Ungava | Page 6

man was pleased, and there was more of sarcasm than joviality in the sound when Gaspard condescended to laugh.
"I'll be shot if I go to such a hole for the best bourgeois in the country," said he in reply to Francois' question.
"You'll be dismissed the service if you don't," remarked Massan with a smile.
To this Gaspard vouchsafed no reply save a growl that, to say the best of it, did not sound amiable.
"Well, I think that we're all pretty much of one mind on the point," continued Francois; "and yet I feel half ashamed to refuse after all, especially when I see the good will with which Messieurs Stanley and Morton agree to go."
"I suppose you expect to be a bourgeois too some day," growled Gaspard with a sneer.
"Eh, tu gros chien!" cried Francois, as with flashing eyes and clinched fists he strode up to his ill-tempered comrade.
"Come, come, Francois; don't quarrel for nothing," said Massan, interposing his broad shoulders and pushing him vigorously back.
At that moment an exclamation from one of the men diverted the attention of the others.
"Voila! the canoe."
"Ay, it's Monsieur Stanley's canoe. I saw him and Monsieur Morton start for the swamp this morning."
"I wonder what Dick Prince would have done in this business had he been here," said Francois to Massan in a low tone, as they stood watching the approach of their bourgeois' canoe.
"Can't say. I half think he would have gone."
"There's no chance of him coming back in time, I fear."
"None; unless he prevails on some goose to lend him a pair of wings for a day or two. He won't be back from the hunt for three weeks good."
In a few minutes more the canoe skimmed up to the wharf.
"Here, lads," cried Mr Stanley, as he leaped ashore and dragged the canoe out of the water; "one of you come and lift this canoe up the bank, and take these geese to the kitchen."
Two of the men instantly hastened to obey, and Stanley, with the gun and paddles under his arm, proceeded towards the gateway of the fort. As he passed the group assembled on the wharf, he turned and said--
"You'll come to the hall in an hour, lads; I shall expect you to be ready with an answer by that time."
"Ay, ay, sir," replied several of the men.
"But we won't go for all your expectations," said one in an undertone to a comrade.
"I should think not," whispered another.
"I'll be hanged, and burnt, and frozen if I do," said a third.
In the meantime Mr Stanley walked briskly towards his dwelling, and left the men to grumble over their troubles and continue their debate as to whether they should or should not agree to go on the pending expedition to the distant regions of Ungava.
CHAPTER THREE.
SHOWS HOW STANLEY DEIGNED TO CONSULT WITH WOMANKIND--THE OPINIONS OF A CHILD DEVELOPED--PERSUASION FAILS--EXAMPLE TRIUMPHS--THE FIRST VOLUNTEERS TO UNGAVA.
On reaching his apartment, which was in an angle of the principal edifice in the fort, Mr Stanley flung down his gun and paddles, and drawing a chair close to his wife, who was working with her needle near a window, took her hand in his and heaved a deep sigh.
"Why, George, that's what you used to say to me when you were at a loss for words in the days of our courtship."
"True, Jessie," he replied, patting her shoulder with a hand that rough service had rendered hard and long exposure had burnt brown. "But the producing cause then was different from what it is now. Then it was love; now it is perplexity."
Stanley's wife was the daughter of English parents, who had settled many years ago in the fur countries. Being quite beyond the reach of any school, they had been obliged to undertake the instruction of their only child, Jessie, as they best could. At first this was an easy matter, but as years flew by, and little Jessie's mind expanded, it was found to be a difficult matter to carry on her education in a country in most parts of which books were not to be had and schoolmasters did not exist. When the difficulty first presented itself, they talked of sending their little one to England to finish her education; but being unable to bring themselves to part with her, they resolved to have a choice selection of books sent out to them. Jessie's mother was a clever, accomplished, and lady-like woman, and decidedly pious, so that the little flower, which was indeed born to blush unseen, grew up to be a gentle, affectionate woman--one who was a lady in all her thoughts and actions, yet had never seen polite society, save that of her father and mother. In process of time Jessie became Mrs Stanley, and the mother of a little girl whose voice