"Music Hath Charms--"
He left me at the wharf without a word. I went into the house, threw
off my dirty overalls and indulged in the luxury of a bath. Not a
salt-water apology for one,--a real, live, remove-the-dirt, soapy,
hot-water bath;--and it did me a world of good both mentally and bodily.
I dressed myself in clean, fresh linen, donned my breeches, a pair of
hand-knitted, old-country, heather hose and a pair of white canvas
shoes. I shaved and brushed my hair to what, in my college days, I had
considered its most elegant angle.
The remainder of the afternoon and evening was my own. I was just at
that agreeable stage of body-weariness where a book and a smoke seemed
angels from heaven. I had the books,--lots of them,--I had tobacco and
my pipe, I had a hammock to sling from the hooks on the front
veranda,--so, what care had I?
I chose a volume of "Macaulay's Essays" and, with a sigh,--the only
articulate sign of an unutterable content,--I stretched myself in the
hammock, blew clouds of smoke in the air and resigned myself to the
soothing influences.
I had lain thus for perhaps an hour, when a shadow intervened between
the page I was reading and the glare of the sun.
It was Miss Grant.
She had come by the back path and, in her noiseless rubber shoes, I had
not heard her.
I sprang out of the hammock, loosed the ring from the hook and threw
the canvas aside to make way for her.
She appeared a perfect picture of glorious loveliness and contagious
health. She did not speak for a moment, but her eyes took me in from
head to heel.
I felt confident in the knowledge that the figure I presented was
decidedly more pleasing than when last she had seen me.
I was glad, for I knew, even with my small acquaintance with the
opposite sex, that the woman is not alive who does not prefer to see a
man clean, tidy and neat.
I pushed the store doors open and followed her in.
Again, that bewitching little uplifting of the eyebrows; again the
alluring relaxation of her full lips; silent ways, apparently, of
expressing her pleasure. The appearance of my store, on this occasion,
met with her approval.
She laid aside her sunshade and handed me a long, neatly written list
of groceries which she required; not all, but most of which, I was able
to fill.
"Make up the bill,--please. I wish to pay it now. I shall not wait
until you make up the goods. If not too much trouble, would you----"
I was listening to the soft cadences of her voice, when she stopped.
She was leaning lightly with her elbow on the counter. I was on the
inner side, bending over my order book.
When her voice stopped, I felt that she was looking at the top of my
head. I raised my face suddenly and, to her, unexpectedly. For the
first time, I saw clearly into her eyes. My breath caught, as, like a
flash, I saw myself standing in the doorway of Modley Farm, along with
my old chum, Tom Tanner; his mother beside us, with her arms round our
shoulders; and I remembered the flippant conversation we had at that
time.
The young lady before me had eyes of a liquid, golden-brown, lighter in
colour than her hair, yet of wondrous depth and very attractive;
inexpressibly attractive.
I averted my gaze quickly, but not quickly enough for her to miss the
admiration I had so openly shown.
She picked up a tin from the counter and scanned the label.
"The delivery wagon is at your service, my lady," I put in lightly.
"Thank you!" she answered in relief.
I totted up the bill and handed it to her. "Eight dollars and
thirty-five cents," I said.
"Now, Mr. Bremner,--please add your charge for the conveying of my
piano, so that I may pay my debts altogether."
I gasped in amazement. I straightened myself indignantly, for the idea
of making a charge for that work had never entered my head. And I knew
Jake had never thought of such a thing either. It had been simply a
little neighbourly assistance.
The mention of payment annoyed me.
"There is no charge, Miss Grant," was all I could trust myself to say.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "Surely you must understand that it is
not my habit to engage men to work for me without payment!"
"We did not look upon it in the nature of ordinary work," I put in.
"It was a pleasure, and we did it as any neighbours would do a favour."
Her eyes closed a little angrily.
"I do not accept favours from men I am unacquainted with," she retorted
unreasonably. "How much do I owe,--please?"
"And I do not hire myself out, like a dock labourer or a mule, to any
one who cares to demand my services," I replied, in equally cold tones.
She stood in hesitation, then she stamped her rubber-soled foot
petulantly. "But I will not have it. I insist on paying for that
work."
I shook my head.
"If you wish to insult me, Miss Grant,--insist."
I could see that she was suffering from conflicting lines of reasoning.
Her haughtiness changed and her eyes softened.
"Mr. Bremner,--what do I owe for the work,--please?" she pleaded. "You
are a gentleman,--you cannot hide that from me."
Discovered! I said to myself.
"Surely you understand my position? Surely you do not wish to
embarrass me?"
Ah, well! I thought. If it will please her, so be it. And I'll make
it a stiff charge for spite.
"Thirty dollars!" I exclaimed, as if it had been three. "Our labour
was worth that much." I looked straight at her in a businesslike way.
It was her turn to gasp, but she recovered herself quickly.
"The cost of labour is, I presume, high, up here?" she commented.
"Yes!--very high,--sky-high! You see, I shall have to pay that old
Jew-rascal assistant of mine at least two and a half dollars for his
share, so that it will not leave very much for the master-mind that
engineered the project."
She turned her eyes on me to ascertain if I were funning or in earnest,
but my face betrayed nothing but the greatest seriousness.
She counted out her grocery money and I gave her a receipt. Then she
laid three ten dollar bills on the counter to pay for the piano moving.
"Thank you!" I said, as I walked round the counter to a little box
which was nailed on the wall near the door; a box which the Rev.
William Auld had put up with my permission on the occasion of his last
visit, a box which I never saw a logger pass without patronising if he
noticed it. On the outside, it bore the words:--"Sick Children's Aid."
I folded the notes and inserted them in the aperture on top.
Miss Grant watched me closely all the while.
When I got back behind the counter, she went over to the box and read
the label. She opened her purse, with calm deliberation, and poured
all it contained into her hand. She then inserted the coins, one by
one, in the opening of the box and, with honours still even, if not in
her favour, she sailed out of the store.
I was annoyed and chagrined at the turn of events, yet, when I came to
consider her side of the argument, I could not blame her altogether for
the stand she had taken.
I put up her order in no very pleasant frame of mind.
When I saw her and her chaperon row out from the wharf into the Bay, I
carried over the groceries, piecemeal, and placed them in a shady place
on their veranda. I then turned back to the house and prepared my
evening meal.
When the sun had gone down and darkness had crept over Golden Crescent,
I returned to my hammock and my reading, setting a small oil lamp on
the window ledge behind me. It was agreeably cool then and all was
peace and harmony.
From where I lay, I could cast my eyes over the land and seascapes now
and again. I commanded a good view of the house across the creek. The
kitchen lamp was alight there and I could see figures passing backward
and forward.
Suddenly an extra light travelled from the kitchen to the front parlour
and, soon after, a ripple of music floated on the evening air.
I listened. How I listened!--like a famished cougar at the sound of a
deer.
The music was sweet, delicious, full of fantastic melody. It was the
light, airy music of Sullivan; and not a halt, not even a falter did
the player make as she tripped and waltzed through the opera. One
picture after another rose before me and dissolved into still others,
as the old, haunting tunes caught my ears, floating from that open
window.
I could see the lady under the soft glow of the lamp, sitting at the
piano, smiling and all absorbed,--the light gleaming gold on her coils
of luxuriant hair.
After a time the mood of the pianist changed. She drifted into the
deeper, the more sombre, more impressive "Kamennoi-Ostrow" of
Rubinstein. She played it softly, so softly, yet so expressively
sadly, that I was drawn by its alluring to leave my veranda and cross
over the wooden bridge, in order to be nearer and to hear better.
Quietly, but quite openly, I took the path by the house, on to the edge
of the cliffs, where I could hear every note, every shade of
expression; where I could follow the story:--the Russian setting, the
summer evening, the beautiful lady, the pealing of the bells calling
the worshippers to the chapel for midnight mass; the whispered
conversations, the organ in solemn chant, the priests intoning the
service, the farewell, and, lastly, the lingering chords of the organ
fading into the deep silence of slumber.
Just as I was about to sit down, I descried the solitary, shadowy
outline of a figure seated a few yards away.
It was Jake,--poor, old, lonely, battle-scarred Jake. His head was in
his hands and he was gazing out to sea as if he were dreaming.
I walked over to him and sat by his side. His blue eyes were filled
with tears, tears that had not dimmed his eyes for years and years;
tears in the eyes of that old Klondike tough, calloused by privation
and leather-hided by hard drinking; tears, and at music which he did
not understand any more than that it was something outside of his body
altogether, outside of the material world, something that spoke only to
the soul of him.
I did not speak,--I dared not speak, for the moment was too sacred.
So we two sat thus, knowing of each other's presence, yet ignoring it,
and listening, all absorbed, entranced, almost hypnotised by the
subtleties of the most charming of all gifts, the perfect
interpretation of a work of art.
We listened on and on,--after the chilly night wind had come up from
the sea, for we did not know of its coming until the music ceased and
the light faded away from the parlour of the house behind us.
"Gee!" exclaimed Jake at last, spitting his mouthful of tobacco over
into the water and wiping his eyes with his coat sleeve, "but that dope
pulls a gink's socks off,--you bet.
"Guess, if a no-gooder like me had of heard that stuff oftener when he
was a kid, he wouldn't be such a no-gooder;--eh! George."
I followed Jake to his boat and, somewhere out of the darkness, Mike
the dog appeared and tailed off behind us.
I accompanied the old fellow to his shack, for this love of music in
him was a new phase of his temperament to me and somehow my heart went
out to him in his loneliness, in his apparent heart-hunger for
something he could hardly hope to find.
We talked together for a long time, and as we talked I noticed that
Jake made no effort to start his usual drinking bout, although Mike the
dog reminded him of his neglect as plainly as dog could, by tugging at
his trousers and going over to the whisky keg and whimpering.
This sudden temperance in Jake surprised me more than a little.
I noticed also that the brass-bound chest still lay under Jake's bunk.
Several times I had been going to speak to him about that trunk and its
contents, and the questionable security of a shack like his, but I had
always evaded the subject at the last minute as being one in which I
was not concerned.
But that night everything was different somehow.
"Look here, Jake," I said, in one of the quiet spells, "don't you think
this old shack of yours isn't a very safe place to keep your money in?"
"How do you mean?" he asked suspiciously.
"There are lots of strange boats put in here of a night; some of them
containing beach-combers who do not care who they rob or what they do
so long as they get a haul. Besides, the loggers are not all angels
and they generally pay you a visit every time they come in. Some of
the worst of them might get wind that you keep all your savings here
and might take a fancy to some of it."
"Guess all I got wouldn't pay the cost of panning," grunted Jake.
"They ain't goin' to butt in on me. Anyway,--I got a pair of good mits
left yet."
"Yes!--that is all right, Jake, but nowadays a man does not require to
run the risk. The banks are ready and willing to take that
responsibility, and to pay for the privilege, too. The few dollars I
have are safely banked in Vancouver."
"Banks be damned!" growled Jake. "I ain't got no faith in banks,--no
siree. First stake I made went into a bank, Goodall-Towser Trust Co.
of 'Frisco. 'Four per cent interest guaranteed,' it said on the front
of the bank book they gave me. That book was all they ever gave me;
all I ever saw of my five thousand bucks. I thought because it said
'Trust' on the window, it was right as rain. I ain't trustin' 'Trust'
any more.
"I raised Cain in that Trust outfit. Started shootin' up. Didn't kill
anything, but got three months in the coop. Lost my five thousand
plunks and got three months in the pen, all because I put my dough in
the bank.
"Banks be damned, George. Not for mine,--no siree."
Jake puffed his pipe reflectively, after his long tirade.
"That's all very well, but there are good banks nowadays and good Trust
Companies, too, although I prefer regular chartered banks every time.
Those banks are practically guaranteed by the country and the
wealthiest men in Canada use them. Why!--Mr. Horsfal has thousands in
the Commercial Bank of Canada now. Here is the bank book,--see for
yourself! I send in a deposit every week for him."
Jake was impressed, but not unduly. He suddenly switched.
"Say, George,--who told you I had any dough?"
"Oh! I knew you had, Jake. Everybody in Golden Crescent knows. But,
to be honest, the minister told me,--in the hope that I would be able
to induce you to place it in safety somewhere."
Jake became confident, a most unusual condition for him.
"Well, George,--I can trust you,--you're straight. I got something
near ten thousand bucks in that brass chest. I don't need it, but
still I ain't givin' it away. I had to grub damned hard to get it.
It's kind o' good to know you ain't ever likely to be a candidate for
some Old Men's Home."
"It is indeed," I replied, "and I admire you for having saved so much.
But won't you put it into the bank, where it is absolutely safe for
you? It is a positive temptation to some men, lying around here.
"The bank will give you a receipt for the money; you can draw on it
when you wish and it will be earning three per cent or three hundred
dollars a year for you all the time it is there."
He pondered for a while, then he dismissed the subject.
"No! Guess I'll keep it by me. No more banks for mine. I ain't so
strong as I used to be and I guess three months in the coop would just
about make me cash in. I ain't takin' no more chances."
Jake's method of reasoning was amusing. After all, it was no affair of
mine and, now that I had unburdened myself, I felt conscience clear.
As I rose to leave, he started to talk again.
"George,--guess you'll think I'm batty,--but I'm goin' to cut out the
booze."
"You are!" I exclaimed in astonishment.
"Ya! Guess maybe you think I'll make a hell of a saint, but I ain't
goin' to try to be no saint; just goin' to cut out the booze, that's
all."
"What has given you this notion?" I could not help inquiring.
"Oh! maybe one thing, maybe another. Anyhow, I ain't had a lick
to-night. My stomach's on fire and my head's givin' me Hail Columbia,
but--I ain't had a drink to-night."
"Go easy with it, Jake," I cautioned. "You know a hard drinker like
you have been can't stop all at once without hurting himself."
"I can. You just watch me," he said with determination.
"Well, then,--I think the best thing you can do in these circumstances
is to take that keg in the corner there, roll it outside, pull out the
stop-cock and pour the contents on to the beach."
"No! I ain't spoilin' any booze,--George. If I can't stop it because
a keg of whisky is sittin' under my nose, then I can't stop boozin'
nohow. And, if I can't stop boozin' nohow, what's the good of throwin'
away the good booze I already got, when I'd just have to order another
keg and maybe have to go thirsty waitin' for it to come up."
"All right, old man," I laughed, slapping him between the shoulders,
"please yourself and good luck to your attempt, anyway."
"Say!--George."
"Yes!"
"You won't say anything about this to the young lady that plays the
pianner? Because, you see, I might fall down."
"I won't say a word, Jake."
"And--not to Rita, neither?" he asked plaintively, "because Rita's
about the only gal cares two straws for me. She comes often when
nobody knows about it. She brings cake and pie, and swell cooked meat
sometimes. When I find anything on the table,--I know Rita's been.
I've knowed Rita since she was a baby and I've always knowed her for a
good gal."
"Well, Jake;--I will keep your secret as if I had never heard it. But
don't allow that drunken chum of yours, Mike, to lead you astray."
"Guess nit! Mike's got to sign the pledge same's me," he laughed in
his guttural way.
I stood at the door. "And you are not going to put that money of yours
in the bank, Jake?"
He spat on the ground.
"To hell with banks," he grunted and turned inside.