Cedar Creek Part 7

'New to this sort of thing, I should imagine?' said the gentleman next beside Robert, in a particularly thin, wiry voice.

'Yes, quite a stranger,' answered Robert, looking round, and seeing that the speaker was a person with a sharp nose and small keen black eyes.

'So I thought; your looks betray it. Everything seems queer, I guess.

Intending to be a settler, eh?' Then, without waiting for an answer, 'That's right: I always welcome the infusion of young blood into our colony, particularly _gentle_ blood, for we are a rough set, mister, and want polish--and--and--all that.'

These deferential words, uttered in the deferential manner of inferiority to acknowledged excellence, certainly pleased Robert; for what heart is unsusceptible to subtle flattery? And of all modes of influence, men are most easily flattered or disparaged by reference to what is no worthiness or fault of their own--the social station in which it has pleased the Creator that they should enter this world. The keen brain behind the keen eyes knew this well; the fact had oiled a way for his wedge many a time. What was his motive for endeavouring to ingratiate himself with young Wynn for the next twenty minutes?

'Now, mister, if it's a fact that you be settling, I can give you a chance of some of the finest lots of land ever offered for sale in Montcalm township. A friend of mine has a beautiful farm there that would just suit you; best part cleared and under fence--fine water privilege--land in good heart, and going, I may say, dirt cheap.'

Robert felt much obliged for the interest in his welfare which prompted this eligible offer. 'But, unfortunately, I have very little money to invest,' said he carelessly. The swift penetrating glance that followed from his companion was unseen, as he crumbled his biscuit on the table-cloth. 'I am rather disposed to try the backwoods,' he added.

'The bush!' in accents of amazement. 'The bush! it may do very well for labourers, but for a gentleman of your pretensions, it would be misery--wholly unsuitable, sir--wholly unsuitable. No, no, take my advice, and settle where the advantages of civilisation--the comforts of life to which you have been accustomed--are accessible. A few thousand dollars'--

'I regret to say,' Robert interposed, 'that even one thousand is immensely more than I possess,' turning to the Canadian with a frank smile, which was by no means reduplicated in the sharp face. And from the era of that revelation, conversation unaccountably flagged.

'Do you know to whom you talked at table?' asked Hiram Holt afterwards.

He had been sitting some way farther up at the other side. 'One of the most noted land-jobbers in the country--a man who buys wild lands at three shillings an acre, to sell them again at ten or fifteen, if he can; and he never loses an opportunity of driving a trade. His bargain of a cleared farm is probably some worn-out dilapidated location not worth half-a-dollar an acre till hundreds have been spent on it.'

'Then I've gained one benefit by being poor,' said Robert; 'n.o.body can have a motive for over-reaching me'--which was philosophic consolation.

Mr. Holt's business would not permit him to leave till next evening. And so the Wynns, continuing to lionize, looked into the vast but dreary Romish cathedral, which seats ten thousand people in its nine s.p.a.cious aisles and seven chapels; clambered to the roof, and viewed the city from a promenade at an elevation of 120 feet; and then drove to that special beauty of Montreal--the mountain. This is a hill more than 500 feet in height, and clothed from head to foot with the richest verdure of woods; among which grow the most delicious apples extant since Paris selected one as a prize. From the summit a landscape of level country stretches below westwards; in middle, distant villages; on the horizon, the Ottawa confluence, bounding Montreal Island and forming others.

Southwards, across the St. Lawrence, the hills of Vermont far away; nearer, the fertile valley of the Richelieu.

'Let's go off to one of the _habitan_ villages,' said Arthur suddenly.

'Dismiss the caleche, and we will walk back. I'll ask for a drink of water in one of the cottages just to sc.r.a.pe acquaintance.'

'Furbish up your French, too,' said Robert, 'for they do gabble it fast. I heard a fellow chattering in the steerage, coming up the river yesterday morning: by the way, he and Andy had struck up a friendship: and such bowing as they had to each other's incomprehensible lingo!'

'I wonder what he is doing to-day,' said Arthur reflectively; 'he asked me so particularly whether we should want him again till the evening.'

'Found out a nest of Irish somewhere, I suppose.'

'There's a fellow taking off his hat to us,' remarked Arthur, as they pa.s.sed a carter. 'Everybody seems to bow to everybody in this country.

But did you ever see such an old-fashioned vehicle as he drives? And he keeps talking to himself and his horse all the way, apparently.'

Rapidly walking down the fine road to the plain, they were not long in nearing a group of neat white houses round the invariable shining steeple.

'The village looks as sociable as the people,' said Robert. 'How neat everything seems!--Hallo, Arthur, we've come in for some festivity or other, by all the gay ribbons about.'

'Bon jour, Madame,' said Arthur boldly, to a tidy old lady, sitting in her green verandah. 'Nous sommes des etrangers--I'd like to ask her what it's all about,' he whispered confidentially to Robert; 'but I'm out of my depth already.'

The aged _Canadienne_ arose, with the politeness so natural to her Gallic descent, and bade them welcome. But sounds issuing from the opposite house riveted their attention. 'As sure as I'm here, that's Andy's violin,' exclaimed Arthur; 'I'd know his sc.r.a.pe anywhere;' and he crossed the road in a moment.

Without doubt Andy was the player, ay, and the performer too; for he was dancing a species of quickstep solo, surrounded by a circle of grinning and delighted _habitans_. The most perfect gravity dwelt in his own countenance meanwhile, alloyed by just a spice of lurking fun in his deep-set eyes, which altogether faded, as a candle blown out, when suddenly he perceived the accession to the company. Silence succeeded the dead blank on his features, down hung the violin and its bow on either side, and the corners of his mouth sunk into a dismal curve.

'Go on, old boy--sc.r.a.pe away,' shouted Arthur hilariously. 'So many pretty faces would inspire anybody;' and whether it was that the black-eyed Canadian damsels felt the compliment through the foreign idiom, there was considerable blushing and bridling as the speaker's glance travelled round the group.

They deserved his encomium. The slight sprightly type of dark beauty abounded; and so prettily decked out with bright ribbons and flowers, that it was evident the tastefulness which renders French modistes unrivalled had not died out in these collateral relatives of the nation.

Forward stepped Monsieur, the master of the house and father of the bride, begging that Messieurs would be so benevolent as to seat themselves, and would honour him by partaking of refreshment; both which requests Messieurs were nothing loth to fulfil. It was hardly to be realized that these were the besotted _habitans_, the unimprovable race, the blotch on the fair face of Canadian civilisation; these happy-looking, simple-minded people. Hiram Holt was a slanderer. Full an hour pa.s.sed before the Wynns could get away from the embarra.s.sing hospitalities and politeness of the good villagers, who shook hands all round at parting in most affectionate style. As for Andy, much to his own discomfort, he was kissed by his host.

'Now I could ondherstand if it was the missus that shaluted me,' said he, rubbing across his cheek with his cuff as soon as he was on the road; 'throth an' they're all very fond of me intirely, considherin'

they never laid eyes on me till this mornin', barrin' himself. An' I never see nater houses--they're as clean as a gintleman's; you might ate off the flure. If only the people wud forget that queer talk they have, an' spake like Christians, that a body could know what they're sayin', 'twould be a deal more comfortable.'

'And how could you get on without understanding them?' asked Arthur.

'Oh, 'twas aisy enough sometimes; for whin they wanted me to come to dinner they had only to show me the table; and when they wanted me to play, they only rubbed across their arm this way, and said, "Jawer, jawer" (I brought away that word, anyhow,' added Mr. Callaghan, with great satisfaction). 'All other times they spake to me I bowed plinty, and that did the business. But there was a man alongside me at the dinner that had a few words of English; an' he tould me that this time of the year they all marries to be ready against the winter. I likes that fashion, Misther Robert;' and herewith Andy heaved a little sigh, thinking perhaps of a certain pretty blue-eyed Mary in Ireland.

'Put your best foot foremost, Callaghan,' said Mr. Wynn; 'we shall scarcely reach town in time;' and all three quickened their pace.

'I'll never believe a syllable against the _habitans_ again,' said Arthur. 'Their old-fashioned politeness is a perfect relief from the bluff manners of most other Canadians. They seem to me to have a lot of virtues,--cleanliness, good-humour, good-nature,--and I like their habit of living altogether, children settled round the parent tree like branches of a banyan. We would give a trifle to be able to do it ourselves, Bob;' and the smile with which the brothers met each other's eyes was rather wistful.

CHAPTER IX.

'FROM MUD TO MARBLE.'

Hiram Holt was proud of his ancestry. Not that he had sixteen quarterings whereof to boast, or even six; his pedigree could have blazoned an escutcheon only with spade, and shuttle, and saw, back for generations.

But then, society all about him was in like plight; and it is a strong consolation in this, as in matters moral, to be no worse than one's neighbours. Truly, a Herald's College would find Canada a very jungle as to genealogy. The man of marble has had a grandfather of mud, as was the case with the owner of Maple Grove.

And, instead of resenting such origin as an injury received from his progenitors, worthy Hiram looked back from the comfortable eminence of prosperity whereunto he had attained, and loved to retrace the gradual steps of labour which led thither. He could remember most of them; to his memory's eye the virgin forest stretched for unknown and unnumbered miles west and northward of the settler's adventurous clearing, and the rude log shanty was his home beside the sombre pines. Now the pines were dead and gone, except a few isolated giants standing gloomily among the maple plantations; but the backwoodsman's shanty had outlived all subsequent changes.

Here, in the wide courtyard to the rear of Mr. Holt's house, it was preserved, like a curious thing set apart in a museum--an embodiment of the old struggling days embalmed. The walls of great unhewn logs fastened at the corners by notching; the crevices c.h.i.n.ked up with chips and clay; the single rude square window shuttered across; the roof of ba.s.swood troughs, all blackened with age; the rough door, creaking on clumsy wooden hinges when Mr. Holt unlocked it,--these were not encouraging features, viewed by the light of a future personal experience.

Robert stole a glance at Arthur as they stepped inside the low dark shed, and, as Arthur had with similar motives also stolen a glance at Robert, their eyes naturally met, and both laughed.

They had been thinking a twin thought--'How will my brother like such quarters as this in the forest?'

'A queer concern,' remarked Arthur in a low voice, and rubbing his chin.

'Rather!' replied Robert, looking equally dubious.

'I like to show the shanty to youngsters,' said Mr. Holt, as he turned from pushing back the shutter, 'that they may see what they have to expect. From such a start as this we Canadians have all waked up into opulence--that is, the hardworking share of us; and there's room enough for tens of thousands to do the same off in the bush.'

'I hope so, sir,' was the least desponding remark of which Robert could think. For the naked reality of a forest life came before him as never previously. The halo of distance had faded, as he stood beside the rude fireplace, fashioned of four upright limestone slabs in a corner, reaching to a hole in the roof, down which the wind was howling just now. It was rather a bleak look-out, notwithstanding the honeyed promises of the old settler pouring on his ear.

'To be sure there is. Fortune's at your back in the bush; and you haven't, as in the mother country, to rise by pushing others down.

There's no impa.s.sable gulf separating you from anything you choose to aim at. It strikes me that the motto of our capital is as good as a piece of advice to the settler--"Industry, Intelligence, and Integrity"--with a beaver as pattern of the first two principles, anyhow. So recollect the beaver, my young chaps, and work like it.'

'I don't remember the building of this,' he added; 'but every stick was laid by my father's own hands, and my mother c.h.i.n.ked between them till all was tight and right. I tell you I'm prouder of it than of a piece of fancy-work, such as I've seen framed and glazed. I love every log in the old timbers.' And Mr. Holt tapped the wall affectionately with his walking-staff. 'It was the farthest west clearing then, and my father chose the site because of the spring yonder, which is covered with a stone and civilised into a well now-a-days.'

'And is the town so modern as all that comes to?' said Robert.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

'Twenty years grows a city in Canada,' replied Mr. Holt, somewhat loftily. 'Twenty years between the swamp and the crowded street: while two inches of ivy would be growing round a European ruin, we turn a wilderness into a cultivated country, dotted with villages. The history of Mapleton is easily told. My father was the first who ever built a sawmill on the river down there, and the frame-houses began to gather about it shortly. Then he ventured into the grist line; and I'm the owner of the biggest mills in the place now, with half-a-dozen of others competing, and all doing a fair business in flour, and lumber for exportation. You see in this land we've room enough for all, and no man need scowl down another of the same trade. 'Taint so in England, where you must knock your bread out of somebody else's mouth.'