Cedar Creek Part 30

Wynn's special aversion. There was indeed little in common between the well-bred European gentleman, who always, even in these poor circ.u.mstances, wore the whitest linen (he never knew how Linda toiled over those neat shirt-fronts and ruffles), and kept up the _convenances_ of society in the bush, and had a well-educated range of thought--between all this and the Yankee storekeeper, who wore no linen at all, nor had the faintest idea of the usages of the polite world, nor an idea which might not be paralleled in the mental experience of a rat in a barn. 'Get' and 'grasp' were the twin grooves of his life.

Unconscious of the antipathy, Zack would saunter up to Cedar Creek sometimes of an evening, and, if not intercepted, would march straight into the parlour where the ladies sat, and fix his feet on the wooden chimney-piece, discharging tobacco juice at intervals into the fire with unerring l.a.b.i.al aim. Mr. Wynn's anger at the intrusion signified nothing, nor could a repellent manner be understood by Zack without some overt act, which a strained respect for hospitality prevented on the part of the old gentleman.

'Well, Robert, how you could permit that man to walk with you for the last half-hour I do not know.' Mr. Wynn stood on the threshold, looking a complete contrast to the shuffling, retreating figure of the lank Yankee striding over to the road.

'I a.s.sure you it is not for the pleasure I take in his society, sir; but he gives me useful hints. We were talking just now of potash, and I showed him my new rail-fences; he has rather put me out of conceit with my week's work because it is of ba.s.swood, which he says does not hold.'

'Are those the rails which I helped to split?'

Be it noticed here that Mr. Wynn the elder could not bear to be totally dependent on his sons, nor to live the life of a _faineant_ while they laboured so hard; he demanded some manual task, and believed himself of considerable use, while they had often to undo his work when he turned his back; and at all times the help was chiefly imaginary. No matter, it pleased him; and they loved the dear old gentleman too well to undeceive him.

'As to the potash business, sir, I fear it is too complicated and expensive to venture upon this year, though the creek is an excellent site for an ashery, and they say the manufacture is highly remunerating.

What do you think, father?' And they had a conference that diverged far from potash.

After closely watching Davidson's management, and finding that he realized twenty-eight shillings per hundredweight, Robert resolved to try the manufacture. Details would be tedious. Both reader and writer might lose themselves in leach-tubs, ash-kettles, and coolers. The 'help,'

Liberia, proved herself valuable out of doors as well as indoors at this juncture; for Mrs. Zack's principle of up-bringing was that young folk should learn to turn their hand to 'most everythin'. And Libby, a large plump girl with prodigiously red cheeks and lips, had profited so far by her training as to be nearly as clever in the field as in the kitchen.

Her great strength was a constant subject of admiration to Andy, though the expression of any such sentiment was met by unmitigated scorn on the lady's part.

'Why, thin, Miss Green, an' it's yerself has the beautifullest arm, all to nothing', that ever I see; an' it's mottled brown with freckles, an'

as big as a blacksmith's anyhow. Och, an' look how she swings up the potash kettle as light as if it was only a stone pot; musha, but yer the finest woman, my darlin', from this to yerself all round the world agin!'

'I guess, Mister Handy, if yer was to bring some logs, an' not to stand philanderin' thar, 'twould be a sight better,' rejoined Miss Liberia sourly.

'Look now,' answered Andy; 'ye couldn't make yerself ugly musth.o.r.e, not if yer wor thryin' from this till then, so ye needn't frown; but ye're very hard-hearted intirely on a poor orphant like me, that has nayther father nor mother, nor as much as an uncle, nor a cousin near me itself.

Though sorra bit o' me but 'ud sooner never have one belongin' to me than thim out-an-out disgraceful cousins of yer own at the "Corner."'

Libby was immovable by this as by any other taunt, to all appearance.

'Throth, I thried her every way,' quoth Andy subsequently, after an experience of some months; 'I thried her by flatthery an' by thruth-tellin', by abusing her relations an' herself, an' by praisin'

'em, by appalin' to her compa.s.sion an' by bein' stiff an' impident, an'

I might as well hould me tongue. A woman that couldn't be coaxed wid words, I never seen afore.'

Perhaps she was the better servant for this disqualification; at all events, she had no idea of any nonsense keeping her from the full discharge of her duties in the house. Her propensity to call the gentlemen by their baptismal names, without any respectful prefix, was viewed by Linda as a very minor evil when set off against strength and willing-heartedness. But one day that she wanted her young mistress, and abruptly put her head into the parlour, asking, in a strong tone, 'Whar's Linda? Tell her the men that's settin' the fall wheat'll be 'long in no time for dinner,' Mr. Wynn could have turned her away on the spot.

'Wal! sure it ain't no sin to forget the "miss" of an odd time, I guess,' was the large damsel's rejoinder, though without the least spice of sauciness. 'Come, I hain't no time to be spendin' here;' and she closed the door after her with a bang which made gentle Mrs. Wynn start.

There was some trouble in convincing her husband that it was only the servant's rough manner--no real disrespect was intended; the incident put him into low spirits for the day, and turned many a backward thought upon the wealth of his youth.

He would say, in these downcast moods, that Canada was no place for the gentleman emigrant; but could he point out any colony _more_ suited?

Also, that his sons earned daily bread by hara.s.sing toil, worse than that of a bricklayer or day labourer at home; but were they not happier than in pursuit of mere pastime like thousands of their equals in the province they had left? Robert would certainly have answered in the affirmative. Arthur's restless spirit less wisely pined for the pleasure-seeking of such a life as Argent's.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

TRITON AMONG MINNOWS.

Linda was stooping one morning in the corner of her garden. Some precious plant was there, protected from the full glare of the noon sun by a calico shade, carefully adjusted, and with a circle of brown damp about it, which told of attentive watering. A few roundish leaves were the object of all this regard; in the centre of the knot to-day stood a little green k.n.o.b on a short stem.

'Oh, Georgie! papa! come and look at my daisy; it has actually got a bud.'

Master George, nothing loth to have lessons disturbed by any summons, ran round from the open window through the open hall door, and his father followed more slowly to behold the marvel.

'You see, papa, I thought it never would get on, it was such a sickly little thing; but it must be growing strong, or it could not put out a bud. How glad I shall be to see a daisy's face again! I would give all the fragrance of the blue wild iris for one. But, papa, the laurel cuttings are dead, I fear.'

They looked very like it, though Mr. Wynn would still give them a chance. He apprehended the extreme dryness of the air might prove too much for the infant daisy also. But Linda would see nothing except promise of prosperity as yet.

'Now, papa, when I am done with my melons, and you have finished Georgie's lessons, I want you to walk down to Daisy Burn with me. I have something to say to Edith.'

'With pleasure, my dear. But I have always wondered why that name was given to that farm, except on the principle of _lucus a non_.'

After the mid-day dinner they went. Meeting Andy on the road, trudging up from the 'Corner' on some message, he informed them that the captain and his son had gone to a cradling-bee at Benson's, an English settler a few miles off. 'But as to whether 'tis to make cradles they want, or to rock 'em, meself doesn't rightly know.'

The fact being that a 'cradle,' in American farming, signifies a machine for cutting down corn wholesale. It is a scythe, longer and wider than that used in mowing hay, combined with an apparatus of 'standard,'

'snaith,' and 'fingers,' by means of which a single workman may level two acres and a half of wheat or oats in one day.

'Captain Armytage is of a very sociable disposition,' remarked Mr. Wynn, after a few steps. 'A man fresh from the mess table and clubs must find the bush strangely unsuitable.' He was thinking of certain petty occurrences at his own bee, which demonstrated the gallant officer's weaknesses.

'Oh, papa, did you ever see anything like these vines? Grapes will be as plentiful as blackberries are at home.' For along the concession line many trees were festooned with ripening cl.u.s.ters; and deeper in the woods, beyond Linda's ken, and where only the birds and wild animals could enjoy the feast, whole hundredweights hung in gleams of sunshine.

Well might the Northmen, lighting upon Canadian sh.o.r.es in one hot summer, many centuries before Cabot or Cartier, name the country Vine-land; and the earliest French explorers up the St. Lawrence call a grape-laden rock the Isle of Bacchus.

'But is it not a wonder, papa,' pressed the young lady, 'when the cold is so terrible in winter? Do you remember all the endless trouble the gardener at Dunore had to save his vines from the frost? And Robert says that great river the Ottawa is frozen up for five months every year, yet here the grapes flourish in the open air.'

'I suppose we are pretty much in the lat.i.tude of the Garonne,' answered Mr. Wynn, casting about for some cause. 'But, indeed, Linda, if your Canadian grape does not enlarge somewhat'--

'You unreasonable papa, to expect as fine fruit as in a hothouse or sunny French vineyard. I really see no reason why we Canadians should not have regular vineyards some day, and you would see how our little grapes must improve under cultivation. Perhaps we might make wine. Now, you dear clever papa, just turn your attention to that, and earn for yourself the sobriquet of national benefactor.'

Clinging to his arm as they walked, she chattered her best to amuse the sombre mind, so lately uprooted from old habits and ways of life into a mode of existence more or less distasteful. The birds aided her effort with a variety of foreign music. Woodpigeon, bobolink, bluebird, oriole, cooed and trilled and warbled from the bush all around. The black squirrel, fat, sleek, jolly with good living of summer fruits, scampered about the boughs with erect s.h.a.ggy tail, looking a very caricature upon care, as he stowed away hazel-nuts for the frosty future. Already the trees had donned their autumn coats of many colours; and the beauteous maple-leaves, matchless in outline as in hue, began to turn crimson and gold. The moody man yielded to the sweet influences of nature in a degree, and acknowledged that even this exile land could be enjoyable.

Arriving at the snake fences of Armytage's farm, he said he would go down to the post at the 'Corner' for letters, and call in an hour for Linda on his return. She found Edith and Jay working hard as usual.

Their employment to-day was the very prosaic one of digging potatoes.

'What horrid occupation for a lady!' exclaims somebody. Yes; Miss Armytage would have much preferred an afternoon spent in painting flowers, for which she had a talent. But there was no help for such manual labour in this case. Don't you imagine her pride suffered before she took part in field work? I think so, by the deep blush that suffused her face when she saw the visitor coming along, though it was only Linda Wynn, who made some not very complimentary reflections on the father and brother whose absence on an amusing expedition permitted this,--whose general indolence compelled severe labour from the girls. They were misplaced men, certainly, and had as much business in the bush, with their tastes and habits, and want of self-control, as Zack Bunting would have had in an English drawing-room.

Linda had been thinking over a plan, which, when uttered, was proved to have also suggested itself to her friend. Could not something be done in the way of a Sunday-school cla.s.s for the miserable ignorant children at the 'Corner'? Now the very rudiments of revealed religion were unknown to them; and to spend an hour or two on the vacant Sabbath in trying to teach them some of Heaven's lore, seemed as if it might be the germ of great good. Miss Armytage, naturally not of Linda's buoyant disposition, foresaw abundance of difficulties,--the indifference or opposition of parents, the total want of discipline or habits of thought among the young themselves. Still, it was worth trying; if only a single childish soul should be illuminated with the light of life to all eternity by this means, oh, how inestimably worth trying!

Mr. Wynn was seen coming up the clearing. 'I know papa has had a letter,' exclaimed Linda, 'and that it is a pleasant one, by his pleasant face. Confess now, Edith, isn't he the handsomest man you ever saw?'

Her friend laughed at the daughterly enthusiasm, but could have answered in the affirmative, as she looked at his stately grey-crowned figure and handsome features, lighted with a grave, kind smile, as Linda took possession of his left arm--to be nearer his heart, she said. She was not very long in coaxing from him the blue official letter which contained his appointment to the magistracy of the district, about which he pretended not to be a bit pleased.

'And there's some other piece of nonsense in that,' said he, taking out a second blue envelope, and addressed to Arthur Wynn, Esquire.

'"Adjutant-General's Office,"' read Linda, from the corner. 'His appointment to the militia, I am sure. That good, powerful Mr. Holt!'

Even at the name she coloured a little. 'He said that he would try and have this done. And I am so glad you are taking your proper footing in the colony, papa. Of course they should make you a magistrate. I should like to know who has the dignified presence, or will uphold the majesty of the law, as well as you?'

'Magistracy and militia--very different in this mushroom society from what they are in the old country,' said Mr. Wynn despairingly.

'Well, papa, I have ambition enough to prefer being chief fungus among the mushrooms, instead of least among any other cla.s.s. Don't you know how poverty is looked down upon at home? Here we are valued for ourselves, not for our money. See how all the neighbourhood looks up to Mr. Wynn of Cedar Creek. You are lord-lieutenant of the county, without his commission: these men feel the influence of superior education and abilities and knowledge.'

'I verily believe, saucebox, that you think your father fit to be Governor-General; or, at least, a triton among the minnows.'