The Mistress of Bonaventure Part 14

The girl had grown a little paler, and her hands trembled on the helm, but she answered without hesitation: "Don't be longer than you can help--but I understand."

She showed a fine intelligence and a perfect self-command, or our voyage might have ended abruptly; so the reefing was accomplished, and I resumed the helm. Meanwhile, however, we had drifted well out into the lake, and a few minutes of sailing proved that under her reduced canvas the boat would not beat back to the windward sh.o.r.e. The figures among the boulders had faded into the deepening gloom, but, a.s.suming a cheerfulness I did not feel, I said: "It is quite impossible to return, and as it is growing too late to look for a safe landing or path through the bush, we must head for home and send back horses for the others. It will be a fair wind."

"I was afraid so," said the girl with a shiver. "But I hope we shall not be very long on the way. We spent five hours coming."

I knew we should travel at a pace approaching a steamer's, provided the craft could be kept from filling; but, enlarging upon the former point, I tried to conceal the latter possibility, as I put the helm up; and the craft, rising upright, but commencing to roll horribly, raced away down-wind towards open water. Once out of the point's shelter, short but angry waves raced white behind her, for one may find sufficient turmoil of waters when a fresh gale sweeps the Canadian lakes. The rolling grew wilder, the long boom splashed heavily into the white upheavals that surged by on each side, and our progress became a series of upward rushes and swoops, until at times I feared the craft would run her bows under and go down bodily. Once I caught my companion glancing over the stern, and, knowing how ugly oncoming waves appear when they heave up behind a running vessel, I laid a hand on her shoulder and gently turned her head aside.

"There! You must look only that way, and tell me if you see any islands across our course," I said.

It was practically dark now, but I could distinguish the whiteness of her wet face, and see her shiver violently. My jacket was spongy, I had nothing to wrap her in, but she looked so wet and pitiful that I drew her towards me and slipped a dripping arm protectingly about her.

Lucille Haldane made no demur. The wild rolling, the flying spray, and the rush of short tumbling ridges must have been sufficiently terrifying, and perhaps she found the contact rea.s.suring.

One hand was all I needed. There was now nothing any una.s.sisted man could do except keep the craft straight before wind and sea, but it was quite sufficient for one who had lost much of his dexterity with the tiller, and at times the boat twisted on a white crest in imminent peril of rolling over. Worse than all, the waves that smote the flat stern commenced to splash on board, and the water inside the boat rose rapidly. Already the floorings were floating, and I dare not for a second loose the tiller. It was Lucille Haldane who solved the difficulty.

"Is not all that water getting dangerous?" she asked, with chattering teeth; and, knowing her keenness, I saw there was no use attempting to hide the fact.

"Why did you not tell me so earlier?" she continued. "It is only right that I should do my share, and I can at least throw some of it out."

"You are not fit for such work, and must sit still. At this pace we shall see the lights of Leyland's house soon," I said, tightening my hold on her; but the girl shook off my grasp.

"I am not so helpless that I cannot make an effort to do what is so necessary," she said. "Let me go, Mr. Ormesby, or I shall never forgive you. Where is the bailer?"

I pointed to it, and even in face of the necessity it hurt me to see her alternately kneeling in the water that surged to and fro and trying to hold herself upright while she raised and emptied the heavy bucket.

Often she upset its contents over herself or me, and several times a lurch flung her cruelly against the coaming; but she persevered with undiminished courage until she stumbled in a savage roll and struck her head. Then she clung to the coaming, the water draining from her, and, not daring to move from the tiller, I could do nothing but growl anathemas upon the boat's owner, until the girl sank down in the stern sheets beside me.

"I must rest a little," she said. "But what were you saying, Mr.

Ormesby?"

"Only that I should like to hang the man who invented this unhandy rig, and Caryl for tempting you on board such a craft," I answered, hoping she had not heard the whole of my remarks. "You poor child, it is shameful that you should have to do such work; and, whatever happens, you shall not try again."

Her tresses, released from whatever bound them, streamed in the wind about her, and she seemed to shrink a little from me as she struggled with them. "It is not Caryl's fault. I clumsily let the rope go when I was pulling the boat in, and as it is some little time since I was a child, I do not care to be treated as one. Have I not done my best?" she asked.

"You have done gallantly; more than many men unused to seamanship--Caryl, for instance--could. All this is due to his stupidity," I answered; and fancied there was a trace of resentment in her voice as she said: "Poor Ted! He is brave enough, at least. I know he cannot swim, and yet he was about to plunge into deep water when you stopped him."

It appeared wholly ridiculous, but, even then, Lucille Haldane's defense of Caryl irritated me. "He is responsible for all you are suffering, and I can't forgive him for it. Was that not rather the action of a lunatic?" I answered shortly.

A wave, which, breaking upon the flat stern, deluged my shoulders and drenched my companion afresh, cut short the colloquy; but I caught sight of a faint twinkle ahead, and restrained her with a wet hand when she would have resumed the bailing. It was also by gentle force, for this time she resisted, that I drew her down beside me so that I partly shielded her from the spray, and the water came in as it willed as we drove onwards through thick obscurity. Still, the light rose higher ahead, and I strained my eyes to catch the first loom of Leyland's island. Large boulders studded the approach to it, and we might come to grief if we struck one of them.

It was now blowing viciously hard, the boat, half-buried in a white smother, would scarcely steer, and the bright light from a window ahead beat into my eyes, bewildering my vision. I could, however, dimly make out pines looming behind it, and the beat of yeasty surges, which warned me it would be risky to attempt a landing on that beach. There would be shelter on the leeward side of the island, but a glance at the balloon-like curves of the lifting mainsail showed that we could not clear its end upon the course we were sailing. We must jibe, or swing the mainsail over, which might result in a capsize.

"I want your help, Miss Haldane. Go forward and loose the rope you will find on your right-hand side near the mast," I said; and as the girl obeyed, the light shone more fully upon the dripping boat. I had a momentary vision of several dark figures on the veranda, and then, while I held my breath, saw only the slight form of the girl, with draggled dress and wet hair streaming, swung out above the whiteness of rushing foam as she wrenched at the halliard, which had fouled. Then the head of the sail swung down, and as she came back panting, the steering demanded all my attention.

"Hold fast to the coaming here," I said, as, dragging with might and main at the sheet, I put the tiller up.

The craft twisted upon her heel, the sail swung aloft, and then, while the sheet rasped through my fingers, chafing the skin from them, there was a heavy crash as the boom lurched over. The boat swayed wildly under its impetus, buried one side deep, and a shout, which might have been a cry of consternation, reached me faintly. Then she shook herself free, and reeled away into the blackness on a different course.

The head of the island swept by, and we shot into smoother water with a spit of shingle ahead, on which I ran the craft ash.o.r.e, and it was with sincere relief I felt the shock of her keel upon the bottom. Lucille Haldane said something I did not hear while she lay limp and wet and silent in my arms, as, floundering nearly waist-deep, I carried her ash.o.r.e and then towards a path which led to the house. The night was black, the way uneven, but perhaps because I was partly dazed I did not set down my burden. She had helped me bravely, and it was only now, when the peril had pa.s.sed, I knew how very fearful I had been for her safety.

Indeed, it was hard to realize she was yet free from danger, and in obedience to some unreasoning instinct I still held her fast, until she slipped from my grasp. A few minutes later a light twinkled among the trees, voices reached us, and Haldane, followed by several others, came up with a lantern.

He stooped and kissed his daughter, then, turning, held out his hand to me. "Thank G.o.d!--but where is Beatrice?" he said.

I told him, my teeth rattling as I spoke, and without further words we went on towards the house. Nevertheless, the fervent handclasp and quiver in Haldane's voice were sufficiently eloquent. When we entered the house, where Mrs. Leyland took charge of Lucille, Haldane, asking very few questions, looked hard at me. "I shall not forget this service," he said quietly. "In the meantime get into some of Leyland's things as quickly as you can. We are going to pull the boat ash.o.r.e under shelter of the island and requisition a wagon at Rideau's farm. I believe we can reach the others by an old lumbermen's trail."

It was in vain I offered my services as guide. Haldane would not accept them, and set out with the a.s.sistants whom, fearing some accident, he had brought with him, while I had changed into dry clothing when his daughter came in. What she had put on I do not know, but it was probably something of Mrs. Leyland's intended for evening wear; and, in contrast to her usual almost girlish attire, it became her. She had suddenly changed, as it were, into a woman. Her dark lashes were demurely lowered, but her eyes were shining.

"You are none the worse," I said, drawing out a chair for her; and she laughed a little.

"None; and I even ventured to appear in this fashion lest you should think so. I also wanted to thank you for taking care of me."

Lucille Haldane's voice was low and very pleasant to listen to, but I wondered why I should feel such a thrill of pleasure as I heard it.

"Shouldn't it be the reverse? You deserve the thanks for the way you helped me, though I am sorry it was necessary you should do what you did. Let me see your hands," I said.

She tried to slip them out of sight, but I was too quick and, seizing one, held it fast, feeling ashamed and sorry as I looked down at it. The hard ropes had torn the soft white skin, and the rim of the bucket or the coaming had left dark bruises. Admiration, mingled with pity, forced me to add: "It was very cruel. I called you child. You are the bravest woman I ever met!"

The damask tinge deepened a little in her cheeks, and she strove to draw the hand away, but I held it fast, continuing: "No man could have behaved more pluckily; but--out of curiosity--were you not just a little frightened?"

The lashes fell lower, and I was not sure of the smile beneath them. "I was, at first, very much so; but not afterwards. I thought I could trust you to take care of me."

"I am afraid I seemed very brutal; but I would have given my life to keep you safe," I said. "That, however, would have been very little after all. It is not worth much just now to anybody."

I was ashamed of the speech afterwards, especially the latter part of it, but it was wholly involuntary, and the events of the past few hours had drawn, as it were, a bond of close comradeship between my companion in peril and myself.

"I think you are wrong, but I am glad you have spoken, because I wanted to express my sympathy, and feared to intrude," she said. "We heard that bad times had overtaken you and your neighbors, and were very sorry.

Still, they cannot last forever, and you will not be beaten. You must not be, to justify the belief father and I have in you."

The words were very simple, but there was a nave sincerity about them which made them strangely comforting, while I noticed that Mrs. Leyland, who came in just then, looked at us curiously. I sat out upon the veranda until late that night, filled with a contentment I could not quite understand. To have rendered some a.s.sistance to Beatrice Haldane's sister and won her father's goodwill seemed, however, sufficient ground for satisfaction, and I decided that this must be the cause of it.

The rest of the party returned overland next day, and during the afternoon Haldane said to me: "I may as well admit that I have heard a little about your difficulties, and Leyland has been talking to me. If you don't mind the plain speaking, one might conclude that you are somewhat hardly pressed. Well, it seems to me that certain incidents have given me a right to advise or help you, and if you are disposed to let the mortgaged property go, I don't think there would be any great difficulty in finding an opening for you. There are big homesteads in your region financed by Eastern capital."

He spoke with sincerity and evident goodwill; but unfortunately Haldane was almost the last person from whom I could accept a favor. "I am, while grateful, not wholly defeated, and mean to hold on," I said.

"Would you, for instance, quietly back out of a conflict with some wealthy combine and leave your opponents a free hand to collect the plunder?"

Haldane smiled dryly. "It would depend on circ.u.mstances; but in a general way I hardly think I should," he said. "You will, however, remember advice was mentioned, and I believe there are men who would value my counsel."

I shook my head. "Heaven knows what the end will be; but I must worry through this trouble my own way," I said.

Haldane was not offended, and did not seem surprised. "You may be wrong, or you may be right; but if you and your neighbors are as hard to plunder as you are slow to take a favor, the other gentlemen will probably earn all they get," he said. "I presume you have no objections to my wishing you good luck?"

It was the next evening when I met Beatrice Haldane beside the lake.

"And so you are going back to-morrow to your cattle?" she said.

"Yes," I answered. "It is the one course open to me, and the only work for which I am fitted." And Miss Haldane showed a faint trace of impatience.

"If you are sure that is so, you are wise," she said.

Before I could answer she moved away to greet Mrs. Leyland, and some time elapsed before we met again, for I bade Leyland farewell next morning.