Cedar Creek Part 39

'Au large! au large!' called the boatmen--st.u.r.dy, muscular fellows, accustomed to river perils; and, laying themselves at the bottom of the canoe as directed, shoulders resting against the thwarts, the pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sengers 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 princ.i.p.al. Nevertheless, all went rightly till the commercial panic of the period above mentioned, when Zack's possessions were reduced to their primitive nonent.i.ty, and the old proverb abundantly ill.u.s.trated, '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, asth.o.r.e?' 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 ma.s.sive 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 b.u.t.ternut's shade, he read his newspaper--a weekly Greenock print, the advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 compa.s.sion 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.'