WANDERERS.
Agatha had spent a month with Mrs. Hastings when the latter, who was
driving over to Wyllard's homestead with her one afternoon, pulled up
her team while they were still some little distance away from it, and
looked about her with evident interest. On the one hand, a vast
breadth of torn-up loam ran back across the prairie, which was now
faintly flecked with green. On the other, ploughing teams were
scattered here and there across the tussocky sod, and long lines of
clods that flashed where the sunlight struck their facets trailed out
behind them. The great sweep of grasses that rustled joyously before a
glorious warm wind, gleamed almost luminous, and overhead hung a vault
of blue without a cloud in it. Trailing out across it, skeins and
wisps of birds moved up from the south.
"Harry is sowing a very big crop this year, and most of it on fall
back-set," she said. "He has, however, horses enough to do that kind
of thing, and, of course, he does it thoroughly." Then she glanced
towards where the teams were hauling unusually heavy ploughs through
the grassy sod. "This is virgin prairie that he's breaking, and he'll
probably put oats on it. They ripen quicker. He ought to be a rich
man after harvest unless the frost comes, or the market goes against
him. Some of his neighbours, including my husband, would have sown a
little less and held a reserve in hand."
Agatha remembered what Wyllard had told her one night on board the
_Scarrowmania_, and smiled, for she fancied that she understood the
man. He was not one to hedge, as she had heard it called, or
cautiously hold his hand. He staked boldly, but she felt that this was
not only for the sake of the dollars that he might stand to gain. It
was part of his nature--the result of an optimistic faith or courage
that appealed to her, and sheer love of effort. She also fancied that
his was no spasmodic, impulsive activity. She could imagine him
holding on as steadfastly with everything against him, exacting all
that men and teams and machines could do. It struck her as curious
that she should feel so sure of this; but she admitted that it was the
case.
In the meanwhile he was approaching them, sitting in the driving-seat
of a big machine that ripped broad furrows through the crackling sod.
Four horses plodded wearily in front of it until he thrust one hand
over, and there was a rattle and clanking as he swung them and the
machine round beside the waggon. Then he got down, and stood smiling
up at Agatha with his soft hat in his hand and the sunlight falling
full upon his weather-darkened face. It was not a particularly
striking face, but there was something in it, a hint of restrained
force and steadfastness, she thought, which Gregory's did not possess,
and for a moment or two she watched him unobtrusively. She felt she
could not help it.
He wore an old blue shirt, open at the throat and belted into trousers
of blue duck at the waist, and she noticed the fine symmetry of his
somewhat spare figure. The absence of any superfluous fleshiness
struck her as in keeping with her view of his character. The man was
well-endued physically; but apart from the strong vitality that was
expressed in every line of his pose he looked clean, as she vaguely
described it to herself. There was, at least, an indefinable something
about him that was apparently born of a simple, healthful life spent in
determined labour in the open air. It became plainer as she remembered
other men she had met upon whom the mark of the beast was unmistakably
set. Then Mrs. Hastings broke the silence.
"Well," she said, "we have driven over as we promised. I've no doubt
you will give us supper, but we'll go on and sit down with Mrs. Nansen
in the meanwhile. I expect you're too busy to talk to us."
[Illustration: "'Well,' she said, 'we have driven over as we
promised!'"]
Wyllard laughed, and it occurred to Agatha that his laugh was wholesome
as well as pleasant.
"I generally am busy," he admitted. "These beasts have, however, been
at it since sun-up, and they're rather played out now. I'll talk to
you as long as you like after supper, which will soon be ready. It's
bad economy to ask too much from them."
Agatha noticed that though the near horse's coat was foul with dust and
sweat he laid his brown hand upon it, and she supposed she must be
fanciful, for it seemed to her that the gentleness with which he did it
was very suggestive.
"I wonder if that's the only reason that influences you," she said.
A twinkle crept into Wyllard's eyes. "It seems to me a good one as far
as it goes; anyway, I've been driven rather hard myself now and then,
and I didn't like it."
"Doesn't that usually result in making one drive somebody else harder
to make up for it, when one has the opportunity?"
"If it does it certainly isn't logical. Logic's rather a fine thing
when it's sound."
"Then," Mrs. Hastings broke in, "I'll suggest a proposition: what's to
be the result of all this ploughing if we have harvest frost or the
market goes against you?"
"Quite a big deficit," said Wyllard cheerfully.
"And that doesn't cause you any anxiety?"
"I'll have had some amusement for my money."
Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha. "He calls working from sunrise until
it's dark, and afterwards now and then, amusement!" Then she looked
back at Wyllard. "I believe it isn't quite easy for you to hold your
back as straight as you are doing, and that off-horse certainly looks
as if it wanted to lie down."
Wyllard laughed. "It won't until after supper, anyway. There are two
more rows of furrows still to do."
"I suppose that is a hint," and Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha when
the waggon jolted on.
"That man," she said, "is a great favourite of mine. For one thing,
he's fastidious, though he's fortunately very far from perfect in some
respects. He has a red-hot temper, which now and then runs away with
him."
"What do you mean by fastidious?"
"It's a little difficult to define, but I certainly don't mean
pernicketty. Of course, there is a fastidiousness which makes one
shrink from unpleasant things, but Harry's is the other kind. It
impels him to do them every now and then."
Agatha made no answer. She was uneasily conscious that it might not be
advisable to think too much about this man, and in another minute or
two they reached the homestead. The house was a plain frame building
that had apparently grown out of an older and smaller one of logs, part
of which remained. It was much the same with the barns and stables,
for while they were stoutly built of framed timber or logs one end of
most of them was lower than the rest, and in some cases consisted of
poles and sods. Even to her untrained eyes all she saw suggested
order, neatness, and efficiency. The whole was flanked and sheltered
by a big birch bluff, in which trunks and branches showed up through a
thin green haze of tiny opening leaves, though here and there uncovered
twigs still cut in lace-like tracery against the blue of the sky.
A man whom Wyllard had sent after them took the horses, and when she
got down Agatha commented on what she called the added-to look of the
buildings.
"The Range," said Mrs. Hastings, "has grown rapidly since Harry took
hold. The old part represents the high-water mark of his father's
efforts. Of course," she added reflectively, "Harry has had command of
some capital since a relative of his died, but I never thought that
explained everything."
Then they entered the house, and a grey-haired Swedish woman led them
through several match-boarded rooms into a big, cool hall. She left
them there for awhile, and Agatha was busy for a minute or two with her
impressions of the house. It was singularly empty by comparison with
the few English homesteads she had seen. There were neither curtains
nor carpets nor hangings of any kind, but it was commodious and
comfortable.
"What can a bachelor want with a place like this?" she asked.
"I don't know," said Mrs. Hastings; "perhaps it's Harry's idea of
having every thing proportionate. The Range is quite a big, and
generally a prosperous, farm. Besides, it's likely that he doesn't
contemplate remaining a bachelor for ever. Indeed, Allen and I
sometimes wonder how he has escaped so long."
"Is that the right word?" Agatha asked.
"It is," said her companion with a laugh. "You see, he's highly
eligible from our point of view, but at the same time he's apparently
invulnerable. I believe," she added drily, "that's the right word,
too."
Then the Swedish housekeeper appeared again, and they talked with her
until she retired to bring the six o'clock supper. Soon after it was
laid out Wyllard and the men came in. He was attired as when Agatha
had last seen him, except that he had evidently brushed himself and put
on a store jacket. He led his guests to the head of the long table,
but the men--and there were a number of them--sat below, and had
evidently no diffidence about addressing question or comment to their
employer.
They ate with a somewhat voracious haste, but that appeared to be the
custom of the country, and Agatha could find no great fault with their
manners or conversation. The latter was, for the most part, quaintly
witty, and some of them used what struck her as remarkably fitting and
original similes. Indeed, as the meal proceeded she became curiously
interested in the men and their surroundings.
The windows were open wide, and a sweet, warm air swept into the barely
furnished room. The spaciousness of the latter impressed her, and she
was pleased with the evident unity between these brown-faced,
strong-armed toilers and their leader. He sat, self-contained, but
courteous and responsive to all alike, at the head of his table, and
though that is, as she had discovered, in most respects an essentially
democratic country, she felt that there was something almost feudal in
the relations between him and his men. She could not imagine them
being confined to the mere exaction of so much labour and the
expectation of payment of wages due. She was also pleased that he had
not changed his dress, which would, she felt, have been a singularly
unfitting action. In fact, so strong was her interest that she was
almost astonished when the meal was over, though it must be admitted
that most of the men rose and went out in fifteen minutes. Afterwards
she and Mrs. Hastings talked with the housekeeper for awhile, and an
hour had slipped away when Wyllard suggested that he should show her
the sloo beyond the bluff.
"It's the nearest approach to a lake we have until you get to the
alkali tract," he said.
Agatha went with him through the shadow of the wood, and when at length
they came out of it he found her a seat upon a fallen birch. The house
and ploughing were hidden now, and they were alone on the slope to a
slight hollow, in which half a mile of gleaming water lay. Its surface
was broken here and there, by tussocks of grass and reeds, and beyond
it the prairie ran back unbroken, a dim grey waste, to the horizon.
The sun had dipped behind the bluff, and the sky had become a vast
green transparency. There was no wind now, but a wonderful
exhilarating freshness crept into the cooling air, and the stillness
was only broken by the clamour of startled wildfowl which presently
sank again. Agatha could see them paddling in clusters about the
gleaming sloo.
"Those are ducks--wild ones?" she asked.
"Yes," said Wyllard; "duck of various kinds. Most of them the same as
your English ones."
"Do you shoot them?"
Agatha was not greatly interested, but he seemed disposed to silence,
and she felt, for no very clear reason, that it was advisable to talk
of something.
"No," he said, "not often, anyway. If Mrs. Nansen wants a couple I
crawl down to the long grass with the rifle and get them for her."
"The rifle? Doesn't the big bullet destroy them?"
"No," said Wyllard. "You have to shoot their head off or cut their
neck in two."
"You can do that--when they're right out in the sloo?" asked Agatha,
who had learned that it is much more difficult to shoot with a rifle
than a shot-gun, which spreads its charge.
Wyllard smiled. "Generally; that is, if I haven't been doing much just
before. It depends upon one's hands. We have our game laws, but as a
rule nobody worries about them, and, anyway, those birds won't nest
until they reach the tundra by the Polar Sea. Still, as I said, we
never shoot them unless Mrs. Nansen wants one or two for the pot."
"Why?"
"I don't quite know. For one thing, they're worn out; they just stop
here to rest."
His answer appealed to the girl. It did not seem strange to her that
the love of the lower creation should be strong in this man, who had no
hesitation in admitting that the game laws were no restraint to him.
For the most part, at least, when these Lesser Brethren sailed down out
of the blue heavens worn with their journey he gave them right of
sanctuary.
"They have come a long way?" she asked.
Wyllard pointed towards the South. "From Florida, Cuba, Yucatan;
further than that, perhaps. In a day or two they'll push on again
towards the Pole, and others will take their places. There's a further
detachment arriving now."
Looking up, Agatha saw a straggling wedge of birds dotted in dusky
specks against the vault, of transcendental green. It coalesced, drew
out again, and dropped swiftly, and the air was filled with the rush of
wings; then there was a harsh crying and splashing, and she heard the
troubled water lap among the reeds until deep silence closed in upon
the sloo again.
"I wonder," she said, "why they do it?"
A rather curious smile crept into Wyllard's eyes. "It's their destiny:
they're wanderers and strangers without a habitation: there's unrest in
them. After a few months on the tundra mosses to gather strength and
teach the young to fly, they'll unfold their wings to beat another
passage before the icy gales. Some of us, I think, are like them!"
Agatha could not avoid the personal application. It would have
appeared less admissible among her friends at The Grange, but she felt
that the constraints of English reticence were out of place in the
wilderness.
"You surely don't apply that to yourself," she said. "You certainly
have a habitation--the finest, isn't it, on this part of the prairie?"
"Yes," said Wyllard slowly; "I suppose it is. I've now had a little
rest and quietness, too."
This did not appear to call for an answer, and Agatha sat silent.
"Still," he said, "I have a feeling that some day the call will come,
and I shall have to take the trail again." He paused, and looked at
her before he added, "It would be easier if one hadn't to go alone, or,
since that would be necessary, if one had at least something to come
back to when the journey was done."
"It would be necessary?" said Agatha, who was rather puzzled by his
steady gaze.
"Yes," he said with a somewhat impressive gravity, "the call will come
from the icy North if it ever comes at all."
There was another brief silence, and Agatha wondered what he was
thinking of until he went on again.
"I remember how I last came back from there. We were rather late that
season, and out of our usual beat when the gale broke upon us between
Alaska and Asia in the gateway of the Pole. We ran before it with a
strip of the boom-foresail on her and a jib that blew to ribands every
now and then. She was a little schooner of ninety tons or so, and for
most of a week she scudded with the grey seas tumbling after her,
white-topped, out of the snow and spume. They ranged high above her
taffrail curling horribly, but one did not want to look at them. The
one man on deck had a line about him, and he looked ahead, watching her
screwing round with hove-up bows as she climbed the seas. If he'd let
her fall off or claw up, the next one would have made an end of her.
He was knee deep half the time in icy brine, and his hands had split
and opened with the frost, but the sweat dripped from him as he clung
to the jarring wheel. One of those helmsmen--perhaps two--had another
trouble which preyed on them. They were thinking of the three men they
had left behind.
"Well," he added, "we ran out of the gale, and I had bitter words to
face when we reached Vancouver. As one result of it I walked out of
the city with four or five dollars in my pocket--though there was a
share due to me. Then I rode up into the ranges in an open car to mend
railroad bridges in the frost and snow. It was not the kind of
home-coming one would care to look forward to."
"Ah," said Agatha, "it must have been horribly dreary?"
The man met her eyes. "Yes," he said, "you--know. You came here from
far away, I think a little weary, too, and something failed you. Then
you felt yourself adrift. There were--it seemed--only strangers round
you, but you were wrong in one respect; you were by no means a stranger
to me."
He had been leaning against a birch trunk, but now he moved a little
nearer, and stood gravely looking down on her.
"You have sent Gregory away?" he said.
"Yes," said Agatha, and, startled as she was, it did not strike her
that the mere admission was misleading.
Wyllard stretched his hands out. "Then won't you come to me?"
The blood swept into the girl's face. For the moment she forgot
Gregory, and was only conscious of an unreasoning impulse which
prompted her to take the hands held out to her. Then she rose and
faced the man, with burning cheeks.
"You know nothing of me," she said. "Can you think that I would let
you take me--out of charity?"
"Again you're wrong--on both points. As I once told you, I have sat
for hours beside the fire beneath the pines or among the boulders with
your picture for company. When I was worn-out and despondent you
encouraged me. You have been with me high up in the snow on the
ranges, and through leagues of shadowy bush. That is not all, however,
though it's difficult to speak of such things to you. There were times
when as we drove the branch line up the gorge beneath the big divide,
all one's physical nature shrank from the monotony of brutal labour.
The pay-days came round, and opportunities were made for us--to forget
what we had borne, and had still to bear, in the snow and the icy
water. Then you laid a restraining hand on me. I could not take your
picture where you could not go. Is all that to count for nothing?"
Then he spread his hands out forcibly. "As to the other question:
can't you get beyond the narrow point of view? We're in a big, new
country where the old barriers are down. We're merely flesh and
blood--red blood--and we speak as we feel. Admitting that I was sorry
for you--I am--how does that tell against me--or you? There's one
thing only that counts at all: I want you."
Agatha was stirred, and almost dismayed at the effect his words had on
her. He had spoken with a force and passion that had nearly swept her
away with it. The vigour of the new land throbbed in his voice, and,
flinging aside all cramping restraints and conventions, he had, as he
had said, claimed her as flesh and blood. There was no doubt that her
nature responded, and it was significant that Gregory had faded
altogether out of her mind; but there was, after all, pride in her, and
she could not quite bring herself to look at things from his
standpoint. All her prejudices and her sense of fitness were opposed
to it. For one thing, he had taken the wrong way when he had admitted
that he was sorry for her. She did not want his compassion, and she
shrank from the shadow of the thought that she would marry him--for
shelter. It brought her a sudden, shameful confusion as she remembered
the haste with which marriages were, it seemed, arranged on the
prairie. Then, as the first unreasoning impulse which had almost
compelled her to yield to him passed away, she remembered that it was
scarcely two months since she had met him in England. It was
intolerable that he should think she would be willing to fall into his
arms merely because he had held them out to her.
"It's a little difficult to get beyond one's sense of what is fit," she
said. "You--I must say it again--can't know anything about me. You
have woven fancies about that photograph, but you must recognise that
I'm not the girl you have, it seems, created out of them. In all
probability she's wholly unreal, unnatural, visionary." She contrived
to smile, for she was recovering her composure. "Perhaps it's easy
when one has imagination to endow a person with qualities and graces
that could never belong to them. It must be easy"--and though she was
unconscious of it, there was a trace of bitterness in her
voice--"because I know I could do it myself."
Again the man held his hands out. "Then," he said simply, "won't you
try? If you can only feel sure that the person has them it's possible
that he could acquire one or two."
Agatha drew back, disregarding this. "Then I've changed ever so much
since that photograph was taken."
Wyllard admitted it. "Yes," he said, "I recognised that; you were a
little immature then. I know that now--but all the graciousness and
sweetness in you has grown and ripened. What is more, it has grown
just as I seemed to know it would do. I saw that clearly the day we
met beside the stepping-stones. I would have asked you to marry me in
England only Gregory stood in the way."
Then the colour ebbed suddenly out of the girl's face as she remembered.
"Gregory," she said in a strained voice, "stands in the way still. I
didn't send him away altogether. I'm not sure I made that clear."
Wyllard started, but he stood very still again for a moment or two.
"I wonder," he said, "if there's anything significant in the fact that
you gave me that reason last? He failed you in some way?"
"I'm not sure that I haven't failed him; but I can't go into that."
Again Wyllard stood silent awhile. Then he turned to her with the
signs of a strong restraint in his face.
"Gregory," he said, "is a friend of mine; there is, at least, one very
good reason why I should remember it, but it seems that somehow he
hadn't the wit to keep you. Well, I can only wait in the meanwhile,
but when the time seems ripe I shall ask you again. Until then you
have my promise that I will not say another word that could distress
you. Perhaps I had better take you back to Mrs. Hastings now."
Agatha turned away, and they walked back together silently through the
bluff.