On the highest point of the island were the remains of an old earth-work, crowned by a little surveyor's station, like an arbor on stilts, which was reached by the aid of a ladder. Anne liked to go up there on the first spring day, climb the ice-coated rounds, and, standing on the dry old snow that covered the floor, gaze off toward the south and east, where people and cities were, and the spring; then toward the north, where there was still only fast-bound ice and snow stretching away over thousands of miles of almost unknown country, the great wild northland called British America, traversed by the hunters and trappers of the Hudson Bay Company—vast empire ruled by private hands, a government within a government, its line of forts and posts extending from James Bay to the Little Slave, from the Saskatchewan northward to the Polar Sea. In the early afternoon she stood there now, having made her way up to the height with some difficulty, for the ice-crust was broken, and she was obliged to wade knee-deep through some of the drifts, and go round others that were over her head, leaving a trail behind her as crooked as a child's through a clover field. Reaching the plateau on the summit at last, and avoiding the hidden pits of the old earth-work, she climbed the icy ladder, and stood on the white floor again with delight, brushing from her woollen skirt and leggings the dry snow which still clung to them. The sun was so bright and the air so exhilarating that she pushed back her little fur cap, and drew a long breath of enjoyment. Everything below was still white-covered—the island and village, the Straits and the mainland; but coming round the eastern point four propellers could be seen floundering in the loosened ice, heaving the porous cakes aside, butting with their sharp high bows, and then backing briskly to get headway to start forward again, thus breaking slowly a passageway for themselves, and churning the black water behind until it boiled white as soap-suds as the floating ice closed over it. Now one boat, finding by chance a weakened spot, floundered through it without pause, and came out triumphantly some distance in advance of the rest; then another, wakened to new exertions by this sight, put on all steam, and went pounding along with a crashing sound until her bows were on a line with the first. The two boats left behind now started together with much splashing and sputtering, and veering toward the shore, with the hope of finding a new weak place in the floe, ran against hard ice with a thud, and stopped short; then there was much backing out and floundering round, the engines panting and the little bells ringing wildly, until the old channel was reached, where they rested awhile, and then made another beginning. These manœuvres were repeated over and over again, the passengers and crew of each boat laughing and chaffing each other as they passed and repassed in the slow pounding race. It had happened more than once that these first steamers had been frozen in after reaching the Straits, and had been obliged to spend several days in company fast bound in the ice. Then the passengers and crews visited each other, climbing down the sides of the steamers and walking across. At that early season the passengers were seldom pleasure-travellers, and therefore they endured the delay philosophically. It is only the real pleasure-traveller who has not one hour to spare.
The steamers Anne now watched were the first from below. The lower lakes were clear; it was only this northern Strait that still held the ice together, and kept the fleets at bay on the east and on the west. White-winged vessels, pioneers of the summer squadron, waited without while the propellers turned their knife-bladed bows into the ice, and cut a pathway through. Then word went down that the Straits were open, all the freshwater fleet set sail, the lights were lit again in the light-houses, and the fishing stations and lonely little wood docks came to life.
"How delightful it is!" said Anne, aloud.
There are times when a person, although alone, does utter a sentence or two, that is, thinks aloud; but such times are rare. And such sentences, also, are short—exclamations. The long soliloquies of the stage, so convenient in the elucidation of plot, do not occur in real life, where we are left to guess at our neighbor's motives, untaught by so much as a syllable. How fortunate for Dora's chances of happiness could she but overhear that Alonzo thinks her a sweet, bigoted little fool, but wants that very influence to keep him straight, nothing less than the intense convictions of a limited intelligence and small experience in life being of any use in sweeping him over with a rush by means of his feelings alone, which is what he is hoping for. Having worn out all the pleasure there is to be had in this world, he has now a mind to try for the next.
What an escape for young Conrad to learn from Honoria's own passionate soliloquy that she is marrying him from bitterest rage against Manuel, and that those tones and looks that have made him happy are second-hand wares, which she flings from her voice and eyes with desperate scorn! Still, we must believe that Nature knows what she is about; and she has not as yet taught us to think aloud.
But sometimes, when the air is peculiarly exhilarating, when a distant mountain grows purple and gold tipped as the sun goes down behind it, sometimes when we see the wide ocean suddenly, or come upon a bed of violets, we utter an exclamation as the bird sings: we hardly know we have spoken.
"Yes, it is delightful," said some one below, replying to the girl's sentence.
It was Rast, who had come across the plateau unseen, and was now standing on the old bastion of the fort beneath her. Anne smiled, then turned as if to descend.
"Wait; I am coming up," said Rast.
"But it is time to go home."