But it is only after Waxholm that the true islands begin, so
to speak, to run wild, and start up the coast on their tangled course
of a hundred miles of deserted loveliness, and it was in the very heart
of this delightful confusion that we pitched our tents for a summer
holiday. A veritable wilderness of islands lay about us: from the mere
round button of a rock that bore a single fir, to the mountainous
stretch of a square mile, densely wooded, and bounded by precipitous
cliffs; so close together often that a strip of water ran between no
wider than a country lane, or, again, so far that an expanse stretched
like the open sea for miles. Although the larger islands boasted farms and fishing stations, the
majority were uninhabited. Carpeted with moss and heather, their
coast-lines showed a series of ravines and clefts and little sandy
bays, with a growth of splendid pine-woods that came down to the
water’s edge and led the eye through unknown depths of shadow and
mystery into the very heart of primitive forest. The particular islands to which we had camping rights by virtue
of paying a nominal sum to a Stockholm merchant lay together in a
picturesque group far beyond the reach of the steamer, one being a mere
reef with a fringe of fairy-like birches, and two others, cliff-bound
monsters rising with wooded heads out of the sea. 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 Skärgård 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.