introduction to the clergyman of Winiamac, the nearest church, so that there was much less sense of loneliness, moreover, the fuller and more systematic doctrine, and the development of the beauty and daily guidance of the Church, had softened the bright American girl, so as to render her infinitely dearer to her English friend, and they were as much united as they could be, where the great leading event of the life of one remained a mystery to the other. Yet perhaps it helped to begin a fresh life, that the intimate companion of that new course should be entirely disconnected with the past.
Averil threw herself into the present with as resolute a will as she could muster. With much spirit she described the arrival at the Winiamac station, and the unconcealed contempt with which the mass of luggage was regarded by the Western world, who ‘reckoned it would be fittest to make kindlings with.’ Heavy country wagons were to bring the furniture; the party themselves were provided for by a light wagon and a large cart, driven by Cora’s brother, Mordaunt, and by the farming-man, Philetus, a gentleman who took every occasion of asserting his equality, if not his superiority to the new-comers; demanded all the Christian names, and used them without prefix; and when Henry impressively mentioned his eldest sister as Miss Warden, stared and said, ‘Why, Doctor, I thought she was not your old woman!’—the Western epithet of a wife. But as Cora was quite content to leave Miss behind her in civilized society, and as they were assured that to stand upon ceremony would leave them without domestic assistance, the sisters had implored Henry to waive all preference for a polite address.
The loveliness of the way was enchanting—the roads running straight as an arrow through glorious forest lands of pine, beech, maple, and oak, in the full glory of spring, and the perspective before and behind making a long narrowing green bower of meeting branches; the whole of the borders of the road covered with lovely flowers— May-wings, a butterfly-like milkwort, pitcher-plant, convolvulus; new insects danced in the shade—golden orioles, blue birds, the great American robin, the field officer, with his orange epaulettes, glanced before them. Cora was in ecstasy at the return to forest scenery, the Wards at its novelty, and the escape from town. Too happy were they at first to care for the shaking and bumping of the road, and the first mud-hole into which they plunged was almost a joke, under Mordaunt Muller’s assurances that it was easy fording, though the splashes flew far and wide. Then there was what Philetus called ‘a mash with a real handsome bridge over it,’ i. e. a succession of tree trunks laid side by side for about a quarter of a mile. Here the female passengers insisted on walking—even Cora, though her brother and Philetus both laughed her to scorn; and more especially for her foot-gear, delicate kid boots, without which no city damsel stirred. Averil and her sisters, in the English boots scorned at New York, had their share in the laugh, while picking their way from log to log, hand in hand, and exciting Philetus’s further disdain by their rapture with the glorious flowers of the bog.
But where was Massissauga? Several settlements had been passed, the houses looking clean and white in forest openings, with fields where the lovely spring green of young maize charmed the eye.
At last the road grew desolate. There were a few patches of corn, a few squalid-looking log or frame houses, a tract of horrible dreary blackness; and still more horrible, beyond it was a region of spectres—trees white and stripped bare, lifting their dead arms like things blasted. Averil cried out in indignant horror, ‘Who has done this?’
‘We have,’ answered Mordaunt. ‘This is Maclellan Square, Miss Warden, and there’s River Street,’ pointing down an avenue of skeletons. ‘If you could go to sleep for a couple of years, you would wake up to find yourself in a city such as I would not fear to compare with any in Europe. Your exhausted civilization is not as energetic as ours, I calculate.’
The energetic young colonist turned his horse’s head up a slight rising ground, where something rather more like habitation appeared; a great brick-built hotel, and some log houses, with windows displaying the wares needed for daily consumption, and a few farm buildings. It was backed by corn-fields; and this was the great Maclellan Street, the chief ornament of Massissauga. Not one house had the semblance of a garden; the wilderness came up to the very door, except where cattle rendered some sort of enclosure necessary.
Cora exclaimed, ‘Oh, Mordaunt, I thought you would have had a garden for me!’
‘I can fix it any time you like,’ said he; ‘but you’ll be the laughing-stock of the place, and never keep a flower.’
The Mullers’ abode was a sound substantial log house, neatly whitened, and with green shutters, bearing a festal appearance, full of welcome, as Mr. Muller, his tall bearded son Rufus, and a thin but motherly-looking elderly woman, came forth to meet the travellers; and in the front, full stare, stood a trollopy-looking girl, every bar of her enormous hoop plainly visible through her washed-out flimsy muslin. This was Miss Ianthe, who condescended to favour the family with her assistance till she should have made up dollars enough to buy a new dress! The elder woman, who went by the name of Cousin Deborah, would have been a housekeeper in England—here she was one of the family—welcomed Cora with an exchange of kisses, and received the strangers with very substantial hospitality, though with pity at their unfitness for their new home, and utter incredulity as to their success.
Here the Wards had been since their arrival. Their frame-house, near the verdant bank of the river, was being finished for them; and a great brass plate, with Henry’s new name and his profession, had already adorned the door. The furniture was coming; Cousin Deborah had hunted up a Cleopatra Betsy, who might perhaps stay with them if she were treated on terms of equality, a field was to be brought into cultivation as soon as any labour could be had. Minna was looking infinitely better already, and Averil and Cora were full of designs for rival housewifery, Averil taking lessons meantime in ironing, dusting, and the arts of the kitchen, and trusting that in the two years’ time, the skeletons would have given place—if not indeed to houses, to well-kept fields. Such was her account.
How much was reserved for fear of causing anxiety? Who could guess?
CHAPTER XXI
Quanto si fende La rocca per dar via a chi va suso N’andai ‘nfino ove’l cerchiar si prende Com’io nel quinto giro fui dischiuso Vidi gente per esso che piangea Glacendo a terra tutta volta in giuso Adhaesit pavimento anima mia Sentia dir loro con si alti sospiri Che la parola appena s’intendea. ‘O eletti di Deo, i cui soffriri E giustizia e speranza fan men duri—’ DANTE. Purgatorio
Ah, sir, we have learnt the way to get your company,’ said Hector Ernescliffe, as he welcomed his father-in-law at Maplewood; ‘we have only to get under sentence.’
‘Sick or sorry, Hector; that’s the attraction to an old doctor.’
‘And,’ added Hector, with the importance of his youthful magisterial dignity, ‘I hope I have arranged matters for you to see him. I wrote about it; but I am afraid you will not be able to see him alone.’
Great was the satisfaction with which Hector took the conduct of the expedition to Portland Island; though he was inclined to encumber it with more lionizing than the good Doctor’s full heart was ready for. Few words could he obtain, as in the bright August sunshine they steamed out from the pier at Weymouth, and beheld the gray sides of the island, scarred with stone quarries, stretching its lengthening breakwater out on one side, and on the other connected with the land by the pale dim outline of the Chesill Bank. The water was dancing in golden light; white- sailed or red-sailed craft plied across it; a ship of the line lay under the lee of the island, practising gunnery, the three bounds of her balls marked by white columns of spray each time of touching the water, pleasure parties crowded the steamer; but to Dr. May the cheerfulness of the scene made a depressing contrast to the purpose of his visit, as he fixed his eyes on the squared outline of the crest of the island, and the precipitous slope from thence to the breakwater, where trains of loaded trucks rushed forth to the end, discharged themselves, and hurried
