Part 11 (1/2)
The pack song, on the hilltop in the winterof life itself, life in the raw, and the sadness and pain and the hopeless war of existence find their echo in the wailing notes None of the wilderness voices were joyous When Bill had chosen his records he took those that answered his own
Not all of them were sad nant and tres of the huti up a few records, and so I took just the ones I liked best They're sis--I'm sorry I haven't anywonder Of course he would like the sis No man of her acquaintance had ever possessed truer standards: no sophistication or cultural growth such as she herself had know could have given hi that ave theht out such qualities of manhood? Yet she knew that the forests did not treat all men alike Those of intrinsic virtue were th of the wilderness itself, but the weaklings perished quickly This was not a land for soft men, for the weak and the cowardly and the vicious The wild soon found them out, harried them by storms and broke their hearts and their spirits, and kept fro lay the explanation It see for the faintest, whispered voices of the forest about hi--his soul and his heart open--and Nature poured forth upon him her incalculable rewards
He put on a record, closed the doors of the instruht to nized the melody at once It was Drdla's ”Souvenir”--and the first notes seemed to sweep her into infinity
It was a beautiful, haunting thing, sweet as love, warm as a inia are of a heart-stirring and incredible contrast The melody did not drown out the sound of the stor, and all the tie and dreadful background Yet the two songs led with such harmony as only old masters, devotees to music, can sometimes hear in their inmost souls but never express in notes
She felt the tears start in her eyes Her cheeks flamed Her heart raced and thrilled For all the exquisite beauty of the song, a vague dread and an incomprehensible fear seemed to come upon her For all the stir and iulfed her spirit In that single instant the North drew aside its curtains of mystery and showed her its secret altar For a breath at least she knew its soul,--its travail, its dreadful beauty, its infinite sadness, its inia had now and then known the fear of Death Two nights previous, as the waters had engulfed her, she had known it very well But never before had she known fear of life That's what it was--fear of _life_--life that could only cost and could not pay, that could take and could not give, that could pain but could not heal She kne the dreadful persecution of the ele ever frole to break the spirit and rend the body, of disaster that could not be turned aside, of cruel and immutable destiny
She knehy the waterfowl had circled all day so restlessly: they too had known the age-old fear of the northern winter They had sensed, in secret ways, the swift approach of the storm
Winter was at hand It would lock the strearow feeble in the sky, and the spirit of Cold would descend with its age-old terrors And the creepy fear, the haunting terror known to all northern creatures, man or beast, crept into her like a subtle poison
It was aleaps, trembled in infinite appeal, and slowly died away Outside the storm increased in fury The wind sobbed over the cabin roof, the trees coainst thepane And still the spell lingered Her lustrous eyes gazed out through the darkened pane, but her thoughts carried far beyond it
And it ell for her peace of lance at Bill
The music had moved him too: besides the fear of the North he had been torn by even a deeper emotion, and for the instant it ritten all to clearly upon his rugged features He atching the girl's face, his eyes yearning and wistful as no hu notes, with the dreadful accoht home a truth to him that for days on the trail he had tried to deny ”I love you, Virginia,” cried the inaudible voice of his soul
”Oh, Virginia--I love you, I love you”
XI
It was one of Bill Bronson's basic creeds to look his situations squarely in the face It was part of the training of the wilderness, and up till now he had always abided by it But for the past few days he had found hi to look aside He had tried to avoid and deny a truth that ever grew clearer and inia
He had told hiive his love to her He would hold back, at least He had reap that separated them, that they were of different spheres and that it only o He had fought with himself, had tried to shut his eyes to her beauty and his heart to her appeal But there was no use of trying further In the stress and passion of the melody he had found out the truth
And this was no moment's passion,--the love that he had for her Bill was not given to fluency of emotion He was a northern man, intense as fire but slow to ereat discipline of the forest; he was not one to lose himself in infatuation or sentimentality He only knew that he loved her, and no event of life could e
He had had dreams, this man; but they were never so concrete, so fond as these dreairl's beauty lorified him, the very fact of her presence thrilled him to the depths, the wistfulness and appeal in her face seemed to burn him like fire This northern land was never the horadations of feelings were unknown to the northern people, but they had full knowledge of the primordial passions They could hate as the she-wolf hates the foe that menaces her cubs, and they could love to the moment of death He knew that whatever fate life had in store for hie his attitude toward her She would leave the North and go back to her own people, and still he would be true
Even in the first instant he knew enough not to hope They would have their northern adventure together, and then she would leave hio to her own land, a place ofand silent in his waste places He knew that all his days this sairl, this lovely flower of the South Nothing could change hi in the forest, dancing once and tripping on to a softer, gentler land; fall would touch the shrubs with color, whisk off the golden leaves of the quivering aspen, and speed way; and winter, drear and cheerless, would shroud the land in snow--and find his love unswerving The forest folk wouldeyes in spring, the moose would bathe andin the lakes in surizzly would seek his lair, and still his dreaed His love would never lessen or increase He had held none of it back; no iven his all
But if he couldn't keep this knowledge froirl It would only bring her unhappiness It would destroy the feeling of coun to observe in her It would put an insurmountable wall between them Besides, he didn't believe that she could understand Perhaps it would only offend her,--that this son of the forests should give her his love She had never dealt withof the s fires within theher know
Strangest of all, he felt no bitterness or resentedy of his life: first his father's murder, his dreams that had never come true, his lost boyhood, his exile in the waste places, and now the lonely years that stretched before hi to atone or redeem He knew that there could be no other woive and take back their love; for theood sense, but such a course was iives but one dream to the forest folk, and they follow it till they die He knew that the yearning in his heart and the void in his life could never be filled
Yet he didn't rail at fate He had learned what fate could do to hie fatalism and composure Besides, would he not have the joy of her presence for un: weeks would pass before she could go home In those days he could serve her, toil for her, devote himself wholly to her happiness He could see her face and know her beauty, and it was all worth the price he paid For life in the North is life in its simplest phases; and the northern est truth of all,--that he who counts the cost of his hour of pleasure shall be crushed in the jaws of Destiny, and that a day of joy , a whole life of sorrow
Virginia had no suspicion of his thoughts She was still enthralled by the after-i far away But soon the noise of the storan to force itself into her consciousness It caused her to consider her own prospects for the night
Vaguely she knew that this night was different frohts she had been ill and half-unconscious: her very helplessness appealed to Bill's chivalry To-night she stood on her own feet Matters were down to a noran to experience a certain embarrassment in her position She was suddenly face to face with the fact that the night stretched before her,--and she in a snoept cabin in the full power of a strange man
She felt more than a little uneasy