CHAPTER VIII.
KNAVES' VILLAGE.
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A WEEK after, on the 26th of May, our party had reached the springs of the Fraser. Night and day the rain had kept coming down, but this bad weather should soon come to a stop, so said the Indian guide.
A détour round the springs of the river, through a somewhat hilly country, and the Fair Rambler now turned due west.
A few days more and Mr. Cascabel would be at the Alaska frontier.
For a week past, not a village, not a hamlet had been seen along the track selected by Ro-No. Indeed they had every reason to prize the services of this native; he knew the country thoroughly.
On that day, the guide informed Mr. Cascabel that he might, if he chose, halt at a village, a short distance off, where twenty-four hours' rest would not be thrown away on his horses, overworked as they had been.
“What is this village?” inquired Mr. Cascabel, always distrustful when the Columbian population was in question.
“Kokwin village,” replied the guide.
“Kokwin?” exclaimed Mr. Cascabel. “That, in French, would be Knaves' Village.”
“Yes,” said John, “such is the name given in the map; it must be the name of some Indian tribe.”
“Very well! very well! Not so many explanations,” answered Mr. Cascabel. “A most suitable name it is for that village, if it is inhabited by English people, were it but by a half dozen of them!”
In the course of the evening, the Fair Rambler did halt at the entrance into the village. Three days at most now separated it from the geographical frontier between Alaska and Columbia.
Thenceforth Mr. Cascabel would speedily recover that happy temper of his, so severely tried on the territory of her Britannic Majesty.
Knaves' Village was occupied by Indians; but there were not a few Englishmen, professional huntsmen or mere amateurs, who stayed here only during the hunting season.
Among the officers of the Victoria garrison, who happened to be there, was a baronet, Sir Edward Turner by name, a haughty personage and a bully, infatuated with the magical power of his nationality,—one of those “gentlemen” who imagine anything is lawful for them, because of their being Englishmen. Needless to say he hated the French quite as much as Mr. Cascabel hated his countrymen. These two were a match, it is evident.
Now the very evening on which the halt took place, while John, Sander, and Clovy were gone in search of provisions, it happened that the baronet's dogs fell in with Wagram and Marengo in the vicinity of the Fair Rambler and it was apparent that the two French bow-wows shared the national antipathies of their master.
Hence a disagreement between the spaniel and the poodle on one hand, and the pointers on the other; hence a good deal of barking and snarling, then a regular fight, and finally the intervention of the respective owners.
On hearing the noise, Sir Edward had rushed out of the house which he tenanted on the outskirt of the village, and threatened Mr. Cascabel's dogs with his whip.
The latter immediately found a protector in their master, who made straightway for the baronet.
Sir Edward Turner—he spoke very good French—soon found out the kind of a man he had to deal with, and breaking open the flood-gates of his arrogance, began to treat, à la British, our showman in particular and his countrymen in general.
Mr. Cascabel's feelings, on hearing such language, may easily be imagined. However, as he had no wish—especially in an English country—to get into difficulties which might delay his journey, he bit his lips and said in a tone of voice in no way objectionable:
“It was your dogs, sir, that began to attack mine!”
“Your dogs!” sneered the baronet. “A showman's curs!—What are they good for but to be snarled at by my pointers or cut by my whip!”
“I'll pray you to observe,” said Mr. Cascabel, warming up despite his intention to keep cool, “that what you say there is unworthy of a gentleman!”
“Still, what I say is the only answer that one of your sort deserves.”
“I speak politely, sir,—you prove yourself but a cad.”
“I advise you to take care, you who bandy words with Sir Edward Turner.”
Mr. Cascabel filled with passion; with blanched cheeks, eyes aglow, and clenched fists, he was stepping up to the baronet, when Napoleona stood by him:
“Father, do come!” said she. “Mamma wants you!”
Cornelia had sent her daughter to fetch Mr. Cascabel home to the Fair Rambler.
“Presently!” replied the father. “Tell mamma to wait till I have done with this gentleman, Napoleona!”
At the mention of this name, the baronet indulged in a sarcastic peal of laughter,
“Napoleona!” he repeated, “Napoleona!—That little lass is called after the monster who—”
This was more than Mr. Cascabel could bear. He stepped forward until his folded arms grazed the baronet's chest.
“You insult me!” cried he.
“I insult you,—you?”
“Yes, me, as well as the great man who would have made but one mouthful of your island if he had only landed there!”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, would have gobbled it up like an oyster!”
“Contemptible clown!” exclaimed the baronet.
And he had moved one step back in the attitude of the boxer who stands on the defensive.
“Yes, you do insult me, Mr. Baronet, and you shall give me an account of it.”
“Settle accounts with a showman!”
“When you insulted the showman, you made him your equal, sir. And fight we shall, with the sword or the pistol, anything you like,—even with our fists!”
“Why not with bladders like the clowns on your trestles?”
“Ready, sir—”
“Can I have a fight with a tramp?”
“Yes!” shouted Cascabel, beside himself with rage, “yes! a fight—or a sound drubbing!”
And without minding that he was likely to have heavy odds against him in a boxing encounter with his “gentlemanly” opponent, he was about to dash at him, when Cornelia herself intervened.
At the same time appeared some officers of Sir Edward Turner's regiment, his hunting companions; they naturally sided with the baronet, determined as they were not to permit im to measure himself with a fellow of that “tribe,” and heaped their insults on the Cascabel family. Indeed these insults were powerless to move the self-composed Cornelia—at least outwardly. She contented herself with throwing on Sir Edward Turner a glance that was anything but reassuring for the man who had insulted her husband.
John, Clovy, and Sander had also appeared on the scene, and the dispute would have degenerated into a general battle, when Mrs. Cascabel cried out:
“Come, Cæser; come along, children!—Now then, all of us to the Fair Rambler, and quicker than that!”
There was such an imperative ring in the tone of her voice, that no one thought of disobeying the order.
What an evening Mr. Cascabel spent! His anger could not cool down! He, touched in his honor, touched in the person of his hero! Insulted by an Englishman! He would go to him, he would fight him, he would fight all his companions, and all the knaves of Knaves' Village! And his children were but too ready to go and back him. Clovy himself talked of nothing short of eating an Englishman's nose,—unless it were his ear!
In truth, Cornelia found it no easy task to calm down all her enraged folks. In her heart, she knew that all the wrong was on Sir Edward Turner's side; she could not deny that her husband first, and every member of the family after him, had received such treatment as showmen of the lowest type would not give each other at a fair!
Still, as she would not let matters grow worse, she would not give in; she showed a bold front to the storm, and when he expressed what she thought would be his final determination to go and give the baronet such a drubbing as would,—she said to him:
“Cæser, I forbid you!”
And Mr. Cascabel, gnawing his heart, had to yield to his wife's command.
How Cornelia longed to see the dawn of the next day, when they would leave the unlucky village! She would not feel easy until her family would be a few miles farther to the north. And, so as to be sure that nobody would leave the wagon during the night, not only did she carefully lock the door of the Fair Rambler but she mounted guard outside, herself.
The next day, the 27th of May, at three in the morning, Cornelia awoke the whole troupe. By way of greater safety, she was anxious to be off before dawn, when all the villagers, Indians or Englishmen, would still be sleeping. This was the best way to prevent a fresh resuming of hostilities. Even at that early hour—a detail worth noticing—the good woman seemed in a singular hurry to raise the camp. All agitation, with anxious features and beaming eyes, prying to the right and to the left, she urged, harassed, and scolded her husband, her children, and Clovy, who were not half quick enough to please her.
“In how many days shall we have crossed the frontier?” she asked of the guide.
“In three days,” replied Ro-No, “if we have no hindrance on the road.”
“Now then, forward, march!” she cried. “And above all, let no one see us going away!”
It should not be imagined that Mr. Cascabel had swallowed the insults thrust down his throat the previous night. Leaving this village without squaring up that little account with the baronet was indeed hard for a Norman, and a patriotic Frenchman, to boot.
“That's what it is,” he kept on repeating, “to set your foot in one of John Bull's possessions.”
Still, longing as he was to run down to the village in the hope of coming across Sir Edward Turner, many though the glances were that he cast toward the closed shutters of the house inhabited by that gentleman, he dared not go away from the terrible Cornelia. Not an instant did she leave his side.
“Where are you going, Cæser?—Cæser, stay where you are!—I forbid you stirring, Cæser!”
Mr. Cascabel heard nothing else. Never had he been so completely under the control of his excellent and self-willed wife.
Fortunately, thanks to oft-repeated injunctions, all preparations were soon completed, and the horses stood ready in the shafts. By four o'clock, the dogs, the monkey and the parrot, the husband, the sons and the daughter, were all secured inside the Fair Rambler, and Cornelia took a seat by the front railing. Then, as soon as Clovy and the guide were ready at the horses' heads, the signal was given for the start.
A quarter of an hour later Knaves' Village had disappeared behind the curtain of tall trees with which it was encircled. It was scarcely daylight. All was silence. Not a living soul was to be seen along the vast plain that stretched forth toward the North.
At last, when it was evident that the departure had been accomplished without attracting the attention of any one in the village, when Cornelia felt perfectly satisfied that neither the Indians nor the English thought of preventing their escape, she heaved a deep sigh of relief, at which her husband felt somewhat hurt.
“How greatly frightened you seemed of those people, Cornelia!” he remarked.
“Yes, greatly,” was her simple reply.
The next three days passed by without any incident, and,
as the guide had said, the extreme end of Columbia was
reached.
And having safely crossed the Alaska frontier, the Fair Rambler was now at liberty to rest.
Once there, the travelers had only to pay off the Indian, who had proved as zealous as faithful, and to thank him for his services. Then Ro-No took leave of the family, after explaining the course they should follow to reach Sitka, the capital of the Russian possessions, as speedily as possible.
Now that he was on English soil no longer, Mr. Cascabel should have breathed more freely! Well, it was not so! At the end of three days, he was still under the influence of the exciting scene at Knaves' Village. It still weighed heavily on his chest:
“Look here,” he could not refrain from saying to Cornelia, “you should indeed have let me go back and settle accounts with my English lord—”
“They had been settled before we left, Cæsar!” simply answered Mrs. Cascabel.
And settled they had been, in truth,—settled and squared right even!
During the ensuing night, whilst all her people were asleep at the camp, Cornelia had gone for a stroll round the baronet's house, and perceiving him on his way to the woods to lie in wait for game, she had followed him a few hundred paces. Then, once under cover of the forest, “the champion of the Chicago female encounters” had administered him one of those “floorers” that leave a man sprawling on the ground. Sir Edward Turner, well thrashed and sore, had got on his legs the next morning only, and must have felt for a long time after, unpleasant reminders of his meeting with this amiable woman.
“Oh, Cornelia! Cornelia!” exclaimed her husband, as he pressed her in his arms, “you have avenged my honor. You were worthy, indeed, to be a Cascabel!”