The Man in the Twilight Part 28

The girl sat up as the vessel lurched more heavily and flung their chairs forward, straining dangerously.

"How?" she questioned, glancing down anxiously at the moorings of her chair.

"They're safe--so far," Bull rea.s.sured her. Then he leant back again, and produced and lit a cigar. "Guess I'll smoke," he said. "Maybe that'll help me tell you--'how.'"

The girl watched him light his cigar and her eyes were full of laughter.

"It's a real pity women can't sit themselves behind a cigar," she said at last, with a pretence of regret. "It's the wisest looking thing a man does. A cigarette kind of makes him seem pleasantly undependable. A pipe makes you feel he's full of just everyday notions. But a cigar! My! It sort of dazzles me when I see a man with a big cigar. I feel like a lowgrade earthworm, don't you know. Say," she cried, with an indescribable gesture of her gloved hands, "he handles that cigar, he sort of fondles it. He c.o.c.ks it. He depresses it. He rolls it across his lips to the opposite corner of his mouth, and finally blows a thin, thoughtful stream of smoke gently between his pursed lips. And that stream is immeasurable in its suggestion of wise thought and keen calculation. I'd say a man's cigar is his best disguise."

Bull nodded.

"That's fine," he cried. "But you've forgotten the other feller. The man who 'chews.'"

Nancy laughed happily.

"Easy," she cried promptly. "When he of the bulged cheek gets around just watch your defences. He's mostly tough. He's on the jump, and hasn't much fancy for the decencies of life. The harder he chews the more he's figgering up his adversary. And when he spits, get your weapons ready. When the chewing man succeeds in life I guess he's dangerous. And it's because his force and character have generally lifted him from the bottom of things."

Bull shook his head in mock despair.

Nancy settled herself back in her chair.

"That's fixed it. Guess you'll need to tell _me_ 'how.'"

"No, sir," she cried. "You can't go back. 'The greatest men and women in the world are fools at heart.' That's what you said."

"Yes. I seem to remember."

The man stirred and sat up. He folded the rug more closely about his feet. Then he turned with a whimsical smile in his eyes.

"Well?" he cried. "And isn't it so? What do we work, and fight, and hate for? What do we spend our lives worrying to beat the other feller for?

Why do we set our noses into other folks' affairs and worry them to death to think, and act, and feel the way we do? And all the while it don't matter a thing. Of course we're fools. We'll hand over when the time comes, and the old world'll roll on, and it's not been s.h.i.+fted a hair's-breadth for our having lived, in spite of the obituaries the news-sheets hand out like a Sunday School mam at prize time. Say, here, it's no use fooling ourselves. Life's one great big thing that don't take shape by reason of our acts. What's the civilisation we love to pat ourselves on the back for? I'll tell you. It's just a thing we've invented, like--wireless telegraphy, or soap, or steam-heat; and it hands us a cloak to cover up the evil that man and woman'll never quit doing. Before we made civilisation a feller got up on to his hind legs and hit the other feller over the head with a club; and if he was hungry he used him as a lunch. Now we don't do that. We break him for his dollars and leave him and his poor wife and kids hungry, while we buy a lunch with the stuff we beat out of him. Why do we work? For one of two elegant notions. It's either to fill ourselves up with the things we've dreamt about when appet.i.te was sharp set, and hate to death when we get, or it's to satisfy a conceit that leaves us hoping and believing the rest of the world'll hand us an epitaph like it handed no other feller since ever it got to be a habit burying up the garbage death produces.

Why do we fight and hate? Because we're poor darn fools that don't know better, and don't know the easy thing life would be without those things. And as for settin' our noses into the affairs of other folk, that's mostly disease. But it isn't all. No, sir. There's more to it than that," he laughed. "If it was just disease it wouldn't matter a lot, but it isn't. There isn't a fool man or woman born into this world that doesn't reckon he or she can put right the fool notions and acts of other fools. And when the other feller persuades them the game's not the one-sided racket they guessed it was, then they get mad, and start groping and scheming how to boost their notions on to a world that's spent a whole heap of time fixing things, mostly foolish, to its own mighty good satisfaction. I say right here we're fools if we aren't crooks, which is the exception. There's a dandy world around us full of sun to warm us and food to eat, and birds to sing to us, and flowers and things to make us feel good. If we needed more I guess Providence would have handed it out. But it didn't. And so we got busy with our own notions till we've turned G.o.d's elegant creation into a home for crazes and cranks. I could almost fancy the Archangels hovering around, like those silly sea-gulls, with a bunch of straight-jackets to wrap about us when we jump the limit they figger we've a right to. Fools, yes? Why, I guess so--sure."

Nancy breathed a deep sigh.

"My, but that's a big say."

Then she broke into a laugh which found prompt response in the other. It was cut short, however. A sea thundered against the staunch side of the vessel and left her staggering. The girl's eyes became seriously anxious. The straining chairs held, and presently the deck swung up to a comparative level.

"I had visions of the--"

"Scuppers?" Bull laughed. "Yes. That sea's one of the elegant things Providence handed out for our happiness."

Nancy nodded.

"So man built things like the _Myra_, which, of course, was--foolish?"

"An' set out sailing around in a winter storm off Labrador, instead of basking in a pleasant tropical sun, which hasn't any--sense."

Bull chuckled.

"All because two mighty fine enterprises reckoned they'd common interests which were jeopardised by rivalry, which was also--foolishly?"

Bull's cigar ash tumbled into his lap.

"But not ha'f so foolish as the notion that a girl has to suffer the worries and dangers of one h.e.l.l of a trip on the worst sea that G.o.d ever made to try and square the things between them."

Nancy shook her head.

"I can't grant that," she cried quickly.

"No?"

"I mean--oh, psha! Don't you see, or does your cynical philosophy blind you? We're fools, maybe. The things Providence sends us aren't the things we've got a notion for. Maybe we know better than Providence, and can't find happiness in the things it's handed us. What then? As you say, we start right in chasing happiness in the way we fancy. It seems to me the only real happiness in life is in doing. Ease, wealth, love, all the things folk talk and write about are just dreams of happiness that aren't real. Work, achievement, even if it's wrong-headed--that's life; that's happiness. That's why I'd say there's nothing foolish in a girl putting up with dangers and discomforts to bring two enterprises to an understanding, calculated to promote a greater achievement for both.

It's my little notion of s.n.a.t.c.hing a bunch of happiness for myself."

There was no laughter in Nancy's eyes now. They were quite serious. Her words were alive with vehemence. Bull was watching her intently, probing, in his searching way, the depths which her hazel eyes hinted at. The things she said pleased him. Her tone thrilled him. He wanted more.

"I wonder," he said, as he rolled the cigar across his lips in the way Nancy had laughingly pointed. "You reckon it's handed you happiness--this thing?"

The girl was stirred.

"Surely," she cried. "Later, when things get fixed up between the Skandinavia and Sachigo, I'll get a focus of my little share in the business of it--the achievement. Then I'll get warm all through with a glow of happiness because I--helped it along."

Bull nodded as he watched the rising colour in the perfect cheeks. The girl was very, very beautiful.

"Yes, I suppose you will," he said. Then he went on provocatively. "But do you guess it's always so? I mean that always happens? Isn't it to do with temperament? Now, take the forest-jacks. Do you guess they feel happiness in a tree dropped right? Do you guess there's happiness for the poor fool who don't know better than to spend his days in a forest risking his life boosting logs on the river jamb? Do you guess there's any sort of old joy for the feller turned adrift, when he's getting old in the tooth, and there's no room for him on the pay roll of the camp, in the thought that he _was_ the best axeman the forest ever bred? It seems like a crazy sort of happiness that way. Happiness in achievement's great while the achieving's going on. But at the finish we get right back to Nature. And when that time comes Nature doesn't do much to help us out."

Nancy sat up.

"What are you doing? That great Sachigo!" she demanded challengingly.

"You're building, building one magnificent enterprise. Is there happiness in it for you?"

"Sure," Bull admitted frankly. "Oh, yes. But I've no illusions," he said. "I don't go back on the things I said. Nature as she dopes out life couldn't hand me a hundredth part of the happiness I get that way.

But when I'm through, like that lumber-jack who's struck off the pay roll, how's it going to be with me? A trained mind without the bodily ability to thrust on in the game of life. It'll be h.e.l.l--just h.e.l.l. The one hope is to die in harness. Like the forest-jack who drowns under the logs on the river, or who gets up against the other feller's knife in a drunken sc.r.a.p. That way lies happiness. The rest is a sort of pa.s.sing dream with the years of old age for regret."

The girl spread out her hands.

"I can't believe you feel that way," she cried, with something very like distress. "Oh, if I had your power, your ability. Why, I'd say there's no end to the things you could achieve, not only now, but right through, right through that time when you're old in body, but still strong in brain. A limited goal for achievement isn't the notion in my foolish head. Why, if I'd only the strength to knit socks for the folks who need them, there'd still be happiness and to spare. But let's keep to our own ground. The forest-jack. I guess you're one big man who employs thousands. What of those boys when they're struck off the--pay roll. Is there nothing to be achieved that way--nothing to last you to your last living moment? Think of their needs. Think of the happiness you could hand yourself in handing them comfort and happiness when they're--through. It's a thing I've promised myself, if luck ever hands me the chance. You've got the pity of their lives. Your words tell that.

Well?"

The man had forgotten the storm. He had forgotten everything but the charm of the girl's hot enthusiasm. And the picture of superlative beauty she made in her animation.

He shook his head.

"It's a bully notion," he demurred, "but it's not for me. No. You see, I'm just a tough sort of man who's big for a sc.r.a.p. I haven't patience or sympathy for the feller who don't feel the same. You've seen the forest boys?"

"I've been through the s.h.a.gaunty."