Читать книгу Alton of Somasco - Harold Bindloss - Страница 8

The sun was on the hill slopes, and there was a dazzling glare of snow, when Miss Alice Deringham stood with her travelling dress fluttering about her on the platform of the observation car as the Pacific express went thundering down a valley of British Columbia. The dress, which was somewhat dusty, had cost her father a good deal of money, and the hat that was sprinkled with cinders had come from Paris; while the artistic simplicity of both had excited the envy of the two Winnipeg ladies who, having failed to make friends with Miss Deringham during the journey, now sat watching her disapprovingly in a corner of the car. The girl was of a type as yet not common in Western Canada, reserved, quietly imperious, and annoyingly free from any manifestation of enthusiasm. She had also listened languidly to their most racy stories with a somewhat tired look in her eyes.

They were, however, fine eyes of a violet blue, and gold hair with a warmer tinge in it clustered about the broad white forehead, while the rest of the girl's face was refined in its modelling, if a trifle cold in expression and colouring. Miss Deringham was also tall, and as she stood with one little hand on the rail and the other on the brim of the hat the wind would have torn away from her, her pose displayed a daintily-proportioned figure. The girl was, however, as oblivious of her companions as she was of the dust, and her eyes were at last keen with wonder. She had seen nothing which resembled the panorama that unrolled itself before her as the great mountain locomotives sped on through the primeval wilderness, and the wild beauty of it left a deeper mark on her because her Canadian journey had been more or less a disappointment.

Alice Deringham had tasted of the best that England had to offer in the shape of sport and scenery, art and music, and had grown a little tired of it all; while, when her father had announced his intention of crossing the Canadian Dominion, partly on an affair of business and partly for the benefit of his health, she had gladly accompanied him in the hope of seeing something new. Deringham was a promoter and director of English companies, but his daughter having the fine disdain for anything connected with finance which occasionally characterizes those who have never felt the lack of money, asked him a few questions concerning one object of his journey. She only knew that the Carnaby estate, which would in the usual course have reverted to her, had been unexpectedly willed to the son of a man its late owner had disinherited, on conditions. The man, it appeared, was dead, and Deringham desired to see whether any understanding or compromise could be arrived at with the one son he had left behind in Western Canada.

To become the mistress of Carnaby Hall would have pleased Alice Deringham, but, as she had already realized there was no great hope of that, she had prepared to enjoy her Canadian journey. It had, however, fallen short of her expectations. Ontario reminded her of southern Scotland, and there was nothing to impress one who had seen the Highlands when the cars ran into the confusion of rock and forest, lake and river, along the Superior shore. Winnipeg in no way appealed to her, and she grew weary as they swept out past straggling wooden towns into the grass lands of the West.

The towns rose stark from the prairie in unsoftened ugliness, and there was nothing to stir the imagination in the great waste of sun-bleached grass. Day by day, while the dust whirled by them, and the gaunt telegraph posts came up out of the far horizon and sank into the east, they raced across the wide levels. The red dawns burned behind them, the sunsets flamed ahead, and still there was only dust and grass, chequered here and there with bands of stubble, while driving grit and ugliness were the salient features of the little stations they stopped at.

Miss Deringham had read enough to learn that pistol and bandolier had long gone out of fashion in Western Canada, where, indeed, they had rarely formed a necessary portion of the plainsman's attire, but she had expected a little vivid colour and dash of romance. The stock-riders she saw at the station were, however, for the most part dress in faded jean, and many of them appeared to speak excellent English, while the wheat-growers rode soberly in dusty and dilapidated wagons. Still the romance was there, though in place of the swashbuckling cavalier she found only quiet, slowly-spoken men, with patience most plainly stamped upon their sun-darkened faces. Their hands were hard with the grip of the bridle and plough-stilt in place of the rifle, and the struggle they waged was a slow and grim one against frost and drought and adverse seasons.

There was, however, a transformation when she awoke one morning and found the Rockies had been left behind, and they were roaring down through the passes of British Columbia. This was a new, and apparently unfinished, world, a land of tremendous mountains, leagues of forests, such as her imagination had never pictured, and untrodden heights of never-melting snow. Glacier, blue lake, river droning through shadowy canons, rushed by, and the glamour of it crept into the heart of the girl, until as they swept down into the valley with a river two thousand feet below, she felt she was at last in touch with something strange and new.

Presently the hoot of the whistle came ringing up the pass, wheels screamed discordantly, and the pines below flitted towards them a trifle more slowly. Then, as they swung rocking round the face of a crag and a cluster of wooden buildings rose to view, Deringham came out upon the platform. He was a tall, slightly-built man, with a pallid face and keen but slightly shifty eyes, and bore the unmistakable stamp of the Englishman.

"That must be our alighting-place, and I am not sure how we are to get on," he said. "It is, I understand, a long way to Somasco, and when we get there I really do not know whether we shall find any accommodation suitable for you. It might have been better if you had gone on to our friends, the Fords, at Vancouver."

Alice Deringham laughed a little. "I don't think you need worry. Mr. Alton will, no doubt, take us in," she said. "A little primitive barbarity would not be unpleasant as a novelty."

A trace of something very like anger crept into Deringham's eyes. It was not very perceptible, for he seldom showed much of what he felt, but his daughter noticed it. "It is somewhat unfortunate that we shall probably have to avail ourselves of the young man's hospitality," he said. "You understand, my dear, that he is a kinsman of your own, and, unless he can be persuaded to relinquish his claim, the owner of Carnaby. Still, I have hopes of coming to terms with him. The charges upon the land are very burdensome."

Alice Deringham's face grew a trifle scornful. "You will do your best," she said. "The thought of one of these half-civilized axemen living at Carnaby is almost distressful to me. In fact, I feel a curious dislike to the man even before I have seen him."

There was another hoot of the whistle, a little station grew larger down the track, and here and there a wooden house peeped out amidst the slowly-flitting trees. Then the cars stopped with a jerk, and Miss Deringham stepped down from the platform. Her first glance showed her long ranks of climbing pines, with a great white peak silhouetted hard and sharp above them against the blue. Then she became conscious of the silver mist streaming ethereally athwart the sombre verdure from the river hollow, and that a new and pungent smell cut through the odours of dust and creosote which reeked along the track. It came from a cord of cedar-wood piled up close by, and she found it curiously refreshing. The drowsy roar of the river mingled with the panting of the locomotive pump, but there was a singular absence of life and movement in the station until the door of the baggage-car slid open, and her father sprang aside as her trunks were shot out on to the platform. A bag or two of something followed them, the great engines panted, and the dusty cars went on again, while it dawned upon Alice Deringham that her last hold upon civilization had gone, and she was left to her own resources in a new and somewhat barbarous land.

There were no obsequious porters to collect her baggage, which lay where it had alighted with one trunk gaping open, while a couple of men in blue shirts and soil-stained jeans leaned upon the neighbouring fence watching her with mild curiosity. Her father addressed another one somewhat differently attired who stood in the door of the office.

"There is a hotel here, but they couldn't take you in," said the man. "Party of timber-right prospectors came along, and they're kind of frolicsome. They might find you a berth on the verandah, but I don't know that it would suit the lady. It mixes things up considerable when you bring a woman."

Deringham glanced at his daughter, and the girl laughed. "Then is there any means of getting on to Cedar Valley?" she said.

The man slowly shook his head. "You might walk, but it's close on forty miles," he said. "Stage goes out on Saturday."

Deringham made a gesture of resignation. "I never walked forty miles at once in my life," he said. "Can you suggest anything at all? We cannot well live here on the platform until Saturday."

"No," said the man gravely. "I don't figure I could let you. Well, now I wonder if Harry could find room for you."

He shouted, and a man who was carrying a flour-bag turned his head and then went on again until he hove his load into a two-horse wagon, while Miss Deringham noticed that although the bag was stamped 140 lbs. the man trotted lightly across the metals and ballast with it upon his shoulders. Then he came in their direction, and she glanced at him with some curiosity as he stood a trifle breathless before them. He wore a blue shirt burst open at the neck which showed his full red throat, and somewhat ragged overalls. The brown hair beneath his broad felt hat was whitened with flour, and his bronzed face was red with the dust. Still he stood very straight, and it was a good face, with broad forehead and long, straight nose, while the effect of the solid jaw was mitigated by something in the shape of the mobile lips. The grey eyes were keen and steady until a sympathetic twinkle crept into them, and Miss Deringham felt that the man understood her position.

"Well," he said. "What's the difficulty?"

The station agent explained laconically, and the stranger gravely took off his battered hat. "My wagon's pretty full, but I can take you through," he said.

"It would be a favour," said Deringham, taking out a roll of bills. "I should, of course, be glad to recompense you for your trouble."

For a moment the man's eyes closed a trifle, then he laughed, and Miss

Deringham noticed that there was nothing dissonant in his merriment.

"Well," he said lightly, "there will be plenty time to talk of that.

These are your things, miss?"

The girl nodded, and wondered when, heaving up the biggest trunk as though it weighed nothing at all, he laid it carefully in the wagon, because she remembered having to fee two hotel porters lavishly for handling it in Liverpool. He stopped, however, and glanced at the second one with a faint trace of embarrassment. It had burst open, and several folds of filmy fabric projected.

"My hands are floury. You might be able to shut it up," he said.

Miss Deringham stooped over the box that he might not see her face. It was merely the skirt of an evening dress which had displayed itself, but she had guessed what the man was thinking, and remembering his excuse was not displeased with him. When the box was in the wagon she took out a dollar, and then for no special reason put it back again. The man was a bush teamster, but she did not feel equal to offering him a piece of silver. She swung herself up into the wagon with her foot in his hand, and wondered whether it could be by intent that he stood bare-headed while she did it. Then her father climbed in, and the man at the station laughed as he said, "What's the odds, Harry, you don't spill the whole freight on the dip to the ford?"

The teamster, who made no answer, shook the reins, and they went lurching over a horrible trail down the valley, while Miss Deringham delightedly breathed in the scent of the cedars and felt the lash of snow-chilled wind bring the blood to her face. She, however, wished that the bundle of straw which served as seat would not move about so much, and fancied her father would have been more comfortable had he not been menaced by a jolting piece of machinery. Their progress was rudely interrupted presently, for the teamster standing upright reined the horses in on their haunches, and the girl saw a line of loaded ponies straggling up the winding trail. One of the men who plodded behind them glanced at the driver of the wagon with an ironical grin, and Miss Deringham saw a warmer colour creep into the sun-darkened cheek. This was, she fancied, a man with a temper.

"Now," he said, and then stopped suddenly. The other man's grin became more pronounced. "You can start in," he said. "We're not bashful."

The teamster said nothing, but a faint twinkle replaced the anger in his eye, when as they started again Miss Deringham glanced at him questioningly. "That," he said, "wasn't quite fair to me. They knew I couldn't talk back, you see."

Miss Deringham laughed, and when an hour or two later he pulled the horses up beside a lake and made one or two alterations to enhance her comfort, glanced at him again.

"Did you come out here from England?" said she.

The man's face grew a trifle grim. "No," he said gravely. "Whatever could have made you think that of me?"

There were reasons why the girl could not explain, and the man stretched out an arm with a little proud gesture that became him curiously. "I am a Canadian first and last," said he. "Isn't this country good enough for anybody?"

Miss Deringham was forced to admit that it apparently was. A blue lake gleaming steely blue in the sunlight stretched away before them between the towering firs, and beyond it lay an entrancing vision of great white peaks.

"You do not like England, then?" said she.

The teamster smiled a little. "That," he said, "is not a fair question to ask me. You and your father live there, don't you?"

Miss Deringham felt that she had trespassed, but was astonished that this teamster should have wit enough to silence her with a compliment. She also decided that he should not have the opportunity again.

They went on, winding along steep hillsides, splashing through sparkling rivers, and lurching through the dim shadow of the bush, until when the saffron sunset flamed along the peaks they came to the head of a long declivity. On the one hand the snow towered in awful white purity, on the other scattered firs sloped sharply down into a hollow until they were lost in the fleecy vapours that streamed athwart them. "Sit tight," said the teamster. "It's eight miles to Hobart's ranch, and there's no time to lose if we're going to get in there to-night."

He shook the reins, and the girl clutched the side of the wagon as she felt the lash of the wind and noticed how the firs rushed past. It was jolting horribly, and she was relieved when as the trail grew steeper she saw the man tightening his grip on the reins and heard the grating of the brake. It ceased suddenly, one of the horses stumbled, then flung up its head, and they were going down faster than ever, while the man had flung his shoulders back and was dragging at the reins. It dawned upon Miss Deringham that something had gone wrong and the team were running away.

There was now only white mist beneath them and the roar of water. Trees came whirling up out of it, rock and bush swept past, while now and then the wheels hung almost over the edge of the declivity, and the girl could look down upon the sombre firs in the haze below. After one glance, however, she felt that it would not be well for her to do so. Suddenly one of the horses stumbled again, and the teamster flung her father the reins. "Get hold," he said. "Line's in the trace-hook."

He was over the front of the wagon next moment, and the girl gasped as she saw him crawl out with an arm across the back of one of the galloping horses and his knees on the pole. It looked horribly dangerous, and probably was, for the wagon was lurching furiously down the declivity. Then he leaned out and downwards over the horse, clawing at something desperately, and Miss Deringham would have shut her eyes if she could have done so. In place of it she stared fascinated at the clinging figure while the trees flashed past, until it was evident that the man had accomplished his task. How he got back she did not know, but he was once more on the driving-seat when his voice reached her breathlessly.

"Get a good hold. I'm going to put them at the hill when I can," he said.

They swept on until the hillside sloped more gently on the one hand, and the teamster flung, himself backwards, dragging at the reins. The wagon, tilting, swung partly round, then there was a horrible lurching, and the lathered beasts were floundering up a slope, smashing down the undergrowth and fern, until the vehicle stopped suddenly with a crash. The man sprang down and Miss Deringham and her father lost no time in following him, while when at last the team stood still trembling, he crawled out from under the wagon and turned to them.

"That brake never was much good," he said. "One of the beasts stumbling jerked the line into the hook there, and the fore-wheel beam gave out when we struck the tree. I'm most afraid we'll have to stop right here tonight!"

"But that, as you will realize, is quite impossible," said Deringham, glancing towards his daughter.

The man nodded. "It looks that way now, but you wait until I've fixed things up," said he. "Then if you feel like walking eight miles I'll go on with you."

The girl noticed the swift orderliness of all he did as she watched him take out the horses and tether them, tear down armfuls of cedar-twigs, and then pack them between some flour-bag's and the side of the wagon, over which he stretched a strip of waterproof sheeting. Then he made a fire, disappeared into the mist, and coming back with the kettle, strode into the bush again. In the meanwhile Deringham, looking into the wagon, pointed to the twigs.

"Do you think you could sleep there?" he said.

The girl glanced at the twigs. They looked soft and springy, and had a pleasant aromatic fragrance, while the covering sheet was thick.

"I know I could not walk eight miles," she said. "Where has our accomplished companion gone to?"

Deringham laughed. "To look for something for supper in the bush, I believe," he said. "I also fancy if there is anything eatable in the vicinity he will find it."

The snows above had lost their brilliancy, and it was dark below, when the teamster returned with several fine trout which he skewered upon a barberry stem. He also brought a deerhide bag from the wagon, and presently announced that supper was ready, while Alice Deringham, who long afterwards remembered that meal, enjoyed it considerably more than she would have believed herself capable of doing a few days earlier. She had travelled far in search of something new, and this was the first time she had tasted the biting green tea with the reek of the smoke about it from a blackened pannikin. Grindstone bread baked in a hole in the ground was also a novelty, and the crumbling flakes of salmon smoked by some Siwash Indian a delicacy, while she wondered if it was only the keen mountain air which made the flesh of the big trout so good, or whether it owed anything to skilful cookery.

There was also, by way of background, the glow of the fire flickering athwart the great columnar trunks which ran up into the dimness above her, and the cold glimmer of the snows with a pale star beyond them when the red flame sank, while the hoarse roar of an unseen river emphasized the silence. At first she felt there was something unreal and theatrical about it all. The light that blazed up and died, awful serenity of the snow, and the vast impenetrable shadows filled with profound silence, seemed all part of a fervidly-imagined spectacle; but as the silence deepened and gained upon her the position was reversed, and she seemed to feel that this was the reality, the environment man was created for, and she, wrapped in the tinsel of civilization, out of place in the primeval wilderness. Her father, immaculate as ever in his travelling tweeds, with his lean, pallid face, also jarred upon the picture, and Harry the teamster, bronzed by frost and sun, with the stain of the soil upon him, alone a part of its harmonies. They seemed no longer harsh and barbaric, but vast and subtle, and she felt she must go back to the simplicity she had laid aside before she could grasp their meaning.

It was the man who first broke the silence. "I was wondering if you would like a cigar, sir?" he said.

Deringham glanced at the Indian-wrought case, which was singularly artistic, somewhat dubiously, but remembering that something was due to their host, drew a cigar out and lighted it. He said nothing for a minute, and then turned to the teamster.

"Wherever did you get cigars of that kind from? They are far better than any I could find in Winnipeg," he said.

Miss Deringham noticed the man's eyes close a trifle, and fancied that very little would call the steely sparkle she had seen when the pack-ponies blocked the trail into them.

"Well," he said quietly, "a friend of mine sent them me, and I believe they came from Cuba. We don't raise cigars of any kind in British Columbia."

Miss Deringham saw her father's face, and felt quietly amused. He could, she knew, assume a manner which went far to carry him smoothly through discontented share-holders' meetings, but it seemed that the men who dwelt in the wilderness were at least as exigent as those who dwelt in London. Deringham, however, glanced at the speaker.

"The least said is often the soonest mended, but if you think——" he said.

The teamster laughed. "It should come from me, but the fact is I was worrying about that wagon and forgot," he said. "Now, if there is anything I can tell you about this country."

"I wonder," said Alice Deringham, "whether you know Mr. Alton of

Somasco."

"Oh, yes," said the man, with a little smile.

"You have worked for him possibly?" said the girl.

Harry the teamster nodded. "Considerably harder than I ever did for anybody else," he said.

The next question required some consideration, and he appeared to ruminate over it. "You mean what kind of man he is?" he said. "Well, he's not very much to look at, and there are a good many things he don't know."

"So I should have fancied," said the girl, more to herself than the listener, and wondered whether it was an effect of the firelight or the curious twinkle had once more flashed into his eyes. "You do not seem to like him?" she said.

The man looked into the fire. "The trouble is I know how mean he is," he said.

"Mean?" said the girl. "That is niggardly?"

"No," said Harry; "I don't think he's niggardly. It's another word for low down in this country. You see he has always had to work hard for a living, and never had time to teach himself the nice little ways you folks have in England. He's just a big rough rancher who has fought pretty toughly for his own hand, and that's apt to take the gentleness out of a man, and make him what you would call coarse and brutal."