Nature and Human Nature

by Thomas Chandler Haliburton

All hope of the chase was now over, and I was about abandoning it in despair, when an arrow whizzed by us, and in an instant he sprang to his feet, and exposed his huge form to view. He was a remarkable fine specimen of his kind, for they are the largest as well as the ugliest of the deer tribe. For an instant he paused, shook himself violently, and holding down his head, put up his fore-leg to break off that, which evidently maddened him with pain. He then stood up erect, with his head high in the air, and laid his horns back on his neck, and, giving a snort of terror, prepared to save his life by flight.

It is astonishing how much animation and attitude has to do with beauty. I had never seen one look well before, but as his form was relieved against the sky, he looked as he is, the giant king of the forest. He was just in the act of shifting his feet in the yielding surface of the boggy meadow, preparatory to a start, when he was again transfixed by an arrow, in a more vulnerable and vital part. He sprung, or rather reared forward, and came down on his knees, and then several times repeated the attempt to commence his flight by the same desperate effort. At last he fell to rise no more, and soon rolled over, and after some splashing with his head to avoid the impending death by drowning, quietly submitted to his fate. Nothing now was visible of him but the tips of his horns, and a small strip of the hide that covered his ribs. A shout from the boat proclaimed the victory.

“Ah, Mr Slick,” said the doctor, “what could you have done with only a charge of duck-shot in your gun, eh? The arrow, you see, served for shot and bullet. I could have killed him with the first shaft, but his head was turned, and covered the vital spot. So I had to aim a little too far forward, but still it carried a death-warrant with it, for he couldn’t have run over a mile without falling from exhaustion, arising from the loss of blood. It is a charming day for the bow, for there is no wind, and I could hit a dollar at a hundred and twenty yards. There is another on that island, but she probably has a calf, perhaps two, and it would be a wicked waste of the food that God provides for us, to destroy her. But we must get this gentleman into the boat, and it will bring us down so deep in the water, we must keep near the shore, as it may be necessary occasionally to wade.”

Peter, without ceremony, began to make preparations for such an emergency. He had been accustomed all his life, until he left the Nor-west Company’s employment, to the kilt, and he neither felt nor looked at home in the trousers. Like most of his countrymen, he thought there was more beauty in a hairy leg, and in a manly shammy-leather looking skin, than in any covering. While his bald knee, the ugliest, weakest, most complicated and important joint in the frame, he no doubt regarded with as much veneration as the pious do the shaven crown of a monk. He therefore very complacently and coolly began to disencumber himself of this detestable article of the tailor’s skill. I thought it best therefore to push off in time, to spare his daughters this spectacle, merely telling the doctor we would wait for him where we had embarked.

We proceeded very leisurely, only once in a while dipping the paddle gently into the water, so as to keep up the motion of the canoe. The girls amused themselves by imitating the call and answer of the loon, the blue-jay, the kingfisher, and the owl. With a piece of bark, rolled up in the form of a short-ear trumpet, they mimicked the hideous voice of the moose, and the not less disagreeable lowing of the cariboo. The martin started in surprise at his affrighted neighbour on the water, and the fox no doubt crept from his hole to listen to the voice that called him to plunder, at this dangerous hour. All these sounds are signals among the Indians, and are carried to a perfection that deceives the ear of nature itself. I had read of their great power in this species of ventriloquism, but never had heard it practised before, with the exception of the imitation of the deer tribe, which is well-known to white “still-hunters.”

They are, in their own country, not very communicative to strangers; and above all, never disclose practices so peculiarly reserved for their own service or defence. I was amazed at their skill in this branch of Indian accomplishment.

But the notes of the dear little chick-a-dee-dee charmed me the most. The stillness of this wild, sequestered place was most agreeably diversified by all these fictitious birds and beasts, that seemed inviting, each his own kind, to come and look at this lovely scene. From the wonderful control they appeared to have over their voices, I knew that one or both of them must sing. I therefore asked them if they knew the Canadian-boat song; and they answered, with great delight, that they did. And suiting the action to the word, which, by the by, adds marvellously to its effect, they sung it charmingly. I couldn’t resist their entreaties to join in it, although I would infinitely have preferred listening to taking a part. When we concluded it, Jessie said it was much prettier in her native tongue, and sung a verse in her own language. She said the governor of the fort, who spoke Indian as well as English, had arranged the words for it, and when she was a child in his family, she learned it. “Listen,” said she, “what is that?”

It was Jackson playing on the key-bugle. Oh, how gloriously it sounded, as its notes fell on the ear, mellowed and softened by the distance. When Englishmen talk of the hunters’ horn in the morning, they don’t know what they are a saying of. It’s well enough I do suppose in the field, as it wakes the drowsy sportsman, and reminds him that there is a hard day’s ride before him. But the lake and the forest is nature’s amphitheatre, and it is at home there. It won’t speak as it can do at all times and in all places; but it gives its whole soul out in the woods; and the echoes love it, and the mountains wave their plumes of pines to it, as if they wanted to be wooed by its clear, sweet, powerful notes.¹ All nature listens to it, and keeps silence, while it lifts its voice on high. The breeze wafts its music on its wings, as if proud of its trust; and the lake lies still, and pants like a thing of life, as if its heart beat to its tones. The birds are all hushed, as if afraid to disturb it; and the deer pause, and listen, and gaze on the skies, as if the music came from heaven. Money only can move some men, and a white heat alone dissolve stones. But he who has ever heard the bugle, and is not inspired by it, has no divinity within him. The body is there, but the soul is wanting.

¹ This inflated passage, and some other similar ones, are extremely characteristic of Americans in the same station of life as Slick. From the use of superlative expressions in their conversation, they naturally adopt an exaggerative style in writing, and the minor poets and provincial orators of the Republic are distinguished for this hyperbolical tone. In Great Britain they would be admired by the Irish; on the Continent, by the Gascons. If Mr Slick were not affected by this weakness himself, he would be among the first to detect and ridicule it in others.

“Go on, Jackson, I will forgive your twaddle about sargeant M’Clure, the stroke of the sun, the trooper’s helmet, and the night among the wolves. I will listen to your old soldier’s stories all night, only go on and play for me. Give me that simple air again. Let me drink it in with my ears, till my heart is full. No grace notes, no tricks of the band-master’s, no flourishes; let it be simple and natural. Let it suit us, and the place we are in, for it is the voice of our common parent, nature.” Ah, he didn’t hear me, and he ceased.