LOCHINVAR

Tell this story briefly, using your own words. What mistake did McTodd make in preparing for the hunt? What amused you most? How did McTodd show his shrewdness, even if he was not a good hunter? What do you learn about the Arctic region?

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west:—Through all the wide Border his steed was the best,And save his good broadsword he weapons had none;He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.He stayed not forvbrake, and he stopped not for stone,He swam the Esk river where ford there was none;But ere he alighted at Netherby gateThe bride had consented, the gallant came late:For a laggard in love, and a dastard in warWas to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,Among bride’s-men and kinsmen and brothers and all:Then spoke the bride’s father, his hand on his sword(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word),“Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?”“I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied;—Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide—And now am I come with this lost love of mine,To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar.”

He stayed not forvbrake, and he stopped not for stone,He swam the Esk river where ford there was none;But ere he alighted at Netherby gateThe bride had consented, the gallant came late:For a laggard in love, and a dastard in warWas to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,Among bride’s-men and kinsmen and brothers and all:Then spoke the bride’s father, his hand on his sword(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word),“Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?”

“I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied;—Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide—And now am I come with this lost love of mine,To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar.”

The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up,He quaffed of the wine, and he threw down the cup.She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,—“Now tread we a measure!” said young Lochinvar.So stately his form, and so lovely her face,That never a hall such avgalliard did grace;While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume,And the bride-maidens whispered, “’Twere better by farTo have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.”One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near;So light to thevcroup the fair lady he swung,So light to the saddle before her he sprung!“She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, andvscar;They’ll have fleet steeds that follow,” quoth young Lochinvar.There was mounting ’mong Græmes of the Netherby clan;Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;There was racing and chasing on Cannobie lea,But the lost bride of Netherby ne’er did they see.So daring in love, and so dauntless in war;Have ye e’er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?Sir Walter Scott.

So stately his form, and so lovely her face,That never a hall such avgalliard did grace;While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume,And the bride-maidens whispered, “’Twere better by farTo have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.”

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near;So light to thevcroup the fair lady he swung,So light to the saddle before her he sprung!“She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, andvscar;They’ll have fleet steeds that follow,” quoth young Lochinvar.

There was mounting ’mong Græmes of the Netherby clan;Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;There was racing and chasing on Cannobie lea,But the lost bride of Netherby ne’er did they see.So daring in love, and so dauntless in war;Have ye e’er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?Sir Walter Scott.

HELPS TO STUDY

Read the poem through and tell the story briefly. Where is the scene laid?Borderhere means the part of Scotland bordering on England. Who is the hero? Give your opinion of him. Find the expressions used by the poet to inspire admiration for Lochinvar. Give your opinion of the bridegroom. Quote lines that express the poet’s opinion of him. What word is used instead ofthicketin the second stanza? aloiterer? acoward? Why do you suppose the bride had consented? Why did her father put his hand on his sword? What reason did Lochinvar give for coming to the feast? Why did he act as if he did not care? Was the bride willing to marry “the laggard in love”? How do you know? Describe the scene as the two danced. What do you suppose was the “one word in her ear”?Read aloud the lines describing Lochinvar’s ride to Netherby Hall. Read those describing the ride from the hall. Notice the galloping movement of the verse.

Read aloud the lines describing Lochinvar’s ride to Netherby Hall. Read those describing the ride from the hall. Notice the galloping movement of the verse.

Trafford and Marjorie were in Labrador to spend the winter. It was a queer idea for a notedvscientist and rich and successful business man to cut himself loose from the world of London and go out into the Arctic storm and darkness of one of the bleakest quarters of the globe. But Trafford had fallen into a discontent with living, a weariness of the round of work and pleasure, and it was in the hope of winning back his lost zest and happiness that he had made up his mind to try the cure of the wilderness. Marjorie had insisted, like a good wife, on leaving children and home and comfort and accompanying him into the frozen wilds.

The voyage across the sea and the march inland into Labrador were uneventful. Trafford chose his winter-quarters on the side of a low razor-hacked, rocky mountain ridge, about fifty feet above a little river. Not a dozen miles away from them, they reckoned, was the Height of Land, the low watershed between the waters that go to the Atlantic and those that go to Hudson’s Bay. North and north-east of them the country rose to a line of low crests, with here and there a yellowing patch of last year’s snow, and across the valley were slopes covered in places by woods of stunted pine. It had an empty spaciousness of effect;the one continually living thing seemed to be the river, hurrying headlong, noisily, perpetually, in an eternal flight from this high desolation.

For nearly four weeks indeed they were occupied very closely in fixing their cabin and making their other preparations, and crept into their bunks at night as tired as wholesome animals who drop to sleep. At any time the weather might break; already there had been two overcast days and a frowning conference of clouds in the north. When at last storms began, they knew there would be nothing for it but to keep in the hut until the world froze up.

The weather broke at last. One might say it smashed itself over their heads. There came an afternoon darkness swift and sudden, a wild gale, and an icy sleet that gave place in the night to snow, so that Trafford looked out next morning to see a maddening chaos of small white flakes, incredibly swift, against something that was neither darkness nor light. Even with the door but partly ajar, a cruelty of cold put its claw within, set everything that was movable swaying and clattering, and madeMarjorie hasten shuddering to heap fresh logs upon the fire. Once or twice Trafford went out to inspect tent and roof and store-shed; several times, wrapped to the nose, he battled his way for fresh wood, and for the rest of the blizzard they kept to the hut. It was slumberously stuffy, but comfortingly full of flavors of tobacco and food. Therewere two days of intermission and a day of gusts and icy sleet again, turning with one extraordinary clap of thunder to a wild downpour of dancing lumps of ice, and then a night when it seemed all Labrador, earth and sky together, was in hysterical protest against inconceivable wrongs.

And then the break was over; the annual freezing-up accomplished; winter had established itself; the snowfall moderated and ceased, and an ice-bound world shone white and sunlit under a cloudless sky.

One morning Trafford found the footmarks of some catlike creature in the snow near the bushes where he was accustomed to get firewood; they led away very plainly up the hill, and after breakfast he took his knife and rifle and snowshoes and went after the lynx—for that he decided the animal must be. There was no urgent reason why he should want to kill a lynx, unless perhaps that killing it made the store-shed a trifle safer; but it was the first trail of any living thing for many days; it promised excitement; somevprimitive instinct perhaps urged him.

The morning was a little overcast, and very cold between the gleams of wintry sunshine. “Good-by, dear wife!” he said, and then as she remembered afterward came back a dozen yards to kiss her. “I’ll not be long,” he said. “The beast’s prowling, and if it doesn’t get wind of me, I ought to find it in an hour.” He hesitated for a moment. “I’ll not belong,” he repeated, and she had an instant’s wonder whether he hid from her the same dread of loneliness that she concealed. Up among the tumbled rocks he turned, and she was still watching him. “Good-by!” he cried and waved, and the willow thickets closed about him.

She forced herself to the petty duties of the day, made up the fire from the pile he had left for her, set water to boil, put the hut in order, brought out sheets and blankets to air, and set herself to wash up. She wished she had been able to go with him. The sky cleared presently, and the low December sun lit all the world about her, but it left her spirit desolate.

She did not expect him to return until midday, and she sat herself down on a log before the fire to darn a pair of socks as well as she could. For a time this unusual occupation held her attention and then her hands became slow and at last inactive, and she fell into reverie. Thoughts came quick and fast of her children in England so far away.

What was that? She flashed to her feet.

It seemed to her she had heard the sound of a shot, and a quick, brief wake of echoes. She looked across the icy waste of the river, and then up the tangled slopes of the mountain. Her heart was beating fast. It must have been up there, and no doubt Trafford had killed his beast. Some shadow of doubt she would not admit crossed that obvious suggestion. The wilderness was making her as nervously responsive as a creature of the wild.

There came a second shot; this time there was no doubt of it. Then the desolate silence closed about her again.

Marjorie stood for a long time, staring at the shrubby slopes that rose to the barren rock wilderness of the purple mountain crest. She sighed deeply at last, and set herself to make up the fire and prepare for the midday meal. Once, far away across the river, she heard the howl of a wolf.

Time seemed to pass very slowly that day. Marjorie found herself going repeatedly to the space between the day tent and the sleeping hut from which she could see the stunted wood that had swallowed her husband up, and after what seemed a long hour her watch told her it was still only half-past twelve. And the fourth or fifth time that she went to look out she was set a-tremble again by the sound of a third shot. And then at regular intervals out of that distant brown-purple jumble of thickets against the snow came two more shots. “Something has happened,” she said, “something has happened,” and stood rigid. Then she became active, seized the rifle that was always at hand when she was alone, fired into the sky, and stood listening.

Prompt came an answering shot.

“He wants me,” said Marjorie. “Something—perhaps he has killed something too big to bring!”

She was for starting at once, and then remembered this was not the way of the wilderness.

She thought and moved very rapidly. Her mind catalogued possible requirements,—rifle, hunting knife, the oilskin bag with matches, and some chunks of dry paper, thevrucksack. Besides, he would be hungry. She took a saucepan and a huge chunk of cheese and biscuit. Then a brandy flask is sometimes handy—one never knows,—though nothing was wrong, of course. Needles and stout thread, and some cord. Snowshoes. A waterproof cloak could be easily carried. Her light hatchet for wood. She cast about to see if there was anything else. She had almost forgotten cartridges—and a revolver. Nothing more. She kicked a stray brand or so into the fire, put on some more wood, damped the fire with an armful of snow to make it last longer, and set out toward the willows into which he had vanished.

There was a rustling and snapping of branches as she pushed her way through the bushes, a little stir that died insensibly into quiet again; and then the camping place became very still.

Trafford’s trail led Marjorie through the thicket of dwarf willows and down to the gully of the rivulet which they had called Marjorie Trickle; it had long since become a trough of snow-covered, rotten ice. The trail crossed this and, turning sharply uphill, went onuntil it was clear of shrubs and trees, and, in the windy open of the upper slopes, it crossed a ridge and came over the lip of a large desolate valley with slopes of ice and icy snow. Here Marjorie spent some time in following his loops back on the homeward trail before she saw what was manifestly the final trail running far away out across the snow, with thevspoor of the lynx, a lightly-dotted line, to the right of it. She followed this suggestion of the trail, put on her snowshoes, and shuffled her way across this valley, which opened as she proceeded. She hoped that over the ridge she would find Trafford, and scanned the sky for the faintest discoloration of a fire, but there was none. That seemed odd to her, but the wind was in her face, and perhaps it beat the smoke down. Then as her eyes scanned the hummocky ridge ahead, she saw something, something very intent and still, that brought her heart into her mouth. It was a big gray wolf, standing with back haunched and head down, watching and scenting something beyond.

Marjorie had an instinctive fear of wild animals, and it still seemed dreadful to her that they should go at large, uncaged. She suddenly wanted Trafford violently, wanted him by her side. Also, she thought of leaving the trail, going back to the bushes. But presently her nerve returned. In the wastes one did not fear wild beasts, one had no fear of them. But why not fire a shot to let him know she was near?

The beast flashed round with an animal’s instantaneous change of pose, and looked at her. For a couple of seconds, perhaps, woman and brute regarded one another across a quarter of a mile of snowy desolation.

Suppose it came toward her!

She would fire—and she would fire at it. Marjorie made a guess at the range and aimed very carefully. She saw the snow fly two yards ahead of the grisly shape, and then in an instant the beast had vanished over the crest.

She reloaded, and stood for a moment waiting for Trafford’s answer. No answer came. “Queer!” she whispered, “queer!”—and suddenly such a horror of anticipation assailed her that she started running and floundering through the snow to escape it. Twice she called his name, and once she just stopped herself from firing a shot.

Over the ridge she would find him. Surely she would find him over the ridge!

She now trampled among rocks, and there was a beaten place where Trafford must have waited and crouched. Then on and down a slope of tumbled boulders. There came a patch where he had either thrown himself down or fallen; it seemed to her he must have been running.

Suddenly, a hundred feet or so away, she saw a patch of violently disturbed snow—snow stained adreadful color, a snow of scarlet crystals! Three strides and Trafford was in sight.

She had a swift conviction that he was dead. He was lying in a crumpled attitude on a patch of snow betweenvconvergent rocks, and the lynx, a mass of blood-smeared, silvery fur, was in some way mixed up with him. She saw as she came nearer that the snow was disturbed round about them, and discoloredvcopiously, yellow, and in places bright red, with congealed and frozen blood. She felt no fear now and no emotion; all her mind was engaged with the clear, bleak perception of the fact before her. She did not care to call to him again. His head was hidden by the lynx’s body, as if he was burrowing underneath the creature; his legs were twisted about each other in a queer, unnatural attitude.

Then, as she dropped off a boulder, and came nearer, Trafford moved. A hand came out and gripped the rifle beside him; he suddenly lifted a dreadful face, horribly scarred and torn, and crimson with frozen blood; he pushed the gray beast aside, rose on an elbow, wiped his sleeve across his eyes, stared at her, grunted, and flopped forward. He had fainted.

Marjorie was now as clear-minded and as self-possessed as a woman in a shop. In another moment she was kneeling by his side. She saw, by the position of his knife and the huge rip in the beast’s body, that he had stabbed the lynx to death as it clawed his head;he must have shot and wounded it and then fallen upon it. His knitted cap was torn to ribbons, and hung upon his neck. Also his leg was manifestly injured—how, she could not tell. It was evident that he must freeze if he lay here, and it seemed to her that perhaps he had pulled the dead brute over him to protect his torn skin from the extremity of cold. The lynx was already rigid, its clumsy paws asprawl,—and the torn skin and clot upon Trafford’s face were stiff as she put her hands about his head to raise him. She turned him over on his back—how heavy he seemed?—and forced brandy between his teeth. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she poured a little brandy on his wounds.

She glanced at his leg, which was surely broken, and back at his face. Then she gave him more brandy, and his eyelids flickered. He moved his hand weakly. “The blood,” he said, “kept getting in my eyes.”

She gave him brandy once again, wiped his face, and glanced at his leg. Something ought to be done to that, Marjorie thought. But things must be done in order.

The woman stared up at the darkling sky with its gray promise of snow, and down the slopes of the mountain. Clearly they must stay the night here. They were too high for wood among these rocks, but three or four hundred yards below there were a number of dwarfed fir trees. She had brought an ax, sothat a fire was possible. Should she go back to camp and get the tent?

Trafford was trying to speak again. “I got—”

“Yes?”

“Got my leg in that crack.”

Was he able to advise her? She looked at him, and then perceived that she must bind up his head and face. She knelt behind him and raised his head on her knee. She had a thick silk neck muffler, and this she supplemented by a band she cut and tore from her inner vest. She bound this, still warm from her body, about him, and wrapped her dark cloak round his shoulders. The next thing was a fire. Five yards away, perhaps, a great mass of purplevgabbro hung over a patch of nearly snowless moss. A hummock to the westward offered shelter from the bitter wind, the icy draught, that was soughing down the valley. Always in Labrador, if you can, you camp against a rock surface; it shelters you from the wind, guards your back.

“Dear!” she said.

“Awful hole,” said Trafford.

“What?” she cried sharply.

“Put you in an awful hole,” he said. “Eh?”

“Listen,” she said, and shook his shoulder. “Look! I want to get you up against that rock.”

“Won’t make much difference,” replied Trafford, and opened his eyes. “Where?” he asked.

“There.”

He remained quite quiet for a second perhaps. “Listen to me,” he said. “Go back to camp.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Go back to camp. Make a pack of all the strongest food—strenthin’—strengthrin’ food—you know?” He seemed unable to express himself.

“Yes,” she said.

“Down the river. Down—down. Till you meet help.”

“Leave you?”

He nodded his head and winced.

“You’re always plucky,” he said. “Look facts in the face. Children. Thought it over while you were coming.” A tear oozed from his eye. “Don’t be a fool, Madge. Kiss me good-by. Don’t be a fool. I’m done. Children.”

She stared at him and her spirit was a luminous mist of tears. “You oldcoward,” she said in his ear, and kissed the little patch of rough and bloody cheek beneath his eye. Then she knelt up beside him. “I’mboss now, old man,” she said. “I want to get you to that place there under the rock. If I drag, can you help?”

He answered obstinately: “You’d better go.”

“I’ll make you comfortable first,” she returned.

He made an enormous effort, and then, with her quick help and with his back to her knee, had raised himself on his elbows.

“And afterward?” he asked.

“Build a fire.”

“Wood?”

“Down there.”

“Two bits of wood tied on my leg—splints. Then I can drag myself. See? Like a blessed old walrus.”

He smiled and she kissed his bandaged face again.

“Else it hurts,” he apologized, “more than I can stand.”

She stood up again, put his rifle and knife to his hand, for fear of that lurking wolf, abandoning her own rifle with an effort, and went striding and leaping from rock to rock toward the trees below. She made the chips fly, and was presently towing three venerable pine dwarfs, bumping over rock and crevice, back to Trafford. She flung them down, stood for a moment bright and breathless, then set herself to hack off the splints he needed from the biggest stem. “Now,” she said, coming to him.

“A fool,” he remarked, “would have made the splints down there. You’re—good, Marjorie.”

She lugged his leg out straight, put it into the natural and least painful pose, padded it with moss and her torn handkerchief, and bound it up. As she did so a handful of snowflakes came whirling about them. She was now braced up to every possibility. “It never rains,” she said grimly, “but it pours,” and went on with her bone-setting. He was badly weakened by pain and shock, and once he spoke to her sharply. “Sorry,” he said a moment later.

She rolled him over on his chest, and left him to struggle to the shelter of the rock while she went for more wood.

The sky alarmed her. The mountains up the valley were already hidden by driven rags of slaty snowstorms. This time she found a longer but easier path for dragging her boughs and trees; she determined she would not start the fire until nightfall, nor waste any time in preparing food until then. There were dead boughs for kindling—more than enough. It was snowing quite fast by the time she got up to him with her second load, and a premature twilight already obscured and exaggerated the rocks and mounds about her. She gave some of her cheese to Trafford, and gnawed some herself on her way down to the wood again. She regretted that she had brought neither candles nor lantern, because then she might have kept on until the cold night stopped her, and she reproached herself bitterly because she had brought no tea. She could forgive herself the lantern, for she had never expected to be out after dark, but the tea was inexcusable. She muttered self-reproaches while she worked like two men among the trees, panting puffs of mist that froze upon her lips and iced the knitted wool that covered her chin. “Why don’t they teach a girl to handle an ax?” she cried.

When at last the wolfish cold of the Labrador night had come, it found Trafford and Marjorie seated almost warmly on a bed of pine boughs between the sheltering dark rock behind and a big but well-husbanded fire in front, drinking a queer-tasting but not unsavory soup of lynx-flesh, which she had fortified with the remainder of the brandy. Then they tried roast lynx and ate a little, and finished with some scraps of cheese and deep draughts of hot water.

The snowstorm poured incessantly out of the darkness to become flakes of burning fire in the light of the flames, flakes that vanished magically, but it only reached them and wetted them in occasional gusts. What did it matter for the moment if the dim snowheaps rose and rose about them? A glorious fatigue, an immense self-satisfaction, possessed Marjorie; she felt that they had both done well.

“I am not afraid of to-morrow now,” she said at last.

Trafford was smoking his pipe and did not speak for a moment. “Nor I,” he said at last. “Very likely we’ll get through with it.” He added after a pause: “I thought I was done for. A man—loses heart—after a loss of blood.”

“The leg’s better?”

“Hot as fire.” His humor hadn’t left him. “It’sa treat,” he said. “The hottest thing in Labrador.”

Later Marjorie slept, but on a spring as it were, lest the fire should fall. She replenished it with boughs, tucked in the half-burnt logs, and went to sleep again. Then it seemed to her that some invisible hand was pouring a thin spirit on the flames that made them leap and crackle and spread north and south until they filled the heavens with a gorgeous glow. The snowstorm was overpast, leaving the sky clear and all the westward heaven alight with the trailing, crackling, leaping curtains of thevaurora, brighter than she had ever seen them before. Quite clearly visible beyond the smolder of the fire, a wintry waste of rock and snow, boulder beyond boulder, passed into avdun obscurity. The mountain to the right of them lay long and white and stiff, a shrouded death. All earth was dead and waste, and the sky alive and coldly marvelous, signalling and astir. She watched the changing, shifting colors, and they made her think of the gathering banners of inhuman hosts, the stir and marshaling of icy giants for ends stupendous and indifferent to all the trivial impertinence of man’s existence! Marjorie felt a passionate desire to pray.

The bleak, slow dawn found Marjorie intently busy. She had made up the fire, boiled water and washed and dressed Trafford’s wounds, and made another soup of lynx. But Trafford had weakened in the night; the soup nauseated him; he refused it and tried to smokeand was sick, and then sat back rather despairfully after a second attempt to persuade her to leave him there to die. This failure of his spirit distressed her and a little astonished her, but it only made her more resolute to go through with her work. She had awakened cold, stiff and weary, but her fatigue vanished with movement; she toiled for an hour replenishing her pile of fuel, made up the fire, put his gun ready to his hand, kissed him, abused him lovingly for the trouble he gave her until his poor torn face lit in response, and then parting on a note of cheerful confidence, set out to return to the hut. She found the way not altogether easy to make out; wind and snow had left scarcely a trace of their tracks, and her mind was full of the stores she must bring and the possibility of moving Trafford nearer to the hut. She was startled to see by the fresh, deep spoor along the ridge how near the wolf had dared approach them in the darkness.

Ever and again Marjorie had to halt and look back to get her direction right. As it was, she came through the willow scrub nearly half a mile above the hut, and had to follow the steep bank of the frozen river. Once she nearly slipped upon an icy slope of rock.

One possibility she did not dare to think of during that time—a blizzard now would cut her off absolutely from any return to Trafford. Short of that, she believed she could get through.

Her quick mind was full of all she had to do. Atfirst she had thought chiefly of Trafford’s immediate necessities, of food and some sort of shelter. She had got a list of things in her head—meat extract, bandages,vcorrosive sublimate by way of antiseptic, brandy, a tin of beef, some bread, and so forth; she went over it several times to be sure of it, and then for a time she puzzled about a tent. She thought she could manage a bale of blankets on her back, and that she could rig a sleeping tent for herself and Trafford out of them and some bent sticks. The big tent would be too much to strike and shift. And then her mind went on to a bolder enterprise, which was to get him home. The nearer she could bring him to the log hut, the nearer they would be to supplies.

She cast about for some sort of sledge. The snow was too soft and broken for runners, especially among the trees, but if she could get a flat of smooth wood, she thought she might be able to drag him. She decided to try the side of her bunk, which she could easily get off. She would have, of course, to run it edgewise through the thickets and across the ravine, but after that she would have almost clear going up to the steep place of broken rocks within two hundred yards of him. The idea of a sledge grew upon her, and she planned to nail a rope along the edge and make a kind of harness for herself.

Marjorie found the camping-place piled high with drifted snow, which had invaded tent and hut, and thatsome beast, a wolverine she guessed, had been into the hut, devoured every candle-end and the uppers of Trafford’s well-greased second boots, and had then gone to the corner of the store-shed and clambered up to the stores. She took no account of itsvdepredations there, but set herself to make a sledge and get her supplies together. There was a gleam of sunshine, though she did not like the look of the sky and she was horribly afraid of what might be happening to Trafford. She carried her stuff through the wood and across the ravine, and returned for her improvised sledge. She was still struggling with that among the trees when it began to snow again.

It was hard then not to be frantic in her efforts. As it was, she packed her stuff so loosely on the planking that she had to repack it, and she started without putting on her snowshoes, and floundered fifty yards before she discovered that omission. The snow was now falling fast, darkling the sky and hiding everything but objects close at hand, and she had to use all of her wits to determine her direction: she knew she must go down a long slope and then up to the ridge, and it came to her as a happy inspiration that if she bore to the left she might strike some recognizable vestige of her morning’s trail. She had read of people walking in circles when they have no light or guidance, and that troubled her until she bethought herself of the little compass on her watch chain. By that she kepther direction. She wished very much she had timed herself across the waste, so that she could tell when she approached the ridge.

Soon her back and shoulders were aching violently, and the rope across her chest was tugging like some evil-tempered thing. But she did not dare to rest. The snow was now falling thick and fast; the flakes traced white spirals and made her head spin, so that she was constantly falling away to the southwestward and then correcting herself by the compass. She tried to think how this zig-zagging might affect her course, but the snow whirls confused her mind and a growing anxiety would not let her pause to think.

Marjorie felt blinded; it seemed to be snowing inside her eyes so that she wanted to rub them. Soon the ground must rise to the ridge, she told herself; it must surely rise. Then the sledge came bumping at her heels and she perceived that she was going down hill. She consulted the compass and found she was facing south. She turned sharply to the right again. The snowfall became a noiseless, pitiless torture to sight and mind.

The sledge behind her struggled to hold her back, and the snow balled under her snowshoes. She wanted to stop and rest, take thought, sit for a moment. She struggled with herself and kept on. She tried walking with shut eyes, and tripped and came near sprawling. “Oh God!” she cried, “Oh God!” too stupefied formorevarticulate prayers. She was leaden with fatigue.

Would the rise of the ground to the ribs of rock never come?

A figure, black and erect, stood in front of her suddenly, and beyond appeared a group of black, straight antagonists. She staggered on toward them, gripping her rifle with some muddled idea of defense, and in another moment she was brushing against the branches of a stunted fir, which shed thick lumps of snow upon her feet. What trees were these? Had she ever passed any trees? No! There were no trees on her way to Trafford.

At that Marjorie began whimpering like a tormented child. But even as she wept, she turned her sledge about to follow the edge of the wood. She was too much downhill, she thought, and must bear up again.

She left the trees behind, made an angle uphill to the right, and was presently among trees again. Again she left them and again came back to them. She screamed with anger and twitched her sledge along. She wiped at the snowstorm with her arm as though to wipe it away; she wanted to stamp on the universe.

And she ached, she ached.

Suddenly something caught her eye ahead, something that gleamed; it was exactly like a long, bare, rather pinkish bone standing erect on the ground. Justbecause it was strange and queer she ran forward to it. As she came nearer, she perceived that it was a streak of barked trunk; a branch had been torn off a pine tree and the bark stripped down to the root. And then came another, poking its pinkish wounds above the snow. And there were chips! This filled her with wonder. Some one had been cutting wood! There must be Indians or trappers near, she thought, and of a sudden realized that the wood-cutter could be none other than herself.

She turned to the right and saw the rocks rising steeply, close at hand. “Oh Ragg!” she cried, and fired her rifle in the air.

Ten seconds, twenty seconds, and then so loud and near it amazed her, came his answering shot.

In another moment Marjorie had discovered the trail she had made overnight and that morning by dragging firewood. It was now a shallow, soft white trench. Instantly her despair and fatigue had gone from her. Should she take a load of wood with her? she asked herself, in addition to the weight behind her, and immediately had a better idea. She would unload and pile her stuff here, and bring him down on the sledge closer to the wood. The woman looked about and saw two rocks that diverged, with a space between. She flashed schemes. She would trample the snow hard and flat, put her sledge on it, pile boughs and make a canopy of blanket overhead and behind.Finally there would be a fine, roaring fire in front.

She tossed her provisions down and ran up the broad windings of her pine-tree trail to Trafford, with the sledge bumping behind her. Marjorie ran as lightly as though she had done nothing that day.

She found Trafford markedly recovered, weak and quiet, with snow drifting over his feet, his rifle across his knees, and his pipe alight. “Back already”—

He hesitated. “No grub?”

The wife knelt over him, gave his rough, unshaven cheek a swift kiss, and rapidly explained her plan.

Marjorie carried it out with all of the will-power that was hers. In three days’ time, in spite of the snow, in spite of every other obstacle, they were back in the hut, and Trafford was comfortably settled in bed. The icy vastness of Labrador still lay around them to infinite distances on every side, but the two might laugh at storm and darkness now in their cosy hut, with plenty of fuel and food and light.

H. G. Wells.

HELPS TO STUDY

I. Describe the location of Trafford’s camp; also the coming of winter. Give in your own words an account of the adventure that befell the two.II. Name some characteristics Marjorie showed in the critical situation. What did she do that impressed you most? What would you have done in similar circumstances?

I. Describe the location of Trafford’s camp; also the coming of winter. Give in your own words an account of the adventure that befell the two.

II. Name some characteristics Marjorie showed in the critical situation. What did she do that impressed you most? What would you have done in similar circumstances?

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

The splendor falls on castle wallsThe snowy summits old in story;The long light shakes across the lakes,And the wild cataract leaps in glory.Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,And thinner, clearer, farther going!O, sweet and far from cliff and scarThe horns of Elfland faintly blowing!Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.O love, they die in yon rich sky,They faint on hill or field or river;Our echoes roll from soul to soul,And grow for ever and for ever.Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying.And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.Alfred Tennyson.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,And thinner, clearer, farther going!O, sweet and far from cliff and scarThe horns of Elfland faintly blowing!Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,They faint on hill or field or river;Our echoes roll from soul to soul,And grow for ever and for ever.Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying.And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.Alfred Tennyson.

This story is an extract from Sir Walter Scott’s novel,Ivanhoe, which describes life in England during the Middle Ages, something more than a century after the Norman Conquest. The hatred between the conquering Normans and the conquered Saxons still continued, and is graphically pictured by Scott.Ivanhoecenters about the household of one Cedric the Saxon, who was a great upholder of the traditions of his unfortunate people. Wilfred of Ivanhoe, Cedric’s son, entered the service of the Norman king of England, Richard I, and accompanied him to the Holy Land on the Third Crusade. His father disowned the young knight for what he considered disloyalty to his Saxon blood. Ivanhoe, returning to England, participated in a great tournament at Ashby, in which he won fame under the disguise of the “Disinherited Knight.” Among the other knights who took part in the tournament were the Normans, Maurice de Bracy, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, and Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a Knight Templar. Two sides fought in the tournament, one representing the English, the other representing the foreign element in the land. An unknown knight, clad in black armor, brought victory to the English side, but left the field without disclosing his identity. An archery contest held at the tournament was won by a wonderful bowman who gave his name as Locksley. Ivanhoe, who fought with great valor, was badly wounded. Cedric had been accompanied to Ashby by his beautiful ward, the Lady Rowena, whose wealth and loveliness excited the cupidity of the lawless Norman knights. “The Siege of the Castle” opens with Cedric’s discovery of his son’s identity, and recounts the stirring incidents that follow the tournament. It gives a wonderful picture of warfare as it was hundreds of years ago, before the age of gunpowder.

When Cedric the Saxon saw his son drop down senseless in the great tournament at Ashby, his first impulse was to order him into the care of his own attendants, but the words choked in his throat. He could not bring himself to acknowledge, in the presence of such an assembly, the son whom he had renounced and disinherited for his allegiance to the Norman king of England, Richard of the Lion Heart. However, he ordered one of the officers of his household, his cupbearer, to convey Ivanhoe to Ashby as soon as the crowd had dispersed. But the man was anticipated in this good office. The crowd dispersed, indeed, but the wounded knight was nowhere to be seen.

It seemed as if the fairies had conveyed Ivanhoe from the spot; and Cedric’s officer might have adopted some such theory to account for his disappearance, had he not suddenly cast his eyes on a person attired like a squire, in whom he recognized the features of his fellow-servant Gurth, who had run away from his master. Anxious about Ivanhoe’s fate, Gurth was searching for him everywhere and, in so doing, he neglected the concealment on which his own safety depended. The cupbearer deemed it his duty to secure Gurth as a fugitive of whose fate his master was to judge. Renewing his inquiries concerning the fate of Ivanhoe, all that the cupbearer could learn was thatthe knight had been raised by certain well-attired grooms, under the direction of a veiled woman, and placed in a litter, which had immediately transported him out of the press. The officer, on receiving this intelligence, resolved to return to his master, carrying along with him Gurth, the swineherd, as a deserter from Cedric’s service.

The Saxon had been under intensevapprehensions concerning his son; but no sooner was he informed that Ivanhoe was in careful hands than paternal anxiety gave way anew to the feeling of injured pride and resentment at what he termed Wilfred’svfilial disobedience.

“Let him wander his way,” said Cedric; “let those leech his wounds for whose sake he encountered them. He is fitter to do the juggling tricks of the Norman chivalry than to maintain the fame and honor of his English ancestry with thevglaive andvbrown-bill, the good old weapons of the country.”

The old Saxon now prepared for his return to Rotherwood, with his ward, the Lady Rowena, and his following. It was during the bustle preceding his departure that Cedric, for the first time, cast his eyes upon the deserter Gurth. He was in no very placid humor and wanted but a pretext for wreaking his anger upon some one.

“Thevgyves!” he cried. “Dogs and villains, why leave ye this knave unfettered?”

Without daring to remonstrate, the companions of Gurth bound him with a halter, as the readiest cord which occurred. He submitted to the operation without any protest, except that he darted a reproachful look at his master.

“To horse, and forward!” ordered Cedric.

“It is indeed full time,” said the Saxon prince Athelstane, who accompanied Cedric, “for if we ride not faster, the preparations for our supper will be altogether spoiled.”

The travelers, however, used such speed as to reach the convent of Saint Withold’s before the apprehended evil took place. The abbot, himself of ancient Saxon descent, received the noble Saxons with the profuse hospitality of their nation, wherein they indulged to a late hour. They took leave of their reverend host the next morning after they had shared with him avsumptuous breakfast, which Athelstane particularly appreciated.

The superstitious Saxons, as they left the convent, were inspired with a feeling of coming evil by the behavior of a large, lean black dog, which, sitting upright, howled most piteously when the foremost riders left the gate, and presently afterward, barking wildly and jumping to and fro, seemed bent on attaching itself to the party.

“In my mind,” said Athelstane, “we had better turn back and abide with the abbot until the afternoon. It is unlucky to travel where your path is crossed by a monk, a hare, or a howling dog, until you have eaten your next meal.”

“Away!” said Cedric impatiently; “the day is already too short for our journey. For the dog, I know it to be the cur of the runaway slave Gurth, a useless fugitive like its master.”

So saying and rising at the same time in his stirrups, impatient at the interruption of his journey, he launched hisvjavelin at poor Fangs, who, having lost his master, was now rejoicing at his reappearance. The javelin inflicted a wound upon the animal’s shoulder and narrowly missed pinning him to the earth; Fangs fled howling from the presence of the enragedvthane. Gurth’s heart swelled within him, for he felt thisattempted slaughter of his faithful beast in a degree much deeper than the harsh treatment he had himself received. Having in vain raised his hand to his eyes, he said to Wamba, the jester, who, seeing his master’s ill humor, had prudently retreated to the rear, “I pray thee, do me the kindness to wipe my eyes with the skirt of thy mantle; the dust offends me, and these bonds will not let me help myself one way or another.”

Wamba did him the service he required, and they rode side by side for some time, during which Gurth maintained a moody silence. At length he could repress his feelings no longer.

“Friend Wamba,” said he, “of all those who are fools enough to serve Cedric, thou alone hast sufficient dexterity to make thy folly acceptable to him. Go to him, therefore, and tell him that neither for love nor fear will Gurth serve him longer. He may strike the head from me—he may scourge me—he may load me with irons—but henceforth he shall never compel me either to love or obey him. Go to him and tell him that Gurth renounces his service.”

“Assuredly,” replied Wamba, “fool as I am, I will not do your fool’s errand. Cedric hath another javelin stuck into his girdle, and thou knowest he doth not always miss his mark.”

“I care not,” returned Gurth, “how soon he makes a mark of me. Yesterday he left Wilfred, my young master, in his blood. To-day he has striven to kill the only other living creature that ever showed me kindness. By Saint Edward, Saint Dunstan, Saint Withold, and every other saint, I will never forgive him!”

At noon, upon the motion of Athelstane, the travelers paused in a woodland shade by a fountain to repose their horses and partake of some provisions with which the hospitable abbot had loaded avsumpter mule. Their repast was a pretty long one; and the interruption made it impossible for them to hope to reach Rotherwood without traveling all night, a conviction which induced them to proceed on their way at a more hasty pace than they had hitherto used.

The travelers had now reached the verge of the wooded country and were about to plunge into its recesses, held dangerous at that time from the number of outlaws whom oppression and poverty had driven to despair and who occupied the forests in such large bands as could easily bid defiance to the feeble police of the period. From these rovers, however, Cedric and Athelstane accounted themselves secure, as they had in attendance ten servants, besides Wamba and Gurth, whose aid could not be counted upon, the one being a jester and the other a captive. It may be added that in traveling thus late through the forest, Cedric and Athelstane relied on their descent and character as well as their courage. The outlaws were chiefly peasants andvyeomen of Saxon descent, and were generally supposed to respect the persons and property of their countrymen.

Before long, as the travelers journeyed on their way, they were alarmed by repeated cries for assistance; and when they rode up to the place whence the cries came, they were surprised to find a horse-litter placed on the ground. Beside it sat a very beautiful young woman richly dressed in the Jewish fashion, while an old man, whose yellow cap proclaimed him to belong to the same nation, walked up and down with gestures of the deepest despair and wrung his hands.

When he began to come to himself out of his agony of terror, the old man, named Isaac of York, explainedthat he had hired a bodyguard of six men at Ashby, together with mules for carrying the litter of a sick friend. This party had undertaken to escort him to Doncaster. They had come thus far in safety; but having received information from a wood-cutter that a strong band of outlaws was lying in wait in the woods before them, Isaac’svmercenaries had not only taken to flight, but had carried off the horses which bore the litter and left the Jew and his daughter without the means either of defense or of retreat. Isaac ended by imploring the Saxons to let him travel with them. Cedric and Athelstane were somewhat in doubt as to what to do, but the matter was settled by Rowena’s intervention.

“The man is old and feeble,” she said to Cedric, “the maiden young and beautiful, their friend sick and in peril of his life. We cannot leave them in this extremity. Let the men unload two of the sumpter-mules and put the baggage behind two of thevserfs. The mules may transport the litter, and we have led-horses for the old man and his daughter.”

Cedric readily assented to what was proposed, and the change of baggage was hastily achieved; for the single word “outlaws” rendered every one sufficiently alert, and the approach of twilight made the sound yet more impressive. Amid the bustle, Gurth was taken from horseback, in the course of which removal he prevailed upon the jester to slack the cord with whichhis arms were bound. It was so negligently refastened, perhaps intentionally, on the part of Wamba, that Gurth found no difficulty in freeing his armsaltogether, and then, gliding into the thicket, he made his escape from the party.

His departure was hardly noticed in the apprehension of the moment. The path upon which the party traveled was now so narrow as not to admit, with any sort of convenience, above two riders abreast, and began to descend into a dingle, traversed by a brook, the banks of which were broken, swampy, and overgrown with dwarf willows. Cedric and Athelstane, who were at the head of theirvretinue, saw the risk of being attacked in this pass, but neither knew anything else to do than hasten through the defile as fast as possible. Advancing, therefore, without much order, they had just crossed the brook with a part of their followers, when they were assailed, in front, flank, and rear at once, by a band of armed men. The shout of a “White dragon! Saint George for merry England!” the war cry of the Saxons, was heard on every side, and on every side enemies appeared with a rapidity of advance and attack which seemed to multiply their numbers.

Both the Saxon chiefs were made prisoners at the same moment. Cedric, the instant an enemy appeared, launched at him his javelin, which, taking better effect than that which he had hurled at Fangs, nailed theman against an oak-tree that happened to be close behind him. Thus far successful, Cedric spurred his horse against a second, drawing his sword and striking with such inconsiderate fury that his weapon encountered a thick branch which hung over him, and he was disarmed by the violence of his own blow. He was instantly made prisoner and pulled from his horse by two or three of thevbanditti who crowded around him. Athelstane shared his captivity, his bridle having been seized and he himself forcibly dismounted long before he could draw his sword.

The attendants, embarrassed with baggage and surprised and terrified at the fate of their master, fell an easy prey to the assailants; while the Lady Rowena and the Jew and his daughter experienced the same misfortune.

Of all the train none escaped but Wamba, who showed upon the occasion much more courage than those who pretended to greater sense. He possessed himself of a sword belonging to one of the domestics, who was just drawing it, laid it about him like a lion, drove back several who approached him, and made a brave though ineffectual effort to succor his master. Finding himself overpowered, the jester threw himself from his horse, plunged into a thicket, and, favored by the general confusion, escaped from the scene of action.

Suddenly a voice very near him called out in a low and cautious tone, “Wamba!” and, at the same time,a dog which he recognized as Fangs jumped up and fawned upon him. “Gurth!” answered Wamba with the same caution, and the swineherd immediately stood before him.

“What is the matter?” he asked. “What mean these cries and that clashing of swords?”

“Only a trick of the times,” answered Wamba. “They are all prisoners.”

“Who are prisoners?”

“My lord, and my lady, and Athelstane, and the others.”

“In the name of God,” demanded Gurth, “how came they prisoners? and to whom?”

“They are prisoners to greenvcassocks and blackvvizors,” answered Wamba. “They all lie tumbled about on the green, like the crab-apples that you shake down to your swine. And I would laugh at it,” added the honest jester, “if I could for weeping.”

He shed tears of unfeigned sorrow.

Gurth’s countenance kindled. “Wamba,” he said, “thou hast a weapon and thy heart was ever stronger than thy brain. We are only two, but a sudden attack from men of resolution might do much. Follow me!”

“Whither, and for what purpose?” asked the jester.

“To rescue Cedric.”

“But you renounced his service just now.”

“That,” said Gurth, “was while he was fortunate. Follow me.”

As the jester was about to obey, a third person suddenly made his appearance and commanded them both to halt. From his dress and arms Wamba would have conjectured him to be one of the outlaws who had just assailed his master; but, besides that he wore no mask, the glittering baldric across his shoulders, with the rich bugle horn which it supported, as well as the calm and commanding expression of his voice and manner, made the jester recognize the archer who had won the prize at the tournament and who was known as Locksley.

“What is the meaning of all this?” the man demanded. “Who are they that rifle and ransom and make prisoners in these forests?”

“You may look at their cassocks close by,” replied Wamba, “and see whether they be thy children’s coats or no, for they are as like thine own as one green pea-pod is like another.”

“I will learn that presently,” returned Locksley: “and I charge ye, on peril of your lives, not to stir from this place where ye stand until I have returned. Obey me, and it shall be the better for you and your masters. Yet stay; I must render myself as like these men as possible.”

So saying, he drew avvizard from his pouch, and, repeating his charges to them to stand fast, went to reconnoitre.

“Shall we stay, Gurth?” asked Wamba; “or shallwe give himvleg-bail? In my foolish mind, he had all the equipage of a thief too much in readiness to be himself a true man.”

“Let him be the devil,” said Gurth, “an he will. We can be no worse for waiting his return. If he belongs to that party, he must already have given them the alarm, and it will avail us nothing either to fight or fly.”

The yeoman returned in the course of a few minutes.

“Friend Gurth,” he said, “I have mingled among yon men and have learned to whom they belong, and whither they are bound. There is, I think, no chance that they will proceed to any actual violence against their prisoners. For three men to attack them at this moment were little else than madness; for they are good men of war and have, as such, placed sentinels to give the alarm when any one approaches. But I trust soon to gather such a force as may act in defiance of all their precautions. You are both servants, and, as I think, faithful servants of Cedric the Saxon, the friend of the rights of Englishmen. He shall not want English hands to help him in this extremity. Come then with me, until I gather more aid.”

So saying, he walked through the wood at a great pace, followed by the jester and the swineherd. The three men proceeded with occasional converse but, for the most part, in silence for about three hours.Finally they arrived at a small opening in the forest, in the center of which grew an oak-tree of enormous magnitude, throwing its twisted branches in every direction. Beneath this tree four or five yeomen lay stretched on the ground, while another, as sentinel, walked to and fro in the moonlight.

Upon hearing the sound of feet approaching, the watch instantly gave the alarm, and the sleepers as suddenly started up and bent their bows. Six arrows placed on the string were pointed toward the quarter from which the travelers approached, when their guide, being recognized, was welcomed with every token of respect and attachment.

“Where is themiller?” was Locksley’s first question.

“On the road toward Rotherham.”

“With how many?” demanded the leader, for such he seemed to be.

“With six men, and good hope of booty, if it please Saint Nicholas.”

“Devoutly spoken,” said Locksley. “And where is Allan-a-Dale?”

“Walked up toward thevWatling Street, to watch for the Prior of Jorvaulx.”

“That is well thought on also,” replied the captain. “And where is the friar?”

“In his cell.”

“Thither will I go,” said Locksley. “Disperse andseek your companions. Collect what force you can, for there’s game afoot that must be hunted hard and will turn to bay. Meet me here at daybreak. And stay,” he added; “I have forgotten what is most necessary of the whole. Two of you take the road quickly toward Torquilstone, the castle ofvFront-de-Boeuf. A set of gallants, who have beenvmasquerading in such guise as our own, are carrying a band of prisoners thither. Watch them closely, for, even if they reach the castle before we collect our force, our honor is concerned to punish them, and we will find means to do so. Keep a good watch on them, therefore, and despatch one of your comrades to bring the news of the yeomen thereabouts.”

The men promised obedience and departed on their several errands. Meanwhile, their leader and his two companions, who now looked upon him with great respect as well as some fear, pursued their way to the chapel where dwelt the friar mentioned by Locksley. Presently they reached a little moonlit glade, in front of which stood an ancient and ruinous chapel and beside it a rude hermitage of stone half-covered with ivy vines.

The sounds which proceeded at that moment from the latter place were anything but churchly. In fact, the hermit and another voice were performing at the full extent of very powerful lungs an old drinking-song, of which this was the burden:

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