The Hunted Outlaw
A >>
Anonymous >> The Hunted Outlaw
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG
Distributed Proofreaders from images generously made available
by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions
THE
HUNTED OUTLAW;
OR
DONALD MORRISON,
THE CANADIAN ROB ROY
_"Truth is stranger than Fiction."_
PROLOGUE.
Psychology strips the soul and, having laid it bare, confidently
classifies every phase of its mentality. It has the spring of every
emotion carefully pigeon-holed; it puts a mental finger upon every
passion; it maps out the soul into tabulated territories of feeling; and
probes to the earliest stirrings of motive.
A crime startles the community. The perpetrator is educated, wise,
enjoys the respect of his fellows. His position is high: his home is
happy: he has no enemies.
Psychology is stunned. The deed is incredible. Of all men, this was the
last who could be suspected of mental aberration. The mental diagnosis
decreed him healthy. He was a man to grace society, do credit to
religion, and leave a fair and honored name behind him.
The tabulation is at fault.
The soul has its conventional pose when the eyes of the street are upon
it. Psychology's plummet is too short to reach those depths where motive
has its sudden and startling birth.
Life begins with the fairest promise, and ends in darkness.
It is the unexpected that stuns us.
Heredity, environment and temperament lead us into easy calculations
of assured repose and strength, and permanency of mental and moral
equilibrium.
The act of a moment makes sardonic mockery of all our predictions.
The whole mentality is not computable.
Look searchingly at happiness, and note with sadness that a tear stains
her cheek.
A dark, sinister thread runs through the web of life.
CHAPTER I.
"Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys and destiny obscure,
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor." _Gray_.
The Counties of Compton and Beauce, in the Province of Quebec, were
first opened up to settlement about fifty years ago. To this spot a
small colony of Highlanders from the Skye and Lewis Islands gravitated.
They brought with them the Gaelic language, a simple but austere
religion, habits of frugality and method, and aggressive health. That
generation is gone, or almost gone, but the essential characteristics of
the race have been preserved in their children. The latter are generous
and hospitable, to a fault. Within a few miles of the American frontier,
the forces of modern life have not reached them. Shut in by immense
stretches of the dark and gloomy "forest primeval," they live drowsily
in a little world where passions are lethargic, innocence open-eyed, and
vice almost unknown. Science has not upset their belief in Jehovah. God
is real, and somewhat stern, and the minister is his servant, to be
heard with respect, despite the appalling length of his sermons.
Sincerely pious, the people mix their religion with a little whiskey,
and the blend appears to give satisfaction. The farmers gather at the
village inn in the evening, and over a "drap o' Scotch" discuss the
past. As the stimulant works, generous sentiments are awakened in the
breast; and the melting songs of Robbie Burns--roughly rendered, it may
be--make the eye glisten. This is conviviality; but it has no relation
to drunkenness. Every household has its family altar; and every night,
before retiring to rest, the family circle gather round the father or
the husband, who devoutly commends them to the keeping of God.
The common school is a log hut, built by the wayside, and the
"schoolmarm" is not a pretentious person. But, what the school cannot
supply, a long line of intelligent, independent ancestors have supplied,
robust, common sense and sagacity.
Something of the gloom and sternness of the forest, something of the
sadness which is a conscious presence, is in their faces. Their humor
has a certain savor of grimness. For the rest, it may be said that they
are poor, and that they make little effort to be anything else. They do
a little farming and a little lumbering. They get food and clothing,
they are attached to their homesteads, and the world with all its
tempting possibilities passes them by. The young people seek the States,
but even they return, and end their days in the old home. They marry,
and get farms, and life moves with even step, the alternating seasons,
with their possibilities, probably forming their deepest absorptions. It
remains only to be said that, passionately attached to the customs, the
habits of thought of their forefathers, the Highlanders of the Lake
Megantic region are intensely clannish. Splendidly generous, they would
suffer death rather than betray the man who had eaten of their salt.
Eminently law-abiding, they would not stretch out a hand to deprive of
freedom one who had thrown himself upon their mercy.
CHAPTER II.
DONALD MORRISON APPEARS ON THE SCENE.
Life, could we only be well assured of it, is at the best when it is
simple. The woods of Lake Megantic in the summer cast a spell upon the
spirit. They are calm and serene, and just a little sad. They invite to
rest, and their calm strength and deep silence are a powerful rebuke to
passion.
Amongst the deep woods of Marsden, Donald Morrison spent his young
years. His parents were in fairly comfortable circumstances, as the term
is understood in Compton. Donald was a fair-haired boy, whose white
forehead his mother had often kissed in pride as she prepared him, with
shining morning face, for the village school. Donald was the pride of
the village. Strong for his years and self-assertive, the boys feared
him. Handsome and fearless, and proud and masterful, his little girl
school-mates adored him. They adored him all the more that he thought it
beneath his boyish dignity to pay them attention. This is true to all
experience. Donald was passionate. He could not brook interference. He
even thus early, when he was learning his tablets at the village school,
developed those traits, the exercise of which, in later life, was to
make his name known throughout the breadth of the land. Generous and
kind-hearted to a degree, his impatience often hurried him into actions
which grieved his parents. He was generally in hot water at school. He
fought, and he generally won, but his cause was not always right. He was
supple, and he excelled in the village games.
CHAPTER III.
A LITTLE GIRL WITH YELLOW HAIR.
Minnie Duncan went to the same school with Donald. She was a shy little
thing with big brown eyes, which looked at you wistfully, and a mass
of yellow hair, which the sun in the summer mornings loved to burnish.
Minnie at the age of ten felt drawn to Donald, as timid women generally
feel drawn toward masterful men, ignoring the steadier love of gentler
natures. Donald had from the start constituted himself her protector
in a lordly way. He had once resented a belittling remark which a
schoolmate had used towards her, by soundly thrashing the urchin who
uttered it. Minnie pitied the lad, but she secretly adored Donald. He
was her hero. Donald was good enough to patronize her. Minnie was too
humble to resent this attitude. Was he not handsome and strong, with
fearless blue eyes; were not all her little girl companions jealous of
her? Did he not go to and come from school with her and carry her books?
Above all, had he not done battle in her behalf?
Minnie Duncan was the only daughter of John and Mary Duncan, who lived
close to the Morrisons', upon a comfortable farm. She was dearly loved,
and she returned the affection bestowed upon her with the beautiful
_abandon_ of that epoch when the tide of innocent trust and love is
at the full. They had never expressed their hopes in relation to her
future; but the wish of their hearts was that she might grow into a
modest, God-fearing woman, find a good farmer husband, and live and die
in the village.
CHAPTER IV.
"MINNIE, MINNIE," SHE SAID, "I MUST GUARD MY SECRET."
Donald Morrison was now twenty-three. The promise of his boyhood had
been realized. He was well made, with sinews like steel. He had a blonde
moustache, clustering hair, a well shaped mouth, firm chin. His blue
eyes had a proud, fearless look. The schoolmarm had taught Donald the
three "R's"; he had read a little when he could spare the money for
books; and at the period we are now dealing with he was looked up to
by all in the village as a person of superior knowledge. His youth and
young manhood had been spent working upon his father's farm. Latterly he
had been working upon land which his father had given him, in the hope
that he would marry and settle down. He had become restless. The village
was beginning to look small, and he asked himself with wonderment how
he had been content in it so long. The work was hard and thankless. Was
this life? Was there nothing beyond this? Was there not not a great
world outside the forest? What was this? Was it not stagnation? The
woods--yes, the woods were beautiful, but why was it they made him sad?
Why was it that when the sun set against the background of the purple
line of trees, he felt a lump in his throat? Why, when he walked along
the roads in the summer twilight, did the sweet silence oppress him?
He could not tell. He knew that he wanted away. He longed to be in the
world of real men and women, where joy and suffering, and the extremest
force of passion had active play.
Minnie was now a schoolmarm--neat and simple, and sweet. Her figure was
slender, and her hair a deep gold, parted simply in the centre, brought
over the temples in crisp waves, and wound into a single coil behind.
Her head was small and gracefully poised; her teeth as white as
milk, because they had never experienced the destructive effects of
confectionery; her cheeks, two roses in their first fresh bloom, because
she had been reared upon simple food; her figure, slight, supple and
well proportioned. She was eighteen. Her beautiful brown eyes wore a
sweetly serious look. She had thought as a woman. She was pious, but
somehow when she wandered through the woods, and noted how the wild
flowers smiled upon her, and listened to the birds as they shook their
very throats for joy, she could only think of the love, not the anger of
God. God was good. His purpose was loving. How warm and beautiful and
sweet was the sun! The sky was blue, and was there not away beyond the
blue a place where the tears that stained the cheek down here would be
all wiped away? Sorrow! Oh, yes, there was sorrow here, and somehow, the
dearest things we yearned for were denied us. There were heavy burdens
to bear, and life's contrasts were agonizing, and faith staggered a
little; but when Minnie went to the woods with these thoughts, and
looked into the timid eye of the violet, she said to herself softly,
"God is love."
A simple creature, you see, and not at all clever. I doubt if she had
ever heard of Herbert Spencer, much less read his works. If you had told
that she had been evolved from a jelly-fish, her brown eyes would only
have looked at you wonderingly. You would have conveyed nothing to her.
I must tell you that Minnie was romantic. The woods had bred in her the
spirit of poetry. She loved during the holidays to go to the woods with
a book, and, seating herself at the foot of a tree, give herself up
to dreams--of happy, innocent love, and of calm life, without cloud,
blessed by the smile of heaven.
Love is a sudden, shy flame. Love is a blush which mounts to the cheek,
and then leaves it pale. Love is the trembling pressure of hands which,
for a delicious moment, meet by stealth. Love is sometimes the deep
drawn sigh, the languor that steeps the senses, the sudden trembling
to which no name can be given. Minnie was in love. The hero of her
childhood was the hero of her womanhood. She loved Donald modestly but
passionately; but she constantly said to herself in terror, "Oh, Minnie,
Minnie, you must take care; guard your secret; never betray yourself."
CHAPTER V.
LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM.
"Oh, happy love, where love like this is found!
Oh, heart-felt raptures, bliss beyond compare!
I've paced this weary mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare,
If heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale,
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale."
Donald and Minnie had grown up together. They had shared in the social
life of the village. They had been to little parties together. They had
gone to the same church, sat in the same pew, sang the psalms from the
same book. They had walked out together in the summer evenings, and both
had felt the influence of the white moonlight which steeped the trees
along the Marsden road. They had, so to say, appropriated each other,
and yet there had been no word of love between them. They had spoken
freely to each other; their hands had touched, and both had thrilled at
the contact, and yet they were only friends! The village had settled it
that they were lovers and that they would be married, and felt satisfied
with its own decision, because both were popular.
It was a summer afternoon, and they were in the woods together. Minnie
had a basket for wild strawberries. None had been gathered. They were
seated at the trunk of a tree. Donald had told her that he thought of
leaving the country, and she felt stunned. Her heart stopped. She became
as pale as death.
"Yes, Minnie," he said, "I am tired of this life. I want away. I want to
push my fortune. What is there here for me? What future is there for me?
I want to go to the States. I can get along there. This life is too dull
and narrow, and all the young fellows have left."
"Perhaps I feel too that it is a little dull, Donald," Minnie said, "but
not being a man, I suppose desires like yours would seem improper When
you go," and her voice trembled a little, "I will feel the dullness all
the more keenly."
"And do you think it will not cost me an effort to sever our
friendship?" Donald said with emotion; "we have been playmates in
childhood and friends in riper years. I have been so accustomed to you
that to leave you will seem like moving into darkness out of sunlight.
Minnie," he went on, taking her hand, and speaking with fervor, "can
we only be friends? We say that we are friends; but in my heart I have
always loved you. When I began to love you I know not. I feel now that I
cannot leave without telling you. Yes, Minnie, I love you, and you only;
and it was the hope of bettering my prospects only to ask you to share
them, that induced me to think of leaving. But I cannot leave without
letting you know what I feel. Just be frank with me, and tell me, do you
return my love? I cannot see your face. What! tears! Minnie, Minnie, my
darling, you do care a little for me!"
She could not look at him, for tears blinded her, but she said, simply,
"Oh, Donald, I have loved you since childhood."
"My own dear Minnie!" He caught her to his breast, and kissed her sweet
mouth, her cheek, her hands and hair. He took off her summer hat, and
smoothed her golden tresses; he pressed his lips to her white forehead,
and called her his darling, his sweet Minnie.
Minnie lay in his arms sobbing, and trembling violently. The restraint
she had imposed on herself was now broken down, and she gave way to the
natural feelings of her heart. She had received the first kisses of
love. She was thrilled with delight and vague alarm.
"Don't tremble, darling," he said, after a long silence.
"Oh, Donald, I can't help it. What is this feeling? What does it mean?"
It was unconscious passion!
CHAPTER VI.
"SUCH PARTINGS AS CRUSH THE LIFE OUT OF YOUNG HEARTS."
Donald had made up his mind to go West In vain his parents dissuaded
him.
Young love is hopeful, and Donald had pictured reunion in such
attractive guise, that Minnie was half reconciled to his departure.
But the parting was sad.
Donald had spent the last evening at Minnie's parents.
The clock has no sympathy with lovers. It struck the hours
remorselessly. The parting moment had come. Minnie accompanied her lover
to the door. He took her in his arms. He kissed her again and again. He
said hopeful things, and he kissed away her tears. He stroked her hair,
and drew her head upon his breast. They renewed their vows of love.
Minnie said, through her sobs, "God bless you, Donald."
He tore himself away!
CHAPTER VII.
"TO THE WEST, TO THE WEST, THE LAND OF THE FREE."
"Bully for Donald!"
"Thar ain't no flies on him, boys, is thar?"
"Warn't it neat?"
"Knocked him out in one round, too!" The scene was a saloon in Montana.
Six men were gathered round a table playing poker. The light was dim,
the liquor was villainous, and the air was dense with tobacco smoke. It
was a cowboy party, and one of the cowboys was Donald Morrison. He had
adopted the free life of the Western prairies. He had learned to ride
with the grace and shoot with the deadly skill of an Indian.
'Twas a rough life, and he knew it. He mixed but little with the "Boys,"
but the latter respected him for his manly qualities. He was utterly
without fear. Courage is better than gold on the plains of Montana. He
took to the life, partly because it was wild and adventurous, partly
because he found that he could save money at it. The image of Minnie
never grew dim in his heart, and he looked forward to a modest little
home in his native village, graced and sweetened by the presence of a
true woman.
On this night he had yielded to the persuasion of a few of the boys, and
went with them to "Shorty's" saloon for a game of "keerds."
"Shorty" had a pretty daughter, who was as much out of place amid her
coarse surroundings as violets in a coal mine.
She was quite honest, and she served her father's customers with
modesty. Kitty--that was her name--secretly admired the handsome Donald,
who had always treated her with respect upon the infrequent occasions of
his visits.
On this night, while the party were at cards, "Wild Dick" Minton
entered. He was a desperado, and it was said that he had killed at least
two men in his time.
"Wild Dick" swaggered in, roughly greeted the party, called for drink,
and sat down in front of a small table close to the card players.
Kitty served him with the drink.
"Well, Kitty," he said with coarse gallantry, "looking sort o' purty
to-night, eh? Say, gimme a kiss, won't yer?"
Kitty blushed crimson with anger, but said nothing.
"Wild Dick" got up and took her chin in his hand.
"How dare you?" she said, stamping her foot with indignation.
"My! how hoighty-toighty we are! Well, if yer won't give a feller a
kiss, I must take it," and Dick put his arm round her waist, and drew
her towards him.
At that moment Donald, who had been watching his behaviour with
increasing disgust and anger, leaped up, caught him by the throat with
his left hand, and exclaimed: "Let her go, you scoundrel, or I'll thrash
the life out of you."
Without a word Dick whipped out his shooter from his hip pocket;
Donald's companions leaped from the table, concluding at once there
was going to be blood, while "Old Shorty" ducked behind the counter in
terror.
Kitty stood rooted to the spot, expecting to see her defender fall at
her feet with a bullet through his brain or heart.
Donald, the moment that Dick pulled out the pistol, grasped the arm that
held it as with a vice with his right hand, and, letting go his hold, of
his throat, with his left he wrenched the weapon from him.
Then he dealt him a straight blow in the face that felled him like an
ox.
Dick rose to his feet with murder in his eyes.
With a cry of rage he rushed upon Donald. The latter had learned to box
as well as shoot. He was quite calm, though very pale. He waited for
the attack, and then, judging his opportunity, let out his left with
terrific force. The blow struck Dick behind the ear, and he fell to the
ground with a heavy thud.
He rose to his feet, muttered something about _his_ time coming, and
slunk out.
Donald's victory over "Wild Dick," who was regarded as a bully, was
hailed in the exclamations which head this chapter.
Donald never provoked a quarrel, but, once engaged, he generally came
out victorious.
His prowess soon became bruited abroad, and he had the goodwill of all
the wild fellows of that wild region.
CHAPTER VIII.
HARD TIMES AT HOME.
Life is hard in the Megantic district. A very small portion of the land
is susceptible of cultivation. The crops are meagre, and when the family
is provided for, there is very little left to sell off the farm. Money
is scarce. There is very little to be made in lumber.
When Donald went away there was a debt against his farm. He sent from
time to time what he could spare to wipe it off. But the times were bad.
Donald's father got deeper into debt. The outlook was not encouraging.
"I wish Donald would come home," the old man frequently muttered. "I
wish he would," his mother would say, and then she would cry softly to
herself.
Poverty is always unlovely.
Too often it is crime!
CHAPTER IX.
"Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care."
"DEAREST DONALD,--I received your kind letter. That you are doing well,
and saving money for the purpose you speak of, it is pleasant to hear.
That you still love me is what is dearest to my heart. I may confess
in this letter what I could scarcely ever say in your presence, that
I think of you always. All our old walks are eloquent of the calm and
happy past. When I sit beneath the tree where I first learned that you
cared for me, my thoughts go back, and I can almost hear the tones of
your voice. I feel lonely sometimes. Your letters are a great solace. If
I feel a little sad I go to my room, and unburden my heart to Him who is
not indifferent even to the sparrow's fall. Sometimes the woods seem
mournful, and when the wind, in these autumn evenings, wails through the
pines, I don't know how it is, but I feel tears in my eyes.
"And now, Donald, what I am going to tell you will surprise you. We are
going away to Springfield, in Massachusetts. A little property has been
left father there, and he is going to live upon it. Location does not
affect feeling. My heart is yours wherever I may be.
"God bless you, dearest.
"Your own
"MINNIE."
Donald read this letter thoughtfully.
"My father going to the bad, and Minnie going away," he muttered.
He rose from his seat, and walked the narrow room in which he lodged.
"I will go home," he said.
CHAPTER X.
"BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE, THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME."
Donald Morrison is back to the simple life of Marsden again. Five years
had changed him enormously. His figure had always promise of athletic
suppleness. It was now splendidly compact. He left the type of the
conventional farmer. He returned the picturesque embodiment of the far
West. Perhaps, in his long locks, wide sombrero, undressed leggings, and
prodigal display of shooting irons, there may have been a theatrical
suggestion of Buffalo Bill.
The village folk accepted him with intense admiration. Here was
something new to study. Had Donald not been to the great and wonderful
Far West, so much the more fascinating because nobody knew anything
about it? Had he not shot the buffalo roaming the plains? Had he not
mingled in that wild life which, without moral lamp-posts, allures
all the more because of a certain flavoring spice of deviltry? Every
farmer's son in Marsden, Gould, Stornaway, and Lake Megantic, envied
Donald that easy swaggering air, that frank, perhaps defiant outlook,
which the girls secretly adored. Is it the village maiden alone who
confesses to a secret charm in dare-devilism? Let the social life of
every garrison city answer. The delicately nurtured lady's heart throbs
beneath lace and silk, and that of the village girl beneath cotton, but
the character of the emotion is the same.
"Oh, Donald, Donald, my dear son!"
Withered arms were round his neck, and loving lips pressed his cheek.
Donald's home-coming had been a surprise. He had sent no word to
his parents. His mother was sitting in the kitchen, when he entered
unannounced. For a moment she did not know him, but a mother's love is
seldom at fault. A second glance was enough. It passed over Donald the
bronzed and weather-beaten man, and reached to Donald the curly-headed
lad, whose sunny locks she had brushed softly when preparing him for
school.
"Yes, mother," said Donald, tenderly returning her greeting, "I am back
again. I intend to settle down. Father's letter showed me that things
were not going too well, and I thought I would come home and help to
straighten them out a bit. I have had my fill of wandering, and now I
think I would like to live quietly in the old place where I was born,
among the friends and the scenes which are endeared to me by past
associations."