“When the wicked man turneth away from the wickedness that he hathcommitted, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall savehis soul alive.”
I noticed this morning that he instantly attracted the attention of every one, and held it, with the first words of the lesson:
“The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are themighty fallen!”
It seemed to me as if the people at first almost tried to stop breathing, so intense was the feeling. Mrs. Falchion was sitting very near me, and though she had worn her veil up at first, as I uncharitably put it then, to disconcert him, she drew it rather quickly down as his reading proceeded; but, so far as I could see, she never took her eyes off his face through the whole service; and, impelled in spite of myself, I watched her closely. Though Ruth Devlin was sitting not far from her, she scarcely looked that way.
Evidently the text of the sermon was not chosen that it might have some association with Phil’s death, but there was a kind of simple grandeur, and certainly cheerful stalwartness, in his interpretation and practical rendering of the text:
“Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?... travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speakin righteousness, mighty to save.”
A man was talking to men sensibly, directly, quietly. It was impossible to resist the wholesome eloquence of his temperament; he was a revelation of humanity: what he said had life.
I said to myself, as I had before, Is it possible that this man ever did anything unmanly?
After the service, James Devlin—with Ruth—came to Roscoe and myself, and asked us to lunch at his house. Roscoe hesitated, but I knew it was better for him not to walk up the hills and back again immediately after luncheon; so I accepted for us both; and Ruth gave me a grateful look. Roscoe seemed almost anxious not to be alone with Ruth—not from any cowardly feeling, but because he was perplexed by the old sense of coming catastrophe, which, indeed, poor fellow, he had some cause to feel. He and Mr. Devlin talked of Phil’s funeral and the arrangements that had been made, and during the general conversation Ruth and I dropped behind.
Quite abruptly she said to me: “Who is Mrs. Falchion?”
“A widow—it is said—rich, unencumbered,” I as abruptly answered.
“But I suppose even widows may have pedigrees, and be conjugated in the past tense,” was the cool reply. She drew herself up a little proudly.
I was greatly astonished. Here was a girl living most of her life in these mountains, having only had a few years of social life in the East, practising with considerable skill those arts of conversation so much cultivated in metropolitan drawing-rooms. But I was a very dull fellow then, and had yet to learn that women may develop in a day to wonderful things.
“Well,” I said in reply, “I suppose not. But I fear I cannot answer regarding the pedigree, nor a great deal about the past, for I only met her under two years ago.”
“And yet I have imagined that you knew her pretty well, and that Mr. Roscoe knew her even better—perhaps,” she said suggestively.
“That is so,” I tried to say with apparent frankness, “for she lived in the South Seas with her father, and Roscoe knew her there.”
“She is a strange woman, and quite heartless in some ways; and yet, do you know, I like her while I dislike her; and I cannot tell why.”
“Do not try to tell,” I answered, “for she has the gift of making people do both.—I think she likes and dislikes herself—as well as others.”
“As well—as others,” she replied slowly. “Yes, I think I have noticed that. You see,” she added, “I do not look at people as most girls of my age: and perhaps I am no better for that. But Mrs. Falchion’s introduction to me occurred in such peculiar circumstances, and the coincidence of your knowing her was so strange, that my interest is not unnatural, I suppose.”
“On the contrary,” I said, “I am only surprised that you have restrained your curiosity so much and so long. It was all very strange; though the meeting was quite to be expected, as Mrs. Falchion herself explained that day. She had determined on coming over to the Pacific Coast; this place was in her way; it is a fashionable resort; and she stood a good chance of finding old friends.”
“Yes—of finding—old friends,” was the abstracted reply. “I like Miss Caron, her companion, very much better than—most women I have met.”
This was not what she was going to say, but she checked herself, lest she might be suspected of thinking uncharitably of Mrs. Falchion. I, of course, agreed with her, and told her the story of Galt Roscoe and Hector Caron, and of Justine’s earnestness regarding her fancied debt to Roscoe.
I saw that the poison of anxiety had entered the girl’s mind; and it might, perhaps, bear fruit of no engaging quality. In her own home, however, it was a picture to see her with her younger sisters and brothers, and invalid mother. She went about very brightly and sweetly among them, speaking to them as if she was mother to them all, angel of them all, domestic court for them all; as indeed she was. Here there seemed no disturbing element in her; a close observer might even have said (and in this case I fancy I was that) that she had no mind or heart for anything or anybody but these few of her blood and race. Hers was a fine nature—high, wholesome, unselfish. Yet it struck me sadly also, to see how the child-like in her, and her young spirit, had been so early set to the task of defence and protection: a mother at whose breasts a child had never hung; maternal, but without the relieving joys of maternity.
I knew that she would carry through her life that too watchful, too anxious tenderness; that to her last day she would look back and not remember that she had a childhood once; because while yet a child she had been made into a woman.
Such of the daughters of men make life beautiful; but themselves are selfish who do not see the almost intolerable pathos of unselfishness and sacrifice. At the moment I was bitter with the thought that, if Mrs. Falchion intended anything which could steal away this girl’s happiness from her, even for a time, I should myself seek to retaliate—which was, as may appear, in my power. But I could not go to Mrs. Falchion now and say: “You intend some harm to these two: for God’s sake go away and leave them alone!” I had no real ground for making such a request. Besides, if there was any catastrophe, any trouble, coming, or possible, that might hasten it, or, at least, give it point.
I could only wait. I had laid another plan, and from a telegram I had received in answer to one I had sent, I believed it was working. I did not despair. I had, indeed, sent a cable to my agent in England, which was to be forwarded to the address given me by Boyd Madras at Aden. I had got a reply saying that Boyd Madras had sailed for Canada by the Allan Line of steamers. I had then telegraphed to a lawyer I knew in Montreal, and he had replied that he was on the track of the wanderer.
All Viking and Sunburst turned out to Phil Boldrick’s funeral. Everything was done that he had requested. The great whistle roared painfully, revolvers and guns were fired over his grave, and the new-formed corporation appeared. He was buried on the top of a foot-hill, which, to this day, is known as Boldricks’ Own. The grave was covered by an immense flat stone bearing his name. But a flagstaff was erected near, no stouter one stands on Beachy Head or elsewhere,—and on it was engraved:
PHIL BOLDRICK,Buried with Municipal Honours onthe Thirtieth day of June 1883.This to his Memory, and for the honour ofViking and Sunburst.
“Padre,” said a river-driver to Galt Roscoe after the rites were finished, “that was a man you could trust.”
“Padre,” added another, “that was a man you could bank on, and draw your interest reg’lar. He never done a mean thing, and he never pal’d with a mean man. He wasn’t for getting his teeth on edge like some in the valley. He didn’t always side with the majority, and he had a gift of doin’ things on the square.”
Others spoke in similar fashion, and then Viking went back to work, and we to our mountain cottage.
Many days passed quietly. I saw that Galt Roscoe wished to speak to me on the subject perplexing him, but I did not help him. I knew that it would come in good time, and the farther off it was the better. I dreaded to hear what he had to tell, lest, in spite of my confidence in him, it should really be a thing which, if made public, must bring ruin. During the evenings of these days he wrote much in his diary—the very book that lies by me now. Writing seemed a relief to him, for he was more cheerful afterwards. I know that he had received letters from the summer hotel, but whether they were from Mrs. Falchion or Justine Caron I was not then aware, though I afterwards came to know that one of them was from Justine, asking him if she might call on him. He guessed that the request was connected with Hector Caron’s death; and, of course, gave his consent. During this time he did not visit Ruth Devlin, nor did he mention her name. As for myself, I was sick of the whole business, and wished it well over, whatever the result.
I make here a few extracts from Roscoe’s diary, to show the state of his mind at this period:
Can a man never get away from the consequences of his wickedness,even though he repents?... Restitution is necessary as wellas repentance; but when one cannot make restitution, when it isimpossible—what then? I suppose one has to reply, Well, you haveto suffer, that is all.... Poor Alo! To think that after allthese years, you can strike me!There is something malicious in the way Mercy Falchion crosses mypath. What she knows, she knows; and what she can do if shechooses, I must endure. I cannot love Mercy Falchion again, andthat, I suppose, is the last thing she would wish now. I cannotbring Alo back. But how does that concern her! Why does she hateme so? For, underneath her kindest words,—and they are kindsometimes,—I can detect the note of enmity, of calculating scorn.... I wish I could go to Ruth and tell her all, and ask her todecide if she can take a man with such a past.... What athing it is to have had a clean record of unflinching manliness atone’s back!
I add another extract:
Phil’s story of Danger Mountain struck like ice at my heart. Therewas a horrible irony in the thing: that it should be told to me, ofall the world, and at such a time. Some would say, I suppose, thatit was the arrangement of Providence. Not to speak it profanely, itseems to be the achievement of the devil. The torture was toomalicious for God....Phil’s letter has gone to his pal at Danger Mountain....
The fourth day after the funeral Justine Caron came to see Galt Roscoe. This was the substance of their conversation, as I came to know long afterwards.
“Monsieur,” she said, “I have come to pay something of a debt which I owe to you. It is a long time since you gave my poor Hector burial, but I have never forgotten, and I have brought you at last—you must not shake your head so—the money you spent.... But you MUST take it. I should be miserable if you did not. The money is all that I can repay; the kindness is for memory and gratitude always.”
He looked at her wonderingly, earnestly, she seemed so unworldly, standing there, her life’s ambition not stirring beyond duty to her dead. If goodness makes beauty, she was beautiful; and yet, besides all that, she had a warm, absorbing eye, a soft, rounded cheek, and she carried in her face the light of a cheerful, engaging spirit.
“Will it make you happier if I take the money?” he said at last, and his voice showed how she had moved him.
“So much happier!” she answered, and she put a roll of notes into his hand.
“Then I will take it,” he replied, with a manner not too serious, and he looked at the notes carefully; “but only what I actually spent, remember; what I told you when you wrote me at Hector’s death; not this ample interest. You forget, Miss Caron, that your brother was my friend.”
“No I cannot forget that. It lives with me,” she rejoined softly. But she took back the surplus notes. “And I have my gratitude left still,” she added, smiling.
“Believe me, there is no occasion for gratitude. Why, what less could one do?”
“One could pass by on the other side.”
“He was not fallen among thieves,” was his reply; “he was among Englishmen, the old allies of the French.”
“But the Priests and the Levites, people of his own country—Frenchmen—passed him by. They were infamous in falsehood, cruel to him and to me.—You are an Englishman; you have heart and kindness.”
He hesitated, then he gravely said: “Do not trust Englishmen more than you trust your own countrymen. We are selfish even in our friendships often. We stick to one person, and to benefit that one we sacrifice others. Have you found all Englishmen—and WOMEN unselfish?” He looked at her steadily; but immediately repented that he had asked the question, for he had in his mind one whom they both knew, too well, perhaps; and he added quickly: “You see, I am not kind.”
They were standing now in the sunlight just outside the house. His hands were thrust down in the pockets of his linen coat; her hands opening and shutting her parasol slightly. They might, from their appearance, have been talking of very inconsequent things.
Her eyes lifted sorrowfully to his. “Ah, monsieur,” she rejoined, “there are two times when one must fear a woman.” She answered his question more directly than he could have conjectured. But she felt that she must warn him.
“I do not understand,” he said.
“Of course you do not. Only women themselves understand that the two times when one must fear a woman are when she hates, and when she loves—after a kind. When she gets wicked or mad enough to hate, either through jealousy or because she cannot love where she would, she is merciless. She does not know the honour of the game. She has no pity. Then, sometimes when she loves in a way, she is, as you say, most selfish. I mean a love which—is not possible. Then she does some mad act—all women are a little mad sometimes. Most of us wish to be good, but we are quicksilver....”
Roscoe’s mind had been working fast. He saw she meant to warn him against Mrs. Falchion. His face flushed slightly. He knew that Justine had thought well of him, and now he knew also that she suspected something not creditable or, at least, hazardous in his life.
“And the man—the man whom the woman hates?”
“When the woman hates—and loves too, the man is in danger.”
“Do you know of such a man?” he almost shrinkingly said.
“If I did I would say to him, The world is wide. There is no glory in fighting a woman who will not be fair in battle. She will say what may appear to be true, but what she knows in her own heart to be false—false and bad.”
Roscoe now saw that Justine had more than an inkling of his story.
He said calmly: “You would advise that man to flee from danger?”
“Yes, to flee,” she replied hurriedly, with a strange anxiety in her eyes; “for sometimes a woman is not satisfied with words that kill. She becomes less than human, and is like Jael.”
Justine knew that Mrs. Falchion held a sword over Roscoe’s career; she guessed that Mrs. Falchion both cared for him and hated him too; but she did not know the true reason of the hatred—that only came out afterwards. Woman-like, she exaggerated in order that she might move him; but her motive was good, and what she said was not out of keeping with the facts of life.
“The man’s life even might be in danger?” he asked.
“It might.”
“But surely that is not so dreadful,” he still said calmly.
“Death is not the worst of evils.”
“No, not the worst; one has to think of the evil word as well. The evil word can be outlived; but the man must think of those who really love him—who would die to save him—and whose hearts would break if he were killed. Love can outlive slander, but it is bitter when it has to outlive both slander and death. It is easy to love with joy so long as both live, though there are worlds between. Thoughts fly and meet; but Death makes the great division.... Love can only live in the pleasant world.”
Very abstractedly he said: “Is it a pleasant world to you?”
She did not reply directly to that, but answered: “Monsieur, if you know of such a man as I speak of, warn him to fly.” And she raised her eyes from the ground and looked earnestly at him. Now her face was slightly flushed, she looked almost beautiful.
“I know of such a man,” he replied, “but he will not go. He has to answer to his own soul and his conscience. He is not without fear, but it is only fear for those who care for him, be they ever so few. And he hopes that they will be brave enough to face his misery, if it must come. For we know that courage has its hour of comfort.... When such a man as you speak of has his dark hour he will stand firm.”
Then with a great impulse he added: “This man whom I know did wrong, but he was falsely accused of doing a still greater. The consequence of the first thing followed him. He could never make restitution. Years went by. Some one knew that dark spot in his life—his Nemesis.”
“The worst Nemesis in this life, monsieur, is always a woman,” she interrupted.
“Perhaps she is the surest,” he continued. “The woman faced him in the hour of his peace and—” he paused. His voice was husky.
“Yes, ‘and,’ monsieur?”
“And he knows that she would ruin him, and kill his heart and destroy his life.”
“The waters of Marah are bitter,” she murmured, and she turned her face away from him to the woods. There was no trouble there. The birds were singing, black squirrels were jumping from bough to bough, and they could hear the tapping of the woodpecker. She slowly drew on her gloves, as if for occupation.
He spoke at length as though thinking aloud: “But he knows that, whatever comes, life has had for him more compensations than he deserves. For, in his trouble, a woman came, and said kind words, and would have helped him if she could.”
“There were TWO women,” she said solemnly.
“Two women?” he repeated slowly.
“The one stayed in her home and prayed, and the other came.”
“I do not understand,” he said: and he spoke truly.
“Love is always praying for its own, therefore one woman prayed at home. The other woman who came was full of gratitude, for the man was noble, she owed him a great debt, and she believed in him always. She knew that if at any time in his life he had done wrong, the sin was without malice or evil.”
“The woman is gentle and pitiful with him, God knows.”
She spoke quietly now, and her gravity looked strange in one so young.
“God knows she is just, and would see him fairly treated. She is so far beneath him! and yet one can serve a friend though one is humble and poor.”
“How strange,” he rejoined, “that the man should think himself miserable who is befriended in such a way! Mademoiselle, he will carry to his grave the kindness of this woman.”
“Monsieur,” she added humbly, yet with a brave light in her eyes, “it is good to care whether the wind blows bitter or kind. Every true woman is a mother, though she have no child. She longs to protect the suffering, because to protect is in her so far as God is.... Well, this woman cares that way....” She held out her hand to say good-bye. Her look was simple, direct, and kind. Their parting words were few and unremarkable.
Roscoe watched Justine Caron as she passed out into the shade of the woods, and he said to himself: “Gratitude like that is a wonderful thing.” He should have said something else, but he did not know, and she did not wish him to know: and he never knew.
The more I thought of Mrs. Falchion’s attitude towards Roscoe, the more I was puzzled. But I had at last reduced the position to this: Years ago Roscoe had cared for her and she had not cared for him. Angered or indignant at her treatment of him, Roscoe’s affections declined unworthily elsewhere. Then came a catastrophe of some kind, in which Alo (whoever she was) suffered. The secret of this catastrophe Mrs. Falchion, as I believe, held. There was a parting, a lapse of years, and then the meeting on the ‘Fulvia’: with it, partial restoration of Mrs. Falchion’s influence, then its decline, and then a complete change of position. It was now Mrs. Falchion that cared, and Roscoe that shunned. It perplexed me that there seemed to be behind Mrs. Falchion’s present regard for Roscoe some weird expression of vengeance, as though somehow she had been wronged, and it was her duty to punish. In no other way was the position definable. That Roscoe would never marry her was certain to my mind. That he could not marry her now was also certain—to me; I had the means to prevent it. That she wished to marry him I was not sure, though she undoubtedly cared for him. Remained, therefore, the supposition that if he cared for her she would do him no harm, as to his position. But if he married Ruth, disaster would come—Roscoe himself acknowledged that she held the key of his fortunes.
Upon an impulse, and as a last resort, I had taken action whereby in some critical moment I might be able to wield a power over Mrs. Falchion. I was playing a blind game, but it was the only card I held. I had heard from the lawyer in Montreal that Madras, under another name, had gone to the prairie country to enter the mounted police. I had then telegraphed to Winnipeg, but had got no answer.
I had seen her many times, but we had never, except very remotely, touched upon the matter which was uppermost in both our minds. It was not my wish to force the situation. I knew that my opportunity would come wherein to spy upon the mind of the enemy. It came. On the evening that Justine Caron called upon Roscoe, I accidentally met Mrs. Falchion in the grounds of the hotel. She was with several people, and as I spoke to her she made a little gesture of invitation. I went over, was introduced to her companions, and then she said:
“Dr. Marmion, I have not yet made that visit to the salmon-fishers at Sunburst. Unfortunately, on the days when I called on Miss Devlin, my time was limited. But now I have a thirst for adventure, and time hangs heavy. Will you perform your old office of escort, and join a party, which we can make up here, to go there to-morrow?”
I had little love for Mrs. Falchion, but I consented, because it seemed to me the chance had come for an effective talk with her; and I suggested that we should go late in the afternoon of the next day, and remain till night and see the Indians, the half-breeds, and white fishermen working by torch-light on the river. The proposition was accepted with delight.
Then the conversation turned upon the feud that existed between Viking and Sunburst, the river-drivers and the fishers. During the last few days, owing to the fact that there were a great many idle river-men about, the river-driving for the season being done, there had been more than one quarrel of a serious nature at Sunburst. It had needed a great deal of watchfulness on the part of Mr. Devlin and his supporters to prevent fighting. In Sunburst itself, Mr. Devlin had much personal influence. He was a man of exceedingly strong character, bold, powerful, persuasive. But this year there had been a large number of rough, adventurous characters among the river-men, and they seemed to take delight in making sport of, and even interfering with, the salmon-fishers. We talked of these things for some time, and then I took my leave. As I went, Mrs. Falchion stepped after me, tapped me on the arm, and said in a slow, indolent tone:
“Whenever you and I meet, Dr. Marmion, something happens—something strange. What particular catastrophe have you arranged for to-morrow? For you are, you know, the chorus to the drama.”
“Do not spoil the play by anticipation,” I said.
“One gets very weary of tragedy,” she retorted. “Comedy would be a relief. Could you not manage it?”
“I do not know about to-morrow,” I said, “as to a comedy. But I promise you that one of these days I will present to you the very finest comedy imaginable.”
“You speak oracularly,” she said; “still you are a professor, and professors always pose. But now, to be perfectly frank with you, I do not believe that any comedy you could arrange would be as effective as your own.”
“You have read ‘Much Ado about Nothing’,” I said.
“Oh, it is as good as that, is it?” she asked.
“Well, it has just as good a final situation,” I answered. She seemed puzzled, for she saw I spoke with some undercurrent of meaning. “Mrs. Falchion,” I said to her suddenly and earnestly, “I wish you to think between now and to-morrow of what I am just going to say to you.”
“It sounds like the task set an undergraduate, but go on,” she said.
“I wish you to think,” said I, “of the fact that I helped to save your life.”
She flushed; an indignant look shot into her face, and her voice vibrating, she said:
“What man would have done less?” Then, almost immediately after, as though repenting of what she had said, she continued in a lower tone and with a kind of impulsiveness uncommon to her: “But you had courage, and I appreciate that; still, do not ask too much. Good-night.”
We parted at that, and did not meet again until the next afternoon, when I joined her and her party at the summer hotel. Together we journeyed down to Sunburst.
It was the height of the salmon-fishing season. Sunburst lay cloyed among the products of field and forest and stream. At Viking one got the impression of a strong pioneer life, vibrant, eager, and with a touch of Arcady. But viewed from a distance Sunburst seemed Arcady itself. It was built in green pastures, which stretched back on one side of the river, smooth, luscious, undulating to the foot-hills. This was on one side of the Whi-Whi River. On the other side was a narrow margin, and then a sheer wall of hills in exquisite verdure. The houses were of wood, and chiefly painted white, sweet and cool in the vast greenness. Cattle wandered shoulders deep in the rich grass, and fruit of all kinds was to be had for the picking. The population was strangely mixed. Men had drifted here from all parts of the world, sometimes with their families, sometimes without them. Many of them had settled here after mining at the Caribou field and other places on the Frazer River. Mexican, Portuguese, Canadian, Californian, Australian, Chinaman, and coolie lived here, side by side, at ease in the quiet land, following a primitive occupation with primitive methods.
One could pick out the Indian section of the village, because not far from it was the Indian graveyard, with its scaffolding of poles and brush and its offerings for the dead. There were almost interminable rows of scaffolding on the river’s edge and upon the high bank where hung the salmon drying in the sun. The river, as it ambled along, here over shallows, there over rapids and tiny waterfalls, was the pathway for millions and millions of salmon upon a pilgrimage to the West and North—to the happy hunting grounds of spawn. They came in droves so thick at times that, crowding up the little creeks which ran into the river, they filled them so completely as to dam up the water and make the courses a solid mass of living and dead fish. In the river itself they climbed the rapids and leaped the little waterfalls with incredible certainty; except where man had prepared his traps for them. Sometimes these traps were weirs or by-washes, made of long lateral tanks of wicker-work. Down among the boulders near the shore, scaffoldings were raised, and from these the fishermen with nets and wicker-work baskets caught the fish as they came up.
We wandered about during the afternoon immensely interested in all that we saw. During that time the party was much together, and my conversation with Mrs. Falchion was general. We had supper at a quiet little tavern, idled away an hour in drinking in the pleasant scene; and when dusk came went out again to the banks of the river.
From the time we left the tavern to wander by the river I managed to be a good deal alone with Mrs. Falchion. I do not know whether she saw that I was anxious to speak with her privately, but I fancy she did. Whatever we had to say must, in the circumstances, however serious, be kept superficially unimportant. And, as it happened, our serious conference was carried on with an air of easy gossip, combined with a not artificial interest in all we saw. And there was much to see. Far up and down the river the fragrant dusk was spotted with the smoky red light of torches, and the atmosphere shook with shadows, through which ran the song of the river, more amiable than the song of the saw, and the low, weird cry of the Indians and white men as they toiled for salmon in the glare of the torches. Here upon a scaffolding a half-dozen swung their nets and baskets in the swift river, hauling up with their very long poles thirty or forty splendid fish in an hour; there at a small cascade, in great baskets sunk into the water, a couple of Indians caught and killed the salmon that, in trying to leap the fall, plumped into the wicker cage; beyond, others, more idle and less enterprising, speared the finny travellers, thus five hundred miles from home—the brave Pacific.
Upon the banks the cleaning and curing went on, the women and children assisting, and as the Indians and half-breeds worked they sang either the wild Indian melodies, snatches of brave old songs of the ‘voyageurs’ of a past century, or hymns taught by the Jesuit missionaries in the persons of such noble men as Pere Lacombe and Pere Durieu, who have wandered up and down the vast plains of both sides of the Rockies telling an old story in a picturesque, heroic way. These old hymns were written in Chinook, that strange language,—French, English, Spanish, Indian, arranged by the Hudson’s Bay Company, which is, like the wampum-belt, a common tongue for tribes and peoples not speaking any language but their own. They were set to old airs—lullabies, chansons, barcarolles, serenades, taken out of the folk-lore of many lands. Time and again had these simple arcadian airs been sung as a prelude to some tribal act that would not bear the search-light of civilisation—little by the Indians east of the Rockies, for they have hard hearts and fierce tongues, but much by the Shuswaps, Siwashes, and other tribes of the Pacific slope, whose natures are for peace more than for war; who, one antique day, drifted across from Japan or the Corea, and never, even in their wild, nomadic state, forgot their skill and craft in wood and gold and silver.
We sat on the shore and watched the scene for a time, saying nothing. Now and again, as from scaffolding to scaffolding, from boat to boat, and from house to house, the Chinook song rang and was caught up in a slow monotone, so not interfering with the toil, there came the sound of an Indian drum beaten indolently, or the rattle of dry hard sticks—a fantastic accompaniment.
“Does it remind you of the South Seas?” I asked Mrs. Falchion, as, with her chin on her hand, she watched the scene.
She drew herself up, almost with an effort, as though she had been lost in thought, and looked at me curiously for a moment. She seemed trying to call back her mind to consider my question. Presently she answered me: “Very little. There is something finer, stronger here. The atmosphere has more nerve, the life more life. This is not a land for the idle or vicious, pleasant as it is.”
“What a thinker you are, Mrs. Falchion!”
She seemed to recollect herself suddenly. Her voice took on an inflection of satire. “You say it with the air of a discoverer. With Columbus and Hervey and you, the world—” She stopped, laughing softly at the thrust, and moved the dust about with her foot.
“In spite of the sarcasm, I am going to add that I feel a personal satisfaction in your being a woman who does think, and acts more on thought than impulse.”
“‘Personal satisfaction’ sounds very royal and august. It is long, I imagine, since you took a—personal satisfaction—in me.”
I was not to be daunted. “People who think a good deal and live a fresh, outdoor life—you do that—naturally act most fairly and wisely in time of difficulty—and contretemps.”
“But I had the impression that you thought I acted unfairly and unwisely—at such times.”
We had come exactly where I wanted. In our minds we were both looking at those miserable scenes on the ‘Fulvia’, when Madras sought to adjust the accounts of life and sorely muddled them.
“But,” said I, “you are not the same woman that you were.”
“Indeed, Sir Oracle,” she answered: “and by what necromancy do you know?”
“By none. I think you are sorry now—I hope you are—for what—”
She interrupted me indignantly. “You go too far. You are almost—unbearable. You said once that the matter should be buried, and yet here you work for an opportunity, Heaven knows why, to place me at a disadvantage!”
“Pardon me,” I answered; “I said that I would never bring up those wretched scenes unless there was cause. There is cause.”
She got to her feet. “What cause—what possible cause can there be?”
I met her eye firmly. “I am bound to stand by my friend,” I said. “I can and I will stand by him.”
“If it is a game of drawn swords, beware!” she retorted. “You speak to me as if I were a common adventuress. You mistake me, and forget that you—of all men—have little margin of high morality on which to speculate.”
“No, I do not forget that,” I said, “nor do I think of you as an adventuress. But I am sure you hold a power over my friend, and—”
She stopped me. “Not one word more on the subject. You are not to suppose this or that. Be wise do not irritate and annoy a woman like me. It were better to please me than to preach to me.”
“Mrs. Falchion,” I said firmly, “I wish to please you—so well that some day you will feel that I have been a good friend to you as well as to him—”
Again she interrupted me. “You talk in foolish riddles. No good can come of this.”
“I cannot believe that,” I urged; “for when once your heart is moved by the love of a man, you will be just, and then the memory of another man who loved you and sinned for you—”
“Oh, you coward!” she broke out scornfully—“you coward to persist in this!”
I made a little motion of apology with my hand, and was silent. I was satisfied. I felt that I had touched her as no words of mine had ever touched her before. If she became emotional, was vulnerable in her feelings, I knew that Roscoe’s peace might be assured. That she loved Roscoe now I was quite certain. Through the mists I could see a way, even if I failed to find Madras and arrange another surprising situation. She was breathing hard with excitement.
Presently she said with incredible quietness, “Do not force me to do hard things. I have a secret.”
“I have a secret too,” I answered. “Let us compromise.”
“I do not fear your secret,” she answered. She thought I was referring to her husband’s death. “Well,” I replied, “I honestly hope you never will. That would be a good day for you.”
“Let us go,” she said; then, presently: “No, let us sit here and forget that we have been talking.”
I was satisfied. We sat down. She watched the scene silently, and I watched her. I felt that it would be my lot to see stranger things happen to her than I had seen before; but all in a different fashion. I had more hope for my friend, for Ruth Devlin, for—!
I then became silent even to myself. The weltering river, the fishers and their labour and their songs, the tall dark hills, the deep gloomy pastures, the flaring lights, were then in a dream before me; but I was thinking, planning.
As we sat there, we heard noises, not very harmonious, interrupting the song of the salmon-fishers. We got up to see. A score of river-drivers were marching down through the village, mocking the fishers and making wild mirth. The Indians took little notice, but the half-breeds and white fishers were restless.
“There will be trouble here one day,” said Mrs. Falchion.
“A free fight which will clear the air,” I said.
“I should like to see it—it would be picturesque, at least,” she added cheerfully; “for I suppose no lives would be lost.”
“One cannot tell,” I answered; “lives do not count so much in new lands.”
“Killing is hateful, but I like to see courage.”
And she did see it.
The next afternoon Roscoe was sitting on the coping deep in thought, when Ruth rode up with her father, dismounted, and came upon him so quietly that he did not hear her. I was standing in the trees a little distance away.
She spoke to him once, but he did not seem to hear. She touched his arm. He got to his feet.
“You were so engaged that you did not hear me,” she said.
“The noise of the rapids!” he answered, after a strange pause, “and your footstep is very light.”
She leaned her chin on her hand, rested against the rail of the coping, looked meditatively into the torrent below, and replied: “Is it so light?” Then after a pause: “You have not asked me how I came, who came with me, or why I am here.”
“It was first necessary for me to conceive the delightful fact that you are here,” he said in a dazed, and, therefore, not convincing tone.
She looked him full in the eyes. “Please do not pay me the ill compliment of a compliment,” she said. “Was it the sailor who spoke then or the—or yourself? It is not like you.”
“I did not mean it as a compliment,” he replied. “I was thinking about critical and important things.”
“‘Critical and important’ sounds large,” she returned.
“And the awakening was sudden,” he continued. “You must make allowance, please, for—”
“For the brusque appearance of a very unimaginative, substantial, and undreamlike person? I do. And now, since you will not put me quite at my ease by assuming, in words, that I have been properly ‘chaperoned’ here, I must inform you that my father waits hard by—is, as my riotous young brother says, ‘without on the mat.’”
“I am very glad,” he replied with more politeness than exactness.
“That I was duly escorted, or that my father is ‘without on the mat’? ... However, you do not appear glad one way or the other. And now I must explain our business. It is to ask your company at dinner (do consider yourself honoured—actually a formal dinner party in the Rockies!) to meet the lieutenant-governor, who is coming to see our famous Viking and Sunburst.... But you are expected to go out where my father feeds his—there, see—his horse on your ‘trim parterre.’ And now that I have done my duty as page and messenger without a word of assistance, Mr. Roscoe, will you go and encourage my father to hope that you will be vis-a-vis to his excellency?” She lightly beat the air with her whip, while I took a good look at the charming scene.
Roscoe looked seriously at the girl for an instant. He understood too well the source of such gay social banter. He knew it covered a hurt. He said to her: “Is this Ruth Devlin or another?”
And she replied very gravely: “It is Ruth Devlin and another too,” and she looked down to the chasm beneath with a peculiar smile; and her eyes were troubled.
He left her and went and spoke to her father whom I had joined, but, after a moment, returned to Ruth. Ruth turned slightly to meet him as he came. “And is the prestige of the house of Devlin to be supported?” she said; “and the governor to be entertained with tales of flood and field?”
His face had now settled into a peculiar calmness. He said with a touch of mock irony: “The sailor shall play his part—the obedient retainer of the house of Devlin.”
“Oh,” she said, “you are malicious now! You turn your long accomplished satire on a woman.” And she nodded to the hills opposite, as if to tell them that it was as they had said to her: those grand old hills with which she had lived since childhood, to whom she had told all that had ever happened to her.
“No, indeed no,” he replied, “though I am properly rebuked. I fear I am malicious—just a little, but it is all inner-self-malice: ‘Rome turned upon itself.’”
“But one cannot always tell when irony is intended for the speaker of it. Yours did not seem applied to yourself,” was her slow answer, and she seemed more interested in Mount Trinity than in him.
“No?” Then he said with a playful sadness: “A moment ago you were not completely innocent of irony, were you?”
“But a man is big and broad, and should not—he should be magnanimous, leaving it to woman, whose life is spent among little things, to be guilty of littlenesses. But see how daring I am—speaking like this to you who know so much more than I do.... Surely, you are still only humorous, when you speak of irony turned upon yourself—the irony so icy to your friends?”
She had developed greatly. Her mind had been sharpened by pain. The edge of her wit had become poignant, her speech rendered logical and allusive. Roscoe was wise enough to understand that the change in her had been achieved by the change in himself; that since Mrs. Falchion came, Ruth had awakened sharply to a distress not exactly definable. She felt that though he had never spoken of love to her, she had a right to share his troubles. The infrequency of his visits to her of late, and something in his manner, made her uneasy and a little bitter. For there was an understanding between them, though it had been unspoken and unwritten. They had vowed without priest or witness. The heart speaks eloquently in symbols first, and afterwards in stumbling words.
It seemed to Roscoe at this moment, as it had seemed for some time, that the words would never be spoken. And was this all that had troubled her—the belief that Mrs. Falchion had some claim upon his life? Or had she knowledge, got in some strange way, of that wretched shadow in his past?
This possibility filled him with bitterness. The old Adam in him awoke, and he said within himself “God in heaven, must one folly, one sin, kill me and her too? Why me more than another!... And I love her, I love her!”
His eyes flamed until their blue looked all black, and his brows grew straight over them sharply, making his face almost stern.... There came swift visions of renouncing his present life; of going with her—anywhere: to tell her all, beg her forgiveness, and begin life over again, admitting that this attempt at expiation was a mistake; to have his conscience clear of secret, and trust her kindness. For now he was sure that Mrs. Falchion meant to make his position as a clergyman impossible; to revenge herself on him for no wrong that, as far as he knew, he ever did directly to her. But to tell this girl, or even her father or mother, that he had been married, after a shameful, unsanctified fashion, to a savage, with what came after, and the awful thing that happened—he who ministered at the altar! Now that he looked the thing in the face it shocked him. No, he could not do it.
She said to him, while he looked at her as though he would read her through and through, though his mind was occupied with a dreadful possibility beyond her:
“Why do you look so? You are stern. You are critical. Have I—disimproved so?”
The words were full of a sudden and natural womanly fear, that something in herself had fallen in value. They had a pathos so much the more moving because she sought to hide it.
There swam before his eyes the picture of happiness from which she herself had roused him when she came. He involuntarily, passionately, caught her hand and pressed it to his lips twice; but spoke nothing.
“Oh! oh!—please!” she said. Her voice was low and broken, and she spoke appealingly. Could he not see that he was breaking her heart, while filling it also with unbearable joy? Why did he not speak and make this possible, and not leave it a thing to flush her cheeks, and cause her to feel he had acted on a knowledge he had no right to possess till he had declared himself in speech? Could he not have spared her that?—This Christian gentleman, whose worth had compassed these mountains and won the dwellers among them—it was bitter. Her pride and injured heart rose up and choked her.
He let go her hand. Now his face was partly turned from her, and she saw how thin and pale it was. She saw, too, what I had seen during the past week, that his hair had become almost white about the temples; and the moveless sadness of his position struck her with unnatural force, so that, in spite of herself, tears came suddenly to her eyes, and a slight moan broke from her. She would have run away; but it was too late.
He saw the tears, the look of pity, indignation, pride, and love in her face.
“My love!” he cried passionately. He opened his arms to her.
But she stood still. He came very close to her, spoke quickly, and almost despairingly: “Ruth, I love you, and I have wronged you; but here is your place, if you will come.”
At first she seemed stunned, and her face was turned to her mountains, as though the echo of his words were coming back to her from them, but the thing crept into her heart and flooded it. She seemed to wake, and then all her affection carried her into his arms, and she dried her eyes upon his breast.
After a time he whispered, “My dear, I have wronged you. I should not have made you care for me.”
She did not seem to notice that he spoke of wrong. She said: “I was yours, Galt, even from the beginning, I think, though I did not quite know it. I remember what you read in church the first Sunday you came, and it has always helped me; for I wanted to be good.”
She paused and raised her eyes to his, and then with sweet solemnity she said: “The words were: