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 of foregoing 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 of party 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. Voila, 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 two years, 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 or county 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.



CHAPTER XL.

AN UNWELCOME SUITOR.

When 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's greatly 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 maskelonge,' 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 maskelonge; 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 suckers ad 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 maskelonge 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.



CHAPTER XLI.

THE MILL-PRIVILEGE.

Meanwhile the noonday dinner at Davidson's bee progressed merrily. The mighty maskelonge 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 was 343 also 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 two farms, 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 a flourishing 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 would it 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 left him to 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 own way, 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.



CHAPTER XLII.

UNDER THE NORTHERN LIGHTS.

For 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, I guess,' 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 arrested by 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 horizon in 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 equally far 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.'



CHAPTER XLIII.

A BUSH-FLITTING.

Into Robert Wynn's mind, during that sleigh-drive under the northern lights, had entered one or two novel ideas. The first was a plan for frustrating the grasping storekeeper's design. He laid the whole circumstances before Mr. Holt, and asked for the means of redeeming the mortgage, by paying Captain Armytage's debt to Bunting, which was not half the value of the farm.

The gallant officer was not obliged for his friend's officiousness. He had brought himself to anticipate the move to Montreal most pleasurably, notwithstanding the great pecuniary loss to himself. The element of practicality had little place in his mental composition. An atmosphere of vagueness surrounded all his schemes, and coloured them with a seductive halo.

'You see, my dear fellow,' he said to Robert, when the proposition of redeeming the mortgage was made, 'you see, it does not suit my plans to bury myself any longer in these backwoods, eh? There are so few opportunities of relaxation—of intellectual converse, of—a—in short, of any of those refinements required by a man of education and knowledge of the world. You will understand this, my dear Mr. Robert. I—I wish for a more extended field, in fact. Nor is it common justice to the girls to keep them immured, I may say, in an atmosphere of perpetual labour. I am sure my poor dear Edith has lived a slave's life since she came to the bush. Only for your amiable family, I—I positively don't know what might have been the consequence, eh?'

Robert felt himself getting angry, and wisely withdrew. On Mr. Holt's learning the reception of his offer, he briefly remarked that he guessed Sam wouldn't object to own a farm near Cedar Creek, and he should buy it altogether from the captain, which was accordingly done. We refrain from picturing Zack's feelings.

The other idea which had visited Robert under the aurora—why should he not himself become the tenant of Daisy Burn? He took his fur cap and went down there for an answer.

The captain had gone to the 'Corner,' this being post-day, and he expected some letters from the Montreal friends in whom he believed. Reginald was chopping wood; the two sisters were over their daily lessons. What to do with Jay, while the above question was being asked and answered, was a problem tasking Robert's ingenuity, and finally he assumed the office of writing-master, set her a sum in long division, which he assured her would require the deepest abstraction of thought, and advised a withdrawal to some other room for that purpose.



Jay fell into the snare, and went, boasting of her arithmetical powers, which would bring back the sum completed in a few minutes. The instant the door closed,—

'I came down this morning,' said Robert, 'to tell you that I have concluded to take Daisy Burn as tenant to Mr. Holt, from the first of April next. That is,' he added, 'on one condition.'

'What?' she asked, a faint colour rising to her cheek, for his eyes were fixed on her.

'Arthur is much steadier than he was, since that visit to Argent last spring made him see that a penniless proud man has no business to endeavour to live among his equals in social rank, but his superiors in wealth. He is good enough farmer to manage Cedar Creek, with George's increasing help, and Dubois as a sort of steward. Edith, if I come here and settle on this farm, I cannot live alone; will you be my wife?'

He leaned forward, and took her passive hand. The conscious crimson rose for one moment to her throat and averted face, crept even to the finger-tips, then left her of the usual marble paleness again.

'No, Robert,' she answered firmly, withdrawing her hand; 'it cannot be; I cannot leave my father and Jay.'

To this determination she held fast. For she had known that such an option might be offered her, as every woman in like circumstances must know; she had weighed the matter well in the balance of duty, and this was her resolve. Could she have counted the cost accurately, it might not have been; but she hid from her eyes the bright side of the possible future, and tried steadily to do what she deemed right.

Great was Jay's surprise, when she came back with the long division sum triumphantly proved, to find her writing-master gone, and Edith with her eyes very tearful. That occurrence was a puzzle to her for some time afterwards. Crying was so rare with Edith—and what could Robert Wynn have to do with it? But Jay prudently asked no questions after the first astonished ejaculation.

When Robert was walking back to the Creek, feeling his pleasant 'castle in the air' shattered about his ears, blind to the splendour of the sunlit winter world, and deaf to the merry twit of the snow-birds, young Armytage came out of the woods and joined him. He, poor fellow, was preoccupied with his own plans.

'I think, and Edith agrees with me, that my best chance is to get a small lot of wild land, and begin at the beginning, as you did. I want the discipline of all the enforced hard work, Bob. My unfortunate bringing up in every species of self-indulgence was no good education for a settler; but, with God's help, I'll get over it.'

Robert was lifted out of his own trouble for a time by seeing the manful struggle which this other heart had to make against the slavery of habit. He roused himself to speak cheeringly to the young man, and receive his confidence cordially, in an hour when selfishness would rather have been alone.

'Perhaps an application for a Governmental free grant of land would be advisable,' said Reginald. 'I've been thinking of it. You see I would rather like to be bound down, and forced to stay in one spot, as I must if I undertake the hundred acres on Government terms.'

'What are the terms?' asked Robert.

'Well, in the first place, I must be more than eighteen years old; must take possession of the land in a month from the date of allotment; must put twelve acres at least into cultivation within four years, besides building a log-house, twenty feet by eighteen; and must guarantee residence on the lot till these conditions be fulfilled.'

'Hard work, and no mistake,' said Robert. 'I've a mind to go with you.'

'You!' exclaimed the other, with unfeigned surprise, looking in Wynn's face.

'Yes, I feel as if I would be the better for a few months of the old difficulties. I'd like to get away from this for awhile.'

'But perhaps you wouldn't like the "while" to extend over four years,' remarked Armytage. 'Of all people, I never expected to find you a rover, Wynn.'

It was the passing fancy of a wounded spirit. Before the captain departed from Daisy Burn, Robert had become wiser. Duty called on him to remain in the home which his labour had created in the bush. After some deliberation, he asked Reginald to work Mr. Holt's newly acquired farm in shares with himself; and Reginald, though looking wistfully on his receding vision of solitary bush life, consented.

'Farming upon shares' signifies that the owner furnishes the land, implements of husbandry, and seed; the other contracting party finds all the labour required; and the produce is divided between them. This agreement was slightly modified in the case of Daisy Burn, for Robert did many a hard day's work on it himself, and was general superintendent. The plan may answer well where ignorance and capital go together, and chance to secure the services of honest industry; but the temptations of the labourer to fraud are strong, and his opportunities unlimited. Many a new settler has been ruined by farming upon shares with dishonest people.

The last sleighing week saw the departure of the Armytage family. Before a thaw imprisoned the back settlements in spring isolation, they had reached the city of Ottawa, where the captain showed a disposition to halt for some days to look about him, he said—a favourite occupation in his lotos-eating life: Edith protested in vain. No; he might fall in with some employment to suit him perchance: though what would suit Captain Armytage, except a handsome salary for keeping his hands in his pockets, he would himself have been puzzled to define.

However, for the purpose of falling in with such employment, he frequented most of the hotel and tavern bars in the town, leaving the girls chiefly to their own devices. So, as the weather was fine, Miss Armytage and Jay walked about a great deal beside the broad brown river, just unchained from ice, and rushing, floe-laden, towards the Chaudiere Falls; through the wide rectangular streets, lined with the splendid stores and massive houses of a busy population; through the village-like suburbs, where each cottage was fronted with a garden; and ascended the Major Hill, to behold the unrivalled view of forest, flood, and field from its summit. Far to the right and left stretched a panorama, such as only British North America could furnish; the great Ottawa river gliding by, a hundred and fifty feet below, the long line of cataracts flashing and dashing to the north, a framework of black forest closing into the edge of the streets, and bounded itself on the horizon by high blue mountains.

Here they were overtaken by Mr. Hiram Holt. He had seen them pass as he sat in some lawyer's office near by, and followed them when his business was finished. His first proposition was that they should go with him to Mapleton, while their father chose to idle about Bytown. Miss Armytage declined, for she hoped they might leave for Montreal in a day or two at furthest; but if Mr. Holt commanded any influence there,—and she told him, poor girl, the little plan of teaching which she had formed.

'Come, now,' quoth Hiram, after some conversation on that head, and a promise of writing to friends in Montreal, 'take my arm, young lady, and I'll show you some of our Ottawa lions. Biggest of all, to my fancy, is the town itself—only twenty-five years old, and as large as if it had been growing for centuries. The man is only in the prime of life who felled the first tree on this site, and now the town covers as much ground as Boston. Certainly the site is unrivalled.'

Edith, thinking a good deal of other more personally important things, acquiesced in all he said.

'You see, it's the centre of everything: three magnificent rivers flow together here, the Ottawa, Rideau, and Gatineau; water privilege is unlimited; Chaudiere up yonder would turn all the mills in creation. Now, do you know the reason it is called Chaudiere, my dear?'

This to Jay, who had to confess her ignorance.

'Because the vapour—do you see the cloud always ascending from the crest of the Falls?—reminded somebody of the steam from a boiling kettle. Hence these are the Kettle Falls, Miss Jay.'

She thought the appellation very undignified.

'The finest building sites are on this Barracks Hill,' observed Mr. Holt, relapsing into contemplation. 'But Government won't give them up: it is to be a sort of Acropolis, commanding the whole position at the fork of the three rivers, and the double mass of houses on both sides. Bytown hasn't seen its best days yet, by a long chalk, I guess.'

'I thought it was called Ottawa,' said Jay inquiringly.

'Well, madam, in this country, when cities arrive at the dignity of ten thousand inhabitants, they are permitted to change their names. So a town named York has very properly become Toronto, and the town founded by Colonel By has become Ottawa. But, as I was saying, its best days are in the future: it must be the capital of the Canadas yet.'

Jay remembered that her geography book assigned that distinction to Quebec and Montreal. Mr. Holt affirmed that the pre-eminence of these must dwindle before this young city at their feet, which could be captured by no coup-de-main in case of war, and was at the head of the natural land avenue to the great Lakes Huron and Superior.

'The ancient Indian route,' said he—'the only safe one if there were war with the United States; and you may depend on it, if railways take in the country, one of the greatest termini will be here, at the headquarters of the lumber trade.'

His vaticination has been fulfilled. Lines of telegraph, rail, and steamers radiate from Ottawa city as a centre, at this day. It has successfully contended for the honour of being acknowledged capital of the Canadas, and has been declared such by the decision of Queen Victoria.

Lions in the way of antiquity it had none to show, being the veriest mushroom of a capital; but Mr. Holt took his friends to see the great sluice-works, the beautiful Suspension Bridge, the chain of locks forming a water staircase on the Rideau canal, and one of the huge sawmills turned by a rill from Chaudiere Falls, where Jay admired immensely the glittering machinery of saws, chisels, and planes, and the gay painting of the iron-work. Since then, the vast tubular bridge of the Grand Trunk Railway spans the river, and is a larger lion than all the rest.



CHAPTER XLIV.

SHOVING OF THE ICE.

We must pass over a year; for so long did Sam Holt continue in Europe. Rambling over many countries, from the heather hills of Scotland and the deep fiords of Norway, to the Alhambra and the sunlit 'isles of Greece,' this grandson of a Suffolk peasant, elevated to the ranks of independence and intellectual culture by the wisdom and self-denial of his immediate ancestors, saw, and sketched, and intensely enjoyed the beauty with which God has clothed the Old World. And in that same sketch-book, his constant companion, there was one page which opened oftener than any other—fell open of itself, if you held the volume carelessly—containing a drawing, not of Alpine aiguille, nor Italian valley, nor Spanish posada, nor Greek temple, but of a comfortable old mansion, no way romantically situate among swelling hills, and partially swathed in ivy. The corner of the sketch bore the lightly pencilled letters, 'Dunore.'

And now he fancied that twelve months' travel had completed the cure, and that he had quite conquered his affection for one who did not return it. He was prepared to settle down in common life again, with the second scar on his heart just healed.

Coming home by Boston, he took rail thence to Burlington on Lake Champlain, and near the head of that noble sheet of water crossed the Canadian frontier into French scenery and manners. The line stopped short at the edge of the St. Lawrence, where passengers take boat for La Chine or the island of Montreal—that is, ice permitting. Now, on this occasion the ice did not permit, at least for some time. Sam Holt had hoped that its annual commotion would have been over; but it had only just begun.

A vast sheet of ice, a mile in breadth and perhaps ten in length, was being torn from its holdfasts by the current beneath; was creaking, grinding, shoving along, crunching up against the shore in masses, block over block ten or fifteen feet high, yielding slowly and reluctantly to the pressure of the deep tide below, which sometimes with a tremendous noise forced the hummocks into long ridges. The French Canadians call these 'bourdigneaux.'

The sights, the sounds, were little short of sublime. But when night came down with its added stillness, then the heaving, grating, tearing, wrenching noises were as of some prodigious hidden strength, riving the very foundations of solid earth itself. People along shore could hardly sleep. Mr. Holt, having a taste for strange scenery, spent much of that sharp spring night under 'the glimpses of the moon,' watching the struggle between the long-enchained water and its icy tyrant. Another passenger, like-minded, was companion of his ramble.

'I fear it is but a utopian scheme to dream of bridging such a flood as this,' observed Holt. 'No piers of man's construction could withstand the force that is in motion on the river to-night. I fear the promoters of the Victoria Bridge are too sanguine.'

'Well, I could pin my faith upon any engineering project sanctioned by Stephenson,' rejoined the other. 'We had him here to view the site, just a mile out of Montreal. He recommended the tubular plan—a modified copy of the English Britannia Bridge. And Ross, the resident engineer, has already begun preliminaries, with cofferdams and such like mysteries.'

'It will be the eighth wonder of the world if completed,' said Mr. Holt, 'and must add immensely to the commercial advantages of Canada.'

'My dear sir,' quoth the other impressively (he was a corn merchant in Montreal), 'unless you are in trade you cannot duly estimate the vast benefits that bridging the St. Lawrence will confer on the colony. For six months of the year the river is closed to navigation, as you are aware, and the industry of Canada is consequently imprisoned. But this noble highway which the Grand Trunk Railway Company have commenced will render all seasons alike to our commerce. Consider the advantage of being able to transport the inexhaustible cereals of the Far West, "without break of bulk or gauge," from the great corn countries of the Upper Lakes to the very wharves on the Atlantic.'

Mr. Holt was not surprised to hear, after this, that the speaker was a heavy shareholder in the Grand Trunk Railway, and placed unlimited faith in its projects. Whether, in subsequent years, its complete collapse (for a time) as a speculation lowered his enthusiasm, we cannot say; perhaps he was satisfied to suffer, in fulfilment of the superb ambition of opening up a continent to commerce.

The corn merchant had got upon his hobby, and could have talked all night about the rail and its prospects in Canada. 'The progress of the Province outstrips all sober calculation,' said he. 'Population has increased twelve hundred per cent. within the last forty years; wherever the rail touches the ground, an agricultural peasantry springs up. Push it through the very wilderness, say I; there is no surer means of filling our waste places with industrial life; and the Pacific should be our terminus.'

This design has ceased to be thought extravagant, since Professor Hind's explorations have proved the existence of a fertile belt across the continent, through British territory, from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains; along which, if speedily and wisely opened up, must travel the commerce of China and Japan, as well as the gold of Columbia. The nation which constructs this line will, by its means, hold the sceptre of the commercial world. Brother Jonathan is well aware of the fact, and would long since have run a chain of locomotives from Atlantic to Pacific if he could; but thousands of miles of the great American desert intervene, and along the western seaboard there is no port fit for the vast trade, from Acapulco to Esquimalt on Vancouver's Island, except San Francisco, which, for other reasons, is incapacitated.

Grinding, crushing, heaving, the broad current of the St. Lawrence bore its great burden all night along. The same might continue for many days; and Sam Holt was anxious to get home. He determined, in company with his new friend the corn merchant, to attempt the passage in a canoe.

'Now, sir,' said the latter gentleman, while they waited on the bank, muffled to their eyes in furs, 'you will have some experience of what a complete barrier the frozen St. Lawrence is to Canadian commerce, or the commonest intercourse, and how much the Victoria Bridge is needed.'

'Au large! au large!' called the boatmen—sturdy, muscular fellows, accustomed to river perils; and, laying themselves at the bottom of the canoe as directed, shoulders resting against the thwarts, the passengers began their 'traject.' Sometimes they had open water in lanes and patches; sometimes a field of jagged ice, whereupon the merry-hearted voyageurs jumped out and dragged the canoe across to water again, singing some French song the while. What perilous collisions of floes they dexterously avoided! What intricate navigation of narrow channels they wound through within half a boat's length of crushing destruction! Notwithstanding all their ability, the passengers were thankful to touch land again some miles below the usual crossing place, and some hours after embarkation.

Here the banks were deeply excoriated with the pressure of the ice against them; for the edges of the vast field set in motion the previous day had ploughed into the earth, and piled itself in immense angular 'jambs.' On the quay of Montreal it lay in block heaps also, crushed up even into the public thoroughfare; and men were at work to help the break in the harbour with pickaxes and crowbars on the grey plain.

Mr. Holt had only a few minutes wherewith to visit a friend in one of the obscure streets of the city in a mean-looking house, made known to him by the coming out of children bearing school satchels. A gentleman with semi-military air, wearing his hat somewhat jauntily on top of a bloated face and figure, met them as he emerged from a side street, and, paternally patting their heads, called them 'little dears;' and, from his seedy dress and unoccupied manner, it was not hard to perceive that he must still be unsuccessful in his search after the employment to suit him.

Whether Edith's suited her or not was a question her friend would fain have asked, when he saw the tired look and dull eye after her morning's work. Captain Armytage observed that he had frequently wished her to take holidays—in fact, had done everything short of exercising his paternal authority; which perhaps he ought to have used on the occasion. In fact, he had thoughts of removal to Toronto; the air of Montreal evidently did not agree with either of the girls, eh? It is to be noticed that Jay stood by, having suddenly shot into a slender shy girl, very efficient over the smallest pupils.

Mr. Holt was cordially pleased when Captain Armytage made many apologies for not remaining longer; the fact was, he had a business appointment; and herewith he whispered to his daughter, who gave him something from her pocket. Mr. Holt fancied it was money.

She knew of the approaching marriage of his sister Bell, to attend which he had hastened home; and knew, also, that some of the Cedar Creek household would be there. Sinewy athlete as Sam Holt was, he could not frame his lips to ask whether Linda might be one of them. But how often had he to put the question resolutely away during that and the next day's travelling? And what would have been his disappointment if, on entering the family at Mapleton, that pretty brown head and fair face had not met his glance? And you fancied that you were cured, Mr. Holt; you reckoned fifteen months' travel a specific.

Yes; Linda was one of Bell's bridesmaids. And that same sketch-book, filled with glimpses of European scenery, brought about an enduring result on this wise.

The girls were looking over it the day before the wedding—Miss Bell in a manner rather preoccupied, which, under the circumstances, was excusable. Having both a trousseau and a bridegroom on one's hands is quite sufficient for any young lady's capacity; so she presently left her brother Sam to explain his sketch-book to Linda alone.

All went evenly until the page was opened, the bit of silver paper lifted off, and Dunore was before her. What a start—colour—exclamation! Her beloved Irish home, with its green low hills, and its purple sea-line afar. 'Oh, Mr. Holt, I am so glad that you went to see Dunore!' Her eyes were full of tears as she gazed.

'Are you? I went there for your sake, Linda, to look at the place you loved so much.' And—and—what precise words he used then, or how he understood that she would prize the drawing a thousandfold for his sake, neither rightly remembered afterwards. But—

'In April the ice always breaks up,' remarked old Hiram, with a huge laugh at his own joke.

* * * * *

Mr. and Mrs. Sam Holt, after their wedding trip to Niagara, settled down soberly at Daisy Burn as if they had been married a hundred years, Arthur said. They brought back with them a fugitive slave, who had made her escape from a Virginian planter. Dinah proved a faithful and useful nurse to the Daisy Burn children. Fugitive slaves are found all over Canada as servants, and generally prove trustworthy and valuable.



CHAPTER XLV.

EXEUNT OMNES.

Now, in the year 1857, came a retributive justice upon Zack Bunting, in the shape of a complete collapse of all his gains and their produce. He had placed them in a New York bank which paid enormous interest—thirty per cent., people said; and when that figure of returns is offered, wise men shake their heads at the security of the principal. Nevertheless, all went rightly till the commercial panic of the period above mentioned, when Zack's possessions were reduced to their primitive nonentity, and the old proverb abundantly illustrated, 'Ill got, ill gone.'

'Libby,' quoth Andy one afternoon, soon subsequently to the above occurrence, 'they say that precious limb of an uncle of yours isn't goin' to come back here at all at all. I'm tould Mrs. Zack an' Ged is packing up, to be off to some wild place intirely.'

He waited, gazing at her energetic movements in washing the dinner plates (for the luxury of ware had supplanted tin before now at Cedar Creek), to see what effect the news would produce. None. Miss Liberia merely uttered 'Wal!'

'Won't you be very lonesome in the world all by yourself, Libby, asthore?' he rejoined, casting a melting tenderness into voice and manner; 'without a relation that ever was?'

'Not a bit, I guess,' was the curt reply.

'Och,' groaned the lover, 'av there ever was in the whole 'varsal world a woman so hard to manage! She hasn't no more feelin's than one of them chaneys, or she wouldn't be lookin' at me these four years a-pinin' away visibly before her eyes. My new shute o' clothes had to be took in twice, I'm got so thin; but little you cares.' Then, after a pause, 'Libby, mavourneen, you'd be a grand hand at managin' a little store; now the one at the "Corner" 'll be shut. 'Spose we tried it togedder, eh, mabouchal?'

Without hesitation, without change of countenance, without displacing one of her plates, the Yankee damsel answered, 'I guess 'twould be a spry thing, rayther; we'd keep house considerable well. And now that's settled, you can't be comin' arter me a tormentin' me no more; and the sooner we sot up the fixin's the better, I reckon.'

Thus calmly and sensibly did the massive maiden Liberia prepare to glide from single into wedded life; and though she has never been able quite to restrain the humorous freaks of her husband, she has succeeded in transforming the pauper labourer Andy Callaghan into an independent shopkeeper and farmer.

Not long after the happy accomplishment of this last alliance the post-office was transferred from the decaying knot of cabins at the 'Corner' to the rising settlement of Cedar Creek. Andy's new store had a letter-box fixed in its window, and his wife added to her multifarious occupations that of postmistress.

'Anything for me this evening, Mrs. Callaghan?' asked the silver-headed squire, in his stately way, coming up to the counter.

'I guess thar's the newspaper,' answered Liberia, pushing it across, while the other hand held a yard measure upon some calico, whence she was serving a customer. A new face Mr. Wynn saw in a moment: probably one of the fresh emigrants who sometimes halted at the Creek proceeding up country.

Mrs. Callaghan looked doubtfully at the piece of English silver produced by the woman, and turned it round between her finger and thumb. 'I say, squire, stop a minute: what sort o' money's this?'

'A crown-piece sterling; you'll give six shillings and a penny currency for it,' answered Mr. Wynn.

'Now I guess that's what I don't understand,' said Liberia. 'Why ain't five shillin's the same everywhar?'

That Mr. Wynn could not answer. He had been indulging some thoughts of a pamphlet on currency reformation, and went out of the store revolving them again.

For it is to be noted that the squire felt somewhat like Lycurgus, or Codrus, or some of those old law-givers and state-founders in this new settlement of the Creek. He knew himself for the greatest authority therein, the one whose word bore greatest weight, the referee and arbitrator in all eases. Plenty of interests had sprung up in his life such as he could not have dreamed of nine years before, when rooted at Dunore. His thoughts of the latter had changed since he learned that a railway had cut the lawn across and altered the avenue and entrance gate, and the new owner had constructed a piece of ornamental water where the trout-stream used to run; likewise built a wing to the mansion in the Tudor style, with a turret at the end. Which items of news, by completely changing the aspect of the dear old home, as they remembered Dunore, had done much towards curing the troublesome yearning after it.

Now the squire walked through the broad sloping street of pretty and clean detached cottages (white, with bright green shutters outside), fronting fields whence the forest had been pushed back considerably. Orchards of young trees bloomed about them; the sawmill was noisily eating its way through planks on the edge of the stream; groups of 'sugar-bush' maples stood about; over all the declining sun, hastening to immerse itself in the measureless woods westward. 'Pleasant places,' said Mr. Wynn to himself, quoting old words; 'my lot has fallen in pleasant places.'

Sitting in the summer parlour of the butternut's shade, he read his newspaper—a weekly Greenock print, the advertisement side half-filled with quack medicines, after the manner of such journals in Canada. Presently an entry in the 'Deaths' arrested his attention.

'Died, at his house in Montreal, on the 11th inst., Captain Reginald Armytage, late of H.M.'s 115th foot. Friends at a distance will please accept this intimation.'

Robert sprang to his feet. 'Let me see it, father.'

Now was the twentieth day of the month. 'I wonder she has not written to some of us—to Linda even,' said he, returning the paper. Then going over beside his mother, he whispered, 'I shall go to her, mother.'

'Poor Edith! But what could you do, my son?'

'Mother'—after a pause—'shall I not bring you another daughter to fill Linda's empty place?'

Mrs. Wynn had long before this been trusted with the story of Robert's affection. Her gentleness won every secret of her son's heart.

What could she say now but bless him through her tears?

And so he went next day. He found the mean house in the obscure street where Edith had for years toiled, and not unhappily. Duty never brings unmixed pain in its performance.

The schoolroom was full of the subdued hum of children's voices; the mistress stood at her desk, deep mourning on her figure and in her face. It was only the twelfth day since her bereavement; but she was glad of the return of regular work, though the white features and frail hands hardly seemed equal to much as yet. Presently the German girl who was her servant opened the door, and Miss Armytage went to hear her message.

'Von gentleman's in parlour;' which suggested to Edith a careful father of fresh pupils. She gave her deputy, Jay, a few charges, and went to the visitor, who had thought her an interminable time in coming. He, blooming, strong, fresh from his healthy farm life in the backwoods, saw with compassion how wan and worn she looked. Nursing at night during her father's illness, and school-keeping in the day, might be blamed for this. Would she come to Cedar Creek and be restored?

'Yes,' she answered, with perfect frankness, but not until the current six months of schooling had elapsed. At the end of June she would be free; and then, if Mrs. Wynn asked her and Jay—

The other, the old question, was on Robert's lips at the instant. And to this also she said 'Yes.'

* * * * *

Now for the prospects of the settlement which we have traced from its first shanty to its first street. Its magnates looked forward confidently to its development as a town—nay, perchance as a city of ten thousand inhabitants, when it purposes to assume a new name, as risen from nonage. Future maps may exhibit it as Wynnsboro', in honour of the founder. A station on the line of rail to connect the Ottawa with Lake Huron is to stand beside that concession line (now a level plank road) where Robert Wynn halted eleven years ago, axe in hand, and gazed in dismay on the impenetrable bush.

THE END.

MORRISON AND GIBB, EDINBURGH, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.



Transcriber's Note

The following changes were made to the text:

In Chapter III, "fell" was changed to "felt" in the sentence "Who has not felt this beside Lodore, or Foyers, or Torc?"

In Chapter XVII, "hall" was changed to "hail" in the sentence "He turned round at the hail."