A Countess from Canada Part 14

There was plenty to interest the travellers now on the left bank of the river; the fish shed showed a weather-beaten front to the broad waters of the bay, while beyond it, perched on a high bluff, was a f.a.n.n.y brown house, with a strange-looking wing built out at the side.

"Feather, look at that house, and the queer building at the side; what is it?" cried Mary, who was flushed and eager; for to her this entrance to Roaring Water River was like coming into her kingdom, although it was not land her father owned in these parts, but water, or at least the privilege to fish in the water, and the right to cut the timber needed for the making of his boats.

"It looks uncommonly like part of an old boat. Well, if it is Astor M'Kree's work, it would seem as if I have got a man who will make the best use of the materials at hand," Mr. Selincourt replied, in a tone of satisfaction.

"Here comes a woman; oh, please, we must stop and speak to her!" said Mary, as a slatternly figure emerged from the house on the bluff, and came running down the steep path to the water's edge, gesticulating and shouting.

"Welcome, sir, and welcome, Miss, to Seal Cove!" cried Mrs. Jenkin in a breathless tone. "We are all most dreadfully delighted to have you here, and you will be sure to come and have tea with me on your first spare afternoon," she panted, in hospitable haste, the sun shining down on her dusty, unkempt hair, and revealing the rags in her dress.

Mr. Selincourt looked at his daughter in quiet amus.e.m.e.nt; but Mary rose to the occasion in a manner worthy of the country in which she was living, and answered with sweet graciousness:

"Oh! I will be sure to come; thank you so much for asking me: but I have got to get my house straight, you know, and that may take me a few days, so perhaps I will drop down the river some morning while it is cool, and let you know how I am getting on. Then you must promise to come and see me."

"Oh, I'll come! I shall be just delighted! You won't mind if I bring the babies, will you? There are only three of them, and the oldest isn't five yet; so when I go out I'm forced to take them with me, don't you see," Mrs. Jenkin said, smiling at the young lady from England, and serenely oblivious of the defects in her own toilet.

"I shall be charmed to entertain the babies, and I will be sure to come and see you very soon," called Mary, as the boat moved on, leaving Mrs. Jenkin smiling and waving from the bank.

"What a nice little woman, and how friendly and kind in her manner!" exclaimed Mary, whereat Mr. Selincourt laughed.

"Has Canada bewitched you already? What is to become of cla.s.s distinctions if you are just going to hobn.o.b with anyone who may happen along?" he asked, his eyes twinkling with fun, for he was quoting from her own past utterances.

Mary reddened, but she laughed too, then said apologetically: "It sounds the most fearful sn.o.bbery to even mention cla.s.s distinctions in these wilds, where the only aristocracy that counts is n.o.bility of endeavour. But I could not reckon myself that woman's superior, Father, because under the same circ.u.mstances I might have been even more untidy and down-at-heel than she is."

"It is hard to realize that you could be untidy under any conditions, but perhaps you might be if you had all the work of a house and the care of three babies on your hands," Mr. Selincourt replied with a shake of his head. Then he applied himself to a careful study of the river banks, which were mostly solitary, although at intervals rough loghouses showed among the trees.

"Listen to that noise; we are getting near to some rapids," Mary said, putting up her hand.

"Near to the end of our journey as well, for we stop below the portage," Mr. Selincourt said, and then the boat swept round the bend, and they saw before them a long, straight stretch of river, with houses visible at the far end where the milky hue of the water showed the river boiling over the rocks.

"So that is Roaring Water Portage! Well, the place is as pretty as the name is musical. I am very glad," Mary said with a deep sigh of content, and then she sat in silence while the boats swept up the last stretch of river, and the long, long journey was done.

The boatmen drew to the left bank, leaving the store and its outbuildings on the right. Oily Dave had told them that their house stood to the left of the falls, and although they did not see it at the first moment of landing, the well-trodden path up from the water's edge showed that it must be near at hand.

"There it is. But it does not look a bit new. Oh, I am glad!" exclaimed Mary, as a long, low hut came in sight, with gla.s.s windows and an unpainted front door, which just now stood wide open, while two small girls occupied the doorstep, and were making dolls' bonnets from leaves and plaited gra.s.s.

"I'm afraid that is not our house; someone is living there," said Mr. Selincourt: and the two small girls, becoming at this moment aware of the approach of strangers, sprang to their feet and fled into the house, casting the millinery away as they went.

"I'm afraid so too; but at least we can go and enquire where our house is to be found," Mary answered.

Then they walked up to the door and knocked, and immediately a slight, girlish figure came into view, with a small girl clinging to either hand.

"Can you tell us where Mr. Selincourt's house is to be found?" asked Mary, wondering why the girl had such sad eyes, and what relation she could be to the two little ones.

"This is Mr. Selincourt's house. I came over this afternoon to see that everything was in right order, that is all," the sad-eyed girl-or was she a woman?-explained, drawing back for Mary to enter.

Miss Selincourt entered, put her bag on the table, and gazed round with a deep sigh of satisfaction.

"What a charming room! I think I should have been ready to weep if this had not been our house. Are you Mrs. M'Kree?" she asked doubtfully, for, although the girl looked so young, she had just heard one of the children whisper, "Mummy."

"No, I am Mrs. Burton, and I come from the store across the river. Mrs. M'Kree lives farther up the river, above the second portage, so it is not easy for her to come down every day, and I have kept the house open for her."

"It is very kind of you!" exclaimed Mary gratefully, realizing that here was a very different specimen of womanhood, from the good-natured slattern who had greeted her at Seal Cove.

"We have to be kind to each other in these wilds, or we should be badly off sometimes," Mrs. Burton rejoined. Then she said timidly: "We are very glad to welcome you, and we all feel that you have conferred a great favour on us by coming to stay here this summer."

Something like an awkward lump got into Mary's throat then. She had come the long, toilsome journey solely for her own pleasure, and to be near her father, yet here was one thanking her for the privilege her coming conferred on these lone dwellers in the solitudes. She was rarely a creature of impulse, and always prided herself on the way she kept her head; but the sweet friendliness of the sad-eyed little woman touched her mightily, and stooping forward she kissed Mrs. Burton warmly, then promptly apologized, being properly ashamed of her forwardness.

"Oh, please forgive me! I really could not help it, and you-you looked so kind!" she said ruefully.

Mrs. Burton laughed, although she looked rather embarra.s.sed, then she said gently: "I am afraid you must be very tired. If you will sit down I will quickly get you some tea."

"Please don't trouble. Father and I are quite used to doing things for ourselves, and I can make a kettle boil over my spirit lamp while the men are bringing the luggage up from the boats," Mary said hastily, feeling that she simply could not have this gentle, refined woman waiting upon her,

But for all her gentleness Mrs. Burton could be firm when she chose, and she replied quietly: "I should not think of going away until I had seen you with a meal ready prepared. The fire is all ready for lighting in the stove, and that will save your spirit lamp, and you are in the wilderness now, remember, where spirit is difficult to obtain."

The two little girls trotted after their mother. Mary tried to make friends with them, but they were not used to strangers, so showed her only averted faces and pouting red lips, which made her understand that their friendship must be left to time.

When the luggage had been brought up from the boat, Mrs. Burton had the kettle boiling, and then she sent one of the men across with a boat to the store, giving him a message for Miles, which resulted in a basket of fresh fish coming over at once. These, delicately broiled over a fire of spruce chips, and served piping hot, made, as Mr. Selincourt observed, a supper fit for a king.

Mrs. Burton stayed with her small daughters to share the meal, and if she thought ruefully of the family over the river, who would have to cook their own supper, and also go without the fish which had been intended for them, she said nothing about it, One must always suffer something in the give-and-take of life, and there were plenty of canned goods at the store which might serve at a pinch.

"Now I must go," she said, when the supper dishes had been washed. "It is time that Beth and Lotta went to bed, while my father will be wearying for me if I am too long away."

"Your father?" broke from Mary in surprise, then she stopped abruptly, realizing that her acquaintance with Mrs. Burton was too short for over-much curiosity.

"I am a widow," the little woman answered, with the simple dignity which became her so well. "I live with my father, or did; but now, strictly speaking, it is he, poor man, who lives with us, and Katherine earns the living for us all."

"Katherine is your sister?" asked Mary, and now there was tender sympathy in her tone, and she was understanding why Mrs. Burton's eyes were so sad.

"Katherine is my younger sister, and she is just wonderful," the little woman said, with love and admiration thrilling her tones. "She has done a man's work all the winter, and she is keeping the business together as well as poor Father could have done."

CHAPTER XIV

Would They Be Friends?

When Mrs. Burton had gone, Mary set to work to inspect the little loghouse, and make things comfortable for the night. But there was not very much that needed doing, and their weeks of river travel had shorn away so many habits which are the outcome of too much civilization, that they had come down to a primitive simplicity of living. The hut contained two small bedrooms, scarcely bigger than cabins on board ship, one sitting-room, and a lean-to kitchen in the rear. There was not an atom of paint about the place; it was all bare, brown wood, restful to the eyes, and in perfect harmony with the surrounding wilderness.

The boatmen had pitched their tent at the down-river side of the house, and were sitting round a fire on the ground smoking their pipes in great comfort and content. Mary had finished her survey of the inside of her new home, and now wandered outside the house to see what manner of country lay in the immediate neighbourhood of Roaring Water Portage. Her father was sitting on a bench by the hut door, drowsily comfortable with a cigar, and busy with numberless plans for the future. He was not in a mood for talking just then, and Mary was glad to be alone for a while.

It was broad daylight still, although the evening was getting on; but the trees grew so thickly all about the hut that she could see little beyond trunks and foliage, so, finding a little path which led upward, she commenced to climb. Great boulders strewed the ground here between the trees, and although by the sound she knew herself to be near the river, she could not see it until after a stiff climb of twenty minutes or so she emerged on an open s.p.a.ce above the falls. Here indeed was beauty enough to satisfy even her desire for it. The undulating ground all about and below her was mostly forest-clad, the larches showed in their vivid green against the sombre hue of the pines, while giant cedars stood out black against the evening sky. On one side, right away in the distance, the waters of the bay reached to the horizon, but for to-night Mary turned her back on the sea; it was the land that charmed her most.

Presently, just where the glory of the sunset reflected itself in the river, she saw a boat coming skimming down the current. It was just the touch of life that was necessary to lift the weird solemnity from those silent forest reaches. From where she stood, leaning against the trunk of a tree on the hilltop, Mary could see without being seen; for she still wore the travelling dress which so nearly matched the tree stem in colour, and a brown veil was over her face, a necessary precaution against the mosquitoes which swarmed everywhere.

There was a girl in the boat, with soft, wavy hair, pretty and feminine in appearance, but with strength and decision in every movement, which made Mary whisper to herself: "That must be Katherine; and how graceful she is! I had quite expected her to be a great, clumping creature, because Mrs. Burton said she did a man's work."

There was a boy in the boat as well, but it was the girl who claimed Mary's attention now. The boat drew in at a point above the falls where a little shed served as boathouse, and then the boy and the girl rapidly unloaded various packages and bundles, which were dumped in a heap on the bank, while the boat was drawn in and secured under the shed.

"Phil, we shall have to make two journeys-we can never do it in one," the girl said, and her voice had a tired ring which made the unseen listener on the hilltop pity her exceedingly.