Robert Watson

“ The sun, cold to look at but shining with the light of a blazing ball, rode up over the hills, sending great shafts of searchlight down the sides of the hills and filling the ghostly valley below, with its tightly-packed firs and skeleton-like pine trees, with a 180 warm, yellow mist, suggestive of luminous smoke rising from some fairy cauldron of molten gold; transforming the dead, chilly night into a crisp, living, moving, late-autumn morning.
As the mists completely melted away, Jim signalled to Phil and Phil repeated to McLean. ”

“ I wished him good-night gruffly, hurried over the beach, scrambled into the boat and rowed quickly for my new home.
And, as I stood on the veranda for a long time before turning in, I watched the moon rise and skim her way behind and above the clouds, throwing, as she did so, great dark shadows and eerie lights on the sea.
In the vast, awesome stillness of the forest behind and the swishing and shuffling of the incoming tide on the shingles on the beach, I thought of what my good friend, K. B. Horsfal, had quoted:
"Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile." ”

“ Heap your broken reapers and binders a mountain high, and I’ll stand on top of them before nightfall, with my hammer held defiantly to the heavens and shout “Excelsior, the work is done.” The Fairy Princess has stopped in her procession; she looks my way; she smiles: her galloping courier brings a perfumed favour; she beckons me. Ah, surely! what a Paradise, after all, is this we live in!
In a sweet little world of dreams––in which even a blacksmith may live at times––Phil battled with his tasks and overcame them one by one. ”

“ Like me, Rita was a child of stress and storm. She loved to feel the strong wind in her face and hair. She gloried in the taste of the salt spray. She thrived in the open and sported in the free play of her agile limbs. Unafraid, and daring to recklessness, nothing seemed to daunt her; nothing, unless, maybe, it were the great, cruel, sharks' teeth of The Ghoul over which the sea was now breaking, away out there at the entrance to the Bay: that rock upon which she had been wrecked in her childhood ”

“ It was sufficient, however, to set all of them a-wondering. But no shadow of suspicion had ever before crossed their minds, and they soon dismissed the suggestion as one more distorted ridiculous romance from the fertile brain of Jim Langford.
The whimpering Stitchy––like most of his kind; never a hero when alone––was secured in the same way as Red had been, then the men hunters continued to the top of the hill, where, as soon as dawn came up, a good view would be had of the single road as it wound, snake-like, for half a mile on the incline. ”

“ When I got up that morning, I felt jaded. As I ate my breakfast, I became more so; but, as I went out on to the veranda to look upon the beauties of Golden Crescent,—as I did every morning,—I came to myself.
This will never do, George Bremner! What you need is a swim!
I had hit it. Why had not I thought of it sooner? I undressed, and in less time than it takes to retell it, I was in the water and striking straight for Rita's Isle. ”

“ Jim and Phil in curiosity kept their eyes glued to the dirty window.
Growling fiercely, Hanson scrambled to his feet. His usually handsome and childlike face was contorted with rage and horrible to see. His eyes, bloodshot and bleared, stood out wildly in his head, his teeth showed like the teeth of a snarling puma and a foamy lather slithered from his mouth down on to his huge, hairy, muscle-heaving chest. He stood over six feet––a man of 79 gigantic proportions, with every inch of him tuned and in perfect symmetry. ”

“ And, more out of cussedness,—as Jake would put it,—than anything else, I kept plodding along slowly, neither increasing nor diminishing the distance between us.
She was well aware of my proximity, and, at last, when we were little more than a hundred yards from the point of the rock at the farthest out end of the wharf, she wheeled on me like the exasperated sea-nymph she was.
"I told you the other day, Mr. Bremner, that you could not hide the fact that you were a gentleman. If you do not wish me to regret having said that,—you will go away. I am perfectly capable of looking after myself." ”

“ They 272 would wait till the moon sailed up over the hills in all her enchantment, then slowly on the heels of their boots, they would beat out the dying embers from the bowls of their pipes, take a glance down the end of the orchard to Ah Sing’s shack––where a dim light, suggestive of nothing else but Orientalism, seemed ever to be burning––nod to each other and smile, then turn in without a word and go to bed.
It was in these silences that Phil got to know Jim for the true gentleman he was. ”

“ With our arms around each other, we waited on the cliffs for the sunrise. We watched it come up in all its rosy loveliness, paling the dying moon and setting the waters of the Bay ablaze.
"And we must leave all this, my Lady Rosemary?" I said, with a sigh of regret.
"For a time,—yes! But not altogether, George; not always; for the little bungalow behind us is mine now,—ours; a gift last Christmas to me from my father's dear American friend, my friend, Colonel Sol Dorry, with whom, in Wyoming, I spent the happiest of all my girlhood days." ”

“ Eileen Pederstone caught sight of him as soon as he entered, and signalled him over.
“I thought you had gone home, Mr. Ralston,” she remarked, her eyes sparkling with enjoyment and her breath coming fast with the exertion of the dance.
Phil took in her slender, shapely, elfin beauty, and his heart beat a merry riot of pleasure as he sat down by her side.
“I went along the road a bit with Jim,” he answered. “He had some business he wished to see to.”
“Poor Jim,” laughed Eileen, “he takes life so strangely; at times tremendously seriously; at others as if it meant nothing at all. ”

“ My first glance out of doors, early next morning, materialised what I had a vague notion might have been a dream. There was no sign of any stir in the house across the little, wooden, rustic bridge that connected it, over a narrow creek, with the roadway leading to the store. That was only natural, as, in all probability, the travellers were journey-weary. But a freshly painted rowing boat, with light oars, was made fast to the off side of the wharf, while several leather travelling bags and other packages were piled on the veranda of that house over the way. ”

“ God save me for indulging in such a fantasy!––but, if I did have, I’d go after him if he were in hell itself. Think o’ it, Phil! Your own flesh and blood, of the woman you have loved well enough to make your wife––the combination transfused––to grow, and develop, and work out to prove before God and his fellow-man the wisdom or folly of the choice the father and mother of him made when they took each other for better or worse.”
“Yes,––when you put it that way, Jim, it makes a man think hard of the tremendous seriousness of the step.” ”

“ Late in the afternoon, when I was beginning to grow tired of my indolence, I heard the thud, thud of a gasoline launch as it came up the Bay. It passed between Rita's Isle and the wharf, and held on, turning in to Jake Meaghan's cove.
I wondered who the visitor could be, then I went back to my reading.
Not long after, a shadow fell across my book and I jumped up.
"Pray, don't let me disturb you, my son," said a soft, well-modulated, masculine voice. "Stay where you are. Enjoy your well-earned rest." ”

“ All that day, Royce Pederstone worked like the real village blacksmith he was; shoeing horses, repairing farm implements, bolting, riveting and welding; showing Phil all he could in the short time he had with him, telling him––because it was uppermost in his mind––just a little of his electioneering plans and what he intended doing for the Okanagan Valley in the way of irrigation, railroads and public buildings; instilling in his apprentice an enthusiasm for his new work and making for himself at the same time another friend and political booster ”

“ We listened on and on,—after the chilly night wind had come up from the sea, for we did not know of its coming until the music ceased and the light faded away from the parlour of the house behind us.
"Gee!" exclaimed Jake at last, spitting his mouthful of tobacco over into the water and wiping his eyes with his coat sleeve, "but that dope pulls a gink's socks off,—you bet.
"Guess, if a no-gooder like me had of heard that stuff oftener when he was a kid, he wouldn't be such a no-gooder;—eh! George." ”

“ Tears started in Eileen’s eyes which Phil did his best to banish.
“Oh,––I know I am foolish,” she said. “Sometimes I feel so strong; at other times so––so feminine. It is my dear, old daddy I worry over, Phil. He is not what he used to be before he got mixed up with this political crowd, with Mayor Brenchfield, with all these land schemes he has afoot. He used to be just my dear old daddy: now I seem to be losing him. That––that is why I have insisted on going with him to Victoria.” ”

“ As for Mary Grant,—she was seldom idle. I had seen her make her own clothes, I had seen her over the washtub with her sleeves rolled up to her fair, white shoulders, I had seen her bake and houseclean; sharing the daily duties with her elderly companion.
Yet she enjoyed to the full the delights that Golden Crescent afforded. In her spare time, she rowed on the water, bathed, roved the forests behind for wild flowers and game, read in her hammock and revelled in her music. ”

“ With the passing days, Phil found Sol Hanson a man of rugged simplicity, as full of fun and frolic as a child; a man strong as a lion, an excellent blacksmith and, what was more to Phil’s advantage, a kind and unselfish teacher who was willing to impart to his willing pupil––as John Royce Pederstone had been––all he knew of his ancient, noble and virile calling. ”

“ Late one afternoon, I was standing on Clark's veranda, chatting with Margaret over a letter that had arrived from Rita; when I noticed a fast-moving launch dart into the Bay full speed, straight for my landing, lower a dinghy, land some people, then turn and speed out again almost before my brain could grasp the full purport.
I dashed suddenly away from my old lady friend, without so much as a word of explanation. I tumbled into my boat and rowed furiously for home. How I railed at that long half-hour! To think of it,—Mary in Golden Crescent half-an-hour and I had not yet spoken to her! ”

“ As the two men trudged along, with the old terrier dog at their heels, the frozen air crackled in their nostrils. They smoked their pipes, however, and threw out their chests in sheer joy of living, for a winter’s day, such as this was, did not freeze young blood, but rather sent it sparkling and effervescing like ten-year-old champagne.
They followed the red stains on the snow and finally came to a spot in a gulley where the coyote evidently had disposed of its steal, for feathers lay about in gory profusion. ”

“ Well I could understand now why this Rita Clark intuitively hated The Ghoul Rock. Who, in her place, would feel otherwise?
The Rev. William Auld rose from the table.
"I must go now, my son, for the way is long. Thanks so much for the rest and for your hospitality. My only exhortation to you is, stand firm by all the principles you know to be true; never lose hold of the vital things because you are here in the wilds, for it is here the vital things count, more than in the whirr of civilisation." ”

“ He staggered and bumped into an anvil, striking his knee against the metal. He swore again and, in his mounting anger, he seized the anvil in his great hands, lifted it bodily from its stand and heaved it into a corner––a feat which four strong men, at any time, would have experienced difficulty in performing.
“Great Cæsar!” whispered Phil in awe.
“After a booze, he’s as strong as a railway engine,” returned Jim, “and he goes plumb daffy. Murder or anything else doesn’t matter a hill of beans to him at a time like this.” ”

“ Andrew Clark is immovable. He is hard, relentless, fanatical in his ideas of right and wrong; cruel to himself and to the woman he vowed to love and cherish. Oh!—he sears my heart every time I think of him. Yet, he is living up to his idea of what is right."
The white-haired old gentleman,—bearer of the burdens of his fellows,—did not confide in me as to the nature of Andrew Clark's trouble, and it was not for me to probe.
"As for Rita," he pursued, "poor, little Rita!—she is no relative of either Margaret or Andrew Clark. She is a child of the sea. ”

“ The sky overhead was opalescent; the ranges, dotted with grazing cattle and unbroken horses, were bathed in sunshine. Away below them, the little 371 town, with its long Main Street of business houses and its stretch of regular shade trees, drowsed in an adolescent contentment. All around lay farm houses surrounded by fields in cultivation with parallel lines of fruit trees. In the distance, due west between the hills, the blue waters of the Okanagan Lake sparkled in a winding streak which melted into the sky.
Phil put his arm round Eileen and drew her to him. ”

“ I followed him slowly and silently out of the smithy, down the lane and across the road to his little, rose-covered cottage. We went round to the back of the house. Jim held up his hand for caution, as he peeped in at the kitchen window. He turned to me again, and beckoned, his big eyes blind with tears.
"Look in there," he gulped. "That's my little sister, my little Peggy; she who never has had a sorrow since mother left us. She's been like that for four hours and she gets worse when I try to comfort her." ”

“ The man by the horse looked up in astonishment. Evidently he had not been anticipating pursuit from that quarter. With an astounding agility for a man of his apparent bulk, he sprang clear from the ground into the saddle of his tall horse, and he was off like a whirlwind.
The three followed after at breakneck speed, but neither Jim’s horse nor Howden’s was a match for the great striding beast in front of them. Phil’s speedy little mare was the only one that could in any way hold its own. ”