The Coast of Adventure Part 20

"I suppose that lumber's valuable," Evelyn remarked.

"It depends upon whether ye want to buy or sell," Macallister replied.

"They telt us good logs were scarce in Cuba, but I doubt we'll find demand is slack when we come to part wi' them."

"Then the trade can't be very profitable."

"It's just changing a s.h.i.+lling. Sometimes ye get a ha'penny over."

Evelyn laughed.

"Which one of you looks after business matters?"

"I'm thinking it will have to be Walthew. The lad shows a natural ability."

"But he's younger than Mr. Grahame--and probably has not had as much experience."

Macallister gave her a half-amused glance.

"The skipper's no' a fool, but when he makes a bargain he's frank and quick. States the fair price and sticks to it. He will not spend time in scheming how he can screw a few more dollars out o' the other man. Yon's a gift ye must be born with."

"Do you mean Mr. Grahame rather despises money-making?"

"No' that exactly," Macallister replied in a confidential tone. "But, ye see, he's a Grahame o' Calder Ha'."

"Oh! Is that a great distinction?"

"It depends on how ye look at things. His branch o' the family is maybe no' o' much importance noo, but in the old wild days the lairds o'

Calder Ha' were chiefs on the Border. They guarded the moss roads, they kept the fords, and the kings at Stirling and Westminster noo bought their goodwill with presents and noo hanged a few o' the clan."

"And Calder Hall? Is it one of the rude stone towers you see pictures of?"

Macallister smiled.

"Calder Ha's bonny. The old tower stands, with the coat o' arms above the door, but a low, gray house with stone-ribbed windows runs back where was once the bailly wall. Below's a bit ragged orchard, the bent trees gray with fog, and then the lawn dropping to the waterside. Nae soft Southern beauty yonder; but ye feel the charm o' the cold, rugged North." He paused, and resumed with a reminiscent air: "I mind how I went to Calder Ha' when I was a young and romantic laddie fired by Scott and him who taught the wandering winds to sing; the tales o' the Ettrick shepherd were thought good reading then. After a bit plain speaking to the foreman o' a Clydeside engine shop, I was fitting spinning gear in a new woolen mill, and I left the narrow Border town on a holiday dawn.

"There was mist along the alders and a smell o' wet dust where the white road followed the waterside, but as the sun came ower the hills I took to the moor. Red it was like crimson velvet with the light upon the ling, rolling on to Cheviot-foot, with the brown grouse crying and the clear sky above. At noon I came down a bit water that tumbled in a linn, where rowans grew among the stones and the eddies were amber with the seeping from the peat. The burn got wider, the bare hills closed in; and then I came on Calder Ha' at a turning o' the glen. Black firs behind it, standing stiff like sentinels; the house with the tower in the middle on the breast o' the brae, and the lawn running doon to a pool.

Then I kent why the Grahames loved it and would never sell, though many a rich man would have bought the place from them."

"Did you tell Mr. Grahame this?" Evelyn asked.

"Maybe it makes things easier that he thinks I dinna ken," said Macallister.

Evelyn agreed, for she saw that his reticence was caused by tactful sympathy. Afterward she was silent for a time. The Scot's admiration for the old Border house appealed to her. He had shown a taste and a half-poetical imagination that she had not suspected when they first met; but it was not of Macallister she was thinking. After all, it must be something to belong to a family with such traditions as clung about Calder Hall; but she must not dwell too much on this.

"Aren't we going slowly?" she asked.

"Coal's dear in the West Indies, and the slower ye go the less ye use.

But if ye are tiring o' the trip, I might drive her a bit faster."

Evelyn glanced across the long undulations that were deep-blue in the hollows, and touched upon their summits with brilliant light. She liked to feel the easy lift as the _Enchantress_ shouldered off the swell; the drowsy murmur at the bows and the rhythmical throb of engines were soothing. Then there was a pleasant serenity in the wide expanse. But she was honest with herself, and she knew that the beauty of the calm sea did not quite account for the absence of any wish to shorten the voyage.

"Oh," she said, "please don't burn more coal than is necessary. I'm quite content. I love the suns.h.i.+ne and the smooth water."

Macallister strolled away, but she saw his twinkling smile and wondered whether he was satisfied with her excuse.

Evelyn lay back in her steamer-chair, looking out over the glistening water and idly watching the white-caps far out at sea. She felt, rather than saw, Grahame approach. When she turned to him, smiling, he was close beside her, leaning against the rail. His pose was virile, and his expression marked by the quiet alertness she had learned to know. It suggested resolution, self-reliance, and power of command. These qualities were not obtrusively indicated, but Evelyn recognized them and wondered how much he owed to his being a Grahame of Calder Hall.

Hereditary influences must be reckoned on.

"This is the first chance I've had to see you alone," he said. "I want to thank you for your help at the International."

"Was it useful?"

"Very useful. Your quickness and resourcefulness were surprising."

"That's a doubtful compliment," she laughed. "To me the affair was quite exciting. To feel that you're engaged in a conspiracy gives you a pleasant thrill."

"I wonder!" Grahame remarked rather grimly. "But may I ask----"

"Oh, I can't dissect the impulses that prompted me. No doubt, the hint of intrigue was attractive--and perhaps friends.h.i.+p counted too."

"And you took the excellence of my intentions on trust?"

"Well, there really was no time to question you, and judge if they were good. As a matter of fact, I'm no wiser now."

"No," he said. "On the whole, I think it's better that you shouldn't know."

"It looks as if I'm more confiding than you."

Grahame, studying her face, suspected disappointed curiosity and a touch of pique.

"Your confidence is yours, to give or withhold as you think best. Mine, however, belongs to others."

"Then there are a number of people in the plot!"

Grahame laughed.

"If it's any comfort for you to know, when you came to our rescue that night in Havana you helped a man who has made many sacrifices for a good cause."

"As you're too modest to mean yourself, you must be speaking of the gentleman with the pretty daughter."

"Yes, Dona Blanca is pretty; but I prefer the Anglo-Saxon type. There's a charm in tropical languor, but one misses the bracing keenness of the North." He quoted with a smile,

"Oh, dark and true and tender----"

"We may be true; one likes to think so. But I'm not sure that tenderness is a characteristic of ours."

"It's not lightly given, but it goes deep and lasts," Grahame answered.

When he left her a few minutes afterward, Evelyn sat thinking languidly.