CORDUROY.
'They wor very kind to us,' observed Andy, from his elevation in the
waggon; 'an' this counthry bates all the world at 'ating and dhrinking.'
This to Arthur Wynn, who was seated rather despondingly in front of the
collection of boxes, pots, and pails, which formed their stock-in-trade
for bush life. Sam Holt and Robert were walking on before the horse, a
furlong ahead; but Arthur had dropped behind for meditation's sake, and
taken up his residence on the waggon for awhile, with his cap drawn over
his eyes. I dare say Miss Bell had something to do with the foolish boy's
regret for leaving Maple Grove.
'Every day was like a Christmas or an Aisther,' continued Andy, who had
no idea that any one could prefer silence to conversation; 'an' the
sarvints had parlour fare in the kitchen always, an' a supper that was
like a dinner, just before goin' to bed. Throth, they had fine times of
it--puddins an' pies, if you plaze: the bare lavins would feed a family
at home. An' it's the same, they tell me, in all the farmers' houses
round about. I never thought to see so much vittles.'
No reply could be elicited from Mr. Arthur Wynn but a grunt.
'Didn't you?' put in the driver, with a small sneer. Andy had deemed him
too far distant to catch his words, as he walked beside his horse.
'Why, then, you've long ears, my man; but sure it's kind for ye,'
retorted Mr. Callaghan, his eye twinkling wickedly. I fear that his
subtle irony was lost upon its subject. 'Of coorse I'm not used to ye're
foreign food. Our vittles at home are a dale dacenter, though not so
common.'
And Arthur, through his half-drowsy ears, was amused by the colloquy
that ensued, in the course of which Andy completely floored the Canadian
by a glowing description of Dunore, delivered in the present tense, but
referring, alas! to a period of sixteen or twenty years previously. But
the smart black-eyed backwoodsman wound up with the utterly incredulous
speech,--
'They left all them riches to come and settle in our bush! whew!' He
jerked his whip resoundingly upon the frying-pan and tin-kettle in the
rear, which produced a noise so curiously illustrative of his argument,
that Arthur laughed heartily, and shook off his fit of blues.
The aspect of nature would have helped him to do that. The thousand dyes
of the woods were brilliant, as if the richest sunset had gushed from
the heavens, and painted the earth with a permanent glory of colour. A
drapery of crimson and gold endued the maples; the wild bines and briars
were covered with orange and scarlet berries; the black-plumed pine trees
rose solemnly behind. A flat country, for the most part; and, as the
travellers slowly receded westward, settlements became sparse and small;
the grand forests closed more densely round them; solitary clearings
broke the monotony of trees.
The first of anything that one sees or experiences remains stronger than
all after impressions on the memory. With what interest did the embryo
settlers regard the first veritable log-hut that presented itself,
surrounded by half an acre of stumps, among which struggled potatoes and
big yellow squashes. A dozen hens pecked about; a consumptive-looking
cow suspended her chewing, as also did her master his hoeing, to gaze
after the waggon, till it disappeared beyond the square frame of forest
which shut in the little clearing.
Again the long lines of stately oaks and firs, with a straight and
apparently endless road between them, like the examples of perspective
in beginners' drawing-books, but with the vanishing point always
receding.
'I see they've turnpiked this road since I was on it before,' observed
the driver.
'Where?' asked Andy, looking about. 'I don't see a turnpike--an' sure I
ought to know a tollman's dirty face in any place. Sorra house here at
all at all, or a gate; or a ha'porth except trees,' he added in a
disgusted manner.
'There,' said the Canadian, pointing to a ploughed line along each side
of the road, whence the earth had been thrown up in the centre by a
scraper; 'that's turnpiking.'
'Ye might have invented a new name,' rejoined the Irishman, with an
offended air, 'an' not be mislading people. I thought it was one of the
ould pike-gates where I used to have to pay fourpince for me, ass and
car; an' throth, much as I hated it, I'd be a'most glad to see one of
the sort here, just for company's sake. A mighty lonesome counthry ye
have, to be sure!'
'Well, we can't be far from Greenock now; and I see a bit of a snake
fence yonder.'
It was another clearing, on a more enterprising scale than the last
described; the forest had been pushed back farther, and a good wooden
house erected in the open space; zigzag rail fences enclosed a few
fields almost clear of stumps, and an orchard was growing up behind.
A man in a red shirt, who was engaged in underbrushing at a little
distance, said that 'the town' was only a mile away--Greenock, on the
Clyde.
Alas for nomenclature! The waggon scrambled down a rather steep
declivity, towards a dozen houses scattered beside a stream: stumps
stood erect in the single short street, and a ferry-boat was the only
craft enlivening the shore. A Greenock without commerce or warehouses, a
Clyde without wharves or ships, or the possibility of either--what mere
travestie effected by a name!
'A nest of Scottish emigrants, I suppose,' said Robert Wynn, as he
contemplated 'the town.'
'Yes, and they'll push their place up to something,' replied Sam Holt:
'if pluck and perseverance can do it, they will. Only one enemy can
ruin a Scotchman here, and that's the "drap drink." Ten to one that in
twenty years you find this ground covered with factories and thousands
of houses; that solitary store is the germ of streets of shops, and the
tavern will expand into half a score hotels. Sandy will do it all.'
'I'm afraid you could not speak so well of Irish progress.'
'Because the canker of their religion continues to produce its legitimate
effects in most cases; and the influence of whisky--the great bane of
social life in our colony--is even more predominant than over the lower
class Scotch settlers. Still, they do infinitely better here than at
home; and you'll meet with many a flourishing Hibernian in the backwoods
and pioneer cities.'
'I presume this is a pioneer city?' looking round at the handful of
wooden shanties.
'Don't despise it; Rome had as small a beginning, and was manned by no
more indomitable hands and hearts than our frontier emigrants.'
'We are producing quite a sensation,' said Robert. For the major part
of the inhabitants came out of doors to view the strangers, with that
curiosity which characterizes a new-born society; many of the men
bethought themselves of some business at the wooden tavern by the
water-side, where the waggon drew up and the new arrivals entered in.
A store where everything was sold, from a nail or a spool of 'slack' to
a keg of spirits or an almanac: sold for money when it could be had,
for flour or wool or potash when it couldn't; likewise a post-office,
whither a stage came once a week with an odd passenger, or an odd dozen
of newspapers and letters; likewise the abode of a magistrate, where
justice was occasionally dispensed and marriages performed. The dwelling
that united all these offices in its single person, was a long, low,
framed house, roofed with shingles, and but one storey in height;
proprietor, a certain canny Scot, named Angus Macgregor, who, having
landed at Quebec with just forty shillings in the world, was making
rapid strides to wealth here, as a landed proprietor and store-keeper
without rivalry. Others of the clan Gregor had come out, allured by
tidings of his prosperity; and so the broad Doric of lowland Scotch
resounded about the tavern table almost as much as the Canadian twang.
All doing well. Labour was the sole commodity they possessed, and it
sufficed to purchase the best things of life in Canada, especially that
slow upward rising in circumstances and possessions which is one of the
sweetest sensations of struggling humanity, and which only a favoured
few among the working classes can enjoy at home. Robert Wynn was almost
as curious about their affairs as they were about his; for he was
energized afresh by every instance of progress, and little inducement
was required to draw from the settlers their own histories, which had
the single monotony running through each of gradual growth from poverty
to prosperity.
'What sort of roads have you across the ferry to the Cedars?' inquired
Sam Holt of mine host.
'The first part of the concession line is pretty good, but I canna say
as much for the "corduroy" afterwards: the riding's not so easy there, I
guess.'
'Corduroy!' ejaculated Arthur.
'Oh, wait till you feel it,' said Sam, with much amusement in his eyes.
'It's indescribable. I hope we won't meet in the dark, that's all.'
'Drivin' across ladders for ever, with the rungs very far apart,'
explained a Canadian to Andy, in the background, as the latter rubbed
his finger-tips over the ribs in the material of his pantaloons, and
looked puzzled.
'An' what description of vahicle stands sich thratement?' asked Mr.
Callaghan, 'an' what description of baste?'
'Oxen is the handiest, 'cos they've the strongest legs,' returned his
informant, with a fresh puff of his pipe.
'Well, of all the counthries'--began Andy, for the twentieth time that
day; and perhaps as many as ten additional utterances of the ejaculation
were forced by the discovery that he and the gentlemen were to occupy
the same sleeping apartment; but, above all, by the revelation that
behind a ragged curtain in the corner reposed two wayfaring women, going
to join their husbands in the woods, and having also a baby. The latter
creature, not being at all overawed by its company, of course screamed
in the night whenever the fancy seized it; and good-natured Andy found
himself at one period actually walking up and down with the warm bundle
of flannel in his arms, patting it on the back soothingly.
Next morning they left the little settlement, and, crossing the ferry
again, plunged into the primeval forest. Robert felt as if that mock
Clyde were the Rubicon of their fate.
'I leave the old degenerate life,' he murmured to himself, 'with all
its traditions of ease. I go forth to face Fortune in these wilds, and
to win her, if ever sturdy toil of limb and brain succeeded.'
This spirit of independence was manly, but Robert did not at the moment
join to it the nobler spirit of dependence on the Divine Disposer of
events: self-trust filled his heart; and this is the great snare of
youth.
'You are looking unusually valorous,' said Sam Holt, who marched
alongside. He had volunteered to stay with them for their first
fortnight of bush life, like a kind fellow as he was. Something about
these young Wynns had attracted his regard, and perhaps a touch of
compassion. He would, at least, help them to put up the shanty, he said.
And truly the road grew very bad; at a short bit of swamp they made
their first acquaintance with 'corduroy.' Sam explained the structure
when the waggon had done bumping over it: trunks of trees had been laid
along the road as 'sleepers' in three continuous lines; and across them
round logs, close together by theory, but in practice perhaps a foot or
two apart, with unknown abysses of mud between.
They wished even for the corduroy expedient a little farther on, when
the line became encumbered with stumps left from the underbrushing,
and which caught in the axletree every few score yards. Now came the
handspikes into action, which provident Sam had cut, and laid into the
waggon when the road was fair and smooth; for the wheels had to be
lifted high enough to slip over the obstacles. In the pauses of manual
labour came the chilling thought, 'All this difficulty between us and
home.'
Sunlight faded from the tree-tops; and soon night was descending darkly
among the pines.
'We must either camp in the woods, or get shelter at some settler's,'
decided Sam. 'We'll try a quarter of a mile farther, and see what it
brings.' So away they went again, shouting at the oxen, and endeavouring
to steer the equipage free of mud-holes and stumps.
'I am afraid our cups and saucers are all in a smash,' said Arthur.
Robert had a secret misgiving to the same effect; but, then, crockeryware
is a luxury to which no shanty-man has a right. Andy rescued a washing
basin and ewer, by wearing the former on his head and the latter on his
left arm--helmet and shield-wise; except at intervals, when he took his
turn at handspiking.
A light gleamed through the trees, and a dog barked simultaneously:
they were on the verge of a clearing; and, hearing the voices outside,
the owner of the house came forth to welcome the travellers, with a
heartiness widely different from the commonplace hospitality of more
crowded countries.