musical way from the days of Eden till now.
Only four members of the two households failed to take a violently active part in that festive gathering. Jessie Davidson had conveniently sprained her ankle for the occasion, and thus was set free to sit between the wheeled chairs of the two Duncans, and act as a sympathetic receptacle of their varied commentaries. Her mother, being too stout for active service, sat beside them and smiled universal benignity. Her little maid, Louise, chanced to be ill. Peter Davidson’s case, however, was the worst. He had gone off in company with Okématan to visit a camp of Cree Indians, intending to be back in time, but his horse had gone lame while yet far from home, and as it was impossible to procure another at the time, he was fain to grin and bear it. Meanwhile Antoine Dechamp had been pressed into the service, and took his place as best-man to Fred Jenkins—a position which he filled to admiration, chiefly owing to the fact that he had never served in such a capacity before.
Late on the following evening La Certe sat by his own fireside, somewhat exhausted by the festivities of the day before, and glaring affectionately at Slowfoot, who was stirring something in a pot over the fire. The little one—rapidly becoming a big one, and unquestionably by that time a girl—crouched at her father’s side, sound asleep, with her head resting on his leg. She no longer cried for a pull at her father’s pipe.