The Protector

“I enjoyed it. I am fond of the mountains, and I have to thank you for a day among them.”

On the surface, the words offered an opening for a complimentary rejoinder, but Vane was too shrewd to seize it. He had made one venture, and he surmised that a second one would not please her.

“They’re almost at your door,” he said. “One would imagine you could indulge in a scramble among them whenever if pleased you.”

“There are a good many things that look so close and still are out of reach,” Evelyn answered with a smile that somehow troubled him. Then her manner changed. “You are content with this?”

Vane gazed about him; at purple crags in shadow, glistening threads of water that fell among the rocks, and long slopes that lay steeped in softest colour, under the summer sky.

“Content is scarcely the right word for it,” he assured her. “If it wasn’t so still and serene up here, I’d be riotously happy. There are reasons for this quite apart from the scenery: for one, it’s pleasant to feel that I need do nothing but what I like for the next few months.”

“The sensation must be unusual. I wonder if, even in your case, it will last so long.”

Vane laughed and stretched out one of his hands. It was lean and brown, and she could see the marks of old scars on the knuckles.

“In my case,” he answered, “it has only come once in a lifetime, and if it isn’t too presumptuous, I think I’ve earned it.” He indicated his battered fingers. “That’s the result of holding a wet and slippery drill, but those aren’t the only marks I carry about with me – though I’ve been more fortunate than many fine comrades.”

“I suppose one must get hurt now and then,” said Evelyn, who had noticed something that pleased her in his voice as he concluded. “After all, a bruise that’s only skin-deep doesn’t trouble one long, and no doubt some scars are honourable. It’s slow corrosion that’s the deadliest.” She broke off with a laugh, and added: “Moralising’s out of place on a day like this, and they’re not frequent in the North. In a way, that’s their greatest charm.”

Vane nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “On the face of it, the North is fickle, though to those who know it that’s a misleading term. To some of us it’s always the same, and its dark grimness makes you feel the radiance of its smile. For all that, I think we’re going to see a sudden change in the weather.”

Half of the wide circle their view would have commanded was cut off by the scree, but long wisps of leaden cloud began to stream across the crags above, intensifying, until it seemed unnatural, the glow of light and colour on the rest.

“I wonder if Mopsy is leading Mr. Carroll into any mischief; they have been gone some time,” said Evelyn. “She has a trick of getting herself, and other people into difficulties. I suppose he is an old friend of yours, unless, perhaps, he’s acting as your secretary.”

Vane’s eyes twinkled. “If he came in any particular capacity, it’s as bear-leader. You see, there are a good many things I’ve forgotten in the bush, and as I left this country young, there are no doubt some I never learned.”

“And so you make Mr. Carroll your confidential adviser. How did he gain the necessary experience?”

“That,” replied Vane, “is more than I can tell you, but I’m inclined to believe he has been at one of the universities; Toronto, most likely. Anyhow, on the whole he acts as a judicious restraint.”

“But don’t you really know anything about him?”

“Only what some years of close companionship have taught me.”

Evelyn looked surprised, and he spread out his hands in a humorous manner. “A good many people have had to take me in that way, and they seemed willing to do so; the thing’s not uncommon in the West. Why should I be more particular than they were?”

Just then Mabel and Carroll appeared. The latter’s garments were stained in places as if he had been scrambling over mossy rocks, and his pockets bulged.

“We’ve found some sundew and two ferns I don’t know, as well as all sorts of other things,” she announced.

“That’s correct,” said Carroll; “I’ve got them. I guess they’re going to fill up most of the creel.”

Mabel superintended their transfer, and then addressed the others generally: “I think we ought to go up the Pike now, when we have the chance. It isn’t much of a climb from here. Besides, the quickest way back to the road is across the top and down the other side.”

Evelyn agreed, and they set out, following a sheep-path which skirted the screes, until they left the bank of sharp stones behind, and faced a steep ascent. Parts of it necessitated a breathless scramble, and the sunlight faded from the hills as they climbed, while thicker wisps of cloud drove across the ragged summit. They reached the latter at length and stopped, bracing themselves against a rush of chilly breeze, while they looked down upon a wilderness of leaden-coloured rock. Long trails of mist were creeping in and out among the crags, and here and there masses of it gathered round the higher slopes.

“I think the Pike’s grandest in this weather,” Mabel declared. “Look below, Mr. Carroll, and you’ll see the mountain is like a starfish. It has prongs running out from it.”

Carroll did as she directed him, and noticed three diverging ridges springing off from the shoulder of the peak. Their crests, which were narrow, led down towards the valley, but their sides fell in rent and fissured crags to great black hollows.

“You can get down two of them,” Mabel went on. “The first is the nearest to the road, but the third’s the easiest. It takes you to the Hause; that’s the gap between it and the next hill.”

A few big drops began to fall, and Evelyn cut her sister’s explanations short.

“We had better make a start at once,” she said.

They set out, Mabel and Carroll leading and drawing farther away from the two behind; and the rain began in earnest as they descended. Rock slope and scattered stones were slippery, and Vane found it difficult to keep his footing on some of their lichened surfaces. He, however, was relieved to see that his companion seldom hesitated, and they made their way downwards cautiously, until, near the spot where the three ridges diverged, they walked into a belt of drifting mist. The peak above them was suddenly blotted out, and Evelyn bade Vane hail Carroll and Mabel, who had disappeared. He sent a shout ringing through the vapour, and caught a faint and unintelligible reply, after which a flock of sheep fled past and dislodged a rush of sliding stones. Vane heard the latter rattle far down the hillside, and when he called again a blast of chilly wind whirled his voice away. There was a faint echo above him, and then silence again.

“It looks as if they were out of hearing, and the slope ahead of us seems uncommonly steep by the way those stones went down,” he remarked. “Do you think Mabel has taken Carroll down the Stanghyll ridge?”

“I can’t tell,” said Evelyn. “It’s comforting to remember that she knows it better than I do. I think we ought to make for the Hause; there’s only one place that’s really steep. Keep up to the left a little; the Scale Crags must be close beneath us.”

They moved on cautiously, skirting what seemed to be a pit of profound depth in which dim vapours whirled, while the rain, which grew thicker, beat into their faces.

CHAPTER VII – STORM-STAYED

The weather was not the only thing that troubled Vane as he stumbled on through the mist. Any unathletic tourist from the cities could have gone up without much difficulty by the way they had ascended, but it was different coming down on the opposite side of the mountain. There, their route laid across banks of sharp-pointed stones that rested lightly on the steep slope, interspersed with out-cropping rocks which were growing dangerously slippery; and a wilderness of crags pierced by three great radiating chasms lay beneath.

After half an hour’s arduous scramble, he decided that they must be close upon the top of the last rift, and stood still for a minute looking about him. The mist was now so thick that he could scarcely see thirty yards ahead, but the way it drove past him indicated that it was blowing up a hollow. On one hand a rampart of hillside loomed dimly out of it; in front there was a dark patch that looked like the face of a dripping rock; and between the latter and the hill a boggy stretch of grass ran back into the vapour. Then he turned, and glanced at Evelyn with some concern. Her skirt was heavy with moisture, and the rain dripped from the brim of her hat, but she smiled at him reassuringly.

“It’s not the first time I’ve got wet,” she said.

Vane felt relieved on one account. He had imagined that a woman hated to feel draggled and untidy, and he was willing to own that in his case fatigue usually tended towards shortness of temper. Though the scramble had scarcely taxed his powers, he fancied that Evelyn, had already done as much as one could expect of her.

“I must prospect about a bit,” he said. “Scardale’s somewhere below us; but if I remember, it’s an awkward descent to the head of it, and I’m not sure of the right entrance to the Hause.”

“I’ve only once been down this way, and that was a long while ago,” Evelyn replied.

Vane left her, and plodded away across the grass. When he had grown scarcely distinguishable in the haze, he turned and waved his hand.

“I know where we are; the head of the beck’s close by,” he cried.

Evelyn joined him at the edge of a trickle of water splashing in a peaty hollow, and they followed it down, seeing only odd strips of hillside amidst the vapour, until at length the ground grew softer and Vane, going first, sank among the long green moss almost to his knees.

“That won’t do. Stand still, please,” he said. “I’ll try a little to the right.”

He tried in one or two directions; but wherever he went he sank over his boots, and, coming back, he informed his companion that they had better go straight ahead.

“I know there’s no bog worth speaking of; the Hause is a regular tourist track,” he added, and suddenly stripped off his jacket. “First of all, you’ll put this on; I’m sorry I didn’t think of it before.”

Evelyn demurred, and he rolled up the jacket. “You have to choose between doing what I ask and watching me pitch it into the beck,” he declared. “I’m a rather determined person, and it would be a pity to throw the thing away, particularly as the rain hasn’t got through it yet.”

She yielded, and after he had held up the garment while she put it on, he spoke again:

“There’s another thing; I’m going to carry you for the next hundred yards, or possibly farther.”