He was lying partly up on the ledge with his feet in the swirling torrent and his shirt rent open. There was a big red smear on it, his lips were bloodless, and one arm was doubled limply under him. Jimmy stooped and shook him gently, but Brooke made no sign, and his head sank forward until his face was hidden. Then Jimmy, who slipped his hand inside the torn shirt, withdrew it, smeared and warm, with a little shiver.
"He's bleeding quite hard, and that shows there's life in him. We have got to get him out of this right now," he said.
None of them quite remembered how they did it, for few men unaccustomed to the ranges would have cared to ascend that gully unencumbered by daylight, but it was accomplished, and when a litter of fir branches had been hastily lashed together they plodded behind it in silence down the hillside. If anything could be done, and they were very uncertain on that point, it could only be done in the shanty.
As they floundered down the trail a man met them with the news that very little of the water had got into the mine, but that did not appear of much importance to any one just then. After all, the Dayspring belonged to an English company, and it was Brooke, who lay in the litter oblivious of everything, they had worked for.
XXX.
THE OTHER CHANCE
The blink of sunlight was pleasantly warm where Barbara sat with Hetty Hume on a seat set back among the laurels which just there cut off the shrewd wind from the English lawn. A black cloud sailed slowly over the green hilltop behind the old grey house, and the close-cropped grass was sparkling still with the sprinkle of bitter rain, but the scent of the pale narcissus drifted up from the borders and the sticky buds of a big chestnut were opening overhead. Barbara glanced across the sweep of lawn towards the line of willows that swung their tasseled boughs above the palely flashing river. They were apparently dusted with silver and ochre, and here and there a flush of green chequered the ridge of thorn along the winding road that led the eye upwards to the clean-cut edge of the moor. It was, however, a regular, even line, cropped to one unvarying level save for the breaks where the neat gates were hung; the road was smooth and wide, with a red board beside the wisp of firs above to warn all it might concern of the gradient; while the square fields with the polled trees in the trim hedgerows all conveyed the same impression. This was decorous, well-ordered England, where Nature was broken to man's dominion centuries ago. As she glanced at it her companion laughed.
"The prospect from here is, I believe, generally admitted to be attractive, though I have not noticed any of my other friends spend much time in admiring it," she said. "Still, perhaps it is different in your case. You haven't anything quite like it in Canada."
"No," said Barbara. "Anyway, not between Quatomac and the big glacier. You remember that ride?"
"Of course!" said Hetty Hume. "I found it a little overwhelming. That is, the peaks and glaciers. I also remember the rancher. The one who played the violin. I suppose you never came across him again?"
"I met him once or twice. At a big concert – and on other occasions."
Barbara's smile was indifferent, but she was silent for the next minute or two. She had now spent several weeks in England, and had found the smooth, well-regulated life there pleasant after the restless activity of the one she had led in Western Canada, where everybody toiled feverishly. She felt the contrast every day, and now the sight of that softly-sliding river, whose low murmur came up soothingly across the lawn, recalled the one that frothed and foamed amidst the Quatomac pines, and the roar that rose from the misty cañon. That, very naturally, also brought back the face of the flume-builder, and she wondered vaguely whether he was still at the Dayspring, and what he was doing then, until her companion turned to her again.
"We will really have to decide about the Cruttendens' dance to-night," she said. "It will be the last frivolity of the season in this vicinity."
"I haven't met Mrs. Cruttenden, have I?" said Barbara, indifferently.
"You did, when you were here before. Don't you remember the old house you were so pleased with lower down the valley? In any case, she remembers you, and made a point of my bringing you. Cruttenden has a relative in your country, though I never heard much about the man."
Barbara remembered the old building very well, and it suddenly flashed upon her that Brooke had on one occasion displayed a curious acquaintance with it. Everything that afternoon seemed to force him upon her recollection.
"You would like to go?" she said.
"I, at least, feel I ought to. We are, of course, quite newcomers here. In fact, we had only bought Larchwood just before you last came over, and it was Mrs. Cruttenden who first took us up. One may live a very long while in places of this kind without being admitted within the pale, you see, and even the rank of Major isn't a very great warranty, especially if it has been gained in foreign service instead of Aldershot."
Miss Hume stopped as her father came slowly down the pathway with a grey-haired lady, whose dress proclaimed her a widow, and the latter's voice reached the girl's clearly. Her face was, so Barbara noticed, very expressive as she turned to her companion.
"I think you know what I really came for," she said. "I feel I owe you a very great deal."
Major Hume made a little deprecatory gesture. "I have," he said, "at least, seen the papers, and was very glad to notice that Reggie has got his step. He certainly deserved it. Very plucky thing, especially with only a handful of a raw native levy to back him. Frontal attack in daylight – and the niggers behind the stockade seem to have served their old guns astonishingly well!"
"Still, if it had not been for your forbearance he would never have had the opportunity of doing it," said the lady. "I shall always remember that. You were the only one who made any excuse for him, and he told me his colonel was very bitter against him."
The pair passed the girls, apparently without noticing them, and Barbara did not hear Major Hume's answer, but when he came back alone a few minutes later he stopped in front of them.
"You were here when we went by?" he said.
"Yes," said Hetty. "We heard you quite distinctly, too, and that suggests a question. What was it Reggie Ferris did?"
Major Hume smiled drily. "Stormed a big rebel stockade with only a few half-drilled natives to help him. If you haven't read it already I can give you a paper with an account of the affair."
"That," said Hetty, "is, as you are aware, not what I wished to ask. What was it he did before he left the line regiment? It was, presumably, something not especially creditable – and I always had an idea that he owed it to you that the result was not a good deal more unpleasant."
The Major appeared a trifle embarrassed. "I scarcely think it would do you very much good to know," he said. "The thing wasn't a nice one, but there was good stuff in the lad, who, it was evident to me, at least, had been considerably more of a fool than a rogue, and all I did was to persuade the Colonel, who meant to break him, to give him another chance. It seems I was wise. Reggie Ferris has had his lesson, and has from all accounts retrieved his credit in the Colonial service."
"If I remember correctly you once made a bad mistake in being equally considerate to another man," said Hetty, reflectively.
"I certainly did, but you will find by the time you are as old as I am that taking it all round it is better to be merciful."
"The Major," said Hetty, with a glance at Barbara, "is a confirmed optimist – and he has been in India."
Major Hume smiled. "Well," he said, "the mistakes one makes from that cause hurt one less afterwards than the ones that result from believing in nobody. Now, there was that young woman who was engaged to Reggie – "
"He has applied the suggestive epithet to her ever since she gave him up," said Hetty. "Still, I really don't think anybody could have expected very much more from her."
"No," said the Major, grimly. "In my opinion she went further than there was any particular necessity for her to do. She knew the man's shortcomings when she was engaged to him – and she should have stuck to him. You don't condemn any one for a single slip in your country, Miss Heathcote?"
Barbara made no answer, for this, it seemed, was just what she had done, but Hetty, who had been watching her, laughed.
"You couldn't expect her to admit that their standard in Canada is lower than ours," she said.
The Major appeared disconcerted. "That is not exactly what I mean. They have a little more charity yonder, and, in some respects, a good deal more sense. From one or two cases I am acquainted with they are, in fact, usually willing to give the man who trips another chance instead of falling upon him mercilessly before he can get up."
"Still you haven't told us yet what Reggie Ferris did."
Major Hume laughed as he turned away. "I am," he said, "quite aware of it."
He left them, and Hetty smiled as she said, "The Major has not infrequently been imposed upon, but nothing will disabuse him of his cheerful belief in human nature, and I must admit that he is quite as often right as more censorious people. There was Lily Harland who gave Reggie Ferris up, which, of course, was probably only what he could have expected under the circumstances, but Reggie, it appears, is wiping out the past, and I have reasons for surmising that she has been sorry ever since. Nobody but my father and his mother ever hear from him now, and if that hurts Lily she has only herself to blame. She had her opportunity of showing what faith she had in the man, and can't expect to get another just because she would like it."
She wondered why the warm color had crept into her companion's face, but Barbara said nothing, and vacantly watched the road that wound up through the meadows out of the valley, until a moving object appeared where it crossed the crest of the hill. In the meanwhile her thoughts were busy, for the Major's suggestive little story had not been without its effect on her, and the case of Reggie Ferris was, it seemed, remarkably similar to that of a certain Canadian flume-builder. The English soldier and Grant Devine had both been charitable, but she and the girl who was sorry ever since had shown themselves merciless, and there was in that connection a curious significance in the fact that Reggie Ferris, who was now brilliantly blotting out the past, wrote nobody but his mother and the man who had given him what the latter termed another chance. Barbara remembered the afternoon when she waited at the window and Brooke, who, she fancied, could have done so had he wished, had not come up from the depôt. She could not ignore the fact that this had since occasioned her a vague uneasiness.
In the meanwhile the moving object had been growing larger, and when it reappeared lower down the road resolved itself into a gardener who had been despatched to the nearest village on a bicycle.
"We will wait until Tom brings in the letters," said Hetty.
It was a few minutes later when the man came up the path and handed her a packet. Among the letters she spread out there was one for Barbara, whose face grew suddenly intent as she opened it. It was from Mrs. Devine, and the thin paper crackled under her tightening fingers as she read: —
"I have been alone since I last wrote you, as Grant had to go up to the Dayspring suddenly and has not come back. There was, I understand, a big flood in the valley above the mine, and Brooke, it seems, was very seriously hurt when endeavoring to protect the workings. I don't understand exactly how it happened, though I surmise from Grant's letters that he did a very daring thing. He is now in the Vancouver hospital, for although Grant wished him brought here, the surgeon considered him far too ill to move. His injuries, I understand, are not very serious in themselves, but it appears that the man was badly worn out and run down when he sustained them, and his condition, I am sorry to say, is just now very precarious."
The rest of the letter concerned the doings of Barbara's friends in Vancouver, but the girl read no more of it, and sat still, a trifle white in the face, with her hands trembling, until Hetty turned to her.
"You don't look well," she said. "I hope nothing has happened to your sister or Mr. Devine?"
"No," said Barbara, quietly, though there was a faint tremor in her voice. "They are apparently in as good health as usual."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Hetty, with an air of relief. "There is, of course, nobody else, or I should have known it, though you really seem a trifle paler than you generally do. Shall we go in and look through these patterns? I have been writing up about some dress material, and they've sent cuttings. Still, I don't suppose you will want anything new for Mrs. Cruttenden's?"
"No," said Barbara, in a voice that was almost too even now, and not in keeping with the tension in her face. "In fact, I'm not going at all."
Hetty glanced at her sharply, and then made a little gesture of comprehension.
"Very well!" she said. "Whenever you feel it would be any consolation you can tell me, but in the meanwhile I have no doubt that you can get on without my company."
She moved away, and Barbara, who was glad to be alone, sat still, for she wished to set her thoughts in order. This was apparently the climax all that had passed that afternoon had led up to, but she was just then chiefly conscious of an overwhelming distress that precluded any systematic consideration of its causes. The man whom she had roused from his lethargy at the Quatomac ranch was now, she gathered, dying in the Vancouver hospital, but not before he had blotted out his offences by slow endurance and unwearying effort in the face of flood and frost. She would have admitted this to him willingly now, but the opportunity was, it seemed, not to be afforded her, and the bitter words with which she had lashed him could never be withdrawn. She who had shown no mercy, and would not afford him what Major Hume had termed another chance, must, it seemed, long for it in vain herself.
By degrees, however, her innate resolution rose against that decision, and she remembered that it was not, in point of time, at least a very long journey to British Columbia. There was nothing to prevent her setting out when it pleased her; and then it occurred to her that the difficulties would be plentiful at the other end. What explanation would she make to her sister, or the man, if – and the doubt was horrible – he was, indeed, still capable of receiving it? He had never in direct speech offered her his love, and she had not even the excuse of the girl who had given Reggie Ferris up for throwing herself at his feet. She was not even sure that she could have done it in that case, for her pride was strong, and once more she felt the hopelessness of the irrevocable. She had shown herself hard and unforgiving, and now she realized that the man she loved – and it was borne in upon her, that in spite of his offences she loved him well – was as far beyond her reach as though he had already slipped away from her into the other world at whose shadowy portals he lay in the Vancouver hospital.
There had been a time, indeed the occasion had twice presented itself, when she could have relented gracefully, but she could no longer hope that it would ever happen again, and it only remained for her to face the result of her folly, and bear herself befittingly. It would, she realized, cost her a bitter effort, but the effort must be made, and she rose with a tense white face and turned towards the house. Hetty, as it happened, met her in the hall, and looked at her curiously.
"There are, as you may remember, two or three people coming in to dinner," she said. "I have no doubt I could think out some excuse if you would sooner not come down."
"Why do you think that would please me?" said Barbara, quietly.
"Well," said Hetty, a trifle drily, "I fancied you would sooner have stayed away. Your appearance rather suggested it."
Barbara smiled in a listless fashion. "I'm afraid I can't help that," she said. "Your friends, however, will presumably not be here for an hour or two yet."
Hetty made no further suggestions, and Barbara moved on slowly towards the stairway. She came of a stock that had grappled with frost and flood in the wild ranges of the mountain province, and courage and steadfastness were born in her, but she knew there was peril in the slightest concession to her gentler nature she might make just then. What she bore in the meanwhile she told nobody, but when the sonorous notes of a gong rolled through the building she came down the great stairway only a trifle colder in face than usual, and immaculately dressed.
XXXI.
BROOKE IS FORGIVEN
It was a pleasant morning, and Brooke lay luxuriating in the sunlight by an open window of the Vancouver hospital. His face was blanched and haggard, and his clothes hung loosely about his limbs, but there was a brightness in his eyes, and he was sensible that at last his strength was coming back to him. Opposite him sat Devine, who had just come in, and was watching him with evident approbation.
"You will be fit to be moved out in a day or two, and I want to see you in Mrs. Devine's hands," he said. "We have a room fixed ready, and I came round to ask when the doctor would let you go."
Brooke slowly shook his head. "You are both very kind, but I'm going back to the Old Country," he said. "Still, I don't know whether I shall stay there yet."
Devine appeared a trifle disconcerted. "We had counted on you taking hold again at the Dayspring," he said. "Wilkins is getting an old man, and I don't know of any one who could handle that mine as you have done. Quite sure there's nothing I could do that would keep you?"
Brooke lay silent a moment or two. He was loth to leave the mine, but during his slow recovery at the hospital a curious longing to see the Old Country once more had come upon him. He could go back now, and, if it pleased him, pick up the threads of the old life he had left behind, though he was by no means sure this would afford him the satisfaction he had once anticipated. The ambition to prove his capabilities in Canada had, in the meanwhile, at least, deserted him since his last meeting with Barbara, and he had heard from Mrs. Devine that it would probably be several months before she returned to Vancouver. He realized that it was she who had kept him there, and now she had gone, and the mine was, as Devine had informed him, exceeding all expectations, there was no longer any great inducement to stay in Canada. He had seen enough of the country, and, of late, a restless desire to get away from it had been growing stronger with every day of his recovery. It might, he felt, be easier to shake off the memory of his folly in another land.
"No," he said, slowly, "I don't think there is. I feel I must go back, for a while, at least."
"Well," said Devine, who seemed to recognize that protests would be useless, "it's quite a long journey. I guess you can afford it?"
Brooke felt the keen eyes fixed on him with an almost disconcerting steadiness, but he contrived to smile.
"Yes," he said, "if I don't do it too extravagantly, I fancy I can."
"Then there's another point," said Devine, with a faint twinkle in his eyes. "You might want to do something yonder that would bring the dollars in. Now, I could give you a few lines that would be useful in case you wanted an engagement with one of your waterworks contractors or any one of that kind."
"I scarcely think it will be necessary," said Brooke, with a little smile.
"Well," said Devine, "I have a notion that it's not going to be very long before we see you back again. You have got used to us, and you're going to find the folks yonder slow. I can think of quite a few men who saved up, one or two of them for a very long while, to go home to the Old Country, and in about a month they'd had enough of it. The country was very much as they left it – but they had altered."
He stopped a moment, with a little chuckle, before he continued. "Now, there was Sandy Campbell, who ran the stamps at the Canopus for me. He never spent a dollar when he could help it, and, when he'd quite a pile of them, he told me he was just sickening for a sight of Glasgow. Well, I let him go, and that day six weeks Sandy came round to the mine again. The Old Country was badly played out, he said, but, for another month, that was all he would tell me, and then the facts came out. Sandy's friends had met him at the Donaldson wharf, and started a circus over the whisky. Somebody broke the furniture, and Sandy doubled up a policeman who, he figured, had insulted him, so they had him up for doing it before whatever they call a magistrate in that country. Sandy's remarks were printed in a Glasgow paper, and he showed it me.
"'Forty shillings. It's an iniquity,' he said. 'Is this how ye treat a man who has come six thousand miles to see his native land? I will not find ye a surety. I'm away back by the first Allan boat to a country where they appreciate me.'"
Brooke laughed. "Still, I don't quite see how Sandy's case applies to me."
"I guess it does. One piece of it, anyway. Sandy knew where he was appreciated, and we have room for a good many men of your kind in this country. That's about all I need say. When you feel like it, come right back to me."
He went out a few minutes later, and Brooke lay still thoughtfully, with his old ambitions re-awakening. There was, he surmised, a good deal of truth in Devine's observations, and work in the mountain province that he could do. Still, he felt that even to make his mark there would be no great gain to him now. Barbara could not forgive him, but she was in England, and he might, at least, see her. Whether that would be wise he did not know, and scarcely fancied so, but the faint probability had its attractions, and he would go and stay there – until he had recovered his usual vigor, at least.
It was, however, a little while before the doctors would permit him to risk the journey, and several months had passed when he stood with a kinsman and his wife on the lawn outside an old house in an English valley. The air was still and warm, and a full moon was rising above the beeches on the hillside. Its pale light touched the river, that slid smoothly between the mossy stepping-stones, and the shadows of clipped yew and drooping willow lay black upon the grass. There was a faint smell of flowers that linger in the fall, and here and there a withered leaf was softly sailing down, but that night it reminded Brooke of the resinous odors of the Western pines, and the drowsy song of the river, of the thunder of the torrent that swirled by Quatomac. His heart was also beating a trifle more rapidly than usual, and for that reason he was more than usually quiet.
"I suppose your friends will come?" he said, indifferently.
Mrs. Cruttenden, who stood close by him, laughed. "To the minute! Major Hume is punctuality itself. I fancy he will be a little astonished to-night."
"I shall be pleased to meet him again. He was to bring Miss Hume?"
"Of course," said Mrs. Cruttenden, with a keen glance at him. "And Miss Heathcote, whom you asked about. No doubt she will be a trifle astonished, too. You do not seem quite so sure that the meeting with her will afford you any pleasure?"
Brooke smiled a trifle grimly. "The most important question is whether she will be pleased to see me. I don't mind admitting it is one that is causing me considerable anxiety."
"Wouldn't her attitude on the last occasion serve as guide?"
Brooke felt his face grow warm under her watchful eyes, but he laughed.
"I would like to believe that it did not," he said. "Miss Heathcote did not appear by any means pleased with me. Still, you see, you sometimes change your minds."
"Yes," said Mrs. Cruttenden, reflectively. "Especially when the person who has offended us has been very ill. It is, in fact, the people one likes the most one is most inclined to feel angry with now and then, but there are circumstances under which one feels sorry for past severities."
Brooke started, for this appeared astonishingly apposite in view of the fact that he had, as she had once or twice reminded him, told her unnecessarily little about his Canadian affairs. The difficulty, however, was that he could not be sure she was correct.
"You naturally know what you would do, but, after all, that scarcely goes quite as far as one would like," he said.
Mrs. Cruttenden laughed softly. "Still, I fancy the rest are very like me in one respect. In fact, it might be wise of you to take that for granted."
Just then three figures appeared upon the path that came down to the stepping-stones across the river, and Brooke's eyes were eager as he watched them. They were as yet in the shadow, but he felt that he would have recognized one of them anywhere and under any circumstances. Then he strode forward precipitately, and a minute later sprang aside on to an outlying stone as a grey-haired man, who glanced at him sharply, turned, with hand held out, to one of his companions. Brooke moved a little nearer the one who came last, and then stood bareheaded, while the girl stopped suddenly and looked at him. He could catch the gleam of the brown eyes under the big hat, and, for the moon was above the beeches now, part of her face and neck gleamed like ivory in the silvery light. She stood quite still, with the flashing water sliding past her feet, etherealized, it seemed to him, by her surroundings and a complement of the harmonies of the night.
"You?" she said.
Brooke laughed softly, and swept his hand vaguely round, as though to indicate the shining river and dusky trees.
"Yes," he said. "You remember how I met you at Quatomac. Who else could it be?"
"Nobody," said Barbara, with a tinge of color in her face. "At least, any one else would have been distinctly out of place."
Brooke tightened his grasp on the hand she had laid in his, for which there was some excuse, since the stone she stood upon was round and smooth, and it was a long step to the next one.
"You knew I was here?" he said.
"Yes," said Barbara, quietly.
Brooke felt his heart throbbing painfully. "And you could have framed an excuse for staying away?"
The girl glanced at him covertly as he stood very straight looking down on her, with lips that had set suddenly, and tension in his face. The moonlight shone into it, and it was, she noticed, quieter and a little grimmer than it had been, while his sinewy frame still showed spare to gauntness in the thin conventional dress. This had its significance to her.
"Of course!" she said. "Still, it did not seem necessary. I had no reason for wishing to stay away."
Brooke fancied that there was a good deal in this admission, and his voice had a little exultant thrill in it.
"That implies – ever so much," he said. "Hold fast. That stone is treacherous, and one can get wet in this river, though it is not the Quatomac. Absurd to suggest that, isn't it? Are not Abana and Pharpar better than all the waters of Israel?"
Barbara also laughed. "Do you wish the Major to come back for me?" she said. "It is really a little difficult to stand still upon a narrow piece of mossy stone."
They went across, and Major Hume stared at Brooke in astonishment when Cruttenden presented him.
"By all that's wonderful! Our Canadian guide!" he said.
"Presumably so!" said Cruttenden. "Still, though, my wife appears to understand the allusion, it's more than I do. Anyway, he is my kinsman, Harford Brooke, and the owner of High Wycombe."
Brooke smiled as he shook hands with the Major, but he was sensible that Barbara flashed a swift glance at him, and, as they moved towards the house, Hetty broke in.
"You must know, Mr. Cruttenden, that your kinsman met Barbara beside a river once before, and on that occasion, too, they did not come out of it until some little time after we did," she said.
"That," said Cruttenden, "appears to imply that they were – in – the water."
"I really think that one of them was," said Hetty. "Barbara had a pony, but Mr. Brooke had not, and his appearance certainly suggested that he had been bathing. In fact, he was so bedraggled that Barbara gave him a dollar. She had, I must explain, already spent a few months in this country."
Brooke was a trifle astonished, and noticed a sudden warmth in Barbara's face.
"If I remember correctly, you had gone into the ranch, Miss Hume," he said, severely.
"No," said Hetty. "You may have fancied so, but I hadn't. I was the only chaperon Barbara had, you see. I hope she didn't tell you not to lavish the dollar on whisky. No doubt you spent it wisely on tobacco."
Brooke made no answer, and his smile was somewhat forced; but he went with the others into the house, and it was an hour or two later when he and Barbara again stood by the riverside alone. Neither of them quite knew how it came about, but they were there with the black shadows of the beeches behind them and the flashing water at their feet. Brooke glanced slowly round him, and then turned to the girl.
"It reminds one of that other river – but there is a difference," he said. "The beeches make poor substitutes for your towering pines, and you no longer wear the white samite."
"And," said Barbara, "where is the sword?"
Brooke looked down on her gravely, and shook his head. "I am not fit to wear it, and yet I dare not give it back to you, stained as it is," he said. "What am I to do?"
"Keep it," said Barbara, softly. "You have wiped the stain out, and it is bright again."
Brooke laid a hand that quivered a little on her shoulder. "Barbara," he said, "I am not vainer than most men, and I know what I have done, but unless what once seemed beyond all hoping for was about to come to me, you and I would not have met again beside the river. It simply couldn't happen. You can forget all that has gone before, and once more try to believe in me?"