Janet's Love and Service Part 55

And so Rose came down-stairs triumphant, without a single drawback to mar the pleasure with which she regarded Janet as she sat in the arm-chair, letting her grave admiring glances fall alternately on Graeme and the pretty creature at her feet. All Rosie's admiration was for Mrs Snow.

"Is she not just like a picture sitting there?" she whispered to Will, as she pa.s.sed him.

And indeed Rosie's admiration was not surprising; she was the very Janet of old times; but she sat there in f.a.n.n.y's handsome drawing-room, with as much appropriateness as she had ever sat in the manse kitchen long ago, and looked over the vases and elegant trifles on the centre-table to Graeme with as much ease and self-possession as if she had been "used with" fine things all her life, and had never held anxious counsels with her over jackets and trowsers, and little half-worn stockings and shoes.

And yet there was no real cause for surprise. For Janet was one of those whose modest, yet firm self-respect, joined with a just appreciation of all worldly things, leaves to changing circ.u.mstances no power over their unchanging worth.

That Mr Snow should spend the time devoted to their visit within four walls, was not to be thought of. The deacon, who, in the opinion of those who knew him best, "had the faculty of doing 'most anything," had certainly not the faculty of sitting still in a chair like other people.

The hall or the gallery was his usual place of promenade, but when the interest of the conversation kept him with the rest, f.a.n.n.y suffered constant anxiety as to the fate of ottomans, vases and little tables. A judicious, re-arrangement of these soon gave him a clearer s.p.a.ce for his perambulations; but a man accustomed to walk miles daily on his own land, could not be expected to content himself long within such narrow limits. So one bright morning he renewed the proposal, made long before, that Will should show him Canada.

Up to a comparatively recent period, all Mr Snow's ideas of the country had been got from the careful reading of an old "History of the French and Indian War." Of course, by this time he had got a little beyond the belief that the government was a military despotism, that the city of Montreal was a cl.u.s.ter of wigwams, huddled together within a circular enclosure of palisades, or that the commerce of the country consisted in an exchange of beads, muskets, and bad whiskey for the furs of the Aborigines. Still his ideas were vague and indistinct, not to say disparaging, and he had already quite unconsciously excited the amus.e.m.e.nt of Will and the indignation of Rose, by indulging in remarks indicative of a low opinion of things in general in the Queen's dominions. So when he proposed that Will should show him Canada, Rose looked gravely up and asked,--

"Where will you go first, Will? To the Red river or Hudson's Bay or to Nova Scotia? You must be back to lunch."

They all laughed, and Arthur said,--

"Oh, fie, Rosie! not to know these places are all beyond the limits of Canada!--such ignorance!"

"They are in the Queen's dominions, though, and Mr Snow wants to see all that is worth seeing on British soil."

"Well, I guess we can make out a full day's work in Canada, can't we?

It is best to take it moderate," said Mr Snow, smiling benignly on Rose. He was tolerant of the young lady's petulance, and not so ready to excite it as he used to be in the old times, and generally listened to her little sallies with a deprecating smile, amusing to see.

He was changed in other respects as well. Indeed, it must be confessed that just at first Arthur was a little disappointed in him. He had only a slight personal acquaintance with him, but he had heard so much of him from the others that he had looked forward with interest to making the acquaintance of the "sharp Yankee deacon." For Harry had a good story about "Uncle Sampson" ready for all occasions, and there was no end to the shrewd remarks and sc.r.a.ps of worldly wisdom that he used to quote from his lips. But Harry's acquaintance had been confined to the first years of their Merleville life, and Mr Snow had changed much since then. He saw all things in a new light. Wisdom and folly had changed their aspect to him. The charity which "believeth and hopeth all things," and which "thinketh no evil," lived within him now, and made him slow to see, and slower still to comment upon the faults and foibles of others with the sharpness that used to excite the mirth of the lads long ago. Not that he had forgotten how to criticise, and that severely too, whatever he thought deserved it, or would be the better for it, as Will had good reason to know before he had done much in the way of "showing him Canada," but he far more frequently surprised them all by his gentle tolerance towards what might be displeasing to him, and by his quick appreciation of whatever was admirable in all he saw.

The first few days of sightseeing were pa.s.sed in the city and its environs. With the town itself he was greatly pleased. The great grey stone structures suited him well, suggesting, as they often do to the people accustomed to houses of brick or wood, ideas of strength and permanence. But as he was usually content with an outside view of the buildings, with such a view as could be obtained by a slow drive through the streets, the town itself did not occupy him long. Then came the wharves and ships; then they visited the manufactories and workshops, lately become so numerous in the neighbourhood of the ca.n.a.l. All these pleased and interested him greatly, but he never failed, when opportunity offered, to point out various particulars, in which he considered the Montrealers "a _leetle_ behind the times." On the whole, however, his appreciation of British energy and enterprise was admiring and sincere, and as warmly expressed as could be expected under the circ.u.mstances.

"You've got a river, at any rate, that about comes up to one's ideas of what a river ought to be--broad and deep and full," he said to Arthur one day. "It kind of satisfies one to stand and look at it, so grand and powerful, and still always rolling on to the sea."

"Yes, it is like your Father of Waters," said Arthur, a little surprised at his tone and manner.

"One wouldn't be apt to think of mills and engines and such things at the first glimpse of that. I didn't see it the day when I crossed it, for the mist and rain. To-day, as we stood looking down upon it, I couldn't but think how it had been rolling on and on there, ever since creation, I suppose, or ever since the time of Adam and Eve--if the date ain't the same, as some folks seem to think."

"I always think how wonderful it must have seemed to Jacques Cartier and his men, as they sailed on and on, with the never-ending forest on either sh.o.r.e," said Rose. "No wonder they thought it would never end, till it bore them to the China seas."

"A wonderful highway of nations it is, though it disappointed them in that," said Arthur. "The sad pity is, that it is not available for commerce for more than two-thirds of the year."

"If ever the bridge they talk about should be built, it will do something towards making this a place of importance in this part of the world, though the long winter is against, too."

"Oh! the bridge will be built, I suppose, and the benefit will not be confined to us. The Western trade will be benefited as well. What do you think of your Ma.s.sachusetts men, getting their cotton round this way? This communication with the more northern cotton growing States is more direct by this than any other way."

"Well, I ain't prepared to say much about it. Some folks wouldn't think much of that. But I suppose you are bound to go ahead, anyhow."

But to the experienced eye of the farmer, nothing gave so much pleasure as the cultivated country lying around the city, and beyond the mountain, as far as the eye could reach. Of the mountain itself, he was a little contemptuous in its character of mountain.

"A mountain with smooth fields, and even orchards, reaching almost to the top of it! Why, our sheep pasture at Merleville is a deal more like a mountain than that. It is only a hill, and moderate at that. You must have been dreadful hard up for mountains, to call _that_ one.

You've forgotten all about Merleville, Rosie, to be content with that for a mountain."

While, he admired the farms, he did not hesitate to comment severely on the want of enterprise shown by the farmers, who seemed to be content "to putter along" as their fathers had done, with little desire to avail themselves of the many inventions and discoveries which modern science and art had placed at the disposal of the farmer. In Merleville, every man who owned ten, or even five acres of level land, had an interest in sowing and mowing machines, to say nothing of other improvements, that could be made available on hill or meadow. If the strength and patience so freely expended among the stony New England hills, could but be applied to the fertile valley of the Saint Lawrence, what a garden it might become! And the Yankee farmer grew a little contemptuous of the contented acquiescence of Canadians to the order of affairs established by their fathers.

One afternoon he and Will went together to the top of the mountain toward the western end. They had a fair day for a fair sight, and when Mr Snow looked down on the scene, bounded by the blue hills beyond both rivers, all other thoughts gave place to feelings of wondering admiration. Above was a sky, whose tender blue was made more lovely by the snowy clouds that sailed now and then majestically across it, to break into flakes of silver near the far horizon.

Beneath lay the valley, clothed in the numberless shades of verdure with which June loves to deck the earth in this northern climate. There were no waste places, no wilderness, no arid stretches of sand or stone. Far as the eye could reach, extended fields, and groves, and gardens, scattered through with cl.u.s.ters of cottages, or solitary farm-houses.

Up through the stillness of the summer air, came stealing the faint sound of a distant bell, seeming to deepen the silence round them.

"I suppose the land that Moses saw from Pisgah, must have been like this," said Mr Snow, as he gazed.

"Yes, the Promised Land was a land of hills, and valleys, and brooks of water," said Will softly, never moving his eyes from the wonderful picture. Could they ever gaze enough? Could they ever weary themselves of the sight? The shadows grew long; the clouds, that had made the beauty of the summer sky, followed each other toward the west, and rose in pinnacles of gold, and amber, and amethyst; and then they rose to go.

"I wouldn't have missed _that_ now, for considerable," said Mr Snow, coming back with an effort to the realisation of the fact that this was part of the sightseeing that he had set himself. "No, I wouldn't have missed it for considerable more than that miserable team'll cost," added he, as he came in sight of the carriage, on whose uncomfortable seat the drowsy driver had been slumbering all the afternoon. Will smiled, and made no answer. He was not a vain lad, but it is just possible that there pa.s.sed through his mind a doubt whether the enjoyment of his friend had been as real, as high, or as intense, as his had been all the afternoon. To Will's imagination, the valley lay in the gloom of its primeval forests, peopled by heroes of a race now pa.s.sed away. He was one of them. He fought in their battles, triumphed in their victories, panted in the eagerness of the chase. In imagination, he saw the forest fall under the peaceful weapons of the pale face; then wondered westward to die the dreary death of the last of a stricken race. Then his thoughts come down to the present, and on into the future, in a vague dream, which was half a prayer, for the hastening of the time when the lovely valley should smile in moral and spiritual beauty too. And coming back to actual life, with an effort--a sense of pain, he said to himself, that the enjoyment of his friend had been not so high and pure as his.

But Will was mistaken. In the thoughts of his friend, that summer afternoon, patent machines, remunerative labour, plans of supply and demand, of profit and loss, found no place. He pa.s.sed the pleasant hour on that green hill-side, seeing in that lovely valley, stretched out before them, a very land of Beulah. Looking over the blue line of the Ottawa, as over the river of Death, into a land visible and clear to the eye of faith, he saw sights, and heard sounds, and enjoyed communion, which, as yet, lay far in the future, as to the experience of the lad by his side; and coming back to actual life, gave no sign of the Divine Companionship, save that which afterward, was to be seen in a life, growing liker every day to the Divine Exemplar.

Will thought, as they went home together, that a new light beamed, now and then, over the keen but kindly face, and that the grave eyes of his friend had the look of one who saw something beyond the beauty of the pleasant fields, growing dim now in the gathering darkness; and the lad's heart grew full and tender as it dawned upon him, how this was a token of the shining of G.o.d's face upon his servant, and he longed for a glimpse of that which his friend's eyes saw. A word might have won for him a glimpse of the happiness; but Will was shy, and the word was not spoken; and, all unconscious of his longing, his friend sat with the smile on his lips, and the light in his eye, no thought further from him than that any experience of his should be of value to another. And so they fell quite into silence, till they neared the streets where the lighted lamps were burning dim in the fading daylight.

That night, in the course of his wanderings up and down, Mr Snow, paused, as he often did, before a portrait of the minister. It was a portrait taken when the minister had been a much younger man than Mr Snow had ever known him. It had belonged to a friend in Scotland, and had been sent to Arthur, at his death, about a year ago. The likeness had been striking, and to Janet, the sight of it had been a great pleasure and surprise. She was never weary of looking at it, and even Mr Snow, who had never known the minister but as a grey-haired man, was strangely fascinated by the beauty of the grave smile that he remembered so well on his face. That night he stood leaning on the back of a chair, and gazing at it, while the conversation flowed on as usual around him. In a little, Rose came and stood beside him.

"Do you think it is very like him?" asked she.

"Well," said Mr Snow, meditatively, "it's like him and it ain't like him. I love to look at it, anyhow."

"At first it puzzled me," said Rose. "It seemed like the picture of some one I had seen in a dream; and when I shut my eyes, and tried to bring back my father's face as it used to be in Merleville, it would not come--the face of the dream came between."

"Well, there is something in that," said Mr Snow, and he paused a moment, and shut his eyes, as if to call back the face of his friend.

"No, it won't do that for me. It would take something I hain't thought of yet, to make me forget his face."

"It does not trouble me now," said Rose. "I can shut my eyes, and see him, Oh! so plainly, in the church, and at home in the study, and out under the trees, and as he lay in his coffin--" She was smiling still, but the tears were ready to gush over her eyes. Mr Snow turned, and laying his hand on her bright head, said softly,--

"Yes, dear, and so can I, If we didn't know that it must be right, we might wonder why he was taken from us. But I shall never forget him-- never. He did too much for me, for that. He was the best friend I ever had, by all odds--the very best."

Rose smiled through her tears.

"He brought you Mrs Snow," said she, softly.

"Yes, dear. That was much, but he did more than that. It was through him that I made the acquaintance of a better and dearer friend than even _she_ is--and that is saying considerable," added he, turning his eyes toward the tranquil figure knitting in the arm-chair.

"Were you speaking?" said Mrs Snow, looking up at the sound of his voice.

"Yes, I was speaking to Rosie, here. How do you suppose we can ever persuade her to go back to Merleville with us?"

"She is going with us, or she will soon follow us. What would Emily say, if she didna come?"

"Yes, I know. But I meant to stay for good and all. Graeme, won't you give us this little girl?"

Graeme smiled.

"Yes. On one condition--if you will take me too."