THE COLDSEEKS

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 July 1901, Page 790

THE COLDSEEKS

By Annis McLeod.

Illustrated by Harry West. fHB train had reached the heart of the gorge, and was creeping up and up slowly, cautiously. One of the few passengers in the first class pushed his book aside, and looked out of the window for a moment. "My word !" he remarked, " a cheerful place to ive in." Another imitated the first speaker in everything mt the remark. " Preferable to die in," he answered.

A ■woman in a far corner of the carriage put her hand to her eyes quickly, and turned her head away. The action was involuntary — the face behind the hand white and drawn. Silence fell for a moment. The dull, swaying windows showed a land of grey hills seamed with deep gullies, gaunt, rock-strewn, so steep that a stray tussock, or twisted broadleaf, or scrap of tumatakuru had barely courage to cling and brave the fury of the mountain wind that swept along their cliff-like faces. The train crept slowly on. Spidery viaducts lay before — behind. Below a mountain torrent, thick and yellow, churned swiftly onwards, bearing traces of man's handiwork in evei-y little dirty ripple that danced as gaily as ever its undefiled predecessor had done in the days when gold-mining was unknown. The first passenger tapped the window impatiently. " I vote we get out and stretch our legs," he said. " The blessed thing's actually stopping again." The woman in the corner rose as the train drew up at a flag station. The second passenger glanced after her. " Wonder why on earth she's getting out here ! Lady, too." She had been well directed, apparently, and unhesitatingly set out upon the narrow path that ran in steep zigzags up the hill on the left, three words only singing in her brain : " Preferable to die — to die."

It had happened so many dreary centuries ago that even the pitiful remembrance of it was fast vanishing into that soul-darkness which came pressing down upon him so

often now. Sometimes in the windy night, lying restless on his straw pallet, the grey walls of the hut faintly fading and dying in the flickering firelight — sometimes, then, the present would rend and part, a frail curtain, and he would re-enact the last scene in the drama that had been his life, when existence had been worthy of the name. Once more he would be standing in that long, low room, so wealthy with sunshine

and beautiful flowers. Again, as on that one morning, he would be facing his wife, knowing so well that the white anger in her face was but the counterpart of that in his own. Again, he would hear the words she had spoken — stinging, acrid sentences that but burned the deeper into his brain because he had repeated them to himself so many times before she had even thought of them. She was rich — he was poor. That was the

burden of it. There wove other things, too, which she did not speak of, and yot which rankled bittor nnd deep — little petty jealousies, small misunderstandings, each so trivial when considered by itsolf —so seemingly formidable when taken in conjunction with its fellows. Ho reflected, even as ho stood there, that he Avas thankful at least that the end of months of discomfort had come at last. When words could go no

further, he had left her, banging the door behind him — striding blindly down the stone steps and over the flower beds to the gate.

They were but boy and girl, and love had not existed long enough to change the human wilfulness and passion in either. Afterwards, when he never came back, she would discover what a lost love meant, unless — unlesß .... His hope of it was dead.

A log would fall in the fireplace, and the flame dart into life once more. Back would come the grey walls — the work, the life that was to be his now as long as life remained. Then with the dying flame would come the other part- — the long months that had followed since he left his wife. Hazy and indistinct beside the beginning, these, but oppressive with a leaden weight of misery, torturing doubts, and the desperate clinging to one fixed idea. Afterwards he had found a mate as lonely and stricken as himself, and in a deep inland gorge the two piled a few slabs of stone against the rocky hillside — home. They rose with the sun, and lay down at night worn out, their treasure. further from them by the length of yet one more broiling day. Always the same, day after day, week after week, until time was a word that had ceased to have a meaning for either. Then the man's mate took up his billy and trudged one golden sunrise, and the man toiled on alone. He found working by himself no more dreary than before, and at last, after many months, for the first time came, as he fondly believed, the shadow of the reward. He had left off work at the usual time, but instead of going back to the. hut at once? he had thrown himself down on the hillside? utterly tired out, his arm outpread, his worn face turned to the infinite peace of the sunset. As he did so, his heart gave one wild, imprisoned throb, and his hands clenched like iron to prevent the halfagonised cry of joy which sprang to his lips. There it was at last — far, far up in the blue of heaven — too far to reach and touch, and handle, but still — there. He watched the great fiery cloud masses trail across the pure evening sky. The gold was found at last* and it would be his gold, if he could but reach it. But it rolled and fleeted from him even as he gazed, and as it went, it left little changing feathers and leaflets of its own rue colour that surely, surely, would fall !

He snatched out his longing arms savagely, impotently.

" Give it to me, my God !" he cried. " Oh, my God, that it might be mme — that it might be mine!" From the rocks around the faint echo of his own wild cry came back to him. A chill wind from the sunset passed over him, bringing with it the desolation and despair of death. He lay with his face buried in his arms until the grey night passed over the land, shrouding all things in its infinite pity and peace, That was the beginning. Afterwards he caught glints of the golden glory everywhere. Sometimes he saw it in broad splashes far up on the mountain side, and however swiftly he might climb thither, it was always to find that it had vanished, leaving an array of Maori onion in full bloom, or bush of brilliant gorse, scent laden, musical with the hum of scores of wild bees. Sometimes he would see it as at first — high up in the blue ether. Once it was close — so close — lying evenly along the summit of the rugged hills beyond, a splendour of massed gold. Surely it was his ! He dropped the tools he carried, fled downwards into the gully and up the further hillside, faster and faster, and where it should have been, found himself standing dazed, breathless, in the last rays of the setting sun, looking across at the great orb as he sank, flaming, in a wrack of storm clouds ! And thus it was always. In the earth, sky, water, always, but never at any time one speck, hard and bright to treasure, and carry back to the hut, to hug and hide, lest any envious eye should prey into its secrecy. Day by day the successive agony of hope deferred told upon his failing strength. Day by day his eyes burned deeper in a shrunken, haggard face. He had still a little oval picture of his wife, and the lips, as he looked at them, were calling — calling for him to come back — to come back to home and comfoi't and love. And then his own words would come to haunt and strengthen the failing will : " I will never see you again while lam poor. No, not if you pray — if you beseech me on your knees, or dyiug."

Sometimes the longing for her warm comforting hands would come upon him — the aching for a sight of her face, or the touch of her soft brown hair where the lights wavered and flickered, and then his bitter cry would echo to the desolation — the cry that he wight die, and be with her and see her always.

The slow weeks dragged on — on. He had climbed to the head of the gorge behind his hut one autumn evening. The sun's last rays shot over the rugged rock-cursed land and the ravine at his feet held mysterious, unfathomed depths save where the late sunshine filtered over its jagged granite rim, and wonderful shadows spi'ang into life on its grey sides, far down even to the distant opening where the yellow river ran. Strange, myriad voices of the waste were above and around him as he fell forward on his knees, straining his eyes into the deeps below where piles of beaten gold fluttered in the sunlight and died into the shade, thick as clouds of apple blossom, wind-scattered in a spring garden.

He saw not the sparrow hawk wheeling in slow curves below, nor the thousands of shrieking birds that swept from sido to side of the gorge, visible only as they passed into the bands of light. Now he knew where the gold — his gold — had fallen at last ! With a dry gasp, he sprang to his feet and began to descend into the wide cleft. He saw so clearly where the One Thing lay — must lie — for it was there the blinding showers had been thickest, heaviest.

Stumbling, grasping at every stray stick and tussock, sending stones and loose earth hurtling down the hillside before him, he made his way to the creek that tinkled, crystal, free, on its way to the muddy river. The river ! That was what he sought.

In a few minutes he stood beside it. Beside the great smooth bend where never a ripple broke, or rock jutted, to mar the perfections of the glorious evening reflections. Here the flax bush quivered gently to its own inverted image ; the toi-toi trembled doubly, equally perfect in either element.

The glowing, lichen-covered walls rose above, and sank below. But it was below — below not above, that the Peacegiver lay — lay and beckoned slowly, slowly, his golden garments flowing downstream, his hair a maze of shining, yellow floss, drifting, drifting, drifting . . .

The man stood with clasped hands on the high bank, l'apt, his heart warm with, unutterable comfort, the peace of the realization of a hope lost — dead — shining wildly in his luminous wide eyes.

" Husband !" called a soft voice. It was not less musical than the rippling of the water or the soft evening sounds, and it died and was lost among them.

The man's lips moved. " Dear," he whispered, "I am coming back to you at last, my -darling, oh, my darling! I said I would never come unless — unless — I was rich. Yes, I remember. Unless I was rich, and could give you what you had so much of — so much of, already. Elsie, little one, I am rich now, more than we could both need. See — my arms — both full ! And it is light. I thought it would be heavy."

He stretched out his arms laughingly, and took a step nearer the glowing water. As he did so, two strong arms were upon his shoulders from behind, he turned and from his dreamland impatient, wondering. Then the peace came back upon his face.

" Elsie," he whispered again. Then " Elsie !" It was a cry, glad, vibrating. " Surely you have been calling so softly, and for so long "

There was a moment's pause. His eyes were misty with the new puzzled thoughts that swept in on his waking mind. The woman behind slipped an arm round his neck, and drew down his head to her own.

At the touch of her warm lips, his haggard face grew ashen. " What has happened ?" he said. "It is no dream — it is you, my very, very, own one ! Let us come away # How I have cried for you in the loneliness of years ! And now to have you ! Let us thank God always — always ! " ■