Part 3 (1/2)
”Most beautiful!” exclaimed the fur-trader, ”but why named Loch Dhu, which, if I mistake not, is the Gaelic for Black Lake?”
”Because that little pond,” answered the surveyor, ”when freed from its wintry coat, looks dark and deep even at mid-day, under the shadow of that beetling cliff.”
”Truly, I like it well,” said Redding, as he turned again to look at the cottage, ”are you its architect?”
”I am,” answered Mr Gambart, ”but a greater mind than mine guided my pencil in the process of its creation.”
”Indeed! and what is the objection to it that you spoke of?”
”That,” replied the surveyor, with a mysterious look, ”I must, on second thoughts, decline to tell you.”
”How, then, can you expect me to buy the place?” demanded Redding, in surprise.
”Why, because I, a disinterested friend, strongly recommend you to do so. You believe in me. Well, I tell you that there is no objection to the place but one, and that one won't prove to be an objection in the long run, though it is one just now. The price is, as you know, ridiculously small, first, because the family who owned it have been compelled by reverses of fortune to part with it, and are in urgent need of ready cash; and, secondly, because few people have yet found out the beauties of this paradise, which will one day become a very important district of Canada.”
”Humph, well, I believe in your friends.h.i.+p, and to some extent in your wisdom, though I doubt your capacity to prophesy,” said Redding.
”However, if you won't tell me the objection, I must rest content.
To-morrow we will look at it in daylight, and if I then see no objections to it myself, I'll buy it.”
The morrow came. In the blaze of the orb of day Loch Dhu looked more beautiful than it did by moonlight. After a thorough examination of house and grounds, the fur-trader resolved to purchase it, and commissioned his plump little friend to carry out the transaction.
Thereafter he and his man retraced their steps to the wilderness, still breathing unutterable things against the entire clan of McLeod.
CHAPTER FOUR.
PIONEERING.
We turn now to ”the enemy”--the McLeods. The father and his two sons sat in a rude shanty, on a bench and an empty keg, drinking tea out of tin cans. They were all stalwart, dark-haired, grave-visaged mountaineers of Scotland. Unitedly they would have measured at least eighteen feet of humanity. The only difference between the father and the sons was that a few silver hairs mingled with the black on the head of the former, and a rougher skin covered his countenance. In other respects he seemed but an elder brother.
”Ian,” he said to his first-born, as he refilled his tin can with tea, ”how many more timbers have you to prepare for the dam?”
”Six,” replied the son laconically.
”It seems to me,” observed Kenneth, the second son, ”that if the frost holds much longer we shall be thrown idle, for everything is ready now to begin the works.”
”Idle we need not be,” returned the father, ”as long as there is timber to fell in the forest. We must prepare logs to be sawn as well as the mill to saw them.”
”I can't help thinking, father,” said Ian, ”that we did not act wisely in spending all the remainder of our cash in an order for goods from England. We should have waited to see how the mill paid before setting up a store. Besides, I have my doubts as to the wood-cutters or other people pa.s.sing this out-o'-the-way spot in sufficient numbers to make a store pay for many a day to come, and even if they do, people coming up the coast will have the Fur Company's store at the Cliff Fort to go to for supplies.”
”It's too late to think of these things now,” retorted the elder McLeod; ”we have made the venture, and must go through with it. Our case shows the folly of taking the advice of a friend, of whose wisdom one is not well a.s.sured. No doubt Gambart meant to do us a service, and fancied that he knew this coast well, but it is quite plain that he was mistaken, for I have no doubt now, from the situation of the place, that there will be little or no traffic here for a long time to come.”
”So, then, we might as well have thrown the remnant of our wrecked fortunes into the sea,” said Kenneth gravely.
”Not quite,” returned the father, with a smile. ”If we can only manage to hold on for a year or two, we shall be sure to succeed, for there can be no question that the tide of immigration is beginning to set in this direction, but it does not flow fast, and our great difficulty in the meantime will be the want of ready cash.”
”Act in haste and repent at leisure,” said Ian.
”One can scarcely be said to act in haste,” retorted his father, ”who is almost forced into a course of action. My chief mistake was in putting too much trust in Gambart.”
”Well,” said Kenneth, rising and stretching his huge frame as he placed a hatchet on his shoulder, ”there's nothing like a good breakfast for giving a man heart to face difficulties. I'll away to work. What a pity that we may not raise some of our timbers on the other side of the creek, for it is admirably adapted to our purpose. Don't you think we might, father?”