THE EXCEPTION.
The _Hermione_ lay at the head of that small branch of the sea called
the Heimdalfjord. This long and narrow inlet is an insignificant
branch of a greater fjord where steamers ply their irregular traffic;
where British tourists gaze up with weary eyes at the towering rocks
and bleak cliffs; and where, during the long silent twilight winter,
the winds howl and roar round the bare crags. On either side of the
Heimdalfjord the gray hopeless cliffs rose a sheer two thousand feet,
while the blue deep water lapped their base with scarce a ripple.
The fjord lay between the mighty barriers with a solemn sense of
profundity in the stillness of its bosom. One could almost picture
to one's self the continuation of the steep incline into a great dark
valley beneath the superficial ripple, where mighty marine growths
reared their brown branches up towards the dim light, never swaying
to the ocean swell--where strange northern fishes and slow crawling
things lived on unknown, unclassified.
Amid such surroundings, upon the face of so large a nature, the
_Hermione_ looked incongruous. Her clean long spars, her white
awning, the yellow gleam of her copper beneath the clear water, all
suggested another world where comfort and small refinement live.
Here all is of a rougher, larger stamp. Here man and his petty
tastes are as nothing. The bleak and dismal mountains were not
created for his habitation, for nothing grows there, and human
ingenuity, human enterprise, can do naught with such stony chaos.
On the entire Heimdalfjord there are but two boats--mere pinewood
craft heavily tarred. One is owned by Hans Olsen, who lives far away
at the point where the Sognfjord begins, and the other belongs to
Christian Nielsen, who farms the two acres of poor soil at the head
of the Heimdalfjord. No steamer has ever churned the still waters;
few yachts have ventured up to the head of the inlet, where there is
no attraction to the sightseer. But Nielsen looked every year for
the white sails of the _Hermione_, and with native conscientiousness
refrained from netting the river that ran past his brown log-hut.
The river brought him in more money than his farm, and even at this
out-of-the-world corner of the Heimdalfjord money and the lust of it
are the chief movers of men's hearts. Five hundred crowns a year was
a sum worth thinking about, worth depriving one's self of a little
salmon for, which, after all, was plentiful enough when once the
_Hermione_ had cast anchor.
Four miles down the fjord there was another break in the great wall
of mountains, and a second river danced gaily down its narrow barren
valley to the sea. From this river-mouth a small boat was now making
its way under sail up the fjord. A tiny speck of white was all the
girl could distinguish from the deck of the yacht, and she stood
silently watching its approach until the form of the sailor sitting
low in the bow of the small brown craft was discernible.
The sun had set some time before, so that the water was in shadow,
deep and blue; but up on the hills and away to the south upon the
distant snow-clad mountains a warm pink glow lay hazily. Deep purple
vales of shade broke the line of cliffs abutting the water here and
there. Where the hills closed together, five miles away (so that the
fjord appeared to be a lake), there was a rich background of blue
transparency through which the broken crags loomed vaguely. It was
nearly nine o'clock, and this clear twilight was all the darkness
that would come to the Heimdal that July night.
The breeze held its own bravely against the soporific influence of
Arctic sunset, and with full taut sail the dinghy splashed and
gurgled through the waters. The steersman was invisible by reason of
the reefless sail, but his handiwork was apparent and very good. A
wonderfully straight course had he steered from the mouth of the
river, such a course as a purposeful man will steer when he is
without companion beyond his own thoughts.
'He's driving her along!' muttered the steward, as he stood for a
moment at the galley-door.
'The driving is like unto the driving of Jehu,' answered old Captain
Barrow, who was smoking his evening pipe upon his own small piece of
deck between the galley and the after-companion.
Captain Barrow rarely missed an opportunity of throwing at the head
of the steward, who (like most good cooks) was a godless person, a
Biblical quotation more or less correct.
Before the silence had again been broken the dinghy came rushing on.
Down went the tiller, and with shivering canvas the little boat swung
round alongside.
Beside the after-rail Brenda stood motionless; her eyes were resting
on the dreary, lifeless scene which was nothing but a still blending
of hazy blues now that the small white sail no longer gave life to
it. She did not even turn when the sound of wet splashy footsteps
upon the deck came to her ears. The newcomer had kicked off his
brogues amidships, and was coming aft in wet waders and soaking outer
socks, out of respect for the _Hermione's_ deck.
There was a vague suggestion of respectful familiarity in his
movements. One could tell instinctively that he had known these
ladies for many years. Nor did he apologize for the informality of
his pedal attire.
This man was clad _du reste_ disgracefully. His old tweed coat was
baggy and most lamentably worn. One sleeve was very wet, while the
other was muddy. The gray waders were discoloured, and he had
apparently been kneeling in green slime. And yet withal Theo Trist
was undoubtedly a gentleman--unmistakably, undeniably so. The manner
in which he set his shoeless feet upon the deck betrayed it. His
very silence confirmed it.
He came beneath the awning, and raised from his close-cropped head a
most lamentable hat of gray cloth, with a vague brim and no
independent shape. All round it were gaudy salmon-flies and a coil
of gleaming gut.
As he stood there beneath the awning in the gray twilight with his
head bared, the strange incongruity of his person was very
noticeable. A sturdy, lightly-built body spoke of great activity.
It was the frame of a soldier. But the face was of a different type.
In itself it was inconsistent, because the upper part of it had no
sympathy with the lower. A forehead which receded slightly in a
kindly curve to strong curled hair could only be described as bland,
while beneath straight thick brows there smiled a pair of gray eyes
as meek as human eyes were ever made. It was in these same meek eyes
that all the world misread this man. In brow and eyes he was a
soft-hearted philanthropist, such as are easily misled and gulled
with exaggerated tales of woe. A man to take up some impossible
scheme to alleviate the sorrows of a class or kind, to busy himself
unprofitably in a crusade against class privileges and uphold the
so-called rights of a victimized working population. But from the
eyes downwards this was all lost, and there were other signs instead.
The nose was straight and somewhat small, while the lips, though
clean-shaven, were entirely devoid of any suggestion of coarseness,
such as one may read upon the mouths of most men past the age of
twenty-five, unless a moustache charitably hide such failing. The
mouth was almost too severe in its clean curve; in repose it was
Napoleonic, in gaiety it lost all hardness. The chin, again, was
square and slightly prominent. To judge from nose and lips and chin,
this new-comer had been intended for a soldier, but the meek eyes
disturbed this theory.
His face was brown, of a complexion which by reason of its
unchangeableness never betrayed thought, emotion, or physical pain.
That his life had been chiefly spent in the open air was discernible
from his bearing and appearance, yet his manner (more especially with
ladies) was that of a polished courtier. Judging from outward
things, one could not help feeling that Theodore Trist was an
exceptional man in some way or other, in sport or work, in deed or
thought. His broad pensive brow would seem to indicate a literary or
poetic tendency, while the meek eyes spoke of a great love for Nature
and her unfathomable ways. The man might easily have been a
naturalist or a vague day-dreamer, dabbling in the writer's art.
Certain it was that he could only be a specialist of some
description. No universality could exist behind those gentle eyes.
Certain also, it would seem, that he trod in the paths of peace
where'er he went. His gentle movements, his calm soft speech, were
almost womanlike. But then these indications ran full tilt against
the soldierly frame and the still hard lips. The most discerning
physiognomist would not have dared to say that those gentle eyes had
looked upon more bloodshed, than any warrior of the day; that the
brown ears had been torn by more human shrieks of utter agony than
any army-surgeon has ever listened to. This man of peace was the
finest, ablest, truest chronicler of a battle that ever scribbled
notes amidst the battle smoke. Few of us find the exact groove for
which we were created, and Trist was no more fortunate than the rest.
Many a good soldier has spent his life in the counting-house, while
there are numbers wearing a red coat to-day whose place is in the
pulpit. Theodore Trist was a born soldier, if ever man was born with
military genius in his soul. Had his natural turn of intellect been
in any other direction, he could, in later life, have followed it,
but the British army is constructed upon a system which forces a
child to grasp the sword (metaphorically, if not in deed) before his
fingers have learnt the shape of hilt, or pen, or brush.
Consequently, our forces are officered by a fine stalwart body of
gentlemen, who are, some of them, parsons--some artists, some
farmers, some sailors, some soldiers--and a good many mere idlers.
This is no cheap sarcasm, nor is it the ready complaint of the
British universalist, who writes on the least provocation to the
newspapers, upon subjects of which his knowledge is culled from other
newspapers. I am not finding fault, nor would I suggest off-hand a
complete scheme for reorganizing what I have always been taught to
consider the finest military force in the world. It is merely an
observation, made with the view of rendering obvious the reason why
Theodore Trist was not a soldier. He found out his groove too late
in life, _voilà tout_. Moreover, he found that it was like the queue
at the pit-door of a French theatre. One cannot enter in the middle,
and it is of little use taking the last place if the door be open,
and others crowding on in front.
Far from this humble pen be it to libel the gentlemen who have
professed themselves ready to lay down their lives for the rights of
their country. They are good soldiers, brave men, and what is
tersely called upon the Continent hardy companions; but sometimes I
have found inside a red-coat a parson, an artist, a farmer or a
sailor. Whatever dreams may have flitted through the boy's head, the
man Theo Trist never spoke of his unfortunate mistake. It would be
better termed a mishap, because he made no choice of the Church, but
was urged into it by a zealous and short-sighted mother. He did not,
however, reach ordination. Before that final step was taken his
mother died, and all Europe stood hushed in the presence of a mighty
war impending. The war-clouds rolled up and gathered force. Men
spoke in lowered voices of the future; women trembled and concealed
the newspapers from their children. A dread thirst for blood seemed
to parch the throats of soldiers, and statesmen hesitated upon the
brink of a terrible responsibility. Commerce was hindered, and
sailors went to sea with uneasy hearts. Then arose in the soul of
Theo Trist--the Oxford undergraduate--a strange, burning unrest. As
a dog raises his head with quick glance and parted fangs at the
approach of game, so leapt this man's heart in his breast. But no
one knew of this: his benevolent brow and gentle eyes misled them all.
When at last the quick defiance was hurled from one nation to
another, Theodore Trist disappeared. The sound of battle drew him
away from peaceful England to that fair country by the Rhine where
blood has been sucked into the fertile earth to grow again into
deadly hatred. The din and roar and fury of battle was this
mild-eyed man's element. The sulphureous smoke of cannon was the
breath of life to him. His walk was upon the sodden, slippery field
of blood. And yet through it all there went the strange incongruity
of his being. In the wild joy of fighting (which carries men out
from themselves and transforms them into new strange beings), Trist
never lost his gentle demeanour. The plucky Frenchmen, with whom he
spent that terrible winter, laughed at him, but one and all ended
their merriment with upraised finger and grave, assuring eyes.
'Mais,' they said compensatingly, 'd'un courage...' and the sentence
finished up with a shrug and outspread hands, indicating that the
courage of 'ce drôle Trist' was practically without bounds.
And yet he did not actually fight with sword and rifle. The pen was
his arm and weapon. In two languages he wrote through all that
campaign the brave record of a losing fight. While endeavouring to
give a somewhat unchivalrous enemy his due, he made no denial of
partisanship. The ease and fluency with which he expressed himself
in French excluded all hope of that, and Trist frankly arrayed
himself on the side of the losing nation. Finally, he occupied with
perfect serenity the anomalous position of a non-combatant who ran a
soldier's risk--a neutral totally unprotected, and unrecognised as
such--an English war-correspondent who, of his own free will, refused
to lay himself under the obligations entailed by protection.
Thus this half-fledged parson feathered his wings. Destined to
preach peace, he suddenly turned and taught war. In two countries
simultaneously he made a brilliant name, proving that if he could not
fight, because the possession of a fighting soul had become known to
him too late in life, he could at least watch others battling as no
man of his age could watch.
When at length Paris had fallen, an emaciated, pale-faced Englishman
turned his back upon the demoralized capital and sought his native
land. His groove in life had been found. Theodore Trist was a born
chronicler of battle-fields, a subtle strategist, a lost general--in
three words, an ideal war-correspondent. His great knowledge of his
subject, his instinctive divination of men's motives, and his
exceptional good-breeding, saved him from the many pitfalls that
usually lie concealed in the path of all who follow an army-corps
without occupying a post therein. He was never in the way, never
indiscreet, never inquisitive, and, above all, never
self-opinionated. He watched war as a lover of war, not as a
self-constituted representative of a hypercritical nation. The
spirit of competition did not with him override the sense of
patriotism, simply because such a spirit in no wise affected him. He
went his own way, and struck out a line of his own, never seeking to
be before his compeers with news or guesses. Consequently his
position was unique--midway between a war-correspondent and a warlike
historian, for his writings on the battle-field were nothing less
than history.
So Trist returned to England and found himself famous. Upon every
bookstall in the kingdom he found a small red volume of his letters
collected from the columns of the journal he had represented during
the great unfinished war.
In the course of a few days he called upon his various friends--Mrs.
Wylie among the first, Alice and Brenda Gilholme, at the residence of
their aunt, Mrs. Gilholme, shortly afterwards. It was about this
time that Brenda conceived the idea that Theo Trist loved her sister.
He was only one among many, but he was different from the rest, and
the young girl, for the first time, blamed her sister seriously. She
kept these things in her heart, however, and said nothing, because
there was nothing tangible; nothing to authorize her speaking to
Alice. If Trist had fallen a victim to the fascinations of the
light-hearted coquette, he certainly concealed his feelings most
jealously.
Brenda fully recognised that the fact of his being less
light-hearted, less cheerful than of old, might easily be accounted
for by the horrors through which he had passed during the late
months; but there was something else. There was another change which
had come over him since his return.
While she was still watching and wondering, Theo Trist suddenly
vanished, and soon afterwards there broke out a small war in the Far
East. Like a vulture he had scented blood, and was on the spot by
the time that the news of hostilities had reached England. He never
wrote private letters, but his work in the new field of battle was
closely watched by the small circle of friends at home. As usual,
his letters attracted attention, and people talked vaguely of this
wonderful war-correspondent--vaguely because he was personally
unknown. His individuality was nothing to the warlike host of men
who follow events quietly at home with a half-defined thrill of envy
in their hearts--for every Englishman has a secret love of war, a
well-concealed longing to be fighting something or someone.
When he returned, Alice Gilholme was married, and Brenda had to tell
him of it. No surprise, no signs of discomfiture were visible in the
man's incongruous face, where strength and weakness were strangely
mixed. He inquired keenly and practically about settlements,
expressed a gentle hope that Alice would be happy, and changed the
subject.