L
inda was stooping one morning in the corner of her garden. Some precious plant was there, protected from the full glare of the noon sun by a calico shade, carefully adjusted, and with a circle of brown damp about it, which told of attentive watering. A few roundish leaves were the object of all this regard; in the centre of the knot to-day stood a little green knob on a short stem.
'Oh, Georgie! papa! come and look at my daisy; it has actually got a bud.'
Master George, nothing loth to have lessons disturbed by any summons, ran round from the open window through the open hall door, and his father followed more slowly to behold the marvel.
'You see, papa, I thought it never would get on, it was such a sickly little thing; but it must be growing strong, or it could not put out a bud. How glad I shall be to see a daisy's face again! I would give all the fragrance of the blue wild iris for one. But, papa, the laurel cuttings are dead, I fear.'
They looked very like it, though Mr. Wynn would still give them a chance. He apprehended the extreme dryness of the air might prove too much for the infant daisy also. But Linda would see nothing except promise of prosperity as yet.
'Now, papa, when I am done with my melons, and you have finished Georgie's lessons, I want you to walk down to Daisy Burn with me. I have something to say to Edith.'
'With pleasure, my dear. But I have always wondered why that name was given to that farm, except on the principle oflucus a non.'
After the mid-day dinner they went. Meeting Andy on the road, trudging up from the 'Corner' on some message, he informed them that the captain and his son had gone to a cradling-bee at Benson's, an English settler a few miles off. 'But as to whether 'tis to make cradles they want, or to rock 'em, meself doesn't rightly know.'
The fact being that a 'cradle,' in American farming, signifies a machine for cutting down corn wholesale. It is a scythe, longer and wider than that used in mowing hay, combined with an apparatus of 'standard,' 'snaith,' and 'fingers,' by means of which a single workman may level two acres and a half of wheat or oats in one day.
'Captain Armytage is of a very sociable disposition,' remarked Mr. Wynn, after a few steps. 'A man fresh from the mess table and clubs must find the bush strangely unsuitable.' He was thinking of certain petty occurrences at his own bee, which demonstrated the gallant officer's weaknesses.
'Oh, papa, did you ever see anything like thesevines? Grapes will be as plentiful as blackberries are at home.' For along the concession line many trees were festooned with ripening clusters; and deeper in the woods, beyond Linda's ken, and where only the birds and wild animals could enjoy the feast, whole hundredweights hung in gleams of sunshine. Well might the Northmen, lighting upon Canadian shores in one hot summer, many centuries before Cabot or Cartier, name the country Vine-land; and the earliest French explorers up the St. Lawrence call a grape-laden rock the Isle of Bacchus.
'But is it not a wonder, papa,' pressed the young lady, 'when the cold is so terrible in winter? Do you remember all the endless trouble the gardener at Dunore had to save his vines from the frost? And Robert says that great river the Ottawa is frozen up for five months every year, yet here the grapes flourish in the open air.'
'I suppose we are pretty much in the latitude of the Garonne,' answered Mr. Wynn, casting about for some cause. 'But, indeed, Linda, if your Canadian grape does not enlarge somewhat'—
'You unreasonable papa, to expect as fine fruit as in a hothouse or sunny French vineyard. I really see no reason why we Canadians should not have regular vineyards some day, and you would see how our little grapes must improve under cultivation. Perhaps we might make wine. Now, you dear clever papa, just turn your attention to that, and earn for yourself the sobriquet of national benefactor.'
Clinging to his arm as they walked, she chattered her best to amuse the sombre mind, so lately uprootedfrom old habits and ways of life into a mode of existence more or less distasteful. The birds aided her effort with a variety of foreign music. Woodpigeon, bobolink, bluebird, oriole, cooed and trilled and warbled from the bush all around. The black squirrel, fat, sleek, jolly with good living of summer fruits, scampered about the boughs with erect shaggy tail, looking a very caricature upon care, as he stowed away hazel-nuts for the frosty future. Already the trees had donned their autumn coats of many colours; and the beauteous maple-leaves, matchless in outline as in hue, began to turn crimson and gold. The moody man yielded to the sweet influences of nature in a degree, and acknowledged that even this exile land could be enjoyable.
Arriving at the snake fences of Armytage's farm, he said he would go down to the post at the 'Corner' for letters, and call in an hour for Linda on his return. She found Edith and Jay working hard as usual. Their employment to-day was the very prosaic one of digging potatoes. 'What horrid occupation for a lady!' exclaims somebody. Yes; Miss Armytage would have much preferred an afternoon spent in painting flowers, for which she had a talent. But there was no help for such manual labour in this case. Don't you imagine her pride suffered before she took part in field work? I think so, by the deep blush that suffused her face when she saw the visitor coming along, though it was only Linda Wynn, who made some not very complimentary reflections on the father and brother whose absence on an amusing expedition permitted this,—whose general indolence compelledsevere labour from the girls. They were misplaced men, certainly, and had as much business in the bush, with their tastes and habits, and want of self-control, as Zack Bunting would have had in an English drawing-room.
Linda had been thinking over a plan, which, when uttered, was proved to have also suggested itself to her friend. Could not something be done in the way of a Sunday-school class for the miserable ignorant children at the 'Corner'? Now the very rudiments of revealed religion were unknown to them; and to spend an hour or two on the vacant Sabbath in trying to teach them some of Heaven's lore, seemed as if it might be the germ of great good. Miss Armytage, naturally not of Linda's buoyant disposition, foresaw abundance of difficulties,—the indifference or opposition of parents, the total want of discipline or habits of thought among the young themselves. Still, it was worth trying; if only a single childish soul should be illuminated with the light of life to all eternity by this means, oh, how inestimably worth trying!
Mr. Wynn was seen coming up the clearing. 'I know papa has had a letter,' exclaimed Linda, 'and that it is a pleasant one, by his pleasant face. Confess now, Edith, isn't he the handsomest man you ever saw?'
Her friend laughed at the daughterly enthusiasm, but could have answered in the affirmative, as she looked at his stately grey-crowned figure and handsome features, lighted with a grave, kind smile, as Linda took possession of his left arm—to be nearer his heart, she said. She was not very long in coaxing from himthe blue official letter which contained his appointment to the magistracy of the district, about which he pretended not to be a bit pleased.
'And there's some other piece of nonsense in that,' said he, taking out a second blue envelope, and addressed to Arthur Wynn, Esquire.
'"Adjutant-General's Office,"' read Linda, from the corner. 'His appointment to the militia, I am sure. That good, powerful Mr. Holt!' Even at the name she coloured a little. 'He said that he would try and have this done. And I am so glad you are taking your proper footing in the colony, papa. Of course they should make you a magistrate. I should like to know who has the dignified presence, or will uphold the majesty of the law, as well as you?'
'Magistracy and militia—very different in this mushroom society from what they are in the old country,' said Mr. Wynn despairingly.
'Well, papa, I have ambition enough to prefer being chief fungus among the mushrooms, instead of least among any other class. Don't you know how poverty is looked down upon at home? Here we are valued for ourselves, not for our money. See how all the neighbourhood looks up to Mr. Wynn of Cedar Creek. You are lord-lieutenant of the county, without his commission: these men feel the influence of superior education and abilities and knowledge.'
'I verily believe, saucebox, that you think your father fit to be Governor-General; or, at least, a triton among the minnows.'
'Papa, the fun is, you'll have to marry people now,whenever you're asked. It is part of a magistrate's duty in out-of-the-way places, Mr. Holt says.'
'Then I am to consider my services bespoke by the young ladies present, eh?' said Mr. Wynn, making a courtly inclination to Edith and Jay. 'With the greatest pleasure.'
M
Wynn became his magisterial functions well, though exercised after a primitive fashion, without court-house or bench whence to issue his decisions, without clerk to record them, or police force to back them, or any other customary paraphernalia of justice to render his office imposing. To be sure, his fine presence was worth a great deal, and his sonorous voice. As Linda predicted, he was obliged to perform clerical duty at times, in so far as to marry folk who lived beyond reach of a clergyman, and had thrice published their intention in the most public part of the township. The earliest of these transactions affianced one of Davidson's lads to a braw sonsie lass, daughter of Benson, the Shropshire settler beyond the 'Corner.' The bridegroom, a tall strapping young fellow of about twenty-three, had a nice cottage ready for his wife, and a partially cleared farm of a hundred acres, on which he had been working with this homestead in view for the last year and a half. The prudent Scotsman would portion off his other sons in similar respectability as they came of age.
'And yer mither and I cam' here wi' an axe and a cradle,' he was wont to say, 'eh, Jeanie Davidson?'
He had good cause for gratulation at the wedding that day. His own indomitable industry and energy had raised him from being a struggling weaver in Lanarkshire to be a prosperous landowner in Canada West. He looked upon a flourishing family of sons and daughters round the festive board in Benson's barn, every one of them a help to wealth instead of a diminution to it; strong, intelligent lads, healthy and handy lasses. With scarce a care or a doubt, he could calculate on their comfortable future.
'I tell you what, neighbour,' cried stout John Benson, from the head of the table, 'throw by cold water for once, and pledge me in good whisky to the lucky day that brought us both to Canada.'
'Na, na,' quoth Davidson, shaking his grizzled head, 'I'll drink the toast wi' all my heart, but it must be in gude water. These twenty year back I hae been a temperance man, and hae brought up thae lads to the same fashion; for, coming to Canada, I kenned what ruined mony a puir fallow might weel be the ruin o' me, an' I took a solemn vow that a drap o' drink suld never moisten my lips mair. Sandy Davidson wouldna be gettin' John Benson's daughter in marriage the day, if it werena for the cauld water.'
Captain Armytage, who never missed a merrymaking of any description within a circle of miles, took on himself to reply to this teetotal oration.
It was all very well for Mr. Davidson to talk thus, but few constitutions could bear up against theexcessive labour of bush life without proportionate stimulants. For his own part, he would sink under it, but for judicious reinforcement of cordials, ordered him by the first medical man in Europe.
'I daur say,' replied Davidson, whose keen hard eye had been fixed on the speaker; 'I daur say. Ye mak' nae faces at yer medicine, anyhow. It's weel that Zack's store is so handy to Daisy Burn, only I'm thinkin' the last will go to the first, in the long run.'
'What do you mean, sir?' demanded the captain fierily.
'Naething,' responded Davidson coolly,—'naething save what e'er the words mean.'
'But we were a-goin' to drink to Canada, our adopted country,' put in Benson, willing to stifle the incipient quarrel—'the finest country on the face of the earth, after Old England.'
His stentorian Shropshire lungs supplied a cheer of sufficient intensity, taken up by his guests.
'The country whar we needna fear factor, nor laird, nor rent-day,' shouted Davidson. 'We're lairds an' factors here, an' our rent-day comes—never.'
'Whirroo!' exclaimed an Irishman, Pat O'Brien, who, having been evicted in his own country, was particularly sensitive as to landlord and tenant-right. 'No more agints, nor gales o' rint, nor nothin', ever to pay!'
'Not forgetting the tax-gatherer,' interposed portly Mr. Benson. 'None of us are partikler sorry to part with him.'
Meanwhile the comely bride was sitting with her husband at one side of the table, thankful for thediversion from herself as a topic of enthusiasm and mirth.
'Lads, you'd be a' at the loom, an' your sisters in the factories, only for Canada,' said Davidson, now on his legs. 'An' I suld be lookin' for'ard to the poor-house as soon as my workin' days were ower; an' Sandy couldna marry, except to live on porridge an' brose, wi' cauld kail o' Sabbath. How wad ye relish that prospect, bonnie Susan?'
Bonnie Susan liked the prospect of the folds of her own silk dress best at that moment, to judge by the determinately downward glance of her eyes.
By and by Davidson (for the subject was a favourite one with him) hit upon another of the Canadian advantages as a poor man's land—that the larger a man's family, the wealthier was he. No need to look on the little ones as superfluous mouths, which by dire necessity the labourer in mother country is often forced to do; for each child will become an additional worker, therefore an additional means of gain.
'An' if the folk at hame kenned this mair, dinna ye think the emigration wad be thrice what it is, Mr. Robert? Dinna ye think they wad risk the sea an' the strangers, to make a safe future for their bairns? Ay, surely. An' when I think o' the people treading one anither down over the edges o' thae three little islands, while a country as big as Europe stands amaist empty here'—
Mr. Davidson never stated the consequences of his thought; for just then came a universal call to clear the tables, stow away the boards and tressels, and make room for dancing and small plays. The hilaritymay be imagined—the boisterous fun of general blindman's buff, ladies' toilet, and all varieties of forfeits. Robert Wynn stole away in the beginning; he had come for an hour, merely to gratify their good neighbour Davidson; but, pressing as was his own farm-work, he found time to spend another hour at Daisy Burn, doing up some garden beds under direction of Miss Edith. She had come to look on him as a very good friend; and he——well, there was some indefinable charm of manner about the young lady. Those peculiarly set grey eyes were so truthful and so gentle, that low musical voice so perfect in tone and inflection, that Robert was pleased to look or listen, as the case might be. But chiefest reason of all—was she not dear Linda's choicest friend and intimate? Did they not confide every secret of their hearts to each other? Ah, sunbeam, Linda knew well that there was a depth of her friend's nature into which she had never looked, and some reality of gloom there which she only guessed.
Perhaps it was about Edith's father or brother. That these gentlemen neglected their farm business, and that therefore affairs could not prosper, was tolerably evident. Fertile as is Canadian soil, some measure of toil is requisite to evolve its hidden treasures of agricultural wealth. Except from a hired Irish labourer named Mickey Dunne, Daisy Burn farm did not get this requisite. The young man Reginald now openly proclaimed his abhorrence of bush life. No degree of self-control or arduous habits had prepared him for the hard work essential. Most of the autumn he had lounged about the 'Corner,' except when his father was in Zack's bar,which was pretty often; or he was at Cedar Creek on one pretext or other, whence he would go on fishing and shooting excursions with Arthur.
Meanwhile, Robert's farming progressed well. His fall-wheat was all down by the proper period, fifteenth of September; for it is found that the earlier the seed is sown, the stronger is the plant by the critical time of its existence, and the better able to withstand frost and rust. Complacently he looked over the broad brown space, variegated with charred stumps, which occupied fully a twelfth of the cleared land; and stimulated by the pleasures of hope, he calculated on thirty-five bushels an acre next summer as the probable yield. Davidson had raised forty per acre in his first season at Daisy Burn, though he acknowledged that twenty-five was the present average.
The garden stuff planted on Robert's spring-burn ground had flourished; more than two hundred bushels per acre of potatoes were lodged in the root-house, and a quantity of very fine turnips and carrots. Beans had not thriven: he learned that the climate is considered unfavourable for them. The pumpkins planted between his rows of Indian corn had swelled and swelled, till they lay huge golden balls on the ground, promising abundant dishes of 'squash' and sweet pie through the winter.
'How is it that everything thrives with you, Wynn?' young Armytage said one afternoon that he found the brothers busy slitting rails for the fencing of the aforesaid fall-wheat. 'I should say the genius of good luck had a special care over Cedar Creek.'
'Well, nature has done three-fourths of it,' answeredRobert, driving in a fresh wedge with his beetle; 'for this soil reminds me of some poet's line—"Tickle the earth with a straw, and forth laughs a yellow harvest." The other quarter of our success is just owing to hard work, Armytage, as you may see.'
'I can't stand that,' said the young man, laughing: 'give me something to do at once;' and he began to split rails also. Linda, coming from the house, found them thus employed—a highly industrial trio.
'I recollect being promised wild plums to preserve,' said she, after looking on for a little. 'Suppose you get out the canoe, Bob, and we go over to that island where we saw such quantities of them unripe? Now don't look so awfully wise over your wedges, but just consider how I am to have fruit tarts for people, if the fruit is never gathered.'
Whether the motive was this telling argument, or that his work was almost finished owing to the additional hand, Robert allowed the beetle to be taken from his fingers and laid aside. 'You imperious person! I suppose we must obey you.'
The day was one of those which only Canada in the whole world can furnish—a day of the 'pink mist,' when the noon sun hangs central in a roseate cup of sky. The rich colour was deepest all round the horizon, and paled with infinite shades towards the zenith, like a great blush rose drooping over the earth. Twenty times that morning Linda went from the house to look at it: her eyes could not be satiated with the beauty of the landscape and of the heavens above.
Then, what colours on the trees! As the canoe glided along through the enchanted repose of thelake, what painted vistas of forest opened to the voyagers' sight! what glowing gold islets against an azure background of distant waters and purple shores! what rainbows had fallen on the woods, and steeped them in hues more gorgeous than the imagination of even a Turner could conceive! Shades of lilac and violet deepening into indigo; scarlet flecked with gold and green; the darkest claret and richest crimson in opposition: no tropical forest was ever dyed in greater glory of blossom than this Canadian forest in glory of foliage.
'What can it be, Robert?' asked Linda, after drinking in the delight of colour in a long silent gaze. 'Why have we never such magnificence upon our trees at home?'
'People say it is the sudden frost striking the sap; or that there is some peculiar power in the sunbeams—actinic power, I believe 'tis called—to paint the leaves thus; but one thing seems fatal to this supposition, that after a very dry summer the colouring is not near so brilliant as it would be otherwise. I'm inclined to repose faith in the frost theory myself; for I have noticed that after a scorching hot day and sharp night in August, the maples come out in scarlet next morning.'
'Now, at home there would be some bald patches on the trees,' observed Arthur. 'The leaves seem to fall wholesale here, after staying on till the last.'
'I have heard much of the Indian summer,' said Linda, 'but it far exceeds my expectation. An artist would be thought mad who transferred such colouring to his canvas, as natural. Just look at the brilliantgleam in the water all along under that bank, from the golden leafage above it; and yonder the reflection is a vermilion stain. I never saw anything so lovely. I hope it will last a long time, Bob.'
That was impossible to say; sometimes the Indian summer was for weeks, sometimes but for a few days; Canadians had various opinions as to its arrival and duration: September, October, or November might have portions of the dreamy hazy weather thus called. As to why the name was given, nobody could tell; except it bore reference to an exploded idea that the haze characteristic of the time of the year arose from the burning of the great grassy prairies far west by the red men.
'What has become of your colony of Indians?' asked Armytage, 'those who lived near the cedar swamp?'
'Oh, they left us in "the whortleberry moon," as they call August, and migrated to some region where that fruit abounds, to gather and store it for winter use. They smoke the berries over a slow fire, I am told, and when dry, pack them in the usual birch-bark makaks; and I've seen them mixed with the dough of bread, and boiled with venison or porcupine, or whatever other meat was going, as we would use whole pepper.'
'After the whortleberries, they were to go to the rice-grounds,' observed Arthur. 'Bob, suppose we paddle over and try for ducks in the rice-beds, to the lee of that island.'
Here were some hundred yards of shallow water, filled with the tall graceful plant, named by the Jesuits 'folle avoine,' and by the English 'wild rice.'The long drooping ears filled with very large grains, black outside and white within, shook down their contents into the silt at bottom with every movement which waved their seven-feet stems. Arthur knew it as a noted haunt of wild duck, a cloud of which arose when he fired.
'It was here we met all the pigeons the other day,' said he. 'Those trees were more like the inside of a feather-bed than anything else, so covered were they with fluttering masses of birds; you couldn't see a bit of the foliage; and 'twas quite amusing to watch some of them lighting on the rice, which wasn't strong enough to support them, and trying to pick out the grains. As they could neither swim nor stand, they must have been thoroughly tantalized. Don't you remember, Armytage?'
But their main business, the plums, must be attended to; the islet was found which was bordered with festoons of them, hanging over the edge in the coves; and after due feasting on the delicious aromatic fruit, they gathered some basketsful. When that was done, it was high time to paddle homewards; the sun was gliding forth from the roseate vault over the western rim, and a silvery haze rose from the waters, softly veiling the brilliant landscape.
'A great improvement to your charcoal forest, it must be owned,' said Robert, pointing Armytage to where the sharp black tops of rampikes projected over the mist. The young man did not relish allusions to that folly of his father's, and was silent.
'Oh, Bob, what a pretty islet!' exclaimed Linda, as they passed a rock crested with a few trees, and almost carpeted by the brilliant red foliage of thepyrola, or winter green. 'The bushes make quite a crimson wreath round the yellow poplars.'
'I think,' said Robert, with deliberation, 'it would be almost worth the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to see this single day of "the pink mist."'
I
ndian summer was succeeded by the 'temps boucaneux,' when hoarfrost drooped noiselessly on the night its silver powder on all the dazzling colouring, presenting nature robed in a delicate white guise each morning, which the sun appropriated to himself as soon as he could get above the vapours. Now were the vast waters of Canada passing from a fluid to a solid form, giving out caloric in quantities, accompanied by these thin mists. Towards the close of November navigation ceases on the Ottawa; the beginning of December sees the mighty river frozen over. Yet it lies in the latitude of Bordeaux! All honour to the benevolent Gulf Stream which warms France and England comfortably.
When Linda's fingers were particularly cold, she would puzzle Robert and her father with questions as to why this should be so. Mr. Holt once told her that the prevailing wind came from the north-west across a vast expanse of frozen continent and frozen ocean. Also that James's Bay, the southern tongue of Hudson's, was apt to get choked with masses of icedrifted in from the arctic seas, and which, being without a way of escape, just jammed together and radiated cold in company on the surrounding lands.
This explanation was given and received within earshot of a splendid fire on one of those tremendous January mornings when the temperature is perhaps twenty-five degrees below zero, when the very smoke cannot disperse in the frozen atmosphere, and the breath of man and beast returns upon them in snowy particles. Nobody cares to be out of doors, for the air cuts like a knife, and one's garments stiffen like sheet-iron. Linda stands at the window of the little parlour—well she understands now why the hearth was made almost as wide as one side of the room—and looks out on the white world, and on the coppery sun struggling to enlighten the icy heavens, and on that strange phenomenon, thever glas, gleaming from every tree.
'Now, Mr. Holt, as you have been good enough to attempt an explanation of the cold, perhaps you could tell me the cause of thever glas? What makes that thin incrustation of ice over the trunk and every twig which has been attracting my admiration these three days? It was as if each tree was dressed in a tight-fitting suit of crystal when the sun succeeded in shining a little yesterday.'
'I imagine that the cause was the slight thaw on Monday, and the freezing of the moisture that then covered the bark and branches into a coat of ice. So I onlyattemptexplanations, Miss Linda.'
'Oh, but it is not your fault if they are unsatisfactory, as I own that of the north-west winds and James's Bay was to me; it is the fault of science.I'm afraid you'll not answer another question which I have, since I am so ungrateful as not to accept everything you say with becoming reverence.'
'Name your question.'
'Why is every fourth day milder than the others? Why may we reckon with almost certainty on a degree of soft weather to-morrow?'
'Those are the tertian intervals, and nobody understands them.'
'Concise and candid, if it doesn't make me wiser; but I'm compensated for that in finding something of which you are equally ignorant with myself, Mr. Holt.'
Remarks of a more superficial character were extorted by the severity of the weather from the inmates of the kitchen.
'Arrah, Miss Libby asthore, wor ye able to sleep one wink last night wid the crakling of the threes? I niver heerd'—
'Sartin sure I was,' replied the rubicund damsel, as she moved briskly about her work. She had a peculiarity of wearing very short skirts, lest they should impede her progress; but once that Andy ventured a complimentary joke on her ankles, he met with such scathing scorn that he kept aloof from the subject in future, though often sorely tempted.
'Nothen ever kep me waking,' asseverated the Yankee girl with perfect truth. 'Now, young man, jest git out o' my way; warm yar hands in yar hair, if you've a mind teu—it's red enough, I guess.'
'Throth an' I wish I could take your advice, Miss; or if you'd give me a few sparks of yer own hot timper, I needn't ever come up to the hearth at all at all.'
'Thar, go 'long with you for a consaited sot-up chap, an' bring in a couple of armfuls of wood,' said the lady. 'I reckon you'd best take care of your hair settin' fire to the logs, Mister Handy,' she added with a chuckle.
Linda entered the kitchen on some household business, and Mr. Callaghan was too respectful to retort in her presence. But this is a specimen of the odd sort of sparring which Arthur chose to consider courtship, and to rally both parties about.
''Deed then I hope 'tisn't the likes of a crooked stick of her kind I'd be afther bringin' home at long last,' Andy would say, wielding his axe with redoubled vigour.
'I guess I ain't agoin' jest to be sich a soft un as to take the care ofhimfor nothen',' the lady would say, flouncing about her kitchen and laying ineffable emphasis on the last word. Whence it would appear that the feud was irreconcilable.
Next day was bright, and the mercury had climbed nearer to zero; so the sleigh was had out—Mr. Holt's sleigh, which had brought him from Mapleton to Cedar Creek, and was very much at everybody's service while he remained. Linda dressed in her warmest attire, and prepared for a run to the 'Corner' with her father. The sleigh was but a 'cutter' for carrying two, and had handsome robes of its equipment, a pair for each seat; one of wolf-skins garnished with a row of tails at the bottom and lined with scarlet; another a bear-skin, in which the beast's grim countenance had been preserved, and his claws affixed as a fringe. When Linda was comfortably wrapped up, Mr. Holt produced a third robe to throw over all.
'What a curious texture! a platted material and yet fur!' she said, looking at it.
''Tis of Indian manufacture, and I believe is made of rabbit skins cut in strips, twisted and netted together so as to keep the hair outside on both surfaces. You have a lovely day for your trip; I hope you will enjoy it.'
Did she not? A large set-off against the severity of a Canadian winter should be the ecstatic pleasures of sleighing. Those who have not tasted it know not the highest bliss of movement. Gliding smoothly and rapidly over the solid snow to the tinkling music of bells, the motion alone has something in it most exhilarating, to say nothing of the accompaniments of the ride, the clear bracing air, the beauty of the frost-bound forests all around. Linda was determined that her friend Edith should have her share of the enjoyment this brilliant day: so, stopping the 'steel-shod sleigh' at Daisy Burn, she persuaded Miss Armytage to don her cloak and muffetees and warm hood, and take her place beside Mr. Wynn for the rest of the way to the 'Corner' and back.
Edith had been in the midst of ironing her father's and brother's linen, while Jay read aloud. As soon as she was gone, despite the protestations of the little girl, Linda took the smoothing iron herself, and continued the work merrily. While thus engaged, and Jay getting through her history lesson still, a scratching was heard at the outside door of the kitchen.
'That's Ponto; what can have brought him home? he went with Reginald to chop at the edge of the clearing.'
The dog was no sooner admitted than he jumped on them both, pulled their gowns, ran back whining, and repeated these movements many times.
'He wants us to go with him, Jay—don't you think so?'
W
hat could be the matter? Ponto, at all events, seemed to think it of much importance, for he never ceased to pull their skirts and whine an entreaty, and go through the pantomime of running off in a great hurry—never farther than the threshold—until he saw the girls put on their cloaks and hoods. Gravely he sat on his tail, looking at them with patient eyes, and, when the door was opened, sprang off madly towards the pond.
'Could Reginald have sent him for anything? Something might have happened to Reginald. Ponto never came home in that way before. Could a tree have fallen on Reginald?' and Jay's small hand shivered in Linda's at the thought. They hurried after the dog, over the spotless surface of snow, into the charred forest, where now every trunk and bough of ebony seemed set in silver. Thither Reginald had gone to chop at noon, in a little fit of industry. They were guided to the spot by the sad whinings of faithful Ponto, who could not comprehend why his master was lying on the ground, half against a tree,and what meant that large crimson stain deepening in the pure snow.
A desperate axe-cut in his foot—this was the matter. Linda almost turned sick at the sight; but Jay, compressing her white lips very firmly, to shut in a scream, kneeled down by her brother.
He had succeeded, with infinite effort, in drawing off his long leather boot, through which the axe had penetrated, and had been trying to bind his neckcloth tightly above the ankle. Jay helped him with all her little strength.
'Give me a stick,' said he hoarsely—'a strong stick;' Linda flew to find one. 'Something to make a tourniquet;' and, not readily seeing any wood to answer the want, she used his axe, stained as it was, to chop a branch from the single tree he had felled. She had never tried her strength of arm in this way before; but now the axe felt quite light, from her excitement. Before the stick could be ready, in her unpractised fingers, Jay cried out, 'Oh, Linda, he is dying! he has fainted!'
Still, she had common sense to know that the first necessity was to stop the bleeding; so, quieting the little sister by a word or two, she inserted the stick in the bandage above the ankle, and turned it more than once, so as to tighten the ligament materially. Looking at the pallid features, another thought struck her.
'Let us heap up snow round the wounded foot and leg; I'm sure the cold must be good for it;' and, with the axe for their only shovel, the two girls gathered a pile of frozen snow, as a cushion and covering to the limb—'Oh, if Edith were here! if Edith were here!' being Jay's suppressed cry.
'Where is the labourer whom I saw working on the farm?'
'Gone away; discharged last week. Papa said he couldn't afford to pay him any longer. That's why Reginald went out to chop to-day. Oh, Linda, I wish somebody came. He is lying so white and still: are you sure he is not dead?'
His head was on the little sister's lap, and Linda chafed the temples with snow. Would the sleigh-bells ever be heard? She longed for help of some sort. As to surgery, there was not a practitioner within thirty miles. What could be done with such a bad hurt as this without a surgeon?
A universal slight shudder, and a tremor of the eyelids, showed that consciousness was returning to the wounded man. Almost at the same instant Ponto raised his head, and ran off through the trees, whining. A man's footsteps were presently heard coming rapidly over the crisp snow. It was Mr. Holt: and a mountain load of responsibility and dread was lifted from Linda's mind at the sight of him. This was not the first time that she had felt in his presence the soothing sense of confidence and restfulness.
He could not help praising them a little for what they had done with the primitive tourniquet and the styptic agency of the snow. Beyond tightening the bandage by an additional twist or two of the inserted stick, he could do nothing more for the patient till he was removed to the house; but he began collateral help by cutting poles for a litter, and sent Jay and Linda for straps of basswood bark to fasten them together. When the sleigh at last came up the avenue, Mr. Wynn the elder helped him to carryyoung Armytage home, wherein Sam Holt's great physical strength carefully bore two-thirds of the dead weight.
It seemed that he had been chopping up that fir for firewood, perhaps without giving much thought to his work, when the axe, newly sharpened before he came out, caught in a crooked branch, which diverted almost the whole force of the blow on his own foot. Well was it that Mr. Holt, in his erratic education, had chosen to pry into the mysteries of surgery for one session, and knew something of the art of putting together severed flesh and bone; although many a dreadful axe wound is cured in the backwoods by settlers who never heard of a diploma, but nevertheless heal with herbs and bandages, which would excite the scornful mirth of a clinical student.
Thus began a long season of illness and weakness for the young man, so recently in the rudest health and strength. It was very new to his impetuous spirit, and very irksome, to lie all day in the house, not daring to move the injured limb, and under the shadow of Zack Bunting's cheerful prediction, that he guessed the young fellar might be a matter o' six or eight months a-lyin' thar, afore such a big cut healed, ef he warn't lamed for life.
Reginald chafed and grumbled and sulked for many a day; but the fact could not be gainsaid; those divided veins and tendons and nerves must take long to unite again; Mr. Holt found him one morning in such an unquiet mood.
'Armytage,' said he, after the usual attentions to the wound, 'I suppose you consider this axe-cut a great misfortune?'
'"Misfortune!"' and he rose on his elbow in one of the fifty positions he was wont, for very restlessness, to assume. 'Misfortune! I should think I do: nothing much worse could have happened. Look at the farm, without a hand on it, going to rack and ruin'—
Rather a highly coloured picture; and Reginald seemed to forget that, while his limbs were whole, he had devoted them almost entirely to amusement. Mr. Holt heard him out patiently.
'I should not be surprised if it proved one of the best events of your life,' he observed; 'that is, if you will allow it to fulfil the object for which it was sent.'
'Oh, that's your doctrine of a particular providence,' said the other peevishly, lying back again.
'Yes; my doctrine of a particular providence, taught in every leaf of the Bible. Now, Armytage, look back calmly over your past life, and forward, whither you were drifting, and see if the very kindest thing that could be done for you by an all-wise and all-loving God was not to bring you up suddenly, and lay you aside, andforceyou to think. Beware of trying to frustrate His purpose.'
Mr. Holt went away immediately on saying that, for he had no desire to amuse Reginald with an unprofitable controversy which might ensue, but rather to lodge the one truth in his mind, if possible. Young Armytage thought him queer and methodistical; but he could not push out of his memory that short conversation. Twenty times he resolved to think of something else, and twenty times the dismissed idea came round again, and the calm forcible words visited him, 'Beware of trying to frustrate God's purpose.'
At last he called to his sister Edith, who was busyat some housework in the kitchen, across a little passage.
'Come here; I want to ask you a question. Do you think that I am crippled as a punishment for my misdeeds, idleness, etcetera?'
'Indeed, I do not,' she answered with surprise. 'What put such a thought into your head?'
'Holt said something like it. He thinks this axe-cut of mine is discipline—perhaps like the breaking-in which a wild colt requires; and as you and he are of the same opinion in religious matters, I was curious to know if you held this dogma also.'
She looked down for a moment. 'Not quite as you have represented it,' she said. 'But I do think that when the Lord sends peculiar outward circumstances, He intends them to awake the soul from indifference, and bring it to see the intense reality of invisible things. Oh, Reginald,' she added, with a sudden impulse of earnestness, 'I wish you felt that your soul is the most precious thing on earth.'
He was moved more than he would have cared to confess, by those tearful eyes and clasped hands; he knew that she went away to pray for him, while about her daily business. More serious thoughts than he had ever experienced were his that afternoon: Jay could not avoid remarking—in private—on his unusual quietude. Next morning he found a Bible beside his bed, laid there by Edith, he had no doubt; but for a long time she could not discover whether he ever looked into it.
When Mr. Holt left the country, he gave Robert Wynn charge of the patient mentally as well as corporeally. He knew that Robert's own piety wouldgrow more robust for giving a helping hand to another.
Somehow, the Yankee storekeeper was very often hanging about Daisy Burn that winter. Captain Armytage and he were great friends. That gallant officer was, in Zack's parlance, 'the Colonel,' which brevet-rank I suppose was flattering, as it was never seriously disclaimed. He was king of his company in the tavern bar at the 'Corner;' and few days passed on which he did not enjoy that bad eminence, while compounding 'brandy-smash,' 'rum-salad,' 'whisky-skin,' or some other of the various synonyms under which the demon of drink ruins people in Canada.
But where did the captain find cash for this? The fact is, he never paid in ready money; for that was unknown to his pockets, and very rare in the district. He paid in sundry equivalents of produce; and a nice little mortgage might be effected on his nice little farm of Daisy Burn if needs be. Zack held his greedy grasping fingers over it; for the family were obliged to go a good deal in debt for sundry necessities. Slave and scrape as Miss Armytage might, she had no way of raising money for such things as tea and coffee. Once she attempted to make dandelion roots, roasted and ground, do duty for the latter; but it was stigmatized as a failure, except by loving little Jay. Then wages must be paid to the Irish labourer, whose services to chop wood, etc., were now absolutely necessary. Meat was another item of expense. A large store of potatoes was almost the sole provision upon which the household could reckon with certainty; mismanagement and neglect had produced the usualresult of short crops in the foregoing season, and their wheat went chiefly to the store in barter.
'An' ef Zack ain't shavin' the capting, I guess I'm a Dutchman,' remarked a neighbouring settler to Robert. 'I reckon a matter of two year'll shave him out o' Daisy Burn, clear and clean.'
But its owner had some brilliant scheme in the future for lifting him free of every embarrassment. Rainbow tints illuminated all prospective pages of Captain Armytage's life.
'Edith, my dear,' he would say, if that young lady deprecated any fresh expenditure, or ventured an advice concerning the farm,—'Edith, my dear, the main fault of your character is an extraordinary want of the sanguine element, for the excess of which I have always been so remarkable. You know I compare it to the life-buoy, which has held me up above the most tempestuous waves of the sea of existence, eh! But you, my poor dear girl, have got a sad way of looking at things—a gloomy temperament, I should call it perhaps, eh? which is totally opposite to my nature. Now, as to this beast, which Mr. Bunting will let me have for twenty-eight dollars, a note of hand at three months, he is kind enough to say, will do as well as cash. And then, Reginald, my boy, we need drinkcafé noirno longer, but can have the propercafé au laitevery morning.'
'I don't know who is to milk the cow, sir,' said his son, rather bluntly. 'Edith is overwhelmed with work already.'
'Ah, poor dear! she is very indefatigable.' He looked at her patronizingly, while he wiped his well-kept moustache in a handkerchief which she hadwashed. 'Indeed, Edith, I have sometimes thought that such continual exertion as yours is unnecessary. You should think of us all, and spare yourself, my child.'
'I do, papa,' she answered: whether that she thought of them all, or that she spared herself, she did not explain. Her brother knew which it was.
'That is right, my child. It grieves me to see you condescending to menial offices, unsuitable to your rank and position.'
She did not ask—as a less gentle nature would have asked—who else was to be the menial, if not she?
'That is the worst of a bush life. If I had known how difficult it is to retain one's sphere as a gentleman, I think I should not have exposed myself to the alternative of pecuniary loss or debasing toil. Perhaps it would be well to walk down to the "Corner" now, and conclude that bargain with our good friend the storekeeper, eh? Is there anything I can do for either of you, eh? Don't hesitate to command me,' he added blandly. 'What! you want nothing? A very fortunate pair—very fortunate, indeed, eh?' And Captain Armytage kissed hands out of the room.
'Edith,' said her brother, after a pause of some minutes, 'my father will be ruined by his confidence in that man. Bunting can twine him round his finger. I am ashamed of it.'
She shook her head sadly. But there was no help for the fact that their father was in the toils already; unless, indeed, the debt could be paid off, and the acquaintanceship severed. Hopeless! for the tendencies of a life cannot be remodelled in a day, except by the power of divine grace.