CHAPTER XIV

VANE SAILS NORTH.

It was growing dusk on the evening of Vane's departure when he walked out of Nairn's room. His host was with him, and when they entered an adjacent room, where a lamp was burning, the older man's face relaxed into a smile as he saw Jessie Horsfield talking to his wife. Vane stopped a few minutes to speak to them, and it was Jessie who gave the signal for the group to break up.

"I must go," she said to Mrs. Nairn. "I've already stayed longer than I intended. I'll let you have those patterns back in a day or two."

"Mair patterns!" Nairn exclaimed with dry amusement. "It's the second lot this week; ye're surely industrious, Jessie. Women"--he addressed Vane--"have curious notions of economy. They will spend a month knitting a thing to give to somebody who does not want it, when they could buy it for half a dollar done better by machinery. I'm no saying, however, that it does not keep them out of mischief."

Jessie laughed. "I don't think many of us are industrious in that, way now. After all, isn't it a pity that so many of the beautiful old handicrafts are dying out? No loom, for instance, could turn out some of the things your wife makes. They're matchless."

"She has an aumrie--ye can translate it trunk--full of them," said Nairn. "It's no longer customary to scatter them ower the house."

Mrs. Nairn's smile was half a sigh. "There were no books, and no mony amusements, when I was young," she said to Jessie. "We sat through the long winter forenights, counting stitches, at Burnfoot, under the Scottish moors. That, my dear, was thirty years ago."

She shook hands with Vane, who left the house with Jessie, and watched them cross the lawn.

"I'm thinking ye'll no see so much of Jessie for the next few weeks," Nairn, who had accompanied her to the door, remarked. "Has she shown ye any of yon knick-knacks when she finished them."

His wife shook her head at him reproachfully. "Alec," she said, "ye're now and then hasty in jumping at conclusions."

"Maybe," replied Nairn. "I'm no infallible, but the fault ye mention is no common in the land where we were born. I'm no denying that Jessie has enterprise, but how far it will carry her in this case is mair than I can tell."

He smiled as he recalled a scene at the station some time ago, and Mrs. Nairn looked up at him.

"What is amusing ye, Alec?" she asked.

"It was just a bit idea no worth the mentioning," said Nairn. "I think it wouldna count." He paused, and resumed with an air of reflection: "A young man's heart is whiles inconstant and susceptible."

Mrs. Nairn, who ignored the last remark, went into the house, and in the meanwhile Jessie and Vane walked down the road until they stopped at a gate, Jessie held out her hand.

"I'm glad I met you to-night," she said. "You will allow me to wish you every success?"

"Thank you," he replied. "It's nice to feel one has the sympathy of one's friends."

He turned away, and Jessie stood watching him as he strode down the road. There was, she thought, something that set him apart from other men in his fine poise and swing. She was, however, forced to confess that, although he had answered her courteously, there had been no warmth in his words.

As it happened, Vane was just then conscious of a slight relief. He admired Jessie, and he liked Nairn and his wife; but they belonged to the city, which he was on the whole glad to leave behind. He was going back to the shadowy woods, where men lived naturally, and the lust of fresh adventure was strong in him.

On reaching the wharf he found Kitty and Celia Hartley, whom he had not met hitherto, awaiting him with Carroll and Drayton. A boat lay at the steps, and he and Carroll rowed the others off to the sloop. The moon was just rising from behind the black firs at the inlet's inner end, and a little cold wind faintly scented with resinous fragrance, that blew down across them, stirred the water into tiny ripples that flashed into silvery radiance here and there.

A soft glow shone out from the skylights to welcome them as they approached the sloop, and when, laughing gaily, they clambered on board, Carroll led the way to the tiny saloon, which just held them all. It was brightly lighted by two nickelled lamps; flowers were fastened against the panelling, and clusters of them stood upon the table, which was covered with a spotless cloth. Vane took the head of it and Carroll modestly explained that only part of the supper had been prepared by him. The rest he had obtained in the city, out of regard for the guests, who, he added, had not lived in the bush.

Carroll started the general chatter, which went on after the meal was over, and nobody appeared to notice that Kitty sat with her hand in Drayton's amidst the happy laughter. Even Celia, who had her grief to grapple with, smiled bravely. Vane had given them champagne, the best in the city, though they drank sparingly; and at last, when Celia made a move to rise, Drayton stood up with his glass in his hand.

"We must go, but there's something to be done," he said. "It's to thank our host and wish him success. It's a little boat he's sailing in, but she's carrying a big freight if our good wishes count for anything."

They emptied the glasses, and Vane replied: "My success is yours. You have all a stake in the venture, and that piles up my responsibility. If the spruce is still in existence, I've got to find it."

"And you're going to find it," said Drayton confidently.

Then Vane divided the flowers between Celia and her companion, but when they went up on deck Kitty raised one bunch and kissed it.

"Tom won't mind," she said. "Take that one back from Celia and me."

They got down into the boat. Then, while the girls called back to Vane, Drayton rowed away, and the boat was fading out of sight when Kitty's voice reached the men on board. She was singing a well-known Jacobite ballad.

"Considering what his Highland followers suffered on his account and what the women thought of him," said Carroll, "some of the virtues they credited the Young Chevalier with must have been real," He raised his hand. "You may as well listen."

Vane stood still a moment with the blood hot in his face, and the refrain rang more clearly across the sparkling water:

"Better lo'ed ye cannot be, Will ye no come back again?"

"I don't know if you feel flattered, but I've an idea that Kitty and Celia would go into the fire for you, and Drayton seems to share their confidence," Carroll resumed, in his most matter-of-fact tone.

Vane began to shake the mainsail loose. "I believe we both talked rather freely to-night; but we have to find the spruce."

"So you have said already," Carroll pointed out. "Hadn't you better heave the boom up with the topping lift?"

They got the mainsail on to her, broke out the anchor and set the jib; and as the boat slipped away before a freshening breeze Vane sat at the helm, while Carroll stood on the foredeck, coiling up the gear. The moon was higher now; the broad sail gleamed a silvery grey; the ripples, which were getting bigger, flashed and sparkled as they streamed back from the bows, and the lights of the city dropped fast astern. Vane was conscious of a keen exhilaration. He had started on a new adventure; he was going back to the bush, and he knew that no matter how his life might change, the wilderness would always call to him. In spite of this, however, he was, as he had said, conscious of an unusual responsibility. Hitherto he had fought for what he could get for himself; but now Kitty's future partly depended upon his efforts, and his success would be of vast importance to Celia.

He had a very friendly feeling towards both the girls. Indeed, all the women he had met of late had attracted him in different ways, but Evelyn stood apart from all.

She appealed less to his senses and intellect than she did to a sublimated something in the depths of his nature; and it somehow seemed fitting that her image should materialise before his mental vision as the sloop drove along under the cloudless night sky, while the moonlight poured down glamour on the shining water. Evelyn harmonised with such things as these.

It was true that she had repulsed him; but that, he remembered, once more with a sense of compunction, was what he deserved for entering into an alliance against her with her venial father. He was glad now that he had acquiesced in her dismissal of him, since to have stood firm and broken her to his will would have brought disaster upon both of them. He felt that she had not wholly escaped him, after all: by and by he would go back and seek her favour by different means. Then she might, perhaps, forgive him and listen.