Cedar Creek Part 31

'Papa, the fun is, you'll have to marry people now, whenever you're asked. It is part of a magistrate's duty in out-of-the-way places, Mr.

Holt says.'

'Then I am to consider my services bespoke by the young ladies present, eh?' said Mr. Wynn, making a courtly inclination to Edith and Jay. 'With the greatest pleasure.'

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

THE PINK MIST.

Mr. Wynn became his magisterial functions well, though exercised after a primitive fas.h.i.+on, without court-house or bench whence to issue his decisions, without clerk to record them, or police force to back them, or any other customary paraphernalia of justice to render his office imposing. To be sure, his fine presence was worth a great deal, and his sonorous voice. As Linda predicted, he was obliged to perform clerical duty at times, in so far as to marry folk who lived beyond reach of a clergyman, and had thrice published their intention in the most public part of the towns.h.i.+p. The earliest of these transactions affianced one of Davidson's lads to a braw sonsie la.s.s, daughter of Benson, the Shrops.h.i.+re settler beyond the 'Corner.' The bridegroom, a tall strapping young fellow of about twenty-three, had a nice cottage ready for his wife, and a partially cleared farm of a hundred acres, on which he had been working with this homestead in view for the last year and a half.

The prudent Scotsman would portion off his other sons in similar respectability as they came of age.

'And yer mither and I cam' here wi' an axe and a cradle,' he was wont to say, 'eh, Jeanie Davidson?'

He had good cause for gratulation at the wedding that day. His own indomitable industry and energy had raised him from being a struggling weaver in Lanarks.h.i.+re to be a prosperous landowner in Canada West. He looked upon a flouris.h.i.+ng family of sons and daughters round the festive board in Benson's barn, every one of them a help to wealth instead of a diminution to it; strong, intelligent lads, healthy and handy la.s.ses.

With scarce a care or a doubt, he could calculate on their comfortable future.

'I tell you what, neighbour,' cried stout John Benson, from the head of the table, 'throw by cold water for once, and pledge me in good whisky to the lucky day that brought us both to Canada.'

'Na, na,' quoth Davidson, shaking his grizzled head, 'I'll drink the toast wi' all my heart, but it must be in gude water. These twenty year back I hae been a temperance man, and hae brought up thae lads to the same fas.h.i.+on; for, coming to Canada, I kenned what ruined mony a puir fallow might weel be the ruin o' me, an' I took a solemn vow that a drap o' drink suld never moisten my lips mair. Sandy Davidson wouldna be gettin' John Benson's daughter in marriage the day, if it werena for the cauld water.'

Captain Armytage, who never missed a merrymaking of any description within a circle of miles, took on himself to reply to this teetotal oration.

It was all very well for Mr. Davidson to talk thus, but few const.i.tutions could bear up against the excessive labour of bush life without proportionate stimulants. For his own part, he would sink under it, but for judicious reinforcement of cordials, ordered him by the first medical man in Europe.

'I daur say,' replied Davidson, whose keen hard eye had been fixed on the speaker; 'I daur say. Ye mak' nae faces at yer medicine, anyhow.

It's weel that Zack's store is so handy to Daisy Burn, only I'm thinkin'

the last will go to the first, in the long run.'

'What do you mean, sir?' demanded the captain fierily.

'Naething,' responded Davidson coolly,--'naething save what e'er the words mean.'

'But we were a-goin' to drink to Canada, our adopted country,' put in Benson, willing to stifle the incipient quarrel--'the finest country on the face of the earth, after Old England.'

His stentorian Shrops.h.i.+re lungs supplied a cheer of sufficient intensity, taken up by his guests.

'The country whar we needna fear factor, nor laird, nor rent-day,'

shouted Davidson. 'We're lairds an' factors here, an' our rent-day comes--never.'

'Whirroo!' exclaimed an Irishman, Pat O'Brien, who, having been evicted in his own country, was particularly sensitive as to landlord and tenant-right. 'No more agints, nor gales o' rint, nor nothin', ever to pay!'

'Not forgetting the tax-gatherer,' interposed portly Mr. Benson. 'None of us are partikler sorry to part with him.'

Meanwhile the comely bride was sitting with her husband at one side of the table, thankful for the diversion from herself as a topic of enthusiasm and mirth.

'Lads, you'd be a' at the loom, an' your sisters in the factories, only for Canada,' said Davidson, now on his legs. 'An' I suld be lookin'

for'ard to the poor-house as soon as my workin' days were ower; an'

Sandy couldna marry, except to live on porridge an' brose, wi' cauld kail o' Sabbath. How wad ye relish that prospect, bonnie Susan?'

Bonnie Susan liked the prospect of the folds of her own silk dress best at that moment, to judge by the determinately downward glance of her eyes.

By and by Davidson (for the subject was a favourite one with him) hit upon another of the Canadian advantages as a poor man's land--that the larger a man's family, the wealthier was he. No need to look on the little ones as superfluous mouths, which by dire necessity the labourer in mother country is often forced to do; for each child will become an additional worker, therefore an additional means of gain.

'An' if the folk at hame kenned this mair, dinna ye think the emigration wad be thrice what it is, Mr. Robert? Dinna ye think they wad risk the sea an' the strangers, to make a safe future for their bairns? Ay, surely. An' when I think o' the people treading one anither down over the edges o' thae three little islands, while a country as big as Europe stands amaist empty here'--

Mr. Davidson never stated the consequences of his thought; for just then came a universal call to clear the tables, stow away the boards and tressels, and make room for dancing and small plays. The hilarity may be imagined--the boisterous fun of general blindman's buff, ladies'

toilet, and all varieties of forfeits. Robert Wynn stole away in the beginning; he had come for an hour, merely to gratify their good neighbour Davidson; but, pressing as was his own farm-work, he found time to spend another hour at Daisy Burn, doing up some garden beds under direction of Miss Edith. She had come to look on him as a very good friend; and he----well, there was some indefinable charm of manner about the young lady. Those peculiarly set grey eyes were so truthful and so gentle, that low musical voice so perfect in tone and inflection, that Robert was pleased to look or listen, as the case might be. But chiefest reason of all--was she not dear Linda's choicest friend and intimate? Did they not confide every secret of their hearts to each other? Ah, sunbeam, Linda knew well that there was a depth of her friend's nature into which she had never looked, and some reality of gloom there which she only guessed.

Perhaps it was about Edith's father or brother. That these gentlemen neglected their farm business, and that therefore affairs could not prosper, was tolerably evident. Fertile as is Canadian soil, some measure of toil is requisite to evolve its hidden treasures of agricultural wealth. Except from a hired Irish labourer named Mickey Dunne, Daisy Burn farm did not get this requisite. The young man Reginald now openly proclaimed his abhorrence of bush life. No degree of self-control or arduous habits had prepared him for the hard work essential. Most of the autumn he had lounged about the 'Corner,' except when his father was in Zack's bar, which was pretty often; or he was at Cedar Creek on one pretext or other, whence he would go on fis.h.i.+ng and shooting excursions with Arthur.

Meanwhile, Robert's farming progressed well. His fall-wheat was all down by the proper period, fifteenth of September; for it is found that the earlier the seed is sown, the stronger is the plant by the critical time of its existence, and the better able to withstand frost and rust.

Complacently he looked over the broad brown s.p.a.ce, variegated with charred stumps, which occupied fully a twelfth of the cleared land; and stimulated by the pleasures of hope, he calculated on thirty-five bushels an acre next summer as the probable yield. Davidson had raised forty per acre in his first season at Daisy Burn, though he acknowledged that twenty-five was the present average.

The garden stuff planted on Robert's spring-burn ground had flourished; more than two hundred bushels per acre of potatoes were lodged in the root-house, and a quant.i.ty of very fine turnips and carrots. Beans had not thriven: he learned that the climate is considered unfavourable for them. The pumpkins planted between his rows of Indian corn had swelled and swelled, till they lay huge golden b.a.l.l.s on the ground, promising abundant dishes of 'squash' and sweet pie through the winter.

'How is it that everything thrives with you, Wynn?' young Armytage said one afternoon that he found the brothers busy slitting rails for the fencing of the aforesaid fall-wheat. 'I should say the genius of good luck had a special care over Cedar Creek.'

'Well, nature has done three-fourths of it,' answered Robert, driving in a fresh wedge with his beetle; 'for this soil reminds me of some poet's line--"Tickle the earth with a straw, and forth laughs a yellow harvest." The other quarter of our success is just owing to hard work, Armytage, as you may see.'

'I can't stand that,' said the young man, laughing: 'give me something to do at once;' and he began to split rails also. Linda, coming from the house, found them thus employed--a highly industrial trio.

'I recollect being promised wild plums to preserve,' said she, after looking on for a little. 'Suppose you get out the canoe, Bob, and we go over to that island where we saw such quant.i.ties of them unripe? Now don't look so awfully wise over your wedges, but just consider how I am to have fruit tarts for people, if the fruit is never gathered.'

Whether the motive was this telling argument, or that his work was almost finished owing to the additional hand, Robert allowed the beetle to be taken from his fingers and laid aside. 'You imperious person! I suppose we must obey you.'

The day was one of those which only Canada in the whole world can furnish--a day of the 'pink mist,' when the noon sun hangs central in a roseate cup of sky. The rich colour was deepest all round the horizon, and paled with infinite shades towards the zenith, like a great blush rose drooping over the earth. Twenty times that morning Linda went from the house to look at it: her eyes could not be satiated with the beauty of the landscape and of the heavens above.

Then, what colours on the trees! As the canoe glided along through the enchanted repose of the lake, what painted vistas of forest opened to the voyagers' sight! what glowing gold islets against an azure background of distant waters and purple sh.o.r.es! what rainbows had fallen on the woods, and steeped them in hues more gorgeous than the imagination of even a Turner could conceive! Shades of lilac and violet deepening into indigo; scarlet flecked with gold and green; the darkest claret and richest crimson in opposition: no tropical forest was ever dyed in greater glory of blossom than this Canadian forest in glory of foliage.

'What can it be, Robert?' asked Linda, after drinking in the delight of colour in a long silent gaze. 'Why have we never such magnificence upon our trees at home?'

'People say it is the sudden frost striking the sap; or that there is some peculiar power in the sunbeams--actinic power, I believe 'tis called--to paint the leaves thus; but one thing seems fatal to this supposition, that after a very dry summer the colouring is not near so brilliant as it would be otherwise. I'm inclined to repose faith in the frost theory myself; for I have noticed that after a scorching hot day and sharp night in August, the maples come out in scarlet next morning.'

'Now, at home there would be some bald patches on the trees,' observed Arthur. 'The leaves seem to fall wholesale here, after staying on till the last.'

'I have heard much of the Indian summer,' said Linda, 'but it far exceeds my expectation. An artist would be thought mad who transferred such colouring to his canvas, as natural. Just look at the brilliant gleam in the water all along under that bank, from the golden leaf.a.ge above it; and yonder the reflection is a vermilion stain. I never saw anything so lovely. I hope it will last a long time, Bob.'

That was impossible to say; sometimes the Indian summer was for weeks, sometimes but for a few days; Canadians had various opinions as to its arrival and duration: September, October, or November might have portions of the dreamy hazy weather thus called. As to why the name was given, n.o.body could tell; except it bore reference to an exploded idea that the haze characteristic of the time of the year arose from the burning of the great gra.s.sy prairies far west by the red men.

'What has become of your colony of Indians?' asked Armytage, 'those who lived near the cedar swamp?'

'Oh, they left us in "the whortleberry moon," as they call August, and migrated to some region where that fruit abounds, to gather and store it for winter use. They smoke the berries over a slow fire, I am told, and when dry, pack them in the usual birch-bark makaks; and I've seen them mixed with the dough of bread, and boiled with venison or porcupine, or whatever other meat was going, as we would use whole pepper.'

'After the whortleberries, they were to go to the rice-grounds,'