Probably the foot of man had never stood before in that retreat, hidden by trees on all sides. Pushing apart the slender limbs of the willows cautiously, we looked at the water, which was as smooth as a mirror, and blue. The beavers were not at their work yet; the little watertown slumbered in visible quiet; and such silence reigned on the lake that I heard Lillian’s breath when she thrust her golden head through the opening in the branches with mine, and our temples touched. I caught her waist with my arm to hold her on the slope of the bank and we waited patiently, delighted with what our eyes were taking in at that moment.
Accustomed to life in wild places, I loved Nature as my own mother, though simply; but I felt that something like God’s delight in Creation was present.
It was early morning; the light had barely come, and was reddening among the branches of the hickories; the dew was dropping from the leaves of the willows, and the world was growing brighter each instant. Later on, there came to the other shore prairie chickens, gray, with black throats, pretty crests on their heads, and they drank water, raising their bills as they swallowed.
“Ah, Ralph! how good it is here,” whispered Lillian.
There was nothing in my head then but a cottage in some lonely canyon, she with me, and such a rosary of peaceful days, flowing calmly into eternity and endless rest. It seemed to us that we had brought to that wedding of Nature our own wedding, to that calm our calm, and to that bright light the bright light of happiness within us.
Now the smooth surface described itself in a circle, and from the water came up slowly the bearded face of a beaver, wet and rosy from the gleam of the morning; then a second, and the two little beasts swam toward the lake, pushing apart with their noses blue lines, puffing and muttering. They climbed the dam, and, sitting on their haunches, began to call; at that signal heads, larger and smaller, rose up as if by enchantment; a plashing was heard in the lake. The herd appeared at first to be playing, — simply diving and screaming from delight in its own fashion; but the first pair, looking from the dam, gave a sudden, prolonged whistle from their nostrils, and in a twinkle half of the beavers were on the dam, and the other half had swum to the banks and vanished under the willows, where the water began to boil, and a sound as it were of sawing indicated that the little beasts were working there, cutting bark and branches.
Lillian and I looked long, very long, at these acts, and at those pleasures of animal life until we disturbed it. Wishing to change her position, she moved a branch accidentally, and in the twinkle of an eye every beaver had vanished; only the disturbed water indicated that something was beneath; but after a while the water became smooth, and silence surrounded us again, interrupted only by the woodpeckers striking the firm bark of the hickories.
The sun had risen above the trees and began to heat powerfully. Since Lilian did not feel tired yet, we resolved to go around the little lake. On the way we came to a small stream which intersected the wood and fell into the lake from the opposite side. Lillian could not cross it, so I had to carry her; and despite her resistance, I took her like a child in my arms and walked into the water. But that stream was a stream of temptations. Fear lest I should fall made her seize my neck with both arms, hold to me with all her strength, and hide her shamed face behind my shoulder; but I began straightway to press my lips to her temple, whispering, “Lillian! my Lillian!” And in that way I carried her over the water.
When I reached the other bank I wished to carry her farther, but she tore herself from me almost rudely. A certain disquiet seized both of us; she began to look around as if in fear, and now pallor and now ruddiness struck her face. We went on. I took her hand and pressed it to my heart. At moments fear of myself seized me. The day became sultry; heat flowed down from the sky to the earth; the wind was not blowing, the leaves on the hickories hung motionless; the only sound was from woodpeckers striking the bark as before; all seemed to be growing languid from heat and falling asleep. I thought that some enchantment was in the air, in that forest, and then I thought only that Lillian was with me and that we were alone.
Meanwhile weariness began to come on. Lillian; her breathing grew shorter and more audible, and on her face, usually pale, fiery blushes beat forth. I asked if she was not tired, and if she would not rest.
“Oh, no, no!” answered she quickly, as if defending herself from even the thought; but after a few tens of steps she tottered suddenly and whispered, —
“I cannot, indeed, I cannot go farther.”
Then I took her again in my arms and carried that dear burden to the edge of the shore, where willows, hanging to the ground, formed a shady corridor. In this green alcove I placed her on the moss. I knelt down; and when I looked at her the heart in me was straitened. Her face was as pale as linen, and her staring eyes looked with fear at me.
“Lillian, what is the matter?” cried I. “I am with you.” I bent to her feet then and covered them with kisses. “Lillian!” continued I, “my only, my chosen, my wife!”
When I said these last words a shiver passed through her from head to foot; and suddenly she threw her arms around my neck with a certain unusual power, as in a fever, repeating, “My dear! my dear! my husband!” Everything vanished from my eyes then, and it seemed to me that the whole globe of the earth was flying away with us.
I know not to this day how it could be that when I recovered from that intoxication and came to my senses twilight was shining again among the dark brandies of the hickories, but it was the twilight of evening. The woodpeckers had ceased to strike the trees; one twilight on the bottom of the lake was smiling at that other which was in the sky; the inhabitants of the water had gone to sleep; the evening was beautiful, calm, filled with a red light; it was time to return to the camp.
When we had come out from beneath the weeping-willows, I looked at Lillian; there was not on her face either sadness or disquiet; in her upturned eyes was the light of calm resignation and, as it were, a bright aureole of sacrifice and dignity encircled her blessed head. When I gave her my hand, she inclined her face quietly to my shoulder, and, without turning her eyes from the heavens, she said to me, —
“Ralph, repeat to me that I am your wife, and repeat it often.”
Since there was neither in the deserts, nor in the place to which we were going, any marriage save that of hearts, I knelt down, and when she had knelt at my side, I said, “Before God, earth, and heaven, I declare to thee, Lillian Morris, that I take thee as wife. Amen.” To this she answered, “Now I am thine forever and till death, thy wife, Ralph!”
From that moment we were married; she was not my sweetheart, she was my lawful wife. That thought was pleasant to both of us, — and pleasant to me, for in my heart there rose a new feeling of a certain sacred respect for Lillian, and for myself, a certain honorableness and great dignity through which love became ennobled and blessed. Hand in hand, with heads erect and confident look, we returned to the camp, where the people were greatly alarmed about us. A number of tens of men had gone out in every direction to search for us; and with astonishment I learned afterward that some had passed around the lake, but could not discover us; we on our part had not heard their shouts.
I summoned the people, and when they had assembled in a circle, I took Lillian by the hand, went into the centre of the circle, and said, —
“Gentlemen, be witnesses, that in your presence I call this woman, who stands with me, my wife; and bear witness of this before justice, before law, and before every one whosoever may ask you, either in the East or the West.”
“We will! and hurrah for you both!” answered the miners.
Old Smith asked Lillian then, according to custom, if she agreed to take me as husband, and when she said “Yes,” we were legally married before the people.
In the distant prairies of the West, and on all the frontiers where there are no towns, magistrates, or churches, marriages are not performed otherwise; and to this hour, if a man calls a woman with whom he lives under the same roof his wife, t
his declaration takes the place of all legal documents. No one of my men therefore wondered, or looked at my marriage otherwise than with the respect shown to custom; on the contrary, all were rejoiced, for, though I had held them more sternly than other leaders, they knew that I did so honestly, and with each day they showed me more goodwill, and my wife was always the eye in the head of the caravan. Hence there began a holiday and amusements. The fires were stirred up; the Scots took from their wagons the pipes, whose music we both liked, since it was for us a pleasant reminiscence; the Americans took out their favorite ox-bones, and amid songs, shouts, and shooting, the wedding evening passed for us.
Aunt Atkins embraced Lillian every little while, now laughing, now weeping, now lighting her pipe, which went out the next moment. But I was touched most by the following ceremony which is a custom in that movable portion of the American population which spends the greater part of its life in wagons. When the moon went down the men fastened on the ramrods of their guns branches of lighted osier, and a whole procession, under the lead of old Smith, conducted us from wagon to wagon, asking Lillian at each of them, “Is this your home?” My beautiful love answered, “No!” and we went on. At Aunt Atkins’ wagon a real tenderness took possession of us all, for in that one Lillian had ridden hitherto. When she said there also in a low voice, “No,” Aunt Atkins bellowed like a buffalo, and seizing Lillian in her embrace, began to repeat, “My little one! my sweet!” sobbing meanwhile, and carried away with weeping. Lillian sobbed too; and then all those hardened hearts grew tender for an instant, and there was no eye to which tears did not come.
When we approached it, I barely recognized my wagon; it was decked with branches and flowers. Here the men raised the burning torches aloft, and Smith inquired in a louder and more solemn voice, —
“Is this your home?”
“It is, it is!” answered Lillian.
Then all uncovered their heads, and there was such silence that I heard the hissing of the fire and the sound of the burnt twigs falling on the ground; the old whitehaired miner, stretching out his sinewy hands over us, said, —
“May God bless you both, and your house, Amen!”
A triple hurrah answered that blessing. All separated then, leaving me and my loved one alone.
When the last man had gone, she rested her head on my breast, whispering, “Forever! forever!” and at that moment the stars in our souls outnumbered the stars of the sky.
CHAPTER VI.
NEXT morning early I left my wife sleeping and went to find flowers for her. While looking for them, I said to myself every moment, “You are married!” and the thought filled me with such delight, that I raised my eyes to the Lord of Hosts, thanking Him for having permitted me to live to the time in which a man becomes himself genuinely and rounds out his life with the life of another loved beyond everything. I had something now of my own in the world, and though that canvas-covered wagon was my only house and hearth, I felt richer at once, and looked at my previous wandering lot with pity, and with wonder that I could have lived in that manner hitherto. Formerly it had not even come to my head what happiness there is in that word “wife,” — happiness which called to my heart’s blood with that name, and to the best part of my own soul. For a long time I had so loved Lillian that I saw the whole world through her alone, connected everything with her, and understood everything only as it related to her. And now when I said “wife,” that meant, mine, mine forever; and I thought that I should go wild with delight, for it could not find place in my head, that I, a poor man, should possess such a treasure. What then was lacking to me? Nothing. Had those prairies been warmer, had there been safety there for her, had it not been for the obligation to lead people to the place to which I had promised to lead them, I was ready not to go to California, but to settle even in Nebraska, if with Lillian. I had been going to California to dig gold, but now I was ready to laugh at the idea. “What other riches can I find there, when I have her?” I asked myself. “What do we care for gold? See, I will choose some canyon, where there is spring all the year; I will cut down trees for a house, and live with her, and a plough and a gun will give us life. We shall not die of hunger—” These were my thoughts while gathering flowers, and when I had enough of them I returned to the camp. On the road I met Aunt Atkins.
“Is the little one sleeping?” asked she, taking the inseparable pipe from her mouth for a moment.
“She is sleeping,” answered I.
To this Aunt Atkins, blinking with one eye, added, “Ah, you rascal!”
Meanwhile the “little one” was not sleeping, for we both saw her coming down from the wagon, and shielding her eyes with her hand against the sunlight, she began to look on every side. Seeing me, she ran up all rosy and fresh, as the morning. When I opened my arms, she fell into them panting, and putting up her mouth, began to repeat, —
“Dzien dobry! dzien dobry! dzien dobry!”
Then she stood on her toes, and looking into my eyes, asked with a roguish smile, “Am I your wife?”
What was there to answer, except to kiss without end and fondle? And thus passed the whole time at that meeting of rivers, for old Smith had taken on himself all my duties till the resumption of our journey.
We visited our beavers once more, and the stream, through which I carried her now without resistance. Once we went up Blue River in a little redwood canoe. At a bend of the stream I showed Lillian buffaloes near by, driving their horns into the bank, from which their whole heads were covered as if with armor of dried clay. But two days before starting, these expeditions ceased, for first the Indians had appeared in the neighborhood, and second my dear lady had begun to be weak somewhat. She grew pale and lost strength, and when I inquired what the trouble was, she answered only with a smile and the assurance that it was nothing. I watched over her sleep, I nursed her as well as I was able, almost preventing the breezes from blowing on her, and grew thin from anxiety. Aunt Atkins blinked mysteriously with her left eye when talking of Lillian’s illness, and sent forth such dense rolls of smoke that she grew invisible behind them. I was disturbed all the more, because sad thoughts came to Lillian at times. She had beaten it into her head that maybe it was not permitted to love so intensely as we were loving, and once, putting her finger on the Bible, which we read every day, she said sadly, —
“Bead, Ralph.”
I looked, and a certain wonderful feeling seized my heart too, when I read, “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever.” She said when I had finished reading, “But if God is angry at this, I know that with His goodness He will punish only me.”
I pacified her by saying that love was simply an angel, who flies from the souls of two people to God and takes Him praise from the earth. After that there was no talk between us touching such things, since preparations for the journey had begun. The fitting up of wagons and beasts, and a thousand occupations, stole my time from me. When at last the hour came for departure we took tearful farewell of that river fork, which had witnessed so much of our happiness; but when I saw the train stretching out again on the prairie, the wagons one after another and lines of mules before the wagons, I felt a certain consolation at the thought that the end of the journey would be nearer each day, that a few months more and we should see California, toward which we were striving with such toil.
But the first days of the journey did not pass oversuccessfully. Beyond the Missouri, as far as the foot of the Rocky Mountains, the prairie rises continually over enormous expanses; therefore the beasts were easily wearied, and were often tired out. Besides, we could not approach the Platte River, for, though the flood had decreased, it was the time of the great spring hunts, and a multitude of Indians circled around the river, looking for herds of buffaloes then moving northward. Night service became difficult and wearying; no night passed without alarms.
On the fourth day after we had moved from the river fork, I broke up a cons
iderable party of Indian plunderers at the moment when they were trying to stampede our mules. But worst of all were the nights without fire. We were unable to approach the Platte River, and frequently had nothing to burn, and toward morning drizzling rain fell; buffalo dung, which in case of need took the place of wood, got wet, and would not burn.
The buffaloes filled me with alarm also. Sometimes we saw herds of some thousands on the horizon, rushing forward like a storm, crushing everything before them. Were such a herd to strike the train, we should perish every one without rescue. To complete the evil, the prairie was swarming at that time with beasts of prey of all species; after the buffaloes and Indians, came terrible gray bears, cougars, big wolves from Kansas and the Indian Territory. At the small streams, where we stopped for the night sometimes, we saw at sunset whole menageries coming to drink after the heat of the day. Once a bear rushed at Wichita, our half-breed; and if I had not run up, with Smith and the other scout, Tom, to help him, he would have been torn to pieces. I opened the head of the monster with an axe, which I brought down with such force that the handle of tough hickory was broken; still, the beast rushed at me once more, and fell only when Smith and Tom shot him in the ear from rifles. Those savage brutes were so bold that at night they came up to the very train; and in the course of a week we killed two not more than a hundred yards from the wagons. In consequence of this, the dogs raised such an uproar from twilight till dawn that to close an eye was impossible.
Once I loved such a life; and when, a year before, I was in Arkansas, during the greatest heat, it was for me as in paradise. But now, when I remembered that in the wagon my beloved wife, instead of sleeping, was trembling about me, and ruining her health with anxiety, I wished all the Indians and bears and cougars in the lowest pit, and desired from my soul to secure as soon as possible the peace of that being so fragile, so delicate, and so worshipped, that I wished to bear her forever in my arms.
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 749