Legends of the Capilano by E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake)

Author:E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Manitoba Press
Published: 2023-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

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But the spirit of his girl-wife still sings through the canyon, its song blending with the music of that sweetest-voiced river in all the great valleys of the Dry Belt. That is why this laughter, the sobbing murmur of the beautiful Tulameen, will haunt for evermore the ear that has once listened to its song.

THE GREY ARCHWAY

The steamer, like a huge shuttle, wove in and out among the countless small islands; its long trailing scarf of grey smoke hung heavily along the uncertain shores, casting a shadow over the pearly waters of the Pacific, which swung lazily from rock to rock in indescribable beauty.

After dinner I wandered astern with the traveller’s ever-present hope of seeing the beauties of a typical Northern sunset, and by some happy chance I placed my deck-stool near an old tillicum, who was leaning on the rail, his pipe between his thin, curved lips, his brown hands clasped idly, his sombre eyes looking far out to sea, as though they searched the future—or was it that they were seeing the past?

“Kla-how-ya, tillicum!” I greeted.

He glanced round, and half smiled.

“Kla-how-ya, tillicum!” he replied, with the warmth of friendliness I have always met with among the Pacific tribes.

I drew my deck-stool nearer to him, and he acknowledged the action with another half smile, but did not stir from his entrenchment, remaining as if hedged about with an inviolable fortress of exclusiveness. Yet I knew that my Chinook salutation would be a drawbridge by which I might hope to cross the moat into his castle of silence.

Indian-like, he took his time before continuing the acquaintance. Then he began in most excellent English:

“You do not know these northern waters?”

I shook my head.

After many moments he leaned forward, looking along the curve of the deck, up the channels and narrows we were threading, to a broad strip of waters off the port bow. Then he pointed with that peculiar, thoroughly Indian gesture of the palm uppermost.

“Do you see it—over there? The small island? It rests on the edge of the water, like a grey gull.”

It took my unaccustomed eyes some moments to discern it; then all at once I caught its outline, veiled in the mists of distance—grey, cobwebby, dreamy.

“Yes,” I replied, “I see it now. You will tell me of it—tillicum?”

He gave a swift glance at my dark skin, then nodded. “You are one of us,” he said, with evidently no thought of a possible contradiction. “And you will understand, or I should not tell you. You will not smile at the story, for you are one of us.”

“I am one of you, and I shall understand,” I answered.

It was a full half-hour before we neared the island, yet neither of us spoke during that time; then, as the “grey gull” shaped itself into rock and tree and crag, I noticed in the very centre a stupendous pile of stone lifting itself skyward, without fissure or cleft; but a peculiar haziness about the base made me peer narrowly to catch the perfect outline.

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