_ CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.
They came at last. Arthur and Will met them on the other side of the river, and Graeme and Rose would fain have done the same, but because of falling rain, and because of other reasons, it was thought not best for them to go.
It was a very quiet meeting--a little restrained and tearful just at first; but that wore away, and Janet's eyes rested on the bairns from whom she had been so long separated with love and wonder and earnest scrutiny. They had all changed, she said. Arthur was like his father; Will was like both father and mother. As for Rosie--
"Miss Graeme, my dear," said Mrs Snow, "I think Rosie is nearly as bonny as her sister Marian," and her eye rested on the girl's blushing face with a tender admiration that was quite as much for the dead as for the living. Graeme had changed least of all, she said; and yet in a little she found herself wondering whether, after all, Graeme had not changed more than any of them.
As for Fanny she found herself in danger of being overlooked in the general joy and excitement, and went about jingling her keys, and rather ostentatiously hastening the preparations for the refreshment of the travellers. She need not have been afraid. Her time was coming. Even now she encountered an odd glance or two from Mr Snow, who was walking off his excitement in the hall. That there was admiration mingled with the curiosity they expressed was evident, and Fanny relented. What might soon have become a pout on her pretty lip changed to a smile. They were soon on very friendly terms with each other, and before Janet had got through with her first tremulous recognition of her bairns, Mr Snow fancied he had made a just estimate of the qualities--good--and not so good--of the pretty little housekeeper.
After dinner all were more at their ease. Mr Snow walked up and down the gallery, past the open window, and Arthur sat there beside him. They were not so far withdrawn from the rest but that they could join in the conversation that went on within. Fanny, tired of the dignity of housekeeping, brought a footstool and sat down beside Graeme; and Janet, seeing how naturally and lovingly the hand of the elder sister rested on the pretty bowed head, gave the little lady more of her attention than she had hitherto done, and grew rather silent in the scrutiny. Graeme grew silent too. Indeed she had been rather silent all the afternoon; partly because it pleased her best to listen, and partly because she was not always sure of her voice when she tried to speak.
She was not allowed to be silent long, however, or to fall into recollections too tender to be shared by them all. Rose's extraordinary restlessness prevented that. She seemed to have lost the power of sitting still, and flitted about from one to another; now exchanging a word with Fanny or Will, now joining in the conversation that was going on between Mr Snow and Arthur outside. At one moment she was hanging over Graeme's chair, at the next, kneeling at Mrs Snow's side; and all the time with a face so radiant that even Will noticed it, and begged to be told the secret of her delight.
The truth was, Rose was having a little private jubilation of her own. She would not have confessed it to Graeme, she was shy of confessing it to herself, but as the time of Mrs Snow's visit approached, she had not been quite free from misgivings. She had a very distinct recollection of their friend, and loved her dearly. But she found it quite impossible to recall the short active figure, the rather scant dress, the never-tiring hands, without a fear that the visit might be a little disappointing--not to themselves. Janet would always be Janet to them-- the dear friend of their childhood, with more real worth in her little finger than there was in ten such fine ladies as Mrs Grove. But Rose, grew indignant beforehand, as she imagined the supercilious smiles and forced politeness of that lady, and perhaps of Fanny too, when all this worth should appear in the form of a little, plain old woman, with no claim to consideration on account of externals.
But that was all past now. And seeing her sitting there in her full brown travelling-dress, her snowy neckerchief and pretty quaint cap, looking as if her life might have been passed with folded hands in a velvet arm-chair, Rose's misgivings gave place to triumphant self-congratulation, which was rather uncomfortable, because it could not well be shared. She had assisted at the arrangement of the contents of the travelling trunk in wardrobe and bureau, and this might have helped her a little.
"A soft black silk, and a grey poplin, and such lovely neckerchiefs and handkerchiefs of lawn--is not little Emily a darling to make her mother look so nice? And such a beauty of a shawl!--that's the one Sandy brought."
And so Rose came down-stairs triumphant, without a single drawback to mar the pleasure with which she regarded Janet as she sat in the arm-chair, letting her grave admiring glances fall alternately on Graeme and the pretty creature at her feet. All Rosie's admiration was for Mrs Snow.
"Is she not just like a picture sitting there?" she whispered to Will, as she passed him.
And indeed Rosie's admiration was not surprising; she was the very Janet of old times; but she sat there in Fanny's handsome drawing-room, with as much appropriateness as she had ever sat in the manse kitchen long ago, and looked over the vases and elegant trifles on the centre-table to Graeme with as much ease and self-possession as if she had been "used with" fine things all her life, and had never held anxious counsels with her over jackets and trowsers, and little half-worn stockings and shoes.
And yet there was no real cause for surprise. For Janet was one of those whose modest, yet firm self-respect, joined with a just appreciation of all worldly things, leaves to changing circumstances no power over their unchanging worth.
That Mr Snow should spend the time devoted to their visit within four walls, was not to be thought of. The deacon, who, in the opinion of those who knew him best, "had the faculty of doing 'most anything," had certainly not the faculty of sitting still in a chair like other people. The hall or the gallery was his usual place of promenade, but when the interest of the conversation kept him with the rest, Fanny suffered constant anxiety as to the fate of ottomans, vases and little tables. A judicious, re-arrangement of these soon gave him a clearer space for his perambulations; but a man accustomed to walk miles daily on his own land, could not be expected to content himself long within such narrow limits. So one bright morning he renewed the proposal, made long before, that Will should show him Canada.
Up to a comparatively recent period, all Mr Snow's ideas of the country had been got from the careful reading of an old "History of the French and Indian War." Of course, by this time he had got a little beyond the belief that the government was a military despotism, that the city of Montreal was a cluster of wigwams, huddled together within a circular enclosure of palisades, or that the commerce of the country consisted in an exchange of beads, muskets, and bad whiskey for the furs of the Aborigines. Still his ideas were vague and indistinct, not to say disparaging, and he had already quite unconsciously excited the amusement of Will and the indignation of Rose, by indulging in remarks indicative of a low opinion of things in general in the Queen's dominions. So when he proposed that Will should show him Canada, Rose looked gravely up and asked,--
"Where will you go first, Will? To the Red river or Hudson's Bay or to Nova Scotia? You must be back to lunch."
They all laughed, and Arthur said,--
"Oh, fie, Rosie! not to know these places are all beyond the limits of Canada!--such ignorance!"
"They are in the Queen's dominions, though, and Mr Snow wants to see all that is worth seeing on British soil."
"Well, I guess we can make out a full day's work in Canada, can't we? It is best to take it moderate," said Mr Snow, smiling benignly on Rose. He was tolerant of the young lady's petulance, and not so ready to excite it as he used to be in the old times, and generally listened to her little sallies with a deprecating smile, amusing to see.
He was changed in other respects as well. Indeed, it must be confessed that just at first Arthur was a little disappointed in him. He had only a slight personal acquaintance with him, but he had heard so much of him from the others that he had looked forward with interest to making the acquaintance of the "sharp Yankee deacon." For Harry had a good story about "Uncle Sampson" ready for all occasions, and there was no end to the shrewd remarks and scraps of worldly wisdom that he used to quote from his lips. But Harry's acquaintance had been confined to the first years of their Merleville life, and Mr Snow had changed much since then. He saw all things in a new light. Wisdom and folly had changed their aspect to him. The charity which "believeth and hopeth all things," and which "thinketh no evil," lived within him now, and made him slow to see, and slower still to comment upon the faults and foibles of others with the sharpness that used to excite the mirth of the lads long ago. Not that he had forgotten how to criticise, and that severely too, whatever he thought deserved it, or would be the better for it, as Will had good reason to know before he had done much in the way of "showing him Canada," but he far more frequently surprised them all by his gentle tolerance towards what might be displeasing to him, and by his quick appreciation of whatever was admirable in all he saw.
The first few days of sightseeing were passed in the city and its environs. With the town itself he was greatly pleased. The great grey stone structures suited him well, suggesting, as they often do to the people accustomed to houses of brick or wood, ideas of strength and permanence. But as he was usually content with an outside view of the buildings, with such a view as could be obtained by a slow drive through the streets, the town itself did not occupy him long. Then came the wharves and ships; then they visited the manufactories and workshops, lately become so numerous in the neighbourhood of the canal. All these pleased and interested him greatly, but he never failed, when opportunity offered, to point out various particulars, in which he considered the Montrealers "a
leetle behind the times." On the whole, however, his appreciation of British energy and enterprise was admiring and sincere, and as warmly expressed as could be expected under the circumstances.
"You've got a river, at any rate, that about comes up to one's ideas of what a river ought to be--broad and deep and full," he said to Arthur one day. "It kind of satisfies one to stand and look at it, so grand and powerful, and still always rolling on to the sea."
"Yes, it is like your Father of Waters," said Arthur, a little surprised at his tone and manner.
"One wouldn't be apt to think of mills and engines and such things at the first glimpse of that. I didn't see it the day when I crossed it, for the mist and rain. To-day, as we stood looking down upon it, I couldn't but think how it had been rolling on and on there, ever since creation, I suppose, or ever since the time of Adam and Eve--if the date ain't the same, as some folks seem to think."
"I always think how wonderful it must have seemed to Jacques Cartier and his men, as they sailed on and on, with the never-ending forest on either shore," said Rose. "No wonder they thought it would never end, till it bore them to the China seas."
"A wonderful highway of nations it is, though it disappointed them in that," said Arthur. "The sad pity is, that it is not available for commerce for more than two-thirds of the year."
"If ever the bridge they talk about should be built, it will do something towards making this a place of importance in this part of the world, though the long winter is against, too."
"Oh! the bridge will be built, I suppose, and the benefit will not be confined to us. The Western trade will be benefited as well. What do you think of your Massachusetts men, getting their cotton round this way? This communication with the more northern cotton growing States is more direct by this than any other way."
"Well, I ain't prepared to say much about it. Some folks wouldn't think much of that. But I suppose you are bound to go ahead, anyhow."
But to the experienced eye of the farmer, nothing gave so much pleasure as the cultivated country lying around the city, and beyond the mountain, as far as the eye could reach. Of the mountain itself, he was a little contemptuous in its character of mountain.
"A mountain with smooth fields, and even orchards, reaching almost to the top of it! Why, our sheep pasture at Merleville is a deal more like a mountain than that. It is only a hill, and moderate at that. You must have been dreadful hard up for mountains, to call
that one. You've forgotten all about Merleville, Rosie, to be content with that for a mountain."
While, he admired the farms, he did not hesitate to comment severely on the want of enterprise shown by the farmers, who seemed to be content "to putter along" as their fathers had done, with little desire to avail themselves of the many inventions and discoveries which modern science and art had placed at the disposal of the farmer. In Merleville, every man who owned ten, or even five acres of level land, had an interest in sowing and mowing machines, to say nothing of other improvements, that could be made available on hill or meadow. If the strength and patience so freely expended among the stony New England hills, could but be applied to the fertile valley of the Saint Lawrence, what a garden it might become! And the Yankee farmer grew a little contemptuous of the contented acquiescence of Canadians to the order of affairs established by their fathers.
One afternoon he and Will went together to the top of the mountain toward the western end. They had a fair day for a fair sight, and when Mr Snow looked down on the scene, bounded by the blue hills beyond both rivers, all other thoughts gave place to feelings of wondering admiration. Above was a sky, whose tender blue was made more lovely by the snowy clouds that sailed now and then majestically across it, to break into flakes of silver near the far horizon.
Beneath lay the valley, clothed in the numberless shades of verdure with which June loves to deck the earth in this northern climate. There were no waste places, no wilderness, no arid stretches of sand or stone. Far as the eye could reach, extended fields, and groves, and gardens, scattered through with clusters of cottages, or solitary farm-houses.
Up through the stillness of the summer air, came stealing the faint sound of a distant bell, seeming to deepen the silence round them.
"I suppose the land that Moses saw from Pisgah, must have been like this," said Mr Snow, as he gazed.
"Yes, the Promised Land was a land of hills, and valleys, and brooks of water," said Will softly, never moving his eyes from the wonderful picture. Could they ever gaze enough? Could they ever weary themselves of the sight? The shadows grew long; the clouds, that had made the beauty of the summer sky, followed each other toward the west, and rose in pinnacles of gold, and amber, and amethyst; and then they rose to go.
"I wouldn't have missed
that now, for considerable," said Mr Snow, coming back with an effort to the realisation of the fact that this was part of the sightseeing that he had set himself. "No, I wouldn't have missed it for considerable more than that miserable team'll cost," added he, as he came in sight of the carriage, on whose uncomfortable seat the drowsy driver had been slumbering all the afternoon. Will smiled, and made no answer. He was not a vain lad, but it is just possible that there passed through his mind a doubt whether the enjoyment of his friend had been as real, as high, or as intense, as his had been all the afternoon. To Will's imagination, the valley lay in the gloom of its primeval forests, peopled by heroes of a race now passed away. He was one of them. He fought in their battles, triumphed in their victories, panted in the eagerness of the chase. In imagination, he saw the forest fall under the peaceful weapons of the pale face; then wondered westward to die the dreary death of the last of a stricken race. Then his thoughts come down to the present, and on into the future, in a vague dream, which was half a prayer, for the hastening of the time when the lovely valley should smile in moral and spiritual beauty too. And coming back to actual life, with an effort--a sense of pain, he said to himself, that the enjoyment of his friend had been not so high and pure as his.
But Will was mistaken. In the thoughts of his friend, that summer afternoon, patent machines, remunerative labour, plans of supply and demand, of profit and loss, found no place. He passed the pleasant hour on that green hill-side, seeing in that lovely valley, stretched out before them, a very land of Beulah. Looking over the blue line of the Ottawa, as over the river of Death, into a land visible and clear to the eye of faith, he saw sights, and heard sounds, and enjoyed communion, which, as yet, lay far in the future, as to the experience of the lad by his side; and coming back to actual life, gave no sign of the Divine Companionship, save that which afterward, was to be seen in a life, growing liker every day to the Divine Exemplar.
Will thought, as they went home together, that a new light beamed, now and then, over the keen but kindly face, and that the grave eyes of his friend had the look of one who saw something beyond the beauty of the pleasant fields, growing dim now in the gathering darkness; and the lad's heart grew full and tender as it dawned upon him, how this was a token of the shining of God's face upon his servant, and he longed for a glimpse of that which his friend's eyes saw. A word might have won for him a glimpse of the happiness; but Will was shy, and the word was not spoken; and, all unconscious of his longing, his friend sat with the smile on his lips, and the light in his eye, no thought further from him than that any experience of his should be of value to another. And so they fell quite into silence, till they neared the streets where the lighted lamps were burning dim in the fading daylight.
That night, in the course of his wanderings up and down, Mr Snow, paused, as he often did, before a portrait of the minister. It was a portrait taken when the minister had been a much younger man than Mr Snow had ever known him. It had belonged to a friend in Scotland, and had been sent to Arthur, at his death, about a year ago. The likeness had been striking, and to Janet, the sight of it had been a great pleasure and surprise. She was never weary of looking at it, and even Mr Snow, who had never known the minister but as a grey-haired man, was strangely fascinated by the beauty of the grave smile that he remembered so well on his face. That night he stood leaning on the back of a chair, and gazing at it, while the conversation flowed on as usual around him. In a little, Rose came and stood beside him.
"Do you think it is very like him?" asked she.
"Well," said Mr Snow, meditatively, "it's like him and it ain't like him. I love to look at it, anyhow."
"At first it puzzled me," said Rose. "It seemed like the picture of some one I had seen in a dream; and when I shut my eyes, and tried to bring back my father's face as it used to be in Merleville, it would not come--the face of the dream came between."
"Well, there is something in that," said Mr Snow, and he paused a moment, and shut his eyes, as if to call back the face of his friend. "No, it won't do that for me. It would take something I hain't thought of yet, to make me forget his face."
"It does not trouble me now," said Rose. "I can shut my eyes, and see him, Oh! so plainly, in the church, and at home in the study, and out under the trees, and as he lay in his coffin--" She was smiling still, but the tears were ready to gush over her eyes. Mr Snow turned, and laying his hand on her bright head, said softly,--
"Yes, dear, and so can I, If we didn't know that it must be right, we might wonder why he was taken from us. But I shall never forget him-- never. He did too much for me, for that. He was the best friend I ever had, by all odds--the very best."
Rose smiled through her tears.
"He brought you Mrs Snow," said she, softly.
"Yes, dear. That was much, but he did more than that. It was through him that I made the acquaintance of a better and dearer friend than even
she is--and that is saying considerable," added he, turning his eyes toward the tranquil figure knitting in the arm-chair.
"Were you speaking?" said Mrs Snow, looking up at the sound of his voice.
"Yes, I was speaking to Rosie, here. How do you suppose we can ever persuade her to go back to Merleville with us?"
"She is going with us, or she will soon follow us. What would Emily say, if she didna come?"
"Yes, I know. But I meant to stay for good and all. Graeme, won't you give us this little girl?"
Graeme smiled.
"Yes. On one condition--if you will take me too."
Mr Snow shook his head.
"I am afraid that would bring us no nearer the end. We should have other conditions to add to that one."
"Yes," said Arthur, laughing. "You would have to take Fanny and me, as well, in that case. I don't object to your having one of them at a time, now and then, but both of them--that would never do."
"But it must be both or neither," said Graeme, eagerly, "I couldna' trust Rosie away from me. I havena these sixteen years--her whole life, have I, Janet? If you want Rosie, you must have me, too."
She spoke lightly, but earnestly; she meant what she said. Indeed, so earnest was she, that she quite flushed up, and the tears were not far away. The others saw it, and were silent, but Fanny who was not quick at seeing things, said,--
"But what could we do without you both? That would not be fair--"
"Oh! you would have Arthur, and Arthur would have you. At any rate, Rosie is mine, and I am not going to give her to any one who won't have me, too. She is all I shall have left when Will goes away."
"Graeme would not trust Rosie with Arthur and me," said Fanny, a little pettishly. "There are so many things that Graeme don't approve of. She thinks we would spoil Rose."
Janet's hand touched hers, whether by accident or design Graeme did not know, but it had the effect of checking the response that rose to her lips, and she only said, laughingly,--
"Mrs Snow thinks that you and Arthur are spoiling us both, Fanny."
Janet smiled fondly and gravely at the sisters, as she said, stroking Graeme's bowed head,--
"I dare say you are no' past spoiling, either of you, but I have seen worse bairns."
After this, Mr Snow and Will began the survey of Canada in earnest. First they went to Quebec, where they lingered several days. Then they went farther down the river, and up the Saguenay, into the very heart of the wilderness. This part of the trip Will enjoyed more than his friend, but Mr Snow showed no sign of impatience, and prolonged their stay for his sake. Then they went up the country, visiting the chief towns and places of interest. They did not confine themselves, however, to the usual route of travellers, but went here and there in wagons and stages, through a farming country, in which, though Mr Snow saw much to criticise, he saw more to admire. They shared the hospitality of many a quiet farm-house, as freely as it was offered, and enjoyed many a pleasant conversation with the farmers and their families, seated on door-steps, or by the kitchen-fire.
Though the hospitality of the country people was, as a general thing, fully and freely offered, it was sometimes, it must be confessed, not without a certain reserve. That a "live Yankee," cute, and able-bodied, should be going about in these out-of-the-way parts, for the sole purpose of satisfying himself as to the features, resources, and inhabitants of the country, was a circumstance so rare, so unheard of, indeed, in these parts, that the shrewd country people did not like to commit themselves at the first glance. Will's frank, handsome face, and simple, kindly manners, won him speedily enough the confidence of all, and Mr Snow's kindly advances were seldom long withstood. But there sometimes lingered an uneasy feeling, not to say suspicion, that when he had succeeded in winning their confidence, he would turn round and make some startling demand on their faith or their purses in behalf of some patent medicine or new invention--perhaps one of those wonderful labour-saving machines, of which he had so much to say. As for himself, if he ever observed their reserve or its cause, he never resented it, or commented upon it, but entered at once into the discussion of all possible subjects with the zest of a man determined to make the most of the pleasant circumstances in which he found himself. If he did not always agree with the opinions expressed, or approve of the modes of farming pursued, he at least found that the sturdy farmers of Glengarry and the country beyond had more to say for their opinions and practice than "so had their fathers said and done before them," and their discussions ended, quite as frequently as otherwise, in the American frankly confessing himself convinced that all the agricultural wisdom on the continent did not lie on the south side of the line forty-five.
Will was greatly amused and interested by all this. He was, to a certain extent, able to look at the ideas, opinions, and prejudices of each from the other's point of view, and so to enjoy with double zest the discussion of subjects which could not fail to present such dissimilar aspects to minds so differently constituted, and developed under circumstances and influences so different. This power helped him to make the opinions of each more clear to the other, presenting to both juster notions of each other's theory and practice than their own explanations could have done. By this means, too, he won for himself a reputation for wisdom, about matters and things in general, which surprised no one so much as himself. They would have liked to linger far longer, over this part of their trip, than they had time to do, for the days were hastening.
Before returning home, they visited Niagara, that wonderful work of God, too great and grand, as Mr Snow told Rosie, to be the pride of one nation exclusively, and so it had been placed on the borders of the two greatest nations in the world. This part of the trip was for Will's sake. Mr Snow had visited them on his way West many years ago. Indeed, there were other parts of the trip made for Will's benefit, but those were not the parts which Mr Snow enjoyed least, as he said to his wife afterwards.
"It paid well. I had my own share of the pleasure, and Will's, too. If ever a lad enjoyed a holiday he enjoyed his. It was worth going, just to see his pleasure."
When the time allotted to their visit was drawing to a close, it was proposed that a few days should be passed in that most beautiful part of Canada, known as the Eastern Townships. Arthur went with them there. It was but a glimpse they could give it. Passing in through Missisquoi County to the head of the lovely lake Memphremagog, they spent a few days on it, and along its shores. Their return was by a circuitous course across the country through the County of Stanstead, in the midst of beautiful scenery, and what Mr Snow declared to be "as fine a farming country as anybody need wish to see."
This "seeing Canada" was a more serious matter than he had at first supposed, Mr Snow acknowledged to the delighted Rose. It could not be done justice to in a few days, he said; but he would try and reconcile himself to the hastiness of his trip, by taking it for granted that the parts he had not seen were pretty much like those he had gone through, and a very fine country it was.
"Canada will be heard from yet, I expect," said he, one night when they had returned home. "By the time that you get some things done that you mean to now, you'll be ready to go ahead. I don't see but you have as good a chance as ever we had--better, even. You have got the same elements of prosperity and success. You have got the Bible and a free press, and a fair proportion of good soil, and any amount of water-power. Then for inhabitants, you've got the Scotchman, cautious and far-seeing; the Irishman, a little hot and heady, perhaps, but earnest; you've got the Englishman, who'll never fail of his aim for want of self-confidence, anyhow; you've got Frenchmen, Germans, and a sprinkling of the dark element out west; and you've got what we didn't have to begin with, you've got the Yankee element, and that is considerable more than you seem to think it is, Rosie."
Rose laughed and shook her head. She was not going to allow herself to be drawn into a discussion of nationalities that night.
"Yes," continued he, "the real live Yankee is about as complete a man as you'll generally meet anywhere. He has the caution of the Scot, to temper the fire of the Irishman, and he has about as good an opinion of himself as the Englishman has. He'll keep things going among you. He'll bring you up to the times, and then he won't be likely to let you fall back again. Yes; if ever Canada is heard from, the Yankee will have something to do with it, and no mistake." _