PAGE 15
My Terminal Moraine
by
“Agnes,” I said, “my dear Agnes, really you must not prevent me from speaking. I can not delay another minute. This is an awful position for me to be in, and as you don’t seem to realize–“
“But I do realize, Mr. Cuthbert, that if you don’t walk about you will certainly freeze before you can be rescued. Between every two or three words you want to take at least one turn around that place. How dreadful it would be if you were suddenly to become benumbed and stiff! Everybody is thinking of that. The best diggers that Mr. Burton had were three colored men; but after they had gone down nothing like as deep as a well, they came up frightened and said they would not dig another shovelful for the whole world. Perhaps you don’t know it, but there’s a story about the neighborhood that the negro hell is under your property. You know many of the colored people expect to be everlastingly punished with ice and not with fire–“
“Agnes,” I interrupted, “I am punished with ice and fire both. Please let me tell you–“
“I was going on to say, Mr. Cuthbert,” she interrupted, “that when the Italians heard why the colored men had come out of the hole they would not go in either, for they are just as afraid of everlasting ice as the negroes are, and were sure that if the bottom came out of that hole they would fall into a frozen lower world. So there was nothing to do but to send for paupers, and they are working now. You know paupers have to do what they are told without regard to their beliefs. They got a dozen of them from the poor-house. Somebody said they just threw them into the hole. Now I must stop talking, for it is time for you to walk around again. Would you like another sandwich?”
“Agnes,” said I, endeavoring to speak calmly, “all I want is to be able to tell you–“
“And when you walk, Mr. Cuthbert, you had better keep around the edge of the chamber, for there is no knowing when they may come through. Mr. Burton and the foreman of the ice-men measured the bluff so that they say the hole they are making is exactly over the middle of the chamber you are in, and if you walk around the edge the pieces may not fall on you.”
“If you don’t listen to me, Agnes,” I said, “I’ll go and sit anywhere, everywhere, where death may come to me quickest. Your coldness is worse than the coldness of the cave. I can not bear it.”
“But, Mr. Cuthbert,” said Agnes, speaking, I thought, with some agitation, “I have been listening to you, and what more can you possibly have to say? If there is anything you want, let me know. I will run and get it for you.”
“There is no need that you should go away to get what I want,” I said. “It is there with you. It is you.”
“Mr. Cuthbert,” said Agnes, in a very low voice, but so distinctly that I could hear every word, “don’t you think it would be better for you to give your whole mind to keeping yourself warm and strong? For if you let yourself get benumbed you may sink down and freeze.”
“Agnes,” I said, “I will not move from this little hole until I have told you that I love you, that I have no reason to care for life or rescue unless you return my love, unless you are willing to be mine. Speak quickly to me, Agnes, because I may not be rescued and may never know whether my love for you is returned or not.”
At this moment there was a tremendous crash behind me, and, turning, I saw a mass of broken ice upon the floor of the cave, with a cloud of dust and smaller fragments still falling. And then with a great scratching and scraping, and a howl loud enough to waken the echoes of all the lower regions, down came a red-headed, drunken shoemaker. I can not say that he was drunk at that moment, but I knew the man the moment I saw his carroty poll, and it was drink which had sent him to the poorhouse.