Settlers of the Marsh (28 page)

But when his heel struck the stones of the foundation below, he started and covered his mouth with his hand: a movement of childish mock fright …

Then, after many more comings and goings, Bobby left the yard not to return …

Long, long Niels sat and stared into the dark. There was just starlight enough to show the outlines.

It was all there, the whole picture of the yard, dim and quiet: without its details. His eyes were gradually, automatically adjusting themselves, so that, when they were called upon, they saw.

The call that came consisted in a change of the picture. It was long past midnight.

The line of light disappeared from the crack between blind and frame in the upper east window of the house.

Instantly Niels saw. He did not move. The change did not at once release any conscious reaction, any thought.

The next moment the light reappeared at the lower window, in front of the staircase, throwing a dim glow over the sward of grass on the yard. For a moment a figure appeared in the frame of the window; a woman in flimsy, gaudy undress. An arm, almost bare, reached up to draw the blind so that it intercepted the light.

Utter darkness fell, darker than before. But after a minute or so, very dim, almost divined, the light fell into the lane between kitchen and garden.

Niels sat very still, frowning.

A whole, forgotten world came back to him: a distasteful world, not in keeping with his animal comfort.

He wanted to put the thought away as it tried to emerge. He was tempted to brush it from his brow with his hand. But he did not move. His hands rested alongside his thighs, on the threshold of the door. His body was bent forward. His muscles were tightening, slackening, in reflex action …

He stared and did not move.

In his mind, in the background of his memory, proceeding from the faintest adumbration of some great fact dominating his life, a question crystalised …

What had all this to do with him?

With that problem he wrestled for an hour.

Again a change in the picture of the yard. Once more the light went on its progress downward in the house.

And this time, what he saw connected itself with the past, suddenly, without any slow development or unfolding. The whole antecedents of the present moment stood before his mind as if he were living them within fractions of a second: it was like a dream which, retrospectively, motivates a sound or other perception received in sleep.

His muscles tightened and remained tight. It was as if a powerful spring inside of him had been tightly wound and then arrested by some catch, either to snap under the strain or to unroll itself in the natural way by setting some complicated wheel-work into irresistible motion, grinding up what might come in its way or attempt to stop it.

Wave after wave of hot blood went through his body, lapping up into his brain, breaking there, flooding his consciousness with an opaque, scarlet flood …

He raised himself on his feet, without swaying, and stood. Then it was as if a cruel wrench had been given that spring inside of him, tightening it to the breaking point. And as that point was reached, he moved.

He moved with tremendous speed.

The next moment he stood at the door of the house and threw it open.

Voices from the back room; laughing voices.

“Sh-sh!”

“Nonsense! Who'd come at this time of night?”

A third voice, whispering.

A roar of laughter …

That released the tightly wound spring. Irresistibly a clockwork began to move. There was not a spark of consciousness in Niels. He acted entirely under the compulsion of the spring.

He remembered later, much later …

He was back at the granary and reached into the door for the gun. He made sure it was loaded.

Again he crossed the yard and entered the house, noisily, without taking precautions.

He went through the front room and threw the door to the dining room open.

There, consternation had done its work.

A man's figure, half clad, was vaulting through the open window to the right; a second one was fleeing through the door into the kitchen.

At the left, the woman was sitting, her face made up, her body wrapped in silks …

On the table dishes, plates, cups, a biscuit-bowl, a tea-pot …

The woman rose, a half frightened, half triumphant smile on her face. She sought his eyes; but she looked into the barrel of the gun.

The shot rang out.

She screamed and ran for the kitchen door, upsetting a chair on her way. But before she reached it, she fell, flinging her arms and kicking her feet so that a silken slipper fell in the centre of the table.

Then she went quiet and lay in a heap.

Niels had already turned, slamming both doors as he went. Again he crossed the yard. He entered the stable. He could never remember why he had done so. He went through the driveway and east, towards the horse-lot.

There, in this short aisle, in neighbouring stalls, stood Jock and Nellie, just visible in the dim light of dawn.

Niels, swaying again, came very near to the rump of the gelding.

Jock, as the door was opened, had turned his head. When his master swayed near him, he, expecting a blow, kicked out.

Niels raised his gun and shot the gelding through the head …

A
LL THAT DAY
Niels slept: a deep, sunken sleep.

Bobby had pulled the dead horse out of the stable, putting the chain around his rigid hind legs and hitching the Clydes to the chain. It would have seemed a sacrilege to use the young Percherons for such a purpose.

Niels slept.

Bobby did the chores. He milked the cows, watered the cattle, and let them out on the Marsh. He brushed the horses, untied them, and opened the door to the lot.

Niels slept.

Bobby manoeuvred the hay-rack against the door of the stable and pitched the hay into the loft.

Niels slept.

Bobby was now convinced that he had heard two shots. He looked Jock over. He found only one bullet-hole.

He went to the shack and fetched the rifle. Its capacity was five shots; it had been fully loaded. There were three shells left.

Bobby looked at the house that stood in the morning sun as it had stood there on every day since he had known it. There was something uncanny about it.

He shuddered. What was he to do?

He could not go to the hay-slough alone this morning.

Niels had not said a word. He had thrown the rifle over his shoulder and gone to the shack, slowly, steadily, soberly. There, he had flung himself on the bed, in his clothes, vouchsafing no information, inviting no question, answering no enquiring look …

“Don't you want breakfast?” Bobby had asked.

Niels had already been asleep.

Bobby went all around the house. The east window of the dining room, on the north side, was open.

Should he look in? He could fetch the saw-buck or a truss from the milk-house to stand on.

He did not go. He was afraid to look in.

He returned to the yard, picked the rifle up where he had left it leaning against the stable, broke the barrel, and emptied the remaining shells into his hand.

Something frightful had happened. What?

He felt disconsolate.

Niels had never owned shotgun or rifle.

But one day, in winter, a year or two ago, Bobby and Niels had been coming from the shack; and there, in the first, frosty light of the morning, they had seen a moose standing at the far corner of the garden-lot, head thrown high, mobile nostrils aquiver to catch a scent … Both men had stopped in their tracks. Then Bobby, bending down, had picked up a stick and sprung forward, levelling it like a gun at his shoulder, shouting, “Bang … Bang!” Whereupon the noble animal, all nerves and trembling muscle, had reared up and disappeared in long, graceful bounds. “What a pity,” Bobby had exclaimed, “that we haven't a gun!” Niels had shrugged his shoulders. But the next time he had gone to town he had brought back this rifle for Bobby. It had never been used except for practice and in fun …

If it had not been for him, Bobby, there would have been no fire-arms on the place …

Many times, during the forenoon, Bobby went to the shack. Niels never stirred.

Bobby became hungry. But Niels needed the rest. He merely fetched some bread and a cup, went to the pump, drew fresh water, and sat down to munch his crusts …

Bobby had no education. If you had asked him what a tragedy is, he could not have answered. But he felt that a tragedy had been enacted in the house …

Niels had been young, strong, enormously strong, handsome, clean, competent … yes, and good! Bobby had seen his decaying, slowly, steadily, irrevocably. Now that he came to think about it and looked back at what he had been during the last few months, he felt profoundly shaken; he felt shattered in his belief in the firm foundations of life … His own life would have to be lived under the shadow of what had happened to Niels, of what would happen to him … He could never be the same carefree boy again …

He had often, of late, heard Niels mutter certain words. On this summer day they took a meaning for Bobby. “And he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow …”

He had been happy, constitutionally happy. He would never be quite so happy again; but he would be more thoughtful …

More thoughtful? Had he not been thoughtful enough in the past?

On the contrary, had he been thoughtful in his relation to Niels? Had he not often, of late, been impatient with him? Had he not shrunk from the careless, untidy habits into which he had fallen?

Bobby, young as he was, came to know the bitterness of regret and repentence …

Several times he rose, walked about, fought down his sobs …

Niels lay like a log.

All life on the Marsh would be changed …

Slowly the sun rode on and finally sank to the west.

A
T LAST
, late in the evening, when his rays came almost parallel with the ground, Niels awoke.

He raised himself till he was sitting on his bed, his feet on the floor, his shoulders curved forward, his hands lying by his sides. As Bobby darkened the door, he looked up. His eye was clear; but his look came from another world.

“It's evening, is it? “he asked. His voice, too, sounded as from an infinite distance.

Bobby nodded, a lump in his throat.

“Get something to eat,” Niels said without stirring.

Bobby began to work as if a great deal depended on his speed. His hands shook. He dropped this, spilt that. He started a fire, fried eggs, made tea.

Niels got up, slowly, heavily, stretched himself, and went out to where the wash-basin stood on a homemade bench.

There he washed, slowly, painstakingly, splashing and brushing for fully five minutes.

With the same painstaking care he dried face, neck, arms.

When he re-entered the shack, he sat down at the table, heavily, as if his weight had increased tenfold.

Bobby, too, sat down. But he could not eat for the dull, numbing excitement that was in him.

Every now and then, while Niels satisfied his appetite, eating slowly, but in great, enormous bites, his eye rested for a moment on the boy.

He finished and made an attempt to rise: the attempt failed or was given up. At last he pointed over the table, with a sweep of his arm.

“Clear that off.”

When Bobby, working feverishly, had done so, Niels added, “Bring pen and ink. And the bundle of papers from the cupboard.”

Niels lifted his arms on to the table as if they were weighted with lead.

He tore the string that held the bundle of papers and picked out his cheque-book and a large, folded parchment. He tried to remove the stopper from the ink bottle. Failing, he said, “Open that.”

He dipped the pen and began to write, in large, stiff, unwieldy scrawls. When he had finished, he wheeled about on his chair, nearly falling.

“Bobby,” he said as if speaking, too, were very difficult, “there's the patent for my land. It's yours. With all that's on it. Here's a cheque. There's something owing on the other quarter. It's the full amount. I won't be back.”

“Niels,” Bobby cried, almost choking with sobs, “what have you done?”

“I?” Niels said with a sudden flicker in his eye. “I have killed my wife.”

“O God!” Bobby groaned. “I was afraid that was it.”

“Afraid?” Niels said slowly and sternly. “What have you to be afraid of? You've been a son to me. I leave you my property.”

“Niels,” Bobby cried. He would have liked to throw himself on this man, to hold him, to shield him with his body.

Niels waved him back.

“Niels,” Bobby cried again, “what are you going to do? You must hide …”

“Hide? No. I am going to town.”

And slowly, heavily he rose and went to the door, Bobby was beside himself.

Niels turned back, swallowing two, three times.

“Bobby,” he said at last, “you've been a son to me. I want … I want to thank you …”

“Don't!” Bobby cried, flinging his arms up. “I can't stand it …”

“Stand it?” Niels repeated. “I am going to town to hand myself over.” He took a step or two till he stood in the middle of the little clearing. “Don't try to hold me. Don't follow me.”

Bobby did not move. He stared at the man.

Niels stood for another few minutes, his lips muttering words.

Then, mastering his refractory body, he pulled himself up; and for a moment his voice became articulate and distinct, though not loud.

“… Hanged by the neck until dead …”

Everything seemed to turn about Bobby.

Then, when he looked again, the man on the clearing was gone.

In due course of time a trial followed, conducted in a small city of the prairies.

The prisoner at the bar had refused to engage a lawyer for his defence. Nor did he utter a word which might throw light on the crime or on his motives. In plain, unequivocal terms, given in writing, he pleaded guilty to the charge of murder.