EVELYN GOES FOR A SAIL.
It was about the middle of the morning and Vane sat in Nairn's office.
Specimens of ore lately received from the mine were scattered about a
table, and Nairn had some papers in his hand.
"Weel?" he said, when Vane, after examining two or three of the stones
abruptly flung them down.
"The ore's running poorer," Vane admitted. "On the other hand, I partly
expected this, and there's better stuff in the reef. We're a little too
high; I look for more encouraging results when we start the lower
heading."
He went into details of the new operations and, when he had finished,
Nairn, who had been jotting down some figures, looked up.
"Yon workings will cost a good deal," he pointed out. "Ye'll no be able
to make a start until we're sure of the money."
"We ought to get it."
"A month or two ago I would have agreed with ye, but general investors
are kittle cattle, and the applications for the new stock are no
numerous."
"The plain English of it is that the mine is not so popular as it was,"
said Vane impatiently.
"I'm thinking something of the kind," Nairn agreed, and then proceeded
with a cautious explanation: "The result of the first reduction and the
way ye forced the concern on the market secured ye notice. Folks put
their money on ye, looking for sensational developments, and when the
latter are no forthcoming they feel a bit sore."
"There's nothing discouraging in our accounts. Even if the ore all ran
as poor as that"--Vane pointed to the specimens on the table--"the mine
could be worked on a paying basis. We have issued no statements that
could spread alarm."
"Just so," said Nairn. "What was looked for was mair than a paying
basis--ye have no come up to expectations. Forby, it's my opinion that
damaging reports have somehow leaked out from the mine. I see clouds on
the horizon."
"Bendle pledged himself to take up a big block of the shares," pointed
out Vane. "If Howitson does the same, as he said he would, our position
would be secure. As soon as it was known that they were largely
interested, others would follow them."
"Now ye have it in a nutshell--it would put a wet blanket on the project
if they both backed down. In the meanwhile we cannot hurry them."
Vane rose. "We'll leave it at that. I've promised to take Mrs. Nairn and
Miss Chisholm for a sail."
He went out and had got rid of the slight uneasiness the interview had
occasioned him before he reached the water-front, where he found Mrs.
Nairn and Evelyn awaiting him with Carroll in attendance. In another few
minutes they were rowing off to the sloop, and as they approached her
the elder lady glanced with approval at the craft, which swam, a
gleaming ivory shape, upon the shining green brine.
"Ye have surely been painting the boat," she said. "Was that for us?"
Vane disregarded the last question. "She wanted it, and paint's
comparatively cheap."
It was a little thing, but Evelyn was pleased. The girls had not been
greatly considered at the Dene, and it was flattering to recognise that
the man had thought it worth while to decorate his craft in her honour.
She did not ask herself if he had wished to please her; he had invited
her for a sail some days ago, and he was thorough in everything he did.
He handed her and Mrs. Nairn on board and when they sat down in the
well, he and Carroll proceeded to hoist the mainsail. It looked
exceedingly large as it thrashed and fluttered above their heads, and
there seemed to be a bewildering quantity of ropes, but Evelyn was
chiefly interested in watching Vane.
He was wonderfully quick, but no movement was wasted. His face was
intent, his glances sharp, and she liked the crisp, curt way in which he
spoke to Carroll. The man's task was, in one sense, not important, but
he was absorbed in it. Then, while Carroll slipped the moorings, he ran
up the headsails, and springing aft, seized the tiller as the boat,
slanting over, began to forge through the water. It was the first time
Evelyn had ever travelled under sail and, receptive as she was of all
new impressions, she sat silent a few minutes rejoicing in the sense of
swift and easy motion. The inlet was crisped by small white ripples, and
the boat with her boom broad off on her quarter drove through them; a
sparkling wedge of foam on her lee bow and a stream of froth sluicing
past her sides. Overhead, the great inclined sail cut, sharply white,
against the dazzling blue, and close by her Vane sat gripping the
tiller.
They swept out through the gate of the Narrows, and Vane luffed the boat
up to a moderately fresh breeze. "It's off the land, and we'll have
fairly smooth water," he explained, and added: "How do you like
sailing?"
"It's glorious on a day like this," she declared and looked back towards
the distant snow. "If anything more were wanted, there are the
mountains, too."
Vane smiled, but there was a suggestive sparkle in his eyes. "Yes," he
said; "we have them both, and that's something to be thankful for. The
sea and the mountains: the two grandest things in this world."
"If you think that, how did you reconcile yourself to the city?"
"I'm not sure I've done so." He indicated the gleaming heights. "I'm
going back up yonder very soon."
Mrs. Nairn glanced at Carroll, who affected to be busy with a rope; then
she turned to Vane. "It will no be possible with winter coming on."
"It's not really so bad then," Vane declared. "Besides, I expect to get
my work done before the hardest weather's due."
"But ye cannot leave Vancouver until ye have settled about the mine."
"I don't want to," Vane admitted. "That's not quite the same thing."
"It is with a good many people," Carroll interposed with a smile.
In the meanwhile, they were driving out to the southwards, opening up
the Strait, with the forests to port growing smaller and the short seas
increasing in size. The breeze was cold, but the girl was warmly clad
and the easy motion in no way troubled her. The rush of keen salt air
stirred her blood, and all round her were spread wonderful harmonies of
silver-laced blue and green, through which the straining fabric that
carried her swept on. The mountains were majestic, but except when
tempests lashed their crags or torrents swept their lower slopes they
were wrapped in eternal repose; the sea was filled with ecstatic motion.
"The hills have their fascination; it's a thing I know," she said, to
draw the helmsman out. "I think I should like the sea, too; but at first
sight its charm isn't quite so plain."
"You have started him," interposed Carroll. "He won't refuse that
challenge!"
Vane accepted it with a smile which meant more than good-humoured
indulgence. "Well," he began, "the sea's the same everywhere, unbridled,
unchanging; a force that remains as it was in the beginning. Once you're
out of harbour, under sail, you have done with civilisation. It has
possibly provided you with excellent gear, but it can do no more; you
stand alone, stripped for the struggle with the elements."
"Is it always a struggle?" Evelyn asked, to prompt him.
"Always. The sea's as treacherous as the winds that vex it; pitiless,
murderous. When you have only sail to trust to, you can never relax your
vigilance; you must watch the varying drift of clouds and the swing of
the certain tides. There's nothing and nobody to fall back upon when the
breeze pipes its challenge; you have sloughed off civilisation and must
stand or fall by the raw natural powers man is born with, and chief
among them is the capacity for brutal labour. The thrashing sail must be
mastered; the tackle cracking with the strain must be hauled in. Perhaps
that's the charm of it for some of us whose lives are pretty smooth--it
takes one back, as I said, to the beginning."
"But haven't human progress and machines made everybody's lives more
smooth?"
Vane laughed somewhat grimly. "Oh, no; I think that can never be done.
So far, somebody pays for the other's ease. At sea, in the mine, and in
the bush, man still grapples with a rugged, naked world."
The girl was pleased. She had drawn him out, and she thought he had in
speaking kept a fair balance between too crude a mode of colloquial
expression and poetic elaboration. There was, she knew, a vein of poetic
conception in him, and the struggle he had hinted at could only be
described fittingly in heroic language. It was, in one sense, a pity
that those who had the gift of it and cultivated imagination had, for
the most part, never been forced into the fight; but that was, perhaps,
not a matter of much importance. There were plenty of men, such as her
companion, endowed with endurance, who if they seldom gave their
thoughts free rein, rejoiced in the struggle; and by them the world's
sternest work was done.
"After all," she said, "we have the mountains in civilised England."
Vane did not respond with the same freedom this time. He was inclined to
think he had spoken too unrestrainedly.
"Yes," he agreed, smiling; "you can walk about them--where you won't
disturb the grouse--and they're grand enough; but if you look down you
can see the motor dust trails and the tourist coaches in the valleys."
"But why shouldn't people enjoy themselves in that way?"
"I can't think of any reason. No doubt, most of them have earned the
right to do so. But you can't rip up those hills with giant-powder where
you feel inclined, or set to work to root out some miles of forest. The
Government encourages that kind of thing here."
"And that's the charm?"
"Yes," said Vane. "I suppose it is."
"I'd better explain," Carroll broke in. "Men of a certain temperament
are apt to fall a prey to fantasies in the newer lands; any common sense
they once possessed seems to desert them. After that they're never
happy, except when they're ripping things--such as big rocks and
trees--to pieces, and though they'll tell you it's only to get out
minerals or clear a ranch, they're wrong. Once they get the mine or
ranch they don't care about it, and set to work wrecking things again.
Isn't that so, Mrs. Nairn?"
"There are such crazy bodies," agreed the-lady. "I know one or two, but
if I had my way with them they should find one mine, or build one
saw-mill."
"And then," said Carroll, "you would chain them up for good by marrying
them."
"I would like to try, but I'm no sure it would act in every case. I have
come across some women as bad as the men; they would drive their
husbands on. Maybe"--and she smiled in a half-wistful manner--"it's as
well to do something worth the remembering when ye are young. There's a
long time to sit still in afterwards."
Half in banter, and half in earnest, they had given Evelyn a hint of the
master passion of the true colonist, whose pride is in his burden.
Afterwards, Mrs. Nairn led the conversation, until Carroll laid out in
the saloon a somewhat elaborate lunch which he had brought from the
hotel. Then the others went below, leaving Vane at the helm; and Carroll
looked at him ruefully when they came up again.
"I'm afraid Miss Chisholm's disappointed," he explained.
"No," said Evelyn; "that would be most ungrateful. I only expected a
more characteristic example of sea cookery. After what Mr. Vane told us,
a lunch like the one you provided, with glass and silver, struck me as
rather an anachronism."
"It's better to be broken in to sea cookery gently," Vane interposed
with some dryness.
"It's a poor compliment to take it for granted that we're afraid of a
little hardship. Besides, I don't think you're right."
Vane, who left the helm to Carroll, went below, and the latter smiled at
Evelyn.
"He won't be long," he informed her. "He hasn't got rid of his primitive
habits yet."
Vane came up satisfied in about ten minutes, and glancing about him
before he resumed the helm, noticed that it was blowing fresher, but it
did not inconvenience the party, and as they ran homewards the breeze
gradually died away. The broad inlet lay still in the moonlight when
they crept across it with the water lapping very faintly about the bows,
and it was over a mirror-like surface they rowed ashore. Nairn was
waiting at the foot of the steps, and Evelyn walked back with him,
feeling, she could not tell exactly why, that she had been drawn closer
to the sloop's helmsman.