Michael McGrath, Postmaster Part 1

Michael McGrath, Postmaster.

by Ralph Connor.

Some men and some scenes so fasten themselves into one's memory that the years, with their crowding scenes and men, have no power to displace them. I can never forget "Ould Michael" and the scene of my first knowing him. All day long I rode, driving in front my pack-pony laden with my photograph kit, tent and outfit, following the trail that would end somewhere on the Pacific Coast, some hundreds of miles away. I was weary enough of dodging round the big trees, pus.h.i.+ng through underbrush, scrambling up and down mountain-sides, hugging cliffs where the trail cut in and wading warily through the roaring torrent of "Sixty-mile Creek." As the afternoon wore on, the trail left the creek and wound away over a long slope up the mountain-side.

"Ginger," said I to my riding pony, "we are getting somewhere"--for our trail began to receive other trails from the side valleys and the going was better. At last it pushed up into the open, circled round a shoulder of the mountain, clinging tight, for the drop was sheer two hundred feet, and--there before us stretched the great Fraser Valley! From my feet the forest rolled its carpet of fir-tops--dark-green, soft, luxurious. Far down to the bottom and up again, in waving curves it swept, to the summit of the distant mountains opposite, and through this dark-green ma.s.s the broad river ran like a silver ribbon gleaming in the sunlight.

Following the line of the trail, my eye fell upon that which has often made men's hearts hard and lured them on to joyous death. There, above the green tree-tops, in a clearing, stood a tall white mast and from the peak, flaunting its lazy, proud defiance, flew a Union Jack.

"Now, Ginger, how in the name of the Empire comes that brave rag to be shaking itself out over these valleys!"

Ginger knew not, but, in answer to my heels, set off at a canter down the slope and, in a few minutes, we reached a gra.s.sy bench that stretched down to the river-bank. On the bench was huddled an irregular group of shacks and cabins and, in front of the first and most imposing of them, stood the tall mast with its floating flag. On the wide platform that ran in front of this log cabin a man was sitting, smoking a short bull-dog pipe. By his dress and style I saw at once that he had served in Her Majesty's army. As I rode up under the flag I lifted my cap, held it high and called out: "G.o.d save the Queen!" Instantly he was on his feet and, coming to attention with a military salute, replied with great fervor: "G.o.d bless her!" From that moment he took me to his heart.

That was my introduction to "Ould Michael," as everyone in the Valley called him, and as he called himself.

After his fifth gla.s.s, when he would become dignified, "Ould Michael"

would drop his brogue and speak of himself as "Sergeant McGrath, late of Her Majesty's Ninety-third Highlanders," Irishman though he was.

Though he had pa.s.sed his sixtieth year, he was still erect and brisk enough in his movement, save for a slight hitch in his left leg. "A touch of a knife," he explained, "in the Skoonder Bag."

"The where?"

"Skoonder Bag, forninst the walls the Lucknow--to the left over, ye understand."

"I'm ashamed to say I don't," I answered, feeling that I was on the track of a yarn.

He looked at me pityingly.

"Ye've heard av Sir Colin?" He was not going to take anything for granted.

I replied hastily: "Sir Colin Campbell, of course."

"Well, we was followin' Sir Colin up to the belagured city when we run into the Skoonder Bag--big stone walls and windys high up, and full av min, like a jail, or a big disthillery."

Then, like a dream from the past, it came to me that he was talking of that b.l.o.o.d.y fight about and in the "Secunderabogh," where, through a breach two feet square, the men of the Ninety-third, man by man, forced their way in the face of a thousand Sepoys, mad for blood and, with their bayonets, piled high in gory heaps the bodies of their black foes, crying with every thrust, in voices hoa.r.s.e with rage and dust, "Cawnpore! Cawnpore!" That tale Ould Michael would never tell till his cups had carried him far beyond the stage of dignity and reserve.

After he had helped me to picket my ponies and pitch my tent, he led me by a little gate through his garden to the side door of the cabin.

The garden was trim, like Ould Michael himself, set out in rectangular beds, by gravel-walks and low-cut hedges of "old man." It was filled with all the dear old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers--Sweet William and Sweet Mary, bachelor's b.u.t.tons, pansies and mignonette, old country daisies and snapdragons and lilies of the valley and, in the centre of the beds, great ma.s.ses of peonies, while all around, peeping from under the hedges of old man, were poppies of every hue. Beyond the garden there was a plot of potatoes, cabbage and other vegetables and, best of all and more beautiful than all, over the whole front of the cabin, completely hiding the rough logs, ran a climbing rose, a ma.s.s of fragrant bloom. Ould Michael lingered lovingly for a moment among his flowers, and then led me into the house.

The room into which we entered was a wonder for preciseness and order.

The walls were decorated with prints, much-faded photographs, stuffed birds, heads of deer and a quaint collection of old-fas.h.i.+oned guns, pistols and bayonets, but all arranged with an exactness and taste that would drive mad the modern artistic decorator. On one side of the window hung a picture of Wellington: on the other, that of Sir Colin. To the right of the clock, on a shelf, stood a stuffed mallard; to the left on a similar shelf, stood a stuffed owl. The same balance was diligently preserved in the arrangement of his weapons of war. A pine table stood against one wall, flanked by a home-made chair on either side. A door opened to the left into a bedroom, as I supposed; another, to the right, into what Ould Michael designated "My office, sir."

"Office?" I inquired.

"Yes, sir," still preserving his manual of ceremony, "Her Majesty's mail for Grand Bend."

"And you are the Postmaster?" I said, throwing into my voice the respect and awe that I felt were expected.

"That same," with a salute.

"That explains the flag, then; you are bound to keep that flying, I suppose."

"Bound, sir? Yes, but by no law is it."

"How, then?"

"For twenty-five years I marched and fought under that same flag," said the old soldier, dropping into his brogue, "and under it, plaze G.o.d, I'll die."

I looked at the old man. In his large dark-blue eyes shone that "fire that never slumbers"--the fire of loyal valor, with its strange power to transform common clay into men of heroic mould. The flag, the garden, the postoffice--these were Ould Michael's household G.o.ds. The equipment of the postoffice was primitive enough.

"Where are the boxes?" I inquired; "the letter-boxes, you know; to put the letters into."

"An' what wud I do puttin' them into boxes, at all?"

"Why, to distribute the mail so that you could find every man's letter when he calls for it."

"An' what would I be doin' findin' a man's letter for him? Shure an'

can't he find it himself on the counter there?" pointing to a wide plank that ran along the wall.

I explained fully the ordinary system of distributing mail to him.

"Indade, 'tis a complicated system intoirely," and then he proceeded to explain his own, which he described as "simple and unpretenshus" and, sure enough, it was; for the letters were strewn upon the top of the counter, the papers and other mail-matter thrown underneath, and every man helped himself to his own.

"But might there not be mistakes?" I suggested. "A man might take his neighbor's letter."

"An' what would he do wid another man's letter forby the discooshun that might enshoo?"

I was very soon to have an opportunity of observing the working of Ould Michael's system, for next day was mailday and, in the early afternoon, men began to arrive from the neighboring valleys for their monthly mail.

Ould Michael introduced me to them all with much ceremony and I could easily see that he was a personage of importance among them. Not only was he, as postmaster, the representative among them of Her Majesty's Government, but they were proud of him as standing for all that was heroic in the Empire's history; for a man who had touched shoulders with those who had fought their way under India's fierce suns and through India's swamps and jungles, from Calcutta to Lucknow and back, was no common citizen, but a man who trailed glory in his wake. More than this, Ould Michael was a friend to all, and they loved him for his simple, generous heart. Too generous, as it turned out, for every month it was his custom to summon his friends to Paddy Dougan's bar and spend the greater part of the monthly remittance that came in his letter from home. That monthly letter should be placed in the category of household G.o.ds with the flag, the garden and the postoffice. Its arrival was always an occasion for celebration--not for the remittance it contained, but for the wealth of love and tender memory it brought to Ould Michael in this far-off land.

Late in the afternoon, just before the arrival of the mail-stage, there rode up the bench towards the postoffice a man remarkable even in that company of remarkable men. He was tall--a good deal over six feet--spare, bony, with huge hands and feet and evidently possessed of immense strength. His face and head were covered with a ma.s.s of s.h.a.ggy hair--brick-red mixed with grey--and out of this ma.s.s of grizzled hair gleamed two small grey eyes, very bright and very keen.

"Howly mither av Moses!" shouted Ould Michael rus.h.i.+ng towards him; "'tis McFarquhar. My friend, Mr. McFarquhar," said Ould Michael, presenting me in his most ceremonious style and standing at attention.

McFarquhar took my hand in his paw and gave me a grasp so cordial that, were it not for the shame of it, I would have roared out in agony.

"I am proud to make the acquaintance of you," he said, with a strong highland accent. "You will be a stranger in these parts?"

I told him as much of my history and affairs as I thought necessary and drew from him as much information about himself and his life as I could, which was not much. He had come to the country a lad of twenty to take service under the Hudson Bay Company. Fifteen years ago had left the Company and had settled in the valley of Grizzly Creek, which empties into the Fraser a little below the Grand Bend. I found out too, but not from himself, that he had married an Indian woman and that, with her and his two boys, he lived the half-savage life of a hunter and rancher. He was famous as a hunter of the grizzly bears that once frequented his valley and, indeed, he bore the name of "Grizzly McFarquhar" among the old-timers.

He was Ould Michael's dearest friend. Many a long hunt had they taken together, and over and over again did they owe their lives to each other. But the hour had now come for the performance of Ould Michael's monthly duty. The opening of the mail was a solemn proceeding. The bag was carried in from the stage by Ould Michael, followed by the entire crowd in a kind of triumphal procession, and reverently deposited upon the counter. The key was taken down from its hook above the window, inserted into the lock, turned with a flourish and then hung up in its place. From his pocket Ould Michael then took a clasp-knife with a wicked-looking, curved blade, which he laid beside the bag. He then placed a pair of spectacles on his nose and, in an impressive manner and amidst dead silence, opened the bag, poured out its contents upon the counter, turned it inside out and carefully shook it. No one in the crowd moved. With due deliberation Ould Michael, with the wicked-looking clasp knife, proceeded to cut the strings binding the various bundles of letters and papers. The papers were then deposited beneath the counter upon the floor, and the letters spread out upon the counter. The last act of the ceremony was the selecting by Ould Michael of his own letter from the pile, after which, with a waive of the hand, he declared, "Gentlemen, the mail is open," when they flung themselves upon it with an eagerness that told of the heart-hunger for news from a far-country that is like cool water to the thirsty soul.

The half-hour that followed the distribution of the mail offered a scene strange and touching. The men who had received letters stood away from the crowd and read them with varying expressions of delight or grief, or in silence that spoke more deeply than could any words. For that half-hour the lonely valleys in these deep forests stood back from them, and there opened up a vision of homes far away, filled with faces and echoing with voices that some of them knew they would never see nor hear again.

But no man ever saw Ould Michael read his letter. That half-hour he spent in his inner room and, when he came out, there was lingering about his face a glory as of a departing vision. The dark-blue eyes were darker than before and in them that soft, abstracted look that one sees in the eye of a child just awakened from sleep. His tongue, so ready at other times, would be silent; and he would move softly over to his friend McFarquhar, and stand there as in a dream. As he came toward us on this occasion, McFarquhar said, in an undertone: "It is good news to-day with Ould Michael," adding in answer to my look of inquiry, "His sister has charge of his little girl at home."

Ould Michael steed in silence beside his friend for some moments.