The Call of the North by Stewart Edward White
S >>
Stewart Edward White >> The Call of the North
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8
"Sometimes called the Journey of Death," he explained.
She turned to look him in the eyes, a vague expression of puzzled
fear on her face.
"She has never heard of it," said Ned Trent to himself, and aloud:
"Men who undertake it leave comfort behind. They embrace hunger
and weariness, cold and disease. At the last they embrace death,
and are glad of his coming."
Something in his tone compelled belief; something in his face told
her that he was a man by whom the inevitable hardships of winter
and summer travel, fearful as they are, would be lightly endured.
She shuddered.
"This dreadful thing is necessary?" she asked.
"Alas, yes."
"I do not understand----"
"In the North few of us understand," agreed the young man with a
hint of bitterness seeping through his voice. "The mighty order,
and so we obey. But that is beside the point. I have not told you
these things to harrow you; I have tried to excuse myself for my
actions. Does it touch you a little? Am I forgiven?"
"I do not understand how such things can be," she objected in some
confusion, "why such journeys must exist. My mind cannot
comprehend your explanations."
The stranger leaned forward abruptly, his eyes blazing with the
magnetic personality of the man.
"But your heart?" he breathed.
It was the moment. "My heart--" she repeated, as though bewildered
by the intensity of his eyes, "my heart--ah--yes!"
Immediately the blood rushed over her face and throat in a torrent.
She snatched her eyes away, and cowered back in the corner, going
red and white by turns, now angry, now frightened, now bewildered,
until his gaze, half masterful, half pleading, again conquered
hers. Galen Albret had ceased tapping his chair. In the dim light
he sat, staring straight before him, massive, inert, grim.
"I believe you--" she murmured hurriedly at last. "I pity you!"
She rose. Quick as light he barred her passage.
"Don't! don't!" she pleaded. "I must go--you have shaken me--I--I
do not understand myself----"
"I must see you again," he whispered eagerly. "To-night--by the
guns."
"No, no!"
"To-night," he insisted.
She raised her eyes to his, this time naked of defence, so that the
man saw down through their depths into her very soul.
"Oh," she begged, quivering, "let me pass. Don't you see--I'm
going to cry!"
Chapter Six
For a moment Ned Trent stared through the darkness into which
Virginia had disappeared. Then he turned a troubled face to the
task he had set himself, for the unexpectedly pathetic results of
his fantastic attempt had shaken him. Twice he half turned as
though to follow her. Then shaking his shoulders he bent his
attention to the old man in the shadow of the chair.
He was given no opportunity for further speech, however, for at the
sound of the closing door Galen Albret's impassivity had fallen
from him. He sprang to his feet. The whole aspect of the man
suddenly became electric, terrible. His eyes blazed; his heavy
brows drew spasmodically toward each other; his jaws worked,
twisting his beard into strange contortions; his massive frame
straightened formidably; and his voice rumbled from the arch of his
deep chest in a torrent of passionate sound.
"By God, young man!" he thundered, "you go too far! Take heed! I
will not stand this! Do not you presume to make love to my
daughter before my eyes!"
And Ned Trent, just within the dusky circle of lamplight, where the
bold, sneering lines of Ins face stood out in relief against the
twilight of the room, threw back his head and laughed. It was a
clear laugh, but low, and in it were all the devils of triumph, and
of insolence. Where the studied insult of words had failed, this
single cachinnation succeeded. The Trade saw his opponent's eyes
narrow. For a moment he thought the Factor was about to spring on
him.
Then, with an effort that blackened his face with blood, Galen
Albret controlled himself, and fell to striking the call-bell
violently and repeatedly with the palm of his hand. After a moment
Matthews, the English servant, came running in. To him the Factor
was at first physically unable to utter a syllable. Then finally
he managed to ejaculate the name of his bowsman with such violence
of gesture that the frightened servant comprehended by sheer force
of terror and ran out again in search of Me-en-gan.
This supreme effort seemed to clear the way for speech. Galen
Albret began to address his opponent hoarsely in quick, disjointed
sentences, a gasp for breath between each.
"You revived an old legend--_la Longue Traverse_--the myth. It
shall be real--to--you--I will make it so. By God, you shall not
defy me----"
Ned Trent smiled. "You do not deceive me," he rejoined, coolly.
"Silence!" cried the Factor. "Silence!--You shall speak no
more!--You have said enough----"
Me-en-gan glided into the room. Galen Albret at once addressed him
in the Ojibway language, gaining control of himself as he went on.
"Listen to me well," he commanded. "You shall make a count of all
rifles in this place--at once. Let no one furnish this man with
food or arms. You know the story of _la Longue Traverse_. This
man shall take it. So inform my people, I, the Factor, decree it
so. Prepare all things at once--understand, at once!"
Ned Trent waited to hear no more, but sauntered from the room
whistling gayly a boatman's song. His point was gained.
Outside, the long Northern twilight with its beautiful shadows of
crimson was descending from the upper regions of the east A light
wind breathed up-river from the bay. The Free Trader drew his
lungs full of the evening air.
"Just the same, I think she will come," said he to himself. "_La
Longue Traverse_, even at once, is a pretty slim chance. But this
second string to my bow is better. I believe I'll get the
rifle--if she comes!"
Chapter Seven
Virginia ran quickly up the narrow stairs to her own room, where
she threw herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillows.
As she had said, she was very much shaken. And, too, she way
afraid.
She could not understand. Heretofore she had moved among the men
around her, pure, lofty, serene. Now at one blow all this
crumbled. The stranger had outraged her finer feelings. He had
insulted her father in her very presence;--for this she was angry.
He had insulted herself;--for this she was afraid. He had demanded
that she meet him again; but this--at least in the manner he had
suggested--should not happen. And yet she confessed to herself a
delicious wonder as to what he would do next, and a vague desire to
see him again in order to find out. That she could not
successfully combat this feeling made her angry at herself. And so
in mingled fear, pride, anger, and longing she remained until
Wishkobun, the Indian woman, glided in to dress her for the dinner
whose formality she and her father consistently maintained. She
fell to talking the soft Ojibway dialect, and in the conversation
forgot some of her emotion and regained some of her calm.
Her surface thoughts, at least, were compelled for the moment to
occupy themselves with other things. The Indian woman had to tell
her of the silver fox brought in by Mu-hi-ken, an Indian of her own
tribe; of the retort Achille Picard had made when MacLane had
taunted him; of the forest fire that had declared itself far to the
east, and of the theories to account for it where no campers had
been. Yet underneath the rambling chatter Virginia was aware of
something new in her consciousness, something delicious but as yet
vague. In the gayest moment of her half-jesting, half-affectionate
gossip with the Indian woman, she felt its uplift catching her
breath from beneath, so that for the tiniest instant she would
pause as though in readiness for some message which nevertheless
delayed. A fresh delight in the present moment held her, a fresh
anticipation of the immediate future, though both delight and
anticipation were based on something without her knowledge. That
would come later.
The sound of rapid footsteps echoed across the lower hall, a
whistle ran into an air, sung gayly, with spirit;
"J'ai perdu ma maitresse,
Sans l'avoir merite,
Pour un bouquet de roses
Que je lui refusai.
Li ya longtemps que je t'aime,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai!"
She fell abruptly silent, and spoke no more until she descended to
the council-room where the table was now spread for dinner.
Two silver candlesticks lit the place. The men were waiting for
her when she entered, and at once took their seats in the worn,
rude chairs. White linen and glittering silver adorned the
service. Galen Albret occupied one end of the table, Virginia the
other. On either side were Doctor and Mrs. Cockburn; McDonald, the
Chief Trader; Richardson, the clerk, and Crane, the missionary of
the Church of England. Matthews served with rigid precision in the
order of importance, first the Factor, then Virginia, then the
doctor, his wife, McDonald, the clerk, and Crane in due order. On
entering a room the same precedence would have held good. Thus
these people, six hundred miles as the crow flies from the nearest
settlement, maintained their shadowy hold on civilization.
The glass was fine, the silver massive, the linen dainty, Matthews
waited faultlessly: but overhead hung the rough timbers of the
wilderness post, across the river faintly could be heard the
howling of wolves. The fare was rice, curry, salt pork, potatoes,
and beans; for at this season the game was poor, and the fish
hardly yet running with regularity.
Throughout the meal Virginia sat in a singular abstraction. No
conscious thoughts took shape in her mind, but nevertheless she
seemed to herself to be occupied in considering weighty matters.
When directly addressed, she answered sweetly. Much of the time
she studied her father's face. She found it old. Those lines were
already evident which, when first noted, bring a stab of surprised
pain to the breast of a child--the droop of the mouth, the
wrinkling of the temples, the patient weariness of the eyes.
Virginia's own eyes filled with tears. The subjective passive
state into which a newly born but not yet recognized love had cast
her, inclined her to gentleness. She accepted facts as they came
to her. For the moment she forgot the mere happenings of the day,
and lived only in the resulting mood of them all. The new-comer
inspired her no longer with anger nor sorrow, attraction nor fear.
Her active emotions in abeyance, she floated dreamily on the clouds
of a new estate.
This very aloofness of spirit disinclined her for the company of
the others after the meal was finished. The Factor closeted
himself with Richardson. The doctor, lighting a cheroot, took his
way across to his infirmary. McDonald, Crane, and Mrs. Cockburn
entered the drawing-room and seated themselves near the piano.
Virginia hesitated, then threw a shawl over her head and stepped
out on the broad veranda.
At once the vast, splendid beauty of the Northern night broke over
her soul. Straight before her gleamed and flashed and ebbed and
palpitated the aurora. One moment its long arms shot beyond the
zenith; the next it had broken and rippled back like a brook of
light to its arch over the Great Bear. Never for an instant was it
still. Its restlessness stole away the quiet of the evening; but
left it magnificent.
In comparison with this coruscating dome of the infinite the earth
had shrunken to a narrow black band of velvet, in which was nothing
distinguishable until suddenly the sky-line broke in calm
silhouettes of spruce and firs. And always the mighty River of the
Moose, gleaming, jewelled, barbaric in its reflections, slipped by
to the sea.
So rapid and bewildering was the motion of these two great
powers--the river and the sky--that the imagination could not
believe in silence. It was as though the earth were full of
shoutings and of tumults. And yet in reality the night was as
still as a tropical evening. The wolves and the sledge-dogs
answered each other undisturbed; the beautiful songs of the
white-throats stole from the forest as divinely instinct as ever
with the spirit of peace.
Virginia leaned against the railing and looked upon it all. Her
heart was big with emotions, many of which she could not name; her
eyes were full of tears. Something had changed in her since
yesterday, but she did not know what it was. The faint wise stars,
the pale moon just sinking, the gentle south breeze could have told
her, for they are old, old in the world's affairs. Occasionally a
flash more than ordinarily brilliant would glint one of the bronze
guns beneath the flag-staff. Then Virginia's heart would glint
too. She imagined the reflection startled her.
She stretched her arms out to the night, embracing its glories,
sighing in sympathy with its meaning, which she did not know. She
felt the desire of restlessness; yet she could not bear to go. But
no thought of the stranger touched her, for you see as yet she did
not understand.
Then, quite naturally, she heard his voice in the darkness close to
her knee. It seemed inevitable that he should be there; part of
the restless, glorious night, part of her mood. She gave no start
of surprise, but half closed her eyes and leaned her fair head
against a pillar of the veranda. He sang in a sweet undertone an
old chanson of voyage.
"Par derrier ches man pere,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Par derrier' chez mon pere
Li-ya-t-un, pommier doux."
"Ah lady, lady mine," broke in the voice softly, "the night too is
sweet, soft as thine eyes. Will you not greet me?"
The girl made no sign. After a moment the song went on,
"Trois filles d'un prince,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Trois filles d'un prince
Sont endormies dessous."
"Will not the princess leave her sisters of dreams?" whispered the
voice, fantastically, "Will she not come?"
Virginia shivered, and half-opened her eyes, but did not stir. It
seemed that the darkness sighed, then became musical again.
"La plus jeun' se reveille,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
La plus jeun' se reveille
--Ma Soeur, voila le jour!
The song broke this time without a word of pleading. The girl
opened her eyes wide and stared breathlessly straight before her at
the singer.
"--Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile
Qu' eclaire nos amours!"
The last word rolled out through its passionate throat tones and
died into silence.
"Come!" repeated the man again, this time almost in the accents of
command.
She turned slowly and went to him, her eyes childlike and
frightened, her lips wide, her face pale. When she stood face to
face with him she swayed and almost fell.
"What do you want with me?" she faltered, with a little sob.
The man looked at her keenly, laughed, and exclaimed in an
every-day, matter-of-fact voice:
"Why, I really believe my song frightened you. It is only a
boating song. Come, let us go and sit on the gun-carriages and
talk."
"Oh!" she gasped, a trifle hysterically. "Don't do that again!
Please don't. I do not understand it! You must not!"
He laughed again, but with a note of tenderness in his voice, and
took her hand to lead her away, humming in an undertone the last
couplet of his song:
"Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile,
Qu'eclaire nos amours!"
Chapter Eight
Virginia went with this man passively--to an appointment which, but
an hour ago, she had promised herself she would not keep. Her
inmost soul was stirred, just as before. Then it had been few
words, now it was a little common song. But the strange power of
the man held her close, so she realized that for the moment at
least she would do as he desired. In the amazement and
consternation of this thought she found time to offer up a little
prayer, "Dear God, make him kind to me."
They leaned against the old bronze guns, facing the river. He
pulled her shawl about her, masterfully yet with gentleness, and
then, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, he drew
her to him until she rested against his shoulder. And she remained
there, trembling, in suspense, glancing at him quickly, in
birdlike, pleading glances, as though praying him to be kind. He
took no notice after that, so the act seemed less like a caress
than a matter of course. He began to talk, half-humorously, and
little by little, as he went on, she forgot her fears, even her
feeling of strangeness, and fell completely under the spell of his
power.
"My name is Ned Trent," he told her, "and I am from Quebec. I am a
woods runner. I have journeyed far. I have been to the uttermost
ends of the North even up beyond the Hills of Silence." And then,
in his gay, half-mocking, yet musical voice he touched lightly on
vast and distant things. He talked of the great Saskatchewan, of
Peace River, and the delta of the Mackenzie, of the winter journeys
beyond Great Bear Lake into the Land of the Little Sticks, and the
half-mythical lake of Yamba Tooh. He spoke of life with the Dog
Ribs and Yellow Knives, where the snow falls in midsummer. Before
her eyes slowly spread, like a panorama, the whole extent of the
great North, with its fierce, hardy men, its dreadful journeys by
canoe and sledge, its frozen barrens, its mighty forests, its
solemn charm. All at once this post of Conjurors House, a month in
the wilderness as it was, seemed very small and tame and civilized
for the simple reason that Death did not always compass it about.
"It was very cold then," said Ned Trent "and very hard. _Le grand
frete_ [froid--cold] of winter had come. At night we had no other
shelter than our blankets, and we could not keep a fire because the
spruce burned too fast and threw too many coals. For a long time
we shivered, curled up on our snowshoes; then fell heavily asleep,
so that even the dogs fighting over us did not awaken us. Two or
three times in the night we boiled tea. We had to thaw our
moccasins each morning by thrusting them inside our shirts. Even
the Indians were shivering and saying, 'Ed-sa, yazzi ed-sa'--'it is
cold, very cold.' And when we came to Rae it was not much better.
A roaring fire in the fireplace could not prevent the ink from
freezing on the pen. This went on for five months."
Thus he spoke, as one who says common things. He said little of
himself, but as he went on in short, curt sentences the picture
grew more distinct, and to Virginia the man became more and more
prominent in it. She saw the dying and exhausted dogs, the
frost-rimed, weary men; she heard the quick _crunch, crunch,
crunch_ of the snow-shoes hurrying ahead to break the trail; she
felt the cruel torture of the _mal de raquette_, the shrivelling
bite of the frost, the pain of snow blindness, the hunger that yet
could not stomach the frozen fish nor the hairy, black caribou
meat. One thing she could not conceive--the indomitable spirit of
the men. She glanced timidly up at her companion's face.
"The Company is a cruel master," she sighed at last, standing
upright, then leaning against the carriage of the gun. He let her
go without protest, almost without thought, it seemed.
"But not mine," said he.
She exclaimed, in astonishment, "Are you not of the Company?"
"I am no man's man but my own," he answered, simply.
"Then why do you stay in this dreadful North?" she asked.
"Because I love it. It is my life. I want to go where no man has
set foot before me; I want to stand alone under the sky; I want to
show myself that nothing is too big for me--no difficulty, no
hardship--nothing!"
"Why did you come here, then? Here at least are forests so that
you can keep warm. This is not so dreadful as the Coppermine, and
the country of the Yellow Knives. Did you come here to try _la
Longue Traverse_ of which you spoke to-day?"
He fell suddenly sombre, biting in reflection at his lip.
"No--yes--why not?" he said, at length.
"I know you will come out of it safely," said she; "I feel it. You
are brave and used to travel. Won't you tell me about it?"
He did not reply. After a moment she looked up in surprise. His
brows were knit in reflection. He turned to her again, his eyes
glowing into hers. Once more the fascination of the man grew big,
overwhelmed her. She felt her heart flutter, her consciousness
swim, her old terror returning.
"Listen," said he. "I may come to you to-morrow and ask you to
choose between your divine pity and what you might think to be your
duty. Then I will tell you all there is to know of _la Longue
Traverse_. Now it is a secret of the Company. You are a Factor's
daughter; you know what that means." He dropped his head. "Ah, I
am tired--tired with it all!" he cried, in a voice strangely
unhappy. "But yesterday I played the game with all my old spirit;
to-day the zest is gone! I no longer care." He felt the pressure
of her hand. "Are you just a little sorry for me?" he asked.
"Sorry for a weakness you do not understand? You must think me a
fool."
"I know you are unhappy," replied Virginia, gently. "I am truly
sorry for that."
"Are you? Are you, indeed?" he cried. "Unhappiness is worth such
pity as yours." He brooded for a moment, then threw his hands out
with what might have been a gesture of desperate indifference.
Suddenly his mood changed in the whimsical, bewildering fashion of
the man. "Ah, a star shoots!" he exclaimed, gayly. "That means a
kiss!"
Still laughing, he attempted to draw her to him. Angry, mortified,
outraged, she fought herself free and leaped to her feet.
"Oh!" she cried, in insulted anger.
"Oh!" she cried, in a red shame.
"_Oh!_" she cried, in sorrow.
Her calm broke. She burst into the violent sobbing of a child, and
turned and ran hurriedly to the factory.
Ned Trent stared after her a minute from beneath scowling brows.
He stamped his moccasined foot impatiently.
"Like a rat in a trap!" he jeered at himself. "Like a rat in a
trap, Ned Trent! The fates are drawing around you close. You need
just one little thing, and you cannot get it. Bribery is useless!
Force is useless! Craft is useless! This afternoon I thought I
saw another way. What I could get no other way I might get from
this little girl. She is only a child. I believe I could touch
her pity--ah, Ned Trent, Ned Trent, can you ever forget her
frightened, white face begging you to be kind?" He paced back and
forth between the two bronze guns with long, straight strides, like
a panther in a cage. "Her aid is mine for the asking--but she
makes it impossible to ask! I could not do it. Better try _la
Longue Traverse_ than take advantage of her pity--she'd surely get
into trouble. What wonderful eyes she has. She thinks I am a
brute--how she sobbed, as though her little heart had broken.
Well, it was the only way to destroy her interest in me. I had to
do it. Now she will despise me and forget me. It is better that
she should think me a brute than that I should be always haunted by
those pleading eyes." The door of the distant church house opened
and closed. He smiled bitterly. "To be sure, I haven't tried
that." he acknowledged. "Their teachings are singularly apropos to
my case--mercy, justice, humanity--yes, and love of man. I'll try
it. I'll call for help on the love of man, since I cannot on the
love of woman. The love of woman--ah----yes."
He set his feet reflectively toward the chapel.
Chapter Nine
After a moment he pushed open the door without ceremony, and
entered. He bent his brows, studying the Reverend Archibald Crane,
while the latter, looking up startled, turned pink.
He was a pink little man, anyway, the Reverend Archibald Crane, and
why, in the inscrutability of its wisdom, the Church had sent him
out to influence strong, grim men, the Church in its inscrutable
wisdom only knows. He wore at the moment a cambric English
boating-hat to protect his bald head from the draught, a full
clerical costume as far as the trousers, which were of lavender,
and a pair of beaded moccasins faced with red. His weak little
face was pink, and two tufts of side-whiskers were nearly so. A
heavy gold-headed cane stood at his hand. When he heard the door
open he exclaimed, before raising his head, "My, these first flies
of the season do bother me so!" and then looked startled.
"Good-evening," greeted Ned Trent, stopping squarely in the centre
of the room.
The clergyman spread his arms along the desk's edge in
embarrassment.
"Good-evening," he returned, reluctantly. "Is there anything I can
do for you?" The visitor puzzled him, but was dressed as a
_voyageur_. The Reverend Archibald immediately resolved to treat
him as such.
"I wish to introduce myself as Ned Trent," went on the Free Trader
with composure, "and I have broken in on your privacy this evening
only because I need your ministrations cruelly."
"I am rejoiced that in your difficulties you turn to the
consolations of the Church," replied the other in the cordial tones
of the man who is always ready. "Pray be seated. He whose soul
thirsteth need offer no apology to the keeper of the spiritual
fountains."
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8