Cedar Creek Part 34

'How fortunate that I didn't turn round my head!' thought Linda, her first confusion over; 'for of all horridly unbecoming things, showing no hair about one's face is the worst.'

Whence it will be seen that Miss Wynn was not exempt from female vanity.

To the cat thus let out of the bag, Captain Argent made no further allusion than was involved in a sudden fondness for the nursery tale of Cinderella. Every subject of conversation introduced for the morning was tinged by that fairy legend, which tinged Linda's countenance also, rose-colour. Mr. Wynn the elder was slightly mystified; for the topics of promotion by purchase in the army, and the emigration of half-pay officers, seemed to have no leading reference to the above world-famed story.

The dear old gentleman! he did the honours of his small wooden cottage at Cedar Creek as finely as if it had been his own ancestral mansion of Dunore. Their delf cups might have been Dresden, the black ware teapot solid silver, the coa.r.s.e table-cloth damask--for the very air which he spread around the breakfast arrangements. One might have fancied that he infused an orange-pekoe flavour into the rough muddy congou for which Bunting exacted the highest price. He did not know that the coffee, which he strongly recommended to his guest, was of native Canadian growth, being to all intents and purposes dandelion roots; for you see they were obliged to conceal many of their contrivances from this grand old father. I doubt if he was aware that candles were made on the premises: likewise soap, by Liberia's energetic hands. The dandelion expedient was suggested by thrifty Mrs. Davidson, who had never bought a pound of coffee since she emigrated; and exceedingly well the subst.i.tute answered, with its bitter aromatic flavour, and pleasant smell. If Captain Argent had looked into the little house closet, he would have seen a quant.i.ty of brownish roots cut up and stored on a shelf. Part of Linda's morning duty was to chop a certain quant.i.ty of these to the size of beans, roast them on a pan, and grind a cupful for breakfast. They cost nothing but the trouble of gathering from among the potato heaps, when the hills were turned up in autumn, and a subsequent washing and spreading in the sun to dry.

Mrs. Davidson would also fain have introduced peppermint and sage tea; but even Zack's bad congou was declared more tolerable than those herb drinks, which many a settler imbibes from year to year.

'Throth an' there's no distinction o' thrades at all in this counthry,'

said Andy; 'but every man has to be a farmer, an' a carpinther, an'

a cobbler, an' a tailor, an' a grocer itself! There's Misther Robert med an iligant shute o' canvas for the summer; an' Misther Arthur is powerful at boots; an' sorra bit but Miss Linda spins yarn first-rate, considherin' she never held a distaff before. An' the darlin' Missus knits stockins; oh mavrone, but she's the beautiful sweet lady intirely, that ought to be sitting in her carriage!'

News arrived from Dunore this spring, which Linda fancied would sorely discompose Andy. The Wynns kept up a sort of correspondence with the old tenantry, who loved them much. In an April letter it was stated that the pretty blue-eyed Mary Collins, Andy's betrothed, had been base enough to marry another, last Shrovetide. But the detaching process had gone on at this side of the Atlantic also. Linda was amazed at the apathy with which the discarded lover received the intelligence. He scratched his red head, and looked somewhat bewildered; indulged in a few monosyllable e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, and half an hour afterwards came back to the parlour to ask her 'if she was in airnest, to say that over agin.'

'Poor fellow! he has not yet comprehended the full extent of his loss,'

thought the young lady compa.s.sionately. She broke the news to him once more, and he went away without a remark.

When Arthur came in, she would beg of him to look after the poor suffering fellow. The request was on her lips at his appearance, but he interrupted her with,--

'What do you think of that scamp, Andy, proposing for Libby in my hearing? The fellow told her that his heart was in her keeping, and that she was the light of his life, and grew quite poetical, I a.s.sure you; in return for which, he was hunted round the wood-yard with a log!'

And Linda's sympathy expired.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

SETTLER THE SECOND.

Next summer brought a scourge of frequent visitation to the 'Corner.'

Lake fever and ague broke out among the low-lying log-houses, and Zack's highly adulterated and heavily priced drugs came into great demand. He was the farthest west adventurer at that date who took upon him to supply apothecary's wares among the threescore and ten other vendibles of a backwoods store. So the ill wind which blew hot fits and cold fits to everybody else blew profit into Zack's pockets.

The population had swelled somewhat since our first introduction to this little pioneer settlement. The number of wooden huts mottling the cleared s.p.a.ce between the forest and the river edge, cl.u.s.tering, like bees round their queen, about the saw and grist mill, had increased during the last two years by some half-score--a slow rate of progression, as villages grow in Canada; but the 'Corner' had a position unfavourable to development. An aguish climate will make inhabitants sheer off speedily to healthier localities. No sensible emigrant will elect to live on a marshy site where he can help it. The value of the 'Corner' was just now as a stage on the upper branch of that great western highway, whose proper terminus lies no nearer than the Pacific, and whose course is through the fertile country of future millions of men.

This summer waggon-loads of emigrants and their chattels began to file each month into the bush beyond. Cedar Creek ceased to be farthest west by a great many outlying stations where the axe was gradually letting in light on the dusky forest soil. To these the 'Corner' must be the emporium, until some enterprising person set up a store and mills deeper in the wilderness.

The shrewd Davidson saw the country opening about him, and resolved to gather to himself the profit which must accrue to somebody. His first measure was to walk down one evening to the Wynns' farm. A thoroughly good understanding had always existed between these neighbours. Even patrician Mr. Wynn relished the company of the hard-headed Lanark-weaver, whose energy and common sense had won him the position of a comfortable landholder in Canada West. Added to which qualifications for the best society, Davidson was totally devoid of vulgar a.s.sumption, but had sufficient ballast to retain just his own proper footing anywhere.

He found the family a.s.sembled in their summer parlour, beneath the handsome b.u.t.ternut tree which Robert's axe had spared, and which repaid the indulgence by grateful shade and continual beauty of leaf.a.ge. 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 sc.r.a.p of news from Britain, in his jealous care of things a.s.sociated 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 eyegla.s.s 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 Princ.i.p.ality,' 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 antic.i.p.ations of fun, and perchance a 'row.' His master noticed him tr.i.m.m.i.n.g 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 b.u.mp 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 st.u.r.dy 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 b.u.t.ternut 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 munic.i.p.al 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 munic.i.p.al 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?'