Part 34 (1/2)
This time, whether he might lay it to their prayers or no, his hopes were fulfilled. The evening brought a clear sunset, and during the next day the snow melted and soon was gone, and a breeze sprang up and the clouds drifted away, and for several days thereafter the weather continued clear and dry.
Now often he brought his horse to the door, and lifted Amalia to the saddle and walked at her side, fearing she might rest her foot too firmly in the stirrup and so lose control of the horse in her pain.
Always their way took them to the falls. And always he listened while Amalia talked. He allowed himself only the most meager liberty of expression. Distant and cold his manner often seemed to her, but intuitively she respected his moods, if moods they might be called: she suspected not.
CHAPTER XXII
THE BEAST ON THE TRAIL
A week after the first snowfall Larry Kildene returned. He had lingered long after he should have taken the trail and had gone farther than he had dreamed of going when he parted from his three companions on the mountain top. All day long the snow had been falling, and for the last few miles he had found it almost impossible to crawl upward. Fortunately there had been no wind, and the snow lay as it had fallen, covering the trail so completely that only Larry Kildene himself could have kept it--he and his horse--yet not impeding his progress with drifts to be tunneled through.
Harry King had been growing more and more uneasy during the day, and had kept the trail from the cabin to the turn of the cliff clear of snow, but below that point he did not think it wise to go: he could not, indeed. There, however, he stationed himself to wait through the night, and just beyond the turn he built a fire, thinking it might send a light into the darkness to greet Larry, should he happen to be toiling through the snow.
He did not arouse the fears of Amalia by telling her he meant to keep watch all night on the cliff, but he asked her for a brew of Larry Kildene's coffee--of which they had been most sparing--when he left them after the evening meal, and it was given him without a thought, as he had been all day working in the snow, and the request seemed natural. He asked that he might have it in the great kettle in which they prepared it, and carried it with him to the fodder shed.
Darkness had settled over the mountain when, after an hour's rest, he returned to the top of the trail and mended his fire and placed his kettle near enough to keep the contents hot. Through half the night he waited thus, sometimes walking about and peering into the obscurity below, sometimes replenis.h.i.+ng his fire, and sometimes just patiently sitting, his arms clasped about his knees, gazing into s.p.a.ce and brooding.
Many times had Harry King been lonely, but never had the awesomeness of life and its mysterious leadings so impressed him as during this night's vigil. Moses alone on the mountain top, carried there and left where he might see into the promised land--the land toward which he had been aided miraculously to lead his people, but which he might not enter because of one sin,--one only transgression,--Elijah sitting alone in the wilderness waiting for the revealing of G.o.d--waiting heartbroken and weary, vicariously bearing in his own spirit regrets and sorrows over the waywardness of his people Israel,--and John, the forerunner--a ”Voice crying in the wilderness 'Repent ye!'”--these were not so lonely, for their G.o.d was with them and had led them by direct communication and miraculous power; they were not lonely as Cain was lonely, stained with a brother's blood, cast out from among his fellows, hunted and haunted by his own guilt.
Silence profound and indescribable reigned, while the great, soft flakes continued to drift slowly down, silent--silent--as the grave, and above and beneath and on all sides the same absolute neutrality of tint, vague and soft; yet the reality of the rugged mountain even so obscured and covered, remained; its cliffs and crags below, deadly and ragged, and fearful to look down upon, and skirting its sides the long, weary trail, up which at that very moment a man might be toiling, suffering, even to the limit of death--might be giving his life for the two women and the man who had come to him so suddenly out of the unknown; strange, pa.s.sing strange it all was.
Again and again Harry rose and replenished the fire and stamped about, shaking from his shoulders the little heaps of snow that had collected there. The flames rose high in the still air and stained the snow around his bonfire a rosy red. The redness of the fire-stained snow was not more deep and vital than the red blood pulsing through his heart. With all a strong man's virility and power he loved as only the strong can love, and through all his brooding that undercurrent ran like a swift and mighty river,--love, stronger than hate,--love, triumphing over death,--love, deeper than h.e.l.l,--love, lifting to the zenith of heaven;--only two things seemed to him verities at that moment, G.o.d above, and love within,--two overwhelming truths, terrible in their power, all-consuming in their sweetness, one in their vast, incomprehensible ent.i.ty of force, beneficent, to be forever sought for and chosen out of all the universe of good.
The true meaning of Amalia's faith, as she had brokenly tried to explain it to him, dawned on his understanding. G.o.d,--love, truth, and power,--annihilating evil as light eats up darkness, drawing all into the great ”harmony of the music of G.o.d.”
Sitting there in the red light of the fire with the snow falling around him, he knew what he must do first to come into the harmony. He must take up his burden and declare the truth, and suffer the result, no matter what it might be. Keen were all the impressions and visions of his mind. Even while he could see Amalia sleeping in the cabin, and could feel her soft breath on his cheek, could feel her in his arms,--could hear her prayers for Larry Kildene's safety as at that moment he might be coming to them,--he knew that the mighty river of his love must be held back by a masterful will--must be dammed back until its floods deepened into an ocean of tranquillity while he rose above his loneliness and his fierce longing,--loving her, yet making no avowal,--holding her in his heart, yet never disturbing her peace of spirit by his own heart's tumult,--clinging to her night and day, yet relinquis.h.i.+ng her.
And out of this resolution, against which his nature cried and beat itself, he saw, serene, and more lonely than Moses or Elijah,--beautiful, and near to him as his love, the Christ taken to the high places, even the pinnacle of the temple--and the mountain peak, overlooking the worlds and the kingdoms thereof, and turning from them all to look down on him with a countenance of ineffable beauty--the love that dies not.
He lifted his head. The visions were gone. Had he slept? The fire was burning low and a long line was streaked across the eastern sky; a line of gold, while still darkness rested below him and around him.
Again he built up the fire, and set the kettle closer. He stood out on the height at the top of the trail and listened, his figure a black silhouette against the dancing flames. He called, he shouted with all his power, then listened. Did he hear a call? Surely it must be. He plunged downward and called again, and again came the faint response.
In his hand he carried a long pole, and with it he prodded about in the snow for sure footing and continued to descend, calling from time to time, and rejoicing to hear the answering call. Yes, Larry Kildene was below him in the obscurity, and now his voice came up to Harry, long and clear. He had not far to go ere he saw the big man slowly toiling upward through the dusk of dawn. He had dismounted, and the weary animals were following behind.
Thus Larry Kildene came back to his mountain. Exhausted, he still made light of his achievement--climbing through day and night to arrive before the snow should embank around him. He stood in the firelight swaying with weariness and tasted the hot coffee and shook his grizzled head and laughed. The animals came slowly on and stood close to him, almost resting their noses on his shoulder, while Harry King gazed on him with admiration.
”Now if it weren't for the poor beasts, I'd lie down here by the fire and sleep rather than take a step farther to-night. To-night?
Why--it's morning! Isn't it? I never thought we were so near the end.
If I hadn't seen the fire a long way down, I would have risked another bivouac for the rest of the night. We might have lived through it--I don't know, but this is better.” He rubbed the nose of his panting horse. ”I shall drop to sleep if we don't move on.”
A thin blue smoke was rising from the chimney as they pa.s.sed the cabin, but Amalia, kneeling before the hearth, did not know they were near. Harry wondered if Larry had forgotten the mother's hallucination about her husband, yet forbore to mention it, thinking it best to get him into his bunk first. But he had not forgotten. When Harry came into the shed after stabling the horses, he found Larry sitting before the chimney fire warming his knees and smoking.
”Give me a little more of that coffee, Harry, and let's talk a bit before I turn in for the day. There's the mother, now; she still thinks as she did? I'll not see them until this evening--when I may feel able to meet the question, and, lad, tell them what you please, but--better not let the mother know I'm here until I can see her.”
”Then, if you'll go to bed now, I'll bring your food up. I'll tell Amalia, of course.”
”I'm not hungry--only weary. Don't bother the women about food. After a day and night of sleep I'll be quite fit again. Man! But it's good to be back into the peace of the hills! I've been down where the waves of civilization roar. Yes, yes; I'll go to my bunk after a bit. The great menace to our tranquillity here for the winter is the mother.”