S
leighing was good that year, till the middle of March. Before the season was past, Captain Argent paid a flying visit on his way to the hunting grounds, as usual, and on his return found something so pleasant in the household at Cedar Creek, that he remained many days.
They were all old acquaintances, to be sure, and had many subjects of interest in common. Mr. Wynn the elder, who, perhaps, was imbued with a little of the true Briton's reverence for aristocracy, was pleased to entertain his former neighbour, Lord Scutcheon's son, especially when that young officer himself was endowed with such a frank, genial bearing as rendered him almost a universal favourite.
Had there ever been more than mere pleasant acquaintanceship between him and Miss Wynn? Rightly or wrongly, Sam Holt fancied it the case. He heard many allusions to former times and incidents, not knowing that as children they had been playmates. The gallant captain's present admiration was pretty plain; and the young lady was amused by it after themanner of her sex. Being very downright himself, Mr. Holt had no idea how much admiration is required to fill the measure of a proposal of marriage in a red-coat's resolve, or how much harmless coquetry lies dormant in the sweetest woman.
The precipitate gentleman leaped to sundry conclusions, gathered himself and his fur robes into his cutter, and left on the third day of Captain Argent's visit. In her secret heart, I imagine that Linda knew why.
But an engrossing affair to her at this period was the concealment from their visitor of the decidedly active part she took in household duties. Innocent Captain Argent was unaware that the faultless hot bread at breakfast was wrought by her hands; that the omelets and ragoûts at dinner owned her as cook; that the neatness of the little parlour was attributable to her as its sole housemaid. The mighty maiden called Liberia had enough to do in other departments, outdoor as well as indoor, besides being rather a ponderous person for a limited space.
And so, when Captain Argent one morning pushed open the parlour door long before he ought to have left his apartment, he beheld a figure with short petticoats, wrapt in a grey blouse, and having a hood of the same closely covering her hair, dusting away at the chairs and tables and shelves, with right goodwill.
'Now, Georgie, you know that you can't sit here till I have quite finished,' said the figure, without turning its head. 'Like a good boy, ask Libby to come and build up the fire: ask gently, remember, or she'll not mind you.'
The noiseless manner of closing the door caused her first to doubt the identity of the person spoken to, and a very vivid crimson dyed her cheeks, when, Liberia coming in, her blacksmith arms laden with logs, she threw them down with resounding clatter, and said, 'Wal, ef that ain't the nicest, soft speakin'est gentleman I ever see! He asked me as perlite for the wood, as he couldn't be perliter ef I war Queen Victory herself.'
'How fortunate that I didn't turn round my head!' thought Linda, her first confusion over; 'for of all horridly unbecoming things, showing no hair about one's face is the worst.'
Whence it will be seen that Miss Wynn was not exempt from female vanity.
To the cat thus let out of the bag, Captain Argent made no further allusion than was involved in a sudden fondness for the nursery tale of Cinderella. Every subject of conversation introduced for the morning was tinged by that fairy legend, which tinged Linda's countenance also, rose-colour. Mr. Wynn the elder was slightly mystified; for the topics of promotion by purchase in the army, and the emigration of half-pay officers, seemed to have no leading reference to the above world-famed story.
The dear old gentleman! he did the honours of his small wooden cottage at Cedar Creek as finely as if it had been his own ancestral mansion of Dunore. Their delf cups might have been Dresden, the black ware teapot solid silver, the coarse table-cloth damask—for the very air which he spread around the breakfast arrangements. One might have fancied that he infused an orange-pekoe flavour into the roughmuddy congou for which Bunting exacted the highest price. He did not know that the coffee, which he strongly recommended to his guest, was of native Canadian growth, being to all intents and purposes dandelion roots; for you see they were obliged to conceal many of their contrivances from this grand old father. I doubt if he was aware that candles were made on the premises: likewise soap, by Liberia's energetic hands. The dandelion expedient was suggested by thrifty Mrs. Davidson, who had never bought a pound of coffee since she emigrated; and exceedingly well the substitute answered, with its bitter aromatic flavour, and pleasant smell. If Captain Argent had looked into the little house closet, he would have seen a quantity of brownish roots cut up and stored on a shelf. Part of Linda's morning duty was to chop a certain quantity of these to the size of beans, roast them on a pan, and grind a cupful for breakfast. They cost nothing but the trouble of gathering from among the potato heaps, when the hills were turned up in autumn, and a subsequent washing and spreading in the sun to dry.
Mrs. Davidson would also fain have introduced peppermint and sage tea; but even Zack's bad congou was declared more tolerable than those herb drinks, which many a settler imbibes from year to year.
'Throth an' there's no distinction o' thrades at all in this counthry,' said Andy; 'but every man has to be a farmer, an' a carpinther, an' a cobbler, an' a tailor, an' a grocer itself! There's Misther Robert med an iligant shute o' canvas for the summer; an' Misther Arthur is powerful at boots; an' sorra bit but Miss Linda spins yarn first-rate, considherin' she never helda distaff before. An' the darlin' Missus knits stockins; oh mavrone, but she's the beautiful sweet lady intirely, that ought to be sitting in her carriage!'
News arrived from Dunore this spring, which Linda fancied would sorely discompose Andy. The Wynns kept up a sort of correspondence with the old tenantry, who loved them much. In an April letter it was stated that the pretty blue-eyed Mary Collins, Andy's betrothed, had been base enough to marry another, last Shrovetide. But the detaching process had gone on at this side of the Atlantic also. Linda was amazed at the apathy with which the discarded lover received the intelligence. He scratched his red head, and looked somewhat bewildered; indulged in a few monosyllable ejaculations, and half an hour afterwards came back to the parlour to ask her 'if she was in airnest, to say that over agin.'
'Poor fellow! he has not yet comprehended the full extent of his loss,' thought the young lady compassionately. She broke the news to him once more, and he went away without a remark.
When Arthur came in, she would beg of him to look after the poor suffering fellow. The request was on her lips at his appearance, but he interrupted her with,—
'What do you think of that scamp, Andy, proposing for Libby in my hearing? The fellow told her that his heart was in her keeping, and that she was the light of his life, and grew quite poetical, I assure you; in return for which, he was hunted round the wood-yard with a log!'
And Linda's sympathy expired.
N
ext summer brought a scourge of frequent visitation to the 'Corner.' Lake fever and ague broke out among the low-lying log-houses, and Zack's highly adulterated and heavily priced drugs came into great demand. He was the farthest west adventurer at that date who took upon him to supply apothecary's wares among the threescore and ten other vendibles of a backwoods store. So the ill wind which blew hot fits and cold fits to everybody else blew profit into Zack's pockets.
The population had swelled somewhat since our first introduction to this little pioneer settlement. The number of wooden huts mottling the cleared space between the forest and the river edge, clustering, like bees round their queen, about the saw and grist mill, had increased during the last two years by some half-score—a slow rate of progression, as villages grow in Canada; but the 'Corner' had a position unfavourable to development. An aguish climate will make inhabitants sheer off speedily to healthier localities. No sensible emigrant will elect to live on a marshy site where he can help it. The value of the 'Corner'was just now as a stage on the upper branch of that great western highway, whose proper terminus lies no nearer than the Pacific, and whose course is through the fertile country of future millions of men.
This summer waggon-loads of emigrants and their chattels began to file each month into the bush beyond. Cedar Creek ceased to be farthest west by a great many outlying stations where the axe was gradually letting in light on the dusky forest soil. To these the 'Corner' must be the emporium, until some enterprising person set up a store and mills deeper in the wilderness.
The shrewd Davidson saw the country opening about him, and resolved to gather to himself the profit which must accrue to somebody. His first measure was to walk down one evening to the Wynns' farm. A thoroughly good understanding had always existed between these neighbours. Even patrician Mr. Wynn relished the company of the hard-headed Lanark-weaver, whose energy and common sense had won him the position of a comfortable landholder in Canada West. Added to which qualifications for the best society, Davidson was totally devoid of vulgar assumption, but had sufficient ballast to retain just his own proper footing anywhere.
He found the family assembled in their summer parlour, beneath the handsome butternut tree which Robert's axe had spared, and which repaid the indulgence by grateful shade and continual beauty of leafage. They were enjoying supper in the open air, the balmy evening air afloat with fragrant odours. I say advisedly supper, and not tea; the beverage was a lady's luxury out here, and ill suited hours offoregoing labour. Milk was the staple draught at Cedar Creek meals for all stout workers.
'Gude even, leddies;' and Davidson doffed his bonnet with European courtesy. 'Fine weather for loggin' this.' Indeed, he bore evident grimy and smoky tokens on his clothes that such had been his day's work. Applepie order was a condition of dress which he rarely knew, though he possessed a faultless homespun suit, in which he would have been happy to gang to the kirk on Sabbath, were that enjoyment practicable.
English papers had come to hand an hour before; among them a bundle of the provincial print nearest Dunore. Linda had learned not to love the arrival of these. It was a pebble thrown in to trouble their still forest life. The yearning of all hearts for home—why did they never dream of calling Canada home?—was intensified perhaps to painfulness. She could interpret the shadow on her father's brow for days after into what it truly signified; that, however the young natures might take root in foreign soil, he was too old an oak for transplantation. Back he looked on fifty-eight years of life, since he could remember being the petted and cherished heir of Dunore; and now—an exile! But he never spoke of the longing for the old land; it was only seen in his poring over every scrap of news from Britain, in his jealous care of things associated with the past, nay, in his very silence.
Now, the dear old gentleman was letting his tea grow cool beyond all remedy, while, with gold double eyeglass in hand, he read aloud various paragraphs of Irish news. Diverging at last into some question ofparty politics uppermost at the time, though now, in 1861, extinct as the bones of the iguanodon, he tried to get Davidson interested in the subject, and found him so totally ignorant of even the names of public men as to be a most unsatisfactory listener.
''Deed, then, Mr. Wynn, to tell you truth, I hae never fashed my head wi' politics sin' I cam' oot to Canada,' observed the Scotchman a little bluntly. ''Twas nae sae muckle gude I gained by't at hame; though I mind the time that a contested election was ane o' my gran' holidays, an' I thought mair o' what bigwig was to get into Parliament for the borough than I did o' my ain prospects in life, fule that I was; until I found the bairns comin', an' the loom going to the wall a'thegither before machinery and politics wouldna mak' the pot boil, nor gie salt to our parritch. So I came oot here, an' left politics to gentlefolk.'
Mr. Wynn, rather scandalized at Davidson's want of public spirit, said something concerning a citizen's duty to the State.
'Weel, sir, my thought is, that a man's first earthly duty is to himsel' and his bairns. When I mind the workin' men at hame, ruggin', an' rivin', an' roarin' themselves hoarse for Mr. This or Sir Somebody That, wha are scramblin' into Parliament on their shouthers, while the puir fallows haen't a pound in the warld beyond their weekly wage, an' wull never be a saxpence the better for a' their zeal, I'm thankfu' that mair light was given me to see my ain interest, an' to follow it.'
'I hardly wonder at your indifference to the paltry politics of the Province,' observed the gentleman from the old country, sipping his tea loftily.
'I wish Mr. Hiram Holt heard that speech, sir,' said Robert. 'To him Canada is more important than Great Britain by so much as it is larger.'
'The citizen of Monaco has similar delusions as to the importance of his petty Principality,' rejoined Mr. Wynn. 'I should rather say there was no political principle among Canadians.'
'No, sir, there's none in the backwoods,' replied Davidson, with perfect frankness. 'We vote for our freends. I'm tauld they hae gran' principles in the auld settlements, an' fecht ane anither first-rate every election. We hae too much to do in the new townships for that sort o' work. We tak' it a' easy.'
Robert remembered a notable example of this political indifference in an election which had taken place since their settlement at Cedar Creek. On the day of polling he and his retainer Andy went down to the 'Corner,' the latter with very enlarged anticipations of fun, and perchance a 'row.' His master noticed him trimming a sapling into a splendid 'shillelagh,' with a slender handle and heavy head as ever did execution in a faction fight upon Emerald soil. The very word election had excited his bump of combativeness. But, alas! the little stumpy street was dull and empty as usual; not even the embryo of a mob; no flaring post-bills soliciting votes; the majesty of the people and of the law wholly unrepresented.
'Arrah, Misther Robert, this can't be the day at all at all,' said Andy, after a prolonged stare in every direction. 'That villain Nim tould us wrong.'
'Jacques!' called Robert into the cottage adorned with flowers in front, 'is this polling day?'
'Oh, oui,' said the little Canadian, running out briskly. 'Oui, c'est vat you call le jour de poll. Voilà, over dere de house.'
A log-cabin, containing two clerks at two rude desks, was the booth; a few idlers lounged about, whittling sticks and smoking, or reading some soiled news-sheets. Andy looked upon them with vast disdain.
'An' is this what ye call a 'lection in America?' said he. 'Where's the vothers, or the candidates, or the speeches, or the tratin,' or the colours, or the sojers, or anythink at all? An' ye can't rise a policeman itself to kape the pace! Arrah, let me out ov this home, Misther Robert. There's not as much as a single spark ov sperit in the whole counthry!'
So he marched off in high dudgeon. His master stayed a short while behind, and saw a few sturdy yeomen arrive to exercise the franchise. Their air of agricultural prosperity, and supreme political apathy, contrasted curiously with young Wynn's memories of the noisy and ragged partisans in home elections. It was evident that personal character won the electoral suffrage here in the backwoods, and that party feeling had scarce an influence on the voters.
The franchise is almost universal throughout Canada. In 1849 it was lowered to thirty dollars (six pounds sterling) for freeholders, proprietary, or tenantry in towns, and to twenty dollars (four pounds) in rural districts. This is with reference to the hundred and thirty representatives in the Lower House of the Provincial Legislature. The members of the indissoluble Upper House, or Legislative Council, are also returned at the rate of twelve every twoyears, by the forty-eight electoral divisions of the Province.
But to come back to our family party under the butternut tree. Robert related the above anecdote of Andy's disappointment; and from it old Mr. Wynn and Davidson branched off to a variety of cognate topics.
'Noo, I'll confess,' said the Scotchman, 'that the municipal elections hae an interest for me far aboon thae ithers. The council in my township can tax me for roads, an' bridges, an' schules: that's what I call a personal and practical concern. Sae I made nae manner of objection to bein' one of the five councillors mysel'; and they talk of electin' you too, Maister Robert.'
Robert shook his head at the honour.
'I hae a fancy mysel' for handlin' the purse strings wherever I can,' added Davidson. 'Benson will be the neist town-reeve, as he has time to be gaun' to the county council, which I couldna do. But noo, will ye tak' a turn round the farm?'
Plucking a sprig from an ash-leaved sugar maple close by, according to a habit he had of twisting something in his lips during intervals of talk, Mr. Davidson walked down the slope with Robert. While they are discussing crops, with the keen interest which belongs not to amateurs, we may enlighten the reader somewhat concerning the municipal system of self-government in which the shrewd Mr. Davidson professed his interest. Nowhere is it so perfect as in Canada. Each district has thorough control over its own affairs. Taxation, for the purpose of local improvement or education, is levied by the town orcounty councils, elected by the dwellers in each township. No bye-law for raising money can be enforced, unless it has previously been submitted to the electors or people. The town council consists of five members, one of whom is town-reeve; the town-reeves form the county council; and the presiding officer elected by them is called the warden. From the completeness of the organization, no merely local question can be brought before the provincial legislature, and it would be well if Imperial Parliament could, by similar means, be relieved of an immense amount of business, inconsistent with its dignity.
'Eh! what's this?' asked Davidson, stopping before the partially raised walls of a wooden cottage. 'Wha's gaun to live here?'
'Don't you recollect my town plot?' asked Robert. 'My first tenant sets up here. Jackey Dubois is removing from the "Corner:" he was always getting the ague in that marshy spot, and isn't sorry to change.'
'Then that brings me richt down on what I hae been wantin' to say,' quoth Davidson. 'If ye'll gie us the site, me an' my son Wat wull build a mill.'
'With all my heart; a grist or a saw mill?'
'Maybe baith, if we could raise the cash. Nae doot the sawmill's the proper to begin wi', seein' yer toun's to be builded o' wood'—
'For the present,' observed Mr. Wynn; 'but there's plenty of limestone under that hardwood ridge.'
'An' the finest water power in the township rinnin' a' to waste on top of it. Weel, noo, I'm glad that's settled; though 'twull be an awfu' expense first cost. I dinna exactly ken how to overtake it.'
Robert imagined that he was magnifying matters, in order to lessen any possible demand of ground-rent. But it is probable that Davidson would have even paid something over and above his ideas of equitable, for the pleasure of Zack Bunting's anticipated mortification at finding a rival mill set up in the neighbourhood.
W
hen the affair of the mill was arranged, and Robert's mind's eye beheld it already built and noisily flourishing, they sauntered along the bend of the pond towards where the charcoal forest of last autumn had donned a thin veil of greenery. The sight set Davidson upon his favourite irritation—the decay of his farm Daisy Burn, under its present owner.
'He's an a'thegither gude-for-naething,' was his conclusion respecting Captain Armytage. 'Such men as he hae nae mair business settlin' in the bush than he wad hae in tryin' the life o' a fish. A mon may come without land, or money, or freends, an I'll warrant him to get on; but there's ane thing he must hae, the willingness to work hard. That will bring him the lands, and money, and freends, as plenty as blackberries. Sae far as I can see, your gentlefolk dinna do weel in the bush; they're ower proud to tak' to the axe and the hoe as they ought, an' they hae maistly fine habits o' life that mak' them unhappy. I wad like to see the captain or his son cobblin' their ain shoon! Though I'm tauld the young fellow'sgreatly improved sin' his hurt; but that winna mak' him handier.'
'He is much more industrious,' said Robert, 'and I hope will be able to pull up affairs on the farm, even yet.'
'Na, sir, na! Zack Bunting's got his claw on it in the shape of a mortgage already. That farm o' his below the "Corner" he grasped in just the same way; put the owner in debt to the store, foreclosed the mortgage, and ruined the puir man. I ken he has his eye on Daisy Burn for Nim, ever sin' he saw the captain. And that Yankee cam' here, Maister Robert, without as much as a red cent aboon the pack on his back!'
Just then Arthur and George came in sight round the lee of a small island, paddling swiftly along.
'Trolling for black bass and maskelongé,' remarked Robert. 'There! he has a bite.'
Arthur's line, some seventy or eighty feet long, was attached to his left arm as he paddled, which gave a most tempting tremulousness to the bait—a mock-mouse of squirrel fur; and a great pike-fish, lying deep in the clear water, beheld it and was captivated. Slowly he moved towards the charmer, which vibrated three or four feet beneath the surface; he saw not the treacherous line, the hook beneath the fur; his heavily under-jawed mouth (whence he obtained the name of masque-longue, misspelled continually in a variety of ways by his Canadian captors), his tremendous teeth, closed voraciously on the temptation. Arthur's arm received a sudden violent jerk from the whole force of a lively twenty-five pound maskelongé; a struggle began, to be ended successfully for the human party by the aid of the gaff-hook.
This was the noblest prey of the pond. Pickerel of six or seven pounds were common; and a profusion of black bass-spotted trout in all the creeks; sheep-heads and suckersad libitum, the last-named being the worst fish of Canada. George thought the success far too uniform for sport; Arthur hardly cared to call the killing of God's creatures 'sport' during some time back.
'Davidson, here's a contribution for your bee,' cried Arthur, holding up the prize by its formidable snout. 'For your good wife, with my compliments.'
Mrs. Davidson was in the thick of preparations for a logging-bee, to be held two days subsequently, and whither all the Cedar Creek people were invited. Every settler's wife's housekeeping is brought to a severe test on such occasions, and the huge maskelongé was a most acceptable addition.
The four gentlemen and Mr. Callaghan went with their team of oxen to help their good neighbour on the appointed morning.
It might have been four hours afterwards that Linda was working in her garden, hoeing a strawberry bed, and singing to herself some low song, when, attracted by a slight movement at the fence, she raised her eyes. Mr. Nimrod Bunting was leaning against the rails.
'I guess you may go on, Miss,' said he, showing all his yellow teeth. 'I've been admirin' yar voice this quarter of an hour past. I've never happened to hear you sing afore; and I assure you, Miss, I'm saying the truth, that the pleasure is highly gratifyin'.'
Linda felt greatly inclined to put down her hoe and run into the house; but that would be so ridiculous.She hoed on in silence, with a very displeased colour on her cheek.
'I see all yar people at the bee: yar too high yarself to go to them kind'er meetings, I reckon, Miss? Wal, I like that. I like pride. Th' ole woman said always, so did Uncle Zack, "Nim, yar above yar means; yar only fit for a Britisher gentleman," they did, I guess!'
'The sun is getting so hot,' quoth Miss Wynn, laying down her hoe.
'I reckon I ain't agoin' to have come down from Davidson's to here to speak to you, Miss,' and Nim vaulted over the fence, 'an' let you slip through my fingers that way. Uncle Zack said he'd speak to the ole feller up at the bee, an' bade me make tracks an' speak to you, Miss. He's agoin' to foreclose the mortgage, he is.'
'What, on Daisy Burn?' Linda was immensely relieved for the moment.
''Tain't on nothen' else, I guess. 'Tis an elegant farm—ain't it?'
'Cannot your father wait for his money—even a little time? Captain Armytage would surely pay in the long run; or his son would'—
'But s'pose we don't want 'em to pay? S'pose we wants the farm, and house, and fixins, and all, for a new-married pair to set up, Miss?'
'I don't think you should allow anything to interfere with what is just and merciful,' said Miss Wynn, with a strong effort. Her tormentor stood on the path between her and the house.
'S'pose I said they wanted that new-married pair to be you an' me, Miss?'
The audacity of the speech nearly took away her breath, and sent the blood in violent crimson over her face and throat. 'Let me pass, sir,' was her only answer, most haughtily spoken.
'Uncle Zack's a rich man,' pleaded his son. 'He's always been an ole 'coon, with a fine nest of cash at his back. It's in a New York bank, 'vested in shares. He's promised me the best part of it, an' the store into the bargain. You'll be a fool if you say "No," I guess.'
Here he was seized from behind by the throat, and hurled round heavily to the ground.
'Why, then, you spalpeen of an owdacious vagabone, it's well but I smash every bone in yer skin. Of all the impudence I ever heerd in my whole life, you bate it out, clear and clane! O, murther, if I could only give you the batin' I'd like, only maybe the master 'ud be vexed!' And Mr. Callaghan danced round his victim, wielding a terrible shillelagh.
M
eanwhile the noonday dinner at Davidson's bee progressed merrily. The mighty maskelongé disappeared piecemeal, simultaneously with a profusion of veal and venison pies, legs and sides of pork, raspberry tarts, huge dishes of potatoes and hot buns, trays of strawberries, and other legitimate backwoods fare; served and eaten all at the same time, with an aboriginal disregard of courses. After much wriggling and scheming—for he could not do the smallest thing in a straightforward manner—Zack Bunting had edged himself beside Mr. Wynn the elder; who, to please his good friend Davidson, occupied what he magnificently termed the vice-chair, being a stout high stool of rough red pine; and Zack slouched beside him, his small cunning eyes glancing sidelong occasionally from his tin platter to the noble upright figure of the old gentleman.
'What's in the wind now?' quoth Robert to himself, at the other end of the board, as he surveyed this contrast of personages. Looking down the lines of hungry labourers for Nim's duplicate face, it was absent, though he had seen it a-field. Andy's wasalso wanting, and with it the hilarity which radiated from him upon surrounding company. Not having the key of the position, Robert failed to connect these absences, although just then they were being connected in a very marked manner at Cedar Creek.
Zack wanted to speak on a particular subject to his lofty neighbour, but somehow it stuck in his throat. His usual audacity was at fault. Mr. Wynn had never seemed so inaccessible, though in reality he was making an effort to be unusually bland to a person he disliked. For the first time in his existence, cringing Zack feared the face of mortal man.
'Spell o' warm weather, squire, ain't it, rayther? I wor jest a sayin' to Silas Duff here that I never want to see no better day for loggin', I don't.'
'It is indeed beautifully fine,' answered Mr. Wynn, who was generally called in the neighbourhood 'the squire,' a sort of compliment to his patriarchal and magisterial position. 'I hope our friend Davidson will have his work cleared off satisfactorily before dark.'
'Oh, no fear, squire, no fear, I guess. There's good teams a-field. Them cattle druv by my lad Nim are the finest in the township, I reckon.'
'Indeed!' quoth Mr. Wynn, who just knew an ox from an ass.
''Tain't a losin' game to keep a store in the bush, ef you be a smart man,' observed Zack, with a leer, after a few minutes' devotion to the contents of his tin plate. By this adjective 'smart' is to be understood 'sharp, overreaching'—in fact, a cleverness verging upon safe dishonesty. 'I guess it's the high road to bein' worth some punkins, ef a feller has sense to invest his money well.'
'I daresay,' rejoined Mr. Wynn vaguely, looking down on the mean crooked face.
'Fact, squire, downright fact. Now, I don't mind tellin'you, squire,' lowering his voice to a whisper, 'that I've cleared a hundred per cent. on some sales in my time; an' the money hain't been idle since, you may b'lieve. Thar! that's sharp tradin', I guess?'
'Yes, sir, very sharp indeed.' Mr. Wynn's face by no means reflected the Yankee's smile. But Zack saw in his gravity only a closer attention to the important subject of gain.
'I've shares in a big bank in New York, that returns me fifteen per cent.—every copper of it: an' I've two of the best farms in the township—that's countin' Daisy Burn, whar I'll foreclose some day soon, I guess.'
'You are a prosperous man, as you calculate prosperity, Mr. Bunting.'
'I guess I ain't nothin' else' answered the storekeeper, with satisfaction. 'But I kin tell you, squire, that my lad Nim is 'tarnal 'cute too, an' he'll be worth lookin' arter as a husband, he will.'
Still with an unsuspicious effort at cordiality, Mr. Wynn answered, 'I suppose so.'
'He might get gals in plenty, but he has a genteel taste, has Nim: the gal to please Nim must be thorough genteel. Now, what would you say, squire'—an unaccountable faint-heartedness seized Uncle Zack at this juncture, and he coughed a hesitation.
'Well, sir!' For the old gentleman began to suspect towards what he was drifting, but rejected the suspicion as too wild and improbable.
'Wal, the fact is, squire, Nim will have the twofarms, an' the store, an' the bank shares—of course not all that till I die, but Daisy Burn at once: an'—an'—he's in a 'tarnal everlastin' state about your daughter Linda, the purtiest gal in the township, I guess.'
Mr. Wynn rose from his seat, his usually pale countenance deeply flushed. What! his moss-rose Linda—as often in a fond moment he named her—his pretty Linda, thought of in connection with this vulgar, cheating storekeeper's vulgar son? 'Sir, how dare you?' were all the words his lips framed, when Robert, beholding the scene from the other end of the board, came to the rescue.
'The fellow has been drinking,' was the most charitable construction Mr. Wynn could put upon Zack's astounding proposition. His dignity was cruelly outraged. 'Baiting the trap with his hateful knavish gains!' cried Linda's father. 'This is the result of the democracy of bush-life; the indiscriminate association with all classes of people that's forced on one. Any low fellow that pleases may ask your daughter in marriage!'
Robert walked up and down with him outside the building. Though sufficiently indignant himself, he tried to calm his father. 'Don't make the affair more public by immediate withdrawal,' he advised. 'Stay an hour or so longer at the bee, for appearance' sake. It's hardly likely the fellow will attempt to address you again, at least on that subject.' So the old gentleman very impatiently watched the log heaps piling, and the teams straining, and the 'grog-bos' going his rounds, for a while longer.
We left Andy Callaghan over his victim, with aflourishing shillelagh. Having spun him round, he stirred him up again with a few sharp taps; and it must be confessed that Nim showed very little fight for a man of his magnitude, but sneaked over the fence after a minute's bravado.
'Och, but it's myself that 'ud like to be batin' ye!' groaned Andy for the second time, most sincerely. 'Only I'm afeard if I began I wouldn't know how to lave off, 'twould be so pleasant, ye owdacious villain. Ha! ye'd throw the stick at me, would ye?' and Mr. Callaghan was across the fence in a twinkling. Whereupon Nim fairly turned tail, and fled ignominiously, after having ineffectually discharged a piece of timber, javelin-wise, at his enemy.
A loud peal of laughter, in a very masculine key, broke upon Andy's ear. It proceeded from the usually undemonstrative maiden Liberia, who was bringing a pail of water from the creek when her path was crossed by the flying pair. From that hour the tides of her feminine heart set in favour of the conqueror.
'Troth, an' I may as well let ye have the benefit of yer heels, ye mortal spalpeen,' said Andy, reining himself in. 'An' it's the father of a good thrashin' I could give ye for yer impidence. To think o' Miss Linda, that's one of the ould auncient Wynns of Dunore since Adam was a boy! I donno why I didn't pound him into smithereens when I had him so 'andy on the flat of his back—only for Miss Linda, the darlin' crathur, telling me not. Sure there isn't a peeler in the whole counthry, nor a jail neither, for a thousand mile. Now I wondher, av it was a thing I did bate him black an' blue, whose business wouldit be to 'rest me; an' is it before the masther I'd be brought to coort?'
Cogitating thus, and chewing the cud on the end of his sapling, Andy returned homewards leisurely. His young mistress was nowhere to be seen; so he picked up the hoe and finished her strawberry bed; and when he saw the elder Mr. Wynn approaching, he quietly walked off to Davidson's and took his place among the hive again, as if nothing had happened. Nor did the faithful fellow ever allude to the episode—with a rare delicacy judging that the young lady would prefer silence—except once that Robert asked him what had brought him to Cedar Creek so opportunely.
'Why, thin, didn't I know what the vagabone wanted, lavin' the bee 'athout his dinner, an' goin' down this road, afther me lookin' at him this twel'month dressing himself out in all the colours of neckties that ever was in the rainbow, an' saunterin' about the place every Sunday in particler, an' starin' at her purty face as impident as if he was her aqual. Often I'd ha' given me best shute of clothes to pluck the two tails off his coat; an' he struttin' up to Daisy Burn, when she and Miss Armytage tached the little childher there; an' Miss Linda thinkin' no more of him than if a snake was watchin' her out ov the bushes. But, moreover, I heerd him an' his old schemer of a father whispering at the bee: "Do you go down to herself," said Zack, "an' I'll spake to the squire." "Sure, my lad," thinks I, "if you do you'll have company along wid you;" so I dogged him every step of the way.'
Which explains Andy's interposition.
Robert Wynn, when his wrath at the Buntings' presumption subsided, had gloomy anticipations that this would prove the beginning of an irreconcilable feud, making the neighbourhood very disagreeable. But not so. A week afterwards, while he stood watching the workmen building the dam for the projected mill, he heard the well-known drawl at his elbow, and turning, beheld the unabashed Zack. He had duly weighed matters for and against, and found that the squire was too powerful for a pleasant quarrel, and too big to injure with impunity.
'Wal, Robert, so yer raisin' a sawmill!' he had uttered in a tone of no agreeable surprise. Mr. Wynn pointed to Davidson, and lefthimto settle that point of rivalry.
'We wull divide the custom o' the country, neebor Zack,' quoth the other.
'I don't deny that you have an elegant mill-privilege here; but I guess that's all you'll have. Whar's grist to come from, or lumber? D'ye think they'll pass the four roads at the "Corner," whar my mill stands handy?'
'Room eneugh i' the warld for baith o' us,' nodded Davidson; 'a' room eneugh in Canada for a million ither mills, freend.' And he walked down the sloping bank to assist at the dam.
This last—a blow at the pocket—seemed to affect Zack far more than that other blow at the intangible essence, his family honour. He could see his son Nim set off for the back settlements of Iowa without a pang; for it is in vulgar Yankee nature to fling abroad the sons and daughters of a house far and wide into the waters of the world, to make their ownway, to sink or swim as happens. But the new sawmill came between him and his rest. Before winter the machinery had been noisily at work for many a day; with huge beams walking up to the saw, and getting perpetually sliced into clean fresh boards; with an intermittent shooting of slabs and sawdust into the creek. 'Most eloquent music' did it discourse to Robert's ears, whose dream of a settlement was thus fulfilling, in that the essential requisite, lumber for dwelling-houses, was being prepared.
F
or some sufficient reason, the Yankee storekeeper did not at that time prosecute his avowed intention of foreclosing the mortgage on Daisy Burn. Perhaps there was something to be gained by dallying with the captain still—some further value to be sucked out of him in that villainous trap, the tavern bar, whither many a disappointed settler has resorted to drown his cares, and found the intoxicating glass indeed full of 'blue ruin.'
One brilliant day in midwinter, when the sky was like a crystallized sapphire dome, and the earth spotless in snow, a single sleigh came bowling along the smooth road towards the 'Corner.' 'A heavy fall of snow is equivalent to the simultaneous construction of macadamized roads all through Canada,' saith that universally quoted personage, Good Authority. So it is found by thousands of sleighs, then liberated after a rusty summer rest. Then is the season for good fellowship and friendly intercourse: leisure has usurped the place of business, and the sternest utilitarian finds time for relaxation.
The idlers in Bunting's bar heard the sleigh-bells long before they left the arches of the forest; and as the smallest atom of gravel strikes commotion into a still pool, so the lightest event was of consequence in this small stagnant community of the 'Corner.' The idlers speculated concerning those bells, and a dozen pair of eyes witnessed the emergence of the vehicle into the little stumpy street.
Zack's sharp vision knew it for one that had been here last year, as he peered through the store-window, stuffed with goods of all sorts; but the occupant was not the same. Grizzled hair and beard escaped the bounds of the fur cap tied down over his ears, and the face was much older and harder. The mills seemed to attract his attention, frozen up tightly as they were; he slackened his sleigh to a pause, threw his reins on the horse's neck, and walked to the edge of the dam. After a few minutes, Bunting's curiosity stimulated him to follow, and see what attracted the stranger's regard.
'Are you the proprietor of this mill, sir?' called out the tall grey-haired gentleman, in no mild tone. Zack hesitated, weighing the relative advantages of truth and falsehood. 'Wal, I guess'—
'You need guess nothing, sir; but the construction of your dam is a disgrace to civilisation—a murderous construction, sir. Do you see that it is at least twelve feet, perpendicular, sir? and how do you ever expect that salmon can climb over that barrier? I suppose a specimen of the true "salmo salar" has never been caught in these waters since you blocked up the passage with your villainous dam, sir?'
'I warn't ever a-thinkin' o' the salmon at all, Iguess,' answered the millowner truly and humbly, because he conceived himself in the authoritative presence of some bigwig, senator, or M.P., capable of calling him, Zack Bunting, to a disagreeable account, perchance.
'But you should have thought,' rejoined the stranger irately. 'Through such wrong-headedness as yours Canada is losing yearly one of her richest possessions in the way of food. What has exterminated the salmon in nearly all rivers west of Quebec? dams like this, which a fish could no more ascend than he could walk on dry land. But I hope to see parliamentary enactments which shall render this a felony, sir,—a felony, if I can. It is robbery and murder both together, sir.'
Mr. Hiram Holt walked rapidly to his sleigh, wrapped himself again in the copious furs, and left the storekeeper staring after the swift gliding cutter, and wondering more than ever who he was.
This matter of the dams had so much occupied his attention of late, that even after he reached Cedar Creek he reverted to it once and anon; for this fine old Canadian had iron opinions welded into his iron character. The capacity of entertaining a conviction, yet being lukewarm about it, was not possible to Hiram Holt. He believed, and practised suitably, with thorough intensity, in everything; even in such a remote subject as the Canadian fisheries.
The squire, who knew what preservation of salmon meant in the rivers of Britain, and who in his time had been a skilful angler, could sympathize with him about the reckless system of extinction going on through the Province, and which, if it be not arrestedby the hand of legislative interference, will probably empty the Canadian streams of this most delicious and nutritive of fish.
'A gold-field discovered in Labrador would not be more remunerative than that single item of salmon, if properly worked,' remarked Hiram. 'When the fisheries of the tiny Tweed rent for fifteen thousand a-year, a hundred times that sum would not cover the value of the tributaries of the St. Lawrence. And yet they're systematically killed out, sir, by these abominable dams.'
'Why, Mr. Holt,' said Linda, looking up from her work, 'I think the mills are of more consequence than the salmon.'
'But they're not incompatible, my young lady,' he answered. 'Put steps to the dams—wooden boxes, each five feet high, for the salmon to get upstairs into the still water a-top.' Whereat Miss Linda, in her ignorance, was mightily amused at the idea of a fish ascending a staircase.
'The quantity of salmon was almost infinite twenty years ago,' said Hiram, after condescending to enlighten her on the subject of its leaping powers. 'I remember reading that Ross purchased a ton weight of it from the Esquimaux for a sixpenny knife; and one haul of his own seine net took thirty-three hundred salmon.'
George, manufacturing a sled in the corner, whistled softly, and expressed his incredulity in a low tone; not so low but that Mr. Holt's quick ears caught the doubt, and he became so overflowing with piscatory anecdotes, that Linda declared afterwards the very tea had tasted strongly of salmon on that particular evening.
'It is only a few years since Sir John Macdonald and his party killed four hundred salmon in one week, from a part of l'Esquemain River, called the Lower Pools. Thirty-five such rivers, equally full, flow through Labrador into the St. Lawrence; am I not then right in saying that this source of wealth is prodigious?' asked Mr. Holt. 'But the abominable dams, and the barrier nets, and the Indians' spearing, have already lessened it one-fourth.' A relative comparing of experiences, with reference to fishy subjects, ensued between the squire and his guest; and both agreed that—quitting the major matter of the dams—an enforcement of 'close time,' from the 20th of August till May, would materially tend to preserve the fish.
'Nature keeps them tolerably close most of that time,' remarked Arthur, 'by building a couple of yards of ice over them. From November till April they're under lock and key.'
'And han't you ever fished through holes in the ice?' asked Mr. Holt. 'Capital sport, I can tell you, with a worm for bait.'
'No; but I was going to say, how curiously thin and weak the trout are just when the ice melts. They've been on prison allowance, I presume, and are ready to devour anything.'
During all the evening, though Linda took openly a considerable share in the conversation, her mind would beat back on one question, suggested repeatedly: 'Why did Mr. Sam Holt go to Europe?' for one item of news brought by to-day's arrival was, that his eldest son had suddenly been seized with a wish to visit England, and had gone in the last boat from Halifax.
Glancing up at some remark, she encountered Mrs. Wynn's eyes, and coloured deeply. That sweetest supervision of earth, a mother's loving look, had read more deeply than the daughter imagined. Rising hurriedly, on some slight excuse, she went to the window and looked out.
'Oh, papa! such glorious northern lights!'
Ay, surely. Low arcs of dazzling light stretched from east to west across the whole breadth of the heavens; whence coruscated, in prolonged flashes, gorgeous streamers of every colour, chiefly of pale emerald green, pink, and amber.
'A rich aurora for this season of the year,' remarked Hiram Holt. 'Those that are brightly coloured generally appear in autumn or spring.'
'Oh, yes,' said George; 'do you recollect how magnificent was one we had while the fall-wheat was planting? the sky was all crimson, with yellow streamers.'
'Do you know what the Indians think about auroras?' asked Mr. Holt. 'They believe that these flashes are the spirits of the dead dancing before the throne of the Manitou, or Great Spirit.'
'No wonder they should seek for some supernatural cause of such splendour,' observed Robert.
The aurora borealis exhibited another phase of its wondrous beauty on the ensuing evening. The young people from Cedar Creek had gone to a corn-husking bee at Vernon's, an old gentleman settler, who lived some eight miles off on the concession line; and coming home in the sleighs, the whole magnificent panorama of the skies spread above them. Waves of light rolled slowly from shore to shore of the horizonin vast pulsations, noiselessly ascending to the zenith, and descending all across the stars, like tidal surges of the aerial ocean sweeping over a shallow silver strand.
Three sleighs, a short distance from each other, were running along the canal-like road, through dark walls of forest, towards the 'Corner.' Now, it is a principle in all bringings home from these midwinter bees, that families scatter as much as may be, and no sisters shall be escorted by their own brothers, but by somebody else's brothers. Consequently, Robert Wynn had paired off with Miss Armytage for this drive; and Mr. Holt, greybeard though he was, would not resign Linda to any one, but left young Armytage, Arthur, and Jay to fill the third sleigh.
Of course that sublime aurora overhead formed a main topic of conversation; but irrelevant matter worked in somehow. Blunt Hiram at last furnished a key to what had puzzled his fair companion by asking abruptly, when Captain Argent was expected at Cedar Creek?
'Captain Argent?' she repeated, in surprise; 'he's not expected at all; I believe he has gone to Ireland on a year's leave.'
'Then you are not about to be married to him?' said Mr. Holt, still more bluntly.
'No indeed, sir,' she answered, feeling very red, and thankful for the comparative gloom. Whereupon Mr. Holt shook hands with her, and expressed his conviction that she was the best and prettiest girl in the county; afterwards fell into a brown study, lasting till they got home.
The pair in the hindmost sleigh diverged equallyfar from the aurora; for heavy upon Edith's heart lay the fact that the mortgage was at last about to be foreclosed, and they should leave Daisy Burn. This very evening, her father coming late to Mrs. Vernon's corn-shelling bee, had told her that Zack would be propitiated no longer; he wanted to get the farm in time for spring operations, and vowed he would have it. They must all go to Montreal, where Captain Armytage had some friends, and where Edith hoped she might be able perhaps to turn her accomplishments to good account by opening a school.
'Papa is not at all suited for a settler's life,' she said. 'He has always lived in cities, and town habits are strong upon him. It is the best we can do.'