The Trail of 98

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Title: The Trail of '98

A Northland Romance

Author: Robert W. Service

Release Date: July 13, 2007 [eBook #22063]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAIL OF '98***

The north wind is keening overhead. It minds me of the howl of a wolf-dog
under the Arctic stars. Sitting alone by the glow of the great peat fire I can
hear it high up in the braeside firs. It is the voice, inexorably scornful, of
the Great White Land.

Oh, I hate it, I hate it! Why cannot a man be allowed to forget? It is near
ten years since I joined the Eager Army. I have travelled: I have been a pilgrim
to the shrines of beauty; I have pursued the phantom of happiness even to the
ends of the earth. Still it is always the sameI cannot forget.

Why should a man be ever shadowed by the vampire wing of his past? Have I not
a right to be happy? Money, estate, name, are mine, all that means an open
sesame to the magic door. Others go in, but I beat against its flinty portals
with hands that bleed. No! I have no right to be happy. The ways of the world
are open; the banquet of life is spread; the wonder-workers plan their pageants
of beauty and joy, and yet there is no praise in my heart. I have seen, I have
tasted, I have tried. Ashes and dust and bitterness are all my gain. I will try
no more. It is the shadow of the vampire wing.

So I sit in the glow of the great peat fire, tired and sad beyond belief.
Thank God! at least I am home. Everything is so little changed. The fire lights
the
[Pg
vi]
oak-panelled hall; the crossed claymores gleam; the eyes in the
mounted deer-heads shine glassily; rugs of fur cover the polished floor; all is
comfort, home and the haunting atmosphere of my boyhood. Sometimes I fancy it
has been a dream, the Great White Silence, the lure of the gold-spell, the
delirium of the struggle; a dream, and I will awake to hear Garry calling me to
shoot over the moor, to see dear little Mother with her meek, sensitive mouth,
and her cheeks as delicately tinted as the leaves of a briar rose. But no! The
hall is silent. Mother has gone to her long rest. Garry sleeps under the snow.
Silence everywhere; I am alone, alone.

So I sit in the big, oak-carved chair of my forefathers, before the great
peat fire, a peak-faced drooping figure of a man with hair untimely grey. My
crutch lies on the floor by my side. My old nurse comes up quietly to look at
the fire. Her rosy, wrinkled face smiles cheerfully, but I can see the anxiety
in her blue eyes. She is afraid for me. Maybe the doctor has told
her
something
.

No doubt my days are numbered, so I am minded to tell of it all: of the Big
Stampede, of the Treasure Trail, of the Gold-born City; of those who followed
the gold-lure into the Great White Land, of the evil that befell them, of Garry
and of Berna. Perhaps it will comfort me to tell of these things. To-morrow I
will begin; to-night, leave me to my memories.

Berna! I spoke of her last. She rises before me now with her spirit-pale face
and her great troubleful
[Pg
vii]
grey eyes, a little tragic figure, ineffably pitiful. Where are
you now, little one? I have searched the world for you. I have scanned a million
faces. Day and night have I sought, always hoping, always baffled, for, God help
me, dear, I love you. Among that mad, lusting horde you were so weak, so
helpless, yet so hungry for love.

With the aid of my crutch I unlatch one of the long windows, and step out
onto the terrace. From the cavernous dark the snowflakes sting my face. Yet as I
stand there, once more I have a sense of another land, of imperious vastitudes,
of a silent empire, unfathomably lonely.

Ghosts! They are all around me. The darkness teems with them, Garry, my
brother, among them. Then they all fade and give way to one face....

Berna, I love you always. Out of the night I cry to you, Berna, the cry of
a broken heart. Is it your little, pitiful ghost that comes down to me? Oh, I am
waiting, waiting! Here will I wait, Berna, till we meet once more. For meet we
will, beyond the mists, beyond the dreaming, at last, dear love, at
last.

As far back as I can remember I have faithfully followed the banner of
Romance. It has given colour to my life, made me a dreamer of dreams, a player
of parts. As a boy, roaming alone the wild heather hills, I have heard the glad
shouts of the football players on the green, yet never ettled to join them. Mine
was the richer, rarer joy. Still can I see myself in those days, a little
shy-mannered lad in kilts, bareheaded to the hill breezes, with health-bright
cheeks, and a soul happed up in dreams.

And, indeed, I lived in an enchanted land, a land of griffins and kelpies, of
princesses and gleaming knights. From each black tarn I looked to see a scaly
reptile rise, from every fearsome cave a corby emerge. There were green spaces
among the heather where the fairies danced, and every scaur and linn had its own
familiar spirit. I peopled the good green wood with the wild creatures of my
thought, nymph and faun, naiad and dryad, and would have been in nowise
surprised to meet in the leafy coolness the great god Pan himself.

It was at night, however, that my dreams were most compelling. I strove
against the tyranny of sleep. Lying in my small bed, I revelled in delectable
imaginings. Night after night I fought battles, devised pageants, partitioned
empires. I gloried in details.
My rugged war-lords were very real to me, and my adventures
sounded many periods of history. I was a solitary caveman with an axe of stone;
I was a Roman soldier of fortune; I was a Highland outlaw of the Rebellion.
Always I fought for a lost cause, and always my sympathies were with the rebel.
I feasted with Robin Hood on the King's venison; I fared forth with Dick Turpin
on the gibbet-haunted heath; I followed Morgan, the Buccaneer, into strange and
exotic lands of trial and treasure. It was a wonderful gift of visioning that
was mine in those days. It was the bird-like flight of the pure child-mind to
whom the unreal is yet the real.

Then, suddenly, I arrived at a second phase of my mental growth in which
fancy usurped the place of imagination. The modern equivalents of Romance
attracted me, and, with my increasing grasp of reality, my gift of vision faded.
As I had hitherto dreamed of knight-errants, of corsairs and of outlaws, I now
dreamed of cowboys, of gold-seekers, of beach-combers. Fancy painted scenes in
which I, too, should play a rousing part. I read avidly all I could find dealing
with the Far West, and ever my wistful gaze roved over the grey sea. The spirit
of Romance beaconed to me. I, too, would adventure in the stranger lands, and
face their perils and brave their dangers. The joy of the thought exulted in my
veins, and scarce could I bide the day when the roads of chance and change would
be open to my feet.

It is strange that in all these years I confided in
no one. Garry, who was my brother and my
dearest friend, would have laughed at me in that affectionate way of his. You
would never have taken us for brothers. We were so different in temperament and
appearance that we were almost the reverse of each other. He was the handsomest
boy I have ever seen, frank, fair-skinned and winning, while I was dark, dour
and none too well favoured. He was the best runner and swimmer in the parish,
and the idol of the village lads. I cared nothing for games, and would be found
somewhere among the heather hills, always by my lone self, and nearly always
with a story book in my pocket. He was clever, practical and ambitious,
excelling in all his studies; whereas, except in those which appealed to my
imagination, I was a dullard and a dreamer.

Yet we loved each others as few brothers do. Oh, how I admired him! He was my
ideal, and too often the hero of my romances. Garry would have laughed at my
hero-worship; he was so matter-of-fact, effective and practical. Yet he
understood me, my Celtic ideality, and that shy reserve which is the armour of a
sensitive soul. Garry in his fine clever way knew me and shielded me and cheered
me. He was so buoyant and charming he heartened you like Spring sunshine, and
braced you like a morning wind on the mountain top. Yes, not excepting Mother,
Garry knew me better than any one has ever done, and I loved him for it. It
seems overfond to say this, but he did not have a fault: tenderness, humour,
enthusiasm, sympathy and the beauty of a young godall
that was manfully endearing was expressed
in this brother of mine.

So we grew to manhood there in that West Highland country, and surely our
lives were pure and simple and sweet. I had never been further from home than
the little market town where we sold our sheep. Mother managed the estate till
Garry was old enough, when he took hold with a vigour and grasp that delighted
every one. I think our little Mother stood rather in awe of my keen, capable,
energetic brother. There was in her a certain dreamy, wistful idealism that made
her beautiful in my eyes, and to look on she was as fair as any picture.
Specially do I remember the delicate colouring of her face and her eyes, blue
like deep corn-flowers. She was not overstrong, and took much comfort from
religion. Her lips, which were fine and sensitive, had a particularly sweet
expression, and I wish to record of her that never once did I see her cross,
always sweet, gentle, smiling.