"But shall I know? Shall I be conscious of that?" the spirit of discontent inquired.
Granger shook his head irritably, as if by so doing he could throw off these troublesome imaginations. Since the death of Strangeways, he had not recovered his poise of soul. Ah, and Strangeways! Was Strangeways conscious of his body's release, and the permission which death had given him to wander forth? How odd to think that that body, which had been born of a woman in England and tended by her hands, which had strolled through English lanes and over Oxford meadows, gesticulating and talking, doing good and evil, which even in its life had brought the man who inhabited it so many miles from home, now that the soul had departed from it, should be hurrying away alone to hide itself in Arctic fastnesses! Did Strangeways know that? Was he conscious of this new adventure? Well, if God was so anxious to take care of Spurling, He could be trusted to look after Strangeways—if anything of him survived.
The melting of the ice had chilled the air. The coldness of his yet living body awoke him to a realisation of the petty suffering of that small part of his universe which was explored and known. Taking one last look at the ruin which the one night's thaw had worked, the pinnacles, and beauty, and whiteness which it had destroyed, "Courage!" he said, "for this is life."
CHAPTER X
A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD
The sun was shining down; the spring rains had ceased; within less than a month winter had vanished, and summer had swept through Keewatin with a burst of gladness. The land was riotously green; through the heart of it wandered the river, newly released, a streak of azure, or of gilded splendour where smitten by the sun. Although its waters were running freely, many memories of the frozen quiet still remained in the shape of ice piled up along its banks, sometimes to the height of fifteen feet, and of snow in the more shady hollows of the forest, which glimmered distantly between leaves and branches hinting at secret woodland lakes. Even the most backward among the trees had commenced to unfold their buds. All day long, and through the major portion of the night, the frogs continued to whistle in the marshes and along the river's edges. Flock after flock of duck arrived, flashing their wings against the sky, dropping from under a cloud suddenly, and coming to rest in the water with a shower of spray, where they rode at ease side by side, like painted, anchored merchantmen returned in safety from the earth's end. Now the wild swan, teal, or goose would go by with a whirr of wings, crying hoarsely. To make the world seem yet more wide an occasional gull would heave in sight, drifting without effort in silent flight majestically. In the forest Granger was conscious of a commotion at the cause of which he could only guess. Love was at work in the shadows, or what among the dumb creation passes for love. There was a continual stirring of leaves, the rustle of branches forced aside, the scattering of birds, those spies and betrayers of the four-footed animal, and the grievous low wail of the wolf. Sometimes a fish would leap in the river, flash silvery and dripping in the sunlight, on its bridal journey from the ocean. Was it an act of gallantry, he wondered, which some deep-sea female witnessed from beneath the ripple of the stream, or was it a terrified effort to escape from love. He knew what that best of all passions could mean to the forest animal, and how cruel it might become. Often in the fall of the year he had watched a doe, seen her dash down the river bank, stand quivering, leap in and swim, made fearless of man because she knew that her lover, the stag, was not far behind.
This frenzy of passion set him thinking, and made him long for the return of Peggy Ericsen. He knew that his love for her was not of the highest, was little more than physical, not much nobler than forest love; but what was a man to do, and how guide his conduct when all the world was a-mating? On occasions he had a clearer vision, and realised with a sense of sudden shame to how low a level he had sunk. Then he would strive to throw off this attraction for a half-breed girl by recalling the faces of all the other women whom he had admired and loved. Yet this also was dangerous, for it caused him to remember Mordaunt, thoughts of whom roused up anger within him against Spurling. He had agreed to leave him to God, and could not go back on his word; therefore he must forget Mordaunt and, if his mind must be haunted by womankind, think only of Peggy. Peggy! Well, she was not a bad little sort. Pretty? Yes. But between her and himself there could be no community of mind. He knew that for hundreds of years it had been the custom of traders and white trappers to take to themselves a squaw from a tribe of friendly Indians, sometimes for the sake of commercial advantages, sometimes for defence, sometimes for domestic convenience, rarely for love. But there his education, which would have served him well in an older land, stood in his way, as it had so often done, making him over-delicate.
He could find it in his heart to wish himself more ignorant and less refined. That glamour of intellectual gentility, which England sets such store by, had made him unfit for the outdoor brutalities of northern life. In his catastrophe he knew that he was not single, though there was small consolation in that; all through Canada he had encountered younger sons, drawing-room bred young gentlemen, who worked in lumber camps, on railroads, and in mines by day, and spelt out their Horace from ragged texts by brushwood fires, beneath the stars, or in verminous shacks by night. Their power to construe a dead language served to differentiate them from their associates, and, rather foolishly if heroically, to bolster up their pride.