BACK TO CEDAR CREEK.
'I declar, if you hain't 'most skeered me!' was Peter's exclamation.
'For sartin I never seed a ghost, but it looked like enough this time.
Now, do tell what brought you so far from hum? Thirteen mile, if it's
a rod. You ain't lookin' partic'ler spry, anyhow. Now, Arthur, doen't,
poor lad, doen't.'
For he could not speak during a minute or two; his arm pressed heavily
on the backwoodsman's sturdy shoulder, in the effort to steady the
strong trembling that shook him from head to foot like a spasm of ague.
'Lost in the bush, you war? Well, that ain't agreeable nohow exactly;'
and Peter betook himself to a fumbling in his capacious pocket for a tin
flask, containing some reviving fluid. 'Here, take a pull--this'll fix
you all right. Warn't it wonderful that I went my road of traps when I
did, instead of early this mornin'. There's a providence in that, for
sartin.'
Deep in Arthur's heart he acknowledged the same truth gratefully.
'You've got a plaguy touch of ague, likely,' added Peter considerately,
willing to shift the responsibility of that trembling from the mind to
the body. 'Campin' out is chill enough these nights. I han't much furder
to go to the end of my blaze, and then I'll be back with you. So will
you wait or come along?'
Arthur had too lately found human company to be willing to relinquish
it, even with certainty of its return; he dreaded nothing so much as the
same solitude whence he had just emerged; therefore he followed Peter,
who over his shoulder carried a bag containing various bodies of minks,
fishers, and other furry animals, snared in his traps, and subsequently
knocked on the head by his tough service-rod.
That night Arthur found comfortable shelter in Peter's hut, and was
initiated into many mysteries of a trapper's life by him and his
half-Indian assistant. Next morning they guided him as far as a
surveyor's post, on which was legibly written the names of four
townships, which was the signal for the separation of the party. Arthur
turned his face towards civilisation, along a blazed boundary line. The
others plunged deeper into the woods, walking in the unsociable Indian
file.
The blazed line went on fairly enough for some miles, over hillocks of
hardwood, and across marshes of dank evergreens, where logs had been
laid lengthwise for dry footing. At last Arthur thought he must be
drawing near to a clearing, for light appeared through the dense veil
of trees before him, as if some extensive break to the vast continuity
of forest occurred beyond. Soon he stood on its verge. Ay, surely a
clearing; but no human hands had been at work.
Hundreds of huge trees lay strewn about, as if they had been wrenched
off their stumps by some irresistible power seizing the branched heads
and hurling them to the earth. Torn up by the massy roots, or twisted
round as you would try to break an obstinately tough withe, for many
score of acres the wildest confusion of prostrate maples and elms
and pines, heaped upon one another, locked in death-embraces, quite
obliterated any track, and blocked across the country. Arthur had come
upon what French Canadians call a 'renverse' effected by some partial
whirlwind during the preceding summer.
Such tornadoes often crash a road of destruction through the bush for
miles; a path narrow in comparison with its length, and reminding the
traveller of the explosive fury of some vast projectile. The track of
one has been observable for more than forty miles right through the
heart of uninhabited forest.
To cross the stupendous barrier seemed impossible to Arthur. There was
a tangled chaos of interlaced and withering boughs and trunks; such a
_chevaux de frise_ might stop a regiment until some slow sap cut a path
through, and he was without axe, or even a large knife. He must work his
way round; and yet he was most unwilling to part company with the blaze.
While hesitating, and rather ruefully contemplating the obstacle, a
sound at a considerable distance struck his ear. It was--oh, joy!--the
blows of an axe. Instantly he went in the direction. When near enough to
be heard, he shouted. An answering hail came from the other side of the
windfall; but presently he saw that an attempt had been made to log up
the fallen timber in heaps, and, making his way through the blackened
stumps of extinct fires, he reached the spot where two rough-looking men
were at work with handspikes and axes.
They had built a little hut, whence a faint smoke curled, the back wall
of piled logs still wearing dead branches and foliage at the ends. A
reddish cur, as lawless-looking as his masters, rushed from the doorway
to snap at Arthur's heels. The suspicious glances of the foresters bore
hardly more welcome, till they heard that the stranger belonged to the
settlers on Cedar Pond, and had simply lost his way. They informed him
in return, with exceeding frankness, that they were squatters, taking
possession of this strip of bush without anybody's leave, and determined
to hold their own against all comers. An apparently well-used rifle
lying against a log close by gave this speech considerable emphasis.
Arthur wanted nothing more from them than to be put on the surveyor's
line again; and, when directed to the blaze, speedily left the sound of
their axes far behind. In half an hour he reached other traces of
mankind--a regularly chopped road, where the trees had been felled for
the proper width, and only here and there an obstinate trunk had come
down wrongly, and lay right across, to be climbed over or crept under
according to the wayfarer's taste. In marshy spots he was treated to
strips of corduroy; for the settled parts of the country were near.
'Holloa! Uncle Zack, is that you?'
The person addressed stood in a snake-fenced field, superintending a
couple of labourers. He turned round at the hail, and stared as if he
did not believe his senses.
'Wal, I guess I warn't never skeered in my life before. They're all out
lookin' for you--Nim, an' the whole "Corner" bodily. Your brother's
distracted ravin' mad this two days huntin' the bush; but I told him
you'd be sartin sure to turn up somehow. Now, whar are you runnin' so
fast? There ain't nobody to hum, an' we 'greed to fire the rifles as a
signal whoever fust got tidins of you. Three shots arter another,' as
young Wynn fired in the air. 'Come, quick as wink, they'll be listenin'.'
'Robert will know the report,' observed Arthur, with a smile, to think
of his pleasure in the recognition, 'if he's near enough.'
'We'll make tracks for the "Corner," I guess,' said Uncle Zack with
alacrity; 'that war the meetin'-place, an' you must be powerful hungry.
I'd ha' been to sarch for you to-day, only them Irish fellers at the
clearin' wanted lookin' arter precious bad.' ('Lucky I got in them kegs
o' whisky; he'll have to stand treat for the neighbours,' thought 'cute
Uncle Zack in a sort of mental parenthesis.) 'But now do tell! you must
ha' gone a terrible big round, I guess. They took the Indjin out to
foller your trail; them savages has noses an' eyes like hounds. We'll
fire my rifle from the store; it's bigger than yourn.'
His abstraction of mind during Arthur's narrative was owing to a
judicious maturing of certain plans for exacting the greatest amount of
profit from the occurrence; but he contrived to interlard his listening
with such appropriate interjections as, 'Now do tell! How you talk! Wal,
I kinder like to know!' mentally watering his whisky the while.
Mrs. Zack, also scenting the prey afar off, was polite as that lady
could be to good customers only. Arthur's impatience for the arrival of
the parties from the bush hardly permitted him to do more than taste the
meal she provided. Within doors he could not stay, though weary enough
to want rest. The few log-cabins of the 'Corner' looked more drowsily
quiet than usual; the sawmill was silent. Zack was turning over some
soiled and scribbled ledgers on his counter. Suddenly a shot in the
woods quite near: a detachment of the searchers had arrived.
That the rejoicing would take its usual form, an emptying of his
spirit-kegs, Zack Bunting had never doubted. But the second word to
the bargain, Mr. Wynn's promise to stand treat, had not been given,
though it was a mere matter of form, Zack thought. Robert spoke to the
neighbours, and thanked them collectively for their exertions in a most
cordial manner on behalf of himself and his brother, and was turning to
go home, when the Yankee storekeeper touched his elbow.
''Tain't the usual doins to let 'em away dry,' suggested he, with a
meaning smile. ''Spose you stand treat now; 'twill fix the business
handsome.'
That keen snaky eye of his could easily read the momentary struggle in
Robert's mind between the desire not to appear singular and unfriendly,
and the dislike to encouraging that whisky drinking which is the bane of
working men everywhere, but most especially in the colonies. Sam Holt
watched for his decision. Perhaps the knowledge of what that calm strong
nature by his side would do helped to confirm Robert's wavering into
bold action.
'Certainly not,' he said loudly, that all might hear. 'I'll not give
any whisky on any account. It ruins nine-tenths of the people. I'm quite
willing to reward those who have kindly given time and trouble to help
me, but it shall not be in that way.'
Zack's smoke-dried complexion became whitewashed with disappointment.
A day or two afterwards, Zack's son, Nimrod, made his appearance at the
Wynns' shanty.
'I say, but you're a prime chap arter the rise you took out of the ole
coon,' was his first remark. 'Uncle Zack was as sartin as I stand of
five gallons gone, anyhow; and 'twar a rael balk to put him an' them off
with an apology. I guess you won't mind their sayin' it's the truth of a
shabby dodge, though.'
'Not a bit,' replied Robert; 'I expected something of the kind. I didn't
imagine I'd please anybody but my own conscience.'
'"Conscience!"' reiterated Nim, with a sneer. 'That stock hain't a long
life in the bush, I guess. A storekeeper hain't no business on it,
nohow--'twould starve him out; so Uncle Zack don't keep it.' And his
unpleasant little eyes twinkled again at the idea of such unwonted
connection as his father and a conscience.
'That Indjin war hoppin' mad, I can tell you; for they be the greatest
brutes at gettin' drunk in the univarsal world. They'll do 'most anythin'
for whisky.'
'The greater the cruelty of giving it to them,' said Robert.
'What are you doin'?' asked Nimrod, after a moment's survey of the
other's work.
'Shingling,' was the reply. 'Learning to make shingles.'
'An' you call _them_ shingles?' kicking aside, with a gesture of
contempt, the uneven slices of pinewood which had fallen from Robert's
tool. 'You hain't dressed the sapwood off them blocks, and the grain
eats into one another besides. True for Uncle Zack that gentry from the
old country warn't never born to be handlin' axes an' frows. It don't
come kinder nateral. They shouldn't be no thicker than four to an inch
to be rael handsome shingles,' added he, 'such as sell for
seven-an'-sixpence a thousand.'
Nimrod's pertinacious supervision could not be got rid of until dinner;
not even though Mr. Wynn asked him his errand in no conciliatory tone.
'Thought I'd kinder like to see how ye were gettin' on,' was the answer.
'New settlers is so precious awk'ard. Thought I'd loaf about awhile, an'
see. It's sorter amusin'.'
He was so ignorantly unconscious of doing anything offensive by such
gratification of his curiosity, that Robert hardly knew whether to laugh
or be angry. Nimrod's thick-skinned sensibilities would have cared
little for either. He lounged about, whittling sticks, chewing tobacco,
and asking questions, until Andy's stentorian call resounded through the
woods near.
'I guessed I'd dine with you to-day,' said Nim, marching on before his
host. With equal coolness, as soon as the dish of trout appeared, he
transfixed the largest with his case-knife.
'Not so fast, my friend,' interrupted Mr. Holt, bringing back the
captive. 'We divide fair here, though it's not Yankee law, I'm aware.'
'Ah, you warn't born yesterday,' rejoined Nim, showing his yellow
teeth, which seemed individually made and set after the pattern of his
father's. 'You're a smart man, I guess--raised in Amerikay, an' no
mistake.'
'But come, Andy,' said Arthur, 'tell us where you caught these fine
trout? You've altogether made a brilliant effort to-day in the purveying
line: the cakes are particularly good.'
'They're what them French fellers call "galettes,"' observed Nimrod,
biting one. 'Flour an' water, baked in the ashes. Turnpike bread is
better--what the ole gall makes to hum.'
Be it remarked that this periphrasis indicated his mother; and that the
bread he alluded to is made with a species of leaven.
'So ye _ate_ turnpikes too,' remarked Andy, obliquely glancing at the
speaker. 'The English language isn't much help to a man in this
counthry, where everythin' manes somethin' else. Well, Misther Arthur,
about the trout; you remimber I went down to the "Corner" this mornin'.
Now it's been on my mind some days back, that ye'd want a few shirts
washed.'
'But what has that to do with the trout'--interrupted Arthur, laughing.
'Whisht awhile, an' you'll hear. I didn't know how to set about it, no
more than the child of a month old; for there's an art in it, of coorse,
like in everythin' else; an' one time I thried to whiten a shirt of my
own--beggin' yer honours' pardon for mintionin' the article--it kem out
of the pot blacker than it wint in. So sez I to meself, "I'll look out
for the clanest house, an' I'll ax the good woman to tache me how to
wash a thing;" an' I walks along from the store to a nate little cabin
back from the river, that had flowers growin' in the front; an' sure
enough, the floor was as clane as a dhrawin' room, an' a dacent tidy
little woman kneadin' a cake on the table. "Ma'am," sez I, "I'm obliged
to turn washerwoman, an' I don't know how;" but she only curtseyed, and
said somethin' in a furrin tongue.'
'A French Canadian, I suppose,' said Mr. Wynn.
'Jackey Dubois lives in the log-hut with the flowers,' observed Nim, who
was whittling again by way of desert.
'May be so; but at all events she was as like as two peas to the girl
whose weddin' I was at since I came ashore. "Ma'am," sez I, "I want to
larn to be a washerwoman:" and wid that I took off my neckerchief an'
rubbed it, to show what I meant, by the rule of thumb. "Ah, to vash,"
sez she, smilin' like a leathercoat potato. So, afther that, she took my
handkercher and washed it fornent me out; an' I'd watched before how she
med the cakes, an' cleared a little space by the fire to bake 'em, an'
covered them up wid hot ashes.'
'Not a word about the trout,' said Arthur.
'How can I tell everything intirely all at wanst?' replied the Irishman,
with an injured tone. 'Sure I was comin' to that. I observed her lookin'
partikler admirin' at the handkercher, which was a handsome yellow spot,
so I up an' axed her to take a present of it, an' I settled it like an
apron in front, to show how iligant 'twould look; an' she was mighty
plased, an' curtseyed ever so often, an' Jackey himself gev me the trout
out of a big basket he brought in. The river's fairly alive wid 'em, I'm
tould: an' they risin' to a brown-bodied fly, Misther Arthur.'
'We'll have a look at them some spare day, Andy.'
'But what tuk my fancy intirely, was the iligant plan of bilin' 'em she
had. There war round stones warmin' in the fire, and she dropped 'em
into a pot of water till it was scalding hot; then in wid the fish,
addin' more stones to keep it singin'. It's an Indjin fashion, Jackey
told me; for they haven't nothin' to cook in but wooden pails; but I
thried it wid them trout yer atin', an' it answered beautiful.'
Andy bid fair to be no mean _chef-de-cuisine_, if his experiments always
resulted so favourably as in the present instance.
'An' the whole of it is, Misther Robert, that this Canada is a counthry
where the very best of atin' and dhrinkin' is to be had for the throuble
of pickin' it up. Don't I see the poorest cabins wid plenty of bacon
hangin' to the rafthers, an' the trees is full of birds that nobody can
summons you for catchin', and the sthrames is walkin' wid fish; I'm
tould there's sugar to be had by bilin' the juice of a bush; an' if you
scratch the ground, it'll give you bushels of praties an' whate for the
axin'. I wish I had all the neighbours out here, that's a fact; for it's
a grand poor man's counthry, an' there's too many of us at home, Misther
Robert; an' (as if this were the climax of wonders) I never see a beggar
since I left the Cove o' Cork!'
'All true, Andy, quite true,' said his master, with a little sigh. 'Hard
work will get a man anything here.'
'I must be goin',' said Nimrod, raising his lank figure on its big feet.
'But I guess that be for you;' and he tossed to Robert a soiled piece of
newspaper, wrapped round some square slight packet.
'Letters from home! Why, you unconscionable'--burst forth Arthur;
'loafing about here for these three hours, and never to produce them!'
But Nim had made off among the trees, grinning in every long tooth.
Ah! those letters from home! How sweet, yet how saddening! Mr. Holt went
off to chop alone. But first he found time to intercept Nimrod on the
road, and rather lower his triumphant flush at successfully 'riling the
Britishers,' by the information that he (Mr. Holt) would write to the
post-office authorities, to ask whether their agent at the 'Corner' was
justified in detaining letters for some hours after they might have been
delivered.