VANE SAILS NORTH
On the evening of Vane's departure he walked out of Nairn's room just as
dusk was falling. His host was with him, and when they entered an
adjacent room the elder man's face relaxed into a smile as he saw Jessy
Horsfield talking to his wife. Vane stopped a few minutes to speak to
them, and it was Jessy who gave the signal for the group to break up.
"I must go," she said to Mrs. Nairn. "I've already stayed longer than I
intended. I'll let you have those patterns back in a day or two."
"Mair patterns!" Nairn exclaimed with dry amusement. "It's the second lot
this week! Ye're surely industrious, Jessy. Women"--he addressed
Vane--"have curious notions of economy. They will spend a month knitting
a thing to give to somebody who does no want it, when they could buy it
for half a dollar, done better by machinery. I'm no saying, however, that
it does no keep them out of mischief."
Jessy laughed.
"I don't think many of us are industrious in that way now. After all,
isn't it a pity that so many of the beautiful old handicrafts are dying
out? No loom, for instance, could turn out some of the things your wife
makes. They're matchless."
"She has an aumrie--ye can translate it bureaufull of them. It's no
longer customary to scatter them over the house. If ye mean to copy the
lot, ye have a task that will take ye most a lifetime."
Mrs. Nairn's smile was half a sigh.
"There were no books and no many amusements when I was young. We sat
through the long winter forenights, counting stitches, in the old gray
house at Burnfoot, under the Scottish moors. That, my dear, was thirty
years ago."
She shook hands with Vane as he left the house with Jessy, and standing
on the stoop she watched them cross the lawn.
"I'm thinking ye'll no see so much of Jessy for the next few weeks,"
Nairn remarked dryly. "Has she shown ye any of yon knickknacks when she
has finished them?"
His wife shook her head at him reproachfully.
"Alic," she admonished, "ye're now and then hasty in jumping at
conclusions."
"Maybe. I'm no infallible, but the fault ye mention is no common in the
land where we were born. I'm no denying that Jessy has enterprise, but
how far it will carry her in this case is mair than I can tell."
He smiled as he recalled a scene at the station some time ago, and Mrs.
Nairn looked up at him.
"What is amusing you, Alic?"
"It was just a bit idea no worth the mentioning. I think it would no
count." He paused, and added with an air of reflection: "A young man's
heart is whiles inconstant and susceptible."
Mrs. Nairn, ignoring the last remark, went into the house. In the
meanwhile Jessy and Vane walked down the road, until they stopped at a
gate. Jessy held out her hand.
"I'm glad I met you to-night," she said. "You will allow me to wish you
every success?"
There was a softness in her voice which Vane wholly failed to notice,
though he was aware that she was pretty and artistically dressed. This
was possibly why she made him think of Evelyn.
"Thank you," he replied. "It's nice to feel that one has the sympathy of
one's friends."
He turned away, and Jessy stood watching him as he strode down the road,
noticing, though it was getting dark, the free vigor of his movements.
There was, she thought, something in his fine poise and swing that set
him apart from other men she knew. None of them walked or carried himself
as Vane did. She was, however, forced to recognize that although he had
answered her courteously, there had been no warmth in his words. As a
matter of fact, Vane just then was conscious of a slight relief. He
admired Jessy, and he liked Nairn and his wife; but they belonged to the
city; and he was glad, on the whole, to leave it behind. He was going
back to the shadowy woods, where men lived naturally. The lust of fresh
adventure was strong in him.
On reaching the wharf he found Kitty, with Celia Hartley, whom he had not
met hitherto, awaiting him with Carroll and Drayton. A boat lay at the
steps, and he and Carroll rowed the others off to the sloop. The moon was
just rising from behind the black firs at the inner end of the inlet, and
a little cold wind that blew down across them, faintly scented with
resinous fragrance, stirred the water into tiny ripples that flashed into
silvery radiance here and there. Lights gleamed on the forestays of
vessels whose tall spars were etched in high, black tracery against the
dusky blue of the sky, athwart which there streamed the long smoke trail
of a steamer passing out through the Narrows.
Kitty, urged by Drayton, broke into a little song with a smooth, swinging
cadence that went harmoniously with the measured splash of oars; and Vane
enjoyed it all. The city was dropping behind him; he felt himself at
liberty. Carroll was a tried comrade; the others were simple people whose
views were more or less his own. Besides, it was a glorious night and
Kitty sang charmingly.
A soft glow shone out from the skylights to welcome them as they
approached the sloop. When, laughing gaily, they clambered on board,
Carroll led the way to the tiny saloon, which just held them all. It was
brightly lighted by two nickeled lamps; flowers were fastened against the
paneling, and clusters of them stood upon the table, which was covered
with a spotless cloth. What was even more unusual, it was daintily set
out with good china and silver. Vane took the head of it, and Carroll
modestly explained that only part of the supper had been prepared by
himself. The rest he had obtained in the city, out of regard for the
guests, who, he added, had not lived in the bush. Presently Vane, who had
been busy talking to the others, turned to Celia.
"Now that we can see each other better, I think you ought to recognize
me, Miss Hartley."
The girl was young and attractive, and she blushed prettily.
"I do, of course; but I thought I'd wait until I saw whether you
remembered me."
"Why should you wait?"
Celia looked confused.
"It's two or three years since I've seen you; and I've left that place."
Vane laughed. He had made her acquaintance at a workman's hotel where she
was engaged, when he was differently situated, and he fancied that she
was diffident about recalling the fact, now that he was obviously
prosperous.
"Well," he responded, "it's only fair that I should give you supper, for
once. I've always had an idea that you brought me more dessert than I was
really entitled to."
"It was because you were--civil," Celia explained, though her expression
suggested that the word did not convey all she meant. "Still, I can't
complain of the rest of the boys."
"I wonder if you remember how astonished you were the first time you
brought me supper?"
Celia smiled and Vane turned to the others.
"I'd just come in on a schooner. We'd had wild weather, during which the
galley fire was generally washed out and the cook had some difficulty in
getting us anything to eat. Miss Hartley brought me a double supply. She
must have thought I needed it."
"There was mighty little left," the girl retorted.
The others laughed, but Vane went on, in a reminiscent manner:
"I was wearing a pair of old gum-boots with one toe torn off, and my
jacket was split right up the back. When I went up-town the next day,
people looked at me suspiciously. The trade of the Province is pretty
bad when you see men in Vancouver dressed as I was. The fact that sticks
in my mind most clearly, however, is that on the following morning, when
I'd arranged to see a man who might give me a job, Miss Hartley offered
to sew up the tear for me. I was uncommonly glad to let her."
Celia colored again, but it was evident that she was not displeased.
Kitty smiled at him, and there was appreciation in Drayton's eyes.
"Were you surprised when she offered to sew it?" Kitty inquired.
"Now, you have helped me on to what I wanted to say. I wasn't
surprised--how could I be? The kind of people I'd met out here had seldom
much money, or much of anything; but I had generally less, and they held
out a hand when I needed it and gave me what they had. It stirs me in a
way that almost hurts to think of it."
Then Carroll started the general chatter, which went on after the meal
was finished, and nobody appeared to notice that Kitty sat with her hand
in Drayton's amid the happy laughter. Even Celia, who had her grief to
grapple with, smiled bravely. Vane had given them champagne, the best in
the city, though they drank sparingly; and at last, when Celia made a
move to rise, Drayton stood up with his glass in his hand.
"We must go, but there's something to be done," he announced. "It's to
thank our host and wish him success. It's a little boat he's sailing in,
but she's carrying a big freight, if our good wishes count for anything."
They emptied the glasses, and Vane replied:
"My success is yours. You have all a stake in the venture, and that
piles up my responsibility. If the spruce is still in existence, I've
got to find it."
"And you're going to find it!" declared Drayton. "It's a sure thing!"
Vane divided the flowers between Celia and Kitty, but when they went up
on deck Kitty raised one bunch and kissed it.
"Tom won't mind," she laughed. "Take that one back from Celia and
me--for luck."
They got down into the boat, and Carroll handed them a basket of crockery
and table linen which Drayton promised to have delivered at the hotel.
Then, while the girls called back to Vane, Drayton rowed away, and the
boat was fading out of sight when Kitty's voice once more reached the men
on board. She was singing a well-known Jacobite ballad.
Carroll laughed softly.
"It strikes me as appropriate," he said. "Considering what his Highland
followers suffered on his account and what the women thought of him, some
of the virtues they credited the Young Chevalier with must have been
real." He raised his hand. "You may as well listen!"
Vane stood still a moment, with the blood hot in his face, as the refrain
rang more clearly across the sparkling water:
"Better lo'ed ye cannot be--
Will ye no come back to me?"
"I don't know whether you feel flattered, but I've an idea that Kitty and
Celia would go through fire for you; and Drayton seems to share their
confidence," Carroll went on in his most matter-of-fact tone.
"Celia mended my jacket," Vane replied. "I got a month's work as a
result of it." Then he began to shake the mainsail loose. "I believe
we both went rather far in our talk to-night; but we have got to find
the spruce!"
"So you have said already. Hadn't you better heave the boom up with the
topping lift?"
They got the mainsail onto her, broke out the anchor and set the jib; and
as the boat slipped away before a freshening breeze Vane sat at the helm
while Carroll stood on the foredeck, coiling up the gear. The moon was
higher now; the broad sail gleamed a silvery gray; the ripples, which
were getting bigger, flashed and sparkled as they streamed back from the
bows; and the lights of the city dropped fast astern. Vane was conscious
of a keen exhilaration. He had started on a new adventure. He was going
back to the bush; and he knew that, no matter how his life might change,
the wilderness would always call to him. In spite of this, however, he
was, as he had said, conscious of an unusual responsibility. Hitherto he
had fought for what he could get, for himself; but now Kitty's future
partly depended on his efforts, and his success would be of vast
importance to Celia.
He had a very friendly feeling toward both the girls. Indeed, all the
women he had met of late had attracted him, in different ways. It was
hard to believe that any of them possessed unlovable qualities, though
there was not one among them to compare with Evelyn. Whatever he liked
most in the others--intelligence, beauty, tenderness, courage--reminded
him of her. Kitty, he thought, belonged to the hearth; she personified
gentleness and solace; it would be her part to diffuse cheerful comfort
in the home. Jessy would make an ambitious man's companion; a clever
counselor, who would urge him forward if he lagged. Celia he had not
placed yet; but Evelyn stood apart from all.
She appealed less to his senses and intellect than she did to a
sublimated something in the depths of his nature; and it somehow seemed
fitting that her image should materialize before his mental vision as the
sloop drove along under the cloudless night sky while the moonlight
poured down glamour on the shining water. Evelyn harmonized with such
things as these.
It was true that she had repulsed him; but that, he felt, was what he
deserved for entering into an alliance against her with her venial
father. He was glad now that he had acquiesced in her dismissal of him,
since to have stood firm and broken her to his will would have brought
disaster upon both of them. He felt that she had not wholly escaped him,
after all; by and by he would go back and seek her favor by different
means. Then she might, perhaps, forgive him and listen.
The breeze came down fresher as they drove out through the Narrows.
Carroll had gone below; and, brushing his thoughts aside, Vane busied
himself hauling in some of the mainsheet, while the water splashed more
loudly beneath the bows. The great black firs rolled by in somber
masses over his port hand, and presently the last of the lights were
blotted out. He was alone, flitting swiftly and smoothly across the
glittering sea.