Cedar Creek: From the Shanty to the Settlement. A Tale of Canadian Life. Walshe Elizabeth Hely
adjective 'pretty' seemed so ridiculously inappropriate to one of Mr. Holt's dimensions and hairy development of face, that Robert could not forbear a smile. But the Canadian had returned to the landscape.
'Quebec is the key of Canada, that's certain; and so Wolfe and Montcalm knew, when they fought their duel here for the prize.'
Arthur pricked up his ears at the celebrated names. 'Oh, Bob, we must try and see the battlefield,' he exclaimed, being fresh from Goldsmith's celebrated manual of English history.
'To-morrow,' said Mr. Holt. 'It lies west on top of the chain of heights flanking the river. A monument to the generals stands near here, in the Castle gardens, with the names on opposite sides of the square block. To be sure, how death levels us all! Lord Dalhousie built that obelisk when he was Governor in 1827. You see, as it is the only bit of history we possess, we never can commemorate it enough; so there's another pillar on the plains.'
Lights began to appear in the vessels below, reflected as long brilliant lines in the glassy deeps. 'Perhaps we ought to be getting back to the ship,' suggested Robert, 'before it is quite dark.'
'Of course you are aware that this is the aristocratic section of the town,' said Mr. Holt, as they turned to retrace their steps. 'Here the citizens give themselves up to pleasure and politics, while the Lower Town is the business place. The money is made there which is spent here; and when our itinerating Legislature comes round, Quebec is very gay, and considerably excited.'
'Itinerating Legislature! what's that?' asked Arthur.
'Why, you see, in 1840 the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada were legally united; their representatives met in the same House of Assembly, and so forth. Kingston was made the capital, as a central point; however, last year ('49) the famous device of itineration was introduced, by which, every four years, his Excellency the Governor and the Right Honourable Parliament move about from place to place, like a set of travelling showmen.'
'And when will Quebec's turn come?'
'In '51, next year. The removal of court patronage is said to have injured the city greatly: like all half-and-half measures, it pleases nobody. Toronto growls, and Kingston growls, and Quebec growls, and Montreal growls; Canada is in a state of chronic dissatisfaction, so far as the towns go. For myself, I never feel at home in Quebec; the lingo of the habitans puzzles me, and I'm not used to the dark narrow streets.'
'Are you a member of the Parliament, Mr. Holt?' asked Arthur.
'No, though I might be,' replied Hiram, raising his hat for a moment from his masses of grizzled hair. 'I've been town reeve many times, and county warden once. The neighbours wanted to nominate me for the House of Assembly, and son Sam would have attended to the farms and mills; but I had that European trip in my eye, and didn't care. Ah, I see you look at the post-office, young fellow,' as they passed that building just outside the gate of the Upper Town wall; 'don't get homesick already on our hands; there are no post-offices in the bush.'
Arthur looked slightly affronted at this speech, and, to assert his manliness, could have resigned all letters for a twelvemonth. Mr. Holt walked on with a preoccupied air until he said,—
'I must go now, I have an appointment; but I'll be on board to-morrow at noon. The brig Ocean Queen, of Cork, you say? Now your path is right down to Champlain Street; you can't lose your way. Good-bye;' and his receding figure was lost in the dusk, with mighty strides.
'He's too bluff,' said Arthur, resenting thus the one or two plain-spoken sentences that had touched himself.
'But sound and steady, like one of his own forest pines,' said Robert.
'We have yet to test that,' rejoined Arthur, with some truth. 'I wonder shall we ever find the house into which Andy was decoyed; those wooden ranges are all the image of one another. I am just as well pleased he wasn't mooning after us through the Upper Town during the daylight; for, though he's such a worthy fellow, he hasn't exactly the cut of a gentleman's servant. We must deprive him of that iligant new frieze topcoat, with its three capes, till it is fashioned into a civilised garment.'
Mr. Pat M'Donagh's mansion was wooden—one of a row of such, situated near the dockyard in which he wrought. Andy was already on the look-out from the doorstep; and, conscious that he had been guilty of some approach to excess, behaved with such meek silence and constrained decorum, that his master guessed the cause, and graciously connived at his slinking to his berth as soon as he was up the ship's side.
But when Mr. Wynn walked forward next morning to summon Andy's assistance for his luggage, he found that gentleman the focus of a knot of passengers, to whom he was imparting information in his own peculiar way. 'Throth an' he talks like a book itself,' was the admiring comment of a woman with a child on one arm, while she crammed her tins into her red box with the other.
'Every single ha'porth is wood, I tell ye, barrin' the grates, an' 'tisn't grates they are at all, but shtoves. Sure I saw 'em at Pat M'Donagh's as black as twelve o'clock at night, an' no more a sign of a blaze out of 'em than there's light from a blind man's eye; an' 'tisn't turf nor coal they burns, but only wood agin. It's I that wud sooner see the plentiful hearths of ould Ireland, where the turf fire cooks the vittles dacently! Oh wirra! why did we ever lave it?'
But Mr. Wynn intercepted the rising chorus by the simple dissyllable, 'Andy!'
'Sir, yer honour!' wheeling round, and suddenly resuming a jocose demeanour; 'I was only jokin' about bein' back. I must be kapin' up their sperits, the crathurs, that dunno what's before them at all at all; only thinks they're to be all gintlemin an' ladies.' This, as he followed his master towards the cabins: 'Whisht here, Misther Robert,' lowering his tone confidentially.' You'd laugh if you heard what they think they're goin' to get. Coinin' would be nothin' to it. That red-headed Biddy Flannigan' (Andy's own chevelure was of carrot tinge, yet he never lost an opportunity of girding at those like-haired), 'who couldn't wash a pair of stockings if you gev her a goold guinea, expects twenty pund a year an' her keep, at the very laste; and Murty Keefe the labourin' boy, that could just trench a ridge of praties, thinks nothing of tin shillins a day. They have it all laid out among them iligant. Mrs. Mulrooney is lookin' out for her carriage by'ne-by; and they were abusin' me for not sayin' I'd cut an' run from yer honours, now that I'm across.'
'Well, Andy, I'd be sorry to stand in the way of your advancement—'
'Me lave ye, Misther Robert!' in accents of unfeigned surprise; 'not unless ye drove me with a whip an' kicked me—is it your poor fostherer Andy Callaghan? Masther Bob, asthore, ye're all the counthry I have now, an' all the frinds; an' I'll hold by ye, if it be plasing, as long as I've strength to strike a spade.'
Tears actually stood in the faithful fellow's eyes. 'I believe you, Andy,' said his master, giving his hand to the servant for a grasp of friendship, which, if it oftener took place between the horny palm of labour and the whiter fingers of the higher born, would be for the cementing of society by such recognition of human brotherhood.
When Andy had all their luggage on deck in order for the boats, he came up mysteriously to Mr. Wynn, where he stood by the taffrail.
'There's that poor young lady strivin' and strugglin' to regulate them big boxes, an' her good-for-nothin' father an' brother smokin' in the steerage, an' lavin' everything on her. Fine gintlemin, indeed! More like the Injins, that I'm tould lies in bed while their wives digs the praties!'
Edith Armytage was so well accustomed to such unequal division of labour in her family, that it had long ceased to seem singular to her that she was invariably the worker, who bore the brunt of every labour and of every trouble—on whose forecasting care depended the smooth arrangement of her father's designs; for he could plan well enough, but had a lofty disdain of details. The small matter of the luggage was type of all her experience.
Jay rather enjoyed the hauling about of huge articles, and attempting to bring on deck things much larger than her strength; and when she and Edith were jointly essaying to push and pull up the companion-ladder a carpet-bag of unusual size, it was suddenly lifted from between them, over Jay's head, and borne on deck.
'Oh, Mr. Wynn, thank you!' said the little thing demurely. 'It was a little too big for me and Edith. There is a leather valise besides, that's very heavy;' and she looked a wistful