“All right now, my hearty; but we’ve had some foul weather since I saw you last.”
“Ay, I see!” said the mate, observing the scars upon his old companion’s face and forehead; “you’ve been snagged, and damaged your figure–head a bit: never mind that; we’ll have all that yarn out by and bye over a bottle of David’s best. See, here he comes to welcome you himself!”
Leaving David Muir and Bearskin to their mutual greetings, the mate returned to the water–side and lent his powerful assistance to the landing of the cargo of the heavily–laden boat; and certainly, a more strange or heterogeneous mixture of animate and inanimate stock never came out of any vessel since the disembarkation from the ark. Skins, furs, bows, rifles, moccassins, and Indian curiosities of every description, were piled near the bows, while in the after–part were stowed provisions of all kinds, and kegs, which were by no means so full as they were when the boat left St. Louis.
The appearance, language, and costume of the crew would baffle any attempt at description, inasmuch as each sunburnt, unshaved individual composing it, had equipped and attired himself according to his own fancy, and according to the contents of his remaining wardrobe after a long sojourn in the western wilderness: and when it is remembered that these hardy fellows were from all the varied clans and nations found between the sources and the mouth of the “Father of Waters,” it is not surprising that their mingled jargon should have struck upon the ear like the dialects of Babel in the day of its confusion. There were half–bred Creeks and Cherokees; Canadians, some with no little admixture of Chippeway blood; others, proud of their pure French descent: there were also some of the rough boatmen, who had already migrated to the banks of the Great River, where it washes the western boundaries of what are now the States of Kentucky and Illinois; and a raw–boned sinewy fellow, who acted as a sort of second mate, was giving instructions in broad Scotch, to a dark–eyed and diminutive individual, who replied to him in bad Spanish. Above the din of all these multifarious tongues, was heard the shrill and incessant voice of Monsieur Perrot, who was labouring with indefatigable zeal to collect his master’s baggage, and to put it safely ashore.
This he was at length enabled to effect with the aid of David Muir and the mate; after which the articles destined for Mooshanne were piled in readiness for the waggon which was to convey them, and the remainder found their way by degrees to their respective destinations.
When at last the good–humoured valet found himself comfortably seated in the merchant’s parlour with the worthy man himself, Dame Christie, Jessie, and the mate, for his audience, and a bottle of madeira, with some fried ham and fresh eggs upon the table, he gave a sigh, the importance of which was lost upon none of those present, and he looked from one to the other with the conscious superiority of a man who knows how much he has to tell.
It is not our province to follow him through the “hair–breadth ‘scapes,” the “moving accidents by flood and field,” with which he set his astonished hearers “all agape;” the only portion of his narrative which it concerns us to know, is that which referred to the movements of Reginald Brandon and the remainder of his party, who might, according to Monsieur Perrot’s account, be almost daily expected at Mooshanne, as they had left St. Louis and crossed its ferry with tent, baggage, and a large cavalcade, on the day of his embarkation in the great “Batteau.”
It was so long since Monsieur Perrot had tasted any liquid with a flavour like that of the merchant’s madeira, that he sipped and talked, talked and sipped, without noting the lapse of time, and the evening was already far advanced before he thought of rising to take his departure for Mooshanne; even then, David Muir pressed him so strongly to remain with him over–night, and continue his journey on the following morning, that Monsieur Perrot found himself quite unable to resist accepting the invitation; especially as he thought that another day or two might probably elapse before the return of Reginald; and, moreover, the bright eyes of Jessie Muir looked a thousand times brighter from the contrast that her beauty afforded to the swart dusky complexions by which he had so lately been surrounded.
Leaving the merry Frenchman, and his still wondering auditors in David’s parlour, we will proceed without delay to Mooshanne, where it happened that, about four o’clock on the same afternoon, a single horseman sprang from the animal that, to judge from its appearance, had carried him far and fast, and, having rung the door–bell, waited not for any one to answer it, but walked straight into the vestibule.
The bell was still ringing when the door of the drawing–room was slightly opened that the blue eyes of Lucy might herself reconnoitre the new comer; the next moment saw her in her brother’s arms.