Chapter 40

SETTLER THE SECOND.

Next summer brought a scourge of frequent visitation to the 'Corner.' Lake fever and ague broke out among the low-lying log-houses, and Zack's highly adulterated and heavily priced drugs came into great demand. He was the farthest west adventurer at that date who took upon him to supply apothecary's wares among the threescore and ten other vendibles of a backwoods store. So the ill wind which blew hot fits and cold fits to everybody else blew profit into Zack's pockets.

The population had swelled somewhat since our first introduction to this little pioneer settlement. The number of wooden huts mottling the cleared space between the forest and the river edge, clustering, like bees round their queen, about the saw and grist mill, had increased during the last two years by some half-score--a slow rate of progression, as villages grow in Canada; but the 'Corner' had a position unfavourable to development. An aguish climate will make inhabitants sheer off speedily to healthier localities. No sensible emigrant will elect to live on a marshy site where he can help it. The value of the 'Corner' was just now as a stage on the upper branch of that great western highway, whose proper terminus lies no nearer than the Pacific, and whose course is through the fertile country of future millions of men.

This summer waggon-loads of emigrants and their chattels began to file each month into the bush beyond. Cedar Creek ceased to be farthest west by a great many outlying stations where the axe was gradually letting in light on the dusky forest soil. To these the 'Corner' must be the emporium, until some enterprising person set up a store and mills deeper in the wilderness.

The shrewd Davidson saw the country opening about him, and resolved to gather to himself the profit which must accrue to somebody. His first measure was to walk down one evening to the Wynns' farm. A thoroughly good understanding had always existed between these neighbours. Even patrician Mr. Wynn relished the company of the hard-headed Lanark-weaver, whose energy and common sense had won him the position of a comfortable landholder in Canada West. Added to which qualifications for the best society, Davidson was totally devoid of vulgar assumption, but had sufficient ballast to retain just his own proper footing anywhere.

He found the family assembled in their summer parlour, beneath the handsome butternut tree which Robert's axe had spared, and which repaid the indulgence by grateful shade and continual beauty of leafage. They were enjoying supper in the open air, the balmy evening air afloat with fragrant odours. I say advisedly supper, and not tea; the beverage was a lady's luxury out here, and ill suited hours of foregoing labour. Milk was the staple draught at Cedar Creek meals for all stout workers.

'Gude even, leddies;' and Davidson doffed his bonnet with European courtesy. 'Fine weather for loggin' this.' Indeed, he bore evident grimy and smoky tokens on his clothes that such had been his day's work. Applepie order was a condition of dress which he rarely knew, though he possessed a faultless homespun suit, in which he would have been happy to gang to the kirk on Sabbath, were that enjoyment practicable.

English papers had come to hand an hour before; among them a bundle of the provincial print nearest Dunore. Linda had learned not to love the arrival of these. It was a pebble thrown in to trouble their still forest life. The yearning of all hearts for home--why did they never dream of calling Canada home?--was intensified perhaps to painfulness. She could interpret the shadow on her father's brow for days after into what it truly signified; that, however the young natures might take root in foreign soil, he was too old an oak for transplantation. Back he looked on fifty-eight years of life, since he could remember being the petted and cherished heir of Dunore; and now--an exile! But he never spoke of the longing for the old land; it was only seen in his poring over every scrap of news from Britain, in his jealous care of things associated with the past, nay, in his very silence.

Now, the dear old gentleman was letting his tea grow cool beyond all remedy, while, with gold double eyeglass in hand, he read aloud various paragraphs of Irish news. Diverging at last into some question of party politics uppermost at the time, though now, in 1861, extinct as the bones of the iguanodon, he tried to get Davidson interested in the subject, and found him so totally ignorant of even the names of public men as to be a most unsatisfactory listener.

''Deed, then, Mr. Wynn, to tell you truth, I hae never fashed my head wi' politics sin' I cam' oot to Canada,' observed the Scotchman a little bluntly. ''Twas nae sae muckle gude I gained by't at hame; though I mind the time that a contested election was ane o' my gran' holidays, an' I thought mair o' what bigwig was to get into Parliament for the borough than I did o' my ain prospects in life, fule that I was; until I found the bairns comin', an' the loom going to the wall a'thegither before machinery and politics wouldna mak' the pot boil, nor gie salt to our parritch. So I came oot here, an' left politics to gentlefolk.'

Mr. Wynn, rather scandalized at Davidson's want of public spirit, said something concerning a citizen's duty to the State.

'Weel, sir, my thought is, that a man's first earthly duty is to himsel' and his bairns. When I mind the workin' men at hame, ruggin', an' rivin', an' roarin' themselves hoarse for Mr. This or Sir Somebody That, wha are scramblin' into Parliament on their shouthers, while the puir fallows haen't a pound in the warld beyond their weekly wage, an' wull never be a saxpence the better for a' their zeal, I'm thankfu' that mair light was given me to see my ain interest, an' to follow it.'

'I hardly wonder at your indifference to the paltry politics of the Province,' observed the gentleman from the old country, sipping his tea loftily.

'I wish Mr. Hiram Holt heard that speech, sir,' said Robert. 'To him Canada is more important than Great Britain by so much as it is larger.'

'The citizen of Monaco has similar delusions as to the importance of his petty Principality,' rejoined Mr. Wynn. 'I should rather say there was no political principle among Canadians.'

'No, sir, there's none in the backwoods,' replied Davidson, with perfect frankness. 'We vote for our freends. I'm tauld they hae gran' principles in the auld settlements, an' fecht ane anither first-rate every election. We hae too much to do in the new townships for that sort o' work. We tak' it a' easy.'

Robert remembered a notable example of this political indifference in an election which had taken place since their settlement at Cedar Creek. On the day of polling he and his retainer Andy went down to the 'Corner,' the latter with very enlarged anticipations of fun, and perchance a 'row.' His master noticed him trimming a sapling into a splendid 'shillelagh,' with a slender handle and heavy head as ever did execution in a faction fight upon Emerald soil. The very word election had excited his bump of combativeness. But, alas! the little stumpy street was dull and empty as usual; not even the embryo of a mob; no flaring post-bills soliciting votes; the majesty of the people and of the law wholly unrepresented.

'Arrah, Misther Robert, this can't be the day at all at all,' said Andy, after a prolonged stare in every direction. 'That villain Nim tould us wrong.'

'Jacques!' called Robert into the cottage adorned with flowers in front, 'is this polling day?'

'Oh, oui,' said the little Canadian, running out briskly. 'Oui, c'est vat you call le jour de poll. Voilà, over dere de house.'

A log-cabin, containing two clerks at two rude desks, was the booth; a few idlers lounged about, whittling sticks and smoking, or reading some soiled news-sheets. Andy looked upon them with vast disdain.

'An' is this what ye call a 'lection in America?' said he. 'Where's the vothers, or the candidates, or the speeches, or the tratin,' or the colours, or the sojers, or anythink at all? An' ye can't rise a policeman itself to kape the pace! Arrah, let me out ov this home, Misther Robert. There's not as much as a single spark ov sperit in the whole counthry!'

So he marched off in high dudgeon. His master stayed a short while behind, and saw a few sturdy yeomen arrive to exercise the franchise. Their air of agricultural prosperity, and supreme political apathy, contrasted curiously with young Wynn's memories of the noisy and ragged partisans in home elections. It was evident that personal character won the electoral suffrage here in the backwoods, and that party feeling had scarce an influence on the voters.

The franchise is almost universal throughout Canada. In 1849 it was lowered to thirty dollars (six pounds sterling) for freeholders, proprietary, or tenantry in towns, and to twenty dollars (four pounds) in rural districts. This is with reference to the hundred and thirty representatives in the Lower House of the Provincial Legislature. The members of the indissoluble Upper House, or Legislative Council, are also returned at the rate of twelve every two years, by the forty-eight electoral divisions of the Province.

But to come back to our family party under the butternut tree. Robert related the above anecdote of Andy's disappointment; and from it old Mr. Wynn and Davidson branched off to a variety of cognate topics.

'Noo, I'll confess,' said the Scotchman, 'that the municipal elections hae an interest for me far aboon thae ithers. The council in my township can tax me for roads, an' bridges, an' schules: that's what I call a personal and practical concern. Sae I made nae manner of objection to bein' one of the five councillors mysel'; and they talk of electin' you too, Maister Robert.'

Robert shook his head at the honour.

'I hae a fancy mysel' for handlin' the purse strings wherever I can,' added Davidson. 'Benson will be the neist town-reeve, as he has time to be gaun' to the county council, which I couldna do. But noo, will ye tak' a turn round the farm?'

Plucking a sprig from an ash-leaved sugar maple close by, according to a habit he had of twisting something in his lips during intervals of talk, Mr. Davidson walked down the slope with Robert. While they are discussing crops, with the keen interest which belongs not to amateurs, we may enlighten the reader somewhat concerning the municipal system of self-government in which the shrewd Mr. Davidson professed his interest. Nowhere is it so perfect as in Canada. Each district has thorough control over its own affairs. Taxation, for the purpose of local improvement or education, is levied by the town or county councils, elected by the dwellers in each township. No bye-law for raising money can be enforced, unless it has previously been submitted to the electors or people. The town council consists of five members, one of whom is town-reeve; the town-reeves form the county council; and the presiding officer elected by them is called the warden. From the completeness of the organization, no merely local question can be brought before the provincial legislature, and it would be well if Imperial Parliament could, by similar means, be relieved of an immense amount of business, inconsistent with its dignity.

'Eh! what's this?' asked Davidson, stopping before the partially raised walls of a wooden cottage. 'Wha's gaun to live here?'

'Don't you recollect my town plot?' asked Robert. 'My first tenant sets up here. Jackey Dubois is removing from the "Corner:" he was always getting the ague in that marshy spot, and isn't sorry to change.'

'Then that brings me richt down on what I hae been wantin' to say,' quoth Davidson. 'If ye'll gie us the site, me an' my son Wat wull build a mill.'

'With all my heart; a grist or a saw mill?'

'Maybe baith, if we could raise the cash. Nae doot the sawmill's the proper to begin wi', seein' yer toun's to be builded o' wood'--

'For the present,' observed Mr. Wynn; 'but there's plenty of limestone under that hardwood ridge.'

'An' the finest water power in the township rinnin' a' to waste on top of it. Weel, noo, I'm glad that's settled; though 'twull be an awfu' expense first cost. I dinna exactly ken how to overtake it.'

Robert imagined that he was magnifying matters, in order to lessen any possible demand of ground-rent. But it is probable that Davidson would have even paid something over and above his ideas of equitable, for the pleasure of Zack Bunting's anticipated mortification at finding a rival mill set up in the neighbourhood.