THE WOLF TRAIL

BY

ROGER S. POCOCK

AUTHOR OF "CURLY," ETC.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK :: :: MCMXXIII

COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author is deeply indebted to Mr. J. S. M. Ward for permission to reproduce in this novel a passage from his work, A Subaltern in Spirit Land, published by Messrs. William Rider & Son, Ltd.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. On London River

II. The Voyage of the "Beaver"

III. In British Oregon

IV. Kootenay

V. The Whole Armor

VI. The Ghost Trail

VII. The Holy Lodge

VIII. Rising Wolf

IX. The Striking of the Camp

X. The Translation

THE WOLF TRAIL

CHAPTER I ON LONDON RIVER

I

"To make a dogsnose," the publican explained, "you spices the ale, so. You laces it with a dash of rum, thus, then you proceeds to pour it into this yere metal cone, this way"—he crossed to the fireplace—"and shoves it in among the coals to mull."

"A great comfort is dogsnose," added Mr. Fright, "especially of a Sunday after church. You clears the vimmen off to church, and then you has the dogsnose."

Presently he took the cone from behind the bars of the grate, and filled the glasses with mulled beer, distributing the same to his guests.

With rolled-up shirt sleeves exposing brawny arms, a portly waistcoat, leather breeches, and top boots, this publican might well have posed for a portrait of John Bull, and yet his tavern, "The Fox under the Hill," had other associations, accounting for the landlord's artful sideways grin and a certain glint of humorous foxiness. Moreover, a lifelong devotion to rum had made him more ruddy than sunburned, his nose inclined to blossom, his eyes to water, and his hands to tremble. "A short life, and a merry one!" so Mr. Fright pledged the company. His guests appeared to be pleased with the sentiment, excepting only his brother, Mr. James Fright, the bargee, who crouched drunk in his window corner. Brief life was his portion also, but a diet of gin, instead of making ruddy the face of man, turns his complexion blue. The stuff is called blue ruin.

The bargee's only son, Bill, aged at that time eighteen, sat in the ingle. He had something of his father's short pugnacious nose, and chin thrust forward, but his hair was like wavy sunshine, and his eyes bright blue. He had a humorous twisty mouth, a freckled, weather-beaten ruddy skin, a sturdy strength, clean manliness, and amazing directness both of eyes and speech. His dress was a raggy blue jersey, torn slacks, and old sea boots; and he was busy mending one of them, making a workmanlike job with awl, waxed end, and bristles.

Warming his tails at the fire stood a guest of the house, a tall man in pumps, seedy black tights, a frayed blue coat brass-buttoned, a black satin choker, and his head so large and of such effulgent baldness that he would have shone out remarkable in any company. He was a Mr. Wilkins wanted by the magistrates for stealing pocket handkerchiefs, and now awaiting a wherry which would convey him presently to a coal boat, bound for Newcastle.

Of the company in the sanded bar parlor, perhaps only one other person need be mentioned, Mr. Brown, valet to Isaac Disraeli, Esquire, upon Adelphi Terrace.

The emigrant spoke feelingly of dogsnose as about to become, if he might venture to say so, one of the tenderest and most endearing of those beverages which the forlorn and desolate exile would have to—ahem—go without, a reminder to the banished heart of that sacred homeland whose blessed liberties and hard-won—ahem. The remainder of the sentiment was confided with tears to a large red bandanna handkerchief.

"Which liberties," said the publican sternly, crossing his bare forearms on the bar, "ain't what they're cracked up to be. Liberties! Liberties of the Fleet, the Marshalsea, and Newgate!

"It's terventy-one year since me and my brother James there, what's sitting drunk in the winder, fought at Waterloo. It's nineteen year come Lammas I been 'ere. Nineteen year—so to speak—I been the Fox under the Hill which sees plentiful, 'ears much, smells a good deal, but doesn't have nothing votever to talk abart. Vile I keeps my mask shut, gennelmen, I saves my brush."

He paused for a reply, but there was none.

"You mark my vords. 'Ere of a Sunday, so to speak, vith my doors closed during church, and none of you gennelmen being peelers, spies, nor warmints, speaking to friends I says we's had a durned sight too many Georges, and too many Villiams reigning over we—the same being a pack of Germans."

The company seemed to be startled by such frankness.

"A durned sight too many lawyers, too many parsons, too many lords and landlords, too many masters altogether, vich is a pack o' willians, 'umbugs, and sponges eating of our wittles wot we earns. The Prayer Book says as they'd ought to get their own living in that state of life, whereas they gets most of my living in tithes, rent, rates, taxes, and plundering of me on every cask of beer."

"Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!" cried a voice from the corner by the clock. "Hoff vith their bleedin' 'eads!"

"The Froggies did that," said the landlord, "and to the best of their knowledge and belief they 'ave their reapings and their 'arvest 'ome, which is the Reign of Terror.

"Then under old Boneyparte, hup comes a new crop of rogues, and we reaps them. The more rogues you crops the more comes up. These Froggies is excitable, and comes up. But for us English, vich ain't extravagent, one 'ead at a time says I, vether it be King Charles or King Villiam."

Mr. Fright's nephew looked around grinning, to interrupt: "Or Alexandrina Wictoria by the Grace——"

"Well," said the landlord, "if I was Princess Halexandrina Wictoria, I'd rather 'ave my 'ead took off than sign all that lot of stuff when I writes my name. She done no 'arm to me. Ven it comes to cropping 'eads, I wotes for Villiam the Fourth."

The nephew must needs interrupt. "Uncle," said Bill Fright, "does your 'ead fit? It may come loose from talking of 'igh treason."

"At that rate," said Mr. Fright, "Jack Ketch vill 'ave 'is 'ands full hanging the British public. The general public as a 'ole talks treason.

"Now I don't say nothing. Silence is my 'obby. But if I ever took to talking—you mark my vords, young feller. I was in India vith the Dook—Sir Harthur Vellesley he vas in them days—ven he swiped the Great Mogul, and sot down plump in Delhi. Dahn south in them days vas the Dook's hown brother, the Markvis Vellesley, whopping them Mahrattas, and setting plump on the Peishwa's nob at Poona. The Dook and the Markvis conquers India—and vot does they do abart it?

"Now, young Bill," he turned upon his nephew, "what does them Roman Generals in your schoolbooks do when they conquers anything?"

"Makes themselves Hemperors," answered Bill as usual, for this question belonged to the formal proceedings of a Sunday.

"Didn't I say so?" The publican triumphed. "And does the Dook and the Markvis make theirselves Hemperors of Northern and Southern Hindia?"

Young Bill had finished the cobbling. He hauled on his thigh boot, returned his palm thimble, glovers' needle, awl, waxed end, and beeswax to his trousers pocket, then shifted his position a little to watch his father, the drunken bargee in the window place. He always felt uneasy when Uncle Thomas, whom he dearly loved, was spouting treason in presence of his father. Bill did not trust his father, who seemed to be watching, listening, spying, while he pretended to be drunk as usual. The boy glanced up at his uncle anxious to warn him, but Mr. Thomas Fright could not have been more aggrieved if he had actually spoken.

"You shut your bleeding trap," growled Uncle Thomas. "I hain't said nothing yet. Well, gemmen, as I vos saying vhen the lad interrupts, I was vith the Dook in the Peninsula. His Lordship chases old Soult and all his Froggies clear acrost Spain from Torres Vedras into France, 'e did. Vot does 'e do next? Does the Dook declare for a monarchy vith hisself as King o' Spain? Not on yer life 'e don't. He got no use for Kings excep' them rotten Georges."

Dangerous talk this. The bargee in drunken confidences had told his son Bill plainly that he would peach to the new police and get Uncle Thomas put away for treason. And yet Bill could not stop his uncle's mouth.

Mr. Fright once more took up his parable.

"I vos the Dook's own sergeant trumpeter at the Battle o' Vaterloo, so I'd ought to know, gents. Boneyparte believes in being a Hemperor. The Dook hain't 'aving any. Vot does 'e do? Does 'e lead Napoleon in chains through Lunnon? Does 'e declare hisself our Hemperor—this 'ero who conquers India, Spain, and Boney? No, 'e don't. Hand why? He hain't no Roman General hain't the Dook. He don't believe in Kings no more nor I do, hand ven it comes to hanging of 'em, gents, I wotes for Villiam!"

So Mr. Thomas Fright continued talking treason. He spoke of the universal flogging, good for boys, but not for soldiers, seamen, convicts, and the like; of merchant sailors kidnaped by the press gangs to man the navy, of little children down in the coalpits harnessed as beasts of burden to haul trucks.

Then Bill remembered what mother said about pit owners offending one of these little ones. It would be better for such owners to have millstones tied to their necks, and be flung into the sea.

Uncle Thomas talked of naked women at the anvil forging chains for convicts; of citizens transported to Botany Bay for poaching a rabbit, condemned to life imprisonment for a few pounds of debt, or hanged outright for a five-pound theft. Such were the liberties for which Englishmen were asked to give their lives in battle, such was the Government demanding loyalty.

Bill had heard all that before. Treason was the religion of low-caste Englishmen, sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion articles of faith for all men oppressed who loved their country. Strong yeast that which leavens a healthy state until men and women are fit for freedom, until the slave becomes a disciplined citizen trained to the sovereign power, able to heal the maladies of the commonwealth. Masters and men alike will tell you any day this thousand years back that the country is going to the Devil. All is well. But, when they are content, look out for the first symptoms of decay.

So England, mother of nations, was in labor then, in that year of grace 1835. If she is still in sorrow, every drop of blood and every tear is a seed sown for mankind. The harvesting shall be in new achievements of freedom, new sciences, greater arts, enlarging revelation.

Yet as respectable folk in church let their attention wander from the sermon, so, while Uncle Thomas preached, Bill thought of other things. Especially his mind concentrated upon his father. Time out of mind the bargeman, like everybody else, enjoyed a drink when he got a chance. Who didn't! Even mother said it was all right.

Mother always said that she managed father quite easily until Uncle Joey got hold of him. And Uncle Joey never knew when to stop. The pair of them took to drinking together, more, so said Uncle Thomas, than was good for anybody.

They were mixed up in business, too, not father's trade of honest smuggling with the barge between Margate and London, but something downright crooked. Father's cargo was bought, but Joey's goods were stolen.

Anybody could see that father didn't like it. When they were drunk, father and Joey were always quarreling.

Then Joey was captured with stolen goods and everybody said that father gave him away. Father certainly turned King's evidence against his brother, so that, excepting Uncle Thomas, nobody would speak to him. He drank alone. He drank harder than ever.

When poor Uncle Joey was hanged, the family in their Sunday clothes attended the show at Tyburn in a hired wagon. The rain completely spoiled their day.

From that time onward—a month it must be now, or even more—while father was busy drinking himself to death, Bill always saw the Shadow. It was not an ordinary shadow. It was not a shadow cast by any light.

It was something awful, a blur in the air, shaped like a man, like Uncle Joey. It went about with father, glided behind him, stooped over him. Father drank because he was frightened of It; and when he drank It sprang upon him from behind, wrapped Its legs and arms about him, sucked at him. Then father craved and screamed for drink, and drank, always with the awful Thing wrapped round him, sucking him. Only when he was dead drunk the Shadow stood behind him watching, waiting.

The ghost of Uncle Joey was murdering father. Every day the awful Thing gained power, and sometimes there were horrible fits which could not be prevented, could not be eased, or stopped. One could only watch.

The Shadow was there now. While Uncle Thomas preached his usual Sunday sermon of high treason, and father crouched there drunk, the Thing was standing behind him in the window frame. It was stooping over him. There was going to be another seizure!

"Uncle Thomas!" Bill cried to Mr. Fright, "Uncle Thomas! Father's going to be took bad!"

Mr. Fright scowled at his nephew. Bill had taken of late to seeing ghosts, or shadows—something unwholesome, anyway. The less one noticed or encouraged him the sooner would he return to his natural ways, and leave the whimsies to his betters, which can afford the same.

Bill watched the Shadow stooping over father, nearer, nearer—Uncle Joey's ghost wrapping long arms round father—riding him, and then passing into him. There! The Shadow was gone in.

Bill cried aloud. "Oh, Uncle, can't you see? You—you are all blind? Look! Look!"

Just as though the spirit of Uncle Joey had captured father's body, so it seemed to be Joey who was waking up, yawning, stretching himself, and rapping knuckles truculent on the table, while in a hoarse whisper he ordered gin. Father's way would have been quite different—a blinking of the eyes, an apologetic grin, a cordial good morning to the gentlemen present, and a polite inquiry, "Did any one say gin?"

Surely, any one with eyes in his head could see that this was Uncle Joey taking a rousing pinch of snuff from the public mull on the table. Father never touched snuff, but always chewed twist tobacco.

Father would have been amiable, but Joey was fierce, with a sharp rasping voice demanding liquor even while he sneezed out the strong snuff.

Yet nobody seemed to see the change, the menace. Mr. Fright was expounding an argument to the bald customer, taking no notice whatever of the deep-throated growl of the drunkard in the window place, who now stood up shouting and threatening.

Bill turned to Mr. Fright. "Uncle Thomas!" he called. "Look out!—look out!"

"Vot's up?" asked Uncle Thomas, and went on counting on his fingers the heads of the argument. "And thirdly——"

"Look!" Bill screamed his final warning.

Father—or was it Uncle Joey?—had left his seat, was reeling drunkenly across the room, then banging his fists on the bar, demanding a bottle of gin, "and look sharp abart it, Marster!" Uncle Joey used to call him "Marster," in sarcasm of his successful brother the publican.

Uncle Thomas waved him away. "Not a drop," he said over his shoulder; "you'd better have another sleep, James. As I was a saying——"

The drunkard snatched a bottle of rum, splashed out a tumblerful, and poured it down his throat, then dashed the heavy glass in his brother's face.

Bill ran to interfere, to restrain his father, but somehow he was terrified and dared not touch him. There was something uncanny, horrible, from which he shrank.

The landlord's forehead showed a long bright gash, then spurting blood which blinded him, even as he vaulted across the bar. But the other, the maniac, had seized an oaken trivet stool, and laid about him, screaming, froth at his lips, demoniac rage convulsing his face—was it not Uncle Joey's voice, his face?—while he brought the weapon down on his brother's head.

The door behind the bar had opened, and Bill's mother stood there, a gaunt, gray, weather-beaten, haggard woman dressed in rusty black silk, a poke bonnet, lace mittens, Sunday best; and in her hand was a Bible stamped on the cover with a large gold cross. As she came round the end of the counter, she held out that cross, as though it could protect her from the maniac, who turned brandishing the stool to beat her brains out. Without showing the least fear she held the cross before his eyes, and at the sight of it he seemed to shrink away. He even tried to protect himself with the stool. He, not the woman, was afraid, and she pressed him backwards until he came against the deal table which stood in the middle of the room.

"Get out, you beast—get out, I say—get out, Joey, thou body-snatching devil!"

It seemed to the people as though James, her husband, died. The stool crashed to the floor, the light went out of the man's writhen face. The bargeman's body collapsed in a heap.

The woman sank down on the floor, shaking all over in abject terror, sobbing hysterically. "Bill," she wailed, "go thou—warm water—bandages—for Thomas——"

"All right, mother." Bill bent down, petting her. "Keep yer hair on, mother."

She went off in screaming hysterics.

II

In due time Mr. Fright was bandaged and put in the feather bed upstairs, Mr. James Fright, still unconscious, hoisted on board his barge and dropped down the cabin hatch, then Bill and his mother joined the family and their guests in the kitchen, where there was Sunday dinner. It was a very proper dinner, of beef roast on the spit, pudding served in the gravy, potatoes and cabbage in heaps, and beer by gallons. Afterwards, while the slavey washed up, and the diners slept it off, Bill took his mother in the wherry and pulled across the Thames to the Southwark shore. It was but a mile walk to Bedlam, and maybe another mile beyond to open country, but Bill, who had eaten heartily and wore thigh boots, found it heavy going, while the woman seemed only refreshed by the slight exercise. The golden autumn sunshine, blue pools of shadow under elm trees, the cattle standing drowsy in the shade, the buzz and murmur of the flies—here was there peace. The mother took her seat against an oak tree, the son lay at her feet, and while the lad was sleeping the woman watched.

III

By most urgent critics I am warned not to be a bigger fool than nature made me, not to be abrupt where the story changes rhythm, and by no means to take it for granted that the average reader is a psychologist.

I promise faithfully, then, that I will not preach, use long words, or be dull as one who takes himself too seriously. I only want to make quite sure that every reader shares with me the tremendous excitement, wonder, and glory of a theme splendid beyond example.

So please be kind, and glance at a few main facts.

A properly grown man has three bodies: the natural body, the soul (or body of desires), and the spirit (or body of pure thought). These have been likened to the vessel, the oil, and the flame of a lamp.

What, then, is life? That is the ray of Consciousness.

In sleep the ray lights up the natural brain but does not control it, so that we have those funny, inconsequent dreams which we remember.

In deep sleep the ray leaves the natural body and lights the spiritual body (soul and spirit), which is then free. The spiritual body may go away and enjoy the most surprising, delightful adventures—the dreams which fade out as we awaken. You see, the natural body was left behind at rest, missed all the fun, and so has nothing to remember.

In waking meditation and clear vision the ray lights up the spirit. "I was in the spirit," says St. John, and so begins his Book of the Revelation.

In the last deep sleep the spiritual body departs from the natural body, and cannot get back into it. That shattered or worn-out machine is scrapped, and the event is the birth of the earth-free Man. We call it death.