Harold Bindloss - The Mistress of Bonaventure

I noticed that Trooper Cotton seemed to flinch a moment at the mention of a commission, as though it recalled unpleasant memories, and that the worthy sergeant appeared slightly ashamed of his outbreak, while Beatrice Haldane showed a quiet amusement at his Caledonian weakness for improving the occasion. Lucille, however, smiled at him again. "I think that is the prettiest compliment I have ever had paid my poor singing," she said naïvely. "But I have done my duty. I wonder if you would sing if we asked you, Mr. Cotton?"

"Lucille is at an impressionable age," Beatrice Haldane said to me. "Later she may find much that she now delights in obsolete and old-fashioned. We have grown very materialistic in these modern days."

"God forbid!" I answered. "And I think the sergeant could tell you true stories of modern loyalty."

"For instance?" and I answered doggedly. "You can find instances for yourself if you try to see beneath the surface. There are some very plain men on this prairie who could furnish them, I think. Did you ever hear of Rancher Dane, who stripped himself of all his possessions to advance the career of a now popular singer? She married another man when fame came to her, and it is said he knew she would never be more than a friend to him from the beginning."

"I have," and the speaker's eyes rested on me with a faint and yet kindly twinkle in them. "He was a very foolish person, although it is refreshing to hear of such men. Even if disappointment follow consummation, aspiration is good for one. It is more blessed to give than to receive, you know."

Here, to the astonishment of his superior officer, Cotton, who played his own accompaniment, broke into song, and he not only sang passably well, but made a special effort to do his best, I think; while I remember reflecting, as I glanced at the lad in uniform and the rich man's daughter, who sat close by, watching him, how strange all this would have seemed to anyone unused to the customs of the prairie. Ours, however, is a new land, wide enough to take in not only the upright and the strong of hand, but the broken in spirit and the outcast whom the older country thrusts outside her gates; and, much more often than one might expect, convert them into sturdy citizens. The past history of any man is no concern of ours. He begins afresh on his merits, and by right of bold enterprise or industry meets as an equal whatever substitute for the older world's dignitaries may be found among us. How it is one cannot tell, but the brand of servitude, with the coarseness or cringing it engenders, fades from sight on the broad prairie.

Beatrice Haldane presently bade me go talk to her sister, and though I did so somewhat reluctantly, the girl interested me. I do not remember all we said, and probably it would not justify the effort to recall it; but she was pleasantly vivacious of speech, and genuinely interested in the answers to her numerous questions. At length, however, she asked, with a half-nervous laugh: "Did you ever feel, Mr. Ormesby, that somebody you could not see was watching you?"

"No," I answered lightly. "In my case it would not be worth while for anybody to do so, you see." And Lucille Haldane first blushed prettily and then shivered, for no apparent reason.

"It must be a fancy, but I – felt – that somebody was crouching outside there in the snow. Perhaps it is because the thought of that hunted man troubles me still," said she.

"He would never venture near the house, but rather try to find shelter in the depths of the ravine – however, to reassure you. I wonder whether it is snowing as hard as ever, Sergeant," I said, turning towards Mackay as I concluded.

The casements were double and sunk in a recess of the thick log walls, over which red curtains were not wholly drawn. I flung one behind my shoulder, and when the heavy folds shut out the light inside I could see for some little distance the ghostly glimmer of the snow. Then, returning to my companion, I said quietly: "There is nobody outside, and I should have seen footprints if there had been."

Presently the two girls withdrew to attend to some household duties, and Haldane, who handed a cigar box around, said to me: "Did you do well last season, Ormesby, and what are your ideas concerning the prospects down here?"

"I was partly fortunate and partly the reverse," I answered. "As perhaps you heard, I put less into stock and sowed grain largely. It is my opinion that, as has happened elsewhere, the plow furrows will presently displace many of the unfenced cattle-runs. It is hardly wise to put all one's eggs into the same basket; but my plowing was not wholly successful, sir."

"It is a long way to Laurentian tide-water, and, assisted by Winnipeg mills, the Manitoba men would beat you," said Haldane, with a shrewd glance at me.

"For the East they certainly would, sir," I answered. "But I see no reason why, if we get the promised railroad, we should not have our own mills; and we lie near the gates of a good market in British Columbia."

Haldane nodded approval, and I was gratified. He was not a practical farmer, but it was said that he rarely made a mistake concerning the financial aspect of any industrial enterprise.

"You may be right. I wish I had taken in the next ranch when I bought Bonaventure. But, from what I gather, you have extended your operations somewhat rapidly. Is it permissible to ask how you managed in respect to capital?"

The speaker's tone was friendly, and I did not resent the question. "I borrowed on interest, sir; after three good seasons I paid off one loan, and, seeing an opportunity, borrowed again. As it happened, I lost a number of my stock; but this year should leave me with much more plowland broken and liabilities considerably reduced."

"You borrowed from a bank?" asked Haldane, and looked a little graver when I answered, "No."

It was, as transpired later, a great pity he spoke again before I told him where I had obtained the money; but fate would have it so.

"I have grown gray at the game you are commencing; but, unless you have a gift for it, it is a dangerous one, and the facilities for obtaining credit are the bane of this country," he said. "I don't wish to check any man's enterprise, but I knew the man who started you, and promised him in his last sickness to keep an eye on you. Take it as an axiom that if you can't get an honest partner you should deal only with the banks. Otherwise the mortgage speculator comes uppermost in the end. He'll carry you over, almost against your wishes, when times are good, but when a few adverse seasons run in succession, he will take you by the throat when you least expect it. Your neighbors are panic-stricken; nobody with money will look at your property, and the blood-sucker seizes his opportunity."

"But if he sold one up under such circumstances he could not recover his loan, much less charges and interest," I interposed; and Haldane laughed.

"A man of the class I'm describing would not wish to recover in that way. He is not short of money, and knows bad seasons don't last forever, so he sells off your property for, say, half its value, recovers most of what he lent, and still – remember the oppressive interest – holds you fast for the balance. He also puts up a dummy to buy the place – at depression value – pays a foreman to run it, and when times improve sells the property on which you spent the borrowed money for twice as much."

Haldane nodded to emphasize his remarks as he leaned forward towards me. "The man you were hunting was handled in a similar fashion, and it naturally made him savage. We are neighbors, Ormesby, and if ever you don't quite see your way out of a difficulty you might do worse than consult me."

He moved towards the others when I thanked him, and left me slightly troubled. I knew his offer was genuine, but being obstinately proud, there were reasons why he would be the last man I should care to ask for assistance in a difficulty. That I should ever have anything worth offering Beatrice Haldane appeared at one time a chimerical fancy; but though her father's words left their impression, I had made some progress along the road to prosperity. Ever since the brief days I spent in her company in England a vague purpose had been growing into definite shape; but that night I had discovered, with a shock, that if the difference in wealth between us had been lessened, she was far removed by experience, as well as culture, from a plain stock-raiser.