Binns

“ There were two lines written across the single sheet:
When you come back, I will show you all I have to give you. Edwin Binns smiled with a grave happiness. The letter slipped from his weak hold onto the counterpane, and he laid his hand upon it as if it had been something sacred.
“She's not like any other woman in the world,” he said dreamily. “She does things other women wouldn't do. And now she'll be so glad—so glad!”
The nurse nodded. She thought he had become light-headed in the fitful way common to men recovering from severe injuries. ”

“ Her name was Pinky Binn, a dotter of the house of Binn, the Binns of Turkey Walley. She had the reddish hair of the Binns and the pearl-blue eyes of the Rummelsbergers from over the mountains. Her ma was a Rummelsberger. She wasn't too spare, nor was she too fleshy; she was just rounded right; and when she smiled—ah, boys, when Pinky Binn smiled at Ernest from behind her g'ography his heart went like its spring had broke. Yet he never showed it. It would have been ruination for him to let it be known by sign or act that Pinky Binn was other than the general class of weemen ”

“ Binns plunged forward and fell on his face. The shape crawled to his side, felt over him, searching for the canteen, finally found it, raised it to its lips and sucked at the contents, then tried feebly to turn the fallen Binns over to pour the few remaining drops of water down his throat. . .
At daylight a party of men found two bodies lying on the sand. A man stooped over one of them. ”

“ In the cool of the evening we ride out on horseback through vineyards and yellow-berry gardens to Mr. Binns' country residence, a place that formerly belonged to an old pasha, a veritable Bluebeard, who built the house and placed the windows of his harem, even closely latticed as they always are, in a position that would not command so much as a glimpse of passers-by on the road, hundreds of yards away. He planted trees and gardens, and erected marble fountains at great cost. ”

“ Binns's political life was marked by his courage and persistence. He was a pungent speaker, who rarely wasted words — a good critic of finance. He was a sound business man, and his name will always be connected with the building up of the sugar industry in Natal; he was a director of the Natal Bank and of the Durban Telephone and Tramways Companies. ”

“ He stole a look at his companion lying near, and slyly drew the canteen, with its fast-diminishing precious contents, to his mouth. He had no thought for his weaker companion, Dick Webb. When Dick could not suppress a groan, Binns' close-set eyes narrowed and gleamed evilly, and he muttered imprecations against the frailer men.
He was angry with Webb. The two had had an argument concerning the world-old law of the survival of the fittest. He had contended that the law among men held the same as it did among the brute creation. The strong survived, the weak perished. ”

“ But for the merciful uniform, he might have been a shop assistant posing for his photograph.
Presently he coughed affectedly, and Somers glanced around.
“Hello, Binns; that you?” he asked, with good-natured fatuity. “Looking for letters?”
“Yes.” The answer sounded at once sullen and pleased, as if the man had not expected to be spoken to. “It's all the excitement one gets in this beastly hole.”
“There's excitement enough elsewhere for any one who likes it,” Oswald remarked carelessly. “Now, then, sergeant, what's the bag?” ”

“ The truth is, Binns was Eastern and the city editor was Western, and besides, Binns had been more or less thrust upon him by his managing editor as a favor to some one else. But Binns could write, never doubt it, and proved it. He was a vigorous reporter with a fine feeling for words and, above all, a power to visualize and emotionalize whatever he saw, a thing which was of the utmost importance in this rather loose Western emotional atmosphere. He could handle any story which came to him with ease and distinction, and seemed usually to get all or nearly all the facts. ”

“ BINNS, Sir HENRY (1837–1899) , third prime minister of Natal, son of Henry Binns of Sunderland and Croydon, a quaker, was born at Sunderland, Durham, on 27 June 1837, and educated at Ackworth from 1847 to 1852, and then at York. In 1858 he migrated with some relatives to Natal, arriving on 14 Sept., and thus he was connected with Natal almost from its first existence as a separate colony. He decided to devote himself to agriculture, and bought a property called Umhlanga at Riet River, near Phoenix, in Victoria county, which in 1860 he turned into a sugar estate. ”

“ He moved his hand impatiently toward the canteen, paused. Why should he waste the precious life-sustaining fluid on this half-dead man? He couldn't last, that was evident. Every drop that Dick drank now lessened Binns' chance of getting out. It was a sinful waste to pour water down the throat of a man so nearly gone. It would be much better to let the poor devil die and be done with it. It would be really a mercy to put him out of his misery. Of course it would. Nobody'd ever know the difference, and then Binns would have a chance, a small chance of pulling through. ”

“ If you write again, tell me about your wound and the poor fellow you tried to save. Also tell me if there is anything you need. I have sent you all sorts of funny little offerings to-day—under disguised handwritings—so that the “other fellows” might turn green with jealousy——
Edwin Binns crunched the letter in his hand. He had seen the surgeon major in charge of the hospital coming up the steps, and he rose sharply to his feet, saluting, with the blood hammering in his temples and the old mist before his eyes. ”

“ The corporal was still silent, a little amazed at his cousin’s mood, and the other spoke again. “Don’t you go thinking I never regret things, Roger my boy. There never was a prodigal yet who didn’t lie awake o’ nights thinking what a fool he’d been. And for some of us there’s no going back to scoop the ring and the robe and to feast on the fatted veal.... There are times when I think of the Fell, and hear the pheasants clucking in the spinney. And I never sight at a ptarmigan but I think of the grouse driving down the wind on Harrow Moor. Man—it’s Hell, undiluted.” ”

“ You've got to be awful careful who you confide in. The place is full of stool-pigeons and I'm scared to death that Binns'll get on to you."
"What'll I do when I get the make-up on? Shall I come out in the hall again?"
"No, wait there until I get hold of Letcher. He'll go in and look you over. He's Bacon's assistant director."
"Is he anything like Binns?" asked Minnie.
"I should say not," laughed Al, "he's as soft as mush. Big fat slob, just as fresh as he can be but he don't mean anything by it. Put the works on him, and he'll fall for you like a ton of bricks." ”

“ He dropped suddenly in the snow, and bent over the face in its frozen beauty, sobbing as only a strong man can. He bent lower and kissed the ice-cold lips, whilst Stane staggered to his feet, and moved away. He could not endure to look on Jean Bènard's grief. As he stood staring into the darkness of the wood, he had a flashing memory of the Indian girl's face as she had whisperingly asked him if he could not leave Helen, the very note in her voice sounded in his ears, and, he knew what it was no harm for him to know then, that this child of the wilderness had given him her love, unsought. ”

“ Somers escaped into the carriage.
“I won't forget. Good luck!”
As the train steamed out of the station, he glanced casually at the envelope that had been thrust into his hand, and whistled to himself. Then, conscious that he had committed an indiscretion, he thrust the letter hurriedly into his pocket.
“It takes all sorts to make a world,” he remarked philosophically and apparently apropos of nothing in particular.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Edwin Binns stood on the platform and watched the train disappear. He was still panting, and in the moment of heat and excitement seemed less vulgar. ”

“ A lonely and unpopular young officer at the front would be grateful if some one would write to him occasionally, Address Box 257, the Times. At the same moment that Somers had made the above discovery, Lieutenant Edwin Binns entered his garret in the base hospital “somewhere in France.” “Garret” is perhaps an ungrateful term. In the hospital the place was regarded as privileged, but architecturally there is no other way of describing it. ”

“ The surgeon major turned his head away.
“I'm not so sure. A man knows his own constitution best. Anyhow, we can't keep you here much longer. You're not wounded, and we haven't any room to spare. Besides—the men will begin to wonder. At the same time, it is not desirable for you or us that you should be taken ill again—in the trenches.”
The blood receded from Edwin Binns' cheeks, and then flowed back, mounting in a dark flood to his fair brows. ”

“ Tell me exactly what you think.”
“I scarcely like to,” was the reply. “What I [277] have is no more than a suspicion, and it is almost too horrible for words.”
“Tell me,” he urged again.
“I will,” she broke out impulsively, “and God forgive me if I do him wrong! I think my cousin Adrian was responsible—Mr. Rayner, you know, whom you met at North Star.”
“I thought so.”
“You thought so?” she cried. “Then you know he was up here?”
“I did not know, but I guessed. I was on his trail when I met your boy Jim.”
“And he was on yours, I am sure,” said Joy quickly. ”

“ Stane listened, as did the girl. Whatever sound had made her speak the word was hushed, and after a few seconds she spoke again. "Then thou wilt die for this bright-faced woman?"
"A thousand times!" he answered with quiet vehemence. "Understand, Miskodeed——"
He got no further. In the recesses of the wood a fox barked sharply, and a second later the sound was repeated in two different directions.
"Ah," cried the Indian girl, "They come. Thou art too late. Thou wilt die for thy bright-faced woman now—once." ”

“ He did not know what she was saying and he had no wish to know, but half an hour later as his cousin lay by a fire which had been lit, he saw that his eyes were shining with a quiet happiness.
“Better, Dick?” he inquired.
“In soul, yes!” was the answer.
“I’m glad of that,” replied the corporal simply.
“It’s like a cleansing to have a good woman’s approval. You can’t know, Roger, old boy. You haven’t been deep in the mire—but there it is.”
He allowed his cousin and Joy to examine his wound, and they found the arrow broken off in his side. The corporal looked at the girl and shook his head. ”

“ Packing one's worldly possessions through the pathless wilderness is a slow, grinding misery. The lightest pack soon becomes a burden. At the beginning of a march it may seem a mere nothing, in an hour it is an oppression; in three a millstone is a feather compared with it; and before night the inexperienced packer feels that, like Atlas, he bears the world upon his shoulders. It was therefore little wonder that Helen Yardely ceased to sing after they had marched but a very little way; and indeed the trail, apart from the apparently growing weight of the pack, was not favourable to song. ”

“ Corporal Bracknell, however, remained unconscious of the shadow, and moving quickly but silently on his way, came suddenly upon something which brought him to an abrupt halt. In the snow not three yards from where he stood lay the huddled form of a man. For a moment he stared at it as if fascinated, and as the man did not move, when the moment had passed he stepped swiftly forward, and bent over the inanimate form. The man was lying on his side, and a dark stain in the snow the corporal divined was blood. ”

“ Helen Yardely looked down the long reach of the river and her eyes fixed themselves on a tall bluff crowned with spruce, distant perhaps a mile and a half away.
"I like the Wild," she said suddenly, breaking the silence that had been between them.
"It is all right," laughed Ainley, "when you can journey through it comfortably as we are doing."
"It must have its attractions even when comfort is not possible," said the girl musingly, "for the men who live here live as nature meant man to live."
"On straight moose-meat—sometimes," laughed Ainley. ”

“ His pipe went out, and still he sat there, thinking, thinking. Half an hour passed and the robin making the discovery that it was really bed-time, ceased its chirping; the loon no longer mocked the wolf, but still the man sat behind his smoke-smudge, tireless, unsleeping, waiting. Another half-hour crept by with leaden feet, then a new sound broke the stillness of the wild, the tinkling of a piano, sadly out of tune, followed by a chorus of voices lifted up in the homeland song. ”

“ Chief George waved his hand to the East. "Through the woods to the lake of Little Moose, there to meet the man who pays the price."
"These words are the words of truth?" asked the trapper, harshly. "If thou liest——"
"Wherefore should I lie, since so much is already known to thee?" interrupted the Indian.
"It would be unwise," agreed Bènard, and then asked: "What is to be done to the white girl by the man who pays the price?"
"I know not; belike he will take her for his squaw, or wherefore should he pay so great a price?"
Bènard looked at Stane. "Dere ees nothing more dat he can tell. ”

“ As she swung the ax upon her shoulder and moved towards the trees she broke into song, the words of which reached Stane:
"It was a lover and his lass
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o'er the green cornfield did pass
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding,
Sweet lovers love the Spring."
He lay there beating out the melody with his fingers. A musing look came in his eyes that remained there when once more the sound of her ax came through the forest stillness. Then it died away and his face grew grim. ”