Elia W. Peattie - On the Northern Ice

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information and to find out
how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read
and recorded by Betsy Bush Marquette, Michigan, September two thousand six.

(00:23):
On the Northern Ice by Eliah Wilkinson Pete. The winter
nights of at Susaint Marie are as white and luminous
as the milky Way. The silence which rests upon the
solitude appears to be white. Also, even sound has been
included in nature's arrestment. For indeed, save the still white frost,

(00:49):
all things seem to be obliterated. The stars have a
poignant brightness, but they belong to Heaven and not to Earth.
And between their im me aasurable height and the still
ice rolls the eben ether in vast liquid billows. In
such a place, it is difficult to believe that the

(01:10):
world is actually peopled. It seems as if it might
be the dark of the day after Cain killed Abel,
and as if all of humanity's remainder was huddled in
a fright away from the awful spaciousness of creation. The
night Ralph Hagadorn started out for Echo Bay, bent on

(01:31):
a pleasant duty. He laughed to himself and said that
he did not at all object to being the only
man in the world, so long as the world remained
as unspeakably beautiful as it was. When he bulked on
his skates and shot away into the solitude. He was
bent on reaching his best friend in time to act

(01:52):
as groomsmen. And business had delayed him till time was
at its briefest. So he journeyed by night, and journeyed alone,
And when the tang of the frost got at his blood,
he felt as a spirited horse feels when it gets
free of bit and bridle. The ice was as glass,

(02:13):
His skates were keen, his frame fit, and his venture
to his taste. So he laughed and cut through the
air as a sharp stone cleaves the water. He could
hear the whistling of the air as he cleft it.
As he went on and on in the black stillness,
he began to have fancies. He imagined himself enormously tall,

(02:37):
a great viking of the Northland, hastening over icy fiords
to his love, And that reminded him that he had
a love though indeed that thought was always present with
him as a background for other thoughts. To be sure,
he had not told her that she was his love,

(02:57):
for he had seen her only a few timess and
the auspicious occasion had not yet presented itself. She lived
at Eco Bay also, and was to be the maid
of honor to his friend's bride, which was one more
reason why he skated almost as swiftly as the wind,
and why now and then he let out a shout

(03:18):
of exultation. The one cloud that crossed Hagadorn's son of
expectancy was the knowledge that Marie Beaujeu's father had money,
and that Marie lived in a house with two stories
to it, and wore otter skin about her throat and
little satin lined mink boots on her feet when she

(03:38):
went sledding. Moreover, in the locket in which she treasured
a bit of her dead mother's hair, there was a
black pearl as big as a pea. These things made
it difficult, perhaps impossible, for Ralph Hagadorn to say more
than I love you, But that much he meant to say,

(04:00):
though he were scourged with chagrin for his temerity this
determination grew upon him as he swept along the ice
under the starlight. Venus made a glowing path toward the
west that seemed eager to reassure him. He was sorry.
He could not skim down that avenue of light which

(04:20):
flowed from the Love Star, but he was forced to
turn his back upon it and face the black northeast.
It came to him with a shock that he was
not alone. His eyelashes were frosted and his eyeballs blurred
with the cold, so at first he thought it might
be an illusion. But when he had rubbed his eyes hard,

(04:44):
he made sure that not very far in front of
him was a long white skater in fluttering garments, who
sped over the ice as fast as ever. Where Wulf went.
He called aloud, but there was no answer. He shaped
his hands and trumpeted through them, but the silence was

(05:05):
as before it was complete. So then he gave chase,
setting his teeth hard and putting at tension on his
firm young muscles. But go, however he would. The white
skater went faster. After a time, as he glanced at
the cold gleam of the north star, he perceived that

(05:26):
he was being led from his direct path. For a
moment he hesitated, wondering if he would not better keep to
his road, But his weird companion seemed to draw him
on irresistibly, and finding it sweet to follow, he followed.
Of course, it came to him more than once in

(05:47):
that strange pursuit that the white skater was no earthly guide.
Up in those latitudes, men see curious things when the
hoar frost is on the earth. Haggado Jorn's own father
to hark no further than that. For an instance, who
lived up there with the Lake Superior Indians and worked

(06:08):
in the copper mines, had welcomed a woman at his
hut one bitter night who was gone by morning, leaving
wolf tracks on the snow. Yes, it was so, and
John Fontanelle, the half breed, could tell you about it
any day if he were alive a lack. The snow
where the wolf tracks were is melted now well. Hagadorn

(06:33):
followed the white skater all the night, and when the
ice flushed pink at dawn and arrows of lovely light
shot up into the cold heavens, she was gone, and
Hagadorn was at his destination. The sun climbed arrogantly up
to his place above all other things. And as Hagadorn

(06:53):
took off his skates and glanced carelessly lakeward, he beheld
a great wind rift in the ice, and the waves
showing blue and hungry between white fields. Had he rushed
along his intended path, watching the stars to guide him,
his glance turned upward all his body at magnificent momentum,

(07:17):
he must certainly have gone into that cold grave. How
wonderful that it had been sweet to follow the white skater,
and that he followed his heart beat hard as he
hurried to his friend's house, But he encountered no wedding
ferrore his friend met him as men meet in houses

(07:38):
of mourning. Is this your wedding face, cried Hagadorn. Why
man starved? As I am. I look more like a
bridegroom than you. There's no wedding to day, no wedding.
Why you're not.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Marie Boujeau died last night. Marie died last night. She
had been skating in the afternoon, and she came home,
chilled and wandering in her mind, as if the frost
had got in it. Somehow she grew worse and worse,
And all the time she talked of you of me,

(08:20):
we wondered what it meant. No one knew you were lovers.
I didn't know it myself. More's the pity. At least
I didn't know. She said you were on the ice,
and that you didn't know about the big breaking up.
And she cried to us that the wind was off
shore and the rift widening. She cried over and over

(08:43):
again that you could come in by the old French
creek if you only knew. I came in that way.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
But how did you come to do that? It's out
of the path, we thought, perhaps, But Hagadorn broke in
with his stone and told him all as it had
come to pass. That day, they watched beside the maiden,
who lay with tapers at her head and at her feet,
and in the little church the bride, who might have

(09:13):
been at her wedding, said prayers for her friend. They
buried Marie Bougeaux in her bridesmade white, and Hagadorn was
before the altar with her, as he had intended from
the first. Then at midnight, the lovers who were to
be wed whispered their vows in the gloom of the
cold Church, and walked together through the snow to lay

(09:37):
their bridal wreaths upon a grave. Three nights later, Hagadorn
skated back again to his home. They wanted him to
go by sunlight, but he had his way and went
when Venus made her bright path on the ice. The
truth was he had hoped for the companionship of the
white skater, but he did not have it. His only

(10:01):
companion was the wind. The only voice he heard was
the baying of a wolf on the north shore. The
world was as empty and as white as if God
had just created it, and the sun had not yet
colored nor man defiled it. And of on the Northern

(10:23):
Ice by Eliah Wilkinson Peaty