The arrogant sun had stalked away into the evening, trailing behind him
banners of gold and crimson, and a swift twilight was streaming over the
land. As the sun passed, the eyes of two men on a high hill followed it,
and the look of one was like a light in a window to a lost traveller.
It had in it the sense of home and the tale of a journey done. Such
a journey this man had made as few have ever attempted, and fewer
accomplished. To the farthermost regions of snow and ice, where the
shoulder of a continent juts out into the northwestern Arctic seas,
he had travelled on foot and alone, save for his dogs, and for Indian
guides, who now and then shepherded him from point to point. The vast
ice-hummocks had been his housing, pemmican, the raw flesh of fish, and
even the fat and oil of seals had been his food. Ever and ever through
long months the everlasting white glitter of the snow and ice, ever and
ever the cold stars, the cloudless sky, the moon at full, or swung like
a white sickle in the sky to warn him that his life must be mown like
grass. At night to sleep in a bag of fur and wool, by day the steely
wind, or the air shaking with a filmy powder of frost; while the
illimitably distant sun made the tiny flakes sparkle like silver--a
poudre day, when the face and hands are most like to be frozen, and all
so still and white and passionless, yet aching with energy. Hundreds
upon hundreds of miles that endless trail went winding to the farthest
North-west. No human being had ever trod its lengths before, though
Indians or a stray Hudson’s Bay Company man had made journeys over part
of it during the years that have passed since Prince Rupert sent his
adventurers to dot that northern land with posts and forts, and trace
fine arteries of civilisation through the wastes.
Where this man had gone none other had been of white men from the
Western lands, though from across the wide Pacific, from the Eastern
world, adventurers and exiles had once visited what is now known as the
Yukon Valley. So this man, browsing in the library of his grandfather,
an Eastern scholar, had come to know; and for love of adventure, and
because of the tale of a valley of gold and treasure to be had, and
because he had been ruined by bad investments, he had made a journey
like none ever essayed before. And on his way up to those regions, where
the veil before the face of God is very thin and fine, and men’s hearts
glow within them, where there was no oasis save the unguessed deposit
of a great human dream that his soul could feel, the face of a girl
had haunted him. Her voice--so sweet a voice that it rang like muffled
silver in his ears, till, in the everlasting theatre of the Pole, the
stars seemed to repeat it through millions of echoing hills, growing
softer and softer as the frost hushed it to his ears-had said to him
late and early, “You must come back with the swallows.” Then she had
sung a song which had been like a fire in his heart, not alone because
of the words of it, but because of the soul in her voice, and it had
lain like a coverlet on his heart to keep it warm:
“Adieu! The sun goes awearily down,
The mist creeps up o’er the sleepy town,
The white sail bends to the shuddering mere,
And the reapers have reaped and the night is here.
Adieu! And the years are a broken song,
The right grows weak in the strife with wrong,
The lilies of love have a crimson stain,
And the old days never will come again.
Adieu! Where the mountains afar are dim
‘Neath the tremulous tread of the seraphim,
Shall not our querulous hearts prevail,
That have prayed for the peace of the Holy Grail.
Adieu! Sometime shall the veil between
The things that are and that might have been
Be folded back for our eyes to see,
And the meaning of all shall be clear to me.”
It had been but an acquaintance of five days while he fitted out for his
expedition, but in this brief time it had sunk deep into his mind that
life was now a thing to cherish, and that he must indeed come back;
though he had left England caring little if, in the peril and danger of
his quest, he ever returned. He had been indifferent to his fate till he
came to the Valley of the Saskatchewan, to the town lying at the foot of
the maple hill beside the great northern stream, and saw the girl whose
life was knit with the far north, whose mother’s heart was buried in
the great wastes where Sir John Franklin’s expedition was lost; for her
husband had been one of the ill-fated if not unhappy band of lovers
of that civilisation for which they had risked all and lost all save
immortality. Hither the two had come after he had been cast away on the
icy plains, and as the settlement had crept north, had gone north
with it, always on the outer edge of house and field, ever stepping
northward. Here, with small income but high hearts and quiet souls, they
had lived and laboured. And when this newcomer from the old land set his
face northward to an unknown destination, the two women had prayed as
the mother did in the old days when the daughter was but a babe at her
knee, and it was not yet certain that Franklin and his men had been cast
away for ever. Something in him, his great height, his strength of body,
his clear, meditative eyes, his brave laugh, reminded her of him--her
husband--who, like Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had said that it mattered
little where men did their duty, since God was always near to take or
leave as it was His will. When Bickersteth went, it was as though one
they had known all their lives had passed; and the woman knew also that
a new thought had been sown in her daughter’s mind, a new door opened in
her heart.
And he had returned. He was now looking down into the valley where
the village lay. Far, far over, two days’ march away, he could see
the cluster of houses, and the glow of the sun on the tin spire of the
little Mission Church where he had heard the girl and her mother sing,
till the hearts of all were swept by feeling and ravished by the desire
for “the peace of the Holy Grail.” The village was, in truth, but a
day’s march away from him, but he was not alone, and the journey could
not be hastened. Beside him, his eyes also upon the sunset and the
village, was a man in a costume half-trapper, half-Indian, with bushy
grey beard and massive frame, and a distant, sorrowful look, like that
of one whose soul was tuned to past suffering. As he sat, his head sunk
on his breast, his elbow resting on a stump of pine--the token of a
progressive civilisation--his chin upon his hand, he looked like the
figure of Moses made immortal by Michael Angelo. But his strength was
not like that of the man beside him, who was thirty years younger.
When he walked, it was as one who had no destination, who had no haven
towards which to travel, who journeyed as one to whom the world is a
wilderness, and one tent or one hut is the same as another, and none is
home.
Like two ships meeting hull to hull on the wide seas, where a few miles
of water will hide them from each other, whose ports are thousands of
miles apart, whose courses are not the same, they two had met, the elder
man, sick and worn, and near to death, in the poor hospitality of
an Indian’s tepee. John Bickersteth had nursed the old man back to
strength, and had brought him southward with him--a silent companion,
who spoke in monosyllables, who had no conversation at all of the
past, and little of the present; but who was a woodsman and an Arctic
traveller of the most expert kind; who knew by instinct where the
best places for shelter and for sleeping might be found; who never
complained, and was wonderful with the dogs. Close as their association
was, Bickersteth had felt concerning the other that his real self was in
some other sphere or place towards which his mind was always turning, as
though to bring it back.
Again and again had Bickersteth tried to get the old man to speak about
the past, but he had been met by a dumb sort of look, a straining to
understand. Once or twice the old man had taken his hands in both of his
own, and gazed with painful eagerness into his face, as though trying
to remember or to comprehend something that eluded him. Upon these
occasions the old man’s eyes dropped tears in an apathetic quiet, which
tortured Bickersteth beyond bearing. Just such a look he had seen in the
eyes of a favourite dog when he had performed an operation on it to save
its life--a reproachful, non-comprehending, loving gaze.
Bickersteth understood a little of the Chinook language, which is
familiar to most Indian tribes, and he had learned that the Indians knew
nothing exact concerning the old man; but rumours had passed from tribe
to tribe that this white man had lived for ever in the farthest north
among the Arctic tribes, and that he passed from people to people,
disappearing into the untenanted wilderness, but reappearing again among
stranger tribes, never resting, and as one always seeking what he could
not find.
One thing had helped this old man in all his travels and sojourning. He
had, as it seemed to the native people, a gift of the hands; for when
they were sick, a few moments’ manipulation of his huge, quiet fingers
vanquished pain. A few herbs he gave in tincture, and these also were
praised; but it was a legend that when he was persuaded to lay on his
hands and close his eyes, and with his fingers to “search for the pain
and find it, and kill it,” he always prevailed. They believed that
though his body was on earth his soul was with Manitou, and that it was
his soul which came into him again, and gave the Great Spirit’s
healing to the fingers. This had been the man’s safety through how many
years--or how many generations--they did not know; for legends regarding
the pilgrim had grown and were fostered by the medicine men who,
by giving him great age and supernatural power, could, with more
self-respect, apologise for their own incapacity.
So the years--how many it was impossible to tell, since he did not know
or would not say--had gone on; and now, after ceaseless wandering, his
face was turned towards that civilisation out of which he had come so
long ago--or was it so long ago--one generation, or two, or ten? It
seemed to Bickersteth at times as though it were ten, so strange, so
unworldly was his companion. At first he thought that the man remembered
more than he would appear to acknowledge, but he found that after a day
or two everything that happened as they journeyed was also forgotten.
It was only visible things, or sounds, that appeared to open the doors
of memory of the most recent happenings. These happenings, if not
varied, were of critical moment, since, passing down from the land of
unchanging ice and snow, they had come into March and April storms, and
the perils of the rapids and the swollen floods of May. Now, in June,
two years and a month since Bickersteth had gone into the wilds, they
looked down upon the goal of one at least--of the younger man who had
triumphed in his quest up in these wilds abandoned centuries ago.
With the joyous thought in his heart, that he had discovered anew one of
the greatest gold-fields of the world, that a journey unparalleled
had been accomplished, he turned towards his ancient companion, and
a feeling of pity and human love enlarged within him. He, John
Bickersteth, was going into a world again, where--as he believed--a
happy fate awaited him; but what of this old man? He had brought him
out of the wilds, out of the unknown--was he only taking him into the
unknown again? Were there friends, any friends anywhere in the world
waiting for him? He called himself by no name, he said he had no name.
Whence came he? Of whom? Whither was he wending now? Bickersteth had
thought of the problem often, and he had no answer for it save that he
must be taken care of, if not by others, then by himself; for the old
man had saved him from drowning; had also saved him from an awful death
on a March day when he fell into a great hole and was knocked insensible
in the drifting snow; had saved him from brooding on himself--the
beginning of madness--by compelling him to think for another. And
sometimes, as he had looked at the old man, his imagination had caught
the spirit of the legend of the Indians, and he had cried out, “O soul,
come back and give him memory--give him back his memory, Manitou the
mighty!”
Looking on the old man now, an impulse seized him. “Dear old man,” he
said, speaking as one speaks to a child that cannot understand, “you
shall never want, while I have a penny, or have head or hands to work.
But is there no one that you care for or that cares for you, that you
remember, or that remembers you?”
The old man shook his head though not with understanding, and he laid a
hand on the young man’s shoulder, and whispered:
“Once it was always snow, but now it is green, the land. I have seen
it--I have seen it once.” His shaggy eyebrows gathered over, his eyes
searched, searched the face of John Bickersteth. “Once, so long ago--I
cannot think,” he added helplessly.
“Dear old man,” Bickersteth said gently, knowing he would not wholly
comprehend, “I am going to ask her--Alice--to marry me, and if she does,
she will help look after you, too. Neither of us would have been here
without the other, dear old man, and we shall not be separated. Whoever
you are, you are a gentleman, and you might have been my father or
hers--or hers.”
He stopped suddenly. A thought had flashed through his mind, a thought
which stunned him, which passed like some powerful current through his
veins, shocked him, then gave him a palpitating life. It was a wild
thought, but yet why not--why not? There was the chance, the faint,
far-off chance. He caught the old man by the shoulders, and looked him
in the eyes, scanned his features, pushed back the hair from the rugged
forehead.
“Dear old man,” he said, his voice shaking, “do you know what I’m
thinking? I’m thinking that you may be of those who went out to
the Arctic Sea with Sir John Franklin--with Sir John Franklin, you
understand. Did you know Sir John Franklin--is it true, dear old boy, is
it true? Are you one that has lived to tell the tale? Did you know Sir
John Franklin--is it--tell me, is it true?”
He let go the old man’s shoulders, for over the face of the other
there had passed a change. It was strained and tense. The hands were
outstretched, the eyes were staring straight into the west and the
coming night.
“It is--it is--that’s it!” cried Bickersteth. “That’s it--love o’ God,
that’s it! Sir John Franklin--Sir John Franklin, and all the brave
lads that died up there! You remember the ship--the Arctic Sea--the
ice-fields, and Franklin--you remember him? Dear old man, say you
remember Franklin?”
The thing had seized him. Conviction was upon him, and he watched the
other’s anguished face with anguish and excitement in his own. But--but
it might be, it might be her father--the eyes, the forehead are like
hers; the hands, the long hands, the pointed fingers. “Come, tell me,
did you have a wife and child, and were they both called Alice--do you
remember? Franklin--Alice! Do you remember?”
The other got slowly to his feet, his arms outstretched, the look in his
face changing, understanding struggling for its place, memory fighting
for its own, the soul contending for its mastery.
“Franklin--Alice--the snow,” he said confusedly, and sank down.
“God have mercy!” cried Bickersteth, as he caught the swaying body, and
laid it upon the ground. “He was there--almost.”
He settled the old man against the great pine stump and chafed his
hands. “Man, dear man, if you belong to her--if you do, can’t you see
what it will mean to me? She can’t say no to me then. But if it’s true,
you’ll belong to England and to all the world, too, and you’ll have fame
everlasting. I’ll have gold for her and for you, and for your Alice,
too, poor old boy. Wake up now and remember if you are Luke Allingham
who went with Franklin to the silent seas of the Pole. If it’s you,
really you, what wonder you lost your memory! You saw them all die,
Franklin and all, die there in the snow, with all the white world round
them. If you were there, what a travel you have had, what strange things
you have seen! Where the world is loneliest, God lives most. If you get
close to the heart of things, it’s no marvel you forgot what you were,
or where you came from; because it didn’t matter; you knew that you were
only one of thousands of millions who have come and gone, that make up
the soul of things, that make the pulses of the universe beat. That’s
it, dear old man. The universe would die, if it weren’t for the
souls that leave this world and fill it with life. Wake up! Wake up,
Allingham, and tell us where you’ve been and what you’ve seen.”
He did not labour in vain. Slowly consciousness came back, and the grey
eyes opened wide, the lips smiled faintly under the bushy beard; but
Bickersteth saw that the look in the face was much the same as it had
been before. The struggle had been too great, the fight for the other
lost self had exhausted him, mind and body, and only a deep obliquity
and a great weariness filled the countenance. He had come back to the
verge, he had almost again discovered himself; but the opening door
had shut fast suddenly, and he was back again in the night, the
incompanionable night of forgetfulness.
Bickersteth saw that the travail and strife had drained life and energy,
and that he must not press the mind and vitality of this exile of time
and the unknown too far. He felt that when the next test came the
old man would either break completely, and sink down into another and
everlasting forgetfulness, or tear away forever the veil between himself
and his past, and emerge into a long-lost life. His strength must be
shepherded, and he must be kept quiet and undisturbed until they came to
the town yonder in the valley, over which the night was slowly settling
down. There two women waited, the two Alices, from both of whom had gone
lovers into the North. The daughter was living over again in her young
love the pangs of suspense through which her mother had passed. Two
years since Bickersteth had gone, and not a sign!
Yet, if the girl had looked from her bedroom window, this Friday night,
she would have seen on the far hill a sign; for there burned a fire
beside which sat two travellers who had come from the uttermost limits
of snow. But as the fire burned--a beacon to her heart if she had but
known it--she went to her bed, the words of a song she had sung at
choir--practice with tears in her voice and in her heart ringing in her
ears. A concert was to be held after the service on the coming Sunday
night, at which there was to be a collection for funds to build another
mission-house a hundred miles farther North, and she had been practising
music she was to sing. Her mother had been an amateur singer of great
power, and she was renewing her mother’s gift in a voice behind which
lay a hidden sorrow. As she cried herself to sleep the words of the song
which had moved her kept ringing in her ears and echoing in her heart:
“When the swallows homeward fly,
And the roses’ bloom is o’er--”
But her mother, looking out into the night, saw on the far hill the
fire, burning like a star, where she had never seen a fire set before,
and a hope shot into her heart for her daughter--a hope that had flamed
up and died down so often during the past year. Yet she had fanned with
heartening words every such glimmer of hope when it came, and now she
went to bed saying, “Perhaps he will come to-morrow.” In her mind, too,
rang the words of the song which had ravished her ears that night, the
song she had sung the night before her own husband, Luke Allingham, had
gone with Franklin to the Polar seas:
“When the swallows homeward fly--”
As she and her daughter entered the little church on the Sunday evening,
two men came over the prairie slowly towards the town, and both raised
their heads to the sound of the church-bell calling to prayer. In the
eyes of the younger man there was a look which has come to many in this
world returning from hard enterprise and great dangers, to the familiar
streets, the friendly faces of men of their kin and clan-to the lights
of home.
The face of the older man, however, had another look.
It was such a look as is seldom seen in the faces of men, for it showed
the struggle of a soul to regain its identity. The words which the old
man had uttered in response to Bickersteth’s appeal before he fainted
away, “Franklin--Alice--the snow,” had showed that he was on the verge;
the bells of the church pealing in the summer air brought him near it
once again. How many years had gone since he had heard church-bells?
Bickersteth, gazing at him in eager scrutiny, wondered if, after all,
he might be mistaken about him. But no, this man had never been born and
bred in the far North. His was a type which belonged to the civilisation
from which he himself had come. There would soon be the test of it all.
Yet he shuddered, too, to think what might happen if it was all true,
and discovery or reunion should shake to the centre the very life of the
two long-parted ones.
He saw the look of perplexed pain and joy at once in the face of the old
man, but he said nothing, and he was almost glad when the bell stopped.
The old man turned to him.
“What is it?” he asked. “I remember--” but he stopped suddenly, shaking
his head.
An hour later, cleared of the dust of travel, the two walked slowly
towards the church from the little tavern where they were lodged. The
service was now over, but the concert had begun. The church was full,
and there were people in the porch; but these made way for the two
strangers; and, as Bickersteth was recognised by two or three present,
place was found for them. Inside, the old man stared round him in a
confused and troubled way, but his motions were quiet and abstracted and
he looked like some old viking, his workaday life done, come to pray ere
he went hence forever. They had entered in a pause in the concert, but
now two ladies came forward to the chancel steps, and one with her hands
clasped before her, began to sing:
“When the swallows homeward fly,
And the roses’ bloom is o’er,
And the nightingale’s sweet song
In the woods is heard no more--”
It was Alice--Alice the daughter--and presently the mother, the other
Alice, joined in the refrain. At sight of them Bickersteth’s eyes had
filled, not with tears, but with a cloud of feeling, so that he went
blind. There she was, the girl he loved. Her voice was ringing in his
ears. In his own joy for one instant he had forgotten the old man
beside him, and the great test that was now upon him. He turned quickly,
however, as the old man got to his feet. For an instant the lost exile
of the North stood as though transfixed. The blood slowly drained from
his face, and in his eyes was an agony of struggle and desire. For a
moment an awful confusion had the mastery, and then suddenly a clear
light broke into his eyes, his face flushed healthily and shone, his
arms went up, and there rang in his ears the words:
“Then I think with bitter pain,
Shall we ever meet again?
When the swallows homeward fly--”
“Alice--Alice!” he called, and tottered forward up the aisle, followed
by John Bickersteth.
“Alice, I have come back!” he cried again.