Mrs. Hastings joined them soon afterwards, and when Wyllard strolled away they spent some time leaning on the rails, and looking at the groups of shadowy figures on the forward deck. Their attitude was dejected and melancholy, but one cluster had gathered round a man who stood upon the hatch.

"Yes," he said, "you'll have no trouble. Canada's a great country for a poor man. He can sleep beneath a bush all summer, if he can't strike anything he likes."

This did not appear particularly encouraging, but the orator went on. "Been over for a trip to the Old Country, and I'm glad I'm going back again. Went out with nothing except a good discharge, and they made me sergeant of Canadian militia: After that armourer to a rifle club. There's places a blame long way behind the Dominion, and I struck one of them when we went with Roberts to Afghanistan. It was on that trip I and a Pathan rolled all down a hill, him trying to get his knife arm loose, and me jabbing his breastbone with my bayonet before I got it into him. I drove it through to the socket. You want to make quite sure of a Pathan."

Miss Rawlinson winced at this. "Oh," she said, "what a horrible man!"

"It was 'most as tough as when you went after Kiel, and stole the Scotchman's furs," suggested a Canadian.

The sergeant let the jibe go by. "Oh," he said, "Louis's bucks could shoot! We had them corralled in a pit, and every time one of the boys from Montreal broke cover he got a bullet into him. Did any of you ever hear a dropped man squeal?"

Agatha had heard sufficient, and she and her companions turned away, but as they moved across the deck the sergeant's voice followed her.

"Oh, yes," he said, "a grand country for a poolman. In the summer he can sleep beneath a bush."

For some reason this eulogy haunted Agatha when she retired to her room that night, and she wondered what awaited all those aliens in the new land, until it occurred to her that in some respects she was situated very much as they were. Then, for the first time, vague misgivings crept into her mind as she realised that she had cut herself adrift from all that she had been accustomed to. She felt suddenly depressed and lonely.

The depression had, however, almost vanished when, awakening rather early next morning, she went up on deck. A red sun hung over the tumbling seas that ran into the hazy east astern, and they rolled up in crested phalanxes that gleamed green and incandescent white ahead. The Scarrowmania plunged through them with a spray cloud flying about her dipping bows. She was a small, old-fashioned boat, and – for she had some 3,000 tons of railway iron in the bottom of her – she rolled distressfully. Her tall spars swayed athwart the vivid blueness of the morning sky, with the rhythmic regularity of a pendulum. The girl, however, was troubled by no sense of sickness; the keen north-wester that sang amidst the shrouds was wonderfully fresh; and when she met Wyllard crossing the saloon deck her cheeks were glowing from the sting of the spray, and her eyes were bright.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"Down there," said Wyllard, pointing to the black opening in the fore-hatch that led to the steerage quarters. "An acquaintance of mine who's travelling forward asked me to take a look round, and I'm rather glad I did. When I've had a word with the chief steward I'm going back again."

"You have a friend down there?"

"I met the man for the first time yesterday, and rather took to him. One of your naval petty officers, forcibly retired, who can't live upon his pension, which is why he's going out to Canada. Now you'll excuse me."

"I wonder," said Agatha, "if you would let me go back with you?"

Wyllard looked at her rather curiously. "Well," he said, with an air of reflection, "you'll probably have to face a good deal that you don't like out yonder, and in one way you won't suffer from a little preparatory training. This, however, is not a case where sentimental pity is likely to relieve anybody. It's the real thing."

"I think I told you at Garside Scar that I haven't lived altogether in luxury!"

Wyllard, who made no comment, disappeared, and merely signed to her when he came back. They reached the ladder that led down into the gloom beneath the hatch, and Agatha hesitated when a sour and musty odour floated up to her, apparently out of the depths of the ship. She went down, however, and a few moments later stood, half-nauseated, gazing at the wildest scene of confusion her eyes had ever rested on. A little light came down the hatchway, and a smoky lamp or two swung above her head, but half the steerage deck was wrapped in shadow, and out of it there rose a many-voiced complaining. Flimsy, unplaned fittings had wrenched away, and men lay inert amidst the wreckage, with the remains of their last meal scattered about them. There were unwashed tin plates and pannikins, knives, and spoons, sliding up and down everywhere, and the deck was foul with slops of tea, and trodden bread, and marmalade. Now and then, in a wilder roll than usual, a frowsy, huddled object slid groaning down the slant of slimy planking, but in every case the helpless passenger was fully dressed. Steerage passengers, in fact, seldom take off their clothes. For one thing, all their worldly possessions are, as a rule, secreted among their attire, and for another, most of those hailing from beyond the Danube have never been accustomed to disrobing. In the midst of the confusion, two half-sick steward lads were making wholly ineffective efforts to straighten up the mess.

Then Agatha made out that a swarm of urchins were huddled together in a helpless mass, along one side of the horrible place. The sergeant was haranguing them, while another man, whom she supposed to be the petty officer, pulled them to their feet one by one. A good deal of his labour was wasted, for the Scarrowmania was rolling viciously, and as soon as he had got a few upright half of them collapsed again. Wyllard glanced towards them compassionately.

"I believe most of them have had nothing to eat since they came on board, though it isn't the company's fault," he said. "There's food enough served out, but before we picked the breeze up the men laid hands upon it first and half of it was wasted in the scramble. Then it seems they pitched these youngsters out of their berths."

"Don't they belong to anybody?" Agatha asked. "Is there no one to look after them?"

Wyllard smiled drily. "I believe one of your charitable institutions is sending them out, and there seems to be a clergyman, who has a curate and a lay assistant to help him, in charge. The assistant won't be available while this rolling lasts, and the other two very naturally prefer the saloon. In a way, that's comprehensible."

He left her, and proceeded to help the man who was dragging the urchins to their feet.

"Get up!" said the sergeant. "Get up, and fall in. Dress from the left, and number off, the ones who can stand."

It appeared that the lads had been drilled, for they scrambled into a line that bent and wavered each time the Scarrowmania's bows went down. After that, every other lad stepped forward at the word; the order was, "Left turn! March, and fall in on deck," and when they feebly clambered up the ladder Wyllard, who turned to Agatha, pointed to a door in a bulkhead of rough white wood.

"It should have been locked, but I fancy you can get in that way, and up through another hatch," he said. "The single women, and women with children are in yonder, and if you want to be useful there's a field for you. Get as many as possible up on deck."

Agatha left him, and her face was rather white when at last she came up into the open air, with about a dozen forlorn, draggled women trailing helplessly after her. The lads were now sitting down in a double line on deck, each with a tin plate and a steaming pannikin in front of him. There were, she fancied, at least a hundred of them, and a man with a bronzed face and the stamp of command upon him was giving them the order of the voyage. He was the one she had already noticed.

"You'll turn out at the whistle at half-past six," he said. "Shake mattresses, roll up blankets, and prepare for berth inspection. Then, at the next whistle, you'll fall in on deck stripped to the waist for washing parade. Fourth files numbering even are orderlies in charge of the plates and pannikins."

"And," said the sergeant, "any insubordination will be sharply dealt with. Now, when I was with Roberts in Afghanistan – "

Wyllard, who was standing close by, turned to Agatha.

"I don't think we'll be wanted. You have probably earned your breakfast."

They went back to the saloon deck, and the girl smiled when he looked at her inquiringly.

"It was a little horrible, but I hadn't so many to deal with," she said. "Do you, and those others expect to bring any order out of that chaos?"

"No," said Wyllard, "with a little encouragement they'll do it themselves – that is, the English, Danes, and Germans. One can trust them to evolve a workable system. It's in their nature. You can trace most things that tend to wholesome efficiency back to the old Teutonic leaven. By and bye, they'll proceed to put some pressure on the Latins, Slavs, and Jews."

"But is it your business to offer them that encouragement?"

Wyllard laughed. "Strictly speaking, it isn't in the least, but unnecessary chaos is rather hateful, and, any way, I'm not the only one who doesn't seem to like it. There's the petty officer, and our friend, the sergeant, who was with Roberts in Afghanistan."

Agatha said nothing further. She was a little surprised to feel that she was anxious to keep this man's good opinion, though that was not exactly why she had nerved herself for the venture into the single women's quarters. Leaving him out altogether, it seemed to her that there was something rather fine in the way the petty officer who was going out almost penniless to Canada, and the sergeant, had saddled themselves with the task of looking after those helpless lads. It was wholly unpaid labour, for which the men who preferred to remain within the safe limits of the saloon deck would presumably get the credit. After all, she decided there were, no doubt, men in every station who helped to keep the world sweet and clean, and she fancied that her companion was to be counted among them. He certainly differed in many ways from Gregory, but then Gregory was unapproachable. She did not remember that it was four years since she had seen the latter, and that her ideas had been a little unformed then.

During the evening, Mrs. Hastings, with whom he was evidently a favourite, happened to speak of Wyllard, and the efforts he was making in the steerage, and Agatha asked a question.

"Does he often undertake this kind of thing?"

"No," said Mrs. Hastings with a smile. "Any way, not on so large a scale. He's very far from setting up as a professional philanthropist, my dear. I don't ever remember him offering to point out their duty to other folks, and I don't think he goes about in search of an opportunity of benefiting humanity. Still, as I suggested, when an individual case thrusts itself beneath his nose, he generally – does what he can."

"I've heard people say that the individual method only perpetuates the trouble," said Agatha.

Her companion laughed. "That," she said, "is a subject I'm not well posted on, but it seems to me that if other folks only adopted Harry Wyllard's simple plan, there would be considerably less need for organised charity."

CHAPTER IX.
THE FOG

During the next two days the Scarrowmania shouldered her way westwards through the big, white-topped combers that rolled down upon her under a lowering sky before a moderate gale. There were no luxurious, steam-propelled hotels in the Canadian trade just then, and, loaded deep with railway metal as she was, she slopped the green seas in everywhere, and rolled her streaming sides out almost to her bilge. She also shivered and rattled horribly when her single screw swung clear and the tri-compound engines ran away.

Wyllard went down to the steerage every now and then, and Agatha, who contrived to keep on her feet, not infrequently accompanied him. She was glad of his society, for Mrs. Hastings was seldom in evidence, and no efforts could get Miss Rawlinson out of her berth. The gale, however, blew itself out at length, and the evening after it moderated Agatha was sitting near the head of one fiddle-guarded table in the saloon waiting for dinner, which the stewards had still some difficulty in bringing in. Wyllard's place was next to hers, but he had not appeared yet, nor, as it happened, had the skipper, who, however, did not invariably dine with the passengers. One of the two doors which led from the foot of the branching companion stairway into either side of the saloon stood open, and presently she saw Wyllard standing just outside it.

He beckoned to the doctor, who sat at the foot of her table, and the latter merely raised his brows a trifle. He was a rather consequential person, and it was evident to the girl that he resented being summoned by a gesture. She did not think anybody else had noticed Wyllard, and she waited with some curiosity to see what he would do. He made a sign with a lifted hand, and she felt that the other would obey it, as, in fact, he did, though his manner was very far from conciliatory. By dint of listening closely, she could hear their conversation.

"I'm sorry," said Wyllard, "to trouble you just now, and I didn't come in because that would have set everybody wondering what you were wanted for; but one of those boys forward has been thrown down the ladder, and has cut his head."

"Ah!" said the doctor. "I'll see to him – after dinner."

"It's a nasty cut," said Wyllard. "He's losing a good deal of blood."

"Then I would suggest that you apply to my assistant."

"As I don't know where he is, I have come to you."

The doctor made a sign of impatience. "Well," he said, "you have told me, which I think is as far as your concern in the matter goes. I may add that I'm not accustomed to dictation on behalf of a steerage passenger."

Agatha saw Wyllard quietly slip between him and the entrance to the saloon, but she also saw, as neither of the others apparently did, the skipper appear a few paces behind them, and glance at them sharply. He was usually a silent man, at home in the ice and the clammy fog, but not a great acquisition in the saloon.

"Something wrong down forward, Mr. Wyllard? They were making a great row a little while ago," he said.

"Nothing very serious," said Wyllard. "One of the boys, however, has cut his head."

The skipper turned towards the doctor quietly; but Agatha fancied he had overheard part of the conversation.

"Don't you think you had better go – at once?" he said.

The doctor evidently did, for he disappeared, and Wyllard, who entered the saloon with the skipper, sat down at Agatha's side.

"How do you do it?" she asked.

"What?" asked Wyllard, attacking his dinner.

"We'll say persuade other folks to see things as you do."

"You evidently mean the skipper, and I suppose you heard something of what was going on. In this case, as it happens, I'm indebted to his prejudices. He's one of the old type – a seaman first of all – and what we call bluff, and you call bounce, has only one effect upon men of his kind. It gets their backs up."

Agatha fancied that he did not like it, either, but she changed the subject.

"There really was a row forward," she said. "What was the trouble over? You were, no doubt, somewhere near the scene of it."

Wyllard laughed. "I sat upon the steerage ladder, and am afraid I cheered the combatants on. It was really a glorious row. They hammered each other with tin plates, and some of them tried to use hoop-iron knives, which fortunately doubled up. They broke quite a few of the benches, and wrecked the mess table, but so far as I noticed the only one seriously hurt was a little chap who was quietly looking on."

"And you encouraged them?"

"I certainly did. It was a protest against dirt, disorder, and the slothfulness that's a plague to the community. Isn't physical force warranted when there's no other remedy?"

A grey-haired Canadian looked up. "Yes," he said, "I guess it is. The first man who pulled his gun in British Columbia was hanged right away, and they've scarcely had to make an example of another ever since, though it's quite a while ago."

He paused, and smiled approvingly. "A mess of any kind worries us, and we don't take long to straighten it out. Same feelings in the Germans and Scandinavians. I'll say that for them, any way. Your friends swept up the steerage?"

"They took the Slavs and Jews, and pitched them down the second hatch on to the orlop deck. Things will go smoothly now our crowd are on top."

"Your crowd?" said Agatha.

The Canadian nodded. "That's what he meant," he said. "There are two kinds of folks you and the rest of them are dumping into Canada. One's the kind that will get up and hustle, break land, and build new homes – log at first, frame and stone afterwards. They go on from a quarter-section and a team of oxen to the biggest farm they can handle, and every fresh furrow they cut enriches all of us. The other kind want to sit down in the dirt and take life easily, as they've always done. The dirt worries everybody else, and we've no use for them. By and bye our Legislature will have to wake up and stop them getting in."

He went on with his dinner after this, but his observations left Agatha thoughtful. She was, for one thing, beginning to understand one side of her companion's character. He, it seemed, stood for practical efficiency. There was a driving force in him that made for progress and order. It was apparently his mission to straighten things out. Some folks of his kind, she reflected, now and then made a good deal of avoidable trouble; but there was in this man, at least, a half-whimsical toleration, which rendered that an unlikely thing in his particular case. Besides, she had already recognised that she was in some respects fortunate in having such a man for her companion.

Her deck chair was always set out in the most sheltered and comfortable place. If there was anything to be seen, a cargo boat plunging along forecastle under, or a great iron sailing ship thrashing out to the westwards, with the spray clouds flying about her hove up weather side, he almost invariably appeared with a pair of powerful glasses. She was watched over, her wishes anticipated, and the man was seldom obtrusively present when she felt disposed to talk to somebody else. It struck her that she had thought a good deal about him during the last few days, and rather less than usual about Gregory, which was partly why she did not walk up and down the deck with him, as usual, after dinner that evening.

Three or four days later the Scarrowmania ran into the Bank fog, and burrowed through it with whistle hooting dolefully at regular intervals. Now and then an answering ringing of bells came out of the clammy vapour, and the half-seen shape of an anchored schooner loomed up, rolling wildly on grey slopes of sea. Once, too, a tiny dory, half filled with lines and buoys, slid by plunging on the wash flung off by the Scarrowmania's bows, and Agatha understood that the men in her had escaped death by a hairsbreadth. They were cod fishers, Wyllard told her, and he added that there was a host of them at work somewhere in the sliding haze. She, however, fancied, now and then, that the fog had a depressing effect on him, and that when the dory lay beneath the rail there had been a somewhat unusual look in his face.

Then a breeze came out of the north-west, with the sting of the ice in it, but the fog did not lift, and the Scarrowmania plunged on through it with spray-wet decks and the grey seas smashing about her bows. It was bitterly cold and clammy, the raw wind pierced to the bone, but the voyage was, at least, rapidly shortening, and one evening Agatha paced the deck with Wyllard in a somewhat curious mood. Perhaps it was merely the gloom re-acting upon her, for she was looking forward to the landing with a certain half-conscious shrinking.

They stopped by the rails presently, looking out upon the tumbling seas that rolled out of the sliding haze tipped with livid froth, and the dreariness of the surroundings intensified the girl's depression. There was something unpleasantly suggestive in the sight of the fog that hid everything, for she had of late been troubled with a half-apprehensive longing to see what lay before her. In the meanwhile, she noticed the look-out standing, a lonely, shapeless figure, amidst the spray that whirled about the plunging bows. By and bye she saw him turn and wave an arm apparently towards the bridge behind her, and she heard a hoarse, wind-out cry. What it meant she could not tell, but in another moment the Scarrowmania's whistle shrieked again.

Then a grey shape burst out of the vapour, and grew with astonishing swiftness into dim tiers of slanted sailcloth swaying above a strip of hull that moved amidst a broad white smear of foam. It was a brig under fore-course and topsails, and as Agatha watched her she sank to her tilted bowsprit, and a big grey and white sea foamed about her bows.

"Aren't we dreadfully near?" she asked.

Wyllard did not answer. He was gazing up at the bridge, and once more the whistle hurled out a great warning blast. It hardly seemed to her that the two vessels could pass clear of each other. Then Wyllard laid a hand upon her shoulder.

"The skipper's starboarding. We'll go round her stern," he said.

His grasp was reassuring, and she watched the straining curves of canvas and line of half-submerged hull. It rose with streaming bows, swung high above the sea, sank again, and vanished with bewildering suddenness into a belt of driving fog. She was not sure that there had been any peril, but it was certainly over now, and she was rather puzzled by her sensations when Wyllard had held her shoulder. For one thing, she had felt instinctively that she was safe with him. She, however, decided not to trouble herself about the reason for this, and by and bye she looked up at him. The expression she had already noticed was once more in his face.

"I don't think you like the fog any more than I do," she said.

"No," said Wyllard, with a quiet forcefulness that almost startled her. "I hate it."

"Why do you go as far as that?"

"It recalls something that still gives me a very bad few minutes every now and then. It has been worrying me again to-night."

"I wonder," said Agatha simply, "if you would care to tell me?"

The man looked down on her with a little wry smile. "I haven't told it often, but you shall hear," he said. "It's a tale of a black failure." He stretched out a hand and pointed to the sliding fog and ranks of tumbling seas. "It was very much this kind of night, and we were lying, reefed down, off one of the Russians' beaches, when I asked for volunteers. I got them – two boats' crews of the finest seamen that ever handled oar or sealing rifle."

"But what did you want them for?"

"A boat from another schooner had been cast ashore. It was blowing tolerably hard, as it usually does where the Polar ice comes down into the Behring Sea. They'd been shooting seals from her. We meant to bring the men off if we could manage it."

"Wouldn't one boat have been enough?"

"No," said Wyllard drily, "we had three, and I think that was one cause of the trouble. There was one from the other schooner. You see, those seals belonged to the Russians, and we free-lances could only shoot them clear off shore. I'm not sure that the men in the wrecked boat had been fishing outside the limit."

Agatha did not press for further particulars, and he went on:

"We managed to make a landing, though one boat went up bottom uppermost," he said. "I fancy they must have broken or lost an oar then. We also got the wrecked men, but we had trouble while we were getting the boats off again. The surf was running in savagely, and the fog shut down solid as a wall. Any way, we pulled off, and went out with a foot of water in us, while one of the rescued men took my oar when I let it go."

"Why had you to let it go?"

Wyllard laughed in a rather grim fashion.

"I got my head laid open with a sealing club," he said. "Some of the rest had their scratches, but they managed to row. For one thing, they knew they had to. They had reasons for not wanting to fall into the Russians' hands. Well, we cleared the beach, and once or twice as I tried to bale there was a shout somewhere near us, and the loom of a vanishing boat. It was all we could make out, for the sea was slopping into her, and the spray was flying everywhere. If there had only been two boats we'd probably have found out our misfortune, and perhaps have set it straight. As it was, we couldn't tell it was the same boat that had hailed us."

He broke off for a moment, and then added quietly, "Two boats reached the schooners. There was a nasty sea running then, and it blew viciously hard next day. There were three men in the other."

"Ah," said Agatha, "they were drowned?"

Wyllard made a little forceful gesture. "I'm not quite sure. That's the trouble. At least, the boat was nowhere on the beach next day, and it's difficult to see how they could have faced the sea that piled up when the gale came down. In all probability, they had an oar short, and she rolled them out when a comber broke upon her in the darkness." The girl saw him close one hand tight as he added, "If one only knew!"

"What would have befallen them if they'd got ashore?"

"It's difficult to say. In a general way, they'd have been handed over to the Russian authorities. Still, sealers poaching up there have simply disappeared."

He stopped again, and glanced out at the gathering darkness. "Now," he added, "you see why I hate the fog."

"But you couldn't help it," said Agatha.

"Well," said Wyllard, "I asked for volunteers, and the money that's now mine came out of those schooners. It's just possible those men are living still – somewhere in Northern Asia. I only know they disappeared."

Then he abruptly commenced to talk of something else, and by and bye Agatha went down to the saloon, where Miss Rawlinson, who had not been much in evidence during the voyage, presently made her appearance.

"Aren't you going into the music-room to play for Mr. Wyllard – as usual?" she said.

Agatha was almost disconcerted. She had fallen into the habit of spending half an hour or longer in the little music-room every evening, with Wyllard standing near the piano; but now her companion's question seemed to place a significance upon the fact.

"No," she said, "I don't think I am."

"Then the rest of them will wonder it you have fallen out with him."

"Fallen out with him?"

Winifred laughed. "They've naturally been watching both of you, and, in a general way, there's only one decision they could have arrived at."

Agatha flushed a little, but her companion went on:

"I don't mind admitting that if a man of that kind was to fall in love with me, I'd black his boots for him," she said. Then she added, with a whimsically rueful gesture, "Still, it's most unlikely."

Agatha looked at her with a little glint in her eyes.

"He is merely Gregory's deputy," she said, with a sub-conscious feeling that the epithet was not a remarkably fortunate one. "In that connection, I should like to point out that you can estimate a man's character by that of his friends."

"Oh," said Winifred, "then if Mr. Wyllard's strong points are merely to heighten Gregory's credit, I've nothing more to say. Anyway, I'll reserve my homage until I've seen him. Perfection among men is scarce nowadays."

She turned away, and left Agatha thoughtful. In the meanwhile, Mrs. Hastings came upon Wyllard in the music-room. There was just then nobody else in it.

"You look quite serious," she said.

"I've been thinking about Miss Ismay and Gregory," said Wyllard. "In fact, I feel a little anxious about them."

"In which way?"

"Without making any reflections upon Gregory, I somehow feel sorry for the girl."

Mrs. Hastings nodded. "As a matter of fact, that's very much what I felt from the first," she said. "Still, you see, there's the important fact that she's fond of him, and it should smooth out a good many difficulties. Anyway, what we can call the material ones won't count. She's evidently rather a courageous person."

The man sat silent a moment or two. "I wasn't troubling about them," he said. "I was wondering if she really could be fond of him. It's some years since she was much in his company."

"Hawtrey is not a man to change."

"That," said Wyllard, "is just the trouble. I've no doubt he's much the same, but one could fancy that Miss Ismay has changed a good deal since she last saw him. She'll look for considerably more than she was probably content with then."

"In any case, it isn't your affair."

"In one sense it certainly isn't; but I can't help feeling a little troubled about the thing. You see, Gregory is quite an old friend."

"And the girl is going out to marry him," said Mrs. Hastings.

Wyllard rose. "That," he said, "is quite uncalled for. I would like to assure you of it."

He went out, and the lady sat still in a reflective mood.

"If she begins to compare him with Hawtrey, there can be only one result," she said.

The fog had almost gone next morning, and pale sunshine streamed down upon a froth-flecked sea. A bitter wind, however, still came out of the hazy north, and the Scarrowmania's plates were crusted with ice where the highest crests of the tumbling seas reached them. The spray also froze, and the decks grew slippery, until when darkness came nobody but the seamen faced the stinging cold. Agatha felt the engines stop late that night, and when she went out next morning the decks were white, and she could see dim ghosts of sliding pines through a haze of falling snow. It grew bewilderingly thick at times, but the steamer slid on through it with whistle hooting, and when at last towards sunset the snow cleared away Agatha stood shivering under a deck-house, looking about her with a curiously heavy heart.