Outside, the wind hustled the fallen leaves.
CHAPTER V.
At dawn Bates came down the ladder again, and went out quietly. The new day was fair, and calm; none of his fears were fulfilled. The dead man might start upon his journey, and Bates knew that the start must be an early one.
He and Saul, taking long-handled oars and poles, went down to the water's edge, where a big, flat-bottomed boat was lying drawn up on the shore to avoid the autumn storms. The stones of the beach looked black: here and there were bits of bright green moss upon them: both stones and moss had a coating of thin ice that glistened in the morning light.
It was by dint of great exertion that they got the clumsy vessel into the water and fastened her to a small wooden landing. They used more strength than time in their work. There was none of that care and skill required in the handling of the scow that a well-built craft would have needed. When she was afloat and tied, they went up the hill again, and harnessed a yoke of oxen to a rough wooden cart. Neither did this take them long. Bates worked with a nervousness that almost amounted to trembling. He had in his mind the dispute with the girl which he felt sure awaited him.
In this fear also he was destined to be disappointed. When he went to the inner room the coffin lay as he had left it, ready for its journey, and on the girl's bed in the corner the thick quilts were heaped as though the sleeper, had tossed restlessly. But now there was no restlessness; he only saw her night-cap beyond the quills; it seemed that, having perhaps turned her face to the wall to weep, she had at last fallen into exhausted and dreamless slumber.
Bates and Saul carried out the coffin eagerly, quietly. Even to the callous and shallow mind of Saul it was a relief to escape a contest with an angry woman. They set the coffin on the cart, and steadied it with a barrel of potash and sacks of buckwheat, which went to make up the load. By a winding way, where the slope was easiest, they drove the oxen between the trees, using the goad more and their voices as little as might be, till they were a distance from the house. Some trees had been felled, and cut off close to the ground, so that a cart might pass through the wood; this was the only sign of an artificial road. The fine powdered snow of the night before had blown away.
When they reached the beach again, the eastern sky, which had been grey, was all dappled with cold pink, and the grey water reflected it somewhat. There was clearer light on the dark green of the pine-covered hills, and the fine ice coating on stone and weed at the waterside had sharper glints of brilliancy.
Bates observed the change in light and colour; Saul did not; neither was disposed to dally for a moment. They were obliged to give forth their voices now in hoarse ejaculations, to make the patient beasts understand that they were to step off the rough log landing-place into the boat. The boat was almost rectangular in shape, but slightly narrower at the ends than in the middle, and deeper in the middle than at the ends; it was of rough wood, unpainted. The men disposed the oxen in the middle of the boat; the cart they unloaded, and distributed its contents as they best might. With long stout poles they then pushed off from the shore. Men and oxen were reflected in the quiet water.
They were not bound on a long or perilous voyage. The boat was merely to act as a ferry round a precipitous cliff where the shore was impassable, and across the head of the gushing river that formed the lake's outlet, for the only road through the hills lay along the further shore of this stream.
The men kept the boat in shallow water, poling and rowing by turns. There was a thin coating of ice, like white silk, forming on the water. As they went, Bates often looked anxiously where the log house stood on the slope above him, fearing to see the girl come running frantic to the water's edge, but he did not see her. The door of the house remained shut, and no smoke rose from its chimney. They had left the childish old woman sitting on the edge of her bed; Bates knew that she would be in need of fire and food, yet he could not wish that the girl should wake yet. "Let her sleep," he muttered to himself. "It will do her good." Yet it was not for her good he wished her to sleep, but for his own peace.
The pink faded from the sky, but the sun did not shine forth brightly.
It remained wan and cold, like a moon behind grey vapours.
"I'll not get back in a week, or on wheels," said Saul. He spoke more cheerfully than was pleasing to his employer.
"If it snows ye'll have to hire a sleigh and get back the first minute you can." The reply was stern.
The elder and bigger man made no further comment. However much he might desire to be kept in the gay world by the weather, the stronger will and intellect, for the hour at least, dominated his intention.
They rowed their boat past the head of the river. In an hour they had reached that part of the shore from which the inland road might be gained. They again loaded the cart. It, like the boat, was of the roughest description; its two wheels were broad and heavy; a long pole was mortised into their axle. The coffin and the potash barrel filled the cart's breadth; the sacks of buckwheat steadied the barrel before and behind. The meek red oxen were once more fastened to it on either side of the long pole. The men parted without farewells.
Saul turned his back on the water. The large, cold morning rang to his voice—"Gee. Yo-hoi-ist. Yo-hoi-eest. Gee." The oxen, answering to his voice and his goad, laboured onward over the sandy strip that bound the beach, up the hill among the maple trees that grew thickly in the vale of the small river. Bates watched till he saw the cattle, the cart, and Saul's stalwart form only indistinctly through the numerous grey tree-stems that broke the view in something the way that ripples in water break a reflection. When the monotonous shouting of Saul's voice—"Gee, gee, there. Haw, wo, haw. Yo-hoi-eest," was somewhat mellowed by the widening space, Bates stepped into the boat, and, pushing off, laboured alone to propel her back across the lake.
It took him longer to get back now that he was single-handed. The current of the lake towards its outlet tended to push the great clumsy scow against the shore. He worked his craft with one oar near the stern, but very often he was obliged to drop it and push out from shore with his pole. It was arduous, but all sense of the cold, bleak weather was lost, and the interest and excitement of the task were refreshing. To many men, as to many dogs, there is an inexplicable and unreasoning pleasure in dealing with water that no operation upon land can yield. Bates was one of these; he would hardly have chosen his present lot if it had not been so; but, like many a dry character of his stamp, he did not give his more agreeable sensations the name of pleasure, and therefore could afford to look upon pleasure as an element unnecessary to a sober life. Mid pushings and splashings, from the management of his scow, from air and sky, hill and water, he was in reality, deriving as great pleasure as any millionaire might from the sailing of a choice yacht; but he was aware only that, as he neared the end of his double journey, he felt in better trim in mind and body to face his lugubrious and rebellious ward.
When, however, he had toiled round the black rock cliff which hid the clearing from the river's head, and was again in full sight of his own house, all remembrance of the girl and his dread of meeting her passed from him in his excessive surprise at seeing several men near his dwelling. His dog was barking and leaping in great excitement. He heard the voices of other dogs. It took but the first glance to show him that the men were not Indians. Full of excited astonishment he pushed his boat to the shore.
His dog, having darted with noisy scatter of dry leaves down the hill to meet him, stood on the shore expectant with mouth open, excitement in his eyes and tail, saying as clearly as aught can be said without words—"This is a very agreeable event in our lives. Visitors have come." The moment Bates put his foot on land the dog bounded barking up the hill, then turned again to Bates, then again bounded off toward the visitors. Even a watchdog may be glad to see strangers if the pleasure is only rare enough.
Bates mounted the slope as a man may mount stairs—two steps at a time. Had he seen the strangers, as the saying is, dropping from the clouds, he could hardly have been more surprised than he was to see civilised people had reached his place otherwise than by the lake, for the rugged hills afforded nothing but a much longer and more arduous way to any settlement within reach. When he got up, however, he saw that these men carried with them implements of camp-life and also surveying instruments, by which he judged, and rightly, that his guests were ranging the lonely hills upon some tour of official survey.
That the travellers were his guests neither he nor they had the slightest doubt. They had set down their traps close to his door, and, in the calm confidence that it would soon be hospitably opened by rightful hands, they had made no attempt to open it for themselves. There were eight men in the party, two of whom, apparently its more important members, sauntered to meet Bates, with pipes in their mouths. These told him what district they were surveying, by what track they had just come over the hill, where they had camped the past night, where they wanted to get to by nightfall. They remarked on the situation of his house and the extent of his land. They said to him, in fact, more than was immediately necessary, but not more than was pleasant for him to hear or for them to tell. It is a very taciturn man who, meeting a stranger in a wilderness, does not treat him with more or less of friendly loquacity.
Under the right circumstances Bates was a genial man. He liked the look of these men; he liked the tone of their talk; and had he liked them much less, the rarity of the occasion and the fact that he was their host would have expanded his spirits. He asked astute questions about the region they had traversed, and, as they talked, he motioned them towards the house. He had it distinctly in his mind that he was glad they had come across his place, and that he would give them a hot breakfast; but he did not say so in words—just as they had not troubled to begin their conversation with him by formal greetings.
The house door was still shut; there was still no smoke from the chimney, although it was now full three hours since Bates had left the place. Saying that he would see if the women were up, he went alone into the house. The living-room was deserted, and, passing through the inner door, which was open, he saw his aunt, who, according to custom was neatly dressed, sitting on the foot of Sissy's empty bed. The old woman was evidently cold, and frightened at the unusual sounds outside; greatly fretted, she held the girl's night-cap in her hand, and the moment he appeared demanded of him where Sissy was, for she must have her breakfast. The girl he did not see.
The dog had followed him. He looked up and wagged his tail; he made no sign of feeling concern that the girl was not there. Bates could have cursed his dumbness; he would fain have asked where she had gone. The dog probably knew, but as for Bates, he not only did not know, but no conjecture rose in his mind as to her probable whereabouts.
He took his aunt to her big chair, piled the stove from the well-stored wood-box, and lit it. Then, shutting the door of the room where the disordered bed lay and throwing the house-door open, he bid the visitors enter. He went out himself to search the surroundings of the house, but Sissy was not to be found.
The dog did not follow Bates on this search. He sat down before the stove in an upright position, breathed with his mouth open, and bestowed on the visitors such cheerful and animated looks that they talked to and patted him. Their own dogs had been shut into the empty ox-shed for the sake of peace, and the house-dog was very much master of the situation.
Of the party, the two surveyors—one older and one younger—were men of refinement and education. British they were, or of such Canadian birth and training as makes a good imitation. Five of the others were evidently of humbler position—axe-men and carriers. The eighth man, who completed the party, was a young American, a singularly handsome young fellow—tall and lithe. He did not stay in the room with the others, but lounged outside by himself, leaning against the front of the house in the white cold sunlight.
In the meantime Bates, having searched the sheds and inspected with careful eyes the naked woods above the clearing, came back disconsolately by the edge of the ravine, peering into it suspiciously to see if the girl could, by some wild freak, be hiding there. When he came to the narrow strip of ground between the wall of the house and the broken bank he found himself walking knee-deep in the leaves that the last night's gale had drifted there, and because the edge of the ravine was thus entirely concealed, he, remembering Sissy's warning, kicked about the leaves cautiously to find the crack of which she had spoken, and discovered that the loose portion had already fallen. It suddenly occurred to him to wonder if the girl could possibly have fallen with it. Instantly he sprang down the ravine, feeling among the drifted leaves on all sides, but nothing except rock and earth was to be found under their light heaps. It took only a few minutes to assure him of the needlessness of his fear. The low window of the room in which Sissy had slept looked out immediately upon this drift of leaves, and, as Bates passed it, he glanced through the uncurtained glass, as if the fact that it was really empty was so hard for him to believe that it needed this additional evidence. Then the stacks of fire-wood in front of the house were all that remained to be searched, and Bates walked round, looking into the narrow aisles between them, looking at the same time down the hill, as if it might be possible that she had been on the shore and he had missed her.
"What are you looking for?" asked the young American. The question was not put rudely. There was a serenity about the youth's expectation of an answer which, proving that he had no thought of over-stepping good manners, made it, at the same time, very difficult to withhold an answer.
Bates turned annoyed. He had supposed everybody was within.
"What have you lost?" repeated the youth.
"Oh—" said Bates, prolonging the sound indefinitely. He was not deceitful or quick at invention, and it seemed to him a manifest absurdity to reply—"a girl." He approached the house, words hesitating on his lips.
"My late partner's daughter," he observed, keeping wide of the mark, "usually does the cooking."
"Married?" asked the young man rapidly.
"She?—No," said Bates, taken by surprise.
"Young lady?" asked the other, with more interest. Bates was not accustomed to consider his ward under his head.
"She is just a young girl about seventeen," he replied stiffly.
"Oh, halibaloo!" cried the youth joyously. "Why, stranger, I haven't set eyes on a young lady these two months. I'd give a five dollar-bill this minute, if I had it, to set eyes on her right here and now." He took his pipe from his lips and clapped his hand upon his side with animation as he spoke.
Bates regarded him with dull disfavour. He would himself have given more than the sum mentioned to have compassed the same end, but for different reasons, and his own reasons were so grave that the youth's frivolity seemed to him doubly frivolous.
"I hope," he said coldly, "that she will come in soon." His eyes wandered involuntarily up the hill as he spoke.
"Gone out walking, has she?" The youth's eyes followed in the same direction. "Which way has she gone?"
"I don't know exactly which path she may have taken." Bates's words grew more formal the harder he felt himself pressed.
"Path!" burst out the young man—"Macadamised road, don't you mean?
There's about as much of one as the other on this here hill."
"I meant," said Bates, "that I didn't know where she was."
His trouble escaped somewhat with his voice as he said this with irritation.
The youth looked at him curiously, and with some incipient sympathy.
After a minute's reflection he asked, touching his forehead:
"She ain't weak here, is she—like the old lady?"
"Nothing of the sort," exclaimed Bates, indignantly. The bare idea cost him a pang. Until this moment he had been angry with the girl; he was still angry, but a slight modification took place. He felt with her against all possible imputations.
"All right in the headpiece, is she?" reiterated the other more lightly.
"Very intelligent," replied Bates. "I have taught her myself. She is remarkably intelligent." The young man's sensitive spirits, which had suffered slight depression from contact with Bates's perturbation, now recovered entirely.
"Oh, Glorianna!" he cried in irrepressible anticipation. "Let this very intelligent young lady come on! Why"—in an explanatory way—"if I saw as much as a female dress hanging on a clothes-line out to dry, I'm in that state of mind I'd adore it properly."
If Bates had been sure that the girl would return safely he would perhaps have been as well pleased that she should not return in time to meet the proposed adoration; as it was, he was far too ill at ease concerning her not to desire her advent as ardently as did the naïve youth. The first feeling made his manner severe; the second constrained him to say he supposed she would shortly appear.
His mind was a good deal confounded, but if he supposed anything it was that, having wakened to find herself left behind by the boat, she had walked away from the house in an access of anger and disappointment, and he expected her to return soon, because he did not think she had courage or resolution to go very far alone. Underneath this was the uneasy fear that her courage and resolution might take her farther into danger than was at all desirable, but he stifled the fear.
When he went in he told the company, in a few matter-of-fact words of his partner's death, and the object of the excursion from which they had seen him return. He also mentioned that his aunt's companion, the dead man's child, had, it appeared, gone off into the woods that morning—this was by way of apology that she was not there to cook for them, but he took occasion to ask if they had seen her on the hill. As they had come down the least difficult way and had not met her, he concluded that she had not endeavoured to go far afield, and tried to dismiss his anxiety and enjoy his guests in his own way.
Hospitality, even in its simplest form, is more often a matter of amiable pride than of sincere unselfishness, but it is not a form of pride with which people are apt to quarrel. Bates, when he found himself conversing with scientific men of gentle manners, was resolved to show himself above the ordinary farmer of that locality. He went to the barrel where the summer's eggs had been packed in soft sand, and took out one apiece for the assembled company. He packed the oven with large potatoes. He put on an excellent supply of tea to boil. The travellers, who, in fact, had had their ordinary breakfast some hours before, made but feeble remonstrances against these preparations, remonstrances which only caused Bates to make more ample provision. He brought out a large paper bag labelled, "patent self-raising pancake meal," and a small piece of fat pork. Here he was obliged to stop and confess himself in need of culinary skill; he looked at the men, not doubting that he could obtain it from them.
"The Philadelphian can do it better," said one. This was corroborated by the others. "Call Harkness," they cried, and at the same time they called Harkness themselves.
The young American opened the door and came in in a very leisurely, not to say languid, manner. He took in the situation at a glance without asking a question. "But," said he, "are we not to wait for the intelligent young lady? Female intelligence can make the finer pancake."
The surveyors manifested some curiosity. "What do you know about a young lady?" they asked.
"The young lady of the house," replied Harkness. "Hasn't he"—referring to Bates—"told you all about her? The domestic divinity who has just happened to get mislaid this morning. I saw him looking over the wood pile to see if she had fallen behind it, but she hadn't."
"It is only a few days since her father died," said the senior of the party gravely.
"And so," went on the young man, "she has very properly given these few days to inconsolable grief. But now our visit is just timed to comfort and enliven her, why is she not here to be comforted and enlivened?"
No-one answered, and, as the speaker was slowly making his way toward the frying-pan, no one seemed really apprehensive that he would keep them waiting. The youth had an oval, almost childish face; his skin was dark, clear, and softly coloured as any girl's; his hair fell in black, loose curls over his forehead. He was tall, slender without being thin, very supple; but his languid attitudes fell short of grace, and were only tolerable because they were comic. When he reached out his hand for the handle of the frying-pan he held the attention of the whole company by virtue of his office, and his mind, to Bates's annoyance, was still running on the girl.
"Is she fond of going out walking alone?" he asked.
"How could she be fond of walking when there's no place to walk?" Bates spoke roughly. "Besides, she has too much work to do."
"Ever lost her before?"
"No," said Bates. It would have been perfectly unbearable to his pride that these strangers should guess his real uneasiness or its cause, so he talked as if the fact of the girl's long absence was not in any way remarkable.
Having mixed a batter the American sliced pork fat into the hot pan and was instantly obscured from view by the smoke thereof. In a minute his face appeared above it like the face of a genius.
"You will observe, gentlemen," he cried without bashfulness, "that I now perform the eminently interesting operation of dropping cakes—one, two, three. May the intelligent young lady return to eat them!"
No one laughed, but his companions smiled patiently at his antics—a patience born of sitting in a very hot, steamy room after weeks in the open air.
"You are a cook," remarked Bates.
The youth bent his long body towards him at a sudden angle. "Born a cook—dentist by profession—by choice a vagabond."
"Dentist?" said Bates curiously.
"At your service, sir."
"He is really a dentist," said one of the surveyors with sleepy amusement. "He carries his forceps round in his vest pocket."
"I lost them when I scrambled head first down this gentleman's macadamised road this morning, but if you want a tooth out I can use the tongs."
"My teeth are all sound," said Bates.
"Thank the Lord for that!" the young man answered with an emphatic piety which, for all that appeared, might have been perfectly sincere.
"And the young lady?" he asked after a minute.
"What?"
"The young lady's teeth—the teeth of the intelligent young lady—the intelligent teeth of the young lady—are they sound?"
"Yes."
He sighed deeply. "And to think," he mourned, "that he should have casually lost her just this morning!"
He spoke exactly as if the girl were a penknife or a marble that had rolled from Bates's pocket, and the latter, irritated by an inward fear, grew to hate the jester.
When the meal, which consisted of fried eggs, pancakes, and potatoes, was eaten, the surveyors spent an hour or two about the clearing, examining the nature of the soil and rock. They had something to say to Bates concerning the value of his land which interested him exceedingly. Considering how rare it was for him to see any one, and how fitted he was to appreciate intercourse with men who were manifestly in a higher rank of life than he, it would not have been surprising if he had forgotten Sissy for a time, even if they had had nothing to relate of personal interest to himself. As it was, even in the excitement of hearing what was of importance concerning his own property, he did not wholly forget her; but while his visitors remained his anxiety was in abeyance.
When they were packing their instruments to depart, the young American, who had not been with them during the morning, came and took Bates aside in a friendly way.
"See here," he said, "were you gassing about that young lady? There ain't no young lady now, is there?"
"I told you"—with some superiority of manner—"she is not a young lady; she is a working girl, an emigrant's——"
"Oh, Glorianna!" he broke out, "girl or lady, what does it matter to me?
Do you mean to say you've really lost her?"
The question was appalling to Bates. All the morning he had not dared to face such a possibility and now to have the question hurled at him with such imperative force by another was like a terrible blow. But when a blow is thus dealt from the outside, a man like Bates rallies all the opposition of his nature to repel it.
"Not at all"—his manner was as stiff as ever—"she is lurking somewhere near."
"Look here—I've been up the hill that way, and that way, and that way"—he indicated the directions with his hand—"and I've been down round the shore as far as I could get, and I've had our two dogs with me, who'd either of them have mentioned it if there'd been a stranger anywheres near; and she ain't here. An' if she's climbed over the hill, she's a spunky one—somewhat spunkier than I should think natural." He looked at Bates very suspiciously as he spoke.
"Well?"
"Well, my belief is that there ain't no young lady, and that you're gassing me."
"Very well," said Bates, and he turned away. It was offensive to him to be accused of telling lies—he was not a man to give any other name than "lie" to the trick attributed to him, or to perceive any humour in the idea of it—but it was a thousand times more offensive that this youth should have presumed to search for Sissy and to tell him that the search had been vain.
Horrible as the information just given was, he did not more than half believe it, and something just said gave him a definite idea of hope—the strange dogs had not found Sissy, but the house-dog, if encouraged to seek, would certainly find her. He had felt a sort of grudge against the animal all day, because he must know which way she had gone and could not tell. Now he resolved as soon as the strangers were gone to set the dog to seek her. Upon this he stayed his mind.
The surveyors hoped to get a few days' more work done before the winter put an end to their march; they determined when thus stopped to turn down the river valley and take the train for Quebec. The way they now wished to take lay, not in the direction in which the ox-cart had gone, but over the hills directly across the lake. The scow belonging to this clearing, on which they had counted, was called into requisition.
The day was still calm; Bates had no objection to take them across. At any other time he would have had some one to leave in charge of the place, but especially as he would be in sight of the house all the time, he made no difficulty of leaving as it was. He could produce four oars, such as they were, and the way across was traversed rapidly.
"And there ain't really a female belonging to the place, except the old lady," said the dentist, addressing the assembled party upon the scow. "It was all a tale, and—my eye;—he took me in completely."
Probably he did not give entire credence to his own words, and wished to provoke the others to question Bates further; but they were not now in the same idle mood that had enthralled them when, in the morning, they had listened to him indulgently. Their loins were girded; they were intent upon what they were doing and what they were going to do. No one but Bates paid heed to him.
Bates heard him clearly enough, but, so stubbornly had he set himself to rebuff this young man, and so closely was he wrapped in that pride of reserve that makes a merit of obstinate self-reliance, that it never even occurred to him to answer or to accept this last offer of a fellow-man's interest in the search he was just about to undertake.
He had some hope that, if Sissy were skulking round, she would find it easier to go back to the house when he was absent, and that he should find her as usual on his return; but, as he wrought at his oar in returning across the leaden water, looking up occasionally to make the log house his aim, and staring for the most part at the lone hills, under the pine woods of which his late companions had disappeared, his heart gradually grew more heavy; all the more because the cheerfulness of their society had buoyed up his spirit in their presence, did it now suffer depression. The awful presentiment began to haunt him that he would not find the girl that night, that he had in grim reality "lost her." If this were the case, what a fool, what a madman, he had been to let go the only aid within his reach! He stopped his rowing for a minute, and almost thought of turning to call the surveying party back again. But no, Sissy might be—in all probability was—already in the house; in that case what folly to have brought them back, delaying their work and incurring their anger! So he reasoned, and went on towards home; but, in truth, it was not their delay or displeasure that deterred him so much as his own pride, which loathed the thought of laying bare his cause for fear and distress.
CHAPTER VI.
The day was duller now. The sun, in passing into the western sky, had entered under thicker veils of white. The film of ice on the bay, which had melted in the pale sunbeams of noon, would soon form again. The air was growing bitterly cold.
When Bates had moored his boat, he went up the hill heavily. The dog, which had been shut in the house to guard it, leaped out when he opened the door. Sissy was not there.
Bates went in and found one of her frocks, and, bringing it out, tried to put the animal on the scent of her track. He stooped, and held the garment under the dog's nose. The dog sniffed it, laid his nose contentedly on Bates's arm, looked up in his face, and wagged his tail with most annoying cheerfulness.
"Where is she?" jerked Bates. "Where is she? Seek her, good dog."
The dog, all alert, bounded off a little way and returned again with an inconsequent lightness in tail and eye. One of his ears had been torn in a battle with the strange dogs, but he was more elated by the conflict than depressed by the wound. When he came back, he seemed to Bates almost to smile as if he said: "It pleases me that you should pay me so much attention, but as for the girl, I know her to be satisfactorily disposed of." Bates did not swear at the animal; he was a Scotchman, and he would have considered it a sin to swear: he did not strike the dog either, which he would not have considered a sin at all. He was actually afraid to offend the only living creature who could befriend and help him in his search. Very patiently he bent the dog's nose to the frock and to the ground, begging and commanding him to seek. At length the dog trotted off by a circuitous route up the clearing, and Bates followed. He hoped the dog was really seeking, but feared he was merely following some fancy that by thus running he would be rid of his master's solicitude.
Bates felt it an odd thing that he should be wandering about with a girl's frock in his hands. It was old, but he did not remember that he had ever touched it before or noticed its material or pattern. He looked at it fondly now, as he held it ready to renew the dog's memory if his purpose should falter.
The dog went on steadily enough until he got to the edge of the woods, where his footsteps made a great noise on the brittle leaves. He kicked about in them as if he liked the noise they made, but offered to go no farther. Bates looked at them and knew that the dog was not likely to keep the scent among them if the girl had gone that way. He stood erect, looking up the drear expanse of the hill, and the desperate nature of his situation came upon him. He had been slow—slow to take it in, repelling it with all the obstinacy of an obstinate mind. Now he saw clearly that the girl had fled, and he was powerless to pursue at the distance she might now have reached, the more so as he could not tell which way she had taken. He would have left his live stock, but the helpless old woman, whose life depended on his care, he dared not leave. He stood and considered, his mind working rapidly under a stress of emotion such as perhaps it had never known before—certainly not since the first strong impulses of his youth had died within his cautious heart.
Then he remembered that Sissy had walked about the previous day, and perhaps the dog was only on the scent of yesterday's meanderings. He took the animal along the top of the open space, urging him to find another track, and at last the dog ran down again by the side of the stream. Bates followed to the vicinity of the house, no wiser than he had been at first.
The dog stopped under the end window of the house where old Cameron fell, and scratched among the leaves on the fresh fallen earth. Bates was reminded of the associations of the fatal spot. He thought of his old friend's deathbed, of the trust that had there been confided to him. Had he been unfaithful to that trust? With the impatience of sharp pain, he called the dog again to the door of the house, and again from that starting-point tried to make him seek the missing one. He did this, not because he had much hope in the dog now, but because he had no other hope.
This time the dog stood by, sobered by his master's soberness, but looking with teasing expectancy, ready to do whatever was required if he might only know what that was. To Bates, who was only anxious to act at the dumb thing's direction, this expectancy was galling. He tore off a part of the dress and fastened it to the dog's collar. He commanded him to carry it to her in such excited tones that the old woman heard, and fumbled her way out of the door to see what was going on. And Bates stood between the dumb animal and the aged wreck of womanhood, and felt horribly alone.
Clearly the sagacious creature not only did not know where to find the girl, but knew that she was gone where he could not find her, for he made no effort to carry his burden a step. Bates took it from him at last, and the dog, whose feelings had apparently been much perturbed, went down to the water's edge, and, standing looking over the lake, barked there till darkness fell.
The night came, but the girl did not come. Bates made a great torch of pine boughs and resin, and this he lit and hoisted on a pole fixed in the ground, so that if she was seeking to return to her home in the darkness she might be guided by it. He hoped also that, by some chance, the surveying party might see it and know that it was a signal of distress; but he looked for their camp-fire on the opposite hills, and, not seeing it, felt only too sure that they had gone out of sight of his. He fed and watched his torch all night. Snow began to fall; as he looked up it seemed that the flame made a globe of light in the thick atmosphere, around which closed a low vault of visible darkness. From out of this darkness the flakes were falling thickly. When the day broke he was still alone.
CHAPTER VII.
When Saul and the oxen were once fairly started, they plodded on steadily. The track lay some way from the river and above it, through the gap in the hills. Little of the hills did Saul see for he was moving under trees all the way, and when, before noon, he descended into the plain on the other side, he was still for a short time under a canopy of interlacing boughs. There was no road; the trees were notched to show the track. In such forests there is little obstruction of brushwood, and over knoll and hollow, between the trunks, the oxen laboured on. Saul sat on the front ledge of the cart to balance it the better. The coffin, wedged in with the potash barrel, lay pretty still as long as they kept on the soft soil of the forest, but when, about one o'clock, the team emerged upon a corduroy road, made of logs lying side by side across the path, the jolting often jerked the barrel out of place, and then Saul would go to the back of the cart and jerk it and the coffin into position again.
The forest was behind them now. This log road was constructed across a large tract which sometime since had been cleared by a forest fire, but was now covered again by thick brush standing eight or ten feet high. One could see little on either side the road except the brown and grey twigs of the saplings that grew by the million, packed close together. The way had been cut among them, yet they were forcing their sharp shoots up again between the seams of the corduroy, and where, here and there, a log had rotted they came up thickly. The ground was low, and would have been wet about the bushes had it not been frozen. Above, the sky was white. Saul could see nothing but his straight road before and behind, the impenetrable thicket and the white sky. It was a lonely thing thus to journey.
While he had been under the forest, with an occasional squirrel or chipmunk to arrest his gaze, and with all things as familiar to sight as the environments of the house in which he was accustomed to live, Saul had felt the vigour of the morning, and eaten his cold fat bacon, sitting on the cart, without discontent. But now it was afternoon—which, we all know, brings a somewhat more depressing air—and the budless thickets stood so close, so still, Saul became conscious that his load was a corpse. He had hoped, in a dull way, to fall in with a companion on this made road; the chances were against it, and the chances prevailed. Saul ate more bread and bacon. He had to walk now, and often to give the cart a push, so that the way was laborious; but, curiously enough, it was not the labour he objected to, but the sound of his own voice. All the way the silent thicket was listening to his "Gee-e, gee; haw then";—"yo-hoi-eest"; yet, as he and his oxen progressed further into the quiet afternoon, he gradually grew more and more timid at the shouts he must raise. It seemed to him that the dead man was listening, or that unknown shapes or essences might be disturbed by his voice and rush out from the thicket upon him. Such fears he had—wordless fears, such as men never repeat and soon forget. Rough, dull, hardy woodman as he was, he felt now as a child feels in the dark, afraid of he knew not what.
The way was very weary. He trudged on beside the cart. Something went wrong with one of his boots, and he stopped the oxen in order to take it off. The animals, thus checked, stood absolutely still, hanging down their heads in an attitude of rest. The man went behind the cart and sat on its edge. He leaned on the end of the coffin as he examined the boot. When that was put right he could not deny himself the luxury of a few minutes' rest. The oxen, with hanging heads, looked as if they had gone to sleep. The man hung his head also, and might have been dozing from his appearance. He was not asleep, however. What mental machinery he had began to work more freely, and he actually did something that might be called thinking on the one subject that had lain as a dormant matter of curiosity in his head all day—namely, how the girl would act when she woke to find the cart was actually gone and she left behind. He had seen old Cameron die, and heard Bates promise to do his best for his daughter; he remembered her tears and pleading on the preceding day; the situation came to him now, as perceptions come to dull minds, with force that had gathered with the lapse of time. He had not the refinement and acuteness of mind necessary to make him understand the disinterested element in Bates's tyranny, and while he sympathised cunningly with the selfishness of which, in his mind, he accused Bates, it seemed to him that the promise to the dead was broken, and he thought upon such calamities as might befall in token of the dead man's revenge.
How awfully silent it was! There was no breath in the chill, still air; there was no sound of life in all the dark, close brushwood; the oxen slept; and Saul, appalled by the silence that had come with his silence, appalled to realise more vividly than ever that he, and he alone, had been the instigator of voice in all that region, was cowed into thinking that, if the dead could rise from the grave for purposes of revenge, how much more easily could he rise now from so crude a coffin as he himself had helped to construct for him!
It was in this absolute silence that he heard a sound. He heard the dead man turn in his coffin! He heard, and did not doubt his hearing; it was not a thing that he could easily be deceived about as he sat with his elbow on the coffin. He sat there not one instant longer; the next moment he was twenty feet away, standing half-hidden in the edge of the brushwood, staring at the cart and the coffin, ready to plunge into the icy swamp and hide farther among the young trees if occasion required. Occasion did not require. The oxen dozed on; the cart, the barrel, and the coffin stood just as he had left them.
Perhaps for five minutes the frightened man was still. Gradually his muscles relaxed, and he ceased to stand with limbs and features all drawn in horror away from the coffin. He next pulled back his foot from the icy marsh; but even then, having regained his equilibrium on the road, he had not decided what to do, and it took him some time longer to turn over the situation in his mind. He had heard the dead man move; he was terribly frightened; still, it might have been a mistake, and, any way, the most disagreeable course, clearly, was to remain there till nightfall. He had run backward in his first alarm; so, to get to the nearest habitation, it would be necessary to pass the cart on the road, even if he left it there. Had any further manifestation of vitality appeared on the part of the corpse he would have felt justified in running back into the forest, but this was an extreme measure. He did not wish to go near the cart, but to turn his back upon it seemed almost as fearsome. He stood facing it, as a man faces a fierce dog, knowing that if he turns and runs the dog will pursue. He supposed that as long as he stared at the coffin and saw nothing he could be sure that the deceased remained inside, but that if he gave the ghost opportunity to get out on the sly it might afterwards come at him from any point of the compass. He was an ignorant man, with a vulgar mind; he had some reverence for a corpse, but none whatever for a ghost. His mind had undergone a change concerning the dead the moment he had heard him move, and he looked upon his charge now as equally despicable and gruesome.
After some further delay he discovered that the course least disagreeable would be to drive the oxen with his voice and walk as far behind the cart as he now was, keeping the pine box with four nails on its lid well in view. Accordingly, making a great effort to encourage himself to break the silence, he raised his shout in the accustomed command to the oxen, and after it had been repeated once or twice, they strained at the cart and set themselves to the road again. They did not go as fast as when the goad was within reach of their flanks; or rather; they went more slowly than then, for "fast" was not a word that could have been applied to their progress before. Yet they went on the whole steadily, and the "Gee" and "Haw" of the gruff voice behind guided them straight as surely as bit and rein.
At length it could be seen in the distance that the road turned; and round this turning another human figure came in sight. Perhaps in all his life Saul never experienced greater pleasure in meeting another man than he did now, yet his exterior remained gruff and unperturbed. The only notice that he appeared to take of his fellow-man was to adjust his pace so that, as the other came nearer the cart in front, Saul caught up with it in the rear. At last they met close behind it, and then, as nature prompted, they both stopped.
The last comer upon the desolate scene was a large, hulking boy. He had been plodding heavily with a sack upon his back. As he stopped, he set this upon the ground and wiped his brow.
The boy was French; but Saul, as a native of the province, talked French about as well as he did English—that is to say, very badly. He could not have written a word of either.—The conversation went on in the patois of the district.
"What is in the box?" asked the boy, observing that the carter's eyes rested uneasily upon it.
"Old Cameron died at our place the day before yesterday," answered Saul, not with desire to evade, but because it did not seem necessary to answer more directly.
"What of?" The boy looked at the box with more interest now.
"He died of a fall"—briefly.
The questioner looked at the pinewood box now with considerable solicitude. "Did his feet swell?" he asked. As Saul did not immediately assent, he added—"When the old M. Didier died, his feet swelled."
"What do you think of the coffin?" Saul said this eyeing it as if he were critically considering it as a piece of workmanship.
"M. Didier made a much better one for his little child," replied the boy.
"If he did, neither Mr. Bates nor me is handy at this sort of work. We haven't been used to it. It's a rough thing. Touch it. You will see it's badly made."
He gained his object. The boy fingered the coffin, and although he did not praise the handiwork, it seemed to Saul that some horrid spell was broken when human hands had again touched the box and no evil had resulted.
"Why didn't you bury him at home?" asked the boy. "He was English."
"Mr. Bates has strict ideas, though he is English. He wanted it done proper, in a graveyard, by a minister. He has wrote to the minister at St. Hennon's and sent money for the burying—Mr. Bates, he is always particular."
"You are not going to St. Hennon's?" said the boy incredulously. "I'll stay to-night at Turrifs, and go on in the morning. It's four days' walk for me and the cattle to go and come, but I shall take back a man to cut the trees."
"Why not send him by the new railroad?"
"It does not stop at Turrifs."
"Yes; they stop at the cross-roads now, not more than three miles from Turrifs, There's a new station, and an Englishman set to keep it. I've just brought this sack of flour from there. M. Didier had it come by the cars."
"When do they pass to St. Hennon's?" asked Saul meditatively,—"But anyway, the Englishman wouldn't like to take in a coffin."
"They pass some time in the night; and he must take it in if you write on it where it's going. It's not his business to say what the cars will take, if you pay."
"Well," said Saul. "Good-day. Yo-hoist! Yo, yo, ho-hoist!"
It did not seem to him necessary to state whether he was, or was not, going to take the advice offered. The straining and creaking of the cart, his shouts to the oxen, would have obliterated any further query the boy might have made. He had fairly moved off when the boy also took up his burden and trudged on the other way.
CHAPTER VIII.
When the blueberry bushes are dry, all the life in them, sucked into their roots against another summer, the tops turn a rich, brownish red; at this time, also, wild bramble thickets have many a crimson stalk that gives colour to their mass, and the twigs that rise above the white trunks of birch trees are not grey, but brown.
Round the new railway station at the cross-roads near Turrifs Settlement, the low-lying land, for miles and miles, was covered with, blueberry bushes; bramble thickets were here and there; and where the land rose a little, in irregular places, young birch woods stood. If the snow had sprinkled here, as it had upon the hills the night before, there was no sign of it now. The warm colour of the land seemed to glow against the dulness of the afternoon, not with the sparkle and brightness which colour has in sunshine, but with the glow of a sleeping ember among its ashes. Round the west there was metallic blue colouring upon the cloud vault. This colouring was not like a light upon the cloud, it was like a shadow upon it; yet it was not grey, but blue. Where the long straight road from Turrifs and the long straight road from the hills crossed each other, and were crossed by the unprotected railway track with its endless rows of tree-trunks serving as telegraph poles, the new station stood.
It was merely a small barn, newly built of pinewood, divided into two rooms—one serving as a store-room for goods, the other as waiting-room, ticket office, and living-room of the station-master. The station-master, who was, in fact, master, clerk, and porter in one, was as new to his surroundings as the little fresh-smelling pinewood house. He was a young Englishman, and at the first glance it could be seen he had not long been living in his present place. He had, indeed, not yet given up shaving himself, and his clothes, although rough, warm, and suited to his occupation, still suggested, not homespun, but an outfit bought of a tailor.
It was about four o'clock on that November afternoon when the new official of the new station looked out at the dark red land and the bright-tinted cloud. It was intensely cold. The ruts of the roads, which were not made of logs here, were frozen stiff. The young man stood a minute at his door with his hands in his pockets, sniffed the frost, and turned in with an air of distaste. A letter that had been brought him by the morning train lay on his table, addressed to "Alec Trenholme, Esq." It had seen vicissitudes, and been to several addresses in different cities, before it had been finally readdressed to this new station. Perhaps its owner had not found the path to fortune which he sought in the New World as easily accessible as he had expected. Whether he had now found it or not, he set himself to that which he had found in manly fashion.
Coming in from the cold without, and shutting himself in, as he supposed, for the evening, he wisely determined to alleviate the peculiar feeling of cold and desolation which the weather was fitted to induce by having an early tea. He set his pan upon a somewhat rusty stove and put generous slices of ham therein to fry. He made tea, and then set forth his store of bread, his plates and cup, upon the table, with some apparent effort to make the meal look attractive. The frying ham soon smelt delicious, and while it was growing brown, Alec Trenholme read his letter for the fifth time that day. It was not a letter that he liked, but, since the morning train, only two human beings had passed by the station, and the young station-master would have read and re-read a more disagreeable epistle than the one which had fallen to his lot. It was dated from a place called Chellaston, and was from his brother. It was couched in terms of affection, and contained a long, closely reasoned argument, with the tenor of which it would seem the reader did not agree, for he smiled at it scornfully!
He had not re-read his letter and dished his ham before sounds on the road assured him an ox-cart was approaching, and, with an eagerness to see who it might be which cannot be comprehended by those who have not lived in isolation, he went out to see Saul and his cattle coming at an even pace down the road from the hills. The cart ran more easily now that the road was of the better sort, and the spirits of both man and beasts were so raised by the sight of a house that they all seemed in better form for work than when in the middle of their journey.
Alec Trenholme waited till the cart drew up between his door and the railway track, and regarded the giant stature of the lumberman, his small, round head, red cheeks, and luxuriant whiskers, with that intense but unreflecting interest which the lonely bestow upon unexpected company. He looked also, with an eye to his own business, at the contents of the cart, and gave the man a civil "good evening."
As he spoke, his voice and accent fell upon the air of this wilderness as a rarely pleasant thing to hear. Saul hastily dressed his whiskers with his horny left-hand before he answered, but even then, he omitted to return the greeting.
"I want to know," he said, sidling up, "how much it would cost to send that by the cars to St. Hennon's." He nudged his elbow towards the coffin as he spoke.
"That box?" asked the station-master. "How much does it weigh?"
"We might weigh it if I'd some notion first about how much I'd need to pay."
"What's in it?"
Saul smoothed his whiskers again. "Well," he said—then, after a slight pause—"it's a dead man."
"Oh!" said Trenholme. Some habit of politeness, unnecessary here, kept his exclamation from expressing the interest he instantly felt. In a country where there are few men to die, even death assumes the form of an almost agreeable change as a matter of lively concern. Then, after a pause which both men felt to be suitable, "I suppose there is a special rate for—that sort of thing, you know. I really haven't been here very long. I will look it up. I suppose you have a certificate of death, haven't you?"
Again Saul dressed his whiskers. His attention to them was his recognition of the fact that Trenholme impressed him as a superior.
"I don't know about a certificate. You've heard of the Bates and Cameron clearin', I s'pose; it's old Cameron that's dead"—again he nudged his elbow coffinward—"and Mr. Bates he wrote a letter to the minister at St. Hennon's."
He took the letter from his pocket as he spoke, and Trenholme perceived that it was addressed in a legible hand and sealed.
"I fancy it's all right," said he doubtfully. He really had not any idea what the railway might require before he took the thing in charge.
Saul did not make answer. He was not quite sure it was all right, but the sort of wrongness he feared was not to be confided to the man into whose care he desired to shove the objectionable burden.
"What did he die of?" asked the young man.
"He fell down, and he seemed for some days as if he'd get over it; then he was took sudden. We put his feet into a hot pot of water and made him drink lye."
"Lye?"
"Ash water—but we gave it him weak."
"Oh."
"But—he died."
"Well, that was sad. Does he leave a wife and family?"
"No," said Saul briefly. "But how much must I pay to have the cars take it the rest of the way?"
Trenholme stepped into his room and lit his lamp that he might better examine his list of rates. Saul came inside to warm himself at the stove. The lamp in that little room was the one spot of yellow light in the whole world that lay in sight, yet outside it was not yet dark, only dull and bitterly cold.
Trenholme stood near the lamp, reading fine print upon a large card. The railway was only just opened and its tariff incomplete as yet. He found no particular provision made for the carriage of coffins. It took him some minutes to consider under what class of freight to reckon this, but he decided not to weigh it. Saul looked at the room, the ham and tea, and at Trenholme, with quiet curiosity in his beady eyes. Outside, the oxen hung their heads and dozed again.
"You see," said Saul, "I'll get there myself with the potash to-morrow night; then I can arrange with the minister."
He had so much difficulty in producing the requisite number of coins for the carriage that it was evident the potash could not be sent by train too; but Trenholme was familiar now with the mode of life that could give time of man and beast so easily, and find such difficulty in producing a little money of far less value. He did remark that, as the cart was to complete the journey, the coffin might as well travel the second day as it had done the first; but, Saul showed reluctance to hear this expostulation, and certainly it was not the station-master's business to insist. The whole discussion did not take long. Saul was evidently in a haste not usual to such as he, and Trenholme felt a natural desire to sit down to his tea, the cooking of which filled the place with grateful perfume. Saul's haste showed itself more in nervous demeanour than in capacity to get through the interview quickly. Even when the money was paid, he loitered awkwardly. Trenholme went into his store-room, and threw open its double doors to the outside air.
"Help me in with it, will you?"
It was the pleasant authority of his tone that roused the other to alacrity. They shouldered the coffin between them. The store-room was fairly large and contained little. Trenholme placed the coffin reverently by itself in an empty corner. He brought a pot of black paint and a brush, and printed on it the necessary address. Then he thought a moment, and added in another place the inscription—"Box containing coffin—to be handled with care."
It is to be remarked how dependent we are for the simplest actions on the teaching we have had. Never having received the smallest instruction as to how to deal with such a charge, it cost him effort of thought and some courage to put on this inscription. Saul watched, divided between curious interest and his desire to be away.
"You've got another coffin inside this case, of course?" said the station-master, struck with a sudden doubt.
To him, polished wood and silver plating seemed such a natural accessory of death that he had, without thought, always associated the one idea with the other.
"No, that's all there is. We made it too large by mistake, but we put a bed quilt in for stuffing."
"But, my man, it isn't very well put together; the lid isn't tight."
"No—neither it is." Saul had already sidled to the door.
Trenholme felt it with his thumb and fingers.
"It's perfectly loose," he cried. "It's only got a few nails in the lid.
You ought to have put in screws, you know."
"Yes, but we hadn't got any; we had used the last screws we had for the hinge of a door. I'm going to buy some to put in at St. Hennon's. Good-day."
As they spoke, Saul had been going to his cart, and Trenholme following, with authoritative displeasure in his mien.
"It's exceedingly careless—upon my word. Come back and nail it up firmer," cried he.
But Saul drove off.
The young station-master went back to the store-room. He looked at the box for a moment, with annoyance still in his mind. The air that he had would have sat well upon a man with servants under him, but was somewhat futile in the keeper of a desolate railway-station. He had not been able to command the man, and he certainly could not command the coffin to nail itself more firmly together. After all, his tea waited. Somewhat sullenly he barred the double door on the inside, and went back to his own room and his evening meal.
The room was filled with the steam of the boiling tea as he poured it out, and the smoke of the ham gravy. With the strength of youth and health he thrust aside the annoyance of his official position from his present mind, and set himself to his supper with considerable satisfaction.
He had not, however, eaten a single morsel before he heard a sound in the next room which caused him to sit erect and almost rigid, forgetting his food. He had been so pre-occupied a minute before with the carelessness of those who constructed the coffin that he had left the inner door between the two rooms ajar. It was through this that the sound came, and it seemed to his quickened sense to proceed from the corner in which the pinewood box reposed, but he hastily went over all the contents of the room to think if any of them could be falling or shifting among themselves. The sound still continued; it seemed as if something was being gently worked to and fro, as in a soft socket. His imagination was not very quick to represent impossible dangers, nor had he in him more cowardice than dwells in most brave men. He did not allow himself to conclude that he heard the coffin-lid being opened from the inside. He took his lamp and went to see what was wrong.
The sound ceased as he moved. When the light of the lamp was in the next room all was perfectly silent. For almost half a minute he stood still, shading his eyes from the lamp, while, with every disagreeable sensation crowding upon him, he observed distinctly that, although the nails were still holding it loosely in place, the lid of the coffin was raised half an inch, more than that indeed, at the top.
"Now, look here, you know—this won't do," said Trenholme, in loud authoritative tones; so transported was he by the disagreeableness of his situation that, for the moment, he supposed himself speaking to the man with whom he had just spoken. Then, realising that that man, although gone, was yet probably within call, he set down the lamp hastily and ran out.
It seemed to him remarkable that Saul and the oxen could have gone so far along the road, although of course they were still plainly in sight. He shouted, but received no answer. He raised his voice and shouted again and again, with force and authority. He ran, as he shouted, about twenty paces. In return he only heard Saul's own commands to his oxen. Whether the man was making so much noise himself that he could not hear, or whether he heard and would not attend, Trenholme could not tell, but he felt at the moment too angry to run after him farther. It was not his place to wait upon this carter and run his errands! Upon this impulse he turned again.
However, as he walked back, the chill frost striking his bare head, he felt more diffidence and perplexity about his next action than was at all usual to him. He knew that he had no inclination to investigate the contents of the box. All the curiosity stirred within him still failed to create the least desire to pry further; but, on the other hand, he could not think it right to leave the matter as it was. A strong feeling of duty commanding him to open the coffin and see that all was right, and a stout aversion to performing this duty, were the main elements of his consciousness during the minutes in which he retraced his steps to the house.
He had set down the lamp on a package just within the baggage-room door, so that his own room, by which he entered, was pretty dark, save for the fire showing through the damper of the stove. Trenholme stopped in it just one moment to listen; then, unwilling to encourage hesitation in himself, went through the next door. His hand was outstretched to take the lamp, his purpose was clearly defined—to go to the far corner and examine the coffin-lid. Hand and thought arrested, he stopped on the threshold, for the lid was thrown off the coffin, and beside it stood a figure.
The lamp, which did not throw very much light across the comparatively large empty room, was so placed that what light there was came directly in Trenholme's eyes. Afterwards he remembered this, and wondered whether all that he thought he saw had, in fact, been clearly seen; but at the moment he thought nothing of the inadequacy of light or of the glare in his eyes; he only knew that there, in the far corner beside the empty coffin, stood a white figure—very tall to his vision, very lank, with white drapery that clothed it round the head like a cowl and spread upon the floor around its feet. But all that was not what arrested his attention and chilled his strong courage, it was the eyes of the figure, which were clearly to be seen—large, frightened, fierce eyes, that met his own with a courage and terror in them which seemed to quell his own courage and impart terror to him. Above them he saw the form of a pallid brow clearly moulded. He did not remember the rest of the face—perhaps the white clothes wrapped it around. While the eyes struck him with awe, he had a curious idea that the thing had been interrupted in arranging its own winding sheet, and was waiting until he retired again to finish its toilet. This was merely a grotesque side-current of thought. He was held and awed by the surprise of the face, for those eyes seemed to him to belong to no earthly part of the old man who, he had been told, lay there dead. Drawn by death or exhaustion as the face around them looked, the eyes themselves appeared unearthly in their large brightness.
He never knew whether his next action was urged more by fear, or by the strong sense of justice that had first prompted him to call back the carter as the proper person to deal with the contents of the coffin. Whatever the motive, it acted quickly. He drew back; closed the door; locked it on the side of his own room; and set out again to bring back the man. This time he should hear and should return. Trenholme did not spare his voice, and the wide lonely land resounded to his shout. And this time he was not too proud to run, but went at full speed and shouted too.
Saul undoubtedly saw and heard him, for he faced about and looked. Perhaps something in the very way in which Trenholme ran suggested why he ran. Instead of responding to the command to return, he himself began to run away and madly to goad his oxen. There are those who suppose oxen yoked to a cart cannot run, but on occasion they can plunge into a wild heavy gallop that man is powerless to curb. The great strength latent in these animals was apparent now, for, after their long day's draught, they seemed to become imbued with their driver's panic, and changed from walking to dashing madly down the road. It was a long straight incline of three miles from the station to the settlement called Turrifs. Saul, unable to keep up with the cattle, flung himself upon the cart, and, with great rattling, was borne swiftly away from his pursuer. Young Trenholme stopped when he had run a mile. So far he had gone, determined that, if the man would not stop for his commands, he should be collared and dragged back by main force to face the thing which he had brought, but by degrees even the angry young man perceived the futility of chasing mad cattle. He drew up panting, and, turning, walked back once more. He did not walk slowly; he was in no frame to loiter and his run had brought such a flush of heat upon him that it would have been madness to linger in the bitter cold. At the same time, while his legs moved rapidly, his mind certainly hesitated—in fact, it almost halted, unable to foresee in the least what its next opinion or decision would be. He was not a man to pause in order to make up his mind. He had a strong feeling of responsibility towards his little station and its inexplicable tenant, therefore he hurried back against his will. His only consolation in this backward walk was the key of the door he had locked, which in haste he had taken out and still held in his hand. Without attempting to decide whether the thing he had seen was of common clay or of some lighter substance, he still did not lend his mind with sufficient readiness to ghostly theory to imagine that his unwelcome guest could pass through locked doors.
Nor did the ghost, if ghost it was, pass through unopened doors. The flaw in Trenholme's comfortable theory was that he had forgotten that the large double door, which opened from the baggage room to the railway track, was barred on the inside. When he got back to his place he found this door ajar, and neither in his own room, nor in the baggage room, nor in the coffin, was there sign of human presence, living or dead.
All the world about lay in the clear white twilight. The blueberry flats, the bramble-holts, were red. The clouded sky was white, except for that metallic blue tinge in the west, through which, in some thin places, a pale glow of yellower light was now visible, the last rays of the day that had set. It was this world on which the young Englishman looked as, amazed and somewhat affrighted, he walked round the building, searching on all sides for the creature that could hardly yet, had it run away in such a level land, be wholly out of sight.
He went indoors again to make sure that nothing was there, and this time he made a discovery—his tea was gone from his cup. He gave a shudder of disgust, and, leaving his food untouched, put on coat and cap, and went out shutting his door behind him. His spirits sank. It seemed to him that, had it been midnight instead of this blank, even daylight, had his unearthly-looking visitant acted in more unearthly fashion, the circumstances would have had less weird force to impress his mind.
We can, after all, only form conjectures regarding inexplicable incidents from the successive impressions that have been made upon us. This man was not at all given to love of romance or superstition, yet the easy explanation that some man, for purpose of trick or crime, had hidden in the box, did not seem to him to fit the circumstances. He could not make himself believe that the eyes he had seen belonged to a living man; on the other hand, he found it impossible to conceive of a tea-drinking ghost.