CHAPTER VII.

A SPORTSMAN'S DEATH.

When they reached the mouth of the river they found the long-boat lying alongside the huge shelving rock used as a landing-stage on account of its convenience during all varieties of tide.

The man watching there had heard or seen nothing of Mr. Trist or Admiral Wylie. The ladies sat for some time in the stern of the gig, wrapped in their waterproof cloaks, without speaking. Then Brenda begged to be landed. She was shivering with cold and anxiety. She walked slowly up the smooth surface of the rock and disappeared. Once out of sight of the two boats which lay heaving softly on the bosom of the rising tide, she quickened her pace, keeping to the narrow path trodden on the peaty soil by Admiral Wylie and Theo Trist in turn. It was probable that the human beings who had passed along that scarcely visible track, from the days of the Flood down to the time that this little English maiden pressed her way through the silver-birch trees, could be counted upon the fingers of two hands. There was nothing to attract the curious up the deep gorge formed by this unknown stream. Far inland, over impassable rocks, lay the corner of a huge glacier from whence the river received its chill waters. There was no natural beauty to draw thither the artist, no animal life to attract the naturalist, no vast height to tempt the mountaineer. Here century after century the trout had lain, head up stream, to catch what God might send them. In the lower waters, year after year, the sturdy salmon had pressed past each other through rill and whirlpool, with gills flattened to the fresh cool waters of the snow-field.

In all human probability no woman's footprint had impressed itself upon that turf before.

The valley took a turn westward round a great sloping forest of pine and silver-birch, harmoniously mingled, about half a mile from the sea, and soon afterwards the hills closed menacingly over the noisy river. The water here was very rough and broken. At times a great smooth pool, half an acre in extent, twenty feet in depth, would lie at the foot of a series of roaring waterfalls of no great height, but infinite variety. Again, there were long broken rapids, which only a salmon could expect to stem, and here and there smooth runs almost navigable for a boat.

Regardless of peaty pool and treacherous rivulets running over brilliant turf, Brenda hurried on. The mere bodily fatigue was a comfort to her, the very act of breaking the small branches in her way a solace. It was now nearly midnight, and already on the snowfield above her the pearly pink light of morning crept on its glistening way. The twilight was no longer lowering, but full of fresh promise. A new day softly smiled upon the silent land which had known no night; but to the solitary girl it brought little hope.

Suddenly she stopped and listened intently. A distant crackle of dry wood beneath a human tread repeated itself. Someone was approaching rapidly.

A moment later Theo Trist stood before her, but she scarcely recognised him. Her first feeling was one of utter surprise that his meek eyes could look so resolute. The man's face was changed, and he who stood before Brenda was not the well-bred, quiet gentleman, but the lost soldier. She did not realize then that he had been fifteen hours on his feet with hardly any food. She scarcely noticed that his clothes were wet, and clinging to his limbs, and that he was without his waterproof. All she saw, all she had eyes for, was that strange incongruous face where resolution dominated so suddenly.

He it was who broke the silence, and he was forced to shout, because they were so close to the river.

'Where is Mrs. Wylie?' he asked.

'She is at the mouth of the river,' replied Brenda--'in the boat, waiting.'

'Come away!' he shouted, beckoning with his head, and they moved through the pine-wood further inland, where the brawl of the stream was less disagreeable.

Then he took her hand in his, and looked down into her face with unconscious scrutiny.

'You must go back to her, Brenda,' he said, 'and tell her that Admiral Wylie is dead. I found him in a whirlpool about half a mile above here.'

'When was that?' asked the girl mechanically.

'Oh, an hour ago. I have been all this time in the water recovering ... getting him ashore.'

'Was he quite dead?'

'Quite dead. It must have happened early in the day, for his lunch was still in his creel.'

'Where is he ... now?' whispered Brenda, looking through the trees from which Trist had emerged.

'Through there, on the bank. I began carrying him down to the boat, but had to give it up.'

She said nothing, but moved a step or two towards the spot indicated. Then he took her hand within his and led the way. Presently they came out of the thicker wood on to the rocky ground near the river, and soon afterwards came into sight of a still form lying on the turf beneath Trist's waterproof. There were stones on the corners of the mackintosh to prevent it being blown away, but the wind penetrated between them and the stuff rippled with a slight sound. The upper part of the body only was covered, and there was, in the wet waders and misshapen brogues, a suggestion of simple pride. In bad weather the Admiral had always fished in an old black sou'-wester, and this lay by his side with his creel and rod. The old sportsman had died in harness, with the quick burr-r-r of the reel sounding in his ears and a 'taut line' bending his rod; for Trist found the gut broken.

The man who had looked on death so often, who had slept amidst the groans of the dying and the heartrending cries of the sore-wounded, now knelt and simply drew back the covering from the still gray face. Death was so familiar to him that the sight of it brought no shock, and he scarcely realized what he was doing. Mechanically Brenda knelt down on the turf, her dress touching the dead man's hand. For some moments she remained thus, while the rosy light of dawn crept down the mountain side. Behind her stood Trist, silently watching. Presently he looked round and noted the increase of daylight; then he touched her shoulder.

'Come, Brenda,' he said. 'The day is breaking. We must go. I will walk back with you to the boat.'

She rose and shook her head decisively.

'No,' she answered. 'You must stay here--beside him. I will go back alone. It is better for me to tell Mrs. Wylie.'

'You are not afraid?' he inquired.

'No. I am not afraid.'

She spoke in her simple, quiet way, which was not without a certain force, despite her gentle voice. It was no boast of courage that she was making, but a plain statement of fact. She was not afraid, because she felt that it was her duty, and no soldier ever possessed a clearer, braver sense of duty than did Brenda Gilholme.

Trist walked by her side a few paces.

'I wish,' he said, 'that I could have spared you some of this.'

'Do not think of me,' she replied. 'You seem to consider me, Theo, a weak, foolish girl, who should be spared every little pain and trouble.'

'I should like...' he began, and then he stopped abruptly, so much so as to cause an awkward silence. 'Well,' he added at length in a different tone, 'I will wait here--but you must not come back. Send one of the men--the stronger of the two: Cobbold.'

'I think both the men had better come,' she suggested. They were now standing beneath the small, stunted pines upon a silent carpet of dead sweet-scented needles. As she spoke, she looked up into his face with a quiet scrutiny which was full of suggestive anxiety.

'Why?' he asked, with a faint smile.

'Because you must be completely exhausted. You have been on your feet for nearly twenty-four hours. Besides, you are wet through, and dragged down by the weight of your clothes.'

'I am wet,' he admitted, 'but not tired. It is my profession to ignore fatigue. Send Cobbold, Brenda! The other man must stay with you.'

He drew back some branches for her to pass unscratched through the thicket, but did not offer to accompany her any further.

'Will you not let me come?' he asked again as she passed him. 'This is a horrible task you have set yourself.'

She stood beside him for a moment beneath his upraised arm, looking straight in front of her. Her shoulder was almost touching his wet coat, which hung loosely. All around them the trees dripped mournfully, while, through the low entanglement, the voice of the mournful river sang its ancient dirge.

'It is only my share of the task,' she answered. 'Why should you have it all to do--Theo? Besides ... I never expected life to be all sunshine.'

He answered nothing, and she went forward slowly, almost reluctantly, from beneath the branches he was holding up. To them both there seemed something pleasant, some vague suggestion of comfort, in her thought that this was a task they had to perform in common, each doing a worthy share. At a later period there came another task for them to perform, and the mutual trust which was now planted grew into an upright tree. They did not know that the burden of it was to fall chiefly on the weaker shoulders, as they parted, after having tacitly apportioned the work that lay before them.

The girl went her way, revolving in her quick and capable brain all that she was so suddenly called upon to do; while the man, left by the still form that lay upon the turf, was already organizing things in an experienced, practical way. It happened that he was never to carry out his own plans, but he did not suspect this at the time; he had no presentiment that he was to be called away to other work--nobler, braver work--leaving this sorrowful task half done in the hands of her who had volunteered to be his lieutenant.

Before the sun's rays had crept down the bare mountain side to the sea, the two boats moved away from the rock that seemed to guard the mouth of the river.

In the gig--the first boat to get away--were seated Mrs. Wylie and Brenda, while the sailor Cobbold steered. Trist followed in the long-boat, steering himself, while the sailor crouched down forward. Between the two men lay, beneath the thwarts, the genial, kind-hearted old sportsman, who would never hear the glad rattle of the reel again, who would no more watch, with keen dancing eyes, the straining line. Never again would he recount his day's adventures in the cosy cabin, giving the salmon his full due, throwing in here and there a merry little detail to his own discomfiture. Now he lay, with his waders slowly drying, his eyes peacefully closed, his brown, weather-beaten hands limply clenched. Trist had reeled in the severed line, divided the useless rod, and laid aside the empty creel, all in his silent, emotionless way, with no look of horror in his soft eyes.

To him the suddenness of Admiral Wylie's death was no shock. He had seen the Reaper at work before, and this was ripe corn, ready for the sickle--a pleasing contrast to the brave young stalks he had seen mown down in thousands. He had a strange, semi-Biblical contempt for death in itself. The mere ceremony of dying was for him, as it was for the Apostles and writers of old, a matter of small interest. They tell of lives, and not of deaths. Trist loved to watch men live and strive and fight; to see them die caused him small emotion; to hear them speak last explanatory words, full of repentance, perhaps, or pharisaical self-exoneration, moved him to gentle pity, but altered in no whit or jot his estimate of the life that was done.

Admiral Wylie's life had been a success. His death had been a worthy finish to a quiet, homely tale--the only dramatic point of interest in a long uneventful course of daily incidents. He died, as Trist said later to an old soldier, in his waders. Most men would prefer to die in their boots; it is a more manly way of taking that last step over the brink into the unfathomable waters of eternity. And waders, sea-boots, or Hessians will hamper no man's tread upon the Silent Shore, if he have only picked his steps through the mud that lies on this side.

In the gig the two women sat without speaking, while the water, surging and bubbling beneath bow and stern, seemed to chatter garrulously. Mrs. Wylie leant back against the cushions with her arms folded beneath her cloak. The rain had ceased, and great white clouds hovered far above the mountains. All around was fresh and fair, like a maiden smiling with tears still on her lashes.

Brenda sat upright, ready, as it were, for anything. She had told Mrs. Wylie simply and straightforwardly that Theo Trist had found the Admiral--dead; and the news had been received quietly and composedly. Mrs. Wylie was one of those rare women who are really and truly independent of outside opinion. She passed through her joys and sorrows as seemed best to her own judgment, and left the world to form its own opinion.

Many there are who have the courage to face a great grief with bold front and unflinching eyes, but they fear to be considered hard and heartless. Happy is the man or woman who can look back to a period of sorrow without having to regret an excess of some description--excess of demonstration or excess of reserve. Mrs. Wylie was not a demonstrative woman. She laughed readily, in her cheery, infectious way, because she found that laughter is wanted in the world; but she rarely wept, because she knew that tears are idle. And so no tears came to her eyes when Brenda laid her soft warm hands upon her arm and told her the news. The two men had stood a little way off, respectfully, so that they were practically alone, but if Mrs. Wylie ever shed tangible, visible tears for her husband, she shed them in solitude, and spoke her thoughts to none.

All through that terrible journey up the fjord (for the wind was light at dawn, as it mostly is in Arctic seas), Brenda waited for those tears that never came--listened for the words that were never spoken. She stared straight in front of her towards the _Hermione_, and never actually looked into her companion's face; but she knew the expression that was there: the slightly raised lower lids, the close-pressed lips, and the far-off speculation in the eyes.

A little way behind them the longboat was forging through the water. Brenda could hear the plashing of the divided waves round its curved stern; but the sound neither approached nor receded, and she never turned her head to see how it might fare with the mournful freight. For the first time in her life this little maid was realizing that there was earnest work in the world for her to do, that there was a place which, but for her, must needs remain vacant, because none other could fill it. She knew and recognised that Mrs. Wylie needed someone in her great sorrow--needed a woman, needed _her_--Brenda Gilholme. No one else could satisfy this vague craving for a silent sympathy; not even Theo Trist, with his man's strength and his woman's tact.

And so Brenda was content to be in the house of mourning, because she felt that her rightful place was there, and the feeling quenched in a small degree that feverish thirst to be doing something--some good in the world--which burnt her brave young soul, parched by the acrid after-taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

There was work for Theo Trist--tangible, honest work--and there was also labour for Brenda's hands and heart: a thousand little alleviating attentions, delicate shy sympathies, and a constant companionable courage; none of which she had learnt in Latin, Greek or Hebrew; which cannot be defined by Euclid, summed up by algebra, nor valued by arithmetic. In fact, Brenda Gilholme was verging on the discovery that the most important part of her dainty anatomy was her heart, and not her head.

The gig ran alongside, and Brenda, stepping on deck, first said a few hurried words to Captain Barrow and the steward, who were standing together at the companion. Then the smaller boat moved away, and the long-boat took its place.

'The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord!' said Captain Barrow, looking severely at the steward, with the honest salt tears running down his cheeks as the two men received the cold burden from the arms of Trist and Barker.

Brenda turned slowly and looked into Theo Trist's face, on which there was even now no sign of fatigue. He had raised his eyes to hers on hearing Captain Barrow's simple words, and now they looked at each other in a strangely wondering way. Neither had thought of the Hand whose work this was until that moment.