THE FOG
During the next two days before a moderate gale the _Scarrowmania_
shouldered her way westwards through the big, white-topped combers that
rolled down upon her under a lowering sky. There were no luxurious,
steam-propelled hotels in the Canadian trade at this time, and loaded
deep with railway metal as she was, the vessel slopped in the green seas
everywhere, and rolled her streaming sides out almost to her bilge. She
shivered and rattled horribly when her single screw swung clear and the
tri-compound engines ran away.
Wyllard went down to the steerage every now and then, and Agatha, who
contrived to keep on her feet, not infrequently accompanied him. She was
glad of his society, for Mrs. Hastings was seldom in evidence, and no
efforts could get Miss Rawlinson out of her berth. The gale blew itself
out at length, and the evening after it moderated Agatha was sitting
near the head of one fiddle-guarded table in the saloon waiting for
dinner, which the stewards had still some difficulty in bringing in.
Wyllard's place was next to hers, but he had not appeared, nor had the
skipper, who, however, did not invariably dine with the passengers. One
of the two doors which led from the foot of the branching companion
stairway into either side of the saloon stood open, and presently she
saw Wyllard standing just outside it.
He beckoned to the doctor, who sat at the foot of her table, and the
physician merely raised his brows a trifle. He was a rather consequential
person, and it was evident to the girl that he resented being summoned by
a gesture. She did not think anybody else had noticed Wyllard, and she
waited with some curiosity to see what he would do. He made a sign with a
lifted hand, and she felt that the doctor would obey it, as, in fact, he
did, though his manner was very far from conciliatory. By dint of
listening closely, she could hear their conversation.
"I'm sorry to trouble you just now," apologized Wyllard, "and I didn't
come in because that would have set everybody wondering what you were
wanted for; but one of those boys forward has been thrown down the
ladder, and has cut his head."
"Ah!" said the doctor. "I'll see to him--after dinner."
"It's a nasty cut," declared Wyllard. "He's losing a good deal of
blood."
"Then I would suggest that you apply to my assistant."
"As I don't know where he is, I have come to you."
The doctor made a sign of impatience. "Well," he said "you have told me,
which I think is as far as your concern in the matter goes. I may add
that I'm not accustomed to dictation on behalf of a steerage passenger."
Agatha saw Wyllard slip between the doctor and the entrance to the
saloon, but she saw also the skipper appear a few paces behind them, and
glance at them sharply. He was usually a silent man, at home in the ice
and the clammy fog, but not a great acquisition in the saloon.
"Something wrong down forward, Mr. Wyllard? They were making a great row
a little while ago," the skipper said.
"Nothing very serious," Wyllard answered. "One of the boys has cut his
head."
The skipper turned towards the doctor and Agatha guessed that he had
overheard part of the conversation. "Don't you think you had better
go--at once?" suggested the skipper.
The doctor evidently did, for he disappeared; and Wyllard, who entered
the saloon with the skipper, sat down at Agatha's side.
"How do you do it?" she asked.
"What?" returned Wyllard, beginning his dinner.
"We'll say persuade other folks to see things as you do."
"You evidently mean the skipper, and I suppose you heard something of
what was going on. In this case, I'm indebted to his prejudices. He's
one of the old type--a seaman first of all--and what we call bluff, and
you call bounce, has only one effect upon men of his kind. It gets their
backs up."
Agatha thought that he did not like it, either, but she changed the
subject.
"There really was a row forward," she said. "What was the trouble over?
You were, no doubt, somewhere near the scene of it."
Wyllard laughed. "I sat upon the steerage ladder, and am afraid I
cheered the combatants on. It was really a glorious row. They hammered
each other with tin plates, and some of them tried to use hoop-iron
knives, which fortunately doubled up. They broke quite a few of the
benches, and wrecked the mess table, but so far as I noticed the only
one seriously hurt was a little chap who was quietly looking on."
"And you encouraged them?"
"I certainly did. It was a protest against dirt, disorder, and the
slothfulness that's a plague to the community. Isn't physical force
warranted when there's no other remedy?"
A gray-haired Canadian looked up. "Yes," he agreed, "I guess it is. The
first man who pulled his gun in British Columbia was hanged right away,
and they've scarcely had to make an example of another since then,
though it was quite a while ago."
He paused, and smiled approvingly. "A mess of any kind worries us, and
we don't take long to straighten it out. Same feeling's in the Germans
and Scandinavians. I'll say that for them, any way. Your friends swept
up the steerage?"
"They took the Slavs and Jews, and pitched them down the second hatch on
to the orlop deck. Things will go smoothly now our crowd is on top."
"Your crowd?" said Agatha.
The Canadian nodded. "That's what he meant," he said. "There are two
kinds of folks you and the rest of them are dumping into Canada. One's
the kind that will get up and hustle, break land, and build new
homes--log at first, frame and stone afterwards. They go on from a
quarter-section and a team of oxen to the biggest farm they can handle,
and every fresh furrow they cut enriches all of us. The other kind want
to sit down in the dirt and take life easily, as they've always done.
The dirt worries everybody else, and we've no use for them. By and by
our Legislature will have to wake up and stop them from getting in."
He went on with his dinner, but his observations left Agatha thoughtful.
She was beginning to understand one side of Wyllard's character. He, it
seemed, stood for practical efficiency. There was a driving force in him
that made for progress and order. It was apparently his mission to
straighten things out. Some persons of his kind, she reflected, now and
then made a good deal of avoidable trouble; but there was in this man,
at least, a half-whimsical toleration, which rendered that an unlikely
thing in his particular case. Besides, she had already recognized that
she was in some respects fortunate in having such a man for her
companion.
Her deck chair was always set out in the most sheltered and comfortable
place. If there was anything to be seen he almost invariably appeared
with a pair of powerful glasses. She was watched over, her wishes were
anticipated, and the man was seldom obtrusively present when she felt
disposed to talk to somebody else. It struck her that she had thought a
great deal about him during the last few days, and rather less than
usual about Gregory, which was partly the reason she did not walk up and
down the deck with him, as usual, after dinner that evening.
Three or four days later, the _Scarrowmania_ ran into the Bank fog, and
burrowed through it with whistle hooting dolefully at regular intervals.
Now and then an answering ringing of bells came out of the clammy vapor,
and the half-seen shape of an anchored schooner loomed up, rolling
wildly on gray slopes of sea. Once, too, a tiny dory, half filled with
lines and buoys, slid by plunging on the wash flung off by the
_Scarrowmania's_ bows, and Agatha understood that the men in her had
escaped death by a hairsbreadth. They were cod fishers, Wyllard told
her, and he added that there was a host of them at work somewhere in the
sliding haze. She imagined, now and then, that the fog had a depressing
effect on him, and that when the dory lay beneath the rail there had
been an unusual look in his face.
A breeze came out of the northwest, with the sting of the ice in it, but
the fog did not lift, and the _Scarrowmania_ plunged on through it with
spray-wet decks and the gray seas smashing about her bows. It was
bitterly cold and the raw wind pierced to the bone, but the voyage was
rapidly shortening.
One evening Agatha paced the deck with Wyllard. The girl was in a
strangely unsettled mood. Perhaps it was merely the gloom of the sea and
sky reacting upon her that caused her to look forward to the landing
with a certain half-conscious shrinking. They stopped by the rails
presently, looking out upon the tumbling seas that, tipped with livid
froth, rolled out of the sliding haze, and the dreariness of the
surroundings intensified the girl's depression. There was something
unpleasantly suggestive in the sight of the fog that hid everything, for
Agatha had been troubled with a half-apprehensive longing to see what
lay before her. She noticed the lookout, a lonely, shapeless figure,
standing amid the spray that whirled about the plunging bows. By and by
she saw him turn and wave an arm toward the bridge behind her, and she
heard a hoarse cry. What it meant she could not tell, but in another
moment the _Scarrowmania's_ whistle shrieked.
A gray shape burst out of the vapor and grew with astonishing swiftness
into dim tiers of slanted sailcloth swaying above a strip of hull that
moved amid a broad white smear of foam. It was a brig under fore-course
and topsails, and as the girl watched the vessel it sank to the tilted
bowsprit, and a big gray and white sea foamed about the bows.
"Aren't we dreadfully near?" she asked.
Wyllard did not answer. He was gazing up at the bridge, and once more
the whistle gave a warning blast. It seemed that the two vessels could
hardly pass clear of each other.
Wyllard laid a hand upon Agatha's shoulder.
"The skipper's starboarding. We'll go around to the stern," he said.
His grasp was reassuring, and Agatha watched the straining curves of
canvas and the line of half-submerged hull. The brig rose with streaming
bows, swung high above the sea, sank again, and vanished with
bewildering suddenness into a belt of driving fog.
Agatha was not sure that there had been any peril, but it was certainly
past now, and she was rather puzzled by her sensations when Wyllard had
held her shoulder. For one thing, she had felt instinctively that she
was safe with him. She decided not to trouble herself about the reason
for this, and presently she looked up at him. The expression that she
had noticed now and then was once more in his face.
"I don't think you like the fog any more than I do," she said.
"No," responded Wyllard, with a quiet forcefulness that startled her. "I
hate it."
"Why?"
"It recalls something that still gives me a very bad few minutes every
once in a while. It has been worrying me again to-night."
"I wonder," said Agatha simply, "if you would care to tell me?"
The man looked down on her. "I haven't told it often, but you shall
hear," he replied. "It's a tale of a black failure." He stretched out a
hand and pointed to the ranks of tumbling seas. "It was very much this
kind of night, and we were lying, reefed down, off one of the Russians'
beaches, when I asked for volunteers. I got them--two boats' crews of
the finest seamen that ever handled oar or sealing rifle."
"But what did you want them for?"
"A boat from another schooner had been cast ashore. It was blowing hard,
as it usually does where the Polar ice comes down into the Behring Sea.
They'd been shooting seals. We meant to bring the men off if we could
manage it."
"Wouldn't one boat have been enough?"
"No," answered Wyllard dryly, "we had three, and I think that was one
cause of the trouble. There was one from the other schooner. You see,
those seals belonged to the Russians, and we free-lances could shoot
them only off shore. I'm not sure that the men in the wrecked boat had
been fishing outside the limit."
Agatha did not press for further particulars, and he went on.
"We managed to make a landing, though one boat went up bottom uppermost.
I fancy they must have broken or lost an oar then. We got the wrecked
men, but we had trouble while we were getting the boats off again. The
surf was running in savagely, and the fog shut down as solid as a wall.
Any way, we pulled off, and went out with a foot of water in one boat.
One of the rescued men took my oar when I let it go."
"Why did you let it go?"
Wyllard laughed in a grim fashion.
"My head was laid open with a sealing club," he said. "Some of the other
men had their scratches, but they managed to row. For one thing, they
knew they had to. They had reasons for not wanting to fall into the
Russians' hands. Well, we cleared the beach, and once or twice, as I
tried to bale, there was a shout somewhere near us, and the loom of a
vanishing boat. It was all we could make out, for the sea was slopping
into the boat, and the spray was flying everywhere. If there had been
only two boats we probably would have found out our misfortune, and
perhaps would have set it straight. As it was, we couldn't tell that it
was the same boat that had hailed us."
He broke off for a moment, and then added quietly:
"Two boats reached the schooners. There was a nasty sea running then,
and it blew viciously hard next day. There were three men in the other."
"Ah!" cried Agatha, "they were drowned?"
Wyllard made a forceful gesture. "I'm not quite sure. That's the
trouble. At least, the boat was nowhere on the beach next day, and it's
difficult to see how the men could have faced the sea that piled up when
the gale came down. In all probability, they had an oar short, and the
boat rolled them out when a comber broke upon her in the darkness." The
girl saw him close one hand tight as he added, "If one only knew!"
"What would have befallen them if they had reached shore?"
"It's difficult to say. They could have been handed over to the Russian
authorities. Still, sealers poaching up there have simply disappeared."
He stopped again, and glanced out at the gathering darkness. "Now," he
concluded, "you see why I hate the fog."
"But you couldn't help it," said Agatha.
"Well," answered Wyllard, "I asked for volunteers, and the money that is
now mine came out of those schooners. It's just possible those men are
living still--somewhere in Northern Asia. I only know that they
disappeared."
He abruptly began to talk of something else, and by and by Agatha went
down to the saloon, where Miss Rawlinson, who had not been much in
evidence during the voyage, presently made her appearance.
"Aren't you going into the music-room to play for Mr. Wyllard--as
usual?" she inquired.
Agatha was disconcerted. She had fallen into the habit of spending half
an hour or longer in the little music-room every evening, with Wyllard
standing near the piano; but now her friend's question seemed to place a
significance upon the fact.
"No," she replied, "I don't think I am."
"Then the rest of them will wonder whether you have fallen out with
him."
"Fallen out with him?"
Winifred laughed. "They've naturally been watching both of you, and, in
a general way, there's only one decision they could have arrived at."
Agatha flushed a little, but Winifred went on.
"I don't mind admitting that if a man of that kind was to fall in love
with me, I'd black his boots for him," she said. She added, with a
rueful gesture, "Still, it's most unlikely."
Agatha looked at her with a little glint in her eyes.
"He is merely Gregory's deputy," she said, with a subconscious feeling
that the word "deputy" was not a fortunate one. "In that connection, I
should like to point out that you can estimate a man's character by that
of his friends."
"Oh," rejoined Winifred, "then if Mr. Wyllard's strong points merely
heighten Gregory's virtues, I've nothing more to say. Any way, I'll
reserve my homage until I've seen Gregory. Perfection among men is
scarce nowadays."
She turned away, and left Agatha thoughtful. In the meanwhile, Mrs.
Hastings came upon Wyllard alone in the music-room.
"You look quite serious," she remarked.
"I've been thinking about Miss Ismay and Gregory," Wyllard replied. "In
fact, I feel a little anxious about them."
"In what way?"
"Without making any reflections upon Gregory, I somewhat feel sorry for
the girl."
Mrs. Hastings nodded. "As a matter of fact, that's very much what I felt
from the first," she admitted. "Still, you see, there's the important
fact that she's fond of him, and it should smooth out a good many
difficulties. Anyway, she's evidently rather a courageous person."
Wyllard sat silent a moment or two. "I wasn't troubling about the
material difficulties--lack of wealth and all that," he said. "I was
wondering if she really could be fond of him. It is some years since she
was much in his company."
"Hawtrey is not a man to change."
"That," returned Wyllard, "is just the trouble. I've no doubt he's much
the same, but one could fancy that Miss Ismay has changed a good deal
since she last saw him. She'll look for considerably more than she was
probably content with then."
"In any case, it isn't your affair." Mrs. Hastings smiled significantly.
"In one sense it certainly isn't; but I can't help feeling a little
troubled about the thing. You see, Gregory is quite an old friend."
"And the girl is going to marry him," said Mrs. Hastings, raising her
eyebrows.
Wyllard rose. "That reminder," he said, "is quite uncalled for. I would
like to assure you of it."
He went out, and Mrs. Hastings sat still in a reflective mood.
"If she begins to compare him with Hawtrey, there can be only one
result," she said.
The fog had almost gone next morning, and pale sunshine streamed down
upon a a froth-flecked sea. A bitter wind, however, still came out of
the hazy north, and the _Scarrowmania's_ plates were crusted with ice
where the highest crests of the tumbling seas reached them. The spray
froze, and the decks grew slippery. When darkness came, nobody but the
seamen faced the stinging cold. Agatha felt the engines stop late that
night, and when she went out next morning the decks were white, and she
could see dim ghosts of sliding pines through a haze of falling snow
that became bewilderingly thick at times, but the steamer slid on
through it with whistle hooting. At last toward sunset the snow cleared
away and Agatha stood shivering under a deck-house. She looked about her
with a curiously heavy heart.
A gray haze stretched across the great river, which was dim and gray,
and odd wisps of pines rose raggedly beneath the white hills that cut
against a gloomy, lowering sky. Deck-house, boat, and stanchion dripped,
and every now and then the silence was broken by a doleful blast of the
whistle. Nothing moved on the still, gray water, there was no sign of
life ashore, and they seemed to be steaming into a great desolation.
Presently, Wyllard appeared from somewhere, and, after a glance at her
face, slipped his hand beneath her arm, and led her down to the lighted
saloon. There her heart grew a little lighter. Once more she was
conscious of the feeling that she was safe with him.