THE PINK MIST.
Mr. Wynn became his magisterial functions well, though exercised after
a primitive fashion, 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 township. The earliest of these transactions affianced
one of Davidson's lads to a braw sonsie lass, daughter of Benson, the
Shropshire 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 Lanarkshire to be a prosperous landowner in Canada West. He
looked upon a flourishing 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 lasses.
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 fashion; 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 constitutions
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 Shropshire 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 fishing 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 space, 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 quantity 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 balls 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 quantities 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 shores! 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 leafage
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, nobody 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 grassy 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,'
observed Arthur. 'Bob, suppose we paddle over and try for ducks in
the rice-beds, to the lee of that island.'
Here were some hundred yards of shallow water, filled with the tall
graceful plant, named by the Jesuits 'folle avoine,' and by the English
'wild rice.' The long drooping ears filled with very large grains,
black outside and white within, shook down their contents into the silt
at bottom with every movement which waved their seven-feet stems. Arthur
knew it as a noted haunt of wild duck, a cloud of which arose when he
fired.
'It was here we met all the pigeons the other day,' said he. 'Those
trees were more like the inside of a feather-bed than anything else,
so covered were they with fluttering masses of birds; you couldn't see
a bit of the foliage; and 'twas quite amusing to watch some of them
lighting on the rice, which wasn't strong enough to support them, and
trying to pick out the grains. As they could neither swim nor stand,
they must have been thoroughly tantalized. Don't you remember,
Armytage?'
But their main business, the plums, must be attended to; the islet was
found which was bordered with festoons of them, hanging over the edge in
the coves; and after due feasting on the delicious aromatic fruit, they
gathered some basketsful. When that was done, it was high time to paddle
homewards; the sun was gliding forth from the roseate vault over the
western rim, and a silvery haze rose from the waters, softly veiling the
brilliant landscape.
'A great improvement to your charcoal forest, it must be owned,' said
Robert, pointing Armytage to where the sharp black tops of rampikes
projected over the mist. The young man did not relish allusions to that
folly of his father's, and was silent.
'Oh, Bob, what a pretty islet!' exclaimed Linda, as they passed a rock
crested with a few trees, and almost carpeted by the brilliant red
foliage of the pyrola, or winter green. 'The bushes make quite a
crimson wreath round the yellow poplars.'
'I think,' said Robert, with deliberation, 'it would be almost worth the
voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to see this single day of "the pink
mist."'