CHAPTER XVIII

Valancy was acquainted with Barney by now—well acquainted, it seemed,

though she had spoken to him only a few times. But then she had felt

just as well acquainted with him the first time they had met. She had

been in the garden at twilight, hunting for a few stalks of white

narcissus for Cissy’s room when she heard that terrible old Grey

Slosson coming down through the woods from Mistawis—one could hear it

miles away. Valancy did not look up as it drew near, thumping over the

rocks in that crazy lane. She had never looked up, though Barney had

gone racketting past every evening since she had been at Roaring

Abel’s. This time he did not racket past. The old Grey Slosson stopped

with even more terrible noises than it made going. Valancy was

conscious that Barney had sprung from it and was leaning over the

ramshackle gate. She suddenly straightened up and looked into his face.

Their eyes met—Valancy was suddenly conscious of a delicious weakness.

Was one of her heart attacks coming on?—But this was a new symptom.

His eyes, which she had always thought brown, now seen close, were deep

violet—translucent and intense. Neither of his eyebrows looked like the

other. He was thin—too thin—she wished she could feed him up a bit—she

wished she could sew the buttons on his coat—and make him cut his

hair—and shave every day. There was _something_ in his face—one hardly

knew what it was. Tiredness? Sadness? Disillusionment? He had dimples

in his thin cheeks when he smiled. All these thoughts flashed through

Valancy’s mind in that one moment while his eyes looked into hers.

“Good-evening, Miss Stirling.”

Nothing could be more commonplace and conventional. Any one might have

said it. But Barney Snaith had a way of saying things that gave them

poignancy. When he said good-evening you felt that it _was_ a good

evening and that it was partly his doing that it was. Also, you felt

that some of the credit was yours. Valancy felt all this vaguely, but

she couldn’t imagine why she was trembling from head to foot—it _must_

be her heart. If only he didn’t notice it!

“I’m going over to the Port,” Barney was saying. “Can I acquire merit

by getting or doing anything there for you or Cissy?”

“Will you get some salt codfish for us?” said Valancy. It was the only

thing she could think of. Roaring Abel had expressed a desire that day

for a dinner of boiled salt codfish. When her knights came riding to

the Blue Castle, Valancy had sent them on many a quest, but she had

never asked any of them to get her salt codfish.

“Certainly. You’re sure there’s nothing else? Lots of room in Lady Jane

Grey Slosson. And she always gets back _some_ time, does Lady Jane.”

“I don’t think there’s anything more,” said Valancy. She knew he would

bring oranges for Cissy anyhow—he always did.

Barney did not turn away at once. He was silent for a little. Then he

said, slowly and whimsically:

“Miss Stirling, you’re a brick! You’re a whole cartload of bricks. To

come here and look after Cissy—under the circumstances.”

“There’s nothing so bricky about that,” said Valancy. “I’d nothing else

to do. And—I like it here. I don’t feel as if I’d done anything

specially meritorious. Mr. Gay is paying me fair wages. I never earned

any money before—and I like it.” It seemed so easy to talk to Barney

Snaith, someway—this terrible Barney Snaith of the lurid tales and

mysterious past—as easy and natural as if talking to herself.

“All the money in the world couldn’t buy what you’re doing for Cissy

Gay,” said Barney. “It’s splendid and fine of you. And if there’s

anything I can do to help you in any way, you have only to let me know.

If Roaring Abel ever tries to annoy you——”

“He doesn’t. He’s lovely to me. I like Roaring Abel,” said Valancy

frankly.

“So do I. But there’s one stage of his drunkenness—perhaps you haven’t

encountered it yet—when he sings ribald songs——”

“Oh, yes. He came home last night like that. Cissy and I just went to

our room and shut ourselves in where we couldn’t hear him. He

apologised this morning. I’m not afraid of any of Roaring Abel’s

stages.”

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be decent to you, apart from his inebriated

yowls,” said Barney. “And I’ve told him he’s got to stop damning things

when you’re around.”

“Why?” asked Valancy slily, with one of her odd, slanted glances and a

sudden flake of pink on each cheek, born of the thought that Barney

Snaith had actually done so much for _her_. “I often feel like damning

things myself.”

For a moment Barney stared. Was this elfin girl the little, old-maidish

creature who had stood there two minutes ago? Surely there was magic

and devilry going on in that shabby, weedy old garden.

Then he laughed.

“It will be a relief to have some one to do it for you, then. So you

don’t want anything but salt codfish?”

“Not tonight. But I dare say I’ll have some errands for you very often

when you go to Port Lawrence. I can’t trust Mr. Gay to remember to

bring all the things I want.”

Barney had gone away, then, in his Lady Jane, and Valancy stood in the

garden for a long time.

Since then he had called several times, walking down through the

barrens, whistling. How that whistle of his echoed through the spruces

on those June twilights! Valancy caught herself listening for it every

evening—rebuked herself—then let herself go. Why shouldn’t she listen

for it?

He always brought Cissy fruit and flowers. Once he brought Valancy a

box of candy—the first box of candy she had ever been given. It seemed

sacrilege to eat it.

She found herself thinking of him in season and out of season. She

wanted to know if he ever thought about her when she wasn’t before his

eyes, and, if so, what. She wanted to see that mysterious house of his

back on the Mistawis island. Cissy had never seen it. Cissy, though she

talked freely of Barney and had known him for five years, really knew

little more of him than Valancy herself.

“But he isn’t bad,” said Cissy. “Nobody need ever tell me he is. He

_can’t_ have done a thing to be ashamed of.”

“Then why does he live as he does?” asked Valancy—to hear somebody

defend him.

“I don’t know. He’s a mystery. And of course there’s something behind

it, but I _know_ it isn’t disgrace. Barney Snaith simply couldn’t do

anything disgraceful, Valancy.”

Valancy was not so sure. Barney must have done _something_—sometime. He

was a man of education and intelligence. She had soon discovered that,

in listening to his conversations and wrangles with Roaring Abel—who

was surprisingly well read and could discuss any subject under the sun

when sober. Such a man wouldn’t bury himself for five years in Muskoka

and live and look like a tramp if there were not too good—or bad—a

reason for it. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was

sure now that he had never been Cissy Gay’s lover. There was nothing

like _that_ between them. Though he was very fond of Cissy and she of

him, as any one could see. But it was a fondness that didn’t worry

Valancy.

“You don’t know what Barney has been to me, these past two years,”

Cissy had said simply. “_Everything_ would have been unbearable without

him.”

“Cissy Gay is the sweetest girl I ever knew—and there’s a man somewhere

I’d like to shoot if I could find him,” Barney had said savagely.

Barney was an interesting talker, with a knack of telling a great deal

about his adventures and nothing at all about himself. There was one

glorious rainy day when Barney and Abel swapped yarns all the afternoon

while Valancy mended tablecloths and listened. Barney told weird tales

of his adventures with “shacks” on trains while hoboing it across the

continent. Valancy thought she ought to think his stealing rides quite

dreadful, but didn’t. The story of his working his way to England on a

cattle-ship sounded more legitimate. And his yarns of the Yukon

enthralled her—especially the one of the night he was lost on the

divide between Gold Run and Sulphur Valley. He had spent two years out

there. Where in all this was there room for the penitentiary and the

other things?

If he were telling the truth. But Valancy knew he was.

“Found no gold,” he said. “Came away poorer than when I went. But such

a place to live! Those silences at the back of the north wind _got_ me.

I’ve never belonged to myself since.”

Yet he was not a great talker. He told a great deal in a few

well-chosen words—how well-chosen Valancy did not realise. And he had a

knack of saying things without opening his mouth at all.

“I like a man whose eyes say more than his lips,” thought Valancy.

But then she liked everything about him—his tawny hair—his whimsical

smiles—the little glints of fun in his eyes—his loyal affection for

that unspeakable Lady Jane—his habit of sitting with his hands in his

pockets, his chin sunk on his breast, looking up from under his

mismated eyebrows. She liked his nice voice which sounded as if it

might become caressing or wooing with very little provocation. She was

at times almost afraid to let herself think these thoughts. They were

so vivid that she felt as if the others _must_ know what she was

thinking.

“I’ve been watching a woodpecker all day,” he said one evening on the

shaky old back verandah. His account of the woodpecker’s doings was

satisfying. He had often some gay or cunning little anecdote of the

wood folk to tell them. And sometimes he and Roaring Abel smoked

fiercely the whole evening and never said a word, while Cissy lay in

the hammock swung between the verandah posts and Valancy sat idly on

the steps, her hands clasped over her knees, and wondered dreamily if

she were really Valancy Stirling and if it were only three weeks since

she had left the ugly old house on Elm Street.

The barrens lay before her in a white moon splendour, where dozens of

little rabbits frisked. Barney, when he liked, could sit down on the

edge of the barrens and lure those rabbits right to him by some

mysterious sorcery he possessed. Valancy had once seen a squirrel leap

from a scrub pine to his shoulder and sit there chattering to him. It

reminded her of John Foster.

It was one of the delights of Valancy’s new life that she could read

John Foster’s books as often and as long as she liked. She could read

them in bed if she wanted to. She read them all to Cissy, who loved

them. She also tried to read them to Abel and Barney, who did not love

them. Abel was bored and Barney politely refused to listen at all.

“Piffle,” said Barney.