What Necessity Knows by Lily Dougall (web ebook reader TXT) 📕

not quite as attractive as the former, for it is sweeter to think of oneself as innocently dead and mourned, than as guilty and performing the office of mourner for another; and it was of herself only, whether as pictured in Bates's sufferings or as left liberated by his death, that the girl was thinking. Still it afforded relaxation to imagine what she might do if she were thus left mistress of the situation; and she devised a scheme of action for these circumstances that, in its clever adaptation to what would be required, would have greatly amazed the man who looked upon her as an unthinking child.

The difference between a strong and a weak mind is not that the strong mind does not indulge itself in wild fancies, but that it never gives to such fancy the power of capricious sway over the centres of purpose. This young woman was strong in mind as in body. No flickering intention of actually performing that which she had imagined had place within her. She played with the idea of death as she might have played with a toy, while resting herself from the angry question into which her whole being had for two days concentrated itself, as to how she could thwart the will of the man who had assumed authority over her, and gain the freedom that she felt was necessary to life itself.

She had not lain many minutes upon the out-growing birch before she had again forgotten her gust of revengeful fancy, and yielded herself to her former serious mood with a reaction of greater earnestness. The winter beauty of the brook, the grey, silent trees above, and the waste of dry curled leaves all round--these faded from her observation because the eye of her mind was again turned inwards to confront the circumstances of her difficulty.

As she leaned thus in childlike attitude and womanly size, her arms twined round the tree and her cheek resting on its smooth surface, that clumsiness which in all young animals seems inseparable from the period when recent physical growth is not yet entirely permeated by the character-life which gives it individual expression, was not apparent and any intelligent eye seeing her would have seen large beauty in her figure, which, like a Venus in the years when art was young, had no cramped proportions. Her rough, grey dress hung heavily about her; the moccasins that encased her feet were half hidden in the loose pile of dry leaves which had drifted high against the root of the tree. There was, however, no visible eye there to observe her youthful comeliness or her youthful distress. If some angel was near, regarding her, she did not know it, and if she had, she would not have been much interested; there was nothing in her mood to respond to angelic pity or appreciation. As it was, the strong tree was impotent to return her embrace; its cold bark had no response for the caress of her cheek; the north wind that howled, the trees that swayed, the dead leaves that rustling fled, and the stream that murmured under its ice, gave but drear companionship. Had she yielded her mind to their influence, the desires of her heart might have been numbed to a transient despair more nearly akin to a virtuous resignation to circumstance than the revolt that was now rampant within her. She did not yield; she was not now observing them; they only effected upon her inattentive senses an impression of misery which fed the strength of revolt.

A minute or two more and the recumbent position had become unendurable as too passive to correspond with the inward energy. She clambered back, and, standing upon level ground, turned, facing the width of the bare clearing and the rough buildings on it, and looked toward the downward slope and the wild lake, whose cold breath of water was agitated by the wind. The sky was full of cloud.

She stood up with folded arms, strength and energy in the stillness of her attitude. She heard the sound of carpenter's tools coming from the shed into which Bates had retired. No other hint of humanity was in the world to which she listened, which she surveyed. As she folded her arms she folded her bright coloured old shawl about her, and seemed to gather within its folds all warmth of colour, all warmth of feeling, that was in that wild, desolate place.

A flake of snow fell on the shawl; she did not notice it. Another rested upon her cheek; then she started. She did not move much, but her face lifted itself slightly; her tear-swollen eyes were wide open; her lips were parted, as if her breath could hardly pass to and fro quickly enough to keep pace with agitated thought. The snow had begun to come. She knew well that it would go on falling, not to-day perhaps, nor to-morrow, but as certainly as time would bring the following days, so certainly the snow would fall, covering the frozen surface of the earth and water with foot above foot of powdery whiteness. Far as she now was from the gay, active throng of fellow-creatures which she conceived as existing in the outer world, and with whom she longed to be, the snow would make that distance not only great, but impassable to her, unaided.

It was true that she had threatened Bates with flight by foot across the frozen lake; but she knew in truth that such departure was as dependent on the submission of his will to hers as was her going in the more natural way by boat the next day, for the track of her snow-shoes and the slowness of her journey upon them would always keep her within his power.

The girl contemplated the falling flakes and her own immediate future at the same moment. The one notion clear to her mind was, that she must get away from that place before the cold had time to enchain the lake, or these flakes to turn the earth into a frozen sea. Her one hope was in the boat that would be launched to carry her dead father. She must go. _She must go!_

Youth would not be strong if it did not seek for happiness with all its strength, if it did not spurn pain with violence. All the notions that went to make up this girl's idea of pain were gathered from her present life of monotony and loneliness. All the notions that went to make up her idea of happiness were culled from what she had heard and dreamed of life beyond her wilderness. Added to this there was the fact that the man who had presumed to stand between her and the accomplishment of the first strong volition of her life had become intolerable to her--whether more by his severity or by his kindliness she could not tell. She folded her shawl-draped arms more strongly across her breast, and hugged to herself all the dreams and desires, hopes and dislikes, that had grown within her as she had grown in mind and stature in that isolated place.

How could she accomplish her will?

The flakes fell upon the copper gloss of her uncombed hair, on face and hands that reddened to the cold, and gathered in the folds of the shawl. She stood as still as a waxen figure, if waxen figure could ever be true to the power of will which her pose betrayed. When the ground was white with small dry flakes she moved again. Her reverie, for lack of material, seemed to have come to nothing fresh. She determined to prefer her request again to Bates.

She walked round the house and came to the shed door. In this shed large kettles and other vessels for potash-making were set up, but in front of these Bates and his man were at work making a rude pinewood coffin. The servant was the elder of the two. He had a giant-like, sinewy frame and a grotesquely small head; his cheeks were round and red like apples, and his long whiskers evidently received some attention from his vanity; it seemed an odd freak for vanity to take, for all the rest of him was rough and dirty. He wriggled when the girl darkened the doorway, but did not look straight at her.

"There's more of the bank going to slip where father fell--it's loose," she said.

They both heard. The servant answered her, commenting on the information. These were the only words that were said for some time. The girl stood and pressed herself against the side of the door. Bates did not look at her. At last she addressed him again. Her voice was low and gentle, perhaps from fear, perhaps from desire to persuade, perhaps merely from repression of feeling.

"Mr. Bates," she said, "you'll let me go in the boat with that?"--she made a gesture toward the unfinished coffin.

His anger had cooled since he had last seen her, not lessening but hardening, as molten metal loses malleability as it cools. Much had been needed to fan his rage to flame, but now the will fused by it had taken the mould of a hard decision that nothing but the blowing of another fire would melt.

"Ye'll not go unless you go _in_ a coffin instead of along-side of it."

The coarse humour of his refusal was analogous to the laugh of a chidden child; it expressed not amusement, but an attempt to conceal nervous discomposure. The other man laughed; his mind was low enough to be amused.

"It's no place for me here," she urged, "and I ought by rights to go to the burying of my father."

"There's no place for ye neither where he'll be buried; and as to ye being at the funeral, it's only because I'm a long sight better than other men about the country that I don't shovel him in where he fell. I'm getting out the boat, and sending Saul here and the ox-cart two days' journey, to have him put decently in a churchyard. I don't b'lieve, if I'd died, you and your father would have done as much by me."

As he lauded his own righteousness his voice was less hard for the moment, and, like a child, she caught some hope.

"Yes, it's good of you, and in the end you'll be good and let me go too, Mr. Bates."

"Oh yes." There was no assent in his voice. "And I'll go too, to see that ye're not murdered when Saul gets drunk at the first house; and we'll take my aunt too, as we can't leave her behind; and we'll take the cow that has to be milked, and the pigs and hens that have to be fed; and when we get there, we'll settle down without any house to live in, and feed on air."

His sarcasm came from him like the sweat of anger; he did not seem to take any voluntary interest in the play of his words. His manner was cool, but it was noticeable that he had stopped his work and was merely cutting a piece of wood with his jack-knife. As she looked at him steadily he whittled the more savagely.

The other man laughed again, and wriggled as he laughed.

"No," she replied, "you can't come, I know; but I can take care of myself."

"It's a thieving, drunken lot of fellows Saul will fall in with. Ye may prefer their society to mine, but I'll not risk it."

"I can go to the minister."

"And his wife would make a kitchen-girl of ye, and ye'd run off from her in a