A Dozen Ways Of Love

by L. Dougall

In England no one would set out in such a storm; but this traveller had learned that in Canada the snowy vast is regarded as a plaything, or a good medium of transit, or at the worst, an encumbrance to be plodded through as one plods through storms of rain. He had found that he was not expected to remain at an inn merely because it snowed, and, being a man of spirit, he had on this day, as on others, done what was expected of him.

To-day, in the snow and wind, there was a slight difference from the storms of other days. The innkeeper, who had given him his horse an hour before by the walls of the great tin-roofed church, had looked at the sky and the snow, and asked if he knew the road well; but this had been accepted as an ignorant distrust of the foreign gentleman. Having learned his lesson, that through falling snow he must travel, into the heart of this greater snowstorm he travelled, valiant, if somewhat doubtful.

When he descended upon the ice of the lake he was no longer accompanied by the grey length of the log-fences. This road across the lake had been well tracked after former snowfalls, and so the untrodden snow rose high on either side; branches of fir and cedar, stuck at short intervals in these snow walls, marked out the way. The pony ceased to trot. The driver was only astonished that this cessation of speed had not come sooner.

Standing up in his sleigh and looking round he could see two or three other sleighs travelling across nearer the village. The village he could no longer see, scarcely even the hill, nor was there any communication over the deep untrodden snow between his road and that other on which there were travellers.

Another hour passed, and now, as he went on slowly up the length of the lake, all sound and sight of other sleighs were lost. The cloud was not dark; the snow fell in such small flakes that it did not seem that even an infinite number of them could bury the world; the wind drifting them together, though strong, was not boisterous; the March evening did not soon darken: and yet there was something in the determined action of cloud and wind and snow, making the certainty that night would come with no abatement, which caused even the inexperienced Englishman to perceive that he was passing into the midst of a heavy storm.

As is frequently the case with travellers, he had certain directions concerning the road which appeared to be adequate until he was actually confronted with that small portion of the earth's surface to which it was necessary to apply them. He was to take the first road which crossed his, running from side to side of the lake; but the first cross track appeared to him so narrow and so deeply drifted that he did not believe it to be the public road he sought. 'Some farm, hidden in the level maple bush just seen through the falling snow, sends an occasional cart to the village by this by-path,' so he reassured himself; and the pony, who had spied the track first and paused to have time to consider it, at the word of command obediently plodded its continuous route. A quarter of a mile farther on the traveller saw something on the road in front; as the sound of his pony's jangling bells approached, a horse lifted its head and shook its own bells. The horse, the sleigh which it ought to have been drawing, were standing still, full in the centre of the road. The first thought, that it was cheering to come upon the trace of another wayfarer, was checked by the gloomy idea that some impassable drift must bar the way.

The other sleigh was a rough wooden platform on runners. Upon it a man, wrapped in a ragged buffalo-skin, lay prostrate. The Englishman jumped to the ground and waded till he could lay his hand upon the recumbent figure.

At the touch the man jumped fiercely, and shook himself from sleep. Warm, luxurious sleep, only that, seemed to have enthralled him. His cheeks were red, his aquiline nose, red also, suggested some amount of strong drink; but his black eyes were bright, showing that the senses were wholly alive. He looked defiant, inquiring. He was a French-Canadian, apparently a habitant, but he understood the English questions addressed to him. The curious thing was that he seemed to have no reason for stopping. When he had with difficulty made way for the gentleman to pass him on the road, he followed slowly, as it seemed reluctantly. A mile farther on the Englishman, now far in front, suspected that the other had again stopped, and wondered much. The man's face had impressed him; the high cheek bones, the aquiline nose, the clearness of the eye and complexion—these had not expressed dull folly.

Now the Englishman came to another cross road, wider but more deeply drifted than the track he was on. He turned into it and ploughed the drifts. When he reached the shore, where the land undulated, the drifts were still deeper. There were no trees here; he could see no house; there was hardly any evidence, except the evergreen branches stuck in the sides, that the road had ever been trodden. The March dusk had now fallen, yet not darkly. The full moon was beyond the clouds, and whatever wave of light came from declining day or rising night was held in by, and reflected softly from, the storm of pearl. After some debate he turned back to the lake and his former road. It must lead somewhere; he pressed steadily on toward the western end of the lake.

The western shore was level; he hardly knew when he was upon the land. The glimmering night blinded the traveller; no ray of candle light was in sight. He began to think that he was destined to see his horse slowly buried, and himself to fight, as long as might be, a losing battle with the fiends of the air.