inhabited like ours? See how the o'erarching dome is all bespangled with fretted fire. What noble roofment has this little earth thus canopied with glory? Tell me hast thou a star in yonder sky which thou dost call thy own? A star linked with a loved one's face?" 66 Nay, nay, I am not fanciful, Ungava. I am a plain, blunt man. I know my friends. My foes know me. My loves are simple. I am a man of fact not fancy. I eat my food. I quench my thirst. I love my friend. I hate my foe. Word and bond keep I unto death. The rest I leave to God." "But, Trapper, lift thou thine eyes again. Select some star, distant or nigh, and to it link a name—the name of her thou lovest over all. Let its bright ray be to thine eyes a face, and tell me of her. I would know the woman thou dost love." "The woman I do love, Ungava, lives not in any star. She lives-I know not where. I know not where to find her when I die. I only know she loves me with a queenly love; and when my eye grows dim and all the trail fades out, I trust her faithful hand will guide me on. I know no further, and I have no further hope. gone "But, Trapper, if thy love is dead and gone-forever -and where she is thou knowest not, nor how to find her, nor whether you and she shall ever meet. If all is dim, uncertain, dubious, then thou canst surely love some other one-some fair, sweet one, who should give all her soul to thee; be comfort to thy days, and to thy face lift eyes of worship because to her thou art as God." Then said the Trapper, gravely :— 66 Ungava, of little loves man may have many, born of his vagrant moods or transient passions; for man is as the earth, and out of him, prolific, spring many growths, some sweet, some foul, which, whether sweet or foul, are only of a day, and die. But one great love, and only one, may be to man who stands large natured and with powers too strong to die. Such love is central to him. Rooted in his soul it lives with it forever, and all the sweetness and the strength of him are in it as the sap is in the tree. So flower and fruit come from it, and such high ornament as make him glorious evermore. Such love did come to me, and in my soul I feel it growing more and more. One love I have, and only one. Another one I may not have, nor wish. It fills me as a cup is filled with water when its brim is wet. I drink of it, and drinking the sweet draught, I thirst not, and I need no more." And as he spake, yea, as the words were on his lips, across the moon there grew a cloud, and darkened all the world. Black grew the sea, and heaving without cause from out the darkness came a moan, and a great wave rode in upon the darkness, and underneath the cliff broke with a fall that shook it; then, silence. Then said Ungava, speaking softly in the gloom : Trapper, thy heart is fixed, and fixed too is my fate. I would not change thy steadfast soul. It is enough for me as woman to have known thee and have loved. Thou art of ancient time. To word and bond, and nobler yet to love, living or dead, thy soul holds true. Long is the trail, but heart of truth makes tireless foot." So said she, and then vanished. Then the cloud passed, the moon came forth, and on the crest of that high rock above the sleeping sea, he stood alone, while the white silence once more softly lay unoccupied on cliff, and sea, and shingled shore. THE END. THE ARENA. No. VIII. JULY, 1890. PROGRESS AND PAIN. NO-NAME SERIES. NUMBER FIVE. HAVE pity on thy world, O God! A hundred thousand homes each day Blank images of dumb despair. Upon a million beds somewhere, Poor feverish, pain-racked sufferers lie, In agony, waiting to die; And round them glide, deep worn by care And anxious watchings, millions more, Whose hands, and feet, and hearts are sore. How many thousands languish now |