SILVER ISLET.
SILVER ISLET.
In Lake Superior, near its northern shore, a mere speck of land, scarcely two hundred feet square, barely shows itself above the water. This is Silver Islet, and on it sinks the shaft of the richest silver mine in the world. Covering almost its entire dimensions, stand two buildings. One, a low frame house, encloses the mouth of the mine, and the other, immediately adjacent, a small wooden structure, forms the watch-tower.
Through this tower, every evening, the miners, when dismissed for the day, are compelled to pass out one by one, and submit themselves to an examination, where their clothes are thoroughly searched, that none of the precious metal may be carried away secreted upon the person. So extreme is the vigilance employedthat visitors are never allowed, except by special permit, and though isolated upon the waters, the place is kept by day and night under this strict martial surveillance.
To the north, about a quarter of a mile distant, is another island, perhaps six or eight acres in extent. It is high and rocky, and in one place reaches up more than a hundred feet. Here, built upon its sloping side, is the little settlement that could count up altogether, it might be, thirty houses. Here the miners live with their families. Here, too, every thing that pertains to the business of the place carries itself on; and here it was that father had brought me to stay.
I was about eighteen years old then. I do not know how father happened to receive the position of assistant overseer at the mine. I never knew very much about father. Indeed I had hardly seen him more than half a dozen times in my life, until that day he came to take me from the farm. I could not remember my mother, who died in my infancy, and brother or sister I had none. Father was a morose, unsociable man by nature, and I think he cared but very little for me. I had been left at my uncle’s to grow up, and so, as I said, about him I knew almost nothing.
Uncle George lived on a poverty-strickenfarm upon the flattest of prairies. I hardly know how I did grow up there, it was such a wretched, miserable place. Although I had never experienced any thing different, it was so forlorn an existence, that I chafed inwardly against it every hour. I possessed a kind of dumb consciousness that surely, surely I must be made for something better than this. I saw nothing of the world, nothing of humanity outside of my uncle’s family, and the two or three rough farm hands that he occasionally employed. I would rather have had the cattle, the poor half-starved cattle, for companions than these. They were none of them kind to me. I know not whether father ever paid any thing for my board; but I know I worked far harder than any hired servant. I did not rebel outwardly, but I was constantly unhappy. Was I to live on all my days in this hopeless, miserable way? Was there never to be any thing better? Looking out of the window, I thought of the great, busy world, and the far-off, unknown cities; but before my eyes there was only a dead level of the hateful yellow prairie, and above, the colorless sky stretched itself out in a gigantic, measureless blank.
From this life it was that father came, without word or warning, and took me. I know now that he only wanted me with him as a convenience,but then I was wild with delight. In my great craving for human sympathy I would have loved father with all my heart, had he given me any encouragement. I did love him for this one good deed. I knew not where he was taking me, but I was sure it could be no worse place. With an intense joy I went up and surveyed, for the last time, the miserable little room where I had vainly cried so many hot tears over my weary existence. I stayed my steps a moment beside the one window, a little window facing westward. From here I had seen the only beauty that ever came before my passionate eyes flame up with a splendor, as of gold, along the sky when the sun went down. A thousand times my yearning heart had watched the short-lived glory fade, like a mockery, into the dreary blank. From here, too, year by year, with a rank rebellion in my soul, I had looked out at the shadowless prairie that lay over all the earth, a great, glaring, uncovered, yellow blister.
So it was with nothing but glad emotion that I stood upon the spot consciously for the last time. I had a keen, absorbing love of the beautiful, a hunger insatiable, that unfed was sapping my life. This wretched existence had almost killed me; but for the change I believe that my longing spirit, like my mother’s in thefar past, would have broken its wings. Now there was an avenue of escape suddenly opened up before me—of escape from the dreadful monotony, from the intolerable agony of everlasting sameness that, by day and night, recurring forever, had made up the tiresome years as they passed. My whole being was turned to my father with one inspiration of gratitude.
Had I known any thing of Pythagoras then, almost I could have believed in the transmigration of souls, or that my spirit had passed into some different body, so utterly strange and new I felt at Silver Islet. Here father had rented a little house that stood apart from the rest, upon the very highest point. The whole settlement was grouped within the least possible compass, and considerable of the island, small as it was, still remained in its original condition. There were no trees immediately about our house, but to the right, and running thinly all the way down on the other side to the water, a few straggling pines clung, with their rope-like roots, to the rocks. It was no trouble to me to keep house for only one. I got the breakfast and supper, and every morning put up a dinner for father, which he took with him to the mine. So all day I was left wholly to myself.
As I said, so strange and new I felt it seemedto me for a while as if I had lost my own identity. Here, for the first time in my life, there lay before my eyes a vast expanse of glittering waves—the mighty mystery of far-reaching waters! Rolling, moving, changing, remaining for endless ages, attracting, terrifying—only the mightier mystery of eternity can fathom the hidden secret of this unceasing problem. A hush fell upon my fluttering spirits, a hush of profound awe before this symbol, this vision of the unknown infinite. At last the cry of my soul for food was silenced, the dreadful hunger of my heart, that through all my life I could not allay, was pacified.
At dawn I saw the timid light creep up along the east and wait and brighten, until it set an emblazoned standard in the sky, and below, far out, covered with the pomp of the rising sun, the distant billows clashed their blood-red shields. At noon, I saw the mid-day radiance, falling through the air in torrents of splendor, float far and near, changing into gorgeous mosaics upon the sea. At night I saw the long line of mighty cliffs upon the silent Canadian shore reach out their giant shadow through the dusk of evening that, slowly, softly, gathered into a twilight sweeter than the luminous haze of a dream.
I had no one to care for me, no friend, nolover, but I needed none now. I was happy, happy as in a new and glorious world. I forgot the dreadful prairie, dry and parched—the vast, staring, level of land that for so many years had oppressed me by its terrible, never ending monotony. I even forgot the thousand times I had longed and longed to see a great city, to live among its busy throng.
It was November, and presently the wind, keen and cold, swept down, like the wind from the Arctic zone. Mad, pitiless, the boundless waters piled themselves in towering billows. They leaped and menaced. They broke over Silver Islet with a frightful roar and drenched it with their freezing spray. They danced about it in savage fury. They beat against it continually, and the howling gale, swift and strong, dashed the foam in blinding sheets. Already the long, fierce winter of the North was rapidly setting in.
Great layers of ice formed and broke, and ground up and formed again, until December, still and frigid, locked us within the impenetrable barriers of a vast, frozen sea. To the east, to the west, to the south, an illimitable wilderness of snow, the mighty Superior for miles lay wrapped in a silence profound as the grave. To the north, shrouded in their eternal solitude, cold, white and spectral, the cliffs upon the longCanadian shore held up their stony battlement, sheeted in ice, as in a pall. Utterly devoid of warmth, the sunlight blazed with a brilliance indescribable through an atmosphere that, clearer than crystal, glittered as with the scintillations of feldspar. But the nights—the nights swinging in their long winter arc, were illuminated by a glory more gorgeous than the unreal splendor wrought in the loom of dreams. The stars, myriads upon myriads, studded the whole heaven with drops of intense light, and the planets, magnified through the vast laboratory of the air, showed great balls of molten silver against a vault of jet. Sometimes when the night was at its blackest, suddenly there shot up, flaming from the white battlements of the Canadian shore, a thousand lances. Like the parade of an army, like the marshalling of far-reaching cohorts, the mighty processions swept the semicircle of the sky. They rose and fell. They wavered like the spears of troops in battle. Then the vast battalions, closing together, ran up in a towering shaft to the zenith. A river of ice-cold fire, it divided the heaven. It overflowed and spread out in a sea of gorgeous color that receded, wave upon wave, until it burned, a deep blue flame upon the frozen crown of the Canadian cliffs. I have watched this aurora in its changeful mood ahundred times. I have watched the illimitable fields of snow beneath, while the reflected light played upon them in weird rays, far out to the remote horizon.
During the Winter, unused to the severe climate, I rarely left the house. So far as was possible, I held myself aloof from the people, the people, that, as I said, were only the rough families of miners. Ignorant and uneducated, painfully ignorant and uneducated I was myself, still I could not associate with such as these. I did not grow tired, but yet I was glad when the long, frozen months had passed by. As the late Spring opened, Winter even then did not yield its supremacy without a fierce contest, but in the contest—the savage storms from the north—the ice broke. The huge cakes, drifting about, slowly, gradually, wore themselves away, and the wind dropped its javelins of frost.
Late it was in June before the last vestige was gone of the bitter cold that had held us in its frigid clasp for more than two-thirds of a year. Then there opened for me an unfailing source of enjoyment. I learned to row, and father allowed me to buy a small boat. It was almost the only favor I ever asked of him, and how much have I to be thankful for that he did not deny me! Though slight of figure, mymuscles were strong, and after awhile, with constant practice, I could row twenty miles in a day without exhaustion, and every day now, and all the day, I spent my time upon the water.
The Summer, beautiful to me beyond description, was like a perpetual Spring. In my little boat, alone, I explored the shore far and near. I rowed to the very ledges of those cliffs that I had watched all Winter long lifting themselves, like a huge, jagged spine, against the sky. A thousand, sometimes twelve hundred feet, they reached up, gray and naked, a sheer, barren wall of rock from the water. With the cold waves forever at their feet, gloomy, silent, they stood in their drear majesty, and the chilly fog wrapped them round with the folds of its clammy garb. Only in the most beautiful weather did this fog lift from about them its clinging skirts, and slowly the damp mists trailed themselves off in long white plumes of down. At such times, floating idly in my skiff, I felt oppressed by the vast burden of their dreadful silence. I believe there is no greater solitude than that which sometimes at noon, when sea and sky are unwrinkled by wave or cloud, sits upon this mighty shore of desolate, desert rock. Yet here, where this profound silence broods, upon these tawny bastions of stone, occasionally fierce thunder storms play, and the watersin wild tumult dash against their base with a noise like the roar of heavy artillery.
So the weeks slipped by, and it was in the early part of October that first I saw a change had come over father. As I have said, he was by nature a reserved, unsociable, even morose man. He was never communicative, and to me sometimes spoke hardly two dozen words in a day. I had grown used to this, and felt that I had nothing to complain about, as he laid no restrictions upon me in any respect. But now I could not help noticing a decided alteration, both in his looks and manner. Constitutionally a thin man, his face appeared thinner to me than ever. So exceedingly pale and worn was he, that I do not know that I had ever seen a more haggard countenance. His eyes, which were very light in color and deep-set in his head, had an unnatural brightness, a strange expression I can hardly describe, a peculiar, watching wakefulness. His manner was restless and uneasy in the extreme, and he spoke even less frequently than usual. He staid out much later than had been his ordinary habit, often not coming home until early in the morning; and several times I heard him with a slow step walk back and forth, back and forth, over the floor of his room all night.
As I have said, I knew nothing of his duties,nor did I know any thing of the miners. When first I noticed the change upon father, I thought he was over fatigued perhaps, then I became alarmed lest he was ill. Little as he cared for me, he was the only human being on earth upon whom I had the slightest claim, and I would have done any thing for him. I could not bear to see him look so badly. He had never manifested any thing towards me but utter indifference, and so strangely reserved was he that I, in my great dread that he might be harsh some time, had hardly ever volunteered a single sentence to him. I was troubled, and did not know what to do. That night at supper I said, gently,—
“Father, do you feel well?”
At first he did not appear to hear, and I repeated my question, then he turned his pale eyes upon me suddenly with a quick, startled look in them that frightened me,—
“What?”
“I asked if you felt well,” I said again, embarrassed by his strange manner. “You look so badly lately I thought maybe there was something the matter.”
He did not speak at all for a moment, but sat there staring at me wildly. Catching his breath slightly, he looked all round the room and brought his eyes, his pale eyes, with anangry gleam in them now, back to my face, then said, fiercely,—
“See here, don’t you meddle in my matters! I am able to take care of myself.”
“Oh, father, I only thought—”
“Do you hear me?” he said, savagely. “Mind your own business. There is nothing the matter with me. If you can’t do any thing better than interfere in my affairs, you can go back. See that you don’t do it again, or—”
He broke off abruptly, and I, my heart throbbing as if it might break, got up and went into my own room. I had not interfered in his affairs. I had done nothing wrong, said nothing to call up such an outburst of passion, and his dreadful anger had terrified me. I went to the window to try and calm myself. I put up the sash and leaned out.
The twilight had almost dissolved itself in night, a night so soft and gentle that the very waters, wooed from their troubled toil, ceased their long complaint and slept. The pine trees, slim and black, whispered to each other in their mysterious language with peaceful cadence, telling, perhaps, of the time when they would shed their countless needles. In the west, shining like a harvest sickle, hung the yellow crescent of the new October moon. Trying to still the throbbing in my veins, I watched it growand change and deepen as it sank, until above the water it poised, a great Moorish sword of blood-red fire, and a long line of vermilion light ran out upon the quiet sea. Then suddenly it was blotted in darkness.
The figure of a man obstructed my range of vision.
Instantly the dreadful throbbing in my heart leaped up again. I drew back noiselessly from the window. The man, only a few feet distant—I could almost have put out my hand and touched him—stopped, hesitated irresolutely for a moment, turned about as if to see that no one watched him, then with stealthy step went across the open space and began to climb, catching from tree to tree, down the precipitous rocks towards the lake. Once or twice I heard a stone loosen from beneath his feet, and presently I heard the plash of oars in the water, then it died out, and straining my ears I could detect no sound but the quiet, mysterious whisperings of the pines. I laid my head upon the window-sill sick and faint. The figure of the man I had seen was father.
Too well I knew now that he was neither tired, nor ill. Why should he have crept down so stealthily over these wild, almost perpendicular rocks to the lake? Why not have gone by the ordinary path through the settlement?Ah, why? Something was wrong—but what? I turned cold and dizzy. I would not, Idarednot think.
I tried vainly to sleep that night. Haunted by a thousand forebodings, I could not even close my eyes, and it was almost day-break when I heard father come in quietly and go to his room.
I never referred again to his ill looks, nor did he, but somehow I could not help thinking that from this time he watched me a little suspiciously. I felt hurt that he imagined I would play the spy upon his actions. Whatever he might do, whatever he might say, he was still my father, and I could not give him up. It was dreadful, those days that followed. It seemed like living upon the verge of a precipice, or that some unseen calamity hung above my head ready to fall at any moment and crush me.
One evening, just after I had lighted the lamp and put it on the supper table, I went, as was my usual habit, to draw down the blinds. Father had not yet come home. As I crossed his room I saw through the window a man standing close beside it on the outside, so close that I could not have seen him more distinctly had he been within reach of my touch. His arms were folded across his chest, and his head dropped a little in the attitude of one waiting.His figure was large and thick-set, almost that of a giant. As I looked he took off his cap and passed his hand over his short-cut, bristly hair, and in the action I saw his face,—a coarse, heavy, brutish face, that made me shudder. I noticed that the window sash was down and bolted, and I did not go near to touch the blind. I went back with an uneasy feeling into the dining-room.
A few moments afterward father came in. He took up the light hurriedly, saying some thing about wanting it for a moment, and carried it into his room and shut the door. I heard him walking about in there, opening and closing drawers, and after a little I thought I heard a sound as if he were raising the window-sash gently. Then he came out. He looked at me sharply for a moment, and remarked that he had been hunting for a key. Strange! He was not in the habit of accounting for his actions. After he got up from the table he did not leave the house again, but went to bed almost immediately.
In the morning when I put up his dinner and handed it to him as usual, he said,—
“You need not get any supper for me to-night. I have office work to do at the mine and will not be back.”
I was surprised. He had frequently notcome home to the evening meal, but never before had he thought it worth his while to give me notice. I stood looking after him as he went out of the gate, when suddenly an idea flashed into my head that made my heart sink in my breast like a stone. I do not know why it should have come to me then so suddenly, with such strong conviction. Quickly I turned and ran into father’s room. I looked about. I opened the drawers. Yes—the most of his clothing was gone! It was as I thought. He did not mean to come back at all—Deserted! The dreadful word choked up my throat. I knew nothing of father’s actions, I knew not what he had done, but I would gladly have gone with him, have stood disgrace with him even, if that were necessary. I am sure I can not tell why I clung to him with such desperation. Though I was ignorant and inexperienced, I was also young and strong, and I was not afraid I would fail to make my living alone in the world. But kneeling upon the floor I laid my head upon the foot of the bedstead, and heavy, suffocating sobs came to my lips. Probably I would never see him again, and if he did not love me, at least, except that one time, he had not been harsh to me, and he was my father.
At first I thought I would follow him; Iwould go to the mine and see if he might not still be there. Then I knew that to make inquiries about him would probably only increase the danger that threatened, whatever that danger might be, and though it was justice pursuing him for some crime, I would have shielded him still. I was powerless. I could do nothing to recall him; I could do nothing but wait. Wandering about with only the one thought in my mind, after awhile the house became positively intolerable. I must do something at least to keep myself employed, or I should absolutely go wild. My head ached unbearably, and I had a compressed feeling across my chest.
I took my heavy, scarlet cloak and threw it over my arm. I do not know why I should have taken this one, for I wore it generally only in the bitter cold of midwinter. With a strange feeling of dread when any one looked at me, I went down hurriedly through the settlement to the wharf. I got into my boat and pushed off. On the water I could breathe better.
I rowed, rowed, rowed, steadily, steadily, taking note of nothing. My only relief lay in violent exercise. How many miles up the shore I went I do not know, but it was farther than I had ever reached before, and when I drew in my oars to rest, like a mighty conflagration,the red embers of the sun-set’s fire were dying down along the sky.
In this region of the lake, from a quarter to two miles from shore, at wide intervals isolated rocks rise up out of the water, or mere points of land covered with a thick growth of underbrush show themselves, so small they look from a distance like a floating fleck of green that the waves could drift about at pleasure. The gulls rest upon them undisturbed by man or beast. Lonely, a thousand times more lonely, these islands make it seem than a clear, open stretch of water. A few of them, perhaps, are fifteen or twenty feet in extent. On a dark night it would have been dangerous to row here.
I felt weak and tired. The lake stretched itself out, quiet and peaceful as a painted ocean. Not a ripple disturbed the tranquil surface that mirrored the sky like a glass. I drew my cloak over me and lay down in my boat. I cared not when I got back, the later the better, for I still clung to a forlorn hope, that perhaps in the morning father would return. I was not afraid, for the moon had reached its full and would be up even as the last halo of the departing day was fading from the west. Out of the water I saw it come. An enormous globe of maroon fire, it sat upon the horizon and stained the lake with its magenta rays. Fatigued and exhausted,I think I must have slept, for when next I looked, bright and yellow, it was swung high up in the sky, shedding through the air a splendor like pearl.
I felt glad I had brought my cloak, for it was cold, very cold, and I would have been almost numb without it. I knew by the position of the moon that it must be somewhere near eleven o’clock. I sat up, shivered a little, drew my wrap closer about me and reached out one hand for the oars—when suddenly, midway in the action, I held it suspended, motionless! Sometimes there is nothing so startling as the sound of a human voice. I heard two men talking. For an instant I was paralyzed. My boat lay close beside one of these little knolls of land I have described. I could have put out my arm and touched the rank sword-grass that grew along its border. I did catch hold of it and noiselessly drew my skiff nearer, into a kind of curve, so that, though I was on the bright side, the overhanging brambles threw me into shadow, and another skiff, passing by, would hardly have detected me, when instantly I found that the men were not on the water. A cold terror crept over me. They were distant scarcely three yards. I could not see them, but I could almost feel the underbrush crackling beneath their feet. They evidently, though, had noknowledge of my presence, and I, not daring to stir, fairly held my breath. They seemed to be removing something from the ground and transferring it to their boat which, as I supposed, lay upon the other side. I could hear them lift and carry, what, I did not know. It sounded sometimes like stones falling with a partially muffled thud when they put them down. One of the men in a rough voice said, with a loud, harsh laugh, evidently resting for a moment,—
“This repays for lots o’ trouble! That was a neat slip we gave ’em all to-night. By —— I’m glad to be quit o’ the place! Its ——”
“Be quiet can’t you!”
My heart, at a single bound, leaped into my mouth. In these few words, spoken low and stern, I instantly recognized the voice. It was father’s. The other man did not reply, but muttered a half intelligible curse. They were both in the boat now, for I heard the plash of their oars. Presently father said, in a sharp, quick tone,—
“Take care! Sit down, sit down I tell you!”
Again the man muttered something between his shut teeth. The next moment they came round into the light and passed me, pulling hard. Then I recognized the thick-set, burly figure that I had seen last night. He was in the stern of the boat, and I saw his face again, the samerepulsive face, but with a sullen scowl upon the brutish features.
They were heavily loaded and rowed slowly. They had got well past me when I heard father say something; what, I did not understand; but the man, dropping his oars, turned his head and replied, savagely,—
“Look’e yer! You’ve did nothin’ but boss, an’ boss, an’ I’m tired o’ it! This yer’s as much mine as yourn, and by —— I’d jes as lief make it all mine!”
Quick as the movement of a cat he changed his position, facing round to father. Quicker still, he stooped and caught up something in his hand that by the glint of the moonlight explained their heavy load, and all the mystery which had been hanging over father’s actions. It was a rough, jagged piece of silver ore. He raised his powerful arm and struck father with it on the head. He struck him two or three times. I screamed. There was a dreadful struggle, and at the same second that I saw the gleam of father’s pistol I heard its report. The man raised up his huge figure for an instant, wavered, and fell back heavily with a cry like a wounded tiger. The boat, without capsizing, tilted beneath the shock, filled with water, and went down like a stone.
I absolutely do not know how I pushed outfrom my hiding-place, but with two or three swift strokes I was on the spot. For an instant there was most frightful silence. I can see the waves widening their circle yet. Then, right at my boat’s head, father came to the surface. I was made strong by the energy of desperation.
With a wild, straining reach I leaned over and caught him by the arm, and with the other hand I rowed backward towards the knoll. I would have capsized and gone down rather than have let go my grasp. I was within a skiff’s length of the little island when just at my side I saw the huge form of the miner come up. He struggled and made one mighty effort to catch hold of my boat. No more terrible can the faces of the damned look than this face that glared up at me from the water. It has haunted me waking and sleeping. God forgive me, I could do nothing else! I struck him with the flat side of my oar. Evidently weakened by loss of blood, exhausted and nearly gone, he fell back and sank almost instantly from sight.
I worked round to a place where there was only grass growing, and catching by it drew close to its border. I could never have lifted father up but that he was sensible and could help himself somewhat. I got him on the ground, and from the ground into my boat. Then he fainted.
His head was terribly wounded. I knew I had no time to waste. I was afraid he would die in the coming hours before I could reach assistance. I rubbed his hands. I loosened and took off some of his wet clothing. I folded my cloak over him carefully and seized the oars. Inspired by my strange burden with a strength superhuman, my boat shot swiftly almost as if it had been propelled by steam. But the east was already brightening again with Indian colors when I reached the wharf at last, at last!
They raised him softly and carried him up to the house. I paid no attention to their thousand questions. I do not know what I said—I said it was an accident.
In the weeks of his long fever and delirium, I watched over him day and night. He did not die. He came back to life. How many times I had wondered would he be kind, would he be gentle to me now? Ah, poor father! He was never harsh to any one after that.
When the people came and spoke to him, he would laugh a gentle, meaningless laugh, and sometimes, holding to me tight, he would point to a button or color on their dress and say,—
“Pretty, pretty!”
He grew well and strong again, but it had shattered his mind forever.
How he had avoided the officers at the towerin carrying away the precious metal which he had secreted from time to time, I do not know, but they suspected nothing. I held utter silence about the incident, and if the people did connect the missing miner with his mysterious “accident,” what was there to do? They pitied me that he was simple. Shall I say it? Perhaps it was better so. A strange, new joy came to me, as every day I saw the pale eyes, innocent now as those of a child, follow me about with a grateful look. He was easily managed, and he seemed to cling to me with an affection that would atone for the long blank in the past.
I waited until the bitter Winter had gone by, and the first steamer came in the Summer.
What would become of us in the big, untried city? I had my youth, I had my health.
I stood upon the deck of the great vessel and saw this mere speck of land recede in the distance. Father, standing by my side, touched my arm, and holding out his open hand, said,—
“Pretty, pretty!”
There was a shell in it clean and white, and he looked up at me and smiled.
Yes, better so, it was better so!
He had gone there a man, strong and wicked. By the strange mysteries of Providence, he came from it a child, weak and innocent, witha soul white as the shell which for the moment he cherished in his simple delight.
When next I raised my eyes, only the cold waters of Lake Superior washed the horizon, and Silver Islet had vanished from my sight forever.