In the Wrong Paradise, and Other StoriesLang, Andrew
Science
In the Wrong Paradise, and Other Stories
Lang, Andrew
Paranormal fiction; Science fiction, English; Short stories; Slavery -- Fiction
a missionary among the Red Men in Canada; but I had neither heard of his
death nor could conceive how his shade had found its way into a paradise
so inappropriate as that in which I encountered him. Though never very
fond of Peter, my heart warmed to him, as the heart sometimes does to an
acquaintance unexpectedly met in a strange land. Coming cautiously
behind him, I slapped Peter on the shoulder, whereon he leaped up with a
wild unearthly yell, his countenance displaying lively tokens of terror.
When he recognized me he first murmured, "I thought it was these
murdering Apaches again;" and it was long before I could soothe him, or
get him to explain his fears, and the circumstance of his appearance in
so strange a final home. "Sir," said Peter, "it's just some terrible
mistake. For twenty years was I preaching to these poor painted bodies
anent heaven and hell, and trying to win them from their fearsome notions
about a place where they would play at the ba' on the Sabbath, and the
like shameful heathen diversions. Many a time did I round it to them
about a far, far other place--
"Where congregations ne'er break up,
And sermons never end!"
And now, lo and behold, here I am in their heathenish Gehenna, where the
Sabbath-day is just clean neglected; indeed, I have lost count myself,
and do not know one day from the other. Oh, man, it's just rideec'lous.
A body--I mean a soul--does not know where to turn." Here Peter, whose
accent I cannot attempt to reproduce (he was a Paisley man), burst into
honest tears. Though I could not but agree with Peter that his situation
was "just rideec'lous," I consoled him as well as I might, saying that a
man should make the best of every position, and that "where there was
life there was hope," a sentiment of which I instantly perceived the
futility in this particular instance. "Ye do not know the worst," the
Rev. Mr. McSnadden went on. "I am here to make them sport, like Samson
among the Philistines. Their paradise would be no paradise to them if
they had not a pale-face, as they say, to scalp and tomahawk. And I am
that pale-face. Before you can say 'scalping-knife' these awful Apaches
may be on me, taking my scalp and other leeberties with my person. It
grows again, my scalp does, immediately; but that's only that they may
take it some other day." The full horror of Mr. McSnadden's situation
now dawned upon me, but at the same time I could not but perceive that,
without the presence of some pale-face to torture--Peter or
another--paradise would, indeed, be no paradise to a Red Indian. In the
same way Tertullian (or some other early Father) has remarked that the
pleasures of the blessed will be much enhanced by what they observe of
the torments of the wicked. As I was reflecting thus two wild yells
burst upon my hearing. One came from a band of Apache spirits who had
stolen into the Ojibbeway village; the other scream was uttered by my
unfortunate friend.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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