Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Hudson Bay by R. M. Ballantyne (the snowy day read aloud TXT) 📖
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
Book online «Hudson Bay by R. M. Ballantyne (the snowy day read aloud TXT) 📖». Author R. M. Ballantyne
Supper in these out-of-the-way regions is never long in the eating, and on the present occasion we finished it very quickly, being both hungry and fatigued. That over, we heaped fresh logs upon the fire, wrapped our green blankets round us, and nestling close together, as much underneath our canoe as possible, courted the drowsy god. In this courtship I was unsuccessful for some time, and lay gazing on the flickering flames of the watch-fire, which illuminated the grass of the marsh a little distance round, and listening, in a sort of dreamy felicity, to the occasional cry of a wakeful plover, or starting suddenly at the flapping wings of a huge owl, which, attracted by the light of our fire, wheeled slowly round, gazing on us in a kind of solemn astonishment, till, scared by the sounds that proceeded from Crusty’s nasal organ, it flew with a scream into the dark night air; and again all was silent save the protracted, solemn, sweeping boom of the distant waves, as they rolled at long intervals upon the sea-shore. During the night we were awakened by a shower of rain falling upon our feet and as much of our legs as the canoe was incapable of protecting. Pulling them up more under shelter, at the expense of exposing our knees and elbows—for the canoe could not completely cover us—we each gave a mournful grunt, and dropped off again.
Morning broke with unclouded splendour, and we rose from our grassy couch with alacrity to resume our sport; but I will not again drag my patient reader through the Point of Marsh.
In the afternoon, having spent our ammunition, we launched our light canoe, and after an hour’s paddle up the river, arrived, laden with game and splashed with mud, at York Factory.
Note 1. Quicksilver easily freezes; and it has frequently been run into a bullet mould, exposed to the cold air till frozen, and in this state rammed down a gun barrel, and fired through a thick plank.
Note 2. The thousands of frogs that fill the swamps of America whistle or chirp so exactly like little birds, that many people, upon hearing them for the first time, have mistaken them for the feathered songsters of the groves. Their only fault is that they scarcely ever cease singing.
Note 3. The traveller sits, or rather lies in it, wrapped in buffalo robes; while the dogs are urged forward by a man who walks behind, and prevents the machine from upsetting, which it is very liable to do, from the inequalities of the ground over which it sometimes passes.
On the afternoon of the 20th of June 1845, I sat in my room at York Fort, musing on the probability of my being dispatched to some other part of the Company’s wide dominions.
The season approached when changes from one part of the country to another might be expected, and boats began to arrive from the interior. Two years of fun and frolic had I spent on the coast, and I was beginning to wish to be sent once more upon my travels, particularly as the busy season was about to commence, and the hot weather to set in.
As I sat cogitating, my brother scribblers called me to join them in a short promenade upon the wharf, preparatory to resuming our pens. Just as we reached it, a small Indian canoe from the interior swept round the point above the factory, and came rapidly forward, the sparkling water foaming past her sharp bow as she made towards the landing.
At almost any time an arrival causes a great deal of interest in this out-of-the-way place; but an arrival of this sort—for the canoe was evidently an express—threw us into a fever of excitement, which was greatly increased when we found that it contained dispatches from headquarters; and many speculative remarks passed among us as we hurried up to our hall, there to wait in anxious expectation for a letter or an order to appear instanter before Mr Grave. Our patience was severely tried, however, and we began to think there was no news at all, when Gibeault, the butler, turned the corner, and came towards our door. We immediately rushed towards it in breathless expectation, and a row of eager faces appeared as he walked slowly up and said, “Mr Grave wishes to see Mr Ballantyne immediately.” On hearing this I assumed an appearance of calm indifference I was far from feeling, put on my cap, and obeyed the order.
Upon entering Mr Grave’s presence, he received me with a benign, patronising air, and requested me to be seated. He then went on to inform me that letters had just arrived, requesting that I might be sent off immediately to Norway House, where I should be enlightened as to my ultimate destination. This piece of news I received with mingled surprise and delight, at the same time exclaiming “Indeed!” with peculiar emphasis; and then, becoming suddenly aware of the impropriety of the expression, I endeavoured to follow it up with a look of sorrow at the prospect of leaving my friends, combined with resignation to the will of the Honourable Hudson Bay Company, in which attempt I failed most signally. After receiving orders to prepare for an immediate start, I rushed out in a state of high excitement, to acquaint my comrades with my good fortune. On entering the hall, I found them as anxious to know where I was destined to vegetate next winter, as they before had been to learn who was going off. Having satisfied them on this point, or rather told them as much as I knew myself regarding it, I proceeded to pack up.
It happened just at this time that a brigade of inland boats was on the eve of starting for the distant regions of the interior; and as the little canoe, destined to carry myself, was much too small to take such an unwieldy article as my “cassette,” I gladly availed myself of the opportunity to forward it by the boats, as they would have to pass Norway House en route. It would be endless to detail how I spent the next three days: how I never appeared in public without walking very fast, as if pressed with a superhuman amount of business; how I rummaged about here and there, seeing that everything was prepared; looking vastly important, and thinking I was immensely busy, when in reality I was doing next to nothing. I shall, therefore, without further preface, proceed to describe my travelling equipments.
The canoe in which I and two Indians were to travel from York Factory to Norway House, a distance of nearly three hundred miles, measured between five and six yards long, by two feet and a half broad in the middle, tapering from thence to nothing at each end. It was made of birch bark, and could with great ease be carried by one man. In this we were to embark, with ten days’ provisions for three men, three blankets, three small bundles, and a little travelling-case belonging to myself; besides three paddles wherewith to propel us forward, a tin kettle for cooking, and an iron one for boiling water. Our craft being too small to permit my taking the usual allowance of what are called luxuries, I determined to take pot-luck with my men, so that our existence for the next eight or ten days was to depend upon the nutritive properties contained in a few pounds of pemmican, a little biscuit, one pound of butter, and a very small quantity of tea and sugar. With all this, in addition to ourselves, we calculated upon being pretty deeply laden.
My men were of the tribe called Swampy Crees—and truly, to judge merely from appearance, they would have been the very last I should have picked out to travel with; for one was old, apparently upwards of fifty, and the other, though young, was a cripple. Nevertheless, they were good, hard-working men, as I afterwards experienced. I did not take a tent with me, our craft requiring to be as light as possible, but I rolled up a mosquito-net in my blanket, that being a light affair of gauze, capable of compression into very small compass. Such were our equipments; and on the 23rd of June we started for the interior.
A melancholy feeling came over me as I turned and looked for the last time upon York Factory, where I had spent so many happy days with the young men who now stood waving their handkerchiefs from the wharf. Mr Grave, too, stood among them, and as I looked on his benevolent, manly countenance, I felt that I should ever remember with gratitude his kindness to me while we resided together on the shores of Hudson Bay. A few minutes more, and the fort was hid from my sight for ever.
My disposition is not a sorrowful one; I never did and never could remain long in a melancholy mood, which will account for the state of feeling I enjoyed half an hour after losing sight of my late home. The day was fine, and I began to anticipate a pleasant journey, and to speculate as to what part of the country I might be sent to. The whole wide continent of North America was now open to the excursive flights of my imagination, as there was a possibility of my being sent to any one of the numerous stations in the extensive territories of the Hudson Bay Company. Sometimes I fancied myself ranging through the wild district of Mackenzie River, admiring the scenery described by Franklin and Back in their travels of discovery; and anon, as the tales of my companions occurred to me, I was bounding over the prairies of the Saskatchewan in chase of the buffalo, or descending the rapid waters of the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. Again my fancy wandered, and I imagined myself hunting the grizzly bear in the woods of Athabasca—when a heavy lurch of the canoe awakened me to the fact that I was only ascending the sluggish waters of Hayes River.
The banks of the river were covered with huge blocks of ice, and scarcely a leaf had as yet made its appearance. Not a bird was to be seen, except a few crows and whisky-jacks, which chattered among the branches of the trees; and Nature appeared as if undecided whether or not she should take another nap, ere she bedecked herself in the garments of spring. My Indians paddled slowly against the stream, and I lay back, with a leg cocked over each gunwale, watching the sombre pines as they dropped slowly astern. On our way we passed two landslips which encroached a good deal on the river, each forming a small rapid round its base. The trees with which they had formerly been clothed were now scattered about in chaotic confusion, leafless, and covered with mud; some more than half buried, and others standing with their roots in the air. There is a tradition among the natives that a
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