LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 157, 5 December 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

♦ T H E S X 0 W - S II R I E K : A Talk of thk Prairies. (From Chambers's Journal.) ( Continued .) The words were rude, the tone was sullen, almost fierce, yet Metella’s car drank in the syllables thirstily, and it seemed to her that never in her life had she heard so sweet a compliment. ‘ Let us be friends, always,’ she murmured softly. ‘ Friends ! ’ ejaculated the young man. ‘ Yes, that is the way with you women—you steal the heart, and bewilder the soul of a man, and then, when hope is dead within him, and he is driven forth, as by the fiaming sword that barred the gate of Eden, you say to him, let us be friends ! Well, Miss Stewart, I will try to follow your prescription, and be content with friendship ; but first months and years must pass, and seas roll between us. Come, let the wrench be taken, and the farewell said. If I stay here, I shall say what I might be sorry for, for am I not your father’s guest, and is not Caryl my friend ? Good-bye, Miss Stewart— Metella ; forgive the freedom ! 1 shall never call you so again.’ ‘ Good-bye, Alberic, good-bye ! ’ And their bands met, and their eyes, and Metella’s tears fell like rain, and she sobbed audibly. There was a moment when the young man seemed as though lie were about to clasp her in his arms; but by a violent effort he tore himself away, and with a smothered word of adieu, flung open the door, and darted out into the darkness. Very soon afterwards, the quick clatter of his horse’s hoofs told that he had mounted and ridden rapidly off on his homeward road. Metella listened until the last faint sound had ceased, and nothing more was to be beard but the wailing snow-shriek, and then retired to her own chamber, and burst into an agony of weeping. It was Alberic’s image that haunted her dreams that night, not that of Caryl Wiutbrop. Thirty-six hours later, the sad, monotonous sound of the snow shriek bad swelled into a menacing roar, as of angry fiends let loose to ravage and destroy, and a filmy veil that was drawn over the western sky bad darkened from white to orange, and from orange to sable, and then, borne on the mighty wings of an icy wind, there broke upon the Territory the force of such a snowstorm as the hardiest farmer there had never pictured. Down came the whirling flakes, thick, heavy, pitiless, accompanied by a cruel cold like Death’s own touch, that pierced through furs and buffalo-robes, and numbed the limbs, and chilled the marrow, while still the blinding snow fell, and fell, and swept along before the furious gale, like so many white billows, over the country. And still the wind blew from the cold north-west, and still the snow fell. The deep piled drifts soon began to blot out every sign of man’s dominion from the lately subjugated land that had been so recently won from the wilderness. Dismal stories were brought in, ere long, of the disasters by flood and field. Rivers had swollen and overflowed their banks, washing down, along with a pack of floating ice, the debris of ruined homesteads and the carcases of drowned oxen. In the pastures, herdsman and herd lay overwhelmed beneath the white waves of snow. In the drifts that blocked the roads, waggoners and their teams were walled in, to perish of frostbite or exhaustion, unless aid came speedily; while many a bewildered wayfarer wandered from the track, and strayed across the desolate prairie until he found a grave in the deepening snow. It was with difficulty that Caryl could force his horse through the drifts that environed Colonel Stewart’s house, and when he arrived there, two of the hired men were missing, and a third had come in, half-frozen, from a vain attempt to save the affrighted cattle. Then did Metella realise the truth of the old hunter’s words. She, and those about her, had found out, for the first time, what snow meant, pitiless, inexhaustible whiteness, borne in upon them by the rush of the resistless wind, that howled and raved, with a sound like the cry of ravening wolves, about the house, and heaped up such masses as cumber the ground, even in those latitudes, but once or twice in a generation. Colonel Stewart, at first incredulous of peril, as it was in his sanguine nature to be, presently began ti admit that the calamity was worse than the mei’e damage to his property. The sheep, hogs, and cattle that he had lost represented but a money sacrifice —an affair of dollars and cents. Hut when all communications between Stewart’s Flat and the outer world were cut off’, and it was too late to fly, and the gathering snow was loading the roof, and darkening the lower windows, and rising, rising ever, he recognised the imprudence of his selection of such a site for his residence, and would have been thankful for escape even at the cost of half his substance. This, however, was impossible. The road by whicli Winthrop had reached the house was now barred by a wall of snow. The fast-falling flakes threatened to fill up the dell to the level of the lulls that commanded it, and all the outbuildings were hidden or unroofed by the weight of the snowfall. And still that horrid snow-shriek, loud and wild now as the war-cry of exulting demons, filled the startled air, as though rejoicing over its prey. The pangs of impending famine were soon added to the terrors of the situation. Those shut up in the once hospitable mansion at Stewart’s Flat had but scanty supplies of food or duel. It was as much as a man’s life was worth to try to reach the great woodpile. It took severe exertion to bring in, from time to time, a few logs and some broken timber from the yard, while, after the first few hours, provisions ran short. There is little inducement for a settler in that land of Goshen to store up hams and salted meat, flour and biscuit, to any extent; but now that flocks and herds, and barns brimming with wheat and golden maize, had been alike whelmed beneath the sudden snowfall, Want, like a gaunt wolf, began to beset the blockaded household. It was soon eat--ns. ■>.. . • -oort aciUa.l starvation;.lung as possible : and the beleaguered in i mate;'. c ' li<*.' wollinghuddled together around the rarely replenished stove, calking intones that they vainly strove to render hopeful, of the probabilities of a prompt rescue; for it had come to that, now. Rescue from without was their only chance. Should the snowstorm continue very long, they must perish of cold and hunger; even if the roof, which

they had been forced to prop up in places with casks and pieces of timber, did not cave in beneath the increasing weight piled upon it. The storm went on steadily, and still the wind wailed as before. It was a group of haggard faces that had collected around the great hall-stove at Stewart’s Flat when at last the snow-shriek died away to a moan, and one of the farmhands brought in the welcome news that, for the time at least, the storm had ceased. By this time the house merely resembled a mound of snow, one heap among many in the blurred landscape. The inmates "were as helpless as so many shipwrecked wretches in mid-ocean in a frail boat without sail or oar. For twenty-four hours most of them had not eaten. The few morsels of food that remained were reserved, by common consentin’ the female members of the starving house, hold. The lire was fed, as best might be, with broken furniture and woodwork torn from the wall. Still no help came. Perhaps the people at Troy were powerless to afford it. More likely it was taken for granted that the Stewarts and their servants had effected a timely escape to some place of safety. If so, and should not a speedy thaw set in, death was inevitable. Some hours elapsed, and still there was no sign that the blocked up household bad not been forgotten. Ha! what was that ? A shot, surely, and then another, and a cheer of friendly voices, and hope sprang up in every heart, and was kept alive by the occasional report of distant firearms, and the sound of shouting.

Yes, rescue was at hand. That much was certain. An attempt to penetrate the girdling wall of snow was about to he made, but what were the numbers or the resources of the adventurous band without, those within the house knew not. There were now but some four or five windows, darkened by snow-wreaths and pendent icicles, whence a partial view of the outer desolation could he obtained. And it was not on that side of the villa that the shouts and shots of the explorers had announced their presence. Some hours of painful suspense, during which at intervals the sound of voices could be heard, succeeded, and then the sobbing of the ominous wind changed into a shrill scream, and a man who had ventured a few paces from the door came in to bring the evil tidings that the snow had again begun to fall. The air was now full of feathery flakes, and the most anxious listener could now hear nothing but the monotonous wail that chilled every heart as it rang around the doomed house. It was beyond a doubt that the well-wishers on the outside must have desisted from their labors, beaten off by the keen wind and blinding snow-fall. The latter lasted through the miserable night, and, soon after daybreak, ceased again, but those within the house had almost bidden farewell to hope. Probably the rescuers would not, until the weather should improve, renew their efforts, toilsome and perilous as they must needs be. And then it would be too late. Privations and care were telling on the beleaguered inhabitants of Stewart’s Flat, and on none more than Caryl Winthrop, whose sunken cheek and unnaturally bright eye told of extreme exhaustion. ‘We shall be happy together in heaven, dear—not on earth,’ he said, more than once, as he looked wistfully into the face of his betrothed one, and chafed her cold hand between his. ‘lt has become a question, not of days, but of hours and minutes.’ Towards noon, Metella’s ear, sharpened by terror, caught the faint, low sound of the clinking of iron tools, mingling with the wail of that dismal snow-shriek. Her companions in misfortune, however, could not hear it, and she was easily persuaded that she had been tricked by her own excited fancy. Hours went by, the snow falling still, though not so heavily, and there was no sign from without. All prepared to perish, for now the scanty store of food was gone, and Carvl and Metella, as they knelt and prayed, side by side, felt that their wedding must indeed be in the world to come, not in this.

‘ There is one thing I ought to toll you, dear Caryl,’ whispered the girl, as they stood side hy side in the porch ; * I have not been wilfully untrue to my pledge, but—but there was one who left us but the other day, on whom my rebellious thoughts would dwell, do what I could to school them. It was not that I did not love you—indeed, not —but, it was different when I thought of Alberic Parnell. I shall never see him more. He will learn to forget me, and, had 1 lived, it should have been my daily task to forget him. You arc not angry, Caryl ?’ He kissed her on the forehead, saying gently : ‘ Indeed, I am not angry. Love, I fear, will not be always reasoned with. It is not your fault, my poor child, if you saw in Parnell what you have never seen in me. I was to you as a brother, was I not ? And you learned, too late, that liking was not love. It matters little, dearest, on the brink of the grave, as we stand now, but believe me— Ha! the noise without is real enough, this time.’ And so it was. There was a distinct clash and rattle of spade and shovel, of axe and pick, vigorously plied, and the loud voices of men, and the thud of falling blocks of snow, and then a cheer, hearty and triumphant, which was echoed, in feebler accents, by those within the house, while the door was eagerly opened to admit the deliverers. And now a crevice, soon enlarged to a cleft, appeared in the snow-wall close in front, and revealed the dark outline of a human form, hewing to right and left with a broad-bladed hatchet, as "if cutting a path through the ranks of a resisting enemy. Then a tall, strong man, wet and dripping, and with his dark beard and hair full of glistening snowcrystals, came leaping from the aperture, and reached the threshold. It was Alberic —Alberic Parnell; and the next to struggle through the breach in the snow-wall, spade in hand, was the gaunt figure of Hiram Pell, the hunter ; while from behind came crowding up the rest of the bold and hardy baud. To he continued.