A Cry in the Wilderness Part 34

"Don't rub it in so," he said pettishly, and by that same token I knew he was repentant because, without intention, he might have spoken in a way to hurt momentarily his friend.

"Beats all how dumb critters scent a change," said Cale, just after supper. He was loaded with the robes he had been warming. Pierre was waiting in the pung, having brought the horses around a little early.

Little Pete with a soapstone was following Cale. "They begun to be uneasy 'bout two hours ago; I take it they heard Mr. Ewart say he was leavin' on the night express, and begun to get nerved up."

"So they did, Cale; they were in the office, all four of them, and heard every word. Look at them!"

Cale stopped on his way to the front door and looked up the stairway.

Mr. Ewart was coming down, a dog on each side of him, and two behind fairly nosing his heels. They made no demonstration; were not apparently expectant; but, as Cale remarked 'they froze mighty close to him', sneaking down step by step beside and behind him, ears drooping, tails well curled between their legs--four despairing setters!

We watched them. Mr. Ewart paid no heed to them. They heeled along in the pa.s.sageway almost on their bellies when he took his fur coat from the hook. He had another on his arm which he held open for me.

"I really am warmly enough dressed," I said.

"I don't doubt it--for now; but you 'll be grateful enough to me three hours later for insisting on your wearing it--in with you!" He moved a dog or two from under his feet, gently but forcibly with the tip of his boot; whereupon they literally crawled on the floor.

"If you don't mind, Cale,"--he spoke purposely in a low monotone, but with a look of amus.e.m.e.nt,--"if you don't mind having the dogs in with you under the robes on the front seat, I 'm willing to have them go, but I don't want them to run with the pung."

I noticed no movement on the part of the dogs except an intense quivering of the whole body. One who does not understand doghood might have fancied they were shivering at the prospect of the eighteen-mile drive in the cold.

"I ain't no objection," said Cale; "the fact is there ain't no better foot-warmer 'n a dog on a cold night, an' I was goin' ter ask if I could n't have the loan of one of 'em fer ter-night."

"Well, they can all go--"

The last word was drowned in a chaos of frantically joyous barks. They leaped on him, caressed him, stood up with their forepaws stemmed on the breast of his fur coat, licked his boots, his hands, and attempted his face--but of that he would have none.

"Be still now--and come on, comrades!" he said. The four made a mad but silent rush for the door. Cale gave them right of way; Pierre swore great French oaths wholly disproportionate to the occasion, for the outrush of the dogs caused the French coach horses to plunge only twice. At last we were in--the dogs in front with Cale, and Mr. Ewart and I on the back seat, so m.u.f.fled in furs, fur robes, fur caps, coats and mittens, that we humans were scarce to be distinguished from our canine neighbors.

We no longer used the frozen creek for a crossing, but drove a mile up the road to the highroad bridge. The night was very cold. The moon had not yet risen. The stars shone with Arctic splendor. Cale drove us rapidly over the dry, hard-packed snow--to my amazement in silence.

Through the woods, down the river road we sped, and on through Richelieu-en-Bas. The light in the cabaret by the steamboat landing shone dimly; the panes were thick with frost. Here and there a bright lamp gleamed from some window, but, as a whole, the village was dark.

We drove on to the open country towards Richelieu-en-Haut six miles away, sometimes through a short stretch of deep woods where the horses shied at the misshapen stumps, snow-covered. Then out into the open again, the flat expanse of white seemingly unbroken. Here and there, far across the snow-fields, I caught a glimpse of a light from some farmhouse. Once we heard the baying of a hound, at which all four setters came suddenly to life from beneath the robes and barked vindictive response.

To the north the sky was dark and less star-strewn than above.

Suddenly I was aware of a wondrous change: the stars paled; the north glowed with tremulous light, translucent yellow that deepened to gold--an arc of gold spanning twenty degrees on the horizon. The glory quivered; ran to and fro; fluctuated from east to west, unstable as liquid, ethereal as gas; paled gradually; then, in the twinkling of an eye, dissolved, and in its dissolution sent streamer after streamer, rose, saffron, pale crocus and white, rapidly zenithward, rising, sinking, undulating, till the heavens were filled with marvellous light. Cale reined in the horses for a moment.

"Guess this can't be beat by the biggest show on earth," he remarked appreciatively.

"Look to the right--the east, Miss Farrell," said Mr. Ewart.

I leaned forward to look past him. Over the white expanse, lightened in the rays of the northern aurora, the moon, nearly full, showed the half of its red-gold disk.

The glory faded from the heavens; the moon, rising rapidly, sent its beams over the fields; the horses saw their shadows long on the off side. Cale chirruped to them, and we sped onwards to the station.

I was happy! If Cale had called me by that name at this time I would have welcomed it. It applied to me. It was good to be alive; good to be out in such a world of natural glory; good to have, in the night and the silence, such companionship that understood my own silence of enjoyment.

I was happy at the prospect of the Doctor's coming. The thought of the future removal to the farm no longer filled me with misgivings. "I shall still be near the manor, it will not be banishment in any sense."

So I comforted myself.

I turned to get a look over the ridge of fur at the man beside me. He had spoken but once, to ask if I were comfortable. I wondered if he were enjoying all this as much as I? He must have read my thought for he turned his face to me, saying:

"I am enjoying all this on my own behalf, and doubly because your enjoyment of it is so evident."

"How evident? You can't see that, and I have n't said a word."

"Perhaps for that very reason."

He leaned over and drew the robe farther about my exposed shoulder. I felt the strength of his arm as he pulled at the heavy pelt, the gentleness of his touch as he tucked it behind my back. So little of this thoughtfulness and care had been mine! Almost nothing of it in my life! No wonder that other women who are cared for, carried on loving hands, protected by the bulwark of a man's love, cannot understand what the simple adjustment of that robe around a chilled shoulder meant to me, Marcia Farrell!

He was always doing something in general for my comfort and pleasure, but never anything special. Even this drive I owed to Jamie's physical inability to accept his friend's invitation. But this fact did not quench my joy.

"Are you comfortable--feet warm?" he asked for the second time.

"As warm as toast."

What was it that I felt as I continued to sit silent by this man's side?--an alien, I had called him to the Doctor; fool that I was! I felt a peculiar sense of perfect physical rest I had never before experienced, a consciousness of happy companionship that needed no word to make itself understood. This sense of companionship, this rest of soul and body during the two hours I pa.s.sed at this man's side--I enjoyed them to the full. The feelings and emotions of the woman who, only a few evenings before, had thrown off the yoke of burdening circ.u.mstance, who had broken, to her own physical benefit, with past a.s.sociations and memories, found scope, in the protecting night and the silence, for perilous nights of imagination. Thoughts undreamed of hitherto, desires I had never supposed permissible in my narrow walk of life, proved their power over me at this hour. Hopes unbounded, if wholly unfounded,--for what had this man ever said to me since his home-coming that he had not said a dozen times to every member of his household?--imagined joys of another, a dual life--

"Yes," I said to myself, giving rein to pleasing fantasy, "a dual life in one--our lives, his and mine, one and inseparable; why not, Marcia Farrell? Why should n't I grasp with both hands outstretched at all life may have to give me? Why not hold it fast even if it have thorns?"

Imagination was carrying me out of myself. I called a halt to all this frenzy, as it at once appeared to me by the cold light of the moon, and brought myself down to earth and common sense with a jolt. I moved uneasily.

"Are you cold?" Mr. Ewart asked, evidently noticing the movement.

"No; but too much aurora, I 'm afraid."

"Did you feel that too? I thought I would n't mention it, but something affected me powerfully for the moment, and there has been an aftermath of sensation since. If this display is wholly electrical, it may easily be that some human machines are tuned like the wireless to catch certain vibrations at certain times."

I sat down hard, metaphorically, on eight feet of frozen earth upon hearing this explanation. "You little fool," I said to myself, but aloud:

"Whatever it was, it was effectual; I have never experienced anything like it."

"Never?"

"No; have you?"

The answer seemed long in coming.

"Yes, many years ago; and it was here in this northern country too.

Sometime I would like to tell you about it.--Cale," he spoke quickly, abruptly, "I hear the train. Keep the horses in the open roadway behind the station, then if they bolt at the headlight you can have free rein and a clear road. They 've never seen that light. We 'll get out here," he said, throwing off the robes as Cale drew rein at the edge of the platform, "and you can welcome the Doctor for me if I miss him."

He whisked me out of the pung, giving me both hands as aid, and replaced the robes.

"Keep the horses head on, and don't let the dogs run," were his last words to Cale.

The Quebec express whistled at the curve an eighth of a mile distant from the junction; the sound fell strangely flat in the intense cold.

Cale braced himself to handling the horses. I followed Mr. Ewart to the front of the platform.

The engine was thundering past us, and the train drawing to a stop of fifteen seconds.