Settlers of the Marsh

by Frederick Philip Grove

  Higher and higher rose the bluff in front. The woman claimed his help in climbing forward to the seat.

  “I’m going to change horses,” Niels said. “I can trot the Clydes …”

  They reached his gate; the view on the yard widened out. In front of the stable Bobby was harnessing the other team. Beyond, in the horse-lot, the older filly set up a piercing call …

  No sooner did Bobby see his employer than he came running to open the gate. At sight of Mrs. Vogel he stared. Then, with his high-pitched, boyish voice, he said “Hello!”

  “Hello, Bobby,” Mrs. Vogel answered. “My, but you’ve grown!”

  “What were you going to do?” Niels asked.

  “Haul hay for the loft.”

  “No, wait. I want the Clydes. Turn Jock and Nellie out. I’m taking Mrs. Vogel to her place.”

  In a few minutes the change of horses was completed.

  Mrs. Vogel sat on her seat and looked about, half mockingly, half in admiration.

  Niels did not ask her to enter the house. He climbed back to his seat, turned, and drove off the yard. To the south, before they reached the gate, a little vista opened on to a newly built shack.

  “What is that?” Mrs. Vogel asked.

  “I’m going to take Sigurdsen over,” Niels answered. “We’ve built that shack for him.”

  “You’ve surely made progress,” the woman said.

  Silence again …

  IN A LITTLE LESS than an hour, following the winding bush trails, they emerged on a clearing. There were two groups of buildings: the near ones those of a pioneer homestead, log-cabin, stable, shed; the far ones a little cottage, frame-built, painted white, with a diminutive stable behind.

  “This is Bert’s place,” Mrs. Vogel said. “We’ll stop here, please. In the cottage I used to live before I moved altogether into the city.”

  Niels wondered why a strong man like Rowdle did not homestead rather than buy.

  “Bert is lazy,” Mrs. Vogel explained. “He’s a bachelor. There were thirty acres broken on this place. He’ll never break any more … No, don’t drive in. Just go to the house and call Bert, please.”

  Niels noticed a pig coming out through the tattered screen-door of the house, grunting. In the one-roomed cabin chickens were picking up crumbs; a second pig was contentedly lying behind a dirty couch. On a sheet-less bed, covered with grey blankets that lay in a heap, there reposed the enormous girth of the man. He was just opening his eyes and jumped up.

  “Hello, Lindstedt,” he said, fumbling under the bed for his shoes. “How are you?”

  “I brought Mrs. Vogel over. She’s waiting outside.”

  “The deuce she is,” Rowdle grumbled. “Don’t let her in. Tell her to wait till I get my pants on.”

  Niels returned to the gate and reported.

  Mrs. Vogel alighted. “Won’t you wait for breakfast?” she asked, smiling enigmatically.

  “Seems to me,” Niels said, “I should have offered you breakfast at my place. I didn’t know what this was like.”

  “No,” Mrs. Vogel smiled. “Since you never came three years ago … However, it’s only a hundred yards to my cottage.”

  “I am anxious to get back to work.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Vogel, “don’t worry about me. Thanks for the ride. I have enjoyed it.” And she held out her hand.

  August came; and harvest drew near.

  Sigurdsen had moved into the shack on Niels’ farm. Niels had bought his stock …

  Niels was working, brushing more land …

  Yes, there could be no doubt. His farm was a success. In a material sense he was prosperous beyond his boldest expectations … He had made his land; it was his … If only … But that, too, had to come to a decision. It had to be decided at once; else there would be chaos …

  On Sunday afternoon he went to see Ellen.

  ELLEN WAS WAITING for him. She stood at the gate, looking down the winding trail to the south.

  Was there something in his face which betrayed him?

  Somehow she was different. In her face, too, there was a new expression: something of expectancy, emotion, inner struggle which had disturbed her usual balance.

  He was aware of it as soon as he looked into her eye.

  He knew more clearly, more convincingly that the moment was at hand. Whether he brought it or not, it was there. In the smile with which she greeted him there was something hunted … For the first time in their intercourse this girl awakened in him the protective instincts. More than ever before she was the only woman in the world for him …

  In silence they went to the accustomed place, that natural bower in the fringe of the bush …

  As they crossed the yard, imponderable things, incomprehensible waves of feeling passed to and fro between them: things too delicate for words; things somehow full of pain and anxious, disquieting anticipation: like silent discharges between summer clouds that distantly wink at each other in lightning.

  The air, too, was charged; its sultriness foreboded a storm. Yet, there was not a cloud in the upper reaches of the atmosphere; only at the horizon there lay, in the far north-west, a white bank which, above the dark cliff of forest, showed a rounded, convoluted outline, its edge blushing with a golden iridescence.

  The slightest breeze ambled into the clearing from the east, scarcely perceptible, yet refreshing where it could be felt.

  Between the two, as the silence lengthened—between man and woman, boy and girl—the consciousness arose that the other knew of the decision which was at hand: it was almost oppressive. Some step was to be taken, had to be taken at last: it was a tragic necessity no longer to be evaded …

  Yet neither spoke; each waited for the other. They stood by the chairs which the girl had provided.

  Furtive glances stole across, to be averted forthwith. Colour came and went in two faces, imperceptible almost, yet divined.

  Then the girl spoke. Her words came hurriedly, precipitately, as if to forestall the arrival of the moment; as if to postpone what was unavoidably coming; as if to plead for a term of grace.

  “Shall we sit here?” she said. “Let us have a walk rather, shall we?”

  Niels nodded. The appeal in her voice could not be denied.

  “Sometimes,” the girl went on, still hurriedly, “the bush frightens me. I cannot find the horizon. I want to see wide, open, level spaces. Let’s go to the slough.”

  Again Niels nodded. He did not trust himself to speak. There was no barrier between them: they looked at each other, as it were, stripped of all conventions, all disguises …

  The moment was coming. It had prepared itself. It was rushing along the lane of time where neither he nor she could escape it. Yes, it was already here. It stood in front of them; and its face was not smiling; it was grimly tragical …

  “Wait,” said the girl. “I’ll get my hat.” And she slipped past him, into the house.

  Half conscious only of his movements he idled back to the yard and stood there, eyes fixed on vacancy.

  Dark, green, gloomy, the bush reared all about. Aspen-leaves shivered, revealing their silvery under-sides.

  “I believe a storm is coming,” said the girl, somewhat steadied as she rejoined him, her hat slung by its ribbons over her arm. “I wish it would come while we are out. I like to watch a storm.”

  They turned and passed into the bush road, side by side.

  The tension between them grew less. The moment was coming. It did not depend upon them. Why tremble?

  On and on they went; between them peace arose. Both seemed to feel that it was for the very last time: drain what you can to the dregs …

  The storm, too, was coming. But all the clearer, all the more brilliant was the sky overhead.

  First they followed the bush road; then they left it, threading a cattle path which branched off to the left. Birds fluttered up as they touched the bushes: shy birds and bold birds: waxwings, catbirds, tow-hees—these merely flitted away; blackbirds, king
birds, and jays—these scolded at them, resenting their intrusion into the home of their young. Bush rabbits sprang up and scampered away in a panic: and both of them laughed: laughter released the tension completely.

  The cattle path forked: the girl followed one, the boy another; they flitted and ran; whoever was first to arrive at the rejunction of the trails stood and waited for the other, smiling or laughing …

  THEY CAME to the clearing of the little school.

  The yard was densely overgrown with raspberry canes which held a profusion of heavy, overripe berries. They picked them, eating as they went or offering handfuls to each other. Not a word did they say, except that now and then the one or the other exclaimed, “Here!” or “Look at that!”

  True enough, the moment was coming. But between them had arisen something like a silent compact not to hasten it along; to delay it, rather. That moment was fraught with pain!

  They went to the building and peered in through broken window-lights; they laughed at the sight of benches and blackboards; thoughtlessly, happily, as children laugh.

  They crossed the road that led north, past the school house, winding through the virgin bush. And just as they were in its centre, they caught a glimpse of a democrat coming from the south. As if in play, fleeing from pursuit, they plunged into the bush beyond. Behind a thicket of hazel-brush they crouched down, laughing, their movements as simultaneous and nearly instinctive as those of a flock of birds.

  The democrat rattled up, along the trail, the horses snorting; horses are scary in the bush.

  A man’s voice sang out, “Hi, you there!”

  Silence.

  They heard, though they could not see, that the man climbed down from his seat. They looked at each other in mock fright. Evidently the man wished to enquire about the road …

  In a common, instinctive impulse they rose, flitted deeper into the thicket, to hide, not to be found …

  Heavy steps crashed through the underbrush, wending this way and that.

  The man’s voice again. “Well, I’ll be dog-gonned …”

  Silence.

  A woman’s voice, “You were mistaken, Jack.”

  “I saw them as plain as daylight. They’re hiding, that’s all.”

  “Well …”

  The man’s steps crashed as he turned to the road. He climbed back to his seat and clicked his tongue. The horses pulled; the vehicle rolled on …

  Breathlessly two human beings listened, their faces flushed: a boy and a girl …

  Bent forward, shape of an arrow, a bird peered at them around a screen of foliage.

  The girl sprang to her feet and laughed: a loud, mocking laugh, irresistible, so that the boy had to join her: both were flushed with guilt …

  At the laugh, however, the horses stopped out there on the road.

  Boy and girl caught their breath, listened, and once more broke cover and ran, away from the road, flitting this way and that, around thickets and tree trunks …

  Again the girl stopped, breathless, flushed, but laughing. “Oh Niels!” she sang out, exuberantly, exultantly.

  In an instant he was by her side, reaching out for her hand. “Ellen!” His voice is hoarse, intensely serious of a sudden.

  “No,” she begs. “Not now. Let’s be happy!”

  But she leaves him her hand.

  On they go, following a wider path; sun-spots filter through the leaf-mosaic of the trees, dancing and flitting over their heads. There is hardly room for the two side by side; their shoulders touch.

  THE SLOUGH OPENS UP: a wide expanse, first of meadow, recently cropped; then of sedge, interlaced with low-growing bands of willow.

  Far on the other side, a cliff of forest, black, mysterious, threatening …

  A few hundred yards in front of them rise the haystacks which they had piled a few weeks ago.

  Slough and forest are steeped in sweltering sunlight and heat. Higher now looms a darkgrey mass of cloud in the north, edged with enormous, whitish scallops.

  They stand and look.

  Then the girl heaves a sigh.

  “There’s the storm,” she says. “Let’s stay and watch. Let’s go to the hay-stacks. We can crawl in when the rain comes. Shall we?”

  “Yes,” says the boy.

  And they cross the edge of the slough, hand in hand.

  When they reach the first stack, he scoops out huge armfuls of hay, making a hollow on the south-east side, where the rain will not strike them, a cave, overhung by a roof twenty feet thick.

  “Let’s get on top,” she says.

  Without a word he takes hold of one of the ropes weighted with stones which are thrown across the hay to hold it down in a wind. Bracing his feet against the flank of the stack he climbs upward, making steps as he goes by tramping; and then he reaches down with one hand and lifts the girl clear off her feet and pulls her up.

  “Now wait,” he said when she has a firm foothold; and he repeats the manoeuvre, two, three times.

  Then they stand on the top and laugh, looking at each other’s flushed faces and beady brows.

  The girl puts her hat on, a wide-rimmed hat, the rim bent down at the sides and fastened with ribbons under her chin: her face looks out as from a cavern.

  The air is breathless: even the slight, wafting flow from the east has ceased. Nature lies prostrate in expectation of the scourge that is coming, coming. The wall of cloud has differentiated: there are two, three waves of almost black; in front, a circling festoon of loose, white, flocculent manes, seething, whirling … A winking of light runs through the first wave of black. A distant rumbling heralds the storm …

  The two have squatted down in the hay, forgetting themselves. They sit and look. Then a noise as of distant breakers in the surf; the roar of the sea, approaching nearer, nearer.

  The bush in front through which they have come stands motionless, breathless, blackening, as the sun is obscured. Birds flit to and fro, seeking shelter, silent …

  Then a huge suction soughs through the stems. But already the lash of the wind comes down: like the sea in a storm tree tops rise and fall, the stems bending over and down and whipping back again, tossed by enormous pressures. They dance and roll, tumble and rear, and mutely cry out as in pain. And the very next moment the wind hits the stack, snatching the breath from the lips of the two who sit there crouching. A misty veil rushes over the landscape, illumined by a bluish flash which is followed by nearer and nearer growlings and barkings.

  Up rises the girl in the storm, holding on to her bonnet with both her hands, leaning back into the wind, her skirt crackling and snapping and pulling at her strong limbs. Once more she laughs, laughs into the storm and sweeps her arm over the landscape, pointing.

  The first rain drops, heavy, large, but few, strike against her body. She looks at the man, the boy still crouching at her feet and calls, “Now down!”

  They run to the edge of the stack, squat, slide, and make for the shelter which the boy has prepared.

  Down comes the rain in a cloud-burst, forming a wall in front of them where they sit in the sheltering cove in which all the fragrance of the meadow is concentrated. Flashes of lightning break on the slough like bomb-shells; rattling thunder dances and springs.

  On sweeps the storm; less and less rain falls; the drops begin to sparkle and glitter; the sun bursts forth. Over the bush huge clouds are lifting their wings; and a playful breeze strikes into the cave where Niels and Ellen still crouch silent …

  ELLEN IS LOOKING OUT, straight ahead, her eyes fixed on she knows not what.

  Niels is looking at her, from close by, his face almost touching her shoulder. The longing actually to touch her, to take her in both his arms, grows so strong that his joints ache with it … A moment ago he still could have yielded to this longing …

  But already something has stepped in between them: as if a distance had stepped between them, a great, infinite remoteness not to be bridged … As he sits there and looks, it is as if her face were recedin
g and fading from view. And suddenly he is aware that in her eyes there are tears which are quivering on her lashes, white, sun-bleached lashes, before they fall.

  The realisation of a bottomless abyss shakes him.

  “Ellen,” he calls with an almost breaking voice.

  The girl slowly rises. “I know,” she says. “Don’t speak. The moment has come. I know what you want to say. Oh Niels, I am going to hurt you deeply. Let it be as it is, Niels. Why can’t you?” She sobs and turns, touching his cheek with her hand. Then almost impatiently, almost angrily, “Oh God, I can’t understand it! Why has it got to be like this? I’ve seen it coming, Niels. Ever since I first saw you, years ago. I knew it would have to come to this! I knew it! I knew it! I did what I could to keep it away; but it did not help. Oh God!” she cries out once more, “I’ve had only one single friend in my life! And now I must lose him!” And her tears run freely at last; and she makes no longer any attempt to check her sobs.

  Niels has risen. He is shaken to his very depths. He does not know what to do, what to say. He stands helpless, sobs pressing from within to be let out.

  “Ellen …” he stammers at last.

  At that the girl sinks down before him. “Niels,” she implores, “it is hard, oh so hard! I cannot! … Niels, promise … promise that you will let things remain as they are. Come, come …” She reaches for his hand and strokes it. “I shall be all alone again, Niels. Promise that you will not say another word!”