The capacity of entertaining a conviction, yet being lukewarm about it, was not possible to Hiram Holt. He believed, and practised suitably, with thorough intensity, in everything; even in such a remote subject as the Canadian fisheries.
The squire, who knew what preservation of salmon meant in the rivers of Britain, and who in his time had been a skilful angler, could sympathize with him about the reckless system of extinction going on through the Province, and which, if it be not arrested by the hand of legislative interference, will probably empty the Canadian streams of this most delicious and nutritive of fish.
"A gold-field discovered in Labrador would not be more remunerative than that single item of salmon, if properly worked," remarked Hiram. "When the fisheries of the tiny Tweed rent for fifteen thousand a-year, a hundred times that sum would not cover the value of the tributaries of the St. Lawrence. And yet they"re systematically killed out, sir, by these abominable dams."
"Why, Mr. Holt," said Linda, looking up from her work, "I think the mills are of more consequence than the salmon."
"But they"re not incompatible, my young lady," he answered. "Put steps to the dams--wooden boxes, each five feet high, for the salmon to get upstairs into the still water a-top." Whereat Miss Linda, in her ignorance, was mightily amused at the idea of a fish ascending a staircase.
"The quant.i.ty of salmon was almost infinite twenty years ago," said Hiram, after condescending to enlighten her on the subject of its leaping powers. "I remember reading that Ross purchased a ton weight of it from the Esquimaux for a sixpenny knife; and one haul of his own seine net took thirty-three hundred salmon."
George, manufacturing a sled in the corner, whistled softly, and expressed his incredulity in a low tone; not so low but that Mr. Holt"s quick ears caught the doubt, and he became so overflowing with piscatory anecdotes, that Linda declared afterwards the very tea had tasted strongly of salmon on that particular evening.
"It is only a few years since Sir John Macdonald and his party killed four hundred salmon in one week, from a part of l"Esquemain River, called the Lower Pools. Thirty-five such rivers, equally full, flow through Labrador into the St. Lawrence; am I not then right in saying that this source of wealth is prodigious?" asked Mr. Holt. "But the abominable dams, and the barrier nets, and the Indians" spearing, have already lessened it one-fourth." A relative comparing of experiences, with reference to fishy subjects, ensued between the squire and his guest; and both agreed that--quitting the major matter of the dams--an enforcement of "close time," from the 20th of August till May, would materially tend to preserve the fish.
"Nature keeps them tolerably close most of that time," remarked Arthur, "by building a couple of yards of ice over them. From November till April they"re under lock and key."
"And han"t you ever fished through holes in the ice?" asked Mr. Holt.
"Capital sport, I can tell you, with a worm for bait."
"No; but I was going to say, how curiously thin and weak the trout are just when the ice melts. They"ve been on prison allowance, I presume, and are ready to devour anything."
During all the evening, though Linda took openly a considerable share in the conversation, her mind would beat back on one question, suggested repeatedly: "Why did Mr. Sam Holt go to Europe?" for one item of news brought by to-day"s arrival was, that his eldest son had suddenly been seized with a wish to visit England, and had gone in the last boat from Halifax.
Glancing up at some remark, she encountered Mrs. Wynn"s eyes, and coloured deeply. That sweetest supervision of earth, a mother"s loving look, had read more deeply than the daughter imagined. Rising hurriedly, on some slight excuse, she went to the window and looked out.
"Oh, papa! such glorious northern lights!"
Ay, surely. Low arcs of dazzling light stretched from east to west across the whole breadth of the heavens; whence coruscated, in prolonged flashes, gorgeous streamers of every colour, chiefly of pale emerald green, pink, and amber.
"A rich aurora for this season of the year," remarked Hiram Holt. "Those that are brightly coloured generally appear in autumn or spring."
"Oh, yes," said George; "do you recollect how magnificent was one we had while the fall-wheat was planting? the sky was all crimson, with yellow streamers."
"Do you know what the Indians think about auroras?" asked Mr. Holt.
"They believe that these flashes are the spirits of the dead dancing before the throne of the Manitou, or Great Spirit."
"No wonder they should seek for some supernatural cause of such splendour," observed Robert.
The aurora borealis exhibited another phase of its wondrous beauty on the ensuing evening. The young people from Cedar Creek had gone to a corn-husking bee at Vernon"s, an old gentleman settler, who lived some eight miles off on the concession line; and coming home in the sleighs, the whole magnificent panorama of the skies spread above them. Waves of light rolled slowly from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e of the horizon in vast pulsations, noiselessly ascending to the zenith, and descending all across the stars, like tidal surges of the aerial ocean sweeping over a shallow silver strand.
Three sleighs, a short distance from each other, were running along the ca.n.a.l-like road, through dark walls of forest, towards the "Corner."
Now, it is a principle in all bringings home from these midwinter bees, that families scatter as much as may be, and no sisters shall be escorted by their own brothers, but by somebody else"s brothers.
Consequently, Robert Wynn had paired off with Miss Armytage for this drive; and Mr. Holt, greybeard though he was, would not resign Linda to any one, but left young Armytage, Arthur, and Jay to fill the third sleigh.
Of course that sublime aurora overhead formed a main topic of conversation; but irrelevant matter worked in somehow. Blunt Hiram at last furnished a key to what had puzzled his fair companion by asking abruptly, when Captain Argent was expected at Cedar Creek?
"Captain Argent?" she repeated, in surprise; "he"s not expected at all; I believe he has gone to Ireland on a year"s leave."
"Then you are not about to be married to him?" said Mr. Holt, still more bluntly.
"No indeed, sir," she answered, feeling very red, and thankful for the comparative gloom. Whereupon Mr. Holt shook hands with her, and expressed his conviction that she was the best and prettiest girl in the county; afterwards fell into a brown study, lasting till they got home.
The pair in the hindmost sleigh diverged equally far from the aurora; for heavy upon Edith"s heart lay the fact that the mortgage was at last about to be foreclosed, and they should leave Daisy Burn. This very evening, her father coming late to Mrs. Vernon"s corn-sh.e.l.ling bee, had told her that Zack would be propitiated no longer; he wanted to get the farm in time for spring operations, and vowed he would have it. They must all go to Montreal, where Captain Armytage had some friends, and where Edith hoped she might be able perhaps to turn her accomplishments to good account by opening a school.
"Papa is not at all suited for a settler"s life," she said. "He has always lived in cities, and town habits are strong upon him. It is the best we can do."
CHAPTER XLIII.
A BUSH-FLITTING.
Into Robert Wynn"s mind, during that sleigh-drive under the northern lights, had entered one or two novel ideas. The first was a plan for frustrating the grasping storekeeper"s design. He laid the whole circ.u.mstances before Mr. Holt, and asked for the means of redeeming the mortgage, by paying Captain Armytage"s debt to Bunting, which was not half the value of the farm.
The gallant officer was not obliged for his friend"s officiousness. He had brought himself to antic.i.p.ate the move to Montreal most pleasurably, notwithstanding the great pecuniary loss to himself. The element of practicality had little place in his mental composition. An atmosphere of vagueness surrounded all his schemes, and coloured them with a seductive halo.
"You see, my dear fellow," he said to Robert, when the proposition of redeeming the mortgage was made, "you see, it does not suit my plans to bury myself any longer in these backwoods, eh? There are so few opportunities of relaxation--of intellectual converse, of--a--in short, of any of those refinements required by a man of education and knowledge of the world. You will understand this, my dear Mr. Robert.
I--I wish for a more extended field, in fact. Nor is it common justice to the girls to keep them immured, I may say, in an atmosphere of perpetual labour. I am sure my poor dear Edith has lived a slave"s life since she came to the bush. Only for your amiable family, I--I positively don"t know what might have been the consequence, eh?"
Robert felt himself getting angry, and wisely withdrew. On Mr. Holt"s learning the reception of his offer, he briefly remarked that he guessed Sam wouldn"t object to own a farm near Cedar Creek, and he should buy it altogether from the captain, which was accordingly done. We refrain from picturing Zack"s feelings.
The other idea which had visited Robert under the aurora--why should he not himself become the tenant of Daisy Burn? He took his fur cap and went down there for an answer.
The captain had gone to the "Corner," this being post-day, and he expected some letters from the Montreal friends in whom he believed.
Reginald was chopping wood; the two sisters were over their daily lessons. What to do with Jay, while the above question was being asked and answered, was a problem tasking Robert"s ingenuity, and finally he a.s.sumed the office of writing-master, set her a sum in long division, which he a.s.sured her would require the deepest abstraction of thought, and advised a withdrawal to some other room for that purpose.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Jay fell into the snare, and went, boasting of her arithmetical powers, which would bring back the sum completed in a few minutes. The instant the door closed,--
"I came down this morning," said Robert, "to tell you that I have concluded to take Daisy Burn as tenant to Mr. Holt, from the first of April next. That is," he added, "on one condition."
"What?" she asked, a faint colour rising to her cheek, for his eyes were fixed on her.
"Arthur is much steadier than he was, since that visit to Argent last spring made him see that a penniless proud man has no business to endeavour to live among his equals in social rank, but his superiors in wealth. He is good enough farmer to manage Cedar Creek, with George"s increasing help, and Dubois as a sort of steward. Edith, if I come here and settle on this farm, I cannot live alone; will you be my wife?"
He leaned forward, and took her pa.s.sive hand. The conscious crimson rose for one moment to her throat and averted face, crept even to the finger-tips, then left her of the usual marble paleness again.
"No, Robert," she answered firmly, withdrawing her hand; "it cannot be; I cannot leave my father and Jay."
To this determination she held fast. For she had known that such an option might be offered her, as every woman in like circ.u.mstances must know; she had weighed the matter well in the balance of duty, and this was her resolve. Could she have counted the cost accurately, it might not have been; but she hid from her eyes the bright side of the possible future, and tried steadily to do what she deemed right.
Great was Jay"s surprise, when she came back with the long division sum triumphantly proved, to find her writing-master gone, and Edith with her eyes very tearful. That occurrence was a puzzle to her for some time afterwards. Crying was so rare with Edith--and what could Robert Wynn have to do with it? But Jay prudently asked no questions after the first astonished e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.
When Robert was walking back to the Creek, feeling his pleasant "castle in the air" shattered about his ears, blind to the splendour of the sunlit winter world, and deaf to the merry twit of the snow-birds, young Armytage came out of the woods and joined him. He, poor fellow, was preoccupied with his own plans.