THE OLD COUNTRY
A month after Vane said good-by to Kitty he and Carroll alighted one
evening at a little station in northern England. Brown moors stretched
about it, for the heather had not bloomed yet, rolling back in long
slopes to the high ridge which cut against leaden thunder-clouds in the
eastern sky. To the westward, they fell away; and across a wide, green
valley smooth-backed heights gave place in turn to splintered crags and
ragged pinnacles etched in gray and purple on a vivid saffron glow. The
road outside the station gleamed with water, and a few big drops of
rain came splashing down, but there was a bracing freshness in the
mountain air.
The train went on, and Vane stood still, looking about him with a
poignant recollection of how he had last waited on that platform, sick at
heart, but gathering his youthful courage for the effort that he must
make. It all came back to him--the dejection, the sense of
loneliness--for he was then going out to the Western Dominion in which he
had not a friend. Now he was returning, moderately prosperous and
successful; but once again the feeling of loneliness was with him--most
of those whom he had left behind had made a longer journey than he had
done. Then he noticed an elderly man, in rather shabby livery,
approaching, and he held out his hand with a smile of pleasure.
"You haven't changed a bit, Jim!" he exclaimed. "Have you got the young
gray in the new cart outside?"
"T' owd gray was shot twelve months since," the man replied. "Broke his
leg comin' down Hartop Bank. New car was sold off, done, two or t'ree
years ago."
"That's bad news. Anyway, you're the same."
"A bit stiffer in the joints, and maybe a bit sourer," was the answer.
Then the man's wrinkled face relaxed. "I'm main glad to see thee, Mr.
Wallace. Master wad have come, only he'd t' gan t' Manchester suddenly."
Vane helped him to place their baggage into the trap and then bade him
sit behind; and as he gathered up the reins, he glanced at the horse and
harness. The one did not show the breeding of the gray he remembered,
and there was no doubt that the other was rather the worse for wear.
They set off down the descending road, which wound, unconfined, through
the heather, where the raindrops sparkled like diamonds. Farther down,
they ran in between rough limestone walls with gleaming spar in them,
smothered here and there in trailing brambles and clumps of fern, while
the streams that poured out from black gaps in the peat and flowed
beside the road flashed with coppery gold in the evening light. It was
growing brighter ahead of them, though inky clouds still clung to the
moors behind.
By and by, ragged hedges, rent and twisted by the winds, climbed up to
meet them, and, clattering down between the straggling greenery, they
crossed a river sparkling over banks of gravel. After that, there was a
climb, for the country rolled in ridge and valley, and the crags ahead,
growing nearer, rose in more rugged grandeur against the paling glow.
Carroll gazed about him in open appreciation as they drove.
"This little compact country is really wonderful, in its way!" he
exclaimed. "There's so much squeezed into it, even leaving out your
towns. Parts of it are like Ontario---the southern strip I mean--with the
plow-land, orchards and homesteads sprinkled among the woods and rolling
ground. Then your Midlands are like the prairie, only that they're
greener--there's the same sweep of grass and the same sweep of sky, and
this"--he gazed at the rugged hills rent by winding dales--"is British
Columbia on a miniature scale."
"Yes," agreed Vane; "it isn't monotonous."
"Now you have hit it! That's the precise difference. We've three belts of
country, beginning at Labrador and running west--rock and pine scrub,
level prairie, and ranges piled on ranges beyond the Rockies. Hundreds of
leagues of each of them, and, within their limits, all the same. But this
country's mixed. You can get what you like--woods, smooth grass-land,
mountains--in a few hours' ride."
Vane smiled.
"Our people and their speech and habits are mixed, too. There's more
difference between county and county in thirty miles than there is right
across your whole continent. You're cast in the one mold."
"I'm inclined to think it's a good one," laughed Carroll. "What's more,
it has set its stamp on you. The very way your clothes hang proclaims
that you're a Westerner."
Vane laughed good-humoredly; but as they clattered through a sleepy
hamlet with its little, square-towered church overhanging a brawling
river, his face grew grave. Pulling up the horse, he handed the reins
to Carroll.
"This is the first stage of my pilgrimage. I won't keep you five
minutes."
He swung himself down, and the groom motioned to him.
"West of the tower, Mr. Wallace; just before you reach the porch."
Vane passed through the wicket in the lichened limestone wall, and
there was a troubled look in his eyes when he came back and took the
reins again.
"I went away in bitterness--and I'm sorry now," he said. "The real
trouble was unimportant; I think it was forgotten. Every now and then the
letters came; but the written word is cold. There are things that can
never be set quite right in this world."
Carroll made no comment, though he knew that if it had not been for the
bond between them his comrade would not have spoken so. They drove on in
silence for a while, and then, as they entered a deep, wooded dale, Vane
turned to him again.
"I've been taken right back into the old days to-night; days in
England, and afterward those when we worked on the branch road beneath
the range. There's not a boy among the crowd in the sleeping-shack I
can't recall--first, wild Larry, who taught me how to drill and hid my
rawness from the Construction Boss."
"He lent me his gum-boots when the muskeg stiffened into half-frozen
slush," Carroll interrupted him.
"And was smashed by the snowslide," Vane went on. "Then there was Tom,
from the boundary country. He packed me back a league to camp the day I
chopped my right foot; and went down in the lumber schooner off Flattery.
Black Pete, too, who held on to you in the rapid when we were running the
bridge-logs through. It was in firing a short fuse that he got his
discharge," He raised his free hand, with a wry smile. "Gone on--with
more of their kind after them; a goodly company. Why are we left
prosperous? What have we done?"
Carroll made no response. The question was unanswerable, and after a
while Vane abruptly began to talk about their business in British
Columbia. It passed the time; and he had resumed his usual manner when he
pulled up where a stile path led across a strip of meadow.
"You can drive round; we'll be there before you," he said to the groom as
he got down.
Carroll and he crossed the meadow. Passing around a clump of larches they
came suddenly into sight of an old gray house with a fir wood rolling
down the hillside close behind it. The building was long and low,
weather-worn and stained with lichens where the creepers and climbing
roses left the stone exposed. The bottom row of mullioned windows opened
upon a terrace, and in front of the terrace ran a low wall with a broad
coping on which were placed urns bright with geraniums. It was pierced by
an opening approached by shallow stairs on which an iridescent peacock
stood, and in front of all that stretched a sweep of lawn.
A couple of minutes later, a lady met them in the wide hall, and held out
her hand to Vane. She was middle-aged, and had once been handsome, but
now there were wrinkles about her eyes, which had a hint of hardness in
them, and her lips were thin. Carroll noticed that they closed tightly
when she was not speaking.
"Welcome home, Wallace," she said effusively. "It should not be difficult
to look upon the Dene as that--you were here so often once upon a time."
"Thank you," was the response. "I felt tempted to ask Jim to drive me
round by Low Wood; I wanted to see the place again."
"I'm glad you didn't. The house is shut up and going to pieces. It would
have been depressing to-night."
Vane presented Carroll. Mrs. Chisholm's manner was gracious, but for no
particular reason Carroll wondered whether she would have extended the
same welcome to his comrade had the latter not come back the discoverer
of a profitable mine.
"Tom was sorry he couldn't wait to meet you, but he had to leave for
Manchester on some urgent business," she apologized.
Just then a girl with disordered hair and an unusual length of stocking
displayed beneath her scanty skirt came up to them.
"This is Mabel," said Mrs. Chisholm. "I hardly think you will
remember her."
"I've carried her across the meadow."
The girl greeted the strangers demurely, and favored Vane with a
critical gaze.
"So you're Wallace Vane--who floated the Clermont Mine! Though I don't
remember you, I've heard a good deal about you lately. Very pleased to
make your acquaintance!"
Vane's eyes twinkled as he shook hands with her. Her manner was quaintly
formal, but he fancied that there was a spice of mischief hidden behind
it. Carroll, watching his hostess, surmised that her daughter's remarks
had not altogether pleased her. She chatted with them, however, until the
man who had driven them appeared with their baggage, when they were shown
their respective rooms.
Vane was the first to go down. Reaching the hall, he found nobody
there, though a clatter of dishes and a clink of silver suggested that
a meal was being laid out in an adjoining room. Sitting down near the
hearth, he looked about him. The house was old; a wide stairway with a
quaintly carved balustrade of dark oak ran up one side and led to a
landing, also fronted with ponderous oak rails. The place was shadowy,
but a stream of light from a high window struck athwart one part of it
and fell upon the stairs.
Vane's eyes rested on many objects that he recognized, but as his glance
traveled to and fro it occurred to him that much of what he saw conveyed
a hint that economy was needful. Part of the rich molding of the Jacobean
mantel had fallen away, and patches of the key pattern bordering the
panels beneath it had broken off, though he decided that a clever
cabinet-maker could have repaired the damage in a day. There were one or
two choice rugs on the floor, but they were threadbare; the heavy
hangings about the inner doors were dingy and moth-eaten; and, though all
this was in harmony with the drowsy quietness and the faint smell of
decay, it had its significance.
Presently he heard footsteps, and looking up he saw a girl descending the
stairs in the fading stream of light. She was clad in trailing white,
which gleamed against the dark oak and rustled softly as it flowed about
a tall, finely outlined and finely poised figure. She had hair of dark
brown with paler lights in its curling tendrils, gathered back from a
neck that showed a faintly warmer whiteness than the snowy fabric below
it. It was her face, though, that seized Vane's attention: the level
brows; the quiet, deep brown eyes; the straight, cleanly-cut nose; and
the subtle suggestion of steadfastness and pride which they all conveyed.
He rose with a cry that had pleasure and eagerness in it.
"Evelyn!"
She came down, moving lightly but with a rhythmic grace, and laid a firm,
cool hand in his.
"I'm glad to see you back, Wallace," she said. "How you have changed!"
"I'm not sure that's kind," smiled Vane. "In some ways, you haven't
changed at all; I would have known you anywhere!"
"Nine years is a long time to remember any one."
Vane had seen few women during that period; but he was not a fool, and he
recognized that this was no occasion for an attempt at gallantry. There
was nothing coquettish in Evelyn's words, nor was there any irony. She
had answered in the tranquil, matter-of-fact manner which, as he
remembered, usually characterized her.
"It's a little while since you landed, isn't it?" she added.
"A week. I had some business in London, and then I went on to look up
Lucy. She had just gone up to town--to a congress, I believe--and so
I missed her. I shall go up again to see her as soon as she answers
my letter."
"It won't be necessary. She's coming here for a fortnight."
"That's very kind. Whom have I to thank for suggesting it?"
"Does it matter? It was a natural thing to ask your only sister--who is a
friend of mine. There is plenty of room, and the place is quiet."
"It didn't used to be. If I remember, your mother generally had it full
part of the year."
"Things have changed," said Evelyn quietly.
Vane was baffled by something in her manner. Evelyn had never been
effusive--that was not her way---but now, while she was cordial, she did
not seem disposed to resume their acquaintance where it had been broken
off. After all, he could hardly have expected this.
"Mabel is like you, as you used to be," he observed. "It struck me as
soon as I saw her; but when she began to talk there was a difference."
Evelyn laughed softly.
"Yes; I think you're right in both respects. Mopsy has the courage of her
convictions. She's an open rebel."
There was no bitterness in her laugh. Evelyn's manner was never
pointed; but Vane fancied that she had said a meaning thing--one that
might explain what he found puzzling in her attitude, when he held the
key to it.
"Mopsy was dubious about you before you arrived, but I'm pleased to say
she seems reassured," she laughed.
Carroll came down, and a few moments later Mrs. Chisholm appeared and
they went in to dinner in a low-ceilinged room. During the general
conversation, Mabel suddenly turned to Vane.
"I suppose you have brought your pistols with you?"
"I haven't owned one since I was sixteen," Vane laughed.
The girl looked at him with an excellent assumption of incredulity.
"Then you have never shot anybody in British Columbia!"
Carroll laughed, as if this greatly pleased him, but Vane's face was
rather grave as he answered her.
"No; I'm thankful to say that I haven't. In fact, I've never seen a shot
fired, except at a grouse or a deer."
"Then the West must be getting what the Archdeacon--he's Flora's husband,
you know--calls decadent," the girl sighed.
"She's incorrigible," Mrs. Chisholm interposed with a smile.
Carroll leaned toward Mabel confidentially.
"In case you feel very badly disappointed, I'll let you into a secret.
When we feel real, real savage, we take the ax instead."
Evelyn fancied that Vane winced at this, but Mabel looked openly
regretful.
"Can either of you pick up a handkerchief going at full gallop on
horseback?" she inquired.
"I'm sorry to say that I can't; and I've never seen Wallace do so,"
Carroll laughed.
Mrs. Chisholm shook her head at her daughter.
"Miss Clifford complained of your inattention to the study of English
last quarter," she reproved severely.
Mabel made no answer, though Vane thought it would have relieved her
to grimace.
Presently the meal came to an end, and an hour afterward, Mrs. Chisholm
rose from her seat in the lamplit drawing-room.
"We keep early hours at the Dene, but you will retire when you like," she
said. "As Tom is away, I had better tell you that you will find syphons
and whisky in the smoking-room. I have had the lamp lighted."
"Thank you," Vane replied with a smile. "I'm afraid you have taken more
trouble on our account than you need have done. Except on special
occasions, we generally confine ourselves to strong green tea."
Mabel looked at him in amazement.
"Oh!" she cried. "The West is certainly decadent! You should be here when
the otter hounds are out. Why, it was only--"
She broke off abruptly beneath her mother's withering glance.
When Vane and Carroll were left alone, they strolled out, pipe in hand,
upon the terrace. They could see the fells tower darkly against the soft
sky, and a tarn that lay in the blackness of the valley beneath them was
revealed by its pale gleam. A wonderful mingling of odors stole out of
the still summer night.
"I suppose you could put in a few weeks here?" Vane remarked.
"I could," Carroll replied. "There's an atmosphere about these old houses
that appeals to me, perhaps because we have nothing like it in Canada.
The tranquillity of age is in it--it's restful, as a change. Besides, I
think your friends mean to make things pleasant."
"I'm glad you like them."
Carroll knew that his comrade would not resent a candid expression
of opinion.
"I do; the girls in particular. They interest me. The younger one's of a
type that's common in our country, though it's generally given room for
free development into something useful there. Mabel's chafing at the
curb. It remains to be seen whether she'll kick, presently, and hurt
herself in doing so."
Vane remembered that Evelyn had said something to the same effect; but
he had already discovered that Carroll possessed a keen insight in
certain matters.
"And her sister?" he suggested.
"You won't mind my saying that I'm inclined to be sorry for her? 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."
"Doesn't the same thing apply to New York, Montreal, or Toronto?"
"Not to the same extent. We haven't had time yet to number off all the
little subdivisions and make rules for them, nor to elaborate the
niceties of an immutable system. No doubt, we'll come to it."
He paused with a deprecatory laugh.
"Mrs. Chisholm believes in the system. She has been modeled on it--it's
got into her blood; and that's why she's at variance with her daughters.
No doubt, the thing's necessary; I'm finding no fault with it. You must
remember that we're outsiders, with a different outlook; we've lived in
the new West."
Vane strolled on along the terrace thoughtfully. He was not offended; he
understood his companion's attitude. Like other men of education and good
upbringing driven by unrest or disaster to the untrammeled 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.
"Well," said Vane at length, "I guess it's time to go to bed."