“Now, Tonal’,” remarked MacSweenie, on the morning of that auspicious day, “it iss a house-warming that I will be giving to-night, for the Indians will be expectin’ something o’ the sort, so you will be telling the cook to make the biggest lump o’ plum-duff he ever putt his hands to; an’ tell him not to spare the plums. It iss not every day we will be givin’ thiss goot people a blow-out, an’ it iss a matter of great importance, to my thinking, that first impressions should be good ones. It iss the duty of a new broom to sweep clean. If it continues, goot and well, but if it does not begin that way it iss not likely to come to it, whatever. There iss far more than people think in sentiment. If you fail to rouse a sentiment of goot-will, or confidence, or whatever it may be, at a first start-off it iss not easy to rouse it afterwards. Hev ye not noticed that, Tonal’?”
“I can’t say that I have,” answered the interpreter, with a matter-of-fact frown at the ground, “but I have noticed that the pit-saw they was usin’ yesterday has been allowed to saw into the holdin’-irons and damaged half o’—”
“Hoots, man! never mind the pit-saw!” exclaimed MacSweenie, with a touch of asperity. “All the planks we want are sawn, an’ if they were not, surely we could mend—tut, man, I wonder ye can play the fuddle. It always seemed to me that a goot fuddler must be a man of sentiment, but ye are the exception, Tonal’, that proves the rule. Away wi’ you an’ gie my orders to the cook, an’ see that you have the fuddle in goot tune, for we will want it to-night. An’ let him hev plenty of tea, for if we gain the women we’re sure o’ the men.”
Mowat retired with a smile on his broad benignant face. He understood his leader, and was not offended by his plain speaking. Besides, it was not easy to make the interpreter take offence. His spirit was of that happy nature which hopeth all things and believeth all things. It flowed calm and deep like an untroubled river. Nothing short of a knock-down blow would have induced Donald Mowat to take offence, but that would certainly have stirred him, and as he possessed vast physical strength, and was something awful to behold when roused, and his comrades were aware of these facts, the serenity of his life was not often or deeply ruffled.
The cook, who was an enthusiast in his art, did his best, and was eminently successful. His plum-duff dumpling was bigger than any gun—at least of ancient type—could have swallowed, and the plums, as Mowat afterwards said, did not need to seek for each other. He made enough of delightfully greasy cakes to feed an army, and, according to his own statement, infused “lashin’s o’ tea.”
Before the hour for the feast arrived that night, Mowat got out his violin and went into one of the rooms of the new house to put it in order. The window of the room looked towards the back of the house, where the forest was seen just beyond the plateau.
Drawing a bench to the window, he sat down and opened the case. Of course he found the first string broken, but that did not break his heart, for he had a good supply of spare strings, and if these should fail—well, there were plenty of deer-sinews in the land. It was soon put to rights, and, leaning his back against the wall, he began to tickle the strings gently. Whatever he was at other times, there is no doubt that the interpreter was full of genuine sentiment the moment he got the violin under his chin.
Now at that moment three young Dogrib braves chanced to be passing under the window, which was about seven feet from the ground. Though equally young, and no doubt equally brave, as well as equally Dogribbed, those three youths were not equally matched, for one was tall and thin, another was short and thick, while the third was middle-sized and fat. They had been hunting—successfully—for the thick man carried a small deer on his lusty shoulders.
On hearing the first notes of the instrument the three youths started into three different attitudes as if of petrified surprise, and remained so, waiting for more.
They had not to wait long, for, after tickling the fiddle once or twice to get it in perfect tune, Mowat raised his eyes to the pine-plank ceiling and glided softly into one of those exquisite Scottish airs by means of which a first-rate performer on the violin can almost draw the soul out of a man’s body. We think it was “The Flowers of the Forest.”