Harold Bindloss

“ The wind was fresh from the north-west when Vane drove the sloop out through the Narrows in the early dawn and saw a dim stretch of white-flecked sea in front of him. Landlocked as they are by Vancouver Island, the long roll of the Pacific cannot enter those waters; but they are now and then lashed into short, tumbling seas, sufficient to make their passage difficult for a craft no larger than the sloop. Carroll frowned when a comber struck the weather bow and a shower of stinging spray whipped his face. ”

“ These and one or two in the head stream appeared by their dress to belong to the hunt, but the rest, among whom were a few women, were attired in everyday garments and of different walks in life: artisans, labourers, people of leisure, and a belated tourist or two.
Three or four big hounds were swimming aimlessly up and down the pool; a dozen more or thereabouts trotted to and fro along the water’s edge, stopping to sniff and give tongue in an uncertain manner now and then; but there was no sign of an otter.
Carroll looked round with a smile when his companions stopped. ”

“ The lights of the settlement faded among the trees, and when Carroll coming aft flung a strip of canvas over the skylight, his comrade could see the black hills and climbing firs on both sides slip by. Sliding vapours streaked them, a crisp splashing sound made by the curling ripples followed the vessel; the canoe surged along noisily astern, and the frothing and gurgling grew louder at the bows. They were running down one of the deep, forest-shrouded inlets which, resembling the Norwegian fiords, pierce the Pacific littoral of Canada.
“I wonder how the wind is outside,” Vane said. ”

“ If he rests too long beside the still backwaters of life in fairylike dales, they’re apt to atrophy, and he finds himself slack and nerveless when he goes out to face the world again.”
Evelyn nodded, for she had felt and striven against the insidious influence he spoke of. She had now and then left the drowsy dale for a while; but the life she had then caught glimpses of was equally sheltered, one possible only to the favoured few. Even the echoes of the real tense struggle seldom passed its boundaries.
“But you confessed not long ago that you loved the Western wilderness,” she said. ”

“ A few minutes later, they drove past the end of it into a broad lane of water with long ranks of firs dropping steeply to its edge. The wind was suddenly cut off; the combers fell away, and the sloop crept slowly up the inlet, which wound, green and placid, among the hills. Vane strode to the scuttle and looked down at the flood which splashed languidly to and fro below.
“It’s fortunate that we’re in. Another half-hour would have seen the end of her,” he said. “Let her come up a little. There’s a smooth beach to yonder cove.” ”

“ A little farther on, a shoot of falling water swept out of the mist above and came splashing down a crag, spread out in frothing threads. It flowed across their path, reunited in a deep gully which they sprang across, and then fell tumultuously into the beck, which was now ten or twelve feet below on one side of them. They clung to the rock as they traced it downwards, stepping cautiously from ledge to ledge. At times a stone plunged into the mist beneath them, and Vane grasped the girl’s arm or held out a steadying hand, but he was never fussy or needlessly concerned. ”

“ It was blowing fresh next morning from the south-east, which was right ahead, and Vane’s face was hard when he and Carroll got the boat on deck and set about tying down two reefs in the mainsail.
They got sail upon the sloop and drove her out into a confused head sea, through which she laboured with flooded decks, making very little to windward. When night came, a deluge killed the breeze, and next day she lay rolling wildly in a heavy calm, while light mist narrowed in the horizon and a persistent drizzle poured down upon the smoothly-heaving sea. ”

“ 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 nobody 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 thrashing sail must be mastered; the tackle cracking with the strain must be hauled in. ”

“ In a few minutes they were under way, the sloop heading out towards open water with two reefs down in her mainsail; a great and ghostly shape of slanted canvas that swept across the dim, furrowed plain of sea. By midnight the breeze was as strong as ever, but they had clear moonlight and they held on; the craft plunging with flooded decks through the white combers, while Carroll sat at the helm, battered by spray and stung with cold. ”

“ On one side of it there was a broad strip of tumbling foam, which rose and fell in confused upheavals and filled the forest with the roar it made. Vane drove his horse into the water, and dismounting among the stumps before the ore-dump, found a wet and soil-stained man awaiting him. A long trail of smoke floated away from the iron stack behind him, and through the sound of the river there broke the clank and thud of hard-driven pumps. ”

“ Evelyn had no doubt that Mrs. Nairn was right. Loyalty, most often, demanded a worthy object to tender service to; it sprang from implicit confidence, mutual respect, and strong appreciation. It was not without a reason Vane had inspired it in his comrade’s breast; and this was the man she had condemned. The latter fact, however, was by comparison a very minor trouble. Vane was lying, helpless and alone, in the snowy wilderness, in peril of his life, and she knew that she loved him. ”

“ He could not break the main one out, though he worked savagely with a tackle, and deciding to slip it, he managed to lash three reefs in the mainsail and hoist it with the peak left down. Then he sat down to gather breath—for the work had been cruelly heavy—before he let the cable run and hoisted the jib.
She paid off when he put up his helm, and the black loom of trees ashore vanished. He thought he could find his way out of the inlet, but he only knew that he had done so when the angry ripples that splashed about the boat suddenly changed to confused tumbling combers. ”

“ Some had fallen amidst the wreckage left by previous gales, which the forest had partly made good, and there was scarcely a rod of the way that was not obstructed by half rotten trunks. Then there were thick bushes, and an undergrowth of willows where the soil was damp with thorny brakes and matted fern in between. In places, the growth was almost like a wall, and the men, who skirted the inlet, were glad to scramble forward among the rough boulders and ragged driftwood at the water’s edge for some minutes at a time, until it was necessary to leave the beach behind. ”

“ Vane sat down upon the bitts and took out his pipe. “One trouble in talking to you is that I never know whether you’re in earnest or not. You trot out your cold-blooded worldly wisdom, and then you grin at it.”
“I think that’s the only philosophic attitude,” replied Carroll. “It’s possible to grow furiously indignant with the restraints stereotyped people lay on one; but on the whole it’s wiser to bow to them and chuckle. After all, they’ve some foundation.” ”

“ Vane demanded.
Carroll sat down and filled his pipe. “It’s the natural result of possessing a temperament like yours. Somehow, you’ve got it firmly fixed into your mind that everything worth doing must be hard.”
“I’ve generally found it so.”
“I think,” said Carroll, grinning, “you’ve generally made it so. There’s a marked difference between the two. If any means of doing a thing looks easy, you at once conclude it can’t be the right way, which is a mode of reasoning that has never convinced me. In my opinion, it’s more sensible to try the easiest method first.” ”

“ Jessie looked up at him languidly. He had spoken as he felt, on impulse, which was more gratifying than an obvious desire to pay her a compliment would have been.
“I suppose you wouldn’t get many comforts in the bush,” she suggested.
“No,” said Vane. “Comforts of any kind are remarkably scarce up yonder. As a matter of fact, I can’t imagine a country where the contrasts between the luxuries of civilisation and the other thing are sharper. ”

“ They lived in lonely ranch houses, tents, and rudely flung up shacks; driving the new roads along the rangeside, risking life and limb in wild-cat adits. They were quick to laughter and reckless in hospitality.
Then with an effort he brushed the hazy thoughts away. Kitty Blake was merely a guest of his; in another day he would land her in Victoria, and that would be the end of it. He was assuring himself of this when Carroll crawled up through the scuttle forward and came aft to join them. In spite of his prudent reflections, Vane was by no means certain that he was pleased to see him. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ There was only a moderate breeze when we left, and when it freshened enough to make it unlikely that the steamer would run in, I was as vexed as you seem to be. As it happened, I couldn’t go back. I must get on to Victoria as soon as possible.”
She looked at him searchingly.
“Then what are we to do?” she asked.
There was distress in the cry, but Vane answered it in his most matter-of-fact tone: “So far as I can see, you can only reconcile yourself to staying on board. We’ll have a fresh fair wind for Victoria once we’re round the next head, and with luck we ought to get there late to-night.” ”

“ Vane carried the provisions in a fishing-creel, and on leaving the head of the valley they climbed leisurely up easy slopes, slipping on the crisp hill grass now and then. By and by they plunged into tangled heather on a bolder ridge, which was rent by black gullies, down which at times wild torrents poured. This did not trouble either of the men, but Vane was surprised at the ease with which Evelyn threaded her way across the heath. ”

“ Bright sunshine streamed down out of a cloudless sky when Vane stood talking with his sister upon the terrace in front of the Dene one afternoon shortly after his ascent of the Pike in Evelyn’s company. He leaned against the low wall, frowning, for Lucy had hitherto avoided a discussion of the subject which occupied their attention, and now, as he would have said, he could not make her listen to reason. ”

“ The cost of the subjugation of the wilderness is the endurance of hunger and thirst, cold and crushing fatigue; and somebody pays to the uttermost farthing. Carroll, sitting drenched, strung up, and hungry, at the helm, was merely playing his part in the struggle, though he found it cruelly hard. ”

“ She has learned repression—been driven into line. That girl has character, but it’s being cramped and stunted. You live in walled-in compartments in this country.”
Vane strolled along the terrace thoughtfully. He was not offended, and he understood his companion’s attitude. Like other men of education and good upbringing, driven by unrest or disaster to the untrammelled life of the bush, Carroll had gained sympathy as well as knowledge. Facing facts candidly, he seldom indulged in decided protest against any of them. On the other hand, Vane was on occasion liable to outbreaks of indignation. ”

“ Evelyn declared. “Of course, you can’t eliminate a certain amount of cruelty; but admitting that, isn’t it just as well that men who live in a luxurious civilisation should be willing to plod through miles of heather after grouse, risk their limbs on horseback, or spend hours in cold water? These are bracing things; they imply moral discipline. It can’t be nice to ride at a dangerous fence, or flounder down a rapid after an otter when you’re stiff with cold. The effort to do so must be wholesome.”
“A sure thing,” Carroll agreed. ”

“ Half of the wide circle their view would have commanded was cut off by the scree, but long wisps of leaden cloud began to stream across the crags above, intensifying, until it seemed unnatural, the glow of light and colour on the rest.
“I wonder if Mopsy is leading Mr. Carroll into any mischief; they have been gone some time,” said Evelyn. “She has a trick of getting herself, and other people into difficulties. I suppose he is an old friend of yours, unless, perhaps, he’s acting as your secretary.”
Vane’s eyes twinkled. “If he came in any particular capacity, it’s as bear-leader. ”