The Protector Part 29

"I'm thinking something of the kind," Nairn agreed, and then proceeded with a cautious explanation: "The result of the first reduction and the way ye forced the concern on the market secured ye notice. Folks put their money on ye, looking for sensational developments, and when the latter are no forthcoming they feel a bit sore."

"There's nothing discouraging in our accounts. Even if the ore all ran as poor as that"--Vane pointed to the specimens on the table--"the mine could be worked on a paying basis. We have issued no statements that could spread alarm."

"Just so," said Nairn. "What was looked for was mair than a paying basis--ye have no come up to expectations. Forby, it's my opinion that damaging reports have somehow leaked out from the mine. I see clouds on the horizon."

"Bendle pledged himself to take up a big block of the shares," pointed out Vane. "If Howitson does the same, as he said he would, our position would be secure. As soon as it was known that they were largely interested, others would follow them."

"Now ye have it in a nutsh.e.l.l--it would put a wet blanket on the project if they both backed down. In the meanwhile we cannot hurry them."

Vane rose. "We'll leave it at that. I've promised to take Mrs. Nairn and Miss Chisholm for a sail."

He went out and had got rid of the slight uneasiness the interview had occasioned him before he reached the water-front, where he found Mrs.

Nairn and Evelyn awaiting him with Carroll in attendance. In another few minutes they were rowing off to the sloop, and as they approached her the elder lady glanced with approval at the craft, which swam, a gleaming ivory shape, upon the s.h.i.+ning green brine.

"Ye have surely been painting the boat," she said. "Was that for us?"

Vane disregarded the last question. "She wanted it, and paint's comparatively cheap."

It was a little thing, but Evelyn was pleased. The girls had not been greatly considered at the Dene, and it was flattering to recognise that the man had thought it worth while to decorate his craft in her honour.

She did not ask herself if he had wished to please her; he had invited her for a sail some days ago, and he was thorough in everything he did.

He handed her and Mrs. Nairn on board and when they sat down in the well, he and Carroll proceeded to hoist the mainsail. It looked exceedingly large as it thrashed and fluttered above their heads, and there seemed to be a bewildering quant.i.ty of ropes, but Evelyn was chiefly interested in watching Vane.

He was wonderfully quick, but no movement was wasted. His face was intent, his glances sharp, and she liked the crisp, curt way in which he spoke to Carroll. The man's task was, in one sense, not important, but he was absorbed in it. Then, while Carroll slipped the moorings, he ran up the headsails, and springing aft, seized the tiller as the boat, slanting over, began to forge through the water. It was the first time Evelyn had ever travelled under sail and, receptive as she was of all new impressions, she sat silent a few minutes rejoicing in the sense of swift and easy motion. The inlet was crisped by small white ripples, and the boat with her boom broad off on her quarter drove through them; a sparkling wedge of foam on her lee bow and a stream of froth sluicing past her sides. Overhead, the great inclined sail cut, sharply white, against the dazzling blue, and close by her Vane sat gripping the tiller.

They swept out through the gate of the Narrows, and Vane luffed the boat up to a moderately fresh breeze. "It's off the land, and we'll have fairly smooth water," he explained, and added: "How do you like sailing?"

"It's glorious on a day like this," she declared and looked back towards the distant snow. "If anything more were wanted, there are the mountains, too."

Vane smiled, but there was a suggestive sparkle in his eyes. "Yes," he said; "we have them both, and that's something to be thankful for. The sea and the mountains: the two grandest things in this world."

"If you think that, how did you reconcile yourself to the city?"

"I'm not sure I've done so." He indicated the gleaming heights. "I'm going back up yonder very soon."

Mrs. Nairn glanced at Carroll, who affected to be busy with a rope; then she turned to Vane. "It will no be possible with winter coming on."

"It's not really so bad then," Vane declared. "Besides, I expect to get my work done before the hardest weather's due."

"But ye cannot leave Vancouver until ye have settled about the mine."

"I don't want to," Vane admitted. "That's not quite the same thing."

"It is with a good many people," Carroll interposed with a smile.

In the meanwhile, they were driving out to the southwards, opening up the Strait, with the forests to port growing smaller and the short seas increasing in size. The breeze was cold, but the girl was warmly clad and the easy motion in no way troubled her. The rush of keen salt air stirred her blood, and all round her were spread wonderful harmonies of silver-laced blue and green, through which the straining fabric that carried her swept on. The mountains were majestic, but except when tempests lashed their crags or torrents swept their lower slopes they were wrapped in eternal repose; the sea was filled with ecstatic motion.

"The hills have their fascination; it's a thing I know," she said, to draw the helmsman out. "I think I should like the sea, too; but at first sight its charm isn't quite so plain."

"You have started him," interposed Carroll. "He won't refuse that challenge!"

Vane accepted it with a smile which meant more than good-humoured indulgence. "Well," he began, "the sea's the same everywhere, unbridled, unchanging; a force that remains as it was in the beginning. Once you're out of harbour, under sail, you have done with civilisation. It has possibly provided you with excellent gear, but it can do no more; you stand alone, stripped for the struggle with the elements."

"Is it always a struggle?" Evelyn asked, to prompt him.

"Always. The sea's as treacherous as the winds that vex it; pitiless, murderous. When you have only sail to trust to, you can never relax your vigilance; you must watch the varying drift of clouds and the swing of the certain tides. There's nothing and n.o.body to fall back upon when the breeze pipes its challenge; you have sloughed off civilisation and must stand or fall by the raw natural powers man is born with, and chief among them is the capacity for brutal labour. The thras.h.i.+ng sail must be mastered; the tackle cracking with the strain must be hauled in. Perhaps that's the charm of it for some of us whose lives are pretty smooth--it takes one back, as I said, to the beginning."

"But haven't human progress and machines made everybody's lives more smooth?"

Vane laughed somewhat grimly. "Oh, no; I think that can never be done.

So far, somebody pays for the other's ease. At sea, in the mine, and in the bush, man still grapples with a rugged, naked world."

The girl was pleased. She had drawn him out, and she thought he had in speaking kept a fair balance between too crude a mode of colloquial expression and poetic elaboration. There was, she knew, a vein of poetic conception in him, and the struggle he had hinted at could only be described fittingly in heroic language. It was, in one sense, a pity that those who had the gift of it and cultivated imagination had, for the most part, never been forced into the fight; but that was, perhaps, not a matter of much importance. There were plenty of men, such as her companion, endowed with endurance, who if they seldom gave their thoughts free rein, rejoiced in the struggle; and by them the world's sternest work was done.

"After all," she said, "we have the mountains in civilised England."

Vane did not respond with the same freedom this time. He was inclined to think he had spoken too unrestrainedly.

"Yes," he agreed, smiling; "you can walk about them--where you won't disturb the grouse--and they're grand enough; but if you look down you can see the motor dust trails and the tourist coaches in the valleys."

"But why shouldn't people enjoy themselves in that way?"

"I can't think of any reason. No doubt, most of them have earned the right to do so. But you can't rip up those hills with giant-powder where you feel inclined, or set to work to root out some miles of forest. The Government encourages that kind of thing here."

"And that's the charm?"

"Yes," said Vane. "I suppose it is."

"I'd better explain," Carroll broke in. "Men of a certain temperament are apt to fall a prey to fantasies in the newer lands; any common sense they once possessed seems to desert them. After that they're never happy, except when they're ripping things--such as big rocks and trees--to pieces, and though they'll tell you it's only to get out minerals or clear a ranch, they're wrong. Once they get the mine or ranch they don't care about it, and set to work wrecking things again.

Isn't that so, Mrs. Nairn?"

"There are such crazy bodies," agreed the-lady. "I know one or two, but if I had my way with them they should find one mine, or build one saw-mill."

"And then," said Carroll, "you would chain them up for good by marrying them."

"I would like to try, but I'm no sure it would act in every case. I have come across some women as bad as the men; they would drive their husbands on. Maybe"--and she smiled in a half-wistful manner--"it's as well to do something worth the remembering when ye are young. There's a long time to sit still in afterwards."

Half in banter, and half in earnest, they had given Evelyn a hint of the master pa.s.sion of the true colonist, whose pride is in his burden.

Afterwards, Mrs. Nairn led the conversation, until Carroll laid out in the saloon a somewhat elaborate lunch which he had brought from the hotel. Then the others went below, leaving Vane at the helm; and Carroll looked at him ruefully when they came up again.

"I'm afraid Miss Chisholm's disappointed," he explained.

"No," said Evelyn; "that would be most ungrateful. I only expected a more characteristic example of sea cookery. After what Mr. Vane told us, a lunch like the one you provided, with gla.s.s and silver, struck me as rather an anachronism."

"It's better to be broken in to sea cookery gently," Vane interposed with some dryness.

"It's a poor compliment to take it for granted that we're afraid of a little hards.h.i.+p. Besides, I don't think you're right."

Vane, who left the helm to Carroll, went below, and the latter smiled at Evelyn.