Vane of the Timberlands Part 11

"I do; the girls in particular. They interest me. The younger one's of a type that's common in our country, though it's generally given room for free development into something useful there. Mabel's chafing at the curb. It remains to be seen whether she'll kick, presently, and hurt herself in doing so."

Vane remembered that Evelyn had said something to the same effect; but he had already discovered that Carroll possessed a keen insight in certain matters.

"And her sister?" he suggested.

"You won't mind my saying that I'm inclined to be sorry for her? She has learned repression--been driven into line. That girl has character, but it's being cramped and stunted. You live in walled-in compartments in this country."

"Doesn't the same thing apply to New York, Montreal, or Toronto?"

"Not to the same extent. We haven't had time yet to number off all the little subdivisions and make rules for them, nor to elaborate the niceties of an immutable system. No doubt, we'll come to it."

He paused with a deprecatory laugh.

"Mrs. Chisholm believes in the system. She has been modeled on it--it's got into her blood; and that's why she's at variance with her daughters.

No doubt, the thing's necessary; I'm finding no fault with it. You must remember that we're outsiders, with a different outlook; we've lived in the new West."

Vane strolled on along the terrace thoughtfully. He was not offended; he understood his companion's att.i.tude. Like other men of education and good upbringing driven by unrest or disaster to the untrammeled life of the bush, Carroll had gained sympathy as well as knowledge. Facing facts candidly, he seldom indulged in decided protest against any of them. On the other hand, Vane was on occasion liable to outbreaks of indignation.

"Well," said Vane at length, "I guess it's time to go to bed."

CHAPTER VI

UPON THE HEIGHTS

Vane rose early the next morning, as he had been accustomed to do, and taking a towel he made his way across dewy meadows and between tall hedgerows to the tarn. Stripping where the rabbit-cropped sward met the mossy boulders, he swam out, joyously breasting the little ripples which splashed and sparkled beneath the breeze that had got up with the sun.

Coming back, where the water lay in shadow beneath a larchwood which as yet had not wholly lost its vivid vernal green, he disturbed the paddling moor-hens and put up a mallard from a clump of swaying reeds. Then he dressed and turned homeward, glowing, beside a sluggish stream which wound through a waste of heather where the curlew were whistling eerily.

He had no cares to trouble him, and it was delightful to feel that he had nothing to do except to enjoy himself in what he considered the fairest country in the world, at least in summertime.

Scrambling over a limestone wall tufted thick with parsley fern, he noticed Mabel stooping over an object which lay among the heather where a rough cartroad approached a wooden bridge. On joining her he saw that she was examining a finely-built canoe with a hole in one bilge. She looked up at him ruefully.

"It's sad, isn't it? That stupid Little did it with his clumsy cart."

"I think it could be mended," Vane replied.

"Old Beavan--he's the wheelwright--said it couldn't; and Dad said I could hardly expect him to send the canoe back to Kingston. He bought it for me at an exhibition."

Then a thought seemed to strike her and her eyes grew eager.

"Perhaps you had something to do with light canoes in Canada?"

"Yes; I used to pole one loaded with provisions up a river and carry the lot round several falls. If I remember, I made eight shillings a day at it, and I think I earned it. You're fond of paddling?"

"I love it! I used to row the fishing-punt, but it's too old to be safe; and now that the canoe's smashed I can't go out at all."

"Well, we'll walk across and see what we can find in Beavan's shop."

He took a few measurements, making them on a stick, and they crossed the heath to a tiny hamlet nestling in a hollow of a limestone crag. There Vane made friends with the wheelwright, who regarded him dubiously at first, and obtained a piece of larch board from him. The grizzled North Countryman watched him closely as he set a plane, which is a delicate operation, and he raised no objections when Vane made use of his work-bench. When the board had been sawed up, Vane borrowed a few tools and copper nails, and he and Mabel went back to the canoe. On the way she glanced at him curiously.

"I wasn't sure old Beavan would let you have the things," she remarked.

"It isn't often he'll even lend a hammer, but he seemed to take to you; I think it was the way you handled his plane."

"It's strange what little things win some people's good opinion, isn't it?"

"Oh, don't!" exclaimed Mabel. "That's the way the Archdeacon talks. I thought you were different!"

The man acquiesced in the rebuke; and after an hour's labor at the canoe, he sc.r.a.ped the red lead he had used off his hands and sat down beside the craft. The sun was warm now, the dew was drying, and a lark sang riotously overhead. Vane became conscious that his companion was regarding him with what seemed to be approval.

"I really think you'll do, and we'll get on," she informed him. "If you had been the wrong kind, you would have worried about your red hands. Still, you could have rubbed them on the heather, instead of on your socks."

"I might have thought of that," Vane laughed. "But, you see, I've been accustomed to wearing old clothes. Anyway, you'll be able to launch the canoe as soon as the joint's dry."

"There's one thing I should have told you," the girl replied. "Dad would have sent the canoe away to be mended if it hadn't been so far. He's very good when things don't ruffle him; but he hasn't been fortunate lately.

The lead mine takes a good deal of money."

Vane admired her loyalty, and he refrained from taking advantage of her candor, though there were one or two questions he would have liked to ask. When he was last in England, Chisholm had been generally regarded as a man of means, though it was rumored that he was addicted to hazardous speculations. Mabel, without noticing his silence, went on:

"I heard Stevens--he's the gamekeeper--tell Beavan that Dad should have been a rabbit because he's so fond of burrowing. No doubt, that meant that he couldn't keep out of mines."

Vane made no comment; and Mabel, breaking off for a moment, looked up at the rugged fells to the west and then around at the moors which cut against the blue of the morning sky.

"It's all very pretty, but it shuts one in!" she cried. "You feel you want to get out and can't! I suppose you really couldn't take me back with you to Canada?"

"I'm afraid not. If you were about ten years older, it might be possible."

Mabel grimaced.

"Oh, don't! That's the kind of thing some of Gerald's smart friends say, and it makes one want to slap them! Besides," she added naively, glancing down at her curtailed skirt, "I'm by no means so young as I appear to be.

The fact is, I'm not allowed to grow up yet."

"Why?"

The girl laughed at him.

"Oh, you've lived in the woods. If you had stayed in England, you would understand."

"I'm afraid I've been injudicious," Vane answered with a show of humility. "But don't you think it's getting on toward breakfast time?"

"Breakfast won't be for a good while yet. We don't get up early. Evelyn used to, but it's different now. We used to go out on the tarn every morning, even in the wind and rain; but I suppose that's not good for one's complexion, though bothering about such things doesn't seem to me to be worth while. Aunt Julia couldn't do anything for Evelyn, though she had her in London for some time. Flora is our shining light."

"What did she do?"

"She married the Archdeacon; and he isn't so very dried up. I've seen him smile when I talked to him."

"I'm not astonished at that, Mabel," laughed Vane.