The fourth, which we
selected because it enclosed a little lagoon suitable for anchorage,
bathing, night-lines, and what-not, shall have what description is
necessary as the story proceeds; but, so far as paying rent was
concerned, we might equally well have pitched our tents on any one of a
hundred others that clustered about us as thickly as a swarm of bees. It was in the blaze of an evening in July, the air clear as crystal, the
sea a cobalt blue, when we left the steamer on the borders of
civilisation and sailed away with maps, compasses, and provisions for
the little group of dots in the Skägård that were to be our home for the
next two months. The dinghy and my Canadian canoe trailed behind us,
with tents and dunnage carefully piled aboard, and when the point of
cliff intervened to hide the steamer and the Waxholm hotel we realised
for the first time that the horror of trains and houses was far behind
us, the fever of men and cities, the weariness of streets and confined
spaces. The wilderness opened up on all sides into endless blue reaches,
and the map and compasses were so frequently called into requisition
that we went astray more often than not and progress was enchantingly
slow. It took us, for instance, two whole days to find our
crescent-shaped home, and the camps we made on the way were so
fascinating that we left them with difficulty and regret, for each
island seemed more desirable than the one before it, and over all lay
the spell of haunting peace, remoteness from the turmoil of the world,
and the freedom of open and desolate spaces. And so many of these spots of world-beauty have I sought out and dwelt
in, that in my mind remains only a composite memory of their faces, a
true map of heaven, as it were, from which this particular one stands
forth with unusual sharpness because of the strange things that happened
there, and also, I think, because anything in which John Silence played
a part has a habit of fixing itself in the mind with a living and
lasting quality of vividness. For the moment, however, Dr. Silence was not of the party. Some private
case in the interior of Hungary claimed his attention, and it was not
till later--the 15th of August, to be exact--that I had arranged to meet
him in Berlin and then return to London together for our harvest of
winter work. All the members of our party, however, were known to him
more or less well, and on this third day as we sailed through the narrow
opening into the lagoon and saw the circular ridge of trees in a gold
and crimson sunset before us, his last words to me when we parted in
London for some unaccountable reason came back very sharply to my
memory, and recalled the curious impression of prophecy with which I had
first heard them:

"Enjoy your holiday and store up all the force you can," he had said as
the train slipped out of Victoria; "and we will meet in Berlin on the
15th--unless you should send for me sooner." And now suddenly the words returned to me so clearly that it seemed I
almost heard his voice in my ear: "Unless you should send for me
sooner"; and returned, moreover, with a significance I was wholly at a
loss to understand that touched somewhere in the depths of my mind a
vague sense of apprehension that they had all along been intended in the
nature of a prophecy. In the lagoon, then, the wind failed us this July evening, as was only
natural behind the shelter of the belt of woods, and we took to the
oars, all breathless with the beauty of this first sight of our island
home, yet all talking in somewhat hushed voices of the best place to
land, the depth of water, the safest place to anchor, to put up the
tents in, the most sheltered spot for the camp-fires, and a dozen things
of importance that crop up when a home in the wilderness has actually to
be made. And during this busy sunset hour of unloading before the dark, the souls
of my companions adopted the trick of presenting themselves very vividly
anew before my mind, and introducing themselves afresh. In reality, I suppose, our party was in no sense singular. In the
conventional life at home they certainly seemed ordinary enough, but
suddenly, as we passed through these gates of the wilderness, I saw them
more sharply than before, with characters stripped of the atmosphere of
men and cities. A complete change of setting often furnishes a
startlingly new view of people hitherto held for well-known; they
present another facet of their personalities. I seemed to see my own
party almost as new people--people I had not known properly hitherto,
people who would drop all disguises and henceforth reveal themselves as
they really were. And each one seemed to say: "Now you will see me as I
am. You will see me here in this primitive life of the wilderness
without clothes. All my masks and veils I have left behind in the abodes
of men. So, look out for surprises!" The Reverend Timothy Maloney helped me to put up the tents, long
practice making the process easy, and while he drove in pegs and
tightened ropes, his coat off, his flannel collar flying open without a
tie, it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that he was cut out for
the life of a pioneer rather than the church. He was fifty years of age,
muscular, blue-eyed and hearty, and he took his share of the work, and
more, without shirking. The way he handled the axe in cutting down
saplings for the tent-poles was a delight to see, and his eye in judging
the level was unfailing. Bullied as a young man into a lucrative family living, he had in turn
bullied his mind into some semblance of orthodox beliefs, doing the
honours of the little country church with an energy that made one think
of a coal-heaver tending china; and it was only in the past few years
that he had resigned the living and taken instead to cramming young men
for their examinations. This suited him better. It enabled him, too, to
indulge his passion for spells of "wild life," and to spend the summer
months of most years under canvas in one part of the world or another
where he could take his young men with him and combine "reading" with
open air. His wife usually accompanied him, and there was no doubt she enjoyed
the trips, for she possessed, though in less degree, the same joy of the
wilderness that was his own distinguishing characteristic. The only
difference was that while he regarded it as the real life, she regarded
it as an interlude. While he camped out with his heart and mind, she
played at camping out with her clothes and body. None the less, she made
a splendid companion, and to watch her busy cooking dinner over the fire
we had built among the stones was to understand that her heart was in
the business for the moment and that she was happy even with the detail.